The World O' Crap Archive

Welcome to the Collected World O' Crap, a comprehensive library of posts from the original Salon Blog, and our successor site, world-o-crap.com (2006 to 2010).

Current posts can be found here.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Bush Beaten by Drunken Beauty Queen

Those who discouraged Lucianne Goldberg from paying her son’s tuition at Goucher College, observing that Jonah was too stupid to paper train, let alone to complete an undergraduate degree, were forced to retract at least the first part of their indictment this morning, when Jonah squatted Sumo wrestler-style over the Op-Ed pages and grunted out another steamy pile of ruminations.
AMERICANS ARE torn between two irreconcilable positions on the Iraq war. Some want the war to be a success — variously defined — and some want the war to be over. Conservatives are basically, but not exclusively, in the “success” camp. Liberals (and those further to the left) are basically, but not exclusively, the “over” party. And many people are suffering profound cognitive dissonance by trying to believe these two positions can be held simultaneously.
While Jonah seems to be the one suffering from cognitive dissonance, I have some good news: it’s far from profound.  Even better news, Americans aren’t “torn between two irreconcilable positions on the Iraq war” at all.  In fact, Bush has done a near Rooseveltian job of uniting our once fractured country, since 70% of oppose escalation of troop levels, and only 35% still believe we were right to invade Iraq in the first place.  (Normally, at this point I would suggest that we just call the rest of the column on account of lame, but Jonah has 650 words to go, and 2 teaspoons of Metamucil to process, so all I can say is:  I hope you brought a magazine.)
With last night’s speech, President Bush made it clear that he will settle for nothing less than winning it. He may be deluding himself, and his plan may not work, but he at least has done the nation the courtesy of saying what his position is, despite an antagonistic political establishment and a hostile public.
So Jonah’s position is that we ought to respect Bush because at least he has the courage to lie to our faces.  To me, that smacks less of fortitude and more of sociopathy, but what I find truly amazing about this column is the implication that Bush’s fantasies about Iraq are morally superior to the Democrats’ realistic assessment of this debacle, because in Bush’s dreams we get to win.  Take the title of the piece (ordinarily I don’t hold writers liable for the headlines editors slap onto their work, but this one seems to pretty accurately reflect the contents):

So one’s ethical standing is determined by the content of one’s Little Nemo in Slumberland-like dreams, no matter how surreal.  Okay, but according to Jonah’s logic, Bush is morally dwarfed by Miss USA, because while they both share a drinking problem, Bush would be satisfied with stability in Iraq, whereas Miss USA wants world peace.
 What is maddening is that the Democratic leadership cannot, or will not, clearly tell the American people whether they are the party of “end it” or “win it.” 
Yes.  Take the sense of the Senate resolution opposing the dispatch of additional troops to Iraq — what the hell is Jonah supposed to make of that?  It’s like these people are speaking in code, or something!  Now, I’m not one to bleg, but I urge everyone to send the labels from their jars of rich, chocolately Ovaltine to NRO, so Jonah can get the secret decoder ring that will allow him to translate Nancy Pelosi’s encrypted press releases.
On the one hand, they tell the president that they want this war “brought to a close.” On the other, they refuse to use their power of the purse to do exactly that, opting instead for a symbolic resolution. It may be the wisest political course for them, but it does a disservice to the nation by making the Iraq debate the equivalent of boxing with fog. 
Yeah, it’s almost like they don’t want to let concern trolls goad them into passing a law that Bush will effortlessly circumvent through simple accounting tricks, but which would allow the Republicans to relentlessly mau mau the Democrats for starving the troops.
Sorry, Jonah.  Your arms too short to box with fog.
Here we have a president forthrightly trying to win a war, and the opposition — which not long ago was in favor of increasing troops, when Bush was against that — won’t say what it wants. This is flatly immoral.
Okay. This is where Jonah stops being an amusing mediocrity and suddenly becomes creepy and loathsome, morphing before our eyes from Kato Kaelin into O.J. Simpson. The Democrats’ opposition to the war is “flatly immoral,” because it hasn’t been couched in the exact combination of magic words acceptable to Jonah. Evidently they need to say “bring our troops home” in Klingonese, or Elvish, or three times in a row while gazing into a mirror. But what Bush is doing — throwing 21,000 more troops into harms way in the hope that if we give the insurgents enough Americans to shoot, eventually they’ll run out of bullets — is a “forthright” effort to “win a war?”

I’ve long thought that Jonah was as intellectually lazy as the Presidential meal ticket to which he clung with limpet-like tenacity , but even I don’t think he’s that stupid. Which means he knows that there is no “surge” of troops in the offing. There’s a trickle of exhausted, overstressed forces that Bush will whizz randomly over Iraq like a drunk signing a snowbank with his own urine. And these additional lives, as well as the lives of all the other U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians will be pissed away so that Bush can run out the clock, until the the whole issue is so immersed in the sturm und drang of the 2008 elections that nobody even wants him to take action on Iraq anymore.

Bush is “deluding himself” to a degree not seen since the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Except the President is not personally getting hacked to pieces – the dismembered knight is simply his employee, so it’s fairly easy for Bush to declare “It’s just a flesh wound!” each time blood geysers from a rudely truncated stump. As long as there are servicemen and women to take bullets on his behalf, Bush won’t be forced to take his medicine — not even the St. Joseph’s flavored baby aspirin served up our cooing and solicitous press corps. Call it Black-Knight-by-Proxy Syndrome.
Another Democratic dodge is the incessant demand for a “political solution” in Iraq. “What is absolutely clear to me is there is no military solution to the problems in Iraq, that only political solutions are going to bring about some semblance of peace,” Sen. Barack Obama declared. This is either childishly naive or reprehensibly dishonest.
To concede that four years after our invasion we have nothing to show for it but blood and anarchy, and to suggest that our only hope of salvation lies in reversing course and talking to Syria, Iran, Sunnis, Shi’ites, Kurds and any other interested parties is ”flatly immoral” and “reprehensibly dishonest”?  You know, there came a point where white people were no longer allowed to use the N-word in decent company.  At what point will people like Jonah be forbidden to deploy the language of moral outrage, on pain of being frogmarched out of the dinner party?
Saying we need a political solution is as helpful as saying “give peace a chance.” Peace requires more than such pie-eyed verbiage. In the real world, peace has no chance until the people who want to give death squads another shot have been dispatched from the scene.
The fact that Jonah’s side was funding death squads in Central America during the Reagan Administration only proves his point, since once they were dispatched from the scene, peace did indeed prevail.  It’s clear that Jonah has made a thorough and thoughtful study of the political history of the 1980s.
It reminds me of the liberal obsession in the 1980s with getting inner-city gangs to settle their differences with break-dance competitions. If only Muqtada Sadr would moonwalk to peace!
Okay, he’s made a thorough and thoughtful study of the plot of Breakin’ 2:  Electric Boogaloo!
Last night, Bush finally acknowledged what Americans already knew: The war has not gone well.
So if, after screwing up, and after everybody else has already agreed that you’ve screwed up, you’re the last guy to actually admit that you screwed up, that too is a definition of moral courage.  Damn, we’re gonna need one whole thesaurus just for this entry.
But he also acknowledged what few Democrats are willing to admit: If we leave — i.e. lose — it will be a disaster, a geostrategic calamity for the United States and quite possibly a genocidal one for the Iraqis.
The only rational course:  Continue screwing up!  Otherwise, we might look incompetent.
It’s long since forgotten, but perhaps the chief moral argument against the Iraq war in 2003 was that it would create an enormous humanitarian crisis in the form of refugees spilling over the borders, which in turn would destabilize the region. That didn’t happen.
Right.  If you ignore the 2 million Iraqis who have already fled the country.
Bush declared last night that “victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved. There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship”
To quote Doghouse Riley, “Right. This one’ll be on an aircraft carrier, and it’ll come at the beginning instead of the end.”
Bush came up with the “surge” plan. Will it work? Nobody knows.
But you know a war plan is serious when it has the same probability of success as hitting 33 black in roulette.
But the one thing the American people know about George W. Bush is that he wants to win the war. What the Democrats believe is anybody’s guess.
Well, maybe you have to guess, Jonah, but for me, the Democrats’ message is coming in loud and clear.  They want me to drink more Ovaltine.

Posted by scott on Thursday, January 11th, 2007 at 8:21 pm.

23 Responses to “Bush Beaten by Drunken Beauty Queen”
Aughhhh! My hometown paper! The Doughy Pantload! I die! I die once again!
By the way, coming from youse two, the expression “too dumb to paper train” takes on real meaning. You two KNOW. You take in and nurture stray animals. You do not, however, give them well-paid jobs extruding nationally syndicated dreckola.
Community standards in print journalism being where they’ve fallen (thrown from the top of Times-Mirror Plaza, more likely), we Constant Readers owe you a debt of gratitude.
Bush is “deluding himself” to a degree not seen since the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Except the President is not personally getting hacked to pieces – the dismembered knight is simply his employee, so it’s fairly easy for Bush to declare “It’s just a flesh wound!” each time blood geysers from a rudely truncated stump.
Yup. That pretty much covers it. I say we give Miss USA a shot at being president. It’s not like she could be *worse* at it.
So Jonah says we have to man up and go Full Metal Pantload?
LA Times, LA Times, why hast thou forsaken me and given Doughy Pantload a job?
Scott, once again you’ve proven why you and SZ are some of the best bloggers around-you eviscerate rightwingnutcakes right and left. In the words of Lola Heatherton (SCTV): “I love YOU, World O’ Crap! I want to BEAR your CHILDREN!”
Hmmm, is it too late to nominate THIS post for a Koufax?
Mrs. B, believe me, I share your despair over the decline of the LAT. There was a time when Yellow Journalism made, at the very least, for a lively paper. Now it just seems to indicate “an hastily improvised surrogate for Depends.”
By the way, coming from youse two, the expression “too dumb to paper train” takes on real meaning. You two KNOW.
I appreciate the kind words, but s.z. is the sole Beast Whisperer around here. I freely admit that I could never cope with her Clyde Beatty-sized menagerie; it’s all I can do to peacefully co-exist with the two cats who insist on sharing the apartment.
The only way to stomach a Jonah Goldberg “movement” is with your expert analysis. This was probably the funniest and most-tragic of all.
Thank you.
LA Times, LA Times, why hast thou forsaken me and given Doughy Pantload a job?
It could be worse–Time Magazine just hired Bill Kristol. Yecch.
AMERICANS ARE torn between two irreconcilable positions on the Iraq war. Some want the war to be a success — variously defined — and some want the war to be over.
Aaaand, in his first couple o’ sentences… Jonah totally loses me. *sigh* “(I)rreconcilable positions”… wha? [shakes head] Gah-it’s still there! So… according to Jonah… if we win… then, we can’t leave‽‽
And, if we lose… then, we get to leave?
OK. Yeah. I can live with losing then. Yup.
I don’t think, maryc, that it’s too late to nominate this one – it certainly is a contender! Scott, Scott, Scott – will you marry me? Okay, never mind, but DAMN, you guys are good!!
and grunted out another steamy pile of ruminations.
so does that make him a “cud stud?”
Y’know, I’ve set aside a jar of formaldehyde on the off chance I’ll live long enough to see his brain offered on eBay.
We need to appreciate Jonah for what he is: a paragon of wingnut educational impulses dating to the early 60s. It’s not just that he’s remarkably lazy; it’s that this laziness is completely in the service of that transplanted Soviet Heroic school of history, public affairs, and the Arts which produces nothing but so infects our public discourse that our school history texts are one-third bunkum and half omission. Seriously. It’s enough for Jonah that he can recap the pro-Vietnam war arguments he was drilled on as a child for him to claim to be offering us lessons from History. Odds are good he’ll deliver an obsequy or two to the well-respected Martin in the next few days, but he has less understanding of the Civil Rights Movement than you could teach a parrot. Everything’s a moral outrage because that’s the single, unfletched arrow in his quill, unless you count that light sabre with the dead AAAs.
If I had demonstrated at 13 the sort of unrestrained ignorance of WWII, or the Great Depression (both further from me than the 60s, let alone the 80s, are from Jonah) that the muddle-aged Goldberg does about events in his recent past I’d have flunked out of junior high.
Uh, quiver.
Y’know, I’ve set aside a jar of formaldehyde on the off chance I’ll live long enough to see his brain offered on eBay.
baby food size?
Jonah Goldberg may well be the stupidest man working in letters in modern America. Scott’s analysis is spot-on, but I feel there are a few more points to be made:
“It’s long since forgotten, but perhaps the chief moral argument against the Iraq war in 2003 was that it would create an enormous humanitarian crisis in the form of refugees spilling over the borders, which in turn would destabilize the region. That didn’t happen.”
Hard as it may be, let’s ignore the fact that Jonah is castigating the left for a completely accurate prediction.
Instead, let’s focus on another thing you historians out there might remember from the beginning of the war: Bush claimed the war was neccesary because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction he might use on American targets.
While going to war might solve other problems, like toppling an evil dictator, or getting us more oil, it was widely agreed that these were not, in and of theselves, sufficient reason to go to war. They were just icing on the cake; the delicious coconut flavored cake involved stopping Husseing from using weapons of mass destruction on us.
So, we might simply state the primary objective of the Iraq war thusly:
Remove Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi Government’s capability to attack the United States using weapons of mass destruction.
It should be clear that not only have we met that objective, we have met it as thouroughly as could ever be hoped.
A Phyrric victory to be sure, but a victory nonetheless.
So, obviously Jonah’s not working off of pre-war standards of victory. But what is he working off of?
Well, I believe Marq got it exactly right:
“But he also acknowledged what few Democrats are willing to admit: If we leave — i.e. lose — it will be a disaster, a geostrategic calamity for the United States and quite possibly a genocidal one for the Iraqis.”
According to Merriam-Webster online, “i.e.” simply means “that is”.
Golberg is explicitly stating that “leaving Iraq” is synonymous with “losing”.
Since “winning” is the opposite of “losing” and Goldberg defines losing as “leaving”, we can assume that winning can be defined as the opposite of leaving, to wit, staying.
So, yes, Marq, Goldberg defines “winning in Iraq” as maintaining an American troop pressence there indefinately.
Sadly, I am reminded of Zapp Brannigan from Futurama: “You see, Killbots have a preset kill limit. Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them, until they reached their limit and shut down.” And he won a medal for that, as I suspect he would have under the current US government.
…[Bush's] plan may not work, but he at least has done the nation the courtesy of saying what his position is, despite an antagonistic political establishment and a hostile public.
Someone please remind this ass that he works for that “hostile public.” He is there in that big white house at our bidding (unfortunately) and he should do it. There is a certain point in time when it is no longer a sign of strength to ‘stay to course’ but an indication that your grasp of reality is not only tenuous, but slipping faster than Yosemite Sam on a banana peel.
But then we all knew that. It seems the 28% who doesn’t all have columns.
It reminds me of the liberal obsession in the 1980s with getting inner-city gangs to settle their differences with break-dance competitions.
Boy, those were the days. The rubber bracelets, the headbands… The repercussion-less sodomy… the alternate justice system based on breakdance… In the name of Steven Biko, whatever happened to the liberal obsessions of the ’80s?
“Y’know, I’ve set aside a jar of formaldehyde on the off chance I’ll live long enough to see his brain offered on eBay.”
‘baby food size?’
:::SHAKES FIST VAGUELY WESTWARD:::
DAMN YOU, PREZNIT!!!!!!
That was the first fucking thing that entered my mind, but noooooooooooo, you had to be here FIRST!
I’m going to have to find a payphone, ’cause the Mormons have Caller ID now…
*sigh*
OT, completely, but blogwhoring nonetheless:
Speaking of people who do wonderful, awe-inspiring things to help homeless critters, please visit these nice people and do what you can:
http://www.cathaven.org/index.htm
Need more of a reason?
http://anntichristscoulter.blogspot.com/2007/01/can-yall-bear-another-cat-post.html
/end blogwhoring
//saving quarters for payphones
Whig, I was just gonna rant about what a historically ignorant fuckwit Jonah is, but I will never be the dry wit that you are. Thank you.
Bush and the conservative media are positioning themselves to blame any future disastrous outcome in Iraq not on the warmongers who started this tragedy, but on the new Congress that’s trying to find a way to dismount from the tiger that shouldn’t have been saddled in the first place.
Reminds me of another Python character, namely Otto from “A Fish Called Wanda”, the retired CIA assassin (played brilliantly by Kevin Kline) who careens around London’s narrow streets crashing into other cars–and at each fender-bender leans out his window, yells “Ass-HOOOOLE!!”, and drives off without a second thought.
We all made fun of Haig at Reagan’s attempted assassination yelling “I’m in charge here” but these guys are expressing the opposite sentiment.
Or was his speech Smoke & Mirrors, only the Smoke is thin and smells awful (like New York last week), the mirrors are from a Funhouse, and broken. The magicians are stumblebums.
preznit giv me turkee asketh, of scott’s Words o’Brilliance:
” … and grunted out another steamy pile of ruminations.”
so does that make him a “cud stud?”
To which saith I:
More like a turd bird, I should think. You know the kind – pecking through each steaming lump for nuggets o’goodness.
Thx, D. I probably should have cited the period’s cause celebre, the case of Fresh v. Fly.
Since I’m planning to get the book, I followed the Little Nemo link. And you can look inside the book! Brilliant!
Um.
It lets you look at the cover and the index. That’s what we call Jonah Goldberg brilliant!

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