So why wasn’t Wright removed or at least protested by the congregation after he praised the 9/11 hijackers and said America deserved 9/11?

that says a lot about the kind of person at that church.

Says a lot about Obama’s church going habits that he never heard about this until “last week”/”a few months ago” (depending on his current lie)

Obama can make a pretty speech or two, but he doesn’t know how to do the tough things that Presidents need to do.

And he’s currently tied with McCain in Massachusetts.

It’s fitting that Obama’s campaign is going to wither way around Easter. Unlike Jesus, Obama’s not rising again.

Like Jesus though, he is black.

And that scares you a lot more than your little story scares us, Gary.

[…] that has a stronger stomach than I and can keep tabs on the douchyness of the extreme right wing: Sadly, No! […]

Obama condemns such statements as wrong and divisive, then frames the next question: “There will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church?”

But that is not the question. The question is why didn’t he leave that church?

Um… Chuckles? Those are the same question. Really. They are.

Gary . *sigh* Soooo predictable .

“God damn America” The quotation marks are a bit premature (insert joke^ here) . To quote Paul Harvey , and now…the rest of tthe story……” when it kills innocents” “God bless America , when it does good in the world.” Of all his various “radical” and “anti-American” statements , that was his worst crime . Questioning militarism , or our right , as the good guys , to kill whomever, and however many we want , was waaaaayyyy over the line . Can’t go there.

“brilliantly sophistic justification of that scandalous dereliction” Like you Charlie?

My mother , not an Obamaite, mentions to me today, that she liked the speech, and increasingly , Obama, because he was “ so straightforward” about race, more so than any other politician dares to be. Charlie, just say you don’t like him , period. No reason, you just don’t . At least it’d be honest, and save a lot of verbiage all around.

Ha! Well spotted, Spokane Moderate.

Krauthammer is ‘The Sphinx’ of punditry:

‘If you cannot be driven to leave the church, the church has leave to notify you of its can drive.”

“But we do know one thing: Those who claimed, with great certainty, that Arabs are an exception to the human tendency toward freedom, that they live in a stunted and distorted culture that makes them love their chains — and that the notion the United States could help trigger a democratic revolution by militarily deposing their oppressors was a fantasy — have been proved wrong.

As an advocate of that notion of democratic revolution, I am not surprised that the opposing view was proved false. I am surprised only that it was proved false so quickly …

So we have produced a “democratic revolution” amongst Arabs (not just Iraqis. – Arabs) , and quickly? Is that what he’s saying? Or has he confused himself , and is arguing the opposite, poorly? Reminds me why I don’t read this @&0(#$ anymore.

D. Aristophanes, you’re performing a public service , in taking one for the team . What do you do afterward,…. to heal ? 😉

I love the lumping action going on in the older article. ALL ARABZ ARE TEH SAMEZ0RZ!!!!11 Yeah, tell the actual self-proclaimed Arabs–eg Saudi Arabia, not people from another country with their own nationalism–that we’ve freed “the Arabs” and spurred them to democratic revolution. lolcats all around.
And…in my humble opinion, the moment you use the word “dereliction”–which I’m fairly sure he didn’t even use correctly–you sound like a wannabe-elitist douchebag.

” Here he was in 2005, that glorious year when democracy flowered in Iraq”
Now I see what he meant: Lebanon

Apparently nobody told him about the Orange Revolution . (The probable greater inspiration, not to mention their own, non-Bushian ,ideas. )

“The Sphinx”
“When you can balance a tack hammer on your head, you can head off your foe with a balanced attack” 😉

Ya know, if a pastor “thundered”, that would just be the end of it for me.

Did you watch the same speech as me? Obama said the constitution was stained by slavery, that his grandmother was racist, and that Rev. Wright wasn’t call thaaaaaaat bad.. it’s ridiculous meaningless oratory.

” Did you watch the same speech as me? ”

Apparently not Gary, but I am ashamed to actually be “talking” to you at this late hour. So, I’ll stop.

Why didn’t he demand satisfaction by way of a duel at dawn with the foul villain who dared besmirch the honor of his country?

Probably with thoughts that he was thinking, he could be another dueling-avoiding Lincoln:

The Lincoln affair, in fact, affords a case study in how these matters were resolved—or were not. The trouble began when Lincoln, then a Whig representative in the Illinois legislature, wrote a series of satirical letters under the pseudonym Rebecca, in which he made scathing fun of State Auditor James Shields, a Democrat. The letters were published in a newspaper, and when Shields sent him a note demanding a retraction, Lincoln objected to both the note’s belligerent tone and its assumption that he had written more of them than he had. (In fact, Mary Todd, not yet Lincoln’s wife, is believed to have written one of the letters with a friend.) Then, when Shields asked for a retraction of the letters he knew Lincoln had written, Lincoln refused to do so unless Shields withdrew his original note. It was a lawyerly response, typical of the verbal fencing that often preceded a duel, with each side seeking the moral high ground. Naturally, it led to a stalemate. By the time Lincoln agreed to a carefully qualified apology provided that first note was withdrawn— in effect asking Shields to apologize for demanding an apology—Shields wasn’t buying. When Lincoln, as the challenged party, wrote out his terms for the duel, hopes for an accommodation seemed ended.

The terms themselves were highly unusual. Shields was a military man; Lincoln was not. Lincoln had the choice of weapons, and instead of pistols chose clumsy cavalry broadswords, which both men were to wield while standing on a narrow plank with limited room for retreat. The advantage would obviously be Lincoln’s; he was the taller man, with memorably long arms. “To tell you the truth,” he told a friend later, “I did not want to kill Shields, and felt sure that I could disarm him . . . ; and, furthermore, I didn’t want the damned fellow to kill me, which I rather think he would have done if we had selected pistols.”

#

Did you watch the same speech as me? Obama said the constitution was stained by slavery, that his grandmother was racist, and that Rev. Wright wasn’t call thaaaaaaat bad.. it’s ridiculous meaningless oratory.

Your listening comprehension is as bad as your reading comprehension. Grandmother was not described as a racist, but as someone uncomfortable with race. And you are suggesting the Constitution is not stained by slavery?

And why am I even responding to a Ruppert post?

Does he ever mention where he’s talking about where a democratic revolution happened in the Arab world when oppressors were removed?

And right when Krauthammer was just about to pull the lever for him too. Terrible shame! Here I thought Obama had the war criminal vote all wrapped-up.

Constitution of the United States Article I, Section 2

“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.) (The previous sentence in parentheses was modified by the 14th Amendment, section 2)”

I can’t see why anyone would ever complain about being 3/5ths of a person.

Gary’s right. When the Constitution embraced slavery, that was a good thing.

You know, if Cabbagepounder et. al hadn’t blown their credibility via seven years of massaging the pResidential dickend with their uvulas, columns like this might worry me.

However:

Those who claimed, with great certainty, that … the notion the United States could help trigger a democratic revolution by militarily deposing their oppressors was a fantasy — have been proved wrong.

[Whistles a carefree tune]

Let us take a moment to consider the monumental fucking loser that is Gary Ruppert. He’s literally been trolling the comments of this blog for years, uselessly pasting in GOP talking points for people here to read. Gary? What the hell do you think you’re trying to accomplish here? Did someone tell you this was a blog frequented by independents and “undecideds” who just might vote for a Republican if properly swayed by your “fact is” constant garbage dumps?

I mean, my god, what a waste of time, you dead beat.

I can appreciate the art of the Ruppert parody posts by others, but when then real deal shows up it’s just really, very sad.

“elegantly crafted, brilliantly sophistic justification of that scandalous dereliction. …”

Let’s now, for the sake of the argument, assume that a pastor who has occasionally vented in his sermons, is in fact, a “scandalous dereliction” on par with the Iraq War, Katrina, torture, wiretapping, etc.

What I want to know is where were the “elegantly crafted, brilliantly sophistic justifications” of those events? Was there a single thing over the last eight years to which the adjectives “brilliant” and “elegant” can be applied?

I don’t know about you guys, but this sure smells like an endorsement on Chuck’s part. I mean the “scandalous derelictions” are probably par for the course for any President, but when they are served with deliciously elegant justifications, they are way more palatable, I reckon…

I need to be more studious recognizing the name of certain journalists. My first thought reading the title of the post was “Wait, is this a superdelegate or something?”

You know what I’m really, really pissed about in all this Rev. Wright stuff?

That there’s no video on YouTube of the’ immortal SNL “Lifer Follies” sketch.

I was SO hoping to post a “new video from the Reverend”.

Oh, and Krauthammer? He’s the scumbag who said that the U.S. was well within its rights to sell weapons to Poland and the Czech Republic ’cause we won the Cold War and those countries were “our winnings”. Fuck’im.

Our local “newspaper”, the Springfield, MA Republican, AKA “McCain for President Campaign Headquarters”, has taken to a tag-team approach in their op-ed section. Rolling out the usual suspects, Krauthammer, Cal Thomas, Thomas Sowell, Michael Gerson, et al, they’ll run a hit piece on Obama, like this one, which actually ran today, followed by a fluff piece on McCain, usually pointing what a “moderate” he is, how eagerly he’ll work with people from both sides of the aisle, and how unwavering his principles are. If they were using more talented wingnuts, I’m sure their tactic would work even better than it is, but, unfortunately for them, there aren’t any more talented wingnuts.

Oh, and Krauthammer? He’s the scumbag who said that the U.S. was well within its rights to sell weapons to Poland and the Czech Republic ’cause we won the Cold War and those countries were “our winnings”. Fuck’im.

Indeed. I’m wondering when the hell the awful psychiatrist will go back to tinkering with patients instead of tinkering with which governments the US should topple next. He’d be responsible for the killing of a lot less people, save his depressed patients he drives to suicide.

And why am I even responding to a Ruppert post?

Did you ever have one of those dreams where you get into a really intense debate and you are making a lot of brilliant points and then suddenly you realize that it is probably just a dream, but you keep on arguing anyway since you have nothing better to do?’

Well I have.

Dave, I sympathize with newspaper unhappiness. Here, the Wash Post has turned over its ed-page to the aforementioned Krauthammer, George Will, Michael Gerson, et al. They print David Broder as liberal balance.

Gerson the other day assigned himself the task of explaining why the statements of Falwell & Robertson — that Sept 11 was God’s punishment of the USA for abortion, gays and the ACLU — was different from Rev Wright. The answer: Obama had given financial support to Wright by dropping a donation into the collection plate. Whereas, I guess, Bush was the innocent recipient of the religious right’s largesse.

Do these guys even try anymore?

Dave, didn’t the Republican used to be pretty liberal? Western MA certainly is. When they divide the state into political regions, it usually gets grouped with Cambridge and Somerville as “left field”

A friend of mine who lives in the Connecticut River Valley said something about it being bought out recently by a right wing ideologue.

SpokMod beat me to it.

I do so love the, “damn ragheads is to stupid to has demok’cy!” meme. Who knew that forcing one’s political architecture on others at gun point wouldn’t wok out so well?

Maybe Krauthammer is where Bush got his strawman “some say Ay-rabs can’t handle democracy” from. Bush trots that little concept out in every speech he gives, but for the life of me, I can’t recall anyone else ever having said anythign like that.

g, the only person that I remember suggesting that Arabs are incapable of democracy was Bernard Lewis, but his head has been so far up Bush’s ass through this whole debacle that I doubt that anything that he said was audible.

http://www.slate.com/id/2161800

I love it when white people lecture black people on what their reactions to racism should be. Thanks, Charles!

HAs everybody forgotten this semi-famous anecdote?

About three years ago, I saw Krauthammer flip out in synagogue on Yom Kippur. The rabbi had offered some timid endorsement of peace — peace essentially on Israel’s terms — but peace anyway. Krauthammer went nuts. He actually started bellowing at the rabbi, from his wheel chair in the aisle. People tried to “shush” him. It was, after all, the holiest day of the year. But Krauthammer kept howling until the rabbi apologized. The man is as arrogant as he is thuggish. Who screams at the rabbi at services? For advocating peace?

Our courageous wheelchair warrior sure knows how to stand up to those radical clerics. On Yom Kippur. For advocating for peace.

Pedestrian: The Five College area in the Conn river area is pretty liberal, but there are conservative enclaves. When the paper was The Union News, it regularly ran Molly Ivins and Bob Herbert, as well as some others. Now… they’ll “balance” Michelle Malkin with Broder. Also, Channel 40 was bought a few years ago by Sinclair Broadcasting, famous for their hit piece on John Kerry in ’04.

Who screams at the rabbi at services? For advocating peace?

I hope that he renounced his faith. Otherwise he is as guilty as Barack Obama.

Since the wheeled Kraut can lecture blacks on how they SHOULD react to racism, can I lecture him oh how he should react to being in a wheelchair? I mean, he’s soooo lucky, he gets the best parking spots, he can have wheelchair fights, etc. Hey, this is fun!

A couple of years ago while visiting a friend in the 5 college area (S. Hadley) I saw a rural home flying a big ol’ stars and bars. For a few seconds I thought I had wandered outside the beltway and was back in Virginia. How confused to you have to be to fly a Confederate battle flag in Massachusetts ?

Some people across the street from me fly a rainbow flag over a pirate flag. I love my neighbors.

Barack derangement syndrome

I bet he’s one of those lazy handicapped people too. You know the type. the ones who don’t want to do any work rolling themselves. Chuckles definetely has an electric weelchair. He may even be faking it just to get the good parking spots. This calls for an investigation. Malkin, Malkin . . . anyone?

want = won’t

Why doesn’t Krauthammer just get up out his wheelchair and walk away?

As a left-leaning independent, I have no love for the works or person of Charles Krauthammer. But as a disabled veteran, I think that dissing a disabled person for being disabled is just about the acme of Shitty Personness.

Most posters here seem to be good enough people to not go in for such commentary. I certainly hope that those who do will give themselves and their thoughts a thorough inspection before posting again.

OB is right and I apologize for starting the whole thing rolling with the cheap shot kicking off this post on Krauthammer.

I sincerely appreciate that, Aristophanes. Your apology reflects politeness, self-reflection and self-correction, which, as it happens, are three things the wingnuts lack. 🙂

That being said, your point about Krauthammer’s facility in the construction and propping up of scarecrows and strawmen was quite well made. I certainly have no issue with honest (and vivid) criticism of Krauthammer’s writing, and his disability certainly doesn’t exempt him from that. By all means, chop away at his strawmen wherever you find them.

“Wheels McDouchebag” is the best name for anything ever.