Armando from Kos and Josh Trevino from Red State and, more recently, his own website have so little in common and such voluble personalities that you would think that if they ever shook hands they would negate each other in a massive explosion [Update – that is 95% cheek. Most bloggers are extremely pleasant in person, although I have met neither of the two].
Naturally they have decided to become co-bloggers. The site – Swords Crossed – has not officially debuted yet but it should prove more entertaining than the happy-happy snoozefest that is John and I. Give it a look, and try not to get banned for spoofing within the first week.
demimondian
Even if I still owe you a six-pack of beer, I prefer the happy-happy snoozefest. Who needs political argument when you get to spend the day in an office building with snipers on the roof.
And all the parking garages being swept for bombs.
Just so that a thug of a President who was undemocratically elected can give a speech to Bill Gates?
CaseyL
Their site is pretty quiet so far, since it hasn’t actually, officially opened yet and the early posts seem to be reruns from other venues. But it doesn’t seem to be designed for them to directly debate each other, unless they intend to go “Point/Counterpoint” later on.
In which case, I foresee many iterations and versions of “Armando, you ignorant slut,” and “Josh, you fascist tool” – from their commenters, if not from each other.
Demimondian – Since I’m not a fan of either of ’em, I paid no attention to the story other than the bare fact that Bush was being hosted by Gates, even though the local papers were gaga over the event. Did Bush have to make do with staging his Commando Raid on the corporate campus, or did he rate an invite to the
MegaGigaTerra-square foot Gates Mansion?The Other Steve
Umm, I believe the undemocratically elected thug is President Hu from China.
Frankly, I think this was quite a snub on Bush, for the Chinese President to come to America for the first time ever and wait 3 days before going to see the President of the US.
The Other Steve
Oh yeah, and I’ve kind of lost a lot of respect for Armando, so I’m not sure I really care. Trevino is rather predictable with his arguments, so maybe it would be a good place to spoof. :-)
Pooh
I foresee ugliness just from the posts (haven’t even delved into the comments…) already extant. If those to the right of the aisle find Armando as intentionaly provactive as I find Trevino, that sight will make a Darrell/Slide tet-a-tet look like a game of paddycake.
demimondian
CaseyL — the thug did, indeed, rate an invite to The Mansion. Traffic all over the Eastside was snarled all day due to “security” requirements. (Hey, there was a whole VAN FULL of subversives from the Falun Gong! Couldn’t let them near Hu, you know.)
Frankly, when Bush was here in October 2K4, it was more of a mess, though. That may well be because he’s never been invited to the campus, much less an invite to The Mansion. As a result, the Secret Service had to secure a bunch of sites which are not terribly easy to secure, unlike The Mansion and the EBC, both of which are designed to be protected.
DougJ
Swords crossed? That doesn’t sound gay.
srv
Two intellectual sluts, would have been better called Brothels Crossed.
demimondian
I confess that I must have a perverse mind, because the first image that sprang to mind from the name “Swords crossed” was based on the phallic referents implicit in a sword.
(Well, actually, the second. The first was the phrase “Jane, you ignorant slut!”)
DougJ
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
srv
This is an opportunity to get in the ground level and apply the lessons from BJ and Scrutator. DougJ, we need field a panoply of personalities to address this new battlespace.
Kimmitt
I give it until the first commenter disparages Reagan in some fashion.
scarshapedstar
You guys oughtta change your name to Balloons Crossed for a week.
(That, or Balls Crossed.)
Perry Como
Seriously? They are doing this?
Oh my, they are. Time to renew those IPs folks!
stickler
Any pontificator of any wit or wisdom who “crosses swords” with Josh Trevino is automatically on my “Ignore!” list. Trevino is a worthless partisan hack whose pompous prose desperately needs an editor’s sharp red pen.
Trevino just loves the idea of the Nanny State deciding what we all can do in our bedrooms. Oh, and he thinks that the only enemy worth fighting in the current GWOT/GSAVE/GBLOWME is the Enemy Within. That would be you.
Do you doubt me? Just read up on Trevino’s drizzling wheeze at Tacitus, or better yet at No End But Victory:
And on it goes. Trevino is trying to craft a “stab-in-the-back” explanation for the loss of Iraq. He’s even convinced that we won the Vietnam War, but for that damned Democratic Congress (nevermind that Nixon pulled our troops out).
This is worse than just blinkered. It’s mendacious, disgusting, historically illiterate crap. The man should be shunned from polite society, hounded out of any reasonable discussion. I don’t know Armando, but his association with this shit-peddler doesn’t speak well for him.
Pb
Heh, I saw Armando’s diary about this over on Daily Kos, and just signed up myself. Apparently they won’t be allowing profanity there either, which should be entertaining.
Incidentally, I’ve found Trevino to be more reasonable when discussing things in the comments than he is when doing the same in the body of his blog posts–and vice versa for Armando. Fire up the popcorn popper, boys!
Krista
“I see your Schwartz is just as big as mine…”
Steve
I’ve found I can have a good discussion with a diehard conservative on any number of issues, and maybe even learn something. But not about the war. The true believers are absolutely batshit insane when the war comes up. They genuinely believe that we should have thrown away tens of thousands of lives and spent another decade in Vietnam just so the US didn’t have to take one in the loss column, and they genuinely believe that people who don’t think staying in Iraq is in our national interest are out-and-out traitors. Let’s remember, this is “reasonable conservative” Josh Trevino who accused Margaret Cho of treason based on the name of her dog.
I find this idea completely unpalatable for the same reason I think Jon Stewart was right about Crossfire. You don’t convince anyone of the seriousness of your issues by joining in a prearranged debate each day where nothing ever gets settled.
Vlad
Armando is probably my least-favorite liberal web pundit anywhere. As for Tacitus, if he doesn’t believe some of the things he says he’s a grade-A jerk, and if he does believe them I worry about whether he can safely operate heavy machinery.
I can’t see myself spending much time at that site, but thanks for the link I guess.
Punchy
While I tend to peruse DKos on occasion and find it somewhat entertaining, Armando himself is a mean-spirited, never-wrong, arrogant and insanely pompous ass. From the little I’ve seen on Red State, I’m betting the other clown is, too.
This ought to make for the world’s biggest flame wars in history. Two radically opposed, arrogant SOBs and their minions just hurling insults, some with racist overtones. Hooray. Can’t wait.
norbizness
Was “Assholes Unlimited” already taken as a site name?
DougJ
Someone should go over there and call Trevino a RINO for buying into the librul MSM myth that we lost in Vietnam. Maybe start calling him TrevRINO. I’d do it myself if I had time this morning.
The Other Steve
So Armando apparently won’t be posting.
Armando has been wanting to turn dKos into a redstate.com for quite some while by banning any dissenting voices. So I’m not sure how this swords crossed site will work with partisans wanting to ban everybody.
TrevRINO reads this site, so your gig is already up. :-)
Bob In Pacifica
Anyone remember Rollerball, where the corporations ruled the world?
At least James Caan rollerskated in that one.
Steve
Uh, I’ve had my share of arguments with Armando, and I have absolutely no idea where you are getting this from.
Blue Neponset
Despite the fact that both Armando and Trevino are as arrogant as the day is long, I think it will be a pretty good blog. I get the sense that both of them actually believe what they write and they are both more or less civil when they respond to comments. It should be an interesting experience if nothing else.
stickler
DougJ:
If I felt like trolling around RedState, I could find you an actual Tacitus blogturd arguing that very point: we didn’t lose the war. Congress (Democrats!) pulled the plug. We’d actually won the war by ’73. Shit you not, he said that. Just imagine the historical illiteracy required to even consider that notion, let alone repeat it under a recognized pseudonym.
But my desktop just crashed, and I don’t feel like wading in pigshit over at RedState, so just take my word on this.
capelza
They are friends in real life, or at least very good acquaintances. This is no suprise to me.
Both may be arrogant, but give me Trevino over that insane person Thomas at RS anyday. Armando trying to turn DK into RS? I don’t agree with that either. He’s a stubborn bull-headed SOB, however.
The Other Steve
It’s something that’s been going on now for the past six months or so. It shocked me when I started seeing it, as I generally agree with Armando on a lot of issues and like reading his stuff. But recently he’s started troll rating people who argue with him.
So maybe this is a good thing if he takes a break from dKos world.
Josh Trevino
We’d actually won the war by ‘73. Shit you not, he said that.
It’s true, I did! Well, sort of. Without referring to the post(s) in question, I believe I made the point that by 1973, we’d reduced endemic guerrilla activity from 80% of RVN territory (in 1965) to 20% of the same; that we had effectively eliminated the Viet Cong as a coherent fighting force; and that the North Vietnamese had been forced to switch almost wholly to a strategy of employing its regular units in conventional invasions. I further pointed out that had we abided by the commitments made to the RVN at the time of our pullout — namely, that our resupply and air power would continue to bolster RVN defenses — the 1975 conquest would probably not have taken place.
That we failed to abide by our word is, of course, the fault of the Congress that forbade it. Which Congress, if I recall, was composed of Democrats and Republicans in a ratio of roughly 2.02:1.
Are you outraged that this is pointed out? Are you furious that the parallels are drawn to the American left’s preferred course of action today? Good.
Enjoy swordscrossed.org.
capelza
Josh…two things.
Nixon ran on “peace with honor”. I know, I was there. The American public wanted out even then. It took years, but he did finally get out. You can blame Congress, but it was the American epeople who by and large just wanted the damn thing over, after years and years. Rightly or wrongly.
Secondly, Vietnam in 1972. Soldiers praying to God they wouldn’t be the last one killed in this war. My husband was part of Task Force Delta after he got transferred to fixed wing from Mag 15. They knew it was short term. Namphong was never meant to be permanant. I don’t know what the policy wonks or Nixon was telling the South Vietnamise government, but the boots on the ground knew it was a bail out.
Pb
Blue Neponset,
Have you ever seen Armando respond to comments?
tBone
Armando AND Trevino posting at the same site? Finally, an outlet for all of the pretension, arrogance, ridiculously baroque writing, and general windbaggery that’s so hard to find elsewhere on the Internet.
A side note – am I the only person that will never be able to see the phrase “Swords Crossed” again without thinking of Turtle and Johnny Drama?
Pooh
Heh. Forgot about that one…
demimondian
What capelza said. I was around during the Vietnam era, as were a bunch of us here. The whole “stabbed in the back” meme is nonsense — and, this time, there are enough of us who’ve cared for Vietnam vets that nobody is going to be able be able to get away with spreading it.
tim maguire
If I added up all the time I spent at those two sites in the last year, it would come to about 5 seconds; but you put the two together and…why not? I’ll check it out.
Blue Neponset
Yes, I have. That is why I said more or less civil. YMMV.
Alaskan_Pete
“Swords Crossed” eh? Sounds like a name for a Turkish bath house in the Castro district.
DougJ
How about a blog where each person spoofs the arguments from the other side of the aisle? Someone want to do one with me? I don’t have a name yet, but I think we can do better than Swords Crossed.
Pb
Blue Neponset,
I’ll go with “less”. Heh. :)
McNulty
Yeah, there’s a reason most bloggers are pleasant in person: Because meeting someone face to face is a little different than sitting behind the safety of your keyboard acting like a badass.
It’s a known fact that Atrios was confronted at a Philly drinking liberally event and cowered like a baby. None of the other liberal drinkers, i’m sure a lot of whom talk tough in his comments, were too quick to rush to his defense either.
capelza
A known fact? Not saying it didn’t happen, but I think RS has the trademark on “known facts”.
Krista
God, that’d be exhausting. (You’d probably find it exhilarating, though…)
tBone
I think http://www.wangsentangled.com is available.
The Other Steve
I’m always baffled by the people who claim that we could have won the Vietnam war. It’s as if they didn’t understand what Vietnam was.
There was no US versus THEM. The Vietnam war was a civil war. We just got into the middle of it and acted as target practice.
For the South to have survived as a viable government, they would have had to have some credibility. But they were corrupt. In fact that’s what the whole civil war was about anyway. Vietnamese were tired of being a colonial stepping stool. The south vietnamese thought it was ok because they had been profiting from it. Which is fine, except they didn’t have the people on their side.
What’s most interesting to me is I recently bought a shirt and it said “Made in Vietnam” on it. So it appears in the end we did win in Vietnam, but it was through economics, not warfare.
stickler
I’ll respond to the Tacitus snark once and then let it drop.
I am, indeed outraged that you choose to so baldly mischaracterize the final stages of the Vietnam War. I’m outraged because you clearly are doing this to demonize all opposition to our current, and similarly doomed, mission in Iraq. What you are doing on this thread, and on No End But Victory, and everywhere else, is peddling the American Dolchstoß thesis. I find that both historically illiterate and politically obnoxious.
Saying that the US had by 1972 winnowed the Viet Cong down by 80%, or 20%, or 110%, is totally irrelevant. We still had a corrupt, incompetent and unloved government in South Vietnam that was completely dependent on massive amounts of American largesse for its very survival — the same situation as Kennedy had faced in 1962 (only with quite a few more dead people). True to his word, more or less, Republican President Richard Nixon ended direct American participation in the war. Not much later, when it became apparent that the RVN was still — after all that blood and treasure — incapable of defending itself, the representatives of the American people ended the folly. That was a bipartisan decision, by the way.
As a neo-Buchananite paleoconservative, I don’t actually care what sort of nonsense you spew about the “American left’s preferred course of action.” I do, however, suspect that there actually is no such thing as one monolithic American Left, aside from Mr. Norbizness. I also suspect you know this perfectly well yourself. But you continue to whack away at that strawman all the same. I’d invite other readers to ponder the reasons why you do so.
ppGaz
Speaking of which, whatever happened to Tall Dave?
ppGaz
WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA?
ppGaz
How about Up Yours?
I know you’re all behind me on this ….
Pb
We’re #1! (gestures)
p.lukasiak
“Armando” officially jumps the shark here —
We’ve known for a long time that Trevino was a “southern strategy” racist who deserved no attention. I never truly realized what a jerk Armando was until he attacked RonK over at The Next Hurrah for pointing out that Democrats needed to stop claiming there was no evidence that Abramoff “directed” money to Democrats, because evidence did exist. (What did not exist was any evidence that any Democrats were involved in any scandalous behavior related to Abramoff.)
So, hopefully, this new blog will reduce the amount of time that both Trevino and Armando have to interfere in intelligent discussion that are ongoing elsewhere..
The Other Steve
p.lukasiak,
TheNextHurrah has my favorite bloggers from dKos… DHinMI, DemFromCT, Meteor Blades, Plutonium Page, RonK, Trapper John. I should probably spend more time over there.
Hell, maybe I’ll try spoofing them. :-)
DougJ
If we can find a rightie with the requisite spoofing abilities, the Up Yours blog could be a lot of fun.
ImJohnGalt
Oh, he’s going wild in the comments at wangsentangled, ppGaz. As well-intentioned as the site may be, one only need look at the comments section even before it opens to see that one minutes spent there will be one minute of one’s life never to be returned.
I believe he has become a Duke in the new Cheetocracy.
John S.
Looks like TallDave is over there getting his funk on already:
You gotta love that TallDave. Unlike Jeff Goldstein, he makes as many erroneous statements in the shortest amount of words possible.
Harley
It should be fun. And I think you mean “volatile” not “voluble.”
Gary Farber
“Josh Trevino from Red State and, more recently, his own website”
Perhaps my time sense is confused, but I seem to recall tacitus.org being around years before RedState was relatively recently created.
On Vietnam, what Josh says is about 80% correct, but highly incomplete. Setting aside all the other vital points that he left out, when he says this: “I further pointed out that had we abided by the commitments made to the RVN at the time of our pullout—namely, that our resupply and air power would continue to bolster RVN defenses—the 1975 conquest would probably not have taken place.”
That’s correct. It probably would have taken another year or so, as the North Vietnamese expected. But that it would have happened was pretty much inevitable, due to the corruption and undemocratic nature of the RVN, the fact that its generals were primarily interested in acting as warlords and collecting money, rather than in fighting the North Vietnamese, and the general illegitimacy with which the RVN was regarded by the majority of its people. Among other crucial factors were simply that the North Vietnamese regime, rather horrific as it was, was genuinely nationalistic, and that Ho Chi Minh was the founder of modern Vietnamese nationalism. Diem and his succesors were, to put it mildly, not that founder, nor an heir with legitimacy. The Viet Minh were the original nationalists who fought first the Japanese and then the French; they were never going to give up. The South Vietnamese regime, in comparison, was a collection of corrupt, self-interested, failures, for the most part. Diem was a dictator with few redeeming qualities, which the U.S. came to recognized, which is why the U.S. government supported the coup against him. His succesors until Thieu were a series of hapless generals (Big Minh, Little Minh, and on) with no legitimacy and little competence. Thieu was better, but still unable to rally most Vietnamese to him, nor competently run the war or manage his generals or fight corruption.
And that’s basically the story in a nutshell. The military details are details. Josh Trevino echos the famous conversation between Col. Harry Summers and one of the North Vietnamese generals: “You know, you never beat us on the battlefield.” “That is true, but it is also irrelevant.”
And it was. Wars are political undertakings in the end.
And South Vietnam was a political failure. The military points Trevino points to are, yes, irrelevant.
Congress pulled the plug because everyone but a relative handful of denialists were perfectly well aware of this, as were, of course, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, and most U.S. military observers, which is perfectly verifiable by, you know, reading what they wrote, rather than the revisionists and few still in denial at the time. Certainly there was no widespread belief in the senior U.S. military — or anywhere — that the RVN was simply set in a stable position in 1973 from which point the news would be upwards trending. That’s sheer revisionist nonsense, as most any history of the war that’s not written by a revisionist or someone with an axe to grind will inform the reader.
What happened to South Vietnam, and its people, was, of course, a great tragedy, but there really wasn’t anything the U.S. could do about it. That was the problem. It’s not as if we didn’t try about as hard as possible (which is what the revisionists deny). (I really don’t think Trevino has a better and more accurate grasp of the Vietnamese situation than Nixon and Kissinger and MacNamara and so on had; sorry, Josh.)
ppGaz
He is downright economical in that regard.
My favorite of his was a comparison of post-Saddam Iraq with the American Colonies. I wish I had a copy, it was priceless material.
Another
Swords Crossed, indeed.
http://www.man2manalliance.org/hero/hoplites.html
Another
Sorry, this was the link:
Swords Crossed, indeed.
http://www.man2manalliance.org/crw/sg.html
Pooh
That’s almost a good idea, I think it would be a useful endeavor for anyone to try and make the best arguments for the opposite side. We’re so used to beating up strawmen, I think it would be helpful both to remind us that not all disagreement is a sign of mental imbalance, and to clarify why our own opinions are right with something more than the strength with which we adhere to them.
In fact, I’ll offer to make a one-week snark free switch…any takers? Y’all know how to find me.
Steve
Sounds a little too much like work to me.
DougJ
Pooh, don’t make me give my snark speech again.
It’s naive to think that in a world governed by bullshit that honest debate has any kind of place in public discourse. It doesn’t.
What we have right now is a pseudo-debate between a sane but disorganized party — the Democrats — and aparty that deals completely and bullshit — the Republicans. If honest debate had any sway in the world, there would be at most a couple dozen Republicans in the Senate, maybe 40 or 50 in the House, and obviously none in the White House.
rilkefan
p. lukasiak, I think people tend to use “evidence” as stronger than “somebody claims”. By that standard I can find evidence that the world is flat, that HRC is the Antichrist, that Curt Shilling’s a good guy, etc. etc. etc.
Krista
I just had a flashback to being on the high-school debate team. It’s hard enough to make coherent, pithy arguments in favour the things that I believe. Trying to make the same quality of arguments in favour of the side that I am against? I really don’t think it’s something I could do anymore.
DougJ
What’s your problem with Curt Schilling?
KCinDC
In my little experience with RedState, it seems like there are a lot more liberals posting there (even though the comments they post are often immediately followed by a “blam”) than conservatives posting at dKos. Of course things may have changed after the recent Domenech-related purges (after all, they turned against Michelle Malkin).
Both sites are set up as explicitly partisan places — not that there’s anything wrong with that.
But perhaps there’s more “blamming” of conservatives on RedState who are disagreeing with the Powers That Be than there is banning of liberals on dKos (of course at dKos there’s a fair amount of disagreement among the PTB themselves).
Steve
There’s not really any banning of conservatives to speak of at dkos, it’s just not a very hospitable community for them so I don’t think a lot of them bother.
stickler
Um, you could say that. RedState has been a land of Stalinist purges since the get-go. To the point now, that the only acceptable Party Line is rabidly anti-abortion, pro-Bush, pro-police-state Big Government. Posters who disagree with this — even from a traditional conservative viewpoint — usually get one post. Then, purged.
At least, that’s what I’ve observed lately. I don’t bother reading RedState much; it’s pretty turgid and boring (not to mention screamingly wrongheaded).
rilkefan
DougJ, Schilling is a lying worthless camera-hound, a thug who hits an AAA hitter in the head in spring training and blames him for not getting out of the way. I’m a Yankees fan, but I never had anything but the greatest respect for Pedro when he pitched against us – with Schilling it’s the opposite.
Pooh
The fact that the “blam” is the weapon of choice at RS, might say something…and almost video-gamish unseriousness to me.
And rilke,
What he said…4-0 baby…
Pooh
Shennanigans.
Yes, yes the guy who struggles against you guys, you respect, the guy who sticks it to you, terrible individual. Convenient…
Pooh
Funny (or not so) how even a veneer of reasonableness gets stripped away from me as soon as the subject becomes the Yanx on the Sawx…
DougJ
Pedro is a jerk too. Don’t get me wrong, I like the guy, but remember the whole pointing at the head thing? Classless.
I’m glad you guys are stuck with Damon, by the way. Have fun with 13 million a year on an average centerfielder.
rilkefan
“Yes, yes the guy who struggles against you guys”
He never ever struggled against us that I recall – unless you call only striking out 17 guys in a 1-hitter “struggling”. Those games were tense and well-played, and the times we won it was mostly because the Sox bullpen collapsed or our pitcher threw his best game of the year. Pedro has been a jerk on occasion, and he throws at batters more than I like, but he also has a sense of humor about himself and a certain humbleness about his incredible gift.
I didn’t much want Damon, esp. at that contract, but short-term his loss hurts the Sox, and he did make three nice catches at the wall the other day.
Pooh
I think we take CoCo at 3-mil vs. Damon at 13 mil straight up. (Stupid fingerbones)
The 17k game was nice, I can not lie. The best I ever saw from him was the one he k’ed about 18 Twins in the ‘Dome, and I swear he was intentionally tipping his pitches, and they still couldn’t touch him…
rilkefan
Rather suspect you’ll find Coco isn’t a CF when he’s off the DL.
Of course we’ve got about one complete outfielder summing over LF, CF, and RF most days.
Leonard Smith
Shameless plug here, but I just started a community debate site, similar to red state or dkos at masdebate.com