The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Jonah Goldberg, in Fine Form

Posted on | August 2, 2011 | 35 Comments

Worked up into a long-overdue rant:

Tom Friedman — who knows a bit about Hezbollah — calls the tea partiers the “Hezbollah faction” of the GOP bent on taking the country on a “suicide mission.” All over the place, conservative Republicans are “hostage takers” and “terrorists,” “terrorists” and “traitors.” They want to “end life as we know it on this planet,” says Nancy Pelosi. They are betraying the Founders, too. Chris Matthews all but signs up for the “Make an Ass of Yourself” contest at the State Fair. Joe Nocera writes today that “the Tea Party Republicans can put aside their suicide vests.” Lord knows what Krugman and Olbermann have said.
Then last night, on the very day Gabby Giffords heroically returns to cast her first vote since that tragic attack seven months ago, the vice president of the United States calls the Republican party a bunch of terrorists. . . .

Read the whole thing. You can also read the Joe Nocera New York Times column that helped set off Goldberg’s rant.  Scott Whitlock at Newsbusters has video of Chris Matthews, in case you missed this:

“Why did [Obama] let this develop for six months…this drum roll of the Republicans saying, ‘We’ve got the baby. You don’t get the baby back unless you pay us?’ Why do you let the other side have the baby, to use kidnapping terms?”

Meanwhile, the supposed radical Tea Party terrorist plan passed the Senate 74-26. So three-quarters of senators are “hostage takers,”  including such fanatics as Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Al Franken, John Kerry, Debbie Stabenow . . .

Comments

35 Responses to “Jonah Goldberg, in Fine Form”

  1. Anonymous
    August 2nd, 2011 @ 7:03 pm

    I guess one man’s terrorist is another man’s (fiscally responsible) freedom fighter.

  2. Joe
    August 2nd, 2011 @ 7:10 pm

    I hear Al Franken trills like a woman

  3. smitty
    August 2nd, 2011 @ 7:14 pm

    He and Barnie Frank are a brace o’ bizotches I’m pleased to avoid hearing.

  4. gahrie
    August 2nd, 2011 @ 7:15 pm

    Why aren’t the Left condemning Sen. Reid and Rep. Pelosi for not passing a debt ceiling bill in December when they wouldn’t have had to deal with a Republican House?

  5. Anonymous
    August 2nd, 2011 @ 7:33 pm

    I guess Gabby Giffords would have agreed with you.  She voted yes.  Ah, the irony. 

  6. rosalie
    August 2nd, 2011 @ 7:50 pm

    They’re calling a good segment of the population terrorists.   I don’t think that’s a good idea. 

  7. Adjoran
    August 2nd, 2011 @ 7:56 pm

    The left is mad because the Plan was to have a debt ceiling hike as pro forma as past ones have been, leaving the Republicans in an awkward position to make Obama’s deficits an issue against him and other Democrats in 2012.  Didn’t work.

    I don’t know who Nocera is and don’t care to – if he writes for today’s NYT he’s just a hack anyway.  But Friedman is the guy who prefers the Chinese communist system to our own, and Mathews is a sputtering idiot.

    But Goldberg is very late to the party.  He was part of the Short Pants Brigade at NRO who gave us a succession of “liberals with whom we can have an honest debate on the issues” – including Andrew Sullivan, Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, and others – over the years, and every single one of them turned out to be a despicable leftist hack liar just like all the others.  Klein, in fact, was the mastermind behind Journ-O-List, the back-channel leftist attempt to manage the news.  That’s about as un-American as it gets.

    So welcome to sanity, Jonah.  But don’t pretend you haven’t been dipping your hand in the crazy for years.

  8. Anonymous
    August 2nd, 2011 @ 8:09 pm

    Why not Goose.  Gander?  Tit for Tat? 

    Start calling the Progs the SS or brown shirt wing of the Dims?  Red Guards?  Gulagists?

    What?  We need to play by the Duke of Dingleberry rules, w/ two hands ties behind our backs, duct tape over our mouths, …..

    Never mind.

  9. Anonymous
    August 2nd, 2011 @ 8:09 pm

    I don’t understand why some object to being categorized as terrorists. Now granted it isn’t as complimentary as be accused of inspiring fear and mortal dread but none the less I’ll take it.

  10. Anonymous
    August 2nd, 2011 @ 8:15 pm

    “The left is mad because the Plan was to have a debt ceiling hike as pro forma as past ones”……..

    I think they were shocked to find that when the Tea Party vowed to fight them in the air and on the beaches they meant all the beaches.

  11. Joe
    August 2nd, 2011 @ 8:20 pm

    Yet I love these two gals.

    Political Roller Derby (and not taking shit)

    Only in the bizarro world of Washington is fiscal responsibility sometimes defined as terrorism,” Bachmann wrote.

    Palin also expressed outrage during an interview Monday night on Fox News.

    “What we’re feeling is that growing more debt isn’t going to get us out of debt, and raising taxes in a down economy is a bad idea, and we’re taking a stand in light of those,” she said. “And so to be called a terrorist because of our beliefs from the vice president, it’s quite appalling. It’s quite vile.”

  12. Anonymous
    August 2nd, 2011 @ 8:20 pm

    Some are of the opinion that this leads to only one place.

    This kind of rhetoric by the leaders of a regime against a segment of it’s own people, ALWAYS according to history – leads to bloodshed.”

    http://swordattheready.wordpress.com/

  13. Bob Belvedere
    August 2nd, 2011 @ 8:40 pm

    Terrorists blow-up things that aren’t theirs and generally make a mess.  I prefer to be called a ‘Reactionary’.

  14. Time and Jonah Goldberg agree « Don Surber
    August 2nd, 2011 @ 4:41 pm

    […] Robert Stacy McCain gives Jonah Goldberg a […]

  15. DaveO
    August 2nd, 2011 @ 8:52 pm

    The other thing about Friedman is his wife is LOADED. Friedman need never work again.

    Some days it’s good to be a Maoist.

  16. Bob Belvedere
    August 2nd, 2011 @ 9:07 pm

    These days the most sane voices over at NRO belong to Andrew McCarthy, Mark Steyn, Peter Kirsanow, and John Derbyshire.

    At least, Mr. Goldberg has only been dipping his hand; Lowry and some others are arm-deep.

  17. Bob Belvedere
    August 2nd, 2011 @ 9:08 pm

    It’s good to be a Maoist in America.

  18. Bwg12079
    August 2nd, 2011 @ 9:35 pm

    What really boils my blood is being compared to Bill Ayers. That’s below the belt!

  19. rosalie
    August 2nd, 2011 @ 9:41 pm

    My one brother, who is a flaming Liberal, thought there was going to be a revolution when Bush was in.  Well, we just might have that revolution now.

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  21. Anonymous
    August 3rd, 2011 @ 12:51 am

    So you don’t enjoy hearing the lamentations of their women?

  22. timburns116
    August 3rd, 2011 @ 1:36 am

    I’d say this is dumbest thing ever written here:

    “Meanwhile, the supposed radical Tea Party terrorist plan passed the Senate 74-26. So three-quarters of senators are “hostage takers,”  including such fanatics as Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Al Franken, John Kerry, Debbie Stabenow . . ”

    but I am pretty sure that gun nut and all around churlish misanthrope McGehee has probably posted a comment which trumps it (happily, I imagine, he would be proud of the description, but not the accusation).

    But, just so I know, the fat moron who wrote a book calling me a Fascist and attempted to place Hitler, man of the extreme right, on the Left just so he could score some political points and make cash of right wing ideologues , is whining about tone?  Imagine the chuztpah that takes for Jonah. Wonder if he cried to Mommy first?

  23. J.M. Heinrichs
    August 3rd, 2011 @ 1:42 am

    Because you’re much better looking, and smarter?

  24. J.M. Heinrichs
    August 3rd, 2011 @ 1:47 am

    No, the Dems who voted for the terrorist plan are hostages, suffering from “Stockholm Syndrome”. You could be one too, if you could measure up to the standard.

    Cheers

  25. McGehee
    August 3rd, 2011 @ 1:55 am

    but I am pretty sure that gun nut and all around churlish misanthrope McGehee has probably posted a comment which trumps it

    Why are you accusing me of posting your comment?

  26. Anonymous
    August 3rd, 2011 @ 3:12 am

    Actually I’ve read dumber comments than yours but not today.

  27. Anonymous
    August 3rd, 2011 @ 4:07 am

    Bob, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again until conservatives learn to ignore what they call us:

    “George Washington wasn’t referred to as ‘Father of his Country’ in Lord Cornwallis’ officers mess.”

  28. Anonymous
    August 3rd, 2011 @ 4:10 am

    Well, Adobe, I’ll hit the tip jar for $100 bucks if anyone can point to a tyranny rolled back without the credible threat of violence as the alternative. There’s a reason why the Founders kept the Sons of Liberty on tap.

  29. Anonymous
    August 3rd, 2011 @ 4:13 am

    That’s one of many reasons I call them Copperheads, much to timmeh’s dismay.

  30. Anonymous
    August 3rd, 2011 @ 4:14 am

    Yeah, because Socialists wasn’t the name of the National Socialist Party.

    You’re an ignorant liar.

  31. Anonymous
    August 3rd, 2011 @ 4:56 am

    I like it.  Snakes.  In the grass.  Cold blooded reptiles.  Slithering on their bellies.  IQs less than their body temps.  Copperheads.  Poisonous.  Pit (Satan’s home) vipers.  One of Bill’s assassins.  Arch enemy of Dare Devil.

  32. Anonymous
    August 3rd, 2011 @ 5:31 am

    That is what the 2nd amendment is there for.

    The point of Sword At The Ready’s post is that if they get away with referring to us as criminals or undesirables often enough they will get away with treating us as such

  33. Anonymous
    August 3rd, 2011 @ 9:38 am

    I don’t think the Catholic Conservative wing of the GOP, which has always been National Review‘s bread and butter, has really known quite what to do with themselves since WFB Jr. died, and the lack of intellectual coherency is showing.