It’s 2013, and apparently shaking hands with someone is the same as shaking hands with Hitler.
How did we become a superpower?
This post is in: Clown Shoes
It’s 2013, and apparently shaking hands with someone is the same as shaking hands with Hitler.
How did we become a superpower?
Comments are closed.
Laertes
Since the wingers are already at maximum Cuba freakout, why not go the whole hog and end the embargo?
Scott S.
Pish-posh, you know the only good reason to have anything to do with a national rival is to (a) collaborate on war crimes, (b) sell them munitions, or (c) convince them not to release hostages so you can win an election.
maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor
By keeping moronic teabaggers from attaining critical mass.
Then the intertubes changed everything.
Trentrunner
They. Are. In. Sane.
Poopyman
Mostly an accident of geography and having the right natural resources. And to a lesser degree, having the right leadership at the right times.
Say, that wasn’t a rhetorical question, was it?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The policy of petulance and refusal to engage is going to work any day now.
I have a theory, which is mine, that the reason John McCain was last in his class at West Point, coming within a hair of being expelled at least once, was not that he was a lovable scamp with no time for your fancy book-learnin’, but rather the reason for this is according to my theory, is that John McCain, besides being pathologically self-aggrandizing, mercurial, vindictive and thin-skinned, my theory, which is mine, is that John McCain simply is not that bright.
MikeJ
@Laertes:
I don’t think you could get it passed in the House. Was that a legit question or just another prayer for Obama to take the reins as God-emperor?
Hill Dweller
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: McCain would never have been admitted to the Naval Academy without his daddy pulling strings.
LanceThruster
Are we still? Have the rankings come out?
TheMightyTrowel
High fructose corn syrup
MikeJ
Oh, and has everyone seen the way the Dems sold us out today? Budget deal spends more than sequestration with no cuts to Social Security.,
maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor
@LanceThruster: We’re like the Notre Dame of twenty-first century geopolitics.
Drunken hausfrau
What was obama supposed to do? Knock the old guy out and run? Slap him and challenge him to a duel?
The stupid exhausts me…
dmsilev
Cuban-hand-shake-gate is so 12 hours ago. The _current_ scandal is over that photo of Obama taken with the British and Danish Prime Ministers.
MikeJ
@Drunken hausfrau:
What was that they had rebranded happy slappy this week in yet another attempt at racist panic?
gbear
@MikeJ: Those Bastards!!
Poopyman
Oooh! Love the NewsSchmucks headline:
What could possibly go wrong?
max
How did we become a superpower?
By having people of similar levels of stupid to McCain and say, Bill Kristol in charge of all the *other* countries. Said other countries then engaged in repeated idiot wars and eventually collapsed leaving just us.
max
[‘I’m sure Kaiser Wilhelm would have a thought McCain a very smart man.’]
Fluke bucket
@dmsilev: is that the supposed “selfie” that got Glenn Beck’s magic underwear in a knot?
LittlePig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: John McCain simply is not that bright
Case Study: Making a Three-Point Landing, with a sub-study on record holder for fastest 40 yard dash on an aircraft carrier.
Runt
You know, Reagan once shook hands with Jimmy Carter, History’s Greatest Monster!
Chris
The rest of the world’s nations bombed and blitzkrieged the shit out of each other twice in less than half a century, leaving us the last nation standing. In other words, we won by default.
I’ve increasingly realized that this is how all competitions in life work. You don’t have to be smart. You just have to be smarter than your competition. (Dumb luck helps a lot, too, and so do inherited advantages over your competition – like geography, in America’s case).
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Drunken hausfrau: If he had coolly turned away and left Raoul hangin’, the Casto government would have collapsed by daybreak!
John McCain knows from Leadery Leadership, the kind of Leadery Leadership Ron Fournier and his friends long for while weeping in to their pillows at night
Also, too, “I’m proud of our campaign with Governor Palin!” THere’s a reason this man is first on Betsy Fischer’s speed-dial!
Princess Leia
Don’t worry- superpower status was revoked after the selfie today.
dmsilev
@Fluke bucket: Yep, that’s the one. As proof of my assertion, note the current set of NewsMax headlines. Selfie-scandal is number 2, but Castrobama doesn’t even make the list at all.
I think we’re approaching the Wingnut Singularity, where fake scandals arise and are supplanted faster and faster until not even Goldman Sach’s computers can keep up with the pace.
Pogonip
@Drunken hausfrau: I vote for knocking him out and running, while waving a big red-white-and-blue foam finger.
Mike in NC
@dmsilev:
So Obama suffered not ONE but TWO Bay of Pigs equivalent humiliations in one day! It’s a good thing we don’t have a 24/7 media culture dedicated to gazing at their navels.
WereBear
It wasn’t with Republicans in charge!
El Caganer
Looking on the bright side, perhaps Obama was able to use this simple gesture to delay the Cuban invasion for another year or two. Or is Castro delaying the American invasion? I thought Obama was supposed to = Hitler. How am I supposed to keep the bad analogies straight here?
Gravenstone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I wonder if McCain thought up that whole Chamberlain/Hitler comparison himself, or if he had half a dozen evil minions whispering the suggestion in his ear? Because as you say, Johnny boy just ain’t that bright.
Mnemosyne
Our Germans were better than their Germans.
Cervantes
By bankrupting ourselves.
In more ways than one.
Hill Dweller
If anyone is interested, Patton Oswalt is the guest programmer on TCM tonight. His first choice is Kind Hearts and Coronets starring Alec Guinness.
Patricia Kayden
Are we supposed to take anything McCain “Palin is qualified to be my VP” says? He’s an idiot. Her full name needs to be tattooed on his forehead so everyone can be reminded of how he thrust her on the American public in 2008.
And as Ed Schultz aptly said, the only person who can be compared to Hitler is Hitler.
Elizabelle
@WereBear:
True that. How juvenile.
NobodySpecial
I’m assuming genocide fits in that superpower equation somewhere.
Chris
@max:
True.
That’s the “smarter than your competition” part; we stayed the fuck out of great power conflict, let other nations take the lead in the system (not just at the beginning, but even for a long time after we’d become a major power that could’ve been a serious player if we’d wanted to), thus preserving ourselves and enabling us to make a difference when it really mattered.
Something we could do worse than to keep in mind when clamoring for military spending and intervention nowadays.
(Of course, it wasn’t entirely a matter of being smarter than our competition. We could afford to be smarter than our competition; geography had blessed us with a neighborhood with next to no competitors. If we’d had the strategic situation of, say, Germany, with France and Russia and Austria and Britain all in our immediate vicinity, we could hardly have had the luxury of staying isolationist).
jl
We need a handshake-down. How many handshake degrees of separation from Hitler is our various national leaders?
Edit: Forgot about the Bush family. Disqualify or handicap them?
Edit2: ‘handshake-down’ sounds a little sketchy. Not sure why. Need another name for it.
SFAW
@dmsilev:
What amazes me is that no one in the wingnutosphere has noticed that
ChamberlainObama appears to be bowing in that picture withFidelmini-Fidel.Apologizer-in-Chief! Where’s Willard M. Romney at a time like this? HE would never apologize for the United States of FuckYeahMerica!
And Pammy Geller! And Michelle Magalangalangadingdong Malkin? And and and …. SPLUNGE! [Sound of head ‘splodin’.]
Patrick
Furthermore, it was a fricking funeral service. If people can’t behave and show respect during a funeral service…John Mccain’s comments says A LOT about John McCain.
Cervantes
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He graduated almost last in his class at Annapolis.
Nevertheless, mutatis mutandis, I like your theory (which is yours).
Yatsuno
@MikeJ: I guess I get hosed on my retirement but I haven’t seen all the details yet. I just want the damn hiring freeze to go away.
Mnemosyne
@NobodySpecial:
All the best superpowers committed genocide: Great Britain, Portugal, Spain, Russia, France. Even Belgium got a piece of the genocide action.
MomSense
Our President was so well received at the Mandela remembrance. He gave a phenomenal speech and is getting so much international praise. So of course our media are going to crap all over it with nonsense.
Amir Khalid
Superpower-dom has a life cycle, methinks. Britain has gone through through that life cycle, so has Russia. China is on the rising part of the cycle, or so it reckons. The USA seems to be on the downward part of the cycle — which I reckon is a good thing for it; superpowering is hideously expensive in terms of blood and treasure, and gives a nation an inflated sense of its importance in the world.
The people who disapprove so strongly of Obama’s display of simple good manners towards Raul Castro are of an ilk with those most strident in asserting America’s superpower status. They’re also the ones doing the most to end it.
Bill E Pilgrim
You know who else shook hands with Hitler don’t you.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Just figured that in case you’re wondering if anyone got the reference, that would be a yes.
-Anne Elk
Citizen_X
By being lucky, especially for the three generations after crushing the racist right in a brutal civil war.
What, too serious?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
D’oh! Cursed multi-tasking! I was listening to Tweety say that Obama is “desperately trying to save his presidency” by bringing in John Podesta.
Patrick
@dmsilev:
I give up. What the hell was wrong with that?
piratedan
Mom stopped buying our school clothes out of the JC Penney’s Summer Catalog and we got good at sports, so we were accepted into the jock clique.
Mnemosyne
Also, it kind of cracks me up that the SCANDAL is that Obama shook hands with Fidel Castro’s brother, not even the dude himself. Weak. Sauce.
I doubt we’re going to reconcile with Cuba before Fidel kicks the bucket, but I also didn’t think we would be able to reconcile with Iran or avoid some kind of bombing campaign in Syria, so who knows?
Chris
@Patrick:
I don’t plan to behave when his funeral comes up.
IowaOldLady
I’m scaring myself by sounding like my mother but what I want to say is, “That should be the worst thing that ever happens to you.”
And while I’m on the topic of mothers, my 95 year old MIL sent away the snow service my SIL hired and tried to shovel her driveway herself. The mail man stopped and helped. Lazy govt worker.
Mnemosyne
@Patrick:
The Danish prime minister is a cute blonde. Therefore, SCANDAL.
(Okay, that’s not the most flattering picture of her, but you get the general idea.)
Patrick
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
???
This would be the same Tweety who said during the “Mission Accomplished” ceremony that Bush should be on Mount Rushmore.
maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor
@jl:
Hate to say it, but once you throw Joe Kennedy Sr. into the mix, it’s a pretty short chain to a whole lot of folks.
Patrick
@Mnemosyne:
Ok – I still don’t get it. Obama is not allowed to have picture taken with a foreign leader, irregardless of what he/she looks like?
Cervantes
@Patricia Kayden:
“Lush paranoia lies” is an anagram of “Sarah Louise Palin.”
maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor
@Patrick: I think it was the “at Mandela’s memorial service” part that folks took issue with.
Amir Khalid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The Obama administration is in crisis? Why wasn’t I told about this? And how would a Clinton WH chief of staff be the one to rescue it?
Mnemosyne
@Patrick:
Black man. Cute blonde woman. The jokes write themselves, if you’re a racist and/or sexist moron.
Fluke bucket
@Patrick: from what I gather he was horsing around during a funeral instead of being respectful. (Uppity and stuff)
Chris
@Patrick:
Obama is not allowed to perform presidential functions, regardless of anything. He shouldn’t be in the White House.
/birth certificate, ACORN, would’ve been impeached if the RINOs in Congress weren’t all such liberals, etc
Mnemosyne
@maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor:
But it doesn’t look like it happened during the service itself — it was either before or after (or Mandela’s memorial was missing a whole lot of VIPs judging by the empty seats behind them). So I’m officially calling Fake Scandal.
LesGS
@Patrick: He took it himself. In other words, it was a “selfie.”
MomSense
Are people outraged with David Cameron for being in that photo?
What about George W for taking a selfie with Bono?
It wasn’t exactly a somber event. There was lots of spontaneous singing, dancing and cheering.
We have major issues that go completely ignored day after day after week after month after year and now our media are going to rile themselves up over a photograph?
muricafukyea
Your hero Griftwald routinely writes shit that is just as ridiculous as this latest right wing manufactured controversy. So shut your pie hole and go play with your cat wr0ng way Cole. You have no credibility on such things.
Bill E Pilgrim
@maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor: This has gone past Godwin’s Law, I think we’re into to Doris Kearns Godwin’s Law now.
Anya
Remind me: Why am I supposed to hate Cuba? I mean, we have a relationship with China, so it can’t be because of communism, and we have alliances with all kinds of countries run by despots and mad men, so it can’t be our concern for human rights. Also, too, what was obama supposed to do exactly? Slap Castro the Lesser and yell: “capitalism rules. Suck it, commie scum!!”
hildebrand
@Fluke bucket: But with the Angles and the Saxons – should that not count for something?
hildebrand
@Fluke bucket: But with the Angles and the Saxons – should that not count for something?
Petorado
‘Cause in Republicans’ eyes, nothing says “Leader of the Free World” like being a dick to another nation’s leader at the funeral of one of the greatest peacemakers of our time.
hildebrand
Well – that was…odd. Double posting without even trying. Thanks, Obama.
Patricia Kayden
@Drunken hausfrau: Yes, Yes and Yes.
maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor
@Mnemosyne: Oh, it was destined to be a scandal one way or another.
I like to think, though, that between the selfie and the handshake with Castro that POTUS has reached the point in his presidency where he’s just going to troll the living fuck out of the lunatic fringers.
Fuzzy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: McCaine, his father and grandfather all cashed government checks their whole lives so they were smart enough to get on that teat.
MikeJ
@maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor:
The memorial service with the cheering crowds. It was a celebration of Mandela’s life, not your typical whitebread funeral. But just like with Wellstone, Republicans will insist that anything done by Democrats is being done wrong.
Cervantes
@maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor: Not to mention Prescott Bush.
chopper
@dmsilev:
exactly. we’ve moved on from ‘obama shook a leader’s hand’ to ‘obama was in a picture’.
hoo-boy, these are america’s political salad days.
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
An American president is dignified and self-contained at all times. You know, like this guy.
@Anya:
Because Fidel Castro embarrassed us by outlasting nine (9) US presidents, and is on track to outlast a 10th. And … that’s about it.
chopper
@MikeJ:
yup. this is south africa, not some waspy suburb. complaining about jocularity at mandela’s funeral is like complaining about booze at an irish wake.
TaMara (BHF)
@MomSense: Doing ok. Did the crematory thing today. I’m wrapped up in his blanket (albeit freshly washed) at the moment.
And I went and saw a 2 year old marmalade male today second row, MOJO) …I don’t know what possessed me. But I need to see how the other furrys adapt to the loss first. I liked him… just don’t tell anyone, they’ll all think I’m nuts. ;-) they probably not wrong.
Anya
@Mnemosyne: Before he took the selfie, did he by any chance yell, “where all the white women at?”
Patricia Kayden
@maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor: Wait a second. Are the people who are upset that President Obama took a selfie at President Mandela’s memorial service the same rightwingers who have called Mandela a communist, terrorist murderer? I need to keep my rightwing memes straight.
Hill Dweller
@LesGS:
Actually, it was the Danish PM’s “selfie”, but they aren’t going to let facts get in the way.
Mnemosyne
@TaMara (BHF):
Is it Mojo you’re looking at? Because he’s gorgeous.
And since I think I missed you in the other thread, my condolences.
Hungry Joe
How did we become a superpower? I’m pretty sure baseball had something to do with it … which is why Cuba remains such a threat.
Poopyman
@Bill E Pilgrim:
I don’t know what that is, but I definitely think we should make one up.
Lurking Buffoon
Never have I been so happy to have a president who truly does not give a flying fuck what the rightwing/media poutrage machine churns out.
Heliopause
In the other thread I thought it would be funny to turn that around and compare our conservatives’ reaction to the Cuban point of view, but I guess it was too subtle.
1. Discover a continental mass that is relatively unpopulated (from the European point of view), rich with natural resources, and exploit it ruthlessly.
2. Exterminate the existing native population (or, barring that, round them up into concentration camps).
3. Wait until the existing world powers deplete themselves in ruinous wars and exploit the resulting vacuum.
4. Superpower!
TaMara (BHF)
@Mnemosyne: Yes, FYWP wouldn’t let me edit my typos. It’s Mojo, second row. https://www.longmonthumane.org/sites/all/files/petpoint-page.php?id=21429587
Thanks, too. I underestimated how healing it is to share the loss of a pet on BJ.
Roxy
@Hill Dweller: That was a great movie.
Anya
@Hill Dweller: Are we even sure it was a selfie? Maybe the Danish PM is showing them a vid or a pic she took on her smartphone. It’s not conclusive.
Steeplejack
We basically lucked into it by process of elimination. And we’re not really good at it.
Anya
Who will be the first ‘reporter’ to quiz Jay Carney about Selfie-Gate or Handshake-Gate?
WereBear
@Hill Dweller: An excellent choice!
I’ll never forget Alex Guinness shooting down the balloon…
Patricia Kayden
Saw this on Joe.My.God and thought it was hilarious how Mrs. O traded places with President Obama to get him away from the Danish PM.
http://towleroad.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c730253ef019b02899180970d-pi
rikyrah
How did we become a superpower?
An economy built on 300 years of free labor
Mixed in with geographical isolation
Along with an immigration policy that grabbed the rest of the world’s best talent
Voila……. superpower
MomSense
@TaMara (BHF):
Please be gentle with yourself–wrapped up and cozy in his blankie sounds like a good plan.
Wow, Mojo is gorgeous. You are not nuts but you do have a big heart and FSM knows there are so many precious kittehs who need love and a home.
Sending you a big hug.
MomSense
@Anya:
Just spit tea all over myself!!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Anya: Jonathan Karl
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
And now we know why the Confederates went in the first place. Not enough for them to show their asses at home, they have to take their shit show on the road. Assholes On Parade, with the FerengiMedia serving as both backup band and backstage groupies. Utterly fucking useless, the lot of them.
MomSense
@Anya:
I looked at some of the comments on this story at various sites and it looks like the same people who were saying disparaging things about Mandela are now angry that the president disrespected him.
This is giving me whiplash.
WereBear
@TaMara (BHF): Saving a life is never wrong, is it?
MomSense
@Patricia Kayden:
Of course they aren’t showing the photos of Michelle smiling or that she switched places when he went to deliver his remarks.
He gave a great speech to thunderous applause. We could be proud but no we will waste our time on silliness.
West of the Cascades
@SFAW: There’s no way that President Romney would have put himself in the awkward position to have to shake (or decline to shake) Raul Castro’s hand. He would have sent Vice President Ryan to Mandela’s funeral, and Ryan would have been the dick to refuse to shake the hand of a foreign leader who had been invited to give a memorial address to the greatest leader/politician of our time.
Typing those words about what might have been make me shudder.
ShadeTail
[“How did we become a superpower?”]
Back then, the right-wingers hadn’t yet devolved into being the utter pussies they are today.
Anya
@MomSense: And of course you blame Obama, right?
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I concur but Carney might just call on the faux news dude for that question. I hope he’s ready.
Seanly
Ummm, we fell into it? When the Nazis tore apart Europe and the only industrialized nation with a workforce & infrastructure left standing was us?
MomSense
@Anya:
Of course!!
Bill E Pilgrim
@Poopyman: It’s when the Hitler references come so early that the thread goes past just citing his name and into deep historical analysis.
Or that’s what I think it should be anyway.
daverave
What? No fistbump??1?!???
Rich (In Name Only) in Reno
Obama shakes hands with a Castro (not even the right Castro,) and the right wing goes all “Wolverines!!!!!” And we’re supposed to be surprised?
Valdivia
So the selfie-gate thing. I think what bothers people (looking at the vapid media people and the righties) is that is was the white blonde PM of Denmark who asked for the picture. You can see it’s her phone, she is taking it. So of course it is scandalous that a beautiful white blonde woman would do that. Uppity of Obama to even sit with her no?
And not to nitpick but this was not a funeral. It was a memorial service–with people singing and cheering. Not exactly a somber gathering as someone else already mentioned above or the actual burial.
Patrick
@Valdivia:
The point still stands – a memorial service-with people singing and cheering – not exactly the type of place were you refuse to shake hands with someone else who was invited to the service. It doesn’t really matter whether it was a funeral or memorial service; most of us have been taught to behave in a civil way at these gatherings. It is clear that John McCain don’t seems to know what that means. I’m sooo glad he lost in ’08.
Ruckus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The hell you say. The honorable senator shines as bright as a 1 watt incandescent light bulb. In bright sunlight.
polyorchnid octopunch
@MomSense: It’s pretty easy to figure out actually. They’re black, so whatever they did was wrong. See? Easy-peasy.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Seanly: Hardly, buddy.
Pogonip
@jl: And how do we score Bush the Younger holding hands with the Saudi prince?
polyorchnid octopunch
@Pogonip: That’s pretty easy to figure out too. Wingnuts adore wealth and the wealthy; there are few that play in the rarefied air that the Saudi prince does, so… all good. I mean, let’s face it; they love them some theocratic fascism leavened with a royal plutocracy, so what’s not to like?
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
McCain was a Navy legacy, not an Army legacy. I don’t think he would have survived at West Point without having his daddy in the Army to protect him.
Furthermore, he finished third from the bottom in his class, but got the plum graduation assignment of Naval Aviation, which could not possibly have happened without legacy strings being pulled.
However, once he got a command, after his imprisonment in Hanoi, apparently the Navy decided that legacy or no, he was unfit for flag rank.
So he retired, and ran for public office.
The rest is history/tragedy.
2liberal
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
from wikipedia:
He came into conflict with higher-ranking personnel and did not always obey the rules, which contributed to a low class rank (894 of 899), despite a high IQ
McCain did well in academic subjects that interested him, such as literature and history, but studied only enough to pass subjects he struggled with, such as mathematics.
SFAW
@Villago Delenda Est:
Waitaminnit – are you trying to tell us that McCain was a POW?
Who knew?
slippy
I’ve gotten so tired of whiny right-wing cunts that I largely avoid political discussions these days.
I just come here to say fuck yeah when I hear that the current state of affairs is really twisting their little panties.
It’s the least they deserve, after all.