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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.
Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.
Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.
When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.
This fight is for everything.
The next time the wall wtreet journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.
Usually wrong but never in doubt
Good lord, these people are nuts.
Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll
We still have time to mess this up!
Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.
Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.
Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.
Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.
Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.
I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.
The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.
Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.
Let’s not be the monsters we hate.
No one could have predicted…
“More of this”, i said to the dog.
if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.
A dilettante blog from the great progressive state of West Virginia.
Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.
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Zifnab
Is this your subtle way of saying Balloon Juice is no longer affiliated with the red wing of the blog-o-sphere?
dreggas
Oh the implications of having any affiliation with “Red Wings”
Tim F.
Gosh, I hope they were sitting down.
Krista
Totally off-topic, but I just read Dan Savage’s reaction to the right’s reaction to Mary Cheney’s pregnancy, and I’m still giggling. It’s here, second letter down, if you want a good laugh.
scs
Isn’t it funny that hardly anyone is commenting on the Berger- James Bond episode. I tried to look for in in the NYT and London Times- I looked yesterday and today and didn’t see anything in the Washington section. So I did a search on it and found that the NYT ran an article yesterday (20th) on it, according to the actual article date – although I didn’t see it yesterday. But strange that the search screen listed the article date as today (21st), and I didn’t see it today either. I think they ran the story yestrerday, but didn’t inlcude a link to it online from the Washington section- so if that is correct, if you didn’t actually read the actual paper – you’d have no idea that article existed. Very sneaky sis!
While every twist an turn of a perjury case of whether a Whitehouse aid actually said the words “well eveyone knows about it already” to a few reporters about some desk jockey spy grabs front page every day all over the world- the tale of a top level man stuffing his socks and hiding unknown secret documents relating to the deaths of 3000 people with god knows what in it, out in public under construction trailors, merits no interest. If that doesn’t prove the blatant and dangerous liberal bias and the lengths the left will go to further their propaganda in this country and in the West- I don’t know what does.
Tulkinghorn
I know it is an open thread, nut this a ridiculous non-sequitor. It is not even news, just an attenpted media blitz coordinated by someone. Google-new sandy Berger and you will WSjO, Worldnet Daily, and three of four other propaganda sites recycling the same story, on the same day, with the same language.
Maybe no-one is commenting because the non-msm lacks fundamental credibility. Who cares what they think?
Tulkinghorn
I know it is an open thread, but this a ridiculous non-sequitor. It is not even news, just an attenpted media blitz coordinated by someone. Google-new sandy Berger and you will WSjO, Worldnet Daily, and three of four other propaganda sites recycling the same story, on the same day, with the same language.
Maybe no-one is commenting because the non-msm lacks fundamental credibility. Who cares what they think?
Zifnab
Did you just openly admit you read the NYT and the Washington Post? Don’t you get sent to Gitmo for that sort of thing?
Of course, maybe if a dead 8-year-old beauty queen was involved, you could get the type of epic coverage other ten year old non-stories scrap together. Maybe Clinton can release a book “If I did it, how I would have killed Vince Foster.”
Pb
scs,
The what? Sandy Berger was in a James Bond movie?
Oh, now I understand your confusion–newspapers don’t report on fiction in the news section. Still, the WaPo is reporting what is known–not fabricated–about it; here’s a taste:
scs
Well if he denied it, it must be false. But I guess that was before he ADMITTED it and then admitted to stuffing the docs under an outside construction trailor and then retrieving them later. So I guess it must be true. Another reason it must be true was because the staff was tailing him and actually SAW him do that- having already become previously suspicious of him from his previous visits. And the eye witness staff accounts and his later confession was what was used to convict him.
The fact that you think this didn’t happen is what happens when the media screens what you should see and shouldn’t see based on whether it embassasses their team. It ends up becoming dangerous.
Tulkinghorn
Oh, I forgot, Clinton is on the same team as the media.
The media that made a mint hyping a fourth-rate scandal into a frivolous and near-seditious impeachment. The media that never looked behind the Arkansas group and the various GOP ratf*ckers who were behind the 98% manufactured whitewater scandal. The media, from mogul to cub reporter, that bought into the biggest fraud since McCarthy and became celebrities who made the news instead of journalists?
David M.
Well, there’s a real tendency in America today to view all news events exclusively through partisan blinders. When your political party becomes a sports team that you root “for” or “against”, suddenly it can do no wrong, and any attempts to show evidence of malfeasance are treated on par with disses from rival sports team fans.
But politics is no game, and no politician of any stripe should be permitted to escape the consequences of his or her misdeeds. It’s good that the Left is raking Bush over the coals for his errors; if only they applied the same fervent criticism to their own side, America would be a better place. (I’d apply that to Republicans, too, but there don’t seem to be too many around here.)
Salty Party Snax
The War On Xmas takes another insidious step forward. The vigilant defenders of the Lord over at Free Republican now claim proof of a massive left wing campaign of desecration upon nativities and creches throughout North America.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1757069/posts
Pb
scs,
Cite?
Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Take your ball and go home, liar.
Shows that I’m not a brainwashed moron ready to fall for the latest cheap attack line that comes down the pipe.
scs
scs
In case your beef is that Berger removed the documents in his suit instead of his socks (why that matters I have no idea) Berger said this:
Yeah, real reliable. Considering they have witnesses that actually SAW the papers sticking out of his pants – I’ m not sure how much value I place on Berger’s fuzzy memories and denials of this.
Zifnab
And this was in 2003.
Huh. 2003. Millennium Alert After Action Review. What were we doing in 2003 that would concern a Millennium Alert After Action Review? Didn’t we go to war with somebody in ’03? It was a Middle Eastern country, I think. And it was in response to something that occured a couple years earlier.
What would Sandy Berger be trying to smuggle out of the White House right when we were going to an illegal and unjustified war? Must have been about Presidential sex.
Tulkinghorn
empahsis added.
This is the point-if this document had been incriminating to the Clintons, does anyone here doubt that document would have been leaked by now?
scs
Yes, according to the law of the UN, which governs and rules over the whole world- it was illegal. I’m sorry, could you refresh me on which statue the war actually broke? And what was the “legal” penalty for it?
scs
I’m sorry- that was”statute”. As to this “if this document had been incriminating to the Clintons, does anyone here doubt that document would have been leaked by now?” the point of the new revelations is that they are not sure now WHAT Berger destroyed. Since they now think he was doing this undetected way before he was noticed- there’s no way of telling what else he successfully got rid of.
jh
Why the hell is the right still trying to beat the Sandy Berger horse?
It’s dead.
Dillinger Dead.
Seabiscuit Dead.
Bush’s Brain Dead.
ThymeZone
Berger is a fool. But he can’t possibly be as big a fool as the character being written by the person who does the scs spoof.
That’s some serious fooliness.
All props to whoever is writing that shit.
Zifnab
So he was smuggling out documents that he destroyed? I thought you specifically said he was caught and that the papers were in his pants. I don’t know how much I’d want to handle papers stuffed down Berger’s pants, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call them “destroyed”.
As for the statute it broke, that would be the one that authorized the use of force. You know the one, it’s the one that never existed. Resolution 1441 provided the option of physically confronting Iraq. But it never waved the green flag to start rolling in tanks.
As for your “the UN rules the world” conspiracy theory, the only ruling they held was a healthy condemnation of the US by the better half of Western Europe, Russia, and China and dozens of others. That’s about where the UN’s power begins and ends. But, you know what they say. Today, healthy condemnation. Tomorrow black-masked foreign storm troopers marching through your living room. Clearly the UN and Sandy Berger are out of control.
ThymeZone
And unless the story has changed dramatically and very recently, they were just copies, not originals. The originals were never involved in the incident that I know of. Therefore nothing was actually lost.
dreggas
Would now be a bad time to remind scs that WE, the U.S created the UN after WWII along with the other key participants in WWII? Of course we forget that now because it is somehow EVIL!
Zifnab
If by “WE” you mean the Demoncrats who wanted to take your guns and make you pay 100% commie-style income taxes.
Thank god for good, brave, strong patriots like Joe McCarthy, the original Republican, and Ronald “Starwars” Reagen, to fight back. Without him we surely would have lost the Cold War. The UN’s “peace talks” and “diplomancy” had nothing to do with it.
scs
Yes it has- that’s why it’s called NEWS. And that’s why it should be in the MEDIA. To repeat, if you READ the stories – it now appears that the admittance come out that Berger was doing this before he got caught. That’s what got the staff to get suspicious of him in the first place. They say there is no way to tell what Berger made off with before they caught on- as the paperwork was massive and not all numbered or tracked. Then they tricked him with fake copies that he THOUGHT were the originals. Pretty good staff work there, I must say.
scs
Yes Jimmy Carter’s masterful peace talks did it all.
scs
But it never said it couldn’t. That’s why we try to be specific in laws usually.
VidaLoca
And a damned good thing they kept it so secret, too. Back in 1999 we couldn’t have that talk about terrorism getting around, it would have been too distracting. We had to focus on the Clenis. THE CLENIS, I say! Or else what would the children think?
ThymeZone
Well, plenty of blank space there for you to do your diarrhea of the mouth thing with it for years, then.
Do you have a point to make, or doesn’t your spoof manual say that pretending to make a point is part of the act?
scs
My point is is that this was important news – and should have been more widely distributed in the media- as much as we learned about the ins and outs of the Trump/O’Donnell fiasco and Miss America. Otherwise people who depended on certain news sources to get the latest news would be ignorant about it-as witnessed by your comments today.
Pb
Because the former is plausible, while the latter is totally ridiculous–therefore, given the choice, and less evidence besides, you pick the latter and treat it as a fact. That’s why you’re a lying hack.
Also false–they know what the documents were. But par for the course, I guess.
Duh. Isn’t that self-evident?
Krista
Anyway, lads, lasses, and assorted trolls — I’m off to visit the parental homestead for the holidays. You probably won’t hear much from me, but might receive the festive gift of a drunken French posting if I have a bit too much wine.
I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Good Festivus, and/or a very, very happy whatever-the-heck-you-want-to-celebrate.
scs
My other question is why is Berger getting a $50,000 fine for leaving top secret classified documents about our defense under a construction trailor – and Libby faces about 20 years for his offense?
ThymeZone
To whom?
scs
Really? My you haven’t lived. Haven’t you ever cheated in highschool? Or carried secret notes? In you put something down your pants, it can fall down your pants legs onto the floor. Your socks keep them secure. I guess stuffing it in your shirt is okay, if you tuck your shirt in – but it’s closer to eye level and more likely to be seen by someone sticking out than something in loose socks. This is the best convo on document stuffing I’ve had in a while, by the way, since junior high.
scs
Feliz Navidad! And bring your candles and rescue balloons when you travel!
ThymeZone
The same to you, Krista!
BTW, do you get your presents earlier up there, being so close to the North Pole and all?
I’m thinking maybe you guys just go down the block to Santa’s place and pick them up.
Have a Holly Jolly Xmas!
Pb
scs,
Because he made a plea bargain with the justice dept–the fine was going to be $10,000, but the judge raised it to $50,000, and also “ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and barred from access to classified material for three years” due to the seriousness of the crime.
Libby didn’t cut a deal, and he’s accused of repeatedly lying to the government and obstructing justice–that is to say, it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up. If he had come clean and not lied, then I’d wager that the charges and the outcome would be different, possibly better or worse for him depending on what was uncovered. Yes, scs, lying can have consequences, and in some cases, it is a real crime.
ThymeZone
Nope.
Nope.
I’ll be the judge of that, thanks.
That’s right, and the crinkle-crinkle sound as you walk in paper-filled socks is an excellent cover.
Good lord.
Krista
That’s right. We actually get first dibs on the cool gifts, and leave you folks with the dregs. Bwah-ha-ha-ha!
Goddamn, scs, you’ve really hit on something there. You can use the candles and rescue balloons to stay alive and signal for help, and then, when you’re found, you can use them as party supplies! :)
scs
Well I read Berger lied too, until they provided him with the goods that everyone saw him. THEN he faced up and cut a deal. Libby also said later that he “forgot”, and now remembered that Cheney told him first. So I don’t get what the big dif is.
Frank
Yet another edition of simple answers to simple questions:
“My other question is why is Berger getting a $50,000 fine for leaving top secret classified documents about our defense under a construction trailor – and Libby faces about 20 years for his offense?”
Because Sandy Berger didn’t repeatedly commit perjury in front of a federal prosecutor.
Scooter Libby should face a firing squad for endangering the lives of operatives and sources overseas, but unfortunately the wheels grind very slow.
Pb
scs,
No?
Not if they’re falling down all the time.
I somehow doubt that sticking something in you socks would be very covert. Also, what are we talking about here–men’s dress socks and multiple 8.5×11 pieces of paper? These are little socks you’re talking about, not bags of holding, you’d have to wrap it around your leg, and I doubt it’d be very secure. Like I said, ridiculous–you’re in your element, I guess.
Krista
Feh – amateurs. Best way to cheat in Math is to write all your formulas in pencil on the inside of the cover of your black calculator. That way, it can only be seen when you look at it from a certain angle, and it doesn’t arouse suspicion to have your calculator cover sitting on your desk.
Not that I ever did that, of course.
Krista
And yeah, it’s one thing to stuff a slip of paper or two inside your socks. But actual documents? That’s pretty unfeasible.
scs
Of course. (throat clearing)
scs
Well maybe the guy wore sturdy black tube socks that day – who knows? Besides he made multiple trips – he didn’t stuff a whole notebook in his socks at one time.
Big Pimpin'
Hunh. Just got kicked off Rightwing Nuthouse for calling Rick Moran a pompous old twat.
Guy has no sense of humor.
Krista
Okay, come on. You must know that you’re grasping at some pretty flimsy straws here. Think, for a moment, about the actual physical logistics of what it is you’re suggesting. If someone WAS going to smuggle out documents, doing so via their socks is pretty much the least practical, least feasible way of doing so.
scs
So what’s your vote – tucked in shirt? Underwear? Maybe he did it all.
Krista
I’m not going to speculate — it’s silly and pointless.
Anyway, I really am going now, honest. :)
TenguPhule
Shorter Scs: Look! Clenis! Clenis!
If Scs was any more of a meat puppet for Dick Cheney, we’d see his head poking out every time Scs opens her mouth.
TenguPhule
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/france_binladen_dc
Nothing solid, but interesting speculation.
Of course, the Right used this same level of ‘proof’ to blame Clinton so it seems only fair to shoot them with their own ammunition.
ThymeZone
And we don’t mean his big head, either.
{ ba-da-boom }
Tony J
Now that’s some high quality spoofage you’ve got going on there, sister.
As you well know – because it’s been pointed out over and over again since the invasion – 1441 passed through the UNSC because it specifically didn’t provide the automatic trigger for war the White House and Number 10 had been looking for. That required a 2nd UNSC vote that would’ve been based on the verdict of Blix’s expanded UN inspection team. Once it became blindingly obvious that continued inspections were only going to further weaken the ‘case for war’, the US and UK tried – and failed – to bully a bare majority of UNSC members into passing some sort of ‘moral resolution’ they could claim as de facto authorisation for invading. Then they claimed the French ruled the world, made some half-hearted speeches about saving the authority of the UN by acting without its authority, and invaded anyway.
Shorter version: by invading Iraq in 2003 the US and UK (and the rest of the Coalition of the Wanting) actually violated 1441.
But you knew that, because you’re a silly little spoof. I just couldn’t bear it that everyone was ignoring this glittering little spoofalicious gem and wasting all your hard work. What, with it being so very close to Mithrasday and all that.
Tsulagi
Thanks, and a very Danistayohihv to all too.
scs
Required? Can you quote the phrase that specifically states that? I think not.
Besides you are confusing “legalities” with treaty or agreement. “Law” requires among other things, codes, statues, prescribed punishments, and, as Gore would say, a controlling authority. Treaties or agreements between two or more countries – are not “law” -as who would make rulings over the broken “laws”, who would decide the remedies or punishments? You are confusing the judical branch of this soceity with the executive branch- and UN agreements are made through the executive branch- hence the executive branch can do whatver they want to with these “laws”.
scs
Damn those underlines.
Anyway – to Krista and others – yes it is pointless to speculate exactly where Berger stuffed the documents, as we know for a fact that there were witnesses at the library who actually SAW documents sticking out of his pants. Read the articles, mystery solved.
TenguPhule
Shorter Scs: I have no idea what the hell I’m talking about.
Shorter Scs II: I look forward to being tortured by Empress Hillary’s stormtroopers.
Tsulagi
Nope, AP made it up. Everybody knows they do that shit.
ThymeZone
Wikipedia.
FindLaw.
Any other stupid scs pronouncements today, dumbshit?
ThymeZone
US Constitution.
ThymeZone
Kevin Drum, best blogger on the intertrons, saves two of his best items for our holiday season.
This one, and this one.
Just something to ponder as you sip your eggnog and think about how completely and absolutely fucked this government is …. and how we have a good chance to disable it starting next year.
Zifnab
So the UN is too powerful but lacks “codes, statues, prescribed punishments, and, as Gore would say, a controlling authority” to enforce their agreements. The UN is useless in preventing wars, but should be given no authority to actively stop them. The UN gave the authority to the United States to invade Iraq by not explicitly stating in Resolution 1441 that they couldn’t not be disallowed from invading Iraq. And it wouldn’t matter anyway because the Executive Office makes/signs/ratifies all treaties and therefore does not need to abide by them.
~wikiwhat!
Any hey! Look! Congress can ratify and certify treaties as well as the President. These, presumably, are treaties that a President can’t interpret any damn way he chooses.
But none of that even matters because this was a UN Resolution, not a treaty at all, and thus no one was bound or obligated to do anything except Iraq itself. Even supporters of the administration admit: “that France’s declaration of intent to veto any military action in Iraq effectively prevented the Security Council from remaining seized of the matter since at that point it could take no action to enforce the standing Resolutions.”
So since it was a standing fact that the UN wasn’t going to allow an invasion, the United States acted outside the UN’s express approval. If we consider the UN to have any power in deligating the “legality” of a war, then the US acting expressly opposite to the will of the United Nations would make the US guilty of acting “illegally” or “against the stated or implied will of the legislating body”.
Thus, the United States entered into an “illegal” war.
Of course, if you don’t give to flips about the UN or any other extra-national legislative body, then there’s really no such thing as an “illegal war” and I suppose everything Bush did was fine and dandy.
TenguPhule
Now, now. We need to give Cheney time to reload Scs’s brain.
At least, I assume that’s why the hose is stuck in there.
Newport 9
And if that’s the case, then Saddam’s original invasion of Kuwait was also legal (or at least, not illegal, if we want to split hairs), and all of Poppy’s diplomatic maneuvering was unnecessary. Since there is no such thing as international law, all Poppy had to do was stomp in and invade Iraq, and anyone who didn’t like it could go fuck themselves.
Mind you, if there’s no such thing as international law, then the Geneva Conventions are null and void, just like Woo and Abu Gonzalez say they are. So there.
Punchy
Chris Chelios can burn in hell, as far as I’m concerned.
Punchy
Oh, please! When they confiscate the ‘lator, you’re screwed. The BEST way is to write, in pencil, the formulas on your fingernails. One lick, then a wipe, and all the evidence is gone, if necessary. Not that I would know, of course. (ducks the lightning bolt)
SeesThroughIt
To me, the best part is the very first comment in the Freeper thread:
The second-best part is this comment:
Yes, Christians in America are teetering on the precipice of being forced to either renounce their faith or be slaughtered. I mean, some nativity scenes got vandalized, for fuck’s sake! The signs could not possibly be more clear! It’s Hitler all over again, except he’s taking out Teh Krischuns instead of Teh Joos!
jake
Another Republican named Denny and ANOTHER case of comupter hijinks.
I smell a conspiracy!
Darrell
Interesting. I recall not that long ago John Cole referring to Atrios as being a “vile jackhole”… which I believe was/is an apt description.
TenguPhule
Shorter Darrell: I hate people who have more sense then me.
David M.
Those guys really are pretty unhinged, aren’t they? Sometimes, I’m afraid to even go over there.
scs
Care to provide a link to that in Findlaw? Because I just searched the site and saw nothing close to that – the closest issue to that they had was immigration law.
You wouldn’t be making up quotes again are you??
scs
Again, it is not about the UN “allowing”. No one elected the UN the government of the world. The UN is a place to make agreement among willing participants. All agreements among people are not law. For instance, I could agree to meet my friend for dinner at 6:00 pm, and if if I don’t show up – I didn’t break “The Law”, I was just being rude. For something to be law- there has to be an agreement to be governed as one entity with a formalized set of codes and most importantly – the ability to enforce the codes. No country in the UN ever agreed to be ruled by other countries in the UN.
This kind of reminds me of the movie Blue Lagoon, where as a child, Brooke Shields was told things by the old guy who was shipwrecked with them before he died, things like, never to leave their part of the island – and when they grew up they started calling what he said “The Law”, and observed everything he said religiously. This need to look for what “the Law” commands in all facets of life I think is definitely a sign of left-wing nerds. They try to look for authority in all things, because they are afraid to make their own decisions.
scs
Another good movie tie-in was Deliverance. Remember after they killed the redneck out in the woods, and the nerdy guy wanted to go to the law- and Burt Reynolds started screaming “The Law??” “Where is the Law? Do you see any law out here?!?” That was a great scene.
Pb
Shorter scs: I can’t read
The Constitution (even when the relevant passage is blockquoted above).Ted
And Brooke Shields farted once on the set of Blue Lagoon too…
Tony J
Uh, Zifnab, I think you’ll find that the French didn’t do anything of the kind. They said that they’d veto any attempt by the US and UK to force through a UNSC vote authorising war on the grounds that Iraq was violating 1441 before Blix and his inspectors had been given the chance to report back on whether or not Iraq actually was violating 1441.
The line that “The French said they’d veto any use of military force” was just that, a line. It wasn’t true. The US and UK couldn’t get UN approval because there simply wasn’t any evidence to support their case. Had the US and UK abided by the terms of 1441 and waited for the inspectors to report back, and if the inspectors had concluded that Iraq wasn’t complying, the French were quite clear that they’d support a second resolution.
ThymeZone
scs: Go to Google and type in “My ass with both hands.”
Who knows, maybe even you can find it.
ThymeZone
In case you haven’t seen it, a fabulous list of Republican malapropisms over at DKos. Had to share. Read, as they say, the whole thing.
In the spirit of Christmas, I invite Darrell, scs and Charles Manson (writer of the nichevo character) to come up with a list of Dem gaffes for us.
David M.
They let you have Internet access like that in prison? What? Are you sure? I would certainly think that someone like Manson, of all people, should not be allowed to post on blogs and chatrooms. Is he really around here?
ThymeZone
Well, it’s either Manson, or the ghost of Jack the Ripper.
Just making a reasonable deduction, YMMV.
David M.
I don’t know what “YMMV” means, but I saw they captured the new Jack the Ripper over in Ipswich. Good riddance. One less creepy killer on the loose. But, are they then going to loose him onto the blogs from his jail cell? Somehow, I have to doubt it.
ThymeZone
Well, they let scs post from a lunatic asylum.
Apparently.
(YMMV = ‘your mileage may vary,’ an all purpose Intertrons colloquialism that generally means, “in my opinion; you might look at the same information and come to a different conclusion“)
Mike
Your
Mileage
May
Vary
demimondian
David M. — The nichevo character was really creepy. Now, this being BJuice, none of us (except John and Tim) can be sure that he wasn’t performance art, but…well, if he was, it’s better-than-DougJ spoof, and, if he wasn’t…he was sick.
David M.
Sorry for not knowing about it, I’m pretty new around here. Who’s DougJ?
ThymeZone
DougJ is the handle of a person who does, and promotes, industrial strength spoofing on the blogs.
I am not sure where he is currently appearing, it’s time for him to drop in and put up a flyer.
David M.
Well, whatever it takes to pass the time, I guess. That does sound pretty funny, though.
ThymeZone
DougJ is a spoof master. We are all unworthy in his presence.
Right now I think he is working on “centrist” spoofing. Centrist in the sense of a Lieberman, maybe. A chronic fence-sitter and go-along-to-get-along type. Somebody you can really deeply hate.
Doug can explain it better.
David M.
That doesn’t make any sense to me. People like that are, by and large, the easiest to get along with. They’re not rabid fire-eaters or spear-carriers for either side, so they’re often more amenable to compromise and reason.
Lieberman himself is the enemy of 50% of the nation and the hero of 50% of the nation, but maybe he’s not exactly the same as the kind of person I’m talking about. After all, he’s a politician, and there’s a lot of self-interest in his “principled” stands. A true centrist wouldn’t sell themselves or their principle for short-term objectives and petty self-interest. A true centrist is as principled as your average liberal or conservative. That’s the way I feel about it, anyway.
demimondian
BJuice is a funny place: not all the posters are who they say they are, or believe what they say they believe. That’s “spoofing”; parody as performance art, for want of a better term.
It occurs everywhere that people can perform pseudonymously, of course, but it’s particularly prevalent here, largely due to the influence of a person who went by the handle “DougJ”. Doug could take almost any lunatic position and make it sound like he truly believed it; most have us have been taken in by him a number of times. (And, yes, that’s part of the joke.)
The poster “nichevo” wrote some truly disgusting anti-Muslim stuff. Now, the problem with spoofing is that parody often involves similarly disgusting stuff — _A Modest Proposal_ is about eating babies, for instance — and the best spoof genuinely looks like the author means it. Now, I don’t think that even DougJ could have written nichevo and been as internally consistent, and, like Herb/TZ/PPGAz, I’m under the impression that Doug’s working on a moderate spoof right now, so I don’t *think* that nichevo’s one of his spoofs.
(Now, if it occurs to you to ask, “Do you think that David M might be a DougJ spoof?”, the answer is “yes, I do, but I’m leaning towards not”. If you are, in fact, DougJ, then, dude, you finally got me — good job.)
Zifnab
True. But (given a fair amount of hindesight) we know that Blix never found any WMDs and never would. Thus, the French would still almost certainly veto a war resolution when Blix turned in his report. This is confounded by the fact that Blix never finished his report because Bush demanded the UN withdraw so he could start Shocking And Awing people.
This hypothetical never happened, and as far as we can tell today, it never would have happened. So the question of how willing the French would be to let a military disarmorment solution pass on the UN floor is somewhat moot.
ThymeZone
At the risk of finding out that I have been had yet again by DougJ and that you are he, I have to say, yes, centrism by itself is not malware.
But centrist politics is, when you are in a divided political context. When the issues are often dressed up in A or B clothing, you have to mostly support your team.
For example, I don’t think any “principled” argument can be made in favor of the GOP’s behavior in the last twelve, and especially the last six, years.
I believe that Bush has done more damage to America than Osama Bin Laden has done, and there’s no middle ground for me on that.
David M.
It sounds like this DougJ guy has really done a number on you people. You don’t know who to trust, or who’s telling the truth when. Did you ever see John Carpenter’s “The Thing”? This seems almost like a similar situation; no one knows who’s a liar, and nothing gets accomplished.
I’m not this DougJ person, but it doesn’t sound like you guys will believe me anyway. I fancy myself a middle-of-the-road kind of guy, but that may not mean anything to you. I voted once for Clinton, and twice for Bush, and I consider myself open for anything in 2008. I’m not sure what that makes me around here, but ultimately it’s just one blog of many, and the Internet itself is only one component of many in American politics.
Tony J
The quote I took exception to, though, stated – more or less – that back in 2003 the US and UK had no choice but to invade Iraq without UN authorisation because the French had promised to veto any use of force. This simply didn’t happen, but this is the second time in as many weeks that I’ve noticed crop up in the posts of people who are usually quite unforgiving of this regime’s habit of lying its way out of tight corners.
This particular lie, after all, was (and continues to be) used by Washington and London as political cover for launching an illegal war of aggression. It’s hardly a minor point in the whole “To Impeach or Not to Impeach?” debate, which is why only blatant spoofs/wingnuts like scs are willing to bring it up.
It’s bad enough that everyone on the Right of this debate fosters a bad case of self-induced false-memory syndrome, but seeing someone I tend to agree with repeating one of the more ridiculous talking-points fostered by the MSM gives me a dose of the raging jittery flux, with most definitely non-sexy results.
Happy Hogswatch to you and to all.
ThymeZone
Well, plainspoken folk usually get fed up with BJ because we tend toward the food fight here.
However, if you are not DougJ, then stick around and don’t be put off by our smartassiness.
Zifnab
Well, the idea behind the repeat of the meme was that even the blindest conservatives will admit (abet obtusely) that they were acting against the intent of the UN. There’s no wiggle room with the “We would have been bombing them in ’04 with UN sanction if we hadn’t started bombing them in ’03 without it” logic. As the arguement revolved around the legality of the war, it was important to note.
But I agree. The MSM and the right in particular just love to villify the French. That anyone insists we had to invade alone because the UN was just too Pro-French/Pro-Terrorist to go along is bullshit by itself. But it does illustrate France’s reaction to US warmongering.
TenguPhule
Shorter Scs: I need to spend more time sucking Dick Cheney and less time trying to reduce the average IQ here.
Tim F.
That isn’t the problem with centrists. The thing that makes centrists aggravating is their habit of 1) fudging real distinctions in order to make both ‘sides’ of a given fight appear equally pernicious, and 2) interpreting point (1) to mean that they are morally superior to everybody else.
cricut storybook
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.