Pundits really need to network better

In my usual trolling through the world of conservative punditry, I discovered something deeeeelightfully wonderful this morning.

I started my journey with Ben Shapiro, who is losing faith in George Bush because Israel is actually going to give the Palestinian people a small swath of land to call home. What more can you expect from a little Nazi dweeb, who thinks that Palestinians belong in Jordan and Lebannon (despite being from Palestine), and should be forced to move to these places at gunpoint. Sounds like a “final” solution to the Palestinian question, to me.

Anywho, I skimmed through that (it was pretty boring and rather queer sounding [not homosexual, mind you, but just odd]) and I moved on to my favorite cum dumpster: Ann Coulter.

Coulter’s problem is that she thinks that everyone is in line with her, except a few liberal extremists who write for the New York Times. This is strange, because every time I see her on a panel show on TV, she almost gets booed off the stage, but I digress. She has this notion that when she says something, 95% of America agrees.

A perfect example of this is in today’s rather pointless column generalizing opinions of everyone in America:

Should we apologize and return the country to Saddam Hussein and his winsome sons? Should we have him on “Designer’s Challenge” to put his palaces back in all their ‘80s Vegas splendor? Or maybe Uday and Qusay could spruce up each other’s rape rooms on a very special episode of “Trading Spaces”? What is liberals’ point?

No one cares.

In fact, the question was never whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. We know he had weapons of mass destruction. He used weapons of mass destruction against the Kurds, against the Iranians and against his own people.

I guess questioning the intelligence that said: SADDAM HUSSEIN HAS WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION AND WILL GIVE THEM TO TERRORISTS TO USE AGAINST THE UNITED STATES IN THE NEAR FUTURE is akin to saying: GIVE IRAQ BACK TO AN EVIL, OPPRESSIVE REGIME.

Boy, she just captures the liberal mindset so well.

Again, I digress…

Cumslut asked: Who cares? Implying that nobody normal, rational, and (of course) on the right cares that we can’t find WMD’s in Iraq. Well…check out this funky shit from the funkmeister of bullshit himself, William F. Buckley:

We do need to have a much better explanation than any we have had. Going to war to abort Husseinism is justified. But we are nevertheless entitled to know: How was intelligence information, presented as conclusive, so apparently illusory? Who was it, on the assembly line between the first man who spotted what he took to be WMD activity in Iraq, and the Defense Intelligence Agency and the president of the United States, who beamed out to the world not suspicions of WMD activity but affirmations of it, who screwed up? Who deceived, or was carried away? And what vaccines have our leaders taken to guard against other deceptions of like character?

While he gets to this in a rather round-about way, all the while writing off the responsibility of Bush, Cheney, and Blair (you know, they were just following orders), he is caring about the one thing that Ann Coulter just guaranteed us that nobody cares about!!

OH GOD, MY UNIVERSE IS TEARING APART AT THE SEAMS!!! GRAAAAAHAHAHSLKDASLK;HGLAGHLAS FROTH

Oh wait…

But still, these gasbags really do need to get their acts together. Who am I supposed to believe? A Nazi bitch who says that nobody cares (until we actually find WMD’s, then everyone will care because liberals are stupid LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL), or a batshit insane conservative whack-job who says that we have to care?

I’m so confused, I think I’ll just go buy an SUV…

Originally posted by Trot_to_Trotsky
I started my journey with Ben Shapiro, who is losing faith in George Bush because Israel is actually going to give the Palestinian people a small swath of land to call home. What more can you expect from a little Nazi dweeb, who thinks that Palestinians belong in Jordan and Lebannon (despite being from Palestine), and should be forced to move to these places at gunpoint. Sounds like a “final” solution to the Palestinian question, to me.

What the hell is the matter with Ben Shapiro? I read Town Hall also, and I find myself amazed at the range of people writing there. There are people who at least attempt to make intelligent arguments (Buckley, Will, Sowell, et al), there are the hilaritarians (i.e., Ann Coulter - we’ll get to her), and then there’s… Ben Shapiro. First, how old is he? Like 14? Second, how is a 14-year-old’s opinion about Israel, Palestine, and God supposed to carry any weight? Say what you will about William Buckley - Shapiro doesn’t even belong in the same hemisphere as him.

Anywho, I skimmed through that (it was pretty boring and rather queer sounding [not homosexual, mind you, but just odd]) and I moved on to my favorite cum dumpster: Ann Coulter.

How can you dare insult Ann?! While I suppose she is crazy, isn’t her hilarity enough to excuse that? For crying out loud, the “Trading Spaces” line is genius.

Cumslut asked: Who cares? Implying that nobody normal, rational, and (of course) on the right cares that we can’t find WMD’s in Iraq.

As if being a cumslut were a bad thing… I think I’m insulted.

While he gets to this in a rather round-about way, all the while writing off the responsibility of Bush, Cheney, and Blair (you know, they were just following orders),

I’m sorry… do you honestly think that Bush, Cheney, and Blair should have been out gathering intelligence on their own? Some kind of “leaders of the free world” spy game? If anyone screwed up, I can’t see how you can possibly pin the blame on anyone other than the intelligence gatherers.

until we actually find WMD’s, then everyone will care because liberals are stupid LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Actually, I suspect the liberal establishment will do something bizarre and contradictory at that point, a la predicting doom because Saddam would kill us with his WMDs and then whining because there were none to begin with. But we’ll wait and see what happens there.

or a batshit insane conservative whack-job

This is how you refer to William Buckley? There may be some insane conservatives (Dennis Prager sigh), but Buckley is certainly not one of them. Unlike the vast majority of oped-writing-types, I’d say he’s actually able to write and think clearly (see Maureen Dowd and Ben Shapiro for a liberal and a conservative case of the opposite).

who says that we have to care?

This may be nitpicky, but he never says we have to care. He says we “need to have a much better explanation” and we are “entitled to know,” indicating the moral argument that our leaders are responsible for explaining to us why our intelligence has gone so awry. I’m not sure that he cares all that much whether any given individual (other than William Buckley) actually does care.

I’m so confused, I think I’ll just go buy an SUV…

I’m not convinced that this is funny.

Originally posted by Trot_to_Trotsky
What more can you expect from a little Nazi dweeb, who thinks that Palestinians belong in Jordan and Lebannon (despite being from Palestine)

Since when is it enough to simply be from somewhere in claiming that you have a right to the land? The British (including, at some point, my ancestors) are from Scandinavia. If I started blowing up buildings and slaughtering pedestrians in Oslo because I have a “right” to the land, do you think (or recommend) that the Norwegian Government would give me their land?

If you want to make the argument that Palestinians have a right to Palestine, you’ll need a better argument than “their ancestors lived there” - especially since that would mean the Jews would own a great deal more of the Middle East. And especially since the territory occupied by Israel “illegally” was annexed in wars Israel didn’t start.

and should be forced to move to these places at gunpoint.

Not that I’m trying to defend Shapiro, but when did he ever say this? His point was that arguing that a Palestinian state ought to exist is bizarre because one already does. Now I’ll concede that it might be implicit in the Israeli occupation of certain lands that Palestinians are being forced to move at gunpoint, but I hardly think all the blame falls on Israel. The Israeli government has a responsibility to protect its citizens, which is what it’s doing.

Originally posted by LPFabulous
If you want to make the argument that Palestinians have a right to Palestine, you’ll need a better argument than “their ancestors lived there” - especially since that would mean the Jews would own a great deal more of the Middle East. And especially since the territory occupied by Israel “illegally” was annexed in wars Israel didn’t start.

How about the fact that they still live in Palestine? It’s not just that their ancestors lived there (they did though) it’s that people in recent times lived there and they used to be their own country untill Isreal came and blasted them off. They are pissed that some strange guys came to their homes and said “Our ancestors maybe lived here a really long time ago, so YOINK!”. That’s like going to a house your grandparents used to live in and shooting the people that live in it now because you supposedly have rights to it (not legal rights, just rights because your god says so).

God + Politics = Crap

Originally posted by ChemBot
How about the fact that they still live in Palestine? It’s not just that their ancestors lived there (they did though) it’s that people in recent times lived there and they used to be their own country untill Isreal came and blasted them off. They are pissed that some strange guys came to their homes and said “Our ancestors maybe lived here a really long time ago, so YOINK!”. That’s like going to a house your grandparents used to live in and shooting the people that live in it now because you supposedly have rights to it (not legal rights, just rights because your god says so).

The Israeli government did not just show up one day and force them off. First, they are not being forced off. Second, the territories were seized in wars of aggression against Israel. Look, I don’t support the eviction of Palestinians or even the continuation of Israel as a strictly Zionist state, but it is quite clear to me that the portrayal of Israel as some lumbering hulk that is trying to eradicate peaceful Palestinians who have never done anything wrong is just false and pernicious.

Originally posted by Oblivion
God + Politics = Crap

All politics involves God in at least some sense. Trying to pretend that there is any way to separate the two is nonsense. That said, your statement can be reduced to:

A) God = Crap, or

B) Politics = Crap.

Both of which I will accept.

Hurray!

Originally posted by LPFabulous
The Israeli government did not just show up one day and force them off.

Actually, yes they did.

And I’m not saying that Bush should have to go out and get his own intelligence, but if he slanted the intelligence that he got, or had someone like Wolfowitz pick and choose which intel got released to the public…then there are problems.

But my point is, if I’m a vapid American who follows the word of pundit as if it were the gospel truth, I would be so confused right now, I could plotz!!

Originally posted by Trot_to_Trotsky
And I’m not saying that Bush should have to go out and get his own intelligence, but if he slanted the intelligence that he got, or had someone like Wolfowitz pick and choose which intel got released to the public…then there are problems.

Well, I’ll start by saying that I sure hope there’s someone somewhere picking and choosing which intelligence gets released to the public. If not, we’d have a huge national security issue. Though I understand where you’re going here. If the intelligence released were falsified by Bush or someone he ordered into a position of intelligence-falsification, we can blame it on him. I’m not sure he’s actually all that responsible in actuality, though.

vapid American

For someone who gets so incensed at being called anti-American, you seem have a pretty low opinion of most Americans.

Analysis of a Pew Global Attitudes poll for y’all:

http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=185

Especially terrifying are the following results:

80% of Palestinian respondents say there is no way for an “Israeli state and Palestinian rights to coexist.”

71% of Palestinians have confidence in Osama bin Laden to “do the right thing regarding world affairs.”

This definitely does not make me more sympathetic to the “plight” of the Palestinians.

After being blown up so many times, it’s normal to become jaded. Look at Canada and the no wars it started and the lack of support for terrorists: this is due to not being blown up.

Originally posted by Oblivion
After being blown up so many times, it’s normal to become jaded. Look at Canada and the no wars it started and the lack of support for terrorists: this is due to not being blown up.

Umm, there are a lot of countries that have started wars and don’t support terrorists. In fact, terrorist support is pretty much - gasp - a Muslim phenomenon. I may hate communism, but even China is not a supporter of terrorists.

Though I must, at least in part, agree with you. I am a full supporter of the Bush administration’s claim that terrorism is not an act of desperation, but of hope. People who think violence is the solution to problems are far more likely to be terrorists than those who do not, which is a good indicator of why Canada more than most other places is not a state supporter of terrorism.

Originally posted by LPFabulous
Umm, there are a lot of countries that have started wars and don’t support terrorists. In fact, terrorist support is pretty much - gasp - a Muslim phenomenon.

Sinn Fein?

Originally posted by Trot_to_Trotsky
Sinn Fein?

Yikes! Even I must applaud you for this zing. Too bad I can’t pretend I hate the Irish as much as the Muslims (seeing as how some people higher on the family tree will throw coconuts down if I slight them).

seeing as how some people higher on the family tree will throw coconuts down if I slight them

Same here.

But you’ve got to look at the facts. The Irish invented whiskey.

And old fashioned anti-English hooliganry.

Islam has only given us…math, and…modern medical science. You know, worthless things that aren’t whiskey…

You tell me which is the more advanced, more essential-to-the-future-of-mankind society.

Originally posted by Trot_to_Trotsky
Plus they invented whiskey.

The liquor of kings. Or drunks. I can never remember which.

And old fashioned anti-English hooliganry.

I like the English, but I think I like hooliganry better.

Islam has only given us…math, and…modern medical science. You know, worthless things that aren’t whiskey…

Umm… Babylonian mathematics (probably the earliest) predates Islam by a large margin (like 2000 years). Not to mention that that was just basic farming nonsense. Real math came from Greece.

As for modern medical science… well, I don’t know much about that. BUT, I know I hate Muslims, so I refuse to believe it.

Originally posted by LPFabulous
Umm… Babylonian mathematics (probably the earliest) predates Islam by a large margin (like 2000 years). Not to mention that that was just basic farming nonsense. Real math came from Greece.

Ehh, it’s all the same.

Our numbers are Arabic…

Heck, I’ll amend the statement to: Astronomy.

Originally posted by Trot_to_Trotsky
Our numbers are Arabic…

Yes.

Heck, I’ll amend the statement to: Astronomy.

In that case, I still suspect it’s Arabic and not Muslim. I don’t hate Arabs.