Amanda at ThinkProgress leads the blog buzz with her story of Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) belittling a US soldier in Iraq as a “two-bit security guard.” The Leftosphere is on code red high dudgeon alert, mostly of the “imagine if a Democrat had said this” variety.
One problem: it appears that the person McHenry called a security guard was in fact a security guard, not a soldier. While it is possible that even the “two-bit” reference is actually part of McHenry telling a self-deprecating tale about the guard he was ticked at saving his life, most in the Rightosphere are noting that the reference, if fairly reported makes him a “jerk,” that it “isn’t exactly a classy move” and that he “isn’t off the hook.” In contrast, it is fair to say that the Left does not typically cheerlead for private security contractors in Iraq.
The Leftosphere, at post-time, has not updated their posts to reflect Amanda’s apparent error. ThinkProgress should have particular fun explaining themselves, given that they recently passed along a bogus claim that Iraqi doctors in al-Anbar province are warning of a new disease they are calling “Blackwater Fever†named after the controversial security firm. However, John Cole deserves special mention for admitting he considered that the story might not involve a US soldier from the outset, only to argue that he really does not care, because — if the roles were reversed — the “right-wing outrage machine” would just perpetuate the Big Lie anyway. Them are some fine standards he’s got.
Update: Cole has the gall in an update to his post to maintain he is right about “you all” would react — immediately after quoting Ed Morrissey at HotAir criticizing McHenry. Morrissey is criticizing both sides while Cole still refuses to tell his readers that Amanda apparently screwed the pooch again (except by quoting me without the Weekly Standard link). Cole tells me not to worry about his standards. In truth, I don’t. I merely observe how low they are.
Update x2: In the comments, MayBee links to McHenry’s unedited video, which was made at the time of the attack, and which further suggests that the Left did some selective editing to create their selective outrage.
Update x3: ThinkProgress has now updated its post to note their apparent error regarding the security guard. But there is still no acknowledgement that the video they have posted was selectively edited to remove the self-deprecating context. BTW, for those not clicking the links, Amanda’s two sources for this story were: (1) McHenry’s opponent; and (2) a website quoting the press release from McHenry’s opponent.
Update x4: Insta-lanche!
Karl- have you seen the video here
http://mchenry.house.gov/multimedia/
made the day he was not allowed in the gym and the bomb went off. He calls it a blessing.
I think the desire to prove the right will criticize it’s own is in overdrive on this one. Why be drawn in by the usual suspects?
[…] Our buddies (I kid) at Protein Wisdom (You got to admit they have a crack staff over there. I mean, it couldn’t be easy finding someone more long-winded than Jeff, but they did with Karl) have the following to add: […]
What John Cole did was ever bit as disgusting as the worse crap put out by anyone on the web. The man has turned into a complete and total idiot and we will probably not renew his contract.
Glad to see the ol’ blowing smoke himself Cole tracked back to this post. A modicum of intellectual honesty still exists there, I suppose.
Cap’n Ed sounds costive with teh outrage, bless him’s heart. I don’t see the big deal about McHenry’s recounting an anecdote wherein everyone he encounters aren’t heroic and noble foils to his humble, self-deprecating paragon of modesty. Cap’n I think maybe should spoon some fiber into his ovaltine and vodka tonight I think maybe.
If y’all are waiting for John Cole, anyone named Amanda, or the Einstein’s at thinkprogress to be honest …
security guards and military have a long-term rotational occupational switching so due to the “privatization”, one year military guy, next year is in ‘service’, next year ‘merc’, and next year, ‘security’. That’s what happened to my former dojo’s sensei…off to do stateside Merc work…training people for big bucks but unfortunately long months away from his large family .(And the rightwing definition of mercenary is just balderdash: can’t be ‘domestic’ and be a soldier of fortune? sure you can…it’s all about the money and violence proficiency for money….that’s just moving the goalposts again…)
It’s one thing for a lefty to be slightly ignorant of the details of the ‘life’ of merc work..but for an R. to criticise it? Ah, it’s what they created and it’s costing the US big bucks and loss of prestige.
The left, including douchenozzle Cole think they’ve found a cute game in “what if a Democrat had said this…” tee hee hee.
They have and they do. One of the more glaring times is Murtha declaring the Marines guilty in Haditha. Kos has always had a “screw them” attitude to contractors.
Patrick McHenry in his own words.
He explains that the ‘two bit’ was what he was thinking when the guy detained him, that he was frustrated, and then later realized how the Lord works in mysterious ways.
Everybody is smearing McHenry for their own purposes here, either to take him out of office or to make themselves look capable of criticizing Republicans.
This poor guy doesn’t deserve it. He went to Iraq and lauded the heroism of everybody there, soldier and contractor.
Balloon-Juice is still up? Who knew? I didn’t think anyone went to that shit hole anymore.
do u do this stuff just to get your aggression out while dealing with lots of toilet wipe paper and being a stay-at-home pops….thus making you a safer and happier dad? Really Dad, PW is doing your family a favor me thinks…but a nice puppy might help too. Some exercise and freah aire. ..which reminds me…later.
dd,
Nice way to vastly over-generalize from the example of your sensei to “merc” work generally. Watch McHenry’s video and see if you think he was slamming the guard.
A lot of not-so-nice things were said back during Le Affair Shiavo, but Cole seems to have internalized every negative aspect of that time and decided it was all some gigantic personal insult at John Cole. He went off the deep end shortly after IMO.
I’ll never understand it.
dd – It is patently obvious that you do not even know what a “merc” is.
yeah, sure. answer the question.
before this conversation goes any further… I would just like to interject the following: BOOBS!
Between this and the linked Balloon Juice thread, this tempest in a piss pot shows just how ridiculously meta the blogosphere has gotten.
dd,
Before you get all high and mighty, you might want to consider that you have already managed to confuse me with Jeff, so you might not be operating on all cylinders at the moment.
Colugo,
Considering that McHenry’s opponent has jumped on this, the main dispute is not all that meta — and it directly relates to the honesty of the people flacking the bogus story.
Boobs? Where? *Looks around* Nope, don’t see any here.
Anyway, the fact that Karl has been deemed “someone more long-winded than Jeff” is a great honor I should think. That means that just like Jeff, they aren’t actually reading the posts but just responding to what they think was said. Which also means Karl gets their panties in a bunch almost as much as Jeff does. Bravo.
We need to throw Karl a virtual party. I’ll bring the Irish Whiskey. I hope you like Tullamore Dew.
I hate to be a downer but as an ex-Special Forces Medic I can say with authority that the name “Blackwater Fever” is already taken and predates the Blackwater USA security firm by many years…
It’s a complication of malaria..involving P. falciparum or rarely P. vivax. Characterized by kidney failure & deep red or black urine… Ugly stuff.
I think the names Triple Canopicemia, DynCorpitis or even Custer Battlotosis are still available though…
Every time anyone links to Cole’s site, I die just a little bit inside. John Cole is the reason I found this site.
Karl, it’d be hard to imagine either a Repub or a Dem criticizing one of South Carolinas fav. occupations. I was just defending the average nonmilitary type for not understanding the seamless interchange between public and private service as in between (public)”military” and (private)”security”. What does an average military guy do after ‘service’? Many, many go into ‘security’ or ‘merc’ work. JD’s justification for calling it something else not with standing… I know a few of these guys, it’s like endemic…police work too. Just the culture of uniforms, hierarchy are amicable to each other…Blackwater makes a big attempt to recruit recent Military obviously as the guys that really screwed up in the last major Baghdad massacre were in fact very young military veterans…alleged by their dismayed cohorts as being on steroids btw.
question eleven was for you JD.
NC whatever..same kind of thing …shit wages lead to enlistment.
I think Cap’n Ed owes McHenry an apology, or at least a further clarification.
datadave- can we talk again about how JD and I are having triplets?
21….yeah….,latinus, a growing epidemic probably for independent truckers these days.
Ouroboros,
Just so — which is why ThinkProgress had to “update” to note, without being too obvious about it, that they got it wrong. And Amanda also falsely accused Mccain of plagarism recently. It strikes me as odd that the Soros-funded ops seem to be even less accurate than random moonbats. Or maybe it’s the new SOP.
Oh come now.
There is nothing less relevant to politics than honesty. Making anyone more likely to be honest in the future because they got burned on this, or shaming them for not being honest enough already to dodge such obvious pitfalls — or whatever — is not even possible. That’s just not where politics is.
It’s subhuman. It’s clans of monkeys screaming and shitting at each other, not a damn powder-wig debate society.
But if it makes you feel better…
Maybee, ah, that was a joke but who knows? I visualized you as a hot-looking Chinese-American lady and he has said he had some sort of nonTWP Asian or Mexican wife I thought. Just maybee, he recruited his wife was the ConJecture! Or fantasy for him perhaps. May is an often Chinese-American name.
Karl…I could use the dinero….Soro’s, calling u! lemme have some!!!
He can’t stop outing himself.
Do forgive me Karl, you’re right; John Cole is the Father of Lies. (But in that case, what’s Cap’n Ed’s excuse?) Of course, Cole’s side of the story is that you guys wallow in disingenuous indignation, which he “supports” using a hypothetical reversal.
Or do both opposing camps prattle about trivialities using formulaic displays of righteous outrage and clumsy parody?
It’s subhuman. It’s clans of monkeys screaming and shitting at each other, not a damn powder-wig debate society.
But if it makes you feel better…
thx, that’ll be the answer for JD’s shtict.
The only endearing part of Balloon Juice when Cole was more sane was that he often admitted that he didn’t know if he was right, but he was going to air his feelings. Since his conversion to drooling BDS moonbat, and then on to Hillary-hating Obama-bot, there’s no more equivocation — he’s absolutely certain that he is right, and whoever disagrees with him is a dishonest hateful asshole who should fuck off. Some would call that “projection.”
He’s just another example of the Ted Rall-ification of the leftosphere. You know what I mean. Rall’s one trick is to do “what ifs” on a given situation, but he is incapable of imagining his political enemies as not being as vile as he himself is. So his perspective is always the same: “Here’s what I imagine would happen if Bush was as big a liar/lunatic/Satan as I imagine that he is.” Which, of course, might have no basis in reality, but it plays to the fellow haters. So that’s what Cole is doing here. “Here’s what I imagine would happen if the rightwing bloggers were as hair-trigger crazy as I imagine them to be.” His band of knuckle-draggers can hoot in agreement, and since it’s purely hypothetical, there’s no proving him wrong.
Karl, how’d you know I am a Merc??
“His band of knuckle-draggers can hoot in agreement”..snowboarders??
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Kos has always had a “screw them†attitude to contractors.
he’s former military. resentment perhaps as the “public” service guys take most of the risk, and the contractors make most the money.
Colugo,
Wrong. Cole’s side of the story is that he watched the video, noticed it did not really specify a soldier, but decided to go with it anyway because the “right wing outrage machine” wouuld do the same if the shoe was on the other foot. But as you and I agree, people on the Right criticized McHenry for his comments (though it now turns out some selective editing was involved). So Cole propagated the bogus story based on a bogus perception of his opponents. I don’t know whether that qualifies him as Father of Lies, but it does make him doubly dishonest in this instance.
I take offense at the way the term Mercenary is spat out like like some foul thing that leaves a shitty taste in your mouth.. There’s no shame in being a “mercenary”.. or “defense contractor” or “PMC employee”.. There’s nothing wrong with a man contracting out the skills he’s spent decades honing.. A politician spends a few years in office then retires and whores his influence and connections out to benefit foreign countries line China and that’s just fine… but let a professional soldier that’s put in twenty or more defending the country and drawing a mediocre paycheck at best contract out his skillset in support of our own government and he’s a dirty merc (seemingly synonymous with ‘war criminal’, ‘thug’ or ‘baby-killer’)
I know plenty of good men that work or have worked contract security, training & PSD in Iraq and every other hotspot.. ex-SF.. D-Boys.. Seals.. Rangers.. PJs..If these are the Mercs you refer to, they got no reason to be ashamed… or anything less than proud of what they do.
So am I, having had roughly similar service. And that, dd, is bullshit.
There’s something of a problem with being a mercenary, but none of those guys are mercenaries. By definition, you cannot be an American mercenary in Iraq unless you’re fighting for someone else.
#41
Outside of Blackwater, ‘Executive Outcomes’ comes to mind. Oh, and the AVG in China.
What? Cole’s never read the Gleen(s)?
Dan,
For that matter, even Jeff has poked fun at his more prolix stylings, of which this is an example. I’m long-winded, but nowhere in Jeff’s class when he gets all analytical. Cole’s memory is going with the rest of the grey matter.
– BREAKING: She cried again.
– Clinton campaign memo:
* Full bore emphasis on “Compassion” and racial love. Look for opportunities for emotional displays.
* Itinerary of talk shows and maximum press coverage. All outlets, particularly FOX. Emphasize daughters “better president question”.
* Humanize Hillery concerning the “only Black person supporting her” mess. Emphasize shackles used were loose and non-abrasive.
– Other important political events for the week.
* Martin Luther King is still dead.
* Hillery wants to expand government.
* Michigan declares re-vote off the table.
* Capitalism is a positive trait if Bill Clinton, or John Edwards, or any Democrat does it.
* John McCain was wrong for voting against MLK day because hes white.
* Geraldine Farraro is both accurate, and a racist.
* Randi Rhodes does her part to improve the public image of Air America.
eh, Karl, I know you’re not Jeff. waz that? back a few days probably.
“Mercenary is spat out like like some foul thing” A
Ah, yeah, it depends if the contractors are writing policy or not…or demanding that their services be in demand or else??? King’s and Despots have mercenary’s usually. Democracy’s? Soldier of Fortune had a checkered journalistic past but I heard they’ve cleaned up and have gotten pretty boring of late.
jeff doing ‘lit crit’ that’s prolix!
*The economy is in the tank, because the president is nominally a Republican.
Karl, I’ve never considered either of you particularly prolix.
Isn’t he the one that likes to bang dudes? Not there’s anything wrong with that….
datadave, are you on X this afternoon or something?
By definition, you cannot be an American mercenary in Iraq unless you’re fighting for someone else.
who’s made-up definition? “A mercenary is a person who takes part in an armed conflict who is not a national of a Party to the conflict and “is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party”
pablo and others: there’s a huge ambiguity in the above wiki definition that I suspect was heavily edited and defended both ways: being a “national of the Party to the conflict” is offset by “material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party”. absolutely conflicting as the contractors are making three to a hundred times the pay of ‘service’ govt. GI’s. And usually at a much lower casualty rate.
the popular view is “Soldier of Fortune” and making more money than a govt. public employee.
Here’s an idea, dave. Instead of going to Wiki, try a fucking dictionary or 10. You’ll find the term “foreign army” over and over again.
datadave – Why exactly are you refering me to ?’s about stay-at-home dads? And why is it that you suggested that I recruited my better half, or she was some type of fantasy?
data uses merc in the pejorative sense, and refers to wiki because that way the definition is fluid.
And does X on a Friday afternoon, ’cause it’s fun.
Most of the security people in Iraq are not making the big paycheck.. Most are just that.. security guards hired from the local population (like Kurds) or from dozens of ex-military guys from around the world… The few that make a sizeable income are the minority working top tier PSD, sniping or as pilots.. Even they’re not making the bank that they used to make a few years ago.. but why shouldn’t they get a good paycheck ? I for one am glad to see the ex-operators getting paid for the skills they’ve developed over many years in government service… The charred black contracters from Blackwater killed in Fallujah would disagree that they’re not taking risks…
TO – They just hate Hallibrton, Blackwater, KBR, etc …
Just conjecture, JD. (fill in the blanks, JD, if you want but don’t need to; why should you?) you brought up personal stuff here and it fit my conjecture: you got tons of time to write here, have a growing family and don’t seem spend too much time at work…so I figure you’re a stay at home dad which i partly did btw (50-50) and it was tough seeing the politics and not having any way to deal with it then so blowing off on the web was a balm for me too. My excuse for being here: way under-employed at the moment…wait awhile, and you’ll have it more to yourself, hopefully.
I am being prolix, but you deal in personal insinuations all the time so I have to wonder and question why? Dogs of War and other books kind of get people worried about ‘mercs’ but then they’re has to be some good work I am sure done by ‘professionals’. But remember the history of the founding of our nation and those German dudes brought over by King George..so my prejudices are built in with my American History. Blame the history, not me.
That’s just inane, and I think instead of being assured McHenry is probably thinking that’s just really inane and who the fuck is Mike?
Well dave, surprisingly enough, you are dead wrong about me working from home, though I do take a lot of work home at night. What was that nonsense about my better half?
I am not telling you again, DataDave: I am NOT teh gay!
Maybe Meth? Can people type when they are on meth?
that was a mumbly joke, J-dude…Maybee hasn’t filled in on my fantasy yet or offset it either. I thought you recruited your real wife to write here perhaps to give more balance from Indiana or where ever. She was simpatico to your wide stance but more kindly so I imagined and conjectured out loud just For Fun! like X, Y and Z someone accuses me of doing.
and I wonder how some here can do this and work a normal eight hour day. Being self employed pt, I waste time for fun…but not very profitable. I am teh crazy. you?
Maybe Mike is teh ghey?
but you have BOOBS!!!
Mike the seal sounds like a performer at Sea World, complete with whiskers and flippers. And the human Mike, if he is a contractor, is no longer officially a SEAL, though I’m sure he is one of the best of the best. He couldn’t have been a SEAL if he weren’t.
As devastating as it is to me to say, I cannot fulfill your fantasy, DataDave. I’m not Chinese, and my name isn’t really even May.
I would think people could type when they’re on meth, though i imagine the keys take a major beating and spelling is probably optional.
maybe. it’s just getting more interesting.
Please don’t tell me you’re not a bee. I don’t think I could take that kind of let-down.
Mike is teh mostest fabulous SEAL!
“Comment by Jim in KC on 4/4 @ 4:04 pm #
datadave, are you on X this afternoon or something?”
I’m convinced he’s drunk.
Again.
Hessians!!
“The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback, without a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind.”
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow – by Washington Irving
“But remember the history of the founding of our nation and those German dudes brought over by King George..so my prejudices are built in with my American History. Blame the history, not me.”
I blame yourtotal and abjectignorance of history:
“Hessians…..they came to be called Hessians, because 16,992 of the total 30,067 men came from Hesse-Kassel. Some were direct subjects of King George III; he ruled them as the Elector of Hanover. Other soldiers were sent by Count William of Hesse-Hanau; Duke Charles I of Brunswick-Lüneburg; Prince Frederick of Waldeck; Margrave Karl Alexander of Ansbach-Bayreuth; and Prince Frederick Augustus of Anhalt-Zerbst.
The troops were not mercenaries in the modern sense of professionals who hire out their own services for money. As in most armies of the eighteenth century, the men were mainly conscripts, debtors, or the victims of impressment; some were also petty criminals. Pay was low; some soldiers apparently received nothing but their daily food.”
Stupid and drunk is no way to go through life.
x, y and z….maybe more bids? dinnertime, luvs.
beat ya, nanny. but it’s relative…Germans were starving in numbers eclipsing anything that would happen in Eire. those low wages and a meal u talking about beat the no taters they had at home..(18th and 19th century northern europe adopted the new world’s potato also with similar effects of mass starvation when local aristocrats taxed them too much and left little margin for survival…and crops failed.) like it not, they were foreign troops brought in as mercenaries. How they got paid or not is irrelevant.
Stupid and drunk is no way to go through life.
As an Irishman married to a Polish woman, with whom I am having my 5th child next week, I take offense to that remark. That is to say, my children disagree.
and we didn’t “impress” sailors either eh? O’? check out the USS Constitution sometime.
*hick*
Ey salute taht!
“Comment by datadave on 4/4 @ 5:25 pm #
and we didn’t “impress†sailors either eh? O’? check out the USS Constitution sometime.”
What the heck is that supposed to mean?
Enoch – Better Half thinks she is going to go into labor tonight. So much for sleep.
dave – Your ability to spew random incoherent thoughts is impressive, considering how polluted you are.
And BOOBS !!!!!!
MayBee – Don’t you feel kind of icky after reading that dd is fantasizing about you?
MayBee – Don’t you feel kind of icky after reading that dd is fantasizing about you?
…it’s the picturing him crouched behind a tipped-over picnic table.
“Comment by datadave on 4/4 @ 5:25 pm #
and we didn’t “impress†sailors either eh? O’? check out the USS Constitution sometime.”
Well, no, we didn’t.
Impressment was a British methodology.
You really don’t know history, do you dave?
[…] QandO: Obama gets funding from the KKK? Just One Minute: Maybe Bill And Hill Will get Another Book Out Of This Campaign Weasel Zippers: Iran Producing “Beyond Fitna” to Show us Infidels the Bible is Just as Violent….. MKH: Bowling for Obama Don Surber: Congressional Jerk Two foot in mouth moments for “Think Progress” in the last month. […]
Cole has the gall
That’s all Cole has. No brain. No integrity. The guy’s scum.
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As I said over at Balloon Juice:
“Indignation (JC) about indignation (K) about indignation (JC) about hypothetical indignation. Priceless.”
You two are frickin’ hilarious.
…and yet Colugo is spending his/her time at both sites discussing it.
He’s trying to distract us from the fact that his guy’s ass is showing. Again.
Better Half thinks she is going to go into labor tonight. So much for sleep.
JD – it’s always more fun slipping one past the goalie than it is being in the penalty box. :)
Godspeed to Mrs. JD
Labor as in you’re having a baby tonight? No sleep for many moons.
datadave is probably gone, but let’s try this anyway:
If a U.S. serviceman quits the service, then hires himself out as a soldier for Syria or Iran or Iraq or South Korea or Canada, he’s a mercenary.
If a U.S. serviceman quits the service and works for a U.S. gubmint contractor, he’s not a mercenary. Because ultimately, the paycheck comes from the same source (U.S. gubmint): there’s just a different signature on the check. I’m not sure how the pay “offsets” the domestic part of it.
By the way, the Swiss Guard at the Vatican is a mercenary force. Awful folks, aren’t they?
As were the Seven Samurai, IIRC. And by extension, the Magnificent Seven.
So there.
only in my dreams. um, just insert the standard Typing Telephone warning here.
Dang Maybee, your on a roll.
oops, there should be a Pole after Telephone there.
Personally, I’m kinda over the whole “imagine if a Democrat said this” because I don’t have to imagine it – they say, do, act about the troops in this way every day.
A Protein Wisdom commenter said that! The irony is wondrous.
Meanwhile, to The Ouroboros: Mercenaries, like the wonderful gentlemen who fought for the South Africans in Namibia and the Brits in Rhodesia and then sold themselves to the highest bidder are, by definition, men who kill for money. Not for honor. Not for country. Not for principal. Just cash.
If you can’t see the difference between a professional murderer and a lobbyist, then you need to get the moral compass checked.
Kudos to Pablo for his comments on this subject. He makes the case very well.
Cole’s gone from a slightly excitable right-wing blogger to another angry leftie blogger. Hard to imagine him getting any typing done with both index fingers jammed firmly in his ears.
A mercenary will go onto the field and take his chances across a rifle sight or a trip wire.
A lobbyist will sell his country for money.
If the merc screws the pooch, he becomes fertilizer if he’s lucky – a prisoner if he’s not. The lobbyist? After a short stint building desks somewhere, they usually just get back on the gravy train.
Which is the less honorable calling? I propose it’s not nearly as cut and dried as you present.
– People. You’re trying to prove to a pig that he can’t tap dance. He knows better than you do that he can’t tap dance, he just wants to see how long he can keep you talking about it so he can feel superior to you because he knows hes a moron, but y’all seem to be willing to discuss it like the juries still out.
– Break the transaction. It drives them nuts.
AllahP gets it right at least. A lot of the commenters are pricks though. Not necessarily lefty pricks. Just regular pricks. I think MayBee has kind of noticed that too.
Happy
I’m not sure if I get HA and MMalkins whole slow burn comment creep. It only encourages graduates of the John Cole College of Stupid – get a Ph.D. in Dialogue by Fakery to advance Nothingness! – an Army of derelict dipshit DougJs’ is all Cole has contributed to mankind.
He prolly makes his disgusting beer in his basement (all homemade beer is retched) and thinks how awesome! he is. Then who knows what that grump does- eats dirt just to prove he’s rough?
I can kinda understand how that happens at Michelle’s.
I liked her work today though.
And also Mr. Maguire linked here from where Karl linked above. That puts PW in really good company.
Happy
not concerned who linked here, just noticing the army of dougj’s of nothingness . Not sure why you like the links.
Oh. It’s just that if people link Jeff has a healthy blog to come home to is all and also it’s Tom Maguire. He’s never said anything stupid ever I don’t think.
Wow, are my ears burning. But in relentless pursuit of “stupid” let me offer Rachel Maddow, guesting for Keith Olbermann on Countdown last night.
She missed the part of the story where the two-bit security guard was a disabled American soldier with a homeless dad who was a Vietnam vet, but she went for every other bit of the ThinkProgress fantasy, and apparently never called the Congressman for comment.
My opening salvo.
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2008/04/olbermann-watch.html
Have you ever been to the USS Constitution O’nan? I have. It’s in Boston. Lots of examples of how life was hell for sailors for any sailer of any nation ,,, but like you I believed the US never practiced ‘impressment’ but severe penalties were given for those who attempted to escape impressment or conscription even in the US Navy. Same thing at the Maritime museum of Lake Champlain…(where the US Nave was first developed) an old fighting barge there manned by impressed conscripts forced to fight in a barge and successfully ironically considering what a hulk that thing is. My eyes were opened as to US history. The Brits were far more guilty of the unseemly practice but the seaman’s life was so harrowing in those days, sometimes even the US Navy had to impress or conscript (impressment is adhoc form of forced service afterall). We’re were a english-nation even if in rebellion against a corrupt aristocracy… the truth is rather ambiguous. I guess you aren’t a lawyer and neither am I.
“FYI, this is why we don’t let scientists run anything important, and prefer lawyers (yes, lawyers!) who, at the very least, tend to have a sense of humor and are comfortable with some degree of unresolved ambiguity.”
[…] OK, Then: “ThinkProgress has now updated its post to note their apparent error regarding the security […]
#113
Life was precarious period in the 18th century, unless you were royalty. Even then the average life expectancy was 40 plus years. In many ways the life of a crew member of a United States man of war was a step up. But thanks again for showing us what an overwhelming ignoramous you are, and at least an very imaginitive liar.
Please stop giving that dishonest candy-ass attention. You’re being stupid by giving him links. STOP.
Rustoleum, you are a obvious a liar. I am at the shores of Lake Champlain and know the history. You obviously are ignorant and spout lies as argument. “In many ways the life of a crew member of a United States man of war was a step up.”
o boy, what a clown you are…the men of the crews of our ships were also conscripted during late 1700s and up ’til War of 1812. On both the USS Constitution and the fighting barge, the info records that some sailors were conscripted or impressed and I was a shocked as you were. America btw had much better conditions of life than Europe due to the wealth of land here…and thus few wanted to go to sea and lose what they had. They weren’t all volunteers and were regularly flogged..just the values of the day, mate.
RW….giving me links? what are you, Jimmy Dean?
Here’s the rest of the story about the McHenry comment… several people have already hit the nail on the head, but there are a few extra details included at this link:
http://mchenryrocks.blogspot.com/2008/04/sigmon-has-no-problem-lying-and.html
#117
I am on the shores of Lake Michigan. My lake is bigger than your lake.Then why did english sailors desert to enlist in the US Navy?Flogging was used sparingly in the new US Navy. Flogging was abolished in the US Navy in 1780 and in the Army by 1812. Most crew members and malitia men were volonteers, unless a slave or a paid substitute was sent. Conscription didn’t come into play until the civil war.Just because some tour guide told you, doesn’t make it true.
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