Sometimes I don’t have the energy to find it myself at the source, so Jonathan Bernstein:
Some of you might be thinking: I’m sure that there’s not much to all the conservative fuss about Benghazi, but I’m open to the possibility of some Obama Administration malfeasance…I wish there was some way for me to catch up on what Benghazi is really supposed to be about without having to dive into the crazy.
Well, if that’s you, then there’s a Politico article now just for you. It’s from yesterday afternoon, and titled “Huckabee: Benghazi will drive Obama from office.”
And of course some some you know who via Jim Newell:
The Cleveland kidnapper drives a Mazda Miata.I don’t know why that seems so weird, but it seems so weird.
— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) May 7, 2013
Any other good stupid I should know about?
Redshirt
Insights like that are why McArgle Bargle makes the big time bucks.
I aspire to her wisdom.
Death Panel Truck
No one outside the right wing echo chamber gives a fuck what Huckleberry thinks.
Chris
Obama’s Watergate.
Their tenacity is remarkable, when compared to their determination to ignore Bush’s “Bin Laden Determined To Strike Within U.S.” briefing, and Reagan’s decision to cut and run after two consecutive bombings in Lebanon with no attempt to bring the guilty parties to justice.
Hill Dweller
One of the stooges in the WHPC asked Obama about Syria during his press conference with the new South Korean President. Obama pointed out he isn’t going into Syria based on perceived intelligence, because we tried that before and it didn’t work out too well.
Chris
@Death Panel Truck:
Even most people inside don’t care. As I recall, he didn’t do so well in the wingnut primaries. Something about being soft on crime, soft on immigration and suspiciously willing to admit that there were higher laws than the Law of the Market.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Chris:
IOKIYAR
Patricia Kayden
Something must be wrong with me because I’m not worried at all about the Benghazi “scandal” — not for President Obama (who was re-elected despite the Repub brouhaha) or Senator Clinton (who can give as much as she takes as evidenced by her Benghazi-related testimony).
This may actually harm Repubs. They’re ignoring important issues like jobs, immigration, gun control, etc., to focus on a non-issue.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and anyone who mentions that, and someone will, will be accused of politicizing 9/11 to protect Obama, probably by (among others) Lindsey Graham, who started using BENGHAZI! in primary ads a few months ago
eemom
Just got done reading this, which is actually quite good, on that very thing:
thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/foreign-policy/298169-gop-benghazi-hearings-a-partisan-disgrace
MikeJ
Benghazi is just something for insane people to yell. They don’t know what it means either. If it wasn’t Benghazi they’d be yelling “cool ranch flavor!” and saying it would drive Obama from office.
Tonal Crow
I thought Mazda Miatas were driven only by serial killers, who many say like their light, strong hubcaps, which are at least as effective and easy to use as Saturday-night Specials. Which goes to prove the NRA’s point that if we outlaw guns, killers will just switch to hubcaps, leaving everyone else defenseless because shut up, they helpfully explain.
cathyx
I’m with Megan. I thought kidnappers only drove vans with tinted windows. Who knew?
rikyrah
McArdle is an idiot.
Redshirt
I appreciate this Benghazi nonsense for at least this reason: The moment anyone brings it up in any kind of seriousness, I instantly know they’re a Moran and I need not engage them in rational discussion on the subject of politics or State.
Sports talk it is! Or the weather.
jrg
I heard Karl Rove has some information about Benghazi. We should search his “sent items” folder. If he’s done nothing wrong, he’s got nothing to hide.
kd bart
What did the Cleveland kidnapper’s countertops look like?
Tonal Crow
@rikyrah:
Fixed.
quannlace
The wingnuts are probably pissed that they found those three kidnapped girls yesterday. Takes some of the news attention away from Benghazi! Benghazi!.
Violet
Megan McArdle is taken seriously. I do know why that seems so weird, and yes, it seems really weird.
NonyNony
@Patricia Kayden:
Note that this is a feature, not a bug, of the Benghazi nonsense.
So long as they can scream BENGHAZI and pretend it’s anything but a nonscandal, they suck up a bit of oxygen in the room that prevents people from talking about important issues like jobs, immigration, gun control, etc.
Because as the 2012 election showed, if the attention focus shifts to actual important issues, everyone notices that the GOP has either no ideas on how to handle them or BAD ideas on how to handle them.
Screaming Benghazi is actually perfect for them because it allows them to allude to shady happenings without having to actually do anything or present any real idea on what they’re going to do about said shady happenings. A perfect scandal for people with no ideas who don’t want to actually do anything!
Death Panel Truck
@Tonal Crow: I seem to recall Tonya Harding flinging a hubcap at a boyfriend about 10-12 years ago. If guns are outlawed, Tonya’s good to go. I’m sure the roof of her double-wide is covered with tires, so the hubcaps must be around there somewhere. She’s got an arsenal!
Shrillhouse
My wife and I have tickets to see Benghazi! this weekend.
I hear that Halle Berry is great as Susan Rice…
quannlace
Well, they can’t spend all their time holding pointless votes to repeal Obamacare. Oh, and abortion.
rikyrah
@Hill Dweller:
KAPOW
Redshirt
Why do the Republicans always attack America first? Instead of putting blame on the terrorists who attacked us?
Why does the Republican Party stand against our President in this time of war?
Why does the Republican Party stand against are troops?
Why does the Republican Party hate America?
MikeJ
I wonder if they think Reagan should have been driven from office after he got 241 Americans killed in Beirut.
the Conster
@Redshirt:
Exactly – it’s a signifier, like a gang sign. You can save a lot of time and energy by saying “Benghazi” in a gathering and find out exactly who all the nujobs are. Before Benghazi, it was “Fast and Furious”.
Violet
@Patricia Kayden:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill
In the Opposite of Stupid Dept., the new “Spock vs. Spock” Audi commercial is all manner of kick-ass:
io9.com/old-spock-battles-new-spock-in-the-greatest-car-commerc-493836696
Death Panel Truck
@Redshirt:
Because they hate democracy. It’s so inconvenient.
Tonal Crow
And in today’s installment of “If we outlaw guns, murderers’ll just use hubcaps”:
baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/blog/bs-md-ci-triple-shooting-20130506,0,105778.story
A victim in a triple-hubcapping over the weekend succumbed to his injuries on Monday, Baltimore police said.
The man has not been identified but police said he died as a result of multiple hubcap wounds. The hubcapping occurred just before 7 p.m. Sunday in the 2900 block E. Monument St. Police said the three victims were hanging out on the block with several others when three suspects approached from N. Curley Street and began flinging heavy hubcaps at high velocity. From fragments found at the scene, police believe they used fifty to sixty 1956 or 1957 Rocketship Chevy hubcaps, which a police spokesperson said, “Are among the most dangerous weapons known to mankind.”
The man, whose wounds proved fatal, was found by police lying on the ground while officers found another man hubcapped in the hand and another victim wounded in the leg, police said. Both were expected to survive, police said….
Tokyokie
I, too, find it odd that a kidnapper drove a Miata, but only because you can’t fit much of anything into one, and I doubt that’s what McGargle was implying.
MikeJake
I DRIVE A DODGE STRATUS!!!
*shoots up Colorado movie theater*
Redshirt
@the Conster: “Soros” is always a good one too. I have literally no idea why they fixate on George Soros like they do, but wow do they.
It was a sad day my newly retired Father dropped a “Soros” on me. I sighed inside as another part of me died.
El Cruzado
The younger people just tune out Republican outrages. The older ones file Benghazi in the same drawer where Vince Foster and Whitewater are.
So the only people paying attention are the True Believers. Apparently they need encouragement to keep voting R.
Tonal Crow
@the Conster:
Dang, I’d forgotten all about that terrrrrrrible scandal! Why aren’t Republicans holding Obama’s feet to the fire on it? I’ve heard that Republicans are being bought off by Soros and Al Gore, who have also secretly bought a controlling interest in the NR by BORROWING against FORT KNOX! Are we going to stand for this usurpation?
Alex S.
OMG! Benghazi is going to wreck Obama’s reelection prospects, I tell you, he will not get reelected if the GOP keeps up the pressure.
FlipYrWhig
@the Conster: you forgot SOLYNDRA!
MikeJ
@Tonal Crow:
I was always fascinated by that “scandal”. Obama didn’t arrest people who hadn’t yet broken the law! He wants to take are guns away by not arresting people!
schrodinger's cat
My daily dose of stupid; the NYT op-ed pg.
BGK
@Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill:
Sigh. I forwarded this to two of my co-workers, and it’s now spreading geometrically. I expect we can forgo any sad attempts at productivity for the rest of the afternoon.
NorthLeft12
Choose which sentence makes the most sense.
Actually a combination might be the ticket;
or
rikyrah
Bobby ” I named myself after a character on the Brady Bunch” Jindal
just had his voucher scam declared unconstitutional by the LOUISIANA Supreme Court.
Sly
@Redshirt:
Of course George Soros is a problem; he’s a foreign-born billionaire who uses his wealth to influence public opinion via mass media purchases. Genuine patriots get their news from true-blue American media moguls, like Rupert Murdoch.
Redshirt
I just finished Nixonland, which was awesome, and so let me hazard this: The Republican Party today is literally the “Dirty Tricks” department of Nixon’s White House, dedicated to malicious lies and ratfuckery.
The entire Republican Agenda is obstruction and destruction of the actual Constitution. Church n’ state? Right on!
Whereas in the 1960’s, even though there were certainly scoundrels and ghouls in the Senate and House, they didn’t govern that way. They for the most part served the public good. Today? It’s ratfuckery all the way down.
dewzke
off topic: mashable.com/2013/05/07/charles-ramsey-autotune/
the Conster
@Redshirt:
Projection. They love their authoritarian Big Daddies like the Kochs and Sheldon Adelson and that guy who funded all of the Clinton hate- forget his name – so liberals need a counterpart or they wouldn’t be liberals supposedly. They just don’t understand that liberals are cats and conservatives are sheep.
RaflW
Aaaaugh, McArgleBargle has got the be trolling, right? Right?!?
Fucking hell, man. She is that stupid … and weird. In public.
SatanicPanic
Lately, Republicans have the old “if you’re explaining you’re losing” problem when it comes to scandals.
And it might have been easier to make Benghazi seem like a big deal if Republicans hadn’t spent the previous ten years (50 years?) talking about Africa and the middle east like they’re mud-walled hellholes of violence. At the very least, some violence in Africa isn’t going to suprise anyone when you do that.
JR in WV
@Redshirt:
The Republican party hates America, because the American government forces them to pay a minimum wage, hire black folks (kinda), see black folks on TV, free the slaves, and be at least a little responsible for health and safety in the workplace.
Oh, yeh: they also hate America because it’s a democracy, and they don’t win all the races all the time.
Ah, I see someone beat me to it, but there it is. They hate us because of small-d democracy.
Jebediah
@Redshirt:
I don’t often have to deal with wingnuts, so I don’t hear the “Soros! Soros!” thing IRL. Is their position that rich people should not try to influence politics? How do they react when one asks if they also oppose Koch, Petersen, Adelson etc. trying to influence politics?
Suffern ACE
Well, honestly, if I were going to kidnap people, I would probably use a minivan or a car with a decent sized trunk, so Mcardle may have a point.
Ted & Hellen
That the Republicans can make this much hay out of the Benghazi nothingburger, and that the Democrats were too scaredy cat to go after Bush and Cheney for 9/11 is yet another sterling example of how ruthlessly strong are the Rs and how pathetically weak are the Ds.
Unless it’s all by design for show, of course, which is entirely possible.
But… hope and change.
Ted & Hellen
@Hill Dweller:
I know…he is so stern with the Bush/Cheney people! This is even worse than an investigation and prosecution!
FlipYrWhig
@Redshirt: I don’t know if in days of yore conservative politicians succeeded in serving the public good, but they certainly seemed like that was their objective, or that they had an objective, to wit, to make law and policy that addressed social problems in a conservative way. They were usually badly wrong, but at least they were playing a recognizable game. Modern Republicans don’t want to make Republican-friendly policy, they want to dick around and do as little as possible because even Republican government would be government, and there should be no government, only individuals.
FlipYrWhig
@Jebediah: their position is that liberals are bad, and that liberals are everywhere laughing at them and making other people laugh at them. It doesn’t go any deeper than that.
handy
BENGHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mike in NC
@Death Panel Truck: Was Reverend Huck-A-Buck invited to bloviate at the NRA freakshow, or was he previously engaged in the pursuit of Benghazigate? The Daily Show covered the impressive fail parade and Huck was absent.
Dexter's new approach
@Redshirt:
Nixonland is a great but too long. I was taken by how wrong about everything the editorial pages of the WSJ and Chicago Tribune were.
Trollhattan
@Death Panel Truck:
ETA shakes paw at NorthLeft12.
Also, too, “you know who else” drove a Miata. Only back then it was called a Reichfahrunrottundkurtzvagon.
Chyron HR
@Ted & Hellen:
Does the GOP pay you to try and change the subject whenever Bush is subjected to even the mildest criticism on this site, or do you do it pro bono?
scav
If the FBI or Obama hasn’t nicknamed his driver Ben Ghazi, I want a congressional investigation into why not.
Trollhattan
@scav:
I demand they hold a Ben Gazzara film festival in the WH movie theater.
Comrade Jake
@Chyron HR:
He does it because at this point, he clearly enjoys trying to piss people off here.
We need better trolls.
Warren Terra
@cathyx:
that’s for kidnappers who have to commute to their kidnappings. This guy sourced locally, possibly on foot.
Srsly: ten years, a few blocks from the kidnapping spots, and no detection? Incredible.
Trollhattan
@Warren Terra:
Admittedly, the first five were in a boat under a plastic cover.
Darkrose
@Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill: That is made of ALL THE AWESOME EVER.
catclub
@the Conster: “Before Benghazi, it was “Fast and Furious”. ”
Yep, my pet wingnut was telling me that F&F (plus Solyndra) would get Eric Holder fired. Odd he did not take aim at Geithner. Melanin, anyone?
Trollhattan
@Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill:
So chock full of win it needs its own planet.
Tone In DC
@Violet:
Um, McMegan TRIES to be taken seriously.
The fact that she’s gone from The Atlantic to the Daily Beast (a bit like going from the NFL to the Lingerie League) says a lot about how serious she is.
ericblair
@Jebediah:
Hypocrisy arguments are pretty pointless with wingnuts, IMO. They’re completely tribal creatures, so Koch and Peterson and Murdoch are all great job-creating leaderly leaders, and Soros is a shadowy rootless cosmopolitan manipulator. It is OK when they do it, and I don’t think most of them even understand the hypocrisy charge.
Mike in NC
The wingers will finally discover Obama’s Waterloo in approximately eight years.
catclub
If Lindsey graham wants to investigate Americans being killed in the middle East,
why not those soldiers electrocuted in their showers in Iraq?
More than 4, if I recall.
The Ancient Randonneur
What, no thread on Mama June and Sugar Bear getting married?
bago
There’s the Miata fruit ninja video.
bago
Kinky here.
api.kinja.com/api/sso/getSession?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fjalopnik.com%2Fsetsession%3Fr%3Dhttp%253A%252…
Trollhattan
@catclub:
Ah believe the good senatah cannot discuss soldiers in the shower without acquiring a debilitatin’ case of the vapahs.
danimal
Statistics:
IRAQ: Cost: Billions. Deaths: Thousands of Americans, Hundreds of Thousands of Iraqis. President: Not Impeached.
BENGHAZI! LIBYA: Cost: Too much, but not Billions. Deaths: 4 Americans, Thousands of Libyans. President: IMPEACH!!!
It’s Hucktacular analysis, if I may say so.
IowaOldLady
They’re just bizarrely fixated on Obame. Do they not know he can’t run again?
belieber
I thought the TV interviews with instant internet star Charles Ramsey were good but the 911 call is even better.
cnn.com/2013/05/07/us/ohio-cleveland-ramsey/index.html
jrg
@danimal: FYI – Iraq cost trillions. Around one trillion is the lowest estimate I’ve heard. Around 6 trillion (includes treatments for vets, etc) is the highest I’ve heard.
Citizen_X
@Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill: That it includes Nimoy signing the Bilbo song makes it awesomely all the awesomer.
IowaOldLady
I can’t wait for the new Trek movie to open next week.
Hoodie
@IowaOldLady: It’s probably more about Hillary than Obama, laying the groundwork to undermine her in 2016. They have to be scared of a wave election in 2016 due to a potentially enormous gender gap. The plan would roughly be to paint her as a helpless woman lacking the testacles to deal decisively with the 3am phone call.
nellcote
via LGF:
First, note that if the four-man team had been authorized to go to Benghazi, they would have been the second group of US personnel to do so; a group of six Americans had already flown to Benghazi earlier, and two of those Americans were killed in a mortar attack.
Why would the military tell this additional group of Special Forces soldiers to stand down? That sounds pretty bad, right? If you read the right wing blogs and media, they’re hammering this talking point ferociously.
But it turns out there’s a good, simple explanation for it. A two-part explanation, in fact: 1) the Special Forces team was not prepared for a combat mission, and was armed only with handguns, and 2) the situation was still unclear and officials were worried at that point that the embassy in Tripoli might also become a target.
russell
I don’t think McArdle is actually an idiot, she’s arguably equipped with at least a normal amount of intelligence.
The issue I have with her is that she thinks any random thing that pops into her head is brilliant, and therefore we must all hear it.
It’s like a road trip with my mother-in-law, in the pages of the Atlantic.
Tonal Crow
@IowaOldLady:
SOROS and AL GORE have BRIBED the Supreme Court to let NOBAMA run for a THIRD, FOURTH, and FIFTH TERM as long as he agrees to drop Biden and bring on the HYPER-LIBERAL NANCY PELOSI as VICE PRESIDENT!!!!!! They’ve BORROWED GOLD from FORT KNOX by the connivance of the FEDERAL RESERVE which they’re sending to EUROTRASH BANKS to FINANCE the BRIBE and TAKE OUR GUNS!!!!!!!!!!! Don’t be fooled! They’ve CORRUPTED the NRA and made it into a FRONT for their TYRANNICAL USURPATIONS of OUR GUN RIGHTS!!!!!!!!!!
/wingnut
gbear
But…Benghazi!!i!!ii!
Cris (without an H)
I don’t know why that seems so weird either. Wait a minute, it doesn’t seem weird. Why does she think that’s weird?
Now that word doesn’t look like a word. Weird. Weird. Weird. Weird.
gbear
@Tonal Crow: Hopefully if Hillary Clinton runs and is elected president, she will nominate Obama as Secretary of State just to watch the fun. The enteretainment value would be phenomenal.
Chris
@nellcote:
Well, that and… with no disrespect meant to Hannibal, Face, BA and Murdoch, exactly what good were four people going to be in that situation? Especially if, as we were originally told, the embassy was under attack by a huge mob, Iran-style?
phil
And if anybody hasn’t mentioned this, let ABC remind you about Huckabee’s past judgement of people.
Cris (without an H)
Thank you, I can go home now.
DougJ
@russell:
I agree.
SiubhanDuinne
McHuckardle: “Benghazi will drive Obama from office in a Mazda Miata.”
Kyle
Who is Ben Ghazi? And why is he driving the President’s car?
catclub
@Trollhattan: you missed showah. Other than that, I concur.
Roger Moore
@ericblair:
Oh, come on. We need to come right out and say it: Soros is Jewish, which makes him inherently suspicious. The only non-suspicious Jews are hyperpartisan Republicans.
Roger Moore
@Cris (without an H):
It’s because it breaks the old “i before e, except after c, or when sounding like a as in neighbor and weigh” rule. It’s the weird exception.
different-church-lady
I think it might be an corollary of Cleek’s law: (a) Republicans will say anything that they think will drive a liberal crazy. (b) The less sense it makes, the more likely it is to drive a liberal crazy. (cee) Repetition is the key to playground taunts, and this stuff works the very same way.
Petorado
McArdle is a sociopath. Human beings are merely accessories to the material things she covets.
russell
I think they may have him confused with Ben Kingsley.
Warren Terra
@Chris:
@nellcote:
RE this new furore that four people with handguns were ordered not to get on a flight to Libya, and some people pretending these four people could have Saved The Day: yes, it’s absurd to think they could have saved everyone had they arrived in time. It’s more absurd when you remember that the attack started 45 minutes before the plane was scheduled to take off, let alone before it would land and disgorge these four commandos to race off in the direction of the consulate annex.
TG Chicago
From Anne Laurie’s earlier thread, I found this pretty stupid:
That explains the rightwing obsession with “liberal media bias” in a nutshell. Palin thinks it’s the media’s job to be in the fight with them. If they’re not fighting for the conservatives, the only explanation is that they must be liberal. There is no other option.
This is why they see conservative house organs as “the media” — they are in the fight! — and they see regular media as being liberally biased.
mcmullje
Yes – I have some stupid. I am mostly a daily lurker but am plunging in here because I have a question that I hope someone in the Balloon Juice world might be able to answer.
Two months ago my 43 year old son had an episode – they think a spinal stroke that has left him paralyzed from the waist down. He just got home from the hospital/rehab after 70 days and was ready to dive back into his job. Now the rehab has a community liaision who has been talking to his boss, HR, etc. They were all on board with whatever he needed, were excited to have him back, etc. etc. He goes back (in the wheelchair which was SO difficult for him) only to have NO ONE there for him to talk to. He got an email saying that he has been demoted because his position doesn’t exist now. He was Sr. Financial Director – they changed the title to Financial Director and hired someone else who started less than a week before he was due back.
He doesn’t qualify for FMLA (he was out only 10 weeks after they used all his sick/vacation time)but he had only worked there 11 months – FMLA is 12 months.
Can this possibly be legal????? He was an athlete who is now paralyzed and they did this to him. I don’t have words.
AA+ Bonds
The issue IMO is that Woods and Doherty were CIA paramilitary at a CIA site but the government attempted to pass them off as State Department personnel after the attack, until it was forced to admit otherwise.
The intermingling of State and paramilitary-intelligence operations puts our diplomats at risk, because it is very hard to make the argument that CIA “annex” sites are not legitimate targets.
Of course, the Republicans will not touch this with a ten foot pole because they love the alphabet boys and the alphabet boys love them. Let’s be honest: there are probably a ton of CIA who would get off on the idea of overthrowing President Obama.
Tonal Crow
@AA+ Bonds:
The evidence for this idea is?
Larkspur
@mcmullje: Damn. I don’t have advice except that starting immediately, document everything. Write everything down. Note the date and time of every phone call, save every email and every get-well card. Fill in as much as you can from the date of the event. Make a record of who said what, and when they said it. Keep receipts and accountings of every single expense related to the event, including stuff you may not think is pertinent, like if anyone in the family has lost pay as a result of your son’s care. Make a record of everything. You may not need to use the details, but write down everything. Best wishes to you and your son.
TAPX486
Why is this beginning to look like a rerun of Whitewater? Maybe because some of the same right wingers are showing up to spout ‘treason and impeachment’
One of the things I’ve noticed is the tea baggers yelling the loudest about lack of security, no screaming f-16s and not enough embassy guards are the same ones pushing for cutting taxes and cutting government spending. They seem incapable of making the connection that if you want better embassy security or more Marine guards it costs money
DougJ
@mcmullje:
Also feel free to ask this in another thread more towards the top.
tofubo
to describe her tweet:
I don’t know why that seems so stupid, but it seems So … Fucking … Stupid.
mcmullje
@Larkspur: Thanks – he is doing that. I have murderous intent toward those people.
lojasmo
@gbear:
scotus
lojasmo
@mcmullje:
Pretty sure that is illegal. Have him talk to a labor lawyer.
nemesis
Um, that aint the third way. The Clintons dont operate in a confrontational manner. Right way. Wrong way. Clinton way.