Horseshoes, Hand Grenades, and Pantloads

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Horseshoes, Hand Grenades, and Pantloads
By: TBogg Tuesday February 10, 2009 10:49 pm	Tweet

At some time in his life Jonah Goldberg was asked to do a pull-up in gym class. After hanging there for twenty seconds or so ( limp as a trophy fish because gravity has a well-known liberal bias) the gym teacher sighed and announced "close enough" without ever looking up from his clipboard.

From this, a work ethic was born:

Like pretty much everyone in Washington, I don’t take Media Matters for America very seriously. But, I sometimes find it funny how seriously it takes itself. A good example is Eric Boehlert’s hysterical fit about my recent USA Today column on Obama’s press coverage (which I will admit has gotten somewhat more pointed since the column came out).

I think the feverishness of his diatribe speaks for itself. But I do think it’s worth pointing to a couple of his substantive complaints, which I think mostly stem from his inability to use Nexis or Google.

Boehlert writes:

Let’s start with the column’s first sentence: "Barack Obama and his supporters have been relentlessly comparing the new president to Franklin Roosevelt."

The new president has been "relentlessly" comparing himself to FDR? Note that Goldberg offered no evidence in his column — no quotes, no nothing — to back up that claim. I searched through Nexis and Google and couldn’t find examples of Obama comparing himself to FDR.

Sigh. Obama’s rhetoric has been relentless in its allusions to Roosevelt and the New Deal in ways that make the comparison obvious. Hundreds of reporters, columnists and bloggers have caught this. He has invoked FDR and/or FDR’s New Deal countless times to support his policies and his philosophy of governance. But if Eric Boehlert is insufficiently historically literate to hear it, that’s his failing, not mine.

Personally I am of the belief that Jonah is possession of a Wingnut Edition of the Babel Fish which translates "Obama talks about FDR" into "OMG!!Obama thinks he’s FDR!", which might explain that time when people were saying that Jonah’s book appeared to have been written by a roomful of monkeys with typewriters and Jonah thought they were comparing him to Edward Gibbon.

Stranger things have happened. Not stupider, but definitely stranger…

21 Comments

21 Responses to “Horseshoes, Hand Grenades, and Pantloads”

mmmHobNobs February 10th, 2009 at 11:19 pm

aaaah, yes … their favorite method of “debate” (using that term oh-so-loosely): if you can’t argue substance, simply say that your opponent is a screaming mimi (”suffering from BDS”, “unhinged”, etc) rendering anything they say moot.

the wingnut equivalent of “oh, YEAH? well, you suck”

unclemike February 11th, 2009 at 12:13 am

Dear Pantload: allusions in rhetoric =/= “relentlessly comparing”

SvladJelly February 11th, 2009 at 3:24 am

I don’t know about the ear-fish, but I used this Babel Fish to translate the phrase “Obama talks about FDR” from English to Dutch to French to Greek and back to English and then to German, French, Spanish, English. It turned it into complete gibberish, which, as you know, is Jonah Goldberg’s native tongue.

I did the same language chain with the phrase “Jonah is a tool” and it came out unchanged, which proves that Jonah Goldberg is a fucking tool no matter what language you speak.

JDM3 February 11th, 2009 at 4:43 am

Jonah is a fat, stupid dick.

And you know I hate to talk about people.

TomMil February 11th, 2009 at 5:05 am

The bar has been set at subterranean levels and Jonah still can’t get over it.

bayville February 11th, 2009 at 5:33 am

In his response, Pantload unveils himself as, not only lazy and ignorant, but as a liar. Witness:

Well, I went re-fetched the whole quote from Nexis in about a minute by searching for “John King” and “Nobody disputes.” Really heavy lifting.

And according to Pantload, this is the “money” quote.

KING: Well, many people, especially on the right, have criticized our business, saying we’ve been too easy on Barack Obama, too soft on Barack Obama, too much caught up in the significant history. No one disputes that, but maybe not taking enough time to deal with his answers to the specific challenge.

I still can’t find the quote “nobody disputes”. Maybe it’s me.

SteveM February 11th, 2009 at 5:50 am

Obama’s been comparing himself to FDR? I wish. He should be doing that, but he isn’t. Obama has the audacity to want to refurbish the National Mall? He wants to give work to landscapers? Fuck, FDR gave work to poets. And we loved him for it! We put him on money!

sophronia February 11th, 2009 at 6:29 am

Above and beyond the point of Jonah Goldberg being a complete wanker, how many different ways will the wingnuts find to write “How dare that black man in the White House act so uppity!!!” before the first month of Obama’s term is over?

Imagine, somebody compared him to somebody else who was also President of the United States! Appalling!

nonplussed February 11th, 2009 at 6:45 am

For some reason I thought that fool had a Doctorate. My faith in academe is restored with the discovery that he doesn’t possess a graduate degree of any sort. He obviously purchased his degree from Goucher College.

thingwarbler February 11th, 2009 at 6:51 am

In response to SteveM @ 7

I bet that thought keeps Jonah awake at night: “what if they decide to put — gasp! — a black man on our money one day?!?”

Of course, at the rate Obama and his rag-tag assortment of old-school asshats and industry insiders are struggling to “avoid* genuinely fixing the economy, his face can go on the bazillion dollar IOUs we’ll be giving to China in order to continue to pay Tim Geithner’s friends on Wall Street their ill-deserved bonuses. Where the fuck is the Change I Could Believe In?!?

Hatmandu February 11th, 2009 at 7:06 am

which might explain that time when people were saying that Jonah’s book appeared to have been written by a roomful of monkeys with typewriters and Jonah thought they were comparing him to Edward Gibbon

Classic, Tbogg. Is there any truth that the monkeys outsmarted Jonah, and now have him locked in a hay filled cage in the basement like this guy? Maybe I’ll do a nexis search to find out…nah…I think I’ll just heat up this cinnamon bun and pop in my copy of St. Elmo’s Fire. Cuz that’s what Doughy would do.

moondancer February 11th, 2009 at 7:20 am

Gibbons are apes and are offended at being in the same sentence with that pink sack of corn syrup. Fuck Pantload. Stupidity combined with arrogance is ugly.

dstatton February 11th, 2009 at 7:37 am

Well, he begins with a lie about how “pretty much everyone in Washington” does not take Media Matters seriously.

PaminBB February 11th, 2009 at 8:03 am

In response to dstatton @ 13

Exactly. Which of course is why he is responding to them.

cowalker February 11th, 2009 at 8:06 am

Wait minute. I thought Obama thought he was Lincoln?

http://crooksandliars.com/john…..ve-complet

Ah, Obama, you crafty shape-shifter. Is there anyone you can’t be?

Cliff105 February 11th, 2009 at 8:45 am

insufficiently historically literate

Goldberg is relentless in his unintended irony…

MBouffant February 11th, 2009 at 1:53 pm

In response to nonplussed @ 9

Jonah went to Goucher because Goucher was going co-ed & didn’t have many male applicants, as Jonah freely admits, as in, might not have gotten in anywhere else.

kuvasz February 11th, 2009 at 5:43 pm

Jonah Goldberg is a dick.

pseudonymousinnc February 11th, 2009 at 9:36 pm

In response to MBouffant @ 17

He was also a legacy, because Goucher was Lucianne’s alma mater.

D. Pantload: legacy affirmative-action admission.

SpinyNorman February 11th, 2009 at 9:47 pm

“Jonah Goldberg is a dick.”

No, Jonah Goldberg is a tepid, foetid puddle of rectal exudate.

gmoke February 11th, 2009 at 10:48 pm

“a tepid, foetid puddle of rectal exudate”

That sounds like santorum but not so much if sex wasn’t involved.