"The humor was typical Obama: droll, deadpan, dismissive -- and more on target than anyone but the president could have known. Looking back on his comedy riff now, it's clear that it marks the start of a major pivot point in our politics.
After nearly 50 years, the crippling "weak-on-defense" accusation -- a staple of Republican attacks going back to Richard Nixon -- may finally have reached the end of its useful life.
Republicans were going to try to keep it alive in other ways: Guantanamo, renditions, or the theory that the president was somehow coddling Muslim terrorists.
That's all going to be much harder now, especially since not a single one of the GOP's likely 2012 contenders has significant military experience, and Sen. John McCain isn't running..."
Howard Fineman appreciates the fact that now - under the Sign of Obama - Democrats can appeal to the American voter with the same cool, collected murderousness as was once possessed by also droll Ronnie the Saint or Tricky Dick and his Allstar Carpet Bombing Brigade. Howie has a boner for martial glory, and he is happy as fuck that Obama can swing around his big military dick and get some fucking respect from the manly men who think that poor benighted liberals are a bunch of nancy boys who don't know how to kill and look good doing it.
Think I'm stretching out the interpretation a bit?
Sadly, I'm not. Fineman, writing with the editorial imprint of the whole of AolHuffington, contines:
"...By calmly and meticulously overseeing the successful targeting of Osama bin Laden, President Barack Obama just proved himself -- vividly, in almost Biblical terms -- to be an effective commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the United States.
Good night, Vietnam. Goodbye, George McGovern's anti-war campaign of 1972. Goodbye, Jimmy Carter's pathetically inept hostage-rescue mission in 1980. Goodbye, Bill Clinton and the draft..."
It's fucking biblical, see. Obama's methodical staging of a manufactured kill moment, complete with slavish media attention, means that liberals no longer have to bear the burden of Johnson's Folly. They never again have to worry about Vietnam and its two million dead. Obama - photographically channeling his hero Reagan, and with a single symbolic kill order - has exorcised the demon of...
...peace. Liberals can get their strut on, confident in their own totemic power to bust open bodies and get some fucking respect.
5 comments:
I don't consider either Fineman or Obama to be liberal.
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I think crow is referring to liberal in the way that media and corporate define liberal.
Crow, I saw that "biblical terms" Fineman quote earlier and almost had to do a double take. I can only process the aolhuffpo shithole after THC infusion, and even then its a mix of hilarity and horror. The one faction that had begrudgingly adopted peaceniks a few times will now be more firmly shifted to the right, as it throws off the label of weakling. The other faction will of course continue its nose dive to the right as well. The torture "debate" will die a quiet pitiful death, cause you know they GOT OSAMA with torture. If you are anti-war you are clearly unserious. If you question the jubilation surrounding the unilateral presidential death sentence just carried out, you are not just unserious, but most likely demented. I caught a few minutes of the daily show drivel and even little jon stewert was beating his chest and oozing murderous glee. I hear the chosen one will make an appearance at the holy site soon. I'm not sure which is more terrifying, the fact that control feels so comfortable now that they call a press conference to announce their assassinations, or that the american masses seem to revel in it.
thunder,
dr gonzo's got my number. I don't know what you mean when you use "liberal," and I've no mind to colonize your definition.
But, I'm working with what I think is the revised standard version, here.
It's difficult, in spite of myself, not to picture Fineman jerking off when I read those quotes. And speaking of masturbation, I caught a bit of Maddow's show last night and it was basically a circle-jerk, in the center of which was Dear Leader and our thankless heroes in uniform. Even though I don't expect much from these people, this liberal jingoism still strikes me as bizarre.
Joe,
It's as good a lens as any through which to read most Fineman and almost anything AolHuff.
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