Send In The Hacks
Hugh Hewitt, the wingnut of sweaty-manboobs fame, has a true talent. No matter how wingnutty he is, he can always coax superior wingnuttery out of his radio show’s guests. What a wretched talent that must be for a wingnut: Hugh’s doomed to always be a bridesmaid but never a bride. (It may help to imagine the groom always being Dear Leader, flightsuited and codpieced — wait, no it doesn’t help to think of that; forget I said it.)
Now, after wiping the barf from our chins, let’s consider Hugh’s latest show so that we may barf again, his guest being superwingnutien Mark Steyn:
HH: Let’s do a second quote. This from Steny Hoyer, the number two ranking Democrat. While the death of al-Zarqawi is certainly a positive development, it must be tempered by the sober recognition that this will not end the insurgency.
Nothing wrong there, correct? Pretty sensible reaction from Hoyer, yes? It is the truth, after all. Ahhh, but these are wingnuts and Hugh has just set Steyn up to spew some pure batshit-insanity:
MS: Yes, well they’re doing a lot of tempering with sobriety, and I think they haven’t quite got the formula right. You know, the Democrats sound to me a bit like al Qaeda. Al Qaeda released this statement on the death of Zarqawi, saying congratulations to our glorious comrade al-Zarqawi for finally achieving martyrdom. It is a great victory for us. And it reminded me of the announcements the Democratic Party puts out after they failed to pull off the victory in the special election in California this week, and the one in the Ohio Congressional district last year, I think, where they lose, but they nevertheless hail it as a tremendous political upset and a great victory.
Democrats remind him of al-Qaeda; al-Qaeda reminds him of Democrats. Also, “sobriety” reminds him of al-Qaeda, which I guess makes sort of wingnutty sense when you remember that the Greatest Good is Dear Dry-Drunk Leader. Other things that might remind Steyn of al-Qaeda include sensibility, apple pie and puppies. No, that doesn’t add up for me, either, but I’m just trying to figure out this wingnut association game and it hurts my head gahhh.
Anyway, more insanity:
HH: Now I’ve got to read to you two paragraphs. Joel Achenbach is the most popular blogger for Washingtonpost.com by far, I’m told, by people who know. He gets the most attention. And I went to see what he had to say this morning.
Hewitt then selectively quotes from this post which is quite harmless when read in its entireity. Steyn replies just as Hewitt wanted him to, with the sort of barely-controlled aploplexy and denunciations of moral equivalence that characterize the neocon mindset. Steyn says “to hell with him.” So now Hugh is set up to rant:
HH: There are many of those, though. I’m amazed at how this is diminished, deprecated, blurred in any other way, because Zarqawi’s just evil personified. If you can’t get it right on Zarqawi, Mark Steyn, you can’t get anything right.
Now what they explicitly accuse the WaPost blogger of getting wrong is Zarqawi’s “up-close” killing being favorably compared to the American bomber pilots’ “distanced” killing. But that’s not what the WaPost blogger said (and even Glenn Reynolds, who looks everywhere for a stab in the back, says that such is a misreading). Now what I think is that Hewitt and Steyn are actually pissed about the WaPost blogger’s lack of triumphalism. He’s not throwing a party; he’s cautious and frames the official response as such. Thus, he’s peeing on the wingnuts’ parade. So they smear him with the tired “moral equivalence” bizarro-Orwell crap and call it a day. Then they find other victims:
HH: …Now I want to switch over to Kofi Annan’s reaction to Zarqawi’s death, because yesterday, the United Nations, and the day before, deputy secretary-general found passion, time in denouncing Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and the intelligence of the American people of flyover country. Listen to the passion in Kofi Annan’s voice as he talks about the death of Zarqawi today.
KA: This is an individual who has been responsible for many heinous crimes, caused lots of problems in Iraq for the government and the people of Iraq, the people of Iraq who are afraid to step out, people of Iraq who are only demanding peace, stability, and to have the streets back. I think they will all be relieved that he is gone. And of course, we cannot pretend that that will mean the end of the violence, but it is a relief that such a heinous and dangerous man who has caused so much harm to Iraq is no longer around to continue his work.
Gasp! The horror! Just look at what Annan said! Since the Secretary-General didn’t offer to fly to Baghdad to personally spit on Zarqawi’s grave, he’s obviously an al-Qaeda fellow-traveler!
HH: How come so much opportunity and length to inveigh against America, Mark Steyn, in 40 seconds, heinous crime relief from Kofi Annan?
MS: Well, he wasn’t exactly singing Happy Days Are Here Again, was he?
See?! Kofi Annan, like the WaPost blogger, was being cautious and merely stating the fact that this is not the end of the civil war in Iraq. For wingnuts, this is again pissing on their parade. Plus, no one is allowed to criticise Rush Limbaugh, a demi-god in the wingnut pantheon, criticism of whom amounts to blasphemy. So what can we do to prove that we aren’t al-Qaeda symps, sorry that Zarqawi is dead?
MS: I mean, I do think this reaction is pathetic. I think the correct attitude is that of Mrs. Thatcher when the British troops liberated South Georgia, an outlying island of the Falklands from the Argentinian forces. And the newsmen were asking her all these silly questions, and she just said to them, gentlemen, just rejoice, rejoice.
Told ya. Don’t think, don’t look ahead. Just laud Dear Leader’s glorious triumph over teh eeeevil!
***
Actually, it goes deeper than their need to mindlessly celebrate. What they can’t stand is the fact that, in Iraq, a considerable amount of the hostility to Americans and to the new government is not terrorist-based. Nor, necessarily, is it fundmentalist-based though that is always a part of things there. Where does it come from, then? Nationalism and tribalism — as Dear Leader himself said, “no one likes to be occupied”. No one especially in a tribalist society in which the callous death or murder of one incites a whole clan or tribe to sworn revenge.
Wingnuts hate it that many Iraqis can’t say, “Thanks for bombing my house and then raping my son in Abu Ghraib, would you like to build a military base on my land and send my oil revenues to yourselves or local kleptocrats?”
No, Iraqis should ignore all that, because we got rid of Saddam after propping him up for years. Plus, “FREEEEEDOM!1!!11!!!”
Utterly shameless bastards. My hope for the future of humanity grows dimmer.
I know it won’t ever happen, but could someone just ask Hugh Halfwit and Mark Stain exactly what was inaccurate about the comments to which they were objecting? And ask them if they are willing to come out and say that Zarqawi’s death will prove to be the major turning point in the war in Iraq and/or the “War on Terror” and the tipping point for peace and flourishing democracy in the Middle East.
Notice they are not necessarily rejoicing, they merely hate us for not rejoicing. Rather than building their case for TWWZ (the world without Zarqawi), they try to ridicule those who must be ridiculed, Kofi Annon especially. When they are unable to misquote, when an argument is unassailable, non sequitor commentary is used. I am surprised, however, that their screed did not contain a reference to the Clenis.
So the greatest sin of all is the refusal to hail the neocons’ reenactment of Paul Verhoeven’s “Starship Troopers.”
But we caught the brain bug! Like capturing Saddam, it’s gonna change everything. For real this time!
Incredible. The Pentagon, when things were going bad in a different way, had to go out of their way to say that Al Queda’s influence wasn’t significant in Iraq and that, in fact, the Iraqis resented the guy for being there.
Now, of course, he’s the lynchpin of the insurgency.
See the problem is that the effect of a receiving constant barrage of bullshit and propaganda is that nothing is really that terrific, even when it involves killing a shitstain like what’s his face.
Moreover, and I hate to trot this one out there, but wasn’t, in fact Saddam the majordomo boogie man in Iraq? I mean, he was the Kurd and Shiite killing madman who ran the country and its military for 25 years . What has his capture and his idiot son’s deaths won us?
Why would ANYONE think that the death of a bit player like Zarqawi (as defined by the Pentagon) represents a bigger success than Hussein?
Kofi Annan said something about Rush Limbaugh? Huh? Wha?
Kofi Annan backed one of his people when they claimed that the only information that reaches heartland America is from Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
Damn that Kofi Annan! Once again he has thwarted the empire!
President Bush and U.S. military leaders cautioned that the death of the 39-year-old militant was not likely to end the bloodshed — just as the capture of
Saddam Hussein and the killings of his two sons failed to dampen the insurgency. A rash of bombings that killed nearly 40 people in Baghdad on Thursday confirmed that assessment.
“We have tough days ahead of us in Iraq that will require the continuing patience of the American people,” Bush said.
So I guess President Bush and U.S. military leaders have become objectively pro-terrorist, given the way they have “diminished, deprectated, blurred” and “tempered with sobriety” this glorious news.
And what a gleeful and sober tempering it was!
Why does Georgie Boy hate the troops?
He used the Falkland War as an example? That was one of the most pointless wars of the 20th century. Who owns those damn islands anyway thses days?
“Why would ANYONE think that the death of a bit player like Zarqawi (as defined by the Pentagon) represents a bigger success than Hussein?”
BECAUSE I SAID SO, THAT’S WHY!
And you liberal traitor anti-semitic socialists better not say otherwise!
PS liberals suck
(I’m attempting to emulate the style of IsOught, a HairyFishNuts troll, but in order for it to be authentic it’d have to go on for 2 pages and whenever someone refuted it I’d reply with an equally long personal attack, say “you have never refuted my assertions! YOU LIBERALS ARE TRULY PATHETIC!”, or whine about the “liberal media” )
He used the Falkland War as an example? That was one of the most pointless wars of the 20th century. Who owns those damn islands anyway thses days?
Hey, that was one of the greatest military victories since Grenada!
Hey, that was one of the greatest military victories since Grenada!
Dude, we totally kicked ass in Grenada! Pwn3d!11!1!1111!1!!!
The thing that’s been running through my mind all day is, despite al-Zarqawi being a world-class jackass, I’d much rather him gotten captured alive and held for trial than him get blowed up real good. Sure, it’s not as flashy or full of visceral thrills, but a nice trial on crimes against humanity, something to show what we actually mean when we claim to be a “society of laws” and punishment to fit the crime. Instead, the guy’s dead, end of story. Eh.
That sounds like 9/10 thinking to me, Matt. Don’t you know that the best way to show the Mexilamocommienazis that we mean business is violent, uneccessary grandiose shows of military force that result in enough collateral damage to ensure more people join an insurgency and assassinations governed by special operations units that the government refuses to admit exists until they execute someone who’s bound to be made a martyr if they die, but merely a pathetic shell of a paper tiger if arrested?
I truly don’t know how to read about the Hewitts and Hannitys of the world without flying into an impotent rage. But that’s me.
Somebody assure me that they, Steyn, Rios, and the other finks, dwarfs, phonies, and frogs of Fox are watched and attended to by a relatively small number of certifiably retarded citizens whose impact, on our world, is minimal. Please. Here’s a dollar. I’m beggin’ ya.
Hewitt, Hannity, Steyn, Rios, and the other finks, dwarfs, phonies, and frogs of Fox are watched and attended to by a relatively small number of certifiably retarded citizens whose impact, on our world, is minimal.
you’re welcome!
The thing that kills me about this type of wingnut, “You’re not clapping LOUD enough, DAMNIT!!1!” whining is that when they make one of these relatively insignificant incidents out to be a “major turning point,” it never is! And a month from now, when the situation in Iraq has spiraled even further out of control, if you try to remind them of their premature victory celebrations, they’ll be all like, “Oh, I never said that!” And the sad part is, I halfway believe that they believe that.
Sorry to bring this off-topic, but I just read some spell-bindingly great quotes concerning the three Guantanamo prisoner suicides.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5068228.stm
First, the camp commander they talk to just sounds psychotic. “Asymetrical warfare”? The fuck? And then at the end, Mr. Dubya’s really ominous statement “We would like to end Guantanamo – we’d like it to be empty.” Not closed. Just empty. Creeeeeeptastic.
[…] Glenn Greenwald takes a look at Halperin's latest pathetic pleas for approval from, of all people, Hugh Hewitt. This time, though, Halperin runs into a bit of a brick wall in the personage of ol' Sweaty Man-Boobs. […]
[…] Like he was fair to, say, Joel Achenbach. he’s been tough on Republicans with whom he […]
[…] Like he was fair to, say, Joel Achenbach. he’s been tough on Republicans with whom he […]