Ermey took the stage after a performance at the event and festooned the present members of the Marine Corps with overwhelmingly kind words of praise. After those words, he noted that “I hate to point fingers at anybody” before proceeding to prod his finger thick into the Obama administration:
“The economy really sucks. Now I hate to point fingers at anybody, but the present administration probably had a lot to do with that. And the way I see it, they’re not going to quit doing it until they bring this country to its knees. So I think we should all rise up and we should stop this administration from what they’re doing because they’re destroying this country. They’re driving us into bankruptcy so that they can impose socialism on us and that’s exactly what they’re doing. And I’m sick and damn tired of it, and I know you are too. But I know that the Marine Corps will be here forever; this administration won’t. Semper Fi.”
And with that outburst, he takes his leave quietly back to his table, where the cohosts, clearly somewhat stunned, ask him how he “really feels.”
There are a lot of things you can say about the Obama administration, but accusing them of causing the current economic crisis is not one of them. It has been nowhere enough, but there has been job creation under Obama. If you want to bitch about them, you could bitch about the fact that they haven’t done near enough to create jobs, and it really is looking like the unemployment benefits we got through before Christmas is the last help the unemployed are going to get. Ten percent unemployment is going to be the new normal, and no one in the Beltway gives a shit. I understand why more legislation for jobs creation hasn’t passed (the kind of socialism that might save this country), but it doesn’t excuse the Democrats and this administration from not screaming about jobs every single day.
The disconnect really is amazing. But just as crazy is the way the wingnuts and teahadists have internalized the notion that it was Team Obama who caused this mess. It wasn’t. They just haven’t done enough to clean it up, and the main reason is because the Republicans keep stealing the mop and bucket and calling the vacuum cleaner a communist plot.
Jon Karak
=stealing the mop
arguingwithsignposts
With all the crazy going on, I’m amazed this latest steaming pile of shit from Marc Thiessen has escaped notice here (via Instaputz):
head/desk
Makewi
The Democrats have been in control of spending since 2006. Best to ignore that fact since it doesn’t help in your finger pointing about who to blame.
General Stuck
Very disappointing BS from Ermey, who is smarter than that. He did apologize for these remarks, and pulled no punches.
My krystal ball has just informed me of robust job growth for the BLS report on Friday. I just got it back from the shop for a shining, so we shall see.
FormerSwingVoter
The thing that’s most amazing about this is – they were there. Most of the folks harping on Obama causing this recession were the right-wing political junkies reading and listening to everything they could during the election. They saw that the race was neck-and-neck, they saw the bottom drop out of the economy, and they saw Obama immediately pull ahead to an insurmountable lead.
How can the doublethink run so deep that it actually makes them unlearn the very things they lived through?
FormerSwingVoter
I also like that the gist of his speech is “Hey Marines, overthrow our government!” I mean, what the fuck?
Mnemosyne
You’re just saying that because the Washington Post put up a poll asking what the priorities of the new Congress should be and just somehow forgot about jobs in their list.
I guess they were so busy resuscitating the idea of the Balanced Budget Amendment that they just plain forgot.
New Yorker
Sigh….there’s a part of me that had always hoped Ermey wasn’t a total batshit wingnut. I just liked his performance in “Full Metal Jacket” too much.
Bostondreams
@Makewi:
Yeah, agreed. They should have tried to overturn the Bush tax cuts earlier, which have been a drain on the deficit and the economy. They do deserve blame for that. Well said.
Violet
@FormerSwingVoter:
Limbaugh was calling it the “Obama recession” even before the election. Then after the election and before the inauguration he really ramped up the rhetoric.
Wingnuts do what Rush tells them. Rush told them Obama caused the recession, thus that’s the truth.
Ailuridae
@Makewi:
All time great troll! The discretionary non-military parts of the budgets from FY 07-11 are not actually singificant contributors to the current deficit situation or future deficit situation. Nice try though.
I’m waiting for someone to talk about our reckless spending financed by the Chinese.
cleek
the GOP leadership has found that the rubes will happily believe anything they’re told, so in order to boost the GOP’s political fortunes, the leadership has decided to flood the conversation with lies of all shapes and sizes that blame Obama for everything imaginable.
because of this, the media has given up trying to call truth and just focuses on optics and polls.
the longer the media takes to realize what’s happening, the farther away from reality the rubes will drift.
JasonK
No offense folks but companies are recording great profits. The market is doing well. These companies aren’t hiring. Not sure how the hell Obama is going to do anything about that unless we, you know, have government run business ;)
Joseph Nobles
His apology was weird. He says he was upset over the lackluster performance of the charity drive. That has absolutely no connection with what he actually said. I guess the best that can be said is that he opened his mouth, and things started coming out, and he decided to do that terrible thing where you just double down on tacky humor to emphasize the humor part, but wind up just being more and more tacky. If a Marine can put one foot in his mouth, by God, he can get two!
ETA: OK, someone said bad recession means Marines can’t raise enough toys for tots, so that’s not the Marines’ fault, it would be Obama’s, and that was Ermey’s idiotic line of thought. So now it makes a sort of sense. It’s just asinine and borderline sedition.
Villago Delenda Est
Just had to see this again.
Because it’s so DING DING DING DING DING DING DING that I had to see it again.
Bob Loblaw
@General Stuck:
Gee, I wonder if that has anything to do with ADP’s report that came out today.
What an amazing prediction! Can you tell us who’s going to make the NFL playoffs as well?
Your crystal ball…kindly shut the fuck up.
No, it isn’t. Your understanding of macroeconomics is absurdly limited for how much bandwidth you spend bitching about it, Cole.
Loneoak
On a similar note, an interesting interview with Bruce Bartlett in Salon about the debt ceiling.
EDIT: Come to think of it, why doesn’t NYT fire Brooks and Douchehat and hire this person who has twice the knowledge of both of them combined?
Quaker in a Basement
See Violet’s comment, above.
This rant is verbatim from Limbaugh. The “wants to bring the country to its knees” is one of Limbaugh’s favorite story lines.
Mike G
@Makewi:
The most impeccable logic since “It’s cold today, therefore Al Gore is fat”.
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
Tell us loblaw, do you sleep with that giant asshole of yours, or can you take it off, and just slap it on in the morn?
Villago Delenda Est
I give you, in twenty seven words, the cretinous burning stupid of the wingtards.
GregB
Way to politicize a children’s charity event you jackwagon.
Also, I thought all of you Hollywood types were supposed to act, sing and then shut the fuck up. At least according to your fellow wingnut assholes.
agrippa
@Makewi:
That remark makes no sense at all.
It is nothing but empty words
Nellcote
@General Stuck:
via BWD:
(Bloomberg) Companies in the U.S. boosted payrolls in December by the most since records began in 2001, showing a stronger labor-market recovery at the end of last year, data from a private report showed today.
Employment increased by 297,000, exceeding the highest projection in a Bloomberg News survey, after a revised 92,000 rise in November, according to figures from ADP Employer Services. The median estimate in the Bloomberg survey called for a 100,000 gain last month.
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The Institute for Supply Management’s services index rose to 57.1% in December, up 2.1 points from November and better than MarketWatch-compiled economist expectations of 55.6%. Any reading above 50% indicates growth.
Svensker
Wait. You mean the vacuum cleaner isn’t a communist plot? Dang. And all this time…
agrippa
I have decided that those people will believe just about anything.
There is nothing new about this paranoid style. There were the know nothings, the southern fire eaters, the southern segregationists, etc, etc.
Now, we have this ‘stuff’.
Suckers are born every minute.
Nellcote
@Quaker in a Basement:
So’s “bend over and grab your ankles”.
I’m visualizing a bizarre set of ceramic salt and pepper shakers.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Yee-up, my wingnut brother in Modesto has been saying “well, it sure didn’t take this Democrat Congress long to fuck up the economy” since before the 2008 election. My jaw dropped the first time he said it, but I’ve learned to just shake my head and keep walking. Wingnut skull is the hardest substance known to man and mere facts are hopelessly inadequate to penetrate it.
schrodinger's cat
John Cole@ top
You know who else thinks that the vaccum cleaner is a communist plot? Tunch.
BTW where is our beloved blog mascot. Haven’t seen the big fella in twentyelebenty. We miss him. Plz post Tunch photo now.
Kthnx
Violet
@JasonK:
Tax incentives to hire Americans and not offshore the jobs might help. Someone posted here awhile ago about how in the 50’s the tax incentives meant companies invested in R&D and didn’t just sit on their cash as they are doing now. Changing the tax structure to encourage companies to invest in their own companies might help too.
There are ways to help this happen. Congress just has to decide to do it. Ha ha ha ha. I crack myself up.
General Stuck
@Nellcote:
Yes, I already knew. In fact, was likely the first to bring it to this blog early this morning, and mentioned at least once since. I was just funning with the krystal ball thing.
Omnes Omnibus
@Svensker: I know dogs have long had their suspicions about it.
Just Some Fuckhead
Oh Jesus, I thought Ermey was one of us when he fell in love with Jack Black in Saving Silverman. Must be a Log Cabin Republican.
El Cid
Ermey was on that very funny GEICO commercial where he played the drill sergeant psychiatrist. So, no problem with GEICO when he calls to stop Obama from destroying the country.
On the other hand, the GEICO voiceover actor, D. C. Douglas [Lance Baxter], who left an insulting message on a Freedomworks Tea Party voicemail got canned, thanks to the investigations of BigGovernment.com.
Since then, Ermey has apparently issued an apology:
The guy who uploaded the video said on his blog,
de stijl
@Nellcote:
Too bad we weren’t keeping track of employment data before 2001. Who knows what interesting information we might find. My nana used to complain that things were pretty bad back in the ’30s, but they couldn’t figure how bad the job situation was because long division hadn’t been invented yet.
Jules
In the comments of the Ermey story:
Question:
Answer:
Yeah, that made me guffaw….
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Ermey added, “where’s that Obama from? Kenya?!? Only two things come from Kenya, wildebeest and queers, and I don’t see no horns on Obama! What’s that? Oh, Hawaii? Only two things come from Hawaii, poi and queers, and I don’t see no corms on Obama!”
trollhattan
The Marines are about to lose themselves a kewl new toy, maybe a second, so they’re probably a bit cranky right now.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/business/06marine.html?ref=us
I still think the Air Force faces a tougher time WRT retaining a viable mission.
trollhattan
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Serious groan!
El Cid
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): He told those nitwits refusing to deploy because Obama wasn’t legally President to pound sand, or let him ‘square them up’.
Makewi
@Mike G:
Al Gore is fat and an idiot. See also Michael Moore.
trollhattan
@Makewi:
Heh indeedy. Spoofilicious!
Mike in NC
@trollhattan:
Every once in a while a Pentagon boondoogle becomes so embarrassing it can’t be swept under the rug. Even Dick Cheney had to pull the plug on the Navy’s “stealth” A-12 program back when he was SecDef.
On the other hand, there were idiots who whined well into the 1990s that the Marines couldn’t operate without WW2 battleships floating around to provide fire support.
Uloborus
@cleek:
I feel it is exactly the reverse. First the media demonstrated clearly that they’re only interested in the ‘horse race’ aspect of politics and have a serious man crush on tough talking cowboys to boot. Then the GOP realized they no longer had any need to tell the truth, ever, about anything – they just won’t be called on it. Then they got addicted to that tactic and now can’t use anything else, because their primaries are controlled by lunatics who assume you’re lying to them if you say Obama was born in the US.
Bubblegum Tate
@cleek:
And the rest of us are left wondering how, exactly, you’re supposed to counter institutionalized, widespread craziness. These people not only are horrifically full of shit, they have absolutely no intention of being full of anything other than shit. So we are stuck in a world of shit.
TR
Tell that to the teatards in the comment thread on the link.
mikefromArlington
I’m gonna borrow your oil and water thingy if u don’t mind. :)
Mike Kay (Chief of Staff)
I can really get outraged by this, because this happens on lefty blogs, as well.
Lefty blogs, even rank and file posters on this site, use similar paranoid disconnected language from reality but from lefty perspective.
Evolved Deep Southerner
I’m embarrassed that just last night, I had expressed high hopes for FrumForum as a possible contender as a conservative site with a modicum of thought behind it.
So very, very mullahfucking wrong.
I’ve enjoyed seeing the commenters, several of which have what appears to be a lick of sense, take Frum and his front-pagers apart. But I’m no longer willing to suffer Frum and his front-pagers as a price for getting to and understanding the comments.
Talk about a fucking doomed blog. Trying to be a blog for smart 21st century conservatives is like trying to be a blog for Christian atheists.
Mike Kay (Chief of Staff)
@Evolved Deep Southerner: the blog doesn’t have much content. that said, it has it’s good points and bad points (links to examiner, for example). but never, ever go into the comments, they’re really crazy.
Evolved Deep Southerner
I was reminded of that classic 1947 communist conspiracy comic that freelancer posted in the open thread last night (thank you freelancer, don’t think I ever did yesterday evening when I got sidetracked on the Sugar Bowl and motorcycles) when I read about this over at TPM.
Jesus Christ, these guys are so paranoid that they don’t even trust the integrity of Wingnuttapalooza, their own signature event. Islamofascist terrorists under every rock.
ETA: Here’s freelancer’s good link:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/01/right-wing_claims_muslim_brotherhood_has_infiltrat.php?ref=fpa
Yeah, yeah, I know it’s not formatted correctly. Can’t figure out how to do that in “edit mode.” Either cut and paste or sue me, you lazy, bitchy fucks.
redoubt
@Uloborus: Being able to pay for unlimited lies with unlimited funds, thanks to Citizens United, also helps.
cleek
@Mike Kay (Chief of Staff):
yup. sucks.
but it pretty much stops here. the media isn’t interested in lefty crazy.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Evolved Deep Southerner: And after cursing you all gratuitously, I fucked up freelancer’s good link. So, yeah. It’s a fine sign I need to just shut the fuck up and read a while.
Mike Kay (Chief of Staff)
@cleek: oh, I don’t know. A lot of the usual suspects are allowed on MSNBC’s version of freak tee vee, and the hosts are already nuts.
I mean, who can forget when Olbermann went far far over the paranoia rails and accused Hillary Clinton of wanting to assassinate obama.
sherifffruitfly
Until he said “socialism”, I thought he was a “true progressive”.
So weird how it’s so hard to tell the difference in practice.
cleek
@Mike Kay (Chief of Staff):
MSNBC has, what, two ostensible lefties? and one of them’s a lunatic.
that’s a far cry from the GOP bias that permeates the entire rest of the media. not to mention 24/7 Fox.
jefft452
if the Smoot Hawley tarrif of June 1930 caused the Sept 1929 stock market crash
then I dont see why the Nov 2009 election couldnt have caused Lehman Brothers to go belly up in Spt 2008
Wingnut econ 101 relies heavily on the existance of time machines
Steeplejack
@Bob Loblaw:
Well, if 10% unemployment is not the new normal, perhaps you can dust off your crystal ball and tell us what the “normal”: rate really is and when we will see it again.
Yutsano
@Steeplejack: @Steeplejack: The employment rate is actually about to shoot up, mostly because the dispirited worked (not the actual term but I can’t think of it off-hand) will attempt to re-enter the workforce and get counted as unemployed again. Plus there will be temps brought full on and expansion of contract work as well. The employment rate will sink by this time next year, it’s just a matter of what degree it will drop to.
A very long-winded way of saying Bob is wrong.
Steeplejack
@Yutsano:
I took Loblaw to be saying that 10% unemployment is unrealistically high as the “new normal,” based on his reference to the ADP report. So I don’t see how what you’re saying is saying that he’s wrong. You seem to be saying that the unemployment rate will be going down too.
I can well believe that the employment rate is going down, but I think a significant part of it is people reëntering the workforce in much worse jobs than they had before (lower-paying, less security, fewer benefits). That’s progress?
Yutsano
@Steeplejack:
Depends on who you ask and what job they had before all this. For someone unemployed a long time any job is indeed progress. And generous benefit packages are going poof because there is a labor capital imbalance in this country the size of the Grand Canyon. The progress that needs to be made is re-strengthening unions in this country and getting workers better bennies that way. And a few other labor relation changes that are digressing from my main point. But I won’t fault someone for taking a lesser job just to feed their families.
Steeplejack
@Yutsano:
I don’t fault them either. My point is that “Unemployment rate going down! Yay!” is not a complete, or even balanced, view of what is happening.
ETA: And I’d still like to hear Loblaw’s prediction, especially after he sneered so dismissively at Cole.
Yutsano
@Steeplejack: It’s unfortunate, but a lot of this has to do with the perception that things are improving as much as the reality of the situation. You’re right, the numbers only tell us so much. It’s how the situation is impacting lives that really makes the difference here.
maus
@FormerSwingVoter:
Unlearn? They never happened if those people failed to acknowledge it at the time.
Barry
@Makewi: “The Democrats have been in control of spending since 2006. Best to ignore that fact since it doesn’t help in your finger pointing about who to blame.”
And Bush II slides down the memory hole…………
Barry
@trollhattan: “I still think the Air Force faces a tougher time WRT retaining a viable mission.”
Only in retaining the old viable mission (manned fighters and manned bombers). Moving to a drone-heavy forces, with the pilots either in AWACS-style aircraft 100 miles back, or on the other side of the world would work very well. Given a mix of drones, missiles, pods, etc., this force would be very flexible.