Sadly, No!

The right-wing Boston Herald columnist Jules Crittenden clearly needs a refresher in his sensitivity training:

You Say Ug, I say Ugh … Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off

Romanian skull dated to plus 35,000 years could be the product of Human-Neanderthal intercave love. I’m guessing this kid got beat up a lot. By humans and Neanderthals. Because cave children can be cruel.

Posted by jules crittenden at 11:46 PM

Above: Right-wing Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby

Wingnut-welfare wunderkind Stephen Spruiell, of the NRO’s Media Blog, falls into a time warp and emerges back in those heady post-college days of late 2002:

Cherry-Picking Defined
01/15 03:53 PM

The Washington Post has decided that, as a matter of fact, the Bush administration “cherry-picked” intelligence to justify a war with Saddam:

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s case will put on display the secret strategizing of an administration that cherry-picked information to justify war in Iraq and reporters who traded freely in gossip and protected their own interests as they worked on one of the big Washington stories of 2003.

Cherry-picking: Given a preponderance of intelligence suggesting that a hostile and unstable dictator has weapons of mass destruction and a few scattered reports suggesting otherwise, deciding not to give the madman the benefit of the doubt.

Actually, we can kind of let Valerie Plame answer that. She was, after all, the head of the CIA’s Iraq Operations Group until that unfortunate incident happened, about which many remain quite curious.

THE PRESIDENT, in an interview given to 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley, January 14, 2007:

The minute we found out they didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, I was the first to say so. Scott, all I can do is just tell the truth, tell people exactly what’s on my mind, which is what I do. [Emphasis added.]

Sadly, No!:

THE PRESIDENT: We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They’re illegal. […] But for those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they’re wrong, we found them. [May 29, 2003.]

I see that some amateur chemist in Colorado has managed to combine paste, Klonopin, battery acid, and methamphetamine into one potent cocktail, with Jeff Goldstein as the guinea pig. (Hey, it’s a paying job!)

But doesn’t he worry about side effects? Logorrhea-cha-cha-cha, constipation, shriveled cock? While the last may cause him some concern, on the whole.. nah, probably not.

Nah, he doesn’t care; someone else (his wife, mental ward orderlies, TBogg) is always there to clean up the mess:

Fine…now that Goldstein has left I have to pick up the empties, dump the ashtrays, count the silverware, see what he stole out of the medicine cabinet…

tbogg | Homepage | 01.04.07 – 7:17 pm | #

I read somewhere today that DNC ’08 will be in Denver. Hmm, when someone is arrested for trying to carry in axehandles or concealed handguns, or is found harrassing conventioners’ toddlers by commenting about their cocksucking lips, or is hogtied and shot-up with Thorazine for trying to slap strangers with his cock, we’ll know whose mugshot to look for.

Above: “Are you threatening me? I am the Great
Cockslappio! I need Klonopin for my piehole!”

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WHAT A GAME. WOW.

I almost feel bad that the Pats beat San Diego tonight. Other than ‘Roids Merriman, the Chargers are a total class act, from LaDanian Tomlinson to Antonio Gates to Philip Rivers to Jamal Williams. They are a ridiculously talented team who deserved a better fate. On the plus side, this loss might prompt the Chargers’ brain trust to fire Marty “I’m going to blow a timeout by challenging an obvious fumble” Schottenheimer.

Also, is anyone watching 60 Minutes’ interview with Bush right now? For the most part, I think it’s pretty damn excellent journalism. You get the impression that, at times, Bush has finally started to understand the disastrous consequences his decisions have had for hundreds of thousands of people. But just before you start to sympathize with him, he says something completely ridiculous that reminds you of why you hated him so much in the first place. Thoughts?

UPDATE: Also, the Duke Lacrosse players case is just fucking disgraceful. I cannot believe that Nifong still has a job.

UPDATE II: Dear David Beckham,

Run, homey. Just run. Do not ever listen to anything Tom Cruise has to tell you. Please.

UPDATE III: Andy Rooney, you are a senile and pathetic idiot. I literally cannot believe that you are dedicating your entire segment tonight to complaining about sports team nicknames. OH. MY. GOD. You have to be shitting me. Furthermore, you actually wasted everyone’s time by whining about a sports article that allegedly didn’t tell you what sport it was covering. If you have looked closely at the headline, you would have noticed the words “NHL Roundup” appeared right above it. To normal non-retarded people, this is an indication that the story is about a hockey game. I repeat: you are an absolute idiot.

The Left Coaster has retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner watching the military buildup around Iran.

Above: Gardiner

The details are key, but here’s a hefty excerpt:

It is possible the White House strategy is just implementing a strategy to put pressure on Iran on a number of fronts, and this will never amount to anything. On the other hand, if the White House is on a path to strike Iran, we’ll see a few more steps unfold.

First, we know there is a National Security Council staff-led group whose mission is to create outrage in the world against Iran. Just like before Gulf II, this media group will begin to release stories to sell a strike against Iran. Watch for the outrage stuff.

The Patriot missiles going to the GCC states are only part of the missile defense assets. I would expect to see the deployment of some of the European-based missile defense assets to Israel, just as they were before Gulf II.

I would expect deployment of additional USAF fighters into the bases in Iraq, maybe some into Afghanistan.

I think we will read about the deployment of some of the newly arriving Army brigades going into Iraq being deployed to the border with Iran. Their mission will be to guard against any Iranian movements into Iraq.

As one of the last steps before a strike, we’ll see USAF tankers moved to unusual places, like Bulgaria. These will be used to refuel the US-based B-2 bombers on their strike missions into Iran. When that happens, we’ll only be days away from a strike.

The White House could be telling the truth. Maybe there are no plans to take Iran to the next level. The fuel for a fire is in place, however. All we need is a spark. The danger is that we have created conditions that could lead to a Greater Middle East War.

When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I’m feeling sad; I simply go over to Blogs For Bush, and then I don’t feel so bad.

A Response to the Conservative Atheist
By Mark Noonan at 03:29 AM

Heather MacDonald – whom I think I’ve heard of before, but I’m not entirely sure about that – has apparently caused a bit of a stir by coming out as a conservative atheist. I’ve known a couple such, and I’ve found them to actually be far more libertarian than conservative, and generally “stuck” as conservatives because anything other than overt leftism is rejected by everything non-conservative. In short, a lot of libertarians are conservatives because no one else will have them.

[…]

I wanted to offer some resistance to the assumption of conservative religious unanimity. I tried to point out that conservatism has no necessary relation to religious belief, and that rational thought, not revelation, is all that is required to arrive at the fundamental conservative principles of personal responsibility and the rule of law.

The problem here is that while personal responsibility and the rule of law are very important, they are not the fundamental conservative principles.

That’s the problem! That’s what we’ve been saying! As everyone knows who has even a nodding-hello-at-the-train-station relationship with reality — who even sees reality down at the dog park sometimes and is like, ‘Hey, what’s up? And how did Rusty do at the vet?’ — the fundamental principles of contemporary American conservatism are roughly as listed:

• The unrestricted exercise of wealth

• The diminishment of Constitutional liberties

• Attempts toward a de facto one-party state headed by an unaccountable sovereign

• The maintenance and/or concoction of a series of existential ‘threats to civilization’ — e.g. the late Cold War, ‘the liberals,’ the International Jewish Muslim Conspiracy

• Irrationalism — i.e. a politics of instrumental ‘stances’ that freely contradict one another, which is unaccountable to universal moral claims

• Sucking

• Being a bunch of incredible chumpwads who suck

• Anti-intellectualism — i.e. hostility to science, culture, jurisprudence, diplomacy, modern philosophy, the social sciences, and all other modes of human attainment save technology, rhetoric, and warfare

In other words, the fundamental principles of contemporary American conservatism are not only viciously stupid, but anti-conservative.

But is Mark about to pour a bucket of icy asparagus pee all over this fragile moment of accord? Why, yes. Yes he is:

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Dinesh D’Souza has written the most meretriciously stupid, slovenly, and self-preening book in the history of… Oh no wait, that’s this one. Or maybe this one or this one.

Actually, maybe it’s this one.

But D’Souza’s is right up there, such that even teh Ace of Spades smells something whiffy about it.

Above: A lecture on mores from a
man who slept with Ann Coulter.

Dinesh D’Souza D’umbs D’own D’obson
—Ace

Hollywood and left-wing university types are to blame for Muslim rage and, therefore, 9/11.

It’s somewhat unfair to deem a book a cynical attempt at troglodytic pandering without reading it, but I’m comfortable making that call.

Us too! Us too! Ace and us are friends now!

But right at that moment, as though sensing the warmth and comity, he had to immediately turn around and throw a mongo Ace spaz:

D’Souza’s thesis is really no different than lefties who claim we must bow and prostrate to Allah — and oh yeah, let the Muslims kill six million more Jews while we’re at it — and subcontract our foreign policy to Islamists in the interests of “peace.”

And we were like, Ace, dude, you can say what you want about us, but when you start picking on Kevin Drum, that’s where we draw the line…

‘Crunchy Con’ Rod Dreher, frequently seen at NRO’s The Corner, has come out against the war.

Dan Riehl, frequently seen shouting obscenities at passing cars, is unimpressed:

Another NRO Poseur Unmasked

It continues to amaze me how the Right so often bucks up admittedly fine, talented and intelligent young men as the would be sages of their age by giving their words such notoriety, when they are so lacking in deeds other than writing – read experience and genuine maturity.

You don’t say.

[…]

In my essay, I talked about how the conduct of the war was what alienated me. That includes the falsehoods and half-truths told to get us into this mess — for example, the things we were told back in 2002 by this administration and took on good faith, which we ought to have been far more skeptical of.

What things, Mr. Dreher? Do you even know anything about the real world? Do you think that because a mostly clear and definitive answer to everything you’ve ever researched or written about is available through some wiki or text, that the answers to precisely what a real-world enemy is doing, or has said or plotted behind closed doors, is readily available to you because you’re, you know, John Wayne, The Avengers, and the President of the United States all wrapped up into one?

If you believe that this President didn’t attempt to learn everything he could about pre-war circumstances and then subsequently convey and act upon them as best he could, you’re not only immature in your reasoning, you’re a fool. Either that, or simply someone who has been spending too much time poking around NPR.

It goes on for a bunch more paragraphs. Of all writing in English, Dan’s is the best at conveying an impression of anger and halitosis under a bare light bulb.

Were there difficult decisions to be made? Yes. Do some, or even several, now, with the benefit of hindsight, appear to have been wrong? Sure! So what? There are few if any truly difficult real world endeavors wherein that isn’t the case. Have you experienced enough of them, or simply written of some? Or maybe you acted them out on a pod cast for NPR?

Do you take apart the post-war standing army in Iraq to head off hostility as it was the tool used to subjugate 80% of that nation’s population? Or do you leave it in place because it could suddenly be trusted to secure the peace and not almost immediately overthrow any new government the moment America’s back was turned? Consult Lexus Nexus, or your encyclopedia, Mr. Dreher, prove to me you could have found that answer four years ago … I’ll wait.

Is this President a mortal human capable of making a misjudgment? Is Donald Rumsfeld? Sure! Again, so what? Aren’t we all likely to err, most especially when situations are so complex and dynamic as within a troubled Middle-eastern nation during time of war?

[…]

Go read or write a book, or something. You certainly don’t have what it takes to fight, or even help fight a difficult war. With benefit of hindsight, I’m forced to assume you never really did.

Shorter Dan Riehl: “Sure, it’s easy to support Bush when he seems to be in the right. But backing him when he’s wrong — well, that’s what separates the men from the boys.”

Above: From case file: Good Taste v. Tastes Good

I let go of a pencil and it dropped and hit the desk. This test has proven to determine with 100% accuracy whether there’s something silly going on over at Blogs For Bush.

The Iraq War: It’s Not About Left vs. Right
By Matt Margolis at 11:29 AM
[…]
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to defend McCain’s record or make a case for it being conservative, moderate, or liberal, but, when it comes to the Iraq war in particular, [Chris] Bowers makes the ridiculous insinuation that support for the Iraq war is the conservative position, while opposing it is the liberal position.

That’s monumentally stupid, all right, but let’s see what else they’ve got today.

The Disgusting Debate
By Mark Noonan at 05:01 AM
[…]
[I]t becomes a matter of prayer to assist me in stifiling the desire to go on a rant, and then find the first Congressional war critic I can and beat the heck out of him. And I’m talking about stringing together paragraphs of obscenities, and then finding such an elected critic of the war and sending him to the hospital…for a month.

Whoah, it looks like someone peed in Mark’s Stride-Rite loafers this morning. Not quite what we’re looking for, though. Hang on a sec.

[pours pencil box on the floor]

Oh yeah, there it is.

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