Area Man Supports The Troops He Didn't Go To High School With

KIRKSVILLE, MO—Jon Strauss, 22, a Kirksville video-store manager, announced Monday that he supports U.S. troops "100 percent"—with the exception of the ones with whom he went to high school.

Strauss, who said he backs "99.9 percent" of America's troops.

"My heart goes out to the troops, and I pray for their safe return," said Strauss, a 1998 graduate of Kirksville High School. "Except for that dick Andy Tischler. I hope the Iraqis capture him and torture his wedgie-inflicting ass."

Though he expressed mixed feelings about the war against Iraq, Strauss said he feels it is vital for Americans to stand united behind the nation's fighting men and women in uniform. He draws the line, however, at his former classmates.

"Troy Nowicki, this guy who was in my junior-year gym class, is in the Navy now," Strauss said. "He was on the football team, and he used to love to tease me and give me purple nurples and generally make my life miserable. Once, he head-butted me so hard, I couldn't hear for an hour. Fucking asshole. Yeah, I'm really praying for his safe return."

It's a shame we have to collectively play for these assholes' still trying to come to terms with high school alienation forty years after the fact.

Cut right through the intellectual window dressing, and Bill Arkin is just an effeminite version John Bender still upset about the "Sportos."

No, Dad, what about you?

Fuck you!

No, Dad, what about you?

Fuck you!

In related news, with Arkin's firing all but announced, it's going to be a banner fucking Christmas in the Arkin household. Cartons of Marlboro Reds for all the kids cats.

Mentioned in a comment at HotAir.

Posted by: Ace at 11:30 AM | Comments (11)
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Dan Riehl anlayzes the "chatter" and "connects the dots."

As a commenter wrote yesterday, the media finally feels emboldened enough to say what they've believed all along. After 9/11, they felt marginalized, shaken in their beliefs and especially their belief of being the intellectual vanguard of the nation, and afraid.

Now they've won an election -- and yes, the media won; let's not split hairs about the party nominally on the ballot -- and they've decided it's time to reassert thermselves as the true leaders and "warriors of truth" in the country.

And they're patting themselves on their backs, of course, for their courage. But this courage seems to be of the Hagelian sort -- when they felt the public disagreed they were... well, more or less well-behaved.

But now that they feel they have the numbers, they're just jonesing to show off their beer muscles. Much like the super-mouse drunks who are only itching to fight when they've got six or ten of their boys behind them.

I've been meaning to say this for a while: The media and the Democrats are taking their victory lap too early, partying under their Mission Accomplished sign. They're acting as if the war has been won -- and "won" to them means "lost."

Trouble is, there are 160,000 troops in Iraq who are delaying their final triumph by doing all sorts of annoying things like killing terrorists and restoring civil order to chaotic neighborhoods of Baghdad. The quicker the media can get these spoilsports to stop ruining the victory (read: American defeat) that is so close they can taste it, the better.

Connn-unnn-drum: Just re-listening to Arkin's disgusting screed at HotAir. "The military shares much of the blame for Iraq," etc.

But I'm especially taken by his central complaint about the connn-unnn-drumm that the US military no longer (as if it ever did) perfectly represents the broader beliefs and traits of American society.

Question: What about the connn-unnn-drummm that the US media represents the broader American society even less?

Posted by: Ace at 10:52 AM | Comments (35)
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Little tip: You know those great ideas you have when you're baking your face off while spin-dancing around to Phish bootlegs? Yeah.... you should reconsider those when you're sober. In my experience, they're never quite as brilliant as you first thought.

Should they go to jail?

Yeah, for at least a little bit. There's a thin line between outright malicious intent and criminal stupidity. And of course the inconvenience and expense inflicted on all of us by either are pretty much indistinguishable.

So, enjoy your time in the clink, guys.

Thanks to Slublog.

Posted by: Ace at 10:16 AM | Comments (116)
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"I thought we had moved beyond the days of McCarthyism," one resident said. "It is shocking and repellent in this day and age that the mayor would decide to indugle in an adulterous sex-scandal without giving a thought to diversity."

Mayor Gavin Newsome's spokesman countered that, while there was no man-on-man diversity in his adulterous affair, "he believes he remembers there was a finger in someone's ass at one point or another."

Bill Arkin was unappeased. "Don't do me no favors," the Washington Post's journalist/activist griped.

Yeah, so, anyway, Gavin Newsome fucked his campaign manager's wife.

I guess she just wasn't satisfied with the push-polling she was getting at home.

Posted by: Ace at 10:08 AM | Comments (58)
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"I thought we had moved beyond the days of McCarthyism," one resident said. "It is shocking and repellent in this day and age that the mayor would decide to indugle in an adulterous sex-scandal without giving a thought to diversity."

Mayor Gavin Newsome's spokesman countered that, while there was no man-on-man diversity in his adulterous affair, "he believes he remembers there was a finger in someone's ass at one point or another."

Bill Arkin was unappeased. "Don't do me no favors," the Washington Post's journalist/activist griped.

Yeah, so, anyway, Gavin Newsome fucked his campaign manager's wife.

I guess she just wasn't satisfied with the push-polling she was getting at home.

Posted by: Ace at 10:08 AM | Comments (61)
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Two cautions: one for profanity and sexual allusions;

two, for the fact that it was done by white geeks, so, you know. The "rap" is pretty offensive. Offensively bad, I mean.

That said, I liked it. Especially the whiny impression of Luke.

Star Wars Gangsta Rap.

Via PetiteDov.

And Another: Animated, this time. Also pretty good.

Posted by: Ace at 09:46 AM | Comments (13)
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Still available for direct link -- but, for reasons unfathomable, no longer quite so prominent dislpayed.

Maybe because it contained defenses of his previous excesses such as these:

These men and women are not fighting for money with little regard for the nation. The situation might be much worse than that: Evidently, far too many in uniform believe that they are the one true nation. They hide behind the constitution and the flag and then spew an anti-Democrat, anti-liberal, anti-journalism, anti-dissent, and anti-citizen message that reflects a certain contempt for the American people.

* As the debate about the Iraq war demonstrates, war-making is a shared endeavor and the arrogant and intolerant few who think they are above the people seem to be those who are wearing the uniform.

A tipster (not sure if this is for attribution) echoes the point I made below:

Again, insofar as he’s arguing that one doesn’t need to be a soldier to have an opinion about the war...I think we all agree with him – that’s the anti-“chickenhawk” point we’ve been making for years now. But when he goes beyond that to impugn US soldiers, it is shocking.

Shocking enough that either he, or his bosses at the WaPo, have attempted to bury it.

As of yet, you can still read the whole hateful thing, though. Just need to know where to look.

Time for a crisis management team, I think.

I'm amused thinking at all the meetings and frantic emailing going on at the WaPo over this.

Not that WaPo has been a bad actor, generally, when it comes to the war. They've been, well, downright sensible most of the time, at least on their editorial pages.

But a little lesson for these guys -- hire someone who insists he's not a journalist but an activist as your "national security reporter" and this is is what you're going to get.

Would a self-declared conservative pro-war activist ever have been hired for such a position? Of course not.

But they keep thinking, again and again, that the liberals and lefties are basically "the good guys," the rational ones, the ones who can be trusted to keep their agendas and vicious hatreds out of their writings.

Just like they always seem to imagine that political violence is always right wing, despite a long string of folks -- Squeaky Fromme, Sirhan Sirhan, Lee Harvey Oswald, etc. -- who'd beg to disagree.

Update: My source tips--

Incidentally, itÂ’s being picked up by some MSM folks. This is evolving beyond the Rightosphere.

Well, I'm not sure how they could avoid it, try though they might. However, their coverage will be of course very sympathetic to poor Bill Arkin, Peace-Warrior, and focus on the "hate" directed at him from the right.

All those mean emails saying he shoud FOAD. Why, he's practically on patrol in Fallujah. How does this brave man soldier on?

Posted by: Ace at 09:22 AM | Comments (33)
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He's not a journalist, he insists-- he's an activist. (He really says this.) His "career," such that it is, seems to consist exclusively of taking leaks from embittered leftties in the espionage/military communities and publishing these national security secrets.

J.M. just shot me these articles written about Arkin. I'll do a little editing and bolding. more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:00 AM | Comments (26)
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could be known as Andrew Sullivan.

Sorry, but that's the first thing I thought of when I got done reading the following article by Radley Balko in Reason magazine: New Priorities, Not New Prosecutors.

Why would I say this? Well, we all know how St. Andrew of the Perpetually Aggrieved and Gob-Smacked Heart appears to see the world thru a disco ball prism of FMA induced fever dreams.

Libertarians? Pretty much the same. Except their visions are a little smokier and a little hazier, and are accompanied by a pretty severe case of the munchies. Yep, they pretty much see the world through the transparent, green filter of a homemade Mountain Dew bottle bong.

Balko's article, pretty much validates this opinion for me.

More after the jump.

UPDATE: Reason fires back at yours truly, with a little goalpost moving to boot.

Update continued after the jump. more...

Posted by: Jack M. at 08:42 AM | Comments (57)
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They are mercenaries! he says. Not mercenaries for money -- he was "dead wrong" to say that -- but mercenaries for the "true nation" they've deceived themselves they represent. A "true nation" pretty much consisting of only themselves and other like-minded murderbots.

Sounds pretty much like I expected him to. National Security Reporter, huh?

Must listen stuff. Also, his blog is full of whiny poor-me crap and further attacks on the troops.

The Arrogant and Intolerant Speak Out

Well, one thing's abundantly clear about who will actually defend our rights to say what we believe: It isn't the hundreds who have written me saying they are soldiers or veterans or war supporters or real Americans and who also advise me to move to another country, to get f@##d, or to die a painful, violent death.

Contrary to the typically inaccurate and overstated assertion in dozens of blogs, hundreds of comments, and thousands of Emails I've received, I've never written that soldiers should "shut up," quite whining, be spit upon, or that they have no right to an opinion.

I said I was bothered by the notion that "the troops" were somehow becoming hallowed beings above society, that they had an attitude that only they had the means - or the right - to judge the worthiness of the Iraq endeavor.

I was dead wrong in using the word mercenary to describe the American soldier today.

These men and women are not fighting for money with little regard for the nation. The situation might be much worse than that: evidently far too many in uniform believe that they are the one true nation. They hide behind the constitution and the flag and then spew an anti-Democrat, anti-liberal, anti-journalism, anti-dissent, and anti-citizen message that reflects a certain contempt for the American people.

Heh. Yeah, he's really braving the bullets, huh? The heart-stopping sound of an email whizzing by, the ominous thumping of far-away blog positions, the terrible screaming of incoming criticism... Why, in a way, he's the real soldier defending liberty with his very life, unlike those "mercenaries" who only think they are.

Exit question: Since Arkin asserts that the troops should not be allowed to influence the public's opinion on the war, and since the entire left demands that anyone supporting the war become a troop himself -- has the left pretty much created a Catch-22 by which any and all support for the war is illegitimate?

Second exit question: How long before William Arkin "decides" out of his "own initiative" to "take a sabbatical from the Washington Post" to "spend some more time with his family cats" ?

The WaPo can't fire him. Or can't be seen to fire him. But they can let him know his services are no longer welcome.

A "Philosophical" Essay: Arkin wants everyone to ignore the hatred dripping from his post and focus merely on his "philosophical" point.

Sorry, that won't work, jackass. If one writes a long screed about how the evil homos are just dying to get their hands on our kids and pervert them, one can hardly then say, "But if you read just certain parts of my column -- minus all that stuff about fags wanting to diddle our kids -- you'll see I was calling for a general reduction in promiscuity in not just the gay community, but in America at large."

Furthermore, his "philosophical" point is rather obvious, and could have been said in just a few sentences, minus the anti-military hatred. Here it is:

While troops have the right to offer opinions on the rectitude and efficacy of their mission, and the public should listen to them just as it should listen to any expert, the decision of where, when, and for how long to use force remains an exclusively civilian decision. And while we should support the troops with all the materiel they need to keep themselves safe and win the fights we put them in, as well as giving them honor for their service, that support does not, and cannot, extend to letting they themselves decide, exclusively, which wars we should fight and which we should not.

Wow. There's the "big philosopical point." Pretty goddamned obvious, no?

Sorry, but no one's really disputing your "philosophical" point, Sally. Because it's self-evident. It barely needs to be said, but, to the extent it's said, it can be said without calling our troops pampered, whiny, demanding murder-and-rape-crazed "mercenaries."

We're angry about the seething leftist hatred you showed for better men than you (and, let's face it -- more manful betters than you, too).

Incidentally, does anyone doubt for one moment that had the report that sent him into leftist la-la land gone the other way -- with troops complaining that their mission was impossible and stating that they'd like to come home ASAP -- Arkin would have written a precisely opposite post about the "wisdom and expertise of our very-professional highly-educated military"?

It woud have been insincere, of course. But any club within arm's reach for these people.

Posted by: Ace at 08:06 AM | Comments (38)
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