Visiting The Old Country Buffoon
Yes, the right-wing media is like an all-you-can-eat buffet line: If you’re foolhardy and let yourself be tempted by the mashed potatoes, the mac and cheese, the regular and German potato salad, and so forth, your plate will be full by the time you reach the roast beef and salmon.
A tempting steam-pan of starchy comestibles is Confederate Yankee. Any given item at the top of his page, anytime you look, will be zanily wrong in some flagrant, clownshoe-flapping respect, such that it takes a better man than me to resist loading up on him on the way to, for instance, today’s far more crafty and important argument against habeas corpus by John “Whatsamatta” Yoo. That argument is full of small carefully-spaced holes, like a colander, whereas Confederate Yankee’s arguments typically have a big gaping hole, like when someone moons you from a speeding car.
I suppose what I mean to say is that he got me again. I went to see what he was up to, and voila:
Somebody get a history book for the clueless freshman Senator from Illinois (my bold):
See, I’ve been out of town for a few weeks, and there’s a certain ever-thus uncanniness in coming back and encountering such a title and opening sentence, all right there in plain English right in front of one’s face. It was like the time a few weeks before when I’d wandered into the 7-11 and noticed a copy of New York magazine for the first time in a couple of years. On the cover was Sarah Jessica Parker. It was like. . .how should I explain this? It was like the astonishment you don’t feel when the sun doesn’t explode.
The ‘Obama gaffes’ thing is a right-wing chant of the eternal shifting Now. Its meaning is that ‘gaffes’ are a bad thing as applied to John “Gaffer O’Blabby McGaffalot” McCain, but if you take out ‘John McCain’ and substitute ‘Barack Obama,’ then. . .opposite! The idea, as with all of these chants of theirs, is to repeat it a lot, winkingly for awhile, until they forget that it’s just something they made up to be saucy and pugnacious. Then it becomes true, and thus are worlds created through gradual accretion. It will become a fact through which other facts can be proved.
Anyway, it’s not the smartest thing they’ve ever come up with (that would probably be the Overton Window), but it’s to the wingnuts’ credit that ‘Obama is old’ never made it out of R&D. Not so much to their credit is Mr. Yankee, to whom we now return as he quotes Barack Obama saying something obvious and commonsensically true:
And, you know, let’s take the example of Guantanamo. What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks — for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated.
And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world, and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, “Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims.”
Sensible people are now standing in front of bookcases wearing tweed jackets, soberly whipping off their glasses and putting on their stethoscopes. “Indeed!” they say. “Studies show!” “70% surveyed agree!” Sensible people are not Mr. Yankee, who paces the floor with broken crockery orbiting his head:
For the moment let’s ignore that terrorist recruitment in general (and for al Qaeda in particular) is on the decline and Barack is making up his inconvenient untruths as he goes along, to focus instead on his insistence that Bill Clinton’s flawed policy of treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue is somehow a winning strategy. We’ll use Obama’s own 1993 WTC bombing example to debunk his claim.
It’s quite simple: where is the 1993 World Trade Center bomb-builder? Is he in a U.S prison, as Obama claims? Not even close.
First things first: Linking to a blog post by Walid Phares is a teeny-weeny-winey eeny teensy-weensy, iddle-widdle microscopic jot and tittle of a small amount of not-quite-the-same-thing as actually establishing something as objectively true. This is shown by the principle of mutuality. Example: Ha ha! Contrarily, terrorist recruitment in general (and for al Qaeda in particular) is on the increase!
It is on the increase!
On the increase!
…Look, quoting Barack Obama didn’t actually prove anything, did it? It just sort of impertinently turned the tables, yes? But now I find myself falling into a bad habit by addressing Mr. Yankee directly. It’s like arguing with a doycano. You try to explain yourself, and it just erupts and showers you with molten Doy.
Though grossly neglected in the media, Abdul Rahman Yasin…
Oh right, there was that. And we hadn’t even gotten past the blaming-Clinton-for-9/11 yet. (Inter alia, the preceding citation is signally different from the Walid Phares one in that it includes objective, checkable figures and factual claims.) So anyway, Obama’s gaffe was in saying that we put those responsible for the first World Trade Center attack on trial.
Which we did. Except for the guy Mr. Yankee is mentioning, who fled the country.
Though grossly neglected in the media, Abdul Rahman Yasin conducted the first attempted chemical weapons attack on U.S. soil by terrorists with the 1993 World Trade Center bomb. The bomb that detonated in the WTC garage in 1993 was built by Yasin to create smoke filled with sodium cyanide, which he hoped would rise through elevator shafts, ventilation ducts, and stairwells to suffocate 50,000 people.
Except for the cyanide, of which there wasn’t any. Oddly enough, the belief that there was cyanide in the bomb seems to come from a statement made by the judge during a sentencing hearing in the WTC bombing case. …A sentencing hearing for defendants that, you know, went to trial. Mr. Yankee’s sources for the cyanide claim? Ho ho, we found them here! The primary source is a since-amended Wikipedia entry reproduced at Answers.com. He says its claims are ‘confirmed’ by Wikipedia, if you can believe such a thing. Then as backup, he cites zany-eyed crackpot Laurie Milroie, who has lately become a font of ridicule even among her fellow neocons.
Fortunately for those in the World Trade Center that day, the bomb burned hotter than Yasin expected, and incinerated the cyanide as it detonated instead of spreading it in toxic smoke.
I’m not going to look because it’s late and there simply isn’t time, but this is the kind of thing you tend to find when you check into these recursive Wikipedia citations and Escher ladders of conservatives-citing-conservatives and so forth: Laurie Mylroie might even have been the person who added the ‘cyanide’ line to the original Wikipedia entry. That’s the kind of thing you find.
Yasin fled the United States after the bombing to Iraq, and lived as Saddam Hussein’s guest in Baghdad until the invasion.
I.e., in jail.*
He is still free, and wanted by the FBI.
Once again, Barack Obama is dead wrong on the facts.
Not again!
Come to think of it, the phrase ‘once again, XX INSERT LIBERAL XX is dead wrong on the facts’ is like when you look at the cover of a new Rolling Stone, and Dave Matthews is on it. It’s like the relief you don’t feel when you haven’t stopped banging your head in a car door.
* Update: I’d forgotten to reproduce Mr. Yankee’s link for the phrase, ‘Saddam Hussein’s guest,’ which points to a USA Today story from September 17, 2003. Here’s the executive summary:
U.S.: Iraq sheltered suspect in ’93 WTC attack
By John DiamondWASHINGTON — U.S. authorities in Iraq say they have new evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime gave money and housing to Abdul Rahman Yasin, a suspect in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, according to U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials.
The Bush administration is using the evidence to strengthen its disputed prewar assertion that Iraq had ties to terrorists, including the al-Qaeda group responsible for the Sept. 11 attack. […]
Military, intelligence and law enforcement officials reported finding a large cache of Arabic-language documents in Tikrit, Saddam’s political stronghold. A U.S. intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity said translators and analysts are busy “separating the gems from the junk.” The official said some of the analysts have concluded that the documents show that Saddam’s government provided monthly payments and a home for Yasin.
[…]
Even if the new information holds up — and intelligence and law enforcement officials disagree on its conclusiveness — the links tying Yasin, Saddam and al-Qaeda are tentative.
Solid gold!
Plus, ‘gave money and housing’ is the best-ever framing of putting someone in prison that has ever been attempted. Did you know that the Bush administration is giving money and housing to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? ZOMG.
Someday, this wingnut welfare is gonna end…
mashed potatoes, the mac and cheese, the regular and German potato salad, roast beef and
salmonweiner schnitzel …heck, that’s no buffet, that’s a right wing salad bar!We’re not in Applebee’s any more, Toto.
I’m confused… Is Barack Obama a traitor or just a simple black man? “I Wish I Could Trade Black Folk for Seed Corn” Yankee leaves so many questions unanswered. To wit:
Will Michelle Obama make our daughters get abortions? Will Kareem Abdul Jabbar denounce his black Muslim brother for his anti-$$$ ways and calf-high tube socks? Will and Grace? What?
I look forward to the next installment from Bob “Ask Me About My Man Servant” Owens and it’s righteous righteousness.
Word.
I made a comment at John Cole’s place, saying “I’m just glad that ‘gaffe’ has replaced ‘thrown under the bus’ in the national lexicon.”
Right now, I’d welcome “The Pepsi Generation”, if we could move past “gaffe”. God’s sake, people! Get a damned thesaurus!
Hell, with Jean Schmidt and Mary Matalin straight up lying on the House floor and MSM (respectively) on “China’s drilling in the Gulf of Mexico!!!one!” I’m surprised that Treason-In-Defense-Of-Slavery Yankee is keeping it this mild.
And it’s only June – our national remake of Blazing Saddles has only just begun.
Your CBS link is full of crunchy contrarian goodness:
He is still free, and wanted by the FBI.
Today, when discussing modern American politics with a colleague, I used the phrase “the bifurcation of narrative”.
I was just being a pretentious twat, but really, this sort of crap is what I mean. It’s gone beyond “You choose your reality and I’ll choose mine!” and into “I’ve stopped thinking critically about things and now just believe anything that shows my team we were right all along! Dickfeatures…”
doycano? huh?
I’m afraid “gaffe” is here to stay. Focus groups at Fox News have stated that 2004’s “flip-flopper” had too many syllables.
So, treating terrorism as a military issue is the winning strategy. Of course, all the terrorists are in Iraq now. Just imagine how many will be killed in a hundred years, especially with the recruitment decline.
The “one hundred years’ war” is kinda like a wet dream for wingnuts, isn’t it?
Ramzi Yousef built the 1993 WTC bomb. He lives at the Supermax in Colorado.
Unlike CY, I’m not one for intricate conspiracy theories, but perhaps he can come up with a good explanation for the Murrah bomb being similar in construction to the WTC bomb. And while he’s at it, he might figure out what happened to the terrorists in that case!
Obama Gaffes Again
If ‘gaffe’ has been verbed, we are free to make elaborate shaggy-dog jokes about ‘gaffer tape’.
These will not involve videos of McCain in any way, because that would be ageist.
Treason in support of slavery Yankee posted this piece of excrement to reddit. Yea I know what a douche. But I figured it was because he needed the extra traffic because you guys had stopped whipping his ass on a regular basis. Good to see you giving him the slapping around he so richly deserves.
I notice Confederate Yankee’s blog doesn’t work very well. I tried to visit the homepage to register so I could comment that Yousef was, in fact, in prison in Colorado, but I got nothing but a big fat blank.
The entire site seems to be one big circle jerk of “heh, indeed.”
OT Request to S,N editors: can you re-link, reference, or otherwise work into an upcoming post that guy who wrote about being menaced by a homeless beggar outside an arby’s or something? I think he was a Stalkin Malkin commenter. You know, “I detected approaching footsteps at seven o’clock. I gripped the beer opener keychain for my Saturn and fell back in attack formation…”
Remember that guy? It still makes me laugh. I’d like a nice walk down memory lane. That comment/guy needs to become a stock character, like Gary.
zanily wrong in some flagrant, clownshoe-flapping respect
This made me LOL, in no small part because I thought it said “fragrant”. As in, “pee-yew, that sure stunk up the place”.
uhhh…an’ I hate basketball, or summin. Damn open tabs, messing my pithy comments up.
Dear Cornfederate Yanker: A “gaffe” is not a verb. Neither does it mean “Any statement with which I disagree.”
Thank you.
And shut the fuck up.
If any form of hydrogen cyanide or its salts (ie: sodium cyanide) were used in the bomb, there would’ve been a hella lot more than 6 people killed. But we can’t let facts and reality get in the way of a good story.
Re: gaffe
Wingnuts may not be so keen on using it if they knew its origin. French, of course, more specifically and embarrassingly, Provençal. You know, Southern France, the Mediterranean part.
Re: OTB’s request
This?
doycano? huh?
Try it as duh-cano. Or possibly goy–Kano.
I’m not a combustion engineer, but isn’t HCN produced during high temperature reactions? Wouldn’t the bomb have to burn extra-super duper fricking hot to neutralize the cyanide gas, especially considering that the outward force pushing the cyanide away from the ignition point would mean a fantasically short residence time?
They have left us no choice. We were going to use “gaffe” to describe McCain’s frequent blunders, but since they beat us to the draft pick, we will have to go with “senior moment”.
Yep. The typical way to produce HCN on an industrial scale is to use methane, ammonia and oxygen in a 1200C environment.
Isn’t a “gaffe” a social faux-pas? Like introducing someone by the wrong name, or welcoming the members of APEX to the conference when it’s really the AIPEC conference?
The right wing is now using “gaffe” to mean getting a fact wrong? (even when it’s not true).
It’s actually kind of amusingly apt, because, maybe to this crowd, getting your facts wrong is really only a lapse in manners, not in ethics.
Ye Ole Perfessor linked to this drivel, of course.
I’m not sure these clowns- who spent the better part of the last 8 years shrugging off every Dumbya moment- have picked a winner with the “OMG OBAMAS STOOPID” schtick.
Oh, and since you mentioned the Yoo riffage…
Michael Ramirez is a despicable human being.
Blue Buddha,
Thanks, I should’ve consulted good old corwd sourcing first. What twigged me was that I seemed to recall that HCN was a byproduct of other combustion processes. So it’s pretty well confirmed, using explosives as a way of destroying cyanide gas is about as viable as spreading democracy by profligate use of ordinance.
Ooh, sorry, link.
Of course Obama Gaffes again. He’s one of those latte sipping elitists and probably lurves himself a Gaffe au Lait.
Dictionary definitions of gaffe:
1) Giving unrequested surprise back rub to German Chancellor
2) Getting caught at a debate with mysterious box concealed beneath jacket
2) Wearing $39.99 WalMart polyester parka to Holocaust memorial service at Auschwitz
3) Accidentally shooting friend in the face with shotgun
I think I liked it better without the link.
Holy fucking shit!!!! Fuck you Michael Ramirez. Fuck you with a rusty push-style lawnmower. Fuck you random bits of hazardous biowaste until you get scabies. Flag draped American coffins – not suitable image to protest war, perfectly okay to protest the upholding Habeas Corpus rights. Yeah, come Nov. 11, just remember that all those Veterans gave their lives so we can lock up foreigners indefinitely, without trial, or charge, or oversight of any kind whatsoever.
Exactly. Too bad this wingnut doesn’t even realize the hypocrisy. Ass.
Wearing $39.99 WalMart polyester parka to Holocaust memorial service at Auschwitz
That one still makes me cringe. He also had brown boots and a ski cap on. What a chump.
Michael Ramirez is a despicable human being.
I used to read the dead-tree LA times, and Michael Ramirez’s cartoons would elevate my bloodpressure every time.
Fuck you with a rusty push-style lawnmower.
Jah-jah-jeethuth kuhRAITHT!!!
First off, Dr Walid Phares is not a right wing by American standards. He is a social-democrat. But his analysis and expertise can be used by either the conservatives or the liberals. For example, is exposing human rights abuses in Darfur, Lebanon, Iran a right wing thing? I don’t think so. Please check his books, including the War of Ideas.
Fox News dares not use “flip-flopper” when McCain is on the Republican ticket.
Beth-
Since Confederate Wankee thinks Wikipedia is worth citing, I’ll quote the opening to the entry on Walid Phares:
(sound of record scratching)
That’s all I needed to know. No, exposing human rights abuses in Iran doesn’t make you a wingnut, but don’t be naive to think that the usual crew don’t use human rights as a front to overthrowing anyone they choose. Same stuff we saw w/r/t Iraq and Saddam. Come on. You know this.
I guess I missed the part where Justice Kennedy lied us into an unwarranted, unjustified, illegal invasion and occupation of a sovereign country at the cost of thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, trillions of dollars and the international standing of the U.S.
But it’s really cute the way Ramirez portrays Scalia’s ventriloquism skills. Imagine throwing your voice into a flag-draped coffin! Boffo yocks!
They have left us no choice. We were going to use “gaffe” to describe McCain’s frequent blunders, but since they beat us to the draft pick, we will have to go with “senior moment”.
I would love to see this. Really, it would only take one mention by, say, Chris Matthews. The McCainiacs would get their panties totally bunched and clutch their pearls so hard they’d grind them to dust. It might even push them over the line into shouting “niggerniggernigger” the way you know they want to.
“They have left us no choice. We were going to use “gaffe” to describe McCain’s frequent blunders, but since they beat us to the draft pick, we will have to go with “senior moment”.”
Actually I favor continuing with the meme pioneered by the Bush (mal)administration: FUBAR. Perfectly describes every Republican policy, action, and person.
BWAHAHAHHAHA!!!!
The snark just writes itself.
Good to see you back, Gavin.
And of course, the central to my point line just afterwards
Here’s the new last line of the post
As I said earlier:
BWAHAHAHAHAHAAHHHAHA!!!!
Weren’t these the same guys who claimed Clinton was just wagging the dog when he tried to use military force against what was thought to be bin Laden’s compound in Sudan? Ah, it’s lost in the mists of time.
to put in BASIC terms:
10: IF 20 and 30 are true, then goto 10
15: OBAMA is evil
20: IF Laurie Mylroie hates muslims THEN goto 30
30: Laurie Mylroie >= MICHAEL LEDEEN
40: IF Obama’s evil > Osama, then Cyanide was the case. Goto 15.
BASIC?
Uh-oh, John McCain is trying to use the tubes again!
Just kidding Robert. That is actually the programming language used in most wingnuts’ brains.
I seem to remember Christopher Hitchens bringing up Abdul Rahman Yasin’s time as a guest of Saddam. He too forgot the ‘in prison’ bit.
t4: Nah, most of them upgraded to INTERCAL a while back.
The terrorists use asymmetrical warfare as their tool of choice, and common sense dictates that the proper response is also military in nature.
Wow, it looks like someone went to Colonel Rodeo Rick’s War College N’ Rib Shack.
That “terrorists” or “insurgents” or “other people” “use” asymmetrical warfare is a reaction to a military response and superior military force seems to matter not. I, for one, would love to see an asymmetrical-style offensive.
A terrorist attack is not “asymmetrical warfare”. It has a different goal.
Of course, that it was first produced as satire, is, I’m sure, central to his point.
Wow, just read the Yoo-gotta-be-kidding-me editorial. What a fuckstick. Not only does he ignore the deliberately “non-person” status imposed on the detainees by the administration, he also ignores the fact that they have had six years to figure out what to do with them and failed.
Of course, this is the guy who lapped so eagerly at the Preznit’s ballsack when a useful tool was needed to justify unlimited detention and torture powers. The guy whose every justification and interpretation of law has since been reversed after being exposed to a little healthy sunshine. The guy who was a willing accomplice to one of the biggest power grabs in U.S. history, only by the faction he supports. The guy who has scuttled off to a professorial sinecure at Berkeley.
Yeah, fuck Yoo sideways with a rusty chainsaw.
a good job of synthesizing the story.
This phrase is almost unnaturally apt.
First off, Dr Walid Phares is not a right wing by American standards.
Following Gavin’s Sourcewatch.org link leads us to
“Walid Phares is reported to have long ties to the Lebanese militia group Guardians of the Cedar, which is supportive [of] the hard-line Likud position.”
Re: gaffe
Wingnuts may not be so keen on using it if they knew its origin. French, of course, more specifically and embarrassingly, Provençal. You know, Southern France, the Mediterranean part.
That is precisely why it is an appropriate word to apply to a eurodhimmified latte-sipping urbanite (like “faux pas”), whereas any hypothetical mistakes on McCain’s part could only be described by an honest word of simple Anglo-Scottish origins.
But there aren’t any. Anglo-Scottish culture does not even recognise the concept of a ‘gaffe’.
The North Vietnamese provided McCain with housing and several personal trainers that helped him with stretching exercises !
Shorter This Thread:
[…] he got me again. It was his very next post after this one, and I haven’t even gotten to the rest yet. Here’s our prominent booster of right-wing […]
Anglo-Scottish culture does not even recognise the concept of a ‘gaffe’.
But we *did* give the English language the word feckless. Also “mooncalf” and “blethers”, but “lacking a sufficiency of feck” is pretty much the fReichtard default state.
Furthermore, whenever I read the word “gaffe” used as a verb, I think about what happens to a fish once the angler reels it in. Since the same word is used for the blunt instrument used by said angler, this gives me the happy image of someone like CY being thumped on the skull with a club, which would certainly explain his reasoning skills.
[…] Old Country BuffoonIts meaning is that ‘gaffes’ are a bad thing as applied to John “Gaffer O’Blabby McGaffalot” McCain, but if you take out ‘John McCain’ and substitute ‘Barack Obama,’ then. . .opposite! The idea, as with all these chants, is to repeat it …Sadly, No! – http://www.sadlyno.com […]
[…] Old Country BuffoonIts meaning is that ‘gaffes’ are a bad thing as applied to John “Gaffer O’Blabby McGaffalot” McCain, but if you take out ‘John McCain’ and substitute ‘Barack Obama,’ then. . .opposite! The idea, as with all these chants, is to repeat it …Sadly, No! – http://www.sadlyno.com […]
But we *did* give the English language the word feckless.
Well I’ll be fecked.
[…] Old Country BuffoonIts meaning is that gaffes are a bad thing as applied to John Gaffer OBlabby McGaffalot McCain, but if you take out John McCain and substitute Barack Obama, then. . .opposite! The idea, as with all these chants, is to repeat it … […]
They have left us no choice. We were going to use “gaffe” to describe McCain’s frequent blunders, but since they beat us to the draft pick, we will have to go with “senior moment”.
Why work so hard? I say we just simplify and go with “fucking lie.”
meh.
The North Vietnamese provided McCain with housing and several personal trainers that helped him with stretching exercises !
Ouch. That was cold, dood.
Since the same word is used for the blunt instrument used by said angler, this gives me the happy image of someone like CY being thumped on the skull with a club, which would certainly explain his reasoning skills.
A gaffe usually has a sharp hook at the end for grabbing a fish by the gills and lifting it into the boat.
Even better mental image.