Note to Glenn Beck:
I actually like your TV show, if only because it’s better than most cable-TV methane-fests.
But on the air?
Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Beck. You’re a conservative, ergo right about everything underneath all the schtick. Duly noted.
But if people were to take your hyperbole seriously, Glenn, we’d all be moving into bunkers in the mountains; I certainly want to after listening to you for an eveing.
So I say, Glenn Beck; lead the way.
Why are you “supposed” to love Beck? I find him as annoying as Hannity.
Kermit, that was cruel! I run hot & cold on Beck, but as annoying as Hannity? That’s below the belt!
Kermit, I agree with you. He’s more annoying than Rhandi Rhodes most days, and THAT is saying something.
He’s also usually flat out wrong on most issues, his stance, like many stances of conservatives, is wafer thin in both its desire to look at facts and analysis thereof.
But, if we’re just talking delivery, he’s awful.
Don’t worry about posting any actual issues, Peev. Feel free to say… anything that comes to mind.
Well, since peeve’s understanding of essentially any issue is wafer thin…
What’s that called again? Oh yeah… “PROJECTION”
Peev thought that Rumsfeld had never spent any time in the armed services.
Rumsfeld was in the navy full time from ’54-’57. He flew jets. From ’57 to ’89 he was in the reserves. He spent, altogether, 35 years in the navy and retired as a captain.
As a rule, every time peev makes any critical statement about conservatives he is really pointing a thousand middle fingers back at himself.
It isn’t that Peev gets it wrong, or has ill-formed opinions, or makes mistakes, or lets his mouth write checks that his ass can’t cash…
…how does he follow-up on those mistakes? As a rule…
Just following your lead, Badda, or as they say in the ‘reality based world’ – physiker, heal thyself.
Gee, Terry, thanks for the info, sorry I actually was incorrect – I think I’ve admitted to making mistakes several times, I more than man enough to.
You conservative neo-kooks, not so much.
Terry, Donald Rumsfeld also put (apparently) bible quotes on US Intelligence documents – how do you feel about your mistake of backing that collosal failure of a SecDef for 6 years? As compared to THAT mistake, I’ll take mine any day.
I wonder if you’ll be big enough to admit to your mistake? I wonder whether you even grasp the difference?
And Terry, actually, you all have cornered the market on rampant, incipid hypocrisy, I’m just spending time mocking you.
BTW, Badda (and Terry since it points out your unending hypocrisy), what issue did Mitch ACTUALLY raise? He mostly just provided opinion that he doesn’t like his delivery, and I agreed with him.
Mitch, your sychopants (not all, but many) are showing just how much they can be putzes again.
Peev, you congenital moron.
Please find one example of me ‘backing’ Rumsfeld for a second, much less for six years.
what issue did Mitch ACTUALLY raise?
The issue I took was with what YOU wrote:
He’s also usually flat out wrong on most issues, his stance, like many stances of conservatives, is wafer thin in both its desire to look at facts and analysis thereof.
To which I responded that your own ‘desire to look at the facts’ and ‘analysis thereof’ was sadly lacking & I gave an example where you were not just wrong on the salient issue (conservative neo-con chickenhawks) but utterly and completely 180-degrees-off-from-reality.
Your entire world view, peevish, is based on lies you’ve told yourself, and that you continue to believe.
And peev, read this:
The decision to put the biblical quotations on the cover pages was taken by Maj Gen Glen Shaffer, a director for intelligence serving both Mr Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to GQ.
Leaving aside the question of whether or not it was appropriate to put the quotes on the briefing docs you were wrong again, peev.
It’s a wonder to me how you can look at yourself in the mirror & not weep at what you have become. You are the blog commenting equivalent of an old, shabby, unshaven homeless schizophrenic who rides the bus all day.
Peev, shouldn’t you be busying yourself standing in front of your telephone, NOT calling into radio shows?
Who is it that keeps telling Mitch that he is supposed to like or dislike this rather long laundry list of things?
Terry, I saw the same allegation that Maj. Gen. Shaffer was the person who originated the idea. It is still unclear (as in conflicting accounts) that Rumsfeld liked the idea and ‘ran with it’. It is clear however from the photos that there were multiple instances where biblical quotations went out immediately under the heading that read: Secretary of Defense Worldwide Intelligence Update, and there are claims that assert that Rumsfeld personally took at least some of these same documents directly to meetings with the White House, including meetings with the president.
Having your title immediately above bible quotes certainly has the appearance of taking credit for implementing an idea, even if that idea started with someone else. Also it appears (so far) undisputed that Rumsfeld didn’t decide to stop this practice until there was significant objections from other people within the Pentagon who thought that it would be inflammatory to Muslims in the Middle East should the information get out. That this ceased ONLY after serious protest would suggest that it had Rumsfeld’s approval.
I don’t know about YOUR experience, but having generated more than a few reports for superiors over the years – I sure as heck would never, ever ever put something like a bible quote on the front page of one, directly under the title of my superior, REPEATEDLY, without having been VERY sure that it was done with my boss’s approval.
It is also worth noting that “The article, by Robert Draper, focuses on Donald Rumsfeld’s tenure as defense secretary in the Bush administration, focusing on complaints from ex-colleagues that in some cases, Rumsfeld’s flawed decision-making sometimes damaged the Bush presidency and American interests.”
GQ has a slide show of these documents. I certainly found them troubling in the context that our government is not supposed to promote one religion over others. Given the perception that Bush created that our actions were a new wave of crusades, an update of the medieval conflicts, I think the concerns of the former collegues of Mr. Rumsfeld were correct. Merely calling Rumsfeld’s decision making ‘flawed’ was unreasonably charitable.
Bible quotes? The HORROR! What would this country be if George Washington quoted the Bible? Or Abraham Lincoln? Or Franlkin Roosevelt? Or Bill Clinton? Or….
I think the concerns of the former collegues of Mr. Rumsfeld were correct.
You are free to think whatever you like, Dog Gone. I will continue to think that the press coverage of Rumsfeld is one-sided. Rumsfeld had conflicts with the career managers in the pentagon over how to best reform the military to meet the needs of the 21st century. I’m sure that there are many journalists who will listen to what these pentagon critics say without ever casting a critical eye on what they report or questioning their motivation. Funny how none of the sources for the GQ piece would go on the record. It’s also odd that the GQ story doesn’t mention Rumsfeld forbidding proselytising efforts at the air force academy, either. News that doesn’t fit the narrative doesn’t seem to exist for these professional ‘journalists’.
A lot of comments here from penigma; he must have a lot of time on his hands while he waits for Michele Bachmann to return his calls.
Oh, wait, you actually have to call someone first before they can respond.
Peev, you’re back!!!
BTW, I knew you wouldn’t have the guts to call Mitch’s radio show on Saturday and talk to Michele Bachmann. But I have to admit it takes a small amount of intestinal fortitude to show up here after you were called out as a coward for all your blustering about Bachmann. So kudos!
Dog Gone-
The Bible quotes on the docs are interesting. Most of them were from the OT. I expect the author of the article — or whoever wrote the article’s title “And He Shall Be Judged”– is pretty ignorant about exactly what is in the Bible. The ‘judging God’ of the OT is the friend & ally of the righteous. Most of the fear-God’s-judgement part of the Bible is NT stuff, in the OT the prophet or author is beseeching God to act as judge.
The article itself is a hit piece. The attack on Rumsfeld is almost unrelenting; the sources are very rarely identified so their truthfulness, motives, etc. cannot be checked.
As for the photocopies of the intel briefings? Hard to know what to think without context. Were they obtained illegally? What did the war-time briefings of earlier administrations look like? The military has a culture unique to itself. I work with an agency whose symbol is a mailed fist holding lightning bolts against a sky-blue background. If memory serves another unit in the same branch has for its symbol missiles with angel wings.
This is the third time (that I am aware of), Dog Gone, that you have referred to some MSM article as revealing God’s Own Truth. It’s as though you think that conservatives who follow SITD haven’t heard these kind of arguments before. In my state the dems outnumber the GOP 70-7 in the legislature. We have a liberal Republican governor, and she’s the first Republican governor in the history of the state. I spent years taking liberal arts courses, including PoliSci taught by a one time far-left state legislator. I expect that many, if not all of the regular conservative commenters on SITD are in a similar position.
There some good arguments in favor of the idea that Rumsfeld was not a good SecDef all of the time, but liberal talking points demand that the ground Rumsfeld tread upon must be cursed, his motivations for making what appear to be poor decisions must be foul, the great things Rumsfeld has done (toppling the Taliban relatively bloodlessly, longest armored drive in history in Iraq) must not be mentioned. The argument from ideology is not convincing if you do not share the ideology.
I generally think Beck is ok. Better than Baker and Gallager.
Way to much theatrical stuff. I can see why when his guest collapsed Beck’s production crew thought it was just part of the act.
He also sounds as if the apocalypse is just around the corner. I believe in the Revalation however, I am not worried that it may happen tomorrow. It might, but it might happen a thousand years from now too.
I did see him at the NRA convention in Louisville where he headlined the NRA members banquet and he did a great speech there.
Have some comments been deleted?
I know the flow of commentary is always disjointed when Peev joins in, but this string seems to have significant in from left field elements to it.
I haven’6t deleted comments from this blog in quite a while.
Loren, this is just how Peeve works. Peeve is left field.
Terry says:
“This is the third time (that I am aware of), Dog Gone, that you have referred to some MSM article as revealing God’s Own Truth. ”
I gave you credit for making a correction about the article that I also noted; I don’t see any media as the source for revealing “God’s Own Truth”; and one of the most interesting aspects of this is the absence – so far – of a comment from Rumsfeld or anyone else in the upper echelons of the Bush administration denying any of it, or providing any additional context that might be mitigating in some way.
With the caveat that I am open to additional information, the documents themselves seem to be self-evident as to the facts presented. So far I don’t see you disagreeing with the reasoning that if the bible quotations went out under the imprimatur of the Secretary of Defense, that it had his approval, or that it was his decision to incorporate the idea originating with Maj. Gen. Shaffer rather than that the sole responsibility of Shaffer.
While I read with interests your observations about which quotations came from the old testament and which from the new testament, respectfully I don’t see that as significant to the objections. This was an inappropriate use of religion, it was unfair to those members of the armed services which did not share them, it was potentially inflammatory to the country we were expecting to welcome us as liberators. In a word – it was STUPID, and it was offensive, all the more so in the context of the comments Bush made about crusades, and the comments made to the Israelis that he was acting because God told him to do so.
There are many occasions where it IS appropriate to express personal faith and conviction. These weren’t it.
Terry says:
“It’s also odd that the GQ story doesn’t mention Rumsfeld forbidding proselytising efforts at the air force academy, either.” I hadn’t been aware of that, and would be very interested in hearing more. The question that comes to my mind about this is – why is it forbidden to proselytise while attending the Air Force Acadamey? Isn’t this a matter of the personal convictions of the cadets – or was the Air Force officially as an institution doing the proselytising? Clearly, the Air Force as a part of the government of the Unites States should not be advocating one religion over another. What anyone who is a member of the Air Force or other armed forces for that matter does to witness or celebrate their religion on their own time should be their own business, so long as it does not infringe on the rights or privacy of anyone else.
A Rumsfeld aid responds to the GQ piece:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0509/Rumsfeld_disputes_GQ_report.html
“I knew you wouldn’t have the guts to call Mitch’s radio show on Saturday and talk to Michele Bachmann.”
The Peev is a coward.
I listened to a little Glen Beck this week because of the new schedule. I’m with Mitch, I should like it, he’s smart and creative, but it’s just not good radio for me. Hannity is just too intense. My most important criterion is: do I learn anything? Rush? Yes. Prager? Yes. Levin? Yes. Star Trek: Yes. Hannity: No. Beck: No. Ingraham: somethimes, but not enough. Jason Lewis: used to, not much anymore.
Hannity has a show he wrote 10 years ago. It was about a half hour long. He’s been repeating it ever since. He just changes a few key words to make it sound like current material. Beck at least has the gumption to write new material, a full 3 hours worth. I could give or take Beck, but I get depressed when there is nothing on but Hannity.
Mitch, Berg’s survivalist libertarianism is pretty old stuff, really. It’s just that it hasn’t gotten any attention from the press , nor has it had any kind of prominent national spokesman, since the 1970s. The militia movement is related, but not quite the same thing.