Goldberg: “I Two The Sandbox”

If Limbaugh is the Kettle, Democrats Are the Pot

Keith Olbermann, MSNBC’s answer to a question no one asked, declared this week that I’m the “worst person in the world.” This is not as bad as it might seem. It’s sort of like being called uncool by the asthmatic assistant recording secretary of the high school chess team.

Except Olbermann has a high-rated show on television, while Goldberg is a belching oaf who writes a column that his mommy got him.

olbgold.jpg
Above (l-r): “Asthmatic ass’t recording sec’y of chess club,” Goldberg

I’m the worst person in the world — the designation is apparently a nightly feature of Olbermann’s show — because during a Fox News interview about the current idiotic Rush Limbaugh flap, I said that conservatives don’t actually question the patriotism of liberals, they merely call attention to the statements of liberals.

Uh, yeah. Smart way to play it there, Jonah.

jonahbookclub.jpg
Above: Some books that Jonah has never seen

Olbermann lifted his objection to my statement from the group that launched this Limbaugh flap, Media Matters for America (you should read “for America” as “for the Democratic Party” and “for the Democratic Party” as “for Hillary Clinton”). Olbermann & Co. asserted I was wrong, citing a monologue on Rush Limbaugh’s show that later appeared on his Web site under the heading: “You’re Damn Right American Left, We’re Questioning Your Patriotism.” To which I have to respond: Touché!

In other words, Jonah got totally pwned again and there’s nothing left to argue about.

However, one could split some ideological hairs here.

In other words, he’s going to roll the ol’ 5d4 and attempt a 9th-level Cloud of Weaseling spell.

LUCIANNE GOLDBERG: Jonah, did you clean your room yet?

YOUNG JONAH: If by ‘yet’ you mean ‘on any singular occasion,’ then I cannot be said to have not cleaned my room yet.

LUCIANNE GOLDBERG: [fails saving throw]

There is a difference between the “American left” and “liberals,” after all. And usually when fringe leftists openly denounce imperialist America or express hope that she will be bloodied abroad or at home, self-described liberals are usually the first to respond, “Hey, liberals aren’t leftists.” If Olbermann and Media Matters now want to ditch that distinction and hence claim every nut-job leftist as their own, fine by me.

jonah1.jpg

Anyway, the point I’d been trying to make was that liberals routinely and righteously condemn the “questioning” of anyone’s patriotism — until they have a chance to do it themselves. For example, in the debates over the formation of the Department of Homeland Security and the passage of Patriot Act, Democrats accused George Bush and the GOP leadership of questioning Democrats’ patriotism. But they never did any such thing.

Um, forsooth. Thus doth I counter yon spell with mine +2 Search Engine of Fact-Checking:

Playing “The Treason Card” Since 9/11

[…]

December 2001: In response to Democratic plans to question parts of the USA Patriot Act during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, John Ashcroft suggests that people who disagree with the administration’s anti-terrorism policies are on the side of the terrorists. “To those who pit Americans against immigrants, and citizens against non-citizens; to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America’s enemies, and pause to America’s friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil.”

February 2002: Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle expresses mild disagreement with US anti-terror policies, saying US success in the war on terror “is still somewhat in doubt.” In response, Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) says that Daschle’s “divisive comments have the effect of giving aid and comfort to our enemies by allowing them to exploit divisions in our country.”

May 2002: After the disclosure that President Bush received a general warning about possible Al Qaeda hijackings prior to 9/11, Democrats demand to know what other information the administration had before the attacks. In response, White House communications director Dan Bartlett says that the Democratic statements “are exactly what our opponents, our enemies, want us to do.”

September 2002: Campaigning against Democrats who did not support his legislation to create the Department of Homeland Security (a department whose creation he had previously opposed), President Bush said that “the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people.”

[…]

We’re being sporting here, by the way. The claim was originally that ‘conservatives’ don’t question liberals’ patriotism, but pinioning on the phrase, ‘for example,’ Jonah narrowed the category to ‘George Bush and the GOP leadership.’ Otherwise, of course, there’s a practically infinite supply of counter-examples.

But onward we go with more Jonah:

Rather, Democrats asserted that Republican criticism of their opposition was tantamount to questioning their patriotism. John Kerry was the all-time champ of this sort of thing. He routinely insinuated that criticisms of his positions on national defense were tantamount to McCarthyism. Indeed, like Johnny Carson’s Carnac the Magnificent, Kerry could psychically predict the reaction before it happened. Addressing the Council on Foreign Relations, he prophesied, “I know what the Bush apologists will say to this — that it is unpatriotic to question, to criticize and to call for change.”

Achoo:

September 2004: As John Kerry steps up his criticism of the Bush administration’s handling of Iraq and the war on terror, Republicans repeatedly suggest that he is emboldening the enemy. Senator Zell Miller (D-GA) says that “while young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats’ manic obsession to bring down our Commander in Chief.” President Bush says, “You can embolden an enemy by sending a mixed message… You send the wrong message to our troops by sending mixed messages.” And Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) claims that terrorists “are going to throw everything they can between now and the election to try and elect Kerry,” adding that Democrats are “consistently saying things that I think undermine our young men and women who are serving over there.”

[…]

Back to you again, Mr. Goldberg. You were about to argue that Senator Kerry and the Democrats are the real culprits:

This in itself is a backhanded way to question the patriotism of your opponents. After all, to liberals, Joe McCarthy is synonymous with “un-American.” So, by preemptively and wantonly declaring any criticism to be McCarthyite dirty pool, Democrats are questioning the patriotism of their opponents in order to silence dissent (they play a similar preemption game with charges of racism as well). But Democrats did worse than merely question the patriotism of their opponents; they flat-out denied it. Sen. Bob Graham called Bush’s war policy “anti-patriotic at the core.” Kerry dubbed Bush’s “creed of greed” — you guessed it — “unpatriotic.” Howard Dean, the nearly invisible Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, used to get himself into those I’m-turning-into-the-Hulk rages over the merest hint that Republicans questioned the patriotism of Democrats. But he saw nothing wrong with righteously proclaiming that John Ashcroft “is no patriot. He’s a direct descendant of Joseph McCarthy.”

These examples are harder to track down. [Note: see footnote.] Apparently, Jonah has been relying on a single Mort Kondracke column since 2004, when he first started citing these statements. Things have gotten a bit garbled since then, because here’s what Kondracke wrote:

Sen. Bob Graham (Fla.), when he was a candidate, said that Bush’s Iraq policy was “anti-patriotic at the core.” Last September, Kerry said that Bush “lives out a creed of greed for he and his friends” and that it was “unpatriotic” for Bush’s “friends” (i.e., corporate executives) to move jobs offshore. It was a regular staple of retired Gen. Wesley Clark’s campaign to say that Bush’s policies were “not patriotic.”

Howard Dean, when he was a candidate, charged that Ashcroft “is no patriot. He’s a direct descendant of Joseph McCarthy.”

Interestingly, if you search for these quotes, you find almost nothing but right-wing Mort Kondracke, Jonah Goldberg, and Rich Lowry citations in various states of rehash. Where did they come from, and what were the speakers really saying? At this point, we probably know as well as Jonah does. He’s still barreling onward, by the way:

And now with Rush Limbaugh, Democrats, starting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, are lining up to call the radio host “unpatriotic” and do whatever they can to discredit him. Now, the fact that no serious person actually thinks Limbaugh really or intentionally called soldiers dissenting on the war “phony”…

‘No serious person’ can mean whatever Jonah likes, but it’s clear even to the desperately silly people at Media Matters, with their daily pie fights and seltzer-bottlings and all-tuba renditions of ‘Flight of the Bumblebee,’ that Limbaugh absolutely did say what he said. Back to Jonah:

…doesn’t matter to the Democrats. Rather, they’re just gleeful to play the pot to Limbaugh’s kettle. Never mind that it’s unfair and dishonest, never mind that what they’re doing is far closer to the McCarthyism they routinely denounce, never mind that such Limbaugh-lynching Democratic senators as John Kerry and Dick Durbin have suggested, respectively, that American troops are “terrorizing kids” in Iraq and are akin to the torture masters of Nazi Germany or Pol Pot’s “mad regime.” All that matters is that Democrats get a free hand — thank you, mainstream media — to do what they’ve spent years denouncing as the worst, lowest form of politics. And, unlike Republicans in most cases, the Democrats actually know they are lying. They just don’t care. But don’t take my word for it. I’m the worst person in the world.

And it was a fine showing indeed. Honestly though, being the worst in the game of right-wing punditry requires sustained, daily effort — and we doubt whether Jonah has what it takes to be a true champion.

 

Comments: 100

 
 
 

Nice job completely deconstructing Jonah’s sad and weak arguments. However, I believe this just serves to buttress Jonah’s original point.

 
 

An excellent article, but you dropped a </blockquote> between (the first) “He’s a direct descendant of Joseph McCarthy” and “These examples are harder to track down.”

Also I’d pay to see an all-tuba rendition of “Flight of the Bumblebee”.

 
 

I don’t want to get into the weeds here, but I think your argument steals a few bases on its way to the Random Absurd Allusion to Make People Forget What Jonah Was Talking About.

Anyway its late and I have a check to cash.

 
Trilateral Chairman
 

I was going to chastise you for picking the low-hanging fruit, but then I remembered that Shallowman here actually gets national coverage.

Gawd, what a cretin.

 
conservative on the verge of a nervous breakdown
 

Only a liberal fascist would accuse conservatives of calling liberals fascists.

 
 

I actually saw the late Tommy Johnson play Flight of the Bumblebee on the tuba. That man had chops growing out of his chops.

Yes, I was a band geek in high school. Yes, I played the tuba. Yes, I payed to go to an all-tuba clinic called the Oktubafest (where I witnessed the aforementioned feat of advanced Tubatude.) Wanna make somethin’ out of it?

 
 

Jonah: “After all, to liberals, Joe McCarthy is synonymous with ‘un-American.'”

Let me guess. To non-liberals, Joe McCarthy is synonymous with “our greatest American hero?”

 
 

I’m the worst person in the world — the designation is apparently a nightly feature of Olbermann’s show —

I love how they all try so hard to pretend to be unfamiliar with Olbermann.

 
 

Wanna make somethin’ out of it?

No. I played euphonium: the lesser tuba.

 
 

Perpetual victim…

 
 

“Fat, drunk, and stupid, son, is no way to go through life.”

 
 

Gavin- sent you an email. Megan tried to call us sexist today, in a post about race. I don’t know how she keeps finding new lows, but it’s quite amazing.
Clem and I have already tossed off 4 posts on it all over at FMM.

 
 

It’s sort of like being called uncool by the asthmatic assistant recording secretary of the high school chess team.

Project much, Doughy?

 
Five of Diamonds
 

Goldberg’s definition of “patriotism” must mean “mindless adherence to the fantastical right wing ideology” which, in his squirmy brain, means “America.”

 
 

That D&D shit almost had me bust a seam.

 
 

This guy’s been hanging with the Sudafedayeen from the next thread. No matter how wrong he’s demonstrated to be (by his own book, even), he just keeps on pretending otherwise.

A ninja suit would vastly improve his outfit, though.

 
 

Media Matters for America (you should read “for America” as “for the Democratic Party” and “for the Democratic Party” as “for Hillary Clinton”…and as “for Hillary Clinton” as “for the Emboldeners” and as “for the Emboldeners” as “Osama Bin Laden”.

Six degrees of Osama is now finished for Loadpants.

 
 

I love ninjas with all of my body (including my pee pee).

 
Principal Blackman
 

Also I’d pay to see an all-tuba rendition of “Flight of the Bumblebee”.

Glad I’m not the only one.

 
 

Goldberg’s definition of “patriotism” :
“How and where can I make a good living as my mother’s son?”
or,
“Will write bullshit for money.”

 
 

my workmate just looked up to see why i was snorting a beverage across my keyboard, and i read him the title of this post. turns out he’s an S,N fan as well.

 
 

Your Feb. 2002 quote by Tom Davis reminds me of a fine performance Tip O’Neill gave back when he was Speaker of the House. During debate someone criticized him using the phrase “aid and comfort.” O’Neill practically threw the gavel into someone’s else’s hands, so he could talk as himself, not as Speaker, rushed to the well of the House and ripped that guy three or four new ones. He said that phrase came from Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution, the passage that defines the crime of treason, and how dare any member use that language when speaking of another member.

He was royally pissed.

 
 

n other words, he’s going to roll the ol’ 5d4 and attempt a 9th-level Cloud of Weaseling spell.

damn it, now you guys owe me a new keyboard! not to mention a new shirt.

 
 

Dude! If you guys like the tuba, you’ll Love Drums & Tuba!

I saw these guys at a little bar in Spokane a few years back. Live, they are incredible.

 
 

Is that title supposed to be “I Number Two in the Sandbox”?

 
 

I three the sandbox.

 
 

I four the sandbox.

 
 

Elmo five the sandbox!!!

 
 

can we do this as some kind of math?

jonah goldberg (JG) is accused of lying because he misrepresented X saying x said a when it was really b. b leads to the opposite outcome asserted by JG when he discussed X and a. this is called a lie by KO. JG says no, X actually means c when he says a, not necessarily b as JG asserted and as KO asserted JG said when discussing X. JG says KO is lying, and goes further to say X always means c whenever he says anything, and here are some examples of X saying c, or saying a but meaning c. SN points out that in fact X may well never have said c, but wait a second JG did in fact say a a lot of times a and X never meant c and…

at this point you need a nobel prize to parse what level of lie our little necromancer has made it to. i think in this game he has already made it to level 5 (a lie about a lie about a lie about a lie about a lie) and there is no bottom where he’s taking himself.

he’s chaotic evil but thinks he’s lawful neutral. fucking yuck.

 
 

I six the sandbox.

 
 

In Jonah’s defense, his book was never published, and some people say that it never existed anywhere except in Jonah’s fantasyland … much like the examples from his columns.

 
 

All this dipfuck’s dooling just proves is that the rich have way too much money and have decided to spend it giving megaphones to idiots.

I’d rather tax them heavily and have universal healthcare and college education for all Americans, myself.

 
 

Goldberg:

There is a difference between the “American left” and “liberals,” after all. And usually when fringe leftists openly denounce imperialist America or express hope that she will be bloodied abroad or at home, self-described liberals are usually the first to respond, “Hey, liberals aren’t leftists.”

Not that he gives any examples of leftists wanting America bloodied “abroad ort at home”, but I give you the “liberal” Michael Tomasky, being among the “first to respond, ‘Hey, liberals aren’t leftists.'”:

But Cohen completely ignores the fourth category of foreign-policy debate: liberals who are neither hawks nor on the left. People who, for example, supported the US invasion of Afghanistan. People who, for that matter, supported the interventions of the 1990s. People who would very much like to have seen the United States do something, earlier and more forcefully, about Darfur.

Who are these people? Mainstream liberals who aren’t the anti-militarist left but who also opposed the Iraq war (or, in a small number of cases, supported it originally but quickly recognized the horror of the situation and withdrew their support).

Like who? Well, like me, for starters. And, off the top of my head: Mark Danner, Todd Gitlin, Eric Alterman, Joshua Micah-Marshall, Fred Kaplan, Paul Krugman, Paul Starr, Robert Kuttner, Harold Meyerson, Jo-Ann Mort, John Judis and the aforementioned Yglesias. And a thousand others.

They aren’t the left, of course, they’re serious. And everyone knows leftists aren’t serious.

 
 

I seven the sandbox!

[drum roll please…]

 
 

I eight the sandbox!

 
 

I eight the sandbox.

 
 

I think the ruling on that is that a tie goes to the pantload. Jonah definitely eight the sandbox.

And it shows.

 
 

Doing a little fact checking on a certain pay site which is a little more complete with articles than google™.

On the John Kerry quote, this first appears in Fred Barnes column from the Weekly Standard in Dec. 15, 03. Although the quote is

“[Massachusetts Sen. John] Kerry was harsher. In a candidate debate last September, he said Bush ‘lives out a creed of greed for he and his friends. I’m tired of seeing chief executives be permitted to take their millions or billions to Bermuda and leave the average American here at home stuck with the tax bill. You know what I call that? Unpatriotic.’

So that refers only to the friends of Bush who use off-shore accounts and not any action taken by the President directly. Goldberg lifts heavily from Barnes article for his own. Of course with no attribution and none probably expected from Freddy.

The Bob Graham quote appears accurate, but out of context, even if it was only reported by the Washington Times on 9/26/03 covering the previous evening’s Democratic debate. The more complete quote shows that it was not the Iraq war policy but the rebuilding policy, and to that extent only because of the failure to spread the burden of the war to the country as a whole.

The candidates also took turns bashing Mr. Bush’s handling of postwar Iraq, with Mr. Graham calling it “antipatriotic at the core” to make the American military the sole bearers of the burden of rebuilding that nation.

It was the Fred Barnes article that picked this up which starts to make Goldberg look like a Goldbrick as a researcher.

The tag that Gen. Clark made President Bush’s patriotism a theme of his campaign does bear out.

“He went in before all the diplomatic solutions were extinguished,” Gen. Clark, the former supreme commander of allied NATO forces, told more than 400 supporters gathered Monday night at the Westin Galleria in Dallas for a fund-raiser. “That is not patriotic. That is sheer, bad leadership.

“I don’t think it’s patriotic to dress up in a flight suit and prance around,” Gen. Clark added, referring to the former Texas governor’s visit aboard a military plane to the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier. “George W. Bush took us to war based on a preconception, a party ideology and without adequate reason or justification.”
Dallas Morning News 1/13/04

Of course there is a complete difference between a thing that is not as patriotic as it purports to be and something that is unpatriotic, i.e. undermining the efforts of those who are patriotic. One is bad policy, the other is effectively treasonous. Gen. Clark does not use the smear of treason which is at the heart of the wingnut meme. Although the DMN article uses the word unpatriotic in quotes, none of the quotes in the article use that word.

The whole premises of Golberg’s push back on Olberman’s criticism is that Democrats or liberals or leftists are the only ones using the unpatriotic smear. None of his quotes support “unpatriotic” in the sense that it supports an accusation of treason or sedition or undermining of Federal governmental authority or support for the government. Merely pointing out that the Iraq policy or tax avoidance doesn’t support patriotic ideals is not treasonous. By definition it would really only be possible to accuse someone of being unpatriotic if you had a war to support in the first place. Goldberg’s push back is just a warmed over Fred Barnes article that really didn’t work back in 2004. How sad do you have to be to reach back to those times to support Republican Iraq policy?

Oh well, I guess all my work avoidance has made me anti-my-employer.

 
 

That’s some mighty fine greased-up squealing pig there, Jonah.

 
 

OT, nominations are open for the 2007 Weblog award. The best humor blog category has been changed to funniest blog, but I think S,N! is still considered the defending champion.

You can nominate here. Of course they say that multiple nominations don’t help a blog’s chances, but that’s no reason not to flood them with Sadlynaut nominations. 😛

 
 

Jonah 8 the sandbox.

Ha ha!

 
 

Then God is Seven
Then God is Seven
Then God is Seven!

 
 

Anybody else see the story on MSNBC this morning about “Questions of Obama’s patriotism” because he doesn’t wear a fucking flag pin on his lapel?
His response was that after a while the pin has become a substitute for patriotism which is better defined by actions.
The interviewer didn’t get it.

 
 

When I lived in Dayton, Ohio, twenty or so years ago, there was a band called The Tuba Blooze Band, and they did “Flight of the Bumblebee” with the tuba player taking the lead. There’s picture of the tuba player here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/19884852@N00/318274014/

I think I have a copy of their album around here somewhere.

Anyway, one of the members (I think it’s the singer) is now part of an award-winning Native American band; his partner is the woman who was Pocahontas in the Disney film:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=120612938

And you can, for the price of .99, buy the track “Fumble of the Stumble Bee,” and hear it yourself.

 
 

Finally an important subject.

his partner is the woman who was Pocahontas in the Disney film

Pocahontas is the hottest Disney princess.

 
 

I’m a Democrat (well, I mostly vote for Democrats, but whatever).

Anyway, I was told that there would be pot in this thread?

 
 

“Anybody else see the story on MSNBC this morning about “Questions of Obama’s patriotism” because he doesn’t wear a fucking flag pin on his lapel?”\

Indeed, because it became the FOX news outrage of the day. All I could think about was Flounder in Animal House during ROTC drill, and Niedermeyer losing it over a “ppppledge pppppin!”

Why does that movie serve so well as the backdrop to so much of what is actually happening in this country?

 
Smiling Mortician
 

Of course there is a complete difference between a thing that is not as patriotic as it purports to be and something that is unpatriotic, i.e. undermining the efforts of those who are patriotic. One is bad policy, the other is effectively treasonous.

Gonna have to disagree, Red Shark. “Treason” is a specific crime defined in the Constitution. “Unpatriotic” is a judgment call, as patriotism consists of feeling, expressing, or being inspired by love of country. It’s fair game, although often pointless, to call one’s political opponents “unpatriotic” if it seems that they’re acting from motives that run counter to love of country. Those on both left and right can, with a degree of honesty, call each other unpatriotic — in large part because they disagree about what “country” means (is it the Constitution? is it the president? is it the citizens? if so, which ones? all of them?) Let ’em call each other unpatriotic all they want, but flinging around inaccurate accusations of treason (when what is meant is to accuse someone of being unpatriotic) demonstrates the winger’s tendency toward abuse of language — often, but not always, for nefarious purposes. Which brings me back to the age-old question: Incompetent or malicious? You be the judge.

 
 

Pocahontas is the hottest Disney princess.

I had friends once who insisted on calling her “Pokyerhotness”.

 
 

why does Jonah keep hitting himself?

 
 

I had friends once who insisted on calling her “Pokyerhotness”.

The last time I was in Disneyland there was a little spot for a half-naked Ariel to, uh, hang out and meet her fans. It was called Ariel’s Grotto but I can’t help but think of it as Ariel’s Grope-O.

 
Smiling Mortician
 

Jillian, I note you use the past tense. Was “Pokyerhotness” the deal-breaker?

And HumboldtBlue, I find you can pull almost any Animal House quote and have it work as cogent commentary on at least some aspect of current U.S. . . . uh . . . clusterfuckery. To wit:

But you can’t hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn’t we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn’t this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg – isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we’re not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!

 
 

Oh, there were far many other dealbreakers in that situation. But the “Pokeyerhotness” is one of the things I recall with amused anger, if that makes any sense.

 
 

nice one, SM. I think that “Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!”

is often quite apt as well.

 
 

I had friends once who insisted on calling her “Pokyerhotness”.

Did that work for them?

 
 

The sad thing, Auguste, is that I think it did.

It has been my misfortune in life to know a disproportionate number of Not Nice people.

I think it’s why I’ve taken to hanging out only on the internet – it’s much easier to find a self-selected group full of awesome inside the series of tubes, you know.

 
Smiling Mortician
 

Amused anger isn’t just a fleeting moment, Jillian. It’s a way of life.

And, y’know, I forgot to say this earlier: Gavin, you completely and definitively put the vast majority of journalists and statesmen to shame. Accurate, meaningful, and funny? You be a dreamboat (and I mean that in a totally distant, respectful, non-harrassing kind of way).

 
 

Bah, Mort! I think I’m in love with all the writers and regulars here!

What’s say we all get group married and then get gay abortions as a symbol of our love?

 
 

Awesome, Jillian. Right back at ‘cha. But what, pray tell, is a gay abortion?

And I had a friend that preferred Pokeherhotass. He was delightfully juvenile.

 
 

You liberal haters, dont know talent when you see it, or freedom when you can taste it, you have nothing but hate. Your leaders, like Hitlery and Osama are not really American, they only pretend. Now Fred Thompson, or Sam Brownback, they are for real and from the heartland, just like Reagan and Bush. You coastal eleitists will not fool the vast majority of Americans who support freedom and the troops.

 
 

Fake Gary.

 
 

Well, he certainly gets off to a pithy start:

Keith Olbermann, MSNBC’s answer to a question no one asked…

Wait, you’re telling me he ripped off the Simpsons again?

“It’s Lisa Simpson, Springfield’s answer to a question nobody asked!”

What, does the guy have no dignity or shame? Err, maybe that question needn’t be asked?
At least the episode where Flanders freaks out and berates the entire town is a better episode to ref than the “cheese-eatin’ surrender monkeys” one. “You might say, I hate the post office. That, and my parents. Lousy beatniks.” Heh heh heh.

 
 

Ah, it warms my heart to see references to saving throws, even those cited in mockery.

 
Principal Blackman
 

What’s say we all get group married and then get gay abortions as a symbol of our love?

Throw some illegal immigrants and terrorist-coddling into the mix and you got yourself a deal.

 
 

Reagan is to the heartland as orange dyed hair is to jello.

 
 

The Democrats are Kevin Bacon and Bush is the paddler.

Thank you sir! May I have another?

 
 

Anybody else see the story on MSNBC this morning about “Questions of Obama’s patriotism” because he doesn’t wear a fucking flag pin on his lapel?

Indeed, because it became the FOX news outrage of the day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wait, wait, wait. Hold the fucking phone. Obama’s lack of a flag pin was Faux News’ “outrage of the day”? “OUTRAGE of the DAY”? I mean, I realize it’s FOX and everything, but still.

Have the turrists won yet? I would suggest that they have, indeed.

 
 

Get gay abortions? You mean we acquire Larry Craig, Pat McHenry, David Dreier et. al?

 
 

Just want to say thx! to Duros62 for Teh Pixies reference.

 
 

Obama’s channelling RWE –

“His response was that after a while the pin has become a substitute for patriotism which is better defined by actions.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson: What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.

 
 

SM and Kath … perfect choices …

 
 

You should bill that windbag for your fact checking.

And the comments over there are beyond putrid.

I’d like to take their “flag as offensive” icon, blow it up and stick it in Jonah’s forehead.

 
 

Douchebag McFatassDoughbob Loadpants’ book has been delayed again. Only by a week, but I think we can see the trend here.

 
 

it’s funny that they’re taking this argument out for a spin. used to be they proudly embraced the mantle of attacking non-rightists’ patriotism, calling them treasonous benedict-arnold bu-fooing kim-blowing third columinists et al. as nauseum. cant understand why they’d want to slither back from that position …a true sign of wingnut disconfiture. can’t erase the whole bloody internet, though. i’d say they are in rout.

 
 

Gary’s new word this week is “heartland”.

Gary – define heartland.

 
 

“lives out a creed of greed for he and his friends” contains a grammar booboo as “he and his friends” should be “himself and his friends”. the google search shows that Fred Barnes and Chuck Shick [I don’t know who he is either] cut and paste without attribution and don’t check quotes.

 
 

It’s all fake Gary these days, I do believe, but the “heartland” is where real Americans live. It’s really a throwback to the days before communication moved faster than horseback & the occasional telegram, when the elites, in their coastal enclaves, were often exposed to [shudder] ideas other than the conventional corn-fed wisdom of the masses who tilled the soil or slaved in the factories & didn’t need no book-larnin’, no how.

Not that you didn’t know all along, g, but I thought I’d help fake Gary, since he’d have to break character to adequately explain.

 
 

I seem to remember that John Belushi requested that at his funeral, instead of dirges or organ music, the recording of “Flight of the 2000-Pound Bumblebee” be played.

It was supposed to be a last snarky little act of defiance. I’m not sure if it worked. Belushi’s death was so needless and tragic that at best it mustered a wistful smile through the tears.

There’s been a lot of that going around lately … at funerals for servicemen killed in Iraq, who write darkly funny things to be read where they bag on their friends and family and tell people not to be sad, that they died doing what they loved.

Fucking waste, all of it.

 
 

Wanna make somethin’ out of it? Souzaphone son,Yeah I said it!1!111111!!1

 
 

Two points – First, the more I see him, the more I’m sure that Jonah swallowed the whale. Second, unlike the tuba, which hits you in the colon with a low rumble, I played the baritone, which socks you in the chest. When in band as a tot, I used to play a loud version of the Hawaii Five-O theme at home for practice. I always wondered what the neighbors thought.

 
 

A ninja suit would vastly improve his outfit, though.

There is not enough black gabardine in the whole wide world to adequately ninja-suit Jonah’s flabby carcass. On the other hand, I now have a new “happy place” in my imagination where sanity has been restored to the American landscape and the people who have suffered most at Jonah’s sweaty paws get to play “Pin the Flag Tack on the Naked Goldberg”. Bonus points for guesstimating how many standard-issue American flag lapel weights it will take to cover the entire quivering expanse of Jonah-ness.

 
 

What do liberals know about the heartland?

I call myself Hoosier X because I’m from a small town in Indiana, where I lived until I was 24 years old.

So, I ask, what would someone from Indiana know about the heartland?

Is the heartland a geographic region? Or does it refer to more of a state of being, or a way of thinking, that, coincidentally, matches the thinking of the Garys, Doughys, the George W. Bushes, the Republican Party platform (whatever it on any given day) and the Christian Coalitions?

Guess. I dare ya.

 
 

[…] Sadly, No! » Goldberg: “I Two The Sandbox” The Doughy One pwnd. (tags: keith+olbermann doughy+pantload stupidity wingnuts) […]

 
 

[…] Openly questioning the patriotism of liberals with whom one disagrees – […]

 
 

[…] Openly questioning the patriotism of liberals with whom one disagrees – […]

 
 

Welcome to The Heartland™

Population: 28%

 
 

And, unlike Republicans in most cases, the Democrats actually know they are lying.

Did Jonah really just come right out and admit that most Republicans are too stupid to even know when they’re lying? Sure sounds like it.

 
 

Thanks, Gavin, now I have this vision of a college-aged Jonah Goldberg playing D&D and finding a scroll for the Tenser’s Floating Disc spell. Cool! says young Jonah, Now I have a place to carry around that lifetime supply of Cheetohs!

 
 

“but it’s clear even to the desperately silly people at Media Matters, with their daily pie fights and seltzer-bottlings and all-tuba renditions of ‘Flight of the Bumblebee,’ that Limbaugh absolutely did say what he said. ”

Huh?

 
 

howz he going to roll under the Broder Bounce to get his percentile with 5d4?!? esp. when you get your -2 for the counterspell..

 
 

Um, HoosierX is it the heartland because it is the geographic center of the country? I guess i could Goolgle that but the lap feline is blocking a lot of my keyboard.

 
 

Also I’d pay to see an all-tuba rendition of “Flight of the Bumblebee”.

You may direct your contributions to my PayPal account.

 
 

[…] qualify as intellectual heavy lifting. But as they say, somebody has to take out the garbage, and this blogger kicks the mess to the curb with enough force to leave a few bruises. Posted by stevenhart Filed in Great Minds of […]

 
 

The ownage is extreme!

This just cracked me up:

“In other words, he’s going to roll the ol’ 5d4 and attempt a 9th-level Cloud of Weaseling spell.”

Did he remember to drink his Tenser’s Potion of Bullshit Spew beforehand?

 
 

Jonah says: “Don’t take my word for it. I’m the worst person in the world. ”

Exactly, Jonah. I won’t, cause you are.

 
 

Has anyone here ever read “Confederacy of Dunces”?

Is it me or do these ramblings remind you of the main character Ignatius?

 
 

[…] in Bloggotopia, Gavin at Sadly, No! picks up on a theme I noted … that Jonah Goldberg is a hair-splitting weasel without a leg to […]

 
 

Hey, wait a minute … I thought Jonah WAS “the asthmatic assistant recording secretary of the high school chess team.” Is he saying that he once called himself uncool?

 
 

(comments are closed)