Patterico's Pontifications

2/6/2017

The Dumbest Thing Said In Politics This Week (VIDEO)

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:30 pm



Steve King was on CNN yesterday to explain to us all that Vladimir Putin is no real danger to free speech because, hey, Garry Kasparov is still alive! No, really:

King told CNN on Sunday that Trump’s critics were overreacting.

“I don’t think his words came out very well,” he explained. “I agree that there is no a moral equivalency between the United States and Russia, although when I listened to one of the senators that said Putin is against freedom of religion, he’s actually been opening things up for the expansion of especially the Russian Orthodox Church.”

“They’re not much for freedom of the press,” King admitted. “But since, I would say, [chess champion and Putin opponent] Garry Kasparov, now he lives in the United States but he lived for a long time in Russia and had a very loud megaphone against the regime and he’s still alive and well.”

“Donald Trump has played a complex gambit in the Art of the Deal, and so I say, let’s see how this comes out.”

I was a partisan once, and there is a playbook you follow as a partisan when stories like this hit.

  • If possible, question the source, even when there is primary source material in the post that makes the identity of the source irrelevant. (Really, Patterico? Alternet?)
  • Claim a possible lack of context — again, despite the presence of the original source material.
  • Recharacterize the ridiculous statement as less offensive than it really is and defend the new statement. (I don’t think it’s so crazy to say Putin tolerates more dissent than Hitler or Stalin did!)
  • To quoque, aka what aboutism, aka “you mean like”-ism. (King is irresponsible? You mean like Obama’s reset/Hillary murdering ambassadors in Benghazi/[insert possibly exaggerated Obama-era travesty here]?
  • Ignore the story.
  • If some annoying blogger puts it in your face anyway, attack the blogger for never going after the left, even if he did that very morning.
  • Pick a specific story you believe the blogger should have written about, and — rather than politely bringing it to the blogger’s attention and asking if he is interested in discussing it — harangue the blogger for posting on the story you didn’t like while failing to post on the story you did like.

Even when I was a partisan, I think I usually avoided this type of behavior — but I know I slipped into it from time to time. Thank God I no longer feel even the slightest desire to do so.

Rather than mount my own response, let me just quote Kasparov’s own reaction today, set forth in several tweets:

This is the result of Trumpism. Trump says something absurd and irresponsible, and submorons like King feel the need to rush to defend him. And the atmosphere they create puts the lives of dissidents at risk.

I knew this would happen. It’s why I quit the GOP on May 3, 2016. As long as this type of stuff goes on, there’s not much chance I’ll rejoin.

Here’s your video:

[Cross-posted at RedState and The Jury Talks Back.]

71 Responses to “The Dumbest Thing Said In Politics This Week (VIDEO)”

  1. Ding.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  2. Really how about Katy tur, that was the weekend but if we’re taken numberz

    narciso (193990)

  3. I say the week starts on Sunday. At least if I want to make fun of something that happened on a Sunday.

    But yeah, there are always so many great candidates, it’s hard to pick just one.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  4. Are you saying there’s a chance this type of political cover was foreseeable?

    Happily, the Dhimmis are too busy screeching about absolutely everything and the public isn’t catching on to the fabulist president. Hopefully, the crucial reforms he and the GOPe agree upon will be enacted before the ignorant Trumpists figure it out.

    Ed from SFV (3400a5)

  5. Steve King is a font of stupid. This is known.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  6. How about Maxine waters, she seems toner timing off by 65 years

    narciso (193990)

  7. King’s statement is actually worse than Trump. Trump at least admitted Putin was a killer. Trump just apparently doesn’t think it’s important.

    Kishnevi (d99923)

  8. And yet he gave a Voice on illegal immigration, way back in 2015, when amnesty was the big thing

    narciso (193990)

  9. Sshhh, Narciso, the unsullied unaffiliated are making sport of their lesser.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  10. Somebody has to speak to that wing of the Trumpkin Party who believes that LBJ was behind JFK’s assassination.

    nk (dbc370)

  11. LBJ was behind JFK’s assassination. How else would they cover it up? We’re just luicky he didn’t try to use it as a pretext to invade Cuba. VietNam was his consolation prize.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  12. nk, you’re so much more entertaining when you’re talking about male wrestling!

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  13. And who was Steve king originally affiliated with in the Hawkeye cauci

    narciso (193990)

  14. It’s enlightening when you realize who and what troubles raise the ire of some and what rates a pass.

    “AS KURT SCHLICHTER SAYS, THE LEFT HATES YOU, AND WANTS YOU DEAD: Berkeley Republican Describes Night of Terror, Says Agitators Were Trying to ‘Burn Us Alive.’ ”

    https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/256647/

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  15. Do photos,count CNN used the wrong John
    Mclaughin, the dead pundit rAther than the live cia deputy director

    narciso (193990)

  16. Volodya is an oprichnik, who sees himself in his best incarnation peter the great, in reality more like Nicholas first who created the third section

    narciso (d1f714)

  17. Yes, yes, Trump ahem Cruz(lol) Supporter, you’ve already told us what sends a tingle up your leg.

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/14/roger-stone-s-new-book-solves-jfk-assassination-johnson-did-it.html

    nk (dbc370)

  18. So far behind it was the French sniper that took out Patton , duh

    narciso (d1f714)

  19. nk, come on, have a sense of humor.
    Based on your numerous predicates, we’re anticipating your input on male wrestling, male football, and the male saunas in downtown Chicago!

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  20. “We’re anticipating”? What? Do you have a tapeworm or are you royalty now?

    nk (dbc370)

  21. Steve King, Alex Jones, Roger Stone …. Trump has an array of propagandists to feed dezinformatsiya to mouth breathers. Probably learned it from his buddy, Vladimir Vladimirovich, or his “good buddy”, Roy Cohn, who was doing it from the other side in the ’50s.

    nk (dbc370)

  22. nk, come on, you’ve talked more about gays, homosexuality, gays, and homosexuality, than anyone in the Castro district during the past week.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  23. oh there’s our boy nk, citing “roy cohn” in # 21.

    … but he’s not focused on gays — it’s all “coincidence.”

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  24. Carlos slims telling us the scenario outlined in legacy, isn’t possible, according to govt officials, the same officials who told us a Paris style attack was unlikely two weeks before San Bernardino, did see find out who the couple were communicating with in the kingdom

    narciso (d1f714)

  25. Roy cohn was a bit player compared to Sydney kotshak. The real life tom hagen

    narciso (d1f714)

  26. nk has an obsession with Roy Cohn.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  27. You look overseas and the late Charles pasqua’s campaign sound eerily familiar to modern day ears.

    narciso (d1f714)

  28. He was the gaullist tough who earned a degree of respectability as chiracs interior minister

    narciso (d1f714)

  29. Roger Stone is reported to be one, too. A gay boy. http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/trumps-dirty-trickster-staggeringly-shady-dealings-political-operative-roger-stone

    I’m not the one who was buddies with Roy Cohn (Trump!); or called Milo Yiannopoulos a conservative (lol, look in the mirror). However, I am familiar with the tactic of the gay agenda to call out their critics as being obsessed with them.

    nk (dbc370)

  30. LOL

    nk (dbc370)

  31. Something to lighten the mood that was sent to me:

    Our teacher asked what my favorite animal was, and I said “Fried Chicken”.

    She said I wasn’t funny, but she couldn’t have been right, because everyone else laughed.

    My parents told me to always tell the truth. I did – Fried Chicken is my favorite animal.

    I told my dad what happened and he said my teacher was probably a member of PETA. He said they love animals very much.

    I do too – especially chicken, pork, and beef.

    Anyway my teacher sent me to the Principal’s Office. I told him what happened, and he laughted too. Then he told me not to do it again.

    The next day in class my teacher asked me what my favorite LIVE animal was.

    I told her it was chicken. She asked my why, so I told her it was because you could make them into Fried Chicken.

    Well, I was sent back to the Principal’s Office again. He laughed and told me not to do it again.

    Today, my teacher asked me what famous military person I admired most.

    I told her “Colonel Sanders”

    Well, I’m back in the Principal’e Office..

    Yoda jr (310909)

  32. Alternet, (risas y carcahadas)

    narciso (d1f714)

  33. What was it, like three hundred feet?

    What do they call a Marine who can’t hit a target at that distance?

    A] General Discharge.

    B] Washout.

    C] Cammy covered fartbag.

    D] All of the above.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  34. Very good, Yoda Jr.

    nk (dbc370)

  35. Lola, Yoda Jr.

    narciso (d1f714)

  36. nk can’t go a day without talking smack about gays or roy cohn
    it’s that chicago tuff guy thang

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  37. 10. nk (dbc370) — 2/6/2017 @ 8:35 pm

    Somebody has to speak to that wing of the Trumpkin Party who believes that LBJ was behind JFK’s assassination.

    11.

    LBJ was behind JFK’s assassination. How else would they cover it up? We’re just luicky he didn’t try to use it as a pretext to invade Cuba. VietNam was his consolation prize.

    It wasn’t LBJ.

    If there was a conspiracy the director of it was Eugene Locke, a Dallas lawyer who was the Charman of the Executive Committee of the Texas Democratic Party, and John Connally’s old college roommate, who had been instrumental in carrying Texas in 1960. But he didn’t tell LBJ. Key to the conpisracy was Governor Connally – but he didn’t know either.

    Connally was successful in changing the route of the parade, which was esssnetila to get OSwald a shot. See pages 24-5 of William Manchester’s “The Death of A President” and the footnote on the bottom of page 25. You must understand – if there was a conspiracy, Governor Connally was a crucial, indispensable member of it, except he didn’t know it.

    Locke was somewhat close to LBJ and boasted of being even closer, so much so that he acquired the nickname “Lyndon Jr.”

    The conspiracy was not originally centered around Oswald, and never would have been, but Locke found out about Oswald from George de Mohrenschildt after the original killers backed out and fled.

    Locke, or others, later told LBJ it was Fidel Castro. If LBJ had known what was about to happen, assuming his ethics would tolerate it, and LBJ never was a killer, he never would have let Governor Connally ride in that car. As it is, he only knew the excuse Locke told him, so he gave up.his argument with Kennedy when Kennedy was really insistent that Yarborough not ride in the car with him..

    Now that’s how you make a plausible conspiracy that aligns with known facts. I have even more speculation. For instance about Senator Fulbright. And it works a lot better than anything Oliver Stone ever came up with. Stone never was serious. It’s maybe stranger than anything in Agatha Christie but you know what they say about truth being stranger than fiction, at least if you only know part of the truth. As far as I knw, nobody else has ever fingered Governor Connally.

    Sammy Finkelman (03c829)

  38. Seems like bad immigration policy got JFK killed.

    Pinandpuller (824646)

  39. Cruz Supporter

    I have this theory that people who talk bad about Jesus are actually closeted self-loathing Christians.

    Pinandpuller (824646)

  40. Tim Kaine offers some competition:

    SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA): Well, let me talk about continuation of the bubble, Mika. This is something I’m so excited about. I saw that Howard Dean tweeted at me the other day, “Tim, the base is getting ahead of the leaders.” That’s exactly backward. We are so excited that the American public is energized to speak out against the abuses of this administration. Democratic senators led healthcare rallies — Save Our Healthcare — on Martin Luther King Day in about 75 cities around the country, including Richmond. Tens of thousands of people rallied to save our health care. Then, the Women’s March that was organized at a grassroots level. Then, people coming out in protest of these orders. So, the way we get outside the bubble is we take advantage of this tremendous public outcry against the administration. What we’ve got to do is fight in Congress, fight in the courts, fight in the streets, fight online, fight at the ballot box, and now there’s the momentum to be able to do this. And we’re not afraid of the popular outcry, we’re energized by it and that’s going to help us do our job and do it better.

    http://www.breitbart.com/video/2017/01/31/kaine-democrats-fight-streets-trump/

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  41. Also, that Tim Kaine thinks he and Hillary were leading the grassroots Democrats in, well, anything, is a hoot.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  42. I’ll live with King. The rest of you can live with the Soros funded republican party. Ryan, Rubio, boooosh, mccain, kasich and graham. These hacks want Americans in Soros control. Republicans are the worst people in the world.

    mg (31009b)

  43. Mr. Trump is the best president in my whole life welcome back Mr. Mg

    happyfeet (45927c)

  44. *mg* I mean

    happyfeet (45927c)

  45. If I were Trump, I would cut off federal funding to the City of Boston.

    nk (dbc370)

  46. Mohrenshiltz was a white Russian oil man, with many interesting connection, among his contacts was an up and coming Texas oilman

    narciso (d1f714)

  47. The point is, we must show the will not empty words when it comes to voldya, and NATO needs to shape up, Kennedy’s shameful behavior at the bay of pigs was followed by the Vienna conference and that all but ensured the missile crisis

    narciso (d1f714)

  48. So, it looks like “ignore the story” is the Trumpkin strategy du jour.

    I think we should add another strategy to that list: pick a handle pretending to support something (or someone) you clearly don’t, and say LOL a lot.

    Leviticus (efada1)

  49. In fairness both pinera one of the Chicago boys, and bachelet the lefty ignored the matter, now a quarter of Chile is on fire

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/fire-and-terrorism-in-chile-1486335739

    narciso (d1f714)

  50. Civility we’ll have try that one of these days

    http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/764082/Tory-Nadhim-Zahawi-John-Bercow-Donald-Trump

    narciso (d1f714)

  51. 46
    Too many people live/vote in New Hampshire and work in Boston. And the municipal framework is complicated: there are lots of little towns and cities all tied together but not part of the city of Boston. The only real way to figure out the boundaries is to watch the signs.
    Besides, the Patriots play in Foxborough, which is 28 miles from Boston

    Kishnevi (125429)

  52. Elections have consequences. Repeat… elections have consequences.

    One of them is a perpetual hissy-fit, an acting out of disappointment in the results.

    Colonel Haiku (13f927)

  53. Never been a member of the GOP. Independent voter since 1980. Welcome to the non-party P.

    And King’s remarks are nowhere near as stupid as Katy Tur at NBC wondering when Trump is going to start murdering journalists or Tim Kaine going Winston Churchill and advocating to “fight in the streets” to resist Trump.

    But those remarks are the forest of liberal lunacy since Nov 8.

    Roger Simon makes some nice points about the pointless fixation on Trump/Putin:

    https://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2017/02/06/the-mainstream-medias-pointless-fixation-on-trum-and-putin/

    harkin (afc7a6)

  54. It’s early in the week, surely this will be surpassed by something even dumber.

    Loren (66de82)

  55. Katy’s kind if cute, so one makes allowances, now bill Larkin I would think should find himself a burrow,

    narciso (d1f714)

  56. 47. narciso (d1f714) — 2/7/2017 @ 6:11 am

    .Mohrenshiltz was a white Russian oil man, with many interesting connection, among his contacts was an up and coming Texas oilman

    I don’t think Mohrenschildt intended for Oswald to kill someone when if he told someone. It was just gossip, or possibly intended as a warning. There’s this guy, etc. He told the Warren Commision he had spoken about hoim to two people. He’s the only person who would known – or rather deduced, that Oswald had shot General Walker. He maybe confirmed it to a high degree of probability by springing the idea on Oswald.

    He might have saved the assassination plot when it was in danger of collapsing because the original assassins backed out. But he left for Haiti in June 1963 and stayed there till November 1966, with trips back to the U.S.

    George Sergius de Mohrenschildt committed suicide when he was about to be questioned by the House Assassinations Committee. We know it was suicide because he had a maid who was taping (just audio – this was 1977, basically before VCRs) a soap opera when it happened. In the book Killing Kennedy (2012), reporter Bill O’Reilly lied about being just outside the door.

    Suicide here implies a feeling of guilt. If he was a stone cold conspirator he never would have done it. de Mohrenschildt had claimed he was being watched, and his ex-wife, (who still lived with him? – their divorce was secret) even had him committed for awhile in 1976, – he was claiming he ehard voices and stuff – and he told all sorts of stories.

    Maybe the story behind it all was that he deduced he had inadvertently helped the plotters. It could be maybe actually he told this to Locke or someone who told Locke, well before any original assassins backed out, and it was just part of Locke’s background knowledge, and came in handy when his plot fell apart. I should move the time when de Mohrenschildt told Locke (or whoever) back before the time when the original assassins backed out. It makes more sense that way. Maybe someone else told Locke in that case. But any rumor or speculation would have started from him, and without someone knowing this about Oswald there is no plot that involves anyone else.

    No plot would have been centered around Oswald from the start.

    The story of how he knew oswald had shot Walker goes like this:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_de_Mohrenschildt

    On April 1, 1977, Jeanne de Mohrenschildt gave the House Select Committee on Assassinations a print of a photograph showing Lee Harvey Oswald standing in his Dallas backyard holding two newspapers and a rifle, and with a pistol on his hip – a photograph taken by Oswald’s wife Marina. While similar to other prints which had been found among Oswald’s effects on November 23, 1963, the existence of this particular print was previously unknown.

    On the back was written To my friend George from Lee Oswald, and the date “5/IV/63” (5 April 1963).[69] along with the words “Copyright Geo de M”’ and a Russian phrase translated as “’Hunter of fascists, ha-ha-ha!” Handwriting specialists later concluded that the words “To my friend George…” and Oswald’s signature were written by Lee Harvey Oswald, but could not determine whether the rest was the writing of Lee Oswald, Mohrenschildt, or Marina Oswald.[70] Mohrenschildt assumed that Marina had written it sarcastically.[70]

    Mohrenschildt wrote in his manuscript (reference and pages cited above) that he had missed Oswald’s photograph in packing for the move to Haiti in May, 1963, and this was why he had not mentioned it to the Warren Commission (though he had noted in his manuscript that Oswald had a rifle in April 1963, and scoffed to Oswald that he had missed General Walker, remembering that Oswald had blanched at the joke..

    Footnote 70 in the Wikipedia article is a book by Vincent Bugliosi, published in (2007). Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 648. ISBN 0-393-04525-0.

    Sammy Finkelman (6f9f42)

  57. Eugene Locke was involved in the oil busienss.

    Sammy Finkelman (6f9f42)

  58. It could be that when Trump was asked this question about Putin being a killer his mind didn’t go to the individual killings, like Litvenenko, which he may not be so familar with, but to his killings in war at Aleppo and Grozny.

    Then what he said doesn’t sound so crazy – although very wrong and unfair to the U.S. armed forces.

    Sammy Finkelman (6f9f42)

  59. so Elliot abrams who is up for tillerson’s deputy, was a former Moynihan staffer, who as head of latin American division was called upon to defend the actions of our more unsavory allies, including el Salvador’s atacl battalion, in a hamlet called el mozote, mark danner, who was the rookie correspondent there, was friendly with the fmln, and was yanked by the bureau chief, the veteran Shirley Christian,

    narciso (d1f714)

  60. heavy.com/news/2017/02/elliott-abrams-donald-trump-appointee-deputy-secretary-of-state-bio-israel-who-is-iran-contra-wife

    narciso (d1f714)

  61. The oilman, was the one who flipped the coin at the superbowl

    narciso (d1f714)

  62. “It could be that when Trump was asked this question about Putin being a killer his mind didn’t go to the individual killings, like Litvenenko.”

    – Sammy Finkelman

    It could also be that Trump is an incompetent moron who has no idea who Litvinenko is.

    Leviticus (efada1)

  63. I think it’s more likely that Putin’s critics are behind the poisonings of other Putin critics because Putin will automatically be blamed. It’s a chess game.

    jcurtis (8ef855)

  64. No, its,a rather old story, the okrana going after sr’ s and occasionally a reform pm like stolypin the cheka using the trust to hunt down including savinkov, stashinky taking out bandera, the markov incident

    narciso (5765cf)

  65. President Mr Donald might not know who Litvinenko is, but his genius predecessor believed there are 57 states, believed that Austrians speak Austrian, and believed that a corpsman is a corpse-man.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  66. The okrana or their overseas branch, the Rankin never went after Lenin in Geneva as far as I can tell, and Allen Dulles was too busy with his tennis partners that he didn’t realize until after Lenin got to russia

    narciso (5765cf)

  67. It’s why I quit the GOP on May 3, 2016. As long as this type of stuff goes on, there’s not much chance I’ll rejoin.

    Patterico

    And like an ex-smoker or a prostitute who has found God, you have gone down the road of being the harshest critic of what you were once a part of. I used to really enjoy reading your blogs for the insightful perspective and mostly intelligent back and forth of you and your commenters. Lately, I find little of value here. Just more denigrating of everything Trump or his appointees do. I might as well be listening to any of the rest of the MSM.

    Thanks for years of good analysis and mostly entertaining commentary. However, like so many other sites, there is no longer a balance here. If there is any room to pick a nit, you go after it with a vengeance while largely ignoring the over the top and ridiculous actions of the opposition party and protestors.

    I will check back in a few months to see if the Trump Derangement Syndrome has abated. Until it does, I will find other places to read. (Not saying there isn’t a lot of stuff Team R does that is worthy of criticism, just that from my reading, you can’t see anything good in Trump or his actions at any level. There doesn’t seem to be any of the balance that I used to see here.)

    Easy Target (bab9c9)

  68. President Mr Donald might not know who Litvinenko is, but his genius predecessor believed there are 57 states, believed that Austrians speak Austrian, and believed that a corpsman is a corpse-man.

    Cruz Supporter

    This is such a lame explanation it’s hard to believe you’re really a Trump supporter at all.

    Obama mis-spoke on the word ‘corps’ once, but Bush was to blame for 9/11 (according to Trump anyway). This stupid partisan stuff serves only to deflect, not to improve or inform.

    Trump did indeed forgive Putin’s atrocious behavior while insulting the USA. Obama is far more like Reagan than Trump will ever be, and though I was sure history would remember Obama dis-favorably, I am certain he will be missed sorely now that we have Trump. The problem with taking this binary choice crap to the extreme you do is that it reveals the weakness of your party and eventually people actually say, “ok, we’ll go with the other guy”. Most voters preferred Hillary and would absolutely prefer Obama to your Trump. We all know it.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  69. He’ll always have Obama…

    Colonel Haiku (8cfa8b)


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