Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself. We’re allowed to grow past that.

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

Please don’t feed the bears.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Donald Trump, welcome to your everything, everywhere, all at once.

The current Supreme Court is a rogue court. Very dangerous.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

People are complicated. Love is not.

The willow is too close to the house.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Republicans in disarray!

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / He’s the poetry man

He’s the poetry man

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This post is in: 

I went on Twitter to see how many spittle-flecked anti-Hagel posts Jennifer Rubin had written this morning (answer: 20 in the last hour alone) and came across this:

Inhofe also wrote the Official Anti-Hagel Washington Post Editorial, so I guess he’s the point man for Shelly Adelson on this one. If they can’t find a better point man than Inhofe….

Reader Interactions

118Comments

  1. 1.

    shortstop

    It seems like he does more than his share of this important work. High time other loons in the caucus started pulling their weight.

  4. 4.

    ding dong

    McCain is a nasty old man who will never get over his loss to “that one.” Hagel is right. The surge was not necessary. I bet hagel didn’t go around killing his fellow soldiers taking off from aircraft carriers.

  5. 5.

    Hill Dweller

    The Republican Party and their parrots in the press are destroying this country.

    Politico is claiming the austerity caused drop in GDP bolsters the Republicans’ case for more austerity.(H/T Benen)

  6. 6.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    While I don’t want to hold Katherine Graham up as some kind of saint, I’m sure a little part of her died again when she saw Inhofe’s by-line in her once respectable paper.

    This is from the Guardian liveblog, watching the hearings would make me break a tooth from jaw clenching:

    McCain says “history has already made a decision on the surge, and you are on the wrong side of it”. McCain says Hagel’s decision “not to answer” the “right or wrong” question will impact his vote.

    I’m trying to think of an analogy for McCain’s belief in The SURGE! as evidence of his greatness. I’m drawing a blank.

  8. 8.

    Linda Featheringill

    Yeah, Inhofe is a special creature, isn’t he?

    I wonder why Oklahoma keeps voting for him. I remember that Okies used to have, and perhaps still have, a well developed since of guilt. They wouldn’t change their ways but they would freely feel guilty about what they had done.

    Maybe the sensitive souls in Oklahoma feel that they deserve the punishment of living in a world designed by Inhofe.

  9. 9.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    Just struck me what I hate about our politics; bunch of supposedly tough motherfuckers start whining anytime they don’t get their way. Whining. Like little two-year olds.

    Fuck. We gave them a Republican instead of a Democrat, we gave them a battle veteran instead of a peacenik hippy, and it still isn’t good enough. Jesus shitballs. The guy makes the perfectly reasonable observation that maybe we should put a higher priority on our own national interests instead of Israel’s, and suddenly our legislative branch sounds like my daughter’s day care a half-hour before naptime. Whining, tantrums.

  10. 10.

    Hunter Gathers

    Rubin wouldn’t be happy with any hypothetical Obama pick for Defense Secretary unless they promised to personally murder every Muslim on the planet and make Bibi Netanyahu Lord and Master of the Solar System.

  13. 13.

    beth

    Inhofe not only quoted Rubin he asked Hagel to answer,in writing,four questions posed by her in her “article”. Really, we’re letting bloggers question Cabinet nominees now?

  14. 14.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    McCain’s issue is simple. Hagel was enlisted. McCain was an officer. The problem is compounded by Hagel being a groundpounder and McCain being a flyboy.

    McCain’s supposed to get the big job offers, not Hagel. Hagel was supposed to get caught and tortured as a POW, not McCain.

    This might be one of those things where you gotta be brought up military to understand. It’s class conflict writ large, where one of the poors gets one up on one of the rich, put in civilian terms.

    If you’re ever going to see McCain have a public meltdown, these hearings will be where it happens.

  15. 15.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Jesus, I just saw the clips of McCain yelling at Hagel. The worst part is, no one’s going to criticize, let alone mock, the old coot for his nonsensical tantrum

  16. 16.

    Zifnab25

    @Forum Transmitted Disease:

    We gave them a Republican instead of a Democrat, we gave them a battle veteran instead of a peacenik hippy, and it still isn’t good enough.

    Part of Obama’s game is setting up good camouflage. Hagel will do the job Obama wants, while wearing all the markings of a proper bipartisan compromise. Plenty of Republicans recognize this, and try to find something to blast Hagel on that makes him look illegitimate.

    But John McCain and Darrell Issa aren’t Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich. And the America of 2013 isn’t the America of 1995. So they’re having a much harder time of it. Obama will get what he wants, and the Republicans will look like assholes for opposing him.

  18. 18.

    Judas Escargot, Bringer of Loaves and Fish Sandwiches

    I’m still perplexed as to why they’d expend so much political capital just to screw Hagel: It’s not like the President’s going to appoint Bill Kristol or John McCain or John Bolton to the post if they succeed in scuttling the nomination. Whoever gets in there, it’ll be Obama’s policies, implemented by someone hand-picked by Obama.

    So, why fight so hard?

    I’m forced to suspect that this really is just about the class issue, after all: Scion-of-Admirals McCain just won’t brook a lowly enlisted man at the head of DoD. (And neither will scion-of-wealthy-authors and Harvard grad Matt Yglesias, as I noted yesterday).

    I never served, but as an outsider I find this to be really fucking ugly business.

    At least Bernard F. will be happy.

  19. 19.

    Punchy

    I wonder why Oklahoma keeps voting for him

    Oklahoma is a unique blend of Texas racism, Mississippi Third-Worldism, and Alabama dumbfuckery.

  21. 21.

    Splitting Image

    Let ’em bash the guy. My impression of Hagel is that he is fairly well liked by the people the G.O.P. claims to represent, and that he’s really very typical of a lot of the country’s conservatives, both in his good and bad points.

    I think he’ll do as good a job as anyone else as Secretary, and if the Republicans spend the next four years smearing him (and you can count on John McCain to do just that), it will go a long way towards making the G.O.P. small enough to drown in a bathtub.

  22. 22.

    Hill Dweller

    @Alex S.: Krugman called it Incestuous Amplification yesterday. He specifically cited Squint Scarborough writing an article in Politico criticizing the policy proposals Krugman advocated on Morning Joke, which Erskin Bowles then linked and complimented on Twitter.

  23. 23.

    Hunter Gathers

    @Punchy: As someone who spent a few years living the Panhandle of Oklahoma (aka No Man’s Land), that’s probably the most accurate way of describing most of the state’s inhabitants without going near the term ‘stupid white trash’.

  24. 24.

    Crusty Dem

    @catclub:

    I was always surprised Memphis drafted him, good player, the autocorrect by certain news outlet provided a good bit of amusement early in his career (“Rudy Homosexual leads Grizzles to road win.”)

  27. 27.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Who knows, maybe they’ll manage to drag him onto one of the Sunday shows for an exclusive to continue his rant. I know he’s a tough “get”, but the timing between Thursday and Sunday seems ideal.

  29. 29.

    liberal

    @Forum Transmitted Disease:

    The guy makes the perfectly reasonable observation that maybe we should put a higher priority on our own national interests instead of Israel’s, and suddenly our legislative branch sounds like my daughter’s day care a half-hour before naptime. Whining, tantrums.

    Sadly, this is a bipartisan phenomenon. One of my Senators (Ben Cardin) seems sympathetic to the neocon line, at least on Iran. And IIRC Elizabeth Warren is, too.

  30. 30.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    I’m forced to suspect that this really is just about the class issue, after all: Scion-of-Admirals McCain just won’t brook a lowly enlisted man at the head of DoD. (And neither will scion-of-wealthy-authors and Harvard grad Matt Yglesias, as I noted yesterday).

    I never served, but as an outsider I find this to be really fucking ugly business.

    @Judas Escargot, Bringer of Loaves and Fish Sandwiches: I grew up on base, for a while. We all went to the same schools but that was the end of it otherwise. My dad was officer corps – you weren’t allowed to hang with enlisted kids. My mom was not allowed to socialize with enlisted moms. Worked the other way too. It’s the most egalitarian society in this country save for that one divide – and what a divide it is. It is “fucking ugly”, as you say.

  31. 31.

    redshirt

    I hope Senator McCain has a chance to further his position this Sunday on one of America’s well respected Sunday news programs. If only the LIBERAL MSM would give him a chance!

  32. 32.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Judas Escargot, Bringer of Loaves and Fish Sandwiches: So, why fight so hard?

    I think with McCain, picking one of his former closest friends (and McCain sees friends as disciples, one of his beefs with Obama is that as a freshman Senator, Obama pretty much laughed off an invitation to come sit at the feet of the Master and gaze admiringly up at him) who has now become a staunch opponent of everything McCain stands for (bomb them all, bomb them now, bomb them forever) is a sharp stab in the eye, public and official confirmation that he is an irrelevant mediocrity. I don’t think Obama intended it that way, but that’s how McPalin views the world.

  34. 34.

    jibeaux

    poetry read by Inhofe:”those who cried “appease appease” are hung by those they tried to please.”

    Give me the Vogons, please.

  35. 35.

    Bulworth

    poetry read by Inhofe:”those who cried “appease appease” are hung by those they tried to please.”

    — Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) January 31, 2013

    Wow, that’s deep.

    Was this moving poem in reference to the first time Iraq and Saddam invaded Amercia and dropped bombs of WMD on every U.S. city? Or was it in reference to the second and third times Iraq’s Saddam invaded the U.S. and put every American in FEMA trailer death panel camps?

  36. 36.

    The Dangerman

    Yo, Inhofe, the correct word is “hanged”. Being “hung” is nearly guaranteed to please.

    Asshole.

  37. 37.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Jeremy Boorda had the integrity to take his own life because that integrity was questioned, and he sought to protect the service from more distractive scandal by doing so.

    John McCain lacks even that.

    McCain is an utter disgrace to the uniform he once wore.

    BTW, Boorda rose from the enlisted ranks to become the CNO. McCain was basically a legacy Annapolis grad. Next to the bottom of his class, yet still he got a gig as a naval aviator, which is supposed to be reserved for the best. Legacy helps him out again.

  38. 38.

    Judas Escargot, Bringer of Loaves and Fish Sandwiches

    @Joey Maloney:
    No doubt that’s some of what’s driving this… but John Kerry got in with only three votes against him. And Hagel’s one of their own. So there has to be more.

    @some guy:
    Not surprising: Both Yglesias and Marshall were for the war in Iraq early on. Both (IMO) were instrumental in giving liberals rhetorical cover to support GWB’s invasion, even though even back then it was perfectly clear to anyone not seized with the post-9/11 Bloodlust that the WMD claims were utter bullshit.

    (Why, yes, I do hold grudges).

  39. 39.

    Genine

    You know that bit of poetry applies more to the republican base and their fealty to “job creators”.

  43. 43.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Joey Maloney:

    It’s not complicated; the Near wants it, so they’re agin’ it. Really, they’re just that small.

    DING DING DING DING DING

    That’s what it boils down to for a racist shitstain like Inhofe and a bitter, defeated, broken old man like McFucktard.

  45. 45.

    GregB

    My dad always says “If John McCain was so brilliant and learned about the military, how come he never gets mentioned for Defense Secretary”?

    Because everyone knows McCain is a blabbermouth jagoff who is wrong 95% of the time. A perennial loser.

    Inhofe is a know nothing religious fascist.

  46. 46.

    Violet

    @Judas Escargot, Bringer of Loaves and Fish Sandwiches:

    I’m forced to suspect that this really is just about the class issue, after all: Scion-of-Admirals McCain just won’t brook a lowly enlisted man at the head of DoD. (And neither will scion-of-wealthy-authors and Harvard grad Matt Yglesias, as I noted yesterday).

    Yep. It’s all about class. And of course in McCain’s case, with an added dose of not letting “that one” have his way if he can stop it.

    I really wish our media was filled with and run by people who grew up poor, went to a state college in Kansas or Oregon or Minnesota, and didn’t value their chummy ivy league connections over doing their jobs.

  47. 47.

    Ash Can

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: The same thing occurred to me. Obama picked a Republican former soldier to head the DoD, and that Republican former soldier is not named John McCain; angst and drama ensue. Some people just never, ever grow up.

  48. 48.

    liberal

    @Judas Escargot, Bringer of Loaves and Fish Sandwiches:

    Both Yglesias and Marshall were for the war in Iraq early on.

    IIRC Yglesias worked at Neocon Central (aka The New Republic) for awhile, so that’s not surprising.

    The blogger uggabugga had a funny diagram outlining the social connections between supporters of the war. Josh Marshall is an isolated leaf, connected to the rest of the diagram by that warmongering asshat, Kenneth Pollock. It’s funny (though so tragic).

  49. 49.

    AliceBlue

    @Forum Transmitted Disease:
    I grew up on Air Force bases in the late ’50s and ’60s and what you say is true. However, one of my best friends was an officer’s daughter (my dad was enlisted). To make it even more improbable, this was on Amarillo Air Force Base in Texas in the early ’60s and she was black.

  51. 51.

    Villago Delenda Est

    There’s a reason why McCain never was made an admiral.

    After he came back from the Hanoi Hilton, to much fanfare, he was given a command slot.

    Best I can tell, he didn’t do well, and that ended his aspirations for stars. A lackluster command tour will do that to a career.

    So, he marries into money and uses that as a springboard into politics.

  53. 53.

    WereBear

    @Violet: I really wish our media was filled with and run by people who grew up poor, went to a state college in Kansas or Oregon or Minnesota, and didn’t value their chummy ivy league connections over doing their jobs.

    When being a reporter was a blue-collar profession, that was the case. I must agree that I far prefer the scrappy underdog types.

  54. 54.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    that he is an irrelevant mediocrity

    Just in terms of senators it must kill him. Obama beat him, Biden and Clinton left and have had successful second acts and they’re not even done yet. Kerry is moving on and now Hagel. And, the GOP has replaced him with Rubio as the point man on immigration because he failed again and again getting it done. He can’t even point to campaign finance as an achievement, and he can’t blame Democrats or liberals for gutting that. Republicans killed campaign finance reform. His own Party.

  58. 58.

    Judas Escargot, Bringer of Loaves and Fish Sandwiches

    @some guy:
    Just for fun, let’s copy/paste just the paragraph headings from that:

    1. Use of Force
    2. Iran
    3. Defense Policy Priorities
    4. Asia
    5. Afghanistan
    6. DOD’s Role in U.S. Counterterrorism Operations
    7. Health of the All-Volunteer Force

    Note the order. The agenda’s not even hidden. And the most real threat on that list only rates #6 (apparently counter-terrorism should just be a side gig, tended to between bombing runs at Iran and North Korea).

    There’s no bluster quite like that of the All-American Red-Breasted Chickenhawk, is there?

  61. 61.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Jamie Rubin just said the Surge contributed to a “decent outcome at the end” of the Iraq War. We are so fucked.

  65. 65.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    This of course avoids the entire issue of whether or not an illegal, immoral invasion of Iraq was a good idea in the first place.

    The deserting coward and Cheney need to hang for that. It’s what we did to Germans and Japanese who pulled the same trick in the 30’s.

  68. 68.

    Roger Moore

    @Certified Mutant Enemy:

    The only “decent” outcome of the Iraq War would have been to never had started it in the first place.

    I don’t know. I think the conviction of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al. for war crimes and crimes against humanity would have been a decent end.

  70. 70.

    WereBear

    @Roger Moore: I believe that the one thing the Iraq War did (and this in no way makes up for all the dead and damaged) is that it rung down the curtain on the Adventures of Chimpy and Darth.

    Without that drain in blood and treasure, the Cheney-Cthulu Administration could have gotten their tentacles even deeper into things, while still being hidden.

  72. 72.

    AliceBlue

    @Ash Can:
    As one who was born a white southerner, the fortunate aspect of being a military child in this time period was being spared the racial horrors of the south. We left Georgia soon after I was born and I grew up on bases outside the south (with the exception of Texas). We always had black neighbors, and the schools were integrated. I remember taking a vacation trip back to Georgia when I was 6 or 7 and we stopped for gas in Mississippi. I saw the signs for the “White” and “Colored” restrooms and the separate drinking fountains and I was so surprised and uneasy. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t say anything to my parents, but I still remember the name of the gas station–Billups–and how it looked.

  73. 73.

    Paul

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    People like Rubin, McCain, and Infoke can spout whatever they want. Talk is so easy.

    Iraq war supporters like them are personally responsible for over $1 trillion of our deficit. I don’t expect these cheap, deadbeats to ever pay up. But at the very least they should apologize. Otherwise STFU up!

  75. 75.

    mdblanche

    @Crusty Dem: Good news.

    I have family with a dog who did the same thing. When not trying too hard to dominate, he is perhaps the sweetest, cuddliest dog I’ve ever met.

    These people really are without worth, aren’t they?

  76. 76.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    if the man whose tantrum is apparently dominating the Hagel hearings were President, and a few other counterfactuals fell in to place, the United States would be in wars of varying intensity in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Aghanistan, and arguably Egypt and Pakistan. No matter how disgusted and gobsmacked you get with our political class, you can’t keep up.

  77. 77.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @lumpkin:

    To be fair, the eastern 2/3rds of Oregon are as retrograde in their political outlook as Kansas.

    Too bad for them that all those Blue types west of the Cascades make the decisions through sheer force of numbers.

  83. 83.

    Suffern ACE

    @Villago Delenda Est: Well to be fair, as a response to a comment whose point was “State School Grads need to Stick Together”, the idea that Oregon is just sooooo much better than Kansas and kind of shows why public schools kids won’t ever band together. In the end, they’ll just follow whatever Ivy leaguer is put in charge of things.

  84. 84.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @nellcote: Are senators still allowed to put holds on nominations?

    I’m not a hundred percent certain, but Pittypat Graham is talking like he can and will. Rubio is saying he won’t vote for Hagel, Thad Cochrane says he will. I’d be very surprised if they filibuster him. I’m gonna be he gets between 60 and 70 votes.

  85. 85.

    muddy

    @Hill Dweller:

    Squint Scarborough

    I always get a huge laugh out of how much white concealer they put around his eyes, to make them look less piggy (sorry to pigs). I bet if the power went off people could find their way by the glow of his eye area.

  86. 86.

    John M. Burt

    Speaking as the grandson of a pair of genuine Okies (my grandmother could easily have been the famous “migrant mother”), I think personally that what’s the matter with Oklahoma is that it was founded on the purest expression of Will Rogers’ observation about “the Winning of the West” (that it consisted of telling every unemployed Easterner that all he needed to do to get himself a farm was “kill another Indian”), and what they wound up with was Oklahoma.

  88. 88.

    muddy

    Wasn’t Inhofe the nutjob that didn’t want HS girls to go to the bathroom in twos, as they would then naturally turn into lesbians.

    But won’t it make them less likely to be raped or killed on the way, I heard schools were bad for that. !!11!! Probably he would like it better if one of the girls had a gun with them. Now, ladieez are a little helpless, so you have to give the gun to the tougher seeming girl. Oh wait, can’t do that, if she is strong she must be a lesbian. It must be confusing inside his mind when everything conflicts all the time.

    Must take up all his processing power, so then nonsense comes out of his mouth.

  89. 89.

    Bokonon

    Money talks. And Sheldom Adelstein’s money is big enough that it doesn’t just talk – it has its own agenda, and its own legislative agents. And it screams at the top of its lungs. Repeatedly. Over and over.

    Is it my imagination, or are Senators Inhofe, Sessions, Rubio and Cruz in an elbow-filled scramble to demonstrate which one of them can be the most aggressive and dickish in parroting the quasi-Likud opposition to Hagel? It is like watching barking seals at an acquarium, trying to get people to throw them the fish. Except the “fish” here are media attention and campaign contributions.

  90. 90.

    Jeremy

    @Forum Transmitted Disease: Well Hagel was chosen because he shares similar views to the president on foreign policy. The president is close to him and he didn’t pick him because he was a republican or wanted to appease republicans. Also the neo-cons that dominate the republican party today hate his views.

  92. 92.

    Yutsano

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Miss Lyndsey was quite put out from not getting his BENGHAZI!! impeachment papers “answers” so he’s gonna pout on Hagel until he gets his satisfaction. In the form of Obama’s resignation letter signed in blood framed on his office wall. I hope this fuckstain does get primaried and loses.

  94. 94.

    cbear

    @Forum Transmitted Disease:

    My dad was officer corps – you weren’t allowed to hang with enlisted kids. My mom was not allowed to socialize with enlisted moms. Worked the other way too. It’s the most egalitarian society in this country save for that one divide – and what a divide it is. It is “fucking ugly”, as you say.

    I also grew up on military installations around the world and, yes, there is a social division between the officers and the enlisted corps. And it may very well be “ugly” but there’s a pretty damn good reason for segregating the two, at least for the Army and Marines

    When an officer is faced with a command decision that may put his men in danger, does he choose the man best suited for the job or the guy he doesn’t barbecue with every Sunday? Does he choose the guy who’s wife and kids are at his house every weekend or the guy who lives on the other side of the post?
    Does he send his wife’s best friend’s husband or the unmarried guy?
    Think about it.

  95. 95.

    piratedan

    i have a poem for Senator Inhofe…..

    Roses are Red
    Violets are Blue
    I pity the dumbfucks
    who voted for you….

  96. 96.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Yutsano: @Raven: I can’t believe I can still get angry about this stuff, but the total lack of reaction from the Broders to that comment just sums up how morally and intellectually bankrupt our political class is. And it’s not even the only example from this thread.

    It’s a wonder we aren’t even more fucked than we are.

  97. 97.

    Kay

    @Bokonon:

    Is it my imagination, or are Senators Inhofe, Sessions, Rubio and Cruz in an elbow-filled scramble to demonstrate which one of them can be the most aggressive and dickish in parroting the quasi-Likud opposition to Hagel? It is like watching barking seals at an acquarium, trying to get people to throw them the fish. Except the “fish” here are media attention and campaign contributions.

    Except, they do that on everything. Every single thing or person Obama proposes is the worst thing ever. It’s such a tired, tired script. I understand opposition, I really do, and I even understand purely political opposition, the tactic, but at what point does the general public just get bored and start ignoring these WEEKLY dramas? Isn’t there some boy-who-cried-wolf thing supposed to happen now that we’re in YEAR FIVE of GOP opposition to anything and everything Obama?

  98. 98.

    shortstop

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Your point about McCain seeing his friends as disciples is key. Joe is gone; Lindsey has to work twice as hard…and too many of these ungrateful bastards just won’t fall in line.

    I have no idea (and no real interest in finding out) how much McCain drinks or drugs, but he is a textbook example of an addictive personality. The need to control, the irrational and oversized anger at those who don’t comply with his desires, the lashing out at others instead of taking accountability for his own failures, the refusal to honestly examine the big picture instead of obsessing over selected details…classic.

  100. 100.

    Ben Cisco

    “those who cried “appease appease” are hung by those they tried to please.”

    Best argument for not rolling over for the NeoConfederates I’ve heard yet.

    Thanks, Sen. Inhofe, you asshole.

  102. 102.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @shortstop: I know he likes his vodka, but I’ve never heard even a rumor about him being drunk. But he definitely has rage issues, and apparently always has. One thing to remember about his marrying money, it’s true, but his privileged upbringing wasn’t just about being an admiral’s son. Both Admirals McCain married oil heiresses.

    There’s a story that he was going to be kicked out of the Naval Academy, but his mother called the head of the school and talked him out of it. There’s a 1930s screwball comedy aspect of that that cracks me up, I can just see Billie Burke in black and white on an old phone, but it’s reflective of the privilege and insulation that created Senator Little Caesar.

  104. 104.

    shortstop

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: but it would never occur to him that mothers and wives’ fortunes and so on have been bailing his sad ass out his whole life.

    “Addictive personality” doesn’t necessarily mean active addiction, btw. My mom’s got one and is an exceptionally moderate drinker. It’s just that there’s a combination of certain behavioral and emotional habits that frequently manifests in addicted individuals.

  105. 105.

    JPL

    Little McCain is now up asking questions about the Jewish Lobby… Little McCain wants to know who has been intimidated
    by the Jewish Lobby to do something dumb. Hagel refused to say you asshole..

  107. 107.

    Mnemosyne

    @shortstop:

    The need to control, the irrational and oversized anger at those who don’t comply with his desires, the lashing out at others instead of taking accountability for his own failures, the refusal to honestly examine the big picture instead of obsessing over selected details…classic.

    That’s also the description of the classic narcissist, FWIW.

  108. 108.

    Mike in NC

    Would be great to see an executive order closing some bases in OK, TX, and SC to get the attention of these assholes.

  109. 109.

    cbear

    @Judas Escargot, Bringer of Loaves and Fish Sandwiches: Of course not. My comment had absolutely nothing to do with Hagel and his confirmation hearings.
    In fact, I would pay good money for the opportunity to slap the living shit out Messrs McCain, Graham, Inhofe, and every other preening gooper asshole haranguing Sen. Hagel for having had the temerity to question our blind obedience to Israel’s national interests and showing a simple concern for the troops we send to bleed and die in various and sundry hellholes around the world.

  112. 112.

    muddy

    @Mnemosyne: The other side of that is that this mindset (personality disorder, wev) could really have been helpful when he was a prisoner, having had practice at maintaining this persona previously, altho in the end of course it made it worse.

    From what I have read about his earlier life, he was kind of like that all along, but after his imprisonment and his reliance on his midset to endure it ( as I suppose), it multiplied it 100X afterwards.

    What is an adaptive behavior in one environment can readily be a handicap in another. Aside from his earlier behavior I also think it’s very likely he has PTSD which he won’t admit to, because he won’t admit a “weakness”. I have PTSD from childhood/young adult abuse, and situations where I perceive that I don’t have control can be very difficult. And this after years of therapy, which I doubt he has done. I mean, they didn’t really do it back in the day, and in modern times it would be all in the papers or something.

    None of this is a defense of him, but just my thoughts on the subject. My mother was a really aggressive narcissist, and he seems very familiar to me, the hysterical clutching of bullshit and lashing out to maintain the (subconsciously needed) fantasy life.

  113. 113.

    cbear

    @Raven: Perhaps we’re talking past each other, but my comment was directly related to the non-fraternization policy in the armed services regarding officers and enlisted men.
    Are you talking about some other non-fraternization policy?

  114. 114.

    JPL

    Cruz is upset because Hagel didn’t turn over copies of his speeches. Hagel also did not turn over full financial disclosure.

    cruz was allowed to slander him but wouldn’t let Hagel answer him.

  115. 115.

    shortstop

    @muddy: in fact, didn’t he scoff a year or two ago at the notion that we needed to step up PTSD-related care for returning soldiers? Claim that it was a liberal myth or something similar?

  116. 116.

    muddy

    @shortstop: I think so. Not just a river in Egypt.

    It really took me a long time in therapy to see that it was not just an ugly frightening world all the time, I was spinning up ugly in my own mind and then sitting in it. I doubt he has this kind of self-awareness. My mother could tell you black was white, and really sincerely to the point where you’d doubt yourself. She was sincere because she believed. If 10 people spoke up and said the situation was different, she would (fully seriously) say that we had gotten together ahead of time to agree on a story just to make her look bad.

    Like we’d waste our time, FFS, but goes to show how narcissists think. Always about them. They are always right. And they are damned fierce in their denial of reality.

  118. 118.

    Marshall

    You would never know, from listening to the likes of Inhofe, that appeasement was a conservative strategy, predicated on the notion that Adolph Hitler was really just another conservative.

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