Daniel Pipes Weeps: Obama Doesn't Hate Muslims
One of the rare joys of this winter has been contemplating how miserably unhappy rightwingers are.
We loved the inauguration, the non-stop adulation of of our new President, the effusive gush from the media. God, I could watch the coverage forever.
But imagine if the recipient of all this love was Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney. Or even John McCain? Ok, it couldn't have happened. But imagine if it had.
We'd be screaming into the wind, tearing our hair, and overdosing on xanax.
That is how it is far the right but with a twist that, for some, makes it even worse than anything we could imagine. Obama is a liberal Dem. He won a landslide victory. And, no small thing, he's black and his paternal forbears were Muslims.
Oh the humanity.
Read Daniel Pipes with this in mind. It will make your day.
MJ, I love it! On Jan. 20 I had a post here, explaining to Daniel Pipes and others why it was good that our new president was sworn in as "Barack Hussein Obama," and, sure 'nuf, he reacted on his blog:
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2009/01/barack-obama-and-islam-an-ongoing-saga.html
He's hurting in more ways than one!
February 4, 2009 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder if Pipes believes any of this. I think that certain rightwingers (like Pipes and ex-Stalinists like Horowitz and that other former Stalin lover whose name I always forget) are just in it for the money.
February 4, 2009 12:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
"for profit?" - as opposed to the sanctimonious MJ who pulls down six figures a year as a director of the "non-profit" Israel Policy Forum (at least according to Guidestar) and is involved only out of the goodness of his heart.
February 4, 2009 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Liar! I make a lot more than that. You know us former government types, the sky is the limit, baby. And lobbying for a Palestinian state is where the big money is.
February 4, 2009 7:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps you learned to be disingenuous and evasive during days writing propaganda for AIPAC (ie., the "Near East Report"), but I don't lie: your IPF salary information through 2006 is publicly accessible by anyone at guidestar.com
February 4, 2009 8:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
That was two years ago. It's gone up,
February 5, 2009 8:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
You have a job? And a salary? I don't know if I approve....
February 5, 2009 11:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
MJ,
We throw scraps of bread off the back porch and within minutes there are a number of birds out there feeding.
You're a magnet, attracting the right wingnuts the way the bread attracts the birds.
February 5, 2009 10:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Favorite Quote: "It's bad enough that family connections to Islam perceived as a liability when campaigning are suddenly exploited once in office to win Muslim goodwill. Worse, as Diana West observes, "not since Napoleon has a leader of a Western superpower made so unabashed a political pitch to the people of the Muslim world."
My, God, does Obama think the Muslims are human beings? The horror. The horror.
February 4, 2009 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
If they're unhappy, I'm happy.
February 4, 2009 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
No one cares if you're happy or not.
February 5, 2009 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
I do.
February 5, 2009 10:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Some White House type, can't remember his name, who had to work with - more like try to avoid - Pipes said that he was the "stupidist" man he'd ever known. (Pipes would be wise not to write articles advertising it.)
February 4, 2009 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought Tommy Franks said that about Douglas Feith.
February 4, 2009 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seems equally true for either asshat.
February 4, 2009 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Didn't everyone say that about Alberto Gonzales?
February 4, 2009 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
It was Franks, regarding Feith.
But really, the full quote deserves to be aired early and often.
"the stupidest fucking guy on the planet."
February 4, 2009 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just a quibble - that should be 'rending our clothes' - unless you were going for a laugh there...
February 4, 2009 1:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
We're renting our clothes because the ownership society is done for!
February 4, 2009 4:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Shouldn't that be "rendering our clothes"? That's the way I always hear it.
February 4, 2009 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Joke, right? Ha.
February 5, 2009 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
i'll get rid of the clothes reference
February 4, 2009 3:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
One of the reasons why I find many conservative media figures repellent is they often seem to be motivated out of pure spite and bile. The operating principle is: such-and-such is desirable because it pisses off the liberals. I'm convinced that conservatives often take the positions they do not because they necessarily believe what they're saying, but because they can't resist pissing off liberals. It always struck me a low-class way of operating.
With this post, we are now seeing liberals fall into the same trap.
February 4, 2009 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, it isn't. Calling out a Islamophobe for being an Islamophobe is not "spite and bile."
February 4, 2009 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Brad the Dad is a neocon. I don't engage him but ask the proud dad how he felt about the dead kids in Gaza? He'll give a longwinded response which indicates that he thought it was not necessarily ideal, but necessary.
February 4, 2009 5:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I prefer to call them proto-Hamasites. Apparently, if you vote for a political party in Palestine, then you (and your children) are personally responsible for the actions of your government/neigbhors.
Unless you live in Israel or America. Then you are called a "civilian" and bear no personal responsibility for the actions of your government.
February 4, 2009 5:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please surprise me, for a change. See my comment to BTD below - got there first.
February 4, 2009 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
According to this logic, no military action anywhere would be acceptable if it resulted in the deaths of children. This gives Hamas the perfect tactic with which to fight Israel - simply fire off rockets or hide command centers in schools or hospitals or other places where there are likely to be lots of kids. By definition any Israeli response will be illegitimate because it might result in the deaths of children.
Well that is of course exactly what has happened. The deaths of those children are a direct consequence of the cynical tactics of Hamas who deliberately provoke Israel and then milk the resulting civilian death and destruction for its full propaganda value. It is Hamas, not Israel, who are utterly indifferent to the value of the lives of Palestinian children. They are the ones who want civilian deaths, because without them, people will pay attention to what nasty thugs they are. But then we should expect nothing less from these moral cowards who offer up their own children as suicide bombers and proudly proclaim their death cult.
To me the issue isn't whether to feel sorry for innocent children caught in the middle of a nasty war. Anyone who doesn't have a heart of stone should feel terrible about it. But to blame those deaths on Israel is the same as saying that Israel has no right to defend itself and that Hamas has the right to attack Israel with impunity. But of course that is all in a day's work for the knee-jerk Israel-haters who hang out in places like this.
Sorry if that was "longwinded".
February 4, 2009 9:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Love that Kool Aid. As predicted, BTD says innocent kids were killed but it was their own fault.
Sickening. The idea that 400 kids had to die in response to rocket attacks that killed nobody is perverse beyond belief. And, Brad, what if it were your kids. What if they were held hostage by thugs, home invaders. And the local police burst in to kill the thugs, knowing your kids were there, and killed them.
Would that be okay?
Of course not. But these were Muslims and the "cops" were Jews and it's just fine.
As the joke goes, I'd enjoy your post more in the original German.
But I do admire the hasbara machine. How can anyone believe such nonsense?
February 5, 2009 6:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
What of those persistent reports the rockets fired from Gaza into Israel were actually smuggled into Gaza and fired by Israeli operatives as pretext for the murderous invasion??
February 5, 2009 9:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
At least the terrorists don't load their half-assed missiles with white phosphorus exlosives. Was it "necessary" for Israel to defend itself by shelling a UN school with white phosphorus explosive shells, killing two sleeping five year olds? Why white phosphorus on a school?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2009/jan/21/gaza-israelandthepalestinians
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/21/gaza-phosphorus-shells
February 7, 2009 8:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Enough of the ethnic chauvinism, ok? Who invited you, zionist/neocon shill?
February 4, 2009 4:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Armchair: I derive a substantial portion of my self-esteem from BradtheDad putting me in my place.
February 4, 2009 5:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whatever gets you through the night.
February 4, 2009 8:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pipes can't make much of a living off fear of Russia these days, but Putin has tried to help
February 4, 2009 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good of you to write of Pipes. But he's way too easy a target for a man of your extreme talent. One of the few people I can think of more self-righteous and sanctimonious than you. Helps your cred for sure. Pipes is the model of a modern major schmuck.
February 4, 2009 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am not self-righteous. Just right.
February 4, 2009 7:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
O give it up, g-d of all pundits. In this case you're both. Sometimes that happens, sometimes not.
February 5, 2009 9:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why is there a dash in the way you spell God. Is that a typo? Do you spell d-g. Both booth G-d and my D-g are cool with the letter o.
February 5, 2009 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Daniel Pipes (distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution) can always commiserate with The Reverend John Hagee (Cornerstone Church, "Discover the Difference™") on the sad state of current affairs.
February 4, 2009 6:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
The main difference between Pipes and a West Bank Israeli settler-land-thief, is that the settler is at least willing to walk the walk. Enough of Pipe's American cannon fodder woke up last November and decided they did not want Sarah Palin as their commander in chief that now all this "distinguished" demagogue can manage in response is to scrounge for recycled mud to sling and to behave like the crybaby that he is.
February 4, 2009 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Poor Pipes has to also be lamenting the fact that Campus Watch didn't turn up sleeper Muslim terrorist cells on college campuses across the nation, as he predicted...and hoped.
Gosh, where did all those terrorist sleeper cells go?
February 4, 2009 11:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the following applies to several real people, but the one I remember best is a fictional Captain Watkiss, RN who would proclaim when questioned, "If I said it, it's fact."
February 5, 2009 9:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
How do the uncomplimentary comments on Pipes or on those who make uncomplimentary comments on Rosenberg do anything at all to advance any useful purpose? If people have time to spend on such activity I urge that the time be used instead to read carefully on such crucial matters as American policy and actions in the Middle East, from the Med to Iran; calls to investigate the actions of the Bush administration and to follow such investigations with whatever action, if any, the investigations suggest would be proper in the context of a rule governed society; and the federal action most likely to keep the country from even worse economic distress (which would bring with it the possibility of social disruption and the certainty of great pain to many and great loss to the country as a whole -- and then to urge such action as your reading suggests bests serves the common good. My list is very incomplete. Pick your own issues. But don't waste time debating whether it's good or bad that Daniel Pipes is unhappy.
February 6, 2009 9:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
For example, it seems to me that this assessment of the country's economic situation, what needs to be done about the situation, and what might happen unless the correct measures are taken, is enormously more important than Daniel Pipes' emotional state. If one agrees with Krugman, spend time writing to Congress, and Obama, telling them to act as Krugman (as do many, many other economists)urges. If one disagrees, write Congress and tell them not to listen to Krugman, and why.
"So what should Mr. Obama do? Count me among those who think that the president made a big mistake in his initial approach, that his attempts to transcend partisanship ended up empowering politicians who take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh. What matters now, however, is what he does next.
It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge."
February 6, 2009 10:21 AM | Reply | Permalink