And the winner is…

Competition was fierce this week for the coveted Order of the Whinging Wingnut. Powertool John “Assrocket” Hinderaker made a bold play for the honor, opining thusly on the recently released CIA report on “controversial” interrogation techniques:

Having read the CIA report in its entirety, I am struck once again by how humane our treatment of captured terrorists was intended to be, and generally was. The handful of incidents highlighted by press accounts of the report came to light precisely because they were reported as deviations from the treatment of detainees that had been authorized by DOJ lawyers.

[snip]

The two incidents deemed most serious were the threatening of Abd Al-Nashiri with a loaded handgun and with a power drill…This same debriefer also threatened Al-Nashiri by saying that “We could get your mother in here.” It is worth noting that he said he wanted Al-Nashiri to infer, based on the debriefer’s accent and the threat that he made, that he (the debriefer) was from a Middle Eastern security service that has the reputation of using such tactics. The implication was that Al-Nashiri was well aware that the Americans would do no such thing.

Yep, nothing says “humane” like implying that your government will outsource mother-torture to third-party goons to avoid prosecution. If that doesn’t inspire a Precious Moments figurine, I don’t know what will. But in the final analysis, Assrocket’s post just wasn’t weepy enough.

Once again, Andrew not-so-Breitbart leapt into the breach with this tear-jerker about how dreadfully intolerant liberals are for organizing a boycott of Whole Foods:

John Mackey - the founder, CEO and marketing genius behind Whole Foods - finds himself in an organic, unsustainable mess with his carefully cultivated affluent, liberal customer base after penning an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal titled, “The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare.”

For starters, Mr. Mackey opens with a line from known-liberal-allergen Margaret Thatcher that features the dreaded “S” word: “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” Then he goes on to provide eight sensible free-market solutions gleaned from his company’s well-regarded employee health care program.

Mr. Mackey, a free-market libertarian, is now at the mercy of an unforgiving grass-roots mob intent on destroying his company. More than 25,000 people have signed on to a Whole Foods boycott on Facebook.

Help, help! I’m being repressed!

People signing things on Facebook! As if that weren’t weepy enough, Breitbart also decries the liberal fascists’ efforts to force teabaggers to steep in their tempesty teapots:

Everywhere one looks these days, the intolerance of self-avowed liberals is on display. Especially since Mr. Obama came to power…

Witness Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi’s joint-penned editorial in USA Today in which the House’s two top Democrats describe those publicly questioning Mr. Obama’s proposed health care system overhaul as “un-American.”

One need not go back too far in the political time machine to recall a time when the same people were claiming that the term “un-American” was being tossed at liberals for opposing the Iraq war, and that Republicans were stifling free speech.

Examples were rarely, if ever, given. It just was. And we were told this was a very, very bad thing.

Oh, I think examples were freely given—like George W. Bush’s Orwellian “free speech zones,” the arrest of people at public events for wearing anti-Bush t-shirts and Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleischer telling American citizens to “watch what they say, what they do.” Contrast that with the non-arrest of anti-Obama protesters with hand cannons strapped to their legs or assault rifles slung across their backs, and you’ll get an idea of just how whiny and self-serving Breitbart’s screed is. But it gets worse:

The Democratic leadership - and its friends in the mainstream media - seem determined to brand opposition to the president’s legislative agenda as illegitimate, even racist in origin. Individuals and grass-roots organizations are helping the statists’ cause by advocating boycotts and other means of stifling dissent.

The strategy is clear: Intimidate people from speaking up or from attending public protests by telegraphing that anyone can be made a demon for standing up and exercising basic, constitutional rights.

Bullshit. I haven’t heard anyone seriously complain about wingnuts “speaking up”—I for one welcome their long-winded soliloquies about unplugged grannies, socialist cranial implants and other lunatic nonsense since it makes our side look comparatively sane. The objection is to the concerted effort to shut down debate on health care altogether via death threats, shouting and physical intimidation.

As for boycotts, I suspect Breitbart had no problem with calls to boycott France for not sucking up to Bush sufficiently or to eschew quality Scotch and UK tourism now over the Lockerbie bomber’s release. His fellow travelers certainly don’t.

Breitbart ends the piece with a rousing call to redouble the teabagging, perhaps even with organic leaves purchased at Whole Foods:

For free-speech principles to be reinforced and free-market ideas to win the day, more people are going to have to stand up and be heard.

Mrs. Pelosi and the Whole Foods boycotters are on the wrong side of history.

The way to stand up to them is to go to “tea parties,” raise a ruckus at health care debates and - buy organic garlic, herb fresh goat cheese and three-bean salad with quinoa at your local Whole Foods store.

This time, you really could be saving the planet.

Not being a Hollywood elitist like Breitbart, I‘m not familiar with Whole Foods’ three-bean salad with quinoa; I don’t even know what the hell “quinoa” is. I’m so far out in Real Merka that I can buy produce directly from the growers—dirt cheap, as it were.

But it strikes me as somewhat foolish for an avid fan of Ayn Rand’s master race bodice-rippers such as Whole Foods CEO Mackey to carefully cultivate a liberal clientele and then shit all over them in the WSJ and expect no blowback whatsoever. So if the Invisible Hand lays its icy fingers on Mackey’s scrotum, I’m not going to cry about it.

And neither should Breitbart. I’m sure the mouth-breathing base of the GOP will more than make up for the cash the latte-sipping Volvo drivers are snatching from Mackey’s coffers. Failing that, Whole Foods could always get the vittles concession in Galt’s Gulch.

So for doubting the ultimate triumph of free-market ideas and whining about non-existent repression, Breitbart nabs his second Order of the Whinging Wingnut. Huzzah!

Posted by Betty Cracker on 08/25/09 at 11:35 AM • Permalink

Categories: News • Politics • Barack Obama • BushCo • Bedwetters • Health Care • Nutters • Our Stupid Media •

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A Facebook friend of mine who tends toward the libertarian side (he did vote for Obama over McCain but has done nothing but bitch since) mused that the left had become “creepy” this past month, with the Whole Foods boycott call his prime example. I had to tell him that when those advocating the boycott show up outside Whole Foods stores and offices packing heat and with signs advocating bloodshed, I’ll concede his point.

He’s an interesting case, this dude, and it makes me wonder about where libertarians are in all of this mess. He’s Jewish intellectual, University of Chicago grad, so obviously the Jeebus-sucking Know-Nothing Christianist base of the GOP lost him long ago. But he seems stubbornly resistant to acknowledging that the GOP hasn’t been a “small government” party for years, if they ever truly were (certainly not under Reagan). Honestly, I think some of his distaste for the Dems is social-cultural, in that “the dirty fucking hippies on my campus were so obnoxious I could never bring myself to admit they were right.” I suspect there are more like this guy out there, and I suspect the Whole Foods boycott calls didn’t really bother him on free-speech grounds (as you say, “invisible hand” and all that), but that he just found it—tacky.

Breitbart, on the other hand, is just a gigantic oozing Tool o’ Fail.

Comment by Oblomova on 08/25/09 at 12:09 PM

Perfect, just perfect!

Comment by gimmeabreak on 08/25/09 at 12:09 PM

I’m always amused how wingnuts invariably define the “free market” as one where the sellers of goods are somehow protected from any consequence of their actions, and that dirty fucking hippies who vote with their pocketbooks are somehow “commies” when they do so.

Comment by Tom65 on 08/25/09 at 12:16 PM

Thing is, Tom, I know this guy a little bit in real life, and I know he’s a very bright cookie. He’s not somebody who screams “censorship!” at the drop of a hat like so many on the right who don’t get that censorship is what government entities do, and that just because speech is free doesn’t mean you’re entitled to be paid for it. I honestly think he voted for Obama under duress and is now “OMG, what have I done?” Which worries me—because if the moderate/independent/can’t stand the Christian loonies part of the electorate AND the lefties all flee because he’s not sufficiently whatever for them, then it could be a long four years.

But then again, I’m not sure that IS what’s happening. I think the voracity of the 24-hour news cycle means that every piddling development gets plucked and pulled apart for what it means in the “Big Picture.” God help me for saying this, but I’m almost glad that Michael Jackson’s death is back in the news. Except I’m sure that Sarah Palin will find a way to blame that on Obama and his “death panels” too.

Comment by Oblomova on 08/25/09 at 12:24 PM

And Betty, “master race bodice-rippers” is the funniest fucking description of Rand I have ever encountered, and I WILL be stealing that.

Comment by Oblomova on 08/25/09 at 12:26 PM

I think the voracity of the 24-hour news cycle means that every piddling development gets plucked and pulled apart for what it means in the “Big Picture.”

What it felt like as a lefty over the past 20 or so years was that the style of government that held most sway on both sides of the Atlantic (from either side of the political divide in the case of the Blair government) permanently kept people - and the media, to a certain extent - on the back foot with yet another “onslaught” that demanded pushback (or cheerleading, for some), after the “WTF?!” moments had worn off. This August hiatus was certainly something Obama seemed keen to avoid.

I guess that’s how some of the US right feel at the moment. As for the “left of the left,” maybe the same applies?

For most of the people I know, that particular cycle eventually became exhausting and demoralizing. And then it ended up with a political backlash of sorts in the US. The jury’s still out in the UK (where the pace of legislation’s slowed down considerably under Brown).