When you get caught acting stupid, claim that you were tricked, because that's different than just being dumb. Or something.
Even HotAir is realizing that their fake outrage over Obama saluting the Marines while holding a cup is making the right wing look stupid and frivolous when we have an air campaign about ISIS to worry about.
And that's just the point! It's proof of a larger liberal conspiracy to bait Republicans into looking stupid! The cup is a deliberate distraction from Benghazi the war.
That is a terrible way to fight a war, and it merits criticism. It is that legitimate criticism Obama’s defenders would prefer to avoid addressing. The press was handed one such opportunity, though a passing one, when the White House promoted a photograph of the president emerging from Marine One and saluting his Marine guard with a coffee cup in his right hand.
See? The cup was a deliberate head fake to paralyze the Republican party while making them look like stoned conspiracy fuckwits!
Oh heck, how many other paint-by-numbers talking points can Hot Air squeeze into 900 words?
Let's see - how about claiming that people aren't conservatives because they are stupid? Check that off the list.
The casual viewer was not informed by this segment, but they were goaded into believing that conservatives are unreasonable and consumed with trivialities.
Is a conspiracy? Of course.
That’s not an accident.
Demand that people be required to treat you with complete seriousness even while you admit to acting like an asshole? Done and done.
Do conservatives who are offended by Obama’s callousness have a point? Of course they do. Do some, like those who decide that this is a moment to call the first lady a “thing” while leveling this criticism, detract from their own credibility and that of their argument? Yes, and the liberal press will giddily promote the latter to avoid legitimizing the former.
Can we shoehorn in a tired Third Reich talking point about the "liberal press?" Are you kidding? It's mandatory.
Conservatives are understandably weary of confronting the double standard in the press.....
While whining about how people call you prejudiced
....that treats their concerns as novelties based on prejudicial hatred of the president.
Can you build to the conclusion that defines an entire fantasy world where white conservatives are the eternal victims?
Liberal’s concerns, meanwhile, are rarely dismissed off hand in the same fashion.
How about some psychological projection? In this case he's crying about a "double standard" because we all know how tough right wing blogs were on Bush after 9-11.
But as I’ve said before, a double standard is a standard nonetheless.
Wait, is he ripping off The Big Lebowski?
So just remember, when people laugh at you and call you a douche bag, that just means it's a conspiracy.
Conservatives will have to learn to more skillfully navigate the unfavorable media environment or be swamped by it. Angrily shaking a fist at the biases in which media narratives are founded hasn’t been working out so well.
I think that is significant, because usually RWNJs say that when people mock them and call them douche bags, it means they are winning. They aren't sounding too confident this time around.
But you know, this is still missing something. It's still not quite reaching that complete lack of self awareness that is always so cute, like when a budgie fights with its own reflection in a mirror. Ed Rogers at the Washington Post to the rescue!
Ed agrees - this could not have been an accident! It was deliberate.
But we know the president is vain – after all, he has already written two books about himself – and he’s also very stage-aware. He knew what he was doing. President Obama was striking a pose.
Hear that? Writing books means you have the skills of a runway fashion model! Take that George R.R. Martin - we know you gained 120 pounds just to please your publicists!
But here's where it gets good:
While the usual suspects want to make apologies for him – and of course, immediately blame President Bush – this has hit a nerve. If we were still under a traditional liberal media monopoly, this might have been swept under the rug. But in the age of social media, this short clip has taken on a life of its own, and the timing could not be worse for the president from a policy or political standpoint.
The reason this is so bad for President Obama is because he just broke the cardinal rule of not playing to his negative stereotypes. As I have written before, President Obama has a problem with the military and military culture. So to do something as belittling and insulting as this “latte salute” is not trivial; it suggests and reinforces something larger at a time when the president is expecting the military to take action, in part to compensate for his past failures.
Thanks Ed, it's nice to hear someone admit that right wing pundits inhabit a fantasy world of
"negative stereotypes." After all these decades, that message is finally getting through.