Fred’s Freudian Slip
By on Oct 6th, 2005 at 12:59 pm
Fred’s Freudian Slip
Neoconservative Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes doesn’t agree with comparisons between the Vietnam war and Iraq. As recently as 8/31, Barnes told reporters for the Birmingham News, “My own view is the Vietnam analogy…is wrong.”
But today, while weighing in on President Bush’s speech on terrorism, Barnes’ subconscious got the best of him:
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Oh Nico. You so funny.
October 6th, 2005 at 1:10 pmI think our conservative pundit/idiot (meme chose) has given us a new quote to run away with:
Viet Raq.
Mr. Barnes freudian slip needs to slip into the vernacular of the people. And I thank him for it.
I forever shall refer to this “conflict” as Viet Raq. Thank you, Mr. Barnacle.
October 6th, 2005 at 1:16 pmBarnes was a Inam chickenhawk as well.
October 6th, 2005 at 1:24 pmHello,
I consider that Think Progress does an excellent job in monitoring this government, and hold opposition as a very healthy quality of our system (any side to the establishment being managed by another side). But taking the time, and our time to outline things like this tarnishes the Thing Progress seriousness and feels like its throwing an embarrassing fit. Please keep on the good work, but don’t engage in questionable methods that make you look like what you are criticizing, but from the other side.
Respectfully and cordially,
Santiago Calderón
October 6th, 2005 at 1:30 pmSantiago, with all due respect, it was a tongue-in-cheek post. All work and no play makes for a boring blog.
October 6th, 2005 at 1:35 pmHey. Any way TP can get Windows Media streams for video clips? I certainly hope I’m not the first person to ask, and I apologize for not combing the archives to see what the answer might be to that question.
October 6th, 2005 at 1:40 pmBarnes is just another of Murdoch’s media whores. He and his Fox News cohorts are nothing more than two-bit propagandists.
October 6th, 2005 at 1:40 pmBoycott Fox News!
An “embarrassing fit”? Santiago, go crawl back into your hole, because no sane or sound mind could discern any such meaning from this fun-filled snark (and, psychoanalytically, full of impressions).
October 6th, 2005 at 1:43 pmOf course, I realize you may be a parody of Shill O’Reilly.
October 6th, 2005 at 1:44 pmSr. Calderón, here’s the point:
October 6th, 2005 at 1:49 pmWe are, in fact, the same as the other side.
We are not angels while they’re devils, nor are we educated and intelligent while they are not. We are, all of us, political human beings engaged in wrestling with the future for this country.
We believe we are superior because our ideas are better, more human, and ultimately true to the core of the dream that is America–not because of our style.
It’s a false parallel to say that because we will not go into illegal aggressive wars and slaughter thousands, that we should be thus in our argumentation. Nor because we are inclusive socially, that we should be accomodating in our rhetoric when arguing a point. There’s no reason why the two should be linked.
So we reserve the right to be petty, aggressive, tough, abusive, snarky, superior, savage, arch and angry in our style in order that we bring our better ideas forth.
Whatever works.
And so, I hope you understand the distinction I’ve made and hope you understand the spirit in which I suggest that you lighten up and get a clue.
Well said pbg. I like the snarkiness here — even though I am the brunt of it sometimes. Both sides should pursue their agenda aggressively.
October 6th, 2005 at 1:53 pmWell it’s 1, 2, 3, what are we fightin’ for?You ask me, I think Bush does crack,We’re stuck in Viet Raq!Well, it’s 5, 6, 7, watch out for the IEDs,Well, we ain’t got time to wonder why, Whooopee! We’re all gonna die!
October 6th, 2005 at 1:58 pmGeorge Bush doesn’t care about black people.
Or creating a new Vietnam in the Middle East.
–
October 6th, 2005 at 1:58 pmI agree about wanting Windows Media files…I don’t have quicktime at work, and only admins can download software. :(
October 6th, 2005 at 2:03 pmI get only about 10 sec of this stream and the n audio drops out and the video fragments. I have had same problem w/QuickTime at Think Progress. I use a Mac OS 10.3.9 wQuickTime 7.0.2
October 6th, 2005 at 2:04 pmHa, ha! You numbah 10!!
October 6th, 2005 at 2:06 pmWe are not angels while they’re devils, nor are we educated and intelligent while they are not. We are, all of us, political human beings engaged in wrestling with the future for this country.
We believe we are superior because our ideas are better, more human, and ultimately true to the core of the dream that is America–not because of our style.
Well, up to a point, yes. But in some ways, our style is better than theirs. We don’t invent facts to fit our conclusions. We don’t use arguments that we know to be fallacious or misleading, and we don’t keep using ones that have already been debunked.
October 6th, 2005 at 2:13 pmThat picture is small enough that I read the Fox News bulletin at the bottom to say “Bush: We Must Deny Mutants New Recruits”. Damn Senator Kelly anyway!
October 6th, 2005 at 2:14 pmCan we now call it ‘raq?
October 6th, 2005 at 2:17 pmI was perusing Free republic in search of an intelligent defense for recently exposed right wing corruption. I found none.
However i did find this great speech by Gore on the state of journalism and democracy in America. It is a really poignant lecture that some here will no doubt enjoy.
Its also funny to read the comments left about this particular speech by those idiots. None can dispute Gore beyond “look he’s fat!”
Please read it
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1497813/posts
October 6th, 2005 at 2:25 pmThis is the same Fred Barnes, Dubya calls affectionately, “Barney.”
Well, here are some other quotes of Barney’s:
On 29 Mar 2005, he noted that Terry Schiavo “could handle food.” When called on it, he backpeddled, saying that her nurses “thought they could give her therapy.”
Complained about the schools not teaching the Greek classics, stated loudly that “the kids don’t know what THE ILIAD or THE ODYSSEY are!” When later asked what HE himself knew about them by Michael Moore, Barney admitted, “Okay, you got me. I don’t know what they are about. Happy now?”
More recently, “The American people are not as casualty-sensative as the weenies the American press are.”
No wonder this dipsh*t has found a home on Fox News.
October 6th, 2005 at 2:45 pmActually, “Vietraq” is a pretty popular formula in the dark, liberal corners of the Web. But perhaps Barnes reads Whitehouse.org:
http://www.whitehouse.org/news/2005/062805.asp
It’s the kind of word that, once heard, just seems so right you can’t stop saying it.
October 6th, 2005 at 2:46 pmSantiago is trying the latest troll-ware: pretend to be a concerned lib who just doesn’t think it’s seemly for us to point out how idiotic the idiots on the right are. BTW, Fred Barnes is idiot #1.
And thank you for sparing us Margaret Carlson. I haven’t had to listen to her since they cancelled Capital Dung.
October 6th, 2005 at 2:49 pmThis article from the Cato Institute, written in 1993, concerning the National Endowment for Democracy, the place were Bush gave his speech is incredibly entertaining. Reminds me that the only pre-war speech that discussed the neo-con fantasy was given at AEI.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb-027.html
October 6th, 2005 at 2:49 pmI’m also unable to open this. Would a transcript be too much to ask? What did he say?
October 6th, 2005 at 2:58 pmpbg,
There was something profound about your statement, #9. At our core you’re right, we are all simply humans, Americans, fathers and mothers, we laugh and bleed and feel the same emotions. However, I’m with Gary Kleppe, you can only take the comparisons so far. There is something inherently evil about a group of people that, in the pursuit of their political and ideological goals have made the conscious decision to suppress their collective morality. A group of people willing to kill, steal, lie, and promote hate and divisiveness to further their agenda, that has in fact decalred war on large swaths of their fellow Americans (that would be the left/progressives/liberals/Democrats). They are beyond reason, beyond forgiveness. They have thrown the rules out the window and have set out to implement an extreme ideology that favors the few and subjugates the many. They are not the same as us. I don’t speak of the followers here, they have been duped and spun, they have not yet realized their plight. I speak of the men behind the curtain that have planned and executed this “conservate” disaster that has slowly infected so much of the American consciousness.
They must be exposed and stopped. Too many have already died.
October 6th, 2005 at 3:04 pmLOL!
October 6th, 2005 at 3:11 pmI went to school with his daughter in Arlington all throughout the 80 and 90’s. Nice guy but really, really out of touch…which is sad. Arlington used to be a bastion of liberal thinking.
One thing to note, this was a public school…yes, public school in Green Valley—not a great section of town during the 80’s in arlington.
It just proves that in order to keep your job at Fox, you just have to spew crap to stay on as a pundit. So sad it had to happen to a nice guy like Mr. Barnes.
October 6th, 2005 at 3:14 pm[...] No, it doesn’t “prove” anything, but when even Fred Barnes is using the V word… [...]
October 6th, 2005 at 3:47 pmVietraq. I love it.
October 6th, 2005 at 4:14 pmAnyone having problems with QuickTime playback in a browser window (Mac people), save it as a file and reopen it with QuickTime Player. I think there are some bugs in the browser plugin that cause this. Good luck.
October 6th, 2005 at 4:42 pmAnyone else think Fred’s glasses are 3 sizes too small for his face? I’m concerned that they may be constricting the flow of blood to his brain.
October 6th, 2005 at 5:43 pmIt doesn’t even need to be a full transcript, perhaps just the gist of what he said? Anyone?
October 6th, 2005 at 6:22 pmFunny, dat.
October 6th, 2005 at 6:52 pm#25, When I read pbg’s earlier comment, I thought it was very well said – and I still do. Then I read yours and I think it is an equally well said and probably reflects my own views and the views of many who post here. The two views are not mutually exclusive, but I agree that the party in pwer has waged war against those who dare to disagree with them, not to mention half of the rest of the world.
October 6th, 2005 at 7:53 pmThanks.
No stash, eh? Well thanks for nothing, since that’s what I got. You some cold mufuggahs.
October 6th, 2005 at 10:48 pmWar Protest – Nov 10 2005 Take a day off! – Please Read
If you feel, as the majority of Americans and people throughout the world do, that the war in Iraq is wrong, and you wish you had a way to show the Bush Administration, the Government of the United States, and the world, how you feel about it, then join us in our world wide walk out on November 10th 2005.
Show the world how you feel, and just how many of us feel this way. Let’s drive the point home by taking away from them their most precious item; money.
On November 10th 2005, unless you hold a position which people rely upon in the event of an emergency (you work at a hospital, a firemen, policemen etc), don’t go to work. Try not to drive your car; don’t watch T.V.; don’t use the internet. Stay at home. Read a book. Play with your kids. Engage in a hobby.
Plan a vacation day at work. Call in sick. Use your best judgment on how to take this day off.
If we don’t get their attention this way, we’ll just do it again, until we do.
If the people speak, and speak together, they have to listen.
Please email this to as many of your friends and colleagues as you wish/can.
October 7th, 2005 at 7:45 pmDarn it Smedley, you guys picked the same day as us. We thought Nov.10th would be the day where we would show our support for the War effort. We plan on showing this support by making sure we all makes it to work that day, even if we are a little ill. No car pooling either, we’ll all be driving individual vehicles wherever possible. Oh yeah, and we will just keep doing this every day too, until you guys start to pay attention and listen to reason.
October 7th, 2005 at 9:07 pmThe corporate media machine at work again. Read this; http://mediamatters.org/items/200510070001. It’s short and to the point.
October 7th, 2005 at 10:59 pmOk some anonymous commenter to here thread tried to make some (frankly inintelligible) point about the wrongness of the war. I still trying to mull it over but one point shining through which I want to emphasize is this.
This war did not represent the best possible foreign policy path for our country.
EXACTLY. And for that point he deserve’s props. Because if a war is not the Best Possible foreign policy path (which is rather easy to calculate according to well establish formula’s/physical laws ect) then it’s wrong QED. Thats just reality base thinking. In all thing’s you should calculate and then do Best Possible thing and no other. When (and why) did we stray so far from this well ingrained national tradition of ares?
I didn’t emphasize this because i thought it was so obvious but maybe people don’t realize this. But at the time of the war (in my sparetime/while catching up on Will & grace reruns etc) I actually did some personal (non commissioned) calculations just out of my own personal curiosity and I can verafy anonymous’s reesult.
I mean don’t misunderstand I only did very rough calculation of foreign policy paths but (as I recall) according to my Matlab scripts the results were quite apperent and demonstrative: according to the results.txt file I still keep around, Iraq War was >500th foreign policy path, ranking lower then even like Nuke Chile and Grant TExas Independence. I mean AGAIN I emphasize that my calculation’s was VERY ROUGH (large error bars) (also I may of found local rather then global optimum due to simulate annealing/high convergents tolerance ect) but when you have a cost-benefit ranking so low it doesn’t relly matter. I mean the bottom line is the cost-benefit function for Iraq War is lower then Best (Calculated) Cost-Benefit Value (for foreign policy path #42, it turned out) by factor of exceeding >6.7e6. So I mean LOL even modulo error’s of data floating point roundoff ect. theres just no way that Iraq WAr can be anywhere near Optimal.
So therefore its was wrong.
Good point anonymous, tahnks.
October 8th, 2005 at 2:56 amOLD SHOW TITLE: The Beltway Boys
NEW SHOW TITLE: Grumpy Old Wingnuts
October 13th, 2005 at 12:50 pm