This is my last say on this ridiculous matter. I have no idea why ABL has decided that this was all about her, because I have repeatedly stated that what Glenn said was dickish. I don’t think anyone actually thinks she would defend President Obama raping a nun.
This is when several idiots will then pop in and say “But Glenn said he was serious! She really would defend it.” Because no one on the planet has ever made statements like “I am so hungry I think I could seriously eat a horse” or “I am so sick of this I could seriously slit my wrists.” No one really has had to “wait forever” for someone. I don’t really need to point out that there isn’t that much horse eating going on, do I? Hyperbole, WTF IS THAT?
So Glenn repeated something dickish that someone else started. And you know what- I ignored it. Why? Because not sue if you follow twitter, but there is a relentless group of people who, at any given moment, are hurling insults at Glenn. ABL is most certainly one of the members of that group. Hell, she used, and I allowed her to use, this website as a launching point for some of the most scathing attacks on Glenn, some times even thinly sourced innuendo. She’s called him grifter, a liar, a fraud, and so on, and there is ongoing bad blood between the two. So as far as I was concerned, it was all in the game between those two, and I said nothing.
Then last night, after several days of crocodile tears about Glenn hating on rape victims, I lost it. This wasn’t about rape to these people- this was about using whatever they could as a cudgel against Glenn. It completely distorted what he said- he wasn’t minimizing rape, he was using rape as the ugliest example he could think of (and he later added child-killing and assassination), far from minimizing rape and far from making rape “jokes.” It was disgusting. What I saw wasn’t about rape, it was about a new blunt force weapon to be used in the GGihad against “Hamwald.” So I said as much.
And then spent the next three hours letting the Greenwald jihad turn their guns on me- I’m mocking rape victims, I’m attacking ABL, how dare I choose sides (when I didn’t do anything of the sort), this is typical “male behavior,” that I am a privileged white male so therefore don’t understand, I’m a hick libertarian, how could I do this to ABL, is this the hill I want to die on, etc. That’s how they roll- relentless, multiple, frantic, repeated tweets, each one with more umbrage and more outrage, feeding on each other, with each comment working valiantly to prove that the person is more outraged than the previous person. It’s manic.
My personal favorite tweet was from our own ABL, who informed the world that I was “laughing at rape survivors.” You sure can lob ’em, can’t you?
But back to the point, no, I didn’t “side” with Glenn over this juvenile bullshit (in the big scheme of things, if I sided with anyone, wouldn’t it be the person I gave access to the front page to lob grenades at GG?), I just merely pointed out that the people doing a two day “GLENN RAPE RAWR” tweetfest simply to attack Glenn had lost the plot. And I maintain that. What Glenn said to ABL was dickish, but in the scheme of things hurled between the two of them, pretty tame. So I’m sorry to see ABL go, but I’m not going to back down to a crowd of idiots on twitter. For those of you who love to point out I was a former Republican, you are right- and I saw this kind of behavior before, where the “enemy” is always wrong and must be destroyed. Hell, y’all wanna go old school, just drop the rape stuff and call Greenwald an anti-Semite. There’s lots of material already written for you on the internet out there. So maybe I’m a little touchy when I see these manic internet pile-ons when everyone is in shoot to kill mode. Objectively pro-Saddam, anyone? Fifth column, anyone? I watch people unironically invoke “OBAMA DERANGEMENT SYNDROME,” apparently unaware that BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) was something invented by diehard Bush loyalists to deflect any and all criticism of Bush.
So that is that. As far as I am concerned, ABL can write here whenever she wants. If she chooses not to, well, that is her decision.
Mjaum
Sounds reasonable to me.
Cassidy
You used to be a Republican?
Mrs. Peel
ABL is quite talented with the old lawyer’s misdirection meme “If you can’t pound the facts, pound the table”.
MattMinus
John, this is the most disgusting example of straight white male privilege that I’ve ever seen.Don’t try to understand it, your privilege will certainly blind you to it. Just accept that disagreeing with anyone that is even fractionally more of a minority than you are is wrong.
cathyx
I am so glad I missed all that.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
ABL leaving BJ was a great way to start my day. She’s become completely unhinged and was bringing this site down. Good riddance.
Rosalita
@cathyx: me too, nothing like starting off the new year with a flame war.
amk
Shorter cole – don’t hurt lil glenn even if he spews venom
Jeez, what a load of crap. GFY, john.
Larime the Gimp
Popcorn, anyone?
Personally, I think that when you bring rape into the conversation you automatically lose the argument, end of story. For many people, yes, it is about the rape comments. That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of people who will simply use it as a weapon to beat him with because he was dumb enough to provide it. The key there, however, is that he was dumb enough to provide it.
MikeInSewickley
After reading the entire thread on ABL’s goodbye post, your actions in this are far more understandable.
What I am tired about is the immediate ability to have Democrats push the “self-destruct” button so quickly.
For God’s sake, read “On the Spirit of Partisanship” by Hazlett – wrote 200 years ago but is some of the best discussion on how Democrats enjoy self destruction than anything I have read by ABL.
And I’m done.
cathyx
@MattMinus: That is idiotic.
EconWatcher
I don’t find either ABL or GG particularly interesting, so I don’t have a dog in this fight. But the excesses of PC can be kind of irritating on this site. That, and the constant feeding of trolls. But if if weren’t for those things, this site would be paradise….
Josie
I don’t use Twitter, mainly because it seems to be too much trouble. After viewing this clusterfuck, it seems that it was one of my better decisions. Maybe everyone should just put down their smart phones and back away slowly.
Bill E Pilgrim
I imagine that there was a time in the transition from Republican and Bush supporter to Democrat and Obama supporter when this blog had a lot of regulars who found that hard to deal with. I didn’t read it then so I’m guessing, but I think it’s a good guess.
And I imagine that what happened is that they either left in a huff, or a month and a huff, or just drifted away; in any case it seems unlikely that there were any staunch George W Bush supporting Republicans who found it a fun place to hang out by circa oh 2008, which is when I started reading you, I think, and I sure don’t remember any.
So now you’re in a bit of a transition from staunch Obama defender to someone who entertains at least some criticism of him and lets those questions be aired and probed and so on (hey, who wouldn’t, I mean the last few years have been a bit of a shock if you ask me) and you’ve got a lot of regulars at the blog who don’t like that. And one of them just left.
For what it’s worth, I think it’s a positive development. Just my two cents.
I’ve never used Twitter much by the way and nothing about this changes my opinion that its propensity to generate sheer stupidity overshadows anything much worthwhile about it.
agrippa
Well, John Cole, you are a participant in this fatuous game. You should have remained silent. You decided to play.
But, this what the internet is about: people can come and play the fool with impunity as there are no consequences. It, frequently, becomes a comedy. Nature of the beast.
Greenwald is not worth my time; most of the time he makes little sense, as he is the prisoner of his passions. This latest game is another reason why I have no time for Greenwald. ABL decided that she wanted to romp and play as well. She could have made different choices.
I would not be surprised if they both enjoyed chanting imprecatory prayers at each other.
arghhh!
Why use such a horrible and inflamatory analogy to begin with?
rikyrah
1. this isn’t the first time that Gigi has pulled this kind of shyt.
2. he wasn’t kidding. he wasn’t joking.
3. I still can’t get past that you were talking last night about folks using rape to smear Gigi, when it was HIM who threw up rape in the first place.
4. There are some things that I have never and would never use ‘ to make a point’. But, folks like Gigi never seem to learn.
5. I understand why ABL was pissed, and am sad that you don’t get why she, and others, who told you how offended they were and why they were.
Samara Morgan
John, why do you feel the need to defend Greenwald?
he is an expat libertarian living in Brazil.
what he said was deeply offensive…..to all sapients.
im starting to think you are going insane.
nancydarling
@Cassidy: I was thinking about you yesterday and wondering how things are going for you! I hope all is working out well.
And yes, JC used to be an R. I think the Schiavo business was the final straw for our camel. All of this happened before I started coming here, so I’ve had to piece it all together for myself.
As I said on ABL’s post, I feel like the 5-year old of parents going through an ugly divorce. I love them both and refuse to choose, so I’ll just have to travel between two homes now.
agrippa
@Larime the Gimp:
Bringing rape into the argument means that you have driven yourself into the ditch.
chaucer
wow! i very seldom read comments and rarely write comments on here or anywhere else and after reading your post, i see why. why don’t you just not enable comments anymore? i read your blog because of what you and the other bloggers write. period. sounds like you are enabling a whole lot of nonsense. btw, i love abl and glenn greenwald. my day is always brighter and more informed after i read the three of you. thank you john, for all you do.
cheers!
EconWatcher
@Bill E Pilgrim:
I started coming about the same time as you did, but I don’t remember John or Dougj, for example, ever indulging in blind Obama worship. There seems to be a persistent understanding here that Obama is a flawed guy who is plainly much better than any realistic alternative. And to me, that’s just reality.
JC
Don’t stress about it Cole. There are many of us who predicted this would turn out this way. ABL, and the outrage squad, can really do no less. It was inevitable that the ABL outrage schtick would come for you eventually.
It’s a shame, really, because ABL is smart, funny, and writes very well. As well as I on policy issues, agree with her on most things.
But there was never any doubt in my mind, that at some point the outrage guns would be trained on you, if you didn’t agree with the outrage. I had enough with the Michael Moore outrage, and calling him a racist, with all that he has done over the last 20 years. I never engaged with ABL and the grouping after that.
DougJ said it best though. If civil liberties is a very important issue, then Ron Paul, as effed up as he is in other ways, DOES stand up for civil liberatarian issues. But for general sanity, civil rights, a functioning modern economy, Paul would be a disaster.
That doesn’t mean you can’t recognize he says, and doubles down on saying, even when getting heat, some very admirable things from a liberty perspective, and a getting out of war perspective.
I don’t use twitter, so I missed the rest of it. Thankfully.
On the whole
Samara Morgan
@MikeInSewickley: Greenwald is not our ally, and he is not a liberal.
he is a variant of Ron Paul.
marduk
First time poster, long time lurker saying- Thank effing jeebus.
While ABL sometimes had some good posts and good points she always was trolling. Trolling the readers, trolling the frontpagers, turning every possible issue into some drama-filled insult fest about her and her hurt fee-fees and the horrible evil worthlessness of anyone who disagreed with her on any issue. Misrepresentation of the words and positions of her opponents (and they were always opponents) was endemic. Such a prolific troll that one couldn’t just skip over her own articles because the fallout would splash all over everything posted contemporaneously.
Good riddance.
Yevgraf
Damn, John – she’s one of your front pagers – show some loyalty by staying out. The “more progressive than thou” white privilege plying monkey brigade dogged every post she made here, and Glenn is a highly paid professional blogger that they frequently championed.
Punditry – aka perpetual criticism – is his living, since he repeatedly demonstrated that he was unsuited to any other form
I’ll point out that he also seems to have a pre-pundit predisposition for representation of the most odious racists on this spinning rock. This whole dustup is him, once again, choosing to go all in on defending an odious racist.
You do the math.
Samara Morgan
@chaucer: yessssssss, John can be Sully.
all he has to do is ban the trolls and the hall monitors, and there will be peace.
;)
Bondirotta
It sucks that Atrios has decided politics are beneath him – and deliberately refuses to even talk about Iowa. And now this drama overwhelms BJ. I stopped reading Kos a year ago because of all the weirdness.
Are ALL political blogs becoming meta drama festivals?
Just wanted to discuss Romney trending below 20% and how awesome it would be if he ends up at 18%. He did tank in the last 48 hours in Iowa back in 2008.
Bill E Pilgrim
@EconWatcher: I don’t see that way. I didn’t use the phrase “worship” but I’ve seen a definite change, e.g. John was arguing against Glenn Greenwald’s criticism’s of Obama for the most part, and er, strenuously, at one point; now he often agrees and links to them instead.
I’m not faulting anyone for changing, don’t misunderstand, if that were an immediate disqualifier in my mind then I never would have read John much to begin with because of his past support for George W and work against Kerry’s election and so on. Wasn’t an issue. What mattered to me is what someone is writing now.
Samara Morgan
@Yevgraf: yes, John showed mega-loyalty to EDK.
why not ABL?
she cant get into the white male club?
Schlemizel
I stopped reading ABL a while back – 80% of it was her having lost any mooring to reality and 20% was the cranks who responded (OK, maybe 70/30). So I missed the latest BS-fest but always enjoy watching the comments counter spin like a Dervish. I have stopped reading GG regularly also because I don’t think he is adding to the conversation any more either.
I’m not happy with GG but I do give him credit for consistent. What he was against when Boy Blunder was doing it he is against when Obama is doing it. I can hate his tactics and his rhetoric but, sadly, I see his point.
I don’t want to be like the Republicans – I do not want to blindly, manically, savagely, support everything any politician does simply because he is from my party. I expect better from my party. I’m mature enough to know I can’t get everything I want and no politician is going to make me 100% happy. I can also separate my ego from my opinions – but then I have never suffered the attacks GG has so maybe I have to give him some slack there too.
MikeInSewickley
@Samara Morgan: I agree with that.
I don’t agree that someone who defends his right to say stupid, abhorrent, sickening crap is in fact agreeing with his stupid, abhorrent, sickening crap.
To me that sounds like what I expect from the far right than from progressives/liberals.
I am out of range for the rest of the day unfortunately but I suspect this comment list will rapidly degenerate into the playground taunts.
And what JC said at #23… thanks.
Yevgraf
http://vimeo.com/26082055
Glenn may well be perceiving himself as a revolutionary in the Bolshevik sense.
Wee Bey
Still think you were in the wrong, John.
Lupin
I am shocked and not a little disappointed that so far Hitler has not been brought up in this conversation.
Cacti
Be honest with yourself Cole.
You’re a left-leaning libertarian. When sides had to be taken, you went with the member of your tribe.
Samara Morgan
oh John.
High School Never Ends.
4tehlulz
@Bondirotta: I’m calling Paul/Santorum, then Mittens third. Weather will be decent tonight, favoring IMO, high turnout for the Paultards and independents.
I can’t see Romney “inspiring” anyone to caucus. I just can’t.
grass
I’m just trying to picture Greenwald using the same argument on some TV bobble head show –
GG – “Susan Rice, you’d defend Obama at the UN if he raped a nun on TV!”
Yeah, it’s twitter and people say fuck a lot, but man, standards on the Internet for serious people are at an all time low.
Punchy
But what does Sully think of Greenwald’s comments to ABL that Cole didn’t defend like McCain would have had he not been thrown under the bus, literally?
Carbon Dated
@MattMinus: Good satire!
We need to remember that even fellows bursting with straight white male privilege are also victims. Of the patriarchy!
Rommie
I think you are reeeeeealy tone-deaf on this one, JC. At least you didn’t close the door.
It’s a shame the Jackalope set off the brawl and the original argument was left behind. I really imagined all the screeching and pearl-clutching about this President when dealing with Congress? How he always was going to cave and sell out the Left? That was lockstep support, no matter the subject? Come on.
Bill E Pilgrim
@EconWatcher: By the way (since it won’t let me edit that last comment for some reason) all you need to do is read all of the “what’s happened to you, John??” and “trolling your own blog, eh?” comments and jokes toward John when he’s critical of Obama or positive toward something Greenwald wrote, to pretty much put to bed the idea that nothing has changed.
Samara Morgan
@Schlemizel: its not like that.
O is a pragmatist, not a sorcerer.
He does what he can.
I can show you a 4×4 payoff matrix for any move O has made.
you have to consider the game theoretic outcome.
Samara Morgan
@Cacti: the white GUY tribe you mean.
wilfred
Anybody who says they will support someone no matter what, or that someone has their vote no matter what, which is implicit in most cases and explicit in some, opens themselves to parody. I believe Cole assured the world that O had his vote no matter what.
Glenn Greenwald is a man of the left. If people can’t see that, it’s because they’re not. Stay home and don’t read him.
EconWatcher
@4tehlulz:
That would cause maximum chaos, so that would be a good result.
MattMinus
@Samara Morgan:
I love that you repeat my jokes, but you mean them.
ROTFLMAOCOPTERSAURUS
Cacti
Well, with ABL gone, looks like BJ is back to being as white as its background in the viewpoints of the front pagers.
This should be a welcome relief to our firebagger commentariat.
TooManyJens
What a lot of people don’t realize, because they weren’t around for the beginning of this, is that Greenwald didn’t lob accusations of supporting (hypothetical) nun-rape against ABL because she supports the indefinite detention of American citizens. She doesn’t. He lobbed those accusations against her because she said the NDAA didn’t authorize indefinite detention of American citizens. Her view, and it’s not a fringe one, is that the NDAA didn’t change the status quo on that subject. Rather than explain why her legal analysis was incorrect, he made the most odious accusation against ABL he could think of because she publicly disagreed with him on a factual matter. That is Greenwald rolls. That’s the poor, victimized guy you’re defending.
“This wasn’t about rape to these people”
Wow, seriously, fuck you. Especially when actual rape survivors have posted about how they were affected by it.
Cole, you are really fucking this up.
tomvox1
Certain people should be beaten with a cudgel, any cudgel that is handy, as frequently as possible. Glenn Greenwald is one of those people. Leaving aside the misogyny of endorsing this repellant rape metaphor (as if that’s really possible), just think about what he was saying in his comments: that supporters of president Obama are like the supporters of fascist death squads through history that use rape as a weapon along with all their other atrocities. That it would be OK with us if the president were to participate in this act himself and we would applaud it. Really? I mean, really, Glenn?!? But, yup, that is what Greenwald thinks of Obama (and/or gets paid to write in public) and his supporters, that we are all latter day Peronists and Brown Shirts. He says this sort of shit enough, so you know that is absolutely his stated belief. You can fucking look it up. Which, you know, is pretty sick when you get right down to it.
Fuck him, man, and with a rusty cudgel, too. Greenwald is a Koch whore and professional demotivator/ratfucker. He is no more a “progressive” than Donald Sagretti and the same sort of “libertarian” as the Pauls.
You picked the wrong hill to die on, JC.
Samara Morgan
Its not your fault Cole.
Marc
I simply don’t understand John’s respect for Greenwald. He’s a dishonest propagandist on the subject of Obama. His deep and irrational hatred of the man colors absolutely everything he writes. He is a bog-standard libertarian, utterly blind on racial and class issues.
His debating tactics are flatly despicable. The entire business of accusing anyone defending Obama of being a “Dear Leader” worshipping cultist is entirely typical. His defenders can’t admit a single flaw in anything that he does…and yet it’s anyone who disagrees with him that’s the mindless drone.
He omits facts that disagree with his conclusions. He reads the worst possible intentions into anyone who disagrees with him. And he tops these failings off with galactic levels of insensitivity and arrogance.
He deserves the treatment that Sully gets here. And I hope that John reads every one of the withering attacks on GGs defence of the disgusting Ron Paul to understand how GG has been poisoned by his white-hot loathing of Obama.
Cacti
@Samara Morgan:
Saying white male libertarian is rather redundant, no?
JPL
John There’s a lot of assumptions in your post.
donnah
“As I said on ABL’s post, I feel like the 5-year old of parents going through an ugly divorce. I love them both and refuse to choose, so I’ll just have to travel between two homes now.”
Well said. I concur. This blog is among my favorites and lately I’ve seen a lot more meaningless, angry backbiting. I live in the real world and I get enough crap there. When I’m responding to blog posts, I ask myself if I would talk to my mom this way. If not, then I don’t post.
What gets tricky is remembering that everyone has different experiences that make them who they are. You can’t keep from touching on all of the painful ones, but you can at least avoid the obvious. Rape analogies in any form are one of those obvious ones.
I admire John for hosting a blog that offers a lot of different voices. I agree with his most of his views and I respect his work and his ideas. I wish people would just stop acting like a preschool play group and count to ten before shooting their mouths off.
rikyrah
oh, and it was Gigi’s inability/unwillingness to APOLOGIZE when told of his offensiveness that led folks to get on his ass…as they should have.
Soonergrunt
@John Cole, top:
Is there any other crowd on twitter?
Wee Bey
And just in fairness, here’s the flaw in your logic, Cole.
1. Greenwald accuses anyone who supports the president of being pro-child murder.
2. Someone says if Obama raped a nun, ABL would support the rape.
3. Greenwald agrees.
4. Greenwald says he isn’t kidding, he really thinks ABL would support rape.
5. Somehow, Cole discerns hyperbole.
If you’re defending Glenn Fucking Greenwald using a hyperbole defense, you’ve lost before things have begun. He’s incapable of hyperbole. Anyone who has ever read him knows that.
And why is he so far outside the bounds of normal discourse, constantly? Because it’s all a big game to him. Because he’s a glibertarian asshole.
Or ask yourself this: If he’d ever been forcibly sodomized at gunpoint, do you think he makes the analogy. If your answer is no, well, then, you know why you’re wrong.
Extreme Liberal
I wonder how many examples of Greenwald’s vitriol it would take for a John Cole to be offended? This piece says it all as far as Greenwald’s tactics, it’s dead on.
http://www.lawfareblog.com/2011/01/why-i-wont-engage-glenn-greenwald/
Later Balloon Juice!
wilfred
“Well, with ABL gone, looks like BJ is back to being as white as its background in the viewpoints of the front pagers.”
Get some Muslims/Arabs then. You’ll have your self-righteous fee-fees sorted out posthaste.
debit
It seems to me that you had the option to stay out of it completely, John. Greenwald is supposedly a big boy. Did you really need to go, guns blazing, to his defense?
I understand what you’re saying. I also understand hyperbole. However, I also understand using deliberately loaded words and phrases, things that are fraught with imagery. Rape is one of those words, and putting the image out there of our president raping a nun is so far beyond the pale that I can’t see how anyone could go, “Eh! Hyperbole, whatcha gonna do?”
Samara Morgan
@MattMinus: i guess you forgot the sarc tag.
;)
Jon O
For what it’s worth, I agree with the comments above that once Greenwald used the rape analogy, he already lost. Seriously, there shouldn’t be anything wrong with saying “okay, that analogy was out of bounds – my bad”. I get why you defended him, and I think you’re wrong.
That said, there’s way more heat than light here, as there is in so much of politics. It’s only fitting that this was due to an argument between two egomaniacs who specialize in polemic and never back down on anything. We’ve got more important navels to gaze at, guys.
Bondirotta
Yeah, there is a reason why Mitt almost always underperforms his polls. 10% of his followers just get bored out of their skulls at the last moment. I think Santorum is going to carry this – Paul has been trending down just a bit. My dream scenario is Santorum, Paul and then Mitt at 18%. that just might pull Romney below 30% in New Hampshire – which would be a disaster.
Samara Morgan
@wilfred: he could ax my old hababbi Aziz Poonwalla.
that would be amusing.
ornerycurmudgeon
This swarming attack behavior by a subset of Democratic Party supporters was initiated and honed in the anti-Nader wars at Dkos … it is a knee-jerk scapegoating mindset that accepts no bounds on its hatred or destruction, fueled by a strangely-haughty victimhood fetish that justifies all.
I don’t really understand the dynamic, because the only achievement from that behavior has been a splitting and weakening of the progressive movement.
The hatred is tellingly directed inward to progressive figures the attackers wish to replace, rather than outward to opponents they are assumed to be trying to defeat.
LAC
Fuck Greenwald and fuck you for your lame ass, dickish defense of this pompous tool. What kind of mental gymnastics bullshit do you have to go through to defend this tripe? Can you have the balls to once, just once say “Look, Greenwald, I get your dislike of the President, but that is in insult to him, his supporters, and disrespectful to a very sensitive topic to over HALF OF THE FUCKING POPULATION OF THE WORLD!!! Knock it off!!” But no, you are busy with his other minions fighting for rental space in his colon and defending his bullshit.
RP
Really pathetic defense of GG. I’ve been reading this blog since 2006, and this is definitely a low point. Putting aside all of the politics and backstory, you should show more public loyalty to a frontpager on your blog. That would be the decent and classy thing to do. And to dismiss the analogy as hyperbole is incredibly stupid and insensitive.
The Moar You Know
I take the four day weekend off and WTH? Nothing’s changed!
Yevgraf
@tomvox1:
Paid professional pundits should be accompanied at all times by a jester about the same size and build as Jesse Ventura. The job of the jester would be to periodically smack the pundit in the mouth so as to eliminate the sense of adequacy and superiority that the paid professional pundit undeservedly maintains.
Wee Bey
@RP:
That, too.
Blue Neponset
You said rape twice, John.
Also, what has this got to do Tim Tebow?
Emma
@wilfred: And you talk about people worshipping Obama no matter what? Jesus. It sounds like the next step for you is to set up your Greenwald shrine.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@TooManyJens:
Yup, you nailed it. Cole dived into it half-cocked, stabbed ABL in the back, then went off and shot himself in both feet.
That’s what happens when you have your head up your ass like John does.
Schlemizel
70+ comments in and you can see the lines already drawn. Nobody is actually responding to what John said, but they sure are responding to what they think he said.
Maybe, next January after President Romney is sworn in we can all get along again.
Samara Morgan
@debit: interestingly, this happened at PW.
Goldstein defended his front pagers right to put an Obama-raping-the statue of liberty cartoon on the front page, and one of his old professors blacklisted him.
I guess Cole is entering his Jeff Goldstein phase.
;)
Poopyman
Yet another illustration of why I don’t bother with Twitter. And I guess I picked a good evening to stay off the blogs, also too.
@Samara Morgan: Yeah, I thought it was pretty obvious, but I guess this nontroversy has folks all riled up.
Wake me up around Thursday.
Face
I’m a bit shocked that Cole has managed to stay out of this thread, despite all the vitriol being lobbed his way on this nothingburger.
In years past, John woulda jumped in at the first sight of an insulting or harsh comment to defend himself. Looks like he’s going soft.
J.W. Hamner
I’m basically with you here since, even though I think Greenwald is a completely dishonest hack, I find the 350 comment back and forth posts to be tedious and tiresome.
However, this is complete nonsense:
His statement was:
Has he backed off from this at all? Offered any kind of apology?
That’s not hyperbole, that the statement of an ideologue who thinks everyone who disagrees with him is evil. A guy who thinks like that is only worth mocking, not trying to engage in any kind of dialogue.
Schlemizel
@Jon O:
And we have a BINGO.
ira-NY
It looks to me like all the players run or have extraordinary access to important blogs.
So, why do they choose to communicate using a half-assed, at best, system like twitter?
If they disagree and think twitter presents a better way to discuss political and social matters, what are they doing running blogs?
Birthmarker
John, you run my go-to site on the ‘net. But it was better before you started hanging out with that Twitter hussy.
I’m not sure that all of your regular readers are aware that you are cheating on us and posting a lot of your pet pics over there at that Twit’s place.
Yevgraf
@Face:
meh. He fucked up and feels a little bad about it already. Give him a couple of days.
Wee Bey
@Schlemizel:
John’s self evidently full of shit. He’s defending Greenwald saying it was hyperbole. Greenwald specifically said it wasn’t hyperbole.
What else is there to respond to?
Samara Morgan
@Marc:
you forgot gender.
GG and Cole just dont find rape-chat as offensive as us uterii.
Neither does Ron Paul.
MattMinus
I’m confused by the oppression calculus. Doesn’t GG get a higher Oppression Olympics score than JC, since he’s gay and all? Doesn’t that make JC the real villain?
Aqualad08
It’s a deliberate and obvious exaggeration used for effect. While pointing out that there isn’t that much horse eating going, I’m maybe just asking you, in the process, to stop belittling the fact that there IS an act of rape happening somewhere in this world as I write this. Sorry, John, but there IS a difference here, and that you’re not quite able to recognize that troubles me a little.
Anya
Darkrose said it best in last night’s thread:
I am also amazed that you are portraying Greenwald as someone who who was victimized by ABL’s overzealous supporters.
@rikyrah: Feminizing a gay man’s name as a put down is not an acceptable behaviour for someone with anti-oppression values. It’s also juvenile.
dedc79
Everyone has their own line, but the part of it that crossed the line for me was when the joke became that ABL would want to be the nun raped by obama. I don’t know who said/wrote/tweeted that, whether it was Greenwald or someone else, but that’s a pretty disgusting thing to say, because it goes beyond making whatever point about Obama anyone wanted to make, and got very personal.
amk
@wilfred: a glenbot lecturing others about blind support. funny.
fuzed
@cathyx: ditto,
wow, lotsa hate around everywhere.
Strandedvandal
My opinion is that you should have just stayed out of it. This is not helping and looks like a pathetic attempt to cover your ass. You flame ABL repeatedly in this post, right or wrong, and then a parting shot made to make you into the magnanimous benefactor, you state, “As far as I am concerned, ABL can write here whenever she wants. If she chooses not to, well, that is her decision.”
That’s a dick move man.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
I just find it odd that ABL and co. literally go ballistic with the Obama raping a nun comment, but not at the reality of little Mulsim babies being blown to bits. I think perhaps we should get more angry at the latter, personally…..
Yevgraf
I’m still chortling over how thin-skinned “professional critic” Greenwald is regarding criticism of his great and wonderful self.
He’s getting stung by blog criticism – time to jack up the pressure.
Schlemizel
@Wee Bey:
That this was a pissing contest between two loud mouth assholes one of whom dragged it onto his blog. That he did not agree with GG and not defend his loud mouth tweets. That ABL is free to post here whenever she wants. That he is sick of this pointless back and forth. That this search and destroy methodology of politics is exactly what he thought he was leaving when he came to the light side.
For myself, when commentators stop reasoning and start making excuses. When their whole goal is to win through destruction and not through logic they are not worth reading. Its why I stopped a long time ago paying attention to Hitch and Sully and more recently ABL and GG.
Adolphus
I am sooooo glad I ignore Twitter. I couldn’t even follow this childish drama and don’t care to. Whether John is right or wrong about defending a fellow front pager I think he is definitely wrong to say this is high school. Well, high school in WV maybe, but where I am from this is elementary school nonsense. I think they should all go to their room without dinner.
And I am perplexed by people saying JC should have stayed silent out of loyalty to ABL. Right or wrong on the merits, he should speak up if he feels the spirit. A lot of bitching goes on in these parts when, to use one example, Atlantic bloggers don’t call each other on bullshit and put up a wall of superficial and possibly artificial comity. How is that different than JC staying silent out of loyalty to a front pager? If there is a disagreement, then air it. I just think twitter is a really bad place for these type of discussions and, to repeat, I am glad I ignore it.
JonathanW
I don’t post here very often, but it seems like you should have just stayed out of the fray, John. Twitter may be full of dickishness, but that’s just a reason to avoid it, imo. Your response to the situation seems dangerously close to the “I’m sorry if you were offended by my offensive comment” or “boys will be boys” lines of defense used so often recently by the GOP and their supporters.
Dave
IT GETS BETTER
MattMinus
@Aqualad08:
There is also an act of cudgeling going on somewhere in the world right now, but we’re allowed to talk about that.
People use figurative violence in discussions on this forum all the time. No one complains about it unless they want to score political points or medal in the oppression olympics.
weinerdog43
If ABL is gone, then good riddance to bad rubbish.
Social Outcast
@ira-NY: So, why do they choose to communicate using a half-assed, at best, system like twitter?
Because twitter encourages people to toss out quick, unconsidered thoughts that could use some self-editing before publication. It’s more raw and exciting for bloggers who love drama.
Yevgraf
*chuckle*
http://blog.reidreport.com/2012/01/on-bullying-glenn-greenwald-and-the-nun-rape-smear/
The whole thing is a joy to read.
Cacti
@Adolphus:
The “spirit” certainly never restrained him from speaking up for glibertarian nitwit ED Kain.
Face
Whoa….wait a minute. 1 in 3 women have been raped? Can I get a legit cite to a legit study on this? This sounds insanely high.
Cat Lady
Fuck twitter, fuck GG and his Dear Leader bullshit, and fuck his “I know you are but what am I?” fanbois. Where’s the Wrong Way Cup Half Empty John Doom Galt Cole guy? This is his dream thread and he’s going to be late to the party.
lamh35
@Strandedvandal: you’ve said exactly what I was thinking.
but hey now john has his own post for the ABL haters to give him his props on finally gettin rid of her
Steve
I realize I am just a privileged white male, but I don’t understand how this is about rape at all. Some Greenwald supporter made the unremarkable point “you love Obama so much you’d defend him even if he did (something completely indefensible).” The response was that rape is such a deadly serious matter that you’re not even allowed to use it as an example of something completely indefensible, and GG responded by saying actually, the first guy had a fair point. And that’s what all the fighting was about?
Isis
Guess it was too much to expect a single, well-off, white man to understand exactly why GG’s HYPERBOLE-FREE-BY-HIS-OWN-ADMISSION declaration was so abhorrent.
mr. whipple
@Marc:
This.
John, you had the opportunity to do the right thing, and dropped the ball.
Corey
I mentioned this in the other thread, but the key “tell” that the umbrage over Glenn’s comments was false is the fact that these folks constantly mock Greenwald’s sexuality. “Little bitch”, “girly man”, insults for living in Brazil (which he only does because his relationship is not recognized by our country, and his partner/husband is waiting on an immigration lottery).
If these folks really cared about privilege, sensitivity, tolerance and all the rest, they wouldn’t make those kinds of remarks. But they do, and that’s what makes it clear that it’s about defending Obama at all costs – precisely the point Greenwald was trying to make.
ornerycurmudgeon
You did earn this, Cole, by giving abl a balcony I mean platform to shout from. She isn’t ‘good’ as you can tell by the following she attracts.
Maybe now is a good time for folks to refresh about the Bolsheviks and what they did to their supposed ’cause’ … I am very glad abl is gone, even if you didn’t quite have the balls to do it yourself.
Chrisd
ABL really gone? Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it. She’s had more farewell tours than Cher.
Why people believe her prose is worth the drama that goes with it is beyond me.
Howlin Wolfe
I’m really glad I missed all of that.
amk
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: That’s because sane people don’t give a shite about the lies from the clueless, lying, flame throwers like you.
bayville
Hilarious!
ABL – Queen of the Intellectually Dishonest – gets called out for her intellectual dishonesty.
And then proceeds to double down on her Intellectual Dishonesty.
Snapshot 10,365 of the hardcore Obot.
pamelabrown
This is not the first time that Greenwald has engaged in “hyperbole”. Does anyone remember when Greenwald singled out blackwaterdog to compare her to a Nazi propagandist?
That man is disgusting; using his (paid) microphone to single out a non-paid (ad free) Obama supporter just makes me ill.
Yevgraf
Greenwald apparently has a history of sockpuppetry as well.
http://patterico.com/2006/07/27/annotated-wuzzadem-the-facts-behind-the-greenwald-sock-puppetry/
Cassidy
@nancydarling: Oh I know. I was reading this blog long before his conversion. I actually stopped for a while when the neoconservative got too deep. I was hoping to deflect with humor.
Things are looking up. I’ve found a job that needed a clearance and a medical background and pays decently for very little work. I’m in a military environment, so my mental/emotional transition to civilian is going smoother. My wife is working and between the two of us we’re doing well now. The most difficult part of our current arrangement is finding time to work out and we only get to spend time together about one day a week. Now I’m just waiting for the Air Marshals or the Border Patrol to select me. Thank you for asking.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@amk:
Um… huh?
Corey
@rikyrah: “Gigi”? You’re disgusting.
Xenos
@Face:
Head——->Desk.
Yevgraf
@pamelabrown:
Oh right – I forgot about that.
bayville
@pamelabrown:
Lame comparison.
blackwaterdog propogandizes through photos.
Leni Riefenstahl through film.
Emma
@Corey: SO he’s allowed to spew poison but nobody can respond in kind? I’m glad to know that.
boss bitch
@Bill E Pilgrim: @EconWatcher
Oh please just stop. John Cole, who is still a giant asshole in this situation, was not and is not an “Obot”. He isn’t “coming around” on anything. He criticizes the president and always will but he still supports the president and will, from time to time, write posts that seem obotish to some of you.
I have to laugh at posts like this because you have commenters that act as if John has had some kind of revelation and will now join them in their non-stop criticism of the president.
middlewest
Well, it’s no mystery how John Cole ended up a Bush and Iraq war supporter, is it? Some people are just susceptible to weird, creepy personality cults.
I’m going to have to unsubscribe from here because I’ve got what I guess Cole would consider an extremely low tolerance for rape fantasy. I certainly don’t want to read anyone’s gross rape stories about Kay or Anne Laurie, or John Cole’s creepy manboy defenses of them. Maybe I just don’t play enough video games to understand that way of thinking.
sb
@Marc: Or…
I simply don’t understand John’s respect for ABL. She’s a dishonest propagandist on the subject of Obama. Her deep and irrational hatred of anyone criticizing the man colors absolutely everything she writes. She is a bog-standard (fill in the blank), utterly blind on racial and class issues.
Her debating tactics are flatly despicable. The entire business of accusing anyone criticizing Obama of being a “Firebagger” worshipping cultist is entirely typical. Her defenders can’t admit a single flaw in anything that she does…and yet it’s anyone who disagrees with her that’s the mindless drone.
She omits facts that disagree with her conclusions. She reads the worst possible intentions into anyone who disagrees with her. And she tops these failings off with galactic levels of insensitivity and arrogance.
[No need to fix your last paragraph as it don’t need fixing. I don’t see a helluva lot of difference in the debating ‘style’ of GG and ABL.]
Sad Iron
So…um…okay…John, so do you think the Steelers can take the Ravens if they have to go on the road?
Adolphus
@Cacti:
I am confused by your point. It sounds like you are agreeing with me. If JC wants to support or criticize ABL or EDK should’t he do so? I don’t want him to be artificially supportive or silent if he feels it necessary to post challenges to other BJ’ers.
John Cole, and every other front pager here, should post here either for or against other front pagers as he or she feels the need, the spirt, the whatever-moves-him/her to post. It’s called dialogue/discussion/debate. That’s a good thing. Asking him or anyone else to pull punches or pats on the back out of an artificial sense of loyalty or collegiality will quickly make this a boring blog and it is something that is regularly criticized on this blog and in the comments when done at other, usually more corporate sites like the Atlantic.
Of course putting it on Twitter just ensures that it will quickly sink into childish back and forth, but that’s another issue.
Peter
Oh, big man, please. Greenwald was undeniably in the wrong here, and ABL in the right. You claim that Greenwald was indulging in hyperbole, despite him repeatedly and specifically doubling down by saying that he wasn’t, but even if he was it would still be extraordinarily tacky and inappropriate.
ABL has been an important contributor to this blog. She’s provided a very different viewpoint from your other FPers, and consistently put out solid stuff. And now you fucked that up because you couldn’t keep your undeserved hero worship of Greenwald in your pants while she was calling him out on saying indefensible things. Nice job breaking it, hero.
The Sheriff Is A Ni-
Firstly, keeping the door open is good. Hopefully calmer heads will eventually prevail.
That said, Saint Glenn concurring with a horrible rape analogy – and he’s serious – goes well beyond ‘dickish’. Sure, both sides are trolling each other, but leaving it at that equivalence reeks of high Broderism. Greenwald crossed a line. That’s not acceptable no matter how much we agree with his stances on civil liberties.
Hal
I do have to say I find it hilarious that Greenwald is always going on about Obama defenders when he has a whole little Internet army of sycophants jizzing all over Salon every time he writes a negative about Obama (which of course is all the time.)
Everyone has their bots folks.
Yevgraf
@Corey:
Meh. I’d call him a little bitch even if he were straight – his whiny demeanor and his mindless bolsheviking of the discourse demand it.
And the Brazil thing is total fair game – easy for him to fuck things up for everybody here from the safety of there.
homerhk
I post here rarely but do read the blog and comments quite a lot since it is quite entertaining and I feel that I always learn something even (especially) from those with whom I disagree. ABL was a fresh voice and I always appreciated her take on things from a slightly different point of view from the normal points of view amongst the liberal blogosphere. I didn’t agree with everything she said or did and yes sometimes she was pretty thin-skinned. FWIW, I’m not totally in agreement with how JC handled this but give him the benefit of the doubt given the clear desire to fit multitude points of view onto this blog, which is healthy. As for GG, yes it is certainly true that President Obama has not been as good on civil liberties as he could have been. I do think that he makes these blanket comments without really investigating the nuances (e.g. one of the main complaints against Bush wasn’t just what he did morally but the fact that he acted outside the rule of law; on the other hand, the Courts have pretty much upheld, for example, Obama’s (v limited) reliance on state secrets). But really that’s by the by. The difference with GG is that you can’t have a reasonable disagreement with him without having him stomp on your neck with vitriol and misleading argument. I like the point above by TooManyJens that ABL was not, in fact, agreeing with the NDAA but rather saying that it doesn’t compel the military detention of US citizens (I’ve read the so-called offending bits and to this lawyer’s eyes, I think that position is right). If GG wants to debate this, he can. It seems that he doesn’t and that is disappointing.
BTW the “rape” thing is totally out of bounds, whether serious, metaphorically or otherwise. For any number of reasons.
Samara Morgan
@Steve: Greenwald made it about rape.
behold.
Cacti
@Peter:
I have to ask, what would have been a bridge too far for Cole on Greenwald’s supposed hyperbole?
Anologies using nooses?
amk
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: As I said, clueless.
lamh35
@Hal: Amen. thank you.
It’s funny though that ABL follower’s are considered “ignorant “GGhidist”, but GG followers are reasoned informed individuals who just like to “respectfully” argue their points
Bullshit!
Irony Abounds
Hyperpartisanship always leads to trouble. Add Twitter to the mix and you have roads full of IEDs ready to blow up civility and rationale conversation. It doesn’t matter that GG is more wrong in this case, the overreactions in this case are stupid beyond belief. I am rapidly running out of patience with the Internet tubes.
azlib
Glad I missed that one. I guess the liberal firing squad still lives. (e.g. a circle with the guns facing in).
Libby
It never ceases to amaze me how many mind readers there are on the internets. Astounding how people can take a few words and write volumes of meaning into them.
Wasn’t going to get involved but feel the need to defend John Cole. I read the tweets and took his words to mean simply, accusing GG of being objectively pro-rape is crazy. Turning one admittedly offensive comment into a days long personalized mega-brawl is fruitless. I have to agree.
bayville
@Samara Morgan:
…and the hilarity continues.
Intellectually dishonest.
Meet the intellectually challenged.
It wasn’t so long ago “thinkers” like you were making fun of ’em stoopid Teabaggers.
John PM
I am remembering a post a while back in which John said that a rape joke was never funny, except possibly for the short scene in Blazing Saddles where Headly Lamar is recruiting bad guys. Wouldn’t that same logic apply here? I searched for the link but I could not find it.
Samara Morgan
@homerhk: do you think Cole has even read this?
its pretty indefensible IMHO.
Yevgraf
BTW – The line has the Steelers at +9. Its a sucker bet.
Steelers are going to win by 20+.
Zagloba
Hardly undeniable.
It is true that mentioning rape pulls triggers, and so once one has done so, one’s out of the realm of cool and calm discussion. But ABL and GG had left that station a long ways back.
Would GG have been undeniably in the wrong if instead he had said “Obama could murder a child on live TV and you would defend it”? Is it just the inclusion of rape that you’re unhappy with?
kMc
I like Glenn Greenwald, and I am black. Is that ok?
pamelabrown
@bayville: Hah! Good snark.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Schlemizel: I’m quite inclined to agree with you on the BINGO.
Clearly this will not end well, though I suspect it will end, after about 742 comments.
some guy
Professional Victim ABL won’t be posting any more whiny screeds and bad readings and worse misrepresentations on BJ any more? excuse me while I clutch my pearls.
Soonergrunt
@wilfred: Pot to Kettle: “Hey, did you notice how black you are?”
Samara Morgan
@bayville: im not intellectually dishonest.
just intellectually superior.
:)
Wee Bey
@Schlemizel:
And those are all things you might well think. A pox on all their houses, as it were.
None of those are things John Cole said, so it’s pretty hard to demand other people respond to them.
jibeaux
I’m going to third or fourth “I’m glad I missed all that” and first “can we get double kay?” Less drama, more info & unique content, I think it’d be win-win.
Donald G
One thing about these drama threads: they sure bring out plenty of future suppliers of pie.
I’m developing quite a taste for pie.
We now return you to your latest Balloon Juice comment drama…already in progress.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@amk:
Yes, I am clueless as to what you are talking about with your unhinged attack on me.
Which is a “bridge too far”?
a) using an inappropriate rape metaphor, or
b) using drones to drop bombs, resulting in numerous civilian deaths
If one could step back and choose which of the two things to completely flip ones lid over… I know which one I would pick.
Corey
@LAC: “rental space in his colon”? Sick.
Shinobi
Using rape as a rhetorical “device is not like using genocide or assassination, it’s probably closest to using “Lifelong imprisonment in Guantanamo bay” in front of a bunch of people who’ve been imprisoned in Guantanamo bay. It is both a reality and a threat to 50% of the population you are addressing at any time.
Men seem to like to use it as some kind of rhetorical flourish because it is a vivid atrocity that doesn’t involve actual death. Women are then offended because they just spent their solo bus ride wondering if the creepy driver who kept grinning at them was going to turn around and rape them.
Perhaps men who want to be free to use rape as a rhetorical device without being attacked by a vicious mob of angry feminists (it’s the Shrew signal! Go!) should take it up with the other men, you know, THE ONES WHO KEEP RAPING WOMEN.
I’m just saying, I get that hyperbole is supposed to be visceral and blah blah blah. But using rape is a little TOO visceral.
And yeah, this is all besides the point GG was trying to make, which is a big part of why he should not have re tweeted what he did.
August Pollak
LOL. It’s a dick move for John to hold ABL to her word that she’s leaving and not just being a drama queen about it? I think not falling into the “just delete my account so I can blame you for it later” trap is hilarious.
The usual suspects here would be less pissed if John actually did delete her account than they are at how ridiculous they’ll all look when she’s back in two months with a “really, really important post worth crossing here.” You know it, we know you know it, and you’re pissed at us for knowing you know it.
nancydarling
@Cassidy: Continued blessings on you, Cassidy. And somebody, please, bless us all!
The Sheriff Is A Ni-
Safari Mobile is missing a reply option. FYWP.
Zagloba @ 147: That still sounds below the belt, but not nearly as outrageous. The baby killer argument is pretty well worn by this point.
Gwangung
Should have dropped the shovel, Cole.
Greenwald said something stupid. He reaps the reward of that. End of story.
Soonergrunt
@ornerycurmudgeon: Leaving aside the sheer assinine self righteousness of what you just said, neither Greenwald nor Nader are progressives. Neither one seeks to accomplish anything other than self aggrandizement. That either one says things that occasionally support actual progressive causes is a bug, not a feature.
ralphf
For what it’s worth my take away from all this is: hyperbole is just a horrible debate technique to employ. It seems sensible to the user but it just back fires. (See Godwin)
El Cid
@Samara Morgan: As a general rule — apart from Greenwald — am I supposed to hate expatriates? Expatriates living in Brazil? Expatriate libertarians? Or does it have to specifically be expatriate libertarians in Brazil?
I’m just asking, because I’ve known a lot of expatriate US citizens living abroad, and I’ve also known expatriates of other nations living here. A few of them were maybe libertarianish, maybe.
To me it seems fine for even genu-wine furriners to comment on things going on in the US, and vice versa. National boundaries aren’t likely to exist forever, you know, and rational inquiry can happen anywhere.
Can I listen to expatriate soshullists in Brazil? What about expatriate Green Partiers, perhaps in Germany?
Is there a reference list of expatriate types who should be worthy to comment on US affairs, or does that expatriate part eliminate them entirely?
Cacti
Now that the front page is blessedly free of persons of color with strong opinions, maybe we can get back to the important stuff…
Like what Andrew Sullivan said today, or yesterday, or might say tomorrow.
drunken hausfrau
good grief… did everyone drink so much on New Year’s that they have a 3 day hangover? Seems the last two days or so have been full of screeching and vomiting. (word vomit, aka, twitter wars)
Benjamin Franklin
“This is my last say …”
Naw. This shit is good for at least 1/2 dozen more threads.
Peter
@Zagloba: That wouldn’t be any more acceptable, given that Greenwald repeatedly insists that he is not indulging in hyperbole and meant it completely literally. It would be more defensible as hyperbole, but not that much more.
wilfred
@Soonergrunt:
What?
@ Shinobi:
Yeah, there have been Rachel Corrie pancake jokes here, too. Oxen get gored all the time.
Paul W.
I’ll troll some comments later, but I just wanted to say:
This is why I stay off twitter. If this was a two day affair then I think I can forgive John for saying “grow up”, by the same token… I hate GG unreasonably strongly (considering I have no skin in the game), but don’t think he is influential enough to spend THIS much time lambasting him.
Corey
@Yevgraf: Of course. As always, when the rubber meets the road, notions of privilege and tolerance and all the rest fly out the window.
CT Voter
@TooManyJens:
Precisely. With one minor correction. DrDawg made the most odious accusation. Greenwald jumped on the bandwagon. The original issue was about analysis of the current version of the NDAA. There was a disagreement. Greenwald chose not to explain his position. And things unraveled.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Schlemizel: No I don’t think that will happen until we all are sent to the Dick Cheney Freedom Enhancement and Attitude Encouragement Camps run by instead of FEMA and Homeland Security. but by XE.
Scott
Really, I think everyone should try to avoid being on Glenn Greenwald’s side in these sorts of issues. It’s almost a stone guarantee he’s in the wrong, there’s never a good excuse for rape jokes, and frankly, I get the impression that Greenwald is going to do everything he can this year to fuck over American liberals, whether he does it for money, for attention, or just for shits and giggles.
boss bitch
You were wrong for saying anything John and the examples/defense you use are very lame. Who the hell skull fucks a kitten? and those other two examples in your posts are pretty much common sayings so people aren’t offended by them. To say that anyone would forgive POTUS for raping a woman is way more than dickish. Calling it sick is not even a strong enough word.
Also, you need to defend Glen Greenwald why? That fucker gives worse than he gets and he needs to be knocked down from that pedestal his fans have him on. The same ones who call Obama supporters, “cultists”. And stop acting like Greenwald isn’t influential. He has been picked up by major news outlets and other prominent pundits from time to time. He gets invited on TV to represent liberals on every issue possible. Just look at how many bloggers had to push back on his lies and hyperbole regarding the NDAA?
What is it with some people and these violent or sexual images of President Obama? You had some asshole on here saying if Obama fucked his daughters in the ear his supporters wouldn’t object. Some time ago Susie Madrak(?) said Obama treated the left like the girl he fucked behind the bleachers. In between those you have people talking about Obama taking it in the ass and bending over for Republicans, etc. etc. Knock it off or grow the fuck up.
Soonergrunt
@J.W. Hamner:
Absolutely, as are his supporters.
Dave
Rape shouldn’t be used as a rhetorical device. Especially when 1-in-6 women in the US have been raped. It’s just fucking stupid to say and Greenwald deserved to be raked over the coals for it.
kindness
See this is one of the reasons I am glad to have a life and not live here at BJ world. Kudos John. You’ve done the noble thing by saying ABL was wrong but can continue to post here. We’ll all have to wait and see if she can be equally gracious and grown up.
Sometimes the Taliban mind is all too close to those of us on the left in addition to those on the right we frequently call out on.
Keith G
Indeed. There have always been heartfelt arguments, but the quick trigger on the vilification gun is unnecessarily disruptive.
There are good arguments to be had on whether Obama has made some tactical mistakes on some very important issues. Further, while candidate Obama promised to return the rule of law vis a vis the growing security state, one can legitimately wonder what happened.
These are important issues for both the Democratic Party and the country at large. Emotions can be understandably charged. Over zealous outrage and ad hominem attacks are not helpful and are the foolish tools of the small minded. This is the modus operandi of both ABL and GG. And, this is why is why I care little about them.
Let’s move on.
Zagloba
In a sane universe, the first response to this would be a withering flame assault by a Pakistani parent who lost children to a drone strike.
Instead, I get to point out that just because a lot of children have died needlessly over the past three years as a direct result of Obama’s prosecution of the War On Terror doesn’t make it any more right.
some guy
clearly, Greenwald has become the New Hamsher for the Center Right Fight Club around here.
Get Yer Hate On, Center-Righties.
Kane
I’ve never had a twitter account. For some reason, I assumed that it was basically comprised of smart-alecky one-liners, mindless insights from attention seeking media-types, celebrity updates, and endless chatting of teens and tweens. I had no idea that actual adults were using twitter to fight with each other and as a means to relive the middle school experience.
sixers
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
Yup.
Whats worse? A rape joke or innocent bystanders being murdered by drones with US flags on them? Its funny how ABL and crew pick their battles.
Corey
Shorter baloonbagger GG critics: Stop being insensitive to women, you homo.
Mnemosyne
Here’s the thing, though — GG really, genuinely, 100 percent believes that Obama is killing children and assassinating people. It’s not a metaphor or a simile. It’s what his columns are all about: Obama murdering people with drones.
That’s why this whole thing is so damn creepy: GG referenced two things that he repeatedly says that the president is currently doing and essentially adds, “Oh, yeah, and he’s raping nuns, too, we just haven’t heard about it yet.”
That’s why GG himself said it’s not hyperbole or a metaphor — he thinks that the current president of the United States is either enabling the rape of nuns (presumably with death squads like Reagan did) or is doing it himself and GG just can’t prove it yet.
That, my friends, is a creepy-ass level of accusation right there. GG needs to bring a whole hell of a lot more proof than “well, if he’s killing children and assassinating people, Obama must be enabling the rape of nuns, too.”
Dustin
Boy am I glad i missed all the bullshit going on here right now. And, for the record, I’m with you Cole.
I stopped reading Glenn years ago, and ABL quite a while ago as well. They’re both loud-mouthed trolls, no matter their posting status or how often they may actually say something of worth.
If this site’s comments have declined in quality you can point to two front-pagers as the likely causes even when you factor in the removal of all the shit they had to deal with from commenters: EDK and ABL. And, of the two, ABL was far and away the worst. She’s a primadonna, quick to anger and seeing insult around every corner. Some of it is, and was, justified, but by no means all of it.
It’s very akin to why I stopped reading any and everything on Pharyngula having to do with gender. When you have a reader base hell bent on shouting down the other half, when you constantly see valid points treated like troll-fodder because they don’t support the zeitgeist, it gets tiresome quickly. That is what ABL brings to the table, so if she never comes back I hope her fans join her.
The Moar You Know
@Scott: Why can’t it be all three?
Good ratfuckers are never out of work, or money. Glenn’s noticed that. You’d have to be blind not to.
JR
Yeah, but… Would ABL absolve Obama even if he was caught raping a nun?
She never really answered, did she? I suspect she would, and she knows she would, ergo the distraction over rape.
Bottom line: Ron Paul is a crackpot. I would never vote for a crackpot. But I’m sentient enough to disapprove strongly of Obama’s constitutional violations and approve of Paul’s positions on international interventions, while still prepared to support Obama (albeit not as enthusiastically as 2008) because he’s at least lucid and intelligent; I would never, ever support a crackpot even when the crackpot and I agree on one specific issue. But, you know, it’s OK for someone to state that they agree with a crackpot on an issue where Obama’s performance has been dispiriting, without neurotics like ABL going nuclear on his ass.
Liberals after all are supposed to be people comfortable with nuance and be less susceptible than conservatives to succumbing to hero worship. Sadly I’m afraid ABL and her supporters seem to exhibit unmistakable conservative tendencies when it comes to defending Obama. Need I point out that nobody should be above criticism, especially the President, and to criticize Obama does not imply support for any of the lunatics on the republican side? One can support Obama and even like him while being strongly against some of his policies.
lamh35
btw, john, kudos for this thread btw, there is nothing high schoolish about some of the comments at all.
ABL got her post in and her supporters are overwhelmingly represented congratualing her on finally saying “two peas in a bucket…”
You got ur post in and and the usual the ABL-haters are congratulating you on finally getting rid of “that one”
2 groups on opposite sides of the lunch room…yeah, nothing high school about that.
where is the DougJ thread that was here just a few minutes ago.
I’d like to get out of this high school.
John D.
John, I’ve been reading you (and posting intermittently) since you were a Republican, and Darrell was a common poster here – and this is the *dumbest* thing you’ve ever said on this blog.
I don’t care whether you think this is overblown. Glenn *himself* said this was *not* an analogy. He really, truly, honestly thinks that ABL would defend President Obama raping a nun, if we are to believe his words. If you cannot see why ABL (or anyone else) would find that offensive, you’ve got issues.
You and Glenn are wrong here. You should apologize to ABL.
Wee Bey
And this is why you were so fucking wrong, Cole.
Overrun with Glennzilla trolls.
Out.
MBunge
It seems to me that the only useful part of this whole thing is a reminder to liberals that right wingers aren’t the only ones who can go completely off the rails. Greenwald is a little like Limbaugh in that regard and think how much better we’d all be if prominent conservatives had stood up to Rush 15 or 20 years ago.
Mike
Samara Morgan
@El Cid: umm….background: my nemesis and one time mentor Dr. Jim Manzi (NRO) is the Great Defender of Free Market Economics, school vouchers, and states rights federalism.
He is an ex-pat millionaire that lives in France, having made beaucoup de l’argent by selling off his aerospace company.
His children go to excellent FRENCH schools and have excellent FRENCH health insurance.
Greenwald is an ex-pat American living off the proceeds of his “blogging” in Brazil.
i dont despise ex-pats– just expat flaming hypocrits.
Zagloba
Hyperbole? It’s literally true that defending the GWOT involves defending child murder.
Do you remember the live “Shock and Awe” broadcasts from Baghdad in March 2003, with the skyline lit up by bomb flashes? Because I do, and just because I couldn’t see the blood and guts doesn’t mean I didn’t just watch someone get murdered.
MattMinus
@John PM:
Rape is never funny, unless Obama is raping a clown while ABL cheers him on.
The Moar You Know
I love it. ABL v. Greenwald in a deathmatch. The two people I loathe perhaps more than any others in the blogosphere beating the shit out of each other, with their pet howler monkeys all too eagerly leaping into the fray.
It’s like all my New Year’s wishes come true in the first three days.
Hope this pie fight goes on all week. I will be loving every last bit of it.
LAC
@Corey:
And true – the amount of glassy eyed “Oh, you are o great, Glen” echo chamber nonsense at Salon.com is proof. The little bitch bans posters with even the mildest rebukes (after calling the person an “obot” and letting his bobbysoxer minions pile on)
Joseph Nobles
@JR: “She never really answered, did she?”
Except she did.
Mnemosyne
@bayville:
Riefenstahl was hired by Hitler to make her films and the entire Nuremberg rally was specifically staged for her cameras. Riefenstahl of course tried to deny everything after the war to avoid jail time, but the evidence is unmistakable.
And you really think that blackwaterdog’s little ad-supported blog is the exact same thing as being paid to stage propaganda films? I think you need a sense of perspective.
Benjamin Franklin
fixer-upper
Soonergrunt
@Cat Lady: Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
TFinSF
As many people have noted, Glenn went to great lengths to point out he actually believes Obots would defend Obama from rape. No hyperbole. Just because Glenn shit the bed on this one doesn’t mean you have to.
Dustin
Max L
This blog routinely has crap like this leak above the fold and it makes for a second rate read. There is nothing more soul crushing than reading comments on the interwebs, except, of course, for actual posts ABOUT comments. Twitter fights? seriously? Fulfilling all expectations, Twitter is 142 characters of pure stupid. Stop crapping up my RSS with junk, please. And, clearly, I hope you ignore this comment.
Face
Um….huh. I’m pretty sure you meant Steelers minus 9. They’re huge favs. “+9 Steelers” just about gave me a heart attack, implying they’re going to get stomped.
Mark S.
I’m late to the party, but let me get this straight: Greenwald says that ABL would cheer Obama raping a nun and he claims he’s not using hyperbole.
He is seriously some sort of a sociopath. No one could possibly be that lacking in self-awareness.
Plantsmantx
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
Become completely unhinged?
Fed Up In Brooklyn
I know I’m wasting my time with this, but here goes:
GG’s embrace of the rape metaphor was needlessly inflammatory and ultimately self-defeating. At the same time, the metaphor was obviously chosen because it IS so despicable, so evil. Therefore, it was not a “joke,” nor a dismissal of the seriousness of rape. And his point, completely lost, due to the mistake of using such an inflammatory metaphor in the first place, was that Obama has ordered numerous EVIL actions, which have resulted in many innocent deaths and these actions are still either openly supported or brushed aside with excuses by supporters like ABL and others.
Personally, I find the reaction to the use of the rape metaphor fascinating. ABL literally went ballistic based on an obviously inflammatory bit of rhetoric, but has never shown nearly as much outrage at the numerous civilian deaths from drone attacks. It’s as if actual mass-killing is not quite as outrageous as using inflammatory rhetoric. The latter is a “bridge too far,” apparently….
Gust Avrakotos
Bahahaha. So Cole officially becomes a Greenwald apologist. So predicable. Could a Ron Paul for Prez endorsement be far behind?
Cole is so fucking wrong on this it’s not even funny. Greenwald should be fired as far as I’m concerned. It was despicable and inexcusable.
druk
Aww, come on now guys. John has obviously found a soulmate in Greenwald. They are, after all, both former pro-Bush, pro-Iraq War, pro-stupid ideas conservatives. It’s been a hard transition for both of them, they need a few more years before all the wingnuttery has been fully expunged (though JC usually has a better handle on it, not quite sure what’s happened these last few months)
Soonergrunt
@Cassidy: Good luck!!
HeartlandLiberal
I for one am glad I missed this mess, since I don’t twitter.
I was not thrilled when I showed up this morning and read all the comments on the episode. Sort of sorry I was eating breakfast at the computer while reading.
I have to agree with John on this one, and I am especially glad to see he still welcomes ABL to post on this blog. I have always found her stuff informative and stimulating.
As for Greenwald, I think he has unnecessarily fanned the flames, but I will still consider him what he is at core, an unabashed defender of the core principles of the Constitution in the face of its ongoing destruction by the politicians, on both sides, who are deconstructing this nation from any adherence at all to the rule of law.
I don’t think any hyperbolic statements he has made can compare with the reality of what the ruling class has done to this nation in just 12 short years.
As for Obama, I will vote for his reelection. What? Am I ever going to vote Republican again? Is Hell freezing over next year? Libertarian? You have got to be kidding!
Not vote? Not likely. I will keep on voting until it does become so meaningless that you might as well cancel the elections. As far as I am concerned, next year’s reelection of Obama next year, in importance, ranks right up there with turning points in American history like the Civil War and the Great Depression. Do you really think this nation can survive another Republican president? Yeah. I didn’t think so.
Samara Morgan
@John D.: zactly.
tame?
due to my mad twitter skillz i can link WHAT THAT FUCKTARD ACTUALLY SAID.
can you defend that Cole?
Herbal Infusion Bagger
Damn, I dislike Greenwald as IMHO he’s just Sullivan with liberatarian sprinkles, but agree with the comment above that ABL repeatedly trolled the front page. And was just not up to the same standards of originality as other front pagers. I come here for mockery of the right, not for inter-blogger pissing matches, and too many of ABL’s posts were All About Her.
Also: Twitter is a f**king waste of time.
Mark S.
What happened to DougJ’s post? Silencing?
Mnemosyne
@JR:
Wow. Seriously, dude, fuck you. Rape may be an abstract concept to you, but I guarantee you that it is not at all abstract to most women here (and probably a fair proportion of the men, too).
If you have an accusation to make, make it. If you have evidence, present it. But these hints and coy accusations are just nauseating.
MBunge
@Zagloba: “It’s literally true that defending the GWOT involves defending child murder.”
It’s incredibly productive to reduce a complex set of political, cultural and national security issues to “You want to kill little kids!”
Mike
Keith G
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
There is a name for that:
American Privilege
Edit: FTR, the rape comment was stupid in itself, and stupid since it diverts the discussion.
Dave
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: Except he wasn’t using it as a metaphor. He explicitly said in a later tweet it was “NOT” (his emphasis) a metaphor. He accused ABL of supporting Obama if he raped someone.
It’s just wrong. If I said that Glenn would support a Nazi if they came out against drone strikes and then said, “No, I mean it.” it’d be just as offensive.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
Here’s what I said on Twitter last night:
“This is the hill you want to die on? Rly? Defending a man’s right to use someone else’s suffering to launch an ugly & ad hominem attack on a woman who is your friend & co-blogger, & by extension, all who disagree w/ him? This is the hill?”
to which you responded: “So now we are going all grade school & I have to choose between Glenn & ABL?EVERYONE TO YOUR CORNERS”
I’ll say again what I said then, when I realized that, yep, this is really the hill:
Some things are, genuinely, beyond the Pale.
And yes, when one friend viciously attacks another friend, I pick sides.
(And it might be added, when one friend viciously attacks another friend? It actually kind of does become about the friend who was attacked. Because the first friend’s ugly personal attack made it that way. Glenn Greenwald is a smart man. If he wants to argue politics, he should state and defend a position, not reach into a bag of insults and try to find the one that will most wound those who have the temerity to disagree with him).
Dave
What a petulant little child you are, Cole. Grow up, learn some humility and, more than anything else, learn how to listen to people. You stepped in it big time, but you’re to immature to recognize it.
The Sheriff Is A Ni-
Zagloba @ 181: Oof. Yeah, that has me thinking.
I just wish there was more like you and less trolling and handwringing/hand washing.
Carbon Dated
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
“ABL literally went ballistic based on an obviously inflammatory bit of rhetoric …”
Man the Kevlar!
salacious crumb
for ABL and her supporters, if you are not on Obama’s side, which they have defined as even the mildest criticism of Dear Leader Obama, you must hate him, black people, rape victims and obviously you love KKK and child molesters
Tyro
Back in the day, the other term for the Crazification Factor (W’s 27% support floor) was the BTKWB number– the support W would still have if he decided to Bind, Torture, and Kill Wilford Brimley on national TV for his sexual gratification. This was a little more sophisticated than your run of the mill “rape joke,” but it gets at the same thing Greenwald was referring to (which is not, in fact, a “rape joke”).
Samara Morgan
@Max L: twitter rawks.
because peeps show their true face on twitter and cant retract.
Gust Avrakotos
@druk: But..but..but Cole just said the other day that is ancient history and he is all better now. Yea right!
me
@Mark S.: Direct link still works… or it did 5 seconds ago…
Satanicpanic
I wouldn’t miss either of them at this point, although I would probably side with ABL. Glenn jumped the shark years ago.
Zagloba
@MBunge: I didn’t say “want”. I said “defend”.
ETA: I’ll also challenge you to imagine a global war on terror that doesn’t involve murdering innocent bystanders or by-livers. I may simply not have enough imagination for that task.
lamh35
@Mark S.: “things that make you go hmmm”
@me: my internet security won’t let me open the page. it’s gives me a message saying that it’s a “malicious website”
Mark S.
@Dave:
If I said Glenn would support a white supremacist who wants to repeal the 1964 Civil Rights Act if that candidate came out against drone strikes, then . . .
Oh wait, Glenn does support a white supremacist who wants to repeal the 1964 Civil Rights Act. My bad.
Carbon Dated
@druk:
When was Glennzilla pro-Iraq war?
Gust Avrakotos
@salacious crumb: In the future if you don’t want to make is so obvious your a troll better not use the reich wing (and Greenwald in case you thought they were different) “dear leader” reference.
Samara Morgan
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: oh you dim bulb.
Greenwald is not our friend.
He is a libertarian.
and as the dark specific gravity of race and westernculture chauvinism deforms the very topography of spacetime in the run-up to Nov 2012, you will see libertarians bark like dogs and speak in tongues.
just like Greenwald is doing now.
the Wingularity is near.
TooManyJens
@JR:
Are you even listening to yourself? Do you understand what you’re saying? Are you so vile that you really believe this?
cmorenc
I’m confused as to where in the following chain of events described by ABL she (and some others here) consider the remarks to have become offensive:
1) Making a *general* point that many Obama supporters would defend him even if he raped a Nun;
2) Specifically saying of ABL that *she* would defend him even if he raped a Nun;
3) Saying in followup to #2 that ABL would fantasize about playing the role of a nun;
4) In the context of discussing remark #3, Greenwald supporting the original generic point that many Obama supporters would defend him even if he raped a nun.
The point where the remarks clearly go unacceptably out-of-bounds is remark #3. That remark is an incendiary personal insult with a fecal-covered verbal sword, stating to a woman that she would enjoy being raped. As to #4, the problem there isn’t generally with defending the original point, but doing so in the dramatically changed context of remark #3, when prudent folk should realize the probability of being constructively understood versus compounding destructive misunderstanding is particularly high.
As to stage #1, the original point…there’s NOTHING improper about the analogy itself, and the hyper-sensitive PC police can go to Hell. No one’s accusing Obama of raping nuns or advocating rape, rather it’s simply a concrete way of making the point that Obama could do something heinous and some people would still defend him. As to stage #2, it’s unwisely provocative to personalize the remark that way, even if the analogy generalized non-specifically to “Obama supporters” is ok. That’s because you’re nudging the discussion in a direction unnecessarily likely to degenerate into personal insult, and heat rather than light. As seems to have happened here.
ruemara
@The Sheriff Is A Ni-: He has already said we’re ok with killing babies. These GG fanbois have ignored all the bridge too far moments that have already happened.
And JC, you’re wrong on this. The only thing that you can say is wrong, was when people started attributing the source of the comment that Obama could rape a nun on live tv, Glen Greenwald. That was the only falsehood. He supported that comment, retweeted it, doubled down on it and is a jackass. His spreading of misinformation on NDAA and the supposed smoking gun of the Carl Levin ‘bombshell’, make him untrustworthy. His defense of accusing anyone who supports President Obama of being perfectly fine with murder, rape et al, makes him a pretty horrible person.
@Mnemosyne: If these people had perspective, they wouldn’t be saying shit like BWD is like Riefenstahl.
Peter
@Zagloba: My eyes could be rolling harder right now, but that would require me to have them medically reinserted into the sockets afterwards.
jazzgurl
John Cole it is time to kiss and make-up. High time to kiss and make-up! Forget every-one else with their 2 cents worth, and be the leader of your site. Call on that male maturity. Come on now!
keestadoll
Coming soon: “Popular Liberal Blog Quakes With In-Fighting Over Tweets”
TWEETS
Fucking….A.
Mark S.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Greenwald has a bunch of bodies buried in his basement.
I AM NOT ENGAGING IN HYPERBOLE!
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@Dave:
I thought GG said it was not “hyperbole.” It’s obviously a metaphor…
In other words, it’s a metaphor he wants you to take literally. In other words, the subtext is: “ABL would find a way to support Obama, no matter what evil thing he does.”
That’s really it in a nutshell. And considering the evils Obama HAS committed, while continuing to maintain ABL’s full-throated support, maybe he has a point. Again, the chosen metaphor was needlessly inflammatory and self-defeating (obviously), and he should have simply stuck to laying out the subtextual argument, “ABL would find a way to support Obama, no matter what evil thing he does.” That would have been a better choice of rhetoric, in my opinion.
ChrisNYC
I do still wonder why you go so far out of your way to defend and link to Greenwald. Your business who you want to hang out with but the guy’s vicious and toxic and a drag on any cause he adopts. How he fancies himself a lover of liberty is a mystery since he can’t bear to allow others even to have the liberty to express their opinions without being filleted with ad hominem.
It’s been said millions of times already but that lawfare blog someone else linked to states it pretty succinctly:
“My problem with Greenwald is not his politics. I engage with people of his politics all the time. It is the pervasive suggestion in his work of the corruption and ill-motive of his opponents, whom he serially fails to credit with believing the arguments they are making. His post about me is a case in point. In his first paragraph, he purports to know my “overarching purpose.” He insinuates–all but states, really–that I am a paid shill of the powerful. And throughout his piece, he casually casts aspersions on my motives and integrity (“dutifully fulfilling his function,” “devote themselves to serving those in power,” “That’s not whose interests they’re funded to defend,” etc.).
This is by no means unusual for him. … This is Greenwald’s modus operandi…. I don’t see any reason either to engage with someone who begins with the premise that people who disagree with him are arguing in bad faith, are on the take, or are evil.”
Defending someone like Greenwald is strange. And to say that he’s under attack? He is never not on the attack. All he does is attack.
TooManyJens
@Carbon Dated:
When it counted the most.
LAC
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
Why don’t you just save us the paragraph and just say “Greenwald wrong? NOOOO!!! Deflect, deflect!!! Drone attack…war is bad…people die…Obama like war….Obama hate children….must like rape..me angry!!” Much quicker that way.
Samara Morgan
ONE FUCKING MORE TIME COLE
how do you defend what Greenwald SAID?
JR
@Mnemosyne: I am accusing ABL of being capable of defending Obama, regardless of the actual hideousness of Obama’s hypothetical crime.
I hope this is clear, and thank you for the “Fuck you” addressed to me. I’d think that someone who is supposedly cognizant of how horrid actual rape is would have chosen a less sexually violent invective to hurl.
Zagloba
@Mark S.: It does you no credit to lie.
And if you feel the need to not take him at his word, cite evidence or go post on ABL’s blog.
joes527
I love this blog.
I stumbled onto it during the primaries … when the “I can no longer rationally discuss the Clinton campaign” tag summed up how I felt exactly.
But from time to time I have had to step away.
And each and every time I have gotten to the point of deciding that a timeout was in order, the catalyst has been GG. Now, I’m not a GG hater or lover. But he pushes this blog’s buttons in a way that leads it to veer right off the road, smack into the ditch.
Dave
@Mark S.: Exactly.
My issue with Glenn (well, one of them) is he took an interesting topic (what means more to you politically and how does that affect whom you support) and turned it into a dumbass jihad where if you support Obama you are a rape-supporting baby-killing maniac.
He can DIAF as far as I care. Extra-judicial killings have been a part of the US since the Constitution was signed.
Amir Khalid
I find all this saddening, particularly that ABL is no longer among us here at Balloon Juice. I am well aware of her flaws, but on the whole I consider hers a voice well wirth hearing.
I don’t get the sense that she overreacted to Glenn Greenwald’s use of a rape metaphor. It’s always inflammatory when addressed to a woman, and Greenwald should have known better. He could, and should, have responded to ABL’s protest by disavowing its use, without necessarily withdrawing the point he was trying to make. (That point we remain free to dispute, all the live-long day and in 800-comment threads if we so please.)
Two points. First, it seems to me that ABL is upset that she got rather less of John Cole’s loyalty than she had earned as a Balloon Juice front pager. She might be right on this, and in feeling that her position here has thus become untenable.
Second, Gwangung is right: John Cole should have dropped the shovel long ago; or he could have exercised the better part of valor, and picked it up either discreetly or not at all.
Wiesman
Oh FFS. I go to bed and everything is moderately okay with the world and I wake up to this. I think the single greatest lesson that the interwebs have taught us about humanity is that we have unlimited capacity for being overwrought drama queens.
I think this would come as a surprise to some of our learned philosophers and thinkers of the past. I think this capacity was always there but until DARPA came along and figured out how to string a couple of computers together, the conditions just werent’t there yet for the full-on DRAMA to really come out. Well, now we know.
It turns out that high school isn’t an anomaly. All that pettiness and stupidity… that’s how we really are. In the past, we had been able to fool ourselves into thinking that when we leave that high school environment and stop doing stupid drama shit, that we had grown up. Nope. It’s just that we didn’t have an easy way to let our drama queen inner selves to express themselves.
Now we have the internet and Facebook and Twitter and WordPress (FYWP) and so the drama continues unabated, forever and ever.
We are all Hanna Montanas now.
Max L
@Samara Morgan: Point taken, but do we really need a Twitter to prove that “you can’t fix stupid.” I thought that’s what they created the enable comments option on Youtube for.
Virginia Highlander
For reals?
“Hillbilly left-o-centrist”, perhaps, but “hick” is hitting below the belt. Bad form!
D. Mason
I love how the ABLbots are out in full force to criticize the Gigibots for being bots. The internets win my heart time and time again.
Dave
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: Except what he said was this: “It is NOT a “rape metaphor”: it’s a statement they they’d defend ANY evil: assassinations, child-killings: EVEN rape”
So, you know, fuck Greenwald. It’s a dumb statement he can’t support anyways. And using rape in the statement is so god-damned idiotic it boggles the mind.
MBunge
@Zagloba: “I’ll also challenge you to imagine a global war on terror that doesn’t involve murdering innocent bystanders or by-livers.”
It’s impossible to have any sustained effort of either military action or law enforcement that does not involve innocent people getting killed.
I happen to think there are some very good arguments for seriously rethinking it not outright ending the use of drone attacks. Those arguments aren’t winning the day, however. Abandoning them for the crudest sort of self-aggrandizing hysteria is only going to make things worse.
Mike
Yossarian
Frankly, I don’t remember the last time ABL posted something that was truly worth reading, and her faux-bravura writing style and epic flame wars that could drag this site down for a full DAY were beyond tiresome. That being said, Greenwald is a long-winded professional purity troll with an inflated ego and a remarkably thin skin.
For my part, I’ll be glad to be rid of the pair of them.
Dan B
Jesus can’t believe so many words are being wasted on a twitter twat when the obvious answer is that Greenwald is an asshole, ABL is an asshole, and Cole is an asshole.
Carbon Dated
@Mark S.:
This is an EXTREMELY insensitive remark that only someone of privilege would ever make. One in five people have bodies buried in their basements.
Zagloba
Now that I’ll full-heartedly agree with.
(Though to be completely fair, there’s a huge contingent of people in the political ecosphere who are continually arguing in bad faith, or are on the take, or are evil. See, for instance, any post by Krugman or Delong containing the phrase “playing for Team Republican”.)
Craig
@cmorenc: To #1, though – put yourself in the shoes of a woman. A man says that you would defend someone if they committed a rape, in earnestness. How do you respond to that? That’s some seriously callous and passive-aggressive shit to say to someone, but especially to a woman. I don’t really think ABL covered herself in glory over this thing (it didn’t have to become a schoolyard fight, and probably wouldn’t have if the two people involved weren’t so generally self-righteous) but neither do I think that it’s at all unreasonable for her to say, no, that is not an acceptable thing to say to a woman. If it had been “skull-fucked a kitten” then ABL could have laughed about it (maybe), said yes Glenn I hate kittens, fuck them. That’d be funny. But there’s no laughing off the implication that you don’t care about the rape of a woman. A little bit of empathy for the position the comment put ABL in would, not necessarily absolve her (like I said, I think she’s generally pretty weirdly self-righteous, and mostly has been a dud as a front-pager), but at least allow people to understand why she responded the way she did.
Paddy
@donnah:
Words to live by. Substitute “Tweet” for “Post” and you’re covered.
Gust Avrakotos
@jazzgurl: Now THAT is funny. You forgot the /snark tag at the end because the Cole fluffers around here might think you are serious that Cole is in any way associated with ‘leadership’.
Carbon Dated
@TooManyJens:
Thanks; I had no idea. And I read every GG column (Well, I read about 12% of each one because he has prolix disease.)
Maus
I agreed with ABL on plenty of subjects, but she had a tendency to get overly narcissistic and go on tirades with what she considered “problem posters” here and waste the rest of our time. Yes, there are assholes sometimes, but it really makes the rest of us miserable for you to lecture them at length through many blog posts about nothing.
Re: Glennzilla, it’s probably not a good idea to make rape analogies at the same time you’re supporting a pro-lifer who thinks the only sort of sexual harrassment that exists is rape, but EVEN IN THE CASE OF RAPE would force women to go through mandatory arbitration due to the sanctity of contract law, like the infamous KBR case.
@marduk: I feel the same way. I won’t miss the unhinged portions, but some more raceblogging would be nice, I’m a big Racialicious fan, but they don’t get into politics as much as I’d like.
Gust Avrakotos
@Mark S.: Would that be the basement in Switzerland or the basement in Brazil?
MBunge
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: “And considering the evils Obama HAS committed”
Like ending DADT, passing the most liberal health care reform since Medicare, saving the U.S. auto industry, deposing Ghadaffi and killing Osama. Yup. It’s hard to understand how anyone could support someone responsible for so much evil.
Mike
Mnemosyne
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
Fix’d, because GG himself said (and said more than once) that he did not mean it as a metaphor. He meant it literally.
I don’t know why all of GG’s apologists keep skimming over what the man actually said, but it’s true: GG himself said it was not a metaphor.
joes527
… and can we please take this whole episode as yet another piece of objective evidence that twitter is a bad idea?
“I’m going to let fly with whatever pithy 140 characters are passing through my head at this particular time. What could _possibly_ go wrong?”
Mnemosyne
Though I should probably also say that since we already know that horrible rapes were being perpetrated by US soldiers in Iraq and that contractors in previous war zones were found to be running child sex rings using government money, yes, there are and were women and children who were raped because of the US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But GG is going to need a whole lot better evidence than “things didn’t change enough after Bush left” to decide that Obama is fully responsible for those crimes.
bemused
I skip reading a lot of posts here knowing from the outset there will be excessive drama and haranguing. Then there are the posts where the comments start out interesting, rational and funny but somehow morph into histrionic bedlam. Being a midwesterner with all nordic DNA leery of inordinate emotion, these type of bickering uproars give me a rash. I would think there is enough drama and insanity from the crazy conservatives to occupy everyone’s attention without poking sharp sticks at one another until some snap.
Still, this is one of my favorite blogs. It’s easy enough to take a detour around all the mayhem.
Samara Morgan
@Max L: NO!
arghhh.
again.
COLE!
how do you defend this as “hyperbole”?
Anya
@JC: I don’t know why people can’t tell the difference between calling someone a racist, and challenging the racist shit they say. Michael Moore lamenting the fact that he wanted the black side of Obama (the gangster), and all he got was the white side (the mild-mannered professor) is racist. No one accused Michael Moore of being racist. What he said was racist. Get it through your thick head.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@Dave:
Again, the metaphor (it technically is a metaphor, even if GG claims it isn’t) was clearly inflammatory. But one could argue the subtext has merit.
Personally, I find the reaction to the use of the rape metaphor fascinating. ABL literally went ballistic based on an obviously inflammatory bit of rhetoric, but has never shown nearly as much outrage at the numerous civilian deaths from drone attacks. It’s as if actual mass-killing is not quite as outrageous as using inflammatory rhetoric. The latter is a “bridge too far,” apparently….
Zagloba
Agreed
Wat? I mean, I can see saying that if law enforcement is dealing with violent criminals, that you can expect casualties among innocent people harboring them, or taken hostage by them. But if the police kill someone with no connection at all to the criminals they’re trying to apprehend, that’s almost prima facie evidence that the force is way out of bounds.
Mac G
I am not a fan of Greenwald and biggest supporter around but ABL’s angry screeds are too much to bear. I wish her luck.
geg6
@TooManyJens:
Fucking-a, THIS.
@J.W. Hamner:
And THIS, too.
You fucked up, Cole. And you’re still fucking up.
@Corey:
And you can just go fuck yourself, you piece of shit. Greenwald is lying, disingenuous sack of libertarian garbage. I detest him, fervently. But it has nothing to do with his sexuality. You are just as much of a lying asshole as GG.
TooManyJens
@joes527:
I’m not letting him off that easily. There are plenty of people who use Twitter and manage not to tell other people that they would defend raping a nun on live TV. It’s not that hard.
MikeJake
If “male privilege” is what allows me to summarily dismiss the feelings of women, then there must be some kind of “female privilege” that allows women to self-righteously declare certain subjects off-limits because of the damage they might incur to their fragile, fragile psyches.
Zagloba
@MBunge: Obama has done some very positive things, you’re absolutely right. Are you somehow under the impression that this fact negates the evil things he’s also done?
jakethesnake
ABL makes some good points from time to time, but 90% of her writing seems like pure drama. I used to read this blog every day. After ABL showed up the blog changed drastically and I found it very hard to continue coming back every day. Then something really paranoid and childish happened and I stopped reading the blog completely. I’ve been coming back a little more the past couple of months. If ABL is gone, I have to say that is a very good thing for BJ.
lamh35
@joes527:
I use twitter for a while now and I’ve never been in a twit-war. I make conscious efforts NOT to get involved in twitter wars.
Twit wars are started by twits (i.e. idiots). I consider twitter a good tool.
so no I don’t agree that it’s a bad idea.
It’s like FB, I know people who seem to disdain FB for whatever reason, but it’s not FB that’s causing the problems, it’s the idiots on FB who use it to post and update and just say stupid things.
let’s not pretend that even without FB or twitter these same idjits wouldn’t find other ways to be idjits…like I don’t know posting on blogs.
BTW, I’m not calling u an idjit.
Pray Tell
Consider the term, “Fuck You.”
Does it not mean, “Rape You”?
Just as “GFY” means “Go Rape Yourself”?
And yet those who decry others who mention rape throw those terms about with ease.
People are being raped in prison today, perhaps this very second, because they are in jail for no other reason than using the same recreational substances Obama admits to enjoying in his award winning book.
Why won’t Obama liberate those people, as Ron Paul and Gary Johnson have promised to do?
Obama could pardon all non-violent drug offenders and protect them from prison rape, but he won’t.
To my mind, he is therefore responsible for what happens to them.
Is he not?
TooManyJens
@MikeJake: Yeah, the privilege of having a 1 in 3 lifetime chance of being sexually assaulted. We’re like those lucky duckies who don’t make enough money to pay taxes.
Mnemosyne
@cmorenc:
Just wanted to highlight this, because I think you’re totally right. If things had stayed abstract, they might not have spun so far out of control, but once you have people saying, “ABL would love to be raped by Obama,” any hint of a joke that might have been there is long gone.
As I said last night, I often wonder if GG has some kind of social deficit that makes him not understand how other people react to things, because doubling down after the “ABL would love to be raped” thing is just rock-stupid.
ruemara
@Zagloba: List the evil Obama has done. Him, personally.
Corey
@geg6: Ah, so “privilege” is only important when you stand to benefit from invoking it in an argument. When you and people like you insult someone based on their sexual orientation, that’s different.
Got it.
Maus
@MikeJake:
Sorry dude, i think you want Breitbart or Limbaugh’s site if you want to bitch about Mens’ Rights and the horrible burden of whiteness.
@Corey: Get banned, homophobic creep.
@ruemara: Oh please, this is not a productive avenue. It’s the same thing the Paulentologists trot out when they talk about him as a kindly grandfatherly type who has delivered 100,000,000 babies therefore why could he hate women, minorities, non-Christians? It’s impossible because he’s never done anything evil himself, he only wishes to enact *passively* evil policies…
schrodinger's cat
Rape is not funny and joking about it is not funny either. To many women, rape is a fate worse than death.
I also don’t understand this obsession with Ron Paul and his supporters, in this case Greenwald. There is no way he is going to be the Republican nominee. Why not save these fights for later, if and when Paul becomes the nominee. Paul is crackpot his ideas about economics and the role of the Federal Government belong in the nineteenth century not the twenty first.
I think ABL brought a fresh perspective to this blog, despite all her faults and am sad to see her go. As for GG I find his writing tedious and his style a bit pompous. His attacks on Obama are over the top. I find his holier than thou attitude hard to take.
geg6
@JR:
You are now officially more offensive than BoB.
Congratulations, asshole.
Dave
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: If Glenn is explicitly saying someone would support Obama committing rape, it’s not a metaphor. It’s Glenn saying that someone would support the President committing rape.
This all began because Glenn said if you support Obama you support the killing of children and isn’t it SO interesting that a Republican is against it blah blah blah.
And the thing is that you can support the President and still be disappointed in some of the things he does. But for Glenn, this makes me a blood-thirsty maniac. So fuck him.
nancydarling
What Driftglass said.
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2012/01/gay-catholic-tory-expatriate.html
Also, too. I think GG is rather full of himself.
amk
Congrats cole. You managed to attract a few more new trolls. Just what the blog needed.
Gare B
This will be one blog site that will not be getting my support. What a petty rant by JC, and over what? Defense of a slimebag libertarian with the history he has? Thanks for giving me all the glimpse of you I will need. You sir, are a disgrace. Friends do not let friends defend libertarians
Mnemosyne
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
Yeah, it’s weird how saying to a woman, “You’d love to be raped,” just irrationally sets her off. Women are funny like that.
Samara Morgan
jaysus keeyrist inna handcart.
READ WHAT HE SAID.
its not the medium’s (twitter’s) fault, its not ABL’s fault the guy IS A DOUCHE.
what is wrong with you?
the guy is a DOUCHE.
Cole is defending a DOUCHEBAG.
amg
Klaus
I wish only JC and DougJ posted. Back in those days…they were good, snark-filled days.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Mnemosyne: “As I said last night, I often wonder if GG has some kind of social deficit that makes him not understand how other people react to things, because doubling down after the “ABL would love to be raped” thing is just rock-stupid.”
But hey, it’s the schoolyard and Cole sez both sides do it so that means that she is wrong and he is right!
Makes sense, no?
Dave
@Pray Tell: Wow…you’re a fucking idiot, aren’t you?
MBunge
@Zagloba: “Are you somehow under the impression that this fact negates the evil things he’s also done?”
Of course not. But Greenwald and his acolytes are judging Obama by a standard that not only would every U.S. President fail, so would virtually any leader of any country that has ever existed, yet they refuse to acknowledge the silliness of that and the disproportionate level of venom which flows from it.
Mike
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@schrodinger’s cat:
Ugh… it wasn’t a rape joke. The rape metaphor was clearly chosen as an example of EVIL. At least get that part right….
Virginia Highlander
I like shitstorms and this one’s a beaut!
I like ABL. She pisses off people that I don’t like in imaginative ways, but I don’t read GG. I won’t read GG. I think he’s a walking, talking dick with ears, so I don’t have much interest in the molotovs ABL hurls his way. Fuck him. Consequently…
I still like John the “hick libertarian” Cole and think he’s right on this one.
El Tiburon
Let me pick my exploded brain parts off of the floor.
When, in ABL’s mind, has it NOT been about her? That’s my point all along: She is a thin-skinned bomb thrower. If you don’t agree with her lock-stock and barrel, then you are a useless pile of shit.
And I will never tire of quoting her directly in a response to a commenter here: FUCK YOU IN THE FACE.
MikeJake
@TooManyJens: There are many crimes, indignities, and catastrophes that are more likely to effect men than women, but you don’t see men declaring references to such things off-limits. Maaaaaaybe jokes about cutting off someone’s cock, but that’s about it, and even then it’s not like men are outraged.
Shorter, male privileged answer: quit being such whiny little girls.
Corey
Funny how no one can defend the disgusting, hypocritical invective hurled Glenn’s way by those who disagree with his criticism of the president.
JonF
What Greenwald said was just wrong. He clearly owes ABL an apology. I don’t think Cole’s defense of it was that smart, but its not in the same category as what Greenwald said.
Samara Morgan
@nancydarling: i’ll see your driftglass and raise you a stephenson.
TooManyJens
@Mnemosyne: It’s probably that time of the month, amirite?
TheStone
Sitting here reading Shirer’s The Rise and the Fall of the Third Reich before I decided to check in on the BJ scene. The chapter I left off at was Anschluss: The Rape of Austria. After digesting the comments here, I have decided to rip all the pages of said chapter out of the book and to burn them. Totally out of bounds. Shirer must have been some kind of scumbag, I tell you.
schrodinger's cat
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:Joke, metaphor whatever it was it was offensive.
Maus
@Mnemosyne:
What I think is that his desperation to see Paul as a dignified candidate who cares about civil liberties is hitting the cognitive dissonance wall at full speed now that he’s paying more attention to peoples’ investigations of Paul’s ACTUAL beliefs towards minorities, gays, etc. It’s not meshing with what he wants to see in Paul, and he’s been lashing out at people (and Obama) much more and much more incompetently/desperately in recent history.
@schrodinger’s cat:
Because some of their stopped clock ideas are valuable, but only when divorced from their rotten origins and very harmful context.
Zagloba
He’s at the top of the military chain of command. Just like Bush is responsible for torture, Obama’s hands have a lot of innocent blood on them.
If you think that blood is worth what we got for it, then say so. (I’d disagree, but that’s what reasonable people do.) If you think that all the other options in this race will end up with more blood on their hands, and all other kinds of evil wrought both at home and abroad, say that. (I’d agree with that one.)
Mnemosyne
@JR:
Ah, yes. The problem here isn’t that you’re defending the people who told ABL that she would love for Obama to rape her. The problem is that my language was intemperate. Gotcha.
Pray Tell
@Dave: How am I a “fucking idiot”?
By pointing out that Obama could protect non-violent drug users from rape but instead chooses not to out of… what?
Nobility & a justified respect for the ‘Rule of Law’?
Or am I, in your estimation, a “fucking idiot” for pointing out that saying “Fuck You” is, in effect, to say, “Rape You”?
In either case, please explain. Thank you.
Lit3Bolt
By reading these comments, it has become obvious to me that the only thing that can cure assholedom is more assholedom. Giant, puckering, pulsating, hemorrhoid-bleeding assholes spewing feces at each other will cure hurt feelings and determine the Total Objective Truth, the Center of All Things. Only by casting Snarkbolts and conjuring the most elaborate of witticisms can we be assured that Our Point(tm) has been proven for All Time.
Once corn bits and offal cover every last one of us, only then can the Internets be won. Do your part and post your unproductive, sanctimonious vitriol today! Throb, assholes, throb!!
Odie Hugh Manatee
@nancydarling:
From that:
No shit. Congrats on your new admiring audience John.
Craig
@TheStone: This is an incredibly, immensely, monstrously stupid comment.
Keith G
It is sadly laughable that in the face of one of the more important elections in my lifetime, we (Dems), instead of banding together, are arguing over an argument about a statement concerning tweets about another (maybe metaphorical) tweet about an argument over a dispute of a presidential action. Or something like that.
Carl Rove is and Dick Cheney are very happy. Thank god we are but a pimple on a wart on the ass of our democratic process.
Trentrunner
I just wanted to tell you both good luck. We’re all counting on you.
Mnemosyne
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
You keep referring to it as a metaphor when GG himself says that he meant it literally. Why is that?
El Tiburon
Exactly.
If one agrees with Greenwald (or Hamsher) it’s not enough for many of the commenters here to point out why they think I am wrong. No. To these people it means I am some form of lower-life, scum sucking piece of shit. The anger and vitriol from ABL and her minions is so ridiculous as to be laughable. YOU BETTER AGREE WITH US OR YOU DON’T MATTER BAHAAAAA!!!!!
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@schrodinger’s cat:
Sure, but we should get it right… a joke is much different than a metaphor. He wasn’t making light of the crime of rape, he was using it as an example of ultimate evil. Big difference.
joes527
@TooManyJens:
It is interesting that you took my comment to be a comment specifically on GG’s toots.
From what I saw, GG, ABL, JC and an army of supporters of each of the factions effectively used twitter as a tool to cover themselves in shit.
But as a not twitter-er … it mostly comes to my attention when someone uses it to send dick pics, so maybe all I’m seeing is the dark side. Does anyone have a link to the 2012 equivalent of the federalist papers published as a series of toots?
FlipYrWhig
Hypothetically speaking, if Glenn Greenwald saw Ron Paul sodomizing Glenn’s partner, he would change the subject and still want to talk about how Ron Paul had smart things to say about unmanned aerial vehicles. What? What’s offensive about that?
Mark S.
@MikeJake:
Maybe they have these “fragile, fragile psyches” because they have been raped, you fucking idiot.
If a woman tells you that she doesn’t find your oh-so-witty rape joke to be funny, APOLOGIZE AND SHUT THE FUCK UP.
This isn’t about privilege, it’s about being a decent human being.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
While I wish I could say I’m enjoying the parade of drama llamas, I stand by my prediction that unless comments are closed, this thread will have at least 742.
jomo
ABL has every right to feel hurt. Greenwald used a line callously and probably should have retracted it – but chose to make it worse.
But this is between them! End stop! I am so friggen tired of the endless drama of ABL posts that are all about her being hurt. And while I agree with most of her sentiment – she doesn’t seem to know when to walk away.
Thanks John.
John Cole
@cmorenc:
Greenwald never did anything of the sort. Some other random jackass made that remark, and now, in true Breitbartian fashion, it is being attributed to Glenn.
And for the record, fuck you Samara.
Darnell From LA
It never ceases to amaze me how much slack ‘Blog-Lords’ will give other ‘Blog-Lords’. I mean, just how far into the lunatic fringe would Greenwald have to wander for John Cole to call him out?
I admit John Cole calling Greenwald’s actions “dickish” is progress however! Not that he called Greenwald a “dick”, just his actions. I know, I know, but for Cole this much is progress. Maybe one day he will be able to say Greenwald isn’t “Glenzilla.” Baby steps.
Dave
@Pray Tell: The first one. Telling someone to fuck themselves is not telling them to rape themselves. I really shouldn’t have to explain that.
ruemara
@El Tiburon: I’m sorry, wasn’t this a comment to her? How, exactly, isn’t that about her?
@Maus: give me a break. You have someone arguing that the good Obama has done can’t be used to cover the evil he’s done. I’m asking what the evil was that he’s done personally. Don’t have an answer, then pass on.
I guess women should just shut up, Mnem, and realize that we shouldn’t get so riled up about being told we support rape and child murder, but are being homophobic by saying GiGi and when offering to debate the points on the actual issue of NDAA, quit making it all about yourself.
Maus
@Craig: Seriously, what a moron.
@ruemara: I sympathize, I just feel that the Paultards would use the same rationale to claim that endorsing the Truly Free Market-based solutions to all aspects of civilization isn’t actively “evil”, and kindly father Paul wouldn’t hurt a fly.
TooManyJens
@joes527:
Conversations are valuable, too, not just proclamations. And lots of good conversations happen on Twitter.
Peter
@Zagloba: Much like tossing a disclaimer that you don’t really support the Ryan plan to end medicare at the top of an article where you wax eloquent about how important and serious and thought-provoking it is: If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and eats like a duck, there’s a strong possibility that it’s actually an extremely thinly-veiled endorsement.
Zagloba
OK. Here’s where I think we really disagree.
In the latest GG blogpost about Ron Paul, he puts words into an imaginary Obama supporter’s mouth as what he’d like to hear. The gist is that this supporter acknowledges the nasty things that Obama’s done and stood for (just as you just did), and says that, on balance, the benefit that we (humanity or the American people or that imaginary supporter’s self-identified tribe or whatever) get from having Obama in office exceeds the costs, relative to whatever realistic options that supporter has.
In other words, GG is saying precisely what you are: that Obama is a bad option. My judgement is that Obama is at this point in time, and for the foreseeable future, the least bad of the bad options. GG remains agnostic on that question. But he’s hardly pushing us to reject Obama (or any other public figure) simply because they don’t live up to an ideal — instead, he’s pushing us to be honest with ourselves about how much they don’t live up to that idea.
Mnemosyne
@Zagloba:
Except that, as far as we know, Bush isn’t just responsible for torture in that “he decided to take us into war” way. As far as we can tell, Bush ordered the torture, or at a minimum signed off on it.
You can say that, for example, Obama ordered the assassination of an American citizen with al-Awlaki, but you’ll have to give us more examples of areas where, like Bush, Obama personally ordered (or at least approved) the implementation of something as hideous as torture. Drone attacks are, unfortunately, part of the war already in progress and were going on before Obama took office, so you would need to at a minimum refer to those as the Bush/Obama drone attacks.
MikeJake
@Mark S.: She’s allowed to be offended. She’s not entitled to an apology, nor is she entitled to demand that it never be spoken of. See the difference?
Chrisd
ABL–Obama apologist and liberal racial/gender commentator–fits right in with the politics of this site. Her arguments, however, are least effective when she injects the rhetoric of the latter into the former, usually to shut up an opponent. So why not split her job into multiple new blogger opportunities?
I nominate FlipYrWhig for civil and creative defense of whatever Obama is doing or not doing at the moment. Then find another blogger who can address the rampant racism and sexism in American society. The two jobs are not synonymous. That’s the problem.
amk
@FlipYrWhig: lol. that’ll be karma, the bitch giving the payback big time.
Thymezone
Well, given the intensity and traffic surrounding this topic, and the history between us, John, I will be surprised if my comment makes it to your eyeballs. But here goes.
You’re wrong. And here’s why:
First of all, most of your rant is about shit between ABL and GG. Why is that your business? Why did you even speak out about it? Why not just shut up? You try a lame “she can post here whenever she likes” as if to pretend that you are being noble, but the fact is, I don’t see where you ever had any dog in this fight and I don’t see what value you added other than to pour charcoal lighter on the coals and then leave your front pager hanging out to dry. For what? So that the world can see what your all-important view of this is? News flash: I don’t give a rat’s ass what your view of it is, it wasn’t your fight.
Also too and second, why is your rant all about a shitstorm on Twitter? Is your blog now just an adjunct to your twitter addiction? Do people come here to get your views of what is going on on Twitter accounts of bloggers? In short, who the hell cares what was said on Twitter and why do you have to be the arbiter of that traffic?
Your blog is turning to shit, in case you don’t know it, and this is an unforced error on your part that is only going to accelerate the descent to the bottom that BJ is taking. Stand up for your goddam front pagers unless you are a principal in the fight, which is not the case here, and even if you are a principal, give your crew room to be wrong — in your eyes — without acting like you are the dad and everyone else around here is a child needing your scolding.
Fix it, John. Just fucking fix it.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@Mnemosyne:
Because GG is wrong when he says it isn’t a metaphor. It is clearly a metaphor in that context. I think when he says it should be taken literally, he’s referring to the subtext, which he wants you to take literally. He laid out the subtext in a follow-up tweet: “Yes, I think Obama defenders who justify assassinations, drone killing of children, etc. would justify ALL crimes.”
novum
see this is what happens to a party not founded on burkean bells and hayekean modesty ;)
Corey
@ruemara: Sorry, but you ARE being homophobic by saying GiGi, and calling him a little bitch, and mocking him for living in Brazil. And I’ve seen a lot worse hurled his way on Twitter.
Also, because I’m being accused of hypocrisy myself, I think Glenn’s example of the extreme things Obama could do and be defended by ABL and the like was over the top and offensive. But I also recognize that it wasn’t a “rape joke” or anything of the sort. To be fair, if I got the near-constant shit that he got, I might say some intemperate things, too.
Benjamin Franklin
@FlipYrWhig:
There is nothing obscene about anomic slaughter and teenage blood trails.
John Cole
Really? Shoq? Allan Brauer? SheriffFruitFly? Scott Finley? The rest of the white male brigade piling on Greenwald- this was all about rape to them? They are all rape victims?
Give me a fucking break.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
Fucking stupidity from beginning to end.
Disagreement? No, there can be no disagreement. You either think exactly as my tribe does or you are the worst evil imaginable.
GG and ABL deserve each other. Fuck the both of them.
Pray Tell
@Dave: So when someone tells me, “Fuck You,” they are actually telling me they’d like to share an enjoyable sexual experience with me?
And when they tell me, “Go Fuck Yourself,” what they actually mean is that they want me to have a satisfying and life-affirming act of masturbation?
Hmm. Interesting theory, bro.
In any case, why not address my other point?:
People (men & women) are being raped in prison for no other reason that using the same recreational substances that Obama acknowledges having enjoyed personally in his autobiography, and, despite the fact that Obama could protect those people from rape, he instead chooses to let them remain in danger of being raped.
Why would Obama not pardon them en masse as Ron Paul & Gary Johnson have promised to do?
Does he feel that it is more noble to respect the justifications given for their continued endangerment?
Where would Obama be today if he’d been thrown in jail for using cannabis?
Would he allow his daughters to languish in prison and face the possibility of sexual violence?
Why should anyone’s child be afforded less consideration?
Darnell From LA
Greenwald is someone who famously likened a JEWISH Obama supporter’s wordpress blog to LENI RIEFENSTAHL! Now this shit. If he was not a powerful blogger John Cole would probably call him for what he is: An asshole.
So goes the blogosphere; calling the President anything you want = fine. Calling out a powerful fellow blogger for being an asshole = verboten.
Samara Morgan
@Corey: READ THE QUOTE FUCKER
neal peart
It occurs to me that Atrios’ second largest contribution to public discourse after finding the video wherein Friedman explains that the rationale for the Iraq War was to make brown ppl “Suck on This” is Glenn Greenwald. I’m not saying that’s good or bad, just that Atrios discovered GG when he was a nobody with a blogspot blog.
El Tiburon
@Mnemosyne:
This and the remainder of your comment: Holy Fuck. You are an amazing pretzel stuck inside a contortionist’s ass.
So now it’s the “Bush/Obama Drone attacks”? Wow. This is amazing. Obama, in your mind, is simply incapable of stopping the drone attacks or closing down the remaining black sites that torture or any of the other Bush-era programs? Wow. Just fucking wow.
Mattminus
@schrodinger’s cat:
“To many women, rape is a fate worse than death.”
ORLY? This might be the stupidest fucking thing anyone has said in a thread full of very stupid fucking things.
joes527
@Samara Morgan:
I disagree. Everyone (except you, I guess) has thoughts and ideas and arguments … not well thought out … not followed through … more emotion than reason … needs editing.
Now we have twitter that encourages us to engrave our half-assed opinions in granite. The medium IS playing a role.
This is not to say that GG is/is not a DOUCHE (hmmm … offensive, patriarchal, privileged language there) He is one that can go of at great highly-edited length in bad directions. But twitter feeds the worst in him as it feeds the worst in most.
FlipYrWhig
@Zagloba: Come the fuck on. Greenwald’s imaginary dialogue consists of the Obama supporter merrily saying that he is just peachy with the bloody pulp of innocent bodies sticking to his shoes because he gets to enjoy abstract goods like environmental protection. Greenwald’s challenge is for anyone who supports Obama to admit that he supports murder and dismemberment in exchange for arcane policy preferences. Then, then, meanwhile, with the other hand, he runs a game where he gets to lavish Ron Paul with praise by making token criticisms of the many abhorrent things he believes and using that to cherry-pick areas that Greenwald likes. What Greenwald is doing is making all defense of Obama admission of sadistic glee, and all defense of Ron Paul contingent and carefully tailored.
He doesn’t know how to argue, and he means what he says, and he’s a pulsing, reeking, pustule with legions of followers who repeat his every pronouncement about how someone _else_ has a deluded cult of personality around him. But it wouldn’t be fair to rip into him, because ABL has a handful of people who like her, too, so, six of one, etc.
Zagloba
@Peter: The analogy there breaks down real soon, because Greenwald has, ironically, gone out of his way to “balance” his point of “I’m glad Ron Paul is in the conversation” with “he has a lot of awful positions also”. Hell, go to the most recent column and CTRL-F “despicable”. Where does it show up first? Why is it “needless to say” for Greenwald that a liberal (in this case, Katrina vanden Heuvel) would never vote for Paul?
Peter
@John Cole: You finally respond to comments and you cherry-pick that shit? Jesus fuck man, you’re better than this.
TheStone
@Craig: This is an incredibly, immensely, monstrously stupid comment thread and I didn’t want to be out of step with the zeitgeist. I have no truck with ABL or GG, but this is one silly pile of mess here. When was the last time that an ABL post provoked anything other than repeated flashing of everybody’s self-righteousness, etc? Was there even a substantive kernel to this exchange of outraged postures? I can’t even tell anymore if it’s ABL or just a Pavlovian response by which all commenters on ABL threads end up on side or the other of the ABL-GG Turd-Tossing Contest? My snark rocket was irrational and fired from the hip, but I haven’t figured out how to rationally respond to this sort of thing yet. I don’t post often, and I guess the moral of the story is that an ABL thread is not the place to do it.
geg6
@Carbon Dated:
Boy, you fanbois don’t know your history.
GG not only supported the war because his Dear Leader W told him to, he also didn’t find any good reasons to vote in 2004.
NobodySpecial
Knew this day would come. It would have come had the positions been reversed and ABL was posting outside the blog and Greenwald was a front pager here. Those two just got along like oil and water and dragged all their devoted fanses into it, too.
Cole, like Solomon, gets shit on no matter how he rules, so I’ll just remind everyone that this is his pool, and if you don’t like the way he runs it, the door is to your left.
ruemara
@Corey: You’re an idiot. Full stop idiot.
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: Ah, so you know better than Glenn what he meant. Ok. Argument over, Glenn just didn’t know how to say what he meant.
ochone
i get some of the comments here, that gg is one of the most literal bloggers around and that the defense of hyperbole, in relation to him in particular, is weak. it is in fact possible that he actually literally meant what he said. this makes him an imbecile, and it’s a valid enough thing to do in response to question his output in general in that light.
but this does not let abl off the hook. she could have said f you greenwald, that’s just atrocious and beyond stupid. but she decided to bullshit about him minimizing rape. to me, her response, although human and kind of understandable, is even worse, because it buys into the kind of faux outrage that’s everywhere. it validates shit the right revels in, whereas gg’s stupidity does the opposite. it actually reaffirms how bad rape is. it was the self-evidently the worst thing he could think of.
Corey
@Samara Morgan: And I think that was over the top and inappropriate (but it doesn’t, in turn, make the homophobic remarks directed his way justified). Do you read people’s posts?
FlipYrWhig
@amk: Uh, that was a bit more of a “robust” reaction than I was hoping for, but… thanks?
Emma
@Pray Tell: You know, when I encounter people like you, I wonder about God’s sense of humor.
Anya
@nancydarling:
Worth repeating.
Peter
@Zagloba: Just because you’re not capable of reading for meaning doesn’t mean the rest of us suffer your affliction.
schrodinger's cat
@John Cole: Can’t Glenn Greenwald defend himself, why are you acting like his defense attorney?
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
Let me see if I have all this clear.
For the Glennbots, everyone who supports Obama would still do so if he raped nuns live on TV. They love seeing Muslim babies killed. This is because they are inhuman monsters fit only to be destroyed. The right-wing fascists? Meh.
For the Obots, everyone who criticizes Obama in any way is a lying hateful racist scumbag. They love seeing minorities raped and killed. This is because they are monster fit only to be destroyed. The right-wing fascists? Meh.
It seems these two groups are in full agreement on one thing: everyone who doesn’t walk in lockstep with them is irredeemable scum, and so is anyone who fails to hate those other guys as much as they do. Meanwhile, neither group really gives a shit about their actual enemies, the people who honestly would see both of these groups in chains if they only had the power.
Stupidity from beginning to end.
Soonergrunt
@El Tiburon:
Pot, meet Kettle…
Samara Morgan
@joes527: SO FUCKING WHAT?
he said it, and Cole is defending it.
DOUCHEBAG.
it doesnt matter what you think of ABL, it doesnt matter you think ofg me, it doesnt matter what you think of Cole.
GREENWALD IS A DOUCHE!
amk
@John Cole: What’s your fucking point, that only women are allowed to be offended by gg’s stupid stance ? Or these men are assholes because they got offended by gg and took him to task for it ?
Give me a fucking break, indeedy.
JR
@Mnemosyne:
The irony here is very thick: You and your ilk have basically been railing against intemperate language hurled against ABL, without addressing the basic issue which is that there are some so-called liberals (yes, ABL and you and all her acolytes) who will defend the president against ANY accusation.
Are you people so dense as to think that anyone here who argues that the president should not be above criticism has made a pro-rape argument? Really? I don’t even think you were saying that you want to rape me because you told me “Fuck you.” I could easily have used your intemperate use a sexually violent invective as a cudgel to distract from the issue. But, no I do not think you’re a wannabe rapist, and no I don’t think you said that you’d like to see me raped. You obviously used hyperbolic language to get your point across. Just like those, who, based on past experience with ABL, think that ABL would absolutely defend the president against any accusation, regardless of how legitimate and horrific it is. That’s the crux of the matter.
TooManyJens
@John Cole: Oh, so now you’re naming specific names and not just using the blanket statement “these people.” There really were rape survivors who were sickened by what Greenwald did. If you didn’t know that and thought it was just the usual pile-on, well, maybe you should have kept your mouth shut because you didn’t know what the fuck was going on. If you did know that and decided to make a blanket statement that “this wasn’t about rape to these people,” then you deserve what you get.
Poor, poor put-upon Glenn. Never mind that, as I said, he made/passed on these horrible accusations against ABL because she (horrors!) dared to disagree with him on a matter of legal analysis. Obviously this is all the fault of people who irrationally hate Glenn Greenwald.
Samara Morgan
@joes527: SO FUCKING WHAT?
he said it, and Cole is defending it.
DOUCHEBAG.
it doesnt matter what you think of ABL, it doesnt matter you think ofg me, it doesnt matter what you think of twitter.
GREENWALD IS A DOUCHE!
Samara Morgan
@joes527: SO FUCKING WHAT?
he said it, and Cole is defending it.
DOUCHEBAG.
it doesnt matter what you think of ABL, it doesnt matter you think ofg me, it doesnt matter what you think of twitter.
GREENWALD IS A DOUCHE!
Samara Morgan
@joes527: SO FUCKING WHAT?
he said it, and Cole is defending it.
DOUCHEBAG.
it doesnt matter what you think of ABL, it doesnt matter you think ofg me, it doesnt matter what you think of twitter.
GREENWALD IS A DOUCHE!
Samara Morgan
@joes527: SO FUCKING WHAT?
he said it, and Cole is defending it.
DOUCHEBAG.
it doesnt matter what you think of ABL, it doesnt matter you think ofg me, it doesnt matter what you think of twitter.
GREENWALD IS A DOUCHE!
Samara Morgan
@joes527: SO FUCKING WHAT?
he said it, and Cole is defending it.
DOUCHEBAG.
it doesnt matter what you think of ABL, it doesnt matter you think ofg me, it doesnt matter what you think of twitter.
GREENWALD IS A DOUCHE!
El Tiburon
@FlipYrWhig:
If that Ron Paul raped Greenwald’s partner, it would not diminish any “smart” things Paul said about the War on Drugs or the War on Muslims or on drone attacks that kill children.
It would probably kill any chance Ron Paul of had of being President. Because, you see, in our political climate and to many here on BJ: it totally acceptable to continue the disastrous War on Drugs (and minorities) and to continue killing Muslim women and children and to formalize indefinite detention. All of that is okay. Especially if you are a Democrat.
debit
@John Cole: Maybe they know a rape victim. Chances are pretty good they do. You probably do as well, John.
FlipYrWhig
@schrodinger’s cat: It’s because Cole is to Greenwald as Greenwald is to Paul. Not a down-the-line admirer, but a zealous defender, especially against critics who might land a punch.
ChrisNYC
@Darnell From LA: It takes a Village to raise a blog.
Amir Khalid
@Amir Khalid:
To correct myself #254:
lamh35
@John Cole:
ok, so it’s about the pile-on on GG then Cole. Nothing said about the subsequent pile-on on ABL which included many “Salon-ites” like GG, David Sirota, Joan Walsh and the rest of the “Glen-bots”.
So contra to what you said above you are indeed picking, sides then. I’m with @Thymezone on this one dude you shoulda stayed out of it and let them fight it out amongst himself. Instead you decided to plop yourself in the middle of a war that had nothing to do with you and in turn started a flame-war of your own.
I hope it was worth it.
BTW, I predict >700 comment count for this one.
Raven
It don’t mean nuthin.
Samara Morgan
@El Tiburon:formalize indefinite detention
WTF is wrong with you?
that was ABL’s whole point.
AMG, you must be a GG sockpuppet.
Zagloba
@FlipYrWhig: Environmental protection may be an abstract good to you. To me it means I don’t die of amoebic dysentery or black lung.
You’re welcome to read Greenwald’s imaginary supporter in a voice dripping with glee at the though of bombs dropping and phone-taps tapping. I read it in the tired voices of my friends beginning to bestir themselves now that it’s finally election year and finding the bed beshitted by crazies.
ABL repeatedly made the point that sitting out the election means the nuts win. She was right about that, but there’s no law that says I have to be excited about it.
Obama 2012: oderint dum metuant.
noodler
Went to http://chirpstory.com/li/3666 earlier this am to see what exactly this hub-ub was all about, and it provides a tweet by tweet rundown. The analogy is gross and reprehensible and abhorrent. Looking at the tweetstreatm, it’s fascinating to see how this picked up steam. A few well placed retaliation bombs tried to bring this to an early end but god how it went on and on….
Will prob still click on ablc, she does have a certain perspective.
Suggestions for new FP’ers to fill the ABLC void? Hiring? How ’bout something with a little gastronomie?
El Tiburon
@Mark S.:
Maybe you can link to where Glenn give his support for Ron Paul.
Otherwise it is safe to assume you support killing children.
TooManyJens
I feel sad because ABL has repeatedly defended John Cole on Twitter, saying that he’s one of the good guys and that he gets it. And then he shits on her in public to defend Greenwald, of all fucking people.
Pray Tell
@Emma: How so?
Does your deity find it humorous for people to be locked up and in danger of being raped for using cannabis?
Or would said deity prefer that those who could protect such captives from unnecessary evil take the measures necessary to liberate them?
I’m honestly curious. Thanks.
Maus
@El Tiburon:
Every “smart thing” Paul says on these topics is diminished by that he’s a States’ Rights obsessive and does not believe in the enforcement of civil liberties. The context of Paul’s beliefs is what divorces them from good.
Yevgraf
@schrodinger’s cat:
Because Greenwald is a shitty lawyer, which is why he turned to punditry…
kc
@Lupin:
“If Obama raped Hitler, ______ would defend ______!”
FlipYrWhig
@Soonergrunt: Seriously. And on a thread occasioned by Greenwald saying, and insisting it’s a fair statement, that someone who disagrees with him about the implications of the NDAA would defend rape, and whose previous piece on the subject suggested — without hyperbole — that to defend Obama is to gladly accept the murder of innocents. Which El T then proceeds to repeat. Who’s dehumanizing whom here?
JC
Okay, someone has to pull Samara Morgan’s comment privileges. 5 comments saying the same thing?
“Greenwald is a Douche”. No, actually, Greenwald is a good arguer who is deeply committed to his liberty issues, to the exclusion of everything else. He also never admits fault, is often dishonest in his arguments, and can be an a$$.
He’s a scum sucking lawyer, basically. :)
But I find him honest in his consistency to his cause.
Cole, continue to stand strong against the Outrage Brigade. They aren’t dealing with the real issues that GG brings up, merely pulling a bait and switch.
Not that GG is any great shakes, but I prefer dealing with the ideas, not the outrage distractions, on a blog.
LAC
@El Tiburon:
Yea, because Paul’s stance on the Civil Rights act is sooooooo right. I am glad to see that you can cherry pick what you will tolerate from Paul just so you can get your bong on and avoid any dealings with the global community. Because that is what it is all about with your demographic.
BTW, someone might want to let Greenwald in on the fact that no fucking way in hell woulld a President Paul help get Greenwald’s partner into the country. But yay, weed!!!!
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: you decide.
@John Cole: FUCKING READ WHAT THE DOUCHEBAG SAID
El Tiburon
@Samara Morgan:
No – I sock puppet for emptywheel and the ACLU
Soonergrunt
@novum: Don’t forget the Oakshott.
FlipYrWhig
@El Tiburon: Uh, thanks for playing, but the point was that it would be a needlessly offensive way to engage in a policy argument with a gay man.
Rome Again
So GG is only serious except when John decides he’s not. That’s convenient.
somegayname
GG owns, Cole owns.
TooManyJens
“Good arguer” and “often dishonest in his arguments” are mutually exclusive. If Greenwald could defend his position, he wouldn’t have to resort to vile insults and accusations against people who think his legal analysis is incorrect.
Villago Delenda Est
I said this last night, and the GGbots pointedly ignored it.
Greenwald, I believe, used the rape metaphor deliberately to toss dust in the air and to change the conversation away from his utterly obscene defense of Paul to anything else.
He’s accomplished his mission. We’re talking about the dust, not Obama’s signing statement, not the fact that Congress, not Obama, wanted those provisions in the defense bill.
We’re not talking about how Ron Paul comes to be a “civil libertarian” only for white male Christian heterosexuals.
Mission accomplished!
Pray Tell
@Emma: Apologies for repetition if my previous reply shows up, but I’m honestly curious, Emma.
What is your deity’s stance on allowing people to remain in danger of prison rape for exercising their deity-given right to use cannabis as Obama has acknowledged doing?
Would your deity find that amusing or not? Thanks.
Samara Morgan
@John Cole:
no thnx. but perhaps you might wanna offer me a metaphorical rape?
Crusty Dem
Cole, what gives you the ability to determine if people are actually offended by what someone says and the right to tell them to stop? For example, I may be a white male, but am offended by rape as a rhetorical device because I have had friends and family who have been raped and feel for how they respond to this language. But fuck me, right? And fuck anyone who thinks like that, right?
Corner Stone
Thank the FSM for this post Cole. It’s like a big broom swatting at someone’s fleeing ass on the way out the kitchen door.
El Tiburon
@Samara Morgan:
Let me try again:
I sock puppet for Marcy
Start Out the New Year with Indefinite Detention
http://www.emptywheel.net/2011/12/31/start-out-the-new-year-with-indefinite-detention/
And the ACLU
Tell President Obama: Veto indefinite detention
https://secure.aclu.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=3922
Benjamin Franklin
+1
Samara Morgan
@John Cole:
this remark?
Tim F.
This all goes to show that hyperbole is ten times worse than Hitler.
jeff
I feel like I’ve said this many, many times, but I’m sorry to see ABL go. Enjoyed her writing.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
You know what would be nice? If even one person in these comments cared more about politics than they do about finding reasons that people who disagree with them are horrific hellbeasts without a speck of humanity who deserve to suffer for their crimes. Of course, even worse are the people who fail to hate the right people with sufficient vigor.
What a pathetic show.
Corner Stone
“Thinly sourced” ?
I had no idea you were part British Cole. That’s a masterful use of understatement.
El Tiburon
@Villago Delenda Est:
You lose the internet with this absurd analysis.
Satanicpanic
Actually, I take it back. ABL had some good posts. Glenn is just a troll and an annoying one at that. His “I’m not supporting Paul but he’s better on some issues than that war criminal Obama” schtick is finally letting people know what he’s really about.
Tan Mucho
ABL always writes about someone elses stuff, she never seems to have anything to say except how someone else is full of it. Popularity is no guarantee of critical thinking, but as I traverse the blogs I see Greenwald quoted all over the place; ABL not at all. So I want to ask:if all ABL ever does is criticize a better known blogger CONSTANTLY, then maybe its worth asking her to bring some serious content to the blog: stop bitching about what other bloggers say because its totally personal with her. Who the hell wants to read your personal feud ? If you don’t have anything of substance to say other than to point out someone else’s mistake then you really dont have anything to say. Nothing. Don’t forget Hamsher Hamsher Hamsher.
60th Street
All Greenwald does these days is project. In fact, a lot of former Republican and Libertarian converts do.
GG supported the fucking Iraq war and going into Afghanistan to wipe out the Taliban and now somehow he thinks he can go off the rails on Obama supporters with his “Dear Leader” horseshit with the venom that he does and still be taken seriously. That decision SHOULD be front and center in any consideration of his current missives and plague him for the rest of his days the same way the newsletters haunt Ron Paul, but, no. It’s buried under his newfound liberal largess.
It’s absolute comedy that now Greenwald’s a civil liberties and anti-war darling.
He doesn’t get to a say a goddamned thing to people giving Obama the benefit on the doubt shit that pales a thousand shades of pale to the shit he gave Dubya a pass on.
End of story.
IrishGirl
@ochone: I’m not sure her outrage was “faux”…I mean, can you see into her head and know that she was being disingenuous?
Samara Morgan
@Tim F.: lol.
Mark S.
@El Tiburon:
You’re right, he says several times that he is in no way endorsing Ron Paul. And here’s his good faith method of setting up the decision of whether to vote for Obama or Paul:
But he doesn’t endorse Paul! He’s far too much of a coward to do that.
Villago Delenda Est
@Maus:
This.
Paul might say the right things about civil liberties, but the problem is, he is pretty specific that only select people would enjoy them if he had his way.
Which means that they’re meaningless.
Civil rights is about insuring a baseline for all when it comes to liberty. You simply cannot have any realistic support for the concept of civil liberties if you don’t support civil rights. You’d then be implicitly endorsing classes of civil liberties, and that’s tantamount to tossing them out altogether on a whim of whatever libertarian feudal lord who controls the fiefdom you’re in desires.
Emma
@Pray Tell: YOUR deity hasn’t stricken you dead for bringing the president’s young daughters in the context of being raped. YOUR deity hasn’t stricken you dead for making YOUR need to carry/smoke/grow pot the centerpiece of a screed involving young pre-teen and teenage girls.
YOUR deity is a psychopath.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
I’m still waiting for someone to explain how inflammatory rhetoric about rape is worthy of supreme outrage, but actually killing innocent children with drone attacks isn’t? It just makes little sense to me.
Glenn is rightly outraged by actual killings of innocent children and finds those who make excuses for those killings repugnant. So am I.
Imagine if someone made excuses for rape. What would the reaction be, I wonder? Why then is it acceptable to make excuses for murdering children?
El Tiburon
@Soonergrunt:
Such bullshit and you know it. I am certainly not part of the unhinged MUST EAT FIREBAGGER BRAINS contingency around here.
There is a difference between disagreeing and calling someone a moron – and disagreeing and questioning someones entire existence.
Dave
Another problem with Greenwald is that he demands that the President’s supporters justify their support of him because of the drone strikes and other civil liberties issues he brings up. But he never turns the mirror on himself.
Doesn’t Glenn have to justify his barely-concealed thrill to have Ron Paul in the race considering the horrendous, toxic positions Paul holds on every single other subject? Hell, when it comes to extra-judicial killings, Paul wants to pay mercenaries billions of dollars to kill terrorists. So ordering drone strikes is Unconstitutional and bad. But the government paying guns-for-hire to kill people is okay?
Using Ron Paul as a proxy for anti-war positions is insane. And Glenn is a fucking idiot for doing so.
over_educated
I will not shed a single tear if all the Johnny-come-lately drama trolls leave this blog over John’s decision to not let this place devolve into name-calling lunacy. John, you are completely right and many of the long time readers know it.
Also, too.. Are folks really accusing John of being a shill for Glenn-motherfucking-Greenwald? What alternate universe have a fallen into? Will it rain donuts here?
ornerycurmudgeion
@Soonergrunt: Aren’t you a FP’er on this blog?
I realize no one could guess from your positions or points or arguments or thought process or word choice that you deserve any kind of position of influence … but you have been given such a position for whatever reason: doesn’t that carry an honorable obligation to make sense or actually back up your accusations and froth with some kind of substance?
This flying monkey routine was started by bashing Nader … and now you cannot stop. You cannot help but bash your own side.
Maus
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire: Poor troll. Too obvious.
Corey
Funny to see ABL’s reaction to being called out on her straight privilege:
No, ABL, it’s not fair, and if you weren’t blinded by your own privilege you’d recognize that. It’s very clearly a disparaging comment meant to feminize a gay man.
Charitably, I’ll chalk this up to everyone having blind spots. But for someone as knee-deep in privilege accusations as ABL, it’s a bit odd.
Samara Morgan
@Corner Stone: oh CS you are just stirring shit.
if you are gunna troll expect to be hit with ban stick.
man-up.
you sound just like Hall Monitor Allan sometimes…you wilin’ out on ABL, Allan defending her…..are you him?
amk
@Samara Morgan: Ouch.
Lit3Bolt
@Villago Delenda Est:
That’s all what the Outrage Brigade is about, making drama shitstorms on someone’s blog then wondering why the world isn’t a better place after shitting out logorrhea for the past 72 hours and completely forgetting why they were mad in the first place. 2 year olds have more productive tantrums.
You know what would be more productive? Go to a porn site and complain about rape triggers to the site admins. Repeatedly stress how outraged you are. That’ll make the world a better place. Idiots.
El Tiburon
@Mark S.:
You see what you want to see.
Let me ask you a question: are you for the murder of innocent children in Pakistan? Of course you are not. Yet, you do understand this President continues to use drone strikes that kill children. Right? You do understand this?
Now, assuming you understand this, I assume you still support at least plan on voting for Obama, true? Does this mean you support killing children? No, I don’t think so. But this is the conceit Greenwald is using to show your hypocrisy.
While you are so busy dismissing Ron Paul for his loony and dangerous views, you are basically giving a pass to Obama for his dangerous policy decisions.
I really don’t understand why this is so hard. Call it what you will, but Obama is killing children. Period. And we need to have this discussion. BUT OH NOES!!! Preznit Romney so we can’t talk about it!!!
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@Dave: GG said quite clearly that he liked Paul in the race for one reason: topics which are repugnant would be in the public spotlight. Absent Paul being in the race, we’d be stuck with both sides agreeing on the abhorrent policies. This doesn’t mean he is supporting Paul for President. That he has never said outright. Would he vote for Paul? I have no idea. But he DID justify the “why” he supports Paul being in the race itself.
daveX99
teh popcorn popper sez:
Zagloba
I don’t see anything in there about Paul at all. However, when I follow the link I see that, to Greenwald, it is, and I quote, “needless to say” that a liberal would not support and would never vote for Paul.
Smells binary thinking on your part.
ETA 1: Nothing, that is, except noting that Obama has avoided one of Paul’s easier-to-avoid classic blunders, that of getting involved in a land war in a racist newsletter.
ETA 2: Smells like
Samara Morgan
@over_educated: metaphorical rapes all around!
some advice? lie back and think of england.
;)
policomic
@TooManyJens: Hear, hear.
Soonergrunt
@El Tiburon: Bullshit, too. Any mention of Jane Hamsher or FDL, and you’re all over it.
You’re a fucking hypocrite for complaining about that kind of behavior. It’s your whole reason for being here.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
I’m almost starting to rethink this whole democracy thing. As it turns out, people really really just want a dear leader to follow and a reviled scapegoat to hate.
And when I go looking for fellow travelers, that’s all I find. Cultists ranting endlessly about those other cultists.
Fuck it all. We’re doomed. If this is what humanity has to work with there’s no hope for a better future.
When I see a person who is (justly) angry at GG for trivializing rape go on to hit GG with a pile of gay slurs, I lose hope. There’s no side for me or anyone else who wants to make things better. The only sides are for destroying the other side. That’s it. That’s all that American politics has to offer.
2012: the year of no hope for humanity. Getting this year off to a great start.
joes527
@TooManyJens:
Is that all our politics boils down to? Personal loyalty? Tribalism?
John Cole shat on one of his tribe to defend someone of another tribe. Bad John Cole.
Meh. If that is all we have then we would be better off letting tea leaves choose our political leaders. I have a higher opinion of entropy than I do of loyalty.
different-church-lady
Sooner or later you’re going to have to acknowledge that Greenwald invites all this duck hunting into his life.
The dude’s patina of virtue and maturity is bullshit. He gets into flame wars because he wants to get into flame wars.
Larv
@Steve:
Yeah, that’s kind of my read too. I think GG was stupid and over the line, but it pretty clearly is hyperbole. Nobody (not even GG) really and honestly thinks that Obama supporters (even ones as fervent as ABL) would be okay with Obama committing such a crime. They just don’t. GG may be a true believer willing to think the worst of Obama and his supporters, but I don’t think he’s actually insane. I don’t care if GG claims he wasn’t being hyperbolic (that’s just further hyperbole), no reasonable person can see it as anything else. He was stupid and wrong to double down on it the way he did, but that’s his standard response to all criticism – I don’t think it means he’s cool with rape, he just can’t admit being wrong about anything, and especially not to sworn enemies and Obots like ABL. So this strikes me as fairly routine GG dumbassery, but I just don’t see the rape-apologism that some of his critics are making it out to be. It’s hard to say without seeing the whole twitter timeline, but JC’s position seems reasonable to me. Maybe it would have been wiser for him to stay out of it entirely, but who comes here for wisdom? I’m here for the pets, reasonable liberalism, and the occasional spectacle of JC making a fool of himself and happily admitting to it.
eemom
You’re an asshole, John Cole.
I thought better of you.
Dave
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: Except that Paul supports something that should be just as “abhorrent” to Glenn and his concern over civil liberties when it comes to drone strikes.
Paul wants the US government to pay mercenaries to go around the world killing terrorists. Are we to believe that this would be done without loss of innocent life? If Glenn is going to support Paul being in the race, then he has to explain why this idea is fundamentally better, or different, than current policy.
WereBear
For the luvapumpkincheesecake; GG sticks up for Ron Freakin’ Paul, despite Paul sending out a newsletter that invited correspondence on ways of shooting a black person and getting away with it.
Because GG loves Paul’s anti-war rhetoric; which has never been put to any real world crossroads.
And then GG himself has the brass-plated, lobotomized, unmitigated gall to claim other people would stick up for Obama if he would theoretically do something awful?
And no one else has brought up the ridiculousness of taking such a person as this seriously?
This dustup simply shows that, despite his reputation, GG is simply a pot-stirrer and has no real commitment to civil rights in any meaningful way. And to think I tried to support him, and way back I bought his “book,” which turned out to be badly written and about the size of the manual that came with my vacuum cleaner.
While on the web, he goes on and on and on…
Poseur. Not worth any bandwidth. And that’s my single say on the matter.
TooManyJens
@joes527: Not shitting on people who are supposedly your friends isn’t politics, and it isn’t tribalism. It’s not being an asshole.
Tony T
John, thank you, you are the voice of reason.
I think it’s helpful to note a million people read this stuff, only 1% of 1% go ballistic. Humanity is okay, the nuts are simply getting nuttier.
As much as I like ABL, she does seem to be losing touch, or losing something. I think she’s becoming the victim of her name. Call yourself the “Angel of Light” and you’ll tend to lighten things up. Call yourself “Angry” and not only is it true, but you’ll go out of your way to make it worse.
Go in Peace, dear.
Villago Delenda Est
@El Tiburon:
Because you’ve denounced the analysis, I’ve won the internet.
Greenwald created an effective misdirection. That legal training shows. You’re attempting to reinforce it.
Emma
@joes527:Really? You must be a really popular person in your immediate circle.
over_educated
@Samara Morgan: Metaphorical rape for some, little miniature American flags for others! We all know Metaphorical rape is the most serious issue to confront our nation today, and until we recognize it we will all live in darkness. :Colbert:
Samara Morgan
@El Tiburon: /yawn.
totes a GG sock puppet.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Maus: Not trolling, you fucktard. I’m honestly disgusted with this whole deeply stupid mess.
@joes527:
Yup, that’s it. Turn your brain off and pick a side. And remember, everyone who’s not on your side is utterly worthless and deserving of destruction. That’s it. That’s all we have.
eemom
“Rape imagery and language are never fair game in any discussion that is not about rape.” — Emily Hauser
What fucking part of this do any of you Greenwald defenders NOT understand?
NR
Not commenting on the latest shitstorm because, what’s the point? But it should be obvious to anyone by now that Obama could eat a baby on live television, and ABL and her crew would immediately post about how it was a very bad baby, and deserving of being eaten. And anyway, Obama didn’t want to eat the baby, you understand. The Republicans and political circumstance forced him to do it. Also, the real story isn’t that Obama ate the baby, the real story is that Glenn Greenwald and Jane Hamsher complained about it! Fucking assholes, do they want to give us President Romney/Gingrich/Santorum/Perry?
J.W. Hamner
@El Tiburon:
How is it possible that you don’t see that saying that supporting Obama is the equivalent to supporting the killing of innocents… and that said supporters would gleefully support any evil done in Obama’s name… is dehumanizing and offensive? I’m not saying it doesn’t go both directions, but c’mon… Greenwald is just as guilty as anybody of treating his detractors as subhuman.
TooManyJens
@Larv:
Hell, there’s somebody on this very thread who thinks exactly that of ABL and has stated it repeatedly.
El Tiburon
@TooManyJens:
Here is what Greenwald tweeted:
It is NOT a “rape metaphor”: it’s a statement they they’d defend ANY evil: assassinations, child-killings: EVEN rape
Who of you here defend Obama on assassinations and child killings? Be honest. Raise your hands. Yes, you in the back there. Because you all understand Obama has assassinated an American citizen and continues to order attacks that lead to the deaths of children. These are fucking children you fuckers. Yet, I see people here defending these acts: Oh, well, gee, you know it’s war started by Bush and well gee you know Romney…nyuk nyuk nyuk…
So, if you all are telling me that rape has a special place in the hierarchy than assassination and the killing of children, then fine, say it. But stop being a bunch of fucking cowards about it and ignoring the full context.
If you defend drone attacks, then you either are at least defending the killing of children or condoning it at worse.
Another Greenwald tweet:
It wasn’t a joke of any kind: it was a *deadly serious point* about blind defeders of evil acts – and it’s TRUE
Again, if you defend or support drone attacks, then you are in essence accepting that a small child or baby will be killed. This is evil, no? So which is it?
Wannabe Speechwriter
One unreported thing in this ABL vs GG fight-I can’t think of more ammunition for Paul Campos and his campaign against law school. If two certified lawyers from good law schools resort to talking about politics like petulant little children, what’s the point in blowing $160k on going to a school that’s suppose to teach you how to make effective, well-reasoned arguments?
Samara Morgan
@Tony T: voice of reason.
Maus
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
Oh Glenn-chan, they aren’t. Journalism is dead. It’s all Sully-like pundit pontifications and those repugnant topics are glossed over.
Every Democrat (certainly Hillary suffered from the same malady) will beat the war drum for fear of being “soft”.
Glenn needs to realize that actual progressives who give a shit about civil liberties see Paul for the person that Paul is, not the person he sees in Paul.
Corner Stone
Hyperbole’s bad, mmmkay??
http://twitter.com/#!/AngryBlackLady/status/91951326711382016
It’s hard to see where anyone would think some people could defend any action. In the hyperbolic sense, of course.
eemom
….and violating that simple rule, John Cole, is something more than merely “dickish.”
God. Stick your head back up your ass and go back to being a republican where you belong.
Samara Morgan
@Tony T: voice of reason.
@over_educated: w/e floats your boat.
Devon Cole
I have been following this whole cluster for the past few days, red-faced and pissed off at some of the idiotic and insulting things being said about John. Privileged white male? Hysterical. Insensitive to rape victims? Seriously????? People who make these comments have NO FUCKING CLUE what they are saying and obviously know NOTHING about him. I have tried to avoid joining in because once you do, you open yourself up for attack, but I cannot sit by one more minute reading some of the banal and ridiculous comments being directed at one of my favorite people on earth. Yes- I am fully aware that he is more than capable of defending himself. But the fact the he was pushed to the point to feel that he needed to is what has me angry. With all of the garbage people are hurling about on various blogs and tweets, I feel like I am watching a bunch of adults engage in cyber-bullying. I was always taught that if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all. I am throwing that temporarily out the window and offering up a whole-hearted, flaming FUCK YOU to anyone who has called my brother a douchebag, or puked up poorly thought out rationalizations for veering off-topic and joining in the attack. I hope you choke on your own stupidity and nastiness.
IrishGirl
Everyone is in the wrong here but not too many people are pinpointing why….
GG was wrong to pile on ABL with the rape metaphor…it was dickish as Cole said, just goes to show just how much GG hates Pres. Obama really
ABL was wrong to respond with gay slurs…she should know better (and I am an ABL fan, sorry to see her stop writing here)
Cole was wrong to argue that hyperbole excuses every statement. It doesn’t. Only the comedian gets a pass (most of the time) for saying something hyperbolic AND out of line. Political pundits, bloggers and the “average joe”, doesn’t get a pass–nor should we.
There should be apologies all around. I see ABL has brought this up on Twitter…let’s see if people can admit mistakes and play nicer in the “political debate” sandbox for once.
Pray Tell
@Emma: Why should Obama’s children be off limits as long as Obama refuses to lift a finger to help the children of others?
Are they special?
Your comment reminds me of Chris Christie replying that people who object to his positions on public education have no right to enquire as to where his children attend school.
Cannabis laws determine who gets to vote, who gets student loans, who gets denied insurance, who gets funding for housing and who gets subjected to prison and, potentially, rape (for starters).
Goose. Gander. Sauce.
Why should the first family be given immunity from reality? Thanks.
Fed Up In Brooklyn
@Dave: You keep missing the effing point. GG never said he supports Paul’s abhorrent beliefs. He simply said he thinks Paul BEING IN THE RACE, brings important issues into the national Presidential debates. That’s it. Why is that so hard to follow?
chopper
epic thread.
you done fucked up, cole. ABL may be crazy but greenwald really shanked her out of the blue here, and you’re weak-sauced defense of his remarks is pretty shitty. way to back up a friend there, dogg.
rape? seriously?
Villago Delenda Est
@El Tiburon:
Ron Paul…the Stormfront candidate.
Pot…Kettle…Black, Glenn. Nice try.
MBunge
“Who of you here defend Obama on assassinations and child killings?”
Ooh! Ooh! I know the answer!
No one “defends” assassinations or child killings. Some people do object to legitimate and legally authorized military action being couched in those hysterical terms.
Mike
Ray Von
Mmmmmm. So many fee fees so little time.
El Tiburon
@J.W. Hamner:
Look, as much as I admire and respect Greenwald, I do admit he can be a bit bombastic to say the least. (Case in point: his response here to DougJ a while back if anyone remembers.)
Saying that, at some point you have to ask yourself, and I mean this in all seriousness: If some bomb dropped on your child from a foreign entity, what would you think? Think about that? I had my first child a year ago and I can’t think of anything more evil or traumatizing than a fucking bomb landing on and destroying my child. Or your child. Yet we do this. Do you get it? We are doing it.
Yet, many Obama supporters are like, Hey man, it’s cool ’cause you know ACA and Lily Ledbetter dude…
So while I see myself voting for Obama and support a lot he does, it does not erase the fact that he continues to kill children by drone attacks. I think this is horrendous. If only we could talk about ending the drone attacks. If only there was someone out there talking about it…who oh who could that be…
Samara Morgan
@Corner Stone: shit-stirring again CS?
are you ekshually….a goat?
because that would round out the equivalence you are searching for here.
Donald G
Re: Bringing Hitler into the conversation:
@kc:
Try it this way: “If Obama intervened and defended a nun from being raped by Hitler, Glenn Greenwald would twist it into a violation of Hitler’s civil liberties.”
There, is everybody happy now?
Lit3Bolt
@eemom:
“Except in discussions where feminists knock each other aside for the chance to hurl rhetorical Outrage grenades at any and all perceived Enemies. When that fails, use Pity grenades and Scorn grenades, then run off, searching for the next rape joke on the internet to be outraged about, and repeat this eternal and endless cycle until you feel better about yourself. Above all, never use Reason, only Passion.”
chopper
@El Tiburon:
ron paul voted for war in afghanistan, so i guess he has the blood of innocent children on his hands too. don’t tell greenwald, or he’s going to start yelling at himself about supporting rape.
dan
While I agree that comparing things to rape is gross and stupid and insensitive, I must point out in the interest of the facts that GG didn’t make the odious metaphor, he only replied to someone else who did. On Twitter. People aren’t mad about that, they’re mad about the piece he wrote about Paul and Obama the other day. He was pretty much dead on in that piece, and it seems to have made some people experience some cognitive dissonance they are really uncomfortable with. I haven’t seen anyone criticize GG on the merits of that piece, it’s all been ad hominem attacks, pointing out things he said or positions he held years ago that might make him a hypocrite, or most easily, pulling out the rape thing which makes him a misogynist, or calling him a racist homophobe for agreeing with some of Ron Paul’s non-racist/homophobic positions. Meanwhile the Obama administration overrules the FDA and kills Plan B – a disgusting slap in the face to every woman in America. I’m sick of seeing people get distracted by playing guess-the-secret-racist-woman-hater while the real issues get ignored. If you really disagree with GG at least be a grown up about it and respond to the actual point he is trying to make. It’s very disappointing to see this level of intellectual dishonesty that I normally associate with the right coming from my side of the aisle.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
Any idea that interferes with the 24/7 hate-athon will be difficult for most here to follow.
You pick your hated enemy and you hate him, that’s the end of the story.
Mark S.
@FlipYrWhig:
That’s an important question and I don’t think Glenn would mind if I answered for him. Glenn would change the subject because Paul is the only candidate talking about what’s really important to Glenn: repealing the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Glenn can’t stand uppity black folks who refuse to move to the back of the bus or sit at white only lunch counters.
Danny
@John Cole:
Glenn explicitly agreed that people who dont agree with him would applaud Obama if they saw him raping a nun live on tv. That’s fucking offensive no matter how you look at it. It’s pretty sad to see you got Glenn’s dick so far down your throat that you’ve lost all sense of common decency.
Then again both you and Glenn supported TGWOT up until and including operation Iraqi Freedom. Ever considered there were millions who were never as fucking stupid as you two, and maybe we aren’t all that eager to hear Glenn tell us that if we think he’s a dick and a grifter then that means we’d cheer nun-raping? Fuck him. And fuck you too.
somegayname
@eemom: “Who makes these rules for the internet?” – Abraham Lincoln
Villago Delenda Est
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
The problem is that Paul’s “brings important issues into the national Presidential debates” brings all of Paul’s baggage in with it.
Because Paul got to the good place through a truly twisted and evil route…that we need to protect the civil liberties of everyone…but women, minorities, gays. So about 65% of the country is reduced to second class citizenship under Paul’s formulation.
That doesn’t help the discussion of those issues. Paul is too tainted. The discussion will inevitably fall back on Paul’s hidden racism. He’s not the spokesman for civil liberties you’re looking for.
El Tiburon
@MBunge:
What sedate term would you prefer for the US government specifically targeting one of its citizens (without any charges or trial) to kiss the business end of a bomb?
So, all those children’s bones and brains and body parts scattered across Pakistan, that is just “collateral damage” in our Noble War for Peace.
See, you are one of these who would defend any act or evil by Obama. Probably even rape.
TooManyJens
@El Tiburon: I think it would be magnificent if we could have a conversation about what our military does, what evil and good come of it, which particular strategies do less evil, and what we’re going to do about it.
None of which is achieved by telling people who support Obama that we think child murder is just ducky. It is possible to support Obama as the best of the realistic choices while still opposing him on specific issues, expressing that opposition to the White House and Congresscritters, joining groups that work on those issues, etc. Again, it would be great if we could have a conversation that nuanced, but I’ve given up on it happening here.
Soonergrunt
@Samara Morgan: OK, I LOL’ed.
Dave
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: Because if Glenn is going to use Paul as his proxy for why it’s so good to have an anti-war, stop-the-drones viewpoint in the election, then he has to explain why Paul’s “The government should pay mercs to kill terrorists” plan isn’t just as bad.
Because Paul IS NOT AGAINST extra-judicial killings. He just doesn’t want the government pulling the trigger.
mantis
Y’all need to get over yourselves.
Fer serious.
Larv
@TooManyJens:
Yeah, and I’m pretty sure they’re engaging in hyperbole too. Or maybe they really are crazy, but the former seems more likely.
NR
@MBunge:
No matter what “terms” you use, the kids are still dead.
El Tiburon
@chopper:
We all have the blood of innocent children on our hands. We were attacked by a group inside Afghanistan. It is a shame we didn’t go after them in a different fashion than we did. I think it could have been handled better what using my 20-20 hindsight goggles and all. But Iraq was a war crime of epic proportions.
Continuing to use drone strikes, IMO, is also a war crime. If we think these people are a danger, than let’s work with the host country to neutralize them. But not like this. Not like this.
Dave
@El Tiburon: Right. All Paul wants to do is pay mercs to kill terrorists instead.
So the US as triggerman is bad and unconstitutional and evil. But the US as the money BEHIND the triggerman is all hunky-dory and great? Good, glad to know what standing up for civil liberties looks like.
Maus
@Mark S.:
Sure, that’s PAUL’s motivation, but I can see why someone who would be interested in civil liberties could want to use Paul’s statements devoid of context to say “hey, there’s someone saying the right things!”
Do you seriously have quote(s) from GG that cop to this rationale or are you making this up?
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
The problem is that he’s fucking wrong. People take Paul seriously, and his Republican free-marketeering seriously, as with every GOP candidate. They don’t perpetuate civil liberties, they’re trying to perpetuate States’ Rights.
different-church-lady
@tomvox1:
Yeah, but did you mean that literally?
over_educated
@Samara Morgan: I’m sorry if it is impossible to take your histrionics seriously.
“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible positions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them.”
– Thomas Jefferson
Also Post 500! Do I win a prize? Maybe one of them fancy sex-goats?
Yevgraf
@Dave:
Hey, ‘coz what could go wrong with having privately operating Redneck-Americans wandering around the world with a license to kill? And imagine the fun of how THAT circus would operate, along with what happens when displeased countries get a grip on those guys?
Danny
@El Tiburon:
What would you consider an appropriate term for when some american civilian died from allied bombing in Berlin during WWII? Serious question. What would you call it if the american wasnt a civilian but had joined the Wermacht?
El Tiburon
@TooManyJens:
So I can understand better: you want to have the conversation as long as your poor little feelings are not hurt?
Why do you care how Greenwald may characterize Obama supporters? Isn’t the gist of the conversation the, you know, continued killing of children and other atrocities signed off on by our elected leaders?
Shorter TooManyJens: I’d really love to talk about all of this but I’m too busy crying in my tissue.
Please.
Emma
@Pray Tell: Dude, find your inner human somewhere then get back to me. You remind me of Limbaugh and his attacks on Chelsea Clinton. If you don’t know that’s wrong, I can’t explain it to you.
MBunge
@NR: “No matter what “terms” you use, the kids are still dead.”
That’s just what pro-lifers say.
Mike
somegayname
@MBunge: I recall Gonzalez assured that all Bush’s wars were legitimate and legally authorized. Gitmo and Abu Ghraib too! FISA subversion as well!
Marc
@El Tiburon:
This has been an enlightening episode. Greenwald, like you, despises Obama, thinks he is a monster, and that anyone who agrees with him endorses baby killing (and is clearly thus a terrible human being.)
People die in wars. People can also die as a consequence of non-intervention- for example, civilians are being massacred in Syria today. Adults see that a President is frequently only given the choice about *which* people die, or how many people die – not the choice between some and none.
And then there are the people like you and Greenwald – the ones who think that anyone who disagrees with you is evil, and that “your team” is never in error. You defend Greenwald as if you’re his sock-puppet; he never does anything wrong or is mistaken about anything.
The absolute capstone is the contrast between the treatment of Paul and Obama. Anything bad that Obama does means that he can’t be supported. Anything good that Paul supports means that he’s an important voice, and the bad things don’t count.
And then we get the complete horseshit that Greenwald peddles – where he lists off a bunch of things that make Obama sound like black Hitler, things that make Paul look like an angel, and then he says “I’m not endorsing Paul.”
Give me a fucking break. Your hatred of Obama has made you blind. Look at what you’re defending and what you’re saying.
Mark S.
@Maus:
I just assume that’s Glenn’s motivation for supporting Paul, just as Glenn assumes my motivation for supporting Obama is that I want to see more dead children.
Hint: I’m actually arguing that Glenn is a disingenuous asshole.
FlipYrWhig
@Zagloba: Greenwald sets up his bullshit list of tradeoffs so that everything he doesn’t like about Obama kills cute baby bunnies. On the other side, everything that might grudgingly be remotely decent about Obama is in wonk-speak. That’s because he uses rhetorical legerdemain and succeeds in fooling many otherwise sensible people.
somegayname
@MBunge: Pro liferz also don’t recognize the difference between an aggregation of cells that cannot survive without the host, and a human outside of the womb, so you have that in common I guess.
TooManyJens
@El Tiburon: No, I’d love to talk about this but don’t see the point in doing so with disingenuous dickweasels. It’s a waste of time.
Jesse Ewiak
@El Tiburon:
I’m perfectly OK with the current small amount of children dying in Pakistan because the alternative is many more children dying in Iran, Syria, or who knows. Not even getting into the fact that even if there wasn’t an invasion, I have no doubt there’s be less consideration of drone strikes under President Willard, Newt, or Frothy Mix.
Satanicpanic
@Fed Up In Brooklyn: I would agree except for the facts that we can’t debate away abuses by the MIC. It just isn’t going to happen.
geg6
@Corey:
As I said, a lying sack of shit just like GG.
Please, I invite you to point to one single thing I’ve ever said about GG’s or anyone’s sexuality. You can go to the archives and do a search. I implore you to find it. Please. I’ll wait.
El Tiburon
@Danny:
Silly question and you know it. Or are we at war with Al Queda? Did we declare war with Al Queda? Where are all of the captured troops? We killed bin Laden and our government says they are pretty much a non-entity now. So, can we declare the war over?
So, according to you, we did not assassinate Alwaki. He just happened to be in front of our bomb?
Dave
@Yevgraf: But at least the drone strikes would be at an end…because it’s not dead kids that’s the issue, apparently. Just how they get there.
WeeBey
@Devon Cole:
Good on ya, for sticking up for your brother.
I don’t think he’s any of those things. Just wrong.
grass
I’ve been thinking about the issue that this is supposedly all about – drone strikes, the civilians who are often killed in those strikes, and the general morality about ‘assassinating’ your enemy when he isn’t directly firing upon you.
First, if Greenwald’s point is that if you support these strikes, you necessarily support the murder of children, then that’s true for pretty much every conflict man has participated in for since the dawn of history. War has a tragic human cost to it, innocent people die. Sometimes atrocities are caused that make little strategic or tactical sense. The destruction of Dresden might be an example of that. But even in actions that justified totally in the context of war, civilians are going to die. It’s the nature of high explosives, human error and the messiness of reality.
If Greenwald honestly does believe that the unintended killing of children is murder and entirely indefensible regardless of the reasoning behind whatever strike happened, then he certainly does align with Ron Paul and a general isolationist principle. I don’t think most people agree with that, because the consequences for the world, I believe, are generally negative.
So it ends up having to be a judgement call based on your own moral arithmetic. Are drone strikes aimed at destroying the Pakistani Taliban and the remnants of al Queda worth the loss of civilian life, the increased negative perceptions of Pakistanis and Muslims in general towards the US and the strained relationship with the Pakistani government? My feelings are no, but I have very little knowledge of the success or not of these strikes. Pakistan is clearly an unstable country, and it’s stability is definitely a high priority for the US just because of it’s historical conflict with India, and nukes of course. So maybe it’s justified. I’m certainly no going to accuse Obama etc. of being worse than Bush.
As to whether this is assassination and whether that’s immoral, I’m not sure. Assassination for political reasons has clearly been of the books in most western nations for a while, and for good reasons I think – it makes international diplomacy impossible, and makes a mockery of democracy if the assassinated individual was elected. Whether these are political assassinations or assassinations of commanders waging a war could probably be debated fairly honestly. To me it’s the difference between killing Gadaffi out of the blue 3 years ago, and attempting to kill him while he’s violently putting down the Arab spring uprising.
Cole’s expressed disquiet about drones in general in the past. On the one hand, anything you can do with a drone can just as easily be achieved with a manned jet, but on the other the cost to perform a mission is radically lowered, both in risk to personnel, cost of the equipment etc. Maybe a depersonalises the actual act of bombing something even more, I don’t know. It’s clearly the future, manned jets hardly make any sense now, except for vulnerable link to satellites these things require.
Oh well, nice to try and express my thoughts amid this drama.
Soonergrunt
@Yevgraf:
Cough, Blackwater, cough!
machine
Not at all sorry to see ABL depart. The outraged meta-commentary shtick got old after a week or so.
Pray Tell
@Emma: How odd of you, Emma.
Nowhere did I make any insult toward nor wish shame upon Obama’s children.
I merely asked whether or not you honestly thought he’d allow them to face the possibility of sexual violence in prison over actions that he himself participated in as described in his autobiography.
I asked that in the context that he allows such risk to apply to other people’s children by refusing to pardon non-violent cannabis users en masse, as Ron Paul and Gary Johnson have pledged to do if elected President.
I take your response to mean that you implicitly acknowledge that he holds different standards for others than he does for his own family, but that his hypocrisy angers you far less (if at all) than the fact that I merely pointed it out.
So noted. Thanks.
Keith G
@Corner Stone: Yeah. But shit, I got the date wrong in the office pool.
El Tiburon
@Jesse Ewiak:
Without agreeing or supporting this statement in any way, okay. You are okay with it. Would you characterize it also as defending the “current small amount of children dying in Pakistan”?
If so, we have no established you are defending the deaths of small children. Can I further assume you defend the assassination of US citizens, or at least a “small number” of them?
And if you defend these two acts, can we also assume there may be other acts that you would defend? How about a “small number of rapes of nuns”? Might this be in your quiver of atrocities you might defend? Or did I step over the line here?
Marc
@TooManyJens:
We have repeatedly explained that it’s possible to defend someone against unfair charges without being a cultist. And people like ET keep repeating the charge that we would defend everything.
At some point their projection and overall vile attitude becomes too much. What’s the point of a discussion with someone as deeply dishonest as El Tiburon? He won’t listen, won’t change his opinion, won’t ever concede error.
He’s clueless enough to quite possibly be a
Greenwald sockpuppet, in fact. He certainly never dreams of disagreeing with his idol.
Villago Delenda Est
@El Tiburon:
No, silly question is how you dismiss questions you don’t want to address.
You’re a disingenuous sack of shit, just like Greenwald.
different-church-lady
@Danny: Here’s what Cole is completely missing: Greenwald brought the damn cudgel into the ring in the first place, threw it on the canvas and said, “Hey, I dare you guys to beat me with this thing.” Probably did it with a smirk on his face too.
The dude does not want to be taken seriously. He just wants to fight, and he knows he can get more people to fight him if he pretends he wants to be taken seriously.
There’s a simple way to understand the truth of my suggestion here: any reasonably bright person with honest intent would know that trafficking in such hot-button rhetoric distracts from one’s serious points. Thus, if they wished to not have those points undermined, they would not behave in a way that undermined them.
Greenwald could have disowned his defender’s comments. Or he could have said nothing. But instead he saw an opportunity to fan flames, and took it. He wants flame wars because he likes flame wars more than he likes being right. People do this all the time, but most of them are on Fox, not nominal left-wing hero pundits.
Felinious Wench
I’m sure John is no longer reading this thread…and I’m not sure I blame him.
Here’s the deal…there’s using words to shock and make a point and even go over the top. OK. But even bringing rape into the argument immediately negated it. Why? Because it’s not really a response, it’s meant to shut down any legitimate argument. And to me, it takes away any credibility from the person who said it.
Look, some people don’t get how personal a rape analogy can be to rape victims. You can say we should have thicker skins, that it’s all about hyperbole, etc. But, it causes a visceral, sick gut reaction when someone takes it lightly and throws it around in such a cavalier way. It’s a horrific thing to go through. GG either doesn’t get it, or doesn’t care.
It’s just disgusting. And that’s what you’re not getting, John. I respect Glenn’s right to say what he will, and this is not political correctness gone amok. It’s too far.
Corey
Why are people so grievously offended by Greenwald’s criticism of the President? All he said in that post was, supporting Obama is fine, but if you do so, don’t be deluded about how horrible he is on issues of American Empire.
He explicitly says, Obama supporters view the President’s “package” (heh) – better healthcare, better enviro regulation, Lilly Ledbetter, etc PLUS escalation of civil liberties erosion as superior to the package on offer by most Republican candidates, and that that is a perfectly sane, consistent, and defensible.
Why is this so beyond the pale? From the way people are accusing JC – “look at what you’re defending”, etc. – it’s as if he’s articulated some extreme, absurd viewpoint.
Peregrinus
@John Cole:
I quit my original Twitter account because of this (well, because of a lot more, but this was the last straw) and even I saw at least one rape survivor telling GG off. She comments here regularly, so while it might be a stretch to assume you know who she is, I’m sure you’ve seen her handle around. I also don’t understand what Dave von Ebers has to do with this whole deal – pretty sure I would’ve caught him “piling on” Greenwald.
Speaking as a person with anger management issues, what happened around here fits a general pattern. GG said something offensive because he was pissed, and when called on the carpet (rightly, mind you) about it, he battened the hatches down and misdirected as best he could by causing further damage to his reputation and attacking his opponents on an even more personal level. That suggests to me not someone who’s interested in actually engaging but on scoring points. He did so well enough (whoever referred to his legal training was probably spot-on) that his opponents began throwing whatever they could against him, since he wasn’t arguing with anything substantive.
Basically, the entire thing was a clusterfuck of anger. It’s like going to the grocery store when you’re hungry. Arguing when you’re angry will just make you a dick. You could be right as rain, and it’ll still be impossible to convince anyone else of that because your rage will make it impossible for you to argue your point in a rational manner. The best thing everyone involved could’ve done was to step the fuck away for a couple days, but even that’s impossible when you’re angry and just want to be proven right.
At any rate, this just means I hang around here every once in a while, and visit ABL’s blog more often. Probably a good thing in the long run.
Corner Stone
Cole, you know what they say, “When you’ve lost Shoq, you’ve lost Middle America.”
dance around in your bones
boy howdy, people sure do get worked up on the tubes o.O
geg6
@Keith G:
FTR, Glenn Greenwald is NOT a Democrat. Nor does he, actually, see any value in voting.
So, no this isn’t a fight among Democrats.
El Tiburon
@TooManyJens:
Kind of hard to have a dialogue with you with you using that kind of language.
@Villago Delenda Est:
I see a pattern here…
Corey
@geg6: I have no idea who you are, don’t particularly care, and can’t recall a single post you’ve ever made.
Here’s the question you should ask yourself: Do you call Greenwald “Gigi”, or a little bitch, or mock him for living in Brazil? If you do, you’ve mocked his sexuality (like some in this thread, and MANY on Twitter, have). If you haven’t, then party on.
TooManyJens
@El Tiburon:
So do I, but probably not the same one you do.
Maus
@Mark S.: I get that with the hint, thanks, this thread is probably not the best to use dry sarcasm with all the blowing up and exaggerations therein :P
p
Greenwald sees people like ABL as defending Obama for acts such as killing innocent Muslim children with drones. He then makes the point that if you will defend that you will defend anything, invoking rape. It is crude and IMO stupid but this ill-advised political point GG attempted to make is just a launching ground for bullheaded victimhood; the response is totally disproportionate to the mistake.
El Tiburon
@Villago Delenda Est:
I wrote:
I did address your question. Just not in the way you want me to. I like how address my reply though. By tossing out personal insults. Are you ABL?
Your premise uses WWII as its basis. Fine. For it be relevant, are we at war with Al Queada? Or are you going to dismiss it? Again?
Corner Stone
@Keith G:
I’m just wondering how she’s going to be able to prolong the poutrage for more than a couple days.
Nobody reads anything at ABLC so cross posting here was the main outlet for her hit pieces.
I’m a little concerned though. Now how will I know when Milt Shook puts out An Important Read ?
You Don't Say
@Mattminus: And you know this is stupid how exactly? You’re a woman? You’re all women? You’re many women?
mantis
@El Tiburon:
Or are we at war with Al Queda?
Gee, I don’t know. Are we?
Did we declare war with Al Queda?
Did we declare war on North Vietnam? Iraq? If we don’t declare war, does that mean there is no war?
Where are all of the captured troops?
Guantanamo and Afghanistan, mostly, if you can consider Al Qaeda members “troops.”
We killed bin Laden and our government says they are pretty much a non-entity now.
Not quite, but good try!
So, can we declare the war over?
How? There’s no war to begin with, remember?
So, according to you, we did not assassinate Alwaki. He just happened to be in front of our bomb?
Actually, that’s not what Danny said.
I don’t usually spend too much time in the comments on BJ, so I just don’t know, but does El Tiburon ever make an honest argument?
Keith G
@chopper:
It seems that you do not get El Tib’s point. All people, and especially politicians, are mixtures of good and ill.
LBJ’s escalation of Vietnam was immoral and no president did more for civil right and the poor. I am glad he was president and I wish he would have been better.
NR
@MBunge: Nice non-sequitir. And totally unsurprising.
geg6
@Corey:
Do you read other people’s posts? Can’t tell by me. Have you found my homophobic posts about GG yet? If not, why not? Hop to it, grasshopper.
Ella in New Mexico
@Corner Stone:
Amen and Cheers to that. I know this is 528+ posts in, but FWIW, here’s my two cents, as I have long held my tongue.
RE: ABL, it’s hard not to share her basic political positions if you are a regular reader on this blog. But her rigid demand for agreement with her on Every. Single. Post. she blurts out or else we are bigots, racists, and now rapists is so frigging 1980’s I spend more time rolling my eyes when I see her writing than cheering her on. Of course, she thinks everything she writes is All New Big Thots no one has ever had or heard before. But because I can say “Been there, Done that”, I generally don’t read her posts much past the first few lines. She just brings back too many painful memories of people I had to deal with in my past who were just plain off, mentally. ABL is continuously having arguments with front pagers or commenters or people somewhere else that are OVER already. And not only over, but a repeat of the WORST parts of the history of the arguments: WHEN WE TURNED ON EACH OTHER.
In my early career, I worked–as in, actually performed counseling and advocacy activities with victims–in the anti-Rape anti-Domestic Violence field for almost 15 years. I cared deeply about my clients, their struggles, the realities of their lives. I placed myself in sometimes, dangerous situations to protect and vouch for them. I all too well understand these issues, inside and out. I know the complexities victims of these crimes deal with, and I lament the continuing ignorance of the masses about the dynamics of these crimes. What I am saying is, no one can question my veritas or gravitas when it comes to crimes against the weak.
These fields were founded in late ’70-80’s by a few brave souls in the radical feminist and anti-racism movements. As early activists, they faced incredible angry opposition, and had to have heated conversations about semantics, about definitions of male and female and violence that had not been conducted before, and it pissed people off because those people were the opposition to change. They, as pioneers, were forced to use hyperbole and extremist language to move our society past a point of comfort and get it to accept that beating your wife or girlfriend or child or forcing someone to have sex is not fucking ok. We have not eradicated these crimes, but we certainly have won the mind war on the American public: almost everyone now opposes violence against women, men, kids, gays, lesbians…almost everyone. Those who don’t are a minority, and in general not condoned in mainstream America, much less here at BJ or within the blogosphere most of us cavort in.
Somewhere around 1992, I sat in a workshop at a National Coalition Against Domestic Violence Annual conference that was ostensibly about increasing the efficacy of our outreach to gays and lesbians suffering with this issue. Quickly it turned into a “We are victims, so you must experience our wrath” hate-fest against men and heterosexuals. At one point the requirement was for all of us to participate in making a list of words that one should associate with being “Men/ Male/White” which ended up being a semantic and emotional diatribe about how the condition of being “Heterosexual White Males” was an inherently, irrevocably evil form existence.
The words they used to describe this group? “Power, Fight, Compete.” Ok, got that. “Steal, Lie, Hit”. Yeah, well some of them do that. “Destroy, Hate, Pillage, Rape, Murder, Annhilate”…yeah, and a few have done that too.
But as the list grew longer, and it became clear that no man could escape these DNA-embedded traits, I realized that this “workshop” was merely shitty therapy for a small group of women, albeit, victims of some pretty harsh stuff, to bash on ALL MEN. So it started to piss me off. Come on folks, NOTHING good about men? I mean, they were talking about my sweet husband, who spent a ton of his free time repairing the cars of my clients or fixing the heater in our shelter or transporting their children to the State Fair and paying their way in, for Pete’s sake on our shitty income. Or my even sweeter little sons, ages 10 and 5 helped paint anti-violence messages on T-shirts or spoke tearful words of support for victims at our annual Anti-Domestic Violence Month Candlelight Vigil. They were hopeless rapists and oppressors and killers, just waiting to bloom.
So when I said that, of course, there are some very, very good men in the world and that I felt this particular line of discussion was not helpful in developing a more welcoming environment in our shelter for the LGBT community or our more traditional female clientele, I was attacked in a way that was ridiculous and insane, given my contributions to the movement. I was now the enemy, I had been corrupted by the patriarchal overlords, was a the VAW movement’s version of the Manchurian Candidate. I walked out of that workshop and never looked back. These people were just plain nutz and looking for a fight. So I went home and did the real work of helping people live safe lives the way it worked for them.
And that is the kind of discourse I see here, on this site, every time there is a ABL vs. “the World” flame war. IT SUCKS, IT’S TIRESOME, NOT USEFUL AND I AM GLAD TO SEE IT GO.
So Goodbye, Miss Pouty Victim, and good riddance until you grow up and realize that your friends are not your enemies.
Danny
Al Qaida is (by choice) not a regular army, but rather a irregular force engaging in irregular warfare and terrorism.
We’ve considered Al Qaeda fighters enemy combatants at least since 1998 – when Bill Clinton sent 66 cruise missiles at Al Qaeda’s training camps in Afghanistan. Any criticism of Obama’s bombing campaign against AQ and the taliban should be leveled against Clinton as well, or else it just reeks of hypocrisy.
This is quiet the dishonest distortion. What they’ve said is rather that Al Qaeda is under siege and could soon be a non-entity.
We considered him an enemy combatant and thus we bombed him. All perfectly legal under the Geneva conventions if considering him an enemy combatant was reasonable.
If you ask me I see it as analogous to blowing up an american citizen who had become a colonel in the Wehrmacht. It’s not our fault that Al Qaeda wont agree to dress up in uniform before blowing stuff and people up – that’s their own choice.
Soonergrunt
@geg6: He’s not a progressive, for that matter.
@El Tiburon: If the pattern is that most people here consider you and GG to be disingenuous, then you might be smarter than your comment history portends.
El Tiburon
@mantis:
This is what Danny said:
So, Danny was replying to my question about the American Awlaki by using a reference to WWII and the German army. So, to make this comparison fair we have to set the table. Does Al Queda = the Wermacht? And does WWII = War with Al Queda? Because if not, then it’s really not a fair analogy is it?
It’s like me saying Mantis looks like my dog’s asshole. For that to be fair, we would have to establish what my dog’s asshole looks like. Dontchathink?
Sophia
I disagree with the suggestion that ABL would defend nun rape. But complaining that using rape as the example is odious is like pointing out that shit stinks. The point of the comment was ABL would defend horrible things. This is an example of a horrible thing. And the criticism of using rape in the hypothetical comes down to: it’s bad form to use an example of a horrible thing that your audience might easily relate to.
I think part of what’s going on here is the unfortunate confluence of the desire to fight rape culture (which I agree with) and the desire to avoid internalizing just how damaging our foreign policy is (which I disagree with). And that a lot of the outrage directed at the original tweet and Glenn’s response is more in service of the latter than the former.
Corbin Dallas Multipass
It is so oddly disconcerting that this blog is the same one which featured this amazingly heartfelt post in support of rape victims.
chopper
@El Tiburon:
if we instead ‘worked with the home country’, likely as many innocents would die as well. we’re talking about a place where people have been settling scores with each other forever.
are drone strikes a bridge too far? we’ve been killing innocent people in the mid east area the old fashioned way for generations.
El Tiburon
@Danny:
Oh, good. Thanks. As long as we considered him an enemy combatant then it’s okay. And you are right: I do wish those Al Queda Punks would put on uniforms with cool medals and medallions and bad-ass hats and camo and make it an official war. But I am so glad that they don’t because then we can put them in a cage, throw away the key, and forget them. Which is awesome. Don’t you agree?
Keith G
@chopper:
That just might happen. Anyone who votes for or conducts war has all of its results on their hands. That is why one needs to be damn sure the military actions are necessary, moral and just (as much as any war can be). This includes Obama.
From what I have seen GG is not giving blanket praise for all things Ron Paul. Personally, I do not think Paul adds anything to the debate, but my bias is that I have never liked much of what he had to say. I guess GG would not agree with me and that is okay.
It seems that you do not get the point that all people, and especially politicians, are mixtures of good and ill.
LBJ’s escalation of Vietnam was immoral and at the same time no president did more for civil rights and the poor. I am glad he was president and I wish he would have been better.
To the extent that there are those who feel GG acted boorishly, fine. Don’t invite him for dinner.
geg6
@Corey:
Still haven’t seen you backing up your bullshit about me. Where’s the homophobic posts you claim I put up?
FlipYrWhig
So, to the “killing children is never acceptable” deep thinkers, how about a, well, let’s call it a hypothetical case, where hijackers want to crash a plane into a major landmark in a major city. The plane has children on it. The city has children in it. By deciding to shoot it down, you kill children. By deciding not to shoot it down, you contribute to the deaths of children. Is it then fair, or smart, to say that speaking up for a politician who made either decision was guilty of killing children? Obviously not. The whole thing is stupid. The question is, instead, how to minimize (hopefully to zero) the amount of dead children resulting from some other position you support. And, honestly, as we saw before when we talked about Libya, to choose to be a hardcore non-interventionist as apparently both Greenwald and Paul see themselves… that means, yes, accepting a baseline level of dead children. I don’t think the number of dead children resulting from gung ho drone usage is anywhere near the total number of dead children resulting from drawing the line at the water’s edge and declaring that there be monsters on the other side, so, fare thee well and Godspeed, world. So Paulism leads to dead children too. Which negates the whole point of the inflammatory comparison Greenwald et al seem to relish.
El Tiburon
@chopper:
Of course you are right. Why rock the boat now? We are just so fortunate that the odds or our children getting bombed from the sky are pretty much nil. And you know, we don’t even know those people. They smell kind of funny and are a weird shade of brown. Also too I now enjoy watching those people get pepper sprayed and beaten down by cops because we’ve done that forever as well. And you know, lynching was in vogue back in the day.
Danny
@El Tiburon:
The only thing you have to decide is if you agree that it’s reasonable to consider Al Qaeda enemy combatants under the Geneva Conventions.
Note that what we’re talking about here is NOT the Bush admins bullshit definition where Al Qaeda and the taliban are not to be regarded as either soldiers or civilians. We’re talking about whether you agree that they can be accurately considered soldiers and treated as soldiers – in compliance with the rules of war as specified in the Geneva Conventions.
Villago Delenda Est
@El Tiburon:
Yea, the pattern is you’re a disingenuous sack of shit.
I’m done talking to you, Paultard scum.
Tom65
I find it interesting that the same John Cole who (infamously) smacked down a racist, ratfucking PUMA with this gem:
https://balloon-juice.com/2008/12/08/just-like-rape/#comment-1102366
can now turn around and defend Glenzilla and his rape analogy.
Maus
@Keith G:
The point here is that all praise that Ron Paul receives is unearned, because he comes to the “right” decisions accidentally, or through dark paths.
@Tom65: Rape analogy apologism is not rape apologism. It’s stupidly insensitive and vaguely touching upon “rape culture” but hardly advocating rape.
People, seriously, it’s fine to call people insensitive and get irate. But calling someone a rape-enabler because of a poor analogy? That’s absolutely stupid.
different-church-lady
@Corbin Dallas Multipass: Tim had the good sense not to go after an internet political deity. Whole different thing, ya dig?
eemom
It might be worth noting, for those interested, that part of the reason this started is that ABL challenged Greenwald to debate her on NDAA (as Marcy Wheeler was doing), and in typical chicken-hawk fashion he ignored her requests — just ignored them completely.
He did, however, see fit to chime in right the fuck away when “Dr Dawg” made the original loathsome rape analogy directed at ABL.
That’s your brave, righteous hero, you pathetic assholes.
LAC
@NR:
awwww…dead kiddies as the new deflection to avoid the mirror. Again, any of you bong water drinkers want to explain Paul’s looney introduction into Congress of a bill authorizing killers for hire and explain how that makes him the anti war choice, let us know. And those kids you are bleating about (repeatedly) under a Paul presidency? a big old man middle finger from the likes of him.
El Tiburon
@FlipYrWhig:
See right there, you douche. Who the fuck said that? Nobody. That’s who. So the entirety of your comment is useless.
Plus, your argument is as stupid and useless as when the right-wing was using it: the ticking time bomb scenario and torture. Congratulations, you are now Sean Hannity.
And was Greenwald against the actions in Libya as you state them? Or did he say something like: Here we go again, what will begin as a “humanitarian intervention” may well turn into another bloody and costly invasion like Iraq.
But here is the fallacy in your argument: We could stop drone attacks today and we could be all but certain that no more children would die due to drone attacks.
Danny
@El Tiburon:
That’s how war works. If we consider someone an enemy soldier then it’s ok to shoot him dead. Let’s all cry our little hearts out for awhile, shall we?
What we can’t do is torture him or detain him indefinitely – without even a military tribunal. That’s illegal under the Geneva conventions. We stopped the torture which is good. Detentions – still a problem. Read up a bit before you start mouthing off next time.
Tell me: do you get off on putting words and opinions in other people’s mouths, asshole? I bet you’re jerking your dick so hard right now, you little pervert.
Keith G
Somewhere up above I typed a comment that got “ate” – FYWP. So I retyped a better version and posted. Now I see they are both up. Sorry for that, and FYWP.
Corey
@FlipYrWhig: So, to the “killing children is never acceptable” deep thinkers, how about a, well, let’s call it a hypothetical case, where hijackers want to crash a plane into a major landmark in a major city.
Holy shit, we’re officially in wingnut, Jack Bauer-reasoning territory.
Unbelievable.
El Tiburon
@Danny:
What? I thought BushCo. decided long ago that the GC did not apply to AQ? Isn’t that what Gitmo is all about?
Therein is the problem with your attempt there: We aren’t really at war with anyone yet we are at war with everybody everywhere all the time. This isn’t WWII and AQ isn’t the Wermacht. Therefor Awlaki could never be some fictional deserter now wearing a nazi uniform.
He was an American citizen target by our government for death. Period. No evidence. No charges. No trial.
Defend it all you want. But this is what happened.
Defend drone strikes all you want, but children are dying.
Defend any terrible act committed by our government you want to. But don’t pretend that by calling it collateral damage or whatever else erases the fact that a parent somewhere just saw their baby blown to smithereens. By our bombs.
schrodinger's cat
@Mattminus: I was speaking metaphorically, of course. Go talk to victims of sexual assault, if you think what I am saying is an exaggeration. Also in some cultures, women are shamed and humiliated, and sometimes even killed for being raped. Its somehow OK to blame the victim, if the crime is rape. You don’t even have to be in Afghanistan for that statement to be true.
Maus
@El Tiburon:
Right, there’s no inconsistency there.
Soonergrunt
@Danny: Considering that the vast majority of people don’t actually know what’s in the various conventions and treaties that govern armed conflict (and it’s for damn sure ET doesn’t) you shouldn’t expect an answer that is legally or operationally correct.
From this particular loser, you should expect more Junior-High Debate Club ‘answer a question with a question’-type dodging.
Marc
@El Tiburon:
Words mean things. If you tell other people that they must love killing babies they’re going to get pissed off. You’re not so stupid that you can’t see that.
It’s especially infuriating when the policies that you advocate *would also involve dead babies.* They’re just different ones – perhaps from the suicide bombers who were not killed by drone attacks. But you can’t address the idea that sometimes you’re just left with the path that kills fewer people.
Instead you pretend that you’re pure and that those who disagree with you are monsters.
You’re dense enough to be Greenwald himself. Proud?
Quaker in a Basement
C’mon now. Everybody join hands and sing…Kumbaya…O, Kumbay…
No? Allright then. Have it your way.
Marc
@Corey:
No, you’re just incapable of understanding that it’s possible for the US President to be faced with a situation where every choice involves the death of innocent people. It’s just a matter of how many and who they are.
Keith G
@Maus:
That is a very interesting comment. This is not the time or place, but I do hope that there will be a chance to examine this as both a political and philosophical construct.
When is being “right” (in your terms) not morally correct? Hmmm
mantis
@Corey:
Holy shit, we’re officially in wingnut, Jack Bauer-reasoning territory.
No, we’re not. He’s bringing up a perfectly valid hypothetical that touches on the comparative justice and proportionality components of the just war theory. It’s also a fairly common ethical/moral question: would you kill some innocents to save even more innocents. If a plane (with children onboard) were destined to crash into a city, killing many more innocents, is it right to shoot down the plane, killing those on board, to save the rest?
Glenn Greenwald and his defenders would have us believe that no matter what your choice would be, you are objective pro-child murder. Heads I win, tails you lose.
Billy K
I haven’t commented here in a long, long time, as it’s become difficult to have a voice as this blog has grown huge. But on the chance you will read this, John, don’t worry about this ridiculous drama. ABL and I agree ideology, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t a troll. It’s always been about her and it’s always been about driving hits to her own site. Let her and the firebaggers duke it out for the Lady of Perpetual Outrage title, and keep Balloon Juice a place for quality political blogging.
Corey
@Marc: I’m perfectly capable of understanding that. I think the deaths of these particular innocents are pointless and indeed counterproductive, and are a product of false premises held by the DC elite class, including Obama. I think the necessity of carrying out these attacks isn’t even remotely near the absurd hypothetical I quoted in the post above.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
ok, ok, ok, after 1000 odd, and some very, posts lets get to the bottom of this; what would people’s reaction be, if there was an oval office primetime address on every network that bothered to show it, where in obama had consensual sex with a nun, but later it was discovered that the nun was somehow convinced that the sex with obama would stop all drone attacks, and get us out, and keep us out of further military entanglements?
Observer
@eemom: oh c’mon eemom. No wise person would ever get into a public debate with ABL because nothing good would come of it.
And this isn’t a GG defense, it applies equally to all people with a public persona.
Danny
@El Tiburon:
It’s painfully obvious that you don’t know what the fuck you’re on about.
These are real laws and what’s in them matters. When I opposed the Bush administration on Iraq it was because he didnt give a fuck about the international framework and international law. When I opposed the Bush administration over torture and detention and their attempts to circumvent the Geneva conventions I knew what the fuck the problem was.
Death Panel Truck
@Bondirotta:
Ed Schultz is touting Santorum so heavily it almost seems as if he wants to chair his campaign.
Corey
@mantis:
I don’t want to put words in Greenwald’s mouth, but he’s a pretty smart guy, and I doubt he really believes this. I even think he’s said something to this effect before.
My argument (and maybe his) is that the killing of these particular innocent children serves no greater purpose, and is a net negative for the US, the bombed country, and the world.
Maus
@Keith G: “When is being “right” (in your terms) not morally correct? Hmmm”
In this specific case when someone believes a War on Drugs and War on Terror is unacceptable on a Federal level, but perfectly acceptable for a state to oppress its citizens, all the while collecting inappropriate accolades for his “progressive beliefs”.
Endorsing States’ Rights makes one a huge asshole and the position is incompatible with being a Civil Libertarian.
Larv
@noodler:
Okay, I went to the linked chirpstory page to see what actually was said. The really absurd stuff there doesn’t seem to have been said by either GG or ABL, but by their respective supporters (mostly GG’s). GG should have immediately backed away from the rape talk and probably encouraged his followers to do the same, but because he’s unable to admit his opponents might be right about anything at all, he clumsily doubles down instead.
What I don’t see on that page is where Cole comes into the story. Can anybody supply the timeline on what was said and when? Cole says that she tweeted that he was “laughing at rape survivors”, while ABL and others imply that he stabbed her in the back. I’d like to see exactly what was said, so I can see just who’s being the biggest idiot here (besides myself for reading and participating in two giant comment threads about high-school level bullshit).
srv
@different-church-lady:
We could name you Capt. Obvious, but it’s obvious that this isn’t obvious to many of those who live and die in the intertubes.
This goes to something deeper in the individual personalities, and when it comes to GG, Hamsher, ABL and some of the real trolls. Would that the world were fairer, and there was a line no one would cross and John would referee that. But BJ was 4chan before there was a 4chan, and that’s why it became successful, even if the majority who are offended by trolls will never get that.
Marc
@Corey:
Drone attacks have killed innocents, but they’ve also killed people who are trying to kill Americans. And they’ve killed people who are trying to kill, yes, innocent people in things like suicide bombs.
But the discussion from Greenwald et al. makes believe that there is no trade-off. Their language clearly implies that anyone who chooses the path they dislike is a moral monster. It’s as intellectually dishonest as it is inflammatory and destructive.
geg6
@Corey:
I don’t know.
Why won’t you link to the homophobic posts you claim I posted about GG?
I find it quite mysterious that you have not yet done that. Since you’re so honest and upright and all. Just like GG.
AxelFoley
@Corey:
Hah, straight dudes get called “little bitch” all the time, so stop with the false persecution. And his moving to Brazil because he doesn’t have the balls to fight for marriage rights in the U.S. is fair game. Like most Libertarians/PL, his punk ass won’t stick his neck out and do the real work of bringing about real change. No, he and his ilk just lob insults at those who are putting their asses on the line.
Fuck him and all of his supporters and apologists. Fuck them with a rusty ass pitchfork.
tony
ABL struck me as a poster where every other word was “I”.
I found her writing tiring and dull, and self absorbed.
I for one had begun skipping past her posts without even looking, as they were always so immature and whiny -self absorb-tion aside.
I look forward to and love the snarky posts John C puts up , and miss the food / recipes he used to post.
I won’t miss ABL and her incessant trolling and “yet another post about me and my feelings”
NR
@LAC: You seem to be under the rather mistaken impression that I support Ron Paul. I don’t.
But I also don’t support drone strikes killing children.
andrewsomething
Green balloons!
Observer
@mantis: That’s not really true.
To avoid all of this sort of thing, the question for ABL defenders would be:
“Forget GG, within the pantheon of available reasonable public policy debates, can you describe a mininum set of policy positions and choices that if Obama took that would cause you to drop support of him in general or make a loud and very public campaign against his stated policy choices?”.
or some such question. You know what i’m getting at. There’s no point in making up accusations when you can just ask people.
Now personally, I don’t think any of the ABL-type Obama supporters would ever answer a question such as this. And I believe many others have the same belief in this as me but unfortunately in doing so they shorthand it to “Obot”. And that’s a problem for both sides in this.
Soonergrunt
@Keith G:
Not to speak for
Keith Gmaus, but in descending order:Doing the right thing for the right reason and achieving the most moral (right) outcome.
Doing the right thing for the right reason and achieving a less than optimal outcome
Doing the right thing for the right reason and failing.
Doing the right thing for the wrong reason and achieving the right outcome OR doing the wrong thing for the right reason and achieving the right outcome. These don’t make one good, they make one lucky.
Doing the right thing for the wrong reason and achieving a less than optimal outcome OR etc.
Doing the right thing for the wrong reason and failing OR etc.
Doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason and achieving the right (morally correct) outcome–but being a karma houdini doesn’t make one less of an asshole.
And so on.
El Tiburon
@Marc:
Because I never said that. No, what people like you get pissed off about is being forced to confront that fact that babies are being killed for no reason. Otherwise please defend drone strikes in Pakistan right now. We are doing nothing more than targeting people WE THINK may be a threat to us at some point in the future. That’s it. And we are using an indiscriminate tool that’s like taking a chainsaw to to clip an infant’s toenails.
Why do you insist on creating bullshit out of thin air? None of this is true. I stated here that I will probably vote for Obama. Does that sound “pure”? No it doesn’t. My vote, to an extent, implies some level of support, no?
I understand that at times we must take actions that will kill innocent people – including children. Take the invasion of Afghanistan. I stated I was for it (to some extent). And being for any military action means that you are endorsing innocent lives being lost.
And go to hell. I never called anyone a monster or insinuated anything close to it. (I did call many of you cowards.)
All I am trying to do, and I’ll try again is to get you to confront the reality of what is going on with Drone strikes (or the War on Drugs or the War on Muslims) And if you continues to sit there and blindly defend these actions as necessary (or okeydokey) then I don’t know what to say. I wish we had more of an outcry against these actions.
But no, you are not a monster. (Oh, I did call ABL a monster but that was just because she challenged me to.)
geg6
@Corey:
You explicitly replied to a comment of mine accusing me and others of making homophobic slurs against GG. I’m not answering any of your questions because you are the one flinging accusations around and apparently don’t even realize who you are replying to at this point. It’s up to you to either back up what you said or apologize.
Oh wait. GG doesn’t do that, so I guess I can’t expect you to.
former ohio
and now i remember why i quit blogging.
different-church-lady
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: Trying to make lemonade: commendable.
priscianusjr
@cathyx:
Corey
@AxelFoley:
More hateful rhetoric from those who don’t really give a rat’s ass about empathy and privilege.
geg6, here’s a case in point.
mantis
@Corey:
My argument (and maybe his) is that the killing of these particular innocent children serves no greater purpose, and is a net negative for the US, the bombed country, and the world.
And that’s a legitimate argument, as long as you recognize that opposing side’s argument is not that they love to kill children, but that they are fighting terrorists. Arguments about the effectiveness of drone strikes, the negative consequences of their use beyond the immediate impact, including the possibility that they can lead to more terrorism and continued deterioration of relationships with countries upon whom we depend to combat terrorism, are totally legitimate and I’m quite sympathetic to them. I just disagree with the characterization of the arguments in favor as “defending child murder” (not that you are necessarily making those arguments).
I should also note that you accusation that calling Greenwald “GG” or “GiGi” is “feminizing” him is rather stupid. Those are his initials. Do you get upset that Benjamin Netanyahu gets called Bibi? Does that feminize him, or does it not count because he is straight?
eemom
@Observer:
What bullshit is this?
“No good would come of it”? What kind of “good” are you referring to?
Good for Greenwald? I guess that’s true, since a public debate with ABL would likely reveal him for the petty little bully he is — just as he managed to do with his cowardly third-person taunt.
What is he afraid of?
srv
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: It depends on if it was anal or not.
Marc
@El Tiburon:
I appreciate what you just wrote. If you want to understand my prior reaction, just look at what you wrote.
“No, what people like you get pissed off about is being forced to confront that fact that babies are being killed for no reason.”
You then follow this up with
“I never called anyone a monster or insinuated anything close to it. (I did call many of you cowards.)”
So if I support drone strikes I support killing babies “for no reason”, and yet you’re not implying that I’m a monster?
Is there some non-evil reason to support killing babies for no reason?
When you throw around verbal grenades like “killing babies for no reason” you don’t get reasoned responses. The fact that you keep on doing it is a real problem, and causes people to get furious with you instead of engaging you.
Soonergrunt
@andrewsomething: NO! I’m not there, yet!
742 or bust!
Yevgraf
@Corey:
He said about the black woman…
Quaker in a Basement
@Larv: Ask not for whom the bell tolls…
Corey
@mantis: Who has argued that anyone is pro-child killing?
Seriously, not even Greenwald has argued that. He explicitly made the trade-off argument. He has argued, vociferously and comprehensively, that the bombings and drone attacks do not actually enhance US security at all, and actively make us less safe. He is addressing the “benefit” side of the moral cost-benefit ledger you implicitly reference, and is finding it lacking. He argues it so much that, to be honest, I skip over his posts on drones – I already know what he’s going to say.
Nowhere has anyone said, the killing of children is at all times indefensible.
Corey
@Yevgraf: Black women are just as capable of being blinded by privilege as anyone else.
Corner Stone
@Observer:
It’s like a practice squad wide receiver challenging the starting WR to a catch off. There’s a reason he’s on the practice squad.
Maus
@EconWatcher:
It’s called “being considerate to others”, EconWatcher. There are a million other blogs (mostly conservative) where you can be un-PC to your heart’s content.
Soonergrunt
@Observer:
If he ACTUALLY started proposing and supporting conservative positions over viable liberal ones, as opposed to the things that he doesn’t actually do but are imagined by so many emoprogs, firebaggers, and other such as him having done, then yeah. I’d stop supporting him.
Since he’s never done those things, but has been an imperfect messenger, then no. I’m not ready to abandon him yet.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig:
Oh no. A major landmark in a major city?
The horror!
Observer
@eemom:
For most people, “nothing good would come of it” is a fairly common phrase with a fairly plain meaning. I shouldn’t need to explain it anymore than that.
You know, every interaction needn’t be at 100 decibels.
elftx
At this point, I miss Darrell.
AxelFoley
@Corey:
Oh, sweet, fucking irony.
FlipYrWhig
Jesus Christ, the density. No one supports “drone strikes killing children.” Greenwald’s argument is that no one should support a politician who uses drone strikes because some drone strikes have killed children, thus support for that politician is perforce support for dead babies. And a goodly number of you accept that as a valid argument. What you presumably really mean is that drone strikes kill so many children, perhaps even that one is too many, that no politician should ever order a drone strike because of the risk of dead children. That’s fine as it is, but that can also cut another way, like so: if not for using a drone strike, apprehending Anwar Awlaki would have cost American soldiers’ lives, so by forbidding drone strikes, clearly you’re all in favor of dead ruddy-cheeked 19-year-olds from the heartland, because you’re some kind of evil inhuman monster. What’s that? It’s not that you like dead boys, it’s just that you think the other policy is preferable? Sounds like something a black-hearted sadist would say, to me.
geg6
@Corey:
But you explicitly accused ME of it. I don’t care what other people said. I care about what you accused me of saying. Back it up or shut the fuck up.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: Yeah, nobody could have predicted that would happen, amirite? But, you know, live and learn.
Xanthippas
@tony:
Seconded. This is a better blog without her.
Observer
@Soonergrunt: That’s a clever answer. it’s a very good answer, too. One that I could see myself using were the tables turned.
But you know it’s an answer to a different question.
The question as asked, requires an answer that includes specifics. We don’t have to argue about whether your answer is good, bad, true or false. Just want to know if you can imagine and describe a concrete set of circumstances – a “line in the sand” as it were – that would cause you to drop support (however defined) for Obama?
Mike D.
I don’t understand how John can say that Greenwald said he believed Obots would defend Obama if he raped a nun in the “I’m so hungry I could seriously eat a horse” sense given the Twitter record that ABL reproduced. That’s just a complete fabrication – Greenwald was clearly being serious as a heart attack in saying that.
I actually don’t think this means he was trivializing or laughing bout rape, or just using it as a metaphor. But he was definitely being dead serious about what he thought Obots would do if Obama raped a nun. It doesn’t pass the laugh test to suggest otherwise – GG went out of his way to show he was abolutely not speaking in hyperbole. Maybe John Cole hasn’t actually seen the Twitter record. But either way, it makes it impossible to take seriously whatever else he has to say to represent his side of the experience (something that it’s not clear to me why he wanted to do in the first place – ABL was involved in the discussion that prompted the quip in the first place, so it is kind of about her: how’d it get to be about John at all?).
Tony J
@mantis:
Leaving aside everything else, because I not only don’t have a dog, but wouldn’t choose to bet on anyone else’s in a fight..
Calling Greenwald “GG” is sensible shorthand because they are his initials. Using “GiGi”, OTOH, isn’t. It’s a homonym, and the implication is that Greenwald is a feminine whore. It’s homophobic, in that it’s – supposed – to be insulting.
YMMV
mantis
@Corey:
Who has argued that anyone is pro-child killing?
Greenwald’s defenders on this thread.
Nowhere has anyone said, the killing of children is at all times indefensible.
Untrue.
mantis
@Maus:
It’s called “being considerate to others”, EconWatcher. There are a million other blogs (mostly conservative) where you can be un-PC to your heart’s content.
This used to be one of those blogs. Did you take over and change things when I wasn’t looking?
Maus
@mantis: Being sarcastic and silly != “politically correct”, which is an entirely conservative-created and perpetuated “issue” to solve.
Being non-PC is about being able to be a misogynist/racist/homophobe (or other form of bigot) in public, not about being an asshole to people who say dumb things.
Rebecca Testerman
Could not be more happy for ABL to be gone. Saves me the trouble of scrolling past her childish, hateful, victim impersonating screeds.
mantis
@Tony J:
It’s a homonym, and the implication is that Greenwald is a feminine whore.
Even if I granted you “feminine,” which I don’t, how does it imply that he’s a whore? Are you saying women (or men) named Gigi are whores? Based on what, exactly?
It’s homophobic, in that it’s – supposed – to be insulting.
How so? Just because you say so? Have you considered you may be reading too much into it?
Corner Stone
@Tony J:
My sister had a friend in high school nicknamed GiGi. She played tennis at a competitive level and was smoking freakin’ hot.
Just sayin’.
metricpenny
John, this can be your last say on the matter but it will show you to be less of a man than I thought you were if you fail to let ABL know that you were wrong.
It was all about HER. The original tweet was directed at HER. Greenwald jumped on the bandwagon to further denigrate HER. SHE gave Greenwald an out and he failed to take it. And then here you come compounding the matter.
You’re the big man who could come out to the world and say you were wrong about the republicans, but can’t do the same about jumping into a fight that wasn’t yours.
So sad.
Corner Stone
@Xanthippas:
I understand people move on for different reasons, but I look back at the drain of different commenters here who left over the last New Era of Civility that was imposed by ABL and the blogstalkers.
Not sure any of those people will be coming back.
somegayname
@AxelFoley:
Look at advocating rape of a dehumanized opponent who agreed with a distasteful rape metaphor….wait, what?
geg6
@Tony J:
Huh?
My initials are also GG and I have been called GiGi my entire life. I may be feminine, but nobody has called me a whore lately. How about GeeGee? Are you okay with that?
Jeebus.
somegayname
@metricpenny: everything was always about her. That’s why she was annoying.
Death Panel Truck
All of this back and forth over GG, a guy known of by approximately .00000000000000001% of the American electorate.
Don’t any of you people WORK?
FlipYrWhig
Look, everyone who has ever been president and who ever will be president will have the misfortune of having decisions he or she makes result in dead children. If Glenn Greenwald was president, it would happen because they were being killed somewhere he didn’t think was worthy of American attention. I don’t think he’d say, woohoo, dead children, let’s party! He would probably say that he regrets any loss of life but believes, on balance, that it was preferable not to intervene. Would it be appropriate to say that Pres. Greenwald had no problem with dead children, and anyone who spoke up to support Pres. Greenwald after that would have blood on their hands and would probably defend any heinous thing he did?
AxelFoley
@Corey:
Really, asshole? You say this to someone who’s been black in America all his life?
Again, fuck you.
Tony J
@mantis:
The first thing that comes to my mind is the film. Go and google the name ‘Gigi’ and tell me what you think the cultural dog-whistle is there.
@Corner Stone:
.
And she was a she, yes? There’s a reason it’s a nickname you’d only apply to girls unless you were implying something about the masculinity of the guy you were nicknaming. That’s why I said it was homophobic. It’s got literary implications.
AxelFoley
@somegayname:
Yeah, and fuck you, too.
tri it
So, this is all about Glenn Greenwald defending a rude allegory which meant that ABL stands for Automatic Barack Lover, which she is embarrased to actually admit, although most of her writings suggest otherwise?
Ya, this is totally worth 700+ comments. Such an important world development..
Maus
@Maus: I mean, anyone’s problems with ABL were because she was angry, not because she was “PC”.
“politically correct” is a phrase that states that we should only treat minorities, women, gays, etc as human because of liberal fascism and fear of employment termination, not because anyone deserves any innate respect.
Narcissism and always looking for a fight (whether or not one exists) is not Political Correctness and it’s pretty shitty to compare the two while justifying Fox-News levels of thought control.
People may not *believe* that’s what they’re doing, but that’s what using the phrase PC is. It’s regressive and nasty. There are better words for the problems you see.
p
@geg6:
You’ve been “called” “GiGi” which is to say you’ve been called “GG” as said out loud.
I don’t see why anyone would write out “GiGi” in reference to Glenn Greenwald except as an attempted pejorative. It makes no sense.
Tony J
@geg6:
I’m fine with that. You can see why in the other comments.
LAC
@NR:
And you are under the mistaken impression that your simple minded “hey, don’t kill teh kids” criticism covers you .
Rick Taylor
I ignore these outbreaks when they occur. I cannot imagine anything more boring or irrelevant than internecine conflict on the left when the entire slate of Republican Presidential candidates range from clueless to insane, with most insane.
I’m sorry you had to deal with this, John.
Spectre
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
Quoted for emphasis.
Spectre
@Xanthippas:
She was a propagandist, but she also seemed to be legitimately unbalanced mentally. “I, ME, ME, I, MYSELF, I FEEL, I! MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
mantis
The first thing that comes to my mind is the film. Go and google the name ‘Gigi’ and tell me what you think the cultural dog-whistle is there.
I’m familiar with the film. I don’t know why you think the title character was a whore, and thus all people named Gigi are whores.
There’s a reason it’s a nickname you’d only apply to girls unless you were implying something about the masculinity of the guy you were nicknaming.
Or the guy’s initials might just be GG. Inconceivable!
Anyway, whatever. This ain’t worth more effort. Some people are just determined to interpret something offensive out of anything and everything they see and hear. Carry on.
virag
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
yep. i ain’t reading all of these, but jesus, she was…a real piece of work.
Spectre
Props to John Cole for this.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I’m just under 100 posts shy of my prediction. Help me out here, will ya?
kthnxbai
Spectre
The typical ABL stick to engage with a person more e-famous then her, and then act like a fool. Hoping of course that people from a distance wouldn’t be able to tell who is who.
Spectre
If anything, John still owes an apology to Greenwald. As he basically admits, he allowed his site to be used as a platform for continuous slander against Glenn.
Emma
The kind of poison being spewed mostly by males in this thread makes me wonder a great deal about the welcome of any woman of color in this blog.
Jeff Fecke
I think Roy Edroso shortered GG’s “non-support” of Paul best. “Shorter Glenn Greenwald: LBJ’s worse than Goldwater NOT THAT I SUPPORT GOLDWATER WHY DO YOU SAY THAT STUPID LIBERALS.”
This is it, precisely. Glenn doesn’t support Ron Paul. He just thinks Paul is overwhelmingly better than Obama on every possible issue that really matters, and if you don’t agree you literally would defend Obama raping a nun. But he doesn’t support Paul. Certainly not.
The sad thing is, all Glenn had to do to get everyone to back down was say, “You know, I was using hyperbole. I know ABL wouldn’t *literally* defend Obama raping a nun. I was being hyperboic. I’m sorry to have offended anyone.” Instead, GG doubled down, declared all Obama supporters are gleeful murderers, and also, we’re mean.
Sorry. ABL was right to be upset by this. Glenn should apologize. And if John wants to defend Glenn — his call, but don’t expect me to keep reading.
WeeBey
@Tom65:
Wow. That there ought to make Cole think.
Spectre
@El Tiburon:
She must have a lot of pent up stress from being a useless, document review, lawyer.
TooManyJens
@Rick Taylor:
He didn’t have to. He chose to publicly side with Greenwald over the woman, supposedly his friend, whom Greenwald was accusing of being such an Obot that she’d defend him committing rape. If he’d stayed the fuck out of it, this shitstorm wouldn’t have happened.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Soonergrunt:
THIS!
Jeff Fecke
@FlipYrWhig:
We can go a step further. Drone strikes kill terrorists. Stopping drone strikes mean terrorists live. Live terrorists bomb stuff. Therefore, if you oppose drone strikes, you support terrorists killing people.
Now, that’s a facile, stupid argument. The world is a lot more complex than that. But it’s no less facile and stupid than Glenn’s argument — and parroting it does not make you sound smart.
virag
@marduk:
last year i said that if imani gandy had eyewitness video of barack obama killing and eating children she would stand up and shout that kiddie-cannibalism is one of our proudest traditions and that any criticism of obama only came from racist firebaggers or republicans. in no sense did i believe that obama was any more likely to kill and eat children than any other human; the point was that abl will defend obama no matter what. if greenwald pisses people off making the same point, what are they really pissed about? it seems that as per usual, gandy was screeching about the metaphor while ignoring the main point that she is an (often ridiculous and unreasonable) obama kamikaze storm trooper.
yes, i understand this has been said over and over in this thread, probably, but i ain’t gonna trudge through 700 fucking responses. a thousand pardons.
BO_Bill
This is good news for Ron Paul.
Corey
@AxelFoley:
If you honestly cannot understand why your comments would be offensive to a lot of gay people, and why it’s inappropriate to call a gay man a “little bitch” and to make fun of him for living in a place he has to live in because he’s gay, then yes, your privilege is showing.
Maus
@Tony J:
I find this line of reasoning as useful and productive as ABL’s assumption that Glenn was trying to make a “rape joke” through his shitty analogy.
How about this- we shouldn’t use “cutesy” names at all when describing people we dislike?
It’ll save us the “BUSSSHITLER”s, “HITLERY KKKLINTON”s, and “OBAMAILURE”s and keep the discourse from getting even more terrible than it already is.
MJ
@John Cole,
I respect you and the work you’ve done in putting this blog community together, but I’ve got to say that I’m a little speechless at how quick you were to blame ABL for expressing her concern on a non-BJ medium about Greenwald’s nasty tendency to hit his critics below the belt with what ever rhetorical weapon he can find (in this case telling a black woman that her critique of his legal argument was wrong, because “shut up, you’d excuse Obama raping a nun, that’s why”.
I’m also more than a little saddened by the onslaught of “good riddance, that sassy b*tch had it coming” comments that I’ve been reading here all day. So I think I’ll be taking a bit of a break from checking in here for a little while until I can figure it all out.
For what it’s worth, as I said on the previous ABL post:
I think that Greenwald’s decision to lash out at ABL far more connected to his explosive anger at being intellectually challenged about his legal analysis of civil detention & the NDAA, than it was to any deep-seated insensitivity about rape. However, I have to wonder whether his quick dismissal of any challenge by anyone who disagrees with his overly simplistic, theoretical construction that civil liberties > civil rights –> Paul > Obama doesn’t reveals much more about Greenwald’s discomfort with dissent than he’d ever be willing to admit.
(I’ll leave it to others here to analyze the degree to which Greenwald’s poor judgement re: the rape analogy was exacerbated b/c he was being publicly called out by an “Angry Black Lady” who openly & notoriously challenged his much bandied about, yet still unproven claims of moral & intellectual superiority.)
But, then again, according to @Biff Mitchell on ABL’s prior thread, my opinion on this matter may be completely worthless, since I’m just another “self-hating negress” like ABL or one of her “simpleton followers” who just needs to go away. SMH
#sadthatitscometothis
Samara Morgan
@over_educated: i still think i won the thread when Cole offered to fuck me.
;)
did you actually read what greenwald said?
doesnt matter a whit– ABL took her name off the masthead.
i did that myself at GNXP, and ordered razib to take my blog off his blogroll.
sometimes even metaphorical rapists can become physically toxic.
sympathies, ABL.
Joel
Lets ramp this sucker up to 1000, folks.
Tony J
@mantis:
Yeah. Calling someone GiGi in text has nothing to do with the film or the book about the teenage French girl trained to be a courtesan.
Sorry I implied it ever could. You go check your mileage. I’m sure it’s fine.
Kola Noscopy
@eemom:
omg. I’m guessing that Glenzilla is merely being kind. ACL would never recover from the shellacking he would give her in in a debate. Can you say “out of her league?”
Discrusshion
All babies belong in a stewpot. Period.
Corner Stone
Oh noes! Zander has found moah DRONEZZ in hizz errrrwewhere!!
Poor bastard.
I really loved that kid too.
Well, no, actually I did unt. Hope that fucking punk goes the way of the dodo here.
Joel
Corner Stone
Ha. “the people’s view”. Good sweet christ in a bucket being lowered down to the poor girl in the basement of Silence of the Lambs.
NR
@LAC: Covers me from what? The anger of blind partisans? I’m willing to take that risk. Hell, I wear their anger as a badge of honor.
Samara Morgan
@Corner Stone: oh you are just being pissy cuz she banned you once.
grow up you WATB.
you are a wimpy troll…you can dish it, but you cant take it.
mantis
Calling someone GiGi in text has nothing to do with the film or the book about the teenage French girl trained to be a courtesan.
In this context, I see no reason why it would.
Sorry I implied it ever could.
Actually, you flatly stated that it did, and it was homophobic for anyone to use such shorthand, and you just kind of threw in the “whore” thing for no reason.
Let me ask you this. Is it possible, in your mind, for someone to refer to Greenwald as GiGi without meaning to deliver all the implications you have inferred from it?
lol chikinburd
Glenngrene has set in here. Sad.
JC
Well, ABL posted up on our own John Cole on Twitter again:
Don’t count on it fucker
See, for the past two years, Cole has backed ABL, full stop. This one disagreement, ABL’s outrage goes into overdrive. So much for her ‘thank you for the opportunity to post here’.
I hope at some point she realizes that burning people who’ve had your back, because you are sticking up for a friend, and for what you believe, is not a way to go. But, I think it’s a mental issue, so she’ll have the problem forever.
JC
@Anya: Well, again, you can say it’s stupid, but it’s not racist, not coming from Moore. Again, Cornell West was saying the same thing, and Moore was following from West’s lead.
Corner Stone
@JC: Well, he hasn’t actually had her back for that full time.
He tried to take down one of her BS posts and got blink checked by her foaming at the mouth coterie.
So he reluctantly put it back up, even though it was full on garbage.
She pooped all over this blog so many times that I guess he grew tired of it and forced a confrontation.
Now she’s all, “Don’t count on it fucker.” but let’s see where she goes to start pooping on someone next. My guess is it will be an order of magnitude or more less than the traffic at BJ.
Anonne
In a nutshell, tribal oversimplification of issues rules the roost. No one looks pretty. I’m with Cole.
JC
@Corner Stone: I would agree.
It’s an interesting balance, I think. I really like being able to be ‘full of hot air’, so to speak, and debating and disagreeing vociferously.
But the line between that and devolving into this sniping, outrage poison – along with the obvious trolling – well, it’s a thin line, clearly.
SpawnofKain
ABL started a flame war and lost? Oh well. A moment of silence for bomb-throwers everywhere who sit down on their own grenade. Newt Gingrich, ABL, Rush Limbaugh, Samara Morgan.. we salute you, as you rocket screaming and raging up into the heavens.
Corner Stone
@Kola Noscopy:
She’d snipe and run, taking her fragile ego back to the echo chamber she needs to survive.
She’s a coward who claims to pie people she can’t debate in real time.
existential fish
What seems incontrovertible is that no one is better informed on NDAA as a result of this type of argument. This ends (on any side you want to look at) in epistemic closure.
This is exactly why it’s important to argue in a reasonable fashion. To disagree without being disagreeable.
And that’s exactly why this will on deaf ears.
NMP
@rikyrah: I really wish you would join Twitter! :-)
Spectre
@JC:
She’s crazy. But it’s also a necessary part of the stunt. They must paint Cole as libertarian Ron Paul-GreenwaldLoving-Sandusykist at all costs, that way the rest of the Obama apologists on this blog gain more cover to post their nonsense.
Balloon-juice is still the leader in slandering all critics of Obama. See Tom Levenson’s piece.
not motorik
I found ABL’s writing distinctly tumory.
TooManyJens
@SpawnofKain:
In what way did ABL “start a flame war”? Please, be specific.
SpawnofKain
Mazeltov, comrades! You have officially become traitors to the revolution. As of today, you lose your parking spaces and keys to the semi-executive bathroom.
Spectre
ABL slandering Ballon-Juicers as racist:
“AngryBlackLady Imani ABL
The Balloon Juicers are celebrating the departure of “the self-hating negress.” Why the fuck did I stay there so long? Hahahahaha. Jesus.”
SpawnofKain
@TooManyJens:
In what way did she not start a flame war? Please, be specific.
TooManyJens
@SpawnofKain: You made the accusation, pal. Back it up.
Jason
I just don’t have the energy to get involved in this shitstorm. I just want to say, Mr Cole, if you’re still bothering to keep reading, you are right. ABL and her band of bloody shirt wavers are flat wrong. And this whole brouhaha is about a variant of standard hyperbole: “If we caught X knifing a nun, she’d defend X”, but unfortunately our twitterer (who everyone forgets was not Greenwald) used the “R” word, which allows all the professional left to go into high dugeon and wield the sensitivity bludgeon. This was ABLs speciality. Seriously, good riddance.
SpawnofKain
@TooManyJens:
After you, madam. She’s your bomb-thrower, not mine.
lethargytartare
@Fed Up In Brooklyn:
this gets right to the heart of what makes Glen and his minion author of the original tweet such despicable jackasses.
The ONLY reason the rape example came out was because saying they’d (i.e. those that disagree with Glen) defend Obama for any crime he committed didn’t get the reaction they wanted. Calling him a dictator didn’t get the reaction. Saying they’d defend Obama for locking up US citizens will nilly didn’t work. Saying they’d defend him for killing women and children didn’t work.
Glen and his minions have been searching for weeks for the properly hurtful example of what Obama supporters (in Glen’s fevered imagination) would willingly defend.
They finally found it, and revealed a bit of their true selves in the process.
Every one of you trying to parse this into some rhetorical misstep by Glen is missing the point.
Glen latched onto that tweet and doubled and tripled down because he wanted to HURT people.
Period.
SpawnofKain
@Jason:
She lived by the hateful ad hominem, she died by the hateful ad hominem. Truly, there is a divine justice in this universe.
Michelle
So: rape. Totally irrelevant. Just a distraction. Let’s talk about *important* issues.
Gottttttcha.
not motorik
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19267227
SpawnofKain
@lethargytartare:
He also burned down the orphanage and stole the bread from the mouths of the poor, laughing sadistically all the while. Please, don’t forget to document ALL the atrocities.
Corner Stone
Good luck to ABL chasing uphill at Greenwald without BJ as a platform.
JC
@SpawnofKain: Again, so, so predictable. Outrage, followed by accusations of racism.
She’s not ‘crazy’, in a clinical sense. But I would say there are definitely issues there.
Lynn Dee
@Anonne: Short and sweet and I agree.
Corner Stone
Jane Hamsher, Micheal Moore, Joan Walsh, Glen Greenwald, etc, etc.
I’m sure Cole will fit in there somewhere next.
Just a sad fail parade of targets too big to take a bite out of and chew.
God bless her heart, doesn’t stop the poor dear from trying.
Lynn Dee
@Corner Stone:
How can anyone write this with a straight face?
clayton
@SpawnofKain:
Spoken just like your friend Glenn.
That you find yourself on the same side as Corner Stone says a lot. If you don’t know how he almost broke this blog, then ask someone.
John Cole
@JC: Dude, let it go. She feels like I betrayed her, so she’s mad at me. I’m not happy about the events of the past 24 hours, but I don’t think I wronged her in any way. I saw a bunch of people giddy with anticipation to spend the next month attacking Glenn as hating on rape victims and making rape “jokes,” so I said something. It was an inflammatory statement, but the statement was not pro-rape in any way, but to demonstrate the lengths some people would go to defend Obama. He legitimately feels that way.
Likewise, there are a number of women out there who have been raped and the mere statement offended them. I mean, read this damned thread, they are telling you that themselves.
What I saw, though, was a bunch of opportunistic hacks (and you know the names, as it is the same coterie of people who love to join in on every Hamwald outrage du jour), so I said something. It’s the same kind of kill the messenger shit I saw every day back in the 2000’s among Republicans who were unfaithful to everything Bush did. So again, I said something. Just replace “pro-rape” with “anti-Semitic” or “objectively Pro-Saddam” and it is the same stuff. For a lot of them, this wasn’t about rape at all, it was about revenge. I’m not the one cheapening rape or laughing at rape victims.
I’m sorry ABL is pissed at me, but even though the initial tweet that Glenn repeated mentioned her by name, to me, this simply wasn’t about her.
SpawnofKain
@clayton:
*shrug* If you want to advocate the cause of an immature and dishonest hate-peddler, go ahead. It’s a big internet and your follies are your own responsibility.
JC
@Lynn Dee: If this is a serious question, ABL wrote these scathing outrage attacks on all of those people, with no room for gray.
And then Cole being added? Don’t count on it fucker.
You may disagree, but surely you can see there is a defensible case there?
John Cole
Cornerstone- you’re still a dick.
Under the Aurora Freeway
Apropos.
Corner Stone
@John Cole: I thought that was understood?
I guess it bears repeating, you big cuddly teddy bear.
MJ
@JC: So to be clear, quoting an outrageous statement actually made and left up on the site about her being a “self hating negress” means that ABL’s crazy and unfairly calling folks out on racism. What?
You know what, this is getting uglier and uglier and good people who read and post here are going to get hurt or engage in unintentional assholery/hyperbole. As I said before, I really what you’ve build hear Cole. I just disagree with how you handled this. That being said, I hope that you & ABL find a way to end the online bleeding now and try to resolve this amicably offline. You two actually appeared to be friends, so it would be really sad to allow this to go full online blog war.
I know that my opinion matters little here, but I just don’t think your beef w/ each other can be worked out online. The spectators on here (myself included) & on Twitter are starting to sound like bored Seniors in the back of the h.s. gym who are encouraging two freshmen to fight each other, just for shits and giggles.
JC
@John Cole: I agree with your perspective, you didn’t wrong her.
As far as ‘let it go’, perhaps you are right. But, you may be wrong as well. From a process perspective, I saw this coming six months ago. It looks like a continuing modus operandi, right? A poisonous splitting of a community, because she makes the person who disagrees with her a bad/evil/horrible “Demon Other”.
I think the evidence is in on this. And I don’t like it.
But I’m listening, so what am I missing here?
clayton
@SpawnofKain: I was pointing at you, Glenn and Corner Stone. It looks like this:
describes you much better than it does me.
Corner Stone
@John Cole: She was always going to damage you Cole. Always going to be your CNN moment.
It’s sad you didn’t quite get what you were enabling but I guess that’s the nature of monetized pageclicks.
kc
@John Cole:
Having read your tweets, I don’t think you did either.
I predict that you two will be kissing and making up in a few days …
JC
@MJ: Well, again, IMO, I may be wrong – but she takes a single statement by one of the anonymous posters – and there are no shortage of idiots on this site, including me – and then smears the whole of the site, to justify her being pissed off and leaving the site.
So it’s a method and a schtick. done intentionally or not, I don’t know.
TooManyJens
@John Cole:
No, he doesn’t “legitimately” feel that way. There’s nothing legitimate about it. ABL wasn’t defending indefinite detention but was pointing out that she thought Greenwald had the facts wrong. I mean, Jesus taffy-pulling Christ, thinking that the NDAA doesn’t change the legal status quo on detention of Americans is tantamount to defending rape? Really?
Glenn’s whole schtick is that if you don’t hate Obama as much as he does, you’re pro-evil. Excuse it all you want, but it’s wrong and he’s an asshole.
clayton
@John Cole: As someone said up thread and maybe on another, Glenn and his friends were looking for the right/final button to push. You shouldn’t have attached yourself to that in anyway, unless you agree with that sort of tactic.
It’s not the first time someone has used that ugly image against Obama or his supporters. Jeff Goldstein did early on and that’s no one that Greenwald would have wanted to be in the company of not so many years ago. But now he is.
And that’s what’s pathetic. Flogging people with whom you disagree with such ugly images puts one in the same category as Darleen Click and Jeff Goldstein. Do you see where it got them?
clayton
@JC:
Another newbie who doesn’t know about all of the ugly comments Cole has had to delete because people can’t control themselves.
Just keep showing how little you know JC; it’s cool.
Darkrose
@John Cole:
Yeah, it kinda was, unless you honestly think Greenwald would have used that analogy with a male blogger.
Seriously, he could have said “skull-fuck a kitten”. Which is totally over the top, but since no one actually does that, it’s obvious that it’s hyperbole. People do, and have, raped nuns. And then when given the opportunity to back off, Greenwald doubled down, saying that no, he really does believe that ABL would excuse Obama for committing rape.
I’m not sure why you’re defending him on this one.
SpawnofKain
@clayton:
Brave attempt at a response, but a bit lacking in your usual shrill tones of self-pitying poutrage. Of course, if I were arguing your idiotic cause, I’d probably be embarrassed as well.
SpawnofKain
@Darkrose:
Do we have evidence that no-one skull-fucks kittens? Have you personally observed the entire population of the world to verify this point?
existential fish
Many comments here are just sad. And blaming anyone but yourself (whoever you are) for those comments is irresponsible.
clayton
@Corner Stone:
Is that envy or jealousy?
Darkrose
@SpawnofKain:
The point: .
You: Alpha Centauri.
clayton
@SpawnofKain: Newbie talks like a newbie.
p
@Darkrose: Why wouldn’t he use that “analogy” with a male blogger? Considering he didn’t come up with it in the first place.
SpawnofKain
@Darkrose:
That would be a confession of ignorance on your part, then?
And yes, the line you used was done better elsewhere.
clayton
@SpawnofKain: Has Corner Stone whined for a thread yet? Maybe you could do it. Come on, you know you can! It’s easy to make FPs jump on this site.
MikeInSewickley
@Ella in New Mexico: I’m an Atheist but your comment was heaven sent.
Thanks.
Lynn Dee
@Corner Stone:
FWIW, I don’t see Cole as damaged by ABL, and I don’t see him as having enabled her. My sense is he genuinely enjoys her and thinks her posts have brought something to the board – and no, not just in terms of page clicks. I also get the sense that he doesn’t take her periodic blow-ups personally and so, except for the occasional cleanup involved, he didn’t think the cost was too high for what she brought to the board.
I also agree with much of what has been said (at least that I’ve read) about Glenn Greenwald. It’s a shame someone as bright and impassioned as he obviously is has turned out to be such a prig and an ass. But he’s just one guy. And he’s just one pundit/blogger guy at that. I guess he’s got a relatively big platform for a pundit/blogger, and it’s easy to lose perspective in the heat of battle. But he is still just one guy. And if you’ve already discounted his opinion anyway (as many of us here appear to have), why even pay attention to him?
Maus
@TooManyJens: She uses incendiary rhetoric. It’s her shtick. Her nick isn’t “GetsAlongWithEverybodyBlackLady”.
Ronzoni Rigatoni
@homerhk: “ABL was a fresh voice and I always appreciated her take on things from a slightly different point of view from the normal points of view amongst the liberal blogosphere.”
Totally agree. She wasn’t always reasonable, but she reasoned well enough. I learned a lot from her on a lot of issues I never really thought about. We really need her here. Damnation!
JC
@clayton:
You know, this doesn’t address my point at all. Not even a bit.
Egilsson
@John Cole:
John, ABL is poison and her tactics are poisonous. She’s been doing this crap to other people who have the gall to disagree with her on anything. It’s good she’s gone. Hopefully some of the more ugly posters go with her. I agree with her politically, but she’s awful.
jaywillie
@John Cole: So it’s hyperbole, but it’s what he legitimately believes. And, obviously, it’s wrong for people to use such a cudgel against Greenwald after he got his weaselly little mitts all over that cudgel picked up by dr.dawg and started swinging with it. The nerve of such people! Returning what was served to them! And while ABL can defend herself, clearly professional writer for Salon.com Glenn Greenwald needed you to ride to his defense. And somehow a tweet mentioning someone by name isn’t about that person. Just maybe, Cole, people were fed up with how Glenn responds to his critics, which is usually with vitriol and deeply personal attacks (okay, actually that’s about all he does), which is precisely what happened in this case when he eschewed having an actual debate with ABL for latching onto the most offensive remark available to him.
Are you even reading the words your writing, or just mashing the keys, hoping that you’ll stumble upon some rhetorical contortion that will absolve you of this shameless and continued defense of Greenwald? You’re rationalization is like in the NFL when two players fight and the one who retaliates is the one who gets flagged with a penalty. Nice to learn you’ve got the sensibilities and reasoning skills of Jeff Triplette.
You want to talk about losing the plot? Go into your bathroom. See that reflective surface on the wall? Take a good, long look into it.
Honestly, the only reason a lot of lefties started coming here is because you were a rightwing crank who managed to pull his head out of his posterior. That sideshow has pretty much worn thin. And pictures of an obese cat, too, I suppose.
Seriously…man walks into shitstorm, surprised to come out covered in shit. News at 11. And then you grouse about why they turned their guns on you…puh-lease. I mean, it’s not like you had a choice to stay out of it or anything…oops! Guess ya’ did, and you chose to interject yourself into it. Also, it’s still early in the year, but you’ve got a great shot at this year’s High Broderism awards.
Darkrose
@p: Maybe he would have used that analogy with a guy; it’s just a gut feeling on my part. In my experience, when men invoke rape in arguments with women online, the effect, intended or not, is to say “Shut up and know your place”. It feels personal, in the same way that referring to a gay man as a “little bitch” is.
I’m firmly in the camp of “don’t bring rape up unless you’re discussing rape”.
Darkrose
@SpawnofKain: This space intentionally left blank so that you can have the last word.
LAC
@NR:
Wearing shit for Greenwald is a badge of honor? Really?
clayton
@Maus:
Seriously? I don’t think so, least of all in this case. Glenn was just looking for something more outrageous, much like a person he would loathe to be associated with, namely Jeff Goldstein.
LAC
@John Cole:
If you cannot see what you did or have the least bit of understanding as to why not only is ABL upset, but a great number of folks, both male and female, are upset. then you are as fucking dumb as I feared. Jesus, grow a pair, talk to ABL and man up!
clayton
@JC: It’s not meant to. I don’t have the inclination to school you on all you have missed out on. Here’s a start for you. Go read Protein Wisdom starting around January 2009. Then let me know when you have caught up, K?
Another Bob
For whatever reason, ABL’s writing just never did much for me. I found her to be the least interesting blogger here, and the histrionics and divisiveness added nothing that I care to partake of. I don’t care if she stays or goes, because I rarely read her anyway.
clayton
@LAC: Sorry, but I don’t think there’s any hope for that. Cole defended Jeff Goldstein for a very long time, even after Cole changed parties. And in this case, Glenn Greenwald only went where Jeff Goldstein had already gone, so it’s not so out of the realm of possibility that Cole defended Greenwald.
Not the hill to die on, much like with Anne Laurie and Corner Stone, but there you have it.
JC
@clayton: Ah – a variation of the Fallacy of Authority, based on experience.
FWIW, don’t call it a comeback, I’ve been here for years. 8, I believe.
The point still stands. A massive generalization, or – to be more precise, ABL committed a ‘fallacy of hasty generalization’, based on a small sample size.
eemom
@John Cole:
and you are STILL a clueless, tone-deaf asshole.
You haven’t listened to a goddamn word anyone has said.
Lynn Dee
@JC:
JC, It’s possible I misunderstood you, since I don’t generally follow the comments here. Was that your point of view you were giving, or what you imagine to be ABL’s?
eemom
@jaywillie:
excellent post.
Danny
@virag:
If GG “legitimately feels” that I am a person who could rape a child, would I have to respect that too? Fuck you – seriously. No one here – including ABL – would defend, not to mention applaud Obama raping nuns. Your fucking making upp silly excuses along the lines of “it was just hyperbole” isnt different in any way whatsoever from what Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck shits out every single day to try get away with their usual offensive slander and bullying.
Now, I was on the right side of Iraq II back in 2004. On Guantanamo; on torture; on detainees. You and Glenn were on the wrong side.
We don’t need to take that shit from you. So fuck you with this sanctimonious bullshit:
You were fucking wrong back then – cheer-leading and bullying your country into a very bad place. And now on the merits of that – you and Greenwald having been fucking wrong back then – you have apparently thereby earned the right to slander people who didn’t fuck up like you did, and whom you should have fucking listened to? And apparently that’s ok, because now you got some yes-men willing to lick your ass and make this about some fucking courtesy shit where we’re “guests” at your blog rather than participants in a democracy. Fuck you again. And once more.
JC
Whelp, one thing – I don’t know how much these last 3 days were planned, but quite the way to start the New Year with a bang!
There couldn’t be more activity on this site, if this was planned in advance.
Corner Stone
@jaywillie:
It’s clear she can’t. She has flounced off to her echo chamber at every juncture where people have challenged her here.
I can’t count the number of threads where she ducked and ran before 10 posts. “I am so outta here!”.
Well, if she couldn’t be bothered to defend her garbage before skeedaddling then maybe she should’ve considered what it was she was doing here long before now.
Never seen anyone run and hide with their fragile ego the way she did consistently.
Danny
@Danny:
*directed @John Cole; not virag
clayton
@JC: Happy to make you feel better about yourself.
I don’t believe that. Perhaps you should check to see if you supported Jeff Goldstein in threads back around 2006, and then later in 2009.
JC
@Lynn Dee: Eh, probably not worth it to get into it, I most likely misunderstood you.
JC
@clayton: Okay, don’t believe it, and don’t engage the argument. Seems like we are both cool with that.
clayton
@Corner Stone: I’ll ask again: are you jealous or envious? Isn’t it your plan to take this blog down? With every comment you make? Isn’t your goal to do what the liberals did when they turned Cole around? Don’t you just want to do the same?
Just come out and say it. Your goal is to make this site as crappy as possible in every little way you can, right?
clayton
@JC: Way to miss the point.
WaterGirl
@eemom: Well, Cole did write this at #710, so I think he has certainly listened to some of what’s been said:
Lynn Dee
@Corner Stone:
I don’t understand why people let themselves get upset by nasty and/or stupid remarks from people whose opinions they’ve already discounted — or wait. Of course I understand that. Most of us have done it at one time or another. So I guess what I don’t understand is how one can do that repeatedly without any apparent recognition that it’s happening (or has happened) once again and without trying to find a better way.
So that’s one thing.
But what I don’t understand about you, Cornerstone, is why you’ve appointed yourself semaphore flagman/town crier for every time ABL leaves the board. As I said elsewhere, I don’t generally follow the comments here, but ya don’t have to follow them much to know that that is what YOU do. You wait for a blowup, and then out you pop to wave your flags about, recount what you imagine to be the relevant history, and interpret the blowup for the board’s benefit.
Why do you do that?
Ella in New Mexio
@MikeInSewickley:
And thank you for bothering to go all the way back to #547 to read it. Like I said, I’ve see these bomb throwers before, and based on how she has apparently told John Cole to “Go Fuck Yerself” now, I’m pretty sure this particular incident is a Very Good Thing® for Balloon-Juice.
Mjaum
Are you lot still here?
Meh.
Ella in New Mexio
Ok I changed Fuck to Feck but I am still in moderation. Quite curious this WP Office of Vice and Virtue.
eemom
@WaterGirl:
But he also said this:
by which he is explicitly saying that the the outrage against Greenwald was nothing more than a fake excuse to attack him for other reasons. He KNOWS that for THEM “it wasn’t about rape, it was about revenge” — because he can read minds, you see.
However, Greenwald’s motivation in doubling, tripling and quadrupling down on his original asshole comment was “legitimate.”
But the folks upset by the rape analogy? They’re just THIRSTY for Greenwald’s blood.
IOW Greenwald gets the benefit of sincerely believing what he said — but the folks upset about the rape analogy do NOT.
So no, he hasn’t heard a goddamn thing.
Thymezone
@Lynn Dee:
Heh. Rocky is like that kid in high school that defends the clique at all costs … as if its existence would actually matter after high school. And in this context, comparing BJ to high school is very, very flattering to BJ.
clayton
@Ella in New Mexio: Another newbie.
Do you realize that the rape accusation has already been used against Obama and that the person who allowed it is someone with whom Glenn Greenwald would be horrified to be compared to?
Again, you haven’t been on this whole rape-Greenwald-Cole-Goldstein thing enough to know what you are talking about.
Ella in New Mexio
@John Cole<
John, I think you did the right thing, but at this point people here who don’t want only to continue the war of which you speak so eloquently because, dammit, it makes life so much more meaningful to fight over shit like this!
Those of us who came to this blog when you were it's only–or at least primary–writer appreciate your style, your points of view, and your ability to capture exactly what we are feeling at a given point in time. Anyone who wants to follow the newcomers out the door because you won't turn into one of them is welcome to do so, IMHO.
Thanks for being you.
mantis
@jaywillie: @LAC: @Danny:
Honestly, the only reason a lot of lefties started coming here is because you were a rightwing crank who managed to pull his head out of his posterior. That sideshow has pretty much worn thin. And pictures of an obese cat, too, I suppose.
then you are as fucking dumb as I feared.
Here’s a thought, dumbasses: go read some other blog if this one isn’t to your liking.
I’m sure there are plenty of other examples of the “You are stupid and boring! Do you take requests?” comment on this thread and others. One sees it all the time.
We don’t need to take that shit from you.
So don’t! Feel free to go fuck yourself elsewhere, Danny. Or did you get lost wandering the internet? The porn is that way.
ABL
@John Cole: http://hedgemybias.blogspot.com/2012/01/4-am-at-privilege-cafe.html
how can you say it wasn’t about me? it directly involved me! you know who it didn’t involve? YOU.
Ella in New Mexio
@clayton:
First of all, I am NOT a “newbie”.
Second, I don’t give a rat’s ass about the content of the ABL-GG “discussion’ about rape. Like I wrote earlier, Been There, Done That in ways you never will.
My sentiment is about how ABL conducts herself in her writing and on this blog. She’s reached a point where worse than boring to me, she’s offensive to perfectly good people and has pooped all over her gracious host.
So as far as I am concerned, I know absolutely what I am talking about.
clayton
@Ella in New Mexio: That’s a complete fail.
I’m sorry you got your feelings hurt and that you are touchy about having your newbie-ness being pointed out to you, but it’s no call for such a formatting failure.
Try harder.
Kola Noscopy
@kc:
eeeewwwww…no, no, no, for the love of god, no. Let the madness end here and now.
WaterGirl
@eemom: I didn’t say Cole heard everything, but he did hear the thing I thought was most important – figuring out that nothing good can come from bringing rape into a conversation that has nothing to do with rape, and that it’s hurtful to a lot of people.
The rest of it – GG and ABL and the fighting – I don’t care about that. I just hope people have learned something from this clusterfuck, and it seemed to me that Cole acknowledged that he had.
I don’t get why Cole defends GG, in this particular instance and otherwise, except that Cole does seem to allow for people to be flawed, and to have different opinions than what he has. I don’t care about GG. It does seem like Cole and ABL were friends, so I hope they get past this. Other than what I’ve talked about, it’s just a clusterfuck that I don’t have to care that much about.
Sammy
Greenwald chose to give weight to a tweet that should have been ignored. Did he tell the tweeter to take a hike… No. He made it even worse by agreeing w/ it.
Mr. Cole you’ve defended GG before, perhaps you feel the need to defend a fellow journalist or maybe it’s bc you are friends.
clayton
@Ella in New Mexio:
And that’s all you know.
Do you know who Jeff Goldstein is? Do you know that he allowed Darleen Click to post a cartoon of Obama raping the Statue of Liberty on his blog. Do you know that Cole defended Goldstein for a very long time? Do you know that Goldstein was horrible to Greenwald. Do you realize that Greenwald has now joined Goldstein?
Yes or no?
Kola Noscopy
@eemom:
and you are STILL a clueless, tone-deaf asshole.
Oh dear.
Or maybe he has listened, and still disagrees with you. There HAVE been one or two comments taking GG’s side, you know…
…just a thought.
ABL
@jaywillie: precisely. thank you.
Samara Morgan
@John Cole: tch tch.
such bulshytt
didnt you read the chirpstory?
it was ALL about ABL, moron.
plz, who is GG reffering to here?
@ggreenwald
Glenn Greenwald
@DrDawg @AngryBlackLady @g_p_g @emptywheel No – she’d say it was justified & noble- that he only did it to teach us about the evils of rape.
how bout chu man-up and apolo
and SAY YOU WERE WRONG.
;)
chopper
@Keith G:
i’d like to have greenwald over for dinner, so i can ask him how his support for the invasions of afghanistan and iraq jibe with all his shit talk about how everyone else supports killing innocent muslim kids. then i’d smush a burrito in his face for being such an unmitigated asshole all the fucking time. then i’d give him a xanax and tell him he needs to fucking relax.
chopper
@Keith G:
moderation hell:
’d like to have greenwald over for dinner, so i can ask him how his support for the invasions of afghanistan and iraq jibe with all his shit talk about how everyone else supports killing innocent muslim kids. then i’d smush a burrito in his face for being such an unmitigated asshole all the fucking time. then i’d give him a x a n a x and tell him he needs to fucking relax.
Kola Noscopy
@ABL:
oh
my
god.
have you no shame? or pride?
giggle
clayton
@Kola Noscopy: You
are
an
idiot
Mack Lyons
Which makes it sound as though ABL has always been a liability to the blog. That’s something that particularly irks me. But not as much as the attempt of many commentators here to clean up Glenn Greenwald’s tarnished image.
No, he didn’t make the “nun-raping” quip on Twitter. But he effectively cosigned with it, which is most likely just as bad as it coming from his own timeline. Cue the outrage from people who were genuinely pissed about that poor choice of hyperbole.
John Cole’s attempt to be an impartial observer who tried to clear the air of bullshit backfired spectacularly and made him look like he was taking sides with Greenwald, pissing off even more people. And here we are, today. If Greenwald wanted to kneecap an otherwise intelligent forum and leave its membership in shambles, he couldn’t have done it any better.
The attacks on ABL here are astonishing, to say the least. At least two-thirds of the commentatorship have their claws out for her.
chopper
@eemom:
here’s what’s going to happen. a few days from now, after this is all settled down, some close friend of cole’s is going to point out how deeply offensive all the rape shit really was and what a serious asshole greenwald really was being, and that he really screwed the pooch in ABLs thread. and cole is going to think about it and feel like shit over the whole situation.
i don’t think ABL will be coming back tho.
Thymezone
@eemom:
It’s just that John was out walking his dog when the UPS guy came to deliver his Let’s Learn To Listen With Dora! kit …
FuzzyWuzzy
@tomvox1: If the brown shirt fits……
Mac G
Hours later and people are still talking about this? I have little respect for GG’s schtick and agree with ABL on her criticism of his whole tiresome Anti-Obama self serving writings but take some advice and let this go.
GG is an ahole and will never apologize nor defend his work without personal attacks.
ABL appears unable to take any criticism from anyone but only is able to deliver it. Oh well, I will still make this blog one of my daily reads regardless.
Kola Noscopy
@chopper:
“i don’t think ABL will be coming back tho”
hahahahahahaha…aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…hahahahaha…ACL is ALREADY BACK.
In this very thread. Haven’t you been paying attention?
Lojasmo
Greenwald is an insufferable douche. Greenwald picking up the rape gauntlet was douchy. People DEFENDING Greenwald for his douchiness are being douches by doing so.
Men who make “jokes” about rape should rightly be cudgeled for their douchiness.
Own it, John.
Or publicly apologize, and beg Imani to return.
clayton
John Cole, it’s no surprise that you stood up for Greenwald. I’ve had more than my fair share of getting burned by the good old boys. Males stick together and some females seem to think that is a good way to go.
But John Cole, you know that your old friend Jeff Goldstein had already gone to the “Obama rapes” hole long before this. That Greenwald went there is not so surprising, given that he was pointing it at a female.
You made a mistake here, John Cole.
It’s why there are still people commenting on this thread.
It’s much worse than the Corner Stone attempted take over. This is just wrong.
Admit that both your old friend Goldstein and your newer friend Greenwald hate women and be done with it.
SuzieC
@WaterGirl:
Agreed.
Don’t have a dawg in this fight, other than that I loath, despise, and hate Glenn Greenwald, and I enjoy the writings of Angry Black Lady. Unlike some in this humongous thread, I think she has really enriched the discourse.
Please, Cole and ABL, make up.
chopper
@Kola Noscopy:
there’s no ACL here.
Ella in New Mexio
@clayton:
Again, I don’t give a rats ass about who losers like Jeff Goldstein or Darleen Click or fucking Joe B. Schmoe are. Sorry.
I am talking about a big picture issue: ABL being an overly emotional powder keg and an anachronistic flame thrower with very poor manners and a giant victim complex.
There are more than ONE conversations being had on this thread, FYI.
Alison
@Mac G: Unable to take any criticism?
Are you kidding me? Do you have any idea how much God damned criticism she has taken on this blog alone, all the damn time? In pretty much every single comment thread on her posts, the ABL haters show up and sling shit, no matter what the topic of the post was. People have said stuff ranging from dumb little remarks to scathing nastiness to downright fucked up racist/sexist spew. She has taken a God damn ocean’s worth of criticism with no connection to any “earning” of it or not.
When you deal with that shit EVERY DAMN DAY, no matter what you say or do prior to it or in reaction to it, no matter how many times other people say “cut that shit out” or people get banned or whatever…eventually, for any human being, it gets to be too damn much. ABL has dealt with far far more nastiness than I or most other people could or would. To say she can’t take criticism is so laughably and incredibly wrong, I can’t even grasp how one reaches such a conclusion.
Unless you only see what you want and believe what you want, which is an element of this whole fucking problem.
clayton
@Ella in New Mexio: If you say that, then you don’t know Greenwald, Goldstein or Cole very well at all.
So I win :D
You join Kola.
clayton
@Ella in New Mexio: Wait, one last question, Ella.
Have you ever commented at Unclaimed Territory?
Yes?
Thymezone
@Mac G:
You mean, can dish it out, but can’t take it?
Let’s put it this way: The culture on a blog comes from the top, and if you are looking for some good, sturdy Duluth Trading Company Brand Dishes It Out But Can’t Take It, you have come to the place where you can study under the tutelage of the grand masters.
Mack Lyons
@Kola Noscopy:
“ACL”? As in “Angry Colored Lady”? You’re kidding me, right?
Ella in New Mexio
@clayton:
Yes, yes dear, you win. Does it help? ;-)
Mack Lyons
@Alison:
Precisely.
Devon Cole
@WeeBey: @WeeBey:
Thinking that someone is wrong is perfectly acceptable, and voicing your opinion that you believe that someone is wrong is even better. Otherwise we would all be a bunch of sheep wandering around bleating whatever someone told us we should think. But resorting to nasty name calling and attacks on character is not ok. I really wished I hadn’t used profanity in my post, because I like to think that I have a better vocabulary to chose from than that. Mea culpa. He is my brother after all. And with any and all due respect- for those resorting to weak insults like calling him an a$$hole…and blah, blah, blah…judging from your comments, you haven’t earned the right to call him that. And something tells me that you never will. Peace.
Ella in New Mexio
@clayton:
No. I suppose that is an inside insult which I blissfully choose to be ignorant. Good Night.
clayton
@Ella in New Mexio: Show me where you commented on Unclaimed Territory, would you?
JC
@clayton: Total troll comment, by the way. I mean, really?
Please go up to commnt number 547, by Ella in New York, and try again. You can do better than this shallow snideness. Or maybe you can’t, I guess we’ll see.
Alison
I would also add, for all of you SHE CAN’T TAKE CRITICISM SHE’S THIN-SKINNED BLARGLE GARBLE bastards – Cole himself has said that we don’t even see half the nasty shit people say, because he deletes a lot of it before it ever makes it into a thread. So don’t base your fucking judgments of her character or strength even just on what you read here, because it’s just the tip of a giant bigoted iceberg.
And I don’t even want to know what her email inbox must look like.
clayton
@Ella in New Mexio: And that’s all she wrote. Ella is a newbie and doesn’t even know where Greenwald got his start.
Too bad.
August J. Pollak
So who watches that cartoon with the magical ponies? I fucking love it.
My favorite is Rarity. But I like Applejack too.
clayton
@JC: I’ll ask you the same. Show me where you commented on Unclaimed Territory. Also tell me which side you took when Jeff Goldstein savaged Greenwald and how that squares with Greenwald’s attack on ABL.
I’ll be here waiting.
Ella in New Mexio
@clayton:
LO-Fucking-L! “Ella is a New-bie! Ella is a New-bie! Nanny Nanny Boo-Boo!!!”
Jesus, this is exactly what I won’t miss when all the riff-raff leaves the bar.
Oh, and clayton, your name is the same name as a pathetic one-horse town in Northern New Mexico which is populated with wife beaters, child molesters and crack fiends. Nanny-nanny Boo-Boo!!!!
JC
@clayton: Serious question – what is this with Protein Wisdom, and Unclaimed Territory? how is this relevant to this current food fight?
I’ll answer the question – it’s not relevant, unless there is a preponderance of evidence that it is. Which you have not presented.
clayton
@Ella in New Mexio: You’re not really hiding your ignorance very well with all of those taunts.
Good try!
Again, show me where you commented on Unclaimed Territory, especially when the “Obama raped liberty” blogger Goldstein gave Greenwald this idea, k?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@eemom:
Nope, he’s tone deaf as fuck.
@chopper:
I’ll buy you the burrito.
clayton
@JC: I guess you were not around when Jeff and Patterico all claimed that they had discovered! that Greenwald was — god forbid — a gay man. They were relentless. This was before Greenwald was at Salon. His blog was Unclaimed Territory.
These same people — Goldstein worst among them — thought it was ok to publish a cartoon of President Obama raping the statue of liberty.
Greenwald went to that same deep and ignoble hole with ABL.
If you don’t see the problem with that, I don’t know how to make it any clearer.
NobodySpecial
@chopper: You might try reading his first book. (Get a copy from the library so you don’t have to give him money if you don’t want to.) He goes into a pretty good explanation of something that we as a commentariat gave John Cole a pass for a long time ago.
Then you might want to take that X-pill yourself if you’re thinking about directing violence at someone during dinner because you don’t like their arguments.
clayton
@JC:
And one more thing, Greenwald never ever went to that extent in attacking the BDS people he encountered. Never.
So why did he feel it was okay to go there with an Obama supporter?
Can you tell me that?
mantis
Again, show me where you commented on Unclaimed Territory,
Why are you assuming everyone commented at Greenwald’s old blog?
especially when the “Obama raped liberty” blogger Goldstein gave Greenwald this idea, k?
Click/Goldstein gave Greenwald the idea that someone else tweeted? How so?
clayton
@NobodySpecial: Read his first book? Are you kidding me? That’s what got him into the shitstorm with righties.
And again I ask you this time, why did Greenwald never use the Bush raping a nun argument with any of his right wing critics? Why use it now and with this particular critic? Why use one of his most odious critic’s tactics on someone else?
Mack Lyons
@Mack Lyons:
I KNOW!!! HAHAHAHAA!! Crazy how anyone can use a name, right? HAHAHAHAHA!!!! WOOOOOOOO!!! CRAZY!!!
Mac G
@Alison: She attacks Greenwald so he is a dick back or vice versa. I am unaware of who started whatever tweet. This is twitter. When she doesnt like what GG said, she goes full drama because Cole and others have not defended her from Greenwald being an ahole.
She is now in victim mode and quit the blog.
This is the type of criticism that I am referencing and I think it would be better for her to these things go and ignore GG.
clayton
@mantis: Don’t be obtuse. Also, learn how to format on the blog. It’s easy.
JC
@clayton:
Yes, I often read Unclaimed Territory, but I never liked Protein Wisdom, so I never commented there, or read there. But I’m glad you made your point clear.
Basically, the claim is that GG being an ass around saying ‘these Obama supporters will support Obama in anything, even Obama raping a nun’, is the same/equivalent as Goldstein shitting on Greenwald, and publshing a picture of Obama raping the Statue of Liberty?
Is that correct?
LAC
@mantis:
Oh, look..it’s hall monitor. Listen, Mr. Hand says I can go the bathroom, dude.
clayton
@Mac G: And the guy thing again. Please show me where you criticized Greenwald for being such a victim when right wing bloggers outed him.
chopper
@NobodySpecial:
Cole doesn’t go around screaming about how everyone else totes supports killing innocent Muslim kids. if he did, we’d be pointing out that he supported that shit too. every. time.
MattMinus
@clayton:
“Greenwald went to that same deep and ignoble hole with ABL.”
Given what started this whole affair, there’s probably a better way to phrase that.
mantis
why did Greenwald never use the Bush raping a nun argument with any of his right wing critics?
He didn’t really use it this time, he responded to someone using it.
Why use it now and with this particular critic?
Because someone tweeted it to him and he responded?
Why use one of his most odious critic’s tactics on someone else?
This assumes that Greenwald is aware of Click’s cartoon. Is he?
You read way, way too much into everything, clayton.
clayton
@JC: I didn’t ask if you commented on PW.
I asked if you defended Greenwald on Unclaimed Territory.
So no, your attempted paraphrase of what I wrote is completely wrong.
Care to try again?
mantis
@clayton:
Don’t be obtuse.
Well, I wouldn’t, if you weren’t so deviously clever!
Also, learn how to format on the blog. It’s easy.
Yes sir!
clayton
@MattMinus: Then go for it. You state it better.
Ella in New Mexio
@clayton:
Dang, man. You’re losing it.
JC
Or rather, GG sort of agreeing with the a tweeter saying the above. So, the questions:
a. Are these situations exactly comparable? I would say not exactly, there are differences which make a difference.
b. Where is hyperbole acceptable? Is this particular hyperbole acceptable? Cole points out that obviously it causes a lot of people to see red, a point in it’s disfavor. Cole also correctly points out that this was specifically used because it was NOT acceptable – sort of throwing out the most unacceptable thing out there, to make the point.
c. And the follow up question – whether ‘acceptable’ or ‘not acceptable’, does this then mean that anything that Greenwald says is invalid, and thus he can be ignored from here on out? Even in this particular situation, even if you grant that GG sort of agreeing with that tweeter, to make a point, if GG had used a LESSER analogy, to make the same point – would that point be true or false?
I again say that, in one sense, it doesn’t matter whether GG crossed the line (although it clearly does to those who have been hurt in their lives, as this is a sensitive subject.).
ABL was using this as a cudgel – the outrage cudgel – which is an ad hominem attack, to not address the liberty and freedom concerns that GG was raising (in his normal dickish way).
Which, of course, she did with Michael Moore, and all the other examples. It’s a dishonest way of shaming/demonizing. Which Ella did a very good job of pointing out.
clayton
@mantis: Can you please learn how to use the tools made available to you?
Your “how do you know” excuse is easy to brush aside. You wouldn’t even ask had you been around at that time. It’s when I learned not to use my real name or email on any blogs. I got burned defending Greenwald using my real name and a real email. By Jeff Goldstein.
I was there and will always remember. That Greenwald used — and yes, let’s not rehash whether he meant what he supported or not — he did and said so — the same tactic as the odious Jeff Goldstein makes my blood boil.
Your defending Greenwald in such an inept way just amuses me.
JC
@clayton: No, not really – again, the burden is on you to explain, not to guess what you are saying.
clayton
@Ella in New Mexio: Not really. But you are still here, given your lack of knowledge and history with anything but this latest dust up? Do you think your opinion carries any weight?
clayton
@JC: Had you been there or followed any of what I have been commenting about, you wouldn’t have to guess.
So, yeah, all you are left with is guessing and badly paraphrasing my comments. That must not be very interesting.
E. Joyce
I’ve basically ignored most of this as it unfolded, hoping that people would stop reacting and respond instead. @TheReidReport finally delivered the best commentary on the whole matter: http://blog.reidreport.com/2012/01/on-bullying-glenn-greenwald-and-the-nun-rape-smear/
After skimming through the over 700 comments, and I do mean skimming, I decided to add my two cents. Glenn Greenwald was absolutely wrong to make such an egregious comparison without once considering the effect of his words and who may inadvertently be harmed by them. Or maybe he did consider just that and knew the end results would benefit him. After all, how many clicks did his blog get for the controversy created? Anyone who was harmed after all,is just collateral damage. Because I resent the insinuated continuance of the Herman Cain fact-free meme that anyone who is for President Obama, must be brainwashed and thus cannot think and will defend the indefensible. Instead of admitting the wrong, Greenwald is now claiming the role of “I’m the victim here.” How very “right” of him.
Egilsson
Wow, so ABL chimes in just to “ditto” jaywillie’s comment, which is basically a rationalization that she gets to be as big a jerk as possible when she’s offended, and accuse other people of vile beliefs, but no one gets to call her out on the stupid insults and dishonest arguments she routinely makes?
Heck, in this same episode she accused COLE of making fun of rape victims. How offensive and dishonest is that?
What a piece of work.
And Alison, anytime someone calls out ABL for her dishonest crap, which she does regularly, there’s a loyal pack of minions like you ready to swarm over them with rage and profanity and righteousness. Why aren’t you quivering with rage over that offensive comment from ABL? You are just part of a pack of internet bullies.
August J. Pollak
Fluttershy is just so adorable too. I love how she sings to all the animals in the meadow.
JoeShabadoo
@clayton:
I don’t really have a dog in this fight and just came to see what everything was about but your comment here just stuck out.
Calling someone a newbie is not an insult and it does not win an argument. How old or new someone is has nothing to do with whether they are right or wrong. You need to support your argument.
It makes you look like a child.
clayton
@Egilsson: Brava!
We’ve already covered all of that, Greenwald groopy.
Can you now answer the question none of his other friends can?
Where were you when Jeff Goldstein was attacking Greenwald and where were you when Goldstein allowed and defended Darleen Click posting a cartoon depicting President Obama raping the statue of liberty?
Don’t you think Greenwald is in the same bed with his antogonist Goldstein on this one? And don’t give me any weasel-ness about Greenwald not actually “saying” rape but just RTing it.
Can you now?
clayton
@Egilsson:
A pack that took after Greenwald and that he has now joined.
E. Joyce
I’ve basically ignored most of this as it unfolded, hoping that people would stop reacting and respond instead. @TheReidReport finally delivered the best commentary on the whole matter: http://blog.reidreport.com/2012/01/on-bullying-glenn-greenwald-and-the-nun-rape-smear/
After skimming through the over 700 comments, and I do mean skimming, I decided to add my two cents. Glenn Greenwald was absolutely wrong to make such an egregious comparison without once considering the effect of his words and who may inadvertently be harmed by them. Or maybe he did consider just that and knew the end results would benefit him. After all, how many clicks did his blog get for the controversy created? Anyone who was harmed after all,is just collateral damage. Because I resent the insinuated continuance of the Herman Cain fact-free meme that anyone who is for President Obama, must be brainwashed and thus cannot think and will defend the indefensible. I fully support President Obama and I assure you, I am fully in control of what I think and believe. I also note, with mild amusement, and a sigh, that the whole bully/too aggressive black woman scenario is also being played out here as well. Please, give that myth a rest. What I’m learning from this alone, is that Glenn Greenwald may well not be who he purports. Not quite progressive, perhaps more libertarian/tea-republican leaning, but that won’t be divulged until after the election.
Instead of taking responsibility, Greenwald is now claiming the role of “I’m the victim here.” How very “right” of him.
Ella in New Mexico
@clayton:
The fact that I am “still here” is more like how my cat sits on the front porch, paw on a dying lizard, looking lazily off in the distance while never intending to eat him. I just like poking one more claw into your abdomen.
Just go to bed, Clayton.
TooManyJens
@JC:
There’s no “sort of” about it. Greenwald embraced it, elaborated on it (saying ABL would “say it was justified &noble – that he only did it to teach us about the evils of rape”), and said that he believed it was literally true.
Actually, she tried to address those concerns. She said GG had his facts wrong and invited him to debate. This is what she got for her trouble.
He’s such a scamp!
clayton
@JoeShabadoo: I’m sorry you feel that way. This fight is not new, so when some of the new Greenwald supporters come in here and try to make out like they know the history of this blog, or of Greenwald’s Unclaimed Territory, or of his friend Mona/hypatia’s withering critique of progressives on Greenwald’s blog, then I call them as I see them.
Again, sorry I hurt your feelings.
Corey