In a few years when people look back and say to themselves “What the hell happened to Reason magazine,” it might be useful for them to direct their web browsers to this Nick Gillespie post, where he just completely loses it about a photo op in which Obama and Biden buy hamburgers:
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden jaunted off to an Arlington, Virginia restaurant called Ray’s Hell Burger, where they and their posse ingested mass quantities of burgers and house-speciality “cheesy tater puffs.”
***Obama should know better: You really don’t have to pay for fawning coverage from the Fourth Estate (now reduced for quick sale by owners!), though I’m sure all the starving members of the White House press corps are happy with the free-to-them grub, especially now that Jack Germond isn’t standing in the way of the fixin’s bar.
These sorts of ultra-lame, super-calculated P.R. stunts really chap my hide. They’re simply the obverse of official stories that Kim Jong-il doesn’t ever go to the bathroom or that Mussolini could beat even Italian champs at tennis, clearly phony embellishments to alternately make leaders either superhuman or super-normal.
I like how he skipped the Dijon mustard angle preferred by a different genus of wingnut and instead went for mentioning totalitarian regimes. Well played, Nick, although I’m sad you couldn’t work in Hitler and liberal fascism! I guess the teabag demographic is a bigger player in magazine sales than I expected.
RIP, Reason Magazine.
zoe kentucky
How dare that Obama go out to lunch like a normal person– (shaking fist in air)– how dare he leave the White House protective bubble!
The idea that Obama going out for burgers with Biden causes anyone outrage is, well, outrageous.
joe from Lowell
.
Wow. That’s kinda nuts.
Oh, clearly. Barack Obama and Joe Biden don’t really eat cheeseburgers. Of course not!
Umwhat?
r€nato
I have it on good authority that Obama got his burger with Swiss cheese. Everyone knows you get your burger with American cheese in that part of Virginia! What kind of a swishy, effeminate elitist is Obama anyway?
I am OUTRRRRRRRRAGED!
Martin
There is no full wingnut. We’ve already established that wingnut is graded on an unbounded scale. They’ve merely attained a higher level of wingnut, with an infinite number of levels yet to achieve.
r€nato
I also heard from Drudge that the Obama motorcade stopped all the traffic for hours on the highway outside the burger joint.
Thousands – no, MILLIONS! – of people who had to sit in traffic, cars idling and melting Al Gore’s precious glaciers, just so Barack Saddam Hussein Osama al-Qaeda could do a cheap PR stunt for the fawning liberal media!
OUTRRRRRRRRRAGEOUS!
John Cole
@r€nato: Yeah, well I hear that is just the obverse of Pol Pot putting muenster on his burgers. So there!
/glibertarian
DeadlyShoe
I’ve read this about five times now and it still doesn’t make sense.
At least Obama didn’t claim that he’d be a good guy to have a beer with. That would skip Mussolini and move right on to Hitler, yes?
TenguPhule
And Obama bought them cheap! McCain at least dropped bucks on ribs and lobster.
Dennis-SGMM
It’s obvious that Gillespie now aspires to breathe the same rarefied air as Red State’s Erick Erickson.
John Cole
I just hope to God they don’t ever send Nick on the campaign trail, where they have photo ops in restaurants every hour. He’d seriously lose it.
GambitRF
Wingnuttery aside, who the hell says “chap my hide”?
Danton
Jeeeeez… I had a burger tonight. Will it change my political sensibilities? (Sigh)
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Real Americans don’t put arugula on their burgers. Kudos to Reason for blowing the lid on these phonies!
joe from Lowell
Judging from Reason Magazine’s hysterical reaction, something really big must have happened at that burger joint.
Hey, this is fun!
calipygian
I think this is pretty much proof that anyone to the right of David Gergen pretty much has got nuttin’.
Seriously.
If they had something, ANYTHING, they’d be sayin’ it.
But they don’t, so they aren’t.
I suppose they could bitch about how the hedge funds are simultaneously taking bailout money while bankrupting companies and taking AIG’s bailout money, but that would offend rich people, and we can’t have that.
DonkeyKong
Every time I see Gillespie on the Tee-vee, he’s wearing that fuckin Fonzi leather jacket to match the smirk on his face.
tripletee (formerly tBone)
God damn it, Scruffy, I had an arugula joke all teed up and you beat me to it.
Jon H
“clearly phony embellishments to alternately make leaders either superhuman or super-normal.”
Says a guy noted for the lame affectation of his constantly worn leather jacket.
bago
Here are the rules. If you need a press conference to show how regular you are (see Republican Pizza Parties), you are not regular. If you just go out and do it, then you just wanted a frickin burger.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@tripletee (formerly tBone):
Yeah, I knew there’d be a few of those. It was a race to get mine in first. Yours is probably funnier.
Martin
So, let me get this straight:
Rather than eating at the WH, on the taxpayer’s dime, they go out and buy lunch with their own money, and the libertarians are bitching about it?
So, capitalism bad, socialism good now?
dmsilev
Has Chris Matthews chimed in on this “controversy” yet? If I remember the primary campaign correctly, he’s the final word about whether a given food is eaten by “real Americans”.
-dms
Rob
All of this outrage from the wingnuts is so comical. We always joke about the wingnuts heads exploding, but if they are getting this bent out of shape about a damn hamburger, just wait until the pick to replace Souter gets underway. Good times on the way.
Sparklebunny
Remember that time Bush served a fake turkey to the troops? That was sooo….how do I put it? Oh, I know! one of those “ultra-lame, super-calculated P.R. stunts”.
Anton Sirius
Now wait just a minute, John, I think he’s on to something. Notice that Obama and Biden didn’t just go out for regular hamburgers, no. They ate Hell Burgers, and what mere mortal could possibly consume one of those?
Laura W
Being the word whore I am, I appreciate the choice of “jaunt”:
to make a usually short journey for pleasure
How DARE HE!
When I watched the scintillating video of Obama Placing His Order, I believe I heard him ask for “Mustard only, no Ketchup”.
Has he no shame?
I believe he put $5 in the tip jar.
Outrage? Impeachable offense?
Hard to say at this juncture.
John Cole
@Martin: Actually, I believe all Presidents have to pay for the food they eat in the WH. The preparation and staff is paid for, but the raw ingredients are out of pocket for the big dog.
Can anyone back me up?
WereBear
I believe our Constitution encourages the pursuit of happiness and cheesy tater puffs.
r€nato
“If I had worked at the burger joint, I would have told him he could keep his change!
Get it? Nyuk nyuk nyuk! I woulda showed him, you betcha!”
JK
I’ve seen Nick Gillespie on C-SPAN several times and found him incredibly arrogant, self-righteous, and dismissive. Reason magazine is fast becoming as much of a wasteland as the National Review and the Weekly Standard.
Anthony
Oh, I dunno. I’m not convinced that any article that includes the phrase “really chap my hide” can be all bad.
A similar rule exists for “horse’s patoot”.
Left Coast Tom
The post prior to this is about hedge funds who didn’t want to be named while they screwed over Chrysler pensioners.
In this context it takes an astonishing sort of…personality…to be outraged over a hamburger.
Laura W
@John Cole: Yes, I heard that on cable news once so that is all the backing up you need here.
r€nato
…which leaves what for Obama? He can’t be superhuman, he can’t be normal either. Super-elitist? Yes, he is a super-elitist, every single Democratic politician is a super-elitist, Gillespie just knows it and any evidence to the contrary is merely evidence of liberal media bias.
Lev
@Rob: That’s the best case I can think of for a gay SCOTUS nominee. It would take, oh, five seconds before the wingnuts started blowing their stacks harder than ever before. Trust me, the homophobes will be begging for Sonia Sotomayor if they find out that an actual gay person might be sitting on the Court.
Of course, I don’t really think it’s a bulletproof move for Obama, but it’d be the most entertainingly disastrous thing on the screen since BSG ended.
Common Sense
Jesus the GOP has more dietary restrictions than a chemo patient. I don’t think you are allowed to eat simple yellow mustard either. Not until they change the name to Freedom’s. Hell mayonnaise is pretty Frenchy too.
Official GOP approved All American burger (not Hamburger — someone might think you are a fan of Old Europe):
Double Stack burger with American Cheese on Wonder Bread. Piss off those Vegans at PETA and ignore the veggies in favor of a half pound of bacon, slap some ketchup (Hunt’s not Heinz — can’t support Teresa) on it and serve it with a side of baked beans. For dessert Georgia peach cobbler — Apples are way too northerny for a real American.
r€nato
Commenter Gunga @ linked column:
Goddam. You can’t even spoof these clowns any longer.
I give up.
Warren Terra
Martin @#4:
Well, we all know that this is a leading site in the study of Wingnut theory, so in the spirit of constructive debate I’d like to offer a different model.
Mr. Cole and his collaborators The Commenters Of Balloon Juice have compellingly argued that there is no such think as Peak Wingnut, suggesting as – Martin proposes in the comment I’ve blockquoted above – that it is impossible for any individual to ever go Full Wingnut, as “Full Wingnut” is an oxymoron in a world where a greater wingnut is always to be found over the next horizon.
However, such an assessment is unfair to Mr. Gillespie, as I can perceive at least two ways in which he may in fact have achieved Full Wingnut: the first, which I’ll call Local Full Wingnut, suggests that although a greater wingnut is possible and indeed inevitable, he has nonetheless perpetrated the greatest possible Wingnuttery conceivable for this moment in time and for the context in which his Wingnuttery has been displayed (that is to say, a blog at Reason; he’s just not going to compete if you were to match him against Pam Atlas or another Titan Of Wingnut). Of course, by achieving Local Full Wingnut one automatically raises the bar, and any subsequent display of Wingnuttery must be measured against the new standard. It could even be possible to achieve Current Full Wingnut, the state of having shown yourself to be more of a Wingnut than anyone else has ever before managed – but Gillespie’s not even close to that.
The second, related concept is that Gillespie may have achieved Individual Full Wingnut, and although even for his time and place he’s not the Wingnuttiest specimen that can be imagined, he has nonetheless achieved or exceeded the previously conceivable level of Wingnuttery for himself, individually.
I suspect that, while either of my theories is not completely infeasible, the second has little value, as determining an individuals’ current Wingnut potential is such a subjective endeavor and whatever level an individual does achieve is likely to be only a precursor to subsequent greater heights. But it still seems possible that Gillespie has achieved Local Full Wingnut.
geg6
Okay. They’ve really lost me on this one. Believe me, I work hard to wrap my mind around wingnut reasons for the faux outrage of the day. But two guys going out for a burger lunch? Seriously? They’ve reduced themselves to this? How do they keep up the energy to ratchet it up to eleven over burgers? Is eating corn flakes for breakfast or a steak for dinner next? Where do they go from this? I honestly cannot figure out what angle they think they’re working with this.
calipygian
@Lev,
You REALLY want to see Andy McCarthy’s head spin around and explode with a SCOTUS nominee?
I have one word:
Oprah.
Why not? I thought Blago should have appointed her to the Senate in Illinois.
Peter J
OT, but the mention of clown shoes…
The RNC Clown College (via BoingBoing)
r€nato
Like I said, you can’t spoof these fuckers. Don’t even try it, BJ’ers:
Commenter MarkJ
(it’s a pic of Hitler at dinner, I guess enjoying a simple ‘man of the people’ meal)
tripletee (formerly tBone)
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss:
Sadly, no.
Thankovsky
The thing that I find the most bizarre about this Reason article, is how much of a played-out meme it already is. The Right has gone on about how much of a media darling Obama is for the past two years, and it really has yet to stick. Why in God’s name would they think it would stick now?
jnfr
mmm, I’m really hungry now.
geg6
Wow. I was going to give Warren Terra the win on this thread but then calipygian came along and, in a whole other context completely, ties the game.
Common Sense
@Common Sense:
Sorry too late to edit with the ticking time bomb editing software featured here, but it would be nice if there were an endangered species of cow they could grill up too.
Thankovsky
@Common Sense:
Mmmmmm…dolphin-burgers…
r€nato
High Every Body | May 6, 2009, 9:26am | #
*snort*
Common Sense
@Thankovsky:
Maybe Palin could grind up some turkey?
Dennis-SGMM
@Thankovsky:
Deep-fried Northern Spotted Owl.
Hunter Gathers
Shorter Reason: blackity, blackity, black, black, black! What, no chitlin’s? Collard greens? Sweet potato pie? Kool-aid?
And libertarians wonder out loud why sane people don’t join their cause.
devopsych
Is there anything hipper than a Jack Germond reference?
Jon H
You’d think they were Soviets, criticizing someone for eating an item not available at the state-run supermarket.
Josh Hueco
OT, but I’m watching TNT right now, and I have to say that Ron Jeremy’s really cleaned himself up and is looking good since he started coaching the Magic.
DougJ
I do have to say that that the Dijon mustard post by that idiot at Cornell is one of the greatest conservative posts of all time.
Thankovsky
@Dennis-SGMM:
Not endangered enough. If they want poultry, they’ll go California condor. :p
Warren Terra
@ Common Sense #47
The answer is obvious. Only 2000 alive, all in Europe, officially named “Heck Cattle”, and with a great Godwin connection – as the Wikipedia entry I linked puts it:
Jon Ronson had a great program about them on BBC Radio earlier this year.
r€nato
@Jon H:
they really do sound like Maoist cadres in the Cultural Revolution. Every aspect of any presidential meal is apparently fraught with political meaning which wingnuts are obliged to unpack, analyze and hold forth about in order to illustrate Obama’s counter-revolutionary beliefs.
Laura W
@DougJ: Baggie of Cheerios for cocktail hour is just a damn freakin’ funny visual!
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@Lev:
It’s not popularly mentioned, but apparently Elena Kagan is a lesbian. And she’s probably the most likely nominee at this point..
Warren Terra
@ Common Sense #50
I still can’t believe she did that photo-op. It is just so absolutely something I’d expect to see written in the Onion or otherwise intended as a cruel satire. I was helpless laughing when I first saw what she’d done; I still laugh when I think about it.
Jon H
@r€nato: “they really do sound like Maoist cadres in the Cultural Revolution.”
heh. Were Obama and Biden wearing decadent Western, how you say, “Levis”?
Common Sense
@DougJ:
Those updates are gold. It really is unspoofable. Dijongate? A coverup because they featured two talking heads inanely chattering? Keep digging, you may be able to singlehandedly prove the blogosphere can do penetrating insightful investigative journalism.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
Everybody knows that the properly Presidential way to get cheeseburgers is to bark at your chief of staff, as hostilely and condescendingly as possible, to go get them.
Common Sense
@Warren Terra:
I wasn’t offended by it or anything, I think I had the same reaction as you. It was the shit eating grin on that guy’s face that did it for me.
Brick Oven Bill
The photographed lunch break deal was very much naked pandering to anyone who is awake enough to care. I perceive that Obama really does believe that he has a gift.
This is understandable as he has led a pretty pampered life to this point in time. But as has been previously explained, it is not up to men to know who is gifted.
wasabi gasp
Obama & Biden should’ve sucked huge tubes of doobage and gone to White Castle. The jacket would’ve stayed the same, but the article would’ve been so different.
r€nato
before long, wearing a tie and having all your teeth will be considered a sign of effete, out-of-touch elitism by wingnuttia.
Common Sense
@wasabi gasp:
I can think of one administration member that can lead the way.
r€nato
@Brick Oven Bill:
please explain how ‘pampered’ Obama’s life has been.
My wingnut ex-father once lectured me, back in 1998 about how he couldn’t stand Clinton because he was one of these born-with-a-silver-spoon elitists who had everything handed to him.
I’ll give you one guess as to what’s wrong with that assertion, and one additional guess as to which born-with-a-silver-spoon and had-everything-handed-to-him presidential candidate for whom he voted in 2000 and 2004.
Common Sense
@r€nato:
Jesus renato, single parent kids get all the breaks. They get welfare and government handouts at every turn.
Not to mention Obama grew up in multiple countries, flying around like a sheik between Hawaii and Indonesia. Wake up man.
calipygian
@Common Sense,
I think what BOB was referring to was that since Obama is black and went to Harvard, it was handed to him with affirmative action.
Unlike Dubya, who earned his way into Yale with hard work and good grades.
Common Sense
@calipygian:
You are only proving our point.
calipygian
Hey, Im on YOUR side!
Martin
So, a Special Theory of Wingnuttery and a General Theory, as it were.
Common Sense
@calipygian:
My fault, sometimes my spoof troll detector is faulty.
Stay truthy, but remember we aren’t in the majority unless most of us are silent. Just let Rush do the talking. The only word necessary is “ditto.”
Fledermaus
@r€nato: for the life of me i never understood cheesesteak-gate from ’04. It sounds horrible with cheez whiz processed cheese-like food. If people in philly like it that way then their idiots. Not all that surprising tho for a city home to the Flyers
Left Coast Tom
@Martin:
I just don’t see how a Local Full Wingnut event is possible. Assuming that “Reason Goes the Full Wingnut” is related to one going “Full Monty”, it’s not obvious how one can sort-of-but-not-really uncover themselves while still being recognized for Full Wingnut. For example, in SF, the south part of Baker Beach is considered clothing-required and the north part clothing-optional. South Baker Beach hasn’t achieved any sort of Local Full Monty based upon it’s local restriction as a clothing-required beach, it’s really no different from a lot of beaches. It’s the north part of the beach that has a different status.
edmund dantes
Little late, but yeah John. The First Family has to pay for all the food they eat that isn’t part of state dinners, hosting dignitaries, etc. It was on one of the “Behind __________ (Air Force One, Marine One, White House)” that became the rage (but were pretty cool other than seeing smug Georgie boy in his Air Force jacket) as the Bush Admin winded down.
It was something I never knew either. I had always just assumed we just covered all their expenses.
PeakVT
Ray’s Hell Burger
This must be fairly new because I used to eat at a pho restaurant in that shopping center all the time and I don’t remember it being there.
…hrm, teh Goog informs me that Dr. Dremo’s has finally closed. Shame.
Oh, yeah, and WTF is with Gillespie? I mean, if the title of the magazine you worked for was “Reason” don’t you think you would employ some before hitting submit?
JL
@John Cole: President Ford’s son had a sleepover at the White House and learned the hard way about the food reimbursement plan. He and his buddies took full advantage of the kitchen staff. The following day his dad called him into his office with a very long receipt.
anna missed
Didn’t George Will just write a piece pissing and moaning about the rich and powerful wearing denim? I hate to admit it but this could be the beginnings of a new revolution. Back to the time of Dickens! When the rich and powerful dressed in really fancy costumes, and did really fancy things. And all the poor wretches trolling the gutters knew it and loved it!
Hey, you never know it could fly.
asiangrrlMN
Hey, wait. I like spicy brown mustard, too. Does that make me elitist as well? It is so hard to keep up with the cultural no-nos as dictated by the right.
As for the gay SCOTUS pick, I noted that Washington Monthly has two items about the conservatives preemptively striking on this, too. Read A Different Kind of Breakthrough… and Transparent Bigotry to see what I mean.
P.S. Cheesesteak wit’ is THE best. I didn’t believe it until I had it. Go to Philly and try, and you have to get Cheez Whiz on it.
Common Sense
@asiangrrlMN:
agreed on the Cheez Whiz on a cheesesteak comment, and I generally hate the stuff.
Martin
Now now, I suggest you take it up with Pat. And I’d be a little more cautious given that Pat/Geno arguments are as heated as they come and dropping ‘idiot’ on half the Philly population is a quick path to an asskicking.
Laura W
@Brick Oven Bill:
mmmmmmm…..naked President Obama.
If you could find a way to work in a trapezoidal lunch tray, shuffling of feet, swaying of hips, shifting of eyes, suppression of coy smiles…honest to God, Bill, you’d never have to waste another minute of your time in a Pantera watching a thunder-thighed young woman slurp a strawberry shake while you wait for a slacker government guy to stand you up again.
You are truly gifted. There is a place for you at Harlequin.
Common Sense
@Martin:
I’ll take them all on. The best steak I had in Philly was Abner’s Pizza Steak. Pat’s and Geno’s are for the tourists.
Mike P
@JK:
So, in other words, Nick is acting like a Libertarian.
stickler
Renato:
That picture of Hitler (and Goebbels, BTW) is him enjoying an “Eintopfgericht,” literally a “one-pot meal.” In other words, no surprise, a posed propaganda picture in service of mendacious government policy.
The much-trumpeted “in was part of the Nazi regime’s attempt to get Germans to eat less food, because food supplies were getting tight in the runup to war. (Closely related: the need to use precious foreign exchange to buy either raw materials for weapons, or to buy food inputs, especially fats; this has been referred to as the “guns versus butter” debate. Guess which won.)
Mike P
@DougJ:
That post is just full of super secret wingnut awesome sauce. I challenge someone to attempt a parody of it, with the full knowledge that there’s absolutely no way you could surpass the original.
asiangrrlMN
@Common Sense: Me, too. I was incredulous until I tried it, and then I was sold. It really is something one has to try before disparaging it.
@Laura W: Hot damn! Nekkid Prez O? Now THAT would be a great photo op.
Brick Oven Bill
Because of Barack’s mixed-race status, in parallel with the era of higher education in which he travelled, no professor would criticize him. People made jokes about Bush vs. Kerry GPAs. Obama has not had to release his GPA, let alone the class work he chose to pursue.
This extends to today. The press corps rising to their feet when Obama enters the room is one recently publicized incident. Another less publicized example is Holbrooke stating that Afghanistan is an open-ended commitment. The national press that savaged Bush in Iraq does not question a new, open-ended commitment in Afghanistan?
I really do believe that there is something to the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Laura, I recently completed the download of your Joni Michell electricity some, and am moments away from enjoying it. Although this ‘high speed’ internet does not seem that fast.
TenguPhule
Impossible.
Remember, as you approach the event horizon of peak wingnut, you will never be observed to reach it.
Ked
…okay, BOB had me going for a few months there, but I think this thread has finally convinced me he fits in the spoof troll category. Either that or the spicy hawaiian pizza has given me heartburn and I’m misparsing.
Can’t we all just get a-burger?
TenguPhule
Because they get to their feet for EVERY fucking executive in office.
Step up your spoof game, BOB.
TenguPhule
Already forgot the first months of the Iraq invasion already, BOB?
Or years of “victory is right around the corner!” trumpheted by the media, BOB?
J.D. Rhoades
It does raise questions that the media should be pursuing.
DonkeyKong
“Medium rare gets me fired up for some Teabaggin!”
Common Sense
@Brick Oven Bill:
Truth Bob! The editor of the Harvard Law Review never released his GPA. For all we know they hand out magna cum laude degrees to every uppity black dude that walks in the door.
And it’s absolutely accurate that the same press that failed to question the last open ended commitment in Afghanistan must be in the pocket of the people pimping the current one.
Keep speaking sense. I’m listening.
moe99
Don’t forget that if you don’t go with the Dijon, the most popular mustard in America is French’s! Wingnuts win either way.
A Squirrel
Actually, I kind of take Gillespie’s point. I mean, it IS a stupid, pandering photo-op. And yet, I guess that’s democracy for you.
If he’s trying to make a Gene Healy-esque point, I get it. I found it less annoying than the typical Mangu-Ward kleptocrat apologia. Just sorta dull.
Brick Oven Bill
That would be the Editor of the Harvard Law Review who didn’t write anything Common Sense.
That Joni Michell song was nice Laura. But when it comes the subject of electricity, this is more my speed. Back before I was headquartered out of my house, my whiteboard had written in the top left corner:
“Glittering prizes and endless compromises shatter the illusion of integrity.”
In my experience, integrity seems to win in the end however, as much as other parties are able to use it against you in the short term in this particular political environment. I have known men who have been jailed over integrity issues. Truth will become much more important in the years ahead.
So kiddies: always tell the truth.
Karl
Ray’s Hell-Burger has foie gras and roasted bone marrow on the menu. They make a great burger, but it is not the blue-collar slab’o’beef of legend. So that portion of the critique’s misguided, too!
Common Sense
@Brick Oven Bill:
Holy shit you just blew my mind. There is a difference between the words Editor and Writer apparently.
Allow me to blow your mind right back.
No Harvard Students are elected writers for the Harvard Law Review. That isn’t what Law reviews do. They collect articles, typically written by professors or judges, and publish them.
KRK
Reason went off the deep end a while back, which is why it pleased me no end to see that they had to start running “please subscribe to our awesome magazine” campaigns, just like their sister publication, the free market triumph that is The National Review.
I can’t believe we’ve had this many comments on a thread concerned with overanalysis of a presidential burger and deep-fried whatnots, and no one has mentioned onion rings or that crazy law professor from Wisconsin. I wonder what she-who-shall-not-be-named-because-she-googles-herself would say is symbolized by “cheesy tater puffs”.
Mike in NC
Had I known this, I’d have chosen to be born mixed race, too, rather than face the unbearable burden of being simply white.
B.O.B.’s latest about the birth certificate.
Never happened before in the history of the Republic! What a vile precedent!
OBL slipped away at Tora Bora and nobody lost any sleep over it even at the time. Tommy Franks got a shiny medal.
“Is our children learning?”
noncarborundum
Just call it “mayo”. Then it’s Irish.
Brian J
I wonder how he or others who share his disgust with such public relations tactics would react if Obama and Biden had sent an aid to get the food (not that we’d necessarily know, but assume we would). Would that really be better? Or would they be attacked as if they couldn’t take the time out of their days to take the trip to the store and get their own damn food?
I wish I could believe otherwise, but it seems like Obama is damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. Biden, too…at least in the minds of those on the right who remind me of that line from “The West Wing” where President Bartlet says that the RNC has a press conference if he sneezes.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
BoB – you really have no idea what you are talking about. There are dozens students on law review who NEVER get published. Each edition of law review publishes one maybe two student written pieces per issue. Get a clue before spouting off on subjects you have no idea about.
noncarborundum
Questions that Cokie Roberts assures me are “interesting”.
Michael
In Wingnutopia, you ALWAYS double down when you’ve got 22.
The results are the same as they are in blackjack in the regular world, but the extra bet and effort is expected.
Bootlegger
@Mike P: Except that the law school prof claims he IS the one being ironic, and that furthermore the joke is on the crazy “netroots” for thinking he would really get his panties in a wad over mustard.
Got that? He thinks its funny that we might confuse his irony with his real self.
Bootlegger
@A Squirrel: The press follows him everywhere, what the hell else is he suppose to do? Sit in his bubble all day? Sometimes a burger is just a burger. Frankly, I thought he looked a little sad when he ordered, like he knew whatever he said would be all over the internet and really all he fucking wanted was a goddamned burger. But no. HE CAN”T DO THAT because, shhhh, (whisper) he’s the president.
Mark
Nick’s comments, in a nutshell: The media are biased (in this case because they wrote about The Hamburger Incident) so it is good that they are in financial trouble.
Two problems
1. Nick wrote about The Hamburger Incident too
2. Reason is in just as much financial trouble as the rest of the media.
J. Michael Neal
@asiangrrlMN:
asiangrrl, you don’t even qualify as American. You hardly need to worry about elitist.
A Squirrel
@Bootlegger: I didn’t mean to say Obama did anything wrong here. But, to be honest, I do think it is stupid that this gets covered like this at all.
You get no argument from me about Reason, though. They seem to be trying to prove the adage about libertarians being Rupublicans who want to smoke pot. I miss Sanchez.
r€nato
@Brian J:
gee ya think?
asiangrrlMN
@J. Michael Neal: Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. Thanks, J. Michael, I can be as elitist as I want!
A la lanterne les aristos
I kinda want a burger now.
SqueakyRat
I’m still working on that “obverse of . . .” thing. Or, actually, I gave up on it. Quite a while ago. What does this bonehead think “obverse” means? “More of the same”? “Something kind of like but different”?
Ruemara
Actually, all this hoopla makes me want a juicy burger. Sounds like it’s time for a turkey burger with extra blue cheese and jalapeño mustard on homemade wheat buns. Poor Obama, he’s trying to save a sinking ship of lunatics, and snarks. Glad I’m not him.
Anne Laurie
Just Asian, I’m guessing, Asiangrrrl. True fact: When I was growing up in NYC in the 1960s, the standard mustard choices were “French’s” or “Chinese restaurant” (the spicy brown stuff). Since Teh Heartland(tm) seems to run in an alternate universe some 50 years behind our own, they’re probably just getting to that particular binary…
asiangrrlMN
@Anne Laurie: So I’m being patriotic to MY heritage? good to know!
Mmmmm, habaneros….
Thankovsky
@asiangrrlMN:
Hell to the yeah! I was on a Habitat for Humanity trip to El Salvador not too long ago, and I smuggled back some hot sauce that was pretty much pure habanero. Hellfire in a bottle, but God help me, I love it.
HyperIon
@DonkeyKong:
Exactly.
He must have a closet full of them.
And he has Blago-like hair.
Joel
My favorite juxtaposition:
Sounds promising!
O well.
Suki
LOL, you folks cannot be serious can you?
Too bad the Pres. interrupted the VP’s car washing day. He did not even get to wax his Trans Am before heading out on the burger run!