The Eeyore Republicans

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Eeyore is alive and well and working for the Republican Party.

You remember Eeyore, the perpetually gloomy donkey from the Winnie the Pooh stories. Nothing was ever good news for him, from finding his lost tail (“Most likely lose it again anyway”) to someone wishing him good morning (“If it is a good morning, which I doubt.”)

I’m convinced Eeyore is running the right-wing press operation. As blogger Steve Benen pointed out last week, nothing makes these people happy — “An American POW goes free? Complain that he didn’t deserve it. Unemployment rate drops? Complain that the White House has orchestrated a conspiracy to manipulate data. A strike takes out Osama bin Laden? Complain that Bush and Cheney aren’t getting enough credit.”

The latest dark clouds effused by the right-wing gloom machine came in response to the capture of Ahmed Abu Khattala, the accused ringleader of the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Now, you’d think that catching a murderous terrorist who orchestrated an attack on our people would be something everyone would cheer about. You’d think even the Republicans would be happy, since their current PR strategy has consisted of, to paraphrase Uncle Joe Biden, “a noun, a verb, and Benghazi.”

You’d think that, that is, if you weren’t familiar with the Eeyore Republicans. They’ve really outdone themselves with their creativity in finding something to kvetch about.

One of the most common gripes was that it took too long. After all, some said, Khattala had been giving televised interviews from cafes in Libya, so why wasn’t he caught then?

Some people apparently believe that a special forces operation is as simple as seeing someone on screen, immediately identifying the locale, putting together a team on the fly, entering a turbulent and chaotic country, and bagging the quarry within the 60-minute time frame of an episode of “24.” I may not be a military expert, but unlike some people, I do know that life is not like TV.

Some claimed that the capture was orchestrated to coincide with Hillary Clinton’s book tour. No, really — they’ve actually said this.

“In the midst of Mrs. Clinton’s failed book tour and failed book roll-out,” Rush Limbaugh sarcastically observed, “all of a sudden we capture the militia leader who led the attack. It’s a beautiful thing.”

Fox News host “Kennedy” claimed that she thought “this is convenient for [Clinton ] to shift the talking points from some of the things that she’s been discussing.”  

Thankfully, not everyone on Fox was so cynical as to suggest that this was all about Clinton’s book tour. No, to them, Obama put American troops in harm’s way to promote Clinton’s interview on Fox.

“The timing on this stinks,” right-wing radio host Larry O’Connor told the network.

For the very first time, he claimed, Clinton was going to get some tough questions about Benghazi, and the triumph of Khattalla’s capture would distract from those. In other words, we captured the ringleader of the attacks on Benghazi to distract attention from questions about Benghazi.

Meanwhile, other right-wingers were taking up the old familiar cry that sure, we have a terrorist in custody, but big whoop. The real question is, are we being brutal enough to him?

New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte bitterly complained that the administration was  “rushing to read [Khattala] his Miranda rights and telling him he has the right to remain silent,” even though regular criminal procedure hasn’t stood in the way of convicting and imprisoning dozens of other terrorist suspects.  

John McCain (who was a POW) continued to wage his bitter war of words with none other than John McCain, griping that Khatalla should have been imprisoned in the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay — a facility whose closure he’d called for in 2008.

But, hey, who cares about consistency? Or for that matter, sanity? If there’s one thing the last few years have proven, it’s that accusations of inconsistency or pure silliness have stopped meaning anything to these people. They just don’t care about those things, because the only thing that matters to the right wing is their hate.

They hate President Obama, for a variety of reasons: racism for some, tribalism for others, partisanship gone mad, whatever. Ergo, anything Obama does is wrong, anything that goes wrong anywhere in the world is entirely his fault, and there is no plot too outlandish to be beneath the man who is, in their minds, both a fiendishly cunning supervillain and too dumb to speak without a teleprompter.

Sorry, Eeyores, but when you can’t celebrate ANYTHING as good news for America because the president you hate may get some small amount of credit for it, then it has to be said: Maybe you hate your president more than you love your country.

Through the Mideast Looking Glass

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends: the eternal and ceaselessly bloody drama that is the Middle East.

A Sunni militia calling itself “the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” (or ISIS) has routed the Iraqi military forces we spent years and billions training and arming. They have seized the cities of Mosul, Tikrit and Tal Afar, and immediately began doing what they do best: slaughtering their countrymen for being the wrong kind of Muslim.

Faced with a looming humanitarian crisis in Iraq, patriots like John McCain know exactly what to do: play politics by blaming the current president, and not the one who stupidly invaded the country without a clue about what to do after we beat the Iraqi Army, deposed the dictator, and took the lid off of the boiling pot of religious and ethnic hatreds that is Iraq.

“All the success we had,” McCain claimed on the Senate floor, “is torn asunder because of a policy of withdrawal without victory.”

Keep in mind, however, that McCain is also on record as saying other things, like: “the people of Iraq will absolutely treat us as liberators”; “it will be brief and we will find massive evidence of weapons of mass destruction”; “post-Saddam-Hussein Iraq is going to be paid for by the Iraqis”; and the ever-popular “there’s not a history of violent clashes between Sunnis and Shias, so I think they can get along.”

McCain also seems to have forgotten that the Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA, that set the timetable for our withdrawal was negotiated by Obama’s predecessor, the President Who Must Not Be Named. He’s also forgotten that he took to Twitter to celebrate the last American combat troops leaving Iraq, claiming, “President Bush deserves credit for victory.” You can look it up.

Last American combat troops leave Iraq. I think President George W. Bush deserves some credit for victory.
— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) August 19, 2010

And yet John McCain, along with a plethora of others who were ceaselessly and consistently wrong about Iraq, remain the go-to guys for your so-called liberal media for commentary on the current crisis. People like Doug Feith (whom Gen. Tommy Franks of Central Command called “the dumbest [bad word] on the planet),” Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney are all too willing to take to the airwaves and assure us that all of this could have been averted if we’d just stayed in Iraq. And stayed. And stayed, while the body bags and maimed soldiers kept coming back.

The chutzpah of the people whose arrogance and hubris led us into the Iraq debacle in the first place is truly breathtaking. Frankly, the only question a competent media, let alone a liberal one, should be asking any of these clowns is, “Why aren’t you in prison in the Hague?”

We could have kept troops in Iraq for a hundred years (a time frame McCain said wouldn’t bother him), and the Sunnis and Shiites would still hate and be trying to kill each other while the Kurds would just want to be rid of the whole insane lot of them.

Actually, it may be the Kurds who came out as the only winners in this thing. They finally got the Turks over their paranoia at the prospect of an independent Kurdistan, largely by building a pipeline and selling them lots and lots of oil. As the rest of Iraq falls apart, their Pesh Merga militias have taken control of their strategic city of Kirkuk. At least the Kurds still like us, right?

Now we’ve learned that the Syrian government is attacking ISIS bases in the north and northeast of Iraq. They’re responding to the fact that ISIS is using tanks captured from the Iraqi military to attack Syrian forces.

So the Syrian military (which we oppose) is attacking ISIS in Iraq (who we also oppose) because ISIS has been attacking Syrian government troops (an action we also support.)

It seems that the enemy of our enemy is our friend, except sometimes they’re also our enemy. Oh, and we’ll probably be entering talks with Shiite Iran (also an enemy) to help deal with the Sunni ISIS.

Are we far enough through the looking glass yet? This is what we get for sticking our noses in what are, at their root, sectarian religious conflicts in the Middle East.

In Which I Just Give Up Hope

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

You know what? I give up.

It’s been a terrible week for gun violence in this country, and I don’t see any way it’s ever going to get better. So, unable to beat the firearms aficionados (so much nicer a term that “gun nuts”), I’ve decided to join them.

Check out the butcher’s bill just in the past few days:

June 5: A mentally ill gunman enters a university building at Seattle Pacific University, kills one man and wounds two others before being pepper-sprayed and subdued.

June 6: A 48-year-old man in Forsyth County, Ga., attempts to attack the county courthouse with an assault rifle and grenades, shooting a deputy in the leg before being brought down by police officers.

June 8: A husband-and-wife team of right-wing activists, shouting, “This is the start of a revolution,” shoots and kills a pair of Las Vegas police officers before entering a Walmart and killing a civilian before the female shooter kills her husband, then herself.

June 10: A man with a rifle enters a high school in Troutdale, Ore., kills one person, and wounds a teacher before apparently taking his own life.

If we’d been attacked by brown-skinned Muslims this many times in a week, the whole country would be in lockdown. A few idiots failed to blow up planes with shoes and liquid bombs a few years ago, and now you can’t carry more than three ounces of toothpaste onto a plane, and you have to take off your shoes to get through screening.

But if the killing is being committed by white people with guns, it’s all, “Well, geez, nothing we can do about it,” unless the killers were shouting “Allah akbar” as they opened fire. If the massacre of schoolchildren at Sandy Hook isn’t enough to get even expanded background checks past the U.S. Congress, there’s no hope for any kind of reasonable gun regulation.

We could always deal with the issues of mental illness that drives shooters over the edge. But I don’t see any political will to address any of those issues either, because it’s going to cost money. And we all know who counts every penny of the cost of everything but war.

So I’ve given in to despair. I accept it. You’re right. The only way to stop bad guys with guns is for all the good guys to have guns. I say “all,” because the lone “good guy with a gun” who tried to stop one of the Las Vegas cop shooters got shot in the head by the female member of the duo. Clearly, that would have been prevented if more people in the area had guns.

The only thing left to do is for everyone, and I mean everyone, to arm themselves. The good news is that given the radical expansion of Stand Your Ground laws, it’ll soon be legal to waste people who even look like they’re about to snap.

In a world where there are more and more crazy people with access to guns, a world where there are more and more mass shootings, the standard of a “reasonable belief” that your life is in danger becomes a lower and lower bar to get over. Anyone, anywhere, could be the next mass shooter, so all of us, everywhere, need to watch our butts.

Remember, though, there are also more and more people who could be a threat. The Las Vegas shooters, for example, were far-right anti-government activists. It’s now clear that those people are at least as dangerous and ready to kill Americans as radical Muslims. So people waving those “Don’t Tread On Me” flags (like the one the Las Vegas shooters draped over their victims) need to be careful they don’t make any sudden moves that could be construed as threatening.

Not all conservatives are radical killers, of course, but some of them apparently are. If we’re going to demonize all Muslims because of the action of a few crazies, it’s only fair we keep a close eye on tea partiers, Rand Paul supporters and the like.

There’ll also probably be some unfortunate incidents when open carry advocates get mistaken for mass shooters, but you know how it is. Omelets, eggs, etc.

Oh, and you lonely nerds who complain all the time about how hot girls don’t go for you nice guys? We remember what happened in Santa Barbara. So don’t even look at me narrow-eyed, young man. I mean it.

You win, gun nuts — sorry, Second Amendment Patriots. You’re strapped, I’m strapped, and here we go, over the edge. This is the Wild West world you wanted, this is the world we’ll all have to live in.

But probably not for long.

A Modest Proposal To Combat the Drone Menace at the U.S. Open

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

I confess, I was amused at first when I read in this paper that the Village of Pinehurst had banned the use of drones during the U.S. Opens.

“Really?” I thought. “Is some paranoid conspiracy theorist worried that President Obama is going to begin the final assault on our freedoms, start the imposition of Sharia law, and of course, distract everyone’s attention from Benghazi, by blowing up Phil Mickelson with a Hellfire missile?”

Hey, I’ve heard weirder theories propounded around here with a presumably straight face. You should read my email sometime. In any case, I thought, are drones such a problem that it requires the hand of the mighty Pinehurst Village Council be raised to stop them?

Well, maybe. A quick Google search using the terms “drones” and “golf course” reveals a lot of excitement about the idea of using commercially available drones to cruise over golf courses with high definition cameras, enjoying the scenery and watching the golf. Apparently, radio-controlled aircraft technology has advanced far beyond the balsa wood model Spitfire a buddy of mine spent months building, only to crash into a tree on its first flight.

“You can buy a consumer drone outfitted with four battery-powered motors and a gyro-stabilized video camera for about $1,000,” an article in Golf Digest notes, “and control it on your smartphone or tablet with a GPS-based system that was once available only to the military.”

You can imagine the problems that a swarm of the little buggers might cause as they hover and swoop over the course, buzzing like giant bees, controlled by some dude who figures he can catch the action of the Opens without leaving the house.

So, OK, the villagers have a legitimate concern. But it seems to me that while we can legislate against the newest scourge from the skies, we’re woefully unprepared to enforce such a ban, unless the Pinehurst PD has developed a previously unheard-of anti-aircraft capability.

And that’s when it hit me. We need to turn to the Open Carry movement.

In case you’re not familiar, the Open Carry movement is a group of particularly adamant firearms aficionados who believe that the defense of our Second Amendment freedoms requires them to aggressively assert their right to carry any gun, anywhere, at any time. To that end, one such group in San Antonio tends to show up in public places such as restaurants, in groups, carrying as many shootin’ irons as a platoon of Taliban insurgents.

For some inexplicable reason, the average citizen reacts with something less than joy at seeing a troop of bearded guys in camo walking into the local Chipotle armed to the teeth. Therefore, that restaurant recently joined other such chains, such as Chili’s and Sonic, in asking patrons to leave the guns at home.

“We are respectfully asking that customers not bring guns into our restaurants, unless they are authorized law enforcement personnel,” they said in a public statement.

Amazingly, the NRA joined in, in a public statement asking the Open Carry folks to cool it. The statement on the NRA’s Facebook page described the behavior of the Open Carry folks in San Antonio as not only “counterproductive” but “downright weird.”

Let me tell you, folks. The NRA telling you you’re getting a little too weird with your guns is sort of like Keith Richards coming to you and going, “’Ey, mate, y’might want to take it easier on the whiskey an’ drugs.” In response, some Open Carry advocates threatened to burn their NRA membership cards, since the organization had become soft on the Second Amendment.

It’s clear that the OC folks need some love. They need to get some of their mojo back. And we here in the Sandhills need something to counter the Drone Menace. We’ve got a need, they have more than enough guns to fill it. So I propose that the U.S. Open Committee invite the members of the San Antonio Open Carry group and other like-minded firearms advocates to the Opens.

Let them walk up and down, among the crowds, openly showing off their heaviest assault weapons, and letting the world know that the only way to stop a bad guy with a drone is a good guy with a gun.

You just know visitors who come here from all over the world will all feel that much safer knowing that the Second Amendment is being safeguarded, and any pesky drone that buzzes our way will be quickly and efficiently blasted out of the sky by a volley of high-powered ammo.

U.S. Open Carry. We need to make this happen, people. Freedom demands it.

[UPDATE: The NRA has recently backed down from its criticism of "Open Carry" and disowned its previous statement, saying "Wow, we almost made sense for a moment there. What the hell were we thinking?" Actually, what they said was that "an alert went out that referred to this type of behavior as 'weird' or somehow not normal, and that was a mistake. It shouldn't have happened." So everything's back to normal at the NRA, and by "normal" we mean "batshit crazy as usual." ]

Okay, Fellows, Listen Up...

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Today, friends, I’d like to address my words to the men in the audience, specifically the young men.

See, some among you have developed some strange ideas about the way things are and how they ought to be — particularly as those things pertain to the female gender.

What drew my attention to this subject was the brutal rampage of young Elliot Rodger, who, fueled by rage and a sense of thwarted privilege, stabbed three people to death in his Southern California apartment before taking to the streets, shooting two young women outside a sorority house, then killing another young man in a deli before turning the gun on himself.

Often, when this sort of thing happens, people are left wondering, “What would cause someone to do a terrible thing like this?” In Rodger’s case, however, he left plenty of explanation, including a 140-page written screed and a video recorded from inside his BMW. In both, Rodger chillingly describes the upcoming “Day of Retribution.”

His grievance? Women didn’t want to have sex with him.

His was the cry we’ve heard for years from unfulfilled nerds and other guys whose interaction with the females in their lives exist in that tortured limbo known as the “Friend Zone.”

“I’m the perfect guy,” Rodger says, “and yet you throw yourselves at these obnoxious men instead of me, the supreme gentleman.” But most don’t go as far into the darkness as young Elliot when he concludes with, “I can’t wait to give you exactly what you deserve. Utter annihilation.”

This horrifying manifesto apparently struck a chord with some males. Some even put up fan pages for Rodger on Facebook. Some, inevitably, tried to put the blame on women.

“More people will die unless you give men sexual options,” claimed the website ReturnofKings.com, a mainstay of what’s known as, God help us, the Pick-Up Artist community (PUA for short). The subscribers to the PUA philosophy claim to use the psychological principles of neurolinguistic programming (NLP) to manipulate unsuspecting women (called “targets”) into sex. The techniques are collectively known as “game,” and they’ll teach them to you for the price of an instructional DVD (or several).

If Elliot Rodger had only had better “game,” some PUA websites insist, none of this would have happened, and did we mention we have a DVD to sell?

PUA claims to be the answer for every guy who’s ever wailed, “I’m a nice guy. I’m a gentleman. Why do all the hot women I know just want to be friends?” I suppose the PUA solution of becoming a manipulative, scheming sociopath is better than Elliot Rodger’s answer of killing people, but that’s not saying much.

Perhaps I can offer an alternative. Understand, I’m not holding myself out as some kind of Love Guru, but my time on this Earth has taught me a few things about life that I’ll just lay on you right now:

First, being a “nice guy” and a “gentleman” is the least that’s expected of you by the world in general. It’s the baseline. It doesn’t entitle you to anything other than the knowledge that you’re not a jackass. It certainly doesn’t entitle you to a woman. You need to bring something else to the conversation other than that bare minimum and your raw need.

If you want people (and hey, guess what, women are people) to be interested in you, then you need to be interesting. Do something. Be something. And by “be something,” I mean something more than a desperate horn-dog who sees every aspect of his life through the lens of “will this get me into bed with a woman?”

Oh, and if you’re being a “nice guy” and a “perfect gentleman” for no other reason than because you think it’s going to get women in bed with you, then I have a bit of sad news: You’re not really a nice guy or a gentleman. You’re just acting like one for advantage. Like the PUA’s “game,” this is the sort of thing sociopaths do.

Years of movies, TV, even video games have taught us the wrong lesson: that if we’re just good enough, nice enough, or persistent enough, every guy can get the hot babe of his dreams. When it doesn’t work out that way (see “not really a nice guy,” above), some get bitter and fill a thousand Internet message boards with misogynistic bile. Some turn to the codified sociopathy peddled to them by the PUA snake-oil salesmen.

Tragically, some, like Elliot Rodger, become violent. That’s not going to change until our attitudes do and we start thinking of women as people, not “targets” or rewards.

Review: TAKEDOWN, by Brett Battles and Robert Gregory Browne

Takedown by Brett Battles
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Poe boys (Robert Gregory Browne and Brett Battles) are back with the second installment in the Alexandra Poe series. I really liked the first one, and I have to say this one is even better. The pacing is letter-perfect and the action scenes are crisper and more focused.

Like the writers of a great TV show, the authors do a good job of weaving the plot of this "episode" in with the overall story arc of Alexandra Poe's search to find out the truth about her missing father and murdered mother, and like great TV, the end of this story leaves you gasping to find out what happens next time. Recommended.


View all my reviews