Mike Huckabee’s Offensive, Idiotic Holocaust Rhetoric On Iran
In bringing Holocaust imagery into the debate over the Iran nuclear deal, Mike Huckabee has displayed the intellectual bankruptcy of his position.
Former Arkansas Governor, and current Presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee has come up with what may be the most absurd, outrageous argument about the Iran nuclear deal that we’ve seen in the two weeks since it became public:
Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee called the Iran deal “idiotic,” and likened it to events of the Holocaust, saying that President Barack Obama will ultimately “take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.”
The Republican and former governor of Arkansas, who has been vocal about his disdain for a deal with Iran and has a history of citing the mass genocide of Jewsby the Nazis in his debates, made the comments in an interview on Saturday.
(…)
Huckabee told Breitbart News on Saturday that the Obama administration’s actions on the Iran deal are “naive.”
“This president’s foreign policy is the most feckless in American history. It is so naive that he would trust the Iranians,” he said.
By doing so, he will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven. This is the most idiotic thing, this Iran deal. It should be rejected by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress and by the American people,” he added.
Huckabee shot back at Obama’s criticism Monday morning, saying he’s not backing down from his comments.
“What’s ridiculous and sad is that President Obama does not take the Iran threats seriously. For decades, Iranian leaders have pledged to ‘destroy,’ ‘annihilate,’ and ‘wipe Israel off the map’ with a ‘big Holocaust,'” he said. “‘Never again’ will be the policy of my administration and I will stand with our ally Israel to prevent the terrorists in Tehran from achieving their own stated goal of another Holocaust.”
And just in case anyone thought that his remarks were some off-the-cuff thing that the campaign would quickly take back, Huckabee doubled down on the comments this morning after criticism from President Obama and has even turned it into an Internet meme:
Tell Congress to do their constitutional duty & reject the Obama-Kerry #IranDeal –> http://t.co/SaIyuq4w01pic.twitter.com/2rFJgdDHhV
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) July 26, 2015
Huckabee’s remakrs have also been criticized by many leading Jewish organizations:
Jewish groups across the country reacted to Huckabee’s comments Sunday.
“Whatever one’s views of the nuclear agreement with Iran — and we have been critical of it, noting that there are serious unanswered questions that need to be addressed — comments such as those by Mike Huckabee suggesting the president is leading Israel to another Holocaust are completely out of line and unacceptable,” said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, in a statement.
“To hear Mr. Huckabee invoke the Holocaust when America is Israel’s greatest ally and when Israel is a strong nation capable of defending itself is disheartening,” Greenblatt added.
The National Jewish Democratic Council called on others in the Party to denounce Huckabee’s remarks, saying they “may be the most inexcusable we’ve encountered in recent memory.”
“To state that President Obama is leading Israelis ‘to the door of the oven’ is not only disgustingly offensive to the president and the White House, but shows utter, callous disregard for the millions of lives lost in the Shoah and to the pain still felt by their descendants today,” the organization stated.
Among Huckabee’s supporters and fellow Republicans, of course, these remarks are unlikely to cause much controversy and will not lead to same sorts of outrage that we’ve seen in response to the many remarks of Donald Trump. Even before the deal that was negotiated in Vienna was announced, Republicans in the United States, as well as many Israeli Government officials, were using similarly apocalyptic rhetoric to describe the alleged consequences of a deal with Iran regarding its nuclear weapons program. To the people of this mindset, it has long been apparent that anything other than the abject surrender of the Islamic Republic itself, or at the very least, its completely abandonment of any nuclear research or nuclear energy program, would simply be unacceptable. The fact that neither of these outcomes were realistically possible in the context of a diplomatic negotiation is largely irrelevant to these people because they are essentially rejecting the entire premise of diplomacy to begin with. In their worldview, the Islamic Republic of Iran is a murderous suicidal regime that will seek to attack Israel the moment it develops a nuclear weapon notwithstanding the fact that Israel would be able to retaliate on its own with a force that would essentially leave all of Iran’s major cities as nothing by smoking ruins. That, of course, is the same view that many hardcore conservatives had of the Soviet Union during Cold War and way so many of them even attacked Ronald Reagan when he began negotiating arms reduction treaties with Mikhail Gorbachev.
While facts like these are important, the tone and substance of what Huckabee said here is something that should be widely condemned. As Daniel Larison notes, Huckabee is essentially implicating the Administration in some hypothetical future genocide and at least obliquely suggesting that they are doing so intentionally. This is offensive both to the people that Huckabee is talking about and to the memories of the millions who died in or survived the Holocaust. Just as Donald Trump’s accusation that every person coming across the border is a rapist or a criminal, that is the kind of rhetoric that should be roundly condemned. As I said, though, it is unlikely that any of Huckabee’s fellow Republicans, or any of the people who agree with him regarding the nuclear deal, are going to disagree with him. In the end, he is simply expressing in the most extreme, offensive way possible the very position that they hold on the nuclear deal themselves. The fact that he feels it necessary to engage in such cheap rhetoric to help his position is, I think, an unconscious recognition of the fact that there is very little substance to the arguments of people like him when it comes to explaining why the deal should be rejected.
Yeah, Huck’s completely wrong on this. Incinerating Jews in nuclear fireballs is completely different from doing it in ovens.
Goodwin’s Law writ large.
If they bothered to actually read the deal, their arguments might gain some substance. Nahhhhhh…… Who am I kidding, this is the Republican Party of “Bomb bomb bomb bombbomb Iran…”
Given that many Christian evangelicals support Israel in part because they need Israel to be around until the end-of-days, at which time God will vaporize Jews and accept Christians with open arms … it’s hard to tell if Huckabee is pleased or displeased about this.
Seriously though, Mike needs his own Clown Car.
@The Monster: In that case, you must be thrilled that about the agreement, given that it makes the Iranian nuclear bomb much less likely than it was one month ago, right?
These clowns are only looking for attention.
Here is the Huckster in an essay for Foreign Affairs in Jan., ’08:
Now we see quite a change in tone…he is a lowly #7 in the chase to be the one that loses to Clinton. The wannabe’s all need to do something to get the spotlight off Trump and onto them. For Huckabee…mission accomplished.
Meantime…Obama channels Michael Reynolds:
@The Monster:
Israel has 300+ nuclear arms stamped with Iran’s name on the nose-cone.
Do you believe they should be forced to dis-arm them?
Mike Huckabee wants to kill American Citizens who do not listen to David Barton:
Mike Huckabee is a GOON: a bully or thug, esp. one hired to terrorize or do away with opposition: a squad of goons waving pistols.
New Oxford American Dictionary
@humanoid.panda: Well, I know Bibi is. Just a few months back he was saying that Iran was just a month or 2 from a bomb. Now they are at least 10 years away from it. Israelis must be dancing in the streets with joy….
@OzarkHillbilly:
Netanyahoo has been saying the same thing for decades. And he has been wrong every single time. It’s like listening to Butters, or Dick Morris, or Bill Kristol. Whatever they say…think the opposite.
@C. Clavin:
Shhhhhhhh…. remember, no spoilers.
The sooner the rest of the world realizes this, the better. And not merely about Iran, either.
Hitler did it *for* Mike Huckabee. He wanted a world where Mike Huckabee and the rest of his N. European cousins were the leaders, stakeholders and only citizens. He hated mixed race people like Obama, for the same reason as the Jews and Romani, their ‘racial inferiority.’ White gentiles constantly make Hitler comparisons as if he didn’t love them, honor them and commit his crimes for their benefit. Huck may hate Hitler (though he shares his views on the role of women and gays), but Hitler sure loved Hucks.
And given that Huck thinks every Jew should convert or face damnation, he’s no friend of Judaism or Jewish people, even without this BS. He seeks our eradication, one conversion at a time, or in one fell swoop in a lake of fire.
I’ve been watching The Brink on HBO, thinking John Laroquette’s character is an absurd misfire. (Great performance, though.)
Maybe I’m wrong, though…
@Mark: I call it the Iran-Contra syndrome. I think Reagan and his accomplices for the most part got away with Iran-Contra because nobody could believe they did something like that. It’s totally circular reasoning. Why don’t you think they did that? They’re not the sort of people who would. Why do they think they’re not the sort of people who’d do that? Because they didn’t do that. Irrational, but there it is.
People in general, and the supposedly liberal MSM, can’t bring themselves to believe that a presidential contender like Huckabee could believe the nonsense he says he believes. Why? Because he’s a very Serious Person, after all, he’s a presidential contender.
Nice indictment of the current state of the Republican primary: In order to be heard over the Trump outrage campaign you have to say something so offensive that it backfires for the 80% of the electorate that don’t matter for the Republican primary.
@gVOR08:
Much the same as early Watergate. No one could believe Nixon would be that stupid. Nixon? Tricky Dick? Surely he knew he had the election in the bag, surely he of all people wasn’t stupid.
Perry took a real run at being the shiny object of the Republican day when he made the a$$inine argument that more guns in theaters would lead to fewer shootings in theaters.
Poor Rick Perry…you say something that outrageously stupid…and it’s still not enough to make you competitive in the Party Full of Stupid.
@C. Clavin:
It’s a nice example of how little the gun nuts actually understand about the use of guns. Guy starts shooting in a dark theater full of panicky people running about, and this maroon thinks what’s needed is five more people blazing away.
And how, pray tell, Governor, do gun nuts A, B, C, D and E know who to shoot? Aim at the muzzle flash? Which ones? And how do you tell in the dark whether you have a clear field of fire? Imbecile.
@C. Clavin: Rick Perry has apparently never heard of Curtis Reeves.
@ernieyeball: That is an almost unbelievable quote.
EDIT: And now that I’ve checked up on who David Barton is, it is a truly unbelievable quote. The guy’s own book publisher (a Christian one, no less), disavowed his book for lack of basic truthiness.
1992…Netanyahu tells the Israeli Knesset that Iran is “three to five years” from a nuclear weapon.
1995…In his book, “Fighting Terrorism,” Netanyahu says Iran would have a nuclear weapon in “three to five years,”
1996…Netanyahu tells a joint session of Congress; “If Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons, this could presage catastrophic consequences, not only for my country, and not only for the Middle East, but for all mankind…the deadline for attaining this goal is getting extremely close.”
2002…Netanyahu goes along with his Republican buddies on Iraq, claiming their nuclear program is so advanced that they are operating “centrifuges the size of washing machines.”
Like most Republicans Netanyahu was unrepentant after being completely wrong on Iraq and sending 4000 troops to their death and spending over $2T…and went right back to Iran.
2009…Netanyahu tells a visiting Congressional delegation that Iran was “probably one or two years away” from developing weapons capability.
2009…same year…Netanyahu tells another delegation of American politicians that “Iran has the capability now to make one bomb,” or that “they could wait and make several bombs in a year or two.”
2010…Netanyahu tells Jeffrey Goldberg that “You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs…that’s what is happening in Iran.”
2012…Netanyahu says in closed talks with Israeli media that Iran is just “a few months away” from attaining nuclear capabilities.
2012…same year…Netanyahu tells the UN that Iran would have the ability to construct a weapon within roughly one year. [This is the speech were he borrowed the Coyote’s bomb to use as an illustration http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/audio/video/2012/9/28/1348817110763/Israeli-PM-Binyamin-Netan-015.jpg%5D
2015…Netanyu warns Congress that “The deal will all but guarantee that Iran gets nuclear weapons. If the deal is signed, they’re only a year away from the bomb.”
When, when, when, will we stop giving credibility to people who have long histories of being tragically incorrect?
@michael reynolds:
I didn’t mean to hijack the thread but Perry went on to say that:
Now…the reality is that the gun nuts will never stand for any of that stuff…training? Hooey. Background checks? Ineffective.
And here’s what really happens when the gun crowd gets going…
http://www.stripes.com/news/us/civilian-guards-ordered-to-leave-shopping-center-after-one-accidentally-fires-rifle-1.359517
@michael reynolds: What’s even better when the boys in blue come charging in to save the day.
Do you really think that the police, stampeding in to a mall/movie theatre/whatever, are going to take the time to figure out when you’re waving a gun around, whether you’re a goodie or a baddie? Hell no, they’re going to drop you where you stand.
In other words, having a gun is MORE LIKELY to get you shot….
@grumpy realist:
That’s the case in EVERY situation. If you own a gun you are far more likely to be shot than if you do not.
@michael reynolds: @C. Clavin: OK. Now I have to link to the perfect “Florida Man” headline, Florida Man Shot in Ass Protecting Turtle Nests From Drunk Guy. (With his own gun.)
The money line is
Why would any sane person think that?
@Franklin: If Ernie’s going to keep printing that quote, I guess I have to keep printing the fact that it got a laugh, because anyone but Ernie could figure out that Huckabee was joking.
@humanoid.panda: The agreement obligates the US to defend the Iranian nuclear facilities against attacks. It seems to me that increases the risk of Iran getting nuclear weapons, not decreases it.
@The Monster:
Why must opponents of the deal use absurd interpretations of it as examples?
Seems like if it was such a bad deal, there would be actual arguments against it that were based in reality rather than fiction.
I think that Bibi was right in saying that Iran was three to five years away from a nuclear weapon in 1992, and it shows the importance of this pact. In 1940, the US set out of build A-bombs, and it took $26 billion in current value and the talents of a Oppenheimer, a Fermi, a Feynman, and the organizational skills of Gen. Leslie Groves almost five years to get the job done. In the late 1970’s India did it in about 7 years. Pakistan, poorer than India, took about ten years. Technology and knowledge have advanced tremendously since then with the result that a third world backwater like North Korea builds bombs. Of course, Iran is only a year or two away; a couple of engineers with access to Wikipedia is all it takes.
Despite the ease with which they could have joined the nuke club, they have not. They are signatories of the NPT, and their leading Ayatollah has issued a fatwa against nukes. The recent pact is the cherry on top.
Iran has shown since 1992 (early Bibi) a disinclination to build bombs. We should continue a process of disincentives. I do not think that red-meat rhetoric helps here. When a leading contender for the US presidency states that war is possible on the day of his inauguration, some hot-heads in Tehran might be listening after all Americans are not the only people apt to go to war for flimsy reasons.
BTW, I understand that there are more synagogues in Tehran than Little Rock.
@gVOR08:
Hollywood and the NRA are definitely not in cahoots, but they both sell the same bullsh!t: a Good Guy with a gun resolves every situation so it benefits the Good Guy and the Innocent. Justice is served.
It works that way in almost every lazy-ass TV show and movie.
No one shoots themselves or a loved one by accident in a TV show or movie. No spouse or lover gets shot dead on TV unless it’s done by a a Bad Guy. No one’s kid finds a cool-looking “toy” in the nightstand and shoots and kills themselves or a sibling in a TV show or movie.
In American media, guns are the equivalent of Lisa Simpson’s Tiger Repelling Rock. They work every time and the Bad Guy is always foiled and if a second-banana Good Guy gets hurt “it’s just a flesh wound.”
We have two original sins in America: obviously slavery and all that implies, but also, guns.
We are ever so slowly stumbling closer to an equitable resolution on the first matter, but on the second one we just keep trying to wish it away. Hollywood has taught us all that the Good Guys always win and they’re always righteously packing heat.
If Sandy Hook couldn’t knock us off our diseased path, I hate to think what it will take.
Guns and race are our American pathology.
@The Monster:
Please provide the language in the agreement that obligates the US to do this.
@C. Clavin:
If Rush said it, it must be true.
It’s just another bad argument. Not even an argument to persuade the fence-sitters, but an argument meant to bolster the True Patriots who think this agreement is worse than Munich. It’s sloppy and ineffective.
@David M:
Because they have no other arguments.
Mike Huckabee is only suitable to be a Gospel musical artist on HEE HAW…Nothing more…
HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! I’m in sticthes! Oh my gawd I can’t stand it!
It was so freakin’ funny that United in Purpose, the Christian Comedian’s Club that sponsored HucksterBerry Hound and his Pin Dancing Angels Sideshow EDITED THE QUOTE OUT of the original recording.
This is LYING BY OMISSION! I suppose U think that’s funny too!
Eh Pink?
http://www.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011/03/30/mike-huckabee-says-he-wants-americans-to-be-indoctrinated-at-gunpoint
@The Monster: Liar.
@The Monster:
You don’t seem to be able to back that up. So here, let me help you out.
Article 10, Annex III, of the agreement states:
That doesn’t come close to saying what you claim it says. Which raise the question; If you cannot make factual arguments against the agreement….then maybe it’s not so bad??? Ever stop to think about that??? Rhetorical question…of course you haven’t.
Furthermore…do you think it might be wise for Iran to be able to properly secure their nuclear facilities so that people who shouldn’t have access to them don’t get access to them? Or, if you think this part of the agreement is bad, does that mean you think they should be left unprotected???
Go ahead…consult some right wing website to find out what you are supposed to think. We’ll be waiting.
Oh yeah Pink, I have heard all kinds of racist, sexist, homophobic jokes get laughs from the cretins among us.
Never made them funny to me.
@de stijl: Apologies for an unserious comment on a deadly serious topic, but in Hollywood, not only will a good guy with a gun always save the day, he’ll do it with a semi-auto handgun against six bad guys with assault rifles. Real assault rifles, not the pretend ones so many people seem hot to own.
@ernieyeball: It’s available on youtube. You can hear the laughter in response to the statement.
@ernieyeball: Was that comment racist, sexist, or homophobic? How?
@Pinky: I’m just saying, you could go around threatening everyone all you want, and as long as you’re not singling out women, gays, or certain races, you’re not being racist, sexist, or homophobic. Of course, those three things are an easy accusation to make online if you’re trying to smear someone, and you’ve admitted before that you’ll say anything to insult political figures, even if the statements aren’t true.
@Pinky:..I have heard the unedited version. I have heard the laughter of the imbeciles who think it is funny to threaten to kill citizens that do not listen to The Huckster’s self appointed prophet David Barton.
I am saying that when Huckleberry says: “I wish it’d happen.” he is NOT being funny.
I think he means it.
His gigling toadys are as vile as those who laugh at racist, sexist and homophobic jokes.
If U want Huckleberry’s Homophobic honks read this.
There is more here.
http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/rachelwitkin/mike_huckabee_s_10_worst_anti_gay_comments
Pinky, you are saying this about yourself, right?
@Pinky:
PInky, that is too weak even for you.
@ernieyeball: You say you think he meant it. You also have said, when we’ve talked about this subject before, that you’re more interested in trolling than in truth.
I think he didn’t mean it. The people there think he didn’t mean it. He’s never said anything before or since indicating he meant it. No political leader in this country’s history has meant anything like it. But sure, you think he meant it.
I’ll see you back here on the next Huckabee thread where you and I will post the same things.
@Pinky:
Huckabee is known for saying idiotic, offensive things and meaning them.
I categorically deny that I have ever posted such a statement. Please produce it.
@Pinky:
So you’re saying that Huckabee is not a serious person, therefore, even though he’s a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, don’t pay attention to what he’s saying because chances are he may not mean it.
@David M: Things you don’t agree with, sure. Things that some people find offensive. But things that would require an implementation of Czarist security and censorship? That’s what gets me about this. You can think that people don’t agree with you, or that they have different visions of the ideal than you do. But to think that Huckabee believes that everyone should be forced at gunpoint to view a message, you’d have to believe that someone who functioned as a governor in the US actually believes in a level of totalitarianism that would have been tough for the Czars to pull off. That’s just not credible.
@ernieyeball:
Pinky’s stock in trade is finding extremely thin rationalizations for ridiculous and/or offensive statements by Republicans and then excusing the statement. Which basically results in Pinky being the one doing the trolling…
He was counting on his sycophants at United in Purpose disappearing his words which in fact they did.
Fortunately the cat was already out of the bag.
I agree with Pinky. Huckabee’s statement was a joke. But that doesn’t make it any better, because for that kind of joke to be received as funny, it must have at its base some level of identification from the audience. There has to be some kernel of seriousness–some relationship with some real-life thing or desire–or it isn’t funny.
Huckabee made the joke, and his audience laughed at it, because there’s some part of them that actually would like to see people coerced into listening to David Barton.
So, Huck can make this joke, and everyone can laugh, and it can get truthfully labeled a joke, but only because at some deeper level they wish it weren’t.
Thanks for the tip. The heat is getting to me and I’m running out of weed.
@ernieyeball: He stood in front of a room full of people and rolling cameras and seriously announced his intention to force the entire country at gunpoint to listen to a speaker, and then hoped that no footage would reflect that? I respect your commitment to the bit, but how much further are you going to take it?
I think we should dig up Nixon’s corpse and Impeach his moldy ass. What does that tell ya’?
@Pinky: Sick jokes draw a laugh from the right audience. Are you saying Huckabee was making a sick joke? It’s hard to see it as anything better.
@C. Clavin:
Why should Israel disarm? Why should a country that has 15 million citizens, which is surrounded by 100 million+ screaming lunatics calling for their destruction for the last 70 years in public have to do anything of the sort? Because you are a Roman Catholic and anti-Semitic? Because you love death and war like the United Nations does? (180+ wars sponsored since 1945). Because you love drowning in the Red Sea? In history, it was Jews crying for religious liberties and “civil rights” while they were enslaved by Pharoah, a North African Egyptian Hamite. And, it was God who intervened and enforced this by FORCE. In history, it was Adolf Hitler who led the Jews to the gas chambers. You know those Jews that God called the BURNING BUSH THAT ISN’T CONSUMED. If any race of people were ever attacked like that Jew has been attacked they wouldn’t even be here. Huckabee’s comments were right on just because you are devoid of facts and history is YOUR problem. For the Jew is about to go through something that will make Adolf Hitler look like kid’s play. They will be killed down to 144,000 and then God will intervene again. This time, you and all 190+ Gentile Nations via the UN will not survive (Zeph 3:8). You didn’t learn your lesson in the past and you surely won’t learn it going forward. Now, SHUT UP Roman Catholic!
@maybetoday777:
Wow, That’s weapons grade crazy/trolling there.
Either way, you are nuts.
@David M: That’s probably true, on this site. On another site, I’m the guy who insists that President Obama isn’t an evil mastermind. Somewhere else, I’d be talking to a guy like maybetoday777 explaining to him that Catholics aren’t evil. The overriding theme is the kind of nonsensical assumptions that pop up on insular websites.
I don’t need everyone to agree with me. I’d like it, but our country doesn’t need it. Our country needs us to stop making awful assumptions about each other. I don’t like Clinton or Sanders, for example, but I’m not going to filter everything they say through the supposition that they’re trying to establish a tyranny.
As for the remarks that Huckabee made in the original article, his rhetoric was strong but not unprecedented. I haven’t looked into the treaty enough to know if they’re unfair, so I’m not going to defend or attack him on that basis. I will defend him when he’s being unfairly characterized, though.
Talk about unfair characterizations, how about you produce evidence that I said this or withdraw he charge.
@Pinky:
That sounds good in theory, but look at where it leaves us. The GOP has rejected any agreement with Iran, and needs to be called out for their extreme and radical position. “Both sides do it” has a end result of covering for the GOP as they become increasingly irresponsible. One political party is no longer reality-based, but people don’t want to admit it, and both parts of that dynamic are problematic developments.
It should be immediately obvious that Huckabee’s Iran statements are indefensible without being familiar with the Iran deal at all.
@Pinky: I agree that the two sides spend too much time demonizing each other. It’s natural for someone in one camp to believe the most horrible things about people in the other camp (and their representatives). For example, I’m pretty sure that there aren’t too many people on the right who think either of the Clintons have an honest bone in their body.
I’ve been on the left-ish side of things my whole life and I used to laugh at Dan Quayle jokes but I like to think I’ve gotten a little more mature, so I didn’t laugh so much at jokes that tried to paint George W. Bush as mentally deficient.
In any event, while it’s worthwhile and important to try to see the other side as human beings, it’s also important to know when your side has gone off the rails. This week, this site has hosted discussions about Donald Trump implying that immigrants are all criminals and Mike Huckabee saying the Democratic administration has condemned the people of Israel to ovens. I’m sure there were other colorful statements by GOP politicians I’ve forgotten just in the past week. Can’t conservatives just say, “yeah, that’s wrong” and move on?
@Steve V:
This is an important comment.
To Pinky: I think Huckles was “joking” at the Barton event (Barton is a real nasty piece of work, BTW).
Stupid, poor taste and all that, but not serious.
And I think you get jumped on too often.
But in the best “both sides” way – can’t you just say that the “Marching to the Ovens” comment is morally repugnant?
And look, demonizing is what’s going on here. We’ve reached the point with the conservative opposition that the *only* explanation for anything done by a so-called “liberal” is part of some kind of sick death cult or something. Why would Obama make this deal with Iran, which does such obviously terrible things like commit the US to protecting Iran’s nuke program and sending jews to the ovens? I mean, no one with any human decency would do such a thing.
I mean, I guess this is all just marketing. Get the message out. Justify and rally people to your policy of all-out opposition. But it’s really stupid and it’s kind of remarkable that supposedly credible candidates for high national office are doing it.
This is interesting: ” Iran Leader Tweets Picture of Obama With Gun To Head !” (USA Today)
And Secretary Kerry signed an agreement with this guy ?
Also ” Khamenei Continues To Threaten Israel and the US, Claims America Created ISIS” ?!!
“Iranian leader vows no changes !!” (Western Civilization)
Somebody has to be kidding.
@Pinky:
How open-minded of you! Now I know you can’t possibly be the same Pinky who defended Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism while admitting never having read the book, calling its premise “so transparently right as to be almost obvious” even after I presented a string of historians and scholars who actually did read the book and concluded it was a load of bullhockey.
No, that couldn’t be the same Pinky, because you’d never draw a conclusion about something you never read. Unless, of course, it’s something that fits your ideological and partisan beliefs. How convenient.
As it happens, an actual Jewish organization known as the ADL, which has looked into the deal and been critical of it, still considers Huck’s statement horribly offensive. The irony is that Huck and others who make statements like this are the real ones who demonstrate historical amnesia about the Holocaust.
You know the real reason people “go Godwin”? First, it appeals to their need to see the world in terms of cartoon villains, something the Nazis have largely become in our culture. Second, it’s an attempt to exploit the sense of raw fear springing from people’s memories of the existential threat posed by the Nazis. Once you start talking about people marching into ovens, you are by definition doing all you can to avoid a reasoned discussion of the matter. Ironically, this is just the sort of thinking that got us into the Iraq mess which is part of what led to the Iran mess we’re dealing with now.
The biggest evidence people are forgetting the Holocaust isn’t that they’re supporting treaties with enemy nations. It’s that they’ve turned Hitler into a mascot used to score partisan points.
@maybetoday777:
As long as we are dealing with facts…you know…like Adam and Eve an 40 days and 40 nights…
@Pinky: OK, I just found a video of Huckabee saying this. Granted that “at gunpoint” was a joke. But he was still strongly advising people to listen to David Barton.
Kylopod, it sounds like I admitted I haven’t read the book. (I bought it, but I haven’t gotten to it yet.) I’d rather not change the subject to Goldberg’s book.
The scary thing is that you guys document the things I say. Not scary because I’m afraid of them, but because you guys really don’t ever hear anyone else from the right except for an occasional OTB troll.
Ernie, I don’t remember each time we’ve talked about this same quote that you bring out every time there’s a Huckabee thread. More than a dozen times, at least. It looks like people around here are figuring out that the quote was said as a joke. Which time was is that you said that heckling and insulting political figures was more important than speaking the truth? I don’t remember. I remember it was you, though, because it had a dated reference to Nixon or Agnew or, for some reason, possibly Ike.
To Steve and Tom – Trump’s statements (pretty much all of them) were stupid. I’ve criticized him on this site before, and I’ll probably end up having to criticize him again, because he’ll say something else that’s wrong. I can’t really condemn Huckabee for using a Holocaust analogy, because (a) everyone does these days, and (b) this treaty may put the Jewish people at risk of mass death, and if you can’t use the Holocaust as an analogy for that, you don’t understand analogies. As Huckabee said, Iran’s stated goal is another Holocaust.
@Pinky:
lolwut? The polite radicalism of the extreme right strikes again. This is not a reasonable position to take, and it should be considered shameful to support such nonsense. It contributes nothing to the discussion, but does appeal to people who know less than nothing about the issue.
@Pinky:
Just who do you mean by “you guys”? You think that I personally documented the things you said? For someone who spends this much time here, your understanding of how the ‘nets work is….impressive. Ponder that the next time you’re logging into AOL through your rotary telephone.
@Pinky:
I see it the opposite way. I condemn most Holocaust analogies because most of them are idiotic and deserve to be condemned. The fact that they’re so commonplace is a large part of the problem; people resort to them thoughtlessly without any true insight into the reality of what happened in the 1940s. Foreign policy should not be based on simplistic popular conceptions of historical events–and when they are, that usually leads to big problems. We can just see that by looking at the past. When Reagan sat with Gorbachev, he was compared to Chamberlain. Saddam was compared with Hitler who knows how many times, and look where that got us. I don’t dismiss Hitler comparisons as merely overheated rhetoric; I think they reflect fundamentally bad thinking that leads to terrible consequences. As the grandson of Holocaust survivors, and as a Zionist with many Israeli friends, I am the last person who takes threats to Jews and to Israel lightly. If anything, I believe that this way of thinking where it’s always the 1940s and we’re always facing Hitler, has put Israel in greater danger than anything else.
@Pinky:
To be fair though…..the blog hosts are all “from the right.” Our righty commenters tend to be trollish, but most righty commenters tend to be trollish. If you listened to the Politinerds podcast with Matt K Lewis he actually explains why this is. It’s kind of the idea that “liberals will sneer at what I say anyway, so I’m going to give them something to sneer at.” This idea afflicts the pros, and it trickles down, man. It makes the young’uns think that’s the way you gotta be. (Just saying…it’s not.)
Also…
The other day I laid into Jack for mistaking an argument for a fact. The above statement is an argument. After all, the treaty doesn’t threaten Israel, an Iranian nuclear weapon threatens Israel. The argument is how the treaty leads to the nuclear weapon, and (being fair) it’s an argument that can be made.
But rather than make the argument, you just state “this treaty may put the Jewish people at risk of mass death” as if it were a fact, as if you get to skip over explaining the how, as if you don’t have to convince a single person of your premise.
Instead, it’s just analogies masquerading as “facts” in place of actual arguments.
Truth is, a more powerful argument can be made that the treaty doesn’t lead to an Iranian nuclear weapon, at least for the foreseeable future and if all parties abide by its terms.
You can’t really attack that argument with “what ifs?” and analogies. (After all, “what if” the Iranians lose their interest in attacking Israel, and several years down the line, are actually interacting with them peacefully? Can’t just posit the downsides, ya know…)
@Pinky:
This is an utterly nonsensical claim which you cannot back up with a substantive argument.
As I documented above, Netanyahu has been claiming this since 1992…and he has been nothing but wrong. At some point Israel and it’s sycophants, like you and Huckabee, must get on the reality bus.
@de stijl:
Stargate, both the movie and the TV series. Jack O’Neil’s 8-yr old son Charlie dies after finding his loaded service weapon. It’s the reason he was a deathseeker in the movie and the character still dealt with it on occasion in the series (when the writers remembered, anyways >.<). I remember how startling that was as a child how blatantly it was treated when it came up and how devastating the effects were portrayed on a parent almost a decade later.
You're right, it's rare to see this. We should since it can send a powerful message without interfering with the primary storytelling or even enhancing it. It's sad that one of the more realistic portrayals of what could happen to your family in a worst case scenario takes place in a scif-fi show with wormholes, evil alien parasite overlords and people-shaped nanites are matter of course.
Huckster keeps doubling down on this. Persistence is only a virtue when used in pursuit of virtue; otherwise, he’s just beating a dead horse. Whatever sugar daddy he’s hoping to attract with this, it’s not going to work – he’s just not outrageous enough to be considered fashionable this season. They’ll just find another
purse dogpolitician to cart around from the adopt-a-nut bin and show off to their billionaire friends. Must suck to be crazy and then be told you’re not nearly crazy enough to matter……@Pinky:
We don’t document what you say, by posting here (OTB) YOU document what you say.
Kylopod and al-Ameda – Sorry that my word “document” bothered you. Let me put it this way: a lot of the commenters on this site produce comments that are nearly identical. I can’t remember anything that either of you said that stood out in my mind. Apparently I’ve said things that stand out in your mind, or else you would have had no reason to Google “Liberal Fascism Pinky”. It’s not healthy to hang around sites where the sheep all bleat “Two legs bad”, whether they be left-wing sheep, or right-wing sheep, or sheep who say that Black Widow should end up with Iron Man, when she and Captain America would be soooo cute together. Explore a little more of the terrain. It’d be good for you.
@James Pearce: I think in general that Doug is a moderate Republican, Steven is a moderate Democrat, and James rarely does political reporting. Certainly, Doug does write most of the articles, though.
@Pinky: Honestly, man, I think all three would reject your assessment. Doug as a moderate Republican? He sides with the Republicans when they align with his libertarian principles, but I’ve seen him bristle at being labeled a Republican, moderate or not. James is the moderate Republican. That is, he’ll prefer a Republican to a Democrat in nearly every scenario, but he prefers that Republican to be more like John Huntsman than Rick Santorum.
Steven is a bit more difficult to track. He’s written about his leftward tilt but I still don’t think he’d call himself a Democrat. Not yet. Maybe not even ever. I do think that he would be more willing than Doug or James to vote for a Democrat, but it would have to be a certain type of Democrat.
But I don’t want to speak for those guys. Just pointing out that the editorial slant of OTB is towards the right, and most of the liberal commenters –despite being liberal– seem to appreciate that. It’s a good thing, I think.
@James Pearce:
“Doug as a moderate Republican? He sides with the Republicans when they align with his libertarian principles, but I’ve seen him bristle at being labeled a Republican, moderate or not.”
Doug also reaches very far to find things to criticize about Democrats, even in the middle of a post criticizing Republicans. And his Clinton (both Bill and Hillary) hatred knows no bounds.
@Pinky:
You apparently remembered something Ernie said about one of your comments. The difference between you, Kylopod, and Al seems to be that they actually went the extra step to google you and what they thought they remembered you saying to document that you actually said it, whereas you went with your vague recollection and called it fact rather than taking the next step and googling to verify. Somehow you find fault with the former and find some sort of virtue in the latter. Somehow I don’t think most people would agree with your value judgement on that one.
@KM:
He’s not looking for a sugar daddy, or the nomination. He’s just burnishing his radio talker cred. “March Israeli’s to the oven door” works pretty well for that.
@Pinky: FYI, a number of commenters here have said one time or another that they were Republicans, but their party left them. Others, me included, have said we found OTB while actively looking for reasonable, informed, intellectually honest, conservative voices. They’re hard to find. Even on the OTB comment threads.
@Grewgills: I remembered the conversation with Ernie, because we’ve had the same conversation multiple times. (It also means that it’d be a pain to track down via Google exactly which one of those conversations he said that he’s primarily interested in insults rather than facts.) But definitely, some people just aren’t interesting. I get bored an a message board where everyone agrees with me, and I don’t understand the kind of person who’d participate on such a site without bringing some pizazz of his own. I suppose this site’s a little better than that – as James points out, the OA’s often have a different point of view than the threads.
@Pinky:
We disagree quite a bit over here, man. Grewgills will tell you about our social justice debates. I’m sure Rafer Janders and KM will tell you about the Sandra Bland back and forth we had.
It’s not crossfire, with the “Liberal” take and the “Conservative” take. This is also a good thing.
Here Pink.
This is a page with all the OTB posts that mention your man Mike.
I just went through all of them back to early 2011 when the Huckster threatened to shoot those of us who don’t kow tow to his edict.
Still don’t know what U R talking about when you accuse me of being “primarily interested in insults rather than facts.”
https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/?s=mike+huckabee
It was a hellava trip down memory lane.
Who can forget Huckleberry’s claim that there is more freedom in North Korea than the USA.
https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/mike-huckabee-there-might-be-more-freedom-in-north-korea-than-the-united-states/
The man is a chump.
@James Pearce:
Don’t forget Greece. There was some significant disagreement there, too.
Certainly there’s a leftward tilt to the commentariat here, but it’s far from an echo chamber.
@Mikey:
The only part that is echo-chambery (?) is the lack of tolerance for Republican nonsense. Unfortunately, that’s often seen as a dislike of all conservative contributions, as they very rarely aren’t nonsense. I’ll use the Iran deal as an example.
Troll: it’s the holocaust all over again, and Obama is helping Iranian Hitler
OTB: you don’t know WTF you’re talking about (repeated 12 times)
Troll: we’re giving Iran nukes, so Huckabee has a point about the ovens
OTB: you don’t know WTF you’re talking about (repeated 12 times)
Troll: we’re going to have to defend Iran against a military attack
OTB: you don’t know WTF you’re talking about (repeated 12 times)
…and we’re up to 40 comments, most of them quite similar.
So sure, there were lots of people agreeing with each other, but I’m not sure there’s a solution other than better conservative arguments. I think it would be a positive development if the Democrats weren’t the only ones capable of offering actual policies to address the issues.
@Mikey:
The leftward tilt, I think, has to do with the right’s tendency to seek out comfort rather than challenge.
We’d probably have more right wing commenters if they were challenged less. I don’t think that would be a good thing.
Here Pinky, maybe you are thinking of this post.
https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/obama-i-wish-washington-was-like-house-of-cards/
ernieyeball says:
Thursday, December 19, 2013 at 01:18
@Pinky: I’ve been taking pot shots at politicians since before Lyndon Johnson. He was the President I could not vote out of office because I was not yet 21 even though if he would have had his way, my sorry 18 year old ass would have been shanghaied off to the jungle to suffer who knows what fate.
The pot shots went like this:
or
Then there was Tricky Dick. When he ran in 1968 I was still too young to vote.
By the time I did get to freely cast a ballot without coercion, 1972 for McGovern, I had already had my pot shot bumpersticker
ripped off the tailgate of my truck more than once.
When I was in grade school and my dad supported Dwight Eisenhower, we sang a campaign song that went like this:
So to answer your query taking pot shots at politicians is a family tradition that I am compelled to preserve. I hope it annoys the shit out of you.
(don’t know where the bold script is coming from in the block quotes as I am not using that function.)
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@Mikey: Reynolds has always been way too comfortable with NSA spying for my tastes.
@ernieyeball:
seems to get rid of the automatic bold. At least in my Firefox.
@Pinky: ” Our country needs us to stop making awful assumptions about each other.”
That warm and inspiring message is doubly moving coming from the man who said that the liberals on this site were cheering for the murder of cops.
@Pinky: ” It’s not healthy to hang around sites where the sheep all bleat “Two legs bad”, ”
Why is it that right-wingers are incapable of making reference to any book other than Animal Farm, 1984, and Atlas Shrugged — books everyone reads in high school? Is it possible that one reason they are right-wingers is that they haven’t actually read a book since Mrs. Schlumley stopped assigning them? (And no, buying Liberal Fascism and meaning to get around to it isn’t the same as reading.)
@Mikey:
By 2015 standards, yes there is. But we’ve reached a point that anyone who believes AGW or evolution is a screaming left wing radical. I think some of the “leftie” commenters here (not me) would have been comfortable as Eisenhower, Nixon, H. W. Bush Republicans. IIRC a few have said they were. It’s not our fault the right has gone barking mad. And that should not change the historical center.
@ernieyeball: I believe you did say that you don’t care about facts. If I’m wrong on that, I’m sorry. Either way, I won’t repeat it, unless someone finds the quote in the archives.
@wr: Common cultural heritage? I don’t think I’ve ever referred to an Ayn Rand book, but you know, when someone threatens to annihilate the Jews, I think that the Holocaust is a fair reference, and when a crowd of people shout down their political opponents, the sheep in Animal Farm seem like an apt comparison.
@wr:
I remember that discussion.
But why must this be slung around Pinky’s neck like an albatross? What could he do to get back in our good graces? Apologize? Acknowledge the error? Maybe he should walk naked through King’s Landing while we’re pelting him with vegetables and yelling “Shame?”
@James Pearce: If you remember the conversation, you’ll recall that I didn’t say that the liberals on this site were cheering for the murder of cops. I said that, if some of the liberals on this site believed what they had said over the past few months, and were consistent in those beliefs, then they should be cheering for dead cops. I said it because, if some of the liberals on this site believed what they had been saying, and were consistent in those beliefs, then they should have been cheering for dead cops.
@Pinky: has it occurred to you that in analyzing what you believe the liberals on this site to have been saying, and what you take their beliefs to be, you were being uncharitable? God knows I don’t want to revisit that argument specifically, but it would seem to present a good opportunity for one to practice “not demonizing one’s political opponents.”
Btw, I’d like to know your thoughts on Barack Obama’s 2004 DNC speech too.
@James Pearce: “What could he do to get back in our good graces? Apologize? Acknowledge the error? Maybe he should walk naked through King’s Landing while we’re pelting him with vegetables and yelling “Shame?””
Well, he certainly could apologize, something he has resolutely refused to do. Or he could admit it was an ugly slander.
But I’m fine if he chooses not to. In which case, the very least he can do is not lecture us on how the trouble with the country is that we make awful assumptions about each other.
I bring it up because he’s playing the Jenos-like sanctimony card, about how terrible it is that we can’t see eye to eye because all those icky partisans assume their opponents are simply awful — while running around accusing anyone he doesn’t agree with politically of endorsing the murder of law enforcement officers.
@wr: Oh, and while I’ve never actually met Pinky or seen a picture, I think it’s a pretty safe bet that the last thing I want is to see him parading naked through King’s Landing… or anywhere.
@Pinky: ” I think that the Holocaust is a fair reference, and when a crowd of people shout down their political opponents, the sheep in Animal Farm seem like an apt comparison.”
I guess if you’ve never read another book in your life, you go to the one you know.
@Pinky:
I know, man. I know.
And i challenged you on that idea. You don’t have to back down from it, but you probably should. (It’s still wrong and, I hate to be the bearer of bad news here, but it’s affecting your reputation.)
@James Pearce:
I think one reason it’s not being dropped is Pinky both refused to reconsider the statement or provide evidence to back it up.
That, along with agreeing with the ridiculous holocaust statements from Huckabee, seem to be relevant to the current thread when considering the [disingenuous] requests for civility.
Well, there is the option of doing a thorough exegesis of our pink friend’s posts and extrapolating what his opinions are and what impact they might have…..
Or we could just stop feeding the f–king troll.
@David M:
You’re probably right. But I think it’s gotten into test of wills territory. One of the reasons why Pinky hasn’t reconsidered the statement is that he doesn’t want to give us the pleasure of his mea culpa.
And we won’t let him forget because we don’t want to give him the pleasure of avoiding it.
So with hardened hearts, we stare at each other over our steel….
And I guess the way I look at is this: Do we really need the mea culpa? Pinky seems content to have an incorrect view of liberal beliefs, and insofar as that’s a problem, it’s not my problem, and more than that, it’s not a problem I can fix.
What I can do, though, is be polite, try to patiently reason with the dude, and hopefully maybe, I don’t know, make him consider a different perspective.
(I kind of get his “[disingenuous] requests for civility” though. He’s a vet of the Ordinary Times blog. That’s kind of their thing. Except when it’s not.)
@Pinky:
By the way I just Googled “Pinky another conservative victim” and I got 21,200,000 results.
@James Pearce: I just said to Ernie that I’d back down on my comment about him. I’m not sure I was wrong, but I’ll do it. And if I’m wrong, mea culpa. I really think I was right about the hatred toward police, particularly white police, displayed on this site. Charity demands that I look at what people actually say and mean before jumping to conclusions. I have looked at OTB threads for years. Charity does not require me to lie about what I’ve seen. There’s a lot of hate here.
JKB says:
Monday, July 13, 2015 at 12:27
@humanoid.panda:
@Scott:
Do you think any of that changes my assertion that many will be motivated to vote in 2016?
I live in a conservative, religious-dominated area, many people have said that they believe if Hillary wins, the country is lost. Regardless of your thoughts on the validity of that opinion, it is and will be a motivating factor in the election.
Now, my question is, what are the motivating factors on the Left? What will bring them out to the polls? Four more years of the country in the same direction? Digging up the graves of Confederate generals? Ensuring multi-felon illegal immigrants have sanctuary? Giving urban poor “space to destroy”? The right to urinate in the middle of NYC’s Upper West Side?
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@Pinky:
Nah…..it’s just the normal amount.
Yeah. I hate it when people attribute statements to me that I have not made…
@ernieyeball: As I said, if I’m wrong, I’m sorry, and I’ll never attribute that statement to you again.
I assume that wr, who on this thread has implied that I’m ugly and I don’t read, will stop misquoting me as well. Fortunately, I don’t read, so I won’t know if he does keep misquoting me. Unfortunately, I’m ugly (and I know that’s not relevant here, but it is unfortunate).