A direct quote from Atlas Shrugs:

“I have more give me some time………………….but I gotta tell you the icing on the cake was calling in and giving Rush a blow by blow after the rally.”

That is a mental image I did NOT need to consider.

Kill em all crowd disses the idea here.

Also note this other post where the resident war-king “streiff” (WTF?) notes: To heck with their hearts and minds. Let’s focus on what we can change: their behavior.

“Their” being Iraq’s sunnis.

From the other Mr. Pungent:

Mr. Bolton said that any Security Council action on Lebanon should await the return of a three-man mission that Secretary General Kofi Annan dispatched Friday to report back on the crises in Gaza and Lebanon. United Nations officials said the team was due back in New York the end of the week.

Ok then. We’ll talk about it in five days. Let’s go get some beer…

“Ehud Olmert, telling the Knesset that… Lebanese, not international soldiers should be deployed along the border…”

Of course, because if Israel kills international peacekeepers, how will they blame it on Lebanon?

Of course, because if Israel kills international peacekeepers, how will they blame it on Lebanon?

Seems to me they’re not having any trouble blaming Lebanon and Hezbollah for just about everything – Israel bombs the Beirut Airport – Hezbollah’s fault. Israel blows up the power station in Gaza City – yep, you guessed it, Hamas’ fault. The world has gone insane. They’ve been saying black is white and up is down for so long that people just nod and agree. It doesn’t even set off their bullshit detector any more…

mikey

Is it me or did Bolton’s toupee look like it was going to leap off his melon and attack the assembled members of the press?

Great–more Fijians filled with Israeli shrapnel.

And more denails of same from The Usual Suspects.

Not saying that Israel is innocent – far from it – but not too many people were denouncing the rockets being fired into Israel before the soldier was kidnapped. Again, I think Israel has gone too far, but Palestinians kidnap a soldier and, when Israel comes knocking, their response is “release Palestinian prisoners and we will forget that you tried to take back your soldier.” Hezbollah then takes 2 soldiers and people are shocked Israel would try to retaliate. Not saying it was proportionate, but there is a sort of unwritten rule that only Israeli aggression is worthy of note in this conflict.

Not saying it was proportionate, but there is a sort of unwritten rule that only Israeli aggression is worthy of note in this conflict.

That’s not what I’m getting off my media. I’m getting lots and lots of talk about each Israeli civilian killed, and then at the end of the story, a quick mention of how many Lebanese were killed.

Anyway, my solution is that we build a giant space mirror that we send over anyplace in the world where there is too much fighting. Nobody gets any sunlight until the fighting stops…I think some aliens used one in a science fiction book I read in 8th grade, so I know it’ll work.
Of course, we can’t trust such a device in the hands of any one nation, so I’ll control it from my orbiting asteroid base.

I’m taking PayPal donations.

Anyway, thank God that we have a seasoned diplomat like Bolton at the UN right now, someone with a history of reaching out to others and considering other points of view. Also, he has the unanimous support of the American People. Ummm.

I mean, he’s doing a better job than Kevin Federline would have. That much is clear.

That’s not what I’m getting off my media. I’m getting lots and lots of talk about each Israeli civilian killed, and then at the end of the story, a quick mention of how many Lebanese were killed.
As opposed to how every report for years mentioned how many Palistinians were killed and then 8 paragraphs in mentioned how it was in a calculated strike in response to the bombing of an Israeli nightclub. Neither one is fair reporting and, realistically, they all reduce a tragedy down to numbers and underhanded editorializing.

I’m sure the US news media are pro-Israel in reporting, just as I’m sure France, Italy, and much of the rest of Europe will continue their anti-Israel reporting. And, frankly, both sides are only rooting for one side or the other because they are trade allies. Excepting, of course, the fundimentalist Christians who are rooting for the end of the world and the slightly less fundimentalist Christians who hope, once this is over, that George Bush will to in, overthrow their leaders, and show them the love of Jesus Christ (actual comment from Reagan’s Children blog…)

David Broder defends Dear Leader from the vicious and unfair mockery of everyone-else-in-the-entire-world (it’s all that bastard Pootie’s fault!)

Bush’s pal and G-8 host Vladimir Putin has stuck his finger in the president’s eye by openly mocking Bush’s professed commitment to democracy… His behavior makes Bush look hypocritical for continuing his friendship.

I could be wrong, but I think I have the name of the culprit in the Thers thing.

I’ll try to catch it all, but I don’t think I can. rightwingsparkle.blogspot.com

Sorry, I know you guys have moved on, but it still simmers here in the southwest.

Dorita

Not saying it was proportionate, but…

Sorry, I got a little too distracted to finish reading this sentence before I got to whatever came after your “but”, trying to visualize what you meant by “proportionate” … Did I miss anything important?

…And if and when there are some beheadings, we’ll put the pictures up for contrast.
There is plenty of shit to go around; there aren’t really any “good guys” in this one at this point.

Okay, so you guys have been posting quite a bit about Greenwald lately. Now, I like the guy (he’s a bit too, shall I say earnest for me, but he consistently makes good arguments).

But I’m a little confused by this statement of his, referring to a Belgravia Dispatch takedown of Instapundit:

The extremist and increasingly deranged rhetoric and tactics found in the right-wing blogosphere — not only among obscure bloggers but promoted and disseminated by its most-read and influential bloggers — is, indeed, “a very common disease.”

Increasingly deranged? I know Greenwald’s fairly new to blogging and all, but Instapundit and the Kill ‘Em All Crowd have been rhetorically lynching political foes and binarily nuking Mecca since 9/11.

This shit is NOT new. The Right Blogosphere’s unflagging output of deeply disturbing eliminationist preening has been tirelessy and black-humorously documented here and elsewhere since at least Version 6.66 of Eric Raymond’s spectacularly stupid Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto.

Sorry to go slightly off topic (though the subject, I hope, remains “Still Life With Orc”), but doesn’t it bother anyone else when Greenwald (or Gregory Djerejian or Andrew Sullivan or Kevin Drum) acts as if they have just now broken the “major scoop” that rightwing bloggers are fucking nuts? And wow, not like haha nuts, but don’t-turn-your-back-on-them-near-the-edge-of-the-subway-platform nuts?

Djerejian, in a post Greenwald links to, says of Instapundit (whom he once “respected” for unknown reasons):

I’d also add, and I say this with genuine regret as well, that his credibility on matters related to foreign policy is in free-fall …

What fucking credibility? “Free-fall”? Free-fall from where? The absolute bottomed-out, low-as-you-can-possibly-fucking-go, last-in-the-American-League, pulling-up-the-rear nadir of foreign policy credibility? Wouldn’t that be more of a lateral move? Wouldn’t Djerejian have been better off saying:

I’d also add, and I say this with genuine regret as well, that his credibility on matters related to foreign policy is precisely where it was four years ago, which is to say, in the shitter … oh, and as a general rule smart people do the opposite of what he says on all sorts of other matters, big and small …

We are talking about a guy – Reynolds – who, three years ago, famously called anyone who had the vaguest doubts about what would prove to be a costly mess of a war, “objectively pro-Saddam”. A guy who speculated that if Muslims global* didn’t stop complaining and start kissing American ass, it would just be sort of inevitable that the U.S. would launch a genocide that would make Rome’s salting of Carthage and the slaughter of Native Americans look like a pleasant chorus of “Free to Be, You and Me”.

Sorry to post such a long comment, but does this crap bug anybody else? Not the Instapundit crap – obviously that bugs everybody – but latecomers like Greenwald, and aisle-switchers like Djerejian and Sullivan, acting all “Breaking News” and shit about the feral dumbassitude of the Right Blogosphere?

*Thanks, Pastor Swank!

Broder is full of shit. Chimpy was insulting Putin to his face in his own country. I’m suprised he didn’t react more harshly but everyone there knew the emperor had no clothes and has no credibilty. He’ll be gone in 2 years and without an entire army to guard him when he travels, will probably stay hidden in Texas until he leaves for his one-way trip to hell.

But aren’t you guys pleased at our President’s table manners? What kind of fucking low life talks with his mouth full? Jesus Christ!

The funniest thing about this Mr. Bush/Putin thing was a conversation I had with my father. He (my father) is a lifelong Democrat, and while he’s slowly rooted himself into a fatalism of the system being entirely rotten from the inside, still tries to be liberal. But he pulls me aside the other day, and recounts Mr. Bush’s “Just wait.” to me, and in a conspirital (sp?) voice, says Mr. Bush is insane.

Of course, both he and I have known this for years, since before the 2000 election really, but still. He’s blatantly mad now. I’m expecting him to appoint horses to the Supreme Court. And I mean, a genuine horse. He’s got to be nearing that point.

Demo,

When Greenwald says “I wasn’t a political man” he isn’t joking. This stuff really is all news to him. In fact, I suspect (for many reasons) that he would have considered himself “a conservative” until fairly recently.

What kind of fucking low life talks with his mouth full?

Oh, la-di-da, pass the chardonnay, ya liberal elitist.

Mumfle. ‘Scuse me, just blew a snot bubble into the caviar. Yo Blair!

islmfaoscist, I suppose you’ve never noticed the years upon years of suicide bombers and missiles fired into Israel, the nightclubs and synogagues destroyed so the Palestinians can maximize civilian deaths – especially women, children, and the elderly. No, it’s better to just believe that Israelis deserve whatever happens to them and any retaliation is unprovoked.

And, before you get all holier-than-thou, my point still remains that they are both resorting to extreme violence and neither side is right. If you can’t get that concept, maybe you should sign up for LGF.

Jade –

That’s somewhat understandable, then. But still, it gets on my nerves when the previously blog unaware or recent recantists of wingnutism act as if others (namely, this blog and blogs like it) haven’t been documenting this nonsense for years and years.

In Greenwald’s case, it may be that when he started blogging, he was simply unaware that we’ve* been monitoring the right blogosphere for years. But surely not now. He must be aware that Misha, to take one example, didn’t simply spring up yesterday, newly frothing at the mouth.

In my mind, the worst of the recantists – like Djerejian and Sullivan – in all of a sudden feigning tres surprise over Instapundit’s violent unseriousness (which he NEVER didn’t display), are working the same angle that many formerly pro-Iraq War pundits have done since their conversions.

Which is to say, continuing to sneer at those of us who were RIGHT about the folly of the war all along, even as they promulgate our old pre-war arguments in hindsight. (We had the temerity to be right before it was right to be right.)

It’s blatant revisionism. And while I don’t think Greenwald is a prime offender by any means, nevertheless he does occassionally evidence a kind of analyst’s egotism … i.e., assuming, in his tone, that it wasn’t until he, Glenn Greenwald started documenting it, that all of this violent extremism from the Right Blogosphere kind of mysteriously appeared and subsequently began “increasing”. Yet it is a demonstrable fact that the Right has been primarily driven by extremism and partisanship uber alles since the targeting of Bill Clinton; that their violent rhetoric was ratcheted up another notch following 9/11; and that everything since then has been eliminationist business as usual.

Greenwald’s obviously on our side, and he’s proven himself to be a mighty powerful ally to have – witness the wingnuts scurrying to retaliate whenever he heaps a scornful post upon them.

But still, I do believe that credit ought to be given where credit’s due with regards to the many bloggers who were exposing Instapundit et. al. for what they were, long before Greenwald came on the scene. I think this is important for both the historical record, and more selfishly, because we were right … and people ought to know that.

*Myself, on the now-defunct theSpleen.com from 1999-2002, various comment boards, with the now-defunct Project for the New American Empire parody, and on my own (sadly unupdated) blog. Many other Sadly, No! regulars as recognizably longtime commenters and bloggers.