Friday, February 20, 2015

FRIDAY ROUND-THE-HORN.


At first I thought, "O God no Joanna Newsom is trying to sneak back
get the spray-bottle" but this song is kind of sticking with me.

  Jonah Goldberg's column today could have been titled, "I'm not lazy and stupid, you're lazy and stupid!" He says Obama is dumb because he won't admit Islam itself is responsible for the nuts who kill in its name. The President's anodyne ecumenical statement is, in Goldberg's view, the same thing as saying "Michael Jordan didn’t play basketball" or  "We didn’t win World War II" in that, durr, that's stoopid too, right? The analogy invites deeper analysis, so step well back as Goldberg executes his logic-fart:
“No religion is responsible for terrorism,” the president proclaimed, “people are responsible for violence and terrorism.”

Now obviously, there’s some truth to this. We judge people more by their actions than by their beliefs. But reasonable people also recognize that our actions often have a causal relationship with our beliefs. This is hardly a controversial — or even debatable — insight. Orthodox Jews don’t avoid bacon because it tastes bad; they do so because they’re keeping kosher. One cannot intelligently discuss why Mother Teresa helped the poor without referring to her faith. And one cannot discuss why the Islamic State burns, rapes, and enslaves people without taking their religious beliefs into account.
See -- Jews have wacky eating habits, Christians are nice, and Muslims are savage rapist-murders; Q.E.Doritos Cool Ranch! While I attribute the lack of retribution I've suffered for my anti-Mohammed cartoons to global respect for my artistry, I think Goldberg is safe because most non-conservatives can't make out what he's trying to say.

•   Speaking of legacy pledges and the next GOP President, Bill Kristol worries that Hillary Clinton is getting better numbers in the reps-the-future-not-the-past category in a CNN/ORC poll than any Republican Presidential candidate. (Scott Walker's numbers are least bad, perhaps because voters relate his social-net-shredding record to the dystopian future of The Handmaid's Tale or Idiocracy.) Kristol thinks he sees a way out:
Perhaps some new set of concerns in 2016 will overwhelm all the past/future talk. Given the state of the world, that’s quite possible. We could easily have a foreign policy election in 2016. And then people might not mind a steady hand, even if one from the past (think Richard Nixon in 1968).
One thing Americans  seem to have learned from the last clusterfuck in which Bill Kristol had a hand is, let's not do that again. In fact Kristol himself was complaining about "American war-weariness" only last year. Yet now he thinks beating the drum for Gulf War III might get one of his ringers elected. I suppose that's because he has more than average faith in the power of yellow journalism and jingo. After all, he is the editor of the Weekly Standard, which is very influential among people who never read anything they can't get for free on the New York-DC shuttle; that's got to count for something.

•   Whether or not I get to see any of the other big films (see my "On to Oscar" posts), at some point this weekend I'm going to stick my fool neck out, as I have in years past, and predict Sunday's winners. So watch this space! (And the easy way to do this is to get on my Twitter feed, where I announce posts sometime and dish out apothegms.)

•   Yeah it's late and who cares, but there are a few wonderful things about this Noah Rothman Hot Air column defending noted asshole Rudolph Giuliani and the asshole thing he said this week. I mean, it's mostly terrible on the level of Twitchy (look at the sickburn takedown of the media by "Florida-based political operative Rick Wilson"!), but in his flailing Rothman does bang into an interesting defense:
What are we to make of this frenzied attack on Giuliani, in which the whole of the political press reacted as though a man who left office 14 years ago had insulted their mothers?... 
Oh, but he was a leading presidential candidate in 2007, don’t you know? And he delivered the keynote address at the GOP’s nominating convention in 2008. And he’s a frequent guest on cable news, so he must be influential (a claim that could only be made by someone who rarely appears on cable news). But observing Giuliani’s diminished stature today when compared to the last decade renders the media’s reaction even less explicable.
I hope someone in Rudy's retinue told him, "It's okay, chief -- Noah Rothman says it doesn't matter 'cause you're a has-been!" Oh but the very, very, very best is the correction at the end:
An earlier version of this post incorrectly identified the chairman of the RNC as Ron Fournier
May your weekend be as serendipitous.

243 comments:

  1. Dozing off as we pored through a raft of mostly meaningless polls this week, we were startled awake by one set of findings. The CNN/ORC survey released February 18 was The Weekly Standard’s own little fire bell in the night.

    What, you surely ask, alarmed us so?


    how can a guy who uses the editorial "we" in a column with a by-line be wrong?

    ReplyDelete
  2. coozledad9:36 AM

    And one cannot discuss why the Islamic State burns, rapes, and enslaves people without taking their religious beliefs into account.



    He's just saying that because Romney dropped out.

    ReplyDelete
  3. coozledad9:39 AM

    And if it took a couple of pints of gin to steady Nixon's hand, well, Muslims can't drink.

    ReplyDelete
  4. brandonrg9:40 AM

    "Perhaps some new set of concerns in 2016 will overwhelm all the past/future talk. Given the state of the world, that’s quite possible. We could easily have a foreign policy election in 2016. And then people might not mind a steady hand, even if one from the past (think Richard Nixon in 1968)."



    Always take an opportunity to point out that Nixon committed treason by sabotaging peace negotiations with the Vietnamese in the run-up to the 1968 election.

    ReplyDelete
  5. tigrismus10:07 AM

    And one cannot discuss why the Islamic State burns, rapes, and enslaves
    people without taking their religious beliefs into account.


    OK sure: the Koran absolutely forbids the first and has the same stance on the other two as the Bible.

    And then people might not mind a steady hand, even if one from the past (think Richard Nixon in 1968)

    Of course Nixon's hand is steady, he's DEAD.

    ReplyDelete
  6. JennOfArk10:11 AM

    Shorter entire rightwing: "Guns don't kill people; Islam does!"

    ReplyDelete
  7. He hasn't started any wars and has been scandal free for over 40 years, maybe it's time to give him another chance.

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  8. The rightwing freakout over Obama's failure to declare global war on Islam is strange enough that even the mainstream media is saying ":WTF?!?!" On last night's CBS Evening News, of all places, Obama's statement and the rightwing reaction were covered--with CBS playing back G.W. Bush's State of the Union address in which he used almost the exact same wording.

    LBJ once said that if he'd lost Walter Cronkite, he'd lost the war. Let us hope the same applied for the rightwing lunatics--if they've lost Scott Pelley, they've lost Joe Sixpack.

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  9. And one cannot discuss why the Islamic State burns, rapes, and enslaves people without taking their religious beliefs into account.


    And one cannot discuss why the American pro-life movement shoots doctors dead or detonates pipe bombs at public events without taking their religious beliefs into account.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Ted the slacker10:23 AM

    Oh okay then. The last president was pro-torture and decided to invade Iraq because he was a good Christian.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hey, now you are attacking all Christians when you know damn well you should be attacking all Muslims. Get with the program.

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  12. The White House repeatedly suggests that terrorism is like crime and that Islamic terrorists simply invoke religion as a convenient mask or marketing ploy. But this is an otherworldly farce, intended to please the ears of those who want to deal with the world as they wish it to be, not as it is.

    Jonah's got us, guys. Hurr durr, I'm a stupid liberal. I think that just because I've studied world religions, I know a thing or two about them. That there are no doctrines justifying what IS does in Islam tradition (which actually frowns on violence against "people of the book") or any systemic tradition of such barbarism outside of the recent age just proves that I am a big fuzzy-head weenie. And the fact that most historical "religious" conflicts are more tied up in political and economic concerns than doctrinal ones doesn't mean anything. Clearly, all of the non-religious factors in NAME instability are just cliches and I'm being tyrannized by them! Hurr durr...

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  13. Perhaps some new set of concerns in 2016 will overwhelm all the past/future talk. Given the state of the world, that’s quite possible. We could easily have a foreign policy election in 2016.

    "Come on friends, let's all pray for a war. A good war - something with NBC weapons and an enemy that can really invoke some internal fear. It could happen, don't lose hope! I've got an idea for an internet 'War Channel' we can stream through our website and everyone's going to love it! We'll be popular again and no one will remember that thing we did a decade ago! Now, first thing we need is a name..."

    ReplyDelete
  14. ZotsTheBat10:44 AM

    Judging by this:

    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/do-americans-want-to-send-ground-troops-to-fight-isis/



    I'd say we are gonna get another six-month-trillion-dollar-pay- for-itself cakewalk in the middle east within 6 years.

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  15. Hell, I'd take dead Nixon over any of the current crop of Republicans. He was pretty good at diplomacy, and his current condition would dramatically cut the chances that he'd start any secret bombing campaigns.

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  16. "The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace. They represent evil and war."


    Yeah, how dare the President say that these terrorists aren't the true face of Islam!


    Oh, that was GWB speaking six days after the WTC attacks. Never mind.


    http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/09/13/zelizer.bush.muslims/

    ReplyDelete
  17. redoubtagain11:00 AM

    Time for a new bumper sticker:
    "Democrats Win Wars
    Republicans Sabotage Peace"

    ReplyDelete
  18. randomworker11:11 AM

    I had a twitter feed once, but the squirrels got to it.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Tony Prost11:12 AM

    Is this the first attempt to rehabilitate Nixon? After all these years?

    ReplyDelete
  20. Ted the slacker11:13 AM

    Some guy once wrote a godawful long book explaining why Liberal Fascism was not an oxymoron. What happened to him?

    ReplyDelete
  21. randomworker11:15 AM

    I'm no historian but wasn't there something about Catholics and Protestants going on in Northern Ireland fairly recently? Complete with random acts of terror against civilians?

    ReplyDelete
  22. dstatton11:28 AM

    In 1968 Nixon was the "peace" candidate because he had a Secret Plan to end the war.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Tanned, rested and ready: Nixon in 2016!

    ReplyDelete
  24. Now I'm confused. Islam is destroying western civilization? I thought Kantian Nihilism was destroying western civilization. I really got to pay more attention.

    ReplyDelete
  25. dstatton11:33 AM

    Didn't Goldberg just write an article claiming that the Crusades had little to do with religion?


    As for Kristol, hooray! He thinks 2016 may be about foreign policy, that is, people will be clamoring for more ground wars. The 100% doctrine: if Kristol predicts it, it will not happen.

    ReplyDelete
  26. dstatton11:35 AM

    No, it's feminism, no, liberalism, no, Hollywood. Oh well, it's really Miley Cyrus.

    ReplyDelete
  27. That couldn't possibly have been terrorism. Just ask United States Congressman Peter King (R-Caricature)! He knows because he spent most of his first few terms in Congress raising money for the IRA.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Rehabilitate, re-animate. What's the dif?

    ReplyDelete
  29. Obviously you need one of those squirrel-proof Twitter feeders.

    ReplyDelete
  30. . . . Now, first thing we need is a name..."

    How about Atomizers for Peace?

    ReplyDelete
  31. M. Krebs11:52 AM

    It's not the first. The first one was in the '80s(?) and was rather successful.

    ReplyDelete
  32. DN Nation11:59 AM

    I like it when Jonah gets his Rule of Three on. You can almost hear the various a-ooga!s and sawing noises at work between his ears.

    ReplyDelete
  33. swkellogg12:01 PM

    "One thing Americans seem to have learned from the last clusterfuck in which Bill Kristol had a hand is, let's not do that again."


    Oh me of little faith:

    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/do-americans-want-to-send-ground-troops-to-fight-isis/



    *sigh*

    ReplyDelete
  34. Fats Durston12:06 PM

    And one cannot discuss why the American state bombs, mines, and invades foreign countries without taking their religious beliefs into account. (America's a "Judeo-Christian" nation, right, Jonah?)

    ReplyDelete
  35. Fortunately we have a president who is on record as opposing doing stupid shit.

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  36. Gromet12:07 PM

    people might not mind a steady hand, even if one from the past (think Richard Nixon in 1968)


    Is it just me, or is Kristol citing 1968 as a relevant precedent in 2016... exactly like a pundit in 1968 citing 1920 as the relevant election?

    ReplyDelete
  37. randomworker12:07 PM

    Obviously! If I had more energy and interest I would go out and get one.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Fats Durston12:12 PM

    Free Ireland!

    ReplyDelete
  39. coozledad12:20 PM

    Speaking of enslaving people, why does every fucked up Southern town still have a statue of a traitor on the public square?


    They ought to be melted down for cock rings and dildos.

    ReplyDelete
  40. DocAmazing12:25 PM

    Nathan Bed-Toys Forrest?

    ReplyDelete
  41. BigHank5312:26 PM

    After having survived the theoretically-immanent destruction of our society by Communists, hippies, blacks, drug addicts, homosexuals, slackers, hipsters, and sharia law, I'm actually kind of looking forward to death by Miley.

    ReplyDelete
  42. coozledad12:26 PM

    Pierre Gustave Two-taint Beauregard

    ReplyDelete
  43. BigHank5312:28 PM

    On the other hand, Nixon did give Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld their first big hit on the executive branch crack-pipe.

    ReplyDelete
  44. And then people might not mind a steady hand, even if one from the past (think Richard Nixon in 1968).

    Wait, what? Escalation, carpet bombing, expanding the war into neighboring countries, fucking with the peace talks, ignomious defeat? Some steady hand.

    A GOP president may not be so good for a sane foreign policy, but will be better than Viagra for keeping Kristol's war-boner rigid.

    ReplyDelete
  45. After all that hooligan violence, it was only right that they shut down FIFA and burned all the soccer stadiums.

    ReplyDelete
  46. Helmut Monotreme12:37 PM

    Well, if their reprehensible behavior isn't attributable to their religion, we'd have to look for other reasons why violent militants were rampaging in Syria and Iraq, and that is a question that bigots, neocons, and apocalypse enthusiasts really don't want the press and public getting answers to.

    ReplyDelete
  47. swkellogg12:41 PM

    Yeah, fortunately he doesn't love America like Rudy does.

    ReplyDelete
  48. I want to buy this comment two sets of rechargeable batteries.

    ReplyDelete
  49. Entertaining:


    http://youtu.be/dEW9TG6Dcgg

    ReplyDelete
  50. randomworker12:57 PM

    Heh. My cat's going nuts trying to figure out where the birds are at.

    ReplyDelete
  51. swkellogg12:59 PM

    He didn't earn Bill "Wrong" Kristol moniker for nothing!

    ReplyDelete
  52. Jay B.1:01 PM

    Orthodox Jews don’t avoid bacon because it tastes bad; they do so because they’re keeping kosher. One cannot intelligently discuss why Mother Teresa helped the poor without referring to her faith. And one cannot discuss why the Islamic State burns, rapes, and enslaves people without taking their religious beliefs into account.


    Orthodox Jews don't settle on what remains of the decent Palestinian lands in the West Bank because they are simply allowed to, they steal them because God told them too. One can't intelligently discuss why Pope John Paul helped his priests who were raping children and protecting the pedophiles from legal ramifications without referring to his "faith". And one cannot discuss why the Islamic State exists without talking about our unshakable American faith that bombing the fuck out of a country and displacing or killing millions of its citizens helps turn it into a peaceful democracy.

    ReplyDelete
  53. swkellogg1:06 PM

    I'd suggest recasting them as statues of Sherman.

    ReplyDelete
  54. Jay B.1:07 PM

    I'm of the mindset that Nixon should come back only so we can finally impeach the fucker and then hang him so we can burn him in a trash fire.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Jay B.1:08 PM

    I'll never ever forgive Bill Clinton for three things -- welfare reform, Ricky Ray Rector and the eulogy he gave at Nixon's funeral. What a fucking disgrace.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Giant Monster Gamera1:10 PM

    The Republicans have perfected the "I know you are, but what am I?" defense, which most of us gave up on the third grade.

    ReplyDelete
  57. Jay B.1:11 PM

    Which involved treason and Henry Kissinger. He can't stay dead long enough.

    ReplyDelete
  58. Giant Monster Gamera1:12 PM

    My cat just lies there and waits for the birds to come to him.

    ReplyDelete
  59. And one cannot discuss why the SCOTUS found for Hobby Lobby without taking the (majority Catholic) religious belief into account.

    And one cannot discuss why the anti-abortion folk are ALSO against birth control & sex ed without taking their religious beliefs into account.

    Hey, this is fun!

    ReplyDelete
  60. redoubtagain1:15 PM

    Also include the untimely death of Confederate General Earl Van Dorn.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Giant Monster Gamera1:16 PM

    He discover that word count didn't matter on the right?

    ReplyDelete
  62. Giant Monster Gamera1:19 PM

    It does make him easier to kick around.

    ReplyDelete
  63. The gov't & media worked hard to depict the 9/11 bombings as religion motivated when they were clearly political (that's why the WTC & Washington DC buildings were bombed instead of, say, cathedrals). Now they're saying "Oh, Arab terrorism isn't really religious", but then they don't say what the motivation IS (oil).

    ReplyDelete
  64. How about FDR then, if we're re-electing dead Presidents?

    ReplyDelete
  65. swkellogg1:26 PM

    While I know it's wrong, I can't help but think that the world would have been a slightly better place had the Brighton bombing gone according to plan.

    ReplyDelete
  66. Even better, Nixon schemed to put a wrench in peace talks in order to better his chances of being elected president.


    Bill Kristol, the man most responsible for foisting Sarah Fucking Palin on the American national scene, is an idiot.

    ReplyDelete
  67. Ben Buttplug the Beast of new Orleans

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  68. Doesn't get much steadier than that.

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  69. Zencomix1:32 PM

    Nixon!

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  70. Steady state and all. Now let us not talk about Nixon's policy of MAD and acting batshit crazy so that the other guy is too scared to do anything.

    ReplyDelete
  71. edroso1:39 PM

    ..." Dancin' Fool"?

    ReplyDelete
  72. zencomix1:41 PM

    I don't know why it doubled up those top two panels and put them out of order. And I can't edit the post

    ReplyDelete
  73. You don't have to respect the man, but you must respect the office. Especially if you are/were that officeholder. And want respect.

    ReplyDelete
  74. zencomix1:46 PM

    Yeah, Sarah Palin, John Bolton, and the ghost of Richard Nixon in a swastika Wessagussett Indian symbol for "Slippery When Wet" corn maize in Iowa drinking Red Devil Lye and reading excerpts from Going Rogue, singing Frank Zappa songs. Can you edit/cut those top 2 and leave the bottom four?

    ReplyDelete
  75. mgmonklewis1:50 PM

    One sort of hopes they're still not finished warming his chamber in the afterlife to the appropriate temperature.

    ReplyDelete
  76. mgmonklewis1:51 PM

    A New Deal! Weekend at Franklin's!

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  77. They sure are concerned about semantics when it comes to ISIS and Islam. I sure don't recall any of them complaining about the IRA not being labelled a Catholic organization by the media, though Sourhern Protestant anti-Catholicism was a big deal until Antonin Scalia taught them how to love.

    ReplyDelete
  78. Hey! It's breakfast time here pal, none of this Scalia lovin'. If You Don't Mind.

    ReplyDelete
  79. Georgie the Wash and his Amazing Teef. This I would pay to see

    ReplyDelete
  80. ohsopolite2:11 PM

    That and other tactics from the PeeWee Herman School of Law and Philosophy--"I meant to do that" and "He who smelt it, dealt it" (especially pertinent in discussions re: J. Goldberg) just to name a couple.

    ReplyDelete
  81. coozledad2:12 PM

    I wonder why they never threw up a statue of Slobbery Jim. He finished up as a captain in the CSA. Couldn't have been too steep a climb, after pretty much everyone had shat themselves to death, deserted, or been starved to skeletons while the quartermaster corps hoarded food and shoes. The first Libertarian army.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slobbery_Jim

    ReplyDelete
  82. Scalia lovin' had me a blast
    Scalia lovin' bring back the past
    Had a thought, founders' intent
    Have a plan, black folks get bent.

    Scalia dreams, liberal screams
    But, oh, the Scalia Right.

    Wella-wella-wella-huh, tell me more, tell me more,
    You a corporatist?
    Wella-wella-wella-huh, tell me more, tell me more,
    You think drug laws should be an iron fist?

    ReplyDelete
  83. Helmut Monotreme2:12 PM

    And if we get a new crusade, it won't be about religion this time either. It will be about deciding that one billion plus people on the planet are prey. It will be about trying to take their land, their money, their resources, and any claim to be able to participate as equals on an international stage. It will be about the forceful reassertion of colonialism and white supremacy as the guiding principle of international relations.

    ReplyDelete
  84. John Wesley Hardin2:13 PM

    I want to race this comment for pink slips.

    ReplyDelete
  85. And Iran, Iran so far away!

    ReplyDelete
  86. Pseudonym2:16 PM

    Ouch. Getting shot in the headquarters must really hurt.

    ReplyDelete
  87. He probably doesn't realize that flan is a custard, if he knew what it was, he'd be buying fifty-five gallon drums of the stuff. He probably has it conflated with "chard".

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  88. I want to get constitutional with this comment

    ReplyDelete
  89. Mooser2:22 PM

    "See -- Jews have wacky eating habits"

    Apparently Goldberg has never heard of the infamous Trefa Banquet!

    ReplyDelete
  90. ColBatGuano2:54 PM

    And in the absence of a bold Republican foreign and defense policy agenda that really breaks from the status quo (think Reagan 1980)



    Yeah, a defense buildup to defeat the commies will be a winner in 2016.

    ReplyDelete
  91. Dean Golden3:00 PM

    Has she told you about the 50 ways?

    ReplyDelete
  92. Smurch3:03 PM

    General James Longmeat.

    ReplyDelete
  93. ken_lov3:11 PM

    So there's these people who proudly proclaim they're standing athwart history yelling "Stop!", and Kristol's puzzled they're not seen as representing the future? Now I finally understand why he's regarded as a leading conservative intellectual.

    ReplyDelete
  94. Smurch3:15 PM

    Nice catch!

    ReplyDelete
  95. She dried up in the desert?
    Drowned in a hot tub?
    Danced to death at an East Side night club?

    ReplyDelete
  96. Smurch3:19 PM

    It's a dessert topping AND a floor wax!

    ReplyDelete
  97. I want a floppy little Sarah Palin
    Won't stop bumping her gums
    And squeaks when she cums!

    ReplyDelete
  98. https://40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbeyl9YaiH1qixzl1o1_500.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  99. Smurch3:27 PM

    This comment is what's buzzin', cousin.

    ReplyDelete
  100. It's an effete Harvard lawyer and a Chicago gang banger.

    ReplyDelete
  101. RogerAiles3:41 PM

    Q: What's the difference between Noah Rothman and Noah Millman?

    A: Who gives a fuck?

    ReplyDelete
  102. J Neo Marvin3:49 PM

    We could easily have a foreign policy election in 2016. And then people might not mind a steady hand, even if one from the past (think Richard Nixon in 1968).

    Yeah, that worked out well in the end, didn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  103. That Libya regime change we did hasn't worked out too well for the Libyans, you know.
    ~

    ReplyDelete
  104. ap·o·thegmˈapəˌTHem/

    Dang, I was sure it was a-Pot-heg-mmmmmmmmmm?

    https://twitter.com/edroso/status/568859207434440704
    ~

    ReplyDelete
  105. edroso3:56 PM

    Shh. All typos I get to within 5 minutes NEVER HAPPENED.

    ReplyDelete
  106. Buffalo Rude4:06 PM

    Haha! For some reason I sang your first verse to the chorus of “The Jean Genie” by Bowie. It works pretty well, frankly.

    ReplyDelete
  107. Megalon4:09 PM

    Who cares whether they they are or are not "truly" Islamic? I dislike
    them because they're terrorist thugs and wouldn't like them any more or
    less if they identified with a different religion or with no religion at
    all. I wouldn't like it any better if they were doing this stuff in the
    name of the Red Brigades or Hindutva or whatever. What matters is the crimes they committing, mostly against people who also identify as Muslims, and how they can be stopped, also mostly by people who identify as Muslims, not meaningless religious point scoring.

    ReplyDelete
  108. Jon Hendry4:19 PM

    Nixon: He's livid, rested, and ready.

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  109. Jay B.4:39 PM

    But observing Giuliani’s diminished stature today when compared to the last decade renders the media’s reaction even less explicable.


    Which just goes to show you just how powerful the ideas of Saul Alinsky and Frances Fox Piven are and have always been for Democrats.

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  110. True, that didn't turn out so well. Turns out a very well armed not at all regulated militia is not necessarily a good thing in the operation of a free state. NRA wet dream fail.

    ReplyDelete
  111. Dean Golden5:42 PM

    Just step on the bomb, Tom;
    No need for a trick, Derelict

    ReplyDelete
  112. We in Georgia are taking the lead on this issue. Human life at all stages is precious including as an embryo. We need to get out in front of the science and technology, before it becomes something no one wants. The mixing of Human Embryos with Jellyfish cells to create a glow in the dark human, we say not in Georgia. This bill is about protecting Human life while maintaining good, valid research that does not destroy life.

    http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a33254/the-cafe-takes-on-a-strange-glow/

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  113. The first Libertarian army.

    I think this is what Don Rumsfeld was trying to emulate when he sent forces into Iraq without adequate armor, equipment, housing, food, and water.

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  114. First they came for the glow-in-the-dark people, but I did not speak up because I was dull.

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  115. I shudder to think of how much we're going to have to cut taxes on the rich to be able to pay for yet another Middle East invasion.

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  116. I would like to buy every billboard surrounding Washington D.C. and have this comment emblazoned upon them.

    With 24-hour lighting, of course.

    ReplyDelete
  117. M. Krebs6:15 PM

    That squirrel's a pussy. The ones I have would gnaw straight through that polycarbonate.

    ReplyDelete
  118. mgmonklewis6:31 PM

    An earlier version of this post incorrectly identified the chairman of the RNC as Ron Fournier

    Is that what poker players call a Tell?

    ReplyDelete
  119. M. Krebs6:33 PM

    We in the great state of Gawja take a back seat to no state in the crazy elected official department. I know, because I am a property owner in GA 1st and in GA 10th ( where sadly we had to lose the great Paul Broun last year).

    ReplyDelete
  120. M. Krebs6:34 PM

    It's rathe jaw-dropping, innit?

    ReplyDelete
  121. Jay B.6:40 PM

    He was beaten down by the tyranny of cliches.

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  122. Suttree6:54 PM

    One cannot discus why Church's Chicken is called Texas Chicken in Iraq without taking their religious beliefs into account.
    FTFY

    ReplyDelete
  123. Suttree7:03 PM

    One cannot discus why Doritos Cool Ranch chips are called Cool American chips in Europe without taking the fact that only slovenly assholes like Goldberg buy them by the ton into account.

    ReplyDelete
  124. Jaime Oria7:10 PM

    With the ready availability of AK assault rifles and RPGs, future crusading, colonialism and white supremacy won't be as easily smug as in those halcyon days of "Whatever happens / We have got / the Maxim gun / And they have not"

    ReplyDelete
  125. smut clyde7:14 PM

    Giuliani’s diminished stature today

    Giuliani:
    “What country has left so many young men and women dead abroad to save other countries without taking land?”

    He can have six feet of English earth – or a bit less as he is such a little man.

    ReplyDelete
  126. smut clyde7:18 PM

    She's my sister AND my daughter!

    ReplyDelete
  127. Well--can you imagine what horrors President Jenna Bush will visit on President Obama's funeral?

    ReplyDelete
  128. coozledad7:27 PM

    "I love you, man!"

    ReplyDelete
  129. Especially with the crowd that keeps getting sexually excited about what a manly leader that dreamboat Putin is.

    ReplyDelete
  130. What are we to make of this frenzied attack on
    Giuliani, in which the
    whole of the political press reacted as though a man who left office 14
    years ago had insulted their mothers?Well, it
    probably only played a small role, but one of the many shitty things
    Rudy did was insult the President's mother. Which,
    as noted by Wayne
    Barrett
    , is pretty rich coming from an miserably putrid excuse for husband and father whose own family is stuffed with violent thugs who
    served jail time.

    ReplyDelete
  131. I recommend "A House Divided", a Civil War novel now out in Kindle edition. More accurate than GWTW. Seems there was plenty of food, but the quartermasters didn't distribute it. Sold on black market or let it rot.

    ReplyDelete
  132. But observing Giuliani’s diminished stature today when compared to the
    last decade renders the media’s reaction even less explicable.In completely unrelated news, the current GOP golden boy for the 2016 Presidential nomination was in attendance at the same event ... and refused to repudiate Rudy's verbal sharts. Is Scotty Walker a has-been, too?

    ReplyDelete
  133. How about: Treason: its a Republican thing.

    ReplyDelete
  134. coozledad7:39 PM

    http://freedomrider.blogspot.com/2011/11/i-have-always-been-told-that-george.html

    I hadn't heard about this until recently. I guess this is why Republicans are trying to ban AP history.

    ReplyDelete
  135. Ah Disqus, it's like you don't know me some days.

    ReplyDelete
  136. coozledad8:05 PM

    Goddamn Day-glos.

    ReplyDelete
  137. billcinsd8:22 PM

    Get with the program.


    or the pogrom

    ReplyDelete
  138. billcinsd8:38 PM

    being twerked to death does beat being worked to death

    ReplyDelete
  139. JennOfArk8:44 PM

    Ardnassac (reverse-Cassandra)

    ReplyDelete
  140. JennOfArk8:46 PM

    I have a couple that come when I call them; one of them will come up to the door & look inside to get my attention, and come in the door to take nuts out of my hand.

    ReplyDelete
  141. JennOfArk8:54 PM

    Wait......what? He said "good flan" as if NO flan is good? Granted, some of it isn't. Mine is nectar of the gods. Completely smooth & creamy melt-in-your-mouth with a lovely dark caramel syrup. Word, J-Load - that mix shit you buy in a packet at the grocery store is NOT flan.


    I seriously read that as a redundancy rather than an oxymoron.

    ReplyDelete
  142. Marion in Savannah9:06 PM

    We don't need no stinking jellyfish. No siree, we don't. We've got the Savannah River Plant. We'll all be glowing in the dark pretty soon...

    ReplyDelete
  143. I did not know about this until I followed the link. What terrible peopel

    ReplyDelete
  144. M. Krebs10:23 PM

    While Nixon's ghost seems to be floating around, I notice that Harry Shearer has created what might be a pretty great show based literally and verbatim on the Nixon tapes. http://youtu.be/f9HtoWea72A

    ReplyDelete
  145. Tehanu10:45 PM

    And then have the ashes arrested!

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  146. Tehanu10:46 PM

    Fairly sure he was a Yankee.

    ReplyDelete
  147. Yes he was. I got a bit carried away with Civil War sex toys.

    ReplyDelete
  148. Tehanu11:00 PM

    's OK. Was funny!

    ReplyDelete
  149. AGoodQuestion11:23 PM

    He found himself arguing that Islamic terrorism is an oxymoron, like “jumbo shrimp” or “good flan.”



    Or "intelligent, incisive comment from Jonah Goldberg."


    This is amazing. Goldderp throws an "is too" against Obama's "is not." The difference is that Obama bothered to make an argument. Jonah makes no case, provides no evidence. He punts his reasoning to an article by Graeme Wood... that he never bothers to quote.


    Someone put this in a time capsule to let future generations know who Goldberg was.

    ReplyDelete
  150. AGoodQuestion11:27 PM

    Roy,your "on to Oscar" posts never got to Foxcatcher so I'm guessing you haven't seen it. Do so. It's a downer, but a very captivating downer.

    ReplyDelete
  151. AGoodQuestion11:29 PM

    If I get a chance to meet Peter King the first thing I'm asking him is if the asshole community is proud to have him as one of their high-profile representatives.

    ReplyDelete
  152. AGoodQuestion11:31 PM

    I'm sure many sons of the South would agree with you, with a hasty "don't quote me."

    ReplyDelete
  153. billcinsd11:38 PM

    I agree flan-flavored Doritos != good

    ReplyDelete
  154. AGoodQuestion11:40 PM

    While he's not tan and his readiness is in question, he is indisputably rested.

    ReplyDelete
  155. AGoodQuestion11:44 PM

    Is death by Miley anything like death by chocolate?

    ReplyDelete
  156. AGoodQuestion11:48 PM

    That's outrageous. It screams and it bawls.

    ReplyDelete
  157. AGoodQuestion11:50 PM

    The welfare state is to blame.

    ReplyDelete
  158. AGoodQuestion11:58 PM

    The response has been frenzied but Rudy's little 3-drink-minimum Reichstag speech wasn't? Not that I expect any better from him.

    ReplyDelete
  159. I didn't know about this until I followed your link. What terrible people they were.

    ReplyDelete
  160. AGoodQuestion12:03 AM

    Having partial bridgework myself, I can testify that teeth only work in the context of the mouth they were made for. Taking other people's choppers is bad dentistry. Incompetent bad and evil bad.

    ReplyDelete
  161. AGoodQuestion12:08 AM

    Now the rovin’ gambler he was very bored
    He was tryin’ to create a next world war
    He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor
    He said I never engaged in this kind of thing before
    But yes I think it can be very easily done
    We’ll just put some bleachers out in the sun
    And have it on Highway 61

    ReplyDelete
  162. GeniusLemur12:30 AM

    How about: If I hated America, I'd vote Republican

    ReplyDelete
  163. I hope the only reason Jah Ras Tafari has kept Kissinger alive this long is that the vicious criminal is completely incontinent, aches constantly in every bone joint & organ & has been begging for the sweet release of death every day for yrs.

    ReplyDelete
  164. smut clyde2:57 AM

    I'm sure many sons of the South would agree with you
    At first I assumed this was a reply to Pseudonym's comment about being shot while heading in the other direction.

    ReplyDelete
  165. smut clyde2:58 AM

    I want to buy this comment two sets of rechargeable batteries.

    And leave it to its own devices.

    ReplyDelete
  166. smut clyde3:32 AM

    That cries out for an animated GIF from Substance McGravitas.

    ReplyDelete
  167. smut clyde3:46 AM

    We could easily have a foreign policy election in 2016.

    Bill Kristol had better hope that there are no Democratic candidates with experience as Secretary of State.

    Perhaps some new set of concerns in 2016 will overwhelm all the
    past/future talk.


    Is this Kristol reminding the troops that it's never too early to start planning the next Ebola disposable crisis-du-jour?

    ReplyDelete
  168. Captain Flantastic and the Cheeto orange doughboy.

    ReplyDelete
  169. We have always been at war with Ebolia.

    ReplyDelete
  170. smut clyde4:09 AM

    Shirley you mean "We have always been at war with Elbonia."

    ReplyDelete
  171. smut clyde4:36 AM

    The body should be interred in a graveyard for foreigners, only to be dug up once again, tied to weights, and cast into the Tiber River.
    TRADITION.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod#mediaviewer/File:Jean_Paul_Laurens_Le_Pape_Formose_et_Etienne_VII_1870.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  172. Echoes one from the Truman administration: I'm not rich enough to vote Republican.

    ReplyDelete
  173. It's all fun until you wake up one morning and find 20 of them eating all your breakfast cereal and refusing to make more coffee. That's when you figure out that they're just rats with better wardrobes.

    ReplyDelete
  174. I always find it both amusing and dismaying that Republicans are constantly questioning Democrats' patriotism and love of America. This from a party that has spent the last 35 years running on a platform of wanting to destroy the government of the United States (or at least "drown it in a bathtub").

    Republicans: They LOVE America but despise its government, its institutions, and most of the people who live here.

    ReplyDelete
  175. How noble of us to rain down death and destruction, and then leave the survivors to fight it out amongst themselves.

    ReplyDelete
  176. Oh, I'd bet Doughy has never had actual flan. At-home cooking doesn't seem to be a feature of his home life, and he'd have to get in terrifying proximity to Hispanics to get decent flan in a restaurant.

    And no fair describing YOUR flan so well! Now I'm desperate for some!

    ReplyDelete
  177. No. But I'm sure that the new litmus test in the primaries will be which candidate can most frequently and convincingly state that [name of Democrat here] hates America.

    ReplyDelete
  178. Not to worry, AK--it's just Disqus Dementia.

    ReplyDelete
  179. Hm.. .has "he's a senile old fart " ever been used with such rapier like precision before?

    ReplyDelete
  180. coozledad11:57 AM

    What are we to make of this frenzied attack on Giuliani?
    Not frenzied enough. He needs to be tied up so people can throw shit at him. 1.Because that's how his own system of punishments would treat his obscenities, if it could recognize them,and 2. He made unacceptable racist remarks, then 3. in his own defense, called Obama an anti-colonialist, as though that was not only the stated position of modern industrial nations, but a framework through which the world avoids things like the Herero genocide, the concentration camps of the Boer war, and the combination of the two in Nazi Germany.


    Rudy's a fucking fascist. And he's the Republican party. He isn't saying anything they don't coo to each other in their white-trash circle jerks.


    Godwin can eat my ass. Rudy's got that undying Northern Italian hardon for Mussolini and Hitler. You couldn't beat it out of them with Cuban heels or the 7th Army.

    ReplyDelete
  181. Lurking Canadian12:03 PM

    Given the state of the world, that’s quite possible. We could easily have a foreign policy election in 2016. And then people might not mind a steady hand, even if one from the past (think Richard Nixon in 1968).

    I am not getting out of the boat, but is he seriously trying to start a "Draft Cheney" movement?

    ReplyDelete
  182. Magatha12:47 PM

    If only all the Keyboard Kommandos from the last thirteen years would assemble themselves into an elite unit, get Nugent to orchestrate their battle anthem, and then deploy their own courageous selves into surgical strike squads and go take down al-Baghdadi et al., and the Boko Haram bad guys (they could Cheeto-board them till they were ded ded ded) and then they could swagger back and tell Obummer, "See, that's how it's done." None of this Nanny State mass invasion stuff, just true patriots going their own way.

    ReplyDelete
  183. Magatha12:56 PM

    When I was a little kid, I'd go to my Grandma's house where there were lots of trees and squirrels, and sometimes the squirrels would come up and take peanuts from me. Once I was holding a peanut and a squirrel crept up and mistook my finger for the peanut. His tiny teeth just touched my warm little human finger and the poor dude freaked out: "Gah! Not-peanut, not-peanut! Run!" I had to leave it out for him on the grass.

    ReplyDelete
  184. Thanks for copying and pasting that discussion; that made for interesting reading. I just got finished hearing a similar discussion on KCRW's "To The Point."

    If you're curious to hear it, it's here:
    http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/to-the-point/is-isis-religious-does-it-matter
    Is ISIS Religious? Does It Matter? -
    President Obama has refused to grant the so-called "Islamic State" its claim to be based on the Muslim religion. That has set off a semantic debate with potential consequences for the war on terror.

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  185. It IS a bit paradoxical, isn't it?

    Down here where I live, I've seen truck decals that feature crossed flags: the United States flag and the Confederate battle flag.

    It hurts my head to try to make sense of that.

    ReplyDelete
  186. willf1:48 PM

    Juan Cole is a member of the NRA?

    ReplyDelete
  187. They love the United States, but they wish it weren't as united as it is.

    ReplyDelete
  188. gocart mozart2:19 PM

    It's like getting diet tips from Jeffrey Dahmer.

    ReplyDelete
  189. gocart mozart2:21 PM

    Huh?

    ReplyDelete
  190. They worship money. (I used to belong to a bank that looked just like the Parthenon, except the inside walls were glass).

    ReplyDelete
  191. One cannot discuss how and why in England potato chips are called "crisps" and also have flavors called "Shrimp" and "Tuna" and "tea".

    ReplyDelete
  192. Err- I accidentally down-rated Derelicts' comment. Clicking again seemed to, cough, downrate it again. SO, um. Sorry!

    ReplyDelete
  193. And then people might not mind a steady hand, even if one from the past


    You know, that sounds like dialog from a cheesy "dictator takes control" movie. Title: STRONG HAND!

    ReplyDelete