Directly from the White House:
Congressman Murtha is a respected veteran and politician who has a record of supporting a strong America. So it is baffling that he is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party. The eve of an historic democratic election in Iraq is not the time to surrender to the terrorists. After seeing his statement, we remain baffled — nowhere does he explain how retreating from Iraq makes America safer.
Yes, it must be said again: Murtha’s statement simply baffling. We’re baffled. This is us, the White House, being baffled. Watch: “Whaaaaaa?” See? That’s us, baffled.
What’s going on here? Congressman John Murtha was one of the most pro-military, hawkish guys in Congress. Served in the marines… twice. Re-enlisted to fight in Vietnam. Voted for the war in Iraq. Nobody can take that from him. But…. this? It’s baffling! Look at what he’s saying.
Seriously, what does that stuff even mean? Like this baffling statement: “But the intelligence concerning Iraq was wrong. It is not a world intelligence failure. It is a U.S. intelligence failure and the way that intelligence was misused.” What’s that about? Beats us. We’ve parsed it back and forth, forth and back, and it still makes no sense to us why a guy like Murtha would say something like that. Or how about, “The future of our military is at risk,” or “As I said before, I have visited with the severely wounded of this war. They are suffering” or “U.S. troops are the common enemy of the Sunnis, Saddamists and foreign jihadists.” So… what’s that supposed to mean? And then he “explains it” with, “Because we in Congress are charged with sending our sons and daughters into battle, it is our responsibility, our obligation, to speak out for them. That’s why I am speaking out.”
Huh? Anyone get that? Why’s he saying that? We don’t know, we’ve been completely baffletized by all this. Makes no sense. I mean, that’s Michael Moore talk, that’s what that is. That’s Howard Dean talk - hey, remember when he yelled “Yeeeaaargh!?” We all still agree that was awesome, right? Heh heh, right? Like Murtha maybe invented the internet too, right? Ha. Good times…
Well, this is like that, maybe. We’ll call it “Murtha’s Yeeargh” or something, okay, America? Have a good laugh about it and get back to the business of doing what we were doing before. Yes? Because the one thing we don’t want to do when we’re all - well, frankly, baffled, that’s the only way to put it - the one thing we don’t want to do when we’re completely baffled by something is waste time looking at it and trying to figure out what it’s about.
We’re aware that about two-thirds of you no longer think we’re running this war the right way, and to be honest we find that, also, completely baffling. Why would you feel that way? What’s behind all of this distrust and disapproval? Nothing that we can see. It’s - well, we hate to put it in these terms, but it’s just plain baffling. We’re baffled. Like we’d need a total bafflectomy to understand what’s going on here.
Maybe you’ve all been talking to Michael Moore. Maybe you’ve all become a bunch of fancy-pantses with your white wine and your French food, huh? Is that it? Because if it’s something else, well, honestly, we have no idea what it is. Truly, this is a bafflefest, and that’s the truth. What’s going on?
Fanny Roborat
41 comments
Linkmeister
November 18, 2005 at 8:01 pm
1“What’s going on?” Ask Marvin Gaye.
Siobhan Ruck
November 18, 2005 at 8:05 pm
2Baffle: “Perhaps blend of Scottish Gaelic bauchle, to denounce, revile publicly, and French bafouer, to ridicule.”
(The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
So, like, these guys are way closer to the mark than they realized. Or maybe they’re just so much more clever than we realized.
Amina
November 18, 2005 at 8:27 pm
3I love that they accuse him of “endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore” as if Murtha’s point is so far out that he couldn’t possibly have come up with it on his own and must have discovered it in some extreme leftist documentary.
They must be really scared–I mean baffled–by this; they brought out the big guns of rhetoric: Murtha’s plan now equals “surrendering to the terrorists.”
On a brighter note, “bafflectomy” is still making me laugh… thanks Adam.
cooper
November 18, 2005 at 9:06 pm
4“Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.” - from my fortune cookie in tonight’s Chinese takeout.
Deb
November 18, 2005 at 11:14 pm
5Personally, I’m flummoxed that they are baffled.
tess
November 18, 2005 at 11:41 pm
6And I thought baffled meant covering something in a protective coating to muffle sound.
Bob
November 18, 2005 at 11:42 pm
7It’s a revelation, all right. Clearly the White House has no idea what it’s doing, but to add bafflement on top of that is somewhat scary. Thank God the president doesn’t control a nuclear arsenal.
nigel
November 19, 2005 at 1:43 am
8Wow, Turd Blossom and the Vice President for Torture (http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/11/18/torture.vp/index.html) and the other spinmeisters and lawyers must be really distracted if this is the best they can do. I don’t think “baffled” is anywhere in the Strong Manly Word Book for Getting Across Godly Upright GOP Principles.
nigel
November 19, 2005 at 2:08 am
9And that pinko, knock kneed, spineless General Casey is in on the plot to make America look bad! Along with that rat in the state department who leaked the plan that sounds awfully similar to Murtha’s.
“Defense Official: Rumsfeld given Iraq withdrawal plan”
(http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/11/18/iraq.plan/index.html)
nigel
November 19, 2005 at 2:19 am
10Yeah, I remember being baffled by this at the time, and it’s still baffling.
‘General Casey said in a September 2005 hearing, “the perception of occupation in Iraq is a major driving force behind the insurgency.” General Abizaid said on the same date, “Reducing the size and visibility of the coalition forces in Iraq is part of our counterinsurgency strategy.”‘
WHY ARE OUR COMMANDERS ON THE GROUND TALKING LIKE MICHAEL MOORE?? Shit, I’m baffled. Give me an effing gun and I’ll show ‘em what it is to be Commander in Chief, the pansies. Dick, are you with me. Dick? Dick?
David
November 19, 2005 at 2:20 am
11A total bafflectomy administered by RotoRooter sounds like a great idea to me.
What is this crap that Michael Moore is some kind of left wing “extremist”? The man put together a documentary with a point of view, but it was a pretty damned accurate point of view and the material was provided in spades by the subject of the documentary.
Onward Cretin Soldiers of the GOP (P is for Phukups).
waterfowler
November 19, 2005 at 9:40 am
12Bob,
That’s “NUCULER”.
Y’all scare me. Have a good weekend.
cooper
November 19, 2005 at 10:01 am
13Ditto, fouler, and you have a good no-duck blind/treestand weekend, too.
David
November 19, 2005 at 12:22 pm
14Hell, Waterfowler, we probably scare ourselves, but not nearly as much as the adolescent idiot prince and his PNAC chief counselor/actual person in charge.
I will say that I think duck hunters are among the most connected to nature of any hunters, although I was surprised at how many duck hunters bitched and moaned about steel shot.
The deer hunters I knew in the Ocala Forest were frequently the least connected. This is no lie, I remember deer hunters who hit the morning with a 30/06 and a bottle of Jim Beam. My other favorite was the leadfoots in their pickup trucks chasing their dogs at 70 mph on the access roads. Now those people scared me. Ideas are figurative projectiles, but F-150s at 70 mph on a clay road are literal projectiles. Those are the people who scare me.
ice weasel
November 19, 2005 at 4:45 pm
15And now, coincidentally, a group of house rethugs wants to “investigate” (read: shut up) Murtha on possible “ethics violations”. What’s baffling is how we’ve made the transition to fill time newspeak in the last three years or so in DC.
Strange.
David
November 19, 2005 at 6:06 pm
16Ice Weasel,
I’m beginning to suspect that we are going to have the pleasure of watching the Republican rethugs (short for retro-thugs?) get their attacks on Jack Murtha shoved so far up their asses their tongues will pop out.
waterfowler
November 19, 2005 at 8:43 pm
17David,
What is PNAC?
Don’t give duck hunters too much credit. I do talk to my trees, feed the birds and squirrels, and love to watch the sun rise or set but, there are idiots in any and every group, i.e. frozen sea skunk…
David
November 20, 2005 at 12:40 am
18Waterfowler,
It’s the Project for a New American Century, the neocon pipedream that the United States could unilaterally reshape the Middle East in the American Enterprise Institute’s image. It was the brainchild of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, Bill Kristol, et. al. They tried unsuccessfully to sell it to Clinton in 1998.
When the tragedy of 9/11 occurred, they saw what they thought was a golden opportunity to execute their grand designs. That’s why they did not finish the mission in Afghanistan. They had what they considered a much grander enterprise to pursue.
They consider Joseph Wilson an enemy of the state because he undercut their most important psy ops propaganda piece, that the United States was in danger of a nuclear attack courtesy of Saddam Hussein. It’s ironic that they went ahead and sought revenge against Wilson, since they got the war they wanted (the cliche “Be careful what you wish for” is screaming in my ear at the moment).
I’ll see if I can find a good link to a reasonably dipassionate discussion of PNAC (I’m no longer even remotely dispassionate about PNAC, because I think it qualifies at this point as homicidally moronic). If so, I’ll post it.
Yeah, duck hunters can be idiots, too, but there was always something different, in a good way, about duck hunters and quail hunters. Not so much so dove hunters, who came closer to blood lust. God, would they blast away.
David
November 20, 2005 at 1:54 am
19Waterfowler,
This link is to an assessment that is not dispassionate, but it is an assessment consonant with my perspective. It’s from one of my favorite “left-leaning” websites, The Information Clearing House. The author is a teacher who is now with Progressive Democrats of America. While the article has a very clear point of view, I do find it intellectually honest. The Weekly Standard would be a source of an analysis from a pro-PNAC perspective.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1665.htm
Deb
November 20, 2005 at 12:57 pm
20waterfowler: That’s “NUCULER”.
I thought it was spelt “nukular.”
waterfowler
November 20, 2005 at 1:07 pm
21David,
Thanks for the link. Interesting.
Murray
November 20, 2005 at 1:33 pm
22America would probably go along with an apology if it were accompanied by a realistic assesment of what is happening and what is required to achive the goals the Administration has set forward.
Bush is incapable of any of these.
Therefore his implosion is inevitable. I just hope he looses his temper on camera so that it can be played over and over again.
nigel
November 20, 2005 at 1:59 pm
23Interesting is an understatement. It is a common misconception that the Republican Party is leading America. In fact, PNAC is leading America. PNACers just happen to mostly be members of the GOP.
To understand this administration, one needs to examine PNAC’s website and view the world from that perspective. Basically, a kinder, gentler fascism, only with a distinctly Zionist bent. Basically in line with US policy for at least the last 25 years, but if one believes that absolute power corrupts absolutely their forthrightness is a bit disturbing. PNAC embodies everything that the rest of the world hates about America: overbearing, patronistic, and exclusively Judeo-Christian in a very Old Testament sort of way.
Google searches that include “PNAC” are often quite interesting. For example, if you google on “Plame” and “PNAC”, what do you get? One Scooter Libby, a founding PNACer.
http://www.ksdp.org/?q=node/view/1555
Wikipedia is nominally an “open-source” document (anyone can edit it) and is a good source of information about PNAC, Scientology, and other curious manifestations of human social behavior.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PNAC
Linkmeister
November 20, 2005 at 6:13 pm
24You might as well read what the PNAC says in its own words. Start with the “Statement of Principles.
nigel
November 20, 2005 at 6:58 pm
25mmm, yes, well worth it just to see the cast of characters who signed off on it at the bottom. I feel a lot better knowing that the head of the World Bank will be dedicated to America’s interestests.
The PNAC site is another example of the GOP’s double standard; they are non-profit but are proud of their Reaganite heritage and “advocacy journalism” (similar to judicial activism but in the 4th estate). The NRA does this too, advocating specific political candidates even though they have a non-tax exempt lobbying wing for show. But let the NAACP or a mainstream church make a political statement and the IRS will be on them quicker than you can say “not-for-profit”
Also there’s that charming “and commitment to moral principle” on their home page. Our Vice President for Torture and his Special Assistant for Malicious Leaks sure are upholding that…
Here’s another traitor in the ranks:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/20/torture/index.html
I am baffled why all these soldiers think they can criticise Tricky Dick II just ’cause he got 5 deferments. He had other priorities, like planning world domination.
nigel
November 20, 2005 at 7:16 pm
26more from PNAC:
“…we need to accept responsibility for America’s unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.”
Hee hee hee. The more I read that, the more vacuous it seems. Sort of like a snake swallowing its own tail…
A little bit of light torture anyone, to help extend an international order friendly to our principles?
David
November 21, 2005 at 1:56 am
27A little bit off topic, but this article by Tom Englehardt (TomDispatch) is a tour de force on the implosion of Team Bush and their Republican fellow travelers. Even though it’s a bit longish, I honestly could not stop reading it.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=38464
Pete IVDL
November 21, 2005 at 8:13 am
28Michael Moore had a POLICY position? Talk about spin, that one’s a doozy. Like saying Tom Cruise has a Spiritual Position. (eeeaeeer, get that image outta my head…)
Murray, Dubya already showed the international world his true temper when he tried to storm out of a press conference ’cause he didn’t like the questions (one of which was “Are you off your game, Mr. President?”). Unfortunately, the door was locked, so he spent quite a bit of “personal time” rattling the doorknob as though it should have opened for the FPOTUS automatically. It wuz a scream watching it.
bri
November 21, 2005 at 11:24 am
29That’s red wine……
Or is it red whine?
Mary
November 21, 2005 at 11:28 am
30Yep, Murtha is a left-wing extremist; Moore has a policy statement; the White House is baffled by all this, and the moon is made of green cheese. Bet they are bewildered by the lack of recruits and re-enlistments in the military too. Was up wit dat?
David
November 21, 2005 at 12:31 pm
31Pete IVDL,
Is there a link anywhere to watch glorious leader’s public temper tantrum?
Monster
November 21, 2005 at 2:10 pm
32David (et al),
Found it.
Scooby
November 21, 2005 at 2:23 pm
33“The enemy hears a big debate in the United States, and they have to wonder: ‘Maybe all we have to do is wait and we’ll win. We can’t win militarily.’ They know that. The battle is here in the United States,” Rumsfeld said on “Fox News Sunday.”
I’m really getting peeved by this idea that if we set a timetable for troop withdrawal it gives the “enemy” some advantage. That they can just wait for us to withdraw, and then take over.
Following this argument, we are going to be there forever!
Really, enough is enough. We go through the motions of helping them to create a constitution and elect a government. We empower their security forces to protect themselves. Then we get out of there and let them take care of themselves. Perhaps then it will fall apart enough that we can get a real UN-sponsored international coalition to help, and the wealthy nations of the world can pledge to rebuild Iraq from the ravages of Hurricane “Bush”.
ice weasel
November 21, 2005 at 3:22 pm
34Fouler says he doesn’t know what PNAC is?
How many people here have never heard of MoveOn?
Just curious about the disconnect.
And Fouler, how about that kid who smoked his 14 yar old girlfriend’s parents with some of his own parents collection of firearms. And he was home schooled. What could have possibly? Lead Poisoning maybe?
And to think, all this took place not five miles from my own home.
Pete IVDL
November 21, 2005 at 4:21 pm
35Thanks Monster!
David, there’s a (more-or-less) direct Reuters link here. Warning: this is probably the most childish, petulant, and un-POTUS I’ve seen the slimy sack of shite act.
David
November 21, 2005 at 7:19 pm
36Thanks, Pete IVDL and Monster,
Between the article and the video, we have in a nutshell the complete essence of POTUS XLIII, our petulant adolescent president with the coke-compromised cranium and a boundless sense of entitlement, that being the only sense the sob possesses.
hedera
November 21, 2005 at 7:28 pm
37The most fascinating thing about the PNAC site - I started with WikiPedia and went on to various links - is who ISN’T on the honor roll. Dubya isn’t, that’s who. The majority of his cabinet is there, along with brother Jeb, but Dubya? Invisible, just like when he was in the National Guard.
I’ve been wondering for some time if the reason Dubya can get up and say, “We do not torture”, while Darth Cheney is crawling around trying to exempt the CIA from the McCain amendment, is because he doesn’t know about it. After all, we know he doesn’t read newspapers. We know all his briefings are carefully vetted in advance. He trusts his friends. How would he know? Is Cheney going to tell him?? I think not; and it confirms my suspicions when I look at the list of PNAC Founding Fathers and he isn’t on it. He faithfully hired all his Dad’s buddies, urged on by Chairman Dick, and he has no idea what they’re really up to.
cooper
November 21, 2005 at 10:02 pm
38Interesting, all this about PNAC. Our new ambassador to Iraq is a founding father, Zalmay Khalilzad - one of Wolfie’s protegees from way back. Wonder what he’s up to, other than talking smack to the homies.
David
November 21, 2005 at 11:52 pm
39Monster,
Extra thanks for introducing me to Crooks and Liars. I got to watch the Cheney Jacka$$ bit from last night’s Daily Show, which I had missed.
I am such a cyber-infant, living down here on the edge of the Green Swamp (oh, yes, we have a variation on Bigfoot, the Green Swamp Monster).
Cooper,
It just gets more and more interesting, doesn’t it? Maybe Khalilzad is getting smack from the homies… These people do populate their own fun-filled universe somewhere east of Oz.
Amina
November 22, 2005 at 1:17 pm
40An interesting note re: Murtha…when reading his speech, I pretty much glossed over his use of the word “redeploy,” thinking it was just a highfalutin and confusing military term that actually means “bring home” (kind of like “casualties,” which are really not casual).
For anyone interested, here is an Info Clearing House article on Murtha and redeployment. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11100.htm
According to its authors, using “redeploy” instead of “withdraw” means restationing troops in other parts of the ME (namely Kuwait) instead of letting them go home.
Close, but no cigar. Or maybe I need a bafflectomy, too.
David
November 22, 2005 at 1:26 pm
41Amina,
Read the same article and had the same reaction. An important cautionary note, so I now see Murtha as the person who punched a hole in the wall, but other people are going to have to step up on the issue of where we go with this. That could actually be the more difficult battle.
I find ICH to be an especially valuable website.