Despite having traveled in General Wingnuttia® for a while, and understanding how they think (overall), there are still some times when I simply can not predict what the right-wing blogger reaction to events will be. Granted, it would be easier if they had a coherent philosophy or worldview, but they don’t. Every day there is a new enemy, every day a new topic to be outraged about, and it is just hard to tell what is going to get them blogswarming. At any rate, twice in the past week this has been the case. Let’s start with the most recent:
1.) Evil Liberal Media v. Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys
Last night on 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl interviewed French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was clearly agitated about doing the interview:
Back in New Hampshire, Sarkozy had lost his temper at a photographer who had followed him out onto the lake. It turns out France’s new president has a habit of letting his anger loose, as Stahl found out as the 60 Minutes team was setting up for an interview at the Élysée Palace. He started berating his press secretary, calling him “an imbecile” and worse, for arranging an interview he clearly didn’t want to do on a busy day.
“No. No. This is stupid. He is stupid. It is a big mistake,” Sarkozy remarked.
“But Sir, this is what the public, the American people are gonna see,” Stahl commented.
“Okay…I don’t have the time. I have a big job to do, I have a schedule,” he said through a translator. “Very busy. Very busy,” he added in English.
After that exchange, the interview got underway.
I couldn’t figure out how bloggers would react (although I was convinced that there would be a collective freakout this morning about the story that appeared earlier on the show about acceptable levels of collateral damage). What would trump what? Is the hatred of all things French worse than the hatred of all things media?
Drudge has our answer:
Voila! I wouldn’t start renaming Freedom fries just yet, but it looks like Sarkozy’s overtures are paying off.
Wake Up America delivers the goods.
2.) Evil Liberal Congressman v. Pussy Defeatist European Power
Last Week, Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), got in a little brush-up with the Dutch:
Dutch lawmakers who recently visited the Guantanamo Bay military prison said they were offended by a testy exchange in Washington with a senior congressional Democrat.
The lawmakers said that Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told them that “Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay.”
Lantos, a Holocaust survivor, was responding to arguments that the United States should shut down the prison, located on a U.S. naval base in Cuba, the lawmakers said. Mariko Peters, a member of the Dutch Green Party, who began the exchange with Lantos, said she took notes of the remarks.
A Lantos aide said the lawmaker realizes the Guantanamo facility does harm to the reputation of the United States and has praised judges who ruled in favor of extending legal rights to prisoners. Lantos has not suggested that the prison be closed.
Before the Guantanamo exchange, the lawmakers had discussed a debate in the Netherlands about whether the country should maintain its 1,600 troops serving in NATO’s Afghanistan operations.
“You have to help us, because if it was not for us you would now be a province of Nazi Germany,” Lantos said, according to the Dutch lawmakers.
How would this play out? Would the wingnutosphere attack Lantos, using him as proof positive the Democrats can not be trusted with foreign policy? Or would the jingoism take over, and they would take the opportunity to stick it to the pussy Dutch over Gitmo? I honestly couldn’t figure out how it would play out. While memeorandum has the complete round-up, Malkin has our answer:
I hesitate to praise far Left Democrat Rep. Tom Lantos given that he’ll probably be backtracking from his comments post-haste. Still, if this report of his remarks is accurate, it’s definitely worth taking a moment to appreciate a moonbat’s brief moment of clarity, however fleeting.
You can see it was a tough call for her, too.
These are interesting times. It is hard to know who is our enemy, and who is the enemy of our enemy and thus our friend. I will try to keep these things sorted out for you.