<spinn> I’m pretty sure if obama made them all magically shit money they’d complain it itches

(1, 2, 3)

Also, she put out another statement today to expand on her statement yesterday, which in addition to being some of the most tetchy, self-centered sort of thing I’ve seen from a politician, includes this: “I’ve never thought I needed a title before one’s name to forge progress in America.” If I was an Alaskan resident who’d voted for her, I’d be thinking “well thanks a fuckin’ lot for wasting my time, then.”

It further leads me to a blog called Legal Insurrection by William A. Jacobson, with a post called MSNBC Hides Obama’s Dijon Mustard (aka Dijongate). (incidentally, this page drags down my firefox something awful, for some reason.) The dude goes on with several breathless updates about the Dijongate situation. I start going about the business of writing my own chirst-are-you-kidding-me blog post in my head, but then further reading reveals he was joking. His point was that MSNBC had dutifully reported it as a character piece exactly how the White House wanted them to cover it:

Again, not sure why MSNBC had to cover it, but they did, on live TV with Andrea Mitchell at the news desk and Kelly O’Donnell on scene. The dialogue between the two harped on how the trip had a “real guy kind of quality.”

And that was the story line. Two regular guys out for a guy kind of meal. A script written in the White House and read by MSNBC.

For my money, as lifestyle fluff photo ops about the president go, it’s a lot more believable than goin’ t’the back forty ‘n clearin’ some brush at a ranch bought in 1999 and ditched in 2009 in favor of a 8,500 sq. ft. home in the Dallas suburbs specifically turned into a gated community by and for their newest residents. In contrast, I’m guessing that in 2013, 2017, and beyond, that Obama will still be eating burgers.

But whatever. Jacobson kept updating the original post as he got more reactions, which then prompted him to update more. In his “ha fooledja” post, he says:

Check out the links to the original post, and you will see that many of the high profile nutroots blogs have linked. If you check out the links and comments, you will see that the full foul-mouthed, abusive intellect of the nutroots has been brought to bear.

So I kept updating the story, with further links to Obama’s choice of condiment, in part as a reaction to the reaction. Which has driven some people even crazier. Now the story has gone national, being picked up by the Washington Post blog.

What gives here? Why the out-sized reaction? If this is a non-story, why is the left obsessed with it?

He then goes on to explain how it’s the Left’s insecurity that drove the interest, in that Obama’s rise is fleeting and “whether we elected a blank slate who makes it up as he goes”. I am fascinated that his conclusions fully fit into his own personal experience and entirely miss the more likely truths as to why he got more attention for this post than he is used to seeing.

One: They thought he was serious. Why not? Would it surprise me if some conservative thought Obama’s mustard choice was further proof he is un-American? (see also: birth certificate, shaking Chavez’s hand, arugula.) I had the luxury of seeing his further posts after he said he was joking, otherwise I would’ve had a long and incredulous post, myself.

Two: After a few prominent liberal blogs took him seriously, some news blogs posted about it, and then it seemed really ridiculous. Not only does it seem like the Right is griping about this, but it seems like the media’s starting to report on it, making it look even bigger. And Hannity’s segment also pushed this along. All of this was frustrating and aggravating to Left-leaning readers. Taken by itself, the reactions to this one goofy post could be out of proportion; but in the context of all the stupid attacks we’d seen from the elections and since, it shouldn’t come as a surprise.

This is not so much his fault as the media’s, and some bloggers, and my own for not looking closely enough. C&L linked to gawker.com and I think somewhere in there he linked to a digg.com link, but in some sense nearly all of them lead to Jacobsen. Still, in “our” defense, there was the Hannity bit, which made it feel like there was an actual talking point forming.

Three: Christ dude, you were the one pushing the non-story. Admittedly it’s weird that it was mostly one guy with a blog that wound up driving something like this, but at the base of it, it’s like yelling “FIRE” and laughing at people for running like idiots.

To his credit, all comments have to be approved and he’s letting non-complimentary comments through (even though he says so we can all see how “unhinged” the Left is, though looking through the first post, it seems like most negative comments are about how the whole thing’s pretty dumbass). But what really amazes me about the posts, and his interpretation of them, is the teflon insulation he’s put around his viewpoint. “you agree with me? yes, the Left is really unhinged.” “you disagree with me? ah yes, this proves how the Left is unhinged.” It’s that quality of “the more you disagree, the more you prove yourself wrong” that I’ve never been able to master, that I find so aggravating.

As I said in a comment in his last post (italicized bit is a quote from him):

It is beyond me how anyone could have thought I really cared that Obama used Dijon mustard in his Tuna Salad recipe, or that he had a Dijon mustard addiction. Did people really think I believed there was a “conspiracy of silence on Obama’s allegience to Dijon Mustard”? I have said before, and repeat, that the first victims of liberalism are satire and irony.

Honestly? Have you already forgotten:

* All the times “arugula” was mentioned as if it mattered? (I mean, you reference it several times in your post, you must know.)
* How many times the press mentioned his crappy bowling form?
* The number of time three frames of one his many speeches was played back, Zapruder-like, to divine whether he was giving someone the middle finger?
* The “terrorist fist-jab”?

And these are just a few of the nonsensical details I can recall were pulled, exaggerated, and talked about over and over by conservatives as if it meant much of anything. Hell, even a prominent conservative talk show (Hannity) spent two minues on exactly the topic of the Dijon mustard, which is already funny because it’s made by Kraft and about as foreign as the burger it was on.

So, yeah, it shouldn’t be beyond you, because the body of work available shows that conservatives making a big goddamn deal out of nothing is entirely believable.

It was through today’s Holy Crap that I came to read Beware of copying the Left by Bruce W. Green, founding dean of the Liberty University School of Law. In style, it reads like it’s written by a pastor. In content, it reads like it’s written by a drunk bully on a corner yelling at “the fags”, but with a better proofreader. Shorter Green: We can’t torture, because torturing would only play into the hands of liberals. So torture is evil and wrong — but torture anyway.

That burnt hair smell you’re getting is because of the sparks my brain is throwing off trying to understand that summary enough to make my point. Seriously, I can feel the mental resistance in typing it. Due to some internal hangups I have about looking foolish in public, I constantly re-evaluate any logic statements I make for correctness, lest someone point out some obvious flaw in my argument. Part of my brain refuses to sign off on my summary of his article, as it simply seems impossible to me that someone can put that forth as a logical argument. But it’s really what he’s saying.

It is in discovering this article in which I have decided I shall Fisk! Or write a fisk or enfisk the article or engage my fisk on the information superhighway, whatever the kids’ slang might by these days. I didn’t have the strength to do the whole article, though. Accept that he basically starts with the premise that being on the Left is not a political philosophy, so much as a cluster of malformed nerve cells at the top of the spinal column firing wildly in self-preservation in predictable reaction to certain stimuli.

Ah, actually, let me do some of that anyway. This first part just fires me up too much not to show it to you.

The Left—modern liberalism or socialism—is not a philosophy. It is merely the action implicit in the philosophy of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is the view that the rightness of an act is determined by its results—and, liberalism/socialism slowly emerges from a pragmatic utilitarian philosophy of life.
…
So, the Left, in adopting liberal and socialistic policies, does nothing more than act consistently with its foundational worldview—the rightness of action is determined by whether the results desired are in fact achieved by the action.

They’re the filthiest sort of mindless baboons for whom the ends justify the means. Obviously they’re just the kind of pricks who would torture. So torturing plays right into their hands. [zzt fzzt]

But, if liberalism is merely the action implicit in the philosophy of utilitarianism, how then do we explain the Left’s apparent opposition to torture techniques? The answer may likely rest in their redefinition of the term and political motives, but, whatever the reason, rest assured that in this matter a liberal is simply a torturer without sufficient motivation and opportunity.

Hell, I don’t know what liberals think. Who can? Might as well try to figure out the motivations of a redwood or a block of cheese. But I mean just look at ‘em, they just want to torture things, you can tell.

Just rest assured. Ressssst asssurrrrred. There. Logic done! Man, I’ve totally kicked ass on this writing assignment. There’s nearly no reason to continue further with my unassailable argument, but to be fair, they’re paying me for a full column, so I might as well pad a bit. But really, I mean…that “rest assured” pretty much locked it up.

A Hollywood liberal, pontificating on the red carpet, or a quasi-socialist, elitist politician on the Washington, DC, cocktail circuit, easily rails against the evils of “torture”. But, convince either of them that their own neighborhood will be annihilated in an hour by a nuclear blast unless the government acquires intelligence from a captured terrorist, and they will push each other aside getting in line to torture the poor soul into mindless mush. Why? Because deep in the recesses of their hearts and minds they believe the rightness of their actions is determined by the results of their acts.

In inventing a zero-dimensional character of the pontificating Hollywood liberal, I shall emply the full power of the Hollywood writer creating the zero-dimensional character. My omniscient awareness of the reactions of these flat sterotypes I just now made up is in no way intended to be a reflection of anything I would ever think, because the Left is Bad.

Hey, did you catch the neat trick I pulled here were there’s going to be a nuclear attack, but it’s the Hollywood Liberal who’s the bad guy in this paragraph? He’s lining up to “torture the poor soul into mindless mush”? Just wait until two paragraphs from now where the “poor soul” becomes the “murderer” who we have to “harshly interrogate” for America. I got a Klein bottle full of this shit in my head and I am not afraid to use it.

The modern conservative who believes and champions the idea that the rightness of an act depends upon its desired results has already abandoned principle and truth, and become a member of the Left, by another name—whether he or she is aware of it or not. To act and think like a member of the Left is to be already a member of the Left, even if one is under the impression they oppose it.

If you disagree with me, are you really conservative, or are you really on the Left? THOUGHTCRIME!

I do not profess to know all the interrogation tactics employed by the American government, nor do I know which, if any, of those tactics constitute torture.

Oh, by the way, I have no idea what I’m talking about. That omniscience potion I took this morning before I wrote this told me the secret truth in the heart of all liberals, but I guess it forgot to pick up any national newspaper in the last six months. But in the omniscience potion’s defense, there are only two types of liberals, Hollywood Red Carpet Guy and Elitist Cocktail Circuit Politician Guy, so I suppose that first one was an easy get.

And, I am aware that the events of September 11, 2001, and subsequent events, have required a reassessment of the tactics of modern warfare.

looks thoughtfully back to the Torture selection on the Today’s Specials menu…mmmm…

Nonetheless, there remains the reality that certain acts against human beings are by their very nature objectively evil, and if we adopt those acts as means to an end — even a good end -— we have already lost our souls, and we have contributed to triumph of the utilitarian Left.

No! Shouldn’t have the Torture…too many calories and you’ll just be working it off forever. Don’t want to be like those liberals at the next table, God they just love Torture, look at them just digging into big heaping plates full of Torture and waving it around under my nose and trying to cram it down my throat. I shouldn’t come to this restaurant any more, I keep running into these filthy, craven liberal animals that spring forth, fully formed, from my imagination.

And, let’s not kid ourselves. The more humane and moral our American history has been in the past, the more likely we are to unintentionally succumb to the belief that we do not err by treating cruelly those known to have taken innocent life.

[Did I save the right file here? This seemed to make sense for a minute --spinn]

Because, after all, “torture” is what evil terrorists do, and what evil countries do. It is not what America does. What America does is to protect the innocent. If, in order to protect the innocent, we must “harshly interrogate” a murderer, then so be it. Because, after all, people who are tortured are “victims”, and everyone knows that a murderer is not a victim.

I’m glad I finally got an opportunity to put in a public forum my point of view that, because someone is guilty of one crime, we are free and clear to commit any of our own crimes against him. Hell, you can really tell I’m a lawyer, huh? I got this shit down. It also means I can finally share the secret joy in my hobby of sticking my switchblade in the tires of any car that’s parked at an expired meter.

Good thing this omniscience potion also tells me who the “murderers” are and who the “victims” are. And being able to “torture” some people and “harshly interrogate” other people is a pleasantly unexpected side-effect. This thing was a steal! Glad I traded the cow for the omniscience potion instead of the five beans like that other loser. That other loser who was likely a liberal. Or a conservative who is really subconsciously secretly a liberal…I mean really either way, he’s probably a murderer.

I am concerned for America these days, and not just because we face threats from external forces bent on our destruction. I am most concerned that we -— the Left and the Right — have drifted from the path of principle and truth and lost our way in the resulting fog.

Whew! Almost forgot that faint whiff of balance at the end there. I think it looks properly like I’m saying the Right could be at fault, but not really, but just enough to protect myself from criticism. Um…I hope it’s not too much? People won’t start thinking I’m secretly on the Left even though I don’t know it?

Eh, nah, their omniscience potions will kick in and clear it up.

But whatever. I’ve had this open on my desktop for a while, forget how I got to it, but I’d been wanting to post about it. I love it, it’s such a contemporary American view of social protest. “Wake up, people! They’re taking your money, your homes, your jobs, your life itself! It’s time for you to TAKE ACTION and go stand in a park with a proper demonstration permit for 45 minutes and grouse about it with other people wearing beer hats!”

Started reading more of the comments and it’s just chock fulla angry stupid.

Oh geez, I remember what it was, too. It was the press conference where reporters were asking if he’d made any mistakes, how he felt about things that went wrong, et cetera. And he did that “well I could just sit around and whine about it, wah wah why did this happen to me,” something something. I have to see if that video exists online. I mean really goddamn if that’s not a guy who deserves to take a shoe in the face.

I was reminded of this by Obama’s speech last night. I didn’t watch the speech, but it was on TV, and I walked past it in the middle of it. It’s the first time I’d seen Obama giving a speech in front of Congress, and it was the typical camera shot I’ve seen plenty of times before: president in front, vice president on left, House speaker on right. But…well, as I’ve said before, Bush’s long-running hot streak of suck is what caused my interest in politics, so really for as long as I’ve been paying attention, it’s always been Bush and Cheney up there.

This time it wasn’t. I had another rush of happiness at the image, but it wasn’t Obama that really grabbed my attention — I guess I’m jaded by his speechifying already. What actually got me was Biden. I exclaimed, again: “It is so good to see Biden there!” God, all those years of seeing Cheney’s scowl hovering in the darkness, mentally filling in the thought bubble of the little old ladies he’d rather be evicting or the damsels he’d rather be tying to train tracks, and now finally it’s Joe from Delaware sitting back there, just being a guy. Ahhh.

Speaking of the non-state-of-the-union, I heard Jindal really majorly sucked in his Republican response. I didn’t watch that either, but here’s a post on C&L with two reactions: one from MSNBC people, one from FOX people. They both thought Jindal did badly, but I was amused that MSNBC people said real things about the substance of his speech, and all the FOX people talked about was his delivery. It’s like they could’ve taken two minutes to agree with each other about how terribly the Republicans have failed in picking his striped tie.

Edit: found that video that I mentioned above. The specific part is 7:46 into an 8:36 clip, but it’s a pretty good look at someone who needs to spend more time looking at the dirt side of a Nike. And by “more time” I mean, the 1/4 second it takes it to traverse a 30-foot-long press room by air.

Pulled this off the front page of whitehouse.gov. Fairly standard photo op, though it’s given more significance because it’s one of the pictures they chose for the front page.

But even regardless of the photo-opness of this particular pic, one thing that’s been clear in the few years Obama’s been in the national spotlight is that he’s a good father and family man. Whenever you see his wife and children together with him, they just seem like a family. It’s kind of refreshing to see a politician who doesn’t use his family values as a club, but just has ‘em.