Counterpunch
By Mitch Berg
Fred Thompson counters Ron Paul’s “Boston Tea Party” fundraising effort:
Republican Presidential candidate Fred Thompson today, upon hearing that rival Ron Paul’s supporters had raised $6 million in 24 hours to commemorate the Boston Tea Party, called on his supporters to match that figure in gun purchases before Christmas to mark George Washington’s victory at the Battle of Trenton.
“I’m tired of running around the country raising money that I just have to hand over to the same mainstream media companies that ignore my campaign,” said the former senator from Tennessee. “We’ve done enough this year to support the so-called free press of the first amendment. Let’s give a boost to our friends who make it possible for us to exercise our second amendment right to keep and bear arms.”
Yeah, Fred! That’ll…um…
(sigh)
Oh, well. If only it weren’t Scrappleface.
December 18th, 2007 at 9:54 am
Maybe they can buy some to shoot SWAT teams that invade their homes, and get shot at in reply. I know personal protection worked well over the weekend here.
The citizen was perfectly entitled to defend himself, I wonder, had he killed anyone, whether he’d have been prosecuted. I KNOW, had he been killed, the ‘law and order’ republicans would have claimed any complaints were merely reverse racism. Sure am glad we all have guns at the ready, and readily use them, sure is so much safer to have them at hand.
Maybe the whole reality is that simply arming people, which is entirely their right, does little to stem crime, and makes tragedy simply too easily achieved – there is little to conclude other than guns don’t stop much, they don’t help much, but neither do they hurt much. It is our predaliction for using them which is mostlly our problem. From cops too ready to shoot, to homes so afraid they keep guns at the ready – we seem to think guns actually solve things.
Someday Mitch, maybe, you’ll actually get to thinking through a problem all the way – maybe – like you must have done to have such clear thinking on capital punishment – it’s been a long time – but I actually think you can.
Thompson’s campaign is dead, lifeless, and dull. His challenge was always that he was far too comfortable, and frankly known to be too lazy, to run this race in earnest. He can blame the media, I mean, that’s certainly copping out and shirking personal responsibility, but truly, his campaign suffers from simply being devoid of vibrancy, and too bound up in dead, lifeless and dull neo-con ideas who’s wisdom has been exposed as unwise – Huckabee captures attention because he discusses the ideas of integrity that Thompson and Gulliani can look at, speak to, but no longer claim. To them, integrity is a will-o-wisp, a puff of smoke, something they grasp at, yet slips through their fingers on winds of dead policy (in Thompson’s case) or personal historical indictments (in Gulliani’s). So both are struggling to gain grounding with the Bryan-esque populists of the plains – and well they should. They are as foriegn to Topeka, as they are to tolerance, truth, and (interesting how coincidence works) humility.
December 18th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Holy Christmas, Peev. The OCD medication not kicking in today?
December 18th, 2007 at 11:18 am
I refer Peev to the name above the previous comment. I’m sure Peev’s going to be surprised that it isn’t my name.
(Standing by on the “Lighten up, Francis” button.)
December 18th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Fred just got the all-important MCCL endorsement.
Remember, a campaign’s heart is beatin 18 days from conception!
December 18th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Badda, I will concur you are far better than Assarian.. and while I think you do need to lighten up.. or said a better way I will if you will, and since I’m responsible for my own conduct.. I will, that said – you and I are certainly both a lot more balanced and sane than that particular cretin. Sorry for lumping you with him (if I did), and if I did, it was out of line. The only scumbag as low as Yoss is Swift (oh and a couple douchebags on the left… Eva Young seems to come to mind – who, while not quite as big an ass as Yoss – is goofey as the world is big so falls into the ‘urneadable’ category).
That said, the points above stand, Fred’s appealing to nonsense here, just as Mitch noted, and whether he plays in the media is up to Fred, as much as anyone. Say something interesting, you’ll probably get play. Left wing bias, like right wing bias (except on Faux News) is mostly just a myth – reporters are liberal on environmental policies/international policies (as is so often quoted) – but rather centrist on social policies. Whether or not you agree with that the point still is that no one, certainly not John Edwards or Barack Obama, nor for that matter Rudy G, is getting much air play.. you have to make your news.
Guns aren’t a salvation, nor are they damnation – we make our beds with our love of violence and acceptance of over-zealous police work.
December 18th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Fred’s appealing to nonsense here, just as Mitch noted,
Actually…
…er…
…you do realize that the “Thompson” bit is entirely satire? That Scrappleface is a satire site?
Just…pointing it…out…
(ducks)
December 18th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
…you do realize that the “Thompson” bit is entirely satire?
Honestly, do you think it would make a difference?
December 18th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
I love being called a scumbag. It makes me feel like I’m in a cantina on Tatooine.
December 18th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Honestly, do you think it would make a difference?
[Judiciously closes mouth. Walks to rest room]
December 18th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Peev… you don’t ever read any news from The Onion, do you?
December 18th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Peev thinks ScrappleFace is a skin condition.
December 18th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
I suspected it was satire – hadn’t ever seen the site before, and considering you winguts pass off personal accountability in the form of blaming others – wouldn’t put it past Thompson and you know seemed so damned earnest Mitch so it’s hard to tell. But I’ll raise my hand, got caught up in the moment – yep.
Badda, I read from the Onion from time to time, pretty funny stuff.
[Judiciously closes mouth. Walks to rest room] – both a first (in judiciously closing your mouth) and pretty normal for you to abdicate responsibility for the comments of your fawning public.
December 18th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Fawning? We’re fawning? Mitch, I apologize, I didn’t realize how much I was fawning on your site. Here I thought I was just dropping by an acquaintance’s blog and mocking the bloviating drones suffering from Internet Commenting Disorder. Apologies again for all the fawning. Fawn, fawn, fawn. Fawn, fawn, fawn.
December 18th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Oh, don’t worry, Yossarian. EVERYONE that differs from Peevish, it seems, does so for some sort of malevolent reason.
We don’t just disagree; we LIE and are HYPOCRITES.
We don’t just put opinions out there for discussion; we BLOVIATE and are NOT HUMBLE.
We dont’ just leave comments. We fawn.
And we never, ever joke; we only make PERSONAL ATTACKS.
Of course, on the upside, we never do anything ourselves; HalliburtonRoveLibbyBushco are really behind it all. But nonetheless, we ABDICATE RESPONSIBILITY.
December 18th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
abdicate responsibility for the comments of your fawning public
Er, the only comment I was commenting about was yours.
Continue, er, fawning, I guess.
December 18th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Viz:
” . . . integrity is a will-o-wisp, a puff of smoke, something they grasp at, yet slips through their fingers on winds of dead policy . . .”
Vs:
“The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers. ”
Say, this is like the Star Wars cantina!
December 18th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
SitD: “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy, and that’s just AC and Peev.”
December 18th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Oh, for eff sake Peev… shut up and laugh at yourself for just a minute. What you did was utterly hillarious, albeit unintentionally.
Madonn’! Lighten the eff up, let your frigging hair down, release your sphyncter, and stop taking yourself so seriously.
I say that with the slight possibility that if you take my advice I won’t be able to mock you nearly as often… but you might just take several much needed points off of your blood pressure and you might enjoy yourself more.
December 18th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Ooh, fun, can I play?
On his bike, Mitch made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs.
(peev to conservatives): I’ve been looking forward to killing you for a long time.
conservatives: I’ll bet you have.
(peev disappears in a cloud of smoke)
fawning readers to mitch: Sorry about the mess
December 18th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
Mitch: Aren’t you a little long-winded to be an Internet commenter?
Peev: Huh? Oh, the uniform! My name’s Peevish; I’m here to rescue you from your conservatice ideologies! I’m here with AngryClown. Now, before I rescue you, I’d like to take a moment to write voluminously and nonsensically, and jump to conclusions, and completely misread satire, and miss points completely, and routinely go off topic, and make wild assumptions about the other commenters, and get defensive as a cornered badger, and take things way too damned seriously as to confound the imagination, and try to hijack threads and basically turn someone else’s blog into my own personal soapbox because I’m too technologically inept to start my own blog (and, frankly, no one would visit it if I did, so I’m using Mitch’s traffic in an attempt to get my dronings in front of an audience), and. . .
Mitch: Into the garbage chute, Web boy!
December 18th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
What about other films, like “Back to the Future, Part III”?
Marty McFly: He’s an asshole!
Wow, I didn’t even need to change the line.
December 18th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
I simply refuse to fawn. I will admit to looking up to Mitch, but as he is four inches taller than me, I take no particular satisfaction in the act.
December 18th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Han Solo:
Peeve:
December 18th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
I will admit to looking up to Mitch,
I’ve never met the guy, so I can’t even admit to that. Saw him on television once next to Laura Ingram, but he looked like he was doing the fawning.
December 18th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
next to Laura Ingram, but he looked like he was doing the fawning.
You damn right.
December 18th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Jeff and Yos: PURE GOLD TODAY, BOYS! Fine posts.
December 18th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Well, I’m 6’2″ so I dont know if I look up to Mitch or not.
“I KNOW, had he been killed, the ‘law and order’ republicans would have claimed any complaints were merely reverse racism.” Yeah, because Law and Order Republicans are all about kicking in random doors and killing whoever happens to be home.
“to homes so afraid they keep guns at the ready – we seem to think guns actually solve things.”
Yes, it’s fear that has me keeping guns at the ready. And fear that keeps my gas tank in my car full in winter. And fear is the reason I keep a sleeping bag and a cb in the trunk when I have to drive long distances in the winter. And fear is the reason I keep a zero balance credit card. And fear is the reason we kept a bed and radio in the basement during tornado season. Yep, you got us.
December 18th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Well, I’m 6′2″
Go wait by your pot of gold, wee fellow.
December 18th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
“Law and Order Republicans are all about kicking in random doors and killing whoever happens to be home.”
Didn’t this happen in Minneapolis?
I seem to remember reading, a few years ago, about the sole Republican elected official retiring – from the library board.
Has there been a sudden resurgence of the GOP in this city that I didn’t notice?
December 18th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Apparently then, I do look up to Mitch.
December 18th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Yes Buzz, but you can do it scornfully. Like Peebs.
December 19th, 2007 at 11:00 am
For a brief moment I thought Kermit said “pubes” and I couldn’t understand what point he was trying to make.
Must go to eye doctor soon.
December 19th, 2007 at 11:02 am
Peev – these aren’t the (drones) you are looking for.
Something about this string reminds me of bulls-eyeing womprats in Beggars’ Canyon back home.
December 19th, 2007 at 11:14 am
“Yes Buzz, but you can do it scornfully. Like Peebs.”
I guess it depends on just how much I look up to him.
December 19th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
He’s got teenagers. Best of luck.