I wrote yesterday that the most basic appeal of wingnutism is that you never have to admit failure. You also don’t have to admit to success, when credit might go to someone you don’t like. For example, Michael Tomasky writes,
David Brooks writes an odd sentence today (the second one):
…today, as an impeccably crafted multilateral force intervenes in Libya, certain old feelings are coming back to the surface. These feelings have been buried since the 1990s, when multilateral efforts failed in Kosovo, Rwanda and Iraq.
Hmmm. What failed in Iraq in 1991? The mission was to get Saddam out of Kuwait, and the mission was accomplished. In Kosovo, the mission to stop violence and restore autonomy to Kosovo. Those things (pretty much) happened. Rwanda was a failure all right, but wasn’t that because the West’s slowness and non-intervention contributed to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people?
Tomasky goes on to say that there is plenty to criticize about Kosovo and the Gulf War, as well as Rwanda, but how can you say the military intervention in Kosovo and the Gulf War failed?
And the answer is, of course, that this is wired into the wingnut internal narrative about war — it’s all about the glory and the swagger. Objectives? We don’t need no steenking objectives …
And we all also know that if it were a Republican president doing exactly what President Obama is doing, whatever that is, every right-wing bobblehead on the planet would be praising him for his resolve and leadership, and anyone with any quibbles about his not notifying Congress is aiding the enemy.
Hypocrisy snark aside, as Tomasky says, the plan is supposed to be that after this initial bombing phase, the U.S. will hand off the ball to France and step aside, which is fine by me.
If I remember right, there were no flag-draped coffins after Bosnia.
All of our ‘Johnnie’s came marching home,’ except for the one who came limping home after he sprained his ankle – the lone casualty.
And yeah, Bush “The Not Totally Stupid and Insane” I, accomplished his mission in the Middle East by getting Saddam out of Kuwait.
And, again, if I remember right, the regret everyone had AFTER Rwanda, was that no great effort had been made, uni or mulitlaterally.
And Bobo, if you remember, your dear President Bush “Yeah, the Totally Stupid and Insane – Yeah, THAT One,” didn’t even allow anyone to see the THOUSANDS of flag-draped coffins of the men and women who didn’t come marching home from his war and occupation for oil – and for trying to show his Mommy that his pee-pee was larger than Daddy’s.
What are the editors at the NY Times doing? This Bobo article is almost the same as Asshat’s yesterday. And just as insipid.
As I just said earlier, Douthat is just Bobo Lite: Taste’s just as lousy – AND less filling.
Why do they let this pair of clowns write essentially the same piece in two days? I know, supposedly, that they don’t interfere with what their columnists are writing, but really? The same take from two Conservatives? One from the right, and one from the left I understand. But, essentially the same article from two Conservative yutz’s whose only experience with the military is a dorm room obsession of playing RISK, after a youth spent blowing up GI Joe’s?
Are the editors locked up in some hotel room somewhere deciding which Conservative to hire as Rich’s replacement, you know, to balance the coverage of all of their Liberal columnists (Herbert, Krugman, occasionally Kristoff, and once in a blue moon MoDo – when she remembers to take her medication)?
cundgulag – (out of curiosity, what exactly does your moniker translate to?) That said, “But, essentially the same article…” evokes great imagery. Thanks.
American intervention, or whatever it’s called, in foreign ‘entanglements’ is predicated on oil and/or a plethora of terrorist cells a country has. If a country has neither, we could care less, apparently. We need to drop the ruse, which everyone sees through anyway, of predicating our involvement on human rights issues – it ain’t the case.
As to the NYTimes, it sold its soul to its advertisers years ago.
It amazes me how allergic today’s Righties are to international cooperation. They must’ve slept through all their high school and college courses on World War II… and then slept through the 1990s.
(I guess in Ross Doubt-that’s case, all the same time period.)
“…when multilateral efforts failed in Kosovo…”
Beats me what kind of cockamamie yardstick Brooks uses to measure success. While I can’t speak for how things turned out in Kosovo, I can tell you that when I was in Croatia a few years ago, those same multilateral efforts were certainly considered a success there.
Methinks the only marks on Brooks’s yardstick are those he arbitrarily inks in with his own Sharpie.
OT, but I had to ask: Why is Palin speaking for the US in India and Israel? She has no official function. Did these countries invite her? Why? This is frustrating!
I’d like to know that, too. My best guess is that she’s hired some kind of booking agent who gets these gigs for her, somehow.
Lynne …Did you notice that Palin was wearing a huge Star of David necklace on her Israel trip. I wonder when she converted to Judaism? When in Rome, do what the Romans do?
Swami, I took a close gander at that chunk of metal Palin was wearing and I don’t think it’s Star of David, which would be two triangles forming a six-pointed star. With its rounded edges, doodads on the “points”, and empty center, the thing looks more Celtic. Now, I’m not saying that Palin realized she was not wearing a Star of David. In fact, I’m pretty sure she picked that piece of junk jewelery because it kinda sorta resembled one, and she figured it was close enough to pass without appearing too blatant about it. Subtle, you know? Like all those dog whistles to the Christian fundies that only the in-crowd understands.
I seriously doubt the Jewish community was impressed.
I heard the people of India weren’t impressed.
When Sarah got off the plane, she asked the guy who came to greet her, if he was the Chief, and if so, where was his headdress?
Then she didn’t go to visit the Taj Mahal, instead choosing to go to an Indian Shopping Mall. I can’t vouch for this, but I think she was overheard saying, “Look, Taj Mahal, Maj Mahal, it’s just a big teepee, and once you’ve seen one Indian teepee, you’ve seen them all.”
She went to the mall in search of bargains on beads, trinkets, and to see if they had any war pipes, or were the peace pipes the only kind they had.
I tremble at the thought of in the Holy Land, and the damage that dingbat can do with one sentence.
I’m afraid if they ask her what she wants to drink, she’ll say, “An Israelite!”
Oh, btw – I finally figured out who she reminds me of when she talks – Casey Stengel, the late great Yankee manager.
Except, of course, Casey knew what he was talking about, and made sense.
muldoon, I didn’t get a close detailed look at Palin’s necklace, but the view I did get showed it to be a hexagram of some sort. I’m sure you are correct in that Palin choose that piece for dog whistle jewelry because I immediately interpreted it as being clearly a symbol of solidarity with her Israeli brethren. Whatever design it is, it served it’s purpose well.
How can a wingnut possibly say that the Gulf War wasn’t a success? The news coverage of the Gulf War was the hatchery for an entire generation of wingnut armchair commandos. Maybe Vietnam brought a war into our living rooms, but nothing like the high tech joy stick kill ’em all via a video monitor that we enjoyed in the Gulf War.
Does Brooks not remember the glorious Highway of Death were we reduced the messy business of war to the act of just “shooting fish in a barrel”because of our technological superiority? Ah, what wonderful carnage!… and all for our viewing pleasure. Or doesn’t he remember the luckiest man in Baghdad footage?
Maybe not everybody’s objective was met during the Gulf War, but the Gulf war was the phoenix that rose from the ashes of defeat in Vietnam to spawn a new generation of warmongering wingnuts who firmly believe that might makes right and that God has endorsed and blessed American militarism. The Gulf War was the biggest success for wingnuts in the 20th century.
It didn’t last long enough, obviously.
Off-topic: Imagine if this had been one of us: Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said yesterday that she will pay back nearly $300,000 in back taxes that she owes.
A-HA!
Finally, conclusive proof that Brooks is actually from an alternate dimension, like on the TV show Fringe!
Because in OUR reality, Rwanda is remembered as the place where multilateral timidity and the refusal of top UN officials to grant the peacekeepers on the ground authority to broadly interpret their mandate allowed brutal genocide. There was no multilateral EFFORT at all; that was the problem.
I wonder how it went on Brooks’ side, where there was a serious multilateral effort. Apparently it failed as well, (though given Brooks’ attitudes that might mean the multilateral forces established an egalitarian democracy.) I am curious.
I also wonder if, on the other side, global warming is NOT caused by human activity. That might explain why all those people who I can only assume crossed over, are so confused about that.
I just hope that the presence of Brooks and so many others doesn’t mean that the fabric of space/time is damaged, and soon we will start to see physical laws changing, like on the TV show.
That would be bad.
For the wingnut, success may look like glory and swagger – and this is the visual and emotional expression that definitely gets them excited – but what it’s REALLY about is Domination, and showing Others Who is Boss. To them, Success is a visible show of Domination and Triumph. Accept no substitute. Cooperation or give and take doesn’t compute.
Without this display, they have a hard time figuring out Who Won, and so they feel that whoever’s leading the country let them down, by not conclusively dispatching their fears about The Threat From The Other.
“the most basic appeal of wingnutism is that you never have to admit failure”
I can kind of agree, but really it’s more like you never acknowledge even beginning something worth winning or failing. Wingnuts just coast along knowing that whatever FAUX news and the rest of the knum-nut masters tell them is bad, and nothing really is good except GOD. Simple see? I’d like to think that we lefty’s are different, but we really are not. We have a president that has ghosted every move of his predecessor (in proper order), get out of jail card for economic terrorists (Alan Greenspan), tax cuts for rich folks, military tribunals, billion dollar military “adventure”. If I didn’t know better it’s dam near like 2003. The big difference is that GW was not cutting LIHEAT, HEADSTART, and never froze middle class government pay. Wow gee aint it great that “our party” is in charge. I think exposing the right is pointless, we need to expose what passes for left nowdays.
I’ve decided that I could care less what the dimwitted teabaggers think of operation “Odyssey Dawn” I think it is wrong, and also just as impeachable as operation Iraqi freedom.
Felicity,
My father is from Ukraine and my mother from Russia. I was born here.
My father’s father died in one of Stalins gulags, and several of my mother’s uncles and cousins did too.
I created my moniker/handle early in 2003 because Liberals like me were being accused of being treasonous traiters. Righties started screaming that people like me (us) should be put in detention facilities if we weren’t loyal to “our” President. Also, Bush created those “Free Speech Zones” to house dissidents so he wouldn’t have to hear us speak.
And so, I was afraid of where Liberals in this country might end up. I was about to finish a comment on a site (I think maha’s, since it’s my favorite, but I can’t be sure) ‘see you in the Gulag.’ And then I realized, that might be a cool moniker if I changed it a little bit to “c u n d gulag.”
And so it is.
Thanks for asking.
cundgulag – makes perfect sense and thanks. My step-father was born in Moscow, Russia, flew in the tsar’s air force during WWI, came home to a full-blown revolution, decided (as a White Russian) that it was time to leave, escaped by foot, box cars and horses to Harbin, on to Japan and then to Seattle and finally to San Francisco where he became a patent attorney.
He had managed to live under an autocratic ruler, a fledgling communist state, anarchy and finally a democracy. Whether it was his vast experience with various forms of governments or not that drove him to become a liberal, he became a full-blown one. I like to think, by reason of his experience, that he was capable of making a reasoned, informed and educated choice – perhaps that’s why I have chosen to also be a liberal.
Felicity,
Wow, did HE live an interesting life!
Both my parents, and their parents and families (the ones left) saw the horrors of war, this just after having family members die in Gulag’s. They also were in the Concentration Camps, even though we’re not Jewish. They were on the perifory of the camps, where Slavs were kept. My father and his sister were slave laborers at the V-2 plant that was bombed by the British, and they just missed being killed, unlike many people they knew who shared their barracks. They just went in one direction while everone else went in another. They lived, the others didn’t.
Pretty much everyone in my family is a die-hard Liberal, except my youngest Uncle who was born as my mother’s family was escaping with the Germans from Stalingrad (because my grandmother was part German, my grandfather. who worked at the plant as a foreman, figured it would be better to throw in the families lot with the escaping German Army, because he knew he’d be executed by the Russian one if he was ever found). And even my Uncle was pretty Liberal until about a decade ago when he started watching, guess what? – FOX News.
But, you’d be surprised how many Ukrainian and Russian immigrans of that generation my parents and I knew, and still know (those that are alive), who are hard-core authoritarians. I alway’s wanted to ask them, “Well, if that’s the way you feel, why didn’t you go back to the USSR?” But I respect my elders, and keep my mouth shut.
You just enver know what makes people Liberal – usually there’s a strong amount of empathy for others. I can’t understand those people who went throught those horrors of WWII and the camps, and didn’t come out feeling the pain of others. And I hope I never have to experience anything like that to find out, either.
How true. Most of that generation of Russians in San Francisco (there were/are a lot of them) were/are authoritarian also. My step-father, late in life, returned to Moscow to repeat his journey east, this time in comfort. He lasted until he encountered an elderly Russian woman who was in ‘charge’ of the heat on the train to tell her that the passengers were freezing to death so please turn on the heat. She refused with the excuse that, by edict, it was too ‘early’ in the season to turn it on. He got off at the next stop firmly convinced that communism wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
In spite of their continuing tsarist sympathies, the old Russian San Franciscans were a hardy bunch. An elderly, quite frail woman comes to mind. Her parents thought it best that she leave 1918 Moscow-in-revolution, hired two cossacks to take her across that vast country on horseback. Her father made her a belt in which was concealed opium which would ‘pay’ her way – light weight, valuable, easily hidden. (Never mind that the cossacks, complete strangers, were entrusted with the care of a very naive 16-year-old girl.)
You just never know what makes people Liberal
I do!..It’s being secure in who you are as a person. When your being is riddled with fear and insecurity you desperately clutch to authoritarianism and conservatism to alleviate the emotional pain of that insecurity. Look at the DOMA to see the perfect illustration of that wisdom…I’ve been married for 36 years to a beautiful women and there is no guy out there that’s gonna turn may head or heart in a different direction. My marriage doesn’t need defending.
With wingnuts it’s all about body counts. They get hard-ons at the thought of piles of dead brown people, who they don’t, like, view as *really* human so it’s not murder, right? People like that shouldn’t be allowed near pets or small children, for obvious reasons, but alas have often been handed the reins of power by a frightened populace who they hasten to reassure with notions of “we’ll protect you from them mean brown people”…
– Badtux the Sociopath-studyin’ Penguin
It’s being secure in who you are as a person. When your being is riddled with fear and insecurity you desperately clutch to authoritarianism and conservatism to alleviate the emotional pain of that insecurity.
I think you nailed it Swami. It is about security. You either get security from within, or you cling to your tribe, casting your lot with some daddy figure therein.