David Ignatius on Obama’s reversal on the release of Pentagon interrogation photos:
Is this a “Sister Soulja” moment on national security, like bill Clinton’s famous criticism of a controversial rap singer during the 1992 presidential campaign — which upset some liberal supporters but polished his credentials as a centrist? We’ll have to wait and see, but certainly military officers I spoke with this week were pleased — even as the ACLU was indignant.
There are so many problems with this, it’s hard to know where to start. First off, does David Ignatius really believe therre are “centrist” voters out there who will now support Obama because of his decision not to release these photos? Second, this is a policy decision, one I’m not sure I agree with, but one that seems to have been made because of input from the military (and Petraeus in particular). What the hell does that have to do with Bill Clinton condemning an oscure rap singer to distance himself form Jesse Jackson?
Finally, I just don’t understand the Village obsession with having politicians piss off their base. It’s more pronounced when the base is liberals, to be sure, but they were pretty hot and bothered about the idea of a pro-choice Republican VP as well.
Why? Sure it would score points with David Broder, but do they really believe that should be every politician’s highest aspiration?
(via Atrios)
Pooh
Yes.
SATSQ
keptsimple
“Rap singer”? In 2009? Really?
Thankovsky
I think Richard Wolfe had the right perspective on “Countdown”: if he releases these photos right now, and then a bunch of U.S. soldiers start dying in Afghanistan or Iraq in the near future (as they have been over the past couple weeks), conservatives and conservadems are going to start howling about Obama putting our troops more in danger. Plus, as always, he risks alienating the DOD if he goes about this recklessly. As much as it may irk us, this isn’t a battle Obama can afford to fight right now.
TenguPhule
Fixed.
Name one time the Village has *ever* recommended pissing off the fundie base as good centrism.
TenguPhule
Gods of Darkness, I hate wordpress.
DougJ
They loved the idea of pro-choice Republican veep.
Ninerdave
Must be like your obsession with the traditional media. I don’t get it either.
Yes, the traditional media is lazy and for the most part, essentially stenographers. However Doug, your endless posts on the subject aren’t going to change that.
You’re an insightful and smart blogger, frankly I’d rather read about your local politics than your 8 of 9 posts on how shitty the media is. Your posts have become this:
Hey look at what this idiot at the WaPo said. Hey look at what this idiot at the Times said.
I’m probably in the minority here, but I find your media criticism boring and tedious.
You can do better.
TenguPhule
Who was that?
DougJ
Lierberman.
TenguPhule
And he wouldn’t have immediately sold out to the GOP base on this like everything else because?
MikeJ
My guess is they’ve seen Broder in the shower at the WaPo gym. Like a Clydesdale, man, like a fucking Clydesdale.
Comrade Jake
@DougJ:
Ridge too, no?
I’m just sick of mediots trying to find “Sister Souljah” moments in the Obama political trajectory. These people have no fucking imagination whatsoever.
DougJ
I wasn’t prepared for how much pro-torture stupidity we’d see from these guys. My gut reaction is to be livid about it and I can’t help that.
r€nato
Ignatius’ column seemed bizarre to me. I think The Village is accustomed to evaluating everything in terms of ‘the game’. It’s like baseball stats nerds obsessing over statistical minutiae.
I approve of Obama’s decision. He’s already got his hands full in Afghanistan what with that horrible incident last week and the likely prospect of several more years of involvement there.
In fact, I’m tempted to blame this on Bush as well – we ought to be preparing to pull out of Afghanistan, but we’ve basically pissed away the last 6.5 years we’ve spent there while Bush/Cheney sent our military on a fool’s errand in Iraq. If we were scaling down Afghanistan rather than ramping up, Obama might be in a better position to release the photos.
…in the larger picture, frankly I’m glad we have a president who is not excessively loyal. That’s what the last administration gave us in spades, and that’s how we ended up with Rummy serving as DefSec much longer than he should have, and the president of a horse association running FEMA. Making every last one of us DFHs happy 100% of the time is not necessarily the recipe for long-term success.
asiangrrlMN
Yawn. What? Oh, sorry. I read “Sister Souljah” and stopped reading. I block out the traditional media as much as I possibly dare, preferring to get my shorter traditional media from other sources.
garyb50
It all falls into place once you read ‘Shock Doctrine.’
Anne Laurie
Well, it’s what’s best for them, the Media Village Idiots! Who cares about stuff like “principles” or “pragmatism” when there’s some juicy bit of insider-baseball that will feed the 24/7 news cycle for another day? The media courtiers don’t have to worry about any given political decision putting their own extremely comfortable lives or those of anybody they know at risk — what they want, therefore, is whatever narrative D*R*A*M*A will score them another ‘get’ or give them more teebee face time or even create a new niche for some otherwise unemployable relative. (See: Jonah “Doughy Pantload” Goldberg and the Linda Tripp/Monica Lewinsky tapes.)
If I were in charge, any newsbot talking about The Sport of Politics would be severely chastised, with summary execution for incorrigible offenders. Because it’s just bloody offensive that peoples’ efforts, hopes, and even lives should be treated as equivalent to which group of professional entertainers gets the most points in today’s game.
MikeJ
Why does it really matter if they release the photos or not? It’s not as if anybody will ever be prosecuted. I would not give a shit about seeing the pictures if I thought the US government didn’t believe that Americans were above the law. Everything with the photos is a sideshow. If you want to demonstrate that we don’t approve of torture, the people that ordered it need to be doing hard time, at a minimum.
Pat
Hopefully, this kills the whole “Sister Souljah” trope, which has irritated me since The New Republic started using–DAMMIT maybe it’s not Sister Souljah that’s been irritating me.
Ninerdave
So am I.
However, your postings at Balloon Juice ain’t gonna change that. In fact linking to Trapper, et al, only gives them page views and thus fodder for advertisers.
I’d wager that your platform here could be put to better use to raise a shit storm and getting the media to notice, rather than calling the villagers to task in posts critical of them that they’ll never read, because well, they are critical of them.
Just a thought.
Joshua Norton
Daym! If you’re going to make an inane metaphor, you should at least spell her name right. Souljah. Even this white boy knew that.
Also, with all due respect for the enormity of the Souljah thing, the rest of his article is pretty damn peurile as well. I look at it as a “Don’t shit where you eat” moment rather than a Sister Souljah one. He has to live with those people — all Dubya people or career military with lots invested in Iraq — and they’re going to come to light because of the ACLU lawsuit anyway, so why act like you’re abetting it if it’s just going to piss people off?
Oh, I know why — because that sounds reasonable and won’t make you look like an oracle if you can somehow substantiate this centrism trend in another article a month or two down the road. Smart. Keep your foot in the door, Ignatius. That’s how we get on Maher and score book deals.
Thankovsky
@asiangrrlMN:
Good impulse. That should be one of the automatic “DON’T READ ANY FURTHER” trigger phrases.
Martin
Sometimes its like watching dogs try to figure out the TV. They keep looking for the deep analysis that explains what they witnessed in the last 3 hours, having forgotten about everything from the last 3 months and ignoring that there’s 3 years still to go.
Comrade Jake
I would like to second the call for a moratorium on links to Tapper’s posts. Just post a screen capture of memeorandum once the stupidity runneth over.
stickler
Look. Obama’s playing this one safe. The military squawked about the pictures, the legal case is probably not all that airtight, now Obama gets to delay the release of the pics — and let’s be honest, he’s about to go to Egypt — for a while. Then, when the courts say “release them!”, he can tell the Pentagon how sorry he is that he has to release the pictures. Does anyone really think that he needs to pick this fight with the military RIGHT THE HELL NOW? Especially if he’s half-serious about killing the F-22?
Given the metric ass-ton of shit he’s dealing with, is this really the most important thing to worry about?
gwangung
Actually, I think baseball stat nerds know what they’re talking about. The Village is more like the former players and “insiders” who prattle on and on about things that sound good, like “heart” and “playing the game the right way” that, upon analysis, have absolutely NOTHING to do with winning ball games or getting policy passed and implemented.
asiangrrlMN
@Thankovsky: Like one of Steve Benen’s conversation enders. Yup. Saves me lots of valuable eyeball strain.
KG
Based on the 65% or so approval rating, I’m guessing most “centrists” already support Obama.
DougJ
I don’t think Tapper’s all bad. He writes some interesting stuff as well as crap. I also think that he does take criticism seriously when it’s fair. (Anyway, I hardly every link to him, that’s more John’s thing.)
InflatableCommenter
Hmm. Well we could just take the thing at face value. Obama’s decision was apparently based on a concern for the effect on the safety of our troops.
One can agree with that decision, or not, on the basis of its apparent merits.
But it’s in the blogomediablatheramarosannadannasphere that everything is symbolic, everything stands for something else, everything sends some kind of message to some message receivers or other, everything has some political meaning or value, everything is ground down into the same dreary context of looking into the same navels over and over again.
In the real world of real things and real people, and for all I know, real thoughts*, things just are what they are. My theory is that the closer we are to that world, the better off we are. The farther we are from it, and closer to a world of coded messages and political relevance, the worse off we are.
The motive for turning events into symbols is control of the storyline by people who have a vested interest in their storylines.
*something of an abstract concept in the blogomediablatheramarosannadannasphere.
Scott
I don’t think Tapper’s all bad.
I actually got a slightly snippy e-mail from him the other day after I lumped him in with a bunch of newspaper columnists and said they should all be launched into the sun. He wanted to make sure I knew he wasn’t a newspaper columnist. :)
Dennis-SGMM
Oh for fuck’s sake, its the Washington Post. That same WaPo whose Editorial Board made the catch of the year with the addition of Bill Kristol. Fred Hiatt is the tyrant of low expectations.
Scott
And, I should add, this was for a very low-readership comic-book blog, not for anything important or anything that was being read by folks interested in politics…
InflatableCommenter
Best goddam idea I have seen in a long time.
asiangrrlMN
@Scott: Wait, so he was reading your blog? Or did you send him a link?
Scott
@asiangrrlMN: I assume I came up on his Google Reader or something.
DougJ
In this case, I do, personally. But, in fairness, I think there are lot of cases where there are all kinds of ulterior/political motives.
I don’t believe, for example, for one minute that Obama’s position on DADT is based on an actual belief that gay Americans are not fit to serve.
I don’t think it’s a matter of taking everything at face value. But it’s equally stupid to turn everything into a Sister Souljah moment.
asiangrrlMN
@Scott: Ha! That’s funny. I’m tempted to write about him in MY blog tomorrow to see if I can get a testy email from him, too.
Scott
Yeah, I noted in an update that he wasn’t a newspaper columnist, but said that anyone who goes googling himself on comics blogs is still getting strapped on the side of that rocket-to-the-sun. :)
asiangrrlMN
@Scott: Zing! I hope you get another snippy response, and then you can post another snarky comment, and he’ll be the gift that just keeps on giving.
Scott
Hell, I’ll just blogwhore it.
wasabi gasp
This is the first time Obama has been tagged with the Sister Soulja Moment thing, amirite?
Ignatius Wins!
Well played, Masta D.
Fulcanelli
@asiangrrlMN: You have a blog? What’s the address? Don’t be shy…
asiangrrlMN
@Fulcanelli: Not gonna say for now. It’s still in the nascent stage, and I wanna noodle a bit with it first. Of course, that hasn’t stopped the trolls from trolling.
You can try to Google it if you like. I’ll post the url here when I feel comfortable (it’s in my name).
@Scott: Oooh, very funny. Nice zinger back at Tapper. Hey, I like graphic novels that are more dark and twisted, that have strong female characters, and that don’t necessarily end happily. Suggestions?
Fulcanelli
@Scott: Lubbock? Your neighbors burn the Dixie Chicks in effigy n’ stuff down there? I mean, comics are pretty cool… Just wondering.
Joshua Norton
Maybe as president, but he’s had Souljah hung around his neck before. Denouncing Rev. Wright was his Sister Souljah moment. Or, when he told off Bernie Mac. Or, when he preached black responsibility and Jesse Jackson threatened to cut his nuts out.
Fulcanelli
@asiangrrlMN: What platform you using? WordPress? Blogger? Movable Type?
asiangrrlMN
@Fulcanelli: WordPress.org, not com. I write about politics and about personal life. With what I’ve written here, it should be pretty easy to find me.
Scott
@asiangrrlMN: First: Damn, way to put me on the spot.
Let’s start with “Ultra” by the Luna Brothers — semi-realistic media-soaked superheroics with a mostly kickass female lead.
“The Umbrella Academy” by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba — very twisted. Got a lot of pre-publication publicity because it was written by the lead singer of My Chemical Romance, but to everyone’s surprise, it actually kicked ass.
And I haven’t read this one yet, but Allison Bechdel’s “Fun Home” gets excellent reviews everywhere I see it.
@Fulcanelli: I don’t think we’ve had any anti-Dixie stuff going on for a while, but I’m not sure if any of the local radio stations are playing their stuff yet. Last time I saw an anti-Dixie Chicks shirt, it was in a bargain bin for a couple of bucks.
Yes, Lubbockites are completely crazy a lot of the time. But we did finally legalize liquor sales in the city limits, so maybe we’re growing up a little…
asiangrrlMN
@Scott: Thanks! Who are the twin brothers from South America who do comics? I’ve read the first two compilations of Invincible. I really enjoyed that.
Scott
You got me stumped. I know the Lunas are not twins and are Americans. I’m pretty sure Los Bros Hernandez are also Americans and non-twins.
Wait, you’ve read the Hernandez Brothers’ “Love and Rockets,” right? And Neil Gaiman’s “Sandman”? I’m assuming you’ve read the heck out of those already. If you haven’t, forget my other suggestions and go read those. Ain’t nothing finer.
gwangung
@Scott:
Jeezus. You guys have taste.
asiangrrlMN…did you pick up the Secret Identities collection yet?
asiangrrlMN
@Scott: I’ve read Sandman, of course (and 99% of Neil Gaiman’s stuff), but I haven’t read Love and Rockets. Thanks for the suggestion.
The twins are fraternal, and they write dark, twisted shit. Damn.
Found them. The funny thing is that you mentioned one of them–Gabriel Ba. His fraternal twin is Fabio Moon. Here is a link to a review. They’re not bad.
gwangung, HOLY MOTHER OF BAAL! Thank you thank you thank you! I’d never even heard of that before. I am ordering it now! (Please tell me there is at least one female artist/writer). Sigh. Oh well. Maybe next time. I’m still buying it.
eemom
@Ninerdave:
Good heavens, if you are picking on DougJ for this it is plain to see you have never ventured over to Somerby’s place, aka Daily Howler.
The topic has been touched on here before, but that is a case study of a truly obsessed man, who on a daily basis is simultaneously re-fighting the 2000 election, whose loss he blames on Frank Rich, and manicly ranting against Olbermann/Maddow, who he regards as the new generation of media whores.
‘Sides, Doug’s right about the WaPo. I’ve been reading the damn thing since I’ve lived in the DC area, 20+ years now, and it truly is tragic what disgusting dreck the editorial pages have devolved into.
InflatableCommenter
I don’t think we are talking about the same thing. Taking something at face value does not mean assigning something to it that is not apparent on its face. Taking your DADT example, the fact that the president continues it, or does not, for one day, or a thousand, tells me nothing about what he “really believes” about it or about the fitness of gay Americans to serve. What evidence I do have, which is not much, leads me to think that he believes that they are fit to serve. However, the decision he makes today, or next week, about DADT, is more complicated than just an inventory of what he himself believes. It’s a complex set of dynamics and imperatives, and I make no assumptions about what the best course of action is today, or next month, or next year. I essentially hired him to figure that out, and I know that he will, and do his best. If he makes a change then he makes it. If not, then not.
In this regard, I find it hard to tell “punditry” from idle gossip one might hear down at the beauty parlor, or coffee shop. It’s moderately entertaining, but I don’t see that it has any real value.
asiangrrlMN
@gwangung: Juuuust bought it. It better be good, or I’m blaming you.
InflatableCommenter
On no particular topic, just the in last few minutes, I listened to the departure of Air Force One on my VHF scanner, and watched the airplane climb out over downtown Phoenix and head east toward New Mexico.
The radio calls were perfunctory and businesslike, indistinguishable from any other traffic, and the airplane looked pretty elegant bathed in its own spotlight as it climbed out. Damned impressive and goosebumpy.
Scott
asiangrrlMN: Definitely hunt down “Love and Rockets” — one of the best indie comics ever, with very strong female characters and an undercurrent of surrealism. Just all-around brilliant stuff.
Also, have you seen “American-Born Chinese”? I’ve just flipped through it in the store (gotta watch my funds right now), but it looks very nice.
asiangrrlMN
@InflatableCommenter: Eloquently put (your first comment). As to your second, that sounds more interesting than listening to pundits chatter.
I will say that I took a four-day hiatus from all political news during the arguing of the stimulus bill. It’s amazing how much better I felt in general.
The nature of the beast is that the press has to comment on every little thing that happens in DC, whether it’s big news, small news, or no news. I think I may have to place myself on time-out again.
Scott, I believe I have ABC somewhere in the house. I just couldn’t get into it. I’ll have to give it another shot.
gwangung
@asiangrrlMN:
Eep.
(But for such a mainstream fanboy, I rather liked the contributions from the alternative folks better than the DC/Marvel folks)(with the exception of Greg Pak’s story. bwahahhah!)
KG
I’m watching the Daily Show right now, on the west coast, I’m pretty sure that watching cable news will kill brain cells faster than coke, pot, or alcohol… with out any of the fun part.
Anne Laurie
Fun Home is damned good, but if you haven’t yet read Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For strips, AsiangrrlMN, you’re in for a treat:
Sufferin’ Sufferage
Which reminds me that I need to order the Essential DtWOf collection… through John’s Amazon link, of course… already have the other eleven books. Don’t think I can say that about any of my other favorite cartoonists, either, with the exception of Lynn Johnston and Norman Ball.
mt
Washington Post, Internets, and the other media. I’m no longer entertained. Quick, back to the glue-sniffing mobile.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@Scott:
It would take almost 2 1/2 times the delta-v to launch them into the sun as to send them on an escape orbit out of the solar system altogether. Why grant them a quick death? The Outer Darkness is much more appropriate.
John H. Farr
We need the damn pictures to be released. Release the videos of sodomizing prisoner’s kids, too. All of it, NOW!
The Germans were lucky, because they lost WWII… but there’s no one to put us on trial, and we’re rotting from within. There’s no way to ignore this, and “realpolitik” is anything but. We are destroyed if we walk away from rejecting torture and punishing every damn enabler and participant we can get our hands on.
Whatever rubs our faces in it is a gift from God. Nothing can save us except a period of prolonged national vomiting. Absent this, we are DEAD, stinking, puss-sucking hypocrites.
(And then it gets worse!)
cosanostradamus
.
There is no reality outside of Warshenden DEEcee. You people out there just think you exist. The only thing that is real, that matters, is opinion inside the beltway.
So, when the General guilty of running Cheney’s torture & assassination program in Iraq gets promoted by Obama and starts running one giant covert op in Pakistan & Afghanistan, the conversation on torture is over. In the real world of the Potomac wetlands, torture is now a legitimate institution. Think whatever you want. You don’t exist.
.
Ash Can
Not me. When well-known and widely-read/watched media types do something dumb, they need to be called on it. If, in this forum, it’s DougJ who has taken that task upon himself, then I say more power to him.
geg6
What Ash Can said.
MattF
I’m in the ‘stopped reading when I saw ‘Souljah” crowd. You may not get Ignatius et. al. to admit it, but sometimes new things happen in the actual world.
Hunter Gathers
Evidently, if you are anti-torture, you are a DFH. The shit that these people spit out their mouth on a daily basis about torture being a ‘partisan issue’ is really starting to piss me off. I guess being against torture means you are a pussy, somehow.
What the in the hell is going on with these people? Are they so wrapped up in their little cliques they dare not upset the group, even if members committed war crimes? And these people wonder out loud why the newspapers are dying off.
Little Dreamer
@InflatableCommenter:
I wish you’d said that before you took me to eat half of a meal.
Here’s the difference: the pundit never closes his mouth and has lots of things to say, whether right or wrong. Coffeeshop talk, for me at least, involves trying to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t talk much at all. I guess since I am the one trying to have a conversation with you, you wouldn’t know the difference.
WereBear
I’m trying to remember the last time a newsperson on TV actually explained what is going on. Instead of just speculating on what it might mean, but they don’t have any information now, and then moving on to the next shiny object.
I’m still trying…
El Cid
It is a simple test to see if the politician in question identifies with the establishment more than their non-establishment supporters.
In the case of the Democratic Party, this is a purification rite against liberalism and leftism, which at all times potentially threatens the establishment’s upper-class favoring economics and hawkish foreign policy.
In the case of the Republican Party, this mainly has to do with their populist base which comprises angry pre-modern raving rightists, who are also not the establishment.
sparky
@John H. Farr: Yes.
And Mister Greenwald is correct, too.
“For the safety of the troops” is such an arrant bit of claptrap it’s difficult to know where to start with it. Suffice it to say that if one was concerned with the troops one might remove them from a war zone.
I think Mister Greenwald is correct: the only plausible reasons for this act–a complete reversal–are (a) that it is related to the replacement of the general in Afghanistan and (b) the guess–probably correct–that release of the photos in this country would stamp out the torture “debate.”
The rest of this is just blather. No doubt, as El Cid suggested, der kommentariat likes to reassure itself that whoever is our Leader will stick with their values. Heaven forbid they do any reporting rather than fitting events into their pre-baked narrative.
kay
I chuckle when these useless blowhards depict the ACLU as “indignant” or “livid”.
They’re not indignant at the ACLU.
The ACLU are preparing a strategy, and then they’ll prepare yet another petition. Like they did last week, and last year, and the year before that. They’re nothing if not persistent, and the ACLU have had an extremely successful run the last 5 years. They win. A lot.
The blowhards wouldn’t have anything to write about if the ACLU didn’t do all the difficult scut work and provide them with fact-based column fodder.
MikeJ
Good strip right up until the last panel. No change at all? Really? There are people who are capable of dressing themselves that see no differences whatsoever between Bush and Obama? That’s just flat out delusional.
El Cid
@kay: Whatever do you mean?
The very definition of super-angry and slavering is an organization dedicated to protecting Constitutionally-recognized civil liberties over the authoritarian and typically right wing-backed deprivation of the day.
The cool, calm, collected people are those demanding that their conservative government be able to detain people without trial forever, torture them if they like, invade and search your house and communications without warrants, and control what does or does not appear in the press.
Surely you can tell the difference. If you fail to identify with the 2nd group, then you are an unhinged moonbat extremist who wants to give Osama bin Laden our nuclear codes and the name of the secretly decided-in-advance winner of American Idol.
J.D. Rhoades
Who’s in charge here?
I know quite a few, who trot the “no difference” bullshit out every time Obama isn’t as liberal as they’d like. One is a Naderite who’s livid that Obama “hasn’t done anything about outsourcing jobs to overseas” and turns every political conversation on my blog to that subject. Nice guy otherwise, but yes, delusional on the subject.
sparky
@El Cid: Question: I know you have “typically” in there, but how about just the National Security State? Or the oligarchy? Not sure this is a party-based issue, though I’d say it often appears to look like one.
/checks tinfoil hat in mirror
kay
@El Cid:
It’s deliberate, and it’s been going on for years. They want to portray the ACLU as pencil-necked weenies armed only with briefs.
As opposed to the manly men of the punditry, who sit on their fat asses and pontificate.
The current leadership at the ACLU is the most aggressive and best of my adult lifetime. They do first-class work.
El Cid
@sparky: That’s why I put “typically” in there — to distinguish between the rather routine undermining of Constitutional rights and checks on power that governing figures engage in regardless of party (unless we manage to stop or reverse their efforts), and the sort of enthusiastic pseudo-populist rage campaigns against our own liberties and any checks on Executive powers of repression which are far more commonly pushed by the right wing.
geg6
The ACLU is the one of the most important and most American of institutions and fuck the punditry for never taking them seriously. Without the ACLU, the punditry wouldn’t exist after the last 8 years. So, when it comes to the punditry saying one word about the ACLU that isn’t grateful and fawning for the protection they provide us all, my automatic response is for the punditry to cram it up their asses and STFU.
And, can I just say, that the legal director for the ACLU here, Witold Walczak, is the awesome and a personal hero.
Napoleon
Personally I think the court is going to order Obama to release them so by fighting it and holding them back I think he is trying to build up some chits with the military and inoculate himself from criticism once they are released. I am fine with that.
kay
@geg6:
They do in fact take them seriously, though. The ACLU provide the source material for the thousands of words they churn out.
Without the ACLU, we’d be reading dressed-up press releases from the DOJ. Fair and balanced.
ppcli
As I recall, the villagers had a collective orgasm over McCain calling Falwell and Robertson “agents of intolerance”.
Cerberus
@J.D. Rhoades:
Huh. Wasn’t there something in the tax code about shutting down some of the overseas tax dodges? I know it’s not an outsourcing tax or anything like that, but there is actually faster movement than I expected on shutting down the American company, little American presence loopholes that our companies often use. Certainly more than say has been given to other groups like the homos.
harlana pepper
Man, I loved Clinton to pieces at the time but the Sister Souljah thing really annoyed the hell out of me. That said, I see absolutely no correlation between that and Obama backing out of his initial plan to release the photos. Where oh where do they get this stuff? Oh I forgot, straight out of their asses.
Flying fuck, I could make up stupid shit like this in my sleep, why don’t I have a job writing for WaPo.
Cerberus
I’m amazed at how stupid our right-leaning pundits are. The ACLU slurs, guys?
The basis of them is that the ACLU were a bunch of Jewy Jews. It’s a giant anti-semitic dog whistle along the same level as “international bankers”.
Idiots.
J.D. Rhoades
@Cerberus:
I agree…but it’s never enough for some people:
it doesn’t do anything for all those who’ve lost their jobs (never mind their homes) post the bailouts.
and
I like the gesture (because so far that’s all it is), but he’s got an awful lot to make up for and I think you’re kidding yourself if you think big business (or his party) will let him. But let’s see if he gets this one thing done. So far it’s just talk.
Sigh.
The Other Steve
I think there’s an a valid argument to be made that these incidents have been investigated, and they’re not trying to hide the fact that this happened. But it doesn’t serve our objectives to inflame the issue further.
That was Obama’s argument yesterday, and I concur.
We’ve got to nip this shit in the bud, and just the fact that the conservatives agree that releasing these photos would inflame hatred of the US concurs with the fact that torture is reprehensible and ought not be used.
Napoleon
@Cerberus:
While I don’t doubt that may be true I like the fact that the woman attorney who is apparently in the lead for the ACLU on this issue has what appears to be an Indian (Asian) name.
kay
@Cerberus:
It’s amazing to watch. They show embarrassing deference to Yoo, Bybee and Addington, who did lousy, excruciatingly poor quality work, but the ACLU are a shrill interest group who are dismissed as partisan.
Bybee apparently churned out that garbage as a quid pro quo for a seat on the federal court, so it isn’t “ethics” that we’re relying on as a measure, because Bybee fails on that, too.
The work doesn’t matter. Merit doesn’t matter.
Cerberus
@Napoleon:
Well, yeah, that’s often the problem with the dog whistles. I don’t even think the ACLU was monolithically jewish or even majority jewish during the civil rights battle. It’s sort of like the use of welfare queen when the majority of people on welfare are white.
El Cid
They musta been all a buncha jooz. Sure as eggs is eggs that reglar good white people wouldn’tna gone down stirring up a heap a trouble in the Souf jes ’cause some negroes wanted the vote and stuff. Musta been all jooz, and Comnists, which is basically all jooz anyway, of a sort.
bago
@El Cid: They are the jews of capitalist fascism.
Douche Baggins
Politics is about timing. Obama’s already demonstrated that he’s thinking five moves ahead,and I believe he’ll ultimately do the right thing on torture. But he’s got an ass-ton of other issues to worry about right now, and if he can score some points with the generals on this, he’ll do it.
I personally believe that releasing the photos should be done immediately. They should also find the CIA torture videos and play them over and over on the bobblehead shows, and Juan Williams should have to repeat, “No, that’s not torture” over and over again until he breaks down in tears.
But that’s not politics, it’s ethics and morality (with a dash of comeuppance and a spritz of DFH vengeance). The political calculus is straightforward: “The public hasn’t been swayed by the Abu Ghraib pictures, they won’t be swayed now.”
Also, I like InflatableCommenter’s comments. And I like them jewses at the ACLU.
gil mann
I met Sister Souljah once—either I was partying with hip-hop luminaries or we were in the same opthamologist’s waiting room, probably the latter—and she’s incredibly sweet and soft-spoken, and friggin’ adorable to boot. Should’ve asked her what it feels like to be white America’s boogeywoman, but her kid was there and I didn’t wanna open a can of worms.
God, you establishment needledicks, she wasn’t actually advocating mass murder. She was pretty much doing the opposite. It’s called waxing hyperbolic, hyperbole being a rhetorical device with a rich and storied legacy that’s open to all except those who can’t remember anything that happened in human history prior to the most recent episode of “Reliable Sources.”
These fuckers make me so mad sometimes I just wanna overuse italics tags to emphasive my anger.
Bulworth
@Joshua Norton:
Unfortunately this seems to be the inevitable cycle. No president can ultimately stare down the defense establishment, particularly when he has acquienced, rightly or wrongly, with escalating military conflict overseas, as Obama has, with the increase in troops to Afghanistan.
Tonybrown74
That was back before he ran for president. When he needed them, he went down on his knees like a seasoned whore. No peep from the Mayberry Villagers then.
gwangung
Yeah, but she was a Scary Black Woman. They tried to do that to Michelle Obama, but there’s not one scintilla of purchase there….(just like her husband)….
dadanarchist
Hear, hear for the defense of the ACLU.
I almost let my membership lapse after the end of the Bush/Cheney junta, but I thought twice and signed up again. And I am glad that I did. The ACLU has done more to defend freedom and the rule of law in this country than almost any other institution.
Time to retire this idea that the ACLU are “liberal” – they are American, and stand up for American values.
Oh, and Ignatius can fuck himself.
Anne Laurie
That strip first appeared in early 2008, while the clusterfvck primaries were still bleeding us. Bechdel went on sabbatical in May 2008, but she left us 25 years of still-too-often prescient commentary to enjoy.
vanya
Most establishment journalists don’t trust people with a strong moral and ethical code,whether on the right or left. In the eyes of Washington this was Jimmy Carter’s primary flaw, not Iran or inflation. They don’t trust Huckabee for the same reason. Paleocons and hippies are both anathema to journalists because these people tend to value ideas more than material gain and worldly ambition. They want politicians who are clearly motivated primarily by power and ambition, i.e. people like them – hence the love for people like Cheney and Bill Clinton. The more Obama demonstrates he’s driven by ambition rather than by ideals, the more love he’ll get from DC even while his left-wing base starts to turn on him.
4jkb4ia
@keptsimple:
T-Pain would count.
Ruemara
Comic Strips! Finally an area of expertise for me! Or at least one that isn’t about cookery or Warcraft or graphics.
Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home is exquisite and dark, with a strong female lead (Ms. Bechdel herself). She is working on a sequel and that should be out soon. Her Indelible Alison Bechdel is a wonderful compendium of her autobiographical strips, earliest paid cartooning and early DTWOF. &, she’s kinda’ hottie, sweet and charming to boot.
A friend of mine is the wonderful Trina Robbins who writes a great kids graphic novel- Go Girl! It’s very light, but what I like about it is Go Girl has real strength and character without being treacly sweet. Diverse cast and her mom is a former superhero who helps out sometimes. Last I heard from her, she was writing a great new book about a young black girl who get’s stuck in a friend’s haunted house over christmas holiday. It was fun to edit and I think it’s coming out soon as well. Pick up some of the stuff she’s edited including a collection with a teacher of mine, Lee Marrs. Lee is a national treasure of comic books, screenplays and storyboarding expertise and wrote underground comics in the 70’s. She teaches in the Bay Area, so whenever she’s around giving speeches, I try to stop in and catch up.
Jackie Ormes was a black comic artist in the 1950’s who wrote and drew a little known strip called Torchy, that was about a black nurse’s life and romantic entanglements. She was a very smart character and made many tough decisions regarding career vs marriage that relate today. Today, we have a group, of which I am a pending member, called the Ormes Society, that is all about supporting black female comic writers and their work. Check out Spike, yes a female black person named spike, C Trottman’s, Tempe, Arizona. There are great links to other female writers & artists’ work there too.
Am I anywhere up there? No. My series is teeny tiny and on hiatus until we decide what to do with the new house and other personal stuff.
Hope there’s some fun stuff there for you.
HyperIon
@John H. Farr:
So is THAT what “it will tear the country apart” means?
kth
Ignatius shows what a real dirtbag he is with this take. There are a lot of possible explanations for Obama appealing the FOIA request for these pics. The one Ignatius favors suggests that the opponents of torture are an extremist minority motivated mainly by partisan animosity. So he can go fuck himself.