Monday, June 13, 2011

Alms for a Question-Beggar

Whenever I'm afraid we may be approaching Peak Wingnut, I need only visit American Thinker to remind myself that this land is rich and fecund and full of many deep, untapped reserves of crazy.  So let's get fracking!

Lee DeCovnick isn't prolific -- he's only contributed five articles to American Thinker -- but he's been at it long enough that his earliest effort dates from a time when AT still allowed author bios.  And while Lee's is brief, I think you'll agree that it inspires a peculiar kind of confidence:
Lee DeCovnick was a Senior Financial Analyst for a Fortune 500 company in the era of Lotus 1-2-3, 5 ¼" floppy disks, and monochrome monitors.
Which makes you wonder if Lee could possibly have imagined, way back when an entire computer Operating System could fit on a single floppy, that these primitive machines with their green-on-black text would evolve to one day permit him to communicate with the entire world, a capability he would  use mostly to annoy imaginary Jews.
Obama and his Jewish Supporters

Discussing the Obama's Administrations deceitful, deceptive, dishonest, double- dealing duplicitous betrayal of Israel with my Jewish friends has become increasingly hazardous to our friendships.
 His Jewish friends' habit of opening the discussion with a logical fallacy is particularly exasperating to Lee.
After we dogfight over the "real significance" of Obama's "'67 lines" speech, and the geographic minutia of the defensible borders, I drop the bombshell question, "Why do think Obama hates Jews and the state of Israel."
Of course, the Jews can't answer Lee's Sphinx-like query, anymore than they can answer their own eternal question: how many times is this coot gonna wander into my house during a dinner party before that nursing home across the road ties him to his goddamn bed at night?
Their response almost always elicits an eye popping, jaw dropping, red- faced righteous indignation, followed by some combination of shouted words and spittle that include

"Grabs some towels from the bathroom! And somebody get him off the couch before that stain spreads!"
"But...uh..he's the President, Israel is our .. ah ...one democratic ally... in the Middle East, AND I VOTED FOR HIM, and I could never have voted for someone like that!" 
Hm. Well, judging by this response, there are only two possibilities. Either Lee's friends are the stupidest people on the planet, or else he's making it all up, and has an uncanny ear for believable, realistic dialogue.

I'm gonna go with Number 1.
 Then, like popping a balloon, I ask, "So, David, why then did you get so angry and upset?  If Obama really doesn't hate Jews or Israel, you should have just tossed aside the question, laughed at its premise, and or simply said you're crazy? None of those things happened. What caused such an outburst? I think it's because you see the forceful actions this Administration, and thus the United States, is taking on behalf of Israel's blood enemies and you're unable to fit that into the framework of your thinking."

Ah ha! Caught, if I may quote Beyond the Fringe, in a logical cleft stick! This reminds me of the scene in A Charlie Brown Christmas, when Lucy says, smugly, "You do think I'm beautiful, don't you, Charlie Brown? [PAUSE] You didn't answer me right away. You had to think about it first, didn't you? If you really had thought I was beautiful, you would've spoken right up. I know when I've been insulted! I KNOW WHEN I'VE BEEN INSULTED!"
American Jews have found themselves a wolf in sheep's clothing, inside the hen house, happily gorging on chicken soup and matzo balls.
Or they've found a print of a previously unknown Salvadore Dali painting.
The question then becomes will there be any chickens left in the hen house before the deceitful wolf turns his attention to the farmer's cottage and the American Jews who think they're safe inside.
Meanwhile, the fox (equally deceitful, but a late sleeper), having found a transvestite wolf beating his time at the poultry coop, borrows a costume from the San Diego Chicken and goes down to the sheep meadow to gorge on lavash and string cheese, washed down with mulberry vodka, thus lulling Armenians into a false sense of security about the border dispute with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.

12 comments:

77south said...

Funny isn't it, how people will defend to the death a people's 2000 year old claim to a bit of land halfway round the world and at the same time deny the legitimacy of another people's much older claim (*cough* native americans *cough*) to, for example, North and South America?

Brian Schlosser said...

Thank God there are righteous gentiles like Lee out there to tell the poor, deluded Jews who the REAL antisemites are.

D Johnston said...

Who are all these red-faced people right-wingers keep encountering? I've never seen anyone get red in the face. Hell, I once had a psychotic neighbor yell at me because he thought the hall outside my apartment was too dirty, and he didn't get red in the face. Yet, any time a wingnut steps outside his house, he's immediately surrounded by fire engine red balloons sputtering off into the stratosphere. Is it possible that they're all shut-ins who are basing their perceptions of humanity on Tex Avery cartoons?

Jay B. said...

The dinner party conversion narrative is a hallowed one in conservative circles, almost as profound as the premise-granting minority in the cab/on the bus and closely related to the stunning question routine which reduces, once and for all, liberals to stammering idiots.

They live rich, deep lives, conservatives.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the "Beyond the Fringe" reference. I was thinking of that revue during the latest end-of-the-world fiasco ("And will this wind be so mighty as to blow down the mountains of the earth?") I also think about the mining exam/judging exam bit every time I hear a mention of Clarence Thomas ("There's only one question on the mining exam: 'What's your name?' I got 50% on that"). Great stuff.

Dr. BDH

Anonymous said...

"They live rich, deep lives, conservatives."

rich, inner lives that should probably stay that way.

Little Boots

Anonymous said...

So what's a good way to sign in that isn't a complete pain in the ass?

Anonymous said...

I often find myself wondering whether the propagandists of the Israeli right are ever given pause by the realization that their most fervent US supporters may admire the take no prisoners brutality of the IDF, view the state's intransigence and inability to compromise, as a way station on the primrose path to armageddon, and / or profit directly from the few billion in welfare payments given to defense industries every year under the comical label of Foreign Aid, but that these same diehard groupies for zionism are at the same time united in their general loathing of actual Jews.

bidziliba

Anonymous said...

Dr BDH, the Beyond the Fringe bit that I always flash on is explaining American politics to the English in Home Thoughts from Abroad "They have the Republican Party which is the equivalent of our Conservative Party, and they have the Democratic Party which is the equivalent of our Conservative Party".

bidziliba

Anonymous said...

A wolf in sheep's clothing in a chicken coop?

Anonymous said...

Yes, it's amazing how many liberals conservatives encounter and put down so eloquently, really pissing them off, which is the point. Children have imaginary friends, conservatives have imaginary enemies.

Anonymous said...

This is a sad case of the village idiot thinking he's the smartest person in the room.

Disqus