Despite having traveled in General Wingnuttia® for a while, and understanding how they think (overall), there are still some times when I simply can not predict what the right-wing blogger reaction to events will be. Granted, it would be easier if they had a coherent philosophy or worldview, but they don’t. Every day there is a new enemy, every day a new topic to be outraged about, and it is just hard to tell what is going to get them blogswarming. At any rate, twice in the past week this has been the case. Let’s start with the most recent:
1.) Evil Liberal Media v. Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys
Last night on 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl interviewed French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was clearly agitated about doing the interview:
Back in New Hampshire, Sarkozy had lost his temper at a photographer who had followed him out onto the lake. It turns out France’s new president has a habit of letting his anger loose, as Stahl found out as the 60 Minutes team was setting up for an interview at the Élysée Palace. He started berating his press secretary, calling him “an imbecile” and worse, for arranging an interview he clearly didn’t want to do on a busy day.
“No. No. This is stupid. He is stupid. It is a big mistake,” Sarkozy remarked.
“But Sir, this is what the public, the American people are gonna see,” Stahl commented.
“Okay…I don’t have the time. I have a big job to do, I have a schedule,” he said through a translator. “Very busy. Very busy,” he added in English.
After that exchange, the interview got underway.
I couldn’t figure out how bloggers would react (although I was convinced that there would be a collective freakout this morning about the story that appeared earlier on the show about acceptable levels of collateral damage). What would trump what? Is the hatred of all things French worse than the hatred of all things media?
Drudge has our answer:
Voila! I wouldn’t start renaming Freedom fries just yet, but it looks like Sarkozy’s overtures are paying off.
Wake Up America delivers the goods.
2.) Evil Liberal Congressman v. Pussy Defeatist European Power
Last Week, Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), got in a little brush-up with the Dutch:
Dutch lawmakers who recently visited the Guantanamo Bay military prison said they were offended by a testy exchange in Washington with a senior congressional Democrat.
The lawmakers said that Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told them that “Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay.”
Lantos, a Holocaust survivor, was responding to arguments that the United States should shut down the prison, located on a U.S. naval base in Cuba, the lawmakers said. Mariko Peters, a member of the Dutch Green Party, who began the exchange with Lantos, said she took notes of the remarks.
A Lantos aide said the lawmaker realizes the Guantanamo facility does harm to the reputation of the United States and has praised judges who ruled in favor of extending legal rights to prisoners. Lantos has not suggested that the prison be closed.
Before the Guantanamo exchange, the lawmakers had discussed a debate in the Netherlands about whether the country should maintain its 1,600 troops serving in NATO’s Afghanistan operations.
“You have to help us, because if it was not for us you would now be a province of Nazi Germany,” Lantos said, according to the Dutch lawmakers.
How would this play out? Would the wingnutosphere attack Lantos, using him as proof positive the Democrats can not be trusted with foreign policy? Or would the jingoism take over, and they would take the opportunity to stick it to the pussy Dutch over Gitmo? I honestly couldn’t figure out how it would play out. While memeorandum has the complete round-up, Malkin has our answer:
I hesitate to praise far Left Democrat Rep. Tom Lantos given that he’ll probably be backtracking from his comments post-haste. Still, if this report of his remarks is accurate, it’s definitely worth taking a moment to appreciate a moonbat’s brief moment of clarity, however fleeting.
You can see it was a tough call for her, too.
These are interesting times. It is hard to know who is our enemy, and who is the enemy of our enemy and thus our friend. I will try to keep these things sorted out for you.
neil
I’d never heard of anybody actually using that “we saved your ass in WW2” line to somebody’s face before. Amazingly it doesn’t seem to have been the rhetorical trump card that it was though to be.
MobiusKlein
Tom Lantos, my Congress-critter, is not so liberal you know.
Is a foreign policy hawk big time.
John Cole
We are talking about Greater Wingnuttia here, and such nuance is lost on them. Anyone who does not have an (R) after their name or who is named Lieberman is a liberal. Period.
dslak
Lantos probably isn’t aware that many of the Puritans found safe haven in the Netherlands prior to setting off for the New World and setting up shop.
If you were to take a Lantos-like view of history (childish as it is), you might say that saving the Dutch from the Nazis was just a case of the US paying back a longstanding debt.
ATS
When the artfully maligned Norman Finkelstein said the Holocaust was being manipulated and exploited I thought he was nuts.
Then I listened to Tom Lantos—the proverbial Pharisee at the front of the Temple.
dslak
Seriously? I would have thought this was fairly obvious, but I used to listen to Christian radio and AM stations in some of the rural parts of Texas and Oklahoma.
Abortion is just like the Holocaust, every major liberal policy position is just like the Nazis, and every non-white critic of Israeli policy is the next Hitler. And they were saying this even before 9/11.
Mithi
Hehehe, that vote for Groenlinks (the Dutch green party mentioned) was well spent then.
Jim Henley
I didn’t think either one of these was a tough guess. As I read the item, I called “Anti-Stahl” and “Anti-Dutch” in mid-read, getting both right.
F. Frederson
Who’s who doesn’t really matter. The key is to have an impressive array of enemies in order to get the adrenaline flowing. Some people skydive; others ponder the looming threat of islamofacism.
Faux News
Our enemies have always been and continue to be the French. Hence please keep using the following terms:
1. Freedom Fries
2. Freedom Toast
3. Freedom Kissing
4. Freedom Dressing
5. Freedom Onion Soup
5. Freedom Maid Outfits
Feel free to add your own. Thank you.
sparky
Matchup Questions from the cheap seats in the basement:
Are we rooting for Mothra or Godzilla here?
If you have sex with Godzilla is it ok to abort the offspring, Bin Laden? What about the other way around?
Pb
And, the ADL couldn’t care less, it seems…
Wilfred
They would NEVER touch Lantos:
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
What wacky headlines for a story where the French President called a 60 Minutes interview “stupid” and later walked out of the interview! Wow, the rightwing is really tying themselves into knots on that one! Where do they come up with this stuff?
Svensker
Sarkhozy is the Euro version of the neo-con, and Lantos is a neo-con, as well. Some of the wingnuts may not know this yet, altho many seem to have figured out pretty quickly that being “French” is no longer equivalent to being a “C-E-S-M”.
These people are really getting tiresome. It’s too bad they’re causing so much mayhem and death, because it would surely be much more pleasant just to ignore them.
Librarian
You mean she actually uses the word “moonbat”? I thought that was only used by those who are parodying wingnuts. She is a parody of herself.
Zifnab
Ultimately, yeah. None of these match-ups seem particularly even. Malkin will always back up the guy pimping the concentration camp, even if she tries to knife him while she’s there. And Sarkhozy has received Republican benedictions before today – the Guiliani “politicians on a plane” speech is the most recent that leaps to mind.
Hate the sin, love the sinner. Sarkosy can be forgiven for being French. The NYT will never be forgiven for committing journalism.
Wilfred
Come on. Sarkozy earned his wingnut chops by calling unemployed African/Muslim kids “scum” and “rabble”, the way that the wingnuts want to call the same people in the US. Giuliani is the American Sarkozy in action, if not words, minus the wedding cake groom appearance of this frightful little man.
jenniebee
Anybody else following Sadly, No!’s Eliminationism in Crisis series today? It turns out that alliances with real life declared, completely open about it Nazis is a line that LGF just won’t cross. But Pam will. I like it best when she rebuts his charge that she just sat down with former Nazi collaborators by saying, and I quote:
Who the hell wasn’t a nazi collaborator in Europe? Puhleeeeeze.
Italics hers.
Also, don’t miss the post where S,N! discovers that when LGF moans that white supremacists are saying the same things that he is and that’s diminishing his “credibility,” they get no love:
Mmmm, says the snake. I sure do love me some fricasseed snake-tail.
capelza
jenniebee..you beat me to it.
Too bad my irony meter already exploded. It would have gone up to a gajillion. That is some funny, funny stuff.
Punchy
Can anyone here actually verify that Cole actually still works? Where does he get the time to dream up these quality screeds?
I’m convinced Tim’s penning these under John’s name:
1) they’re long
2) he hasn’t bashed a Dem and/or Hillary in days
3) most suspiciously, the werds are all speled correctley
Fess up?
capelza
Punchy..it ain’t that hard…the wingnut idiocy practically writes itself.
Where were you on 911
Tom Lantos is a liberal. Leading up to the first invasion of Iraq he is the guy who brought the daughter (of the Kuwaiti ambassador was it?) to the floor of congress to give lying testimony about Saddam’s troops going into a hospital and tossing babies from their incubators onto the floor?
The Other Steve
The term ‘Wingnut’ had been around since the 1980s or so, and righties needed something to counter it. It took them a long time, but sometime around 2000 or so they came up with this moonbat term.
They consider themselves quite clever for coming up with the term, and they even draw cartoon pictures and such to illustrate it.
At least I’m pretty sure it was 2000. I don’t ever recall encountering it before that, and I used to spend a lot of time on usenet arguing with Republican conspiracy theorists back when Clinton was shipping Cocaine through Arkansas to a drug front setup by Vince Foster.
Punchy
Singlehandedly the funniest thing ever penned on a blog. Whoever writes that shit needs to work for a sitcom. Just genius.
Cindrella Ferret
My favorite quote from the article is:
Apparently, some Europeans appreciate the former Cheerleader’s “common sense” approach to taking care of all the terrorists.
DBrown
Say again??? Same old myth –
“if it was not for us you would now be a province of Nazi Germany,” Lantos said”
We did not win World War II and really should only get third billing at best; we helped win it and what we did was important in some ways but the facts are that Russia – Stalin’s Fascist Commie’s won WWII almost single handedly – they faced no less than 70% of the principle Germany army 24/7 and for most of the war 100% of the Nazi full force and still beat them – our supplies/aid was a drop in the bucket. In fact, remember that the Russian’s were driving the Nazi’s back towards Germany before we even got a single man into the fight.
So another dumb politician makes a stupid statement that the Europeans have to roll their eyes and realize what arrogant, stupid, credit taking dumb ass’s we Americans are … .
If you are ignorant of history, please just restrict yourself to your stupid comments and outrage. Facts speak far more loudly.
r€nato
DBrown – I completely understand your point but WW2 was about the Pacific theater as well (at least, for the US and Australia).
DBrown
r€nato
Yes you are correct – sorry to ignore that part of the war (and a lot of brave Americans and up to twenty-million brave Chinese died fighting the Jap’s) in my post but Japan was in reality a small side show compared to the European war. However, since our so bright congressman was talking to a European and telling him how we saved him from the Nazi’s, I was really aiming my comment about that.
Zifnab
True, but we weren’t saving Europe from the Japanese Imperialists.
America has been building up as a naval superpower since Teddy Roosevelt. That’s why we tend to win our sea wars. But we don’t face any threats from Mexico or Canada, so the American Tank Industry exists entirely for export. And it tends to be rather shitty at that. No one was crowing about the Sherman back in WW2 when it faced off against its Panzer counterpart. Take a look at the troops we had in Vietnam, barely better equiped than the Vietcog. Were it not for air superiority, I suspect the Vietnam War would have looked alot like the Iran-Iraq War in terms of pathetic futility. Instead, it was more a decade-long game of wack-a-mole.
jcricket
Freedom-ie (from Grease).
Grumpy Code Monkey
Yes they do. Their worldview is that They Win. At whatever. By whatever means necessary. Their whole reason for living is to find someone to point to and say, “We beat you! You suck!”
Cain
There are many women who I wish freed from their maid outfits.
cain
Robert Sneddon
Holland was bypassed during the drive to the Rhine in late 1944 and stayed in German hands until early 1945. The Reich had confiscated the Dutch harvest and shipped it to Germany resulting in starvation for large parts of the Dutch populace during the winter of 1944/45.
In the end it was the Canadians who liberated Holland, not American forces. The Dutch have not forgotten this, Americans like Lantos don’t seem to be aware of it at all.
foofighter
“They want to go to France to figure out how they can take all those failed policies and put them in effect here in the United States…
(LAUGHTER)
… bigger government, higher taxes, more regulation. ”
correction
… bigger government, tax cuts, more regulation.
and well, We wouldn’t mind the deal ;)
4jkb4ia
This is the comment I wanted to post when I saw this at Eurotrib…
Tony Judt, famous neocon and Israel supporter, also wrote that for most of Europe WWII was not about the Jews. In the last 50 years this has changed and even France has come around to commemorating the Holocaust. But for Europeans immediately after the war, the war was about those who collaborated with the Nazis, of which Holland was not guiltless in the same way as Denmark or Bulgaria.
4jkb4ia
I’m surprised Malkin doesn’t know that Lantos is a Holocaust survivor and has every motivation to say that.
pseudonymous in nc
In the end it was the Canadians who liberated Holland, not American forces. The Dutch have not forgotten this, Americans like Lantos don’t seem to be aware of it at all.
And the British. My grandfather was assigned with the Canadians on the advance into the Netherlands. He didn’t talk much about it, except to say that the Canadians tended not to take prisoners.
Anyway, Lantos really ought to put away the bloody sheet. The cultural memory of occupation runs pretty damn deep in the Netherlands.
dslak
You can say that again. I have a Dutch friend with a German boyfriend, and her father is none-too-pleased about that fact.
JohnTh
Robert and pseud make a good points about the fact that the Dutch see themselves as having primarily liberated by the Canadians and the British, with the Americans coming in third (though the Marshall aid was appreciated).
However, the majority of the population thinks very little about that time – it’s now more than 60 years ago. In addition, while the Canadians and British just ask for their debt to be repaid in upkeep of graves and hospitality to returning veterans, the Americans have a nasty habit of asking for fealty, treasure and blood as well, dragging the Dutch into Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Fianlly, I’m pretty sure that a lot more has been said in Holland about Auschwitz (and Westerbork, the Dutch equivalent) than about Guantanamo. If Lantos means that little protest was made during the war then he needs to remember that a) it was kept secret and b) you could get shot on sight for protesting. As for the first couple of years after the war, people were too involved with staying alive and rebuilding to worry and reflect and who had died, and how.
bernarda
A couple of things.
1 – “Lantos, a Holocaust survivor” What does that have to do with anything? So what? BTW, it was the Soviets that liberated him.
2 – Lantos supported the criminal war against Lebanon that Israel waged in in 2006.
One other puzzling thing is poster 4jk describing Tony Judt as “famous neocon and Israel supporter”.
Apparently he has never read much by Judt. Also for that matter 4jk, for the entire U.S. WWII was not about Jews.