Jonah Goldberg on Hoffa: There'd Be No Controversy If We Didn't Have 'Bonfire of Asininity' After Tucson
National Review's Jonah Goldberg on Tuesday, appearing on Fox News's "Special Report," put James Hoffa's Labor Day attack on the Tea Party in proper perspective.
"We would not be in this mess, we would not have this controversy, if we did not have this bonfire of asininity that came out of the Tucson shootings where all of a sudden Sarah Palin’s Facebook Congressional map was somehow to blame for not only this madman but for all of the violence overtaking America" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
JONAH GOLDBERG, NATIONAL REVIEW: We are in a really weird place where the head of the Teamsters can’t talk tough. I mean, I guess ex-cons are the only ones left who can still talk like men every now and then. We would not be in this mess, we would not have this controversy, if we did not have this bonfire of asininity that came out of the Tucson shootings where all of a sudden Sarah Palin’s Facebook Congressional map was somehow to blame for not only this madman but for all of the violence overtaking America. And for all I know listening to some of these people on MSNBC, it was responsible for Lee Harvey Oswald.
I mean, it was absolutely bizarre standard that was established that was led by, that Barack Obama picked it up. He created the standard for themselves where any martial metaphor, any tough language like this was automatically by their own words and their own standards set up as to being inciting violence and what not, and now it's blowing up in their faces if I’m allowed to say that. And they deserve it.
He's got a point.
As was said by many conservatives back in January after the tragic shootings in Tucson, there was absolutely nothing inflammatory about Palin's target map or her comments about not retreating - reloading.
Military terminology has been used in politics since before we were all born.
Yet the disgraceful behavior by some Democrats and many of their media minions has now made conservatives fight fire with fire.
In essence, the Right is emulating the liberal hypocrisy of political correctness.
Do we win by behaving like what we find offensive?
- Noel Sheppard's blog
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Comments
where is the Left?
Submitted by GregE on Tue, 09/06/2011 - 10:45pm.
Scared of Hoffa. Scared of Obama. Obama acting like he's God, hovering above politics, when reality is he's one of the biggest players there ever was. Maybe they can all sit around and play some nice, civil video games while watching Obama's Tuscon speech.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/tea-party-zombies-must-die-new-online-le...
Point out the
Submitted by Mean Gene Dr. Love on Tue, 09/06/2011 - 10:50pm.
Point out the hypocrisy/double standard and move on.
"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life." --Robert A. Heinlein, "Beyond This Horizon," 1942
Without lies and hate obama
Submitted by LAM SON 719 on Tue, 09/06/2011 - 11:26pm.
Without lies and hate obama is nothing, he doesn't have the intelligence to debate or formulate an original thought.
"Morticia! You know what it
Submitted by zenman1661 on Tue, 09/06/2011 - 11:51pm.
"Morticia! You know what it does to me when you speak French!!" "Oh Gomez!!"
Fighting back.
Submitted by imau2fan on Wed, 09/07/2011 - 6:12am.
Noel, I agree with Jonah. Look, if it were up to me, everybody would just call a permanent cease fire on this stuff. No, I don't think Hoffa was calling for actual murder of Tea Party members. But the only faint hope of stopping the Left from pulling this crap is to make them live by their own ridiculous, self-serving rules and definitions. I can't guarantee it will ever work, but I can guarantee they'll keep it up without a response.
I'm all for taking the high road, but not to the point of unilateral disarmament. Am I allowed to say that?
coming from a
Submitted by misterbee241 on Wed, 09/07/2011 - 1:17pm.
corrupt union thug like Junior Hoffa, i have no problem believing he was speaking literally. that sort of thing is all he knows because that's how is daddy was. it's ingrained in him, it's in his nature and his dna. but coming from any other poliitican? Not so much.
This is because people are
Submitted by amyshulk on Wed, 09/07/2011 - 9:29am.
This is because people are waking up to the fact that the feel good legislation driven by the D's and gone along with by the R's are how we got housing, education, and medical care *massively* out of parity with what *most* people make. It's affordable for those in the upper brackets and for those employed in gov't. jobs - the rest {majority} of us do without or go into hock. This has the unions running scared and talking tough.
Do I think it will incite violence? Which came first, the suicide bombers or the culture that embraces and condones suicide bombers? I personally think that those who did not grow up in that culture and yet later embrace that ideology are mentally ill.
Those that were steeped in a culture of "I got mine", as union members seem to be, feel as though they are being attacked by the TP and I'm not surprised they'd react like this, given they really have no clue on the recession the rest of us have been going through!
Think of all those fools in Wisconsin - they were the precursor - and while it's easy to say it's *just* talk, as long as there are those who are made afraid of the TP by the msm and idiots like Hoffa, there just *might* be violence!
The solution is not to ignore what they say, nor to blow it up as a given that Hoffa is giving marching orders - the solution is to stop demonizing and dehumanizing opponents. Too bad that will never happen!!!
Ronald Reagan
Obama set the bar after the Tuscon shootings
Submitted by Galvanic on Wed, 09/07/2011 - 10:39am.
Is it any wonder that no one abides by it? Does anyone really listen to what this President decries anymore?
As some unknown WH staffer was quoted as saying regarding Obama and Libya, this President "leads from behind." He is little more than bundles of campaign themes and slogans regurgitated for public re-consumption whenever his staff thinks he needs more visibilty.
Laura Ingraham.....
Submitted by almostacowboy on Wed, 09/07/2011 - 11:44am.
caught O'Reilly uncharacteristically off guard when he repeated to her Obama's call for reducing the "vitriolic rhetoric" after the Tucson shooting when she replied, "You don't think he was speaking to the Left, do you Bill?".
Goldberg is right, NB is wrong
Submitted by Melvin Udall on Wed, 09/07/2011 - 12:16pm.
Newsbusters doesn't get it:
"In essence, the Right is emulating the liberal hypocrisy of political correctness.
Do we win by behaving like what we find offensive?"
It's not about winning or losing. It is about pointing out the perpetual deceit of the Left, and that they happily used a dead little girl and other victims, practically dancing in the blood of the victims in their glee at a chance to blame their political opposition. It's about calling out their constant hypocrisy and their *very real* perpetual use of *actual* violent rhetoric. The people who participated in smearing Palin and the tea parties after the Tucson shooting are reprobates, scum, vermin. They are rotten, underhanded, lousy people who will smear good people to win elections. And Obama is one of them.
We "win" by no longer allowing Democrats to make the rules of every exchange! We have accepted these spoiled children making the rules for far too long.
Armies were the first people with "campaigns".
Submitted by Quasi-socialist on Wed, 09/07/2011 - 2:17pm.
The long-term process of beating a foe back and taking land that he held with deadly weapons and advancing troops is where the political "campaign" takes it's model. Champaigne Valley was named so because of the military campaigns that valley had seen. Invasions are "campaigns".
And yet they use the word like it is harmless. And it became harmless because people of previous ages were able to differentiate between martial language and violence.