Memeorandum is filled with charge/counter-charges, mostly about that idiot Rush Limbaugh, and I have meetings all morning.
The blogosphere seems less and less relevant every day. I can count on one hand the number of sites where I learn something- the rest are just braying sheep (media bias! media bias! BAAA!) and vicious partisans (democrats cause cancer!).
Consider this an open thread.
Snarky Shark
Funny, thats the way I feel about our democracy. 70% want us out of Iraq, and the opposition party seems ready,nay eager, to enable another fiasco in Iran. Could what the majority in this country wants be less relevant?
I agree with you about blogosphere in general, but its still better than the corporate media. Ann Coulter was on the Today show this morning. At least when I read your site, I don’t have to look at her ugly mug.
Bleecchhhh!
The Other Steve
I learned a great deal reading this. It talks about IED attacks, the countermeasures, and how the attacks change to work around them.
Some of the stuff I’d not heard before. As I was reading it, I figured the braying sheep over at the milblogs would call these guys traiters for relaying information to the enemy. But the point in the article was much of this happened two years ago, and the “insurgents” already figured it out and adopted changes.
Zifnab
The majority only gets one decision, made every four years, and then it needs to sit down and stfu. America selected George Bush as President in ’00 and ’04, therefore it clearly supports everything he’s done until he leaves office. America wants to stay the course in Iraq and invade Iran, and anything you hear otherwise is just a distortion put forward by the liberal media or extreme leftist anti-troop George Soros funded front groups like MoveOn.Org, Greenpeace, and Quakers.
I predict that Republicans will win back Congress in landslide victories now that they’ve seen the attrocities San Fransisco Values Pelosi has committed to our nation’s moral fiber. Hopefully, once she’s out of office, we can have her arrested and jailed, along with all the other terrorist sympathizers and illegal immigrants infesting our country.
SPIIDERWEB™
You really are having a bad day. Got any Valium®?
Some days we all feel like you are.
Yeah, I know my blog site is one you learn little or nothing from, but I can live with that. Well, that’s assuming you’ve ever read it.
whippoorwill
True enough, but you got to admit it’s entertaining watching the wingnut-o-sphere process information. It’s kind of like a truth laundering operation. You feed in a collection of what seem to be indisputable factoids– such as Rush’s transcript of his “phony soldier” remark plus maybe a 100 other instances where he’s said similar things. Then you cycle it around the old right wing echo chamber a few times and walla, you’ve a shiny new version of the truth. Now Rush was only talking about those who claim to be veterans but never were in the military. And what about those pesky transcripts, well a little creative editing might do the trick.
Punchy
This blog NEEDS Iran. Bring on the Persians. Make them fight for their rugs.
Ron
John, I think it’s time for you to let go of Right Blogistan as a source of balance. It’s only a source of humor at this point. If I read your ‘roll right, you still think the right has something to say, or that centrists are onto something.
If it wasn’t for the blogosphere, you’d be getting your daily news from cable. I’d rethink its utility if I were you. There’s plenty to learn out there, just stop reading dumb shit like Protein Wisdom and that nasty partisan bickering and sheeplike behavior will suddenly go away.
James Gary
The blogosphere seems less and less relevant every day. I can count on one hand the number of sites where I learn something…
Yeah. It’s now a couple years into the whole blogging phenomenon, and it’s apparent that there are very few people who have the long-haul stamina to produce and maintain a quality blog.
Fortunately, you are one of them.
Punchy
Looked…not bad at all. Never realized until I saw the heading in like 48-sized font that you spell “spiiderweb” this way. tricky.
PaulW
You seem to be suffering from boredom, from the rut of reading and re-reading the same drivel. You need to get out of the rut, go out, do something, be active in your life! I know! Start a non-profit political committee, get an ad printed that insults somebody the wingnuts worship, and then sit back and let the dough pour in! Hmmm. Nah, that’s been done.
PaulW
I do have a question, there’s been some blogger buzz about Rush Limbaugh’s less savory hobbies, something about him vacationing all the time overseas in a country that’s notorious for having an illegal sex trade of some kind. Is this just sheer leftwingnut fantasy? Which country is this supposed to be? If it’s Cuba, what the hell is he doing in Cuba (well, other than the sex thing)? It would explain where he’s getting all those cigars, but still if he’s operating in South Florida he’s crazy to piss off the anti-Castro crowd like that… And is he doing anything illegal by traveling overseas like that?
Timb
It’s about his vacations in the Dominican Republic…
Let’s just remember the pre-1964 Civil Rights era where a majority of Americans wanted anti-lynching laws and, even, voting rights, yet the American Senate filibustered that idea for almost 30 years. The Senate is by its nature a conservative, slow-moving body. We are witnessing it up close at this time.
cleek
The Dominican Republic
John S.
Basically, it is legal for Americans to travel to Cuba if they obtain a license from the OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control). Licenses are granted for specific purposes, and I don’t think “soliciting prostitutes” is one of them.
The wrinkle is that once an American is in Cuba, they are essentially prohibited from carrying out any transactions (spend money or receive gifts) under most circumstances. One can transact money provided they’ve obtained a license from the OFAC, but again, I doubt this would cover paying for sex.
Does that answer your question?
Bubblegum Tate
Zifnab, Blogs for Bush would like to offer you a full-time position as a screeching weasel wingnut. You’ve got what it takes to be a real Bushbot, son! Well played!
Seriously, though, hasn’t the political onanosphere pretty much always been full of hyperpartisan assholes demanding obedience? It can be amusing sometimes (typically moreso unintentionally than intentionally), but this alleged “blogger revolution” and all the associated “WE are the new media!” sloganeering is a pipe dream.
chopper
well, we live in an era where ‘gotcha’ politics, patriotic correctness and mother-may-i discourse rules the day.
why discuss issues and policy when people are more concerned with a non-profit organization’s newspaper ad?
nobody cares about policy anymore, its all about whose self-righteous indignation gets the most airtime, who can faint the loudest.
cleek
snicker
wasabi gasp
Welcome to the Flogosphere!
Zifnab
Well, it depends on what you mean. Certainly, the internet makes it possible to consolidate an organization. Where as before you had a dozen different decentralized cells of political activity, now you can have them all link up and push at once for some niche issue a hundred thousand people across twenty-three states all care about.
That said, you still need reporters, and groups like the NYT, the WaPo, the AP or Sy Hersh are traditionally the best and most reliable sources of first hand information. So the “traditional media”, in so far as it is a central body of trusted information, isn’t going anywhere. People will still turn to a handful of sources they deem reliable, and blogs – in general – have proven themselves to be somewhat flaky on facts.
But, more than anything, its about trust. The DailyKos already gets over half a million hits a day, so it seems clear that DKos is a central repository of trusted information for a large number of people. Will Markos ever rival Dan Rather as a trusted name in news? I don’t know, but it seems like big “name brand” blogs becoming a staple of news media is in the cards.
Jake
When he returned from a trip to the D.R. Customs found Viagra among his things but the script wasn’t in his name and this wasn’t too long after his Oxycontin abuse came out.
However, the combination of his trip to a country where child prostitution is common (or known/admitted to be common) and the discovery of The Magikal Schlong Pills in his luggage resulted in some jokes that some people wanted to take seriously.
Tsulagi
Since it’s an open thread, Punchy already linked to this in the Rudy post, but it deserves a second ride.
Holy Shit. A DoD Bush appointee in a gay Nazi outfit. She rags on a bunch of visiting British MPs as cut and runners. Additionally she lets them know she hates all Iranians. Guess that’s the official wide stance of the not-gay, not-Nazi in the administration toward Iran.
I thought we’ve been told by Cheney and his boys that Iranians, like pre-freedomized Iraqis, yearn to be set free. Wouldn’t that make them the good guys? Why do Bush appointees in rubberized Nazi outfits hate the good guys?
And people thought Idiocracy was just a movie.
whippoorwill
The wingnuts today are fawning all over their hero S.C. Justice Thomas. Oh yea, and Anita Hill is a half-witted, flaming liberal stooge who got her 15 minutes of fame besmirching the character of the only black psychopath
on the court.
The man actually has a statue of his role model grandfather in his office, this being the loving gramps who kicked him out on the street as a teenager for having the temerity to apply for law school.
srv
Well, obviously the intertubes have not done their job if you think we live in a democracy.
Let me do my part: Every four years you have twice as many choices as they get in Cuba.
Remember, our Constitution is the greatest thing, evah. The powerful executive, Senate, Electoral College, bicameral legislatures, gerrymandering and corporate ‘personhood’ all serve your democratic rights. The Constitution is uniquely gifted in that 220 years later, we are still debating Article II Powers.
HyperIon
compared to what?
on another topic:
i have to post this from rightwingnuthouse.com
evidently Rick Moran has finally embraced his inner John Cole:
this guy occasionally takes a break from his “the left is the problem with america” rants (which go on forever) to sample reality. needles to say he doesn’t like the current reality. he has closed his comments also. i guess he doesn’t want to take the heat from wingnuts nuttier than him. also i wonder how his BFF Malkin is reacting to this.
cleek
and i’ll post this from R.W.News…
their favorite people:
10) Victor David Hanson – 9
10) Laura Ingraham – 9
10) Dick Cheney – 9
9) Rudy Giuliani – 10
8) George W. Bush – 11
6) Fred Thompson – 13
6) Thomas Sowell – 13
5) Newt Gingrich – 14
4) Mark Steyn – 17
2) Michelle Malkin – 19
2) Ann Coulter – 19
1) Rush Limbaugh – 28
The Mechanical Eye
Seriously, though, hasn’t the political onanosphere pretty much always been full of hyperpartisan assholes demanding obedience?
Pretty much.
God, remember “we’ll fact-check your ass?” Or how people treated Bill Whittle and Steven den Beste’s long rants like they were Shakespearian soliloquies?
Outrage endows the idiot with dignity, then and now.
DU
Bubblegum Tate
I did, but wingnuts seem completely obsessed with turning it into an erudite documentary.
I hope everybody’s in the mood for an EXTRA BIG-ASS TACO, now with more MOLECULES!
(This post brought to you by Carl’s Jr. Fuck you, I’m eating!)
Paul L.
HyperIon, you forgot the link.
Stone meet Glass House.
Zifnab
Mmm… taste that? It’s called Just Deserts, Moran. Get used to the flavor cause you’ll be sampling it for a while.
Seriously, wasn’t Moran high up on his soap box jerking off to the Clenis impeachment while he rallied around the Glorious Gingrich? Was this before or after he bemoaned the epic quagmire of Kosavo? Before or after he road DeLay’s coat-tails into Congressional authority?
Dude needs to shut his freak’n yap before someone breaks a foot off in it. If he’s waiting for the wingnut’o’sphere to quit eating its own every time they smell a wiff of dissent, maybe he should crack open a history book – or a freak’n newspaper – and read what happened less than a year ago on the immigration debate. That’s your party, Moran.
srv
Paul L, I can’t wait until your daughter joins a sorority.
Helena Montana
After all, what is there left to do but bray?
srv
FWS: Fluffersphere Withdrawal Syndrome ™. JC should have written a book on that for his peers.
DougJ
The blogosphere seems less and less relevant every day.
I couldn’t agree less. I’m amazed by how many good posts I find. There’s a lot of crap out there, to be sure, but there must be a thousand bloggers who out there who put out a better product than any of the opinion writers for the Washington Post.
NickM
“I did, but wingnuts seem completely obsessed with turning it into an erudite documentary.”
Wait – wasn’t Idiocracy about if everyone was a wingnut? Maybe I totally missed the joke.
OniHanzo
Riiiiiiight. The same Rick Moran who, not but a few days ago, was harrumphing and grumbling about the “We support the murder of American troops” sign that CodePinkers were toting… except, the sign was a right wing Photoshop prank that Ricky fell hook, line and sinker for. And which resulted in the laziest, back-handed apology ever made:
The dumbass.
Tax Analyst
While this is all sadly too true I sense an underlying discontent that I USED to experience when both my college & professional football suffered ignominious defeats at the hands of lesser teams. Since upsets are part of the game (and think how boring it would be without them)’tis ever the lot of the football fan to occasionally have this sorry state visited upon them. It’s amazing how much we invest ourselves in “Our Teams” and just how much it tends to temporarily color our mood and World view. I STILL remember how deflated I felt when the ’62 Dodgers lost Game 3 of the NL to the hated SF Giants…blowing a 9th inning lead and having the winning run forced in by a bases-loaded walk…it took me about 35 years to finally decide that Stan Williams shouldn’t rot in Hell for Eternity for issuing that walk.
So this coming weekend may the Football Gods smile more favorably upon your beloved Mountaineers & Steelers and grace them with the will and poise to demonstrate their ample talents so that they might emerge victorious and allow you to once again savor that special sweetness.
To Hell with all the other fans and their teams…Fuck ’em, right?
Me? I’ve re-tooled my fan mindset and have settled for a state of mild flirtation with the various local teams…when they are doing well I follow them a bit and hope they win. When they suck I cut bait and talk about something else. In return I get a much milder form of elation when they kick ass, but much less despondency when they fall on their asses or get the snot knocked out of them.
So…”Gee, too bad about the Dodgers, Kings, Lakers, Clippers, etc,…GO ANGELS! GO TROJANS! GO BRUINS(for now, anyway)! GO DUCKS!” Pro Football? Do they still play that? No Raiders + No Rams = No Agony, and please, Dear God, do NOT let the NFL deliver a crappy hand-me-down franchise or expansion outfit to my fair City of the Angels. Especially if we taxpayers are asked to deed them free land and also shell out for a brand new, incredibly expensive and eventually under-utilized White Elephant…er…Football Stadium.
No charge for this Analysis, John…I’m not licensed in this area anyway.
John S.
Good lord, I’ve been praying he’s sterile.
Jake
Onward Keyboard Soldiers!
But WTF does “still in books,” mean? Is it a rather round about way of saying “Still in school?”
Tax Analyst
Yes, let us all Bray now…perhaps the Donkey God will bless us…after all, he loves all our asses.
over_educated
Wow, et tu Rick Moran?
I wonder how long before the fluffernutters go swiftboat on his ass for walking off the reservation. On a sadder notem he is Scrooge to John’s Marley. He’s had two more years to forge the chains of idiocy. I wonder if he is ever going to come to terms with what, in the end, he was cheerleading?
John Cole
Look- I like Rick Moran, as he seems to be a pretty decent guy (and is always quite polite when we chat via AOL IM), and I know he really tries to be honest with what he is feeling and thinking, but the fact of the matter is this is about the umpteenth time he has posted something like this. While I agree with his assessment that the GOP is nothing now but religious nuts, Bush sycophants, and some other dead-enders, in a week or so, some asshole (take your pick- Ace, Michelle, Hugh Hewitt, Rush Limbaugh) will make up some bullshit lie about a Democrat (take your pick- Harry Reid, Obama, Hillary, Nancy Pelosi) in which their (again, take your pick- integrity, honesty, sexuality, patriotism) is questioned or smeared, and Rick will uncritically swallow it, bash them for a few days, and then offer a meek apology a few weeks later.
At some point you start to recognize a pattern in all of this.
Hell, go back a few weeks. Any guesses how Rick treated the MoveOn ad? I didn’t read, so I don’t know, but I know which way I am betting he leaned- I bet he felt it was an outrageous smear and that private citizens pooling their money to voice their opinions is WORSE than soldiers dying for no point while their Generals lie about the data being used to keep them in combat forever. If I am wrong, my apologies to Rick, but we have been down this road before.
Punchy
Is it Rick Moran, or Moron?
ninerdave
Blogs, with the exception of activist sites (for example Kos) that pimp and raise money for candidates, have always been mostly ranting from the host. Sure, there are a few where ideas are discussed in depth, but the ideas never (or maybe rarely) propagate beyond their pages.
The blogosphere was never particularly relevant, nor will it ever be.
Paul L.
Speaking of
I still miss the guy who posted these. Do you still agree with these John?
Jack Ryan
Hypocrisy Update
r4d20
Too true. RM’s intelligence is regularly compromised by a real problem letting go of the exaggerated right-wing stereotypes regarding “the left” – mainly that the “radical left” aare the “true” masters of the entire grouping collectively known as “the left” and that the “moderate leftists” are either liars disguising their radical views or dupes who are being manipulaed by the radicals.
A recent example involved the picture of Code Pink holding a banner that had been photo-edited by some right-winger to read “We support the murder of American Soldiers”. When Rick found out that it was an edit-job and not the real banner, he said something like “It turns out that the picture was a hoax, but what does it say about Code Pink that I could so easily imagine them carrying a banner saying such a thing?”.
Although it looks like a giant logical flaw, it actually makes some sense – after all if I found out that a picture of KKK marchers holding a sign saying “We support the murder of Negros” was a hoax, I probably wouldn’t take it as a reason to re-think my position on the group. The editing of a single photo doesn’t change the fact that the KKK has a long and proven record of words and actions consistent with such a sentiment.
The question is Why does RM interpret the words/actions of CodePink as consistent with a desire to see American soldiers die? Code Pink has never said or done anything that comes close to “supporting the murder of American Troops”, so what did they do that made it so easy to believe? For God’s sake, many of Code Pinks members are relatives of soldiers and certainly don’t support the murder of their own sons, brothers, etc.
Honestly, I really doubt Rick thought it out that far. I think he rightfully saw them as indicative of the “obnoxious left” and then let the process of “deduction-by-stereotype” run its course:
(a) CodePink is part of the far left + The Far Left wants America to withdraw from Iraq + American Casualties increase support for withdrawl = CodePink supports the killing of American soldiers because it will hasten the end this war
-and/or-
(b)CodePink is part of the far left + The Far Left thinks America is an Imperialist power and Iraq is an imperialist war + The left opposes Imperialism + the left thinks soldiers are the tools = CodePink thinks it is good to kill American Soldiers because they are agents of Imperialism
Rick evidences the same lack of discrimination seen all over the right-blogosphere. Any behavior seen as consistent with “radical leftism” brands you a “radical leftist” and then you are just assumed to hold a whole host of views perceived as “far left/anti-american”. Anyone who calls the Iraq war an act of “Imperialism” is just assumed to also support the murder of the soldiers who implement the “imperialism”. The idea that someone could see it as “imperialism” but NOT take the next step of actively desiring to see the soldiers get killed just doesn’t seem to be conceivable to them.
Cyrus
I agree with ninerdave. One thing I like about August Pollack is how he so often mocks the triumphalism of bloggers. His targets are on the right, but blah blah the left can be just as bad blah. I mean, let’s try to make a list of actual accomplishments of the blogosphere…
* Hounded Dan Rather into early retirement for a blatantly false smear. (Well, actually, he was due to retire in another two or three years anyway, but hey.)
* Hounded Trent Lott out of the Senate for racism. (Well, he’s still in the Senate. But, um, they got him out of his position of formal leadership in his party. And wasn’t he not all that cozy with the faction now in the White House anyway?)
* Raised a whole lot of money. Mostly for candidates who were pretty mainstream and electable. (That doesn’t mean raising money isn’t important, but it’s not like the blogosphere has resulted in revoluationary politics yet.)
* On the left, raised a lot of controversy and questions about appointees like Alito and Roberts and other horrible people who did get confirmed in the end.
* On the right, fought really really hard to save Terri Schiavo and to amend the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
Did I forget anything? This is not to say there’s anything wrong with blogs; they’re a lot more influential than most other grassroots effort and/or genres of media that are less than 10 years old. It’s just that that’s not saying much.
Bombadil
Don’t know if it was brought up in a thread I missed, but I like the new categories in the blog link list on page 1.
I suspect there are still some entries on there that never signed the Great Online Integrity Pledge, but, what the heck.
just sayin
90% of everything is crap. The trick is learning how to filter.
chopper
uh, saying that a bunch of drunken fratboy-types don’t exactly make the male sex look very good is not ‘obsessed morality nanny’-ism.
John Cole
Paul L, you village idiot, my standards haven’t changed- I still think none of it is anyone’s business. You have seen my stance on Senator WideStance, haven’t you?
cleek
IIRC, the Duke Cunningham case was pushed hard enough by TPM that it got into the MSM. but TPM is more journalistic than bloggish, IMO.
Paul L.
I guess judging the Duke Lacrosse players for drinking, partying and hiring strippers isn’t “obsessed morality nanny’-ism “either?
Good to know.
I had hoped your hatred of all things Republican had not changed your opinion of the “swiftboating” of Jack Ryan.
NickM
The Swiftboating of Jack Ryan – coming soon on DVD.
Punchy
I’m confused. Are you discussing Patriot Games, or Clear and Present Danger?
Zifnab
Does Paul L have a hockey stick up his ass, or is he just a spambot that hasn’t been updated since ’06?
That said, I find it utterly hilarious that Paul can defend Senator Vitter for having wild kinky extra-marital sex because liberals said it was ok for Clinton to do it, even though Vitter himself was leading the charge for impeachment and conviction.
And, last I checked, Vitter wasn’t just getting his nob polished, he was paying escorts to polish it for him. That’s prostitution, Paul. In this country, that’s still illegal, no matter who’s business it is or isn’t. Vitter would be more than happy to see you rot in prison if you got caught doing the same thing. But I’m sure you’ve got a good reason for defending him.
montysano
Whew……… I was just out driving around at lunch. Rush is having a hard time keeping the troops in line; they keep calling in and saying that troops who don’t toe the line are indeed phony soldiers, and according to one woman, “they disgust me”. These folks are cut from the same cloth as the brave souls who attacked women in pink T-shirts and a grieving Gold Star father in DC last month.
As to Rick Moran and the truly phony “radical left” labels: I consider myself to be fairly hard left. There’s really no serious contenders that come anywhere close to representing me. The whole left/right liberal/conservative debate is so corrupted as to be laughable for its blatant inacurracy. Hubert Humphrey and Lyndon Johnson were classic Nanny State liberals. Barry Goldwater was a textbook conservative. McGovern and Gene McCarthy were true antiwar candidates. The differences between a Goldwater and a McGovern were stark.
Nowadays, if you were to remove the Culture War issues like gay rights and abortion, the candidates are indistinguishable, all clustered around a center that is far right of where center used to be. In this crowd, only Kucinich and Ron Paul stand out at all. For anyone, in this age of privatization, to sling the term “socialist” at any of the Dems is beyond ridiculous.
As O’Brien said in 1984: “The destruction of language is a beautiful thing”.
Tim F.
Paul, you are simply mistaken about that story. Ryan didn’t leave the race because Democrats forced him out. He left the race because the state GOP asked him whether there was anything in those papers which could blow up in his face, knowing well that it was a matter of time before the papers got whatever was in there, and he lied to their face. Ryan was pushed from behind.
Tim F.
clarity – “papers” first meaning his divorce proceedings, and second meaning newspapers.
HyperIon
The thing about Moran is that he has a brain AND a heart. But to me he seems blinded by (false) ideology. Over and over he would write about how the left, the left, THE LEFT are screwing everything up. maybe the right was not perfect but THE LEFT, that’s the real problem. it was impossible for me to avoid thinking about NORBIZNESS’ shtick “I AM THE LEFT” when i was reading at Moran’s site (which i discovered here BTW).
but then every once in a while, the light would dawn in Moran’s brain “hey, ya know, we got some real idiots on the right, too.” he hedges that a bit….on the FAR right. i agree that he has several times dared to question right-wing “conventional wisdom”. but the post that i block-quoted seemed to coincide almost exactly with what JC has written lately.
maybe tomorrow Moran will be back to bloviating about THE LEFT. we’ll see. but i’m glad that JC finds a way to be succinct in his rants. i get real flashes of Al Malviva sometimes when i reading Moran. and that’s not a good thing.
chopper
uh, that’s what i just said, dumbass. it isn’t. unless you can explain how criticizing a bunch of drunken fratboys once is representative of an ‘obsession’ or ‘nanny-ism’.
Incertus (Brian)
Well, even though no one’s really talking about Limbaugh here, I made what I thought was a pretty obvious connection over at my place. If anyone’s interested, that is.
RSA
The silliest thing about blog triumphalism, I think, is the occasional claim that mainstream news outlets are becoming irrelevant. Only a tiny minority of blogs, like TPM and perhaps Firedoglake live-blogging C-SPAN broadcasts, are about reporting. Most are opinions about the news (“analysis”, in the kindest light), which would be impossible if someone weren’t actually going outside and finding stuff out. It’s possible that blogs might supplant the opinionating side of the news media, but it’s hard to see their survival in the absence of raw information.
Jake
Only PaulEll would try to assert that having sex in club is not a public matter. I’m calling PETA to report cruelty to jackalopes
But since this is an open thread, WTF kind of dumb ass buffoon would drag Seven of Nine around to swinger’s clubs?
The Other Steve
I’ve met several members of Code Pink, and they’ve always struck me as pacifists. Very much in a Quaker religious sense. They’re all good people, they just care deeply about the damage war causes.
So how do you argue with that?
You demonize them, of course. It’s the only way you can escape from reality… so you paint them as devil worshippers intent on doing harm to America. Or in this case, as wanting the death of US soldiers. By doing so, you no longer have to argue with their true point of view. You have this nice strawman to set on fire.
What I don’t understand is the tactic is so widespread, why more people have not figured out how to compete against it. That’s the main thing I like about Markos. They attack him, and he embraces it.
Face
From the No Shit Department:
Raise? As if they haven’t been considered before?
Digest this:
And this:
So they “failed” their hearings, were ordered held, but released anyways. Uh huh. Bush. Keeping us safe since 2001.
The Other Steve
A pretty pathetic buffoon.
I’d be too busy in the bedroom to ever go outside.
Tax Analyst
Good God, that’s even less germane to ANYTHING than the psuedo-intellectual blather about football I posted above.
Crude, but not something manifested in PUBLIC.
A WHOLE different ballgame. With Ryan we’re looking at his intent to promote his own ego or derive personal gratification in PUBLIC at the expense of his wife’s dignity IN PUBLIC and in fact, intending to offer her up to OTHER’s in PUBLIC on MORE than one occasion in spite of her obvious discomfort with the suggestion in order that he might get his jolly’s by WATCHING. Do you really believe a kinky sexual fetish performed in PRIVATE with a consenting adult (cigar episode) is somehow an act equivalent to even worse than Ryan’s actions?
I will apologize in advance to everyone else for all the CAPS I’ve used here, but I think it apparent that Paul L really needs the additional emphasis pointed out to him.
Zifnab
I think we can all safely agree that the guy who would take Seven of Nine to get swapped at some sleaze club is a flaming homosexual. Or a Eunich. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but those are your only two options.
cleek
anyone here really think PaulL gives a flying fish fart about the facts of the matter ?
Soliton
What is the most fun is to go onto right wing sites and get them to the point where they simply won’t reply to you any more. Then you can say anything you want and they just sit there and take it.
I’ve been over at Humanevents.com and the posters there are a gutless crew. Once you kick their butts a couple of times they just take their ball and go home.
I even taunt them by daring them to go into the lion’s den as I do and they still won’t respond.
A pathetic bunch of blustering poseurs without the intestinal fortitude to stand up to one old man posting on their own damn blog.
Bubblegum Tate
Yeah, that’s one of my favorite back-patting blog-post styles.
“WE are the new media! WE are the voice of tomorrow! WE will dance on the graves of the old media! Now, check out my post about this article I got off the AP wire….”
D-Chance.
OK, I haven’t listened to the DaG (drug-addled gasbag) in years other than a few seconds here and there as I surf the dial… but I do remember some of his favorite deflective tactics.
Montysano, tell me… did he, at some point, try to paint these callers as “plants from the DNC” or “seminar callers” whose sole purpose was to somehow get through the strict EIB screening process in order to make him look bad?
Because the Dag knows all the tricks. He knows liberals like the back of his hand. Yessirree, Bob!
r4d20
The “leaders” are that cynical….. but the followers seem to believe this shit.
I dont think Rick Moran was spewing propaganda – I think his assumption reflected an honest propensity to believe that people who were that committed to opposing the war could/would actively cheer the murder of Americans.
Doesn’t Rick ever ask himself “Where are the fucking Weathermen?”
Compared to the Vietnam anti-war movement the Iraqi anti-war movement has admirably almost completely restrained from violence. If the movement is so infested with the rabid “hate America” left who want to violently take this country down, where the fuck are the bombs, the riots, the “campus takeovers”? WHERE??? Given the almost total lack of violence on the part of the anti-war movement over the past 4.5 years, why the hell is Rick Moran so quick to believe that the movement is infested with the kind of people who would eagerly embrace American casualties??
Did it ever occurs to them that the only reason they could focus so much attention on a nasty ad in the NYT, or Scott Beauchamp, is because the anti-war movement isn’t doing anything worse? In the past they did – to the detriment of themselves and the nation.
This complete disconnect between the actual behavior of the bulk of the anti-war movement and how they are imaged by their opponents, is why I think we are dealing with some deep psychological issue and not cynical political posturing.
No one is throwing pipe-bombs or molotov cocktails, but they will believe that an anti-war protester voluntarily joined the army and went to Iraq just so that he could implement his master plan to undermine the war by writing for TNR. Cause, you know, teenagers are known for their patience and subtle cunning. Its a fucking farce.
My psych101 explanation is “projection” – they support the murder of their American opponents and can’t imagine that their opponents don’t reciprocate – but like all psych101 explanations its probably largely bullshit.
Jake
Oh yes. Even more than sex in public toilets, there’s nothing more gay men like than fucking women in clubs. In fact, gay men are a myth. They’re just straight guys who found a clever way of lulling women into a false sense of security so they can trick them into fucking in clubs. Don’t tell anyone ‘k?
At least until you check out the definition of eunuch and realize that word does not mean what you think it means.
WTF?
Zifnab
Listen, if you had Jeri Ryan as your girlfriend and decided “Nah, I’d rather go to a club with men dressed in black leather and girls in cages so I could swap her out for someone else” this implies that you aren’t actually interested in Jeri Ryan. If you aren’t actually interested in Jeri Ryan, you are either A) interested in men, rather than women or B) not interested in using your penis for anything after all.
Hence, Gay or Eunuch.
rachel
I think he’s suggesting that Ryan took his wife to those clubs because he was incapable of having sex with her himself.
D-Chance.
When you step in it, you would think that you’d step back to get out of it.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10/2/143649/962
Not Limbaugh. He just keeps wading in deeper and deeper.
Now, he’s comparing one of those “phony soldiers” to a brain-washed suicide bomber.
What a guy… the dittoheads must be proud.
whippoorwill
EEE… Ouch!
jake
Ahem.
But you know what? That’s not important any more because the Son of Birdzilla has found another library with Internet access and I need a drink.
Phil
I’m even following the bosses’ orders and posting in the open thread! Look, the fact of the matter is this Limbaugh thing has now reached the point of ridiculousness. The Democrats have now passed a resolution (all Democrats of course, 0 Republicans – can’t you just feel that uniting spirit Democrats promised to bring us!) condemning Limbaugh for something he didn’t say. Votevets, an anti-war group is using a soldier and telling him to condemn Limbaugh for saying something he did not say in an ad.
It’s obvious to anyone who isn’t pretending to be outraged that Limbaugh was referring to real, actual “phony soldiers”. In fact, its so obvious, it didn’t even take a non-apology apology and explanation for what he meant to say two or three days after. What he meant to say was RIGHT IN THE ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT, all for the whole world to hear, read or see.
The Democrats are not stupid and are aware of this transcript. Moveon.org, Media Matters and all the other hack organizations are completely aware of it too. If they know he said “phony soldiers”, then they listen to his show and have been listening to what he’s said since that time, where he calls them on their bullsh*t and directs them to the transcript. So the only conclusion one can come to is this: the Democrats are lying through their teeth. Not exaggerating, or fibbing, or bending the truth, but real, authentic downright lying. Meanwhile, the mainstream media is happy to be their waterboy since they don’t seem to really want to be bothered to actually quote the VERY NEXT PARAGRAPH in the transcript.
And all of this would be fine actually…given one thing. If the media simply admitted it wasn’t interested in objective fact and was going to go along and parrot the Democrats party line (90% of them vote Democratic according to the most recent survey), then the country would be in a better place. It’s the pretend to be objective stuff (wink wink) I don’t much care for.
We know liberalism can’t win in the arena of ideas, so it must resort to making sh*t up about conservatives. On the contrary, conservatives didn’t have to make up the Betray Us moment – it happened, and Moveon was so proud of themselves that they even put it in the NY Times. (Then again, the Times readership is dwindling so fast that perhaps they were hoping no one would notice….but I digress.) Now Moveon is a national pariah to everyone but the Democrats, just as yours truly said it would be.
But yet John keeps telling me the Republicans suck and the Democrats are the grand paragons of virtue. Maybe Andrew Sullivan told him to say that. Fact of the matter is both sides have their crazies (Michael Moore, Anne Coulter anyone?) but the Democrats have a whole lot more. And they love them and cherish them.
Look, its Michael Moore as an honored guest next to Jimmy Carter at the DNC convention!
http://moorewatch.com/images/uploads/moorednccarter.jpg
The same Michael Moore who compared the people killing US soldiers to the Minutemen and STILL proudly boasts it on his website even today:
“The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not “insurgents” or “terrorists” or “The Enemy.” They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow — and they will win.”
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?messageDate=2004-04-14
Who supports the troops again? I don’t really mind or care if John wants to switch parties. If he thinks abortion on demand, high taxes, more government control of people’s lives, one world government, illegal immigration, trampling on the 2nd Amendment, thought crimes laws, nonstop government spending to alleviate every perceived social problem and lacking personal resonsibility are all that and a bag of potato chips now, then good for him. But I do find his daily moral righteousness to be quite annoying. Which is why I post here every now and then. To remind him why not all of us joined his conservatives with a conscience brand, and why we don’t think we should be labeled traitors for not doing so. It’s nothing personal John. I don’t know why you and Sullivan had to make it personal before.
The Other Steve
Jake appears to lack proper perspective
link
The Other Steve
This is kind of funny, considering what set John off was the Terri Schiavo affair.
grumpy realist
Phil, as long as you’re not working off the so-called “original transcript” or the “video” posted by Limbaugh, both which were doctored by him….
What sort of ass posts “proof!” which can be shown to have been selectively edited with a 3 second Google search?
And Phil? When it comes to “government control of people’s lives” I think you should look to your side for that. The destruction of Habeas Corpus, rapid expansion of wire-tapping and other surveillance activities, all the other police-state activity engendered by this “War on Terror”….
I could go down the rest of the litany of strawmen you put up but won’t bother. It’s tiresome and you’re just acting like a bloody fucking troll.
whippoorwill
So are you’re saying Rush does his shows with prepared transcripts and he just accidentally misread that transcript on the air?
jake
Dude, I’m not the one who treated her like an inflatable doll. My guess, Jack wanted to be really, really sure people knew they were having sex. But hey, by being an incredible jackass he provided us with yet another GOP scandal and the amusement that was the A. Keyes v. B. Obama Senate Race. So hats off to the insecure loser.
Speaking of which, is it me or does Phil sound like a slightly saner JWW?
Phil
“I could go down the rest of the litany of strawmen you put up but won’t bother. It’s tiresome and you’re just acting like a bloody fucking troll.”
It could be that or it could be that I put up definitive proof of the Democrats direct link to crazy fuckjobs like Michael Moore. Next time Anne Coulter is invited into the press box next to George Bush Senior at the next RNC convention, you let me know and I’ll tell her to go fuck herself. Until then, you’ve got nothing buddy. But I’ve got picture proof that Michael Moore was at yours.
Likewise regarding Rush, I’ve previously posted an actual link documenting real, live “phony soldiers” as well as directed those here to the comments Rush made immediately following the statement when he referred to Jesse Macbeth.
Nonetheless, Media Matters has taken it upon themselves to lie about the situation. I do not use the term lie loosely either. Lying implies the knowledge that something you say is false in addition to its fall utterance. Both apply here, so Media Matters is in fact lying through its teeth. No surprise really as David Brock (the head of Media Matters and previously a Republican) was a paid liar for the Republicans before he became a paid liar for the Democrats. How he looks at himself in the mirror with any self-respect is anyone’s guess. But in essence, Brock is a well financed liar. That’s his job folks. He’s a pathetic excuse for a human being.
The issue is over the original Betray Us ad. Democrats know the issue pretty much destroyed any hope of trying to lose the war…woops I mean “re-deploy the troops”, and are now looking for their own right-wing Betray Us equivalent so bad that they’re trying to invent one out of fantasy. Unfortunately, we have Google, YouTube and the like now so it’s pretty easy to point out when someone is full of shit.
And Media Matters is very full of shit right now. People who go along with this are frankly just as bad as the perpetrators. You can’t say you don’t have the facts of what transpired – I’ve already given them to you. So you can be a political hack yourself like David Brock or you can admit that this is nothing more than faux outrage. Your call.
OniHanzo
I’ll take door #3, Monty. The one where Rush defenders like yourself put on a 10 act theatre piece all in an effort to change the facts and context to fit your agenda.
Now Rush lays it on mighty thick by stating that when he said “phony soldiers” (PLURAL, numbnuts) he was referring to one soldier in particular, Jesse Macbeth.
Never-fucking-mind that it took Rush 2 minutes after the phony soldiers crack (PLURAL, numbnuts) to lean into discussion about Jesse Macbeth.
Never-fucking-mind that the context from ‘Mike from Olympia’ was that a real soldier is one who is “proud to serve. They want to be over in Iraq. They understand their sacrifice, and they’re willing to sacrifice for their country”, a distinction Limbaugh had no problem agreeing with.
Not once in that entire discussion between Rush and Mike from Olympia is Jesse Macbeth or anyone posing as a soldier mentioned. The context is clearly based upon the idea that a ‘phony soldier’ is one that endorses us pulling out of Iraq. It prefaces the whole controversial comment, Phil. Shocking… but, unfortunately for your crusade, true.
TenguPhule
Fixed.
The original audio clip and transcript and people like Phil still insist that black is qhite.
TenguPhule
I think anyone preferring to have the kind of sex that makes 7 of 9 unhappy when they could be having the kind of sex she enjoys in private is grounds for immediate chlorination in the gene pool.
Paul L.
I find it interesting that the papers got access to sealed divorce records that were sealed and both parties in the divorce wanted to keep sealed.
However the press has no interest in John Kerry’s sealed divorce and Military service records or his wife’s sealed probate records.
chopper
michael moore? wtf does he have to do with anything?
hey look, michael moore compared some middle eastern wackjobs to the minutemen. never mind that reagan compared the mujahadeen to our founding fathers. michael moore! BOO!
chopper
right on, onihanzo. and hence why rush decided to edit out those 2 minutes, to make it look like the jesse macbeth conversation was a part of the ‘phony soldiers’ bit.
it wasn’t.
Cyrus
Judging by the frequent use of “the fact is” and similar phrases, I thought he sounded like a much more long-winded Gary Ruppert.
Jake
It is interesting if you don’t bother to learn that the press asked and both parties to the divorce agreed to have them unsealed.
Reading. It’s FUNdamental.
Paul L.
Wow media matters like parsing. Change it to custody records from the divorce.
Of course it is wikipedia.
r4d20
It didn’t last.
Rick Moran today:
The Dems suck because they are accomplishing nothing by bashing Limbaugh rather than accomplishing nothing by engaging in meaningless condemnations of the Burmese junta.
r4d20
Now I ask you: Thousands are dead in Myanmar with many thousands more locked up or being rounded up as I write this and the Democrats are condemning…THE DEMOCRATS!
If he put forth one tenth the effort to condemn the military junta massacring their own people, he’d be doing his jobs. Instead, his is wasting time on this idiotic quest to get back at Democrats for the firestorm of condemnation that rained down up on the heads of the smear merchant Rush Limbaugh.
Paul L.
The left may not want to discuss Burma.
Also see:
Burma, ‘gun control’ and David Hume