November 29, 2006

• This Bush guy seems like a real asshole.
• Class Struggle: American workers have a chance to be heard. Op-ed by Jim Webb.
• Boy, that Bush sure isn't very nice. Could this have gone in an existing Bush Sucks thread?
• MonkeyFilter *is* a Bush Sucks thread.
• *weeps for the chased-away Fes*
• Really can you ever have too many Bush Sucks threads? Honestly?
• Yes.
• What?
• Sorry to derail your post, petebest, but it relates to a few comments (toward the bottom) on the blog.
• BushSucksFilter may be, but I'm interested to see how the incoming Democratic majority handles this administration. I thought this was significant in that it is in marked contrast to Speaker-to-be Pelosi's complacent overtures. Also it kicks ass in a fomer-military-recently-elected-tells-chickenhawk-POTUS-to-shove-it kinda way. It's not a thread about Bush as such, but more about how the incoming Democrats will act. Yes, it's on the heels of a BushSucks bonfire. And yes I miss the ol' Fes-ter and hope he authenticates to drop the knowledge post haste. But c'mon. When was the last time anyone in the Washington power structure challenged this administration in any outward way?
• He's new. He'll get with the program soon enough. I like Webb, and I'm glad he won (one of the few election races I followed). The op-ed homunculus posted is hard to disagree with. I just wonder if his kind can survive in the reality of Capitol Hill.
• Well, poop. Still, it's an interesting story about DC politics, and it may foreshadow public statements of opposition that the all-Republican elected government has not allowed in the last six years. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency? (On preview: that's another good question rocket, how will that tone be "accepted" or at least processed in this media climate)
• "That's not what I asked you," Bush said. "How's your boy?" “He’s in harms way Mr. President.” ‘That’s not what I asked you’, wow, what a prick. And how could he relate to whatever he might have said, having never served himself? Or indeed, having never wiped his own ass. Bushsucksfilter? Give me a break. He should be on the hook for crimes committed. Will Dems be doing that anytime soon? *holds breath*
• Webb's actions seem a bit disrespectful if this was a government function. However, the point of the post seems to be to demonstrate that Bush was thoughtless or rude. It seems to me that what Bush did was fine. If he had avoided Webb (a critic of his administration), then people would have called him petty. Instead, he chooses to say hello and ask him about his family. I can imagine that it might have annoyed Webb, but I don't see how it was inappropriate for Bush.
• I'm looking forward to the Dems getting some good stuff through (eg. minimum wage increase, stem cell funding, unrepeal habeas corpus) and having Bush veto them. That'll at least be worthwhile political theatre. If they sneak in some ethics reforms or investigations into BushCo, awesome, but I ain't holding my breath.
• how the incoming Democratic majority handles this administration. They won't do anything. We are in it for the long haul. Most Americans just don't care about habeas corpus, and the patriot act.
• I thought this was more of a story about Jim Webb and his unusual political style than it was about Bush sucking.
• It always ends up being about Bush sucking. I could start a thread about pencils and it would end up being about Bush sucking. I just might start a thread about pencils, just to prove my point!
• Memo to wingnut: Get AIDS and die.
• No, I take that back. Go fuck yourself.
• The op-ed homunculus posted is hard to disagree with. I'm even more impressed with the op-ed he wrote in 2002 warning against the invasion of Iraq. He saw very clearly what was going to happen.
• Sen. Webb, true conservative? His novel about a war crimes trial suggests he'll join Dodd and Leahy's efforts to repair the constitutional vandalism wreaked by the Military Commissions Act.
• ‘That’s not what I asked you’, wow, what a prick. Agreed, he was being a prick, because he is a petty prick. He was blatantly passive aggressive to Webb. If my kid could be killed any day, or beheaded, I would not be in the mood to talk to the person that needlessly made that possible. I don't care what the occasion. Life and death is not something you are aloud to be a snide asshole about.
• Smallish bear, I may have a malfunctioning irony meter, so please tell me whether that was meant to be a joke.
• allowed even
• I just might start a thread about pencils, just to prove my point! You might want to include Pleggy's recent blog post on pencils. Good read. Derail much? Me? Why do you ask?
• Hi smallish bear, how about not behaving like a jackass, ok? Wouldn't that be fun? Let's give it a try!
• Oh man -- slap five bucks on this mess and call it Metafilter...
• It always ends up being about Bush sucking. I could start a thread about pencils and it would end up being about Bush sucking. Indeed, the Papermate Classic far exceeds the quality of the Dixon. With the Papermate Classic, I can write "Bush Sucks," with smoother, more elegant lines. In addition, for the lefties, the Papermate smudges less thereby lessening the blurring your "Bush Sucks" statements when your hand moves by.
• Jack Webb's an interesting character. I look forward to some more snubbing and in-your-facitude. Will the unprecedented juggernaut of semantic chicanery spewing forth from this administration be stemmed by such an unwillingness to bend to it? Only time . . will tell.
• Well I think some see the current administration, and those that support it as more of a threat to the basic tenets of our democracy, which has been demonstrated over and over again. Some people believe (such as myself) that the current state of affairs is just the beginning of worse things to come, and the neo-cons and their supporters are responsible. Some people believe that civility sometimes must be thrown out. I think some people believe that the current administration is quite crazy and to entertain their ideas is a threat to all mankind.
• Jim. Jim Webb's an interesting character. Jack Webb's the actor, producer and director behind Detective Joe Friday in the TV Series "Dragnet". Duh.
• Get AIDS and die I give up.
• It's probably not a very good curse, 'get AIDS & die' because people with AIDS actually take decades to succumb, now, what with medical advances & so forth. If I really hated someone, say, Chimpy McFlightsuit or Rush Limpballs, I'd wish them to die horribly in a fire, or something like that Russian guy went thru recently. Most Uber Right Wingers are so st00pid that they can't come up with even a vaguely impressive curse of death, these days. I can prove this. It's mental illness, people. Only the mentally ill are conservatives.
• Good grog all mighty! I think people are a wee bit too sensitive. It's all-too easy to jump on the "Bush-sucks" theme. Hell, thanks for the post pete. I definitely have more insight into Mr. Webb now (and doubtful that I would have picked up on it elsewhere).
• I don't think the conversaton got rude or aggressive until the "That's not what I asked you" line. Until then it might have been tense and awkward, but it didn't get rude till that point. Personally, I prefer pens. You ever use the Pilot V5s? Man, that's a writing machine!
• I used to love Dragnet. And Adam-12. Whenever a vehicle with a siren went by the House, Dad would tell me it was Adam-12 coming to get me. As far as the ubiquity of "Bush sucks" goes, well, it IS kind of hard to keep it out of conversation. It's the elephant in the parlor, and it casts a big shadow. Nobody would enjoy a day of not having to think about how much Bush sucks more than I would, but that'd be like spending a day not thinking about the neighbor's loud TV.
• bush does suck. webb seems interesting but he's obviously something of an iconoclast. no matter what you think of someones' opinions, favorite band, hairstyle or gender identification, telling them to "get AIDS and die" puts the teller so far below any intended target of said 'curse' as to render their own position laughably pathetic. I am sorry to see anyone on monkeyfilter say something like that, and surprised that it is you smallish bear. and these days I am quite fond of the Pilot G-2 myself, for everyday uses....
• Personally, I prefer pens. Monkeys can't write. This board is an exercise in bending the laws of probability. How long can monkeys bang on a keyboard and continue to create coherent sentences. The only thing you guys would use pens for is fishing termites out of termite mounds.
• I don't know. Pencils do have the advantage over pens of both being erasable and working in zero gravity. However, a nice fountain pen is a beautiful, beautiful thing. Has anyone else noticed how difficult it is becoming to get good quality wooden pencils? They have become really crappy in the past few years. The last box of Mirados I bought had all of the leads off-centre. Complete junk.
• I second the Pilot V5's hawtness. Obzoive.
• If all you could hear on the major TV networks all day long was how much Bush sucks and what an idiot he is, I might get tired of hearing it here.
• Oh and some reference for the get-AIDS-and-die comment in case any lurkers weren't aware of it's history.
• Dang. Its. Not it's.
• I've gone back to basics with pens for letter writting -- inkwell with good quality India ink, and a dip pen. For work, however, it's a Pilot V7 or V5.
• I import my own Bics to work. My god, do I love Bics. Just the right weight and feel. And they're everywhere, desk drawers, car, suit pockets -- I love my Bics. Lovelovelove. The good pens I tend to lose. Which is why I turned to Bics. Which I lovelovelove. Didn't find any green ones in Europe, though. Pencils -- I do most of my office owrk in pencil. We currently have bunch of PaperMates on hand, which are a lot better than the crappo Basics ones from Office Depot or whatever. Didn't even know that PaperMate made pencils. And they're good. Huh.
• I hate those plastic/wood pulp hybrid pencils. I want the feeling of a real Brazilian forest between my fingers.
• I probably shouldn't have a response for "get AIDS and die," but I do. I understand that people on here think that Bush was being passive-aggressive or needling Webb. Maybe he was. But, to me, it sounded like something a politician might say in making small talk. How many members of the House and Senate are there? There are over 400, right? And there were just a ton of contested elections. So Bush is supposed to know probably 500 or so people. That is a lot of people to know. What people in that position often do is try to remember one important detail about the person's life. If you know that Jim Smith likes cats, then you mention "cats" everytime that you see Jim Smith. It's all you can really remember about him and be sure of. You learn his name as "Jim Smith Likes Cats." Bush may know Webb as "Jim Webb Son Marine." That might be it. I am sure that he knew that Webb didn't like him, but he wanted to appear friendly or polite, so he reached for the one thing he knows about Jim Webb. Unfortunately, it wasn't cats. It was that his son is a Marine. Maybe I am wrong. And if the consensus is that my interpretation of a quote said by someone none of us know personally is wrong, then I will find the most painless way I can to contract the virus.
• Yeah, I second that on the plastic wood pulp crappo pencils. Too bendy. All wrong. If it don't smell like wood when you sharpen them (love them cedar pencils . . . ), it ain't a real pencil.
• We keep getting these threads and posts with links to things that trigger the obvious response of "bush/cheney/administration = bad." They don't spark any real 2-sided debate because articles like these only have the one rational response. Anyone who takes the other side (defending bush) is clearly trolling, because any rational conservative would not participate. You don't defend the war, for example, in the face of something like "U.S. Troops Kill 5 Girls in Assault on Insurgents." How could you, when that's the starting point of the debate? The deck's been stacked, and you can't argue on those terms without looking like a major prick. In light of that, wingnut is clearly a troll (or, unlikely, a major prick), and he really should go fuck himself. I think he's a sock puppet crafted by a more liberal monkey, whose purpose is to stand as a straw man in place of the conservatives who refuse to debate politics on these terms. It's like dailykos, except more partisan, and less informative. And just as it often happens in the comments there, lacking a source of real opposition the people on the same side of the issue argue with each other, over semantics or misconceptions, over who has a bad attitude or something equally insignificant. I flamed a troll. Now carry on with whatever it is you people do here.
• fimbulvetr you have the best bio ever.
• Bloody hell. Has no one noticed that all the damn conservatives or anyone slightly right of how the current majority here think has been scared away? Can we please just stop? Go start your own filter. Call it "We Loathe Stupid Right Wingers".
• Graciously played, wingnut.
• Oh my god, fimbulvetr, you do have the best bio.
• I guess I picked the wrong day to check in on the ol' filter. Thanks, but .. no thanks. See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya.
• techsmith, before you go swing by fimbulvetr's bio, it really is cool!
• Agreed, nicely responsed wingnut. sb, can't agree, based on what i see. I think your flames were drastic and bombastic, heavy-handed and iconoclastic. Nah e'rebody get on tha goodfoot! Unh! Whaow!
• Opinion on Bush to the contrary, I'm probably pretty far to the right of the normal flow here on this here Monkey Filter, and I haven't been run out of the joint. There are probably a lot of more right-wing folks here that haven't run off, and several things could be contributing to this: - They may eschew the dogma of both "the left" and "the right," so their opinions seem to slip by in most conversations like this as they don't get flagged as simply re-spouting the propaganda of a spin machine; - They've never been one for teams and are well aware that both the Looney Unpatriotic Godless Communist Left is just as much of a work of rhetorical fiction as the Neocon Fascist Corporatist Right, hence my general lack of presence in the ever popular "Tastes Great / Less Filling" debates that occasionally break out - They don't rise to the bait and beg for pile-ons by jumping into pre-framed topics and barf spin all over the page. People from both sides could learn a lesson, here, but that generally would involve having to not be Personally Offended that someone from The Other Team had The Gall to Disagree. This was a quite decent post that got derailed because the bile from the last noisy post (which was a steaming coil of a post and rightfully Eeked) hasn't all been fully expunged. Maybe everyone with their feathers in a ruffle could just go barf somewhere else for a change.
• but I'm interested to see how the incoming Democratic majority handles this administration. I hope they don't follow the example of the Mexican Congress, even as entertaining as it may be... Sharpie medium for writing, Staedler HBs for doodling.
• *barfs in chim's shoes*
• I apologize. I will endeavor to restrict myself to a relatively few productive comments, and not pad them with little turds whenever I am bored.
• There was a great deal of excitement at the commune with an order for 100 authentic hippie t-shirts came in. Since t-shirts and organic nut butter were the only two sources of revenue for the commune, this was a big deal--it would keep them going for months. However, the chief t-shirt decorator, Moonbeam O'Peacenik, knew right away that they didn't have enough Cranberry Red nor Cyanobacteria Green to fill the order; also, in order to meet the deadline, many more of the commune members than usual would have to become helpers in the tie-dyeing process. Without wasting any time, Moonbeam turned to her assistant, Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate, and cried the words that have since become a slogan of hope, community,and general peacefulness and brotherhood: "Quick, Zan! Get aides and dye!"
• *Applause*
• Just trying to rehabilitate the phrase, you know. Turn it into something with a can-do attitude and a spirit of togetherness. Words mean what you want them to mean. So, in closing. Fnarsnozzleblitz. And I mean that.
• Oops, looks like I've stumbled into MetaFilter. I was looking for that happy, friendly, cliquish site MonkeyFilter. Sorry.
• briank maybe you should just take your fnarsnozzleblitz and frotoglibate on out of this mustroobinarium right now! :D
• I thought you didn't hear from the right as much because people are finally starting to see what a mess Bush has made? /I prefer Parkers, in case I have to sign something on some evil henchmen's back.
• her assistant, Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate Now just a one Too-Many-Daves minute here - I think you've stolen that name from somewhere.
• fimbulvetr you have the best bio ever Why, thank-you. I tried to keep it as succinctly accurate as possible.
• Did Webb underreact?
• fimbulvetr's bio did more good for this thread than a basket of kittens!
• Hmmmm... what happened to my link? I meant to say "more good for this thread than a basket of kittens."
• Whoa - a radar trap in a basket!
• Oh, and: A testy exchange followed Surely those were neuticles.
• Wingnut: I think what people object to most is not Bush asking about Webb's son, but his dismissal of Webb's response. If Bush had any sense or grace he would have just taken Webb's response in stride and said something along the lines of "I hope they all come home safely" or even just "oh, ok, talk to you later". But "Thats not what I asked you" suggests an almost callous disregard for the concerns of a parent whose child is in harms way by the man who put that child there. He should have known better, really, than to bring the subject of his son up, but having done so he should have had more grace in dealing with Webb's response. Myself personally? I would have poked Bush in the eye with a cheap Bic mechanical pencil, 0.7mm lead. Anything fancier just feels pretentious and weird in my hand.
• 
• How's your boys?
• You want a nice pencil? This is a nice pencil.
• I see your basket, meredithea, and raise you... via
• I would agree with that, ReverendJohn. I hadn't really focused on that particular remark. That seems to be insensitive, rude, or clueless. I hope that it was clueless, but that may be just wishful thinking on my part. The more interesting part of this to me is that Webb wants to be openly and aggressively hostile to the sitting president. When is the last time that we have seen a senator do that? Did any of the republicans refuse to talk to Clinton after the Lewinsky affair?
• I gotta say, my take on the incident was similar to wingnut's original comment, and would add that I think Mr. Webb was a tad provocative. I also gotta say.... no. No, I don't.
• I say that wingnut is fastened well! Webb, I think, will turn out to be a wingnut that is not fastened so well.
• I defer to stirfry when it comes to weighing nuts.
• If you want to see a real breakdown in political civility, you only need to look to Mexico. *Tips hat to Captain Renault*
• Does no one have an opinion on Mackerel's hearsay link? All the source credentials of Watergate, but without the weight. Personally, if his "tone" was really that mocking of a serviceman his administration put into the line of fire, I would be outraged, whether I was a parent or not of said soldier. If it's a case of dismissive attitude, there are many reasons he could have said what he did. For one random example, the dismissal of Webb's reaction may be retalitory towards a percieved slight toward his administration (this is easily imaginable if Bush has a problem empathizing the generalized other). How could that make Bush a prick? It seems more of a cagey over-defensive reaction. Still, hurt feelings are still bound to occur when the person dismissive of your powerful emotions is seen as the symbolic cause of said emotions.
• Ooo, clarifying here: "...mocking the danger to life and limb of a..."
• this is easily imaginable if Bush has a problem empathizing the generalized other Which would make him completely ill suited to be the President of the United States. I am sure Pol Pot had a problem with the "generalized other" as well. I am not trying to be glib here, but having issues reconciling oneself with the feeling and suffering of the "generalized other" is very problematic for the leader of a country.
• I would also add that most people that I meet that are pricks are people with very little empathy.
• islander: Awww! How about some duckies?
• from Mackerel's link: My sources are telling me that the way President Bush approached Webb with his tone, it appeared he was asking the question of how Jimmy was doing in a mocking manner, while he was certainly aware of the tragedy that had hit his unit a few weeks earlier. Now, I wouldn't accuse Bush of being a smirking rich-kid bully, but if that's the context then yeah. Slug-city. I prefer Parkers Them's fightin' words! *slowly reaches for Pilot*
• Bad Manners. How shocking!
• "Webb certainly has conveyed what he is: a boor. Never mind the patent disrespect for the presidency. Webb's more gross offense was calculated rudeness toward another human being - one who, disregarding many hard things Webb had said about him during the campaign, asked a civil and caring question, as one parent to another."
• George Will should stick to baseball. Really.
• If he remembered enough about Webb to remember that he had a son, one would like to think that he would remember Webb's well-publicized feelings about the circumstances his son is in. I'm glad to see that there's at least one man in Washington who doesn't confuse respect for the office with deference for the man holding it. A Bunny and his Friends.
• TUM that looks like the cover of Usual Suspects. Cop "Bunny, step forward" Cop "Say meow" Bunny "Moo" Cop "KNOCK IT OFF. Get back in line."
• I would photoshop them in front of a brick wall, with some band-font name like "The Furries" or something Lop Amazing - guitar Etta du Squeek - vocals Peter Criss - drums Doc Humper - bass
• MonkeyFilter: I may have a malfunctioning irony meter. MonkeyFilter: Maybe you should just take your fnarsnozzleblitz and frotoglibate on out of this mustroobinarium right now! MonkeyFilter: I will endeavor to restrict myself to a relatively few productive comments, and not pad them with little turds whenever I am bored. MonkeyFilter: Can we please just stop?
• Unlikely.
• George Will’s creative editing
• No Pandering Here
• Except Will left out the part of the exchange that didn’t suit his purposes. *whew* a little while back there I was in danger of grudginly respecting ol' Georgie in general. Pompous? Check. Ass? Check. Alrighty then. From the second article: Webb’s presumed snub of Bush is rare enough in a city where everybody who’s anybody has a glory wall, and social occasions are geared to a parade of picture taking. A glory wall? Heh. heh heh heh. Mmmm. Yes. Gotta get me one of those.
• Related. You know: fyi. SFW.
• "I am macaca."
• Webb Does More For Troops in One Day Than Allen Did In Years
• I've been pretty impressed with what I've heard from him thus far. Webb introduced the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2007, legislation that will provide the newest Veterans with educational benefits like those received by men and women who served in the three decades following World War II.
• Isn't it sort of spooky to be impressed with what someone in the United States Senate is doing? Feels so...wrong.
• Sen. Webb’s Democratic Response to the SoTU: The war’s costs to our nation have been staggering
• Oops.
• Webb on McCain's War and Being "Combative"
• Webb Introduces Bill Restricting War with Iran
• McCain doesn't get it because he was stuck in a POW camp: That is an interesting take.
• Webb has a gun Just sayin'.
• Webb Blasts McCain; Accuses Fellow Vet Of "Impugning People's Patriotism"
• In the television interview, Webb said McCain had approached him on the Senate floor and said lawmakers should avoid the type of personal attacks that occurred during congressional debates about the Vietnam War 30 years ago. Since that conversation, Webb said McCain has been "consistently" attacking those who disagree with him about the war. "I don't believe it is in anybody's interest for members of the Senate to be impugning the other side's patriotism or, by the way, hiding behind the troops as political justification for what we are doing," said Webb, a former U.S. Marine. McCain is about dead to me now. Go Jim Webb.
• Jim Webb rips into Graham for putting political words in our Soldiers’ mouths
• McCain is about dead to me now. Dang, don't I wish he were just plain dead. Too bad the all frothing-at-the-mouth politicans can't fall over from high blood pressure.
• President Obama, Vice President Webb, Sen Majority Leader Clinton
• Webb: Bush Would Be First President In History To Veto Benefits For Vets
• What It Means To Be a Leader
• O'Reilly: Jim Webb is in the pocket of Moveon
• "No other reason not to?" I can thing of a bushel of reasons, and they all start with "Bill" and end with "O'Reilly."
• I predict that Americans have not, on the whole, learned anything from the past eight(y) years, and will happily vote the warmongering white man in. Or rather vote the black man out.
• Skrik: you may be entirely right. I had such hopes that Bush would not be re-elected in 2004, only to have them dashed. I don't know that the large part of the population that depends mostly on the conservative and religious right for information have really realized since then how corrupt and incompetent so much of the Republican Party has become. I think McCain is responding to that in reflecting the Bush policies. There's also an element who thinks that blacks are not equal to whites, even after all these years. On the other hand, there have been ground-swells during our history when folks said, "We've had enough of that!" Kennedy's election, in spite of the fear mongering that we'd be ruled by the Pope comes to mind. Obama seems to me to be smart and honorable (in spite of some of his recent waffling.) I'm still holding out hope (eternally optimistic) that that will turn the tide.
• And they even had a nicer Pope back then, too.
• I wish they'd post more history on McCain. The other guy, too, for that matter. I'm so sick of how the candidates are groomed and prettified, I could spit. We elected an incompetent warmonger that ran two companies his daddy gave him right into the ground and few people knew it. Just because McCain was a POW doesn't mean he deserves the office. There's a lot of men who were POWs that are unsuited for the presidency.