Andy McCarthy, at it again:
During the campaign, I wrote a piece called “Why Won’t Obama Talk About Columbia? — The years he won’t discuss may explain the Ayers tie he keeps lying about.” So now, nearly six months into the Obama presidency, the mainstream media has finally done a bit of the candidate background reporting it declined to do during the campaign — other than in Wasilla — and whaddya know? The New York Times unearthed a 1983 article called, “Breaking the War Mentality,” that Columbia student Barack Obama wrote for a campus newspaper. The article shows that Obama dreaded American “militarism” and its “military-industrial interests,” while effusing enthusiasm for the dangerously delusional nuclear freeze movement.
From the Center for Arms Control:
From USA Spending:
That Barack- he is just crazy! The real question for McCarthy and the NRO is “How crazy has the Republican party become, now that that discussions of the military-industrial complex (Eisenhower) and reducing nuclear weapons (Reagan) are verboten?”
geg6
John, thanks again for reading these assholes. I refuse to link any more, so it’s good to know what idiocy they are pushing on any given day.
Andy McCarthy is a certifiable lunatic. That is all.
JGabriel
I can only sing in one key: off. The title of this post is a slap in the face! To ME!
And all my tone deaf brethren! And sistren!
.
lovethebomb
I’m writing an article titled “Why won’t Obama talk about my dick?” It’s very important to me, so it’s puzzlilng that Barry refuses to talk about it. What is he hiding?
cleek
and that’s only IT expenditures!
simonee
I, for one, am shocked that Barack Obama had an opinion in college.
Aaron
The horror!
Obama wrote about militarism and the military-industrial (and lets add media) complex. Whew, good thing that is so far off-base, it would be a shame if we had war profiteers who stood to gain billions from prolonged armed conflicts . . . (GE, NBC, Haliburton, Balckwater/Xe, and any number of highly connected defense contractors).
And nuclear freeze, that is so dangerously delusional. A world without the threat of nuclear annihilation is no place I want to live.
Andy is, as far as I can tell, unfit to blog
MattF
Even supposing, for the sake of argument, that Obama had a somewhat-mixed-up-lefty phase 25 years ago– so what? McCarthy’s premise is that political beliefs are permanent and indelible– and that, consequently, any variation in political views over time is evidence of deception and dishonesty. I suppose that might be true for Andy and his NRO cohorts… but the rest of us are ready to look over the edge of the bunker, at least once in a while.
PeakVT
Man, those people who don’t want the world to be blown to smithereens are just craaaaaazy. I mean, think about how much slope time you could get in during a
nuclearnukular winter.MikeJ
Like General/Republican President Eisenhower did?
Attaturk
We should find some of Andy McCarthy’s college works…oh that’s right he’s still writes like a high school drop out.
Seriously, I bet Andy’s fucked up college years consisted of responding to stalking complaints and hiding during “take back the night” rallies.
Englischlehrer
new meme: Where’s the diploma?
SiubhanDuinne
Not entirely OT: Robert MacNamara is dead.
I do not weep.
Napoleon
Of course Andy (at least in what you posted) doesn’t mention that Obama’s article was being circulated prior to the election and that right wing loons like himself were trying to make a big deal about it then.
This is just another chapter in them trying to re litigate the falls election by simply screaming about now what they were screaming about then. They are somehow convinced that one day America is going to wake up realizing that Obama is a dangerous black scary liberal Muslim.
xj-not the car
It would be interesting to see what Gov Palin wrote and/or thought about world events at this point in her scholastic career.
Ash Can
Yeah, no kidding, Andy. Who the fuck doesn’t?
I’m thinking that Andy McCarthy’s personal abode was built via “gifts” from military/Bush admin contractors, and/or he’s receiving generous kickbacks from said contractors for writing articles that cast them in a favorable light. It would be irresponsible not to speculate, right?
And this was the publication that declared its founder’s son persona non grata on the basis of ideological impurity. Also.
Persia
@Attaturk:
I believe that’s listed on wingnut resumes as ‘fought hard against political correctness.’
me
What do you expect? When your only tool is a hammer, every problem is drywall.
The Grand Panjandrum
@xj-not the car:
I don’t think she realized she could see Russia from her back porch until well into to her sixth month as Governor of Alaska.
4tehlulz
@me: Yes, but Andy is a tool, so what does every problem look like then?
Evinfuilt
Eisenhower was the first and great RINO, Saint Reagen is whatever they imagine him to be, a lot like he was in reality. History books are for liberals, real republicans know what really happened, and Reagen didn’t appease, he forced the enemies will, he cracked them like egg shells by merely standing in the same room.
Punchy
Now they’re linking him to drug cartels down there?
Ken
@MattF: Matt@#7; I agree with you completely. When I was in high-school (40 years ago) I was of the “bomb, bomb, bomb, bonb bomb Hanoi” to rubble mindset. WTF was I thinking?! These days, I’ve swung substantially to the left; probably as a reaction to the past eight years, but more likely as part of the maturation process.
Dork
I’m thinking he got stoned at a party at the University of Missouri, and somebody has pics.
Ted the Slacker
“The article shows that Obama dreaded American “militarism” and its “military-industrial interests,” while effusing enthusiasm for the dangerously delusional nuclear freeze movement.”
You gotta be on something illegal to draw this conclusion.
Don’t know about others, but I read that and I thought it was classic Obama in a sense. He seems to agree with the anti-war and anti-nuke student groups’ objectives, but writes as if he is above it somewhat and certainly critical in places of their tactics. Oh yeah, he’s also obviously mindful of the global context of these movements.
You have to be vault copy paranoid to see Obama’s “dread” of militarism in this article. Seriously fucked up, really, which is McCarthy to a T.
Redhand
Ah, hello Asshole, that was 1983, this is 2009.
Fulcanelli
I admire your fortitude John Cole, y’know, by reading these twisted fucks so we don’t have to and then reporting back to the bj commentariat with the real stinkers. Don’t know how you do it.
Brian J
I’m not going to get into the argument that more nukes are bad, because I have very little to say that is greater than conjecture. I will say, however, that McCarthy’s implication that Palin didn’t require as much of a background check as Obama is just nuts. When she was picked, Obama had been a senator for a few years, a state senator before that, and a law lecturer at one of the finest law schools in the world. He had been running a presidential campaign for a year and a half. He had written a few books about his life and beliefs. And he came from Chicago, one of the major cities in the country and perhaps the world.
Almost of that applied to Palin, and what did apply to her was on a much smaller scale. We simply knew nothing about her or where she came from, for whatever reason, to the point of where national political reporters were easily thrown off the trail of where she was and what she was doing when she was picked and the media had to repeat the same few bits of information for days on end. Need I remind everyone that she was picked, what, three months before the election? Even if she was a mix of Albert Einstein, George Washington, and Jesus Christ beneath the surface–and she certainly wasn’t–we couldn’t expect anything less than a thorough examination of her background. It’s not our fault, but hers, that nobody liked what they found once they started digging.
ice9
Effusing? A new candidate emerges for the Buckley–the MLA’s annual award for dumbass ideas draped in candied diction. I remember from chemistry that “effusing” means “squirting gas through a narrow aperture” or some such. Maybe he is smarter than I am.
Though ‘dangerously delusional’ seems like a useful phrase for our times.
Curious timing, too, since Obama is about to take up nukes with the Russians. Wait…maybe it ISN’T about Columbia after all!
ice9
Shibby
In other news Robert McNamara has died. Somewhat relevant to this thread as far as the military industrial complex and all that goes. If you haven’t seen “The Fog of War” you should. It provides some insight in to the man’s mind and way of thinking.
Fulcanelli
Probably for the same reason Bush wouldn’t talk about his post college booze/coke years in Alabama and his AWOL shenanigans in the Texas National Guard. But I digress… Still don’t know how you do it, John.
Comrade Dread
John, in the GOP’s defense, it’s well known that the Defense Department is the one and only section of government that has no waste, no fraud, and is 100% efficient.
sparky
nobody ever asked Andy for his birth certificate either. know why? cuz he’s zombie Roy Cohn, that’s why.
ricky
Now we know those comments Obama made about Reagan during the primaries have deeper roots. But the ties to Ike?
I am crying in my Kool Aid.
Randall
@Napoleon:
I already knew Obama was a black scary liberal muslim, that’s why
I voted for him.
Brian J
Is that an actual award? If so, that’s just awesome.
Brian J
He’s a Jewish boxer from a Hemingway novel? Or Reagan’s gay friend, as played by Al Pacino in “Angels in America”? I’m so confused!
Comrade Dread
You forgot the rest of their fantasy where they wank all over us for being wrong, then lead a revolt that overthrows him, and sleep with Megan Fox.
kay
They’re disappointed. They were hoping for the smoking gun. Obama’s piece is earnest and serious. The last word I would use to describe it is “radical”.
Yet, that’s the header. It’s false advertising. The readers must feel cheated.
jake 4 that 1
RealAmericans(TM) don’t express opinions in college. They drop out and go to a new one!
demimondian
@Comrade Dread: Hey, wait. You mean *they’re* getting our Soros virgins?
Well, at least I can still hope for the check, right?
General Woundwort
The latter. Reagan’s gay friend was also Joe McCarthy’s chief counsel.
Brian J
I know. I was just trying to be funny, but once again, what sounded good in my head didn’t translate well.
Beth in VA
God this is a great post.
gypsy howell
Hmmm… based on a college paper like that, I might even vote for that Obama fellow. But only if he still espouses (effuses?) those views.
John Cole
The sad thing is that McCarthy’s underlying message is an attempt to tie Obama’s desire to reduce nuclear weapons with the “loony left” platform in the early 80’s in Britain. The problems for him with this are multiple: first, no one can credibly argue that we need all the nuclear weapons, second, no one but a few history majors, some poly sci professors, Patrick Buchanan, and shut-ins remember the loony left and Neil Kinnock (the average age of Americans is 37, meaning when all that went down, most Americans were moonwalking and knotting the leather straps in their sperry topsiders and rolling their acid-washed jeans), and third, McCarthy has NO CREDIBILITY on anything anymore.
SGEW
@John Cole: “Credibility” means nothing to these people. Nothing. They are quite literally incredible.
D.N. Nation
You know, instead of begging readers for money on a near-weekly basis, why doesn’t the NRO do a little thinking w/r/t its staff? Andy McCarthy doesn’t offer anything more than, say, Bob Owens does, but Cornfed Yanker could spout AyersAyersAyers for a fraction of the cost.
D.N. Nation
@SGEW: Yup. Not a day goes by when some ridiculous error, easily fixable with a twenty-second Google search, pops up on the Korner.
SGEW
It’s official. Electing Barack Obama was totally fucking worth it. (Live link! Breaking!)
REN
@John Cole
One of the few good things about getting old is remembering things, and times, and being able to discuss them as experience and not history. Funny how often ” the loony left” have been proven correct by subsequent events.
Nellcote
Why isn’t the VA part of the DOD?
Ash Can
@SGEW: I saw that headline-blurb on the MSNBC web site. Directly below it was the headline-blurb “Palinpalooza,” which was a (yet) further rehashing of this weekend’s I-Quit-arod (not my term, but I’m using it because it’s perfect).
Thinking of what could have been nearly makes me weep with fear and relief.
Brian J
So that’s what you were like when you were a teenager.
Davis X. Machina
We must fight any perceived, proposed, or even prospective shrinkage of the national pee-pee.
gocart mozart
Yes, shrinkage of missiles has a certain “George Costanza too long in the pool” sound to it. I think this is central to Andy’s point. Why does Obama favor shrinkage?
blahblahblah
@JGabriel:
I hate to break this news, but the siren song of the politically tone-deaf is more likely to lure we simple-folk into bashing our heads against the wall of stupidity. So, if you’re looking to lure sailors to a euphoric death upon the rocks of Sirenum scopuli, you’ll have to buy an auto-tuner.
va
We already knew about this, yes? Here is the Guardian on it, back in January. They called the piece “a bore.”
DBrown
@SGEW: That is good news (any cut is moving in the right direction) but the loons will come out of the woodwork calling this a terrible weakening of our forces. The truth of the situation is, of course, far different since reducing our two countries over-kill by 200 or so warheads each is, as they pointed out, just getting rid of ‘all-of twenty-five warheads’. What a massive cut in our defense … . The loons and their mouth-pieces in the repug-a-thug party will scream like stuck pigs.
Da Bomb
Well this is good news for McCain.
How utterly crackjaw!
That One - Cain
@DBrown:
You might think so, but holy shit.. getting Russia to allow U.S. Forces to enter Afghanistan through their air space is a fucking diplomatic coup! No need to go through Pakistan at all, they can get a stable beachead without running guns through Pakistan further destabilizing that country.
If anybody doesn’t see that they are fools. This is fantastic. Kudos to Obama for getting that concession from Russia for the exchange of simply reducing warheads that they were probably going to do anyways.
cain
Travis
I also went to Columbia at that time, overlapping with Obama. (I was in CS, and never met him, unfortunately). This article is extremely moderate for the time. Many people were genuinely concerned then that Reagan would start or embrace a nuclear war, and much harsher things were being said than are presented in the article. I can’t imagine why McCarthy think it’s worth highlighting this article. It’s poorly written and edited; but other than the brief bit of editorializing, it’s discussing the views of two campus groups as straight reporting. So, thirty years ago, some students thought there was too much militarism. Boy, you could knock me down with a feather.
I’ve also wondered why Barack rarely mentions Columbia, but I’ve always assumed it’s because he wasn’t particularly happy there. It can be a bleak, unwelcoming environment, especially if you don’t have the background of the eastern establishment. (Which I did not have). My African-American friends did not complain bitterly about the place being racist, but they had some bad experiences, sure.
Wile E. Quixote
I think it’s time to draft Andy McCarthy and send his ass over to AfPak. While we’re at it let’s draft Jonah Goldberg, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Debbie Schlussel, Charles Krauthammer and the rest of the batshit neo-con crew and send their asses over there too. They can serve as cannon fodder, we can use them like a Soviet penal battalion, you know, the troops who advanced into enemy fire because if they didn’t the KGB battalion behind them would open up with the machine guns and artillery. The casualties in the First Wingnut Infantry would be high, but that’s a price I’d be willing to pay.
I really think that the reason that most conservatives are so batshit insane over the military is to cover up their own cowardice. Andy McCarthy, Jonah Goldberg, Coulter, etc, all had the chance to join the military during the Reagan years and they didn’t. Hell, they could have done what I did and join the National Guard and be a weekend warrior. But even being a weekend warrior would have been too much of a sacrifice and too much of a commitment for these losers (plus Jonah Goldberg would have been bounced out of basic training because of his chronic bed-wetting problem). So to make up for their cowardice and laziness they now constantly cheerlead the military, or at least some fictionalized wingnut conception of what the military is (big phallic guns, rough men standing ready in the night and lots of missions where you get to blow up brown people) as opposed to what the military should be (duty, honor, country, under control of elected officials, upholding the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic).
Travis
@Wile E. Quixote: Absolutely. You can also bring in torture to this debate about mindless cheerleading. Even the most amoral arm-chair warrior should have been against torture for the simple reason that anger against torture and abuse of prisoners has undoubtedly led to the deaths of our soldiers. Professional military people like Powell made this very objection, but were hooted down in the Bush administration.
As many others have said, they always seem to think that it’s a movie.
Zuzu's Petals
@Travis:
I read that transfer students do not qualify for Latin honors at Columbia. Is that true, do you know?
The fact that Obama didn’t receive honors being, of course, another source of wingnut snark.
Travis
@Zuzu’s Petals: I’ve also read that, but I don’t remember what the policy was at the time. It makes good sense in terms of avoiding an “easy” summa cum laude: you could get a 4.0 at Occidental, then make a point of choosing your classes to maximize your Columbia GPA and get the latin honors. I never did it, being the type of idiot that went to engineering school; but I do remember friend’s utter delight at taking “The History of Electronic Music”, “Rocks for Jocks”, “Physics for Poets”, etc.
At that time Columbia had quite a few pre-med students, since it allegedly had a high admissions rate into med schools. The grade grubbing was extreme. Then again, GPAs and latin honors are a focus at many places.
The info at wikicu.com/Barack_Obama doesn’t seem too far off.
Wile E. Quixote
@Zuzu’s Petals
A Real American™ wouldn’t want Latin honors. A Real American™ would want Real American™ honors, in English, just like Jesus spoke in the Bible! WOLVERINES!
Wile E. Quixote
@SGEW
Looking at the graph in the article is informative. The US had 5,000 “strategic” warheads in 1960, the Soviets, about 500, proving that Kennedy lied about the missile gap. But think about it, I don’t know what the definition of “strategic” warhead implies in terms of megatonnage but let’s assume that it’s a Hiroshima or Nagasaki level of destruction, approximately 20 kilotons. We had 5,000 of these, so we could have nuked 5,000 cities off the map. 5,000. Let’s assume that we had gotten into a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact and China, you know the godless international communist conspiracy. We could have destroyed 5,000 of their cities, or, assuming a failure rate of 50 percent in our delivery due to equipment failures, bombers being shot down, CRM-114 discriminator malfunctions, etc, 2,500 of their cities, towns, military bases, dams, whatever.
WTF? How much overkill did we really need? At what point do you run out of big targets and start going after, I don’t know, the Great Wall of China, or the Soviet equivalent of the Mall of America just because you can? Arsenals of Folly indeed.
Wile E. Quixote
Oh, and in other good news Robert S. McNamara is finally dead. I guess that this means that I’ll be calling up my buddy Tony so we can go on our road-trip to wherever McNamara is buried so we can shit on his grave.
apistat
@Wile E. Quixote:
Not sure if this is just a rumor/urban legend (about to leave and have no time to research it), but I remember my IR professor mentioning that Nixon, being VP at the time, had access to intel report and knew that Kennedy’s claims about a missile gap were bullshit, but couldn’t call him on it because the information was classified. So he had to just sit there and get beat over the head with it during the debates by some prettyboy from New England. Helps explain a little bit about why he was such a bitter, resentful person.