The Atlantic’s James Fallows says Dick Cheney and company “have earned the right not to be listened to.” Slate magazine’s Jamelle Bouie says that prominent public intellectuals and journalists who supported the Iraq war should “be barred from public comment.” Charles Pierce at Esquire is less subtle: “Shut up, all of you. Go away.”...
I’m always curious what agency in a free society is in charge of enforcing prohibitions on such things.Shriek, wail, I'm being censored.
Given the tendency for nearly everyone to get things wrong over time, this is a dangerous game. Vanden Heuvel has been wrong about so many things, it’s difficult to know where to begin. She opposed pretty much the warp and woof of America’s Cold War policies. She opposed Bill Clinton’s war in the Balkans. She opposed the Persian Gulf War.
Fallows made a name for himself in the 1980s and ’90s championing the notion that Japan Inc. would overtake the United States. Shall we stop listening to him on economic issues?Similarly, this guy thought Avatar was going to win Best Picture, while Jonah pushed America into the hellmouth that is Iraq. Everybody makes mistakes!
There's more, but who cares.
UPDATE. Oh, all right:
I supported the war, and I still think the arguments in favor at the time were superior to the arguments against. Alas, the facts on the ground didn’t care about the arguments.Stupid facts! Farrrrrt.
UPDATE 2. Oh wait, oh wait, oh wait:
If postwar Iraq grew into a stable, confident nation progressing toward a lawful, decent society, I’ve argued, then someday in the future the mistake might look like a success.I don't even have to write punchlines for him anymore. Or farts!
T'was I! T'was I!
ReplyDeleteI’m always curious what agency in a free society is in charge of enforcing prohibitions on such things.
ReplyDeleteYour conscience, if you had one, you god-damned bag of shit dirt.
I used to work with someone who would breathlessly proclaim that The Big Boss was retiring about once a year. 14 years later, he did. I won't exactly say that she triumphantly paraded around the office saying "I told you," but she certainly acted like someone who had had inside knowledge. I can only guess what Little Jonah, age 7, will do the day that the decades-long civil war ends with Iraq broken up into three countries and the one that keeps the name "Iraq" is peaceful and stable (albeit a homogeneous theocracy).
ReplyDeleteHere's the thing; it's not just that people like Cheney were wrong, it's also that they openly mocked anybody who predicted we'd need to have US troops fighting in Iraq in the year of our lord 2014.
ReplyDeleteWhat they're now calling for is exactly what they told us wouldn't happen, because it would be bad and they wouldn't let it happen.
Shorter Pantload: "If all the facts were different, I would be right and you dirty hippies would be sorry."
ReplyDeleteHmm, I don't recall Fallows' musings on Japan precipitating wholesale death and destruction. Does that count as "facts on the ground," bloodthirsty moron?
ReplyDeleteI guess we now know for sure that Goldberg's legacy status will remain secure at NRO into the far future, because if they haven't fired him after that undeniably lame (and stupid, goes without saying) excuse, they never will.
Gawd, he's a puke-inducing little whore to war criminals.
It's not just that Team Chickenhawk openly mocked people who disagreed with them, they accused Iraq war opponents of treason.
ReplyDelete~
If Iraq is a stable democracy in 30 years, Jonah will claim he was proven right.
ReplyDeleteThis is yet another one of those situations where Jonah comes so close to a breakthrough, and just falls short. He's one turn away from the proper conclusion: "Hey, maybe these guys are talking about personal and social conscience, and not actually calling for tyranny against anyone." But he takes a wrong turn at Good Job Junction and ends up at "Nah, they're just dumb tyrants Faaart."
ReplyDeleteHypothesis: Jonah isn't stupid. He's merely opting not to think.
NSA: no such agency.
ReplyDeleteThat was slimy enough, but then he had to beg off doing any of the fighting himself--too old (35), baby daughter, would have to take a pay cut. Shit, there were National Guard people in both theaters in their 50s, and with the stop-loss in place, you can bet a bunch of them took some pretty heavy hits to the paycheck for a good long while.
ReplyDeleteY'know, I think back on Dashiell Hammett--hell, he was a disabled vet from WWI and he still enlisted--again--in 1942, at the age of 48. `Course, the first difference between Hammett and Der Pantload was that Hammett could write. The second was that Hammett was a socialist and was willing to fight against fascists, while Der Pantload writes propaganda for fascists.
Given the tendency for nearly everyone to get things wrong over time, this is a dangerous game.
ReplyDeleteYes, but Jonah, you and your peers are the ones who get everything wrong over time. Subtle but important difference.
You give him entirely too much credit.
ReplyDeleteIf postwar Iraq grew into a stable, confident nation progressing toward a
ReplyDeletelawful, decent society, I’ve argued, then someday in the future the
mistake might look like a success.
If wishes were cheetos, then Pantloads would thrive.
The logical follow up to 'given that everyone is sometimes wrong' is 'why are people insistent only in this case that the people who were wrong shut the fuck up?'
ReplyDeleteBut Jonah can't say that because it would give away the game.
Jesus but that is an incredible amount of dumb, even by Jonah standards, packed into one post.
ReplyDeletePoor Jonah was doomed by both Nature and Nurture in that regard.
ReplyDeleteAre you, asshole? "Always curious"? Oh, wait, I see: it's sarcasm, of the I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I school of third grade comebacks. And, since there is no agency in charge of enforcing the silence of the PNAC warmongers and profiteers, we should listen to them opine (or lie) about the same thing?
ReplyDeleteYou first, Jonah. But if a doctor diagnosed you with athlete's foot, and it turned out to be gangrene and the foot had to be amputated, would you seek out his counsel about the other foot? Okay, *you* would, if he had connections to the American Enterprise Institute. But would anyone else? Think carefully before you reply.
I would like to spend the afternoon at the steampunk exhibition at the Royal Observatory Greenwich with this comment.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theguardian.com/science/the-h-word/2014/apr/10/steampunk-royal-observatory-greenwich-science-history
i've provided a visual representation of the quoted passage below, in case anyone needed further explanation.
ReplyDeleteit turned out to be gangrene and the foot had to be amputated
ReplyDeleteJonah: The arguments for athlete's foot are still better. You don't like the smell of rotting flesh? Try this: farrrrt.
That second update...it belongs right up there with Dan Quayle's "I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy - but that could change" and Criswell's "We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are
ReplyDeletegoing to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future
events such as these will affect you in the future."
Star Trek theme plays.
ReplyDeleteI supported the war, and I still think the arguments in favor at the time were superior to the arguments against. Alas, the facts on the ground didn’t care about the arguments.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I'm having a stroke, because I honestly can't process just how stupid this thinking is. What does he think "arguments" are for? How can an argument that's been proven false STILL be superior? And does he really not piece together the anticipated "facts on the ground" generated a lot of the arguments on the anti-war side? The much shorter way to do this — Your argument that democracy would flourish after we wiped out the political, military and physical infrastructure of a bitterly divided country was, on its face, stupid. Facts on the ground have proven this to be true. Which is what a lot of people argued at the time.
We sent Iraq to military school to become stable and confident and all it did was grow its beard.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention delusional mental illness (thanks for the tips Iosif Vissarionovich)
ReplyDelete"I still think the argument based on lies and fantasy was superior to the argument based on what turned out to be the actual facts." That might be the funniest thing I've read this century. You could give that line to a character in a 1970s Alan Pakula film and people would be quoting it today.
ReplyDeleteYou've a stronger stomach than I. I'd rather whack myself on the head with a ball-peen hammer twenty or thirty times than try to parse Doughy's drivel.
ReplyDeleteWork or evil?
ReplyDeleteAmazingly, this may not be the dumbest thing published at NRO today. If you think that health insurance should not only be available to poor people and cover things, that means that everyone should have to live in the same city and eat the same food. (And he botches the idiot wingnut slippery slope argument by not even making the uniform food broccoli! Jonah would never make that mistake, presumably because he wouldn't eat broccoli if it was smothered in chocolate sauce.)
ReplyDeleteEspecially if that character happened to be Bob Woodward.
ReplyDeleteRemind us again why this pinhead Goldberg is even noticed. Oh, wait, because of his mommy wasn't it?
ReplyDeletesomeday it will be revealed that jonah goldberg is really steven colbert
ReplyDeleteThat's our Jonah--always plumbing new depths.
ReplyDeleteThe only way to get the neo-con and their asociated cons out of the American discussion is to marginalize the DC-NYC-Atlanta based media that made them what they were and sold their wars of imperial conquest for them. The corporate media will not change, you've got to change medias.
ReplyDeleteOh, and go hell with NPR.
Which is what a lot of people argued at the time.
ReplyDeleteIn a climate of fear, bullshit nationalistic fervor and constant insinuations that repercussions would ultimately follow. In the meantime the hawks were eating marshmallows out of each other's asses and congratulating themselves on being men.
He's bitching about nobody wanting to hear his shit? He ought to be thanking his god nobody's slipped behind him and garroted his useless ass.
I regret only that I have but one upvote to give to this comment.
ReplyDeleteIt's a variant on the classic McArdle Logic Dodge: "Just because things turned out the way you predicted and not the way I predicted, doesn't necessarily mean that you were right and I was wrong."
ReplyDeleteOops, beat me to that.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but the whole thing seems to be premised on the assumption that everyone in the country is required to get on the same health plan, together.
ReplyDeleteIt's like the only thing Kevin Williamson knows about Obamacare is that his paycheck depends on saying it sucks.
All I'm gonna say is that thinking the future has the ability to change the past got Marty McFly into more than a little bit of trouble.
ReplyDeleteChrist, what an asshole.
ReplyDelete"I've always believed that just because you have the right to say something doesn't mean you should say it."
ReplyDeleteJesus God, the man who published a whole book about how people who disagreed with him were Nazis is going to teach us mannerly discourse. I DIE.
Because a book laying out in pseudo-academic terms why liberals are such jerks was a thing with actual value to wingnuts.
ReplyDeleteHow fortunate for history that the Loadpant's publishers stood up to that mean old agency.
ReplyDeleteJonah says we're not 'posta remember that.
ReplyDeleteThe future has the ability to change the past. Wow.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like something William Shatner would super-emote in a particularly silly Star Trek episode. "The future...Has. The. Ability. To CHANGE!...the ...past...."
"Why, any large ship, left at sea for enough time, would eventually suffer structural failures and sink."
ReplyDeleteActually, that is exactly what Dick Cheney is counting on when, in his comeback "Fleece The Rubes Tour", he insists that:
"I think there will be another attack and the next time I think it’s likely to be far deadlier than the last one."
It is conceivable that, in, say, the next fifty years, America will be hit by some sort of terrorist attack, an attack that even President Tag Romney couldn't prevent. Of course, Cheney doesn't actually care about doing anything that might help prevent it, he just wants to be able to poke a rotting hand with its thumb up through the dirt over his grave in a "See, I TOLD you so!" gesture.
Yes.
ReplyDeleteAre you, asshole? "Always curious"?
ReplyDeleteActually, he's not. He outsources that function to his highly-unpaid Research Staff, a/k/a his readers. "Hey, gang, I'm thinking of writing an important piece, but it requires curiosity and intelligence. Anyone out there have some that they could send me?"
Of course, given that his readers (outside of Mr. Edroso, of course) have the collective IQ of a bed of kelp, it seems unlikely his plea (bleg? I dunno) will be successful.
ReplyDeleteJonah isn't stupid. He's merely opting not to think.
ReplyDeleteya along the same lines as gays opt to be gay
Alas, reality won!!!! Whoever could have imagined????
ReplyDeleteAlso, "I’m always curious what agency in a free society is in charge of enforcing prohibitions on such things."
Good question. Let's ask the Dixie Chicks and everybody Andrew Sullivan and Beinart, et al were lambasting to hell and back what agency is in charge of such things. Let's ask Phil Donahue while we're at it.
"If postwar Iraq grew into a stable, confident nation progressing toward a lawful, decent society, I’ve argued, then someday in the future the mistake might look like a success."
ReplyDeleteAnd if your mom was your dad, she'd have balls. Oh...wait....your mom is....
Needs more farts.
ReplyDeleteWork is evil.
ReplyDeleteI disagree. Dipshits like JoBerg were wrong. People like Cheney were deliberately, and with great care lying like damned rugs.
ReplyDeleteWhoops. Posted before reading. Though I said "balls" instead of "dick" and "mom and dad" instead of "aunt and uncle".
ReplyDeleteYeah, it would have been a great idea if only it had worked!
ReplyDeleteIt's another version of reality having a liberal bias.
ReplyDeleteIn Jonah's world, argument is always purely ideological, and his ideology, being morally superior, always deserves to win arguments.
I don't see any acknowledgement of the role of knowledge or logic in determining one's position.
Let me help:
ReplyDeleteI supported the war, and [since] the arguments in favor at the time [were made by conservatives I think they] were superior to the arguments against [because they were made by icky liberals]. Alas, the facts on the
ground [weren't slavishly devoted to following the dictates of the conservatives].
"I supported the war, and I still think the arguments in favor at the time were superior to the arguments against. Alas, the facts on the ground didn’t care about the arguments."
ReplyDeleteHoly shit. He's fucking admitting that he still prefers the lies that were paraded around as a cassus belli to the "facts on the ground" that proved that the "case for war" was a tissue of lies. I mean, what the fuck else can those two sentences possibly mean? "I think the arguments in favor at the time were superior to the arguments against" presumably includes the argument against that every bit of their case for war was made-up bullshit. So translated into normal language, that's "I prefer to have smoke blown up my ass and get punk'd to knowing, believing, and accepting true facts."
Ok, I gotta go over there...
Alas, the facts on the ground didn’t care about the arguments.
ReplyDeleteAlas, what gas this ass must pass.
In an earlier age, it would have been said that Dick Cheney and co.had earned the right not to be heeded. This would have prevented* gobshites like Jonah Goldberg from intentionally, if not skillfully, clouding the issue with pointless inanities.
ReplyDelete*No, not really, but let's pretend it would have, ok?
And that in turn is a variant of the classic GOP Everything Especially Election Results Reality Dodge.
ReplyDeleteThing is, Jonah isn't an original thinker and he's lazy as fuck. But he does have the special ability to take dumb ideas and make them so incredibly moronic that you don't recognize it and assume he came up with it on his own.
The Atlantic’s James Fallows says Dick Cheney and company “have earned the right not to be listened to.”
ReplyDeleteMore to the point, Dick Cheney has the right to remain silent.
Could it be that Cheney is so confident of another horrendous attack because one of his companies is selling the terrorists the technology and/or training?
ReplyDeleteNo shit. As our host said: "There's more, but who cares."
ReplyDeleteI have to add Goldberg's grave to my deface-a-tombstone tour. And THIS ^^ is what I'll chisel on his with my battery-powered Dremel,
ReplyDeleteActually events that happen stay happened and can't unhappen.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I can see why this yutz likes to think that future actions can create a do over of the past. Maybe he thinks that one day in the future he'll write a column that is so perfect in every way that it will make up for the 11,000,000,000 plotzpiles he churned out in the past.
Our logic is sound, if you ignore that it always fails in actual application.
ReplyDeleteOur logic is sound, if you ignore that it always fails even in thought experiments.
Please post dex's jackpot Jonah quote if you do.
ReplyDeleteI'm willing to give them a mulligan, provided they acknowledge they fucked up. If they don't, they're not trustworthy going forward because a.) too stubborn to admit being wrong (thus putting their pride ahead of any enterprise we might be involved in), or 2.) too stupid to even recognize how badly they fucked up.
ReplyDeleteWith those odds, what are his chances of even one good one? Like the man said, character is fate.
ReplyDeleteSee, that's one problem at the core of the Conservative psyche. They never grow up far enough to stop crying out (quietly, so no one else will hear) "Daddy, Daddy, make it didn't happen!"
ReplyDeleteFascinating...
ReplyDeleteWell, somebody had to!
Another in a seemingly endless series of Blowjobs That Should Have Been...
ReplyDeleteThat's basically it. And I think the silly thought-experiment-like construction was in support of one sentence:
ReplyDeleteBut sending millions of people into the health-insurance market will
have a negligible effect
on prices, market structure, or incentives?
Right?
Which leaves out the one thing Conservatives--and probably some not-so-Conservatives--want to get out there without actually saying it. What happens when all *those* people are clogging up *our* waiting rooms, and making *our* appointments harder to get. That they have enough restraint not to say it right out loud is nice, but I bet someone does before too long. It's gotta be awful hard to hold in one like that. Right Jonah?
Well to be fair, he's not actually writing that shit for us, now is he? What we have here is yet another person who can't write, "writing" for people who can't read.
ReplyDeleteThere is both a quantitative and qualitative difference between getting things wrong over time, and getting things wrong time after time...
ReplyDeleteThat's gotta be about the worst way to go I could think of. Except I couldn't think of it...
ReplyDeleteThe quite amazing thing is that Doughy dredged this up from his umbrage at the non-mentally-challenged arguing about all the usual suspects crawling out of the woodwork the moment there was even a tiny chance to start up the bloodshed again.
ReplyDeleteNormal people are infuriated that every goddamned one of the biggest liars on the planet are trying to do it again. Even Elliott Abrams crawled out of the hole he's been hiding in to push his "OMG, they're going to kill us all!" routine. So, the predominant question among sane people is: why do these monsters have any right to be heard after the way they blatantly lied in the past?
A completely rational question--except to Der Pantload, who seems to think that all these criminals have a right to be heard. To young Doughy's dumpling of a mind, these cretins should have a forum no matter how despicably they deceived the country--and the world.
He really has a lot of damn gall.
Given her dark powers, maybe.
ReplyDeleteLook, I'm sure you've done something like ordered a dish that you knew would give you heartburn. Well, that was a mistake. And since it was a mistake, it's EXACTLY LIKE lying your country into war.
ReplyDeleteSee? No difference or daylight between the two. Except for all the dead, wounded, maimed, and orphaned.
I doubt that Dick Cheney gives a shit about what Jonah Goldberg says, so sucking on Cheney's shriveled dick (haw!) isn't going to get Jonah an invite from the Great Man for a tête-à-tête inside the man-sized safe. Still, a boy can dream, can't he?
ReplyDeleteFor that matter, I doubt James Fallows cares much, either.
You have to wonder when (or if) the LA Times will realize he's a fucking idiot and bag his ass.
ReplyDeleteI think you hit it, D. Jonah should be writing for the alternative press in Ankh-Morpork.
ReplyDeleteM'self, I think they hired him because he's a fucking idiot.
ReplyDeleteCall it the Fred Hiatt Syndrome.
As a power-tool salesman at Lowe's who tends to push the corded models because most work is done indoors and, hey! affordability!, I support your decision to spend the extra fifty bucks for the battery-powered model.
ReplyDeleteSad but possibly true.
ReplyDeleteit's not just that people like Cheney were wrong
ReplyDeleteIt's that their wrongness caused thousands of people to die.
Present karma can change past karma. The events, they stay evented; the dead people, they stay dead. And when your past karma is as bad as Iraq's, it's gonna take a long damn time.
ReplyDeleteThe best thing about health insurance is that it's an exclusive good! It'd be like owning a Ferrari, but everyone else owns one too. What's the point if its not about showing off your superiority!?
ReplyDeleteIt's like the only thing Kevin Williamsonabout every wingnut commenter at every wingnut site knows about Obamacare is that his paycheck depends on saying it sucks.
ReplyDeleteHis "argument" boils down to "I'd be Superman if it weren't for all this damn kryptonite", the kryptonite in this case being reality.
ReplyDeleteNot just a right to be heard, a right to be listened to. Frankly, nobody's got that as a right, but somebody who's shown himself to be entirely dishonest in the service of a questionable goal doesn't deserve even the courtesy.
ReplyDeleteI could see that. I'm guessing the knowledge that they stood by their stupid to the point of saying everyone who disagreed should die is stopping them from acknowledging it.
ReplyDeleteI surprised and disappointed that he didn't quote anything from the tirade by the great Tbogg, who refused to link to anything about Cheney. Censorship!
ReplyDeleteFAAAAAAAAART
ReplyDeleteThis song continues to be relevant.
ReplyDeletehttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgJDQ1uqo_Y
Besides, history hasn't spoken yet. Crews are still working tirelessly to dredge up the hard caramel engines, the only parts of the ship to survive. If those engines are one day transplanted into a fully functional, fully edible ship in line with Dr. Hoofenpoof's vision, then this mistake might look like a success.
ReplyDeleteThis paragraph didn't make it into the original, because it was eaten by Jonah.
It's a fever swamp of every type of nonsense, delusion and sheer bullshit over there. Too much wrongness to even begin. How do you do it?
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'm glad you're making that point. In my opinion, that point needs to be made over and over.
ReplyDeleteThe process does matter. The fabrication of the evidence that misled us to war was not an accident. Nobody falls and says "oops! I fabricated evidence!"
If someone advises you to put your hand on a hot stove and you burn yourself doing it, you should learn two lessons from the experience:
ReplyDelete1. Don't put your hand on a hot stove.
2. Maybe the next time that person gives you advice, you should think twice before following it.
This is pretty basic stuff. The phrase "blame game" shouldn't even enter into it.
Not much else to eat, down there in the belly of the whale.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5zrYie3d0Q&feature=kp
ReplyDeleteAnd the obligation to.
ReplyDeleteI helped out :)
ReplyDelete"If postwar Iraq grew into a stable, confident nation progressing toward a lawful, decent society, I’ve argued, then someday in the future the mistake might look like a success."
ReplyDeleteWhich is to say he's only wrong because of how things turned out. In an alternate universe, he would be right.
So, n'yah, n'yah!
O...M...G! He really wrote that! Un-fracking-believable!
ReplyDeleteThat has got to be the top contender for Wanker of the Decade.
Well, of course. Didn't you see Looper? And Continuum, on the Sci-Fi Channel?
ReplyDeleteJames Fallows, et al, at worst, "got it wrong." The neo cons lied. There is a big difference. Anyone's analysis can be off, but lying to support that analysis is something else entirely. Similarly, an argument stands or falls on its own merit, and any claim to the contrary is an ad hominem fallacy. But most statements about policy are NOT pure "arguments." Rather, they are mixed statements of arguments and presentation of facts. And witnesses to facts ARE non fallaciously judged on their track record. Just as a witness can be impeached in court for prior perjury convictions, so a public official or pundit who lied in the past can be tuned out now.
ReplyDelete....."I supported the war, and I still think the arguments in favor at the time were superior to the arguments against. Alas, the facts on the ground didn’t care about the arguments."
ReplyDelete-
We wanted a fiction to be fact really really hard and then it wasn't....WHAT HAPPENED!?!?
Thousands of Americans killed, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed, millions displaced, a completely destabilized middle east, trillions wasted, war crimes committed, America's reputation permanently tarnished. Who doesn't make mistakes?
ReplyDelete" Alas, the facts on the ground didn’t care about the arguments."
ReplyDeleteThe Co2 molecule doesn't care about your arguments on climate.
The ice doesn't care.
The laws of thermodynamics don't care about your politics.
What happens to the gop in 15 years?
They've tied this noose of denialism around their neck, and the laws of physics are going to kick the political bucket for them.
Gawd, he's a puke-inducing little whore to war criminals.
ReplyDeleteThe fetus doesn't land far from the birth canal.
Well, that and a smear of semen preserved in the fabric of a blue dress belonging to a groupie.
ReplyDelete