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They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

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A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

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You are here: Home / Pass the Ron Fournier

Pass the Ron Fournier

by | 43 Comments

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This may be the worst April Fools’ Day joke ever:

After criticizing President Obama throughout his second term, I’ve reversed course and decided that he’s a tremendous leader, one of the greatest presidents in U.S. history.

Perfection is too high of a bar to set for any man, or any president, but Obama has come close to clearing it. What stands between this president and Mount Rushmore?

Republicans—specifically, the stubborn extremists who control the House under the weak leadership of Speaker John Boehner. Gridlock, hyper-partisanship, and ineffective governance, those traits that make Washington so unpopular with voters, are singularly the fault of the GOP.

I don’t understand the appeal of Ron Fournier? Are there any actual Ron Fournier fans? At least Mark Halperin glommed onto that Double Down Game Change thing which is popular, however stupid it is.

Reader Interactions

43Comments

  2. 2.

    WaterGirl

    Ron Fournier has no appeal.

    Edit: though I do appreciate that he is no longer trying to pretend that he is not partisan.

  6. 6.

    Kay (not the front-pager)

    If I’m not mistaken, Ronnie criticized President Obama throughout his first term (and through his first presidential candidacy) as well.

    I don’t think he understands how April Fools’ jokes work. In paragraphs 1 and 2 he says something he obviously doesn’t believe, and in paragraph 3 he says something that is indisputably true.

    I think I need to take an aspirin and lie down.

  7. 7.

    noabsolutes

    This is like the Mann & Ornstein book, except that people are reading it and not taking it seriously instead of not reading it and not taking it seriously… sigh… I sure hope we look back on this era when Mount Rushmore has finally eroded down to something humorous-looking and ask ourselves WTF were we thinking.

  10. 10.

    katie5

    It’s the written version of truthiness. You write authoritatively and snarkily and it begins to approach what some consider deeply insightful.

    Ezra Klein is not far behind.

  11. 11.

    MikeJ

    @WaterGirl:

    Edit: though I do appreciate that he is no longer trying to pretend that he is not partisan.

    Any criticism of a Republican proves you are an unthinking partisan. Any criticism of a Democrat proves that you judge based on the evidence and ignore all labels.

  13. 13.

    Stan of the Sawgrass

    Dunno… Some weird kind of meta-trolling by the entire mediasphere? (“At 12:00, let’s all drop our pencils and shout, “LEADERSHIP!!!” then give Ron a swirly in the girl’s bathroom!”)

  14. 14.

    Kay (not the front-pager)

    Well shoot. I made the mistake of going over and reading his snarky sht and now I’m both annoyed and perplexed. He quotes Obama circa 2008

    “I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations,” he said during the 2008 campaign. “But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth.”

    Then he goes on to snark:

    Fact is, he got it done—all of it. Not only did he pull troops out of Iraq and avert an economic depression, the president tamed joblessness, reversed climate change, improved the nation’s reputation abroad, turned a debt crisis into a budget surplus, and provided affordable health care to millions of Americans. Mission Accomplished

    Well, he did end the war in Iraq and will have troops out of Afghanistan by next year, He did avert an economic depression. He tamed joblessness but did not cure joblessness (see paragraph 3 above. He wasn’t able to do much about climate change for the same reason). He improved the nation’s reputation abroad, reduced the deficit to the lowest percent of GDP in 60 years, and provided affordable healthcare to approximately 22.1 million people. So not a bad record so far, and he’s not done yet. So Ron Fornier, DIAF.

  16. 16.

    David Koch

    Dougie,

    you’re assuming facts not in evidence, namely there is no known appeal.

    National Journal has a circulation of .. wait for it… 15,000.

    Here’s Kos publicly making a monkey out of him and his failed attempts at appeal.

  17. 17.

    jl

    Maybe its not an April Fool’s joke, but for reals. I’ve had the sense for some time that Fournier is more than a little manic.
    And, if it is an April Fool’s joke, it is one of the worst pieces I’ve ever seen: paragraphs of bland sophomoric snark as stale as flat beer sitting around in a paper cup since last summer’s county fair.

    Well, I guess we’ll know for sure tomorrow.

  19. 19.

    Alison

    Are there any actual Ron Fournier fans?

    Maybe his wife.

    I mean…imagine how much better it would make you feel about yourself if you were around that douche all day.

  20. 20.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Alison:

    I mean…imagine how much better it would make you feel about yourself if you were around that douche all day.

    Or imagine how demoralizing it would be to realize that one had tied oneself to that moron.

  22. 22.

    Hunter Gathers

    Are there any actual Ron Fournier fans?

    Yep. They’re middle-aged white guys pulling down more than 200k a year who love reading articles that use fancy, classy language to call Obama a lazy nigger. If only he weren’t so lazy, he’d shmooze the GOP with lunches and shit like that more often. If he weren’t so fucking lazy, he’d walk down to Boehner’s office and cut a budget deal over smokes and a shot. If he weren’t so fucking lazy, he’d repeal ObamaCare and knock those moochers and looters down a peg or two, like they fucking deserve. You know, to show Leadership. If he weren’t so motherfucking lazy, he would have bombed the shit out of the Soviet Union Russia, just to show the world that he won’t take shit from anybody, and that America, by far, has the biggest genitals on the planet.

    Fournier has fans, alright. They’re just not stupid enough to actually pay to read the shit that he writes.

  24. 24.

    Amir Khalid

    A philosophical question: if you say something that you think is false, but is actually true, are you lying?

  28. 28.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Are there any actual Ron Fournier fans?

    John McCain, Karl Rove, Joe Scarborough, I’m guessing Tom Brokaw, Mark Halperin, Chuck Todd….

  29. 29.

    Turgidson

    So his idea of an April Fool’s joke is say some stupid shit, then make some absolutely true statements he refuses to believe because he’s a moron, and ultimately make himself look like an even more insufferable idiot douche than he did already? Sounds about right.

    And goddammit, Obama won’t be carved onto Mt. Rushmore, but he absolutely is more deserving of a spot on Rushmore than any president since FDR. Mayyybe Truman.

  32. 32.

    Lurking Canadian

    @Kay (not the front-pager): And he did all that over the determined opposition of the most obstructionist Congress since the 1850s. Apparently in Ron Fournier’s world, an “April Fool’s Joke” means to say a bunch of absolutely true stuff you don’t like, then say “April Fool!”

  33. 33.

    Tractarian

    From the Marine urban legend crap to this…. Doug, please, I understand the “we read these as$holes so you don’t have to” thing, but do you have to foist the worst-of-the-worst on us?

  34. 34.

    Sherparick

    He appeals to his fellow Villagers and to the 1%, and there standard of leadership is passing a plan that destroys social security, cuts their taxes, and bombs Syria. In otherwords, Fournier really still digs George W. Bush and can’t understand what went wrong.

  35. 35.

    MattF

    So… Fournier is a jackass. He should (IMO) find it a wee bit disturbing that everyone merely assumes this is true– but, after all, he’s a jackass.

  36. 36.

    Mike E

    @MattF: Wait…this is brilliant!

    Everyone: tweet/email this asshat with the message of “Good for you! Welcome to The Light.”

  37. 37.

    Jack the Second

    The problem with this sort of April Fool’s joke is that corrections are completely worthless.

    Some number of people are going to read this article and walk away thinking that Rob Fournier thinks Obama is pretty OK. And they’re never going to hear otherwise, and go on thinking it forever and ever.

    And that is goddamn hilarious.

  41. 41.

    Another Holocene Human

    @noabsolutes:

    I sure hope we look back on this era when Mount Rushmore has finally eroded down to something humorous-looking and ask ourselves WTF were we thinking

    The fuck we were thinking was white supremacy.

  42. 42.

    SFAW

    @JenJen:

    The first letter of each paragraph spells “April Fool.”

    Better that, than “On Wisconsin!”

    [Which is an EXTREMELY obscure Chem E reference.
    You had to be there.
    Actually, even if you were there, it wasn’t that good.]

    Be that as it may, Fournier is still a major-league asshole. Some of his commenters have shit for brains, too.

  43. 43.

    dubo

    Republicans—specifically, the stubborn extremists who control the House under the weak leadership of Speaker John Boehner. Gridlock, hyper-partisanship, and ineffective governance, those traits that make Washington so unpopular with voters, are singularly the fault of the GOP.

    I’m no fan of Obama, but it’s hilarious that when Fournier is trying to think up of the “wrongest” thing he can think of is the only time when he gets it exactly right.

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