“He had a valid reason to be irritated last week, but he allowed himself to SEEM irritated” #WhyWontHeSmile pic.twitter.com/HBHkyzde4z
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) September 8, 2016
“Ambulatory cream cheese sculpture” (thanks, Betty!) Hugh Hewitt has been a shameless mouthpiece for the Wingnut Wurlitzer since he first rose above the bottom ranks by comparing his Manhattan talk-radio job to reporting from the front lines of Iraq. Years of tireless service to the RWNJ meme-of-the-moment got him as far as a moderating gig during the presidential primaries. But nobody who attempts to work with Donald Trump comes through without being dinged, if not destroyed… and today Hugh Hewitt got Trumpened:
It was inevitable some Donald Trump supporter would try to rationalize Trump’s view of Vladimir Putin. People just didn’t think that person would be Hugh Hewitt.
The popular conservative radio host got thoroughly clobbered on Twitter Friday morning after he made the argument that Putin is a more effective leader than President Obama because he has “served his country’s national interest better.” Counterarguments came from the left, right and center, and they’re still coming…
Playing excerpts of @realDonaldTrump speech yesterday in Cleveland. Damning detail of @hillaryclinton. If he keeps this tone he wins
— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) September 9, 2016
Curious, Hugh: Do you think the Russian president is a better leader than your president? https://t.co/qN3tjqvbFE
— Ron Fournier (@ron_fournier) September 9, 2016
@hughhewitt @ron_fournier Are you serious right now? What about the interests of gay Russians? Of journalists? Of dead political opponents
— Tim Miller (@Timodc) September 9, 2016
1. That's why he is an evil man. Projection of Russian power back into Middle East, rebuild of military, annexation https://t.co/SFcKZDZLLI
— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) September 9, 2016
@hughhewitt what power? Russia's GDP was *down* 4% in 2015. Putin is rebuilding that by arming a killer in Syria and persecuting his people?
— Tim Miller (@Timodc) September 9, 2016
2. Crimea, cyber-espionage, intimidation of Europe…this is great power politics that, while morally repugnant, is effective.
— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) September 9, 2016
This is disgusting, @hughhewitt, and it's something you will never be able to unsay.
It's also wrong about Russia. https://t.co/XfbAxRsASW— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) September 9, 2016
"Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it's an ethos" https://t.co/KE2W85tX9t
— Alex Burns (@alexburnsNYT) September 9, 2016
3. When Nixon met with Mao it didn't make Mao any less the greatest murderer of post WW 2 era, but most historians rank him effective leader
— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) September 9, 2016
What would you say was Mao's biggest leadership accomplishment: mass graves, country-wide famines, or book burnings? https://t.co/gjkflVJ6mp
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) September 9, 2016
Putin's an evil man. POTUS a good but incompetent man. Putin has served his country's national interest better. https://t.co/6R2N0dajHM
— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) September 9, 2016
The real sickness in our politics isn't a reality TV host praising Putin – it's the conservatives who know better agreeing with him.
— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) September 9, 2016
To quote another inexplicably respected professional right-wing mouthpiece: Let. Us. Savor.
redshirt
Republicans are now Commies.
Who’d a thunk it?
LibraryGuy
So this is it, as clear as day if people will pay attention – the Right will fall in line with their leader, no matter how awful or dangerous, in order to win. When people show you who they are, believe them.
Major Major Major Major
Hey, Hugh said that Obama’s a good person, though.
Adam L Silverman
When you scratch these “Liberty” and “Freedom” types you wind up with small “a” authoritarians. They want to dominate anyone they think/feel is weaker than they are (often just their families and employees) and as soon as someone they perceive/know to be stronger than they are they roll over and piddle on their bellies. I offer as People’s Exhibit A one Hugh Hewitt.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: People’s Exhibit? Commie.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
Assuming Trump loses bigly, I wonder if Hannity, Coulter, Hewitt, and the other right-wing apologists will meet any genuine social or financial pushback (lower ratings, fewer book sales). I hope so, but I find those on the right to be wildly befuddling.
LibraryGuy
I don't think they will suffer, really – the need for emotional fuel to keep the fires of anger, resentment, and hate burning is too great.
Keith P.
@West of the Rockies (been a while): If TrumpTV happens, it may weaken Fox enough to die on the vine while also making enough of an enemy of them to never get itself off the ground. In that case, all the right wing welfare that will be left is (dying) talk radio and Regnery books. My ideal scenario is something like that scene in “The Wrestler” where all the washouts are at folding tables hoping to sign autographs for a few bucks.
gf120581
@West of the Rockies (been a while): Well, if the rumors about Trump setting up his own network are true, we might be in for a bloody fight in the ranks. Fox News vs. Trump TV. It’s the late night War of the Roses.
Betty Cracker
“Basket of Deplorables” — great band name; I call it!
jl
In terms of what neocons think important, maybe Putin has served his country well, I mean lots of sketchy armed interventions overseas causing trouble, and encouraging reactionary racist movements as well. Me, I think US policy wrt to Russia has been unwise and this kind of nasty reaction should been foreseen. But that doesn’t make the reaction any less nasty and brutish, or any less dangerous. But I can see how vicious neocons might admire it.
And, the Russian economy has habitually been in the crapper unless propped up by high fossil fuel prices. Some success, there, Vlad, congrats!
Frankensteinbeck
@Keith P.:
If he actually tries it, Trump TV will fail. I’m sure of it. Even if Ailes proves to be a genius at siphoning the Angry Old White People demographic from FOX. Too much money is involved, and too much publicity. He won’t be able to keep his hand out of the cookie jar, and he’ll take a Trump all over it.
They might take down FOX with themselves. That would be a good thing.
jl
‘The Trumpening’ would make a good horror film. People are ‘Trumpened’ while alone during a dark and spooky night, when ‘The Orangeman’ pays a visit. The next morning the poor victims are gibbering fools. Scary.
Edit: but if he wins, we’ll all be unpaid extras in the reality show version. Scary!
Anoniminous
Understanding the Right Wing is really pretty easy. Stuff in the square brackets by me ….
They are ruled by their Limbic System. They don’t think, they emote.
? Martin
The upshot to this election is that we can definitively say that we are now about 40% to a full dictatorship, in terms of voter desire. No more guessing.
otto
The Lebowski line is a perfect way to punctuate that twitturd that Hewitt dropped.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Frankensteinbeck: Ailes looks to be in poor health and is no spring chicken. I can’t imagine he’ll have the energy and lustre to recreate his Fox “success”. FSM, I hope not.
Frankensteinbeck
@Anoniminous:
That did not sound irrational to me. Evil, but entirely logical. He’s saying it’s not about the price of bread, it’s about power.
Brachiator
Seems like it was only yesterday when right wing nutjob were insisting that Obama was a tyrant who was going to dispense with the Congress, cancel the presidential election, install his Supreme Court nominee in defiance of the Senate, rule by decree and toss his enemies into FEMA camps.
Now, Obama is weak and powerless and the Republicans are insisting that an authoritarian who controls his compliant version of parliament with an iron fist, and who has wreaked havoc in Europe and the Middle East is the best model of strong leadership ever.
Even Orwell would be astounded by this level of doublethink from Hugh Hewitt’s Ministry of Truth.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator:
Projection.
Projection.
jl
@Brachiator: Obama is an inadequate black man in over his head, and an evil shapeshifting super genius who has traveled through history foiling righteous conservative causes. He built the time machine in his garage while toking up on weed and sipping malt liquor.
Weak liberals are so brainwashed by loser PC culture that they can deny these simple and obvious facts. Unbelievable and sad!
Helen
Oh man, Oliver Willis is having a righteous twitter rant about the media clutching their pearls over Hillary saying that half of Trump’s supporters are a “basket of deplorables.”
Anoniminous
@Frankensteinbeck:
Absolute power applied absolutely stupidly. Can’t do that and govern a modern industrial nation. Hitler and his gang of goons managed in five short years to destroy the world’s most advanced scientific establishment.
Kropadope
@Brachiator:
Something something weak man’s idea of strength.
daves09
It’s important to remember that Mussolini and Hitler didn’t take power-they were given it by conservatives, highly respectable conservatives, the best conservatives, who had convinced themselves that liberal reformers were totalitarians who would wreck the world.
Some things don’t change.
If Trump wins and things become as bad as seems possible, people like Hewitt, and Ryan, and McCain, and all the others, will moan *but how could we have known, why didn’t someone tell us?*
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: They all ultimately want to undo both the Enlightenment and the Renaissance and revert to feudalism.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Anoniminous:
Where is the quote from?
bluehill
So this is what the proverbial slippery slope looks like. The incremental acceptance and rationalization of actions and people that were once considered repugnant. Started by the Southern Strategy, coupled with the methodical discrediting of the government and the media and now the military and abetted by conservative intellectuals who wrapped destructive economic and racist social policies in a veneer of legitimacy and here we are. I don’t imagine the Germans suddenly woke up one day in the 30’s and decided going to war with rest of the world and trying to wipe out an entire religion was the way to go. I hope the repubs wake up soon because we’re getting close to the edge.
Villago Delenda Est
@daves09: They thought they could “control” Hitler. Wow, that turned out really well, now didn’t it? What the Social Democrats could not do (destroy the Junkers) Hitler did.
Major Major Major Major
I just got back from an evening at the local independent film archive. They showed stuff from the 60s and 70s through I think the mid 80s about computers. Some promo filmlet for word processors with John Cleese and Judi Dench, a Shatner thing about transistors and wafers from Bell, some sort of tomato virus visualization (the Tomato Bushy Stunt Virus?). Super cool.
Miss Bianca
@daves09: It’s also important to remember that there were useful idiots on the left in the various Communist parties who were receiving marching orders directly from Russia, not to compromise with those dirty liberal squishes, the Social Democrats and the like. Heighten the contradictions! Nach Hitler, uns!
daves09
@Major Major Major Major: Bell Labs used to distribute films on all their latest advances. I remember seeing one in grammar school in the late fifties about how they had perfected the vacuum tube and how they were going to change the world. Some of those tubes were huge!
Death Panel Truck
@jl:
Now that’s my kind of president. He can hang out at my place any time. I’ll even share the latest strain of weed I bought at my local Washington state pot store. It’s called Obama Kush, and it’s a wicked Indica.
jl
@Death Panel Truck: Yeah, sure, but could you build a time machine while you were drunk and high? I think not.
jl
@Miss Bianca: IIRC lefties who saw what was happening up close and personal in Germany decided to oppose Hitler, from political action to violence. Didn’t do them much good, since they ended up dead or in concentration camps. But they would have ended up there anyway, and I suppose it was better than just sitting and waiting for the police to pick them up.
Cat48
Obama is strong enough for me. He stopped construction that would have sent 600,000 gallons/barrels of oil under the Missouri River daily. Nonsensical.
ruemara
I just love the Obama death stare and the Putin cower. Put’s the whole “quien es mas macho?” thing to rest.
divF
@Major Major Major Major: Oddball Films on Capp St.?
Major Major Major Major
@divF: Yep.
divF
@Major Major Major Major: Looks like an interesting lineup. With Fractals !
Major Major Major Major
@divF: There were some fractals, yeah!
Ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck:
That’s worth at least 2 points. Consider yourself on the board.
Ruckus
@Anoniminous:
Also 2 points.
The place is jumping tonight.
Aleta
@Brachiator: well said
ThresherK (GPad)
@daves09: As a radio geek I can’t say enough on various internet histories covering WLW-AM’s several year foray into 500 kilowatt broadcasting. If you want to see those massive tubes in action here is one place to start.
Origuy
Back when I worked at Tandem Computers, they used to have an employee produced TV show once a month, Called First Friday. Execs and others would talk about the business and products, often with humorous skits. Many of them had Jimmy Treybig, the founder, a Texan who loved the Friday beer busts. Here’s a Star Trek parody. (Splatus is a reference to one of our competitors, Stratus.)
mike in dc
I don’t see how Clinton should get in trouble for the “bucket of intolerables” comment when she pretty much made the case for this a couple weeks ago with her alt-right speech. “What, you want some documentation, media? Why don’t you look at your own exit polling and reporting for the past 16 months?”
Major Major Major Major
This was by far the strangest one they showed.
I’m not sure about ‘hilarious’.
mike in dc
The turbo encabulator is the best
PPCLI
Hugh Hewitt was still a George W Bush worshipper up to 2009, when even most republicans had jumped ship. So the word “competent” in Hewitt’s mouth means “wrecked the world economy, spent trillions of dollars, thousands of American lives, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi ones on a catastrophic failed war of aggression based on lies (or obviously mistaken “flawed intelligence”, take your pick), neglected a major American city as it drowned, and held the watch when thousands of Americans died in a terrorist attack.”
So frankly his judgements about competence are worthless.
Tee
Found this the other day and thought it fit what’s going on today. “Themselves, mostly. Rage is a powerful thing. People get upset over many things. Frustrating jobs, small paychecks, bad hours. People want things; people feel humiliated by others who have the things they want; people feel deprived and powerless. All this gives fuel to rage. The anger builds and builds and if there is no outlet for it, pretty soon it transforms the person. They walk around like a loaded gun, ready to go off if only they could find the right target. They want to hurt something. They need it.” He refilled his glass and topped mine off. “Humans tend to segregate the world: enemies on one side, friends on the other. Friends are people we know. Enemies are the Other. You can do just about anything to the Other. It doesn’t matter if this Other is actually guilty of any crimes, because it’s a matter of emotion, not logic. You see, angry people aren’t interested in justice. They just want an excuse to vent their rage.” Doolittle sighed. “And once you become their Other, you’re no longer a person. You’re just an idea, an abstraction of everything that’s wrong with their world. Give them the slightest excuse, and they will tear you down. And the easiest way for them to target you as this Other is to find something that’s different about you. Color of your skin. The way you speak. The place you’re from.” From author Ilona Andrews book Magic slays. Fits Trump supporters. Makes me worried.
amk
@mike in dc: She is ‘telling it as it is’ and the racist rubes can’t handle it.
Aleta
They’d rather oversee the death of democracy than make adjustments to a different world. If fascism is the only means to keep control, so be it. Calling Obama incompetent because he doesn’t believe in their goals –these are words coming from desperate drowning men.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
I’m halfway(?) through cleaning the house in advance of an appraiser coming next Thursday as part of refinancing the mortgage to get my ex-wife off of it now that I’ve been employed for more than a year. I hurt all over.
To get a sense of just how bad the house was, it was a combination of not caring, with the fervency only someone autistic can bring, to the state of the house and a minor-to-moderate, depending upon the day and weather, physical disability that makes it hard to do cleaning. Stuff had built up for six years, not just clutter, but a lot that was borderline (or, maybe, over) unsanitary. I can date it, because I found empty bottles of the drugs I gave to Eddie for the last nine months of his life, which ended in June 2011, that hadn’t been thrown away.
I got the front entryway done over two days, which is more than it sounds like, because it’s actually the largest room in my horribly laid out house. Yesterday, I did the whole kitchen. Now, my back, shoulders, elbows, quads, and knees all hurt like hell. I hate fibromyalgia. Later today, I get something of a break, because I have an event to attend in the afternoon, so I can’t stay up too long after getting off work in order to get enough sleep. So, it’s just the bathroom and, maybe, the bedroom, though I don’t intend to do either the tub or much under the bed. I’ll save the latter for when I get a new mattress, which I need to do soon.
So far, it’s been seven 45 gallon trash bags hauled out to the garbage bins. I threw away a lot of the stuff in the kitchen that I just didn’t have the energy to recover from the state it had fallen to. I hardly ever cook for myself (the biggest contributor to the problems in the kitchen was cat food that had gotten scattered away from the bowls), so I won’t miss it anytime soon, and if I do, I’ll replace it a piece at a time, starting with a new ice tea maker.
There’s only 1 1/2 rooms left that ought to be a huge effort, namely the back room I use as an office and its walk-in closet. I’m planning to do those on Sunday and Monday.
If no one hears from me for a few days, could you send someone around to find out if it’s killed me?
LesGS
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I informed my (now not living in my house) kid yesterday, “No, no, this isn’t clutter. It’s a booby-trap in case someone breaks into my house.”
Good on you for muscling through.
Dog Dawg Damn
Can’t help but wonder if we are witnessing death of US democracy.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Yesterday’s adventure took me here.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@LesGS: Heh. Someone did break into my house about six weeks ago. In the end, the only thing he could find that was worth taking were some blank checks that I immediately canceled. He did open a bunch of boxes, but apparently he didn’t want any of the copies of my novel I have around for promotional purchases.
I’m chalking that up to him having no taste whatsoever.
LesGS
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: See, now, this is why I would make an excellent burglar. I would have stolen your books.
TriassicSands
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
Why would you assume that? The polls aren’t showing it.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@LesGS: Given that he almost got himself caught as it was, I don’t think hauling 40 pound boxes of books would have helped your getaway.
Kathleen
@ThresherK (GPad): Yikes! My dad used to work at WLW! OT, but a WLW engineer opened a recording studio in Cincinnati, where Hank Williams recorded Lovesick Blues and I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry. There’s also a Media Heritage Museum in Mason (at the Voice of America location) that includes exhibits on radio technology.
piratedan
@Helen: @23… here’s the thing… prove that they aren’t. Really, feel free to pull on that twitter thread and see who these people are, see what they say, who they say it to and who and what they follow.
These people are wholly encapsulated in multiple layers of delusion, many of them gun nuts, racists, bigots and completely unreachable with facts. I would take a bet on that number being well above 50%. It’s as if these asshats in the media have never read a comment thread before of their own damn publications.
Brachiator
@Dog Dawg Damn:
Ain’t it cool?
By which I mean, seems that many take the continued existence of democracy for granted. If you want it, are you willing to fight for it?
tokyo expat
@Betty Cracker: My 19 yr. old son mentioned that this morning. I think he’d read it on Twitter or something and I laughed. He said he had seen Trump on CNN while waiting in the airport to fly back to Tokyo and he was creeped out by him. We then got online and he filled out the overseas form to register to vote. He has never resided in the US. CA is one of the states that allows people in those situations to register if their parent has residence (me!). The best part was when he clicked on the box for party and chose Democratic.
Unknown known (formerly known as Ecks, former formerly completely unknown)
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
You are expecting logical consistency from the same people who turned on a dime from “HOW DARE YOU DISRESPECT A SITTING PRESIDENT AT A TIME OF WAR! GAAD BLESS OUR TROOPS” to purple heart band-aids.
Did they pay any price for their backing Bush to the hilt?
Hewitt and Co will simply turn around and argue that Trump was never sufficiently conservative, that they never supported them, and that the Democrats remain the greatest threat to America’s freedom EVAR – far more so than the people aiming actual nuclear weapons at us.
Betty Cracker
@tokyo expat: That’s a proud moment, right? My daughter will vote for the first time in this election. Also a Democrat, of course!
NorthLeft12
I think it is pretty important to note that Hewitt cannot distinguish between what is best for Russia’s national interest, and what is best for Putin’s personal interest.
I think smarter people than me can make a solid case that what Putin is doing in Russia’s name is to consolidate his hold on power and increase his own personal wealth.
And again, Hugh Hewitt is okey dokey with that.
rikyrah
@LibraryGuy:
Amen.
Tell that truth.
trnc
@Brachiator: Bingo!
I wonder where Saddam, Bashar and Kim Jong fit in Comrade Hewitt’s list.
amk
Even bbc is reaching for the fainting couch. Never mind their own correspondents were stalked and hounded by trump’s racist nutjobs.
trnc
Just when I thought that maybe Fournier is good for something, I see he blocked Mike Klimo for a mean tweet about Hewitt.
https://twitter.com/hughhewitt/status/774208354038128640
SiubhanDuinne
@Steeplejack (phone):
It’s from a 2005 Atlantic article, “The Education of Peter Drucker.”
Link to article.
gogol's wife
@bluehill:
You are voicing my fears exactly.
JGabriel
@NorthLeft12:
That’s the definition of good leader in Conservative World: someone who increases his own power and wealth at the expense of everyone else – cf., Ayn Rand.
Steeplejack (phone)
@SiubhanDuinne:
Thanks. I probably could have Googled it myself, but the context-free portentousness got to me. I was pushed over the edge by the added touch of “stuff in the square brackets by me.” Really helpful, that.
Miss Bianca
@jl: dead thread, but my point was that if the various factions of the left wing hadn’t been so busy fighting each other, they might have been more effective fighting against the Nazis.
Mk3873
It is completely bogus to think that purity conservatives are suddenly now praising Putin in order to back Trump.
The right wing’s love affair began back when W looked into his soul and saw a good man. Do you remember that sordid episode?
Then came the he-man right wing love of Putin’s shirtless hunting poses.
Sarah Palin became US conservative’s Vlad Putin.
This has been brewing in the right wing fever swamps for years.
Mike in NC
Hugh Hewitt is a holy roller and current wingnut Flavor of the Month.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Mk3873: And Sarah didn’t even have to pose shirtless!
Ruckus
@Tee:
The only things that makes this different from the beginning of humanity are.
1. There are more of us and we can move about a lot easier and talk (text) about everything instantaneously.
2. We interact with a lot of people who are different than each of us all the time, unless you live 40 miles from everyone else. Some people don’t like this, the interaction, not the living 40 miles away.
3. Not everyone suffers from this. I’d suggest that upbringing and personality have a lot to do with it but even more is what you expect from life.
4. Bad economic times, current or not so distant past, make this seem worse because we all have a hard time with not being in the right place at the right time, because we could have made different decisions. Usually that’s bullshit by the way because there is no way to control the decisions that others make.
5. That other people make decisions that we don’t understand or like, that control is something that a lot of people seem to need because they don’t know how to live in a world that others are autonomous, these people are authoritarians. You can’t change that in them, what you can do is show them that what is real doesn’t actually hurt them.
6. It boils down to: People think it’s “Is the glass half full or half empty,” but really it’s “Is the glass have anything in it or is it completely empty?”
Ruckus
@NorthLeft12:
And why wouldn’t he be? That’s exactly what Hugh is doing, it’s exactly what he would do if he was running for or was a leader. It’s the one trait that people with his mindset look for, self interest, at the expense of everything else. All he’s doing is going along for the ride. He’s one of those tiny fish that attach themselves to the bigger fish.
grandpa john
-@mike in dc: Documentation? Since when does the fucking media pay attention to facts.
Gex
Hugh Hewitt – pro-Devil. Hey, he’s evil, but based on what I see from the GOP and their base, he’s more effective than this God fellow.