Up and Over the Security Guards

The story of Rep. Patrick McHenry (R - NC) has been getting some attention:

During a public appearance on Saturday, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) belittled a U.S. soldier in Iraq who was following orders and wouldn't let McHenry go to the gym without the proper credentials. McHenry referred to the guard as a "two-bit security guard."

This episode causes Steve Benen to ask "what if a Democrat had said this," and for John Cole to speculate as to the likely answer:

If McHenry was a Democrat there would be a full on red alert action report sent across the WingNet^TM. Kerning charts would be pulled out for referencing. Cheeto’s and Mountain Dew stock would triple. McHenry’s countertops would be inspected, and the Confederate Yankee would spend a week linking all the times McHenry had been in the same state as Barack Obama, showing decisively that Obama hates the troops (Jake Tapper would note that he thought this was the case, because he has a really keen sense for traitors- ask anyone in his family). We would learn that someone in McHenry’s family tree did something vaguely subversive in the 1960’s (maybe smoked a joint while listening to Jimi Hendrix’s version of the Star Spangled Banner, rather than standing erect and proudly displaying a lapel pin).

Yes: however, let's not forget that a very similar episode did occur, only with a reporter, not a Representative. And yes, the right blogosphere behaved pretty much exactly as Cole imagines. Right down to the hysterical grabbing of screenshots so the PROOF!111! of the wickedness of their foes could be eternally preserved. Insty linked, Malkin, it was all over Townhall...

The joke is of course that the reporter had a lot more justification for his behavior than did the Representative. But you knew that. Just for giggles, here's the Memeorandum link to this story, let's see where it goes.

UPDATE: Our friend Tom Maguire comments, with his usual class:

McHenry's political opponent describes the person as a "sentry protecting U.S. personnel in Iraq"; the video certainly does not say the guard is American.

Look, Iraqi rent-a-cops get blown up and shot at, and if they do a slack job a bomber can walk right past them, so McHenry should not be belittling them. But I suspect that most folks will feel a bit (or a lot) less outrage if the "two-bit guard" was a local rent-a-cop.

Just one of the fuzzie-wuzzies, eh wot?

UPDATE: Our pal Doctor "Squirrel Tits" Weasel wishes us to know that he duly condemns Rep. McHenry. For whatever that's worth. I was just citing that incident to confirm John Cole's point, so I don't especially care -- the original incident with the reporter still only matters as an example of The Wingnuttosphere acting like crazed vindictive jackasses.

For me, the only significance of the McHenry affair is that it's further evidence of the essentially colonial nature of the entire Iraqi adventure, complete with the obliviousness, incompetence, arrogance, pettiness, and condescension such an enterprise inevitably entails. McHenry could have been an interesting minor character in Heart of Darkness. From this perspective, that his defense is "that rent-a-cop wasn't an American soldier! He was a foreigner!" only makes the story that much more bleakly humorous, in a sickening sort of way. That the usual morons are taking this line too only makes me laugh so much harder that right now I have a splitting headache and want a stiff drink.

Comments

[Righteous Bubba]

Don Surber fights the good fight.

http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/2008/04/04/congressional-jerk/

[docweasel]

I see you've addressed our blog in your post. We've responded.

[Rob]

What's this cunt McHenry doing working out in I-rak?
Blackballed in all state-side gyms?
This putz goes to I-rak to bomb weights?....?
To get his heartrate up [or black box?, or primative gasoline engine? or whatever the fuck is providing this cunt's power plant] try pulling head from up ass, repeatedly.

[rea]

We've responded.

No, you haven't--you've weasled (which, all things considered, is probably appropriate for you).

[Jay B.]

Doc,

Your site. It hurts the eyes.

Anyhoo, McHenry can belittle and browbeat whoever the fuck he wants including some Halliburton/KBC wage slave whose country is probably distant, ruined or irrelevant. The Congresskid is a worldclass douchebag and well, that's what he was bred for. I'm glad the wage slave didn't let the douchebag use the gym, gives him that measure of power Security Guards worldwide use to such acclaim and effectiveness.

What kind of gets me about this is that, well, it kind of points out the entire idiocy of the cocoon we're trying to weave in this world. We dutifully take off our shoes, wade through x-rays, pose for ids, get fingerprinted, we build Green Zones in other countries to protect our asses, we get our email scanned, our phones tapped, our records sent to the government -- entirely due to the panic and fear douchebags like McHenry feed to the world.

He gets indignant because of this? Well, as we're so often told, this isn't a pre 9/11 world, douchebag. And thanks for that too.

[Me]

He gets indignant because of this? Well, as we're so often told, this isn't a pre 9/11 world, douchebag.

Damn, I hate it when someone steals my thoughts.

[Thers]

Damn, I hate it when someone steals my thoughts.

Yeah.

The entire story is ludicrous. I don't get the distinction Maguire is trying to make; it's that McHenry sounds like a clueless jerk that signifies. He sounds like a typically oblivious High Victorian British colonial officer back home chatting about his trip to the tropics.

[docweasel]

Here you go is your squirrel tits mofo (they'se weasels! not squirrels!)

[the Rev Jerry Gloryhole]

Perhaps the good Rep was on his way to make sure the gym held no less-than-100% masculine soldiers in need of some Republican back-benching.
Not that he has such a reputation.
Or any other Republicans, for that matter.

What's with the slutty weasels? And aren't they kind of, um, phallic? Only with tatas?

[julia]

Maguire's not interested in making a distinction. Maguire's interested in saying something outrageous but just possibly not racist so when everyone links to him he can stage an outraged blog war over how he's being viciously misinterpreted.

I mean, you have read him before, haven't you?

[docweasel]

The truth of this comes out, upon viewing the entire vid: McHenry was telling a self-deprecating story about himself, about how he ADMITTEDLY was a schmuck to dissed a guard and THINKING about him as a "2 bit security guard", then the gym the guard wouldn't let him in got rocketed and destroyed, so the guard may have saved his life, and the moral was he (McHenry) was stupid to not respect and listen to the guy. Your source took a single phrase out of the entire story, intentionally distorted the meaning and got a lot of mileage out of it, and lockstep schmucks like "Thers" dutifully posted "me too" posts, hey, anything to bash Republicans and play "gotcha" and on and on until they ran out of "quotation marks".

The end result is, you are pathetic and don't do any due diligence reporting stories, you just propagandize. Right blogs are, by and large, much more self-critical and honest when it comes to this crap. Lefties only go for the cheap shot, as you did.

[Jay B.]

Doc,

So you guys are interested in truth now? Wow. That's a first.

This scales heights of self-delusion: Right blogs are, by and large, much more self-critical and honest when it comes to this crap. Lefties only go for the cheap shot, as you did.

Are you kidding? Point to a single right wing blog that said McHenry's actual point should underline how fucked up Iraq is to begin with. Nothing in his anecdote is, in any way, heartening about the Green Zone -- which is the safest part of Baghdad, allegedly.

The point is, even though all of you are too fucking dense (including the Congressman) to understand it, is that we have paid 3rd World contractors protecting US Congressmen from being bombed in the middle of the safest zone in a war that we chose to fight -- and we're being told by the GOP this is "Winning".

Honesty.

[docweasel]

well Jay B, kindly name me a third world country where you _aren't_ in danger of being bombed, shot, stabbed or otherwise molested. The same thing goes for most 2nd or 1st world countries: there is violence and strife the world over. We're trying to make it better, by all accounts we are making it better. The recent successes in Basra (notwithstanding the press trying to paint Mukky's plea for a ceasefire as a win for him) show that the Iraqi government is quite willing and able to assert its authority over the entire country, with its own forces. They weren't as good as US soldiers, but they were a damn sight better than the Sadr brigades, and they were weilded, for the first time EVER, in recorded history, by a democratically elected Arab government. That's progress, sporty. And it continues. The War for Iraqi Freedom is an absolute good force on this earth, and it will have very far reaching effects throughout the arab world as those populations realize they don't have to live under religious and royal dictatorships. I look for the Iranians to throw off their shackles in the near future, and it will be a good thing for everyone.

[Thers]

Hiya, squirrelytits.

The recent successes in Basra

I always figured you for the kind of guy who'd fit in swell with the Iranian regime.

You also whizzed the point of my post. To wit:

For me, the only significance of the McHenry affair is that it's further evidence of the essentially colonial nature of the entire Iraqi adventure, complete with the obliviousness, incompetence, arrogance, pettiness, and condescension such an enterprise inevitably entails.

Thanks for the further confirmation, kiddo.

[Jay B.]

well Jay B, kindly name me a third world country where you _aren't_ in danger of being bombed, shot, stabbed or otherwise molested.

This is an argument? Have you ever been anywhere? What the fuck are you talking about? This is the stupidest thing I've read since...wait a second...

The War for Iraqi Freedom is an absolute good force on this earth, and it will have very far reaching effects throughout the arab world as those populations realize they don't have to live under religious and royal dictatorships. I look for the Iranians to throw off their shackles in the near future, and it will be a good thing for everyone.

Jesus Christ. You know exactly nothing. Wait, scratch that. What you think you know is actually damaging. So it's like a negative value.

1. Iraq has a "democracy" -- we've "won" their freedom -- in the sense that the apparent democratic will of the people is to live under Islamic Law. The fight now is over whose flavor of crazy they like more -- Sunni or Shiite. And since Shiite is the majority...

2. Iran has a kind of democracy. We don't like it. We don't see it as such. But, in its own way, it's a democracy. The shackles you speak of have been strengthened by your "absolute good" of war. Really. Ask the liberals in Iran. The reform message was crushed by idiots like you (Iranian flava) who saw that the US would attack, unprovoked, other neighboring countries -- so they had to become more belligerent and conservative (just like we did).

Honesty? You might actually think you're being honest. But anyone delusional enough to see Basra as a success isn't being intelligent, nevermind honest.

Go fuck your squirrels, freak.