Cheek and Bluster

How is it that I still occasionally think that I’ve seen it all? Specifically, with regard to the reflexive disingenuousness of partisan political idiocy? My hope for the reformation of our national miscourse keeps feeling more and more audacious.

At this point I feel compelled to alert you, my esteemed readers, that the remainder of this post will contain expressions garnished with no small amount of profanity. If this does not suit your taste, I hope that you will keep in mind that I pre-notified you of the situation, and also that it is my fucking blog.

As I was saying… today’s attempt to make my head explode comes courtesy of Stephen Hayes and William Kristol at the Weekly Standard:

All week, the Obama administration [has] bent over backwards to avoid questioning the legitimacy of the Iranian regime. In this, Obama became a de facto ally of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Although Obama finally spoke about the protesters–”the whole world is watching,” he said–he never expressed real support for them…

“On several occasions, I’ve had supporters of Mousavi say we need President Obama,” reported CNN’s Reza Sayah, from Tehran. When Wolf Blitzer asked Sayah directly whether the protesters want Obama to speak out in support of their cause, Sayah responded: “I think they do, but they’re realistic.”

“Realistic” about the weakness, about the foolish and counterproductive “realism,” of an American president. How sad.

You know what? That was… sorry, give me a second here… OK, I’m OK.

You know how they say it’s always a good in a critique to start off by praising something, or saying something positive? I’m subscribing to that theory, because you do have one statement in there that I fully agree with: “How sad.”

Of course, on the question of what is sad, as well as on every other point in this excerpt, you are absolutely and unambiguously fucking wrong. What is sad — distressingly sad — is that you two reactionary neocon fuckwits are so goddamned far down your ideological rabbit holes that when a human tragedy is unfolding in front of our eyes, you immediately try to exploit it for a few cheap political points. Way to win hearts and minds, assholes.

Obama’s statements are foolish, you say. Counterproductive. Counterproductive? Are you fucking serious? OK then, as long as you’re caricaturing yourself, tell us: what would you have him do? Drop the 101st Airborne in there led by Bruce Willis and save the protesters? Point a few cruise missiles at ‘em, maybe fire one across the bow? Have Obama dress in green, complete with face paint, and wave a saber over his head at a special Rose Garden press conference? Well keep it in your pants, you ridiculous jerkoffs, because it ain’t gonna fucking happen.

Were you not suffering from such serious rectal-cranial inversions, you might be aware that (as I mentioned yesterday), we’ve had a few mishaps with Iran in the past. Mainly this one time in 1953 when the CIA had this thing called Operation Ajax, in which we overthrew their democratically-elected leader and installed The Shah? The guy who was a brutal dictator but who gives a shit because he let our corporations tap Iranian oil reserves? Until 25 years later when the people rose up and ousted him, rallying behind the leadership of the current cabal of Islamic fundamentalist nutjobs who have governed the country ever since? The ones who staged a nakedly bullshit sham election to keep themselves in power? The ones who are sending their cops and militia thugs out into the streets today in a bloodthirsty, murderous crackdown against their own people?

See, if you weren’t so hellbent on discrediting Obama at any cost, you might be sentient enough to realize that Iranian ruling junta’s discrediting of itself is accelerating with each blustery protestation of legitimacy, each day of popular unrest, each desperate act of violent suppression of the will of the citizenry. You might even be able to see that perhaps the ONLY WAY Ahmadinejad and the council of imams might regain some credibility is if their fanciful and desperate accusations that the United States and its allies are acting to foment revolution were TRUE.

Why are Mousavi supporters saying they wish they had Obama to intervene, but are “realistic” about it? Because they’re not fucking idiots. They know all of this stuff that I’ve been talking about here. Do I wish we could do more to help them? Of course I do. But unlike you two punditiot troglydytes, I am realistic (there’s that word again — bummer how the real world always gets in the way, huh?) about our track record of installing governments in countries other than our own.

So do us all a favor and just be happy with your honorary PhD’s from STFU. And practice what they teach. Otherwise you start spouting that “Obama is a de facto ally of Ahmadinejad and Khamanei” horseshit, which leads the non-punditiot population to the logical conclusion, “Hayes and Kristol are de profundis douchebags.”