He’s tried whiny:
“I was getting on average three to five calls a day for interviews about the war” in the first years, said Michael E. O’Hanlon, a senior fellow on national security at the Brookings Institution. “Now it’s less than one a day.”
Now he’s just going with banality. Sitting on a dais with fellow surge-lovers Fred Kagan & Ken Pollack, naturally at the American Enterprise Institute, O’Hanlon pulled this out of his hind end:
These people did two things that I think would have made Vince Lombardi proud. One, they stuck with it, and they persevered through difficult times. And two, they stayed focused on fundamentals.
I love the bon mots to people that never fought in the nightmare of Iraq, praising themselves for the actual work others have to do with their messes: "they stuck with it" and "they persevered" meaning Fred Kagan, Ken Pollack and Michael O’Hanlon. What cretinous a-hole behavior. Thousands of American kids, and tens of thousands of Iraqis have died or had their lives ruined — while these three have rolled in the cash of their pundit lifestyle.
But more than that, the silly and habitual uses of sports analogies. Besides, I always thought Lombardi’s strategy involved more than running out the clock, throwing money on the field and leaving the problem for the next coach to clean up. I certainly don’t remember any of the 1960s Packers being killed or leaving limbs on the gridiron. And I certainly don’t think of Moqtada Al-Sadr as the Dick Butkus of Iraq.
But most of all, Lombardi coached the football team Michael, not the cheerleaders.
Shorter Micheal O’Hanlon:
Wanking isn’t everything, It’s the only thing.
Related posts:
Spotlight
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Advanced search
Good morning Attaturk.
Doesn’t it make you feel good knowning that O’Hanlon is a foreign policy advisor to Hillary?
The thing that is wrong with football analogies is that football has a clock. War is open ended. Like poker, you get to play until you’re broke. But wise poker players are not those who perserver and throw good money after bad. At some point that realize that it’s not worth the candle.
On fire! This is my favorite: And I certainly don’t think of Moqtada Al-Sadr as the Dick Butkus of Iraq.
Let’s win one for the decider, the guy who chose the Texas air national guard so he could stay home to defend Texas from Oklahoma!
What Lombardi actually said:
From Vince Lombardi.com
These three pinheads will meet God on their own, without each other, without shameless institutes, without silly bonhomie of those who enjoy war vicariously. May they dream every night of their impending judgment and wake in cold sweats.
Good morning, pups. It’s Bobo and Herbert today. Bobo typed a thing called “The Long Defeat.” He says Hillary Clinton’s presidential prospects continue to dim. The door is closing. Night is coming. The end, however, is not near. I’m still waiting for him to extol his candidate, St. McCain, who has put his foot in it repeatedly of late… Mr. Herbert’s column is titled “With a Powerful Speech, Obama Offers a Challenge.” He says the essence of the speech will likely be lost in the din that inevitably erupts when there is a racial controversy in the United States.
http://mgpaquin.wordpress.com/
The coffee, tea and hot chocolate are ready, and I’ve got Thomas’ English muffins just out of the toaster. I’m in the mood for blackberry preserves this morning… Have a good day.
Thanks, Marion for the breakfast goodies. Makes reading Bobo’s crocodile tears more tolerable. His feigned concern for the fate of the Democratic party is cloying.
TexasEllen, is gives a whole new meaning to “concern troll.”
First it was the bees, and now the bats are dying and no one seems to know why.
301!
Yesterday on scanning the ThinkProgress page I got the uneasy feeling that the thugs were hitting new lows of revealing silliness all at the same time. Hope it’s just a stage they have to go through on their way out, and not an indicator of anything.
Very strong recommendation: Frontline: Bush’s War. Part I is on-line already. Part II airs on tv tonight, and will no doubt appear on the website by late night.
Um… That should have been “HE” gives, not “is”… [shuffles off for more tea]
God morning.
If Michael O’Hanlon had any brains, he’d get a better haircut.
An incredible film clip on the status of Baghdad.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…..y.of.walls
Here’s another one.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…..ing.fields
Great post Attaturk.
Why do I get the feeling guys like O’Hanlon and Kagan couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag even if we started a hole for them? They have to praise our soldiers, because if they didn’t, they’d have to explain why they’re not over there or why their kids aren’t. They have to be appreciative because they’re the ones not getting dirty, maimed, or killed.
Morning, Attaturk…
MSBNC has been playing and replaying that clip of Hillary talking about dodging bullets in Bosnia–before the tape made a liar outta her. Yesterday she said she “misspoke.” Ha!!! Just as she misspoke when she said she was named for Sir Edmund Hillary, the famous climber of Mount Everest? Problem is: She was born way before Sir Edmund climbed the Everest…in 1953. Hillary the liar. What else has she made up in her desperate quest for the presidency?
Hillary also misrepresented her role in the peace process in Northern Ireland…She was lying through her teeth again. I wish MSM would call her bullshit on all this.
My sense is that the neocons and our lords think that they can so control the message that they can literally re write history or that not enough people who know the truth will be listened to.
Joe Wilson, who tried to convey the truth was served notice.
The congress was given notice via signing statements and directives that the new order was going to proceed and no one was able to stop them. If push comes to shove they have everything in place for a REAL coup d’etat. So play along and no one will get hurt. This accounts for both the vichy dems and the ornery ones. The latter knows that if they push it, the coup stands up.
These guys are hoping that some how electoral politics will swing enough so that these freaks will be pushed out of office. No legislative measures have been able to make a dent in their agenda of hegemony over the nation and the world.
Military can say nothing and must carry out this madness, until they retire and then no one listens to them because there is always a power freak suck up who gets off on the power freak thing.
The MSM will carry on the dog and pony show and destroy anyone who opposes these thugs and they have shown they can steal elections in any number of ways, caging, running viruses in the software, prosecuting phony voter fraud cases. Just look at how the right has turned the apparatus of government, the police, the military, the national guard, the courts, the press against the people.
Someone like Obama is largely unknown for his progressive positions and has ties to the Hamilton Group which is very troubling, but at the same time he represents a possible paradigm shift which might give the rest of the country balls to stand up to these fascists which run our nation. Yes fascists.
The people have been completely dis-empowered by these thugs. We have had our 4th amendment rights taken, We torture, we deny habeus corpus, we render.
We have several hundred military installations around the world and we have suspended the posse comitatus and ar deputizing private armies to arrest US citizens and put them in camps.
People in this country are waking up to the fact that the we have had quiet coup d’etat by the right and paralyzed about what to do about it.
There’s always American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Britney Spears, cock and roll and athletes and their steroids.
It’ll be a very nice day when the media can find some real stuff to bash the candidates about and start talking about things like the mortgage crisis and who will do what… such as in Krugman’s column yesterday.
morning all – why am I up at 445 in the morning?
but the coffee’s is ready anyway…
OT-Sorry, but have you all seen this? Washington DC police are going door to door asking permission to search homes for illegal guns. WTF, is this not alarming? What if you say ‘no’. They say there’s amnesty for guns found (or drugs) unless it’s later determined that the gun was used in a crime. I heard about this on FoxNews this morning. Even they thought this was a bad idea. How far have we sunk when even Fox is getting scared.
The role of the MSM is to destroy the dem party, truth, lies doesn’t matter. To turn off the voters from participating. Trash them both, trash them all. Set the stage for the Lords to carry forth.
People here take their anger and watch TeeVee. They don’t take to the streets as they do around the world.
Americans are sheep and we are being led to our own “slaughter” and the slaughter of the nation. It’s mostly accomplished now.
congress must awaken from its slumber and write the real history in hearings and legislation. there are a few signs that it might happen but it is not institutionalized at the highest levels…it will take spine and sense of history for pelosi and reid if not them others to accomplish this and a hurting and angry nation can help them in November.
it still may not happen.
as to the war apologists…they are ugly, selfish and they and theirs rarely pay the price.
why getting it wrong is a recipe for remaining a pundit is st well discussed here.
Thank you for that link ecahn. What the fuck are we doing to these godforsaken people, That fucking bush should be forced to live in a stinking sewer with all his bloody cronies.
I am opposed to guns, but this is a test of the police power. They are proving that you have NO RIGHTS of privacy. They can monitor your communications, your financial affairs and enter your home, your car and search you AND DETAIL YOU without cause at will all in the name of “national security”.
This is exactly Big Brother.
This issue is before the gooper supremes so the rightwingnutfucks are pulling out all the stops, like harassing people, spreading false rumours, printing articles etc etc etc. Al to create fear that gun control, in any form, is a bad thing.
I think Reid Pelosi et al are aware that if they push they right will declare an emergency and tell congress to go home. I am convinced that these plans are IN PLACE and we are living under a coup d’etat with the appearance that we have a democracy.
Congress has completely abrogated its responsibilities. They have been read the riot act and they are obviously scared and trying to keep a game face on for the cameras.
There are 1,000 reasons to begin impeachment. Yet nothing.
Any one who tries to speak from the inside is silences by States Secret Act.
They’re reacting to the SCOTUS’s current handling of the 2nd Amendment case….
Whhhaaaaa Whhhaaaa, the world is sooooooooo horrible, make you want to kill yourself. . .doesn’t it?
No, saw a snow drop this morning and was woken by a Cardinal (No not a paedophile) in full throat. Things could be worse….we could have McBus as prez. for another four years
Thank you
And my back yard is full of goldfinches eating thistle seed. As long as there are goldfinches life is worth living!
You people are being duped by the evil mother nature, it’s a plot. Don’t fall victim, you need to be totally miserable all the time in order to pave the way to the glorious revolution that is just around the cvorner!
You’re just a regular little ray of sunshine this morning, aren’t you?! *G*
Oh, I thought that was the topic. That’s what it seems like with SOME people.
He’s Raven mad this morning. Broken legs in the house can do that to you.
Saw the first bluebonnets day before yesterday. Spring will be officially here when the mesquites have budbreak.
Actually I am fine, I am being sarcastic.
I love that Naci Griffith song, Gulf Coast Highway.
Gulf Coast Highway
The only place on earth
Bluebonnets grow
No…..!
You think that is bad, it’s opening day for Major League Baseball, in JAPAN!
And they had football in London. I tell you the world has gone to hell in a hand basket. What is next basketball in baghdad?
Just waking up metaphorically and really, after some middle of the night writing.
Knew he was everywhere as per below, but why there? After Tuzla, and on opening day of baseball in Japan, where poems are snipers’ bullets and the national pastime is not at home, I am willing to believe the world is upside down and backwards, but tell me why I need to think this one, please, as I struggle toward the coffee. how is he an adviser to Hil?
http://www.democracyarsenal.or…..d-the.html
“But more than that, the silly and habitual uses of sports analogies. Besides, I always thought Lombardi’s strategy involved more than running out the clock, throwing money on the field and leaving the problem for the next coach to clean up. I certainly don’t remember any of the 1960s Packers being killed or leaving limbs on the gridiron. And I certainly don’t think of Moqtada Al-Sadr as the Dick Butkus of Iraq.”
One needs to be careful of their sports metaphors as well. Dick Butkus was not a Green Bay Packer, he was a Chicago Bear. Perhaps you were thinking of Ray Nitschke?
No I meant what I said.
Dick Butkus playing for the Bears was the Packers opposition.
Moqtada Al-Sadr functions somewhat as the opposition to what the Vince Lombardi’s of Iraq want.
But most of all, Lombardi coached the football team Michael, not the cheerleaders.
tou-fvcking-che, Attaturk. I want this printed on a roll of TP, with each leaf a different idiot-pundit’s name.