Serious Question

19 Comments

1. 

   seabe on January 29, 2013 at 8:49 pm

   I didn’t have much of anything, but that’s definitely hard to top.

2. 

   boran2 on January 29, 2013 at 9:02 pm

   Who will pay them to fake fight each other now?  

3. 

   MikeInOhio on January 29, 2013 at 9:03 pm

   Maybe they can head over to Fox News with Erick Erickson.  

   When will they finally show Wolf the door?

4. 

   on January 29, 2013 at 9:06 pm

   is left at CNN? They appear to have dumped a boatload of commentators.

5. 

   Teacher Toni on January 29, 2013 at 9:19 pm

   A student told me that I am the reason that he likes to read now.

   • 

     WaterGirl on January 29, 2013 at 9:31 pm

     I teared up when I read that.  That’s a big fucking deal!

     (Booman, I hope I am allowed to swear when I am channeling Joe Biden.)

     • 

       Parallax on January 29, 2013 at 9:36 pm

       When you teared up, I thought you were channeling John Boehner.

       • 

         WaterGirl on January 29, 2013 at 9:45 pm

         That’s quite funny!

         • 

           centerfielddj on January 29, 2013 at 11:16 pm

           That sounds like a great experience, Teacher Toni!

6. 

   Errol on January 29, 2013 at 9:41 pm

   Does the Carville and Matalin fail have anything to do with the David Hasselhoff video from yesterday? i.e. was the video seen in the vicinity?

   • 

     BooMan on January 29, 2013 at 9:55 pm

     My posting it may have inadvertently destroyed their television careers.  

7. 

   WaterGirl on January 29, 2013 at 9:48 pm

   It’s very unkind of me to say this, but I kind of think of Mary Matalin as the Michael Jackson of political commentators.  Every time I saw her she looked stranger and stranger. It was like she was becoming a caricature of herself.  Maybe she just imploded.

8. 

   on January 29, 2013 at 10:13 pm

   Well, Sunday night I got a gall bladder attack and was exhausted from hanging over the porcelain god all night. Yesterday I was wiped out and sick. So the best thing to happen (to me anyway) was to wake up feeling good. My girlfriend and I took her dogs for a walk and then I worked on music in the afternoon. Pretty darned good day for me.

   • 

     BooMan on January 29, 2013 at 10:39 pm

     I’m glad to hear you are feeling better.  Tell your gall bladder that you will fix him for good if he tries that again.  

   • 

     Geov Parrish on January 29, 2013 at 11:16 pm

     I had my gall bladder removed in the ’90s. Can’t say I’ve missed it a bit.

     Best thing to happen to me today: cooking gumbo and having a lovely dinner and conversation with my wife. The simple pleasures.

9. 

   centerfielddj on January 29, 2013 at 11:42 pm

   Well, I got to have a relatively low-meeting work day, which was good because I’ve got a pretty nasty head cold.

   But, I’d have to say hearing Fred Kaplan in a long-form interview on NPR’s “Fresh Air” program today was the most informative and entertaining thing that happened today. Among the revelations for me:

   • Vietnam-era U.S. military leaders hated the experience of that War so intensely, they literally threw away all the studies they compiled of how to fight insurgencies. Apparently, the leaders just unilaterally decided the U.S. wouldn’t be fighting one of those wars again.
   • I’d forgotten about our Iraq strategy of paying insurgents money to switch sides. It is simply unbelievable to think back on some of the shit we did in the middle of that horrible war. How are you sure the paid-off insurgents will keep their side of the deal in the nighttime? It’s not like they’re sleeping in your barracks or anything. Petraeus apparently just started executing that and other strategies without signoff from his commanding generals. Well, it’s not quite Stanley Kurtz, but still…
   • Here’s my favorite anecdote: Petraeus is sent back stateside to Leavenworth in 2006. He starts getting near-daily calls from Megan O’Sullivan, the senior civilian W. Bush staff adviser for the Iraq war. Megan tells Petraeus what General Casey is reporting daily to the POTUS and gets Petraeus to give her strategical suggestions to undermine President Bush’s confidence in Casey’s strategy. Life is high school, right? Even if Petraeus’ strategy worked better than Casey’s in Iraq, it didn’t in Afghanistan, and this still reflects a bad civilian-led military. Oh well, long history of that in the U.S., I suppose.

   There’s plenty more- the interview is online:

   http://www.npr.org/2013/01/29/170459969/the-insurgents-petraeus-and-a-new-kind-of-war  

   • 

     centerfielddj on January 29, 2013 at 11:49 pm

     Oh Christ, did I write Stanley Kurtz? Mortified; meant Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now. There- work better now?

10. 

    clearskies on January 29, 2013 at 11:59 pm

    Went to the dealer to pick up a part for my car. They actually had the part. In and out in less than 10 minutes. That’s some kind of record.

11. 

    DerFarm on January 30, 2013 at 11:16 am

    Jim Nabors (Gomer Pyle) got married today … to Stan Cadwallader.

    My facebook buddies from the Marines are absolutely in a state of shock.  Gomer Pyle was the ONLY show on tv that everyone in the barracks would stop to watch.  even the Colonel watched it.