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You are here: Home / Politics / Republican Stupidity / In What Respect, Charlie?

In What Respect, Charlie?

by John Cole|  December 10, 20094:33 pm| 59 Comments

This post is in: Republican Stupidity, Bring on the Brawndo!

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No wonder they support Palin so much. Much like their goddess, they don’t know what the Bush doctrine is, either:

palinnation1

palinnation2

The Bush doctrine isn’t about the President unilaterally defending the country. The problem with the Bush doctrine is that it upended years of practice and established a policy of preventive war, which means that it is just kosher to invade anyone you perceive as a threat, so long as you can get five Weekly Standard interns together in the Office of Special Plans to agree a country was a threat and needed to be invaded because they might do something to us one day. Or Saddam looked at us funny.

No wonder these guys love Palin. It’s the blind leading the stupid.

And while we are at it, let me remind you all that Bill Kristol is still on the Washington Post payroll but they didn’t have the funds for Dan Froomkin.

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Reader Interactions

59Comments

  1. 1.

    Cain

    December 10, 2009 at 4:38 pm

    Actually, I thought the Bush Doctrine was “America Fuck Yeah!”

    cain

  2. 2.

    geg6

    December 10, 2009 at 4:39 pm

    As I said earlier…

    I hate this fucking country. I used to love it, but that seems a dim memory now.

  3. 3.

    Joe Beese

    December 10, 2009 at 4:40 pm

    The Obama Doctrine is apparently “You can kill thousands of civilians to eliminate less than 100 men threatening you”.

  4. 4.

    GReynoldsCT00

    December 10, 2009 at 4:41 pm

    @Cain:

    Obligatory “WOLVERINES!” reference here

  5. 5.

    GReynoldsCT00

    December 10, 2009 at 4:41 pm

    @Cain:

    And “WOLVERINES” also too

  6. 6.

    Redshirt

    December 10, 2009 at 4:42 pm

    If Obama keeps this up, the RNC will be full throated DFH in a few years, against all wars. Yay!

  7. 7.

    Cain

    December 10, 2009 at 4:46 pm

    Hey.. I lost my edit buttons… Son of a…

    cain

  8. 8.

    burnspbesq

    December 10, 2009 at 4:46 pm

    And while we are at it, let me remind you all that Bill Kristol is still on the Washington Post payroll but they didn’t have the funds for Dan Froomkin.

    You’re full of good news today, arentcha?

  9. 9.

    Cain

    December 10, 2009 at 4:47 pm

    @geg6:

    I hate this fucking country. I used to love it, but that seems a dim memory now.

    I still love my country. It is easy to hate when through the filter of the MSM/political blogs however. But I still see some awesome people I work and interact with one a daily basis.

    cain

  10. 10.

    Ash

    December 10, 2009 at 4:49 pm

    @geg6:

    I hate this fucking country. I used to love it, but that seems a dim memory now.

    That’s kind of an extreme position to take just because some asshats run the news.

  11. 11.

    Zifnab

    December 10, 2009 at 4:50 pm

    The Bush doctrine isn’t about the President unilaterally defending the country. The problem with the Bush doctrine is that it upended years of practice and established a policy of preventive war…

    Nooooooooooo! Just like Bush! Just like Bush!

    Two legs better!

  12. 12.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    December 10, 2009 at 4:50 pm

    There’s a lot of reasons for this, but a lot of people just thought Obama would act like a DFH, pull all the troops home, and start requiring the DoD to do bake sales to raise money. See @Joe Beese.

  13. 13.

    asiangrrlMN

    December 10, 2009 at 4:52 pm

    Eh, I don’t love the country, nor do I hate it. The people within it, on the other hand….

    And, goddamn it, but if that’s all they got from Obama’s speech, then they need to, in the words of Alan Grayson, STFU.

  14. 14.

    geg6

    December 10, 2009 at 4:52 pm

    @Cain:

    Okay, I’ll amend my statement. Because you’re right. I hate this fucking country, all except the teeny, tiny shrinking minority of people who still understand what it was supposed to be, Balloon Juice, most of my family, and a couple of my co-workers (but certainly not all).

    As for the rest of it, I hate this fucking country.

  15. 15.

    BFR

    December 10, 2009 at 4:52 pm

    And while we are at it, let me remind you all that Bill Kristol is still on the Washington Post payroll but they didn’t have the funds for Dan Froomkin.

    Every time you link to the Post, God kills a puppy.

  16. 16.

    General Winfield Stuck

    December 10, 2009 at 4:53 pm

    This is the continued damage to our national pysche wrought by hours and hours of neo con bullshit shoved down the publics throat with a “you’re gonna die, if you don’t swallow our swill” chaser.

    And intellectually lazy pundits and anchors are doing their best to see that a return to sanity takes as long as possible.

    Pre-emptive war has always been on the books for countries who can make a convincing case another country or group of peoples is getting ready to attack it.

    Preventive war is the orgasm of war mongers who like throwing their weight around to lengthen their little peckers, so long as others do the fighting, killing, and dying. And Chinese loan sharks foot the bill.

    A few public hangings of neo con war criminals could be faster cure, if I wasn’t opposed to the death penalty. Though a libtard can still dream, can’t he?.

  17. 17.

    geg6

    December 10, 2009 at 4:54 pm

    @Ash:

    It may have been just a slight exaggeration on my part. But just a slight one.

  18. 18.

    Kryptik

    December 10, 2009 at 4:56 pm

    For all my premature cynicism (I’m in my mid-20s, and I feel like I should be in a rocking chair with a cane with the way I need to rant constantly), I still love America.

    The big caveat is that I adore America the ideal. The America that Captain America stands for. The one where all are promised ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’, ‘freedom of expression’, ‘all men are created equal’. That America.

    I’ve grown to utterly loathe the paper mache facade of America that’s been built up by crooked fuckers in the government, mendacious so-called ‘journalists’ in the media whose prime style influence comes from the National Enquirer and Star Magazine, and the religious fundies who, for all their harping about the ‘word of god’ and ‘Jesus’ completely miss the spirit of what Jesus preached, becoming Modern Day Pharisees without any sort of irony.

    And I honestly don’t know if we can ever get within field goal distance of living up to the ideal of America anymore, since so many are so content with the “Brutal God”, “Old Testament” America.

  19. 19.

    PeakVT

    December 10, 2009 at 4:58 pm

    I like my country all right, but I am really, really, really tired of it’s government doing so many stupid things.

  20. 20.

    Lev

    December 10, 2009 at 4:58 pm

    My favorite is when the wingnuts start saying that liberals want to make it so that we have to get permission from the U.N. to protect America.

    In the real world, the U.N. charter explicitly allows wars in self-defense, though not “anticipatory” self-defense. Evidently most countries aren’t swayed by other countries’ nationalist arguments. Shocking.

  21. 21.

    dr. bloor

    December 10, 2009 at 4:59 pm

    Howie Kurtz was on NPR tonight, too, reminding us that Obama is also just like Bush becuz he acknowledged that “EVIL!” exists in the world in his speech today.

    As if none of us had ever heard of Dick Cheney.

  22. 22.

    srv

    December 10, 2009 at 4:59 pm

    Kagan is still wiping his pants off:

    I don’t know what to say about an “Obama doctrine,” because based on this speech, I think we are witnessing a substantial shift, back in the direction of a more muscular moralism, a la, Truman, Reagan. the emphasis on military power, war for just causes, and moral principles recalls Theoedore Roosevelt’s phrase, “the just man armed.” There is something much more quintessentially American and traditional about this speech, compared to most of his rhetorical approach throughout the year.

    http://harpers.org/archive/2009/12/hbc-90006209

  23. 23.

    Comrade Dread

    December 10, 2009 at 5:00 pm

    Most people out there don’t understand what the Bush doctrine really means and how radical it was/is.

    It’s the difference between saying:

    I shot my neighbor because he was climbing through my window with a gun in the middle of the night

    and

    I shot my neighbor because we don’t like each other and he might one day go buy a gun and might at some future point climb into my window and shoot my family.

  24. 24.

    Max

    December 10, 2009 at 5:01 pm

    @geg6: Perhaps you feel extreme because Michael won Top Chef last night?

    It makes me pretty aggro too.

  25. 25.

    tripletee

    December 10, 2009 at 5:02 pm

    Erick Erickson sounds like a lefty purity troll in that tweet, albeit slightly less butthurt.

    At this point I’m really praying for a Golgafrinchan B-Ark to get all of the Teabaggers, Hamsherites, and media clowns out of our hair.

  26. 26.

    General Winfield Stuck

    December 10, 2009 at 5:04 pm

    @Comrade Dread:

    Well stated.

  27. 27.

    kay

    December 10, 2009 at 5:04 pm

    Mary Matalin said the Afghanistan escalation speech was the Bush Doctrine.

    None of them know. It doesn’t ‘matter anyway.

    I think they needed to dress whatever that Bush thing was with “Doctrine”.

  28. 28.

    El Cid

    December 10, 2009 at 5:05 pm

    In Reagan’s day, you just hired a preventive war against people you didn’t like. Well, except for Grenada. But that was awesome. It was even led by Clint Eastwood.

  29. 29.

    soonergrunt

    December 10, 2009 at 5:06 pm

    @Comrade Dread:
    This.

  30. 30.

    asiangrrlMN

    December 10, 2009 at 5:07 pm

    @Kryptik: Ok, I am quite a bit older than you, and I can tell you that America has never lived up to its ideals. In fact, the very ideals that Americans espouse are the same ones used to justify just about every awful thing we have done (in the name of American Exceptionalism).

    I think it’s fine to aspire to these ideals, but to believe they ever took place is folly.

  31. 31.

    truculent and unreliable

    December 10, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    @Kryptik: I used to feel that way. Wait until you reach the ripe old age of 29.

  32. 32.

    Leelee for Obama

    December 10, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    @Comrade Dread: Yupper!

    Of course, they forget that he always said he wasn’t against all war, just dumb wars. Wars we didn’t have to fight for reasons that were not true. Those kinds of wars.

    And we all know there’s evil in the world; where the hell do they think we assume Fred Phelps emanates from, Sunny Brook Farms?

  33. 33.

    truculent and unreliable

    December 10, 2009 at 5:11 pm

    @Leelee for Obama: Nonononono, silly, naive liberals believe that everything is flowers and ponies, and all Osama bin Laden really wants to do is give us cotton candy and a big ol’ hug!

  34. 34.

    mistermix

    December 10, 2009 at 5:13 pm

    Howard Fineman was on NPR an hour ago saying that “President Bush could have given the same speech.”

    Right, especially the torture part.

  35. 35.

    Leelee for Obama

    December 10, 2009 at 5:19 pm

    @mistermix: Howard Fineman is an asshat of the first order. Sometimes he manages to seem to be a cogent person, but the asshattery comes out eventually, like this time. Bush couldn’t have read that speech, let alone write it.

  36. 36.

    freelancer

    December 10, 2009 at 5:23 pm

    @tripletee:

    At this point I’m really praying for a Golgafrinchan B-Ark…

    ???

  37. 37.

    Comrade Dread

    December 10, 2009 at 5:24 pm

    Nonononono, silly, naive liberals believe that everything is flowers and ponies, and all Osama bin Laden really wants to do is give us cotton candy and a big ol’ hug!

    Or bend over and let him and his ilk violate America repeatedly because you’re all too cowardly to bomb the s*** out of a bunch of people that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda.

    You’ve got to understand that someday those brown people might become terrorists that attack America, so we must drop bombs on their homes now in the hopes of deterring them.

    And if their livelihoods and families happen to get caught in the blast, that’s the price they pay for possibly thinking negative thoughts about America and they’ll thank us once they get to cast a vote for their next overlord from a list of corrupt assholes.

  38. 38.

    gnomedad

    December 10, 2009 at 5:24 pm

    Who the hell is Ewe Rickson? Is goat sex involved?

  39. 39.

    Maude

    December 10, 2009 at 5:25 pm

    When Bush used the word crusade, it struck a nerve in other countries. So did bring it on.
    Today was the annaversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights being put into place. How many of the msm said that?
    I heard the speech and it was amazing.
    The Bush “Doctrine” was a stubborn version of true insanity.
    Has Cheney popped up yet?

  40. 40.

    gnomedad

    December 10, 2009 at 5:26 pm

    @Leelee for Obama:

    Bush couldn’t have read that speech, let alone write it.

    This phrase is full of win and is going into my cache of stolen goods.

  41. 41.

    Martin

    December 10, 2009 at 5:30 pm

    I was surprised by the speech. I figured Obama would bring up the contradiction with the wars, but I didn’t think he’d put so much focus on it. That’s not an easy line to walk in that setting and kudos for him for doing it and not getting timid about it.

  42. 42.

    kay

    December 10, 2009 at 5:31 pm

    @Leelee for Obama:

    Obama was compared to Bush I on foreign policy in the WSJ the other day.

    They have to say something, and all they know how to do is compare-contrast.

    I’m waiting for someone to compare someone else to Bill Clinton. He seems to be ignored, weirdly.

    Did we go from Bush I to Bush II?

  43. 43.

    tripletee

    December 10, 2009 at 5:31 pm

    Howard Fineman is an asshat of the first order. Sometimes he manages to seem to be a cogent person, but the asshattery comes out eventually, like this time.

    He’s a Professor Emeritus of Conventional Wisdom Douchebaggery. That mastery of finger-in-the-wind punditry also allows him to quickly adapt his message to his surroundings – for instance, he always came across as quite reasonable on Al Franken’s old radio show, even though you always knew he’d pop up somewhere else a day or two later slinging some new line of bullshit that more likely than not would flatly contradict what he’d said on Al’s show. I could never understand how the two of them could be such good friends.

  44. 44.

    tripletee

    December 10, 2009 at 5:36 pm

    @freelancer:

    ???

    Never read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? What kind of geek are you? Here.

  45. 45.

    Wile E. Quixote

    December 10, 2009 at 5:37 pm

    @tripletee

    He’s a Professor Emeritus of Conventional Wisdom Douchebaggery.

    Awesome. Thank you.

  46. 46.

    Martin

    December 10, 2009 at 5:43 pm

    @kay:

    Yes, we don’t count blowjob Presidents, sweater Presidents, Medicare presidents, and shot-in-the-head presidents. Former actor presidents count twice.

  47. 47.

    freelancer

    December 10, 2009 at 5:45 pm

    @tripletee:

    I have, years ago, and in point of fact, I watched the movie last night. Very meh compared to the books.

  48. 48.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    December 10, 2009 at 5:48 pm

    Wow, stupid shit on Twitter. This is a new phenomenon.

  49. 49.

    Leelee for Obama

    December 10, 2009 at 6:35 pm

    @gnomedad: And you are welcome!

    I’m not sure, but there might be another stealable one in the MSNBC thread. You judge!

  50. 50.

    Leelee for Obama

    December 10, 2009 at 6:40 pm

    @kay: Bill has been relegated out of sight for a bit, hasn’t he? Guess it’s hard to trash a man when he’s busy trying to save thousands of people. And Obama is more pragmatic than Clinton was, so the Bush I analogy works. WSJ is figuring out that one day they’re gonna have to say really good stuff about Obama, so the frog is in the cold water, if you know what I mean.

    Comparing anyone to Bush II is just nasty shit. Comparing Obama to Bush should be a sacrilege. What does the FSM have to say about that?

  51. 51.

    tripletee

    December 10, 2009 at 6:59 pm

    @freelancer:

    Yeah, the movie sucked hard despite the awesome cast. I blame Obama.

  52. 52.

    Ruckus

    December 10, 2009 at 7:35 pm

    @asiangrrlMN:
    You’re correct of course. I am lot older than both of you and I believe that we were closer to the ideal several decades ago. But not any longer. We weren’t really close in the 90’s when we were on a quite road trip away from that ideal, but we’ve been running, screaming like lunatics at warp speed away from the ideal ever since.

  53. 53.

    Victory

    December 10, 2009 at 8:26 pm

    how far away we are when the Bush Doctrine was nothing more than a trick question.

  54. 54.

    Sloegin

    December 10, 2009 at 8:56 pm

    Gaaaah, “Bush Doctrine”; how I despise those two words.

    Anything other than a war of self-defense is a war crime. Ain’t that hard to figure out.

  55. 55.

    keestadoll

    December 10, 2009 at 10:11 pm

    @BFR: Just one?

  56. 56.

    Liz

    December 11, 2009 at 8:34 am

    I’ve now taken to reading JC’s posts out loud to my husband. Thank GOD for BJ, or I think I would explode.

  57. 57.

    Dino

    December 11, 2009 at 10:34 am

    Bush Doctrine: Stumbling around drunk in a bar and punching anyone weaker who looks at you funny.

    Or more precisely: outsourcing the pummeling. God forbid that the sacrifice be too onerous, e.g. no draft, no taxes, “Go Shopping!”

  58. 58.

    Lisa

    December 11, 2009 at 12:37 pm

    LMAO @ comment #1.

    That is what I thought too.

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks

  1. An Ocean of Stupid, and I’m Drowning « If-By-Whiskey says:
    December 10, 2009 at 5:28 pm

    […] PDRTJS_settings_709279_post_1782 = { “id” : “709279”, “unique_id” : “wp-post-1782”, “title” : “An+Ocean+of+Stupid%2C+and+I%27m+Drowning”, “item_id” : “_post_1782”, “permalink” : “http%3A%2F%2Fibwblog.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F12%2F10%2Fan-ocean-of-stupid-and-im-drowning%2F” } Please, just make the hurting stop. […]

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