I quit reading Daily Kos months ago when it became clear he was nothing more than an unprincipled hispanic version of Sydney Blumenthal. I was late to the game- commenters here were for months telling me I was giving him too much credit (REDACTED DUE TO EXCESSIVE NASTINESS).
At any rate, to make a long story short, here is one big REDACTED aimed at Kos and Nathan Newman for their despicable posts. This from Kos is just a gem:
Let the people see what war is like. This isn’t an XBox game. There are real repercussion’s to Bush’s folly.
That said, I feel nothing about the deaths of mercernaries. They aren’t in Iraw because of orders, or because they are trying to help the people make Iraq abetter place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.
And this lame back-pedalling doesn’t cut it. I hope someone takes the time to point out to the American public what Democrat activists and hard-core Kerry supporters really think.
I am done being charitable, and I no longer feel the need to pretend that some of these people are merely dissenting. This is no longer dissent- these people are simply on the other side. I guess it is time for Yglesias and Drum to try to pretend that their side is really pretty moderate- it’s the conservatives who are nuts. Yeah, right.
The Instapundit has the link round-up, while I tend to just agree with the folks at Q and O:
People who say things like this deserve nothing but contempt.
I agree, and like Michael Freedman, urge you to write the candidates advertising on Kos’s website if this is their feeling. Go check Mr. Friedman’s campaign to write all the politicians to sever their ties with this human debris.
I will even go one further- I will run the same blogads they run on Kos’s site here- for free for two months. You won’t get the same traffic exposure, and it will be more conservative than liberal, but anything to hit this jerk in the wallet.
*** Update ***
Post edited with major deletions.
Rick
I look forward to A.J. Lazarus’s ‘splanation of how Kos is truly being patriotic.
It’s dissent, yeah, that’s the story.
Cordially…
P.S. Has that untermensch ever stated his position on Mumia Jamal? I’d be curious what he sez.
Terry
In addition to the ads from the four Democrats, Kos has a note on the left side of his blog (near the top), stating that the site had raised $48,349 from 566 contributors (these were the number when I looked earlier today) for Senator Kerry’s campaign. I wonder how they can accept support from a scumbag like Kos. Maybe they should be asked by someone in the national media.
Mason
Heh, it’s about time, John.
I still go back once in a while, sort of the way most people look at an accident. One thing in particular jumped out at me last time…
Read this quote: Even those of us who consider the U.S. military to be the enemy, in todays world, know damn well they are as good at fighting as any body of people under arms, “in a cause they can believe in.”
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2004/4/1/18501/50869/84?mode=alone;showrate=1#84
There’s more to the post, but I really was dumbstruck that not one single person took offense to this message, and indeed someone even gave it a top rating. Calling all Canadians who think the US Military is the enemy — you have a home at Daily Kos!
Sigh.
Slartibartfast
I hope someone got a screenshot so that I, too, can grok it in its fullness, before making it go away.
Ricky
Matt & Drum are STILL trying to force-feed the “we (and atrios) are really moderates” theme?
What, is that on some once-per-month schedule? Do they think anyone other than atriettes are buying that bullshit?
Mason
Something else comes to mind.
I wonder how many of the Kos cheerleaders giving the cold shoulder — or much worse — to the dead in Fallujah have spent the last year “mourning” Rachel Corrie.
Ricky
Nah, it appears that what disgusted Kos was that the people who were massacred were actually there trying to support their families.
Mason
http://michael-friedman.com/archives/000311.html
Screenshot of the original post. Heh. Yay Kos!
burnplant
Looks to me like Kos rethought the post, removed it, and explains why in the subsequent post.
Of course, that’s never good enough for a GOP bottomfeeder like yourself – if he was like you guys he’d just remove it and claim it never existed.
Your intellectual dishonesty trumps Kos’s emotional honesty? I don’t think so.
Look at the posts on this site. You hide from stories that might make your dear leader look less than successful, while sites like Kos cover the whole story, warts and all.
And then you have turds like Ricky piping up with “moderates” bullshit. Yeah, Ricky, you are one to talk. Joke.
frontinus
Great blog post.
I think it’s important to remember that these same “moderate” Democrats have for years villified DoD and CIA contractors as mercenaries and death squads. Now that four have been killed and mutilated in such a public fashion they want to hail them as martyrs to Bush’s “lies”. For months these contractors were referred to as criminals and assassins by “dissenters” because some used non-Geneva ammunition. But now that they can make political hay using the corpses they commiserate.
By the way, there’s a Memorial Fund for the families of the contractors who died. I’m trying to get it out to as many outlets as possible.
http://www.blackwatersecurity.com
burnplant
Speaking of removing things and hiding them, John, how come you never told me the difference between you have a sissy fit about someone suggesting you get cancer (you were outraged, outraged! at the level of discourse), and you wishing Vidal would die. Do tell:
“Cute. Some anonymous coward in a math lab at SIU in Carbondale wants me to get cancer.”
– John Cole 2/23/04
Vidal may be the most disgusting human being I have ever listened to, and I found myself wishing he would just collapse and die.
– John Cole 3/20/04
Ricky
*****”And then you have turds like Ricky piping up with “moderates” bullshit. Yeah, Ricky, you are one to talk.”***
Actually, zizka, I’ve never – ever – claimed that I was a moderate.
Gennie
Stop being an asshat burnplant.
burnplant
Oh, and Cole, since you are the business to be punked today, do you care to find your own post that is similarly cavalier towards the deaths of people you don’t like? And do please explain the difference between yours and the Kos post? You do know how to use your own archives, right?
I’ll wait patiently for you to find…
John Cole
Go ahead, foolio.
Punk me.
I await gleefully your moral equivalence, because I think I have only show ‘cavalier’ indifference to thedeaths of afew people.
People like Idi Amin, WIlliam Pierce, the recently splattered Sheikh Yasin orwhatever his name is, Rachel Corrie, Uday and Qusay Hussein, and a few other contemptible scumbags.
So go ahead- punk me, punk.
Terry
Is “burnplant” that tin foil hatted loon that used to post nonsense all over blogdom under the pseudonym, “zizka?” I thought I had read on some site late last year that the “zizka” fellow had been institutionalized. Does anybody know for sure??
HH
Don’t feed the troll, it’s not worth it… especially trolls who are apologists for stuff like this. But then again, they’ve been downplaying the Holocaust-in-progress that was Saddam under Iraq for a while now.
HH
Remember also that these people believe that the man who lied to justify inaction to prevent a genocide is the good guy, and the man they claim lied to justify action to prevent a genocide is the evil guy.
Ricky
Nah, I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that burnplant recites the same stuff that the only other person alive ever uttered towards me (that I somehow claimed to be a moderate).
Well, that and the aggressive attitude from the safety of the anonymity behind his PC (easy to be brave at your terminal, isn’t it, zizka?).
shark
Wow, burpplant thinks he can erase the despicable shit Kos said by muddying up the waters here.
Sorry chump, it doesn’t work that way.
And Kos is a piece of garbage. You talk about his “emotional honesty”- well, we saw his emotional honesty in his first reaction. That piece of garbage lame ass explaination he put up there is intellectually dishonest. He said what he thought, realized the curtain was open, and now he’s covering his despicable ass.
What a joke. But the truth was revealed for all to see. He’s been revealed for the scum he is.
Defend him if you will. You’re yet another one who’s on the other side. And as such, your opinions or your insinuations or your cute attempts at trolling carry no weight.
Punk this…
Rick
In the welcome absence of that Zuniga bacterium, mind if I ask you, “burnplant,” what your opinion is of Mumia Jamal?
Cordially…
Ricky
He’s busy searching (in vain) for an instance where I’ve called myself a moderate. Isn’t that right, zizka?
He tried the same thing last year when his big sendoff line was that I spend an unusual amount of time commenting at eschaton. Of course, when the request came to fine ONE INSTANCE of me ever commenting there…..well, the crickets ensued.
Okay, enough feeding the troll. Sorry, John.
burnplant
Wow, talk about making the case for me.
John, still waiting on the Vidal/Cancer explanation…you’ll get yours when I get mine.
“downplaying the Holocaust-in-progress that was Saddam under Iraq for a while now.”
Meanwhile, computer studs like HH have been long time “human rights” activists trying to remove extremist regimes by electing “human rights” GOP interventionists to public office. Yeah…HH has been a human rights guy for, oh, about a year now. Look out Uzbekistan, HH and the GOP are on the case!!!
Foolio, good one!
I don’t know who Zizka is, but he or she sounds like he or she punked you guys too. It must still be smarting.
If Buffoon-juicers don’t feed the trolls, the comment count stays in single digits…how sad.
John Cole
BurnTplant- I am waiting.
Ricky
****I don’t know who Zizka is,***
Yeah, right.
Do tell how you interpreted that I claimed to be a moderate in some fashion, zizka.
burnplant
Ricky,
I never said you were a moderate, I said you were a turd. I think that is something we can all agree on.
“Well, that and the aggressive attitude from the safety of the anonymity behind his PC” uh, Ricky, aren’t we all doing this…pot, kettle, turd?
John – it’s easy, explain the difference in your comment, then you get your punking. jeez.
burnplant
For the record, I think the deaths of paid mercenaries is regrettable, but completely avoidable. They could avoid it by not taking money to stick their noses into the affairs of nations who are under siege and desparate to defend themselves.
I’m just sayin’.
Ricky
***”I said you were a turd****
Oh, you’re so brave.
And such an intelligent comment! I’m sure your daddy’s proud.
Bye, troll.
The Lonewacko Blog
Is Kos still affiliated with PolState.com? Apparently it has a new moderator at least.
frontinus
So, bumplant, you can discern the motivations of the contractors simply by looking at their corpses? I’m assuming you meant “mercenary” in the “greedy, gun-for-hire” context.
These guys were escorting a food shipment. If not them you’d have less-well paid, probably in your opinion atleast, mercenaries(namely, U.S. soldiers) doing it. And I’m sure if that were the case you’d conveniently edit your reply to make those deaths equally avoidable, right?
And the Sunnis in Fallujah aren’t “trying to defend themselves” as you blithely contend they are fighting in a futile attempt to maintain their minority rule that they enjoyed under Saddam. Or to exact revenge for losing it if they’re more informed than you obviously.
capt joe
hey John, you have punkedplant IP address from his posts. Post it and I will get you the physical address.
I will supply the popcorn to that match. You can add the video to you site.
John Cole
Nah, Joe. That would be unethical. I want people to feel comfortable posting here,regardless of their opinions, and I do not want to do anything like that.
Kimmitt
“This is no longer dissent- these people are simply on the other side.”
Conservatives never do change their talking points, do they?
Bloggerhead
John, inasmuch as I have a rendezvous in minutes with the foinest little foxette in Swansboro, please indulge my reposting a comment I made earlier on a previous site. I linked there through your portal, so it seems appropriate, and it does reiterate a point I’ve made here before:
“Do we really know why these guys were in Iraq, that they were not hired swords but on purely humanitarian missions? You see, I remember how Pvt. Lynch emptied her weapons while her body was being riddled with bullets.
Few men deserve the gruesome demise that these undoubtedly brave gentlemen endured, and no family deserves this horrific loss, on this I disagree with Kos. But for you guys to attribute Kos’s statements to the pathology of the left, blah, blah, blah, while turning ostensible mercenaries into missionaries based upon no evidence whatsoever, appears just another manifestation of the strange sissification of the American right.
I mean, these are same comments I read about those of us who opposed the war in the first place, that we hated America, that we hated Bush, that we’re insane, oh, the vapors. It’s getting kinda stale guys. Call Kos to account if you’d like, he probably deserves it in this case, but please, spear us the mock outrage & amatuer psychology. It’s a transparent attempt to policize the Iraqi conflict away from a discussion of its merits, and perfectly timed to distract us from the criticisms of the war president’s handling of the WoT. And it dishonors these men as much anything Kos has written.”
John, if you want to come to my house & discuss this like men, well, there’ll be two sixers of Guiness chilling & Nicole warming up.;-)
Bloggerhead
Oh, and John, bring a friend.
JPS
C’mon, Kimmitt. I’d started to think of you as a semi-reasonable guy. The post, remember, is inspired by a guy who vented his gladness (OK, sorry, total lack of anger or sympathy) that Americans were set upon by a mob, killed and mutilated. They got what was coming to them, according to Kos, and why? Because they were paid; because they were helping a cause that he hates so much he’s willing to excuse their murder if it stops it. How can that be construed as anything other than rooting for the other side?
Now. What bugs you in all of this is conservatives and our talking points?
JPS
Incidentally, I think this mercenary crap is a red herring anyway.
Let’s suppose there were some volunteer workers doing the most purely humanitarian relief we can all imagine. They get murdered and mutilated by the insurgents, who target them because if their work succeeds, the average Iraqi won’t be as motivated to thwart the U.S. efforts.
Who can doubt that a contingent of the truly embittered antiwar crowd would say they had it coming? I mean, they were murdered by the resistance, so clearly they were sticking their noses into an occupation where it didn’t belong. If they were Christians, then they’d deserve it for proselytizing. If they were just secular humanists, well, they were by definition freelance imperialists, helping the war effort. We know that-right?-because the resistance killed them. And the resistance is by definition anti-imperialist.
I’m finding it harder and harder to remind myself that there are opinions worth respecting in the self-anointed antiwar crowd. Because it seems to me there’s no cruelty that could be committed, against anyone, that their hard core wouldn’t excuse, with their more reasonable allies covering for them on the grounds that, hey, the right are a bunch of jerks too.
frontinus
Blogger, your indignation at the right’s using loaded terms like “missionaries” is laudible. It’d be even more so if you didn’t do the exact same thing yourself. By referring to them as “ostensibly mercenaries” you play the same game. Call them “contractors” until you know each of their motivations for being there. Maybe it was either profit. Or maybe philanthropy. Or maybe they wanted control of which ops they went on. Or maybe they wanted to work a seasonal job(you know…like teachers) for time off with family. Or maybe they liked blowing shit up.
The thing that is so galling about Kos and his sycophants is their dependable deference to Iraqi sentiments while always assuming the worst when it comes to Americans.
Hal
Cole: your vein is really throbbing. Grab a Martini and laugh about the insanity of it all. . .
burnplant
Thanks for not giving out my IP, John, I couldn’t take it if those warbloggers actually came by my house here – they is real scary.
I suppose you could scrap it up to “not feeding the troll”, but you sure didn’t feel like answering my questions – should I just chalk up the Vidal/Cancer question up to you losing?
Frontius and JPS – despite your best intentions to toe the GOP line and look like good little youth, my “mercinary” post was a paraphrased version of a previous Cole post. So by arguing with me on this, you are arguing with Cole…
I’m just sayin’.
Evil Otto
“Conservatives never do change their talking points, do they?”
Well, well, lookee who it is. Small blogosphere, eh, Kimmy?
And I think the irony of *you* accusing someone else of using talking points defies all description, you walking leftist cliche’.
Al Maviva
“The death of paid mercenaries”
Nice one, burnplant.
So really, if somebody killed the 25,000 or so contractors who administer your student loans for the Department of Education, it would be no skin off your nose – they are mercenaries.
Likewise, the paid truck drivers who run food into Iraq for the Red Cross – nothing but mercenaries.
Same thing for the contractors who ship military equipment to the troops, cook their meals, work as security guards at their bases, write code for their computers, maintain their tanks and tracks at the depots, and oh yeah, design the weapons systems for them… nothing but mercenaries.
Same as DOT’s contractors who design and construct the highways. And the mercenaries who staff up the FAA. And work at NIH.
Yep, those bad government contractors, Burnplant – they’re nothin’ but a pack of stinkin’ mercenaries.
burnplant
“The death of paid mercenaries”
You’re right Al Maviva, it doesn’t make much sense.
Unfortunately for you, that post is just a slightly altered version of a John Cole post from a few months back – what a burn for you.
frontinus
I’ve never been a registered anything and didn’t/won’t vote for Bush. But thanks for making another erroneous assumption. Nice to know you don’t just do it to dead people.
Why would I care if I contradict something Cole said? Before coming across his post about Kos I’d never read or posted here. Is that how you Kos groupies are? You watch what your fellow travelers think and adopt it for yourself?
Main reason I even posted once was to link to the Blackwater Memorial Fund info. You might want to suggest to Kos that he could donate some of his advertisement revenue. Might help rehabilitate his reputation. But judging the posts from his readership maybe not.
JPS
Burnplant,
I am not toeing any party line. This has nothing to do with Republicans versus Democrats. If you look at my comments above as an inherently Republican position, you are ceding a lot of ground that my liberal friends would much prefer you didn’t.
A faction–and I have tried to be selective in my outrage–of the antiwar left is perfectly prepared to tolerate gruesome murder on a large scale as long as it advances their vision of the world. These same people claim the moral high ground because they’re against war, yet they are as amoral (at best) as the most cold-blooded hawk.
By the way, just what good little youth am I trying to look like, you fatuous twit?
Random Numbers
Thest guys were no more “mercenaries” than a bank security guard. A merc is hired to be a soldier, not a guard.
Kimmitt
These folks were ex-Rangers and other suchlike; they weren’t bank guards, they were mercenaries.
“They got what was coming to them, according to Kos, and why? Because they were paid…”
Kos’s opinion is that the Iraq War is fundamentally unjust. He states that the soldiers in the war are obeying their duty and trying to make the best of a bad situation. But what kind of person takes part in an unjust war for money?
That was his opinion. I don’t share it, but given the background he posted, it is one which is pretty reasonable.
Kimmitt
And Mumia Jamal is a cop-killer who got railroaded. Which makes him something of a complicated thing to have an opinion on.
frontinus
Can the Kos groupies defend subjective assumptions without even more subjective assumptions?
Maybe english is the predominant second, or third, language for some so I’ll ask again. How can you or anyone else discern the motivations of men by only looking at their corpses? Do you know the average age of Rangers or Seals? Do you know the operational life of a specops member? What’s the oldest person to ever complete BUDS? Do 38 or 32 year olds normally get the most intensive training or missions? Bueller? Uh oh…wait a second…maybe one of them was gay and chose a life without all the don’t-ask-don’t-tell BS. Maybe all four of them. Stop the presses! You fucking aholes fixate on only the possibilities that fulfill your sick need to score partisan points. You know…the same crap right-wing nuts were doing with Mena, etc. almost certainly to your chagrin in the 90’s. Your blind partisanship bleeds into amnesia and in the end you do exactly what you abhore. Funny isn’t it?
It’s an awful stretch to go from disagreeing with the war to disdainful apathy when confronted with graphic deaths. Kos’ subsequent explanation means nothing. People drunk with emotion, as with booze, are always more truthful in haste than they are in deliberation.
Mumia activists should read up on Norman Mailer and William Buckley. I’d be willing to bet either of those are much more intelligent than any of them and both got burned by convict hucksters.
Gary Farber
“I guess it is time for Yglesias and Drum to try to pretend that their side is really pretty moderate- it’s the conservatives who are nuts.”
The problem with this statement is that its assumptions do not map reality.
There is no “side” that is “pretty moderate.” Nor is there a “side” that is “nuts.”
There are simply a lot of people, many of whom align themselves, some very weakly, some very strongly, with a “side,” and many of whom are “pretty moderate” and some of whom are “nuts.”
Taking any given nutso, or set of fools and poltroons, from either “side,” to use as “proof” that “the other side is nuts” while My Side Is Moderate is worse than useless, as it maps a falsehood.
I can’t say how much I wish more people would get this through their heads, and quit seeing politics as primarily a team sport, most often modeled after hockey. (Not that there’s anything wrong with liking hockey!)
WJ Phillips
As a British paleoconservative and isolationist, I can see no point in America’s embroilment in Iraq save corporate profit and the defence of the failed state of Israel. Whoever dies there dies as vainly as the 58,000 US soldiers in Vietnam.
Crusading never pays. Bad news spreads quicker on the internet than in Walter Cronkite’s heyday, so I expect the US public will have tired of the Mideast quagmire within three years, and will pull out with fewer casualties than in Nam.
JPS
Funny thing is, WJ, you sound just like the Americans who in summer 1941 thought we should stay out yet another stupid European quarrel, and leave poor old England to her fate. Dashed pity, and all that, but hey–why should we fight a war for the Brits and the Jews?
There are a lot of reasons for our involvement in Iraq. Try reading Cole’s archives, or denbeste.nu. You might not agree with them, and the war could indeed be a mistake, but baldly saying they don’t exist, and leaving us with the most hackneyed strawman, hardly enriches the discussion.
Ricky
And today atrios gives us one more example of how he’s about as believable as Joe Isuzu, lying about the kos story by claiming that it imminated from the comments section.
I don’t know what’s worse, that he’d feign ignorance and lie or that he’s so clueless that he really is that ignorant.
Kimmitt
Er, the story really does come from a post Kos made in a comment on someone else’s diary.
Ricky
No, Kimmmitt.
It was a blog post that Kos had up & kept up until he got caught. THEN, he moved the post to the comments section of the dairy, deleted the post (and redirected the link from the URL to the diary’s main entry) and then went out of his way to delete the google cache of the post.
And Atrios is leading the charge for the newfound line that is going to be the mantra, now.
Nice try, but it’s based on a lie.
David D
Mercernaries? Am I supposed to believe that the thugs in this mob could tell the difference between mercernaries & volunteers?
Get real. These men were killed for helping the Iraqi people.
WJ – the ‘point in America’s embroilment in Iraq’ includes things like this: Mass graves. Childrens prisons. Genocide. Poison gas. Goverment support for terroism (although probably not Al Qaida).
I quit reading Kos a while back because he is illogical.
Anyone who is apathetic about the death of someone whose ‘crime’ is guarding a food convoy for pay is one sick puppy.
Kimmitt
“Get real. These men were killed for helping the Iraqi people.”
Hang on a sec here. The Americans were killed, then carried through the streets by an enormous mob which gleefully took part in the mutilations. At some point, an opinion was expressed which might perhaps contradict this statement.
carlos
by the way jerk-offs, it’s latino not fucken hispanic…. saltines… and why go racial anyways…. marcos made a dumb comment, everyone does… plus you guys should realize the fact that we have so many “private” army personal is a cause for concern….