Abracadabrah

I create as I speak

Quelle Horreur!

[Scroll Down for Updates]

Geez How Stupid Can Leftists Be?

Pretty Damn Stupid.

I saw this headline this morning:

EXCLUSIVE: BUSH PLOT TO BOMB HIS ARAB ALLY
And I knew assorted moonbats leftists were going to fall for it hook, line and sinker.

Eyeroll. Give me a break.

Yep, Bush wanted to bomb Al Jazeera in Qatar, our Middle Eastern ally, where we have Middle East headquarters. Yep that makes a lot of sense...if you are a deranged leftist.

Do the brainless dipshit journaljismers realize that the US military commitment to Qatar exceeds our commitment to England? Do they know that what they suggest makes about as much sense as having F-18’s based outside of Atlanta conduct a long range bombing run on CNN - in Atlanta? Instead of bombing the headquarters in Qatar, perhaps we should have some of our soldiers swing by there with some satchel charges in between waking up, grabbing donuts, and going to work?

Damn. I’m really lost on this one. Would the US bomber, whether a B-1B or B-52, even have time to retract it’s landing gear on the bombing run, or would it take off, circle around a while so the pilot can wolf down a donut, drop the bombs, and then land so the pilots can finish their coffee? Wouldn’t the whole run be a complete waste of fuel? I ask this because my boss’s niece was a B-1B pilot who now flies out of Qatar, a country the approximate size of a postage stamp.

Even the BBC isn't taken in by it. More or less. BBC News website world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds said: "An attack on al-Jazeera would also have been an attack on Qatar, where the US military has its Middle East headquarters. So the possibility has to be considered that Mr Bush was in fact making some kind of joke and that this was not a serious proposition."

Duh! And I thought the British prized themselves as the ones with a sense of humor? Not so much any more...

Having lived in France just after Ronald Reagan made his joke about pushing the button vis-a-vis Russia, and having seen the sophisticated Europeans entirely lose their sense of humor, and having argued with them about the nature of American humor, this just feels like ancient history repeating itself.

UPDATE I: On a related note of the wilfull desire to believe anything that sounds bad about the Bush administration, there is this story circulating the past week about White Phosphorus, used in Fallujah. In the comments of Balloon Juice, Jason Von Steenwyck provides the definitive reason the story is bogus. White Phosphorus, he insists, is less lethal than other forms of firepower:

The reality that I’m trying to get across to these idiots who get everything they know about this from what they read from other idiot commenters on blogs is that on the modern battlefield, White Phosphorus SAVES lives, both friendly and noncombatant.

I think it’s a pretty safe bet that there is nobody who’s dead now who would have been alive had we just used DPICM an HE rather than White Phosphorus. And what the italian propaganda presentation cannot show, because it cannot be readily quantified, are the large numbers of noncombatants who are alive now who would have been dead had we not had WP rounds at our disposal to use in lieu of HE and DPICM.

Dr Sanity refers to these two examples of the left championing theories, no matter how foolish, that show the WH in a poor light, examples of "intellectual and moral bankruptcy combined with malignant narcissism."

UPDATE II: And now, in a mark of moral bankruptcy, the Washington Post's Walter Pincus and Kevin Sullivan have decided to dignify this story with an article in the Washington Post. To ensure that it has legs. And that it embarrasses the White House. Pincus used his CIA connections to find out the following: A former senior U.S. intelligence official said that it was clear the White House saw al-Jazeera as a problem, but that although the CIA's clandestine service came up with plans to counteract it, such as planting people on its staff, it never received permission to proceed. "Bombing in Qatar was never contemplated," the former official said.

Despite this, however, the article ingenuously goes on to cite occasions on which Al Jazeera was hit with fire once during the Iraq war and once in Kabul. Oh that's a solid case then!

What an embarrassment -- for the Washington Post -- that they're peddling this story.

Josh Marshall thinks this shows how the prestige of the Bush Administration has rapidly diminished.

The one thing that I think you can say with some surety is that this is yet one more example of the president's rapidly diminishing power, credibility and prestige. Six months, not to mention a year ago, I think there's little reason to believe a paper like the Post would have touched such a story and touch it in a way that entertains the possibility that President Bush actually had to be talked down by Tony Blair from bombing a news network whose editorial line he found too critical.

And for this reason, the Washington Post believes it's proper to lower its journalistic standards?

It's not the Bush Administration that is desperate - as the left keeps on insisting. It's the left itself. Grabbing at everything and anything. In this case, Walter Pincus is showing his "objectivity" a little too clearly.

UPDATE III: Glenn answers his critics who now insist he needs to apologize to Eason Jordan: The real answer, of course, is that since Al Jazeera is a CIA front operation we'd never bomb it. Duh.

Yeah, that about sums it up.

posted by Alcibiades @ 5:01 PM