Back In A New York Groove
The Ace of Base is all indignant that some guy who gets paid to put together a newspaper made a decision Ace disagreed with and the editor later regretted. To make matters worse, the poor sap can’t even offer a satisfying explanation:
[A] New York Time editor admits he tanked the JFK bomb-plot story because he “questioned the timing” of it. As Allah asks — and as we always ask of these morons — what precisely was Bush attempting to distract away from? From… nothing?
Maybe Ace shoulda axed ol’ Allahpundit, who may have accidentally answered his own question:
Was [the weekend editor] also mindful of the fact that this bombshell dropped before noon on Saturday, the graveyard of the news cycle, and that there was absolutely nothing burning up the front page (except Bush’s own beloved amnesty bill) that it would have or could have distracted from?
Speaking of the amnesty bill, that was pretty unpopular, no? Even less so than the president, in general? And uncovering a terrorist plot is always a good thing for a guy who’s hitched his wagon to the stampeding fear of people such as Ace and Allahpundit, so there are some fairly obvious benefits to rolling out the sensationalized details of an allegedly existential threat that was stopped just in the nick of time. But Ace overthinks the editor’s rationale, anyway:
Do they imagine Bush can order up a massive bust on a particular involving the NYPD, FBI, and other law enforcement investigations to suit his political needs without a single person leaking the fact he ordered it? And ordered all LEO’s to lie about it? And ordered it all to take place on a certain day or at least within a certain time period?
Whoa, whoa, whoa — easy there, Ace m’boy. I think all the guy’s saying is that the press release could have been timed for maximum impact, which is sort of like the whole point of public relations. And the reporters soon learned that some of the more melodramatic claims made in the government’s press release turned out to be a bit less incredible than advertised, which is sort of like the whole point of journalism. The weekend editor then examined that available information, weighed it against some other information, and made a decision in time to get all the newspapers printed and distributed and dropped off in my front yard before I walked out Sunday morning in my underwear to pick it up.
Sounds to me like a whole bunch of people got a lot of work done while I was busy losing my pants.
For what it’s worth, I happen to disagree with the editor’s decision, but I can understand why — oh my god, dude, Ace is still muttering to himself in the other room:
These are the people who assert you should trust their very professional, finely-honed sense of “news judgment.” People who believe that large-scale arrests are ordered to occur on a specific day in order to “distract from” biweekly trivialities.
Shhhh. Let’s just let ourselves out the side door and stop by later. I’m sure he’ll be here.
Tres amusant, coming from folks who proffered the “Wag the Dog” scenario re: Clinton and Bosnia, Clinton and al-Qaeda, Clinton and…you get the idea.
Ace evidently doesn’t realize that Sunday editions tend to be wrapped up faster than weekday ones, too, since they’ve got all those extra fucking inserts they gotta stick in the Sunday paper.
Yeah, fine, sure, whatever. But Travis, you’re killin me here. Did you ever find your pants?
mikey
I’m sure some lucky female has them, tacked on her wall in memory of that one incredible night…
[A] New York Time editor admits …
I know logic and reason are beyond their grasp, but come on — at least get the name of the paper right. New York Times. See? With an “s” at the end.
I know it’s only been around for 150 years or so, but if the brave cheeto corps is going to bring down the dreaded MSM, they might want to know the name of its flagship.
Also keep in mind that the Padilla trial is going on, so might have been a target in the attempt to reignite the fear of terra in the jurors
Oh yeah, that dood was a serious threat.
I’ve got Google Earth and a bottle of Thunderbird. I’m gonna blow up the Kremlin. Viva la Chechnyans, motherfucker…
mikey
dude, when you call him ace of base, it activates the automatic sound system in my mind, which (for some reason) always has ace of base songs cued up.
i will think of you while i enjoy “happy nation” for the rest of the day. thanks a lot.
Ummm, Thnderbird. Anyone remember Gallo Spañada?
And btw, does anyone know if this ethanol stuff will work as well as gasoline for Molotov cocktails? (Just askin’, ha ha.)
Google Earth + bottle of Thunderbird….
The geek in me immediately thinks of this Thunderbird…
Hell yeah. You graduated from Boones Farm to Spanada (I don’t know how to make that squiggle thang).
The key to an effective molotov cocktail is threefold. First, the highest octane (energy component) of the flammable liquid you can acquire is good. You can get avgas at the local muni airport. Second, you need a gelitanizer to weaponize the cocktail. You want to go from a puddle of fire (ooohh, fire!) to something that will take down buildings and hurt people. That’s where the Ivory Liquid comes in. 10 parts avgas, one part Ivory Liquid. Shaken, not stirred. Now you’ve got napalm. Third, your fusing mechanism. The burning rag is good, but it’s reliability and effectiveness is questionable. Old sheets, ripped into strips, soaked in melted parafin and allowed to dry, twisted together, will hold together, stay lit, burn hotter, and will effectively light off your MC.
Let me know if your revolution needs an armorer…
mikey
Simba, we don’t wanna TALK to them, we want to blow them up!
The Thunderbird was a riff on the Guyanan dood in the JFK plot who turned out to be a homeless wino. FEAR the Shopping CART!!ONe…
mikey
Teh Acenator needs to get him some Play Doh and bacon, stat. Either that or finally realize his true feelings, and get him some of teh gay sex. But his panties are seriously in a twist.
Poor baby. That’s what happens when your political ideas, such as they were, go up in flames. Elections have consequences and all that. Couldn’t happen to a bigger dickbrain.
Hey Mikey,
Thanks! I was going to do the chemistry lecture bit and get investigated further by our paranoid gov’t overlords, but you spared me. Remember, if it’s DHS, it will be so incompetent that you can pretty much do what you want right to its face and it honestly will not notice!
(FBI guys are dumb too, but will not *EVAH* admit it, so suck up to them).
[…] lest you think that the righties have suddenly developed a case of Bush Derangement Syndrome, fear not! They still love the way he fights terrorism. And issues press releases about how he fights […]
I don’t know about you all, but when I first heard this joke of a terrorism plot on the news, my first thought was basically “How convenient – and the Democratic debate is tomorrow !”
It may not have been planned, but it was a REALLY convenient time for the announcement – after all, the plotters hadn’t really gotten past the “we barely have a working plan” stage. It’s not like things were moving fast and they had to be grabbed RIGHT THEN.
I also noticed our stupid media shills just HELPING Bush and his regime frighten people. One idiot was saying stuff such as “The terrorists could have triggered the bomb while a plane was refueling ! And it could have blown the plane up ! And, and, some planes TAKE ON PASSENGERS while refueling ! ZOMG people could have died !!!!!!”
Doodle, I’ve had the white shirts at my door so many times over the years that I’ve stopped caring, and they’ve stopped taking it seriously. They know they need to follow the rules to keep from getting fired up, and I know they can fuck with me if they want. We all get it, and we play the role, do the dew, and everybody goes home to mama….
mikey
I’m working on a wingnut musical. Ace will be doing something like “Memory” from Cats.
Need a name for the show, tho.
Triumph of the Wail.
mikey, I think YOU’RE the thing that’s been missing from my parties…
Is it time yet to point out that the Times editor was (in the words of dear Judith Miller) fuckin RIGHT?
Do they imagine Bush can order up a massive bust on a particular involving the NYPD, FBI, and other law enforcement investigations to suit his political needs without a single person leaking the fact he ordered it? And ordered all LEO’s to lie about it? And ordered it all to take place on a certain day or at least within a certain time period?
Announcing the indictment of “My cash is as cold as Ice” Jefferson the same day Scooter was sentenced to prison was a coincidence.
You know it, because this administration would never politicize the DOJ.
Speaking of the amnesty bill, that was pretty unpopular, no? Even less so than the president, in general? And uncovering a terrorist plot is always a good thing for a guy who’s hitched his wagon to the stampeding fear of people such as Ace and Allahpundit…
We can agree that the amnesty bill was/is certainly unpopular with Ace, Allahpundit, their readers, and also many others across the political spectrum. However, it doesn’t make much sense for the New York Times to have had that in mind because, according to them the bill was popular, and only a few nativist bigots with enough time on their hands to swamp Senate phone lines and such were opposed. Now, you might suppose those few people (according to the Times) were the target audience of the terrorist plot news, but that would mean the news release was orchestrated just to keep a small minority (again, according to the NYT) from bothering Senate switchboard operators.
But c’mon. Admit it. Forget about how you got it. Would it NOT be cool to have a hundred grand in freakin CASH in your freezer?
“That is a cool – lookin’ thing.”
“Well buy it.”
“But it’s $999.00.”
“Pay CASH, idiot!”
“Oh. OK.”
mikey
Freezers are for akvavit. OK, vodka too, if you really must drink the stuff.
Gin’s OK in freezers. So is bourbon, ‘specially if you’re going to make a Manhattan out of it.
Anyway I’ll see all y’all’s Thunderbird and Boone’s Farm and raise you one Annie Green Springs Mellow Nights, with a lime-vodka-n-7-up chaser.
What? You guys didn’t go to high school?
You keep your bottle of akvavit frozen in a block of ice like Sterling Hayden in The Long Goodbye.
Whatever the rational behind releasing the news, I thought the story was a pile of piss when I first heard it. They thought they could kill thousands of people by blowing up an aviation fuel tank!!!!! As its part of my job to look into this sh1t, I was laughing my arse off. They (the Guyana’s) had obviously watched too many movies where the car/plane crashes, then immediately blows up. Unfortunately, in real life, it doesn’t happen that way. While av. fuel may form a large flammable cloud fairly quickly, no way would they be able to do the damage they expected. To me it sounded like one too many drinks were drunk that night after watching some crappy action movie. They must have been quite surprised to have been woken up by the FBI the next morning.
The reaction of the wingnutosphere was utterly predictable, those fuckers would get worked up if some drunken guy in a thobe lit a firecracker outside Congress.
However, the winner was Fox News the following day. When discussing the ‘attempt’, they compared the amount of fuel on the planes on 9/11 with the amount of fuel at the depot, and said “… it could have been 200 times as large as 9/11… “. My wife found me screaming “… the planes on 9-11 were going at 1000 kmh, you f*cken’ morons…â€?. I then had to go for a lie down.
Mikey:
“Doodle, I’ve had the white shirts at my door so many times over the years that I’ve stopped caring…”
You mean those Mormon (or Jehoobah’s Witless) “missionaries”?
Would it NOT be cool to have a hundred grand in freakin CASH in your freezer?
It’d be funnier in pennies.
interesting that the wingies think it’s so naughty of the NYT to downplay a “plot” that would be laughed off a dungeons and dragons newbies site but get their Depends in a twisteroo about the paper’s lack of judiciousness when the Times plays up the fact that our own pentagon metrics out of iraq show the surge is laying an egg.
b.s. plot by drunkards and homeless schlemiels = BIGGUN STORY.
facts about the flameout in iraqistan = overblown nonstory.
and so it goes in wingnutteria, the land of doritos and lollipops, where all your farts smell good, especially to you.