Jackass 101
Prof. Hullabaloo Digby, lefty blogger extraordinaire, instructing:
I have no idea what happened at Ft Hood. They’ve confirmed that the perpetrators were military. They don’t know the reason for the killings.
“I have no idea what happened” is a great phrase that generally signals you’re dealing with someone who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It suggests a laudable and high level of self-awareness. It’s the fact that Dgby will not let that be a barrier and continues on that is your first clue that you are dealing with a jackass. Because being a jackass is not the same as being a total moron, dunce, nincompoop, klutz or bozo. Those only require ignorance and ineptitude. Being a jackass requires some level of foreknowledge that one is doing or saying something dumb, or colossally stupid. One needs to know better.
CNN’s military correspondent Barbara Starr says there an incredible amount of stress and PTSD at the post, the biggest in the Army, although she has no particular information.(And since most soldiers have some level of PTSD after multiple deployments, it’s far too broad of a category to mean anything in this context.)
OK, Digby’s now established that no one, publicly, knows what they are talking about.
Regardless of motivation one would certainly hope, above all, that this had nothing to do with it.
Liftoff! Escape velocity achieved. Bounds of Earth broken! Houston, we have jackass! The link will take you to ”Oathkeepers.” Digby, in full admission of his ignorance and lacking any information whatsoever, has decided he’s going with some combination of PTSD and rightwing nutjobbism!
It’s pretty awful that one’s thoughts would immediately turn in that direction when something like this happens. But after Tim McVeigh, you have to consider it. (If the shooters were civilians, my thoughts would go in a different direction.)
We’re back at the self-awareness thing. It is fascinating, like lifting the lid and watching the wheels turn inside a kneejeerk lefty jackass’ head. Love to know what direction that would be. Apparently the machinery is intricately cogged and capable of redirecting widly.
Update: Barbara Starr reports that The Pentagon is begging people not to speculate, that they have no information about motive. That’s correct, and as of now there’s no reason to assume anything one way or the other. Who knows what this is really about?
I think he might, somewhat pedantically, be suggesting it was OK to speculate earlier. Kind of sad if you need CNN to tell you that.
Update II (2:35pst): Apparently NBC is reporting that the shooter was a Major with an arabic sounding name. Cliff Van Zandt, the professional “profiler” pretty much called this an al Qaeda plot on MSNBC, although he said nothing about the name. I suppose that would explain the intense involvement that’s being reported by the White House and the Pentagon.
The suspected gunman was identified by ABC News as Major Malik Nadal Hasan.
The shooter was killed and two other suspects, who are also soldiers, have been apprehended, Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone said.
But again …. this is all rumor and gossip. We really know nothing at this point.
That’s odd. A couple of graphs earlier, lacking even a name, the guy was a white gun-toting religion-clinging rightwing nutjob. Unclear whether that last line “this is all rumor and gossip” is meant to apply to ABC’s news report, this post or the “Hullabaloo” blog in general. Based on past experience, I’m going with the latter. ABC, as a news organization, has at least some minimal standards of sourcing its information. But I’d like to nominate that line for Digby’s motto. “This is all rumor and gossip! We really know nothing!”
Anyway, Digby’s apparently cottoned on to the fact that he’s got a bit of a problem. Good time to go on the attack. Best jackass defense is a good jackass offense. This is interesting because here he is criticizing someone not for her own speculation on the initial reporting of the matter at hand (”Three men — is a conspiracy”), but for forming an opinion on a prior incident based on well-established information:
Here’s Atlas Shrugged:
MUSLIM TERROR ATTACK: ‘NINE shot dead’
1230 Wounded at Mass Shooting at Fort Hood, US Army BaseUPDATE: Shepard Smith, that silly woman, keeps calling it a tragedy. It is an act of war.
MUSLIM KILLER: The suspected gunman was identified as Major Malik Nadal Hasan.
UPDATE: The coverage is beyond stupid. Three men — is a conspiracy. Three men is a terror cell. For the FBI to rule out terrorism in an obvious act of terrorism (by whom, we know not yet) indicates were are worse off tha the UK. Three men, synchronized shoting, M16s, maximum kill ………… you won’t get the real story from the media..
Keep in mind what Atlas said just two days ago about the sentencing of the DC sniper:
Muslim John Allen Muhammad is scheduled to be executed next Tuesday, November 10, 2009. We can only hope that he is promptly dispatched to meet his 72 virgins. If this attempt to stay the execution of this bloodthirsty jihadi gets traction, we must march on Washington. He must die.
Thirteen people were shot, 10 fatally, when Muhammad and accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, went on a random shooting rampage around the Washington region in 2002.
Muhammad’s lawyers said in a statement they asked Kaine on Thursday to commute Muhammad’s sentence to life in prison. They said Muhammad’s illness is “illustrated by brain damage, brain dysfunction, neurological deficits as well as his psychotic and delusional behavior.” Read Full Article.
He is a Muslim. This was jihad. Is Islam a mental illness? Is that the position of the defense? This was jihad. Kill this depraved jihadi.
Meanwhile, our government continues to be completely disingenuous as to the root cause for his actions. Our “government” continues to assert that the murders were related to an “individual’s” (Mohammad’s) aberrant criminal, abnormal behavior… not what it truly is…the fact that he (John AllenMuhammad) is representative of millions who are followers of the tenets of Islam.
I think she’s pretty clear about her feelings on this subject.
And Digby’s outta here!
Topic for discussion: Does Digby actually display any self-awareness, and is there any evidence to support that. Or does this simply a verbal upchuck simply happens to include phrases that might be mistaken for self-awareness? Extra credit assignment: Graph the stages between “Moron” and “Jackass,” show where on that chart you think Digby belongs, and explain your reasons. You may go beyond “Jackass” to “Mountebank” and “Charlatan” if you feel circumstances warrant, but given that “Hullabaloo” is just another pseudonymous group blog, to suggest Digby is some kind of fraud is tautological.
Legal Insurrection, writing on the same Digby post, notes a mea culpa buried in comments. Brave man, Legal, diving in there:
I regret speculating about the Oathers in the early minutes of the story. It was the first thing that jumped to my mind when I heard about it being multiple shooters who were members of the military. Obviously, that speculation was wrong and it cast aspersions on the Oathers who had nothing to do with this. It’s hard for me to see how that little link, along with all the disclaimers that went with it, puts me in the same category as the lunatics, but if it does, so be it. Just call me Atlas…. 11.05.09 - 10:18 pm.
That only took about 5 hours and 30-odd comments. But props to Digby for admitting jackassitude, if in a somewhat self-righteously jackassed way. Have to say, if the sorely maligned Atlas, for example, had immediately assumed ”Muslim” and it turned out to be some lone white right-wing nutjob, I suspect Digby would be less charitable about the gaffe, disclaimers or no. But no worries, Digby. Your place among the lunatics was secured long ago.
In other jackass news, here’s the President of the United States and his “pet goat” moment. Linda Chavez at Commentary.
Digby, by the way, is apparently a woman, and very brave and inspiring, according to these Salon posts that laud her for taking off the mask though neither of them, strangely enough, include a name. Interesting. My apologies to all men for using the presumptive male pronoun. I clearly haven’t been paying enough attention to the intricacies of the world of gutless pseudonymous lefty blogging, though now that I think of it, it sounds vaguely familiar. She writes like a guy, as the other astonished lefty bloggers at the links suggest. I don’t mean that in a good way. More in sort of boneheaded yahoo “guy” way. None of that stereotypic feminine sensitivity, reflection or thoughtfulness. Historically, women writers have used pseudonyms, initials, that kind of thing to suggest they are guys in order to be taken more seriously, due to rampant societal sexism. If that’s Digby’s intent, I’d call it an abject failure. My apologies to any sensitive, reflective, thoughtful guys or boneheaded, yahoo women who might be offended by any of that. Hey, it’s not like I suggested Digby’s views make her a likely mass-killing terrorism suspect. Just a jackass. I suppose I could root around a little more and see if she’s actually put her name out there somewhere, but “Jackass” seems to cover it.
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Topics: moronocy
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:26 am on Friday, November 6, 2009
One Response to “Jackass 101”
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November 6th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Houston, we have jackass!
Gold.
Women certainly can be jackasses, just as much as men. Maybe sometimes worse. Digby combines jackass with kneejerk reactionary, considering that initial jump to the Oathkeepers, and I don’t care about the mea culpa, because it will certainly happen again. Such is the nature of jackassedness.