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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Asshole of the Day

Asshole of the Day

by John Cole|  November 25, 20138:16 pm| 71 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links, Foreign Affairs, Assholes

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Jeffrey Goldberg.

*** Update ***

Take it away, Emily
. It sure is nice to see that she has a bigger platform now.

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Reader Interactions

71Comments

  1. 1.

    Pogonip

    November 25, 2013 at 8:22 pm

    How is your dog? Any better?

  2. 2.

    raven

    November 25, 2013 at 8:23 pm

    Is he the wrestler that played for Georgia?

  3. 3.

    Comrade Jake

    November 25, 2013 at 8:25 pm

    I generally like the folks over at The Atlantic, but they do seem to have more than their fair share of dickheads.

  4. 4.

    geg6

    November 25, 2013 at 8:30 pm

    Of the day? I thought that was what he was every day.

    I wish all these AIPAC fellators would just move to Israel and leave the rest of us alone. I don’t understand why they don’t since they obviously care more about what they perceive to be Israel’s best interests and not that of the country of which they are ostensibly citizens. And the saddest thing is that what they think is good for Israel is what is most likely to destroy Israel.

  5. 5.

    the Conster

    November 25, 2013 at 8:30 pm

    People are showing their ass, and it’s not the critics of Israel. I have a huge problem with people who want to manipulate US policy and the political discourse having dual loyalties based on first century nonsense. It’s the same with the neo-confederates working against the interests of the rest of us non-“Christian” Americans. They’re not to be trusted in high level political or policy positions, because they’re anti-American. Fuck them all.

  6. 6.

    maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor

    November 25, 2013 at 8:36 pm

    @geg6:

    I wish all these AIPAC fellators would just move to Israel and leave the rest of us alone.

    Not a chance in hell. First, they don’t want their kids serving in the IDF.

    Second, remember that scene in “Annie Hall” when Alvy brings Marshall McLuhan on screen to tell the poseur he’s full of shit? That would be a daily experience for them there.

  7. 7.

    Punchy

    November 25, 2013 at 8:44 pm

    Whoa…that link. Longest. Blogpost. Evah.

  8. 8.

    yet another jeff

    November 25, 2013 at 8:49 pm

    Of the day…meaning every day that ends in the letter Y.

  9. 9.

    BBA

    November 25, 2013 at 8:50 pm

    @maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor: Goldberg did in fact serve in the IDF, and has tepidly endorsed the Iran agreement as the “least-worst option” instead of ranting about Munich like Kristol and co.

    He’s still an asshole, but a different type of asshole.

    Now back to your two minutes’ hate.

  10. 10.

    Botsplainer

    November 25, 2013 at 8:51 pm

    Can anybody explain to me just how Eretz Israel is America’s bestest friend and ally ever? It always seemed to me that it was a one way deal, not unlike having a psycho, demanding, high maintenance girlfriend who goes apeshit when you greet a female co-worker that you happen to run into at the grocery store.

  11. 11.

    LanceThruster

    November 25, 2013 at 8:55 pm

    @geg6:

    I think they have the attitude of the Romney spawn (i.e. serving the greater good by their fealty to Chosanistan).

  12. 12.

    yet another jeff

    November 25, 2013 at 8:56 pm

    @Botsplainer:

    Bibi wants you to think bomby thoughts or he’ll send you to the cornfield.

  13. 13.

    Aji

    November 25, 2013 at 8:59 pm

    Here’s the thing about Goldberg: He’s just an asshole, period. The screaming about BenAmi is only one facet of it, and it’s not in any way some sort of identifier – it’s just who he is and what he does. Everyone seizes on his nasty little habit of accusing fellow Jews of anti-Semitism, but he’s an equal-opportunity asshole. IOW, the quintessential Villager. That’s his identifier.

  14. 14.

    Botsplainer

    November 25, 2013 at 9:01 pm

    @yet another jeff:

    One of the greatest Twilight Zones ever.

  15. 15.

    Tim F.

    November 25, 2013 at 9:02 pm

    The Yiddish term is schmuck.

  16. 16.

    Comrade Jake

    November 25, 2013 at 9:03 pm

    David “Axis of Evil” Frum has also been losing his shit over Iran the past couple of days.

  17. 17.

    fka AWS

    November 25, 2013 at 9:06 pm

    @Punchy: Relax, Punchy, it’s CrookedTimberTown.

  18. 18.

    ? Martin

    November 25, 2013 at 9:06 pm

    @Comrade Jake: Cowards are cowardly.

  19. 19.

    Chris

    November 25, 2013 at 9:07 pm

    @Botsplainer:

    That’s exactly what it is.

    I can’t remember the last time any nation had so many people willing to outsource policy completely for absolutely zero gain to another one (client states historically are either being forced at gunpoint or are getting something worthwhile out of the deal). The Israel love affair’s been slowly destroying our Middle East policy for decades. Thank God the current president at least isn’t part of their groupies’ network.

  20. 20.

    Botsplainer

    November 25, 2013 at 9:09 pm

    In the past 50 years, which nation has maintained the longest occupation in which the rights of the occupied to participate in a representative government have been systematically denied?

    Which nation in the past 50 years gained territory by waging aggressive war?

    Which nation still profits segments of its society through the maintenance of an official, ethnically based system of rewards and exclusions?

  21. 21.

    Botsplainer

    November 25, 2013 at 9:09 pm

    In the past 50 years, which nation has maintained the longest occupation in which the rights of the occupied to participate in a representative government have been systematically denied?

    Which nation in the past 50 years gained territory by waging aggressive war?

    Which nation still profits segments of its society through the maintenance of an official, ethnically based system of rewards and exclusions?

  22. 22.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    November 25, 2013 at 9:17 pm

    @Botsplainer: Thought you were going Godwin, then reread the part about the last 50 years. Does that make me a bad person?

  23. 23.

    Comrade Jake

    November 25, 2013 at 9:22 pm

    It’s been interesting speaking to some Iranian graduate students about this – they’re very happy about the events of the past few days. Of course, they’re basically kids, and most of them aren’t all that religious. They also think the Ayatollah is batshit fucking crazy.

  24. 24.

    Botsplainer

    November 25, 2013 at 9:22 pm

    @Comrade Scrutinizer:

    Does that make me a bad person?

    Clearly, you’re ready to fire up ovens, or something.

    It’s going to be interesting to see how those dogmatically rigid West Bank land thieves conduct themselves when they wind up subjected to Arab occupying forces.

  25. 25.

    ? Martin

    November 25, 2013 at 9:28 pm

    @Comrade Jake:

    They also think the Ayatollah is batshit fucking crazy.

    I’ve yet to meet someone from Iran that disagrees with that view. Of course, they all left Iran, so hardly a representative sample.

  26. 26.

    KG

    November 25, 2013 at 9:29 pm

    @raven: nah, that was Bill Goldberg… He was much more articulate and open minded

  27. 27.

    DH

    November 25, 2013 at 9:31 pm

    Since I am Jewish, I can say this:

    Go fuck yourself Goldberg.

    This is the guy who rooted us into Iraq. Fuck him.
    As for Iran, you have to negotiate. Even the Mustache of Understanding realized this in his last column. What is Israel going to do? Bomb Iran every 2 years? I don’t think so.

  28. 28.

    raven

    November 25, 2013 at 9:37 pm

    @KG: just foolin around

  29. 29.

    BBA

    November 25, 2013 at 9:37 pm

    @Aji: This. He’s hippie-punching to burnish his Villager cred, after his latest column put him on the far left of acceptable discourse by suggesting this may not in fact be the end of the world. I don’t know if he’s seen the “MUNICH!!!” columns, but if he did, his reaction would be “both sides do it.”

  30. 30.

    Comrade Jake

    November 25, 2013 at 9:39 pm

    @DH: well according to Bolton, now is the perfect time for Israel to strike!

  31. 31.

    Botsplainer

    November 25, 2013 at 9:42 pm

    @DH:

    As for Iran, you have to negotiate.

    This is the part where the nutters act goofiest. Even back when I was wingnut curious, I looked at that large country and 70+ million inhabitants as an impossible nut to just “bomb”. Given the professionalism of their military, it would be Vietnam X 5.

  32. 32.

    Ruckus

    November 25, 2013 at 9:47 pm

    @Tim F.:
    The concept is correct but the level given by schmuck is not quite enough in this case.
    So maybe, fucking schmuck.
    Or the yiddish equivalent of fuck.

  33. 33.

    Ash Can

    November 25, 2013 at 9:48 pm

    @Comrade Jake: I’m sure he’s desperate for something, anything, to derail the negotiations, so I’m sure he’d love to see that.

  34. 34.

    Cassidy

    November 25, 2013 at 9:50 pm

    Just got a chuckle. If we really lived in an Obama police state with a Stasi style secret police, like some knuckleheads have expressed, we’d have no villagers to call assholes or mock as needed.

  35. 35.

    MikeJ

    November 25, 2013 at 9:53 pm

    @Cassidy: They keep promising me FEMA camps and Obama never delivers.

  36. 36.

    Cassidy

    November 25, 2013 at 9:56 pm

    @MikeJ: Blame the website.

  37. 37.

    sharl

    November 25, 2013 at 10:00 pm

    Jeffrey Goldberg has been something of an asshole on this subject for a long time.
    It’s a damn shame that he cannot spend more time doing excellent writing on other topics where he isn’t blinded by his own biases. Case in point: in his guise as a columnist with Bloomberg View,* he wrote a very good (and very sobering) article, Drowning Kiribati, on what rising ocean levels are already doing to that small mid-Pacific** archipelago.
    [**A lot of miles roughly due south of Hawaii, fwiw]

    *I couldn’t believe it was the same guy as the hyper-Zionist columnist for the Atlantic, but his Twitter bio would seem to support the fact that, yep, probably the same guy.

  38. 38.

    Botsplainer

    November 25, 2013 at 10:02 pm

    @MikeJ:

    They keep promising me FEMA camps and Obama never delivers.

    Barry is just shiftless and lazy, you know. He can’t even do persecution right.

    It was always to be expected of his kind.

  39. 39.

    Aji

    November 25, 2013 at 10:13 pm

    @BBA: Bingo. I was actually looking for the “both sides do it” phrase at the link.

  40. 40.

    GregB

    November 25, 2013 at 10:17 pm

    @MikeJ:

    Unfortunately their construction has been outsourced to the same Canadian company that fucked up the ACA website.

    We may not have the FEMA cams online until after Obama’s 3rd term begins.

  41. 41.

    beltane

    November 25, 2013 at 10:27 pm

    Who will be the asshole of tomorrow?

  42. 42.

    ? Martin

    November 25, 2013 at 10:28 pm

    @Botsplainer: Hardly impossible. Do you realize how many nukes we have? Ok, sure, you wipe out a few million Iraqis and Afghans, and a few million more are impacted by the fallout, but why have a thousand nukes if you aren’t willing to use a few hundred?

  43. 43.

    Jay

    November 25, 2013 at 10:32 pm

    Friend of Balloon Juice Emily Hauser has a great piece on Goldberg’s behavior.

  44. 44.

    ? Martin

    November 25, 2013 at 10:33 pm

    @beltane: I don’t think we’ve heard from President McCain yet.

  45. 45.

    Yatsuno

    November 25, 2013 at 10:34 pm

    @? Martin: It wouldn’t even take that many. 20 or so would decimate the Iranian population (literally) and some conventional bombs would take care of the rest. You’d destroy Afghanistan, Pakistan, and part of India, but hey, omelettes, eggs.

  46. 46.

    Aji

    November 25, 2013 at 10:36 pm

    @beltane: Well, Goldberg will still be an asshole tomorrow. But who gets the title? Personally, my money’s on the Dick Whisperer. We’ve managed to go . . .what? a day, at least, without some obscenely stupid utterance from him making headlines, right? He’s way overdue, and this is right up his alley.

  47. 47.

    ? Martin

    November 25, 2013 at 10:37 pm

    @Yatsuno: Brown eggs, no less.

  48. 48.

    beltane

    November 25, 2013 at 10:38 pm

    @? Martin: Admit it. Times like this make us miss Joe Lieberman being in the Senate. John McCain is strangely incomplete without him.

  49. 49.

    Yatsuno

    November 25, 2013 at 10:40 pm

    @beltane: Not true. He has his new boytoy Huckleberry Closetcase to make up for Droopy’s absence.

  50. 50.

    Mike E

    November 25, 2013 at 10:41 pm

    @beltane: Ugh, I just pictured Dr. Evil and Mini Me when I read that.

  51. 51.

    Mike E

    November 25, 2013 at 10:44 pm

    @Yatsuno: An elderly coworker said, “Nuke Iran!” and I had to explain the physics of this to him. Worked. Not.

  52. 52.

    Villago Delenda Est

    November 25, 2013 at 10:46 pm

    Iran is mountainous, perfect country for a guerrilla insurgency that will last for decades.

    Sure, let’s invade Iran. It wasn’t enough for us to wreck our Army in fucking Iraq and Afghanistan? Let’s fucking triple down!

  53. 53.

    Matt McIrvin

    November 25, 2013 at 10:51 pm

    @? Martin: I’m not saying we won’t get our hair mussed.

  54. 54.

    Mike E

    November 25, 2013 at 10:55 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Yes, and then, let’s all enjoy their mining the Strait of Hormuz… quadruple down! Thank gawd Curtis LeMay ain’t around to see this through.

  55. 55.

    sharl

    November 25, 2013 at 10:55 pm

    OT,

    Whooo boy, just started paying attention to my radio sound box, and Warren Olney (link – scroll down) has on Richard “EconoWizard” Yeselson vs. Megan “Mathlete”* McArdle, talking about Wal-Mart’s latest transgression – in this case, apparently, not giving employees the day off on Thanksgiving. [No fan of Wal-Mart here, but they ain’t alone in this.]

    Talk about an intellectual mis-match!

    *h/t @ranchandsyrup

  56. 56.

    Villago Delenda Est

    November 25, 2013 at 10:56 pm

    @DH:

    Since I am Jewish, I can say this:

    Obviously to the likes of Jeffrey Goldberg, you’re a self hating Jew.

    I, on the other hand, thing you’re a mensch.

  57. 57.

    KG

    November 25, 2013 at 10:57 pm

    @raven: oh, I know, but it was my way of taking a shot at Jeffrey

  58. 58.

    DH

    November 25, 2013 at 11:06 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    LOL..yeah to Goldberg I may be, but I look at it this way. The real problem Israel faces is demographics. In fact, I will be so bold as to suggest that by fixating on Iran, Goldberg is allowing day by day the destruction of the state of Israel by ignoring the South Africanization of Israel. Who, then, is really anti-semitic?

    Thank You for the compliment.

  59. 59.

    Villago Delenda Est

    November 25, 2013 at 11:10 pm

    @DH:

    Actually, I think your a mensch. Stupid fingers on keyboard

    Totally OT, from Noisemax:

    Mark Halperin: Obamacare Includes ‘Death Panels’

    FSM, I hope so. With any luck, Halperin will be one of the first to stand before one.

  60. 60.

    Villago Delenda Est

    November 25, 2013 at 11:25 pm

    EVENTUALLY I’ll write a grammatically correct sentence. Someday.

  61. 61.

    Joel

    November 26, 2013 at 12:41 am

    @sharl: Goldberg was also good on Walmart. In this post, he practically sounds like a pinko commie. He also called them out for sexism, and pointed out that the genuinely mean “people of Walmart” website was just fucking stupid. Among conservative columnists, Goldberg is one of the ones I can most tolerate. He seems like a genuinely okay human being with an unfortunately terrible neoconservative streak.

  62. 62.

    sharl

    November 26, 2013 at 3:14 am

    @Joel:
    Thanks. Outside of his neocon proclivities, he does seem to be decent on a number of topics.

    Apparently John Podhoretz finds far-away environmental disasters very amusing, much like Jonah Goldberg got his yucks from people suffering and dying in post-Katrina New Orleans; both well-connected privileged children… who woulda thunk it?

    At least Goldberg called him out on that:

    John Podhoretz ‏@jpodhoretz
    Hey, @JeffreyGoldberg, it really breaks my heart the president of Kiribati doesn’t enjoy his job!
    ~~~~~~~~
    Jeffrey Goldberg ‏@JeffreyGoldberg
    [email protected] Climate change is funny!
    ~~~~~~~~
    John Podhoretz ‏@jpodhoretz
    @JeffreyGoldberg everything is funny.
    ~~~~~~~~
    Jeffrey Goldberg ‏@JeffreyGoldberg
    @jpodhoretz Everything? And you know what I mean by everything.
    ~~~~~~~~
    John Podhoretz ‏@jpodhoretz
    @JeffreyGoldberg well, in private, with people of good will

    I found the final bit of that exchange mysterious, but clearly THEY know what is meant by “everything” in this back-and-forth.

  63. 63.

    Cervantes

    November 26, 2013 at 8:11 am

    @DH: Since I am Jewish, I can say this:

    Actually, no. Think again.

    One doesn’t have to be Jewish to say it — or anything else, for that matter.

  64. 64.

    Cervantes

    November 26, 2013 at 8:18 am

    @Yatsuno: 20 or so would decimate the Iranian population (literally)

    Literally, “decimate” means “reduce by 10%.”

    So either you did not mean “decimate” literally or you did not mean “literally” literally.

    (Apologies in advance if the pedantry offends.)

  65. 65.

    Ken

    November 26, 2013 at 9:17 am

    @Yatsuno: You’d destroy Afghanistan, Pakistan, and part of India, but hey, omelettes, eggs.

    I see two nuclear-armed eggs, and one egg that is famous both for holding grudges since the late Neolithic and destroying every empire that’s touched it, so what could possibly go wrong?

  66. 66.

    chopper

    November 26, 2013 at 9:32 am

    oh, gai kachen afenyam, goldberg. you putz.

  67. 67.

    chopper

    November 26, 2013 at 9:34 am

    @Cervantes:

    actually it also means to ‘destroy a whole bunch of’.

  68. 68.

    Paul in KY

    November 26, 2013 at 9:45 am

    @DH: I’m not Jewish & I can still say: ‘Go fuck yourself, Goldberg’.

    America! Is this a great country or what?

  69. 69.

    Paul in KY

    November 26, 2013 at 9:48 am

    @Villago Delenda Est: It took Hulagu Khan 10 years or so to get rid of the Hashish Assasins guild. That was with total control of the rest of the country.

  70. 70.

    Cervantes

    November 26, 2013 at 10:13 am

    @chopper: Sure, but not “literally.”

  71. 71.

    chopper

    November 26, 2013 at 3:20 pm

    @Cervantes:

    it’s an actual definition of the word, so yes. ‘literally’.

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