Just go read it: Kiss me, deadly: If Vance McAllister had hired a hooker, he’d be talking about Benghazi today.
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by $8 blue check mistermix| 70 Comments
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Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
It’ll all be downhill from here.
pete
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: Eeyore!
danielx
Do Not Read While Drinking Coffee.
Iowa Old Lady
TBogg is distressing at the same time he’s funny because he’s so right on.
Message for people who live in tornado alley: Put shoes in your shelter. Last night, we went to a talk by a history prof from the local university who started taping interviews with people in Parkersburg IA a week after the tornado flattened it in 2008. Unexpected themes emerged, including numerous people saying they emerged from their basements to find glass and debris everywhere while they were barefoot.
Btw, this guy has never made a movie before and is putting these things together into a documentary. I admire his courage.
burnspbesq
Not TBogg’s best work. Trying too hard.
Speaking of trying too hard, this looks like a pretty good compendium of the things that are wrong with Sy Hersh’s latest attempt to shift blame for the Damascus gas attacks away from the Assad regime.
http://www.nucleardiner.com/archive/item/seymour-hersh-gets-it-all-wrong
Sloegin
She tasted good: like sin, Altoids, and an oyster po’ boy. Maybe shrimp, I wasn’t sure.
I lost it right there.
Cervantes
I saw that.
Tulane gave Newt Gingrich a degree — and will never live it down.
Tractarian
That actually sounds really good right about now.
Cassidy
Hooray nimby.
Villago Delenda Est
THIS.IS.BRILLIANT
WaterGirl
@burnspbesq: Trying too hard? I have to disagree, I think he was having a lot of fun!
Edit: I got to the thread too late, but I am very sorry about your loss.
burnspbesq
@Cassidy:
AQMD is involved, and there will be a remediation plan in place by June. The Irwindale City Council vote is a publicity stunt. What’s the line from “Blazing Saddles?” Oh, yeah: “Gentlemen, we gotta protect our phony-baloney jobs here. Harrumph, harrumph, harrumph.”
burnspbesq
@WaterGirl:
Much appreciated.
Cheryl Rofer
Hey, thanks for the good word, @burnspbesq!
I’ve commented here a few times, lurk more. If anyone wants a discussion of Hersh’s article, I’ll be glad to join in.
Paul in KY
@burnspbesq: Lighten up, Francis ;-)
Paul in KY
@WaterGirl: You know he was laughing himself silly while writing that.
Violet
I bet this really happened. Who cares if the boys are beating up hookers? It’s the hookers’ faults for being whores. Plus, they’re women.
The Dangerman
Found fixations on personal/marital failings during Clinton/Lewinsky distasteful; same thing here. Not many things I care less about currently than McCallister.
WaterGirl
@Paul in KY: Oh, yeah! That was probably so much fun that TBogg won’t want to go back to, you know, regular writing.
MomSense
Anyone else think of the “Guy Noir” soundtrack while reading it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2kIPdNJlFA
Howard Beale IV
BREAKING: Colbert to take Letterman’s spot.
Mandalay
Andrew “Look At Meee!” Sullivan explains his position on Eich to Stephen Colbert:
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/andrew-sullivan-blows-colberts-mind-with-defense-of-brendan-eich/
Sullivan whines that everyone went after Eich without giving him a chance to explain himself.
I suppose if you’re going to tell a lie you might as well make it a really big one.
kc
@Tractarian:
Ha, I thought the same thing . . .
SatanicPanic
@Tractarian: Did he make that one up? I kind of like the sound of that
Mnemosyne
@The Dangerman:
The difference with Clinton was that Bill Clinton never tried to hold himself up as a moral paragon — he freely admitted well before he was elected that he was a horndog who couldn’t keep his pants zipped.
IMO, when someone sets themselves up as a moral guardian and then is revealed as a hypocrite, that’s important. One of the ways the elite stays in power is by enforcing Do what I say, not what I do and pretending to be more upright than everyone else. See also segregationist Strom Thurmond’s secret black daughter — The races should stay separate, except when I need to get my rocks off!
The Dangerman
@Mnemosyne:
No, it’s not, but try to justify the fixation best you can.
NotMax
@Tractarian
Yecch. The whole of my being shudders at the description.
Anyone who adulterates semi-decent booze that way by mixing such a vile concoction, much less drinks the thing, is begging, nay pleading, for discommendation.
(Plus there is already a drink called Red Menace. And an ale.)
kindness
The militia folk of course were going to come to a boil during a black Democrats Presidency. That Fox is helping them is par for the course.
I won’t shed a tear when the militia & racists are jailed. Hopefully no one is killed but you know that isn’t what Roger Ailes wants. If a revolution ever comes I’m hoping the talking heads get it first and the money behind it all get it second. Sorry but I got sidetracked watching the Nevada cattle rancher who refused to pay BLM fees getting tasered with while out of state Militia help him with the Feds.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne: DING DING DING DING
That socialist Jesus guy really got pissed about hypocrisy. One of the reasons he went postal in the Temple.
Cervantes
@Cheryl Rofer:
You wrote:
Can you say more about this “word was”? My understanding is that when the LRB published the article, it had been vetted by the same fact-checker who has worked with Hersh at the New Yorker.
(I’ll refrain from criticizing the use of “word was” in a critique of someone else’s sourcing.)
Villago Delenda Est
@Cervantes: Well, it’s going against the narrative. One does not go against the narrative. There are consequences for going against the narrative.
Cassidy
@Mnemosyne: You’re still stuck on sex? Could you not get a little action last night?
mdblanche
@pete: Hey, you aren’t using the name of the Democratic Party’s mascot as an epithet, are you?
catclub
@kindness: “The militia folk of course were going to come to a boil during a black Democrats Presidency.”
In terms of Branch Davidians or OKC bombings, I would say that the boil so far is still in the unreported stage. Or far less than during the Clinton presidency.
What am I missing?
Paul in KY
@The Dangerman: It’s important to me.
StringOnAStick
And now this congressional hypocrite is asking the Duck Dynasty guy for PR help to get through this. You know, the same DD guy he had as his guest at the State of the Union address. Just layering on another coat of all-purpose winger religious protecto-varnish.
GxB
That was beautiful.
There’s the old Brother Bogg firing on all cylinders. Since his jump from the Halls of Firebag, I was a bit concerned as he hadn’t really rung the bell like he used to. I always thought there was a kind of bizarro synergy between his muse and the trolls back there – glad to see he’s still got it. BTW I read the whole thing in a Mitchum voice (how else could you) and it just rocked.
The Dangerman
@Villago Delenda Est:
Since you want to invoke The Man, how about “he who is without sin cast the first stone”.
Some on the Left seem to forget lessons that were learned, or should have been learned, early in grade school. The ends never justify the means (Snowden). Two wrongs (being a hypocrite, calling out the hypocrite for his failings) don’t make a right.
This really isn’t THAT hard.
Cheryl Rofer
@Cervantes: Fair enough. I was getting tired when I wrote that and didn’t want to check for links. Here’s one. And here’s another link that says that and also what you said.
I have a hard time believing that either article was fact-checked to New Yorker or WaPo standards. It took me a half-hour max of cutting and pasting to see that most of the article was from a single source. If you just read the piece, it’s hard to keep track of this anonymous source and that anonymous source, and the overall impression is that Hersh has an army of government leakers confirming his information. In fact, that cutting and pasting showed that four of his five sources supplied only one piece of information each.
That seems like elementary fact-checking to me, but the LRB may have a different view of that.
RSR
hahahaha
Mike in NC
The most awesome thing I’ll read all week.
NotMax
@StringOnAStick
Friend of mine here used to work at a gun store right in the area, and says he met and dealt with the Duck Dynasty people many times and that while they are stereotypical rednecks, their entire shtick for the program is created from whole cloth.
Cervantes
@Cheryl Rofer: Thanks. I’ll take a look at the links you’ve provided re sourcing and publication.
pete
@mdblanche: Vide Winnie the Pooh, passim.
Paul in KY
@GxB: I used my Humphrey Bogart voice, speaking sorta fast.
Origuy
Russia Today, the Kremlin propaganda TV channel, invited Michael Weiss, the editor-in-chief of the website The Interpreter on one of their discussion shows. His response:
Paul in KY
@The Dangerman: How is Mnemosyne, no paragon of virtue, being ‘hypocritical’ when she calls out some loudly braying fake-Christian whose been caught flouting the very views that he has used to get elected & demonize his opposition?
Another Holocene Human
@The Dangerman: He ran on “family values”. The woman he was kissing is married to a supporter who just told a Christian newspaper that he’s filing for divorce.
Family values, RWNJ style.
I don’t care about nookie. I care about hypocrisy.
These are EXACTLY THE SAME asshats trying to pass laws to discriminate, legally, against people like me. Expose them for what they really are.
Another Holocene Human
@The Dangerman: What you’re saying is that you never have to fear discrimination for being queer or for being in an unmarried heterosexual partnership and you don’t give a flip about people who are.
Why don’t you sod off for more temperate climes, like the Fox Nation comment sections?
Another Holocene Human
@catclub: I’d say the federal government taking that shit way more seriously since OKC?
Cervantes
@Cheryl Rofer: As for the content of Hersh’s recent LRB articles, I see the criticisms you offer on your blog — but if you want Hersh’s response, have you written to the editors of the LRB?
Another Holocene Human
@The Dangerman: Why don’t you explain to us why we’re all hypocrites for opposing a Christianist “family values” hate-o-muffin and trying to hasten his downfall? Or for using him as an object lesson on the true meaning of religious right “family values”?
Let me guess: not female
not non-gentile
not queer
not in an unmarried partnership
not poor
Basically not in one of the groups these guys stand around and plot how to piss on, scrape, and kick in the head.
So you’re a liberal only when YOUR balls are being licked, and you not only back off when someone else’s ox is being gored, you actually cheer the gorers on.
Fuck you.
pete
@The Dangerman: I don’t care about the individual sinner/hypocrite either, but the writing is hilarious. Just consider it as satire, not of a specific person but of an entire approach to the world.
Cheryl Rofer
@Cervantes: Another of Hersh’s critics wrote to the LRB on the last article. No response. Zero.
Cheryl Rofer
@Cervantes: There is something of a response from Hersh to critics here. There is no indication that Hersh understands the technical objections. He prefers ad-hominems.
The Dangerman
@Another Holocene Human:
So, by that reasoning, being…
…female…
…queer (don’t have a clue what Gentile has to do with anything)…
…being in an unmarried partnership…
…or poor (FWIW, I am probably poorest person, or near to it, on this board, but that’s a longer story than I care to share)…
…gives you special license to be a shit? I guess add THAT to the list of things one should have learned in grammar school.
Fuck you, too.
Cervantes
@Cheryl Rofer:
When? And is the letter available somewhere?
@Cheryl Rofer:
Not how I read the interview — but have you written somewhere about your interpretation of it?
Geeno
@The Dangerman: I strangely recall YOU being the first to give shit like you had a licence. So – FUCK YOU. If you can’t see the difference between hypocrites who make a hobby of passing judgement on others’ morality and people who make mistakes, there’s little that can be done to help you, and I frankly can’t be bothered to make the effort.
Bill Arnold
@burnspbesq:
Tx. A few of the links in that article were linked at armscontrolwonk.com (a good goto place for this sort of topic) but that’s a nice and much more thorough review. I hope he’s feeling embarrassed.
The Dangerman
@Geeno:
Huh? You didn’t read correctly; regarding the Rep, I don’t give a shit (see Clinton/Lewinsky comment).
Because the Rep was wrong (“passing judgement”) doesn’t give anyone the right to act wrongly in reply (see “two wrongs”).
Bill Arnold
@Cheryl Rofer:
Don’t know that he prefers them, but he didn’t actually address the technical content, which doesn’t magically go away without effort.
Thoughtful David
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yeah, that. If you read the gospels, Jesus pretty much never got pissed off at anyone (not the whores, the lepers, the women who had lost their husbands, or any other 1st-Century “others”) except at the hypocrites. Matthew has a lot on it.
Villago Delenda Est
@The Dangerman: There must be a fire somewhere near you that you can go die in.
Please do so at your earliest convenience.
Thank you.
Cheryl Rofer
@Cervantes:
It was within a week after Hersh’s first article in the LRB – I think that was December. The letter isn’t available – the person told me this in an e-mail exchange, and from what I know of him, he would have written a letter.
I probably won’t write up a response to the interview, but that was what I thought about the article before I wrote the piece that @burnspbesq so kindly linked. It’s an ongoing Twitter fight, and things can change. I suspect that Brown Moses and Dan Kaszeta might, though.
I see a couple of splits in how people see this. There’s a group that believes Hersh no matter what. There isn’t a similarly committed group on the other side of things, or at least I haven’t seen them. There’s a funny group of people who are totally anonymous and seem to back anything that absolves Assad of anything but kindness and good, so they’re happy with what Hersh says. Then there’s a group that finds what he says more or less plausible, although they don’t look at the technical side. And then there’s people like me, who have some experience with chemical warfare agents or munitions, and who find what he says absurd on those counts. And if he’s got that wrong, what else does he have wrong? Plus I can count and figure out that he’s relying on a single source.
Last year’s August 21 attack on Ghouta has technical aspects that are essential to making an argument as to who was responsible. The UN finds that the sarin in the samples they took are similar to the Syrian government’s sarin and have characteristics that would be improbable for “kitchen sarin.” Hersh doesn’t even mention the UN report – he’s got one sample, no chain of custody, from a Russian source and hinges his story on that.
Yeah, right.
Cheryl Rofer
@Bill Arnold: I assumed Hersh preferred the ad-hominems because that’s what he chose over addressing the technical aspects. But you are right – that may not be fully justified.
Cervantes
@Cheryl Rofer:
If the LRB has not published or responded in all this time, it’s a shame the writer has not yet chosen to make his letter public.
Re that interview, I appreciate your sharing your thoughts about it — thanks.
Re those “splits in how people see this,” you may be leaving out one group: those who happen to agree with Hersh on the merits.
Myself, I can’t comment at the moment — not that it matters — but I may do so at some point, via e-mail if that’s more convenient.
Thanks again.
Cheryl Rofer
@Cervantes: If there are merits to Hersh’s argument to agree on, I would be glad to see them.
And I’d be glad to hear from you by email, but I don’t want to put my address out here.
dopey-o
@The Dangerman: give me a break! patronizing sanctimonious wingnuts prattle on about godless hedonistic libruls who are perverting our childrens to the homey-sexyull agenda 51. and you’re okay with that?
sounds like the Roman Curia. excuuuuuse me. politics ain’t beanbag, some famous democrat said. tell me who it was and you win a prize.
Cervantes
@Cheryl Rofer: No need to reveal your address here.
Cervantes
@dopey-o:
Not sure whom you’re thinking of, precisely, but the phrase was coined by someone else.
In any event, if that’s your argument, then is there any tactic you would reject for being too low, or is everything justifiable because, as someone said, “politics ain’t beanbag”?