John Hinderaker: The Trofim Lysenko Of Our Time?
Let’s put aside for a moment McCain/Feingold and the right’s other grievances against John McCain. When it comes to the war on terror, is he the Lincoln of our time?
Let’s see. So far this week, McCain has said:
- That if we withdraw from Iraq, then Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, currently deceased, will follow us back and attack the US.
This is doubly problematic given McCain’s claim last June that Zarqawi’s death was a “bit of a rebuke against those who are advocating that we cut and run out of Iraq.” Will his return from the grave somewhat strengthen the case for withdrawal? Many questions here.
- That parts of Baghdad are so safe, General Petraeus rides around them in an unarmored Humvee, and that “you and I could walk through those neighborhoods today.”
This should also raise a red flag of sorts, because not only is it more ignorant than a sack of wooden turnips, but due to recent attacks on the US complex in Baghdad, personnel inside the Green Zone are no longer able to walk to the cafeteria without body armor.
- That no, despite the fact that he’d said the thing about Petraeus and the Humvee on national television in front of millions of people, he actually never said it.
The GOP just isn’t making Lincolns like they used to!
Hinderaker, dense as a neutron star, gives his endorsement to the tough-talking anti-withdrawal petition that McCain is now circulating. The title is ‘Surrender Is Not An Option,’ which. . .because, you know, Republicans have had to backpedal a bit from ‘failure’ not being one:
To repeat just one line: “Success or failure in Iraq is the transcendent issue for our foreign policy and our national security.”
I’ve signed the petition.
We’re also circulating a petition of interest to Mr. Hinderaker. It demands the repudiation of false so-called biologists who promulgate the anti-Marxist doctrine of so-called genetic inheritance. There’s also another one that demands the construction of wicker and rattan airports, so that the planes will once again land with their cargo.
Paul Mirengoff, more gaseous than dense, counsels moderation:
PAUL adds: I respect and admire John McCain, especially on the issue of Iraq. But I’d have to put aside his advocacy on behalf of detainee rights before I could consider him the Lincoln of our time on the war on terror.
Right, he might also be anti-slavery, Paul. That’s a dangerous slippery-slope right there.
These three words are being used in an annoyingly disingenuous manner:
Victory. Success. Surrender.
It seems basic and simple to me that in the context of the Iraq debacle, you need to define what you mean when you say any of those three words. However, if you can avoid describing just what they mean, you can use them against your political enemies with abandon. But that only works in an environment that includes a compliant press and an un-inquisitive electorate.
Let’s think about those words for a minute. What does victory mean? It means you are victorious, in war that means you have defeated an enemy army on the field of battle. The US can never be “Victorious” over the insurgency in Iraq. The insurgency cannot run out of funds. There are too many wealthy, interested parties. It can never run out of fighters. Every one you kill causes at LEAST one new one to take up arms. The US military WAS technically victorious in Iraq in the summer of 2003. The US invaded Iraq, defeated their military, deposed their leadership and occupied their capitol. You can be victorious in war. What has happend since is an occupation. I’ve never heard the term “victory” applied to an occupation. How do you “win” an occupation? Mostly, by having everybody under occupation involved in the political process (Japan, 1946) or by ending the occupation and brining home your troops. Because if they don’t want you there, the very presence of your troops will exacerbate the insurgency.
Success. Ah, well if you can’t have victory, maybe you can have success. It’s true, success is a much more amorphous concept. But as soon as Sistani outmaneuvered the little tyrant and forced popular national elections, Iran had achieved success in Iraq, and any success the US can achieve will always be secondary to Iran’s.
Surrender. This is the most insidious, dishonest of any of the three words. The Iraqi government wants us to stay there and protect their undeserved and unearned positions of power, so they can continue to enrich themselves and their families, and they can continue to violate any laws and standards with impunity. The insurgency, while clearly well equipped and organized in a general, decentralized manner, is not a single monolithic entity. It has no leadership, no formal structure, no headquarters. So if the US military DID want to surrender, just exactly who would they surrender TO? Should Petreaous go to Pakistan and surrender to bin Laden? This is just silly. There is no possible methodology for surrender if we did want to, so the use of this word is just playing political word games.
Like I’ve said before, they’re just a bunch of arrogant thugs, and if we had a functioning press in this country, they wouldn’t survive a week…
mikey
So…um…if we don’t have specs, how do we know when we’re finished development or whether we’ve passed Quality Acceptance tests?
Geez, and this is the “MBA presidency” at work?
[You’ll totally know when the site is fixed, trust me.]
The press in this country functions very well, mikey. People like the Tribune family, the Graham family, and others (Scaife-Mellon, Koors) have made out like bandits thanks to the repeal of the estate tax.
So their flunkies get a little flak, and circulation drops? Just a few drops of rain…aka the cost of doing (incredibly profitable) Republican crime family business.
My comments will be funnier when the sight is fixed. Also, it will rain corn dogs.
Oh Wow! It works!!!!!!!!!! Loading – IN REAL TIME instead of slow-mo – Thanks to the bigger, better, turbo-powered hamsters! (Easy there cats…yes, I’m looking at you Ganesh.)
Or the site.
Wait, did you fix it in the last 20 seconds? Because it just loaded like sifu tweety on his special night.
McCain can be a bit of a washed-up crazy grumpy dim bulb at times, but I do agree with his “No Surrender” policy. I think we can all agree with that.
Rain corn dogs? Now that’s funny!
Sheesh. Go back to being principal blackman so I can think up SWC lines.
Not just you, tho there was a period of proper functionin last night, too.
Psycheout, I think you’d better read mikey’s post again: who would anyone surrender to, even if they wanted to? This is a war of occupation, and it’s really hard to win a war of occupation without committing genocide (and that’s a very broad definition of ‘win’).
To be fair, the original Lincoln of his own time did not have the Intertoobz to catalog his every flip-flop and misstatement, which I believe is the happy status Hinderaker, Mirengoff and their ilk so cherish. Lincoln caught no end of shite from the existent media, of course, but it was so much easier to fool a narrow majority of the people just long enough back when the New Media was still hand-set…
Before I break into a chorus of “Corndogs Keep Falling on My Head”, let me compliment you an some A+ snark. Excellent. Regent’s Univeristy is starting a snarking major in order to get better quality snarkers into the next Republican administration. I shall recommend you as a faculty hire. There maybe some deprogramming involved.
Which led me to ponder a law school with Hinderaker, Althouse and the Perfesser on the same faculty. I am still suffering from the aftershocks of the shudders.
McCain’s principal resemblance to Lincoln is found in his capacity to channel Abe’s thoughts about the Spanish American War after his visit to Ford Theater, and mimic his physical reactions as well.
He is likewise Reaganesque and JFK-like, and FDR-ish. It’s amazing how perfectly he captures the the biological processes of all those great brains rotting into wormfood, while remaining aboveground. As that art was previosly confined to Zombies, it raises an interesting quandary for Americans as they’ll have to choose between a candidate who’s Womanesque, a Mexican Gringo, an Unblack Negro, a Monogamous Mormon, an Italian-American sans The Family, a Lawyer-American pushing healthcare with a terminally ill Spouse-American, a Pseudo-Cop, a LincolnLog Zombie, and a Kucinich.
Las Vegas odds favor Jeb.
Exactly how ignorant is a sack of wooden turnips, anyway?
Exactly how ignorant is a sack of wooden turnips, anyway?
‘Bout as ignent as a pickled porcupine. That answer yer question?
Way off topic, but I fully expect you boys to dig into this op-ed piece suggesting the Bush administration is following the Costanza Doctrine.
McCain is truly Lincolnish (by which I mean Link Knish, the Yiddish porn star).
Sheesh. Go back to being principal blackman so I can think up SWC lines.
Not just you, tho there was a period of proper functionin last night, too.
Educate yourself to THIS reality: I am Principal Blackman, and this is my first reading of/posting in this thread.
Also, great post, mikey.
Also, it will rain corn dogs.
I don’t want corn dogs. I want pronto pups. See if you can arrange it, eh?
I want wiener-dogs, but more hopping than raining. And wire-haired. Nothing’s cuter than a puppy with a vandyke.
Regent’s Univeristy is starting a snarking major in order to get better quality snarkers into the next Republican administration.
Is it true they’re going to change the name to Reagant’s University?
McCain’s idea of “not surrendering” is straight out of a horribly trite scene in a billion bad tv shows and John Parr music videos where the “hero” wipes a tiny spot of blood from the side of his mouth with his manly knuckle bone and says “I’m not through with you … and your kind.”
The upside to surrender: at least by then we should know who we were fighting.
Excellent stuff, Mikey. Surrender to who ? Lose to what ? Lose what ? Win what ? Victorious of what ?
I want to complain to the management!!
Where is Gary Ruppert? All we have is this lame troll called Psycheout! He doesn’t meet the high standard set by Gary Ruppert!!!
Zombie Zarqawi needs to feed on BRAINS!!!!
All we have is this lame troll called Psycheout!
Psycheout is doing his best, but needs to work on keeping a straight face.
That no, despite the fact that he’d said the thing about Petraeus and the Humvee on national television in front of millions of people, he actually never said it.
What did the press ever see in this guy anyway? Every week he opens his mouth and comes across as even more vapid than he was the week before. There is no way he is going to win the nomination. The hard right can’t stand him, and his new strategy of appearing to be the thinking man’s Inhofe is going to drive whatever moderate Republicans are left into the arms of Giuliani.
[…] or attempt rational discourse with certain modern Bush supporters/conservative (and why, yes, they really believe these things) — he identifies the psychological mechanisms (and provides […]
John McCain wont rest until every US soldier in uniform spends 5 years at the Hanoi (now headquartered in Baghdad) Hilton being tortured daily.
Hinderaker’s neocon ramblings have been spouting from the “American Experiment”, an incredibly right wing “think” tank. What is funniest about this is the think tank is constantly espousing family values. Hinderaker’s idea of family values is cheating on his while she is pregnant.