The climate change deniers have their legions of climate change denier trolls out in force, and the trolls have been trashing and bashing the liberal blogosphere.
If there is proof of one hypothesis, one can well understand why climate scientists want to insulate themselves from reactionaries who would waste their time and harass them at every turn.
This is how reactionary wingers divert public attention at a crucial time: Hack into a computer system (illegal by the way), steal 20,000 e-mails (illegal by the way), invent a controversy, start conspiracy rumors, slander a scientist, make news and noise, distract, distract, distract. The bastards are damn good at it too. Witness how teabagging astroturfers derailed the healthcare reform debate. Now they are stalking global climate change (they love their see-oh-two more than life itself).
Right now I am having an argument with a liberal forum that cross-posts my articles. I complained about trolls, but the forum does not believe in censorship. "The trolls should be allowed to embarrass themselves," goes the argument.
I say: “Trolls never feel embarrassment, and intelligent readers don’t need a demonstration.” Furthermore, a forum that enables trolls enables their cause and merely intensifies the distractions with self-defeating tolerance.
Why the hell are liberal bloggers having this argument? Yup, another distraction, another casualty of the climate change deniers and their trolls. The deniers and their trolls have their own blogs and websites; why should we let them hijack and disrupt ours?
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
Kick a Jew Day
I hesitate to make more of this than it really is. Middle School students aren't deep thinkers, if they're thinkers at all and if some idiot kid in a Naples, Florida school thought "Kick a Jew Day" would be a blast, it doesn't necessarily mean that they've even heard of anti-Semitism or that their parents are Aryan Nation followers. The misbegotten event wherein Jewish kids were subject to being kicked last week was a "funny" take-off on "Kick a Ginger Day," which in turn derived from the supremely idiotic "South Park," the show that features a talking turd as part of the cast.
I think it may be a bit much at this point, to tie it to some sinister neo-Nazi or other anti-Semitic group. Still, some boys and girls were kicked and at that age, when peer approval is everything, the humiliation can be expected to matter a lot in their lives.
Although Fox News did comment on the kicking of red heads, I haven't seen an
y mention of the Naples story so far and so it's not fair and balanced to comment on what they might use the story for. I'm sure that there are people who will haul out the old PC straw man and grumble about Jews looking for pity and I'm more sure that some Jewish parents will overreact and call for more than the one-day suspension handed out to 10pre -teens. For my part, I think the Jewish kids have learned a valuable lesson about living in a self-styled Christian Nation: Kick Back!
I had some idle thoughts about printing up some T-shirts and sending them over to Naples, but it's been done.
I think it may be a bit much at this point, to tie it to some sinister neo-Nazi or other anti-Semitic group. Still, some boys and girls were kicked and at that age, when peer approval is everything, the humiliation can be expected to matter a lot in their lives.
Although Fox News did comment on the kicking of red heads, I haven't seen an
y mention of the Naples story so far and so it's not fair and balanced to comment on what they might use the story for. I'm sure that there are people who will haul out the old PC straw man and grumble about Jews looking for pity and I'm more sure that some Jewish parents will overreact and call for more than the one-day suspension handed out to 10pre -teens. For my part, I think the Jewish kids have learned a valuable lesson about living in a self-styled Christian Nation: Kick Back!I had some idle thoughts about printing up some T-shirts and sending them over to Naples, but it's been done.
Alabama's Annual Archaeism
Despite its reputation as the buckle of the Bible Belt, Alabama's de facto state religion is college football. Today will see the ritual battle of our two main denominations in what has come to be known as the "Iron Bowl."
Auburn, located in a southern corner of the state, is a former agricultural school whose campus is a cultural island amid a sea of red state farmlands. The University of Alabama has a truly old campus in urban Tuscaloosa. Both are now premier universities sharing a century's history of big games and cult figures.
Among these is Paul "Bear" Bryant, the man in the houndstooth hat. Besides coaching Alabama to countless victories over the decades, Bryant was the first coach in the Southeastern Conference to recruit Black athletes. In fact, his decision in 1971 was something of a watershed for race relations in the south: by 1973, the entire SEC was integrated, and arch-segregationist George Wallace had opened Alabama's state government to Blacks.
But Bryant's biggest legacy is a tradition of victory. His iconography is ubiquitous; he is a patron saint to millions, always pictured wearing the hat. Indeed, Alabama's religion has created quite the consumer kitsch-culture, with flags mounted on vehicles year-round and large stickers proclaiming allegiances; but the big, recent trend is simply a magnetic sticker of the hat. Far less common are elephants, which were the team mascot long before Bryant was their coach.
Auburn fans have no shortage of this crass, commercial stuff either, and are never ashamed to display it with proud prominence. Upon entering the state, you will find it the color schemes of both teams everywhere, even in the most inappropriate places.
These bottles are incredibly common throughout the state. I've never found one that wasn't enshrined like a holy relic on mantle, shelf, or windowsill:
Alabama has the most national championships of any college team. Auburn has its share of glories, and among them is a (possibly apocryphal) game in which an eagle soared over the stadium as the team won a huge comeback upset of Alabama. The story led to Auburn's somewhat unique position of having two mascots: they are the Auburn Tigers, but the school keeps a live (rescued!) eagle on display.
The name for their rivalry, "Iron Bowl," is an archaeism. For decades, the game was held in neutral territory at Legion Field in Birmingham; apart from a sad Civil Rights legacy, the city is best known for having once been a major steel producer. Today, the largest foundry is a museum and concert location with a reputation for being haunted by the ghosts of non-union workers, but the name remains attached to this perennial battle. Perhaps it is fitting, as American football is a game of the industrial age.
Moreover, football is a creation of marketing. As I explained, both teams reinforce their rivalry with every sort of consumable. An exceedingly small sample of Alabama residents have ever visited, much less attended either university, yet I have seen couples break up and friendships end over this game. Tribalism is rampant, and encouraged.
Thus the Iron Bowl is our archaeic ritual sacrifice; it is surrounded by an industry of charms, wards, and icons. Despite the involvement of a Crimson Tide, precious little blood is spilt by these latter-day gladiators, who wear layers of high-impact plastic and protective padding. The church of football does not want victims, but fans; the libation is Gatorade and the offering is sweat.
If you visit this state, bear one cultural rule in mind: there are only two denominations of our state religion, and they are always at war. Rumors of a third option persist in the northern reaches around Huntsville, but these folk are held harmless cranks by most -- and heretics by some. Avoid a lynching by leaving your orange-and-white color schemes at home.
Auburn, located in a southern corner of the state, is a former agricultural school whose campus is a cultural island amid a sea of red state farmlands. The University of Alabama has a truly old campus in urban Tuscaloosa. Both are now premier universities sharing a century's history of big games and cult figures.
Among these is Paul "Bear" Bryant, the man in the houndstooth hat. Besides coaching Alabama to countless victories over the decades, Bryant was the first coach in the Southeastern Conference to recruit Black athletes. In fact, his decision in 1971 was something of a watershed for race relations in the south: by 1973, the entire SEC was integrated, and arch-segregationist George Wallace had opened Alabama's state government to Blacks.
But Bryant's biggest legacy is a tradition of victory. His iconography is ubiquitous; he is a patron saint to millions, always pictured wearing the hat. Indeed, Alabama's religion has created quite the consumer kitsch-culture, with flags mounted on vehicles year-round and large stickers proclaiming allegiances; but the big, recent trend is simply a magnetic sticker of the hat. Far less common are elephants, which were the team mascot long before Bryant was their coach.Auburn fans have no shortage of this crass, commercial stuff either, and are never ashamed to display it with proud prominence. Upon entering the state, you will find it the color schemes of both teams everywhere, even in the most inappropriate places.
These bottles are incredibly common throughout the state. I've never found one that wasn't enshrined like a holy relic on mantle, shelf, or windowsill:
Alabama has the most national championships of any college team. Auburn has its share of glories, and among them is a (possibly apocryphal) game in which an eagle soared over the stadium as the team won a huge comeback upset of Alabama. The story led to Auburn's somewhat unique position of having two mascots: they are the Auburn Tigers, but the school keeps a live (rescued!) eagle on display.The name for their rivalry, "Iron Bowl," is an archaeism. For decades, the game was held in neutral territory at Legion Field in Birmingham; apart from a sad Civil Rights legacy, the city is best known for having once been a major steel producer. Today, the largest foundry is a museum and concert location with a reputation for being haunted by the ghosts of non-union workers, but the name remains attached to this perennial battle. Perhaps it is fitting, as American football is a game of the industrial age.
Moreover, football is a creation of marketing. As I explained, both teams reinforce their rivalry with every sort of consumable. An exceedingly small sample of Alabama residents have ever visited, much less attended either university, yet I have seen couples break up and friendships end over this game. Tribalism is rampant, and encouraged.
Thus the Iron Bowl is our archaeic ritual sacrifice; it is surrounded by an industry of charms, wards, and icons. Despite the involvement of a Crimson Tide, precious little blood is spilt by these latter-day gladiators, who wear layers of high-impact plastic and protective padding. The church of football does not want victims, but fans; the libation is Gatorade and the offering is sweat.
If you visit this state, bear one cultural rule in mind: there are only two denominations of our state religion, and they are always at war. Rumors of a third option persist in the northern reaches around Huntsville, but these folk are held harmless cranks by most -- and heretics by some. Avoid a lynching by leaving your orange-and-white color schemes at home.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
HAPPY THANKSGIVING 2009
Yeah, yeah, I know! Same stoopid turkey photo as last year, but this year is my turn to prepare the family feast for twenty hungry humans, an armful … even for an (O)CT(O)PUS. Nevertheless, I would be remiss in my duties (Cthulhu forbid!) if I forgot to wish my fellow beachcombers a very Happy Thanksgiving!
So here is a holiday recipe for all fellow beachcombers and visiting trolls, my very own:
SWEET NOODLE PUDDING
4 eggs
1 cup orange juice (or any juice)
4 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
Beat the eggs lightly and mix in the rest of the ingredients. Then add:
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup candied citrus peels
1/2 cup raisons
Set aside this mixture and prepare the following:
1/2 lb (8oz) wide egg noodles
8 cups boiling water
1 teaspoon salt
Boil the noodles in water with salt for 7 to 8 minutes. Drain the noodles. To the mixture that has been set aside, add:
6 tablespoons margarine (cut into slices)
Add the noodles to the mixture and mix until the hot noodles have melted the margarine and all ingredients are evenly distributed. Transfer to a well-buttered bread pan and bake at 400 F for 45 minutes. This recipe is faster and easier than it looks and well worth it. Yumm!
Palining around with Terrorists
"I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead"said Miss Maverick to Barbara Walters, thinking as she does in lock step with the PsychoChristian Book of Revelation terrorist Church. At least this time she's speaking in almost understandable English rather than in tongues.
Like many euphemism addicts, she seems as well to avoid the use or the word Jew as though it were a socially offensive term, which it is not, but neither is it surprising that she has problems with Judaism, seeing Jews as anything but pawns or with the notion of a government that derives from the will of the governed.
I have to ask myself how we get a Maverick, a renegade or anything but a victim of another sort of politico-religious correctness in Sarah Palin. I have to ask myself how many Americans really want our foreign policy derived from John of Patmos or even Billy "The Jews are ruining the country" Graham, currently suffering from Alzheimer's, who she recently visited to get some guidance about what the Bible commands our country to do in Iraq, Iran and Israel.
I actually get a lot of amusement out of this breathless 2000 year "any minute now" wait, although horrors like Jonestown do put a damper on it. But face it, Palin is a rogue only in the sense of being an unprincipled, deceitful, and unreliable person; a scoundrel or rascal. She hasn't separated herself from the herd of regimented thinking, she's embraced myth as truth, defined a demented dogma as independent thinking and yearns for absolute theocratic rule as much as any medieval Pope -- and lower taxes for the rich who are more favored by God, of course. Most and worst of all, she is part of and is informed by a cult anticipating the greatest act of terrorism since Noah's Flood.
Sorry Sarah, Jesus has been here and gone. I'm not interested in your ambition to promote a war in the Middle East, I think Israel should stop building settlements in occupied land and that people should live in peace. I'm not converting to your hare-brained death cult and I'll be damned if I'm going to let you throw away two centuries of secular democracy. I'm not "flocking" to Israel, nor is anyone else and if there is some damned god who wants a war there, he'll have to start it himself.
Dana Perino and Junkyard Wars
So Dana Perino still isn't bowing out of her mission to defame the President who employs her. It's too breathlessly important to talk down the America that pays her salary; pays her excellent medical and dental plan that she would deny us, to bother to be consistent with what she just finished saying or with objective reality. Why should she, after all? She's preaching to her own demented and dishonest choir, none of whom is any smarter or more honest than she is.
A few days ago, it was wrong for President Obama to play golf because "there's a war on." Yesterday it was just fine to call him to task for not calling a shooting "terrorism" even though "there's a war on." Criticizing the President in time of "war" is only treason when the President is of their tribe, you know and it's never treason when Fox does it. Anything goes, you see, when you're blond and perky. Anything -- even forgetting that the 9/11 attacks were not only on George W. Bush's watch, but that George W. Bush wasn't actually watching and had effectively shot down those who were. But hey, that was history and history is a junkyard from which you take parts and assemble your own truth.
So why is it so important, other than for reasons of creating a religious war, to label the Fort Hood murders terrorism? So that she can pretend Bush was a protector and Obama is not. She needs a "terrorist" attack to create a false equivalence no matter how outrageously unequal it may be. In her little mind, your little mind will accept that the billions of dollars of destruction and the 3000 or so lives is equivalent to an American officer going wacko and shooting up his fellow soldiers and therefore Barack Obama is a failure.
What's in a name? Everything, it seems. The difference between death by friendly fire and terrorism is all in the politics of the beholder, whether or not the fire is friendly. If someone "fragged" his commanding officer, it's not terrorism and if Pat Tillman was shot by his own men, that's not terrorism either. Charles Manson isn't a terrorist, even though his mission was to strike terror into the hearts of white people and start a war. David Berkowitz wasn't a terrorist although he terrorized New York -- and why? A political football is not a football until someone kicks it and the Grand Old Fox has no interest in doing so unless it serves their need of supporting Republicans and toppling Democrats.
I've seen famous comedians booed off the stage for making mild jokes about George Bush, I've had death threats for saying Reagan had serious flaws. Where is the outrage now? Where is the response to such amateurish, clumsy and wildly dishonest propaganda coming, like foul breath, out of the mouths of Fox?
A few days ago, it was wrong for President Obama to play golf because "there's a war on." Yesterday it was just fine to call him to task for not calling a shooting "terrorism" even though "there's a war on." Criticizing the President in time of "war" is only treason when the President is of their tribe, you know and it's never treason when Fox does it. Anything goes, you see, when you're blond and perky. Anything -- even forgetting that the 9/11 attacks were not only on George W. Bush's watch, but that George W. Bush wasn't actually watching and had effectively shot down those who were. But hey, that was history and history is a junkyard from which you take parts and assemble your own truth.
"We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during president Bush's term,"Perino said to Sean 'Insanity' Hannity on Fox last night. The old Fox with the botox face didn't even flinch. She went on to politicize the shootings at Fort Hood by accusing Barack Obama of "politicizing" the shootings at Fort Hood by not calling the act of an American officer "terrorism" in advance of any evidence to back that up other than the man's religion.
So why is it so important, other than for reasons of creating a religious war, to label the Fort Hood murders terrorism? So that she can pretend Bush was a protector and Obama is not. She needs a "terrorist" attack to create a false equivalence no matter how outrageously unequal it may be. In her little mind, your little mind will accept that the billions of dollars of destruction and the 3000 or so lives is equivalent to an American officer going wacko and shooting up his fellow soldiers and therefore Barack Obama is a failure.
What's in a name? Everything, it seems. The difference between death by friendly fire and terrorism is all in the politics of the beholder, whether or not the fire is friendly. If someone "fragged" his commanding officer, it's not terrorism and if Pat Tillman was shot by his own men, that's not terrorism either. Charles Manson isn't a terrorist, even though his mission was to strike terror into the hearts of white people and start a war. David Berkowitz wasn't a terrorist although he terrorized New York -- and why? A political football is not a football until someone kicks it and the Grand Old Fox has no interest in doing so unless it serves their need of supporting Republicans and toppling Democrats.
I've seen famous comedians booed off the stage for making mild jokes about George Bush, I've had death threats for saying Reagan had serious flaws. Where is the outrage now? Where is the response to such amateurish, clumsy and wildly dishonest propaganda coming, like foul breath, out of the mouths of Fox?
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
BYE, BYE, MISS AMERICAN PIE - BYE, BYE TO LIBERAL MEDIA
Act 1: Last August, Comcast removed MSNBC from its Digital Starter Package and moved it to one of its premium offerings. Of course, Fox News remained in the basic Starter Package because Comcast is a conservative media conglomerate and wants to spread the Fox-Beck-Hannity-Billo message. According to beachwriter429 at Daily Kos:
Act 2: Some Daily Kos readers in the Jacksonville area ganged up on Comcast with a letter writing campaign. In response, Comcast restored MSNBC to all customers in the Jacksonville area and sent this reply (excerpt):
Except for the fact that Comcast customers in the suburban Philadelphia area still paying extra for MSNBC (and how many other markets that we don’t know about). Comcast = L I A R S !
Act 3: Advance the calendar to November 4, 2009. In the Pittsburgh area, MSNBC has been replaced by the Golf Channel. When an irate Comcast subscriber called to complain, this is what Comcast said:
Act 4: If you can’t beat them, buy them out:
Does this mean bye, bye to Keith Olbermann? Bye, bye to Rachel Maddow? Bye, bye to liberal media? Sorry folks, but this wave of media consolidations spells b-a-d * n-e-w-s ! Once MSNBC is gone, that leaves only us, the netroots community, to keep the liberal flame from flickering out.
What this means is that one now has to pay an additional $17 per month ($204 per year) to view anything progressive enough to even remotely balance out FNC's right wing extremism (…) The neighbor who alerted me to the situation is an attorney, and he thinks this appears to be to be an FCC/Fairness Doctrine violation.
Act 2: Some Daily Kos readers in the Jacksonville area ganged up on Comcast with a letter writing campaign. In response, Comcast restored MSNBC to all customers in the Jacksonville area and sent this reply (excerpt):
Thank you for the email. First and foremost, I wanted to let you know that today we restored access to MSNBC for all of our digital cable customers in the Jacksonville, Florida area (…) Please know that this week's disruption was not at all targeted at MSNBC - it was due to some changes to our digital channel security system (…) This issue was isolated to the Jacksonville area, and we have no reason to believe that Comcast customers in any other areas experienced any interruptions of MSNBC.
Except for the fact that Comcast customers in the suburban Philadelphia area still paying extra for MSNBC (and how many other markets that we don’t know about). Comcast = L I A R S !
Act 3: Advance the calendar to November 4, 2009. In the Pittsburgh area, MSNBC has been replaced by the Golf Channel. When an irate Comcast subscriber called to complain, this is what Comcast said:
I was told that at my level of service, basic cable, it is no longer available. No way can I afford to upgrade my service, (and nor would I....it is Comcast after all) so no more MSNBC for me (…) The agent on the phone also told me that Comcast had nothing to do with this decision, but that because MSNBC is a national cable network, it was no longer available in a non digital format. Oddly enough, CNN and Fox are still in the same place.
Act 4: If you can’t beat them, buy them out:
General Electric and the cable giant Comcast have moved closer to a deal giving control of NBC Universal to Comcast (…) After a series of meetings last week, the two companies reached a tentative agreement on Friday over the main points of a deal, these people said. Comcast would own about 51 percent of NBC Universal, contributing several billions of dollars in cash and its own stable of cable networks to the new venture (...) Other potential bidders have surfaced, including the News Corporation.
Does this mean bye, bye to Keith Olbermann? Bye, bye to Rachel Maddow? Bye, bye to liberal media? Sorry folks, but this wave of media consolidations spells b-a-d * n-e-w-s ! Once MSNBC is gone, that leaves only us, the netroots community, to keep the liberal flame from flickering out.
Rogue numbers
Would it really surprise anyone these days to see Fox News using stock footage from the Oklahoma land rush to show how many people "spontaneously" show up at a Fox planned and organized rally? It certainly doesn't surprise me when they fail to check out stories that appear on web sites or refuse to apologize when caught inventing stories like some city in Michigan "banning" Christmas. They know we're gullible and they know that if feels good to believe, it will be believed.
Still I'm ever amazed at their confidence in our gullibility and unquestioning belief. How many Fox friends looked at this and bothered to do the arithmetic? How many just saw it and thought " hey, that Sarah's gonna be our next President!"
Amazing.
Still I'm ever amazed at their confidence in our gullibility and unquestioning belief. How many Fox friends looked at this and bothered to do the arithmetic? How many just saw it and thought " hey, that Sarah's gonna be our next President!"
Amazing.
PARTITIONING THE INTERNET: WHERE PARTISANS AND MONOPOLISTS COLLUDE
Just when you thought hyper partisanship couldn’t get any worse, when the country wasn’t bitterly polarized enough, now we learn that there are forces in motion that threaten to divide the Internet. An unholy alliance between a monopolist and a news conglomerate wants to change Cyberspace.
In case you haven’t tracked this story, Rupert Murdoch wants to block Google’s search engine and prevent it from accessing all content from News Corporation. This means no more online access … at least through Google … to Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the Times of London, or other company-owned content. Yes, you guessed it: Murdoch is exploring online payment models to boost revenues and will grant exclusive access to Microsoft’s search engine … in exchange for payment. And Microsoft does not mind hurting Google’s margins.
Of course, the Internet search engine market is not the only place where Google and Microsoft compete head to head. Recently, Google announced a new operating system, Chrome OS, that will compete against Windows in the web-enabled laptop market.
Implications? There is no telling where this all is going and how it will affect the future of the Internet. Does this mean an end to the Information Super Highway as monopolists carve it up to profit themselves? I have my suspicions. What are yours?
In case you haven’t tracked this story, Rupert Murdoch wants to block Google’s search engine and prevent it from accessing all content from News Corporation. This means no more online access … at least through Google … to Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the Times of London, or other company-owned content. Yes, you guessed it: Murdoch is exploring online payment models to boost revenues and will grant exclusive access to Microsoft’s search engine … in exchange for payment. And Microsoft does not mind hurting Google’s margins.
Of course, the Internet search engine market is not the only place where Google and Microsoft compete head to head. Recently, Google announced a new operating system, Chrome OS, that will compete against Windows in the web-enabled laptop market.
Implications? There is no telling where this all is going and how it will affect the future of the Internet. Does this mean an end to the Information Super Highway as monopolists carve it up to profit themselves? I have my suspicions. What are yours?
Monday, November 23, 2009
Fox in the hen house
What the hell Barack Obama was thinking when he appointed Dana Perino to anything at all, I don't know. Raw Story says, with a bit of mockery, that she's staying true to her convictions but although that sort of thing is so often described as virtue, I have to remember that never changing one's mind and never changing the subject is the mark of the fanatic -- to put it politely. What was he thinking when he appointed a hostile and professional anti-regulatory, anti-government propagandist to the Broadcasting Board of Governors? She may cackle like a biddy, but she's a Fox in the hen house for sure.
I haven't heard the hortatory "there's a war on" trope for a while now, but here she is again on Fox News trying to use it to generate that same community spirit we had 65 years ago when there really was a war on that had something to do with national security and not another illegitimate, unnecessary and degenerating quagmire having little to do with anything but the ego of a president who never won anything fairly in his life. I have to wonder if the obscenely perky Ms. Perino actually knows enough about WW II to make a valid comparison.
You'll remember of course that last year as white house deputy press secretary, it came out that she'd never heard of the Cuban missile crisis, but with the arrogance only someone with the strength of conviction of the ignorant can have, she's chastising her boss by saying he shouldn't play golf "when there's a war on." and when unemployment is up - like it was under St. Reagan the infallible. He shouldn't keep the generals waiting she says, not remembering that if Kennedy hadn't keep his generals waiting, Florida might still be radioactive.
Funny stuff anyway, coming from a mouth that used so recently to tell us not to criticize the president when there's a war on. Disgusting stuff when that particular president set and still holds the US record for number of vacation days taken, morning runs, weeks accumulating into months of brush cutting and evenings passing out on the couch -- war or no war. Was Obama hoping to plant an ally of some sort in the Fox den? Sorry, you can feed it like a dog, but a Fox is a Fox.
No, it was OK for Bush to bicycle, jog, cut brush and pass out in front of the TV while hundreds of thousands died and millions were made homeless, It wasn't golf, that elitist game. It was OK for Ronald to sleep all afternoon when unemployment was 10.5% and there was "a war on" in Granada but Obama should not have a break, or get a break either -- because he's Obama.
For someone who clearly remembers the way the warhawks went after Dwight Eisenhower for dithering and playing golf instead of addressing the missile gap that never really was, it's amusing and infuriating at the same time, since his greatest strength, in my opinion, was his resistance to being rushed or bullied by the Generals. It's also amusing to remember that Lyndon Johnson played golf when a far bigger and deadlier war was "on" and you didn't hear much about it from the support-any war-Republicans.
All and all, she's just another yipping Fox Friend, with the annoying self confidence of those born yesterday. She belongs with Fox and along with Malkin and Coulter and giggling Glenn, not working for a government she hates.
What the hell was he thinking?
I haven't heard the hortatory "there's a war on" trope for a while now, but here she is again on Fox News trying to use it to generate that same community spirit we had 65 years ago when there really was a war on that had something to do with national security and not another illegitimate, unnecessary and degenerating quagmire having little to do with anything but the ego of a president who never won anything fairly in his life. I have to wonder if the obscenely perky Ms. Perino actually knows enough about WW II to make a valid comparison.
You'll remember of course that last year as white house deputy press secretary, it came out that she'd never heard of the Cuban missile crisis, but with the arrogance only someone with the strength of conviction of the ignorant can have, she's chastising her boss by saying he shouldn't play golf "when there's a war on." and when unemployment is up - like it was under St. Reagan the infallible. He shouldn't keep the generals waiting she says, not remembering that if Kennedy hadn't keep his generals waiting, Florida might still be radioactive.
Funny stuff anyway, coming from a mouth that used so recently to tell us not to criticize the president when there's a war on. Disgusting stuff when that particular president set and still holds the US record for number of vacation days taken, morning runs, weeks accumulating into months of brush cutting and evenings passing out on the couch -- war or no war. Was Obama hoping to plant an ally of some sort in the Fox den? Sorry, you can feed it like a dog, but a Fox is a Fox.
"In fact, I think President Obama has already played golf more than President Bush did in eight years. I don't begrudge him for playing golf but you have to understand when you have the B roll of the video that shows the president playing golf while there is a 10.2% unemployment rate, while his senators are basically having to twist arms in order to get this party line vote, while KSM is headed to New York City for trials, while we have the Gitmo detainees possibly coming to Illinois — they have to understand that people could look at that and say, 'Oh, and by the way General McChrystal has been waiting 86 days for a decision about Afghanistan."She twittered to Steve Doocy of Fox and Friends infamy. This, from someone who told us that global warming would be good because fewer people would get colds and who doesn't remember how unemployment went from just over 6% to as high as it is now under St. Reagan the faultless.
No, it was OK for Bush to bicycle, jog, cut brush and pass out in front of the TV while hundreds of thousands died and millions were made homeless, It wasn't golf, that elitist game. It was OK for Ronald to sleep all afternoon when unemployment was 10.5% and there was "a war on" in Granada but Obama should not have a break, or get a break either -- because he's Obama.
For someone who clearly remembers the way the warhawks went after Dwight Eisenhower for dithering and playing golf instead of addressing the missile gap that never really was, it's amusing and infuriating at the same time, since his greatest strength, in my opinion, was his resistance to being rushed or bullied by the Generals. It's also amusing to remember that Lyndon Johnson played golf when a far bigger and deadlier war was "on" and you didn't hear much about it from the support-any war-Republicans.
All and all, she's just another yipping Fox Friend, with the annoying self confidence of those born yesterday. She belongs with Fox and along with Malkin and Coulter and giggling Glenn, not working for a government she hates.
What the hell was he thinking?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)