• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We will not go back.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

The revolution will be supervised.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

He really is that stupid.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

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

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Mobile Menu

  • Seattle Meet-up Post
  • 2025 Activism
  • Targeted Political Fundraising
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • COVID-19
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2025 Activism
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Giving the dumbass his due

Giving the dumbass his due

by Tim F|  February 11, 20156:44 am| 49 Comments

This post is in: Blogospheric Navel-Gazing

FacebookTweetEmail

Regarding Obama and the crusades, the check engine light comes on early in Dreher’s latest column at AmCon.

If you wait long enough, Ross Douthat will write what needs to be written, and do it better than you ever could.

Oy. As you might expect Ross Douthat thinks the Crusades got a bad rap. And he is right, in the limited sense that no complex system ever exists to do pure evil. Guess who instituted the first anti-tobacco campaign backed by solid public health epidemiology. Here’s a hint: he loved dogs. You can count on Douthat to side with reflexive manicheans who have a Rain Man episode at the faintest hint of moral complexity. These folks snap to offense much too fast to grasp that Obama was clearly speaking about the Crusades as understood by Muslims. He wants Christians to remember their history but he also wants to tell Muslims on the fence ‘I hear you, but…”, with the fundamental point being that anyone can behave that way but here in the civlized world choose not to (let’s keep the obvious rejoinder stashed away in a black site for now). As one would expect from a law professor Obama uses this construction quite often.

On the other hand I think Dreher grasps the point just fine. After giving Douthat his due (and more tongue than necessary) he pivots to a slightly different perspective – quoting Bill Moyers on southern lynchings, in an essay Moyers re-posted at Daily Kos – to make the exact opposite point from Douthat. This comment from Dreher seemed rather arch for a guy ostensibly agreeing with Douthat.

In the EJI report is a photo of a 1919 clipping from a Jackson, Miss., newspaper reporting on a planned lynching in Ellisville, one that the Mississippi governor absurdly claimed he was powerless to stop. The paper reported that the Rev. L.G. Gates, a Baptist pastor from Laurel, Miss., was headed to Ellisville “to entreat the mob to use discretion.”

Oh, for the days when leading Christian pastors entreated lynch mobs not to stop in the name of God, but instead, to use discretion.

I could probably persuade you that Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote that. It does not leave much wiggle room for people like Ross who want to quibble with Obama’s narrative. Not that I agree with everything he says, or his comment policies, but Dreher has a subtle mind. Certainly subtler by some margin than cardinal Douthat and AmCon lets him speak it without getting excommunicated.

One is given to understand that the column uses same argument structure that Obama used, likely to get through to Douthat and his fans without evoking the lizard brain defense reflex that Obama did. I hope it works, even if my cardiologist shoots me a worried glance any time someone writes “…as always Megan McArdle said it best…”, or similar.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Late Night Open Thread: What Do the Simple Villagers Think?…
Next Post: This Street Holds Its Secrets »

Reader Interactions

49Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    February 11, 2015 at 6:56 am

    Huh?

  2. 2.

    Zinsky

    February 11, 2015 at 6:56 am

    I think it is a decent column from a conservative propaganda machine. Kudos to Dreher.

  3. 3.

    WereBear

    February 11, 2015 at 6:58 am

    Ross Douthat is the peak of their intellectual communication?

    Ladies and gentlemen, I rest my case.

  4. 4.

    EconWatcher

    February 11, 2015 at 6:59 am

    With all respect, your last paragraph needs some work. Not clear who “the guy” is in the second sentence; if it’s Dreher, then the reference to Dreher in the next (third) sentence doesn’t make sense.

    ETA: Your “On the other hand” paragraph needs some work too.

    Or, as Baud more succinctly put it: “Huh?”

  5. 5.

    Betty Cracker

    February 11, 2015 at 7:03 am

    @Zinsky: Seconded. I wouldn’t have thought Dreher capable of that. I was wrong.

  6. 6.

    Schlemazel

    February 11, 2015 at 7:05 am

    I stopped caring days ago. This is another tempest in a urinal pot that will disapear with Obama’s next Katrina. Time to move on and prepare fot 2016

  7. 7.

    Betty Cracker

    February 11, 2015 at 7:05 am

    Baud & EconWatcher: Shorter: Dreher is right, for once!

  8. 8.

    Tim F.

    February 11, 2015 at 7:06 am

    @EconWatcher: Awright, fine, I proofread it. Should make more sense now. It’s early and the dog was crying to get out.

  9. 9.

    ThresherK

    February 11, 2015 at 7:13 am

    Interview today. Wish me luck.

    (I’m such an introvert I’m not sure I’m comfortable telling supportive strangers on the internet about this. If you’re thinking, “He must mind meld with technology”, you’re right.)

  10. 10.

    Betty Cracker

    February 11, 2015 at 7:16 am

    @ThresherK: Best of luck!

  11. 11.

    Southern Beale

    February 11, 2015 at 7:17 am

    If you wait long enough …. 50 monkeys with typewriters will give you a Shakespeare sonnet.

  12. 12.

    Iowa Old Lady

    February 11, 2015 at 7:17 am

    By now you’ve probably all seen the news about the shootings of 3 Muslim students at Chapel Hill:

    http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/11/us/chapel-hill-shooting/index.html

    I’m reading that as I listen to Chris Hayes from last night talking about crap like whether Obama lied about opposing gay marriage. God, who cares.

  13. 13.

    Morzer

    February 11, 2015 at 7:21 am

    Dreher has a subtle mind

    So did Saruman, allegedly.

  14. 14.

    EconWatcher

    February 11, 2015 at 7:25 am

    @Tim F.:

    No disrespect intended! I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.

  15. 15.

    OzarkHillbilly

    February 11, 2015 at 7:27 am

    @Betty Cracker: Stopped clocks and all that.

  16. 16.

    Professor

    February 11, 2015 at 7:28 am

    But, but somebody killed Dr Tiller (the Baby Killer) in the name of the Christian ‘God’. Moreover, somebody went to a Sikh Temple and killed all those Sikhs at prayers in the name of the Christian ‘God’.

  17. 17.

    Morzer

    February 11, 2015 at 7:29 am

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    To make matters even more joyous, the killer claims to be an atheist, which will no doubt inspire the usual right wing crazies to foam at the mouth about the need for Christian values.

  18. 18.

    Tim F.

    February 11, 2015 at 7:29 am

    @EconWatcher: honestly, I always arreciate helpful criticism. When I’m bleary even good ideas can come out sideways.

  19. 19.

    brantl

    February 11, 2015 at 7:34 am

    After giving Douthat his due….

    His due is a turd in his solipsistic punch bowl. If there is a bigger liar in the conservative clown commenter corral than Douthat, I have not had the misfortune to meet him. Douthat is constantly full of shit. I suspect he lies in his sleep, just to stay in practice.

  20. 20.

    Morzer

    February 11, 2015 at 7:41 am

    What Douthat loves is the romance of the crusades, rather than the sordid reality of men out of their minds on anger, fear, cheap wine and, in a good number of cases, the chance to loot, rape and pillage. When the First Crusade took Jerusalem, they butchered just about every one in the city, including a large number of Jews and Christians of various non-Catholic persuasions. When the Fourth Crusade took Constantinople, they butchered and raped a vast number of Orthodox Christians (as well as Jews, Muslim merchants…). There’s a certain consistency to the Crusades and it’s hardly admirable. As for the Crusader kingdoms, they spent much of their time quarreling with each other, breaking peace treaties on the plea that oaths sworn to infidels didn’t count and generally abusing the indigenous (still largely Christian) population in any way that they could get away with. Meat-heads with swords would probably be an over-generous assessment.

  21. 21.

    Elizabelle

    February 11, 2015 at 7:48 am

    @brantl: I liked the crabs in last night’s toilets (B Cracker thread) more than Douthat.

    Will not read him or Brooks. Sophists and fabulists, both.

  22. 22.

    Chet

    February 11, 2015 at 7:51 am

    @Morzer:

    What Douthat loves is the romance of the crusades, rather than the sordid reality

    Another glorious Lost Cause.

  23. 23.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 11, 2015 at 7:54 am

    Dreher has a subtle mind

    Well, subtle in pretty much the same sense as Vizzini in The Princess Bride, in that he uses the phrase “religious liberty” in the same way Vizzini used “inconceivable”.

  24. 24.

    ThresherK

    February 11, 2015 at 7:57 am

    @Morzer: Romance of battle? Douthat needs a good shot of Thomas Cole.

  25. 25.

    Joey Maloney

    February 11, 2015 at 8:02 am

    If you wait long enough, Ross Douthat will write what needs to be written, and do it better than you ever could.

    I’m sorry, I have a lot to get done before the heat death of the universe.

  26. 26.

    debbie

    February 11, 2015 at 8:06 am

    @Morzer:

    Perhaps they butchered to the beat of a lovely madrigal, as in this scene:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-zRtT5jPLA

    Plenty of romance to be had there.

  27. 27.

    D58826

    February 11, 2015 at 8:17 am

    OT but this from the Daily Beast. On huffington as well. Lets see how much play it gets esp. from Faux news

    Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder after he shot and killed three Muslim students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on Tuesday night. All three victims were shot in the head. Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, of Chapel Hill; Yusor Mohammad, 21, of Chapel Hill; and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, of Raleigh, were pronounced dead at the scene. Hicks reportedly identified as an atheist, and a page believed to be from his Facebook has a post that reads, “When it comes to insults, your religion started this, not me. If your religion kept its big mouth shut, so would I.”

    Terrorism anyone?

  28. 28.

    danielx

    February 11, 2015 at 8:19 am

    If you wait long enough, Ross Douthat will write what needs to be written, and do it better than you ever could.

    Could we have, like, an ETA on that?

    It’s not an either-or. All human beings are capable of horrible savagery, given the right circumstances. Even people who look like you and me. This is important to know, and never to lose sight of. — RD

    Golf clap.

    Dreher shows at least a modicum of intellectual honesty and consistency, which is considerably more than I’ve grown to expect from your average conservative talking head.

    Edit: not that showing more honesty and consistency than Eric Bolling requires a great deal of intellectual heavy lifting.

  29. 29.

    Summer

    February 11, 2015 at 8:20 am

    @Iowa Old Lady: The university alert system sent out the names at 3 a.m. Such terrible and shocking news.

  30. 30.

    Morzer

    February 11, 2015 at 8:21 am

    @danielx:

    Give Dreher 5 minutes and he’ll be remixing the old “Christians are the real victims of gay bigotry” cocktail for anyone gullible enough to drink it.

  31. 31.

    Tim F.

    February 11, 2015 at 8:27 am

    @danielx:

    Dreher shows at least a modicum of intellectual honesty and consistency, which is considerably more than I’ve grown to expect from your average conservative talking head.

    I think by now he knows that the whole crunchy con idea holds up about as well as peak wingnut, so joined the exiles at AmCon. Pat Buchanan might be grampa screwloose in a lot of ways but he won’t fire you for speaking your mind.

  32. 32.

    Amir Khalid

    February 11, 2015 at 8:55 am

    From what I’ve read about the Crusades, it doesn’t seem that they were such a great thing for the Christian world either.

  33. 33.

    Aimai

    February 11, 2015 at 9:22 am

    @EconWatcher: yes. I couldnt understand your last pararaph or who was speaking for whom.

  34. 34.

    Gator90

    February 11, 2015 at 10:04 am

    @Amir Khalid: Nor were they a day at the beach for the Jews.

  35. 35.

    Helmut Monotreme

    February 11, 2015 at 10:10 am

    The people for whom the crusades were a day at the beach, is a mighty short list. Perhaps the gravediggers guild enjoyed them, possibly the people who made weapons and armor managed to come out ahead, few others did. Everyone else got a heaping helping of misery, slaughter plague and plunder.

  36. 36.

    Roger Moore

    February 11, 2015 at 10:38 am

    @Helmut Monotreme:

    The people for whom the crusades were a day at the beach, is a mighty short list.

    Maybe not a day at the beach, but they solved a major problem for Western Europe. Western Europe had only adopted primogeniture relatively recently, and that meant it had a surplus of younger sons who were unlikely to inherit. Their main hopes in life were either for their older brothers to die or to steal some land from somebody else. Without the Crusades as a dumping ground for those younger sons, they would have been stirring up trouble closer to home, and the history of Western Europe during that time would have been even bloodier and more violent.

  37. 37.

    Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)

    February 11, 2015 at 10:59 am

    @Morzer:

    So It’s the usual conservative thing — Dreher is a Crusades skeptic because he converted to Orthodox Christianity and can now see himself in the Crusades, and not on the winning side.

  38. 38.

    RoonieRoo

    February 11, 2015 at 11:17 am

    I hate read Dreher a lot. He does to the occasional really good post. But he will follow that up, very shortly, with something about the evil liberals, the fascists gays or the stupid feminists. He actually has quite a bit in common with Sully in the hysteria that he wraps himself up in and his complete and utter obsession with sex ( for Dreher, sex is icky and proof of the downfall of society).

  39. 39.

    celticdragonchick

    February 11, 2015 at 11:33 am

    @Morzer:

    This.

    Also, he will panty siffing those tricksy trangendered women again…

    Fuck Dreher.

  40. 40.

    Chris

    February 11, 2015 at 11:43 am

    As you might expect Ross Douthat thinks the Crusades got a bad rap

    Yeah, this is the other reason why they fly into a fury whenever you compare the crimes of Islam to the crimes of Christianity. It’s not that they think the two are incomparable or deny that the latter ever happened. It’s that they’re okay with latter.

  41. 41.

    Chris

    February 11, 2015 at 11:48 am

    @Roger Moore:

    This would make the Crusades exactly the same thing for Christian Western Europe that the 1980s anti-Soviet jihad was for the Saudis. They were hoping the zealots would go off and do work that served the Kingdom’s interests instead of causing unrest at home, and hopefully get killed before they ever had a chance to return.

    Didn’t work out. Too many of them came back.

  42. 42.

    Roger Moore

    February 11, 2015 at 11:49 am

    @celticdragonchick:
    I too find it suspicious that the Christian crimes he’s willing to condemn are conveniently past. Yes, they’re more recent than the Crusades, but they can at least be presented as something that’s done with and now purified out of Christianity. I doubt he’d be so forthright if you pointed to Christians in Uganda- vigorously backed by Americans- trying to impose capital punishment for homosexuality.

  43. 43.

    Chris

    February 11, 2015 at 11:58 am

    @Helmut Monotreme:

    Ultimately, the crusades weren’t even a day at the beach for their perpetrators – they were a complete failure at pretty much whatever you consider their goal to be. They didn’t ultimately come out of it with any conquered Muslim land, since the Muslims kept taking it back, and they certainly didn’t take Palestine “back.” Even from the point of view of the European kings and popes, it’s debatable – yes, the Crusades got rid of troublesome knights in the short term, but in the long term they also fueled the growth of the Knights Templar to a state-within-a-state status that made the powers-that-be so uncomfortable, they ultimately had them all Order 66’d.

  44. 44.

    Gretchen

    February 11, 2015 at 2:48 pm

    I used to read Dreher regularly. He has good discussions in comments. But his stubborn insistence that his religious freedom is in serious danger because of gay marriage, birth control mandates and the like finally got to me. He quite simply doesn’t get the distinction between religious freedom and imposing your religious beliefs on people who don’t share them. At all

  45. 45.

    celticdragonchick

    February 11, 2015 at 3:01 pm

    @Chris:

    They worked insofar that the Moors were pushed out of Spain and the Ottomans were pushed out of Austria and most of eastern Europe. Basically, both sides ended up with a stalemate until the Ottoman Empire collapsed.

  46. 46.

    Chris

    February 11, 2015 at 3:23 pm

    @celticdragonchick:

    I wasn’t aware the Reconquista was considered part of the Crusades, but according to Wikipedia it was given that status by the Papacy. I stand corrected, then. One success.

    Stopping the Ottomans at Vienna? I didn’t know that was considered part of the Crusades either.

  47. 47.

    celticdragonchick

    February 11, 2015 at 3:52 pm

    @Chris:

    Stopping the Ottomans at Vienna? I didn’t know that was considered part of the Crusades either.

    The Holy League and the Holy Roman Empire alliance that relieved the Ottoman siege of Vienna was not a Crusade per se, but it is a difference without a distinction. It was a Catholic military force (and a formidable one. The Polish Hussar cavalry charge that broke the Ottoman Army remains the largest cavalry charge in history) constituted specifically to do battle with Muslim armed forces (who in this case had been encroaching into Christian kingdoms for quite some time).

  48. 48.

    celticdragonchick

    February 11, 2015 at 3:56 pm

    @Chris:

    I wasn’t aware the Reconquista was considered part of the Crusades, but according to Wikipedia it was given that status by the Papacy. I stand corrected, then. One success.

    Yeah. Scottish nobles (including relatives of mine most likely) on crusade to take Robert the Bruce’s heart to Jerusalem ended up helping Spanish knights, and that is as far as the Scottish Crusade proceeded. Spain erected a memorial to Spanish/Scottish friendship at the battle site about 10 years ago.

  49. 49.

    heckblazer

    February 11, 2015 at 4:18 pm

    @Chris: There were also the Albigensian Crusade and the Northern Crusades. There’s a reason you don’t meet too many Albigensians or Prussian pagans these days.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

What we should do right now
Image by Tim F. (5/10/25)

Recent Comments

  • opiejeanne on Why Does Fascism Have To Be So Fucking Tacky? (May 12, 2025 @ 12:57am)
  • Adam L Silverman on War for Ukraine Day 1,172: This Deal Is Getting Worse All the Time (May 12, 2025 @ 12:54am)
  • Ruckus on Why Does Fascism Have To Be So Fucking Tacky? (May 12, 2025 @ 12:33am)
  • Westyny on War for Ukraine Day 1,172: This Deal Is Getting Worse All the Time (May 12, 2025 @ 12:21am)
  • mvr on Medium Cool – Mother’s Day Edition (May 12, 2025 @ 12:16am)

PA Supreme Court At Risk

Donate

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
War in Ukraine
Donate to Razom for Ukraine

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Meetups

Upcoming Ohio Meetup May 17
5/11 Post about the May 17 Ohio Meetup

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)
Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Hands Off! – Denver, San Diego & Austin

Social Media

Balloon Juice
WaterGirl
TaMara
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
DougJ NYT Pitchbot
mistermix

Keeping Track

Legal Challenges (Lawfare)
Republicans Fleeing Town Halls (TPM)
21 Letters (to Borrow or Steal)
Search Donations from a Brand

PA Supreme Court At Risk

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!