Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

This fight is for everything.

T R E 4 5 O N

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Everybody saw this coming.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Let there be snark.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

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Reader Interactions

145Comments

  4. 4.

    japa21

    I can’t believe I read an entire Brooks column without lose my temper. Just a little ticked at the end.

    Between Brooks and Krauthammer, sometimes I am still surprised.

  7. 7.

    lamh36

    John, like I said on twitter have you checked on DougJ yet. I’m sure he’s feeling faint from disbelief

  9. 9.

    Mnemosyne

    @japa21:

    As I said in the thread just below, I assume that what happened is that Frank Luntz got the poll results for how these attacks on Bergdahl are playing with ordinary people and screeched, “Oh, fuck! Retreat! Retreat, goddamnit!”

  11. 11.

    Wag

    @scav:

    Something is stirring beneath the surface .

    Interesting thought with multiple possible interpretations. Please expand…

  13. 13.

    skerry

    My daughter was on the campus of the latest campus shooting in Seattle. She is physically fine, but very emotionally upset. I am so fucking angry right now. Goddamn ammosexuals. How many do we have to sacrifice before something fucking gets done. A shooting at my local mall in Maryland earlier this year. A shooting at my alma mater, Purdue University, this year. It is too fucking close to home and happening way too much.

    I used to be pretty open about gun rights. Grew up with a hunter father. Grandparents had a farm in WV. Guns around. Married a hunter. But weapons were seen as tools. Not as fetishes. Old school NRA before the money took over. Locked up away from children. Not paraded around on city streets and in restaurants and the fucking Target store. Wacko in Lafayette, IN walking around with a rifle to protest loss of a driver’s license.

    I’m ready to say take them all away. Yes, I’m turning into a “gun-grabber”. Keep them stored at a range. Check them in/out for hunting with proper licensing and training. Keep them off my streets and away from my children.

    Bring back the “well-regulated” part of the 2nd amendment or get rid of it.

  14. 14.

    Emma

    On this note I’m going to bed and, for the first time on decades, say my prayers. Agreeing with Brooks is terrifying.

  15. 15.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    As I noted in the thread below, I would guess that only the 27% are buying into the idea that bringing back a POW is a bad thing. Brooks knows on which side his bread is puttered.

  16. 16.

    Jay C

    Yeah, it’s odd: in a 14-paragraph column, David Fucking Brooks managed to pretty much hit the right, bullshit-free note in 13 of them*. FWIW, I think President Obama probably was shocked at the disgusting outpouring of hate the Bergdahl swap engendered, but I’m not sure “tone-deaf” is quite the right term-of-opprobrium.

    *Para 12 is the clinker (third from the end)

  19. 19.

    Mandalay

    So President Obama made the right call. If he is to be faulted, it would be first for turning the release into an Oprah-esque photo-op, a political stunt filled with inaccurate rhetoric and unworthy grandstanding.

    I don’t know what what “inaccurate rhetoric” Brooks is referring to, but he is correct about the “unworthy grandstanding”, and the President’s physical closeness to Bergdahl’s mother did not seem at all appropriate.

  20. 20.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Mandalay:

    and the President’s physical closeness to Bergdahl’s mother did not seem at all appropriate.

    What in the name of god are you talking about?

  21. 21.

    lamh36

    @Jay C: it’s a wonder to get through a Brooks column without wanting to cuss out his mother from the beginning. The fact that you can make it almost to the end before cussing out his mother is THE SIGN OF THE UPCOMING APOCALYPSE.

    Maybe I need to say a prayer before I go to sleep, haven’t done that in a long time.

  22. 22.

    TS

    @Mandalay:

    The government brings home her son & a mother is not allowed to hug the President in thanks – Perhaps you live in a world where political leaders must forget they are caring human beings.

  24. 24.

    TS

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):

    Thank you – I thought I was on another planet when I read that – lets turn the most family oriented President since forever into someone who is inappropriately close to a POW’s mother – they will come up with ANYTHING because black President.

  26. 26.

    BruceFromOhio

    @skerry:

    Keep them stored at a range. Check them in/out for hunting with proper licensing and training. Keep them off my streets and away from my children.

    Bring back the “well-regulated” part of the 2nd amendment or get rid of it.

    Driving it like I stole it, because I’m stealing it now.

  27. 27.

    Mandalay

    @TS:

    The government brings home her son & a mother is not allowed to hug the President in thanks – Perhaps you live in a world where political leaders must forget they are caring human beings.

    Oh fuck off. I said it was inappropriate because I thought it was inappropriate. I didn’t say anything about political leaders having to forget they are caring human beings. Asshole.

  28. 28.

    Baud

    Heh. I just finished watching Blazing Saddles on Sundance channel. Maybe Obama can star in the remake after his term is up.

  29. 29.

    scav

    @Wag: back of the neck thing. I’m somehow don’t think it’s just polling†, maybe information leaking out through back high-end channels, background pushback from enough high-end brass, don’t know . . . some bridge too far . . † because they generally see those polled as background hoi, whereas comments from those at the right tables.

  30. 30.

    jl

    Yeah, OK. Good column from Brooks. Thanks, Brooks.

    I think his criticism at the end of the PR aspect of Obama’s announcement is arguable, though I disagree with it. The second criticism was gratuitous and not reasonable and not very arguable. But, maybe there is strict requirement for a minimum number of digs at Obama in one column.

    ” the principle of all-for-one-and-one-for-all, which is the basis of citizenship. ”
    Is Brooks a commie now?

  31. 31.

    TS

    @Mandalay:

    Oh fuck off. I said it was inappropriate because I thought it was inappropriate. I didn’t say anything about political leaders having to forget they are caring human beings. Asshole.

    Pot and kettle come to mind – it was THE most appropriate event in 10 years of god damned war

  33. 33.

    Arclite

    @skerry: I hear ya. Countries with very strict gun laws like Japan (half our population) might have 4 gun-related homicides a year, compared to our 12,000. The founders intended private citizens to keep guns in the context of a militia, what we have now was not the intention as I understand it (despite the court cases to the contrary). And certainly the founders could never imagine weapons like the incredibly powerful (by their standards) TEC-9 or AR-15 could be owned by private citizens.

    The thing is, if we couldn’t even get background checks passed after Sandy Hook, the pure stark horror of Sandy Hook, I really don’t see how we can get any change ever.

  34. 34.

    BruceFromOhio

    @Mandalay: I thought you were snarking.
    Ooops, wrong, you were doing something else. Have fun with that.

    @Arclite: When gun lobbyists begin shooting Republican legislators there will be change.
    Until then, not so much.

  37. 37.

    Mnemosyne

    @Mandalay:

    What was inappropriate about the president’s behavior? Be specific.

    ETA: As you may have noticed, saying that you think a black man was “inappropriately” physical with a white woman is going to set off a whole lot of people’s alarm bells.

  39. 39.

    Hill Dweller

    Not only did Obama know the wingnuts would go apeshit, I suspect he was counting on it. I also suspect he knew the Village would do their part to fan this “controversy” like their lives depended on it.

    Over/under on the number of days before Obama gives a big speech hammering everyone for their shameful behavior? 7?

  40. 40.

    Arclite

    @Baud:

    Heh. I just finished watching Blazing Saddles on Sundance channel. Maybe Obama can star in the remake after his term is up.

    The man does have some pretty good comical timing. Definitely a Saturday Night Live gig.

  42. 42.

    GregB

    Fox News has stooped to running some psy-ops propaganda produced by Duane Clarridge who helped mine Nicaraguan harbors and was indicted but pardoned for Iran/Contra scumbaggery.

    They are calling Bergdahls actions while in POW status into question. They admit that he tried to escape and was tortured but later seemed to sympathize with the Taliban. Probably so they would not fucking torture him.

    I hope to God this fucking story burns these ratfucking Nazis. Then I hope Bergdahl knocks out one of Ted Cruz’s front teeth.

  43. 43.

    lukeallen1

    Can always count on wr0ng way Cole to go the wrong way. David Brooks is mostly an idiot.

    Other than that, broken clocks are sometimes right and all that.

  44. 44.

    Ash Can

    @Mnemosyne: Actually, according to teh twitterz, Frank Luntz was against the demonization of Bergdahl from the outset. Like Cole says, the end of days…

  46. 46.

    J.D. Rhoades

    we do accept the election results, even when the other party wins. People in New York do uncomplainingly send tax dollars to help people in New Mexico. We are able to assimilate waves of immigration.

    Has Brooks taken a look around his own party lately?

  47. 47.

    Kay

    @Mandalay:

    I think if you look at his body language with parents in the (too many) shooting incidents he has dealt with you’ll see it’s very much like what he did with the soldier’s mother and father.

    I think he comes to these things as a parent. Look at the clips of the Arizona shootings or the Newtown shootings, the parents of the victims and the president and then compare to the soldier’s mother and father.

  48. 48.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Baud:

    Biden could play the Waco Kid

    Perfect.

    Bart: Are we awake?

    Jim: We’re not sure. Are we… black?

    Bart: Yes, we are.

    Jim: Then we’re awake… but we’re very puzzled.

  52. 52.

    Suffern ACE

    @GregB: ok. There is nothing in the scum that rises up whenever this stuff happens that gives me any confidence that the republican “security” expert pool isn’t filled with poison.

  53. 53.

    SatanicPanic

    It doesn’t matter if Bergdahl had deserted his post or not. It doesn’t matter if he is a confused young man who said insulting and shameful things about his country and his Army. The debt we owe to fellow Americans is not based on individual merit. It is based on citizenship, and loyalty to the national community we all share.

    Damn, this is pretty solid.

  54. 54.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @GregB:

    Then I hope Bergdahl knocks out one of Ted Cruz’s front teeth.

    Just one?

  56. 56.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kay:

    I think a lot of people on both sides have bought into the Obama is cold and aloof meme, so they’re surprised when they see him hugging people. In actuality, he’s a fairly physical guy. Here’s a random example from the White House Flickr feed.

  62. 62.

    jl

    @J.D. Rhoades:

    ” Has Brooks taken a look around his own party lately? ”

    While I admit Brooks wrote a good column, Brooks is still Brooks. He is careful not to offend the GOP too much. Notice that he chose New Mexico as the example of a state with a net inflow. Mississippi, South Carolina and West Virginia get more per dollar of federal tax paid.

    Is Your State a Net Giver or Taker of Federal Taxes.
    http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/02/is-your-state-a-net-giver-or-taker-of-federal-taxes/

    Edit: So, yeah, I am cynical enough about Brooks to wonder why he chose New Mexico as a taker state when I remembered several got a better deal. didn’t remember whether all of them were red states in the South.

    And I notice that New York is almost at parity. Maybe Brooks used other stats or another year.

  66. 66.

    Ash Can

    @SiubhanDuinne: Not sure if you’re still around, but I finally got around to reading your earlier reply re Canadian studies in an earlier thread, Thanks for the reply! And…nothing about the Canadian studies program at Johns Hopkins SAIS?

  67. 67.

    Suffern ACE

    Ok. Are we sure this column was penned by Brooks? I’m suspicious. It was clear. All of the sentences were related to the topic. Something is not right.

  68. 68.

    Kris Collins

    @Mandalay: After your idiotic remark, you have the gall to call TS an asshole because TS disagreed with you? Without calling you any names, I might point out.

  70. 70.

    sylvainsylvain

    Of course, BoBo has to get his digs in at the end, talking about how tone-deaf Obama was about the “reaction” to Bergdahl’s release-as if the flying monkey brigade hasn’t been waiting for this since at least Jan. 14, if not before. Didn’t they give Congress 30 days notice already, & someone leaked it? You honestly think they didn’t all have their ActionPlan all ready to go?

    Then BoBo criticizes Obama for not appealing to ‘communal solidarity’. I’m not even gonna attempt to fathom what the teahadis would make of that. But seriously, if Obama doesn’t see the problem the same way Brooks does, then Obama’s wrong? Really? I mean, I’m not surprised, but still…

  71. 71.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Kris Collins: It’s okay. Mandalay is probably just drunk posting and will return to being merely silly and pedantic in the morning.

  74. 74.

    Kay

    @Mnemosyne:

    Well, whatever else you think about him I think “parent” is central to his identity. It doesn’t surprise me at all that he comes to them from that. I noticed it first in the Arizona shootings, where the congresswoman was shot and the little girl was killed, at the memorial where everyone freaked out because of the Native American invocation and the whole rest of the thing got lost. His focus on her parents was really intense, and they responded to it. It felt different than the rest of the ceremony.

  75. 75.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kay:

    I agree with you. I think it’s also why he felt compelled to speak up about Trayvon Martin even though he knew it was going to blow up.

  76. 76.

    Eric U.

    @skerry: I am now a gun grabber. Screw it, if they want to fondle their guns, make them leave them at a gun club

  77. 77.

    SarahT

    @Baud: I would pay my last dollar to see that. “Excuse me while I whip this out” – holds up the original signed copy of the ACA… act…

  78. 78.

    Kay

    @sylvainsylvain:

    “Of course, BoBo has to get his digs in at the end, talking about how tone-deaf Obama was about the “reaction” to Bergdahl’s release”

    It’s a cycle. They freak out initially, then they spend a day claiming it’s “substantive” and there are “questions” and then they sober up a little and go to “tone” or “handled the politics poorly”.

    You know, because it’s never them. It’s not at all that they have a nervous breakdown once a month. If he would just HANDLE this TONE thing better they wouldn’t have to get really drunk and break all the furniture and then blame someone else.

  80. 80.

    Cain

    @skerry:
    Didn’t hear about the wacko in Lafayette, IN (my hometown). The gun scare was scary as my dad was teaching in the ChemE building and everything went into lockdown.

    Crazy stuff, and I’m really sorry that your daughter was at the latest shooting. I think if enoguh of this happens it will affect the up and coming generation and they might be able to do something.. we’re saddled with these folks from my generation and the “greatest generation”. Fuckers.

  84. 84.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @SarahT: Why don’t we just let the kid come home and get reacquainted with the First World?

  85. 85.

    scav

    @Kay: and @Mnemosyne: not unexpectedly, he can certainly meet and respond to people at the level and frequency and mode they are at themselves at that moment. People, in the immediate vicinity people, not cameras. Makes me think of Joe’s Biker-chick photos.

  86. 86.

    GregB

    By the way. Are the NRA conventions open carry?

    If not, perhaps it is time we demand that Wayne LaPierre institute open carry at all NRA conventions or they get boycotted.

  87. 87.

    Jay C

    @sylvainsylvain:

    Anyway, after reading this article about how some Senators couldn’t even be bothered to stay for a White House briefing on the Bergdahl affair (Saxby Chambliss ran off to go on Fox News while the briefing was still going on!) – I’m more convinced than ever that President Obama did the right thing in not waiting the 30 days to “notify” Congress over the Gitmo swap: with this set of partisan assclowns, the upshot would probably have been the same idiot flap: except that Bowe Bergdahl would be coming home in several pieces, not alive. For which, of course, President Obama would be loudly blamed….

  89. 89.

    Kay

    @scav:

    That’s true. Isn’t it weird how photographs are actually not all that good for seeing what happened? Have you ever looked at one where you think “I was there and it wasn’t like that at all“.

  91. 91.

    skerry

    @Cain: Lafayette nut job

    Claims someone hit him with a car today while he was walking down the middle of 26 (4 lane highway for the non-Hoosiers). But he’s still walking.

    What I don’t get is that the police say he is legal as long as he “doesn’t threaten” anyone. How is walking city streets with a rifle on your chest not threatening?

  93. 93.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @SarahT: Sure, I would. But I don’t think this guy is the one who should be asked to do it. Let him be.

  94. 94.

    Mnemosyne

    @skerry:

    The top two headlines next to that story:

    Man shot, killed on Indianapolis’ south side

    4 shot on Seattle university campus

    Nope, no idea why people would find a guy wandering the streets with a rifle to be threatening.

  95. 95.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @skerry: Probably because the legal definition involves pointing the weapon at someone.

  96. 96.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Sorry, BoBo, but the GOP hasn’t accepted, really, the election results of 1992, 1996, 2008, or 2012. Especially the latter two, the manifestation of which we are seeing right now.

    Republicans are pigs that should be turned into bacon.

  99. 99.

    TS

    @Jay C:

    I’m more convinced than ever that President Obama did the right thing in not waiting the 30 days to “notify” Congress over the Gitmo swap

    And I’m completely convinced they only passed this law so they could react against anything and everything this President does/tries to do in relation to Gitmo.

  100. 100.

    TaMara (BHF)

    @Mnemosyne: FSM, I hope you’re right. I missed the national news tonight, but the local news mostly ignored the whole thing.

    Still pissed, huge damage done, can’t believe his town is cancelling his homecoming.

  102. 102.

    Mnemosyne

    @TaMara (BHF):

    From the press release, it sounded like they were hoping to postpone it until things settle down. Apparently the town’s politicians were getting death threats phoned to their offices, homes, and businesses and they were afraid there would be violence.

  104. 104.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Mnemosyne: The town has not turned against Bergdahl; they just don’t want fucktards to mess up everything. It isn’t unreasonable at all.

  105. 105.

    TS

    @Mnemosyne: Pierce, as usual, gives the story
    http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/laboratories-of-democracy-060514

    “That’s where we’re at, having ceded an important place in our national dialogue to angry morons, whether they served or not. Hailey, Idaho can’t have a party because Gary Fcking Pringle of Lubbock Fcking is annoyed by it. All towns in America must clear their local celebrations with Gary Fcking Pringle out behind the rusting propane tanks because only Gary Fcking Pringle has the final word. The final arbiter about what your town does to honor one of its own is some redneck yahoo 15 states over. This country is completely out of its mind. It needs to be sedated and confined to a secure facility.”

  106. 106.

    mclaren

    Someone can manipulate the Hellraiser cube now and return the entity that temporarily took over David Brooks’ body to the Hellverse…

  108. 108.

    TerryC

    How about “Let’s roll.” When we see someone with a weapon, effing mob him instantly. No hesitation. Surround him. Tack a Mariachi band on his tail to follow him around.

  110. 110.

    Ash Can

    @TaMara (BHF):
    @Mnemosyne:

    I’m sure they’ll still have a celebration. They just won’t publicize it. They’ll limit it to people they know, and spread it by word of mouth. To people they know they can trust. And they’ll hold it out of sight, maybe in some church or VFW hall basement. And they’ll be on the lookout for dangerous party crashers. Just like other persecuted folks did in war times.

  115. 115.

    nellcote

    @GregB:

    By the way. Are the NRA conventions open carry?

    No and neither is the NRA headquarters. We need to get people with video cameras and guns to go to both places.

  116. 116.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Suffern ACE: The bottom line is that since the near sheriff made the call on the swap, the swap must be attacked from every angle possible…Bergdahl must be a deserter and traitor, the five Taliban exchanged for him are Dr. Doom, Magneto, Lex Luthor, The Joker, and the funny accent Arnold Schwartznegger Mr. Freeze, or perhaps the Otto Preminger Mr. Freeze, we haven’t quite decided yet (we’re also unsure if it was Jack Nicholsen or Heath Ledger or Caesar Romero), and oh he didn’t give us the required 30 days notice so we can leak it early to Faux Noise and fuck up the whole thing.

  117. 117.

    Thomas

    @Mnemosyne: was visiting my mom this weekend in Wisconsin, a very smart, well read woman. She kept saying how aloof and condescending Obama is, and its no wonder we have such bad relations with other countries.
    I just wanted to say, were you even conscious from 2000-2008??

  118. 118.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Thomas: Watching BookTV last weekend, I caught the tail end of a talk by Christopher Buckley, who said he didn’t exactly regret endorsing/voting for Obama in ’08 (and he pointed out the oddity of being fired as a writer for National Review while he sat on the board), but he was disappointed that Obama was “aloof”– I thought, your name is Buckley, right?– and didn’t have one friend among world leaders. Buckley Jr is, from the little bit I saw, infatuated with George HW Bush. Which might tell you something about the political value of old school manners and personal thank you notes as a measure of a presidency.

    Also, here’s something you might want to send your mom, or not, in re our bad relations with other countries. Whenever I hear a winger citing “foreign leaders” who disapprove of Obama, I just wish they’d name Bibi, Blair, or that small handful of more-Catholic-then-the-Pope (especially now) right wing neo-cons in Poland.

  119. 119.

    piratedan

    @Thomas: just shows how pervasive the media narrative is… sure Obama is aloof and condescending.. to the press, who rarely ask any questions that are relevant or that aren’t ensconced inside a Republican talking point.

  120. 120.

    ruemara

    @Thomas: feel free to show your mother the white house Flickr feed or theobamadiary.com where extensive picture of positively adoring fellow world leaders act like they’re heading out to prom with the senior all star quarterback and they’re the vaguely pretty freshman from band and chess club.

  121. 121.

    elaine benis

    @skerry: I’m so sorry.

    A couple of years ago, my HS-aged daughter was working at a local mall here in the Seattle area when a gun-battle erupted right in front of her store. She called me, huddled in the store’s electrical closet. Terrifying. When the cops finally escorted her and her coworkers out, they had walk around a body laying in a pool of blood. No children should be exposed to this kind of horror.

    Maybe once every.single.family in the entire country has been personally touched by gun violence will we finally do something about it. Or not.

  122. 122.

    JustRuss

    Nice try Cole, but I am NOT clicking on a David Brooks link. As somebody once said, “Fool me once, shame on…” how does that go again?

  123. 123.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @skerry:

    Bring back the “well-regulated” part of the 2nd amendment or get rid of it.

    Agreed.

    My favorite uncle as a kid was a life member of the NRA. He even had a working “3 pounder” cannon in the 1980s that he would take to artillery ranges and fire occasionally. My father recently told me about being a kid in Colorado and going out in the mountains with his dad and firing a Nazi machine gun that he brought back from the war.

    Times were different in the 1780s, they were different in the 1940s, and they’re different now. Language written to protect the rural population when there was no standing army (and there was fear of what a standing army could do) is not appropriate for a modern society where 250M or so live in or near urban areas.

    I don’t know what the turning point will be, but I think the change will happen fairly rapidly once the threshold is crossed. Here’s hoping that that threshold doesn’t involve even more death and terror.

    :-(

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (Who wonders why people don’t get riled up about the 3rd Amendment, also too.)

  124. 124.

    DissidentFish

    @jl: The “Net Taker” states are net takers because of the government programs that the left should support the most: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, ACA, AFDC. Along with, in some cases, large military presence.

    The “taker” states are old and poor. People on the left should stop complaining and work to find new ways to help them develop economies that will make their citizens’ lives better. Ways that are not polluting, extractive industries like mining, logging, fracking etc.

  125. 125.

    Sherparick

    The gratuitous slaps at how the President handled this (also echoed by another concerned troll, David Gergen) does overlook that Faux News Nation and its collective freakout the last week was driven primarily by “Obama Derangement Syndrome” where anything the President does must be treated as the “worse mistake ever.”

    As a side note, the VSP media apparently Village shares with the Tea Party and hatred for the President, and since this is the second Democratic President they have so loathed, there must be an ideological aspect to it. Ron Fournier, Fred Hiatt, Maureen Dowd, Jack Tapper, Jim Vandehei, Mark Halperin, etc. all seem to find President Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi contemptible, while pinning for the days of C+ Augustus and Tom Delay, although when pushed they admit that the Iraq War did not go as well as it could have. The way the MSM has treated this story, not just Fox, has created an hysteria of “hate” around Bergdahl which is how you get a lynching.

  127. 127.

    D58826

    @Villago Delenda Est: There was an article on CNN, I think by a guy who studies the Afghan situation. He said first of all terrorist is a rather fluid term in Afghan society as is loyalty. Three of the five guys were detained as they tried to cut deals with the Karzai government. I have read elsewhere that some of the Taliban wanted to be part of the new Afghanistan but the neocons would have none of it. A terrorist is a terrorist (unless he is on our payroll) and the approaches were shutdown. One wonders what would have happened if the remnants of the Taliban had been re-integrated into Afghan society in 2002-2003. Some were diehards and would never have surrendered but that might have been a more manageable group.

  130. 130.

    Paul in KY

    @Kay: They are throwing shit against the wall to see if any of it ‘sticks’ with the public at large.

  131. 131.

    Paul in KY

    @skerry: That idiot is lucky he hasn’t been really run over to point of death. My car can be a weapon to save my life, if I think you are ready to use deadly force on me.

    No jury would convict me, as I would genuinely ‘fear for my life’.

  132. 132.

    leeleeFL

    @D58826: and what if we hadn’t disbanded the Iraqi army? Or if Bush /Cheney had listened to Clinton at the hand-off? Or if we had gotten to Bin Laden earlier?

  133. 133.

    Bill Arnold

    @Hill Dweller:

    Not only did Obama know the wingnuts would go apeshit, I suspect he was counting on it. I also suspect he knew the Village would do their part to fan this “controversy” like their lives depended on it.

    Yeah, it did look like trolling. Was it intentional though?

  137. 137.

    D58826

    @leeleeFL: Or hadn’t invaded Iraq? Agreed. Funny how all roads lead back to Bush/Chaney and the neocons. Obama should have rounded up the whole gang and gave them to The Taliban. Unfortunately I suspect the Taliban are smart enough not to want that band of losers

  138. 138.

    Mnemosyne

    @DissidentFish:

    I don’t really mind helping the “taker states,” I just wish they wouldn’t take my money and then tell me to my face that they’re rugged individualists who don’t take help from nobody, unlike me in my corrupt liberal enclave.

  139. 139.

    Matt McIrvin

    @DissidentFish: Yeah, I’ve always been uncomfortable with that “taker states” chortling from blue-state liberals. The situation is less ironic than it seems to be: while rich people skew Republican, rich states skew Democratic, and a lot of the federal taking in “taker states” is happening because the oligarchies in these poor states are screwing over the dirt-poor people there.

    It’s of a piece with Northeastern and Californian liberals just wanting to let the old Confederacy secede, and write off all the local victims of local political awfulness. Sometimes there’s a vague misconception that all the black people in the South got out ages ago.

  140. 140.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Mnemosyne: The people getting the assistance aren’t necessarily the ones playing rugged individualist.

    Sometimes they are the same people, and I think that’s more age-related. The older you are, the more likely you are to be receiving some sort of government assistance that you figure you earned over a long life of toil when you were more able-bodied, unlike some nebulous others who are trying to steal a piece of your pie.

  141. 141.

    artem1s

    So President Obama made the right call. If he is to be faulted, it would be first for turning the release into an Oprah-esque photo-op, a political stunt filled with inaccurate rhetoric and unworthy grandstanding. It would next be for his administration’s astonishing tone-deafness about how this swap would be received.

    so the guy carrying water for the GOP thinks he gets to advise this President on optics?

    Dear Mr. Brooks, I advise you to ask Reince Priebus how the rebranding is going.

    /FFS

  142. 142.

    Matt McIrvin

    The President persists in existing and being President, without recognizing how this would obviously be received by friends of David Brooks.

  144. 144.

    Howlin Wolfe

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Um, no one is “asking” him to do anything except in this land of make believe (not that there’s anything wrong with THIS land of make believe – I come here everyday!).
    Or is there a new CREDO petition out there I didn’t get in my inbox?

  145. 145.

    DissidentFish

    @Mnemosyne: I see your point. If you think those folks are a bummer to relate to remotely, try living among them :)

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