You remember those tweets from the US embassy in Egypt suggesting that religious intolerance is not, in fact, an American value? This is what Republican Senate number 2 and all-round waste of carbon John Kyl had to say about them:
“It’s like the judge telling the woman who got raped, ‘You asked for it because of the way you dressed.’ OK? That’s the same thing. ‘Well America, you should be the ones to apologize, you should have known this would happen, you should have done — what I don’t know — but it’s your fault that it happened.’ (via TPM)
That’s a pretty impressive statement, taken all in all. Economical. In just two sentences it manages to sideswipe rape victims* while asserting that US personnel in the midst of a street riot were actually complicit in their own vulnerability — all from the enviable safety of a seat in the Senate.
What’s worse — well not quite, because telling our diplomats in the midst of conflict that they’re craven wussies is pretty far down the WTF scale — but what’s further proof of Kyl’s unfitness for the job he holds is this sentence, which immediately followed the nonesense above:
You know, for a member of our State Department to put out a statement like that, it had to be cleared by somebody. They don’t just do that in the spur of the moment.
Uh, no, as Andrew Sullivan pointed out earlier today, quoting emails from readers in the diplomatic world:
I work in [a State Department office] where we deal with information security directly. (Please don’t name that office, but it just goes to show Kristol’s completely random Hail Mary on this one.) Do you know how many tweets there are from diplomatic missions? Almost all posts have a Twitter feed now, and they are most likely only cleared by public diplomacy Foreign Service Officers. That means it’s a local issue, has nothing to do with “State Department” officials in charge at home. I know for certain we do nothing of the sort, clearing them in this office…
And
I’m a former US Foreign Service officer and can tell you that the statement by the US Embassy in Cairo – which, frankly, seems perfectly OK to me to begin with; what’s really so offensive about it that the Obama administration has to “distance” itself from it? – almost certainly wasn’t cleared with DC, because otherwise it wouldn’t have been issued for another day or two! It would have spent that time bouncing back and forth from the Egypt desk up to the Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs and over then to Public Affairs and God knows who else getting massaged, tweaked, edited and finally OK’d. The reason embassies have Public Affairs officers is so they can handle this sort of statement on their own….
To recap: Kyl blames the victim, then tries to expand the indictment to the Obama administration in a charge that cam be immediately shown to be a lie. Proof, yet again, that the Republicans are no longer a political organization. They are a claque of power-seekers attempting to complete the coup-under-the-cover-of-law that has been slow rolling through our government since Bush v. Gore.
Kyl himself is a small man in a job way too big for him. But he’s merely echoing Mitt Romney-the-Unready, another small (and shrinking) figure who, nonetheless, retains a better-than-I’d-like chance at the top job. Which would, on the evidence of the last 20 hours or so, be even worse for the country than it had formerly appeared. And even if (when) Romney loses, the GOP will remain a party-against-country ball-and-chain on the Republic.
Factio Grandaeva Delenda Est.
*You can read his statement as saying that the judge is committing a wrong in saying “you asked for it” — but the framing evokes the opposite. It’s a variant on the old rhetorical trick “I would never say that my opponent enjoys the carnal knowledge of his barnyard animals — but those sure look like hog sop stains on his overalls ….” John Kyl would never say that a rape victim deserved what she got, but my oh my was that a short skirt….” Perhaps I’m being unkind. Don’t think so.
Image: William Hogarth, The High Court, c. 1758 — and yes, I know I’ve used this before, but it just works here, alright?
The Ancient Randonneur
I put this link up in an earlier thread but it seems appropriate here as well. Pictures of peaceful demonstration in Benghazi denouncing violence and apologizing for death of our diplomats.
Villago Delenda Est
Kyl gets his information directly from the same source that OvenMitt does, which appears to be, best I can determine, Rinse Preibus’ ass.
Anonymous
I will never understand why, on a day where Romney makes an epic series of fuckups, the John Kyls and Sarah Palins and Rush Limbaughs of the world see fit to play “anything you can do I can do better.”
comrade scott's agenda of rage
It’s amazing how much the Repups are in disarray over this and just about everything else on the campaign trail this year. No message cohesion, back peddling, “distancing”. Just goes to show you how when the party’s alleged standard bearer is close to being despised by his own party how it impacts the legendary Republican lockstep message factory.
Funny how you won’t hear the Villagers ever report on “Repuplicans in Disarray”.
dedc79
Yeah, because what the Republicans need now is another discussion of rape.
trollhattan
Ooookay, let’s all say it together:
Moar fodder for my theory unending heat makes you stupid, if you weren’t already.
different-church-lady
@Villago Delenda Est: Actually, as it turns out they’re all getting their cues from Twitchy McBlogsphere:
dmsilev
I must disagree with the statement that Jon Kyl is a waste of carbon. By existing, he is sequestering a small amount of CO2 and is thus in a small way acting to ease the onset of global warming.
different-church-lady
@dmsilev: But what about all the greenhouse gasses his mouth emits?
ABL
You sure aren’t.
Quicksand
Hey, why’d you change the title of the post?
This is VERY classy, in the Lohanian sense of the term.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@dmsilev:
Offset, it’s all about offset. I’m guessing his lifestyle, yunno, chauffeur driven SUVs, several McMansions, etc., etc., generates far more CO2 than he’s sequestering.
Not to mention all the hot air he generates. That probably melts at least a couple of icebergs a year.
Tom Levenson
@Quicksand: Just like the new one better. The old lives on in the permalink…
Nellcote
Has anyone besides Politico’s unnamed source stated that the WH disavowed the statement from Cairo?
Punchy
I read the quote, read your asterik, and STILL dont understand WTF Kyl’s analogy to rapes and judges means…
different-church-lady
@Nellcote: From what I understand, they didn’t “disavow” it, they merely clarified that it wasn’t an official statement of US policy.
Seanly
Umm, maybe I’m too busy at work or something, but what is this apology the Republicans keep talking about? Nothing in the pre-assault tweets by the consultate/embassy or in ahything Sec Clinton or Obama said constitutes an apology. Usually I can follow most wingbut arguments, but I am totally lost here.
FlipYrWhig
@Seanly: They don’t mean “apology” the way it’s used in, you know, English. When they use it, they mean “anything less than a full-on bloodthirsty war-cry.”
different-church-lady
@Seanly:
You are correct. And that is how they came up with it.
Just think like the Queen of Hearts and it all makes sense.
Chris
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
When the party’s been taken over by mob rule, which has essentially been the case since 2008, and when the mob is both as rabid and as completely fucking incoherent as the teabaggers are, it’s hard for any intelligible “message” to be crafted. They’re all running back and forth spouting whatever they think the teabaggers will like and hoping they like it, in order to avoid being tagged as a RINO, primaried and disgraced.
It’s the Rich White Guy version of the Cultural Revolution or the Terror. Revolution eating its young.
gene108
I’m still trying to figure out why right-wingers are pissed off about this Tweet?
Can somebody try to clue me in.
Somebody made a really crappy movie that denigrates the Prophet Mohammed. It gets translated into Arabic.
The U.S. Embassy in a Muslim country sends out a statement stating this is not the official American view of the Prophet Mohammed or something to that effect.
Riots ensue.
Obama gets blamed for apologizing to foreigners.
The whole thing seems more detached from reality than the usual right-wing blow up, but with those I can at least figure out that they are coming from something that’s really based in reality.
For example, Solyndra going under is based on some undefined free-market ideology and the belief Obama’s a Marxist-Leninist, who wants to impose state controlled everything in the place of free enterprise.
With this stuff, I’m clueless, so y’all please try to clue me in.
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
Or as another thread put it, something other than “Kneel Before Zod.”
FlipYrWhig
@Punchy: It’s like this: just like it’s wrong to blame a rape victim for dressing provocatively and suggesting she’s “asking for it,” it’s also wrong to blame America for having such hot and sexy freedoms that it’s no surprise quick-tempered Islamists got provoked enough to attack.
Which, for some reason, the wingnuts think the embassy staff did, and at Obama’s orders.
Chris
@Chris:
Oh, seriously, who the fuck are we kidding? Obama could have spoken those exact words and half the wingnut outlets – half? Only half? Did I really just write that? – almost all of the wingnut outlets on the Interwebs would go right on screaming bloody murder over the apology he didn’t give.
They perfected this in the decade after 9/11, chanting “why won’t Muslims condemn 9/11? Why won’t Muslims condemn 9/11? Why won’t Muslims condemn 9/11?” again and again in most cases at people who’d been screaming themselves hoarse condemning 9/11 for years.
gelfling545
@The Ancient Randonneur: That was good to see. Thank you.
FlipYrWhig
@gene108:
That was itself the “apology.” It wasn’t an apology apology, it was a diplomatic (in multiple senses) clarification. But that was bad enough, because it was respectful and sensitive of the offense given.
To make sense of it, you have to let go of the literal meaning of the word “apology.”
FlipYrWhig
@Chris: Haha, that’s right, I did see that. I think it was LeftTurnInAlbuquerque…
Chris
@gene108:
To the extent that there’s anything coherent beyond Obama Derangement Syndrome – it’s the view that any condemnation of or apology to the Savage Muslim Horde makes us look weak. That’s what I got out of the wingnut blogs when I asked why Obama’s supposed “apology tour” was so infuriating. Even if something like the Iraq War IS wrong, it’s not their place to receive an apology from us.
So in a nutshell, what my Sunday school teachers would’ve referred to as the sin of pride.
ETA: America has always had a streak of arrogance and cruelty in it, same as most nations. But ever since Vietnam, there’s been a strong dose of insecurity injected into the mix which makes the wingnuts even more sensitive to saving face, and even more fucking unhinged. That explains a hell of a lot of the growing madness you’ve seen for the last half-century.
cckids
@different-church-lady:
All ways here are the Queen’s Ways? More like Humpty Dumpty, where “when I use a word it means just what I want it to mean; no more & no less”.
shortstop
Hmmmm, maybe, but that would imply that he doesn’t think the people who died last night are victims, either. I read this more as a typical Republican failure to understand that not all verbal references are created equal and that context matters. Like when a normal person says, “Photoshopping watermelon and fried chicken into the president’s hands is racist,” and a wingnut responds, “Nobody else here mentioned race. You’re the one playing the race card by bringing this up,” Kyl thinks he’s cleverly scoring over ever-complaining women and hypocritical libs by employing our you’re-blaming-the-victim verbiage. He might actually think rape victims deserve it; in fact, based on his previous blatherings, he probably does, but that would be incidental to the goal of coopting our arguments for his own twisted use.
Fax Paladin
So Kyl’s blaming the victim-blaming on… the victims.
And if you think that’s fun, here’s Dennis Miller tweeting today:
I used to be a fan of his. That was more than a decade ago… y’know, there’s actually a fair number of people I used to be fans of, before 9/11 sent them spiraling into the Batshit Abyss…
Keith G
It is as amazing as it is frightening to contemplate how the GOP has devolved into a collection of such small, small men and women.
Unfortunately, this herd of poisonous idiots is the other major party which means they will get another chance to lead. I have been witness to 11 presidential administrations and I have never seen an opposition party so unwilling to use even a modicum of rationality or restraint.
Ken
They are a claque of power-seekers attempting to complete the coup-under-the-cover-of-law that has been slow rolling through our government since
Bush v. Gore.Ford pardoned Nixon“We can break any law we want with complete impunity in order to get or keep power” started there and got progressively worse under every single Republican administration since
mai naem
Hey, Kyl is my fcukwad POS Senator. Thing with Kyl is that he’s an underestimated dangerous fcukwad. People pay more attention to the idiot from SC and Rand Paul but Kyl does more actual damage. Actually, he’s almost done. He’s retiring. Ofcourse, we’re probably going to get Jeff Flake instead and as much as I think Flake is an idjit I would rather have a freshman Repub senator from my state than Kyl. Also too, Kyl is another a-hole who’s just jealous of Clinton and Obama. He’s the son of a US Rep. Couldn’t make it to an Ivy school. He went to the U of AZ which is okay but you have to believe his daddy wanted him to go to an Ivy.
Kirbster
Kyl has been on my personal shit list since November of 2010 when he was holding up the ratification of the START treaty just because he could. He pretty much personifies the spiteful obstruction that characterizes the GOP.
Kyle
Not unkind, just wrong. Kyl is saying that the embassy’s statement is like the hypothetical judge’s remarks. The idea is that both are excusing aggression by saying the victim asked for it.
So Kyl is against the blame-the-victim approach to rape cases, at least when he’s speaking hypothetically. Hard to believe, but there it is.
What’s interesting is how the difficulty of this realization caused a blogger’s mind to shut down when confronted with the proof.
jon
The judge is not hypothetical. An Arizona judge DID recently tell a woman who was sexually assaulted that she wouldn’t have been a victim if she hadn’t gone to a bar that evening. It happened. There is context.
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/09/10/arizona-judge-under-fire-for-telling-sexual-abuse-victim-not-to-blame-others/
Kyl is a jerk for thousands of reasons, and he’s my Senator, unfortunately. But I think the reaction to his messy statement just may be unfair. Not in the context of most recent GOP stupidity, but maybe unfair in his case.