WW2 vet pwns wingnut blogger

May 29, 2008 10:24 AM

Please crawl back under the rock you came out from.A World War 2 veteran responds succinctly to a right-wing blogger who contacted him in search of dirt on Barack Obama's great-uncle. More here. Bonus wingnuttery: Buchenwald not as bad as Auschwitz.
posted by Artifice_Eternity (39 comments total)

(This post is helpfully pre-Godwinned.)
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 10:25 AM on May 29, 2008

I wrote to this wonderful guy this morning and congratulated him. He replied that he and his son were never going to be intimidated by these creeps. It's about time someone pushed back.
posted by etaoin at 10:35 AM on May 29, 2008

This word "wingnuts"... so appropriate. So very appropriate.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 10:36 AM on May 29, 2008

This is pretty good, but I really wish that everyone with half a brain would just ignore these right-wing bloggers. Saying that they are hateful morons is giving them too much credit. This guys site is so half-baked that refuting him or engaging in some sort of debate is pointless. He's shocked, SHOCKED!, that people speak Spanish in Miami.

They won't go away if we ignore them, but they will be more irrelevant than they already are.
posted by space2k at 10:39 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Kudos to the Kitchells for their response. Those of us who weren't there will never understand what was seen and what had to be done.
posted by never used baby shoes at 10:40 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Here's to hoping the bloggers never hear of Prescott Bush.
posted by sleepy pete at 10:47 AM on May 29, 2008

When I visited Buchenwald the sat nav in our car cheerily informed us that we were traveling on the Bludstrasse, or road of blood, because of all the people worked to death building it. Buchenwald also supplied Nordhausen, a helliosh underground V2 factory where the inmates lived and worked in damp, cold tunnels at all times, with it’s workers. Buchenwald may not have had gas chambers, but it was every bit a part of a policy of deliberate extermination.
posted by Artw at 10:48 AM on May 29, 2008

What is especially pathetic here is that the History channel runs WWII docs around the clock.
You'd have to be pretty dense to have not become acquainted with the horrors of Nazi "work" camps if you grew up in the US with a television.
posted by 2sheets at 10:49 AM on May 29, 2008

...just ignore these right-wing bloggers...

Hard to ignore the people in charge.
posted by DU at 10:49 AM on May 29, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

The Score Thus Far:

Right Wing Nutjob Bloggers - 0
The Greatest Generation - Beyond counting.
posted by shmegegge at 10:54 AM on May 29, 2008 [8 favorites has favorites]

I'm sorry, I think I may have misunderstood something here.

Obama's great-uncle was personally responsible for rescuing victims of an atrocity.

Obama slipped up on which camp it was.

Obama is now, apparently, a liar?

WHAT THE FUCK USA?
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 10:56 AM on May 29, 2008 [7 favorites has favorites]

I generally remain unimpressed by these "a Vietnam vet said X" vs "a WWII vet said Y" pissing matches. If anything, they reinforce the rightwing frame of soldiers being Incorruptible Beings of Pure Light.

If the topic is some point of military strategy/tactics/procedure, sure. But on policy matters...no. The armed forces are tools of policy, not vice versa. I defer to my hammer on hitting nails, but I don't ask it if I should see a doctor about my headache.
posted by DU at 10:57 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

And yet, despite being the crappest swift boating ever I could easily imagine this swelling to fill all available news time on a slow day.
posted by Artw at 11:00 AM on May 29, 2008

I'm not sure, but maybe there's another, deeper point here:

Maybe the greatest generation considers loyalty to its members greater than loyalty to a political party.

Maybe the problem is that loyalty to to the country has lost out, for some people, to loyalty to a political party.
posted by ewkpates at 11:03 AM on May 29, 2008

"Obama is now, apparently, a liar?"
Oh but that's just the beginning.
Our investigation has discovered that some of these WWII vets are "Sheehanites" and didn't really see that much action, and the ones who came home and hid in their attics are a bunch of pussies who freaked out over a few bodies stacked like cord wood.
I don't think the Nazis even had real bullets, if you want to know the truth.
I think it was all a big lie our grandfathers told us while they were hanging out in Paris with whores.
posted by 2sheets at 11:04 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Maybe the problem is that loyalty to to the country has lost out, for some people, to loyalty to a political party.

Not to single you out, but this is another rightwing frame endorsement (that I also see on dkos pretty regularly, sometimes straight up and sometimes as a wingnut head explosion technique). Shouldn't one's first loyalty be to the truth?
posted by DU at 11:05 AM on May 29, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

I got into a short dispute with a guy once (a rabbi!) about truth and facts. He insisted that truth and facts are the same thing. I said that truth is relative, while facts are not. He rather condescendingly brushed me off. At that point I decided that I could get angry and indluge my testosterone or I could go get a glass of wine.

I opted for the wine.

Nice guy, but about as sharp as a bowling ball.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 11:09 AM on May 29, 2008

Oh but that's just the beginning.

...about as sharp as a bowling ball.

Oh, oh, we all know that that elite Barack Hussein Osama can't bowl!

And, and, and according to Fox News host John Gibson he's been hiding a "dirty little secret." Barack is/was a smoker!

Oh, and, and with his health records released today we learn that he now is currently using Nicorette gum!
posted by ericb at 11:23 AM on May 29, 2008

OHNOES!
posted by Artw at 11:25 AM on May 29, 2008

Obama is now, apparently, a liar? WHAT THE FUCK USA?

No, actually:

WHAT THE FUCK RIGHT-WING, REPUBLICAN WING NUTS!

posted by ericb at 11:26 AM on May 29, 2008

Shouldn't one's first loyalty be to the truth?

Like Guy_Inamonkeysuit said, first one must define truth. I guarantee that almost every one of the "wingnuts" you're talking about believes he or she is acting to defend the truth, just as much as you do. Their truth is not your truth, but unless you're arguing about verifiable facts, I don't see where you can accuse them of failing in this "first loyalty".

Failing in their obligation to avoid starting the stupidest argument ever, sure, but not necessarily with regards to the truth.
posted by vorfeed at 11:28 AM on May 29, 2008

Ever since their glory days at "Rathergate" the right-wing blog crowd has been trying to "Fisk" its way back to relative relevance-through-outrage by any means possible. Expect shriller nitpicking as November approaches.
posted by brownpau at 11:29 AM on May 29, 2008

Pathetic? Yeah.

Useless? Not at all.

It's not about this particular charge -- that Obama made up shit to look good to veterans/Jews, as I learned last night watching my favorite comedy channel, Fox News, where Charles Krauthammer explained exactly that -- but it's about building, of all things, a narrative. A narrative.

Remember? Gore was a liar and a bore -- they built that narrative over months, not days.

Same for Kerry, a liar and a French-looking anti-American millionaire -- you build those narratives piece by piece, over months, and you need to start early, so that by late summer all the pieces are in place, piece by piece, like stinking pieces of poisoned Lego.

Obama is getting the same treatment -- piece by piece, fake "gaffe" by distorted statement, they'll build a narrative -- plagiarist (ie untrustworthy), half-Muslim, friend of America haters, liar, wife hats America and bragged about it during the campaign. It's about creating a narrative environment where all kinds of fake shit can eventually stick.

You build that piece by piece in the media, in the public's consciousness, and it's a time consuming effort where even weak Lego pieces work (especially since in Obama's case they can't do what they'd really want to -- and, instead, to their credit because at least they were sincere, the Clintons had the balls to more or less do to Obama): the Republicans can't run around screaming "nigger, nigger", so thay have to go back to building a narrative made of smears and half truths, the Dukakis/Gore/Kerry game plan.

It failed in 1992 with Clinton (and by 1996 he was unbeatable at the polls), but they fucked him up anyway, using Ken Starr and his fishing expedition -- Starr was bound to find something, sooner or later, with an unlimited budget and unlimited subpoena power (keep in mind they took a DNA sample from a sitting President based on hearsay evidence and then they fed illegally raw grand jury material to the public -- Clinton didn't stand a chance against them in the end, maybe Obama doesn't either, who knows)

And please don't assume that Bush's own history of alcohol/cocaine use and his being the first President with a criminal record will in some way inoculate Obama against the same issue -- Bush was saved by Jesus and absolved of his sins by the "liberal" media; Obama won't be as lucky, so pray he doesn't really have much to hide in the drug use department. Because they'll find it, and use it. And it might work.
posted by matteo at 11:31 AM on May 29, 2008 [38 favorites has favorites]

Obama does smoke. I think he's been trying to quit using various means over the course of the campiagn.
posted by Miko at 11:31 AM on May 29, 2008

Auschwitz was worse than Buchenwald. Auschwitz was a death camp. Buchenwald a concentration camp.

But that fact is immaterial to whether or not Obama or McCain should be elected president.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:34 AM on May 29, 2008

(and don't think Obama's wife will get a pass on anything since McCain's wife was actually an addict & stole drugs & got a reduced sentence thanks to her senator husband -- Obama's wife won't get a pass. Bush's wife killed a man, for Chrissakes, and check out the treatment she got in media compared to Teresa Kerry's).
posted by matteo at 11:34 AM on May 29, 2008

Obama won't be as lucky, so pray he doesn't really have much to hide in the drug use department

If anything, the consensus seems to be that Obama overemphasized his drug use in his memoir "Dreams from My Father," perhaps as a pre-emptive inoculation against drug charges.

The Atwater-style communications tactics matteo mentions were effective, but indications are that the right is far too disorganized and weak at this point in time to make them work again, and the public is exasperated with 'name-calling.' So far, many of these balloons have been floated, and none seem to have drawn serious public fire.
posted by Miko at 11:35 AM on May 29, 2008

Auschwitz was a death camp. Buchenwald a concentration camp.

Does anyone read threads any more?
posted by Miko at 11:36 AM on May 29, 2008

Anne Frank had it easy!
posted by Artw at 11:44 AM on May 29, 2008

Their truth is not your truth

You miss my point. I'm not saying they are liars. I'm pointing out that their oft-stated goal is of putting loyalty to the U!S!A! as a top priority. I.e. over "the truth" whatever it may be.
posted by DU at 11:47 AM on May 29, 2008

Between this and the Rachael Ray Scarf Kerfluffle, I'm really starting to wonder if right-wing bloggers have yet realized just how much they've descended into self-parody. It's like they've run out of substance and are just trying to look stupid to drive site traffic.
posted by dw at 11:47 AM on May 29, 2008

Send those WWII vets a box of Dunkin Donuts!
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 11:50 AM on May 29, 2008

Obama does smoke. I think he's been trying to quit using various means over the course of the campiagn.

Yes. As mentioned in the "dirty little secret link":

"[John Gibson said:] 'And [Obama's] team works overtime trying to hide Obama's dirty little secret. He is -- get this -- a cigarette smoker. The point is: What else do we not know about Barack Obama?' Despite Gibson's claim that Obama's smoking is 'a dirty little secret,' Obama told the Chicago Tribune in December 2005 that his smoking is 'an ongoing battle,' and his cigarette use was, in fact, known during his 2004 Senate campaign, when his wife told the Chicago Sun-Times that he smokes 'about three Marlboros a day.'"

At lunch today I watched a Republican surrogate on CNN try to shift discussion away from concerns about McCain's health (of which 1,200 medical record pages covering the past four years were made availble to a select group of journalists for 3-hours in a closed-room last Friday) by bringing up Obama's smoking (paraphrase: "But, while being a 46 y.o. male, he has been a smoker for years.").

Compare that to McCain's bouts with melanoma, vertigo, arthritis, kidney stones, high-blood pressure, high-cholesterol, etc. -- a 76 y.o. male.

Jon Stewart on McCain's medical records [video | 08:11].
posted by ericb at 11:54 AM on May 29, 2008

"Patriotic Correctness" -- that's good, thanks for the link XQ!
posted by DU at 11:56 AM on May 29, 2008

The thing is Obama was talking about his uncle Georgi from Kiev all along!
posted by Pollomacho at 11:57 AM on May 29, 2008

a 76 y.o. male.

Oops -- a 71 y.o. male. (Had Ted Kennedy on my mind!)
posted by ericb at 11:59 AM on May 29, 2008

I'm pointing out that their oft-stated goal is of putting loyalty to the U!S!A! as a top priority. I.e. over "the truth" whatever it may be.

And I'm pointing out that, to them, the truth is that loyalty to the U!S!A! should be among one's top priorities. Note that this does not necessarily indicate support for the current government: as far as I can tell, even the hardcore conservatives are more than capable of calling out the government when it does something that goes against their version of the Truth (see: Ruby Ridge, Waco, anything Clinton ever did). I've even been seeing an increasing amount of grumbling over BushCo's Overseas Adventures from the old-school conservatives, lately.

Neocons, not so much, but they never really claimed to have loyalty to the USA (at least, not as it currently exists or has ever existed) to begin with. They're much more into re-shaping the nation than they are into loyalty to the existing one.

Man, we really need a third party in this country. Hell, we probably need a fifth party in this country!
posted by vorfeed at 12:03 PM on May 29, 2008

ericb, your link indicates the McCain smoked 2 packs a day for 25 years.
posted by sciurus at 12:04 PM on May 29, 2008

Auschwitz was worse than Buchenwald. Auschwitz was a death camp. Buchenwald a concentration camp.

So... what, Obama's great uncle merely fought against the Vice-Holocaust?
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 12:04 PM on May 29, 2008 [5 favorites has favorites]