It’s hard not to notice one interesting way in which Islamic supremacists have been tying themselves in rhetorical knots as they try to explain their recent behavior in Gaza and Lebanon.
Hezbollah and Hamas both celebrate themselves as “resistance” movements — resistance to Israel, resistance to the arrogance and imperialism of the West, resistance to the apostate Arab regimes who have allied with Israel and America. And resistance, it should be added, to anyone who resists getting out of the way of the war machine quickly and voluntarily.
Hezbollah has created a conundrum for itself, as the group has turned its military might against the same people it has always said its resistance existed to protect, and so the resistance feels a lot like the occupier these days. And Hamas is facing a similar PR problem. Israel no longer occupies Gaza and has always said that its fight with Hamas will end when Hamas’s attacks on Israel end. So what is Hamas now “resisting,” exactly? Well, one of the group’s leaders said today that it seeks “to continue the defense against the Israeli settlements and cities around Gaza.” (Someone please alert Gershom Gorenberg.) Ah, yes — occupied Sderot. Just a little south of occupied West Beirut.
Welcome to Liberal world. Common sense, decent and non-elite Americans, enter at your own risk.
“He even halted a few times to ask for clarification from his White House counsel.” So our new president signed executive orders without understanding what was in them. And this isn’t a problem with the MSM. So in the bizarro world of the MSM, Obama’s lack of knowledge of his own executive orders that have his signature is a quality to be admired.
Who’s the incompentent president?
Is that something like spin, maybe.
Stuff like this is incredibly annoying, of course. But let it run its course and focus on what matters. If we expend much more energy complaining about the media’s heavy breathing over their rock star, it just makes conservatives look petty. Focus on policy. Where Obama can be pushed to the center, push him to the center. When he has bad ideas, pounce. If he’s as bad as we think, the mistakes he make will eliminate puff pieces like Sidoti’s from the public square.
Greenwald, you’re a joke. Literally. Everything you post is hilariously Orwellian. War is peace, freedom is slavery, reflection and good counsel are ignorance. Have some dignity, you incorrigible partisan hack. Instead of bitterly attempting to put a negative spin on Obama’s thoughtfulness and bipartisanship, how about you work on electing Republicans with qualities we can admire. Your people lost because the majority of Americans are sick of this obnoxious ad hominem nonsense.
#5: Oh, you mean “ad hominem nonsense” like in J. Groper Favreau’s “inagural address”? No wonder you know Orwellian inversion so well!
“contentedly slumped” over a margarita”
tacky abe
There was but a single ad hominem sentence in the inaugural address:
“I thank President Bush for his service to our nation.”
You guys are pathetic.
Does this mean that Michelle can’t please her man in the kitchen?
When George was President, he was just an ignorant, semi-illiterate, sometimes employed wood butcher. Now that “The One” has arrived, he learned carpentry at the feet of Joseph, and His mother has appeared in what are now Shrines to Her worldwide.
Oh, I forgot the joke. If Obama is the one… then Joe Biden is the zero.
The fact that Obama decided to nullify many of Bush’s executive orders yet had not kept track of what he was doing nor had he studied the issues sufficiently to carry out the act with any semblance of aplomb shows that he was pandering.
I am less sanguine than some about the likelihood that the fourth estate will focus an ever more critical eye on Obama. Criticism will come from the far left but nowhere else. Bush was vilified always, regardless of his successes. Obama will be glorified continuously in the same fashion. If one is in love, one excuses or rationalizes every shortcoming on the part of one’s love object. Love, as the saying goes, is “blind.” In fact, the more criticism directed at one’s beloved, the more stridently do we defend them and support them. It is going to be a difficult and lengthy period.
I for one can appreciate slumping contentedly over a margarita.
As long as that brings him to his senses before signing that hideous spending bill created by Madame Pelosi and her henchmen.
Lester:
Why is Abe tacky for quoting Mary Claire Jalonick’s piece for the AP?
I think of it as the celebrity slump.
Wow, Commentary the neocons are really in a funk if it’s now down to complaining about eating in a restaurant (O! The horror!) and having (gasp!) a margarita. These are going to eight very long years for you. Ha ha ha ha!
Actually, John, contemplating the absurdity of the fawning of the MSM over their man will be the only comfort we non-cool-cats will have, as America fades into oblivion, despite all those unread executive orders.
John puhleez. Its already been a very long eight weeks and hopey-changey after the election for me. Why are you bothering those nasty neocons again? Can’t you see they aren’t worth your time baby? I wish you would have a margarita with me instead of talking about Barry’s. Come out of your man cave and come see your wife. Little Che asked who his Daddy was today. I had to tell him that after the election I just wasn’t sure anymore.
contemplating the absurdity of the fawning of the MSM over their man will be the only comfort we non-cool-cats will have
And think of those on our side for a moment. Your discomfort will be a legal, ethical, and perfectly moral form of torture. We will truly be able to have our cake ‘n eat it too.
You are truly heartless John. Can’t you feel my pain? Why are you being such a hater? You are like the PETA fund raiser who kicks his dogs when he gets home because his bomb fizzled at the zoo. Momma told me you were bad news — I should have listened to her. Little Che said that he wished he had been adopted by the alternative lifestyle couple up the street when he stuck the five kopek sticker on his head at the last communal yard sale. I am thinking I should have let him go.
Liz Sidoti, could you get any further up Obama’s bony rear end? What’s your next article, “Keith Olbermann Avoids Partisan Attacks Favored By Rush Limbaugh”?
Joan,
You’re being kind of “nuanced” here.
I doubt that Johnni-boi can keep up.
Humor is not a lefty “strength” — as Al Frankenstool has demonstrated for several decades now.
Tom Paine,
Are you sure John H. is a leftist? I’d thought of him more as an America Firster or something. And yet Joan says their child is named Che. It’s all very puzzling. If Joan’s pain weren’t so obviously authentic I might suspect her of being an impostor.
Mr Paine, I am truly not one to tread in your demesne. But John seems to have gone all Sybil on us since the election. I truly can not understand how one man can abandon his family life for the sake of hurling vitriol at his imagined tormentors. It’s like he was raised in a Skinner Box by neocons who kept piping in CO2 to cause the temperature to rise while playing videos of Ted Nugent talking about bow hunting. I just want him to come up from the basement and spend some time with his family. There are loyalty oaths to take and we have some incandescent bulbs we were burning bright to enhance global warming while the evil Bush was President that we need to replace with CFLs so the oceans will recede. God knows it is not a woman’s place , even in the Hartland household, to get above the 5th step on the folding ladder. After all, the lawyers say it is unsafe otherwise they wouldn’t have that warning label printed on all of them. What with John collecting his disability from his fall in the cafe and us waiting on the insurance payout. Personally I would have him risk the fall but I am not sure exactly when the Ladder Company stands in the bailout agenda. We will just draw the blinds so that nasty investigator can’t tape him. I promise to hold the ladder tight John.
Contentedly slumped in his chair
He weighed the decision with care
In his youth it woulda been no contest
He’d a done a couple of lines of hi-test
But bein’ the Prez was a real pain
When it came to snortin’ cocaine
Best to sip on a margarita instead
When in need of a buzz in the head
Joan, he’s gone. Forget about him. Haven’t you heard the word about Jewish men? Move on…
I repeat my nomination of Broadsword (#11) for the “penetrating” observation of the year.
Mr. Greenwald:
Are you Glenn’s evil twin, or is he your evil twin?
Cheers,
Zolt
#4: “Stuff like this is incredibly annoying, of course”
It is very funny.
“focus on what matters.”
Personality cult matters. Uncritical adulation of the powerful matters.
Laughter is a powerful disinfectant. Abe Greenwald’s article is good clean fun.
(Our glorious POTUS is not its real target; his sycophants in the media are. )
Just agreeing with #29 contra.
It used to be that whatever the story, the point was to bash President Bush, and it didn’t matter what sort of contortions the “reporter” had to go through or how much reality had to be ignored. Now the goal is to exalt Obama, but the tactics: rewrite history, ignore reality, use newspeak, so carefully developed over the past eight years, remain the same.
Another quick thought. I guess I’m just chatty this morning.
Perhaps someone should start a “What if it had been Bush?” contest where the contestant rewrites stories and headlines the way they would have been written if they were about the Bush administration instead of the Obama administration. For example, a headline you didn’t see but would have seen had the 20th been Bush’s inauguration: Wall Street Enters Vote of No Confidence for President as Stocks take Record Inauguration Day Tumble
Looks like you’re complaining about nothing. Does the conservative cause a favor, and reserve your griping for issues that actually matter, instead of whiny puff pieces like this. Oh yeah, and grow up.
Regardless of political stripe, right NOW is a good time for all of us to support our president. Geeze…the country is in a ditch and we all need to pull together to get out…
MiketheWaiter,
To repeat a point that has been made before, this piece is not attacking the President. It’s poking fun at the fawning media. Where’s the harm in that?