John Scalzi, over at Whatever, writes about something that kept us talking over here for awhile, too. In fact, the very meme he’s writing about surfaced here, thanks to our resident Republican. And it was just too funny, so I figured I had to point it out — it’s also a small (very small) attempt to make up for not posting while I’ve been working on my first-ever professional legal writing assignment….
Rush Limbaugh also ran with the meme, saying “This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation.” Which of course makes one ask: So they’re sodomizing initiates with glow sticks at Yale? Interesting.
Heh…I think that would explain a lot!
21 responses so far ↓
1 Nat // May 21, 2004 at 6:40 pm
yadda, yadda, yadda.
This story has been totally played out. Ad infinitum. Ad nauseam. Much worse things happen every day in America and you don’t get anything like the faux outrage or hysteria over this on the part of the Liberal-dominated mainstream media.
To quote the million and one effete Liberals who screamed their rage and hate all over the media after the DNA on the semen-stained dress was matched to that of the pretend President … “LET’S MOVE ON”!
It worked then. Now let it work it again. Anything else would be total hypocrisy.
Let’s see, Liberals, hypocrisy. Liberals, hypocrisy. Do they want to “move on” now …
2 Rick // May 21, 2004 at 7:39 pm
Nat says,
Translation for Those Who Don’t Read Yaddish:
Actually, the primary purpose of the post was to test a theory and to provide more information on the topic and to give an excuse to link in Whatever.
Glad to see it succeeded on all three fronts.
3 Bob // May 21, 2004 at 8:33 pm
When America invades another country based on a real or imagined list of “wrongs” committed by that country, the integrity of America is on the line.
When those “wrongs” are proven to be untrue, America’s integrity suffers.
When America treats prisoners like Yale initiates and against the Geneva Conventions, America’s integrity suffers.
America, in the eyes of the world, can do whatever it wants to its own people and the world will remain silent. When America claims the high moral ground and invades another country, it will be held to the same high moral standards for its own actions by the world…and its own citizens.
I could care less what they do at Yale. Those actions were immoral and illegal by any rule of “civilized” law. Any American who thinks otherwise is drowning in situational ethics.
If these actions were done TO our servicemen by another country we’d be crying for blood. It’s not out of the question for people with any moral fiber to be asking for the same.
Anyone who tries to sweep this under the rug has no moral or ethical compass and does not deserve to represent this country. Just the fact that you typed your response answers any question I have about you, Nat. Again, your words prove your (lack of) morals.
4 Mark // May 21, 2004 at 9:14 pm
The G-O-P (Greed on Parade) has a few war heroes in its ranks. ONLY a few, since these guys always seem to find a way out of going to war. Tom Delay swears that he couldn’t get into the service because minorities had snatched up all the slots. Yeah, right.
Back to my point, the Republicans do have people like John Warner, who served as a Navy officer in World War II and as a Marine officer in Korea. Boyish, if not feminine-looking, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina served 20 years in the Air Force. Of course, John McCain was shot down over Viet Nam and served five years as a P-O-W. McCain’s captors offered him an early release because his father was an admiral. He turned it down. He didn’t want special treatment because of who his father was (no wonder Republicans today question McCain’s credentials as a true member of their party!).
The Republicans do have a handful of these guys around. Do they listen to them when the issue of how Americans should behave during wartime is discussed?
Of course not! They listen to at least one drug addict and a copious array of other chickenhawks who did everything they possibly could to stay away from gunfire.
I am not criticizing the desire to stay away from bullets. I have been shot. It’s no fun. Had I been old enough for Viet Nam, I probably would have done all I could to avoid going, myself. It’s impossible to say for sure. But that’s what I imagine. My father served this country honorably in World War II and he never would have considered staying home from that war. Early on during Viet Nam, he realized that our foray into Southeast Asia was a huge mistake. He was very happy that my older brother did not have to go. In all likelihood, had I been old enough, I would have been like Newt Gingrich and Bob Graham and a ton of others who stretched college deferments well into doctoral programs in order to prevent being blown to pieces in some sweaty jungle.
What I’m saying is — had I been old enough to go, and had I been successful in avoiding the line of fire, I believe I would let discretion be the better part of valor in this particular discussion. I would let the men and women who had been in combat comment on how American soldiers should behave in war time. I would let former P-O-Ws comment on whether they think Americans ought to stoop to the level of torture. And I would keep my mouth shut.
I guess my line of reasoning is one of the many reasons I could never be a Republican.
5 Lisa // May 21, 2004 at 10:42 pm
Glad to see you linking to Scalzi. He’s a busy blogger (he is the blog guru of AOL and posts there (at “By The Way”) as well as at “Whatever”). He is an entertaining (and apparently very bright) guy.
6 Nat // May 21, 2004 at 10:50 pm
bwahahahaahahahahahahaaha!
This ad hominem attack isn’t fooling anyone with a brain.
You Liberals can’t face the fact that you have a nominee who is haughty, arrogant and contemptuous of ordinary Americans. So you constantly attack President Bush, because you can’t face the prospect of dwelling on the mistake your party has made, in an effort to distract attention from the preening schmo you’re about to waste your party’s nomination on.
They should invent a new word to describe this preening contemptuous shmuck Kerry. How about … pretemptuous?
7 abi // May 22, 2004 at 4:18 am
Ah, Nat. I missed him while I was on holiday in the green, sunny hills around Hadrian’s Wall. Really, I did.
Leaving aside whether we should take drunken unsupervised adolescents as a model for anyone’s behavior, much less that of our soldiers trying to win hearts and minds in a country we claim to have liberated, one thought strikes me.
OK. According to my web research, the semen-stained dress was first mentioned in the media on July 30, 1998. Today is May 22, 2004, just under 5 years and 10 months later. Has the request that we move on to current events worked?
Nat, I’ll make you a deal. If you will never, ever mention the semen-stained dress again, I promise to never say the words Abu Ghraib again after only half the time it’s taken us to get to this point. That gives me two years and eleven months, or until late April of 2006.
Of course, I’ll be thinking about current events in 2006 by then, and how to make the world a better place based on where we are at that time. Will you still be obsessing about the dress?
8 Nat // May 22, 2004 at 9:25 am
See, that’s where Conservatives and Liberals differ. You guys love to impose speech restrictions on other people. Love it.
On the other hand a Conservative says there should be almost no restrictions on speech other than such obvious exceptions as incitement, illegality and vulgarity.
I’ll tell you why the semen-stained dress is one of the most important artifacts of American history. Because without that dress, one of the single biggest lies ever told to the American people would not have been exposed. That little black number from The Gap was the THE piece of evidence that led to Clinton’s conviction as a perjurer, by a Court of Law.
Almost all the investigations of the Clintons’ illegal activity was controlled by the Clintons. They were always sitting on the documents and as long as they were they would stonewall, delay, obfuscate and use every other trick to hide the facts.
But NOW a piece of evidence fell into the Special Counsel’s hands that the Clintons could not contaminate, obscure or hide. They could not stonewall a request for its production. They couldn’t lie about its existence and they couldn’t deny that it contained Clinton’s DNA. They cheated and retreated on every single evidence request but this was one they could not mask or dissemble about such as they did with the Rose Law firm billing records.
See, I have an eye on history. You are about to witness one of the biggest collection of lies since Goebbels published the Nazi Party Manifesto in the form of Bill Clinton’s memoirs due out next month. He will try to rewrite his legacy of neglect and moral corruption for the sake of how history sees him. I guarantee “The dress” will not be mentioned in his pack of lies.
So, the semen-stained dress is not a Conservative obsession with a man who was allowed to lie his way into the White House. It is indisputable evidence of the taint on history that this vile, filthy, morally degraded man was … and not the picture of lies that he and the media will paint about him.
The semen stained dress exposed the Bill Clinton “presidency” for what it really was. Without it, a patina of lies and fraud would probably have gone uncovered. And that’s why the dress must be preserved as an historical artifact.
9 abi // May 22, 2004 at 11:30 am
Quoth Nat:
This from the man who told us to STFU? And the party which establishes “free speech zones” several miles from the President’s appearances lest he be exposed to any opposing views? Nat, you are a marvel.
I was going to explain how my offer was a mirror of your own request that we “move on” from crimes for which the trials are still going on, whose repercussions have barely even begun to show, and whose full extent is still unclear. But I’d be wasting my breath and Rick’s bandwidth. And I think any reader of this blog and its comments has already formed a view on all of the participants.
I’d like to apologize for feeding the troll.
10 Rick // May 22, 2004 at 11:30 am
Knowing Nat will not want to read a post full of evidence, I post my question here at the top — it also appears at the end of this post. Nat, which part of a content-neutral request for “civility” translates into “love to impose speech restrictions on other people. Love it.”? And which part of Conservatives stopping people talking about particular issues and criticizing the government translates into “almost no restrictions on speech”?
The nice thing about blogs is that the content placed on them remains indefinitely available for all to see.
Because of this, we’re able to take Nat’s comment today,
And compare it with this comment he made to a post titled, “Kerry’s Next Battle: His Past” (5/5/2004, 10:26 a.m.),
At least Nat’s “team” is consistent. Bush, too, was reacting to someone who showed a lack of respect for him, when he said, “there ought to be limits to freedom,” either. Yes, the Conservatives say there should be almost no restrictions on speech…unless you poke fun at them and fail to show them the proper level of “respect.”
Perhaps that’s why Nat has consistently told us we should “STFU” and get behind the President, even if we don’t agree with him.
No reason to restrict speech. It will allow us to lock people up for their views, which we couldn’t do until we allowed them to voice those views.
Of course he’s going to tell you that he intended it jokingly, comparable to when the Chinese refer to us as “imperialist dogs” — they don’t really mean it. Uh…right.
But Nat isn’t the only Conservative with this problem. Diebold, the Republican-run company that is deploying the majority of voting machines for the next election (!), certainly doesn’t want people talking.
“But, wait!” I hear the natting of teeth in the background. That’s a business! That’s not “Conservatives”! Well, firstly, they are.
In that same time period, they gave __ to Democrats.
This next election should prove interesting, by the way.
Think hanging chads are a problem?
Not that this is any problem, though. If you say that you want an accountable balloting system, Conservatives won’t try to control your speech, they just won’t count your vote.
Well, okay…maybe they’ll just try to control it a little bit.
It’s okay, though, because those votes didn’t matter.
Conservatives don’t need to come out and publicly announce that they are squelching speech, Nat. They simply do it.
Since Diebold and ES&S — the two largest — started deploying voting machines, areas of the country that normally voted Democratic candidates into office “suddenly” started electing Republicans. No real surprise when Walden O’Dell, the chief executive of Diebold said,
Yet Conservatives believe in almost no restrictions. Who needs restrictions when intimidation will work just as well?
But this is National Security! That justifies this! These people are inciting others to protest! And, as Nat notes, incitement is a reason for Conservatives silencing people. Like grade-school teachers…
Well, if our kids grow up smart enough to vote Republicans out of office, I can see how Conservatives might interpret that as a national security issue.
Nat, which part of a content-neutral request for “civility” translates into “love to impose speech restrictions on other people. Love it.”? And which part of Conservatives stopping people talking about particular issues and criticizing the government translates into “almost no restrictions on speech”?
11 Nat // May 22, 2004 at 12:08 pm
And the leftwing parrot goes:
BAWK BAWK BAWK BAWK BAWK!
Copy and paste!
BAWK BAWK BAWK BAWK BAWK!
Copy and paste!
This obesession with the 2000 election is very unhealthy. But while we’re on the subject did you know that …. BUSH WON!! In fact he won by greater than the official margin because none of your leftwing pals ever wrote about the fact that there was a deliberate destruction of Black Republican ballots in Florida by DEMOCRAT poll workers. Blacks have no right to vote Republican according to Florida Liberals so they just tossed the ballots cast by Black Republicans.
You want to rant? Fine – then you need to also talk about:
* Hillary’s Castle Grande fraud. Her billing records (you know, the ones under subpoena “found” in the White House residence years later) showed she DID the work. But Web Hubbell took the fall.
* Why were there 14 Clinton cronies including both Whitewater partners, Clinton’s hand picked replacement for himself as Gov of Arkansas, and Hubbell (TWICE) convicted??!! Did ANYONE ever hear ANY LEFTWING OUTRAGE about that?? Nope, just LIES about Starr….
* What about Lloyd Bentsen’s membership in two ALL WHITE country clubs? No outrage from the LEFTWING phonies there.
* What about Robert Byrd’s KKK membership? Thie never seemed to generate any outrage from LEFTWING HYPOCRITES who can’t wait to pin the “RACIST” label on Republicans.
“What’s that old saying about “even the perception of impropriety?””
12 Rick // May 22, 2004 at 12:24 pm
Nat just devastated my argument:
I’m not sure why I even bother researching or writing when his counter-argument is so strong.
13 Mark // May 22, 2004 at 12:47 pm
Nat,
If you’re going to talk about Robert Byrd’s unfortunate brief membership in the KKK — talk about it the way he does. Byrd says it was a very serious mistake he made in his 20s. It lasted a brief time. He deeply regrets it.
If Byrd’s youthful mistake is fair game, you should also be ranting about Shrub’s cocaine use and heavy drinking (supposedly) done only before his 40th birthday. We bring up things about Shrub’s past, and it absolutely kills you (the truth often has that effect on Republicans).
No one here is trying to restrict your speech, Nat. There’s a difference between the right to say something and the wisdom of saying it. Other posters here who (foolishly, perhaps) seem to care about you try to guide you away from the obsessions that cheapen other things you have to say that at times show glimmer of an ocassional original thought.
As Rick and Abi have pointed out, it is those of the Republican party who are into restricting speech, such as shutting Howard Stern down because he opposes Shrub. Michael Savage is, in the minds of many, far more obscene than anything that has ever aired on Stern’s program. But does the FCC come down on Savage? Of course not! And they never will, as long as the neo-con reich retains control of Washintgon.
14 Harry // May 22, 2004 at 12:56 pm
I have to admit, I do find Nat’s posts amusing but I am not sure if this “Nat” is a real person. I have yet to see anything that could not be generated with a simple program to scan the first few lines of a blog entry, then pull up standard “sound-bites” randomly from a database and create a “response.”
I see no counter-arguements which would indicate the subject material has been read and thought about. Completely off topic subjects are thrown in on a random basis.
A more frightening thought is that Nat may be a real person, and someone or something has reduced his reasoning capacity to that of a pocket calculator with a piece of chewing gum stuck under the “clear” key.
15 Nat // May 22, 2004 at 3:28 pm
mark,
W’s consumption of adult beverages for recreational purposes PALES into insignificance when compared with the RACIST HYPOCRISY of the Grand Wizard Robert Byrd. You claim that Byrd dropped his membership and regrets his action but you COMPLETELY FAIL to accord W the same discretion when it is a documented fact that W gave up alcohol consumption in his early 40s.
This is typical of all the efforts you put forward to demean The President and whitewash the hypocrisy of your Liberal idols.
Where is your outrage that RACISM permeates the Democrat party? From Fritz Hollings who flew the Confederate Flag over the State Capitol building in Columbia S.C. to Jesse Jackson who uses race-based threats against major corporations to extort millions of dollars for “charities” controlled by him and which are NEVER audited by the IRS, racism is endemic in your party.
Kerry was recently exposed for refusing to hire blacks in his campaign. Clinton gave blacks only minor Cabinet posts. Compare his poor record with W who has placed African Americans in the most prominent positions – General Powell, Dr. Rice and Larry Thompson, assistant AG. Oh, and in the Bush Administration the assistant AGs do not get convicted for obstruction of justice as Clinton’s corrupt cronies did.
You people are RACISTS who oppose opportunity for blacks to get an education through the school vouchers program. You DENIED one million Tutsi women and childred a chance at life while you watched them be hacked to death by the Interahamwe when, if 200 US Marines had showed up, the Interahamwe would have run like rabbits.
The stench of RACISM permeates the Democrat party from top to bottom and yet you choose to dismiss it lightly and make excuses for it.
Shocking.
16 Bob // May 22, 2004 at 8:52 pm
Thank goodness for freedom of speech and the Republican party! Otherwise, this could NOT have happened:
Where would we be without the Conservatives defending our freedom of speech? G-d Bless America! G-d Bless Conservatives Everywhere!
G-d What A Revelation! G-d Bless Blogging!
(Welcome back Abi! Welcome Harry!)
17 Mark // May 22, 2004 at 8:53 pm
Nat,
I notice you failed to mention Shrub’s use of cocaine, which he has never denied.
I grew up in the Deep South. I have lived all over the country. I know something about racists.
Racists in the Deep South flocked to the Republican party in DROVES in the mid-60s when Lyndon Johnson pushed much-needed civil rights legislation through Congress. I know. I was there. These asshats voted Goldwater in 64, Wallace in 68, Nixon in 72. A few went to Carter in 76 because he was a Southerner. They returned to the G-O-P fold in 80 with Reagan and there they remain to this day. Ask any political scientist. The REPUBLICAN party is home to the racists of the world — despite whatever drug addicted radio hosts say. I wrote about this in greater detail in another posting some weeks back.
To say the Democratic party is the home of racists is just as preposterous as saying that the Republican party has any moral base. It’s just ludicrous!
The Republicans once had a token black congressman (who fathered children out of wedlock, for what it’s worth), a guy named J.C. Watts, Jr. of Oklahoma. He got so disgusted with the hypocricy and duplicity of the G-O-P (Greed on Parade) that he voluntarily left his post and retired from Congress as a very young man. He was the ONLY black Republican elected to Congress. Now they have none.
While Watts was still in office, his father, J.C. Watts, Sr., was quoted as saying, “A black man voting for a Republican makes as much sense as a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.” Truer words were never spoken.
18 Nat // May 23, 2004 at 11:25 am
I notice you didn’t mention that Robert Byrd FILIBUSTERED against the Civil Rights Bill. Yeah – how very conveeeeeeeeeenient to omit that fact! Read his speeches railing against “the negro” and then tell me that your beloved Liberal idol is not a RACIST, LEFTWING LIAR.
I suppose next you are going to tell me that was just a “youthful indiscretion” as well.
You’re just a fish wiggling on a hook. Byrd is a racist. And a Liberal hero.
Deal with it.
19 Bob // May 23, 2004 at 4:24 pm
Oh no! What happened to the party of :
Obviously, this is just a series of typos compounded by a confusion with the term “there should be almost no restrictions on speech”.
What? What’s that sound? It sounds like someone’s intergrity hitting the floor again.
But that would be “counterproductive to the Republican agenda.”
Or would it?
20 Rick // May 23, 2004 at 6:48 pm
Even supposing all the statements being made were being made without error, spin, or other potential negating element, I fail to see how pointing out the foibles of one politician — or even a group of them — constitutes a smear on all others of the same party. I’m particularly at a loss to understand how the sins of a few politicians of one party constitute a smear on the ordinary citizens, who may or may not belong to the party.
Both “sides” of this argument have given ample evidence to believe that people from both parties have done things which most of us would not support.
So when many of us have pointed out particular things, like the limitation of civil rights by concerted acts of the current Administration of the United States, I’m at a loss as to how those become irrelevant because someone who is not a member of the current Administration may be culpable of other — or even similar — acts.
Lest you continue to be confused: The issues I’m pushing relate to the reasons why I think the Bush Administration should not hold onto the White House. I’ve also stated on more than one occasion the truth that I’m not a Democrat. (In California, not only is it true that I did not vote for Kerry, but I was not able to vote for Kerry because I’m not a Democrat.) Therefore, it matters not to me that Nat “is able” to counter my arguments by showing that some Democrat ran a car off a bridge decades ago, or that some other Democrat is potentially a racist, or that still other Democrats are perhaps corrupt. It doesn’t even matter that you’ve lost track of the location of the semen-stained dress once worn by a White House intern from a prior Administration. It’s the current Administration’s “sins” that make it unworthy; it is not made clean by the “sins” of past Administrations.
Again, what matters to me is that the current Administration is unworthy of holding office. That there may be other people in the world, perhaps even from the Democratic Party, who are unworthy of holding office does not negate that fact.
And that, Nat, is what I’ve repeatedly pointed out.
So, go ahead, for every time someone points out something wrong with the current Administration, try to change the subject. Try to point to some person who is not a member of that Administration and trumpet their wrongs.
Even where you are right, this does not make the President’s comments about the undeclared war in Iraq, which is bankrupting our country for reasons known only to him (it can’t be to combat terrorism; the terrorists were elsewhere at the time we went into Iraq). It does not make up for the constantly changing stories about WMD, why we went in, how high up the chain knowledge of deliberate violations of the Geneva Convention really went. It does not make up for the climbing gasoline prices as he destabilizes the world oil markets through fear of what he’ll do next. It does not make up for the business interests he runs with sending jobs overseas at an increasingly alarming rate. It does not make up for the USA PATRIOT Act and other unprecedented restrictions on the rights of ordinary citizens. It does not make up for the fact that his Administration has worked harder than any other Administration to keep information from the American people.
You think it was bad when Clinton tried to hide the fact that he had sex with someone he should not have had sex with? Fine. I think it’s bad that the current Administration tries to hide so much regarding how the country’s Energy Policy was written to how much Rumsfeld and the President knew about the types of abuses that were being committed in Abu Ghraib and other places to where he’s spending all the money we no longer have because of the huge deficits he singlehandedly created.
In short, I’m less concerned with all the f*cking that went on in the White House in a prior Administration. I’m much, much, much more concerned about the f*cking that’s being done by the White House in the current Administration.
And I’m particularly concerned because what happened in the prior Administration was consensual, but the f*cking we’re all getting now is not.
21 Mark // May 23, 2004 at 7:26 pm
Nat,
Rick has a very good point, Nat. If you truly followed your line of reasoning with this harping about Robert Byrd, you would have to agree with the following statements:
– All Republicans are racist because of the actions and statements of those such as Strom Thurmond and Trent “Hair Helmet” Lott.
– All Republicans are drug addicts who illegally obtain drugs they do not have prescriptions for because that’s the way that fine example of moral behavior, Rush Limbaugh, behaves.
– All Republicans desert their posts in the military because Shrub did.
– All Republicans raise kids who won’t speak with them, because that’s the kind of family Ronnie Reagan had.
– All Republicans are serial adulterers because Newt Gingrich is.
– All Republicans have criminal records because Shrub, Dick Cheney, and Laura Bush do.
The list could go on, but I have something else to do right now.
Are you willing to promote these arguments, Nat?
If not, I suggest you find something else to talk about other than Robert Byrd.
I think it’s time the G-O-P (Greed on Parade) changed its name to D-O-P (Duplicity on Parade).
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