Holy Crap

Here’s an excellent article in today’s WaPo about refugees trying to escape Iraq. You’ll be happy to know that Jamil Hussein is not quoted once in the piece:

AMMAN, Jordan — Inside his cold, crumbling apartment, Saad Ali teeters on the fringes of life. Once a popular singer in his native Baghdad, he is now unemployed. To pay his $45 monthly rent, he borrows from friends. To bathe, he boils water on a tiny heater. He sleeps on a frayed mattress, under a tattered blanket.

Outside, Ali, 35, avoids police officers and disguises his Arabic with a Jordanian dialect. He returns home before 10 p.m. to stay clear of government checkpoints. Like hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees here, he fears being deported. Six months ago, near his home in Baghdad, two men threatened to kill him. Singing romantic songs, they said, was un-Islamic.

You gotta be kidding me. Those fascist fundie bastards are going to deny their fellow countrymen the glory that is Barry White?

So when his pride hits a new low, he remembers that day.

“Despite all the hardships I face here, it is better than going back to Baghdad,” said Ali, long-faced with a sharp chin, who wore a thick red sweat shirt and rubbed his hands to keep warm. “They will behead me. What else can I do? I have no choice.”

Obviously, this is a lie concocted for the sole purpose of making Bush look bad. Doesn’t he know Iraq isn’t any more dangerous than Philadelphia???

As the fourth year of war nears its end, the Middle East’s largest refugee crisis since the Palestinian exodus from Israel in 1948 is unfolding in a climate of fear, persecution and tragedy.

Pft, please. The Palestinians have been in terrific shape since 1948.

Nearly 2 million Iraqis — about 8 percent of the prewar population — have embarked on a desperate migration, mostly to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

The U.N. Ha. What do they know? They were the same homos who couldn’t find Saddam’s WMDs.

The refugees include large numbers of doctors, academics and other professionals vital for Iraq’s recovery.

Sounds like a bunch of liberal elitists to me. Good riddance. Iraq’ll be fine without Volvo-driving “doctors” going around trying to “heal” people.

The rich began trickling out of Iraq as conditions deteriorated under U.N. sanctions in the 1990s, their flight growing in the aftermath of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Now, as the violence worsens, increasing numbers of poor Iraqis are on the move, aid officials say. To flee, Iraqis sell their possessions, raid their savings and borrow money from relatives. They ride buses or walk across terrain riddled with criminals and Sunni insurgents, preferring to risk death over remaining in Iraq […]

Into their new havens, Iraqis are bringing their culture and way of life, gradually reshaping the face of the Arab world. But the cost of escape is high. Feeding the bitterness of exile is a sense that outside forces created their plight. Many Iraqis here view the U.S.-led invasion that ousted President Saddam Hussein as the root of their woes.

“We were promised a kind of heaven on earth,” said Rabab Haider, who fled Baghdad last year. “But we’ve been given a real hell.”

I’m out of sarcastic things to say right now. This is too depressing.

 

Comments: 193

 
 
 

Bah. This is just another one of those fricking AP progpaganda puff pieces that…..

Oh, wait. You mean this isn’t a report from an Associated Press reporter? But it’s saying bad things about the conduct of the war and its effects on Iraqis. How can that be?

 
 

I also go by “Sudarsan Raghavan”.

P.S. From the comments:

Isnt there a school being painted somewhere that you should be reporting on instead? Why do you always have to be focusing on the negative? Really, what is more newsworthy—a school being opened, or a couple million refugees? To quote former first lady Barbara Bush, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?

By TasteTheCheesesteak | Feb 4, 2007 12:41:17 AM | Request Removal

 
 

Oh, come one now. the VAST majority of Iraqis are not being dragged from their beds at night be local militias and shot in the head or tortured to death.

8% have left, but that means that 92% have stayed. And a 92% on a test is a great score!

 
 

Thanks for the h/t about Philly! My SO just went down to the Italian Market ten minutes ago for some Sarcone’s bread and he’s not back! OMG! Hope he comes back alive. (Oh! Why can’t we be in beautiful downtown Baghdad, free of Mooninite Lite-Brites?)

 
 

If I remember correctly, the UN has estimated that 8% of Baghdad’s population has fled because of the violence, and 5% have left the country entirely. That may not sound like a big percentage, but we are talking about hundreds of thousands of individual people, all with their own miserable stories to tell.

 
 

Patterico seys
“It would be the difference between 1) referring to the SN! commenters generally as a pack of monkeys, which they are, and 2) specifically taking one of them who is reasonable and disagrees with the sheeplike views of the rest of them, and slagging *that one guy* because he is a Sadly No! commenter and therefore must be unreasonable.”
Well, that explains the feces I’ve been smearing on my wall…
Maybe it’s the lack of sleep, but aren’t those two things, uh, the same? That’s an “All Xs are Ys; If Z is an X, then Z is a Y” arguement.

Commentor #4 seyz:
“I still can’t quite get past that mention in the article of the burning six about the 1.3 gallons of fuel used!

I am amazed with all the chaos that somebody knew exactly to the American measuring unit the amount of fuel used to douse the non existent victims of the burning. ”
1.3 gallons is pretty close to 5 liters. *shrug* just saying, that’s a nice round unit of measurement for a gas can.
http://www.ferret.com.au/articles/fc/0c02d1fc.asp

The argument now seems to be, “We don’t think the AP is evil, we just think they’re lying bastards.” And they still can’t answer for why, if they admit that Iraq is a catastrafuck, this one singular story is so goddamn important as to hinge the entire credibilty of the AP on.

 
 

Note that there is also 1.7 million internal refugees in Iraq (according to the UN): http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6243335.stm

 
 

We Americans must somehow learn to be tough enough to endure the news of Iraqi suffering, death, and exile. Only by pulling together and teaching ourselves to resist this tempting humanitarian trap will we be able to double-down and truly sacrifice the huge numbers of Iraqis required to achieve our goals.

Also, we must be strong enough to not let anyone know what our goals are, and stick entirely to the realm of metaphor and analogy — i.e., Victory is not about numbers and ‘measurable’ things, it’s about a feeling, a picture, a hazy land upon the horizon that we know we’ll reach if only we commit to keep sailing, never turn back, never check the compass, avoid any maps…

 
 

David E.

Considering how much you’ve lied about Patterico, your word doesn’t mean much. I’ve seen you spew blatant lies on Cathy’s World and at Patterico (before you called him a “fucking liar” in a successful attempt to get yourself banned). Thankfully, the Internets keep a complete record of what was said and done. Anyone who wants to know the truth can easily find it out, without relying on David E.’s monumental record of falsehoods.

I will be very glad to see us leave Iraq, but lying isn’t going to help bring that about.

 
 

Bradley and everyone- I am glad Patterico replied to me. I will get around to responding either today or tomorrow.

 
 

Brad R.

I hope you guys can turn down the flames a tad. Patterico is on record saying he has qualms about the war — he supported it mainly because of the WMD issue.

I felt the same way too, btw. When it became evident there were no (new) WMDs, I felt stupid and deceived. So yes, I’d like us to leave. It may take the “surge” to crystallize that feeling nationwide. Petraeus has a great reputation, but success in Iraq would take a major miracle. So give it one more Friedman before the consensus to leave is formed. And that will be largely driven by Republicans who are scared to death of campaigning with a mess of a war on their hands.

 
 

You know, until they find out where this guy is really living, and PROVE that he’s not absolutely made up – even if that involves giving his would-be killers precise information on where he is – I won’t believe a word of it. Unless you can put him in direct physical danger, like Jamil, then this report is worth nothing to me!

 
 

Oh please!

I’m sure Saad Ali doesn’t exist, and if he’s later found to exist it still won’t prove anything because he said is cat was ‘brown’ when really it was an ‘off color tan’ and later he lied about his address, supposedly to protect his family, but that’s a pretty pathetic excuse don’t you think?

Of course, the one way to prove it’s totally fab in Iraq would be to go there and live among the locals for a while, but I can’t because mom grounded me for mashing the Doritos into the carpet and leaving an open bag of cheetos on the couch.

 
 

So give it one more Friedman before the consensus to leave is formed.

Why? This administration has had enough Friedmans. They’ve proven the only thing they can be trusted to do competently is loot the Treasury for the benefit of their friends.

They don’t deserve any more Friedmans.

 
 

I was speaking of the time needed to form a national consensus on leaving Iraq. We are close to being there, but not quite. If I was talking about the administration’s record alone, its time has long since expired.

The prospect of an election with Iraq still a burning issue terrifies most Republican political leaders. That puts their own interest at odds with Bush’s. Guess whose interest they’ll go with?

 
Incontinentia Buttocks
 

I hope you guys can turn down the flames a tad. Patterico is on record saying he has qualms about the war — he supported it mainly because of the WMD issue.

Sorry, BJF. Patterico has earned this kind of response because of what he’s written over the years. It’s nice that he’s somewhat skeptical about Iraq now, but that does give him a free pass.

I felt the same way too, btw. When it became evident there were no (new) WMDs, I felt stupid and deceived. So yes, I’d like us to leave. It may take the “surge� to crystallize that feeling nationwide. Petraeus has a great reputation, but success in Iraq would take a major miracle. So give it one more Friedman before the consensus to leave is formed. And that will be largely driven by Republicans who are scared to death of campaigning with a mess of a war on their hands.

Outside of the wingnut dead-enders, this consensus has already formed in the public at large. We just have to wait for the folks in DC to catch up with us. I’m enough of a pessimist that I’m not going to predict when that will happen (if it ever does). But my money would be on the Dems coming to their senses before the GOP does.

 
 

Town Hall is pretty fucking funny over the last while. Just saying…

 
 

“We were promised a kind of heaven on earth,� said Rabab Haider, who fled Baghdad last year. “But we’ve been given a real hell.�

Ya breakin’ my heart. Why don’t you go read Charles Krauthammer, pussy?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/01/AR2007020101497.html

 
 

The national consensus to leave Iraq is already formed, as shown by the elections on November 7, 2006. It took a long to get there, thanks to the stream of lies we’ve been fed by Bush, Cheney, and their lapdogs in the press.

Trusting lives and treasure to Republican political leaders has been a fool’s game. I don’t see that changing, and I don’t see hoping for that change as a responsible course of action.

 
 

Patterico has long expressed reservations about the war. This post in November, 2005, for example:

I was always a reluctant supporter of the war. I supported it because I believed that, in light of the clear importance of fighting terrorism after 9/11, we could no longer continue to tolerate Saddam’s pattern of resisting efforts to disarm him and document that disarmament. I continue to believe that the president made the right decision based upon what he knew at the time — but if we knew then what we knew now, we probably would not have gone to war.

My only disagreement with Patterico is that he gives Bush too much credit. Bush wanted to go to war in Iraq, and deliberately overlooked any evidence that didn’t comform to his preconceived wishes. But what can you expect from a president who speaks favorably of teaching intelligent design creationism?

 
 

November 2005 is about 3 years too late. It was in November of 2002 that UNMOVIC finally returned to Iraq. It was in March of 2003 that Bush told them to leave before the bombs started falling.

The people who were right about Iraq have been vilified and marginalized, and that continues to this day. Patterico might have finally come round to some belated regrets, but he is carrying the MalkinTents’ water on this JamilGate nonsense, and I don’t see why he should be cut any slack.

 
Smiling Mortician
 

In response to a commenter who says Patterico is painting all SN commenters with a broad brush by claiming we’re all blindly defending the AP, Pat replies with Name the Sadly, No! commenters who are defending me on this.

OK, I’m starting to get how Patterico’s mind works. As a commenter at SN, I have two options: I can blindly defend the AP or defend Patterico. And to not do one means I’m doing the other. Therefore, by extension, since I never defended the AP here (blindly or otherwise), then I guess I’ve defended Patterico. Oh dear.

 
 

So give it one more Friedman before the consensus to leave is formed. And that will be largely driven by Republicans who are scared to death of campaigning with a mess of a war on their hands.

Why that is mighty white of you.

We should continue waiting until Republicans start worrying about their careers? Republicans can trade arms for hostages, organize death squads, bilk Billions, sell out CIA agents and STILL keep their jobs, but SIX more months in Iraq will change their minds?

Why that sounds a lot like Tinkerbell asking for more clapping.

You self-centered bigots want another six months to think about it?

Why not SHUT THE FUCK UP then?

For 6 months just SHUT THE FUCK UP!!

 
 

Owlbear1

There is no need to swear and rant. That sort of Tourette’s syndrome on the anti-war left has helped Republicans demonize the whole cause and prolonged the war.

I am not saying another Friedman is the way things should be. I am saying that is the way things will be. My statement was descriptive, not prescriptive. The country will come to a consensus on this issue, but we’re not there yet. If Petraeus can’t pull it off, then there will be no ducking the conclusion that the war has failed and we should leave.

 
 

“There is no need to swear and rant. That sort of Tourette’s syndrome on the anti-war left has helped Republicans demonize the whole cause and prolonged the war”

Because swearing = encouraging pointless, illegal wars.

 
 

Hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded Sparky. Fuck you and your terrified bigot friends.

“Stop yelling at me, and I will maybe stop being a cheerleader for mass murder”? Fuck you again!

If Patreus can’t pull it off?

Pull off what? Saving Peter Pan? Clap louder! Clap louder!

 
 

Owlbear1,

Thank you for a perfect demonstration of my point. I am quite sure you’re making many converts with your reasoned, factual discussions.

 
 

That sort of Tourette’s syndrome on the anti-war left has helped Republicans demonize the whole cause and prolonged the war.

Actually, I’d say the internalizing of inane right wing myths like the one you just cited by the self described moderate left has helped Republicans demonize the whole cause and prolonged the war.

Who said this?

‘We will fuck him. Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him!’

 
 

Actually I think it was an overdose of ignorant civility and unprincipled moderationism by elected and campaigning Democrats which allowed this hellish chaotic war in Iraq to begin, not an overdose of angry rhetoric with cursewords from the anti-war left.

The ‘anti-war left’ could have shown up to every march and demonstration in 3 piece suits and business dresses carring full-color printed signs and singing 100% pre-approved 1-message slogans without 1 single curse word (or even slang) while waving U.S. flags and carrying Bibles and with giant puppets of the Founding Fathers, and they would have been shouted down as traitors, cowards, and Saddam bootlickers by Republicans, Lieberman-esque centrists, and the entire US mainstream media.

 
 

Yes, owlbear.

If it is going to take the Republicans another six months to figure out that the war in Iraq is really not going swimmingly, then that’s how it’s going to be. Cursing about it, as though you have some sense of morality which might possibly be outraged by this condition, is what allows the pearl clutching crowd to go on being unholy dervishes of death and destruction.

At least they’re polite about it, unlike you dirty fucking hippies.

(Oh, and if you’re wondering…..this is why America will go right on perpetrating atrocities and war crimes in the rest of the world – people care more about the language you use to discuss something than the fact that we’re involved in an illegal war that has led to hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. Hope that this makes you proud to be an American. I know it does me.)

 
 

Thank you for a perfect demonstration of my point. I am quite sure you’re making many converts with your reasoned, factual discussions.

I am WAY passed trying to convert anymore terrified little bigots.

I’m now at “Publicly humiliated” and “Exposed as the thieving, lying, bloodthirsty cowards they are.”

Anybody STILL defended George Bush and his Administration is somebody I NEVER want on ‘my’ side.

 
 

Damn screwed that up bad. Can someone fix that quote?

 
 

does that help?

 
 

Unclosed blockquote on the loose!!

 
 

I would call you a fucking hippie, but that would just be uncouth.

 
 

It’s hard to take people seriously who freely spout obscenities and abuse when someone disagrees with them on any point.Go ahead and scream some more obscenities. Makes you feel good and righteous, without all that difficult work of actually thinking and reasoning.

Folks like Owlbear1 are Bush’s greatest allies, but are too busy frothing at the mouth to realize it.

Nice work.

 
 

El Cid said it perfectly.

Hey, BJF? Here’s the thing, without swearing, and in perfectly simple terms: We on the anti-war left were right, as in correct, as in not wrong, wrong, which is the opposite of right. Okay? I’m sick unto death of this hind sight is 20/20 boolsheet. Some of us were right about this war being wrong back in 2002. Why were we right, but people such as yourself get to say, well, you were right for the wrong reasons, but we were wrong for the right reasons? Do you not get that a whole lot of people are DEAD who would be ALIVE if not for your WRONGNESS in 2003? And you want a bunch more people to die so that those who still support this horrid quagmire will see that the war is wrong? Is that what you are actually saying?

Clearly, you don’t get it at all. Or you think it’s okay for a lot of people to die for no reason.

 
 

Bush has been getting one more chance every single friedman unit of his life.

 
 

Last summer as I was walking my dog we spotted an idiot in the park with her off-leash samoyed. There are only about 50 signs reminding people of the leash laws, but I guess she couldn’t read. I picked up my 10-pound wussie and continued while she rolled her eyes and muttered about my excess of caution. When we were out of range – I thought – I put my dog down. Of course, her’ dog immediately ran over and tried to “play with” (i.e. shake to death) mine. During the ensuing melee, in which my dog was badly scared and my hand cut, I shouted, “Jesus Christ! What’s the matter with you!”

Her reply? “There’s no need for that kind of language!”

Anyway, Republican war apologists make that asshole look like the voice of fucking reason.

 
 

“The ‘anti-war left’ could have shown up to every march and demonstration in 3 piece suits and business dresses carring full-color printed signs and singing 100% pre-approved 1-message slogans without 1 single curse word (or even slang) while waving U.S. flags and carrying Bibles and with giant puppets of the Founding Fathers…”

What do you mean, “could have”? I was there! Dressed and equipped exactly like this! Where were the rest of you?

 
 

Candy,

I think the war was a huge mistake, caused by Bush’s willingness to go to war despite evidence. The anti-war side was correct. The question now is, how to best get us out of Iraq. That means forming a consensus. We are not there yet, but will soon be. And if we learn from this to be more wary of future pushes to war, there will have been some benefit.

 
 

So, if I’m in the parking lot of the grocery store, and I see a man in the parking lot reach into the back of his truck, pull out a broom handle, and start beating his misbehaving six year old son with the broom handle, and the first words out of my mouth are “Holy shit, do you see what that fucking asshole is doing?”, I suppose this somehow makes me objectively pro-child abuse or something.

Believe it or not, among normal people who witness an atrocity, a bad word or two is pretty normal. But y’all go right ahead and keep using this as an excuse for why the Conan the Barbarian crowd is going to continue pursuing their scorched earth strategy in the middle east.

 
 

Makes you feel good and righteous, without all that difficult work of actually thinking and reasoning.

What makes you feel good and righteous, Bradley? Do you look at pictures of blood-covered orphans or read about the horrendous mistakes made by this administration and say, “Well, this is all somewhat upsetting, but at least I’m not getting carried away”?

 
 

Sniper,

I am counting the days until Jan. 20, 2009. That makes me feel good and righteous. I certainly did not vote for Bush.

 
 

Iraq isn’t any more dangerous than Philadelphia

‘Cause, you know, the Catholic church across the street from my house was firebomed yesterday by a pack of radical Baptists. It was awful–at least, that’s what Jamil O’Brien told me.

 
 

Holy Crap! I can post again! Thanks, Seb!

 
 

I also appreciate stuff like this, reported in a rational way, without fuck-yous.

 
 

Candy–

Tony Judt cites:

“…a remark by the French ex-Stalinist Pierre Courtade to Edgar Morin, a dissenting Communist vindicated by events: ‘You and your kind were wrong to be right; we were right to be wrong.'”

 
 

Bradley, A goldfish would take fewer repetitions to learn clapping louder to solve a problem only works in fairy tales.

You say another six months of clapping is STILL necessary.

I ask you (rather pointlessly) why do you ‘think’ you have ANYTHING worth saying that is worth listening to?

 
 

Bah, again with “oh, you uncivil leftists, how dare you be so upset that we spent the last three years calling you terrorist sympathizers because you disagreed with going to war with Iraq and you were right the entire time.” Pardon my Shakesphere, but fuck that noise. If Pattrico or any of the war cheerleaders want “civility” or “respect for their views”, they need to give as good as they get and they got a long row to hoe before they got any room to talk.

If you got no argument than tut-tutting folks using bad words to express their shock and disgust at the horror that the right-wing not only allowed to happen, but actively cheered for, you got no argument at all.

 
 

Ooooooo, Bradley! So reasonable, so sane!

Give them another Friedman?

Well, all righty then! We’ll just forget about the fucking (yes, I did say fucking right there, did you catch it?) DEAD PEOPLE, both US and Iraqi, the destroyed (or perhaps just blown up) country formerly known as Iraq, the utter ruin of our relationships with the sane and civilized portion of the world, the sacking of our Treasury to enrich the cronies of this administration, the demonizing of an entire portion of the country (which now apparently constitutes 70-80% of the electorate) as defeatist anti-American traitors, and NOW, the ongoing ginning-up and cheerleading for expanding this horrific mess into Iran, thereby probably igniting the World War III the Christopaths are jonesing for.

Are you sure another Friedman will give them enough time? I’d hate for them to have to rush into some ill-planned adventure based on faulty intelligence and lies.

Shut up, Bradley. Don’t make me use the ‘F’ word on you again.

And Patterico is a fomenter of blog-wars, an arrogant, rude SOB, and one of the most dishonest debaters I have ever seen in action on the internets, and I have seen plenty. Look in the archives of this very blog to see some of his comments defending himself as well as the indefensible J. ‘Pasty’ Godlstein if you don’t believe me. Patterico doesn’t get credit for jack-shit ever again after some of the stunts he has pulled.

Grow up.

 
 

I think those of us who were right in the first place have indeed formed a concensus, and due to our being right in the first fucking place, have earned the right to be listened to: and that concensus is, we need to get the hell out of there now. No goddam surge. Not one more soldier on the ground in Iraq.

There’s no way to be polite about this. Being polite is only going to get more people killed. The Rethugs have been walking all over the Dems for years now, because we keep trying to take the high road. For that the Dems are culpable. A whole bunch of someone’s should have stood up years ago and said “We are not taking this shit anymore. You are lying and we are not going to let you get away with it.” If this had happened we would not now be in the mess we are in now. do ya folla?

 
 

–Mary Jones said,
–February 4, 2007 at 20:54
—-Iraq isn’t any more dangerous than Philadelphia
–‘Cause, you know, the Catholic church across the street from my house was firebomed yesterday by a pack of radical Baptists. It was awful–at least, that’s what Jamil O’Brien told me.
—————————————————————

Yes, but even if the church was firebombed, it wasn’t “destroyed”, and the so all the radical Catholic-hating AP reporters asking locals what happened will now have to recant their story, because a large number of the church’s molecules remain (though building inspectors have ordered the building locked and no one may enter or use the space because it’s structurally damaged and unsafe for visitors).

 
 

Have fun, folks. You’re obviously here just to bask in the glow of your righteousness, not to discuss any factual matters.

 
 

and I misspelled consensus again. I always do that.

Perfect quote MrWonderful.

 
 

Wait! You forgot your pearls!

 
 

And why should I “form a consensus” with a group of people who not only believed every lie the Bush Administration told about Iraq without question, but have also supported without question every single action taken by said administration that curtailed civil liberties and stirred up all mannerisms of fear and hatred in support of that war? Why should I open a dialogue with people who’ve repeatedly stated that I and people who think as I do are the moral equivalent of mass-murdering religious fundamentalists, and that I and people who think like me actively support our country’s defeat not only militarily but also culturally? Why should I and people who think like me want to build bridges with people who were quite happy to see us all locked up and the key tossed simply for daring to disagree with the administration?

There’s a lot of serious, thoughtful conservatives, Republicans and libertarians out there, people who will work with liberals, leftists and Democrats to end the war, cease the strife in Iraq and bring everyone back home as soon as possible. These are people I can talk to and deal with and maybe even learn from. Pattrico and his crowd aren’t and were never among them. He and his crowd do not deserve cooperation for they were and are part of the problem, never the solution. All they get from me is scorn.

 
 

mmmm, Barry

 
 

Shut up, Bradley. Don’t make me use the ‘F’ word on you again.

Thanks for the warning, “Gentlewoman.”

Gentle, of course, except for those who disagree, ever so slightly, with the correct views. Those people are obviously evil and deserve no mercy.

 
 

Patterico sez: I completely agree with Allah’s take on this. Things in Iraq are bad. In fact, in some ways, things may be worse than many realize, largely due to our decision to repeat the failures of the end of the Vietnam war. Nobody responsible is saying everything is great there, and the lefties who claim that we are, are liars. Pure and simple.

Nobody responsible? Let’s hear from the Senator from Connecticut (I-Lie):

I am confident that the situation is improving enough on the ground that by the end of this year we will begin to draw down significant numbers of American troops and by the end of next year more than half of the troops who are there now will be home.

Of course, that was when he was running for reelection. Now, it’s time to send more into the meatgrinder.

 
 

OT- over at “Blogs for Bush”, Mark Noonan is hinting at a 2010 Senate run vs Harry Reid in Nevada. Its in the comments of his 2/4 post about Barack Obama. Truly mind staggering.

 
 

Fuck, man…it’s like being told I need to work with the Klan to fix what’s wrong with Affirmative Action. I don’t believe this nonsense. For six years, I’ve been told that because I was on the “losing side”, any argument I made that disagreed with the party in power was not only “irrelevent because we lost” but also actively anti-American. And it’s not like they’ve given an inch. If the Malkins and Goldsteins and Pattericos would actually own up to backing the wrong horse in the worst, evilist way possible, I might – just might – consider listening to their ideas about ending the war. But now, man, I got more important things to deal with than pay any attention to that disgusting crowd beyond mocking them.

This must be the new wingnut meme, as I’ve seen it at a couple places. Pathetic.

 
 

Bradley sez:

“Considering how much you’ve lied about Patterico, your word doesn’t mean much. I’ve seen you spew blatant lies on Cathy’s World and at Patterico (before you called him a “fucking liarâ€? in a successful attempt to get yourself banned). “

I didn’t lie at all.

As for Pattycakes claim that he supported the war because of the WMD “issue” then he’s a fool.

No one needed Scott Ritter to tell them that there were no WMDs in Iraq.

 
 

Those people are obviously evil and deserve no mercy.

Right. Again, because calling you on your shit = destroying an entire country.

 
 

David E.

You worked hard to get booted off Patterico, so you could scream about being repressed. The record is there, and you’re fooling no one. I feel foolish for supporting the war on the WMD grounds, and have no reservations for saying so. Patterico will have to speak for himself.

It’s interesting seeing the abuse I get here, compared to last summer when Ody was labeling me on CW as a traitorous anti-war media type. But at least Ody never descended into rabid, obscene name-calling. Maybe Cathy has a point about the right being more tolerant than the left.

 
 

Gentle, of course, except for those who disagree, ever so slightly, with the correct views. Those people are obviously evil and deserve no mercy.

Bradley, FYI:

gen·tle·wom·an
n.

1. A woman of gentle or noble birth or superior social position.
2. A well-mannered and considerate woman with high standards of proper behavior.
3. A woman acting as a personal attendant to a lady of rank.

Do you see anything in there about ‘a woman who is obliged to suffer the twitterings of sanctimonious assholes and the deceptive absurdities of concern trolls without complaint’?

Neither do I.

I am always exquisitely polite, even when I am telling sanctimonious assholes and concern trolls to STFU.

 
 

Why would it ever be okay to tolerate mass murder and people who support it?

 
 

Why, yes….the Right IS more tolerant than the Left.

The Right tolerates genocidal maniacs and war criminals.

The Left doesn’t.

’nuff said.

 
 

Gentle, of course, except for those who disagree, ever so slightly, with the correct views. Those people are obviously evil and deserve no mercy.

An “opinion” that is based on DELUSIONS, FEAR, and LAZINESS, (i.e. “clapping louder will achieve victory in Iraq”) isn’t ‘disagreeing slightly with the correct views’ its just dumb and dangerous.

After this long those goldfish still needing repetition are beyond rational argument. NOT EVIL, just dangerously stupid.

 
 

Jeez, you guys. I’m pretty confused. You don’t have to love anybody you don’t agree with, but what’s the goddam goal here? This war is so obscene, so evil, so wrong, so destructive to america, I will accept any ally, any friend, any voice that might help us shave one goddam minute off the horror. You don’t have to love bradley, you don’t have to agree with him, you don’t have to FORGIVE him his views. And I am right there with you saying six months more is awful. But for me, right now at this point in history, we need people to speak out against the war, and against the coming war with iran.

Bradley, I don’t agree with everything you said, but I welcome your help in adding to the outcry. And I feel kind of bad that you got nothing but hell for your words…

mikey

 
 

Jillian,
Don’t forget, the right is also tolerent of folks who want to change the Constitution to deny basic human rights to an entire portion of the American population because teh ghey is “icky”. I admit, I can’t help but think that’s just the “wrong kind of people” for one to associate.

 
 

mikey,

Thank you. And if you ever want to know how it was for me from the right, well, there’s ample records on Haloscan from Cathy Seipp’s blog about abuse I got from one milblogger named Odysseus.

 
 

Mikey, it’s the idea that there’s some sort of moral equivalence between people who manufacture evidence in order to perpetrate a vicious, poorly planned war and people who say “fuck” once in a while that’s so darn offensive.

Ultimately, working with people like that doesn’t do anything to further a goal of preventing future bullshit wars like the one we’re in now. They just eat up the propaganda over and over again, always believing that
the bullshit brigade really won’t come in their mouths *this time*.

It’s sweet to try to be nice to them, but it doesn’t really help in the long run. Apologists for empire are apologists for empire. Making nice with them does nothing.

 
 

BJF – This may come as a shock to you, but some of us on the left have totally lost patience with the fuckwads (yep, I said it) that supported this war. The ones who demonized, marginalized and villified us for opposing the war and not buying the WMD argument-when we were right. The ones who called us “anti-troop” when we were actually against the lack of proper equipment, the failings of a disastrous Secretary of Defense, and a total lack of strategy in conducting the war. The ones who called us “unpatriotic” when we have always defended the Constitution and seek to bring the troops home so that no more die, and so that no more innocent Iraqis die because of our prolonged presence in-country. The ones that call us “fascist”, when they suspend habeus corpus, spy on us, and sell our personal information for gain. The ones who tell us they need to take our rights away so they can protect us. The ones who have done this for the past six years.

So, when we resort to expletives you should see it as a perfectly normal reaction under the circumstances. And no, Bush & Co. get no more Friedmans. Fuck ’em sideways.

 
 

Mikey, here is what Bradley said:

So give it one more Friedman before the consensus to leave is formed.

I don’t call that helping, unless you mean helping Lieberman and McCain.

 
 

mikey, experience teaches us that anyone with this kind of world view is never going to be of help to us.

 
 

mikey,
This may be one of the few times I have to disagree with you. I’ve already stated my position on Patterico’s crowd and I honestly don’t see how they’d even be willing to help. It’s not a matter of being unable to like someone I disagree with, it’s a matter simply not trusting people who’ve been preaching hate at me for the past six years. If that’s a character flaw of mine, then so be it. I’m willing to forgive a soul of almost anything if they truly wish to repent, but do you honestly see that from this bunch? Have they given any reason to trust them at all?

As for Mr. Fikes, my only advice to him is, if he’s truly interested in forming a dialogue on ending the war, then he should do so and drop all the shame-shaming about how mean and ugly leftists/liberals are. I don’t know him from Adam’s housecat, but again, I’m not seeing much reason to pay him any attention. I hold you in high esteem, mikey, and I’ll bow to your wisdom if you can convince me, but I just ain’t seeing it.

 
 

Matt T.

I wouldn’t have brought up the ugly abuse and obscenties, if they weren’t so plainly in evidence here. And I am not part of “Patterico’s crowd.” I comment on his blog sometimes, but mainly hang out on Cathy Seipp’s blog, where diversity of opinion is truly welcomed. That welcome seems not to be in evidence here. I make a few posts, and instantly people make uninformed judgments about my “world view.” Maybe they should wait and find out before dropping the F-bomb. But it seems like most are simply eager for a target for their wrath.

 
 

Alright, it’s fucking poetry time.

XXX

i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or

his wellbelovéd colonel(trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but–though an host of overjoyed
noncoms(first knocking on the head
him)do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments–
Olaf(being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds,without getting annoyed
“I will not kiss your fucking flag”

straightway the silver bird looked grave
(departing hurriedly to shave)

but–though all kinds of officers
(a yearning nation’s blueeyed pride)
their passive prey did kick and curse
until for wear their clarion
voices and boots were much the worse,
and egged the firstclassprivates on
his rectum wickedly to tease
by means of skilfully applied
bayonets roasted hot with heat–
Olaf(upon what were once knees)
does almost ceaselessly repeat
“there is some shit I will not eat”

our president,being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the yellowsonofabitch
into a dungeon,where he died

Christ(of His mercy infinite)
i pray to see;and Olaf,too

preponderatingly because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you.

 
 

Oh noes!!11!!! Not F bombs!!

Fart all y’all! Y’all go fart yourselves!

 
 

Bradley sez:

“You worked hard to get booted off Patterico, so you could scream about being repressed. The record is there, and you’re fooling no one.”

I did not “work” to get booted off at all. Pattycakes simply couldn’t take the heat. The record is there and you’re folling no one.

 
 

the F bomb? What is this, third grade?

Politics ain’t bean bag, as someone once opined. We don’t ban people here. That’s tolerance. If you can’t give back as good as you get, that’s too bad. Don’t come to a left wing blog that focuses on making fun of the right and complain that you aren’t welcomed with flowers and candy. (ahem)

As MattT said, I think most people here would be very inclined to forgive someone who seemed to feel genuine regret for the part they played in enabling BushCo to do the monstrous things they’ve done. People make mistakes. I for one do not believe in the punishment ethic. It would be nice if we could all reason together and come up with fair and equitable solutions, but I for one am not going to hand my heart back to someone who’s abused me just to have it chewed up and spit back in my face, which is what happens time and time again to those of us on the liberal side of things when we make nice with the right.

to borrow a phrase from wingnuttia, if’n you cain’t hunt with the big dogs, stay on the porch.

 
 

Christ. I don’t get it. Are you interested in winning an argument, or ending the bloodshed? It’s going to take a whole lot more voices, raised a whole lot louder, to convince congress that their political survival is tied to ending the war. It worked that way with vietnam, it’ll work that way again.

For the record, I clearly heard bradley say HE did not support a six month extension. And even despite that, realistically? In six months it’s still going to be going on. Not yet enough will to end it. So put your intellectual or political purity in your pocket and start welcoming people who want to help, even if their politics or their reasoning is different from yours. For christs sake, people are dying over there every fucking day. Playing “who can sleep in my tent” is frankly, a stupid game at this point.

Look, in combat a soldiers goal and the officers goal are different. The soldier just wants to live through the day. He couldn’t care LESS about winning the battle. The officer’s goal is to take the objective. Now these two goals are quite different from one another, but oddly, they both contribute to the desired outcome.

Again, MY goal here is to end this illegal war, prevent another, end the militarization of my country and prevent the shredding of the bill of rights. And I’ll welcome anybody, ANYBODY who will help me…

mikey

 
 

Poor Bradley, just an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire?

I guess that would make you “collateral damage”?

Now the people you came here to defend have expressed some very nasty opinions of those innocent bystanders. “Deserved it.” “Lied about it.” “Worthless to talk about.” “Shit Happens. Too Bad.” This about DEAD HUMAN BEINGS.

Bradley, I’m sorry your feelings got hurt.

No, Really I am…

 
 

BJF,
Frankly, I don’t think you have much excuse for being so shocked at the harder edge from Sadly, No! commentors. This is a blog dedicated to mocking loathesome dirtbags like Patterico and their disgusting views. Apart from whatever slapfighter you’re in with David E., your first comment was one of pearl-clutching and “turning down the flames”, and I still don’t see the reason why anyone should give that bunch the time of day.

I don’t know from Cathy’s blog, but whatever her’s is, it’s her’s and not Sadly, No! Generally, if a blog’s operators aren’t content with the commentors on said blog, they can do something about it. Any suggestion otherwise is simply fiddling for rhetorical bonus points and wastes everyone’s time.

Wandering through this world, I’ve noticed that not only are their a surfeit of mean sumbitches running around loose, a whole lot of folks also need their mouths washed out with gallons of soap. “Get a helmet”, a man once told me. But if you really expect me to believe you honestly think folks calling a bunch of truly ugly people and thoughts and deeds what they are is worse than the folks actually cheerleading for those ugly thoughts and deeds, I honestly don’t know what to say.

And again, I’m seeing absolutely no reason to take you seriously if your biggest bawl is over people’s language and aggressiveness. And again, I see absolutely no reason to pay any attention to your assertion that I should give Patterico – or any of the warpigs – the time of day when it comes to Iraq.

I guess that’s as far as we can go here. My only other comment is that my Momma and my Old Man are allowed to chastise me on my language when it gets too salty. Everyone else on the planet can kiss my ass. I seriously doubt I’m alone in that thought.

 
 

David E.

You called Patterico a “fucking liar” on his own blog. Most blog owners wouldn’t put up with that, and you knew it.

 
Principal Blackman
 

Mark Noonan is hinting at a 2010 Senate run vs Harry Reid in Nevada.

This would be one of the most awesome things ever. We have to encourage him to run. C’mon, Mark Noonan making stump speeches? Mark Noonan campaign commercials? Mark Noonan press conferences? We’d have to recalibrate the Unintentional Comedy Scale to make room for the Noonan campaign.

 
 

It would really help the thread if BJF would make an effort to be funny. It’s like a Dragnet episode with hippies in it.

 
 

Owlbear1

Bradley, I’m sorry your feelings got hurt.

My feelings aren’t hurt at all. I’m disappointed that the bar for discussion here is set so low. Fucks and shits are not reasoned arguments. When I walk into a room and see people throwing balls of crap, it doesn’t give me a very good impression of their mentality. I’ve certainly been through my shares of flame wars on Cathy’s World, but people there pay at least nominal attention to trying to understand other points of view and replying to them. Here, it seems, you’re either a True Believer(tm) or an evil person worthy of abuse. Not much difference from the Freeper or WorldNetDaily crowd.

 
 

mikey,
Do you really believe the Pattericos and Malkins and Goldbergs and Esmays and Grogans and Swanks and Instapundits and Althouses and Aces and all the rest will be willing to listen to what you or I or anyone to the left of Reagan will have to say? I’m serious.

I’ll give anyone a chance. I’ll forgive almost any slight. I’ll allow any, any change of heart if one truly believes. I’ll even look past never receiving a verbal apology if their actions show their intent is pure. I’ll work with damn near anyone to get a job done that really needs doing. I refuse, however, to put my trust – not to mention the lives and mental well-beings of thousands of American soliders and millions of Iraqis – in a group of people* who not only refuse to own up to their errors and mendacity, but expect to be given more than they give.

You really see any of that happening?

* Which, for the sake of this argument and because I am willing to believe him, doesn’t include BJF, though I still say his assertation that I should give Patterico the benefit of the doubt after the bile of the last three-some-odd years is friggin’ goofy. But I’ll own up to being a hard ass about that and if it’s a mark of a character flaw, well, it wouldn’t be the only one.

 
 

Not to mention that the actions we take to end THIS illegal war do not necessarily do anything to help us prevent the NEXT illegal war.

And you know there’s going to be an attempt at one, at some point in your lifetime (unless you’re in your eighties, maybe).

Making nice with the pro-Empire crowd might help us to get out of our current quagmaire, but it probably just increases our chances of failing to successfully evade our next quagmire.

 
 

Mark Noonan is hinting at a 2010 Senate run vs Harry Reid in Nevada.

I left a very sincere comment. Thanks for the tip.

 
 

Bradley, my principle objection to the sort of faux-civility you advocate here is that it pretends that matters of life and death are mere abstractions to be discussed solely in bloodlessly rational terms.

This oh-so-sensible pose has created a climate where advocating the most inhumane and barbaric deeds– often as collective punishment for the broadest categories of people– is perfectly fine so long as the advocate seems sufficiently unemotional, uses a close approximation of an academic-historical “indoor voice” and doesn’t ever use the word “fuck”.

More personally, It has led to a climate where calling those who opposed the invasion of Iraq (even on a purely rational basis) “traitors”, and “objectively pro-Saddam”, and “cowards” is considered perfectly civil while anyone daring to say “bullshit!” is marginalized as extreme.

Do you simply not see the hypocrisy and moral immaturity of your position?

 
 

The F-bomb?????

Okay, here goes: Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!! Fuck!

Hmmm. No corpses. No mutilated people screaming. No smoking ruins. This doesn’t make sense at all.

 
 

Sorry, mikey, but this:

My feelings aren’t hurt at all. I’m disappointed that the bar for discussion here is set so low. Fucks and shits are not reasoned arguments. When I walk into a room and see people throwing balls of crap, it doesn’t give me a very good impression of their mentality. I’ve certainly been through my shares of flame wars on Cathy’s World, but people there pay at least nominal attention to trying to understand other points of view and replying to them. Here, it seems, you’re either a True Believer(tm) or an evil person worthy of abuse. Not much difference from the Freeper or WorldNetDaily crowd.

is just crap. Bradley originally showed up on the “Bring It, Pattycakes’ thread to defend Patterico.

Now, he claims he does not really hang with Patterico, but at Cathy Seipp’s blog:

,,,mainly hang out on Cathy Seipp’s blog, where diversity of opinion is truly welcomed.

Because the folks from NRO are renowned for their tolerance and welcome of diversity of opinion.

Please don’t encourage his martyrdom complex. He claims to have been treated harshly by some militarist at Seipp’s blog; his hurt feelings are not our problem, nor do they make him one of the people I expect to be of much help in reining in our current criminal administration.

He’s talking about giving them another Friedman for fuck’s sake. How many lives does a Friedman equal?

Now, he’s doing the pearl-clutching thing about naughty words, and he’s hijacked the entire fucking thread by doing so.

I call sanctimonious asshole and concern troll.

PS Thank you J, for Olaf. I had not read that in ages.

 
 

ee rulz

I see your point mikey, and I’d like to agree, but I just can’t. I remember John Kerry refusing to join the march against the war, when invited by an audience member at his speech that cold January 2003 day here in Des Moines, saying somethng to the effect that we have to trust the preznit. I’ve disliked and distrusted him from that moment on . I voted for him, hell I even went down and phone banked for him, but I didn’t relish it. The alternative was to do nothing and let Bush win again. But damn it, if Kerry and people like him had stood up at the time for the right thing, we wouldn’t be in this mess now. And he knew, had to know, (how could he not), that the whole rationale for the war was a big fat lie?

When Bradley says that he now realizes he was wrong to believe the WMD thing, that’s all well and good. That’s great, in fact. But when he starts actually blaming the anti-war left for the war not being stopped, that’s just infuriating! You cuss, so it’s your fault people don’t want to end the war! he says.

Honestly, these people make me angrier than the Malkins. The Malkins have the excuse of being evil and/or batshit insane.

The Bradleys of the world do not.

Oh, and Mark Noonan must run. That would provide hours and hours of golden entertainment.

 
 

Jillian,

Not to mention that the actions we take to end THIS illegal war do not necessarily do anything to help us prevent the NEXT illegal war.

Now that is an area for discussion! I would like to see Bush’s interventionism discredited. But that does require forming a firm consensus, so the war supporters can’t say liberals deprived them of victory. Giving them a “surge” will help.

kingubu,
Do you simply not see the hypocrisy and moral immaturity of your position?

No, but we can talk about it later. I’ll have to sign off for now.

 
 

Why do people who say they won’t waste time talking to people who say “fuck” and “shit” always seem to waste so much time telling people who say “fuck” and “shit” that they don’t like people who say fuck” and “shit”?

That shit is fucked up.

 
 

Hey Bradley what is this “True Belief”? I’m not fluent in Bushy so could you translate it into English?

There is no “Faith” involved in this. A LONG record of evidence exists that shows George Bush knew before he ordered the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq that Saddam did not have the capability to produce WMDs. A long record of lies, smears, and pandering.

Not ‘blind belief’ that clapping louder will solve the problem.”

Why did you come here to defend that Faith if it isn’t yours?

 
 

I still don’t understand the argument. Are you saying you somehow have to TRUST someone’s motives when all you’re asking them to do is speak out? That they have to be your friend, or pass some kind of test?

Look, I don’t know how you guys think we’re going to end the iraq debacle, but I’ll tell you what I think. I think that bush and cheney aren’t going to give up, or back down, EVER. So it’s going to have to be forced on them. How can that happen? It will happen instantly and automatically when the political calculation is changed from pro war = get elected to peace = get elected. And that’s going to require a HUGE percentage of the constituency to be VERY vocal. Otherwise, what’s the “safe” path for hillary et al? We need voices. If they won’t help us prevent iran, so be it, but I’ll take any voice I can get. Because to try to prevent anyone from speaking out, to say they aren’t qualified or you won’t give them a forum or you shout them down because they feel differently than you about the use of certain words, YOU are guilty of extending the war. In your own small way, you have slowed down the process.

Do you really believe the Pattericos and Malkins and Goldbergs and Esmays and Grogans and Swanks and Instapundits and Althouses and Aces and all the rest will be willing to listen to what you or I or anyone to the left of Reagan will have to say? I’m serious.

Of course not. There will always be committed foes on the other side. But I’ll tell you this. If one of those dudes decided to defect and raise his/her voice to help end the horror, I would welcome that. I’m sure I would disagree with them on other topics, but ending the dying is pretty important to me…

mikey

 
 

One last note: you might try talking over at Patterico about your points. You might be surprised to get a respectful hearing. Just don’t be like David E. and deliberately pick fights. (And I am trying not to do so here . . .)

There are some people over at Patterico who don’t like the war, but they also don’t like being shouted at. Reason can go a long way in making allies.

 
 

BJF:

Fuck you, concern troll.

mikey:

To put it kindly, people like Fikes aren’t going to help us anyway. As you can see from the boundless examples here, he’s less concerned with I don’t know, being upset with the catastrophe people like he and Patterico enabled with glee because they were pissed out of their shorts (in all English-speaking meanings), and thought anyone who disagreed with bombing a nation was a terrorist-appeasing traitor.

Now, that the catastrophe is so apparant, they want to sneak on over here, but can’t admit they were wrong. So they try to take control by asking us why we’re so angry, why we have to offend their delicate sensiblities and curse and swear, and play gotcha with us because if we’re so angry, we can be ignored in the debate, and they can have more Friedmans to prove they were right still.

So frankly, I don’t want the support of people like Fikes in anything, because they don’t support anyone but themselves.

If that defies inclusion, well, I’m a filthy commie, my ideology is already dead from hypocrisy.

 
 

Now that is an area for discussion! I would like to see Bush’s interventionism discredited. But that does require forming a firm consensus, so the war supporters can’t say liberals deprived them of victory. Giving them a “surge� will help.

Once again, how many lives does a “surge” equal?

mikey, this person is not on our side.

And this:

kingubu,
Do you simply not see the hypocrisy and moral immaturity of your position?

No, but we can talk about it later. I’ll have to sign off for now.

leads me to believe we’ve all been wasting our time with fucking KEVIN using another nym.

I’m going to drink some wine now, and not watch football on TV.

Bring back Gary Ruppert!

 
 

mikey: But I’ll tell you this. If one of those dudes decided to defect and raise his/her voice to help end the horror, I would welcome that. I’m sure I would disagree with them on other topics, but ending the dying is pretty important to me…

And if there was any evidence at all that’s what they were doing. mikey, then I’d be right on board with you. “I don’t (now) support the war, but I don’t want to be associated with those Dirty Fucking Hippies who say fuck” is nothing more or less than a cop-out. A way to do nothing at all while patting oneself on the back over a stand on moral trivium.

 
 

Also, is anyone else having a terrible case of the deja vu? I feel as if I’ve read the exact same concern trolling from Fikes thousands of times before.

 
 

I’m confused….did Bradley just say that if we let them have their surge, they’ll finally decide it’s time to end the war once the surge fails?

How is that anything short of homicidal madness? How is that any different from saying “let’s take 22,000 of our soldiers who are currently not in Iraq, put their names in a hat, draw five or six hundred of them at random, line those guys and gals up against a wall and shoot them”?

So, just to sum up: Bradley wants to send a few hundred more Americans to a pointless death. Some of us say “fuck” once in a while. We are the amoral monsters.

Well, then….glad to have that all cleared up now.

Stupid fucker.

 
 

Bradley, I’m sure you’d like to think this is all about you. About how mean people were to you when you tried to pour oil on troubled waters and extend the olive branch of friendship, and how terrible it is to be a civil moderate in such cruel partisan times, but no-one cares. No-one cares about you or your bruised feelings. It’s not about you. I don’t know why you assume that if you turn up on blogs, hysterically accuse people of lying and then spout a bunch of shall we say silly opinions about the Iraq War you should get a pass, but i assume it’s some sort of narcissistic personality disorder. You might have noticed that only one person who challenged you actually used THE F WORD (everyone else was perfectly civil) and the pile-on only started after your pathetic whine about civility. People here are quite happy to debate the substance of people’s arguments, but whining about someone swearing at you is a pretty surefire way to get mauled. Why? Maybe because people are sick of whining self-obsessed idiots who are more upset at people saying “fuck” than war and more concerned with intemperate tone than wholesale slaughter. Maybe because we’re sick of self-aggrandizing idiots who demand special privileges and endless adulation for finally working out that the war was wrong years after everyone else. Maybe because we’re sick of concern trolls shouting “why aren’t you accommodating MY opinions you intolerant lefty moonbats!” I think we all know where your actual interest lie. You don’t care about the Iraq War, if you did you wouldn’t have laboured so hard to turn this into the Bradley Martyr Thread. All you care about is your own idiotic ego. Why bother hijacking a comments thread about Iraq to complain that people swore at you? What does it matter? And anyone with even a sliver of self awareness might have thought twice about using the term “F-Bomb” in a thread discussing a war in which thousands of real people have been killed by actual bombs. but who gives a fuck? Bradley has been wounded to his very soul. We all know which is more important. A Word To The Wise – Self crucifixion is a waste of time. You can never get the last nail in.

 
 

Some of us were right about this war being wrong back in 2002

All of us who thought this war was wrong were right, and all of us who thought Bush was the worst choice imagineable for a president were right way back in 2000. Everyone who voted for Bush the second time knew the risks because he’d already proven himself to be a useless tool. And everyone who supports this man now and his stupid war are war criminals, as evil and insane as the collaborators under Naziism.

Bush was shit from day one and anyone with any sense and any knowledge about him knew it in their very bones in 2000. The whole world laughed at America the day this asshole was elected…. which makes billions right about a handful of idiots.

If terrorists flew planes into American skyscrapers today, I doubt many would feel sympathetic. To the civilians yes. But to America? No.

 
 

But it seems like most are simply eager for a target for their wrath.

Most meaning two? Looked like a pretty decent exchange until owlbear1 jumped in. The only other person to directly target you for her wrath was Gentlewoman. Others may have been venting a bit (seasoned with some naughty words), but I didn’t think their frustrated comments were directed at you.

It’s a tad early to be vying for the Purple Teardrop with Clutched Pearls Cluster Award.

 
 

Reason can go a long way in making allies.

No, not really. Not with people who confuse “reason” and “civility,” anyway.

The very notion of “civility” as being always and inherently a social good has taken a beating over the past six years — at least, it should have.

Anyway, there is absolutely no empirical evidence anywhere that too much cursing or anger ever hurt the Democratic party in this hideous century; it’s much more the case that an ill-advised “civility” did the real damage.

Anyway, fuck fuck fuckitty-fuck fuckburger fuckfries.

 
 

***”Also, is anyone else having a terrible case of the deja vu? I feel as if I’ve read the exact same concern trolling from Fikes thousands of times before. “***

yes

I kinda wonder if Bradley = Kevin. They both seem inordinately concerned with Gentlewoman’s name and our rough language.

 
 

Oooh, hot thread.

Between the time I read the comment I responded to and the time I posted the comment, a couple dozen more comments were posted.

 
 

So lemme get this straight. You speak out against people who are for the war. You speak out against people who are against the war if they’re not in our ‘club’. Here’s a newsflash for you. While our club is speaking out, they will raise the troop level in iraq to 200,000. WE AIN’T WINNING!! How clear does it have to be? It is US who need more ‘troops’. We need more people driving public and political opinion. I don’t get how we could turn them away.

I’ll leave it there, as I genuinely admire you guys and your strongly held opinions, and I don’t really like being on the ‘wrong’ side. But, as happen so much in modern american politics, you haven’t changed my mind, and I haven’t changed yours…

mikey

 
 

I kinda wonder if Bradley = Kevin. They both seem inordinately concerned with Gentlewoman’s name and our rough language.

Naw. Kevin’s a much more florid and entertaining writer. Also far goofier in his expressed beliefs.

 
 

mikey,
We’re talking at cross-purposes I think. I don’t see where anyone is arguing for any sort of ideological litmus test when it comes to ending the war, but at the same time there’s absolutely no reason to take the former war cheerleaders at face value. Beyond the fact they’re really not bringing anything to the table yet once again acting all aghast that anyone dare disagree, it’s incredibly hard to put any trust in folks who spent so much time, energy and money arguing, vehemently, for the things we’ve repeatedly mocked the past couple years. Remember them? That’s the folks we’re talking about.

So, yeah, a vast, nation-wide grassroots movement of traditional conservatives rise up to work to end the war, then that’s my kind of people. However, I refuse to bend over backwards for warmongers – an entirely different group, is what I’m say – so they won’t feel embarrassed for being so gob-smackingly wrong for the past six years just so they’ll “come on board”.

I’m a pretty open cat. Despite the chicanery in Florida, once it was decided that’s that, I was willing, with caveats*, to give Bush a chance to do the job. However, he’d already lost me by 9/11 (the abortion nonsense of the time, along with the whole Faith-Based Initiatives congame), but even then, after that horror, I was willing to give him and his bunch another shot to do the job right. They haven’t, so there’s no reason to trust them and there’s no reason to trust those that walked that line this whole time. It’s just too much for too long.

Ending the dying is important to me, too. There’s boys I grew up with over there. I just don’t see “ending the dying” as important a goal to the warmongers as “not looking like stupid, viscious assholes”. As I said, if my inability to trust someone like that is a fault, then it’s just got to be that way.

I don’t mind being wrong about this, but I’m gonna need to be proved wrong first before I own up to it. Hell, I hope I’m wrong and I hope I’m just being overly cautious and overly sensitive. I won’t apologize for being skeptical, though.

* Still think Bush’s people pulled some dirty tricks in Florida and Ohio. I just never though anyone would be punished for it, is all, but I do think as much noise as possible should be made about it for as long as neccessary, but this isn’t germaine to the discussion.

 
 

* Still think Bush’s people pulled some dirty tricks in Florida and Ohio. I just never though anyone would be punished for it, is all, but I do think as much noise as possible should be made about it for as long as neccessary, but this isn’t germaine to the discussion.

This one’s for you, Matt…

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2379

 
Smiling Mortician
 

OK mikey, here’s my problem. Our friend Bradley keeps saying we need to hold off another Friedman (which seems no longer to mean “six months,” but rather “an indeterminate amount of time, now be quiet”) in order to reach “consensus.”

He likes that word, consensus. Trouble is, consensus means “position or opinion reached by the group as a whole.” So the seventy percent of Americans who want our military out of Iraq aren’t enough. A strong majority isn’t enough. We have to wait more Friedmans until everybody in the country agrees. We have to wait, apparently, until Dick Cheney thinks we ought to pack up and get out of Dodge.

You’re right that all voices calling for an end to the war are needed — but that really doesn’t mean that we need to be schooled by someone who claims that more patience and less Anglo-Saxon terminology will somehow fix things. By someone who comes here saying that Patterico deserves better treatment than what he gets from Brad. That the troop surge might help. That ultimately we need to wait for the Republicans to decide to end the war.

Finally, I can’t help but wonder: if a few of the old monosyllabic Germanics are really more important to this guy than the hundreds of thousands of dead, and if he honestly can’t see the difference between the arguments here and at WorldNetDaily, how committed is he to his newfound oppostion to the bloodshed?

I dunno. I’m thinking it should be like this: “Oh, man. I actually supported this war way back when because I was duped by my government. Since then countless people have been killed, maimed and displaced and their lives destroyed. My initial support is in fact partly responsible for the carnage. Is it any wonder some people who have always known the war is wrong might be frustrated enough to use foul language? Especially since, now that I’ve changed my mind, I’m lecturing said people about how we should all learn a lesson from our mistakes?”

 
 

Jesus fucking Christ. We’ve got death and destruction in Iraq and the Middle East in general, we’re contemplating this fucking illegal, venal criminal government getting away with starting another blood-drenched war with Iran, and poor ole Bradley J Flimmelheimerer is upset because people on the right and left are talking mean to him?

Fuck you Bradley.

 
 

Thanks Matt. That makes a certain amount of sense. But. I keep coming back to the same question. If by trying not to look like a stupid, viscious asshole they are actually making a valuable contribution to the cause, where is the hurt, other than maybe to an ego here and there?

As a practcal matter, nobody on this blog has control of policy. In all honesty, the only real contribution any of us can make is to make a lot of noise in order to drive the political calculation in the direction we need it to go, from “killing muslims will make us safer” to “working for peace and justice will make us safer”. Again, I just don’t see the downside in encouraging those voices, from wherever they might come…

mikey

 
 

Jillian,
Oh, man, that’s so nice. Drop in the bucket, sure, but I did like the promise, even if teeny-tiny, of more to come. Thanks for the link.

 
 

I keep coming back to the same question. If by trying not to look like a stupid, viscious asshole they are actually making a valuable contribution to the cause, where is the hurt, other than maybe to an ego here and there?

And the answer comes again, let’s see ’em do it. Let’s see ’em argue to end the war not because failure in Iraq is hurting Bush’s popularity or American military might or making us look bad, but because the war itself is bad. Ego and hurt feelings have nothing to do with it – and to be completely honest, I’m a little insulted anytime anyone brings that sort of “us versus them” argument up in any context – but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to demand a little action, a sign of good faith, just something instead of “well, you lefties are just against the war because Bush and you hate America and Jesus and blah blah blah”.

Y’know?

 
 

Reasoning with idiots is idiocy. Go ahead and bang your heads against that brick wall. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass if their feelings are hurt while lives are being blown apart. Fuck ’em. This war will end because the momentum to bring it to an end is building. People being sick and tired of the bullshit. Read this Digby post. Rank and file Americans are fed up with the crooks and liars.

 
 

I comment on his blog sometimes, but mainly hang out on Cathy Seipp’s blog, where diversity of opinion is truly welcomed.

Is Cathy Seipp the scary-looking blonde lady with the hair that looks like it might break if you touch it? I have nightmares about her, and I’ve only seen her picture a couple of times.

In other news, the women on here are awfully potty-mouthed today. It’s a mother fucking embarrassment (bitchezzz).

 
 

I am totally fucking ashamed of myself today. What a horrid, horrid bitch I am.

 
 

Gals can wear pearls and hate Bush at the same time!

 
 

Let’s see ‘em argue to end the war not because failure in Iraq is hurting Bush’s popularity or American military might or making us look bad, but because the war itself is bad

Perfect description of the part I don’t understand. Exactly what I kept trying to find a way to say. I don’t understand why we would even CARE what their motivation is. If they are going to help, I don’t care if it’s only because george soros is PAYING them to help. Their reasoning is unimportant. Their voice is not.

Seems to me we’re really good at preaching to each other, stating and restating positions we all agree with. Well, Lesley, that momentum you are speaking of might, just might, gather more quickly if many of us were less quick to judge a person’s motivation and accept their contribution. Why do we argue for our position? Is it just ’cause we love to hear ourselves talk? Or are we really interested in getting people who might be subject to change their opinion to actually do so? That growth in momentum is not going to come from us – we’re already there and we’re losing. They are escalating the war in iraq and planning a war in iran. We desparately need to bring people over to our side. We desparately need to reduce the ranks of the pro war side. And there are people who were fooled by the fear mongering who now are starting to think. They might not agree with you or me on fiscal or education policy, but they’re beginning to wonder just exactly why we SHOULDN’T end this stupid war. And I submit that calling them fucktards probably won’t encourage them, that it might be counter productive.

Now I don’t know this bradley dude, if he’s a bad guy, ah well. But I’m not defending him. I’m saying that maybe part of the job of working to stop this obscenity is to be salesmen for the cause. To help people to change their minds quickly, rather than just hardening their views. And for the life of me, I can’t see where I’m wrong on this…

mikey

 
 

“Gals can wear pearls and hate Bush at the same time!”

Great, now you tell me!

…..heads out to dumpster to fish around for discarded pearls….

 
 

The chidings and reservations of Fikes may be all he has left, just as the horrors and triumphalism over Jamil Hussein/AP/”destroyed”/”scorched”/etc. are all the w.nutz have left.

I don’t get the sense that Fikes is a fanatic of bad faith and loony Semi-Pro Competitive Patriotism like the Malkins, Pams, and that lot. I do think his finger-wagging is at best silly and at worst a weak man’s provocation. “Okay, so I was wrong, duped, etc., but at least I’m not a boor.” Fine.

But–and total Mikey fan that I am–I don’t blame anyone here for flaming him. (Do you young people still say that? “flaming”?) First, because this is not a site of polemic, whose goal is to persuade others. It’s a site of mockery, which means it’s *about* others but written for and by the partisans. Going on S, N! to criticise its regulars about how their behavior will alienate just those people one wants to win over, is like going onto a barbecue fans’ site and calling for more tofu recipes to “expand the audience.”

Second, because trolls never, ever offer opposing arguments or reasoned discussion about why they believe what they do. It’s a waste of time to engage them with that in mind and they deserve all the “shit” they get. Yes, it’s a tautology–if they did offer plausible arguments, they wouldn’t be trolls. But they never do, so they are.

Finally, I’m with Lesley: some (ie, lots) of us knew this lying prick for what he was in 2000, and not because we’re mind-readers or geniuses. (Although Lesley may be…) So spare me, Fikes, your critique of the “incivility” here. The anger and outrage were earned long before you ever started wondering if maybe Donald Rumsfeld, for all his confidence, was criminally wrong.

 
 

Less quick to judge the lies and mythology of the right the way SadlyNo and its commenters judge, you mean? Should this blog change its stripes? Stop poking fun at the lies, the crudeness, and the bullshit the neocons spew every damn day? You really think these people are teetotalling quilt making grannies who’d stop backing the war if we stopped swearing at them? That’s just silly, Mikey.

 
 

And I am not part of “Patterico’s crowd.� I comment on his blog sometimes

Go to Bradley’s blog. Enter “Patterico” in the search box. Click on Search Blog. See results.

 
 

My feelings aren’t hurt at all. I’m disappointed that the bar for discussion here is set so low. Fucks and shits are not reasoned arguments.

Pussy.

 
 

I would like to say that I don’t feel “flamed”. I feel like I took an unpopular position, but thats just not that uncommon for me. I’m lousy at lockstep. And MrWonderful is right that Sadly, No is a dumb place for me to have taken this position. Honestly, I don’t think anybody who disagreed with me is wrong. I truly just didn’t, and to some extent still don’t, understand. I was looking for clarity. I got explanation. Can’t really ask for more than that, can you?

mikey

 
 

Mikey, where are you getting ‘we aren’t winning’ from? We won in November, 2006. Bigger than anyone hoped for at the time.

And public opinion continues to move towards the anti-war side.

The problem is Bush is behaving like a dictator. Stopping that isn’t a matter of preaching to the 30% that still support the emperor, it’s a matter of convincing the people we’ve elected to do something they haven’t done the last six years, and that is stand up to the bully.

For the record, I was quoting this comment. So give it one more Friedman before the consensus to leave is formed. Saying we’re going to be there anyways is a self-fulfilling prophecy that will lead to being there a lot longer than one more Friedman.

I find this comment profoundly conterproductive. It reeks of Dave Broderism.

You’re arguing we’re being elitist snobs who won’t let others (like Bradley) into our anti-war club.

I’m arguing blaming the dirty hippies who say fuck for the war is a symptom that we need cured.

 
 

You really think these people are teetotalling quilt making grannies who’d stop backing the war if we stopped swearing at them? That’s just silly, Mikey.

Wow. Is that what came across? Did I really do THAT BAD a job of communicating? Jeez. And here I write english words for a living, too. I don’t know what to say to that…

mikey

 
 

We’re not pulling troops out. We’re escalating. We’re positioning to attack iran. If that’s not losing, I’m not clear on what losing would look like.

That said, I feel like I should apologize. I must have done a terrible job of making my point, because you guys seem to have heard a lot of stuff I didn’t say, don’t believe and don’t support. At least in a lot of cases, you folks know my positions pretty well.

For the record, no, we should not give one inch to the people who are destroying our country from within. And also for the record, I never set out to defend anyone who supports the criminal behavior in washington. All I said, time and again, was I didn’t understand the position being taken. And it was explained to me. Seems like that oughta be it, y’know?

mikey

 
 

There is no need to swear and rant.

This type of thing is extremely obnoxious and sanctimonious. This is a comedy/snark site, and people swear here a lot. If you don’t like it, don’t come here. If you are such a complete and utter pussy that the words “shit” and “fuck” actually DISAPPOINT you as you so claim, this place isn’t for you.

But you know what? I don’t think you’re really even offended by the swearing. I think you’ve resorted to the pearl-clutching bit because your argument is so completely thin otherwise. You’ve learned from Patterico: when you can’t win, at least score some petty, trivial point.

 
 

You know what would be fun? If someone would legally change their name to a bunch of swears and run for national office. Cuntlicker McShittyfuck in 08!

 
 

Well, it’s time for the s00per bowl. I never meant to post this many comments on this topic. Whatever it is!

 
 

BJF seems to present at least two totally obnoxious arguments:

1. Because he disapproves of the language SN commenters use in expressing themselves, their comments can be safely ignored – e.g. comments to the effect of “fucks” and “shits” aren’t arguments.
This is transparently an attempt to control by means of specious shame a group communication space into which he entered of his own volition and may at any time fuck off out of.
and mikey – dude, last time I saw someone (esteemed Jose Chung) try to hijack a thread with the pearl-clutching oh-my-burning-ears bullshit, you said something of such eloquent filthiness that the moment will keep me warm on many cold and lonely nights to come.
w/r/t/ BJF people aren’t reacting so much to his ever so reasonable and conciliatory arguments – which, as you point out, probably should be respected – as they are to this attempt to control a consensual group discourse by exercising some completely illegitimate Authority as the shaming word police.

2. In an argument of substance, BJF claims to agree at least partially with the “consensus” apparently exhibited at SN – that the war was a mistake and should be ended – but believes that somehow a national “consensus” is necessary to effect that ending. Now, um, this argument is specious for a number of reasons, which people have enumerated above: “consensus” is, in this context, often a synonym for “one half of the electorate taking it up the ass one more time” or “allowing a lot more people to be killed and maimed”; “consensus” has already been achieved: approval ratings for both the administration and the war have long shown that a supermajority of the electorate oppose both; many of these commenters consider themselves to have been vehemently Right about this issue for years and- as public recognition of that Rightness – to have been made to publicly eat shit. Asking them to wait for the supercilious assholes who have been shoveling said shit to achieve “consensus” on the matter is um… pretty fucking annoying.

However, placing pearl-clutching aside, this all essentially boils down to a loud argument over the speed at which to take a given course, not over which course to take.

In fact, frustration and moral outrage are entirely called for in this situation, and patience for incrementalism is bound to run a bit short. And if you can’t handle the language frustration lends to a conversation, then feel free to eat a of rancid dicks and piss off to somewhere more congenial.

 
 

Let’s find someone we can all pick on together!

Like…..British Nazis or something.

 
 

Mikey, I thought you were being pretty clear.

 
 

“Bradley, I don’t agree with everything you said, but I welcome your help in adding to the outcry. And I feel kind of bad that you got nothing but hell for your words…”

“that’s going to require a HUGE percentage of the constituency to be VERY vocal. Otherwise, what’s the “safeâ€? path for hillary et al? We need voices. If they won’t help us prevent iran, so be it, but I’ll take any voice I can get.”

“As a practcal matter, nobody on this blog has control of policy. In all honesty, the only real contribution any of us can make is to make a lot of noise in order to drive the political calculation in the direction we need it to go, from “killing muslims will make us saferâ€? to “working for peace and justice will make us saferâ€?” mikey.

mikey, i dunno why you can’t see it, but this is the exact problem we have with brendan. he isn’t adding to the outcry. he doesnt want us to make noise. his whole argument seems to boil down to “if you just shut up and stop causing trouble and let the surge run its course then eventually the war will become such an enormous fuck-up, such a disaster to even elite interests in America that the republicans will stop the war themselves.” The problem is without any organization on the ground, without people making a lot of noise these fucks wont do anything. even now most democrats can’t rouse themselves to more than tepid criticism of the war, and thats only because their base is shouting bloody murder. how long will it take for the repugs to feel the heat? If there’s no direct action on this most of them will continue to support the war in a low key way till six months before the next election, then they’ll start making anti-war noises and criticizing bush on tactical grounds, then after theyve been re-elected line back up in support. Waiting till the most insulated sector of the country turns against the war is a recipe for disaster. The war still serves many elite interests, and none of the people at the top are hurting yet. It doesn’t matter to them if the economy turns to shit as long as the oil companies and the arms dealers and the credit card hawkers are still raking it in. They don’t care about the dead or injured or the refugees, and they’re not likely to anytime soon. They’ll only suffer electorally if there’s a grassroots effort to punish them. The strategy that brendan is suggesting seems to be the diametric opposite of anything that might actually change the situation. Its not a case of ideological purity or holier-than-thou attitudes, his ideas are stupid and counterproductive and when he was called on it he whined and bitched about how mean everyone was. this is the point. HE DOESNT CARE ABOUT THE WAR. he might not like it much, but he doesn’t care. If he did he would be doing something to try and stop it rather than spending his time bitching at people for swearing.

He seems like a typical elitist republican as far as this goes, X policy may be bad, but the people are opposing it are worse, and the worst thing imaginable would be for the masses to start making policy. he’d rather keep quiet till the whole thing blew up so bad even the coddled fuckwits at the top couldn’t ignore it anymore than organize against it and run the risk of empowering the unwashed hordes. Shutting up won’t bring him on board, it’ll just destroy any reasonable chance of forcing an end to this clusterfuck.

if the best someone can come up with as an anti-war strategy is “counting the days till 20th january 2009” then they’ve got nothing to add to the debate.

there is already a consensus against the war. what we have to do is mobilize them to force the issue, either electorally or through direct action. pandering to concern trolls is worse than useless.

 
 

mikey,
Well, sir, I don’t know how else to explain besides I simply don’t trust the motherfuckers to actually do anything to help from a sincere place until I actualy see ’em doing it. I, personally, ain’t gonna buck anyone who’s working towards that goal but I also ain’t gonna stop throwing spitballs at sainctimonious assholes who expect the rules don’t apply to them. These people aren’t going to change their minds, partly because they hate our guts but mostly because people in general don’t like admitted they fucked up, especially when they’d previously crowed pretty loudly at how right they were.

This Bradly character’s got nothing to do with nothing. We’re not talking about my Vietnam vet dad and uncle who’re horrified at seeing history repeated in the worst way possible. We’re not talking about my first cousin who’s scared to death her sons might get drafted. We’re not talking about my buddy who talked a big game before he saw the real shit and now he can’t sleep through the night. We’re not talking about one of my closest friends trying to talk her fiance out of his sweet Special Forces training gig because he might yet be sent somewhere to die for nothing, which he knows but he’ll go anyway because he’s a Marine and that’s what they do.

We ain’t talking, you and I, about those people. Those people may never, ever admit they were wrong about Bush or Iraq or the WOT. They may never be able to fully grok why we were against the whole thing from the get-go. Part of that is, well, we’re all dirty hippies who smoke aborted babies while watching porn and sneering at Jesus at Wal-Mart. Part of it is because AMERICA IS NEVER EVER WRONG, DAMMIT! HOW DARE YOU EVEN THINK OTHERWISE, WADDAYA YOU SOME KINDA COMMIE? Part of it’s just pride.

That’s okay. That’s just how it goes and we can work with these people. Although I quit giving a shit what people thought of me after my second experience with peyote, but I can understand why liberals and leftists and whatnot are a bit shirty after six years of being called, basically, evil non-step. It’d be easier if everyone just got over their shit, but if wishes were Harleys, we’d all be Hell’s Angels.

But we ain’t talking about them folks, you and I. We’re talking about that bottom 30 that’s still hanging on. The bunch that still hates the idea of a different skin and a different religion and a different way of life any excuse to erradicate it is okey dokey. The bunch that believes war is nothing more than a really expensive game of RISK played for their benefit. The bunch that can actually state with a straight face that a member of Corporate America – that is, the MSM – actually wants the destruction of America for ideological reasons alone. The bunch that honestly think people who are cool with things like feminism, ethnic diversity, unfettered expression of thought, civil liberties and economic justice would find spiritual bonohomie with a bunch of tyrannical fundamentalist whack-a-doodles, while ignoring our own fundamentialist whack-a-doodles who’re just sick they don’t have a tyranny of their own…and claiming that because we’re denying our FW’s, we’re helping the Evil FW’s. Somehow.

Now, them people? Fuck them people. They ain’t gonna help.

 
 

Are we done already picking on the French?

 
 

The neocon madness, which was unsustainable to begin with, is finally hitting the wall. The cumulative total of the damage Bush has done is taking its toll. No amount of good ol’ boy hand-shakin’ is going to fool the public anymore. If Republicans are beginning to distance themselves from Bush it’s because of the damage he’s done. Count on him for more damage, it’s all he’s skilled at. But the more he escalates, the less popular he’ll be.

 
 

“As a practcal matter, nobody on this blog has control of policy.”

but, mikey, we are in control of policy. We are “the people”. This is our country, and we are the ‘deciders’. This is, or is supposed to be, a representative democracy. We vote for the people who will enact the policies which we, the people, decide should be enacted. Once our choices are elected, we hold their feet to the fire and make our critters do what they were elected to do.

As ITTDGY pointed out, we won in November. Now we just need to keep our reps focused. I and I’m sure most of the people at S,N! are doing that, by calling our reps, writing to our local newspapers, signing every petition that Move On or People for the American Way or Veterans for Peace or truthout initiates. And some of us are even getting out in the street and shouting. It is working.

Are the Bradleys doing these things? If they are not, they are not helping us, they are hindering us. They’re just concern trolls. If he wants to support the war because a lefty on S,N! was mean to him, then so be it. I don’t think it’s a big loss.

 
 

Sorry, Bradley, but I’m going to have to throw a flag on this particular verbal atrocity:

Bradley J. Fikes said,

February 4, 2007 at 22:29

Now that is an area for discussion! I would like to see Bush’s interventionism discredited. But that does require forming a firm consensus, so the war supporters can’t say liberals deprived them of victory. Giving them a “surge� will help.

Bunk. That narrative has been in motion for some time. A ready made fall back for the “we could have won if everyone had been behind us” argument that began brewing, seemingly, moments after things started to fall apart for the occupation.

When the occupation started to fail, and Rumsfeld assured us that the rioting and looting were to be expected because “Democracy is messy.”, voices started to question the price we would have to pay to hold things together. That’s right around the time we started hearing about “defeatist reporting”, and “no good news”, and journalistic conspiracies to support the terrorists. The White house, the Pentagon, and the Republican Congress spent the last four years lying their asses off, with a national press anxious to carry (but not question) every word of it. (Now, you feel free to invalidate my argument due to my egregious use of the word “asses”.)

While I agree with Mikey, that any ally in an effort to stop this war is valuable, I have to go with what so many others have also opined. I am done, absolutely finished, listening to (and being civil to) people talk about how our arguments would carry so much more weight if we could just be civil.

This President is a fucking WAR CRIMINAL, supported by people for whom torture is acceptable, and for whom certain Constitutional rights are expendable in the hopes that they won’t be detonated on their way home from work. People perfectly comfortable calling me a supporter of terrorism, or unAmerican, unPatriotic, treasonous, a moral coward, and a host of other things. People who are prepared to see me, reporters, and Democrats KILLED, to restore this nation to “what it once was”.

So, you either oppose this war RIGHT FUCKING NOW or you don’t. Barring that, you, this administration, their psychotic supporters in the remaining 28%, and their water carrying pundits can go fuck themselves as they chase each other downward into irrelevancy.

 
 

apologies. my comment got held up for reasons as yet unclear, and has been overtaken by events. ach well

for the record Cuntlicker McShittyfuck was Labour MP for Govan 1931-1954 but i’m sure he’d be happy to be nominated if someone has a shovel

what’s wrong with British Nazis? British Nazis are the best in the world. Lovingly handmade by craftsmen who care.

 
 

I’m a Bradley who does (some) of those things, just for the record.

 
 

You called Patterico a “fucking liar� on his own blog. Most blog owners wouldn’t put up with that, and you knew it.

Especially the ones who are notorious fucking liars, in my experience.

Mr. Ehrenstein is a bit of a drama queen, but I’ve learned some things from him, and he’s never lied to my face that I know of. Unlike some other bloggers, most of them on the rightwards end of the political scale as it is currently calibrated.

As for the intemperate language, this is an intemperate situation. People are dying and being crippled even as we read/write. Ergo, Mr. Fikes gets NOT ONE MORE FRIEDMAN in which to demonstrate his “evenhandedness”, or whatever the mealy-mouthed crew are calling their slinking defection these days. The “temperate” people were wrong when they followed the pro-war bandwagon in 2003, and now that their bandwagon has broken down, they want to sidle over and join the Reality-Based Community, but only if the RBC will cede control of all future arguments to the people who were wrong all along.

To quote the ancient philosophers, Fuck that noise.

And, again: NOT ONE MORE FRIEDMAN.

 
 

I think I’m envious of the British. They do everything so well.

Even their fascists have style. All we get are gross old men with liver spots in poorly fitted suits who say things like “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had”.

The Brits get snazzy guys in actual jodhpurs and jackboots, with creepy banners and everything, marching through their streets.

We’re always second best.

 
 

sorry diff brad, for the abuse of the name. My humblest apologies. It was easy and I am profoundly lazy. I haven’t even gotten dressed today.

 
 

S’ok. I’m cursed with a preppy name, I’m used to it.

 
 

Bradley J. Fikes said,

February 4, 2007 at 22:29

Now that is an area for discussion! I would like to see Bush’s interventionism discredited. But that does require forming a firm consensus, so the war supporters can’t say liberals deprived them of victory. Giving them a “surge� will help.

So the war-supporters can’t blame the liberals…

This guy reminds me of D’Souza who would like liberal america to cater a little more of the Taliban’s wishes. If we lengthened our skirts and stopped chewing gum in public maybe the fundies wouldn’t want to kill us.

 
 

I was looking for clarity. I got explanation. Can’t really ask for more than that, can you?

Mikey, this is why I love you so much. You raise your points, you get into the scrum, you fight for your points, and afterwards you come out, brush the dirt off, spit out any loose teeth, and smile. Long may we so debate, like the arseholes we are!

 
 

“Mikey, this is why I love you so much. You raise your points, you get into the scrum, you fight for your points, and afterwards you come out, brush the dirt off, spit out any loose teeth, and smile. Long may we so debate, like the arseholes we are! ”

Right on, Anne Laurie

 
 

Oh dear. Mikey, it wasn’t you I was talking about being “flamed.” It was Fikes. Sorry for the confusion.

And if anyone thinks they’re reading obscenities here now, wait until

a) neither Bush nor Cheney are impeached or indicted
b) Bush pardons everyone who was or is, and, yes
c) We’re told–by the Dems–that “it’s time to move forward.”

I agree with O. Pedant. These people are literally criminals. “Losing power” doesn’t begin to redress what they’ve done. 3,000 Cindy Sheehans should show up at Crawford and at Cheney’s retirement villa for the rest of their contemptible lives.

 
 

There’s a s00per bowl thread, but the comments aren’t working yet.

Gavin?!?

 
 

Officious Pedant saidm

This President is a fucking WAR CRIMINAL, supported by people for whom torture is acceptable, and for whom certain Constitutional rights are expendable in the hopes that they won’t be detonated on their way home from work. People perfectly comfortable calling me a supporter of terrorism, or unAmerican, unPatriotic, treasonous, a moral coward, and a host of other things. People who are prepared to see me, reporters, and Democrats KILLED, to restore this nation to “what it once was�.

So, you either oppose this war RIGHT FUCKING NOW or you don’t. Barring that, you, this administration, their psychotic supporters in the remaining 28%, and their water carrying pundits can go fuck themselves as they chase each other downward into irrelevancy

Eggzactly. Compromising with such people is to sell a little of your soul. If the devil, by some fucking miracle, comes around, great. It would take a miracle to change the Malkins of this world. Otherwise live with the fact that your society has psychopaths, racists, and misogynists in it. If you want to persuade the “it’s not my business” and “I’m undecided” people, fine. But in this particular hour of the war, I’d lump them with the 28% who are shit. Now I don’t want to say everyone who is on the side of wrong is a lost cause, but some people are not worth compromising with. In this hour.

 
 

When I walk into a room and see people throwing balls of crap

Please, Mr. Fikes. There’s no call for that kind of talk.

 
 

When I walk into a room and see people throwing balls of crap, I think I’ve accidentally stumbled into the Republican convention.

 
 

yeah.
that bottom 30 matt was talking about is the reason any verbal gesturing toward “consensus” is a load of the most rancid of bullshit.
Anyone who has been awake and politically aware at some point in the last thirty years, knows that electoral politics in this country has been warped around the creation and maintenance of that group – grooming them as proudly provincial, anti-intellectual, and racist. In the beginning, the calculation essentially went: if less than 50% of the electorate votes, then a party can achieve a solid grip on power with the consent of less than 25% of the electorate (in practice, it’s actually something like 15%-20%). if a particular cohort among the electorate can be made to predictably vote in a higher proportion than the rest of the electorate and for a particular party, then that party can dispense with most of the operational constraints of democratic governance – in particular, they never have to bother themselves with “consensus.”
The notion that the democratic government of the US functions as a mechanism for producing (or as a result of) some “consensus” among the electorate was only valid as long as the whole electorate behaved as a mass of shifting, competing interests vying for power (via representation, enacted legislation, etc.). This is no longer the case – a significant portion of the electorate has now been carefully crafted so as to be both stable over time and consistently opposed to the interests of the remainder of the electorate.

So, um, no actually – “consensus” ain’t gonna happen, and even if it did, so long as that 2/3 of that bottom 30 get out and all vote in the same direction, “consensus” don’t matter. Waiting six more months for the ~66% of the population already opposed to this war to grow to 70% is a waste of fucking time.
In fact, if the goal is to end the war, then pragmatically speaking, almost everything except brutal pressure on our nearly useless triangulating cowardly Democratic reps and massive voter registration is a waste of time. sorry.

 
 

In the 1930s, Mrs. Thomas Stearns Eliot (the former Miss Vivienne Haigh-Wood) marched in uniform with the British Fascists, (led by a man named Col. Alvin Owsley.)

Yeah, she was a loon, and Tom had already divorced her, but you can’t say British Fascism didn’t have its stars.

 
 

I’ll bet anyone $15 that this whole Jamil thing will get lost in a morass of politically prejudiced bullshit. Hell, if I deserve to have my character attacked and all my questions ignored just for referring to Patterico as “Patty” in a Sadly, No comment thread (how mean!), even after admitting that it was juvenile and refraining from doing it again, anyone who drops the F-bomb has already lost.

 
 

I believe he prefers “Paddy.”

 
 

So nobody liked Paterico the Boat Ashore?

 
 

anonymous, ifthethunderdontgetya: I have no idea what that means, and I’m scared to guess, lest speculating that “Paddy” means he’s Irish gets me sent to the 7th circle of Hell.

…oh shit, too late. Now how am I supposed to convince DRJ that I’m not an arsehole with all these flames and red dudes sticking pitchforks in my butt? It’s not fair, I tell ya.

PS: Not that there’s anything wrong with being Irish! Christ, I’m jumpier than a long-tailed cat in a rocking chair factory.

 
 

I used to call him Patsy because it went so well with Pasty. But I’m sticking with Paddy now.

(Of course, he might still be mad at me about the time he was ‘outing’ T.Bogg and I mentioned to him that it hadn’t been very hard to figure out where he Actually lived … as opposed to the false address he used to register his infernal ‘blog.’)

 
 

Oh my God, I never made the connection. Patterico was one of those involved in the great outing debacle of 2005 (or whenever it was)? Gee I’ve got a bad memory, although I think my only real involvement there was when Jesus General posted a comment regretting outing Michelle Malkin, or maybe that came after. I remember getting pissed off anyway.

I’d make an awesome crime witness: “It was the man with one leg, with the pet monkey!”. “… there is no man with one leg and a monkey”. “Uh, maybe he had both legs then.”

 
 

Bradley J. Fikes said,

February 4, 2007 at 21:23

David E.

You worked hard to get booted off Patterico, so you could scream about being repressed. The record is there, and you’re fooling no one. I feel foolish for supporting the war on the WMD grounds, and have no reservations for saying so. Patterico will have to speak for himself.

It’s interesting seeing the abuse I get here, compared to last summer when Ody was labeling me on CW as a traitorous anti-war media type. But at least Ody never descended into rabid, obscene name-calling. Maybe Cathy has a point about the right being more tolerant than the left.

How fucking astounding. You are more concerned with being called an asshole than with being called a traitor. That kind of sums it all up, I think.

 
 

How do you feel about being called a traitorous asshole ? you traitorous asshole you.

 
 

[Sometimes it’s just too easy:]

Just a question: — I’ve been reading comments at ‘Sadly,No’ and I don’t really understand why they all seem to think you’re a jerk.

Any thoughts?

[If you buck the party line even a tiny bit, you’re scum. Any conservative is stupid and evil. It’s a comfortable world of self-righteousness they inhabit. — P]

Comment by anonymous — 2/4/2007 @ 7:08 pm

“Any conservative is stupid and evil.�

Okay … clears it up for me.

Comment by anonymous — 2/4/2007 @ 9:24 pm

 
 

[Uh-oh. Someone’s Underoos are all in a bunch:]

Indeed. There sure are a bunch of pricks over there.

I think you are the worst of them: a guy who once made a not-so-veiled reference to disclosing my home address.

Buh-bye.

Comment by Patterico — 2/4/2007 @ 9:31 pm

But I do agree with you that it is a moronic point of view to believe that all conservatives are stupid and evil. I don’t even think that of all, or most, liberals — though I do think it of you, you gutless wonder.

Comment by Patterico — 2/4/2007 @ 9:33 pm

 
 

You don’t suppose this means I’ve been banned, do you?

 
 

And just to keep the record straight — in the Great T.Bogg Outing Scandal, I never said I intended to disclose Paddy’s home address; I only intimated that it wasn’t hard to find.

[And since you’re obviously reading this right now, little man, guess what ? I was bluffing. I have no idea what rock you crawl under each night; nor do I care.]

 
 

Oh, I see. Sorry anonymous, but that doesn’t wash with me. As an anonymous elf myself, I am totally against outing. Even anything that looks like a suggestion of outing. It’s a threat, even if it’s a bluff, even if you never meant it that way and the recipient was, like, a total arsehole. There are some crazy fuckers on the Internets. It’s much too serious to even joke about. I would urge you in no uncertain terms to never, ever, do it again.

And Eris be praised! DRJ doesn’t think I’m an arsehole anymore. Happy days. Now to get some across-political-divide action. We might even get to the bottom of this Jamilgate after all 🙂 I’m off to go home and do some reading.

 
 

At the risk of offending those with delicate sensibilities:

Well did you hear, there’s a natural order.
Those most deserving will end up with the most.
That the cream cannot help but always rise up to the top,
Well I say: Shit floats.
If you thought things had changed,
Friend you’d better think again,
Bluntly put in the fewest of words,
Cunts are still running the world,
Cunts are still running the world.

Now the working classes are obsolete,
They are surplus to societies needs,
So let ‘em all kill each other,
And get it made overseas.
That’s the word don’t you know,
From the guys thats running the show,
Lets be perfectly clear boys and girls,
Cunts are still running the world,
Cunts are still running the world.

Oh feed your children on Cray fish and Lobster tails,
Find a school near the top of the league,
In theory I respect your right to exist,
I will kill ya if you move in next to me,
Ah it stinks, it sucks, it’s anthropologically unjust,
But the takings are up by a third, Oh So
Cunts are still running the world,
Cunts are still running the world.

Your free market is perfectly natural,
Or do you think that I’m some kind of dummy,
It’s the ideal way to order the world,
Fuck the morals, does it make any money?
And if you don’t like it? Then leave.
Or use your right to protest on the street,
Yeah, use your rights but don’t imagine that it’s heard, Oh no no,
Cunts are still running the world,
Cunts are still running the world.

-Jarvis Cocker

 
 

My dear ‘elendil:’ (if that’s your real name)

Remember: I was teasing a little bastard who initiated a little Outing adventure.
(Translation: the little fuck had it coming.) And, “I would urge you in no uncertain terms to never, ever,” take this nonsense so goddamned seriously.

 
 

No, “elendil” is not my real name, but please don’t out me! Just kidding 🙂

Whether or not the “little fuck had it coming” is irrelevant. I firmly believe that we will never get anywhere by responding in kind. As strange as it sounds from an atheist like me, I reckon that the naughty little boy had it right: if we respond to evil with good, and love those who are behaving like arseholes, we will undermine the very structure that’s allowing it to take place. But if we respond in kind, aren’t we strengthening the very thing we’re trying to fight against?

As to taking myself too seriously, you wouldn’t be the first to accuse me of that! But maybe in amongst all of my sanctimonious posturing (not to mention wine-fueled pseudo-philosophising) I might have a point. Just think about it. That’s all I’m asking.

 
 

Alright, alright, I’m thinking. (Sheesh.)

 
 

it’s hardly responding in kind. can you really not see any difference between actually outing someone and making a joke that you have no intention (and no means) of following through to point out someone’s double standards and hypocrisy? or is this more moraility from the naughty little boy who claimed that thinking something bad was the same as actually doing something bad (matthew 5-28)?

 
 

anonynous: 🙂

ichomobothogogus: I can totally see the difference between the two. If I couldn’t, my response to anonymous would have been very different. As to Matt 5:28 (fires up Biblegateway) hrm… it seems to me that this fellow was arguing that the motive behind the action was what mattered, which ignores the arguments of consequentalist ethics, utilitarianism, and other related ideas. This is really not my field, but hey, let’s cut this guy some slack. It was 2000 years ago. I doubt “consequentalism” was even a word, let alone a well known, formalised theory. He can’t be expected to know everything, after all.

 
 

he wasn’t arguing that the motive behind the action was more important. the whole point is there wasn’t any action to speak of. what he appears to be saying is thinking about x is as bad as doing x. there’s absolutely no need to cut him any slack for saying something so silly. i’m sure that even back in the day people rolled their eyes and did twirly finger movements when he came up with that one.

 
 

Bradley J. Fikes said,

February 4, 2007 at 22:29

” Now that is an area for discussion! I would like to see Bush’s interventionism discredited. But that does require forming a firm consensus, so the war supporters can’t say liberals deprived them of victory. Giving them a “surgeâ€? will help.”

What complete bullshit. What does young Bradley J. think it will take to discredit Bush’s war? How many more need to die to convince him and the 30percenters? We need to form a consensus?? with whom?? Cheney? Malkin? Limbaugh? How much more than 70% do you need to pull your thumb out and start yelling “get the fuck out!” Do I care if the f’in war supporters blame the liberals? Brad and his ilk have been doing that forever, and aren’t quitting anytime soon. How many dead do you advise giving “them”, BJ? Don’t waste my time moaning about my language, dickweed, tell your Senators and Reps to get out now.

 
 

After long and careful consideration, and a thorough examination of my conscience (such as it is) I think ‘ichowhatchamacallit’ explains what I did pretty damned well. And I still think it’s fun to watch Paddy’s paranoia get the best of him.

ichomobothogogus said,
February 5, 2007 at 12:07

it’s hardly responding in kind. can you really not see any difference between actually outing someone and making a joke that you have no intention (and no means) of following through to point out someone’s double standards and hypocrisy?

 
 

“Gentle, of course, except for those who disagree, ever so slightly, with the correct views. Those people are obviously evil and deserve no mercy.”

Bradley J. Fikes – Do I detect the smell of burning martyr?

Sadly, yes…

 
 

(fires up Biblegateway again) ichomobothogogus, after reading the whole chapter, I think we’ve both got it wrong. The verse in question and several similar ones are prefaced by him saying that he is not there to dispute the law but to strengthen it, and that in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, one must not only meet the law but surpass it (v 17-20). That seems to be the reason that he’s saying what he is. To surpass the law, one not only has to not commit adultery, but not even have the thought cross their mind. I also note that the verse is followed by some serious hyperbole: “If your right eye causes you to sin…” etc. Taken at face value, that is well-deserving of a twirly-finger response. But then so is his whole gig. After all, he thought that he would be bringing about that kingdom within that very generation, along with judgement day and the end of the world.

I might have borrowed his words, but my reasoning was different to his (although I gather some of his later followers reinterpreted his words in the way that I have). When I said “if we respond in kind, aren’t we strengthening the very thing we’re trying to fight against?” (acknowledging that anonymous didn’t actually “respond in kind”, but did a much lesser thing) I was saying that repaying an outing with an outing, or even threatening to, validates outing as a legitimate response to something. That is counter-productive to the whole point of the retaliation, which is presumably to say that outing is never a legitimate thing to do (and not just because someone might get you back).

Do you recall that when Michelle did that thing, and someone responded by outing her home address, how much validation she received from that action? I understand that the person wanted to teach her a lesson, but even if she had somehow miraculously used the event to see the error of her ways, the method used would have taught a very different lesson to the rest of the system: that in certain circumstances, outing can be justified. Even if it had worked, what is gained is small and fleeting compared to the price. One day Michelle will die, but the effects on the system, all that she has done and was done to her, will live on. Although Michelle is a proximate target, the real target is the behaviour and ideas that she has adopted.

 
 

[…] Comment on Holy Crap by MrWonderful Pedant. These people are literally criminals. ?Losing power? doesn?t begin to redress what they?ve done. 3000 Cindy Sheehans should show up at Crawford and at Cheney?s retirement villa for the rest of their contemptible lives. […]

 
 

[…] Comment on Holy Crap by Celebrity News » Cindy Crawford February 4 … These people are literally criminals. ?Losing power? doesn?t begin to redress what they?ve done. 3000 Cindy Sheehans should show up at Crawford and at Cheney?s retirement villa for the rest of their contemptible lives. [?] […]

 
 

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