Awesome! Mind if I borrow it?

Posted by Woody (the other one) at July 14, 2006 05:58 AM

Fine by me. I stole it from another site. The more, the merrier.

Posted by Woody at July 14, 2006 06:13 AM

Other Woody, one thing that I was looking forward to hearing on G.M.'s show before it exploded was his take on the liberal thinking process. (Is liberal thinking an oxymoron?)

Whenever I have posts like that above, we classify it under the category of humor. However, on such posts and similar types of comments, those on the left go absolutely ballistic and take everything that we say literally rather than understand our tongue-in-cheek expressions.

They have no sense of humor, I guess because they are so passionate (to use a nice term) about their causes. It's too bad that they get up in the morning and go to bed at night worrying about the world rather than enjoying life.

Posted by Woody at July 14, 2006 06:19 AM

I love the use of these old graphics - one of the (many) reasons I like Lileks so much. They lend themselves so well to pretty much any good title or quip.

I agree with you Woody - that's often how I can easily tell who's lib and who isn't, even before they start to state their opinions on a topic. The libs are the ones who don't understand any of the puns or any of the jokes. And not only do they tend to take everything very personally, but it causes them to lash out viciously when they do, which usually leaves the would-be humorist (and his audience in the know) at something of a loss. Mind you I'm speaking very broadly, but in my many perusings around sites from all points along the political spectrum on the web, I've generally found this to be true.

Posted by Katje at July 14, 2006 06:48 AM

Katje, I've never seen Lileks until you mentioned it. So do you know if that is the source of this picture, and do they have a means of changing the text of them like above, or does it take PhotoShop?

There is one guy on another site that goes absolutely nuts when I make a joke that in his mind is taken seriously. Like the commedian, I'm blindsided and wonder how in the world he could be offended. You're right in that some part of their brain is not functioning.

We were listing our favorite movies over there, and all of theirs tended to be some intellectual and foreign films that few knew besides them. I listed "Airplane." Of course, I accuse many of them of putting up views that they think will win them praise from their fellow liberals rather than being themselves. They must be terribly insecure and needing of confirmation of their worth--sort of like Stuart Smalley. (I can't stand Al Franken, who is usually an irrational bully, but this was one of my favorite skits: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/91/91asmalley.phtml . Because of that phoniness, I often call liberals "pseudo-intellectuals," - an old term from the 1960's and from Spiro Agnew.

I think G.M. can help enlighten us more on this with his counseling training.

Posted by Woody at July 14, 2006 07:23 AM

you guys are amazing. Right above a post where you mock the reality that the administration sold out a CIA operative for political advantage, you accuse the NY Times of trying to have us all killed by sharing classified info with the public. There may be a legitimate debate to be had about the NY Times' actions, but you guys are a joke. Revealing classified info only matters if it hurts your side. National security be damned!

Posted by Mavis Beacon at July 14, 2006 09:47 AM

Mavis, first, this post is filed under "Humor" and maybe it's true that when a conservative posts humor the liberals "don't get it."

Be that as it may, I honestly think that the NYTimes broke not only the law, but broke the spirit of the law by publishing the information about SWIFT. Having said that, I'm only assuming, though I may be way off base, you are referring to le affaire de Plame? In that the special prosecutor has determined no law was broken, has declined, for apparantly good reasons not to "frog march" Rove out of the White house and only Libby has been indicted for reasons totally unrelated to the issue at hand. The only person to serve any jail time so far has been a NYTimes staff (now former staff) member. I don't think that is what the NYTimes thought would happen when they demanded a special investigator. Do you?

If you are referring to other "outings" please stop back by and be specific, I would love your input.

Regards,
GM

Posted by GM at July 14, 2006 10:17 AM

I don't remember Fitzgerald ever saying no crime had been committed, only that he couldn't PROVE a crime had been committed. Regardless, the outing of Plame was at least an act of extreme negligence deserving of severe reprobation. Instead, we've watched the right defend her outing as if it wasn't a serious matter. That strikes me as really lame.

As to the NY Times thingy, I get that it's a joke, but I will also concede I don't get the conservative sense of humor. I too get my jollies off reading Mallard Fillmore, but not for the same reason you guys do. I really do think it's a legitimate debate whether the NY Times should have published that article on SWIFT or not. I recommend Jay Rosen's Pressthink post on the subject: http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2006/07/07/clsf_war.html

Even if the NY Times did something it shouldn't have done, the right wing suggestion that they NYT is out to lose the GWOT or harm the American people is pretty outrageous and, at this point, all over the blogosphere. Calling some one a traitor is a serious and nasty charge and one the right plays pretty fast and loose with. Anyway, I recommend Jay Rosen's post, but it requires you don't go in assuming the NYT is trying destroy America. Remember the good ole days when it was just a little innocent reporter bias? My how things have changed.

Posted by Mavis Beacon at July 14, 2006 11:05 AM

"...the administration sold out a CIA operative for political advantage..."

That's just it. That's what you want to believe happened because you're not thinking rationally.

When Joe began spouting off, drawing attention to himself and his supposedly "spy" wife and generally making a nuisance of himself, that he was sent to Niger by the Vice-President, it's really not that hard to understand why someone would ask if the Vice-President did indeed send him. When it was revealed that the Vice-President didn't send him, the next natural question would be "Well then who?"

It likely went like this:

Novak: Joe Wilson said the Vice-President sent him to Niger. Did he?

Source: No. The CIA sent him.

Novak: How did they come up with this guy?

Source: Well, his wife works there and she recommended him because he was once a Diplomat to Africa

Then Novak checks Who's who in "Vanity Fair" gets her name and prints it.

Did Novak know she was a sooper secret NOC? No. Because she wasn't.

And let me tell you why; courtesy of a gentleman who goes by the handle RBMN at Captains quarters.

From Chicago Tribune (it won't let me give a link, calling the Trib "questionable content"):

When the Tribune searched for Plame on an Internet service that sells public information about private individuals to its subscribers, it got a report of more than 7,600 words. Included was the fact that in the early 1990s her address was "AMERICAN EMBASSY ATHENS ST, APO NEW YORK NY 09255." A former senior American diplomat in Athens, who remembers Plame as "pleasant, very well-read, bright," said he had been aware that Plame, who was posing as a junior consular officer, really worked for the CIA. According to CIA veterans, U.S. intelligence officers working in American embassies under "diplomatic cover" are almost invariably known to friendly and opposition intelligence services alike.

[...]

After the completion of her Athens tour, the CIA reportedly sent Plame to study in Europe. According to her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Plame was living in Brussels when the couple first met in 1997. Two years later, when Plame made a $1,000 contribution to Vice President Al Gore, she listed her employer as Brewster-Jennings & Associates, a Boston company apparently set up by the CIA to provide "commercial cover" for some of its operatives. Brewster-Jennings was not a terribly convincing cover. According to Dun & Bradstreet, the company, created in 1994, is a "legal services office" grossing $60,000 a year and headed by a chief executive named Victor Brewster. Commercial databases accessible by the Tribune contain no indication that such a person exists.

[...]

Genuine NOCs, a CIA veteran said, "never use an official address. If she had [a diplomatic] address, her whole cover's completely phony. I used to run NOCs. I was in an embassy. I'd go out and meet them, clandestine meetings. I'd pay them cash to run assets or take trips. I'd give them a big bundle of cash. But they could never use an embassy address, ever." Another CIA veteran with 20 years of service agreed that "the key is the [embassy] address. That is completely unacceptable for an NOC. She wasn't an NOC, period." After Plame was transferred back to CIA headquarters in the mid-1990s, she continued to pass herself off as a private energy consultant. But the first CIA veteran noted: "You never let a true NOC go into an official facility. You don't drive into headquarters with your car, ever." A senior U.S. intelligence official, who like the others quoted in this article spoke on condition of anonymity, noted that Plame "may not be alone in that category, so I don't want to suggest she was the only one. But it would be a fair assumption that a true-blue NOC is not someone who has a headquarters job at any point or an embassy job at any point."

Let me tell you this too. Joe Wilson was such a flambouyant arse, and they were both so careless, it was inevitable that Ms. Plame's identity would become more common knowledge than it already was. Inevitable.

Now that Novak can talk and is clearing the air, everyone's screaming that he's a Republican shill and a liar. Don't you think Fitzgerald would have charged him with something if he were lying? He charged Libby with lying in no time flat.

Posted by Oyster at July 14, 2006 11:49 AM

"Now that Novak can talk and is clearing the air, everyone's screaming that he's a Republican shill and a liar."

Whether he's a liar or not is debatable, but I think Novak is pretty publically a Republican shill.

You must be right about the whole Plame deal. It was all an innocent conversation that happened to involved Rove, Libby, and Cheney (I'm not saying they all behaved criminally, I'm saying they were all involved). And the fact that the administration stonewalled on the matter with the president claiming he didn't know who was responsible for the leaks, but he'd fire the leaker if he ever found out, didn't mean anything funny or political was going on. Just an innocent conversation. Uh, huh. And I'm the one just believing what he wants to believe.

Posted by Mavis Beacon at July 14, 2006 02:53 PM

Mavis, did you know that Bush bombed the levees in New Orleans and blew up the WTC? Your conspiracy theory on Plame has as much credence as those accusations, too. They're all hopeful guesses with no proof.

Posted by Woody at July 14, 2006 04:19 PM

Woody, I'll do some searching around the web and get back with you in a couple of days with some links; there are some real good ones out there. Also, if you have some serious amounts of free time, go through the Lileks matchbook collection - it's vast, but the designs and stories are great.

Okay, Mavis, let's try this slowly:
This particular thread is a very simple one, with a goofy little cartoon and a fun kitschy picture of the type we all enjoy looking at for its bright colours and evocation of better days gone by, captioned with a way over the top (and therefore fun) title referring to something that gets under conservatives' skins. It comes to pass that we happen to remark that many people whose politics lean strongly leftward don't recognize or appreciate humour on conservative sites - so where in the heck does the whole "Wilson-Plame-Wilson Attention Whoring Effort" fall into this scheme?!
While I agree that it may be somewhat reactionary (and maybe shy of the mark) to call the NYT "treasonous" in that their reporting was probably not *intended* to specifically aid the terrorists, the fact is that it did. The NYT specifically published it despite (or really because of) the administration's and banking community's requests not to, and despite the fact that the program was both legal and working.
Just because the NYT didn't mean to deliberately aid and abet the terrorists in publishing their article (we all know they were really doing their usual "Anything Goes" style of reporting to help do their part to bring down the administration), doesn't mean they aren't culpable in having committed treason. They do at least appear to qualify for prosecution under the 1917 Espionage Act, as well as possibly Article 3 of the Constitution, although I suspect that our American respect for the First Ammendment will prevent our doing so.
Also, I would lay out on the table that anyone other than the press who feels anything at all (other than a gut-wringing disgust) at this whole attention-whoring mock-trial-of-justice, ought to get down on their knees and thank God (or Yahweh, or Allah, or Thor, or Gaia, nobody, or whichever current deity or group thereof currently holds your belief) that your life is so great that this is the main thing you have to complain about! (hmph!) Honestly!

Posted by Katje at July 14, 2006 06:20 PM

Mavis,

The reality is that Novak behaved as reporters do. He went from source to source getting information about Wilson's trip. Plame began as merely an aside. No one cared until Wilson's wings went to flapping.

Is Novak a Republican shill? Whatever. For every Republican "shill" you can name, I'll name ten from the other side.

No conspiracy. I repeat - No conspiracy.
----------

Katje,

Nice job there.

And I love Lileks. I covet his matchbook collection, too.

Posted by Oyster at July 14, 2006 08:18 PM