Two stories. First, a firing in the Walter Reed story:
The Army said Thursday that the two-star general in charge of Walter Reed Army Medical Center has been relieved of command following disclosures about inadequate treatment of wounded soldiers.
Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, who was commanding general of the North Atlantic Regional Medical Command as well as Walter Reed hospital, was relieved of command by Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey.
In a brief announcement, the Army said service leaders had “lost trust and confidence” in Weightman’s leadership abilities “to address needed solutions for soldier outpatient care” at Walter Reed.
***Weightman’s duties will be assumed temporarily by Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, the commander of U.S. Medical Command, until a permanent replacement is found, Harvey said.
Second, some new information about the Walter Reed case:
Top officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, including the Army’s surgeon general, have heard complaints about outpatient neglect from family members, veterans groups and members of Congress for more than three years.
A procession of Pentagon and Walter Reed officials expressed surprise last week about the living conditions and bureaucratic nightmares faced by wounded soldiers staying at the D.C. medical facility. But as far back as 2003, the commander of Walter Reed, Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, who is now the Army’s top medical officer, was told that soldiers who were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan were languishing and lost on the grounds, according to interviews.
Discuss.
Andrew
Without conservatives to break the stupid barrier, we would be forever trapped in a sane, rational world.
demimondian
C’mon, John. You know how the Army reveres Truman’s old dictum. You know, the one he had on his desk:
“The buck stops -here- over there.”
ThymeZone
I can’t comment until I know what Darrell thinks.
Zifnab
Horray for scapegoats! I’m betting I can name one military commander who’s making a healthy donation to the Republican Party in ’08.
sidereal
Hey, get back to your First Amendmant Zone and shaddup.
Kiley’s done a heckuva job.
Pb
Wow, ThymeZone is never going to comment again.
Buck
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
les
OK, stop now. Buck said it all.
Jake
And the spin-meisters shall inherit the Earth.
dreggas
“The mistreatment of
prisonerspatients atAbu GhraibWalter Reed was the work of a few bad apples and they will be dealt with”.– George Bush
matt
John, what do you think about adding a links section for veterans advocacy groups like IAVA, Veterans for America, Wounded Warriors, ect? I can put together and list and email it to you if you’re interested.
Marcus Wellby
Why the hell would anyone get fired? From what I’ve been reading on certain blogs this was all a media conspiracy.
tBone
Darrell, this is your cue to start whining about “BDS” and “leftist filth” and “retards” and sniping at “John Cole, the Last Real Conservative.”
You know, all of the things you do instead of getting pissed at the bullshit our wounded soldiers have to put up with.
Marcus Wellby
Give Darrell a break. I am sure he has a yellow ribbon magnet — how much more Supporting of the Troops do you expect him to do? Besides, if he gets too outraged now, how do you expect him to enjoy the Purple Heart bandaids he will use to mock some veteran in the future?
Tsulagi
I’ll at least give the new SecDef a hat tip.
Yes, that the problems at Walter Reed were known for three years with nothing done is disgusting. Yes, if Rummy and some in the “Only We Support the Troops” prior majority in Congress knew about the problems (pretty likely), it’s just one more example that reality is they don’t give two shits for those in uniform other than what they can do for them electorally.
But, at least Gates on this day showed that if you screw up in his Pentagon during the Reign of the Bush, you don’t always get to fail upwards. I’ll give him that. Sure, the two-star was a scapegoat, but at least it was a big head that rolled. How many did over Abu Ghraib?
jenniebee
Is there any aspect of this war that doesn’t involve cherry-picked intel?
Jill
When will Weightman and Kiley be getting their Medals of Freedom? And, I wonder how the handpicked soldiers feel about their role in painting the rosy, but wrong picture of their treatment? Anyone still think the Republicans are pro-military? Support the troops…bring them home!
tBone
Good point. What do all of those whiney veteran expect, anyway? Individual yellow ribbon magnets for their wheelchairs and/or prostheses? Maybe they should think about what they can do for their country, not what their country can do for them.
cd6
So which do you think did him in? The “inadequate treatment” or the “disclosurse about…”?
In a sane world, it would be the former… but I think we all know it was the latter.
Darrell
Complaints about VA and military hospital treatment of patients has not “suddenly” appeared over the past 4 years, these kinds of problems unfortunately have been ongoing for decades.. so yes, it is textbook BDS to blame Bush for this, as it was an ongoing problem long before he took office. It was a problem before he took office, and will be a problem, although a lesser one, after he leaves office, as the VA backlog has been cut by 20% since Bush took office. I assume similar improvements have been made in other military treatment facilities.
Andrew
Shorter Darrell: It’s Clinton’s fault. Mmmmm, pie.
Darrell
Btw, Walter Reed and VA are massive government run healthcare bureaucracies. These kinds of problems are what all of us will have to look forward to if government runs healthcare.
The Other Andrew
If Bush has improved veteran health care, does that mean that conditions at Walter Reed were worse *before* the current administration, Darrell?
Andrew
I suppose your solution is handing out health care vouchers on the battlefield, eh?
The VA actually has significantly better health care outcomes than private care, for significantly less cost per patient. The VA and medicare have very low administrative overhead, on the order of 3-5%. The main problem with the VA is not the service itself, but the transition between the active military and the VA system.
So, yes, Darrell, we may have to look forward to waiting for care like in the VA, like in many universal health systems. On the other hand, care is cheaper, high quality, and universally available for the patient pool, unlike your favorite privatized system.
The real problem here is the military command, right up through the President. They’ve put half a million soldiers on the battlefield and haven’t bothered to expand their long term health care availability. That’s not the fault of big government; that’s the fault of the fucking stupid morons that you worship to the point of masturbatory fantasy.
Darrell
Things were worse overall in the VA before Bush took office, using the backlog as a guage. Not sure about Walter Reed specifically. Here’s a report from 8 years ago on VA medical facility problems. With government run healthcare, unfortunate problems like what happened at Walter Reed are inevitable.
Darrell
Tell it to these guys
Andrew
They can meet with the 47 million Americans who don’t have health insurance and compare notes.
Rome Again
Uhhh, NO!
Jill
Walter Reed isn’t part of the VA. It is part of the Army. And, I don’t recall having thousands of soldiers for 4+ years returning to the States with severe head trauma, missing limbs, etc.
Jill
I meant to say during the Clinton Presidency I don’t recall having thousands of soldiers for 4+ years returning to the States with severe head trauma, missing limbs, etc.
dreggas
Fixed.
After all it’s the republicans that overburdened this system when they went to war in Iraq and kept moving the goal posts which in turn has resulted in higher casualties but hey who cares that fewer are dying they just return home maimed and might as well be the guy in Metallica’s “One”.
Darrell
Which makes it all the more tragic why veteran’s healthcare was so poor under Clinton’s watch. The VA patient backlog has been reduced by 20% under Bush, despite having a significant number of new patients from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Tsulagi
Lol. And if that’s not enough, then Health Savings Accounts with a swell tax deduction. That’ll plug the hole in you, soldier!
Right on cue, Bush’s man juice repository shows up for comedic relief. He links to 8 year-old Michele Malkin “report” posted on Jewish World Review. Hey, no need for the GAO when you got the always sane and impartial Malkin on the job.
Let’s see, in her exhaustive investigative report she bitches about the windows not being always clean. Country club like VA facilities. Damn, and if that’s not bad enough, “the agency spends more than $1 million a day to sustain unneeded hospital buildings.” Good thing the current admin solved those kind of problems at Walter Reed! Smart. Strong.
Darrell
Hey, at least it would give the wounded soldiers and veterans a choice of where to be treated, instead of being stuck with no alternatives.
shera
Well, Darrell is clearly right. I mean, can you imagine what it’ll be like when private insurance companies get to handle health care for the military? Who doesn’t want to see embedded claims examiners? Who doesn’t want to see medics having to request authorization for surgery to reattach a limb after it’s been nearly blown off? What is wrong with you people?
jg
and as usual doesn’t fund it.
Jon H
““The buck stops here over there.””
I hear it’s been amended to “There is no buck”
Rome Again
What the buck!
RSA
Certainly under President Bush the market for healthcare aimed at victims of traumatic war injuries has expanded rapidly. I can just imagine private companies competing for their business. The profit margins should be enormous, shouldn’t they?
Jill
Darrell, Walter Reed is not part of the VA. The supposed reduction of backlog has nothing to do with Walter Reed. Why are you such a Bush licker?
Rome Again
Less taste, more filling.
ThymeZone
That’s right, Darrell, these kids are perfect candidates for “health savings accounts” since they have no money to save, and couldn’t contribute even a farthing toward the cost of taking care of their leg amputations and rehabilitation.
That may be the most asinine thing you ever said, and that’s quite an accomplishment considering your record of intellectual ignominy here.
Darrell
Who said it has to work for military like it does civilian? I think wounded vets deserve to have a choice in their health care. You obviously prefer that they have no alternative, stuck in a government run hospital with backlogs.
ThymeZone
Let me explain how this works, Darrell.
You want to comment on what I prefer? You start by asking me what I prefer. I respond, then you can comment.
That’s a conversation. This shit that you do?
Let me be blunt: Go fuck yourself. Eat shit and die.
RSA
So how does this work? The government gives each wounded vet some difficult-to-determine amount of money that private health providers compete for? The free market isn’t some kind of magic wand; what we want is guaranteed care for these vets, and this is exactly the issue on which private health care has
failednot yet been successful for American society as a whole. (Ideologues–feh.)Rome Again
Oh, why not? Doesn’t everybody know it’s not so much about how much care the vet receives, but whether the healthcare provider made money on the deal?
Darrell
I love how you libs screech at the possibility that vouchers or other instruments would give these wounded vets actual choices, rather than dictate where they are to be treated.
You see, it works like this. A medical facility that doesn’t take care of it’s patients the way they want to be treated (backlogs, inattentive staff, etc) would * gasp * , actually be given the choice to receive medical treatment elsewhere.
That is an option that all good leftists must beat down immediately!
tBone
Yeah, asking questions about how exactly privatization would work = “screeching.”
Someone should do a study on your amazing collection of pathologies. It could form the basis for a cure for headupassitis.
A1
they should be cat scanning incoming vets for traumatic brain injury.
they should be preparing for significant numbers of ptsd cases.
They arent.
Becouse republicans are incompetant.
and corrupt.
and stupid.
support our troops. vote democrat.
A1
they should be cat scanning incoming vets for traumatic brain injury.
they should be preparing for significant numbers of ptsd cases.
They arent.
Becouse republicans are incompetant.
and corrupt.
and stupid.
support our troops. vote democrat.
Ted
Most of the time Darrell responds to the comments on what he has said. (Unless he’s been shown to be an idiot, talking out of his ass, in which case he’ll whistle by it.)
If you just continue to tell Darrell to, as was said earlier for not the first millionth time, “go fuck yourself” (© Dick Cheney), he usually won’t respond. Might be worth trying.
The Disenfranchised Voter
Heh.
I can’t believe–wait yes I can–that Darrell linked to a Malkin piece as an impartial, let alone credible source. That gave me a chuckle.
Too funny.
Ted
Just wait till he links to Conservapedia.
jake
We could bicker about the meaning of respond. If Person X says: “The conditions at Walter Reed suck and Kiley is a dick,” and Darrell responds by accusing Person X of being a librul afflicted with a severe case of the other BDS, I wouldn’t call that a response because it isn’t relevant. But that’s what makes his schtick so amazing. If you take Darrell seriously (really seriously, not just tell him to fuck off on a fast pony for the fun of it) his posts show the signs of someone who is (at the very least) functionally illiterate, but his spelling and grammar are always spot on. Is that possible? Nah. Darrell is a master of the wind-up. Respond accordingly.
Tulkinghorn
So Darrell-
Your first post was conclusively determined to be erroneous and completely beside the point (the VA having nothing to do with Walter Reed). So you start bickering about liberals not wanting the soldiers to have choice? Like the soldiers should be picking out private insurers from a cafeteria plan? Like the VA should be abolished and replaced with an insurance plan? These ideas have nothing to do with the scandalous mistreatment and medical malpractice our soldiers have been subjected to, so why bring them up?
Why not admit you got it wrong, and just shut up for once? Have you no shame?
[insert short answer to stupid question comment here]
grandpa john
What I fail to understand is why people here constantly let lying assholes like darrell control and highjack threads by introducing irrelevent and inaccurate bullshit. Either keep him on topic or totally ignore his lying diversionary tactics.
grandpa john
So you start bickering about liberals not wanting the soldiers to have choice? Like the soldiers should be picking out private insurers from a cafeteria plan? Like the VA should be abolished and replaced with an insurance plan? These ideas have nothing to do with the scandalous mistreatment and medical malpractice our soldiers have been subjected to, so why bring them up
To change the topic and hijack the thread his constant tactic here
Tulkinghorn
The only way this makes sense to me is if Darrell is being paid to keep this bullshit going, like a Netvocates contractor. No-one is perverse enough to be so systematically dishonest just for the fun of it. Spoofing is fun, but this bad faith, through and through.
Nikki
Though Kiley is currently taking over at Walter Reed, I think it’s only a matter of time before he’s gone, too. The DC media, which is usually less than clueless, has been pounding on the fact that he was made aware of the state of patient care way back in 2003. I think he’s been given a last ditch chance to save his job, but that he’ll eventually be forced to retire.
Mr Furious
grandpa, i’m with you. after Darrell torpedoed the other day’s Walter Reed thread, it’s become clear (yet again)—he needs to be kept on-topic or shunned.
Today’s attempt to make this about privatizing army healthcare? Have fun arguing that with your mom’s cat when she saunters down to the basement, Darrell.
Funny thing is, that today’s topic (heads rolling at WR) follows up perfectly with the only legitimate thing Darrell did in the first WR thread—his link from the military guy wanting high-ranking scalps.
If Darrell actually cared about doing anything but shitting on the discussion he’d have something to say on the matter.
I guess not.
Darrell
Despite the repeated accusations from you loons, I NEVER suggested that the VA and Walter Reed were the same. In fact, I went out of my way to draw a distinction
But in leftist echo-chamber mentality, I am falsely accused repeatedly of making a statement which I never made.. And because I didn’t bother to answer the initial false accusations from Jill, Tulkinghorn repeats the lie without ever bothering to read or think for himself what I actually posted. It’s the kind of groupthink herd mentality so prevalent on the left.
Zifnab
Mildly off-topic
For those of you who read the Washington Times…
For those of you that don’t, but enjoy watching a right-wing organ in meltdown… Wheeee!
Darrell
In other words, you have no substantive argument against a perfectly reasonable suggestion to give soldiers a choice in healthcare treatment.
More groupthink.
Jill
Let’s talk about how the gross neglect of our troops resides with Bush. Even if the military and its support system (Walter Reed) were left to deteriorate by Clinton then why did Bush CHOOSE to go to war?
grandpa john
Watching folks here try to have discussions with darrell reminds me of a couple of old folk addages that I grew up with here in the South,
1. Never get into a pissing contest with a skunk
2. never get into a mud wrestling contest with a pig, you both will get dirty but only the pig will like it.
Mr Furious
Nope. Not in this thread. Have a nice day.
jenniebee
What’s really sad about it is that these threads are most interesting when there’s a diversity of sane opinion on them. Granted, one could argue that when the topic is that wounded vets are being shabbily treated, the range of sane opinion is limited to the question of “which feeling ought to be ascendant: sympathy for the vets, or outrage at the system?” with anything outside of that range being a sign that the person expressing that opinion is so clearly operating from a set of baseline values so far outside societal norms that the only thing to do with them is to pump them full of happy pills and feed them mush.
I miss rational conservatives. I miss them lots. I miss having calm, interesting, discussion/arguments with people whose public policy beliefs weren’t made up of combinations of junk social science and ideological radicalism. At least then, when somebody was arguing against public healthcare, they had the balls to say that it was because they thought it was a losing proposition, that the rate of return on the national investment was too low, that the way the numbers add up it’s more profitable for the country if poor kids die from treatable infections. They had the courage to argue from relevant facts, rather than pulling one unexplained figure out of a hat and refusing to admit any information past that, like Darrell’s backlog hokum*. Nowadays, the real conservative thinkers who do the math and come up with uncomfortable information, information that forces us to really make a choice between what is right and what is possible, have gone underground. Somewhere along the line, they decided they’d get farther if they played some games and argued with spin instead of facts. Now, their opinions get dressed up in schlockery like “health care choice!” to be fed like pablum into the minds of the Darrells of the world, and our discourse is every minute poorer for it.
/rant
Boy, I miss conservatives.
*20% reduction in backlog: Was it reduced by adding staff? by introducing a more efficient way of getting to patients? by making it more difficult to qualify for treatment? by a change in demographics? or some other means of reduction of the number of people who qualify for treatment? If Darrell is going to give Bush credit for reducing a backlog, some explanation of what this administration did to reduce it is necessary, otherwise it’s equally likely that the reduction was achieved through commendable methods, through reprehensible methods, or that attribution of the reduction to Bush is a classic post hoc ergo prompter hoc fallacy.
EL
I do, Darrell. I’m in healthcare (but not in the military) and I can tell you the average hospital doesn’t have one tenth the expertise in these type of specialized cases that military hospitals do.
Expertise takes a high number of cases. It takes surgeons who have done a number of these cases or had extra training, since IED wounds are not the same as your average car accident or victim of the Saturday night knife and gun club. It takes expert prosthetic technicians and physical therapists who are used to working with this population. Trauma centers were established for a reason – because most hospitals don’t have enough cases to have the necessary expertise.
I’ll add that I’ve heard reports of people fighting their insurance companies because they are NOT getting the same type of prosthetics available to military amputees. The newer type are more comfortable and permit more mobility, but are, of course, more expensive. Surprise!
I’ve got news for you Darrell – the insurance companies want healthy 20 to 30 year olds. They don’t want military (many policies explicity exclude injury or illness from military service.) If you’re talking fee for service, they’ll be happy to take the government’s money, but you’d have to create enough centers with the required expertise. I’d bet very few exist now outside the military. And I’d bet even more money that any that do exist build on the research done by the military. Further, the profit motive is limited, because in time of piece, the demand isn’t there. So how many speciality hospitals will start up for a demand likely to last only a few years?
Your answer, without changing the subject?
Darrell
No doubt the irony is lost on the person who wrote both of these statements
and this
Darrell
then they should have nothing to fear in offering wounded soldiers a choice, right?
Situations like WR are different, in that a number of those soldiers were getting ready to return to duty..
Jill
What this situation shows is that Bush could care less about our troops. Once again the up is down, black is white pResidency is showing their true colors. It’s a shame that the voters in this country (including the voting troops) didn’t come to this realization when they could have booted Bush out of office. Nothing has gone the way this Administration told us it would go. Now the axis of evil has proven to be the axis of made up intelligence for all 3.
EL
So the government should divert money to set up an alternate program offering a choice to soldiers to get care that is not as expert? And who will compile information for the soldiers involved as to what is available where so they can make an informed choice? Or do you expect the brain injured soldiers to research it?
Sounds like a triumph of ideology over good sense.
Some were, most were in outpatient treatment that could last up to 18 months. When they were getting their treatment, that is. But the difference doesn’t affect the argument, because the soldiers and marines involved still need specialized care – prosthetics, Physical therapy, specialized PTSD counseling, brain injury recovery help.
Darrell
Oh brother. Poorly played Jill, very poorly played.
Darrell
Unsupported assertion.
And even if it was true, private hospitals would damn sure acquire such expertise if it meant they could make $$.
Mr Furious
The knowledgable commenter states:
The idiot replies:
Completely lost in the equation is the fact that Darrel wants to offer a “choice” between excellent, specialized care and a hospital with little or no experience offering inadequate care for these injuries. You’re a soldier evac’d to Germany and then Bethesda, where would you rather be treated? At the foremost amputee and tramatic brain injury center by experts who deal with this every day, or by an resident at an HMO-determined general hospital that’s never seen an IED victim?
As usual, it’s not about the troops or their care, it’s about ideology and you (or Bush) getting to take credit for offering them a (shitty) choice.
Keep “supporting” the troops, dick.
Darrell
Completely lost on you is that the very source of this thread were reports of crappy treatment of soldiers, not all “excellent, specialized care” as you so stupidly assert.
Mr Furious
There it is. Thanks for revealing yourself, scumbag.
And how will they obtain this “expertise” exactly, Darrell? There is but one source of the types of injuries we are talking about here. Should the army divvy up the evac soldiers coming back stateside, so you predetermined patronage hospitals can “bone up” on their closed head injuries and amputations?
Any thought as to what throwing those injuries into the insurance pool will do to rates for the rest of us? How much money do you suppose it costs to treat these patients? I will bet in a private setting every single soldier at WR would run up a six-figure bill. Minimum.
Just go away, and let serious people have a real discussion.
Jill
Bush doesn’t support the troops. He lied about Iraq, he lied about Iran, he lied about North Korea, he reinstated a General @ Walter Reed who knew about the conditions for the outpatients for 3years and belittled those who pointed it out. I guess he must show his support in other ways but I dont’ see it.
Zifnab
Dude, why do you argue with him? It’s not even a debate anymore. He’s just spouting dribble.
Jake
After attending college with dickheads like R. Miniter and doing time in law school, I can say with absolute certainty that there are people who get their kicks in this manner. The only difference between Darrell and the more tedious variety of law student is he never uses the “Devil’s Advocate,” cop out. But that could be the wonder of the intertubes at work.
Hmmmm. Has any one ever seen J. Assmissle and Darrell in the same place?
Mr Furious
No, that’s not lost on me. The surgical care and, as mentioned above, prothestic care is world-class. The hospital conditions and other issues are the problem. Nobody in any story I’ve read complains about the trauma care they’ve recieved, it’s what happens after.
Mr Furious
“Just when I thought that I was out they pull me back in.”
Yeah, I know Jake. I think I’ve made my point. It won’t get through his thick fucking skull, but I feel better. I’m done now. Darrell can go back to his pie.
Jill
Gens. Weightman and Kiley should be receiving their Medal of Freedom soon.
EL
Since you feel it is unsupported, I invite you to look on PubMed for all the articles on such care, and see who is the leader in research and results. The military hospitals are well known for their excellent trauma care, and that was not the issue raised in any of the publicity.
Darrell, please go back and read my post. The hospitals would not make $$ as I pointed out above – it’s a very short term market opportunity which disappears in peacetime. It takes years to put together a great program. Why would a hospital put together such a program, knowing that they might be out of business just when it was truly expert?
Darrell
Another unsupported assertion.
Darrell
Ok then, lets limit it to the VA. Are you in favor of giving vets an alternative to the VA system?
Zombie Santa Claus
Whichever student is writing you today deserves at least an A-.
Darrell
Then there should be no problem in giving vets and wounded soldiers (the ones not returning to duty) the option to choose alternatives if they feel that their treatment was not as “world class” as it should be.
Keep in mind that many of the best, brightest and most experienced military trained doctors opt to leave the military after their commitment for the higher paid private sector.
jenniebee
ZOMG, Darrell’s trying to get a handle on irony. Irony™ is for libruls, Darrell. But you’re trying to speak my language, so I’ll go ahead and respond in yours:
If you didn’t have a kneejerk where your brains ought to be you’d have some clue about what your response (Blame Clinton, push vouchers) reveals about your moral character, to wit: you prioritize the politics of the poor treatment of wounded soldiers over the soldiers themselves. There is simply no code of ethics or morality in common use today which approves of that valuation. If a liberal commentator responded to this story by talking about how it could be “used” to forward a political agenda (“things related and unrelated”) they would deserve the same outrage that you are, no doubt, delighted to stir up here. Society abhors the kind of base ammorality you have seen fit to share with us here on this thread.
The attention you get here may make you feel all tingly in your tummy and cherry-picking bits and pieces of arguments to which you attach non-sequiturs, unsupported denials, and logical fallacies may make you feel teh smart, but it doesn’t make you right.
Darrell
that is a lie which you cannot support. It’s part of what makes you a moonbat
grandpa john
EL Go back and read my post aout getting into pissing contest with skunks, the point being even when you win, you lose.
You seem to be posting under the delusion that darrell is interested in having an actual honest discussion. You are wrong.
Darrell
In other words, you have nothing substantive to say so you launch into namecalling. That seems to be the norm here for the lefties.
ThymeZone
John, forget about the fact that letting Darrell post here is a fucking insult to everyone who supports your blog. The ship on that sailed a long time ago, we gave up trying to figure out your motive.
Instead, consider the fact that this thread represents the way the rest of the world sees your blog: A stage upon which this asshole Darrell, who is either an insane troll or some practical joke that you cooked up in one of your classes (and if it is, kudos, good job, but the joke isn’t funny any more).
Your blog is now basically three components: The good work of yourself and Tim, the comments, and Darrell. And of the three, take a look at this thread and ask which of them has the most effect, gets the most attention?
Hint: It isn’t you and Tim. It isn’t us.
Is that really what you want? Because that’s what you have now.
All snark and flames aside, seriously, is that what you are after here? Because just twixt you and me and fencepost, it just sucks.
For Christ’s sake, get rid of the sonofabitch, or at least limit his posting.
Zombie Santa Claus
This one’s awesome. I was about to give you some shit for being redundant with the previous post, but this oxymoronic stridency takes it all to a whole new level.
Zifnab
Shorter Darrell: “Finks! All of you Stupid Liberal Finks! You Lie Like Rug!”
Zombie Santa Claus
It’s all about the page views, baby. Money talks, bullshit walks.
Darrell
Darrell wrote:
And right on cue
EL
grandpa john, you’re right. I keep hoping for rational discussion of what I posted, but you’re right. I can hope that someone inclined to believe Darrell will read my post and see the fallacies of Darrell’s argument. Non-argument, that is.
Darrell
Anyone with a shred of honesty can see it’s the leftists here on this thread dragging it into the sh*t, not me
Darrell
EL, you have made unsupported assertions and refuse to address the fact that large numbers of the best and most experienced military doctors leave the military for the private sector.
You can fool yourself that I am engaging in “non-argument”, but any honest reader knows better.
ThymeZone
Well you know, it may very well be. In fact we were saying that very thing two years ago here.
And you know what else? If it is, then fine. It’s his fucking blog, and if he wants page views that way, that’s his call.
But guess what? Those views are at the expense of your time and my time and the time and effort of everyone who posts here. While none of us individually is entitled to exactly winning the Nobel Prize for it, the fact is, we ARE the frigging page views. If you take us away, there aren’t going to be any pages or any views unless John invents a new model for the blog.
Those page views are here because we put up with this frigging ankle-biting endless, relentless stream of the same crap over and over from this character, which has now basically slanted this entire blog into nothing more than a daily contest between this … thing, person, spoof, whatever he is …. and everybody else.
It’s nuts. If page views are the motivation, then sooner or later the strategy is going to fail because people are going to say “Fuck it.” It ain’t worth it.
A lot of people already have. Go back a year and look for handles that aren’t here any more.
Pb
Fixed!
Nope, it’s just more pie! Mmm, pie…
ThymeZone
And just to continue the theme, ZSC, let’s be … frank here.
I’d say about half the posts on this blog are by people on our mailing list. So, we talk off the blog and we do what we do. The other half are mostly reasonable lefties and some spoofs.
But who dominates this space? Whose voice is the relentless, tiresome daily drumbeat of the same weary and intellectually disgusting crap day after day?
It ain’t me, it ain’t you. It ain’t any of us, it’s one persona. One voice.
If this were your blog, would you really want THAT voice to be your logo?
Zombie Santa Claus
Well, at least it’s a good training ground for the spoofs. Spoof University, right here.
You’ve got a point there. There has been a high attrition rate amongst the posters here. But then again, once you’ve gotten bored with arguing with the Uberspoof Darrell and the Unterspoof cadets like DougJ, me, our spoofling-clones, etc., not much point in sticking around. John’s not arguing the right-wing POV like he used to, and most of the non-spoof reactionaries have joined the sockpuppets over at Goldstein’s site.
Pb
Hot Air and Ill-Informed Banter, indeed.
Zifnab
You take that back. I’m not a spoof and I’m certainly not reasonable. Also, I’m right-handed. Can you be any more wrong TZ? Gawd!
Mr Furious
Yup. Some of the best, most thoughtful commenters, too. Many of whom have their own blogs I now frequent. Unfortunately BJ is not what it once was…
Is it all Darrell’s fault? Not, not entirely. That’s ridiculous. Bit I assert the wrench he throws into just about every thread is the single biggest reason.
Zombie Santa Claus
Yeah, that sounds about right. I’d guesstimate that 60-70% of the lefties here are current or former members of our list.
True dat. We get whole weeks where the list consists of nothing but bitching about Darrell.
Well, only if my blog were Scrutator or what have you.
ThymeZone
Yes, but …. look at you and I as examples. Our posting voices here are personas, not real people. I don’t particularly care for arguing with anybody, actually. I argue for the theatrical effect. It’s a form of political addiction coupled with performance art. And so you do, which is why I am telling you this.
It’s not a matter of being “bored” with Darrell. Darrell’s whole schtick is to be boring, be the bucket of water on the fire, be the relentless voice of stupidity. It’s funny up to a point. But after that point, it’s like a stuck car horn. In order to move forward, you have to disconnect the horn because you can’t hear yourself think over it.
It’s not about “arguing” with Darrell, anyway. He doesn’t argue, he harasses, and that is not the same thing as you know. It’s about being tired of the stuck horn. Turn the fucking thing off, or tow away the car. Life has to go on.
Zombie Santa Claus
Well, he did say mostly.
ThymeZone
Bingo.
ThymeZone
I lift my glass to you, sir, whoever you are. You are one of the reasons I hang here.
grandpa john
In other words, you have nothing substantive to say so you launch into namecalling. That seems to be the norm here for the lefties.
don’t waste your time D, unlike you and others Here
grandpa john
to finish my post
I don’t get into pissing contest with skunks.
Zombie Santa Claus
Yeah, that sounds fair. It’s probably also work-related (people losing jobs, getting jobs involving less online free time, etc.), and the fact that this is an election off-year.
I certainly hope that’s the case with Darrell too, though. Assuming he/she/it’s an individual and not an assortment of 19 y/o undergrads. If this Darrell person really exists as portrayed online, he can pretty much only exist in the federal prison system. Maybe he’s on parole, but if he’s been picked up again it’s really nice of the warden to let him have his old posting privileges back on the prison library computer.
I think he’s more tone-deaf than the rest of us spoofs. We can tune it out when it becomes excessive, or when it’s in bad taste (like on a thread about disabled vets, for example). “Darrell” lives for his art. His commitment to spoofing is overwhelming. That’s what makes me think this is a student experiment to see how easily one curmudgeon can disrupt a discourse. 5 years from now, these threads will form the nucleus of the next-generation version of Da Ali G Show.
As a zombie, I can relate to this. A zombie can’t be reasoned with, appealed to, bargained with. It doesn’t feel pity or remorse. It only exists to eat flesh, preferably the flesh of living humans. Darrell’s the same, except he only exists to derail threads and hurl ad hominem invective. Think of it as a computer which is only programmed to execute one function, ad nauseam, until it eventually loses its power source. Then, you will understand the Darrell program.
jenniebee
There’s a mailing list?
If Darrell’s a spoof, couldn’t we at least get an interesting spoof instead of him? I vote for a Marxist Social-Darwinist whose favorite point of analogy is the Crimean War. If he called himself a “student of history” and dug out Carlyle quotes for every occasion, that would be very, very good.
Zombie Santa Claus
Scrutator was fun. Sometimes, I really miss it.
Pb
Alas, poor Al Maviva, we knew him well.
Zombie Santa Claus
Skunks can only squirt a couple times before they run out of scent for a couple days. That’s not true with Darrell. Darrell is the Super Skunk. He’s like Pepe le Pieu with I.B.S.
Sure. If you want to join, it’s cool with me.
Why sit around wishing for it? Make it happen. Write it up.
Comrades, a revolution is needed!
grandpa john
One simple fact, if posters here didn’t respond to darrell trolls, he couldn’t very well dominate the threads could he???
Zombie Santa Claus
Yes, but as experience has taught us, getting the “groupthink” leftists to agree to a unified strategy is like herding cats.
grandpa john
well yes that is true, something to do with the the liberal concept of independent thinking and avoidance of brainwashing I guess
ThymeZone
I will do the monthly drill of putting my email addy on the page pointed to by my URL. Please give me at least today to do that, so you may not see it there until tomorrow morning. It will be in the first text you see on the first album on my page. Just “read between the lines” to divine the address.
Send me an email and we will hook you up. This goes for anyone here, basically. It’s our monthly membership drive. Many of your favorite lefties are on the swell list. It’s quite a good group.
ThymeZone
While this is theoretically true, I think we are a ways off from actually having that kind of discipline. The craphead will always stir up enough stuff to basically ruin whatever thread he is on.
At least for now. Mind you, John Cole makes the problem go away with just a few keystrokes. So keep that in mind while we try to figure out how to get three dozen people to ignore a fly buzzing in their faces all day.
Darrell
Compilation of posts on this thread from “grandpa john”. Pure 100% personal attacks. No attempt to add substance, just dragging the thread into sh*t, flaunting his mental illness
Like Michael Savage says, liberalism is a mental disorder.
Faux News
Darrell please tell us more on how the VA hospitals are run on Mars and Venus. Thanks for your insight.
Jill
Yes, and more words of wisdom from Michael Savage!
grandpa john
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA give it up D,I don’t play your stupid little games
Lee
OK, guys, lets just stop responding to this Darrell. His purpose is to disrupt normative conversation here, and nothing more. You are not arguing with someone who can be convinced, or even someone who believes in anything beyond what he is told to do. In fact, I tend to believe that ‘Darrell’ is not one man, as ‘his’ writing style changes day to day, but rather that ‘he’ is a team of men and women who are disseminating bull, dishonest arguments and disinformation in order to keep us from having a real conversation that might get anything done. The “unsupported argument” comments earlier today are only the latest example of these inconsistencies in ‘his’ style. In other words, ‘he’ is getting paid to rile us up, so lets be sure he goes out of business. This site represents the possible left-right nexus that status-quo types might be assumed to fear the most, so I am not surprised by this behavior, but we have to stop playing into it.
It is worth remembering that being on a mission to kill any useful conversation is rather like being on a mission to kill any cute puppy you find. Indeed, it is worse, for a society could survive without cute puppy dogs, but I don’t think it can without a national conversation. This is indeed exactly what Jesus was talking about when he warned against “Sowing the Wind”. This is my message to you, team ‘Darrell’, deep in the bowels of the AEI or wherever you are. Whirlwinds are indiscriminate when they grow, and if you think you can hide from what you are creating you are wrong. I don’t know about where you are, but the wind is howling outside ’round here.
Darrell
A chill wind is blowing…
Gex
And to prove there is no end to the insult this Administration and the military brass will inflict on the troops – honorably discharged wounded soldiers are being asked to pay back their enlistment bonuses.
Soldiers being asked to pay back bonuses
EL
We could do what some other sites do – when Darrell posts, reply with recipes.
Darrell
You loons are really and truly delusional, aren’t you? This site represents a “left-right nexus” that the status quo “fears most”? Like killing puppies?
BBWWHHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Spoofers couldn’t improve the material from what leftists give on this site. It’s too rich.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Funny you should say that, since most of these spoofers seem to be copying you.