Can any rock drummer legitimately blaze past this shit? I don’t know, man. It makes you feel bad inside.
(Wait for the drums to come in. Krupa dances around in his white shirtsleeves before he grabs the sticks and hits it.)
Gene Krupa – ‘A Good Time’ (1:33)
That 1930s bastard!
Via Roy Edroso I see that the Artist Formerly Known As Tacitus is engaging in some projection and dishonest revisionism all in one typically humorless, tumbleweed-bouncing, blowhard-a-thon of a post.
The Marble Douchebag argues that the netroots, by which he means the Left blogosphere, is a mirror-image of the old John Birch Society, the insanely paranoid extremist group whose direct influence on the conservative Right was considerable in the period from the mid-50s to the mid-60s.
Part of the unintended joke here is that Josh Trevino himself would feel right at home at the average Birch chapter meeting of 1963 or so, but we’ll leave that aside, because it gets better. Tacky further argues that the Birchers — particularly JBS leader Robert Welch — were seen by the “decent right” as too pessimistic, and so were read out of the movement by noble and decent rightwingers like William F. Buckley. In contrast, the netroots have no decent Buckley analog; in fact, they are lead by the most craven and despicable personage evar!!! — Kos. (Yes, you knew it’d come to that: Kos is now and always has been the great white whale to Tacitus’s clumsy and cretinous Ahab.) Would that the netroots had a Buckley! But no! Why, the netroots are so evil that they cling to this crazy Kos person at the expense of more sensible alternatives, like those offered in the pages of The New Republic!
Boys say, “When is he gonna give us some room?” Girls say, “God, I hope he comes back soon.”
Shorter Megan Basham: Although the new Superman movie neglects the third clause of the superhero’s promise to protect “truth, justice and the American way,” the filmmakers make up for thir oversight by employing some obvious comparisons to Christ.
Shorter Cal Thomas: Freedom of speech is a nice idea, in theory. But then, so is prosecuting reporters for treason.
Shorter Jonah Goldberg: The media undermine efforts to protect national security by exposing secret programs that most Americans already assume are in operation.
Shorter Ben Shapiro: Our flag is not merely a piece of cloth, but the Constitution is simply a piece of paper with some lofty words written on it.
Shorter Linda Chavez: It’s time to purge our government of officials who harm national security with their disloyalty to the president.
Shorter Cam Edwards: Thanks to brave Americans like John Bolton, the UN won’t be taking your guns just yet. To learn more, tune in to my radio program.
Shorter Michelle Malkin: Journalists commit their treachery by exploiting weaknesses built into the Constitution.
Shorter Brent Bozell: The media should report both sides of the WMD controversy, and let viewers make up their own minds.
Shorter Terence Jeffrey: Oh, don’t go get me wrong. They’re fine people, they’re good Americans. But they’re content to sit back, maybe debate a flag-burning amendment, maybe consider a gay marriage ban. They’re good, fine people, Stuart. But they don’t know what the Mexicans are doing beneath the soil.
Shorter Tony Blankley: If we nuked Iraq, we’d gain the early exit craved by limp-wristed Democrats and the triumphant victory demanded by Republicans.
Shorter John Stossel: All discrimination lawsuits are as farcical as the one brought by the man who didn’t get hired at Hooters.
Shorter Kathleen Parker: Many Republicans, including a Congressman, have accused the New York Times of treason but, on the other hand, some liberals out there have said that Bush is evil. I’ll just wait here, above the fray, until someone with a cool head comes along to rescue us.
Shorter Alan Reynolds: As a libertarian, I think it’s outrageous that Michigan would bar pot smokers from legally driving.
It says that embedded Atlas Shrugs YouTube video is disabled by request. Golly, why?
But links work! Here’s Pamela!
Ambassador Bolton calling; please hold for Ambassador Bolton.
[Catch and screen-grab from Marita.]
Retardo adds: Empire strikes back, Media Matters! And just when you thought you had the upper hand. Once again, Sadly, No! Inc. Ltd. NGO .org International displays its superior wingnut-presentation skillz!
Courtesy of Sonic in comments, Alexander Cockburn’s latest Hitchens gossip:
The recent memorial for long-term New York Review co-editor Barbara Epstein, sadly felled by cancer on June 15, was disfigured by an unseemly outbursts from Christopher Hitchens. There was a list of invitees for the private ceremony and C. Hitchens — a sometime NYT contributor  was not on the list. He implored to be admitted, and some misguidedly decent soul gave him the green light.
Visibly taken with drink, in the estimate of at least one observer, Hitchens showed up and soon made his way to Jean Stein, a close friend of Barbara Epstein, also editor of Grand Street in recent years. Hitchens spared Stein the habitual presentation of his hairy cheek but made a low, facetious bow and offered his hand.
Stein icily declined, saying she had no desire to shake hands with him for many reasons, not least the fact that Hitchens had attacked one of her best friends, Edward Said, while he was on his death bed.
As Hitchens retreated, someone remarked to him, “So your glorious war has turned out to be a total disaster, hasn’t it?”
“It is glorious,” the sodden scrivener blared, “and it IS my war because it needed Paul Wolfowitz and myself to go and convince the President to go to war.”
As mourners digested this megalomanic outburst, Hitchens continued, “And we are going to kill every Al Qaida terrist and Baathist in the country and that’s a good thing. They need to be killed and we will kill them.”
If this account is true (and there really is no reason to think it’s not), then Sonic is right: it changes things. We were wrong — Hitchens was not the opportunistic jackass journalist we’d thought; he was an active instigator.
Forgive me, but this makes him even more interesting — though of course in a very morbid sense. With Cockburn’s latest bit of information it is clear that the arc of Hitchens’s career is even more classically tragic than we’d thought. How did Hitchens get to this point? What or who caused his Darth Vader-ish turn? When, precisely, did he go “David Horowitz”?
Since the President came out and blasted the NY Times for endangering national security by reporting that the government was…you know, bank transactions and all that, with no oversight, like a runaway train never goin’ back, wrong way on a one-way track, the sounds of peepers and crickets have settled in at Chumpline and Malkin.com.
Relative peepers and crickets: Malkin is reduced to hate-blasting anti-war demonstrators, while Powerline is in its usual between-issues paper-shuffling mode.
Hm. What’s up at Little Green Footballs?
Sure guys, Scaree Moozlumzz, whatever.
Now why (I say) why is it that these big right-blogs will simultaneously snap onto an issue, raising a shriek-chorus against Mexicans and immigrants, against John Murtha and ‘cutting-and-running’ in Iraq, against the NY Times, or any of a number of others, always in advance of a big speech by the President or a big GOP ruckus in the House or Senate — and after which the issue immediately goes to the back burner?
Howhowhow? How could this be? It strains one’s powers of comprehension.
What’s that buttery smell? Oh, it’s Powerline:
My favorite ambassador, take 2
On Monday night I quickly wrote up my account of the telephone interview that afternoon with United States Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton in “My favorite ambassador.” I was a little diffident about sharing my enthusiasm for Ambassador Bolton so bluntly, but I obviously overcame my reluctance. Also on the call with me were Jay Nordlinger of National Review, Tom Bevan of RealClearPolitics and Pamela of Atlas Shrugs. Their accounts of the interview are linked at their names above.
Jay Nordlinger concludes his report: “How long has it been since I said how lucky we are to have John Bolton as U.N. ambassador, and George W. Bush as a president willing to appoint such men to such posts? Couple of days? Please consider it reiterated.” Tom Bevan titles his column on the interview “Lightning Bolton.” Pamela posts her recording of the interview and includes a Bolton quote I’d forgotten to note regarding the depredations of UN Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown: “The US will not be a well-bred doormat.” There you have it!
Posted by Scott at 06:47 AM | Permalink
On the other hand, buy him a wine cooler and spin him around the block in a black limo, and Scott Johnson will have his legs in the air faster than you can say “F’shizzle.”
Bonus Pamela:
What did I come away with? Frankly, Iran is the crushing issue of the day. There is no way, no way, the enormity of the threat of that kind of government getting their hands on nuclear weapons can be underestimated.
She means ‘overestimated’ (she gets a pass on ‘enormity’), but this is also a woman who thinks that boldface and stabbing the period key are punctuation tools of first resort………..and who write’s in little blasts……….of angry thoughts…………that make sense only if you imagine them coming in a shriek………from an aging, histrionic New York JAP……..who want’s teh Muslim’s………..killed dead die kill dead!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ambassador Bolton is calling; please hold for Ambassador Bolton.
All right, Media Matters, I admit it. A clip and transcript of a wingnut who cites War Nerd, volunteers to give up everyone’s civil liberties, and accuses the press of stabbing us in the back, is pretty fucking impressive. It’s almost as good as your clip and transcript the other day of Bill O’Reilly’s most hilariously explosive batshittery since he shattered poor C-SPAN’s fragile mics with a bellowing “Shuuuuuuuut upp!” directed at a stunned Al Franken. So yeah, Media Matters: big props.
But don’t let it go to your head. What you accomplish in your fancy New York[1] DC offices (no doubt while snacking on the foie gras with which George Soros keeps the vending machines stuffed), with your billion-dollar bankroll, and media-insider connections — Hah! All that, and you can barely keep up with what we at S,N! regularly accomplish with a little snark and around-the-clock manning of the finest set of string and cans!!!
So sure, you have Glenn Beck. Well, we have Adam Yoshida. You have “Libertarian” Neal Boortz. Ahh, but we have self-described “classical liberal” Jeff Goldstein. (And does Boortz threaten to slap people with his cock? Disadvantage: Media Matters!) You have Laura Ingraham? We have Marie Jon’, who’s ten times hotter and at least three times as goofy.*
What’s that you say? Oh. You… have…. Ann Coulter? Oh, that’s quite impressive. Oh, we might have to concede defeat. Oh, yes Ann Coulter: the most extreme wingnut bimbot for sure….
Above: The flag-burning amendment fails the Senate by one vote.
Woohoo! ‘Riba-andale! Arriba!
Heh-heh.
Above: Mexlamofascist banditos waiting for just such a signal to stream over the
border and…you know, pick flags and burn fruit, or whichever way that goes.
Here’s a Media Matters item on James Pinkerton’s contribution to the Dolchstosslegende.
Right, I know; bad enough, but also fairly common nowadays. So that doesn’t really concern me. No, what I want to address is this shit:
PINKERTON: The second — the second frame is, the U.S. military needs to be carefully restrained with legal rules and procedures, and the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] needs — and the Miranda rights, all that stuff needs to be in there. And we need to have these prosecutions.
THOMAS: Exactly.
PINKERTON: What — and — but — but the correct frame, I believe, is — it’s a — it’s a minority view, but it’s correct, is — there’s a fellow named Gary Brecher, who writes a — an email column called “War Nerd” for a Russian magazine online. And he makes the point, “Look, this is a war. What do you expect? This is not a police action, this is not a humanitarian mission. This is a war, and you’re going to get Hadithas.”
[…]
Oh my fucking God. War Nerd is a cleverly-executed joke, a comedy routine, a parody of keyboard kommandos. Yet since War Nerd’s so over the top, the 82nd Chairborne take him for one of their own.
Gavin adds: Here’s a passage from War Nerd:
I’m a war nerd. A backseat sergeant. I know what I am. All I have to do is look down at the keyboard and there’s my hairy white gut slopping over it, and there’s crumbs between the keys from the fake homemade soft’n’chewy big cookies in the vending machine downstairs. I mean they made me pay for the last keyboard because I spilled Diet Coke all over it. Diet Coke, the most fattening drink in the world. Every web pig in the world is swimming in it, farting off the side of the swivel chair, aroma-free carbonation farts, or at least you hope they are.
How would they know it’s fake?