If this country avoids becoming a Franco-style dictatorship in our lifetime, praise be to FSM.
Obama’s 9/11
by DougJ| 94 Comments
This post is in: General Stupidity, Good News For Conservatives
Obama’s 9/11
Reader Interactions
94Comments
Comments are closed.
Will Danz
OK, if they want this to be “Obama’s 9-11,” then Obama gets what Dubya got:
Warren Terra
What could be more similar than a quiet mentally disturbed army major and a loudly vocal, famous international terrorist group that’s already blown up two US embassies and tried to sink a destroyer?
dmsilev
Is it just me, or does Jeff Emanuel look almost exactly like a younger George W. Bush?
He certainly shares Bush’s keen level of insight on all matters of national import.
-dms
Will Danz
Formatting fail above, somehow. Let’s try it more simply:
1) A total pass on any responsibility for the tragedy.
2) Sudden, unquestionable political authority to do anything he wants.
3) License to call anyone who questions his political agenda an America-hating traitor.
dr. bloor
When they turn up evidence of a Daily Intelligence Briefing titled “Hassan Determined to Strike within U.S.” I’ll start paying attention to these asshats.
The real story here is how the Army Medical institution seemed to feel it impossible to get rid of Hassan (or even get him into treatment) even after he established himself as being wholly incapable, probably nuts and possibly dangerous. And here’s the thing: Folks are going to be really nervous and pissed off when they find out that this isn’t exactly a one-time event in the annals of Resident Education and Oversight.
slag
@Will Danz: license to kill says two underscores in each blank line will fix the blockquote problem. Haven’t tried it myself yet.
Why oh why
Actually, not playing basketball with women was Obama’s 9/11. This is his Pearl Harbor.
El Cid
I think we would be fortunate if we were likely to have a dictatorship as smart and sophisticated as the brutal and stupid Franco regime. Given the sophistication of our teabagger neo-Confederate Palinistas, I think we’re more likely to have a tyranny on the level of a Franco-American dictatorship.
John Cole
I’m not sure you all realize how deeply and truly stupid Jeff Emmanuel is.
Leelee for Obama
@Will Danz: Yeah, I’d predict that the entire wingnut wurlitzer would go to eleventy-thousand in a nano-second. Suddenly, every single one of them would be aware of their precious civil rights being infringed upon and how this upstart Manchurian President was not empowered to keep the Nation safe just because of something as inconsequential as winning an election. No one is above the law and the Constitution obviously didn’t mean THIS President when the last administration was crafting the anti-terror policy was rejected in November 2008.
Also. Too.
kay
The timeline doesn’t fit the narrative. The emails were intercepted in 2008, and all of his statements to higher-ups occurred between 2003 and 2007.
Not that anyone in the press will point that out.
Facts are ditched if they contradict the narrative. I think the only remaining question is if the press adopts the narrative.
I think they will. They seem to find conservative fairly tales really compelling. They’re always really dramatic and emotional, and they don’t require any hard work.
It’s a coin toss, follow facts OR adopt narrative, fit the facts, at this point.
We’ll have see what the press decide, I guess. Could go either way.
Joseph Nobles
Um, hello? Anthrax?
Comrade javafascist
From the Jeff Emmanuel piece:
Anthrax? DC Sniper? VA Tech?
At least one of those involved a muslim so I have no idea what their criteria for “terrorist attack” is other than whatever fits my definition to make my idiotic point. Way to go Politico for giving them a forum. I hear some guy is out on the street corner yelling about aliens. We need to hear from him too.
burnspbesq
Yeah, we have to put a stop to all of this “ACLU-ish procedural punctiliiousness.” Due process is an outmoded, 9/10 concept.
With all due respect, Mr. Pinkerton, you’re an ass.
Molly
@kay: “The timeline doesn’t fit the narrative. The emails were intercepted in 2008, and all of his statements to higher-ups occurred between 2003 and 2007.”
You beat me to it. Thank you. This was the previous administration’s timeframe.
I was able to validate this whilst preparing a 4 year-old and 7 year-old for school this morning. Took a really complex tool named Google, and 45 seconds of skimming a factual article, then performing a basic query, “If Obama’s administration spans X dates, and these events happened on a span of Y dates, do the Y dates overlap with the X dates?”
Was pretty rough logic and difficult research, I tell ya.
HRA
@kay:
I totally agree.
It makes one wonder if getting yourself up front in the news equals being over the top in your writing and mouthing the absurd.
Brian J
I love how trying to figure out the exact causes of the massacre means that we are opening the door to more death. Because, really, if we don’t automatically settle on a conclusion that confirm our worst fears and biases, what good are we?
If I am reading their “thoughts” correctly, it’s that by trying to prevent anybody innocent from being suspected of something, we are ignoring real threats right before our eyes. Maybe there’s something to that, maybe not. I don’t know, but it doesn’t look like he does, either. This sounds like little more than a declaration that anybody who might be a suspect is going to do something wrong. If that’s the case, then why aren’t the people who are trying to incite hysteria and violence based on what the president is doing being dragged in and locked up? What’s the massive difference here, besides one potential criminal being Muslim and one being a white guy?
jwb
@HRA: “It makes one wonder if getting yourself up front in the news equals being over the top in your writing and mouthing the absurd.”
Well, if you are Politico and trolling for Drudge links, then obviously yes.
Scott
If this country avoids becoming a Franco-style dictatorship in our lifetime, praise be to FSM.
Right now, my assumption is that if the Republicans get into the White House, by hook or by crook, before 2020, or before stomping the wingnuts back down into their traditional “loudmouthed but powerless assholes” position, then we absolutely will be looking at a Franco-style dictatorship.
The wingnuts want their Glorious and Infinite World O’ Never-Ending Dubya very, very badly, because they really, really want to start killing The Other soon.
Brick Oven Bill
This is a common theme in the current Western Leftist mindset. When a foreigner does something out of social norms, he is called crazy:
NPR: Was Hasan Psychotic?
This is of course arrogance, demonstrated by assuming that the West, by enlightening another culture with our liberal ideals, will make that culture’s people want to be like us, and magically modify them biochemically.
Another example is Octomom, of Iraqi extraction. She is called crazy. All of Hasan’s actions can be directly backed up by scripture. In an effort to not get banned, I will abstain from doing so.
Islam is masculine religion, and was once held in high regard by British occupiers, who viewed Hinduism as weak. Hitler also dreamed of converting Germany to Islam.
Although Islam, in its current form, cannot win, as it rejects the Seven Liberal Arts, these Ivy League types had better be careful for what they wish for. Islam, like the swine flu, can change over time.
Razib is from Iran, and gives a good account of his time in a Madrassa. I highly recommend reading this.
All of this Obama refuses to acknowledge. This is the true mental illness, defined as Denial by Freud. You can also observe Obama’s Denial by his avoidance of contact with Alpha males, like Joe the Plumber (slump shoulders and break contact), or General McChrystal (will not talk with).
Keith
So this would usher in a new (albeit brief) era of bipartisanship and lead to massive Dem gains in 2010? Sure thing, and I a shiny nickel to the first pundit to say “Now *is* the time to play the blame game.”
jwb
@Brian J: “What’s the massive difference here, besides one potential criminal being Muslim and one being a white guy?”
One rule for real Merkins, another for alien lizards, of course.
The Grand Panjandrum
Nothing like a bunch of WATB wingers to gin up the fear. The Fort Hood shooting was terrible and Hasan should be tried, convicted and executed for the cold-blooded murders of 13 people. And I do agree that the warning signs were in place that this guy could be a problem. What problem, we don’t know. If I am reading the criticism correctly the righties want to blame PC military officers for Hasan remaining on active duty? But calling him a terrorist? Is every mass shooting an act of terrorism? If so, then we have had many acts of domestic terrorism since 9/11.
But let’s take a step back and talk about something far more menacing–the unnecessary deaths of 100,000 people a year. That’s right — 100,000 people a year. How? They die from infections they contract IN HOSPITALS right here in the United States. By implementing simple procedures for ALL medical personnel in hospitals most of these deaths could be avoided. In other words we could avoid THIRTY 9/11’s every year by medical personnel doing things like washing their hands.
I’m sick of these pussies screaming and crying like a bunch of elementary schools kids at a scary movie.
Leelee for Obama
@Brian J: The attitude you outline tells us w/o doubt that these idiots have not read the Constitution. Enshrined within that document is the presumption of innocence, coupled with protecting the rights of the accused. All of which is premised on the silly notion that it’s better that 100 guilty men go free than that one innocent man be convicted.
Obviously, the Founding Fathers hated America. Also, Too.
kay
@Molly:
Well, they’re mostly relying on this idea that the Obama Administration takes a law enforcement approach to terrorism ( Dana Perino), and to do that they’re relying on the statements the alleged shooter made to various people at various functions within the Army.
None of that makes any sense, unless the Army reported these concerns to the Obama DOJ, who had only emails, and the emails aren’t enough to do anything with.
The other tangent is this vague idea of political correctness, but Obama hasn’t changed the military approach to their own soldiers, so that’s a non-starter too.
It’s just a big, illogical mess, like all their theories.
Roger Moore
@kay:
When will Obama man up and start taking responsibility? I’m tired of his constant attempts to blame everything on Bush. That the events in question took place before Obama’s election is no reason for him not to take responsibility for them.
Zifnab
The only difference between the Bush’s US and Franco’s Spain, was the fact that Spain is a much smaller country and a lot easier to stomp on with a domestic military.
But the rank incompetence, the cronyism, the fascism, the unlawful detentions… as far as I’m concerned it’s just a matter of scale. That’s it. We’ve done our stint. Get back with us in another 20 or 30 years when the stupid gets more out of control.
But no one who isn’t already completely in the tank is going to take this seriously. The guy was a Major in the army. He’d been in the service for a full blown career. When you show me the “Hasan Determined To Strike America” report that fell across the President’s desk back in March, we can talk.
BethanyAnne
@John Cole:
I LOL’d. I’ve been on the Interwebs far too long :-)
kay
@Roger Moore:
I know you’re kidding, but the weird thing about being President is you can’t really defend.
He’d look like a jerk if he started running dates past us all, don’t you think?
JM
Wow, Obama’s 9-11 is 230 times smaller than Bush’s 9-11.
Can’t Obama do anything right?
SpotWeld
B.O.B.
Shut up
That is all
JM
Whereas Charles Whitman was the very model of sanity.
Fucking moron.
AkaDad
If Clinton’s policies set the stage for 9/11, then clearly Bush’s policies set the stage for Ft. Hood.
soonergrunt
OT–
Australian bomb sniffing dog found after a year of being MIA in Afghanistan.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33876396/
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
And BoB isn’t just detached from reality, he’s also just plain stupid. Note to BoB–
Your ramblings suggest the mental workings of someone who has audited several 100 and 200 level college classes, but not attended full time nor done the reading. Please go back to whatever school you went to and apologize to the professors for wasting space in their lecture halls.
BethanyAnne
@Brick Oven Bill: Dude, no clue if he was psychotic or not, but you are delusional.
Jackie
@dr. bloor: That report this morning on NPR was really scary. By the time your residency director feels you are so incompetent that his only recourse is to ditch your ass you are way off the scale on the incompetent meter. Leaving off scary crazy. The dude was seeing one patient a week? I understand the military is in desparate need of Psychiatrists but if he’s managing one a week would they really have missed him? I doubt anyone can predict who among the disturbed will go postal at work but when this dude asked to leave why would anyone not of jumped at the chance to dump him?
GregB
At ABC Cyrus Nowrasteh is furiously pounding out the script to The Path to Fort Hood wherein a lax president leaves the nation at risk and sandbags the next president by ignoring all of the signs of a pending terrorist attack.
-G
Mr Furious
@Brick Oven Bill:
Yeah. That a guy could rise through the ranks in Chicago politics and eventually become President all while avoiding contact with Alpha males.
Who exactly does he “contact” that ISN’T an Alpha male?
oklahomo
@dr. bloor:
They are probably already looking for the video tape that shows Obama and Ayers working on their next book while totally ignoring the Ft. Hood holocaust. Well, not totally ignoring. They probably gave each other a fist bump.
Cat Lady
The wingnuts have no logic, no coherent arguments, no facts, no sense of proportion, no humor, no insight, no context, and amazingly, no shame.
Like B.o.B.
Napoleon
I would put the odds of the US ending up with a Franco type dictatorship in the next 10 years at about 30%.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
America won’t become a Franco-style dictatorship mainly because there aren’t enough people listening to the bullshit and vulnerable to that bullshit to tilt the country that far over. We outnumber them.
Despite the best efforts of the blogorrheaville crowd to act as amplifiers for the bullshit. This is an important shoe, so if it fits, I recommend wearing it. Amirite?
It’s hilarious to me that Dems are now in the ScaryDoom business just like their republican counterparts:
Maybe we should invent a color-coded “Franco Dictatorship Threat Level” system? DougJ can be the keeper of the daily announcement of the threat level.
PeakVT
it seems very clear that the Obama administration, as well as the military hierarchy as a whole, needs to treat this event as the same sort of wake-up call that the attacks of 9/11/01 provided to Americans — and to the newly-minted Bush administration — eight years ago.
So which uninvolved country are we invading this time? Iran is too obvious. Libya, perhaps?
JGabriel
Classic Edition, Advice to Give Your Opponents:
James Pinkerton:
I’ve looked at a good deal of the so-called warning signs that people are pointing out, and I don’t see it. Maybe questions could have been asked when Hasan purchased a gun in early August, but even that seems reasonable given that he was shortly scheduled for overseas deployment.
.
Leelee for Obama
Made the mistake of wandering to HuffPo, and CNN is replacing Loud Obbs with Mr. Dana Bash. It’s got to mean that someone far worse will get State of the Union on Sunday. The article is hilarious, telling us how this will represent what CNN is all about. Like we needed to hear that. I really think irony is dead.
Mike in NC
Hey, now, he’s a self-styled ‘combat journalist’ — whatever the hell that is (killed himself a bunch of Islamofascists with a sharp #2 pencil?) — plus a proud member of the Red State Strike Force. Why can’t Politico just cut to the chase and publish Beck and Coulter as ‘serious impartial journalists’?
thomas
I know it’s not good to recognize the troll but I’ll ask again again, is it “Thick as a Brick” Oven Bill, or “Bob of Bricks” Oven Bill?
thomas
Damn, that’s”Box of Bricks” Oven Bill. What happened to the edit?
General Winfield Stuck
Bring it on chickenshit chickenhawks. After reading some of the racist drek on memorandum carrying wingnut sick racist blogs this morning and last night, I am about ready for some guns and knives if that is what they want. No more debate with these ugly ass alleged Americans.
FrancoThreatMeter
Today’s Franco Dictatorship Threat Level is Yellow, or Elevated.
Citizens should be aware of the activities around them and report suspicious Franco-style trends to the Blog Thought Police immediately.
Napoleon
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
“We” out numbered “them” in Spain during the 30s. They don’t need a majority just a large enough determined minority or a transient electoral majority (as is typical in democracies) that they use to establish the dictatorship (think Hitler).
Comrade Dread
A few comments…
Someone should be fired for this in disgrace.
I’m very much a 2nd amendment guy, but I find it interesting how for some people (‘Conservative’ columnists), when a ‘normal’ American lone gunman snaps and guns down civilians on a college campus or shopping mall or McDonalds, it’s an act of a crazed individual, a tragedy, the price we pay for living in a free society, and no one could have known that the guy stalking the girl or posting hate messages to white power blogs was possibly planning on snapping, but it is definitely not terrorism.
Contrasted with a lunatic Muslim who commits a similarly cowardly and horrid act on military personnel, where it is terrorism by default, even if the logical application of such a definition of terrorism would make us and our allies terrorists.
Yes, we should be angry. Yes, people should be held accountable, but losing our minds and our reason isn’t the answer this time either.
Strawmanmunny
Don’t know if this has been posted elsewhere but a nice(don’t know if nice is really the word) story about Obama at Arlington Cemetery the other day.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/11/12/2009-11-12_my_solemn_surprise_meeting_with_the_president_at_my_friends_resting_place.html?print=1&page=all
Little Dreamer
Be fruitful and multiply isn’t scriptural enough for you?
Molly
@kay: “Well, they’re mostly relying on this idea that the Obama Administration takes a law enforcement approach to terrorism ( Dana Perino), and to do that they’re relying on the statements the alleged shooter made to various people at various functions within the Army.”
None of that makes any sense, unless the Army reported these concerns to the Obama DOJ, who had only emails, and the emails aren’t enough to do anything with.”
Exactly.
The other find that is exceptionally stupid is this idea that Hasan was an international terrorist. Terrorist cells are not built by taking a phone call from some random member of the U.S. Army saying he wants to shoot a lot of people. They are built on relationships, connections, they’re not going to trust some guy from the United States Military who they do not know and has no relationships to recommend him. Paranoia keeps them alive.
As for the religious angle, I see no difference between Hasan and Army of God and James Kopp, or the KKK, which are all based in twisted Christian theology. Army of God believes killing abortionists is what God wants them to do, and they will be rewarded in heaven. So does Hasan. Timothy McVeigh did not commit terrorism based on his religious beliefs, but he was party to a different belief system that he felt justified his actions. I see far more similiarities between the mentalities of these killers. A fanatical belief system is a fanatical belief system, and a murderous fanatic is a murderous fanatic, period.
And BOB, sweetie, speculating on someone else’s sanity probably isn’t one of your strong points. I’d stick to your theories on women, as a woman, I tend to find those amusing in their ignorance.
JGabriel
Brick Oven Bill:
It’s not just foreigners, BOB. We think you’re crazy too. Unless you’ve got some Iraqi extraction that you haven’t told us about yet.
.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@Napoleon:
Oooh, before I was just worried, but now I am really scared.
Do you think we should stock up on Anti-Franco duct tape?
I like this new fearmongering approach to liberal politics! It will scoop up all the nervous little old ladies into our camp.
I for one welcome our new chickenshit overlords.
Little Dreamer
@thomas:
It’s Crematorium Bill AFAIC.
The Dangerman
Of course it was Obama’s 9/11; we should prepare to invade Iran immediately. Also, since Hasan worked for the Government and was a Health Care Worker, we should stop Health Care reform immediately. Also.
Just Some Fuckhead
I hope we’re eventually treated to a carnival of events starting with Hillary Clinton asserting no one could have known, followed by release of a Presidential Daily Briefing entitled “Army Psychiatrists Determined To Attack In U.S.”, followed by an invasion of another oil-rich country (I’m looking at you Iran), and culminating with Joe Biden and Barack Obama testifying together privately before Congress.
slag
@kay: I’m not convinced that the majority of the establishment press will go for the narrative. Even if it’s exactly the kind they generally lust after. The timing is off. If the wingnuts had conjured it sooner–before the funeral, say–it’d be a different story. But it’s Thursday, and I can’t see the Fort Hood story having the momentum to carry on another week. It’s sad and tragic but not enthralling.
So, I’m betting that this one will die on the vine. In spite of the tantalizing prospect of fact-free smear-mongering that it offers.
Leelee for Obama
@Comrade Dread: Isn’t it remarkable how the tune changes? One can almost hear the scratch on the record, so they can reverse course.
Since I live not too far from Orlando, I just wanted to let you all know that no one is calling that nutcase who shot up the architecture firm on Friday a terrorist, YET. No, he’s a really terrible person who took out his frustration with his financial situation on the Company that let him go 2 and 1/2 years ago! Haven’t heard a single talking-head propose that he should have been purged from the society, even though he’s Hispanic, and therefore kinda alien. Florida, ya know.
El Cid
If we are so imminently vulnerable to the attack of any U.S. Muslim or person vaguely connected to Muslims with access to a gun, where are all the fucking attacks?
Really? One guy shooting a few people at an army base this year? The sniper idiots from years ago?
We have millions of god-damned Muslims here.
If all of these Muslim sleepers and their fiendish allies were out there readying to be shooting us up then the brave right would be shitting their pants in their parents’ basements because you couldn’t go to any school or mall or bank or whatever without being afraid — and I don’t mean ethereally afraid, or a general sense of doom, but urban neighborhoods under gang violence / shot up houses / make the children sleep in the bathtub so as to divert stray bullets type imminent fear.
Those worthless, dissembling fucking cowards, every single one of those rightist pants-shitters who want to rip apart every shred of anything decent remaining of this country because they hated everything about our Constitution anyway, and the notion of our at least trying to be decent and civilized strikes them as all dumb and faggy.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@Just Some Fuckhead:
LMFAO.
I assume that after the daily briefing you describe, Obama would sneer at the briefers and say, “Okay, now you have covered your asses.”
I think we should also start a Army Psychiatrist Threat Level color coded system.
For the record, today’s Army Psychiatrist Threat Level is Yellow, or Elevated.
Little Dreamer
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Don’t forget the ever more convenient expansions of executive privilege.
;)
Cain
@Brick Oven Bill:
Wha…what?! I WILL SNAP YOUR BONES! I WILL WADE IN YOUR BLOOD! HOW DARE YOU SAY HINDUISM IS WEAK!
Hitler? Jeezus. You’re just playing with us now.
cain
Zifnab
@Just Some Fuckhead: And then we get to paint Sarah Palin as a flip-flopping Frenchy and cruise reelection in 2012 amid wide-ranging allegations of voter intimidation and polling shenanigans in Ohio, New Mexico, Michigan, and Florida.
At what point do we get to start chanting “Permanent Majority” and snidely flipping off GOoPers with the phrases “Mandate!” and “Elections have consequences”?
kay
@Molly:
I have to credit the press a little. For this one, there’s a dual track running. There’s the usual fear-mongers on the Right and on cable, developing some bullshit theme with no evidence, or jamming things into a preconceived narrative, and then there’s some solid fact-based stuff being collected in print. I’ve been really pleased with the New York Times, because what they’re printing has the choppy, disparate “feel” of preliminary information. They aren’t writing a “story” or “trying to make sense of this”.
That’s where you and I got the facts, right?
So. That’s encouraging. We’re halfway there.
Zifnab
@Cain: Didn’t Hitler also span the globe looking for occult artifacts and religious touchstones, in an attempt to rule the world through the Black Arts?
I suppose now BoB is going to suggest we start burning witches.
General Winfield Stuck
this cannot be said enough
kay
@Molly:
This from the Times illustrates what I’m talking about, I think:
“The confusion over what happened and the quickness of the military to label someone a hero seemed reminiscent of the case of Pfc. Jessica Lynch in 2003, when the Army initially reported Private Lynch had been captured in Iraq after a Rambo-like performance in which she emptied her weapon and was wounded in battle. It was later learned she had been badly hurt in a vehicle accident during an ambush and was being well cared for by the Iraqis.”
They have not yet determined who shot whom. Fact. Got in the way of the hero narrative, though.
If they learned from Lynch, that’s something.
soonergrunt
@PeakVT: After two wars in the middle east and asia, it’s time to look somewhere else.
If you’re going to send me to war someplace completely unrelated to the actual facts of the situation on a flimsy pretense, can you please send me to the Bahamas or maybe Australia?
@General Winfield Stuck:
As a matter of fact, it needs to be the preface of any response you make, as in “Look, I know that conservatives have a pathological need to shit their pants in fear over something, but I’d like to point out…”
MysticalChick
This thread is full of win! Between the Franco threat level and welcoming our new chickenshit overlords, I am tee-heeing myself silly over here.
Just got one of those dumbass emails from the wingnut relatives on Obama and it took all my restraint to just say “this has already been debunked on snopes.com and it would be a good thing for you guys to do some research before you pass stuff like this around on email.” Mostly, I wanted to just say WTF is wrong with you ignorant idiots?? But, I’m all about love and light and that would so ruin my rep in the fam as the sweet one. But I get closer to the edge every day.
Citizen_X
@Brick Oven Bill:
Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick. Even for you, BOB, this is monumentally stupid. Even for you.
soonergrunt
@kay: The fact of that particular case is even more fascinating.
The original belief that PFC Lynch was the one who fought hard was based on an intelligence intercept of Iraqi radio traffic. The phrase “…Blonde soldier. He fought like a lion before capture” was apparently misinterpreted as “she fought…”
Somebody in intel looked at a list of missing 507th Maintenance Company personnel and saw that the only blonde female missing from 507th was Lynch.
The Bush Administration, desperate for heroes in the war, took the ball and ran with it and hyped up the story. This is not something the Army would do as a matter of course because making somebody famous only makes their life as a POW harder as a general rule.
SGT Donald Walters matched the physical description that the Iraqi forces originally sent to their headquarters. He was executed by Fedayeen some time after capture. The posthumus medals awarded him have been upgraded. I don’t know to this day why the Army had kept quiet about SGT Walters’ undeniable heroism, but it probably has something to do with the whole fiasco of Lynch. By the time that the Army had definitively determined that Walters was the guy, it was 2005 and the war was going badly and the public had turned against it.
soonergrunt
@MysticalChick: Then here is how you handle it, from something that I sent to my uncle the other day:
“I love you guys with all my heart, so believe me when I tell you that the following hurts me more than you:
What in the name of blue-balled Christ is wrong with your brain? What kind of grabastic-piece of shit got into your head that you would spew this racist, ignorant garbage? And by what disease process did you come to the conclusion that you should send this ignorant hateful afterbirth of a mongolian goat-fuck to my official Army email account?
When and why did you go full-metal fuckwit?”
Brick Oven Bill
Hey Citizen_X, from Albert Speer’s Autobiography:
“Hitler had been much impressed by a scrap of history he had learned from a delegation of distinguished Arabs. When the Mohammedans attempted to penetrate beyond France into Central Europe during the eighth century, his visitors had told him, they had been driven back at the Battle of Tours. Had the Arabs won this battle, the world would be Mohammedan today. For theirs was a religion that believed in spreading the faith by the sword and subjugating all nations to that faith. Such a creed was perfectly suited to the Germanic temperament. Hitler said that the conquering Arabs, because of their racial inferiority, would in the long run have been unable to contend with the harsher climate and conditions of the country. They could not have kept down the more vigorous natives, so that ultimately not Arabs but Islamized Germans could have stood at the head of this Mohammedan Empire. Hitler usually concluded this historical speculation by remarking, “You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?”
Jay C
Well, I followed DougJ’s second link, got as far as the title bar:
And immediately figured out that reading the rest of the column would be a annoying waste of my time.
I was right:
I know it is a rhetorical question, but do these people have NO shame whatsoever? Is there NO tragedy they will not try to exploit to try to “score” cheapjack points with the Ignorance Lobby? Guess not.
Midnight Marauder
@Citizen_X:
Disagree.
Leelee for Obama
@Brick Oven Bill: Once again, I must tell you soonergrunt, that your posts are so full of win. Fortunately, I have no wingnut relatives, really, so I don’t need the template, but I thank you for those who do. And it had the added advantage of making me snort coffee on the monitor.
I also read your post in the Afghan post, and you are spot on with all of it.
I voted for Obama, hoping that this would be his approach to all the decisions he had to make. While I don’t always agree with him on some things, the Afghan situation deserves as all the erudition he possesses, and I am validated by his approach.
The visit to Section 60 reinforces my belief that he feels each loss and injury deeply, and I think that’s all anyone can ask.
Leelee for Obama
@Leelee for Obama: Shizzle! I meant this to soonergrunt. Attribution FAIL, big time. And ironic, also. Too.
Citizen_X
@Brick Oven Bill: Le Sigh.
Must I point out that “admired the Muslims” and “wishes Germany had been Muslim–or Shinto” do not equal “dreamed of converting Germany to Islam?” Especially when “reawakening Teutonic/Pagan tribal identity” was a pretty consistent theme in Nazi pageantry.
El Cid
There is simply no rational interpretation of that Hitler quote on Islam’s empires in Europe, posted by the ever-present, ever center of debate troll, which could suggest that Hitler seriously considered converting Germany to Islam.
It was clearly a complaint that Christianity — which he, in Nazi philosophy, clearly considered weak and unworthy of the Reich he would build, which would greatly outstrip religion — was weaker as represented his fantasy German conquering race than other, more warlike religions.
I hope to hell this isn’t DougJ.
Anne Laurie
@Molly:
Or an Air Force general boasting to his troops that America will defeat all the Muslims because “our god is greater than their god”?
@soonergrunt:
Hey, how ’bout Venezuela? They have oil, and the guy in charge keeps being rude to America, not to mention the old-school Rightwinghers would see it as a stern rebuke to those uppity Kennedy micks!
Steeplejack
@Will Danz:
Excellent points.
Alex
The parallels between Fort Hood and 9/11 are both eerie and amazing, right down to the Presidential Daily Briefing issued in early October which warned “UNKNOWN ARMY PSYCHIATRIST DETERMINED TO ATTACK IN US” which mentioned the possibility of Hasan buying guns and going on a shooting spree at an army base.
Which, of course, National Security Advisor James L. Jones dismissed as ‘historical.’
soonergrunt
@Anne Laurie: The point here is to send me someplace where I’m not getting shot at all the time.
The Bahamas will do just fine, thank you very much!
soonergrunt
@Leelee for Obama: Thanks!
Original Lee
@soonergrunt: Standing O.
soonergrunt
@Leelee for Obama:
@Original Lee: The Army does monitor the official email accounts, and they have little patience for racist stuff or stuff that belittles the CinC. Personally, so do I. I love my Aunt and Uncle, but there are somethings you just have to be rude about.
Matt T.
How the sweet jibbering Christ can NotJoe The NotPlumber be considered an “alpha male”? In what universe is that whiny jackass held up as an example of take-charge manliness? What has he done but fumble his 15 minutes and show how gullible wingnuts are? Mother of twelve bastards, that poor dumb ex-beauty queen out in California is getting better mileage out of the nation’s knuckleheads than that fraud.
Molly
@kay: “If they learned from Lynch, that’s something.”
I agree, and I have been heartened by the coverage in the MSM; like you, it was The New York Times where I got the information.
The innuendo is coming from the usual suspects, and I’ve got some relatives spewing it too, doing the e-mail dance of death, the same thing as always. And I say the exact same things I always do, I take Obama out of the equation and present the rational side of the situation, “Now, imagine you’re X, and someone else does Y, how would you react?” “I’d do Z.” “Correct. Now, wouldn’t any reasonable person do the exact same thing?” “Yes, I suppose.”
I try to believe if there was just more factual information in the mainstream news sources, more credibility, maybe there would be some kind of balance, somewhere. A girl’s gotta dream, right?
soonergrunt
@Molly:
Good luck with that.
xian
the whole idea that people praise Bush for allowing only one 9/11 is teh ludicrous