Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I was promised a recession.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

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

Consistently wrong since 2002

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

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

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

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

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

You are here: Home / Carried in the Arms of Cheerleaders

Carried in the Arms of Cheerleaders

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Steve M:

…[I]f someone in the press whose job it is to be neutral or skeptical suddenly turns into a cheerleader when bombs are dropping, that figure is almost certainly going to be a man. (See Chris Matthews on “Mission Accomplished” day.)

I think, in part, this is because journalists aren’t the jocks, going back to their high school days. They weren’t the ones scoring the winning touchdown — they were the bespectacled nerds writing about it. They also weren’t the genuine weirdos (my crowd in high school), who owned their social and gender non-conformity. The journalists wanted to be accepted by the big men on campus — and they still do. (This is also why male journalists regularly rib one another on the air about their NFL loyalties, and why even public radio treats March Madness as worthy of an extended news feature every day for a month. Committed sports fandom is assumed to be normative.)

I don’t know about you, but I can separate the males in my peer group in high school and college into three groups: jocks, fans and nerds. Of course, the lines between the groups blurred. I don’t think that all journalists are fans–the good ones probably aren’t, since you need some nerdy disgust with human conformity and conventional wisdom to be really good at ferreting out interesting stories. But the journalists in DC and New York that had simultaneous missilegasms over Trump’s ineffectual strike are not the ones breaking stories. They’re mainly, as Steve M rightly points out, fans. They amplify and celebrate the status quo, and normalize assholes like Trump simply because he’s got some power and he will wield it, capriciously.

Steve is writing about Margaret Sullivan’s story about the missile-curious press at the Washington Post. It’s also telling that Sullivan, who was the best Public Editor the Times ever had, is now writing for the Post under Marty Baron’s watch.

Reader Interactions

157Comments

  1. 1.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    Internalized self hatred and over compensating is a hell of a drug (and alas a staple of the human condition).

  2. 2.

    SiubhanDuinne

    It is beyond sickening the way the MSM have both normalized and celebrated the missile strikes as a way of making Trump “mature” and “reasoned” and (barf) “Presidential.”

    I can’t even listen to NPR news programs any more (yes, I know lots of you got there before I did, but they are just horrible asslickers at this point, and my vestigial allegiance has worn off entirely).

  3. 3.

    Davis X. Machina

    It’s been a great six months for Team Penis!

    First we beat the bitch. (OK, it was on technicalities, but win’s a win.)
    Now we’re blowing shit up, and shit.

    It just keeps getting better.

  4. 4.

    Droppy

    They are the journalistic equivalent of the political animal known as the chickenhawk: eager to see someone else do something macho and exciting and dangerous and placing value on the dangerousness and excitement itself rather than spending any time trying to assess whether or not the dangerous excitement serves any purpose. Their insecurities would be sort of laughably pathetic if they didn’t result in the deaths of children of people they (the journalists and chickenhawks) don’t know.

  6. 6.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    BTW, mistermix, it’s been quite a while since we’ve seen you FP. Hope all is well and that your long absence was due only to the pressure of work/day-to-day living, and not to anything dire. Good to see you.

  7. 7.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I just had a tantrum about the Braves and their new stadium in Cobb County, and when I was informed (mansplained) that it was the free market at work, I let loose on capitalism.

    Fuckem, in the immortal words of efgoldsmith efgoldman.

    (Sorry, had a little brain fart there.)

  8. 8.

    SFAW

    Fans? Or groupie wannabes?

    Do they think Team Shitgibbon will take them “backstage,” or to their (figurative) hotel room, if they promise to “do” the whole Administration? Will the Administration like them best if they swallow whatever it is Shitgibbon and company give them?

    This comment started out as snark, but the more I think about it, the more accurate it seems. (And, apologies for the crudeness.)

  9. 9.

    Mike in NC

    Bill Clinton was mocked for firing off a cruise missile or two that hit nothing. Trump fires 59 of them that hit next to nothing, but suddenly the media is ready to erect a giant equestrian statue of him on the National Mall.

  10. 10.

    SFAW

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I just had a tantrum about the Braves and their new stadium in Cobb County, and when I was informed (mansplained) that it was the free market at work, I let loose on capitalism.

    Did whoever-it-was start out with, “Well, ya see, little lady, it’s like this …”? If so, were you close enough to kick them in the nuts? Or was this an online rant?

  11. 11.

    debbie

    The fans are doing more damage than they realize. Trump’s learning he can start tossing bombs whenever he thinks he isn’t getting the love or attention he believes he deserves.

  12. 12.

    Roger Moore

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    when I was informed (mansplained) that it was the free market at work,

    Since when is a publicly funded stadium an example of the free market? It sounds more like rentier capitalism to me.

  13. 13.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    @SiubhanDuinne: FlipYrWhig can feel you; he only quit reading The Nation last month over its krokodil-carrying for Putin (and only held out for so long because he hoped the derangement would lift after the election).

  14. 14.

    geg6

    Saw ABC News tonight and, gotta say, they covered all this well. Without coming right out and using these words, they painted it as a big fail and speculated on whether it was a distraction or a show in concert with Russia.

  15. 15.

    Roger Moore

    @Mike in NC:

    Bill Clinton was mocked for firing off a cruise missile or two that hit nothing. Trump fires 59 of them that hit next to nothing

    There are two big differences. Clinton was trying to hit a high value target (bin Laden), while Trump was going for a publicity stunt. And Clinton’s attack failed because of bad luck, while Trump’s achieved nothing because he warned the targets in advance. How either of these things turn out in Trump’s favor would baffle anyone who hasn’t seen the media’s bias in favor of all things Republican.

  17. 17.

    SFAW

    @geg6:

    Saw ABC News tonight and, gotta say, they covered all this well.

    Next time, can you please give us a trigger warning before a statement like that? My heart can only take so much shock/surprise.

  18. 18.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    MoDo and Lord Jack Shafer are the quintessential cheerleader/jock wannabes of the chickenfucker set.

  20. 20.

    SFAW

    @JPL:

    Well maybe freedom isn’t free after all.

    It is if you have enough money in the first place. Hell, it pays YOU.

  21. 21.

    hilts

    In 2 separate appearances on CNN, Fareed Zakaria referred to Trump as a bullshit artist, so he was the last person I expected to see fold like a cheap fucking lawn chair within nanoseconds of bombs dropping over Syria. He’s dead to me now.

    Chris Matthews, on the other hand, is a raving, drooling ignoramus who’s probably still masturbating over video footage of those missiles flying through the air.

  25. 25.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):

    It’s really hard to change the habits of a lifetime, or at least decades. I went to work for my first NPR station in May 1971 (the same week All Things Considered first went on the air), and NPR has been an important part of my life since then. Forty-six years. It’s not easy to just write off that investment of time, money, work, volunteering, and overall commitment simply because they were silly enough to hire Mara Liasson and hang on to Cokie Roberts (who was actually useful and informative four decades ago).

    It’s like someone you love getting dementia, hanging on for years, still occasionally showing flashes of brilliance, but generally fading away until you simply want the doctors to pull the plug.

  28. 28.

    BBA

    The media has a strong pro-war bias, regardless of what the war is. For one thing, it’s good for ratings. For another, war reporting is prestigious and opens doors to Pulitzers. And the Village is of course constantly hobnobbing with think-tankers and defense consultants at those Georgetown cocktail parties, and when the bombs are falling their friends suddenly get a whole lot more attention.

    Fuck ’em all. I used to believe in “just wars” and “responsibility to protect” and all that bullshit but ever since Libya I’ve swung so pacifist I’m not even sure if Jeannette Rankin was wrong. (Look her up. I’ll wait.)

  29. 29.

    SFAW

    @JPL:

    Sorry, wasn’t giving you a hard time. I could have said “Water wet, sun rises in East” or some such, but thought my own little half-wit-ticism might be better.

  30. 30.

    Nicole

    It’s a fascinating thing to me- how being an obsessive sports fan is acceptable, while being an obsessive fan of say, Star Trek or Doctor Who or Dungeons & Dragons is a ticket to social ostracism (at least in school, although one doesn’t hear about cities having “Sci Fi bars” as a common thing). Both are asking exactly the same thing of their fans- to memorize lots of tiny details that have nothing to do with anything going on in the person’s actual real life and use any opportunity to start blabbing about them with other like-minded individuals (or people close to them who aren’t interested but pretend to listen to be polite).

  32. 32.

    Mike J

    @Roger Moore:

    And Clinton’s attack failed because of bad luck,

    Clinton’s attack failed because we didn’t have missiles on drones yet and the flight time from the Gulf was 45 minutes. bin Laden is the #1 through #73 reason why drones carry their own missiles now.

    Imagine bin Laden killed in the 90s, Al Gore president, no 9/11, no Iraq invasion, possibly no ISIL. All missed because we couldn’t fire a missile from a drone.

  33. 33.

    efgoldman

    @Mike in NC:

    the media is ready to erect a giant equestrian statue of him on the National Mall.

    Apricot Assface on an ‘orse. Now THAT’s funny!

  34. 34.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @evodevo:

    Thanks for this. Yeah, at some point during my rant I pointed out that having Cobb County taxpayers having to fork over something like $15 million to help pay for a stadium that they didn’t get a say in whether they even wanted it (not to mention state tax funds going to build additional roads and infrastructure around the new stadium) was hardly a shining example of laissez-faire free-market capitalism.

    I also pointed out that the deal was cut in (I think it was) 2013 between Braves management and Cobb County government in the dark, in secret, without notifying either the City of Atlanta (mayor, city council) or Fulton County (chair, county commission) until the deal was effectively completed. It may not have been technically illegal, but it was skeezy as all shit.

    Fuckem. The Braves are dead to me.

  35. 35.

    El Caganer

    @Roger Moore: The real payoff will come when it turns out the chemical attack was carried out by al-Nusra. Big blustery bold bad-ass President launches a totally ineffective assault…against the wrong target.

  36. 36.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Droppy: And this is why I want them all to be tossed into the Duck Pit.

    Ambassador Londo Mollari: But this – this, this, this is like being nibbled to death by… what are those Earth creatures called? Feathers, long bill, webbed feet… go ‘quack’…

    Ambassador Vir Cotto: Cats.

    Ambassador Londo Mollari: Cats. Being nibbled to death by cats.

  37. 37.

    SFAW

    @Nicole:

    while being an obsessive fan of say, …Doctor Who is a ticket to social ostracism.

    It all depends on which Doctor, of course. I’m partial to the 14th. Obsessive sports fans really go for 15, because he’s … more. (Not unlike Nigel Tufnel being a fan of 11.)

  38. 38.

    FlipYrWhig

    I feel like I remember Reagan’s bombs on Libya (after Lockerbie, was it?) being similarly oohed and aahed over–but, as alluded to above, Clinton’s similar efforts never evoking a response of that nature. Interesting, that.

  40. 40.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @SFAW:

    No, it was in person. In a way I don’t blame him, because he knows I’ve been a Braves fan for years, and probably didn’t know that I had long since decided to write them off once the 2017 season started. So he began the conversation quite innocently with an anodyne comment about the Braves’ upcoming opening day, and I said I couldn’t care less about them, and the conversation devolved from there.

  41. 41.

    efgoldman

    @Nicole:

    while being an obsessive fan of say, Star Trek or Doctor Who or Dungeons & Dragons is a ticket to social ostracism

    You obviosusly don’t hang out in the same places my daughter and son in law do.

  43. 43.

    SFAW

    @El Caganer:

    Big blustery bold bad-ass President launches a totally ineffective assault…against the wrong target.

    Maybe Shitgibbon can one-up W, kill 200,000 civilians in Syria.

  44. 44.

    Mike in NC

    The next box Trump will check off is North Korea, a 10th rate power which the media has portrayed as an existential threat for the past 65 years. Maybe half of Seoul will be rubble by July 4th.

    Well, just another real estate deal for Organization Trump to profit from.

  45. 45.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @FlipYrWhig: Democrats can actually kill wanted, known, infamous terrorists, and it’s nothing. Rethuglicans can use Trident submarines to swat flies and the Village cannot get enough.

  46. 46.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Davis X. Machina:

    It’s been a great six months for Team Penis!

    First we beat the bitch. (OK, it was on technicalities, but win’s a win.)
    Now we’re blowing shit up, and shit.

    It just keeps getting better.

    you should post more often

  47. 47.

    Chet Murthy

    @BBA:

    I’ve swung so pacifist I’m not even sure if Jeannette Rankin was wrong

    Wait, wut? Not sure how to interpret this, but if you mean “she wasn’t wrong to vote against the US entering WWI”, that’s wholly uncontroversial today, I’d have thought. And that, on purely realpolitik grounds.

  48. 48.

    waysel

    @FlipYrWhig: Didn’t Obama do some bombing? I don’t remember pos and ahs then , either. Doesn’t seem like the press wet themselves when he took out BinLaden, too. A pattern emerges?

  49. 49.

    SFAW

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Democrats can actually kill wanted, known, infamous terrorists, and it’s nothing.

    Bullshit. It wasn’t “nothing” — it was portrayed as a “wag the dog” by those Treasonous Motherfuckers (i.e., the Rethugs).

  50. 50.

    efgoldman

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    was hardly a shining example of laissez-faire free-market capitalism.

    Ah, but it is! What’s shinier than privatizing profits and socializing losses?

  51. 51.

    Steve in the ATL

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Thanks for this. Yeah, at some point during my rant I pointed out that having Cobb County taxpayers having to fork over something like $15 million to help pay for a stadium that they didn’t get a say in whether they even wanted it (not to mention state tax funds going to build additional roads and infrastructure around the new stadium) was hardly a shining example of laissez-faire free-market capitalism.

    I also pointed out that the deal was cut in (I think it was) 2013 between Braves management and Cobb County government in the dark, in secret, without notifying either the City of Atlanta (mayor, city council) or Fulton County (chair, county commission) until the deal was effectively completed. It may not have been technically illegal, but it was skeezy as all shit.

    Fuckem. The Braves are dead to me.

    I concur. I didn’t even realize they had started playing. Also, I despise SunTrust as much as I despise Cobb County, so that didn’t help my opinion of them.

  53. 53.

    James E Powell

    We don’t need to go back to high school or to the psychiatrist’s couch to figure out the press/media. We only need to look at what happened to careers between 2001 and 2006. Cheerleaders for the Bush/Cheney Wars not only kept their jobs, quite a few of them got better ones. They wrote books. And despite the fact that they showed themselves to be stupid, they are still invited to come on the shows and talk about foreign and military policy.

    And those who spoke against the wars. And those who told the truth about it? Well, hardly anyone remembers their names.

  54. 54.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Mike J:

    All missed because we couldn’t fire a missile from a drone.

    I’m pretty sure that drones are bad, and missiles are bad, making drones that can fire missiles really, really bad.

  55. 55.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @SFAW: I was referring to the Village reaction, not that of the Rethugs. You’re absolutely right about those treasonous motherfuckers.

  57. 57.

    lollipopguild

    @Villago Delenda Est: Yep, then there was a DEM-Clinton who balanced the budget and created a surplus that was paying down the national debt and the voters gave us W as a reward.

  58. 58.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Nicole:

    It’s a fascinating thing to me- how being an obsessive sports fan is acceptable

    Dude with goatee in backward baseball cap, team jersey with his name on the back, and jorts calling in to sports radio obsessing over minutia from last week’s game? Not acceptable like it once was.

  59. 59.

    efgoldman

    @Mike in NC:

    Lockerbie came at the end of 1988.

    Which means he actually had nothing to do with it. He was in no condition to order or consent to anything by then. Nancy? Haig? Poppy?

  60. 60.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Chet Murthy: WWI vote not necessarily totally wrong. WWII vote, well, horse of a different color. Germany actually lived up to the propaganda of Britain and France promulgated in WWI during WWII.

  61. 61.

    Betty

    @SiubhanDuinne: I have read that the location is intended to attract a different group of fans- no public transit so more suburbanites and fewer city folk. Has that been discussed there?

  62. 62.

    JPL

    @SFAW: I thought it funny. Some of the comments left were quite good. Of course, you always have the trump trolls hanging out.

  63. 63.

    efgoldman

    @Davis X. Machina:

    I’m pretty sure that drones are bad, and missiles are bad, making drones that can fire missiles really, really bad

    Do you really want to start an argument on a Saturday night, or did you leave out the snarkasm tag?

  64. 64.

    hilts

    Kudos to Dan Rather for not drinking the Kool Aid:

    The role of the press is to ask hard questions. There is ample evidence that this Administration needs to face deep scrutiny. The lies we have heard, the chaos in governance, and the looming questions about ties with Russia – itself a major player in Syria – demand that the press treat this latest action with healthy skepticism. Perhaps it was the right thing to do. Perhaps a strong and wise policy will emerge. But that judgement is still definitely hanging in the balance.

    The number of members of the press who have lauded the actions last night as “presidential” is concerning. War must never be considered a public relations operation. It is not a way for an Administration to gain a narrative. It is a step into a dangerous unknown and its full impact is impossible to predict, especially in the immediate wake of the first strike.

    h/t https://www.facebook.com/theDanRather/posts/10158474112235716

  66. 66.

    Steve in the ATL

    @JPL: are you in the Cobb or Fulton part of Roswell? And even though your answer will have major impact on how I feel about you, no pressure.

  67. 67.

    Mike J

    @efgoldman:

    You obviosusly don’t hang out in the same places my daughter and son in law do.

    Yeah, I was thinking there should be more social ostracism for SF & D&D lovers. It’s too easy on ’em these days. Toughen them up. Let’s start by not making any more movies about Marvel’s world of underwear perverts.

    Seriously, geek culture is just mainstream culture these days. Nobody is ostracized for liking it.

  68. 68.

    efgoldman

    @Betty:

    no public transit so more suburbanites and fewer city folk. Has that been discussed there?

    When the plans first went public.
    “City folk” = “those [dangerous] people”

  69. 69.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @hilts: Dan Rather, as us olds know, is the guy who was asked at a press conference by Richard Nixon if he (Rather) was running for office. Rather’s response was classic: “No, Mr. President, are you?”

  70. 70.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Mike J: I’m not into that stuff. Nor manga/anime/cosplay/steam punk/whatever. I’m also a straight white cisgender (?) male. I am totally the victim of reverse discrimination. If only there were a political party for disaffected men like me….

  71. 71.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    The media landscape in America is dominated by “fake news.” It has been for decades. This fake news does not emanate from the Kremlin. It is a multibillion-dollar-a-year industry that is skillfully designed and managed by public relations agencies, publicists and communications departments on behalf of individuals, government and corporations to manipulate public opinion. This propaganda industry stages pseudo-events to shape our perception of reality. The public is so awash in these lies, delivered 24 hours a day through electronic devices and print, that viewers and readers can no longer distinguish between truth and fiction.

    Donald Trump and the racist-conspiracy theorists, generals and billionaires around him inherited and exploited this condition, just as they have inherited and will exploit the destruction of civil liberties and collapse of democratic institutions. Trump did not create this political, moral and intellectual vacuum. It created him. It created a world where fact is interchangeable with opinion, where celebrities have huge megaphones simply because they are celebrities, where information must be entertaining and where we can all believe what we want to believe regardless of truth. A demagogue like Trump is what you get when you turn culture and the press into burlesque.

    Link

    Also the title reminded me of this.

    Some people think that there’s some mystery about what that song is all about, but “We carried you in our arms on independence day” couldn’t be more clear, I always thought.

  72. 72.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    The article over thinks it. Just consider Silverman’s description of his experience with the anchor sucking up to that general. These guys are all Walter Mitty types, fantasying about being awesome heroic manly men yet being to lazy and effete to do manly stuff themselves.

  73. 73.

    schrodingers_cat

    Is there an exercise that’s more pointless than lamenting that the corporate media’s natural proclivity to fluff the Rs, no matter how venal. They did the same thing during Iraq. They made T possible.

  75. 75.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Betty: there was a lot of racism involved in the move, but, to be fair, also greed. TPTB didn’t own or control the land around Turner Field; at the new park they do. Ergo, new and better revenue streams, plus no blah people. Win-win!

  79. 79.

    James E Powell

    @lollipopguild:

    then there was a DEM-Clinton who balanced the budget and created a surplus that was paying down the national debt and the voters gave us W as a reward.

    Not satisfied that they ruined the country with their War on Gore, the New York Times carried on a campaign to destroy Hillary Clinton to ensure the election of Donald Trump. Liberals!

  82. 82.

    Mike J

    @Steve in the ATL: Think about how much faster you could have gotten home if instead of rain, Trump had launched a missile strike against Atlanta. They could have had the airport up and running in just a few hours!

    I think this is a platform for the Republicans to run on.

  85. 85.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @A Ghost to Most: I left the country around 1998 and for the most part stayed away aside from visits for the next ten years. When I returned all the movies were based on comic books and adult males dressed like toddlers. It was really noticeable.

    This is partly because where I lived many of them have a pompous exaggerated image of themselves as serious adults, so it was a matter of contrast with what I’d gotten used to also.

    Also every interviewee or pundit on US on news shows now started every phrase with “Look…”, which was really not that common ten years earlier. I mean it was around but mostly used only when the person really wanted to insist or be sort of belligerent, i.e. “Okay, see here now..” Now it was just a tic that started every sentence, as if no one would take them seriously unless they said it.

  86. 86.

    JPL

    @Steve in the ATL: Roswell is a city in Fulton Cty.. The Cobb people just use the name as a mailing address, or so I’ve been told. I’ve been helping out on a local city council election, and early voting starts Monday. At that time, I can vote at the local library for both council and 6th district. Up until now, you could only vote early at East Roswell Library for 6th district.

  87. 87.

    Chet Murthy

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    WWII vote, well, horse of a different color.

    Oh.. Ah. My bad, didn’t keep reading. Yeah, by WWII, different story.

    There are enough veterans and students of history here, who might be able to comment on Korea vs. Vietnam in this light? I mean, it -seems- like we were right to be there in the Korean war, and wrong to be there in the Vietnam war. But then I read about Park Chung Hee and it isn’t so obvious to me. I wonder what the …. judicious, well-reasoned take is on that history.

    Also, found this: Trump is the new Kaiser Bill by Bacevich.

  88. 88.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steve in the ATL:

    They haven’t had their first home game yet. The season has started, but they’re all away games until next Friday 14 April (I think they’ve had one or two exhibition games at the new stadium but not the regular season).

  90. 90.

    Mary G

    @JPL: @JPL: Some of the replies to Cillizza’s idiocy are great, like:

    @CillizzaCNN Chris, please report on the plight of the prince of Nigeria! He can't get his money out of the country and needs our help!— Ty (@BossDoxie) April 8, 2017

  91. 91.

    JPL

    @Steve in the ATL: One of my sons live near the stadium in the 6th district. A major district around the stadium voted democratic for Hillary, because of the stadium. It was a solid Republican district but no more. Ossoff should win that area of Cobb. My other son lives in Sandy Springs and there are several Ossoff signs on his street.

    signs don’t vote though

  92. 92.

    efgoldman

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Dan Rather, as us olds know, is the guy who was asked at a press conference by Richard Nixon if he (Rather) was running for office.

    He also asked Tricksie Dicksie Nixie, in so many words, if he was a crook.
    Tricksie, of course, lied, and said he was not.

  93. 93.

    efgoldman

    @Steve in the ATL:

    If only there were a political party for disaffected men like me….

    You wouldn’t last five minutes.

    ETA: Nor would I. But at my age, I’d try to take some of them with me.

  95. 95.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Mike in NC: Whoops, got the timeline wrong. Well, that also goes to show that bombing Libya didn’t do anything… despite the hoopla about it in the media.

  96. 96.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Betty:

    That is, sadly, the history of much or most of metro Atlanta infrastructure, writ large. It’s not new — it goes back many decades and includes early decisions to build the suburbs without sidewalks, to designing the bus system (and later the broader MARTA rapid transit system) to get (minority) workers to and from the (white) suburbs where they were employed as housekeepers, cooks, drivers, gardeners, etc. There is an ugly back-formation of the MARTA acronym that sums up the attitude of an awful lot of the area’s residents.

  98. 98.

    Nicole

    @Mike J: As someone who spends a fair amount of time working with kids, I respectfully disagree. The obsessive, encyclopedic knowledge of minutiae is acceptable in the sports fans, but not in the sci-fi ones. Same as it ever was.

  99. 99.

    Steve in the ATL

    @JPL:

    signs don’t vote though

    good, because i’ve seen only one Ossoff sign in all of Johns Creek!

    ETA: to be fair, though, I seem to spend more of my time in Logan airport than in Johns Creek….

  100. 100.

    efgoldman

    @Steve in the ATL:

    there was a lot of racism involved in the move, but, to be fair, also greed.

    Don’t the [loser] Falcons also have a new place in the works?

    People slag on Boston teams and fans, sometimes with good reason, but they all financed, built, and own their own places.

  102. 102.

    SFAW

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    But the MSM dutifully repeats whatever the Rethugs say, no matter the truth.

    But, yeah, I had the wrong target. Well, “wrong” in the context of your comment. [It’s never wrong to target the Treasonous Motherfuckers, of course.]

  103. 103.

    Steve in the ATL

    @efgoldman: yup, the loser falcons just got a brand new stadium to replace their not so old and still really nice one.

    To be fair, though, the acoustics in the old dome were terrible.

  105. 105.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @A Ghost to Most:

    The Fog of Dior
    Major Dick
    A Few Good Emolumen
    White Cuck Down
    From Here to Fraternity
    Seal Team Six Sigma
    Less Than Less Than Zero
    Commander in Pleats
    J. Crews Missiles

    Whore Games
    FAPS
    Where Eagles Jare

  108. 108.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Omnes Omnibus: the titular creek actually flows down one border of my neighborhood. Keeps the Gwinnett Country riffraff away. No offense, SD!

  119. 119.

    Joyce H

    @hilts:

    Chris Matthews, on the other hand, is a raving, drooling ignoramus who’s probably still masturbating over video footage of those missiles flying through the air.

    Actually, Matthews was speculating, the very night of the attack when it was being covered as ‘breaking news’, that Trump launched the missiles ‘to kill the narrative that he’s in bed with Putin’, and also perhaps coordinated with Putin in advance.

  121. 121.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Joyce H:

    Actually, Matthews was speculating, the very night of the attack when it was being covered as ‘breaking news’, that Trump launched the missiles ‘to kill the narrative that he’s in bed with Putin’, and also perhaps coordinated with Putin in advance.

    The version of that that my profession uses is:
    1. That’s not my dog
    2. My dog doesn’t bite
    3. I don’t have a dog

  122. 122.

    Steve in the ATL

    @SiubhanDuinne: SHOTS FIRED!

    Unless that is out of date, too. No idea–I’m old. How old? Well, I watched golf on TV today. I’ll let you know when I get to “Lawrence Welk” and the farm report.

  126. 126.

    JPL

    @Steve in the ATL: Years ago we moved from CT to Springfield,IL and farm news is a real thing, along with farm weather . Let me tell you, we might complain about the weather, but not like they do.

    Also according to CNN

    A US aircraft carrier-led strike group is headed toward the Western Pacific Ocean near the Korean Peninsula, a US defense official confirmed to CNN.
    Adm. Harry Harris, the commander of U.S. Pacific Command, directed the USS Carl Vinson strike group to sail north to the Western Pacific after departing Singapore on Saturday, Pacific Command announced.
    The move of the Vinson strike group is in response to recent North Korean provocations, the official said.

    He is desperate to get those poll numbers up.

  128. 128.

    Mike in NC

    @Chet Murthy: I read in a history of WW1 that Bismarck said of Kaiser Wilhelm II, he was like a boy who wanted every day to be like his birthday. Sure sounds like the megalomaniac now residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

  129. 129.

    Mike J

    @Nicole: When I was a kid I had obsessive, encyclopedic knowledge of minutiae of music. Could name the studio side men who played on every top 40 hit ever. Spent three nights a week in the punk bar my teachers all warned us was too dangerous to go to (either hanging out or running sound), three more nights a week doing an airshift on the radio, actually knew all the DJs the other kids listened to. I liked hanging out with them because they were all as deeply uncool as I was and shared the same compulsion to know everything about music. You know the employees and customers in the book/movie High Fidelity? That’s how cool I was. Which is not at all.

    One of the reasons I always loved REM was because Peter Buck used to work in a record store and would make his friends mix tapes of stuff they should listen to. ONE OF US.ONE OF US.

    I would have thought the whole obsessing over trivia would have gone away. Everybody can know everything with google.

  130. 130.

    Chris T.

    @Mike J:

    Everybody can know everything with google.

    Ah … except for trivia about google.

    Quis custodiet ipsos custodies, or who googles the googlans?

  132. 132.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steve in the ATL:

    Unless that is out of date, too. No idea–I’m old. How old? Well, I watched golf on TV today. I’ll let you know when I get to “Lawrence Welk” and the farm report.

    Do you remember Giselle MacKenzie and Snooky Lanson on “Your Hit Parade”? Do you remember “Kukla, Fran and Ollie”? “I Married Joan”?

  135. 135.

    SFAW

    @Steve in the ATL:

    to be fair, though, I seem to spend more of my time in Logan airport than in Johns Creek….

    So, are you still in Boston? Or have they finally decided to let you fly home? If you’re still here, maybe we can get Cole back, and have a meet-up at Logan.

  139. 139.

    Lizzy L

    @SiubhanDuinne: Yes. I can still sing the theme song for “I Married Joan,” — well, the first line anyway. I loved “Kukla, Fran, and Ollie.” “Your Hit Parade” — not much to say about it. But I remember it.
    @JPL: I saw that on CNN. They made a point of saying that aircraft carriers often visit that region, and yada-yada. But after the recent boom-booms, it makes me fucking nervous. I bet the Koreans (North & South) are edgy too.

  144. 144.

    Seth Owen

    I think the bigger problem is that very few of either the journalists or pundits have military experience of any kind, nor a willingness to study it. During my own journalistic career I was one of the few who had the experience or expertise so I was always the default subject matter expert whenever military topics arose. This is different than the generations before when the draft ensured a larger portion of the public was at least exposed to the military.

    Everybody supports the troops but no one wants to be one any more.

    Considering we are a military empire like the world has rarely seen before, I think the ignorance of our elites is shocking. At least the elites of the Roman and British empires thought it important to have first-hand campaign experience and a basic understanding of war.

  146. 146.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Bill E Pilgrim: True story: My family was visiting relatives in the Ozarks of Arkansas back in 1973, and my brother and sister were going through the “Jinx you owe me a coke” stage of their lives, incessantly. This was new to my parents, and my dad did not quite get this. He and my mom said something at the same time, and he just started yelling “coke! coke! coke!”.

  147. 147.

    Big Picture Pathologist

    Self-preservation may be at play here. Most pundits today were around when Donahue got canned for not clapping loudly enough for Dick and George’s Excellent Iraq Adventure 14 years ago.

  148. 148.

    Tokyokie

    @A Ghost to Most: I’ve been sick of them since, I don’t know, the first sequel to the Tobey Maguire Spider Man series maybe. Or maybe back when Batman leads became interchangeable. But I don’t go see sequels (OK, I’ll go see every new Bond film because I’ve been doing so since Thunderball), I don’t go see movies based on old TV shows, I don’t go see movies based on video games, and I don’t go see movies based on comic books (although I sometimes make exceptions for movies based on graphic novels). And that means I don’t see a lot of movies but I don’t think I’ve missed much. The spousal unit had a rare Saturday night off, and I suggested we go to a movie, but I don’t know of anything playing that I want to see. (I saw Get Out several weeks ago.) If one theater on the other side of the county didn’t bring in Korean movies on a regular basis (and I’ll go see any Korean movie that plays around here and would recommend others do likewise), I would rarely see anything.

  149. 149.

    David Spikes

    It’s good news that people are pretty unimpressed by Big Donnie blowing holes in a runway and if I didn’t know they are dead to shame, I would say the media are really going hard on the story.
    Couldn’t see Fareed and Brian orgasming without thinking of the video classic”Jizz in my jeans.”
    Tom McClintock, whose district is just across the mountain, got roughed up-verbally-by the crowd at his townhall until he criticized Trump’s Syria move-then cheers. Last time the police had to escort him out, this time he persisted.

  150. 150.

    Brachiator

    @Seth Owen:

    Everybody supports the troops but no one wants to be one any more.

    The volunteer military has made faux patriotic cheerleading almost mandatory. I also know cynical conservatives who want to make sure that the military is available to protect them, but who look at anyone who joins the army as ignorant yokels. The worst of these people brag about cheating on their taxes but want maximum benefits from the government, and believe in law and order, but do everything they can to avoid serving on a jury.

  151. 151.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Tokyokie: While I was never a DC person of any sort in my misspent youth, I was a RFO type Marvel fan, so I was a bit disappointed in the Fantastic Four movies, liked the Spider Man movies well enough (J.K. Simmon’s J.Jonah Jameson was a serious treat), but LOVED the Iron Man, Captain America, and Avengers movies. Also liked Guardians of the Galaxy a lot and am looking forward to the sequel this summer.

    The Reeves Superman movie was pretty good (sequels got worse as they progressed), and I liked the Keaton Batman movies, but since then they’ve been meh with the exception of Heath Ledger’s turn as the Joker.

  153. 153.

    Cacti

    Any time there’s a war or the possibility of war, you practically hear the bulge growing in the pants of the librul media.

    Never forget the slavish boot licking of Dubya’s Iraq invasion by the NYT, WaPo, every news network, etc.

  154. 154.

    J R in WV

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I worked for WV “Educational Broadcasting” at a TV station for about 2 years 1975-77 and really enjoyed learning about the PBS feeds and taping our own shows provided to PBS. We didn’t have a studio, but instead had a truck full of 2 inch video tape recorders and giant studio quality video cameras, along with huge lengths of (IIRC) like 88 conductor cable, lights, mikes, etc.

    We did recording of theater presentations, shows about education of disabled children, shows about the legislature, high school sports (mostly the BB championships, no one else was interested in the video rights to the finals), did shows about sewing and food preservation and cooking, you name it, we were there.

    But I couldn’t stomach the legislature, after the second year I gave it up. Stomach-turning lies from the mouths of committee chairmen, etc.

    But we listened to the NPR news shows while commuting to and from work. Now retired, we listen to musical shows, and get our news here and places linked from here. NBC is as others have accurately said, asslickers of the Republicans. As long as they allow Andrea Mitchell aka Mrs Greenspan to tell lies about what I just watched with my own eyes, they are dead to me.

    CBS appears to be more able to tell the truth about Trump, although I haven’t watched them since Trump became an official warrior, killing a defenseless air base for all of 18 hours!!

    I can’t talk about this anymore. I grew up in the news business, and watching it turned into a propaganda arm of the fascists is so depressing and horrible I can’t be rational about it. Or maybe being irrational about it is the sane option?

  155. 155.

    J R in WV

    @Mike in NC:

    the media is ready to erect a giant equestrian statue of him on the National Mall.

    Surely you mean with Trump’s visage as the ass of a giant horse taking a shit?!

  156. 156.

    Lurking Canadian

    @Doug R: I’m probably going to regret this, but I’ll bite. I thought it was a bad idea to give the Executive the right to declare people guilty of capital crimes and carry out extra-judicial executions based on secret evidence. Whether they use a drone or an axe is not material to that decision.

    Since January 20, the power to order those extra-judicial executions is now invested in Donald J Fucking Trump, and you STILL think it’s a good idea?

  157. 157.

    Barry

    @hilts: “In 2 separate appearances on CNN, Fareed Zakaria referred to Trump as a bullshit artist, so he was the last person I expected to see fold like a cheap fucking lawn chair within nanoseconds of bombs dropping over Syria. He’s dead to me now.”

    My last exposure to him was the Iraq War, which he supported until after the majority of the American people had stopped. Then, and only then after the ratings fell, did the critic turn against the show.

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