Althouse: "Remember this infamous photo of the Elian Gonzalez raid in April 2000? It may well have cost Al Gore the election because of its effect on Cuban voters in Florida."

September 17, 2012

"Remember this infamous photo of the Elian Gonzalez raid in April 2000? It may well have cost Al Gore the election because of its effect on Cuban voters in Florida."

And: "this equally infamous photo ought to cost Obama this election...."

253 comments:

«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 253 of 253

Anonymous said...: Furious, what a fool you are and take care of that lisp, it makes you sound stupid.

Crack may be right about many of you here, sheep, baaaa, baaa.; 9/17/12, 3:26 PM
garage mahal said...: The White House, FBI, and a couple of dozen LA cops got involved because a parolee violated his parole by uploading a legal video to YouTube?

The White House too huh? WOW!; 9/17/12, 3:26 PM
furious_a said...: Troofer Allie: it makes to sound stupid.

Tsk-tsk, gud grammer is so hardd. Quick, better delete and repost to cover your tracks.; 9/17/12, 3:27 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: Wouldn't surprise me if some left wing group funded all this to cause trouble and solidify Obama's power..

The video coming from the Obama camp is more likely than it coming from Al Qaeda.

Politically, Obama benefits from this foreign chaos, as it forces a foreign adverse audience to look over there away form the chaos and misery of his economy.; 9/17/12, 3:27 PM
DADvocate said...: Politically, Obama benefits from this foreign chaos, as it forces a foreign adverse audience to look over there away form the chaos and misery of his economy.

Absolutely. And, it's not like Obama's never thrown andyone under the bus before.; 9/17/12, 3:32 PM
Caroline said...: What if the attack on the consulate was funded by the CIA and American supplied weopons were used? What if Obama's doing a wag the dog routine hoping to drum up support and win re-election? What if Hillary plotted all this to discredit Obama and become pres in 2016?

What if this administration is pimping this film as the cause of the current violence in the ME, in order to push for limits on our first amendment rights?

Hmmm...maybe that's not so crazy. Never let a crisis go to waste.; 9/17/12, 3:35 PM
Matt Sablan said...: At least no one spikes a football in that film. I remember being told it was bad form to spike footballs. Well, that was before the DNC.; 9/17/12, 3:36 PM
Revenant said...: The White House too huh? WOW!

The Obama Administration announced the guy's identity and tried to get Google to remove the video.

So, yes. Them too.; 9/17/12, 3:42 PM
garage mahal said...: The Obama Administration announced the guy's identity and tried to get Google to remove the video

I don't think either of those claims are true.; 9/17/12, 3:43 PM
Matt Sablan said...: I think the problem, which I said in another thread, is that people are assuming if the government doesn't use a cudgel to beat you and throw you in jail, it has not used its power wrongly. Soft power can be abused just as much as hard power. This is easier to see if you expect the government to do less and less; if the government is supposed to have lots of authority, it gets hard to see why misuse of soft power is bad.; 9/17/12, 3:44 PM
furious_a said...: Angry Mob:
"Obama, Obama, we are all Osama!"
"Obama, Obama, we are all Osama!"
"Obama, Obama, we are all Osama!"
"Obama, Obama, we are all Osama!"

Sounds like the Obama admin. ought to be pulling the plug on this video, too. Don't angry up the Muslims.; 9/17/12, 3:46 PM
Brian Brown said...: garage mahal said...

The White House too huh? WOW!

Um, yeah, idiot.

So why are you so ignorant?; 9/17/12, 3:49 PM
garage mahal said...: Seems angry Muslims and angry Republicans both despise Obama.; 9/17/12, 3:50 PM
CWJ said...: Lord, what is the "this" of which we are to get to the bottom.

Allie, all you've got is speculation, and like you say Al Qaeda is happy to use anything. All your finger pointing at movie guy is 20/20 hindsight. If not him it would be someone else. They don't need a conspiracy or bad motives on our side of the Atlantic.

As others have said, chanting Obama we are all Osama, seems closer to the true motivation. Occam's razor and all that.

There are plenty of facts on the ground for which there are no good answers yet. Perhaps we should get to the bottom of those before we get around to tackling your speculations.

In addition to all the others facts that have been mentioned, my current favorites are 1)why in such an unstable country as Libya we even had a consulate in Benghazi in the first place. I would think securinly maintaining the embassy in Tripoli would be difficult enough. 2)Sorry to speak ill of the dead, but why did our ambassador expose himself to the danger of leaving the embassy to visit a poorly secured outpost on 9/11 of all dates?; 9/17/12, 3:51 PM
garage mahal said...: So why are you so ignorant?

Asking someone to review something doesn't equal "asking Youtube to take the video down". So, again, I ask you the same question.; 9/17/12, 3:52 PM
furious_a said...: The Obama Administration announced the guy's identity and tried to get Google to remove the video.

Garage: I don't think either of those claims are true.

Then you know diddly, Garage. Or else you don't know that "either" means.; 9/17/12, 3:53 PM
Matt Sablan said...: "Seems angry Muslims and angry Republicans both despise Obama."

-- It wasn't funny when people said that about Democrats and Bush, it wasn't funny now either.; 9/17/12, 3:54 PM
Matt Sablan said...: "Asking someone to review something doesn't equal "asking Youtube to take the video down". So, again, I ask you the same question."

-- They did not ask them to review it. They asked them to take it down.; 9/17/12, 3:55 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: Asking someone to review something doesn't equal "asking Youtube to take the video down".

That's like Obama asking the Supremes to "review" Citizens United.; 9/17/12, 3:59 PM
chickelit said...: The Obama Administration announced the guy's identity and tried to get Google to remove the video.

Garage: The WH asked Google to to check whether the video violated any of their standards. A consequence would have meant removal. Since it stood, can we assume that Google is complicit in Allie's theory of culpability?; 9/17/12, 4:00 PM
garage mahal said...: -- They did not ask them to review it. They asked them to take it down.

Then link to it and I will correct.; 9/17/12, 4:02 PM
chickelit said...: AllieOop said...
Furious, what a fool you are and take care of that lisp, it makes you sound stupid.

Crack may be right about many of you here, sheep, baaaa, baaa.

MamaM was right about you.; 9/17/12, 4:03 PM
Matt Sablan said...: ... Use some logic. If they didn't want them to take it down, why would they ask them to re-review it? Obviously they wanted them to take it down. It's like how the winning side doesn't appeal a case.; 9/17/12, 4:04 PM
Anonymous said...: Chickelit, Ritmo was right about YOU.

What a little gossiper you are Chickie, worse than any woman.; 9/17/12, 4:09 PM
furious_a said...: Typing S-L-O-W-L-Y and in BOLD so that Garage can keep up...

Google rejects White House request to pull Mohammad film clip
-- Reuters; 9/17/12, 4:13 PM
Anonymous said...: Lem said:

Politically, Obama benefits from this foreign chaos, as it forces a foreign adverse audience to look over there away form the chaos and misery of his economy.

I'm not so sure it benefits him. Remember, one of the lines sold to us in 2008 was that the world would luuvv us when that cowboy Duyba was sent packing and Barry moved into the WH. His brown skin and exotic childhood and vast sophistication (evident even to speakers of Austrian) would enable him to molify the Islamic street in ways that old white Republicans were incapable of simply because they were old white Republicans.

Well, there's another Dem "narrative" shot to hell, isn't it? Oh, not among hopelessly stupid boneheads like garage and allie oops who will refuse to see the obvious no matter how many times it's pointed out to them, but I'm talking about people with higher IQs than garden slugs.; 9/17/12, 4:13 PM
Revenant said...: I don't think either of those claims are true.

You commented on the thread about the White House request. "Good for Obama" were you exact words on the subject. So it is safe to say you not only believe they asked Google to take down the video -- you approve of it. :)

As for the feds ratting out the guy's identity, here is one of many articles about it.; 9/17/12, 4:18 PM
CWJ said...: Following up on my earlier comment and using a semicolon to irritate our hostess; Egypt is an, until recently, stable country of over 80MM people with a US embassy and no consulates. Libya is a sandbox with less than 7MM people. Why the consulate in Benghazi?; 9/17/12, 4:20 PM
chickelit said...: AllieOop said...
Chickelit, Ritmo was right about YOU.

What a little gossiper you are Chickie, worse than any woman.

I must have missed that thread, Allie. Sadly, I stopped caring what Ritmo thinks about me personally after he said I was OK except for being screwed-up about certain "social issues." Apparently, he's got a litmus test for people's intelligence which I failed. That will be his undoing.

But I've been on vacation so maybe I missed it.; 9/17/12, 4:23 PM
Anonymous said...: You wouldn't have read it here Chickelit. There are modes of communication besides this blogs comments section.; 9/17/12, 4:36 PM
garage mahal said...: Typing S-L-O-W-L-Y and in BOLD so that Garage can keep up...

I read the links. They don't say what you want them to say.; 9/17/12, 4:37 PM
Baron Zemo said...: AllieOop said...
I'm asking questions, I'm wondering why you folks are NOT.

There is no question. If you believe in free speech you don't care what kind of scumbag the person might be...he is entitled to say what he wants. It is still a free country. We hope.

Also you should be aware that making fun of Muslims is not sedition. You are a fool.; 9/17/12, 4:37 PM
furious_a said...: Garage: They don't say what you want them to say.

In your world, Garage, where Obama never made promises about Janesville GM.; 9/17/12, 4:39 PM
Anonymous said...: Baron Zemo, it's not the making fun of Muslims which may end up being sedition, you dumb fuck.; 9/17/12, 4:43 PM
Baron Zemo said...: Notice the people who defend this gross violation of the spirit of the first amendment.

Cedarford. Allie Oop. Garage.

What do they have in common?; 9/17/12, 4:44 PM
Baron Zemo said...: Allie please pretend you are a lady.

Otherwise I will see you next Thursday.; 9/17/12, 4:46 PM
Unknown said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/17/12, 4:51 PM
BarrySanders20 said...: CWJ:

We opened it the unrest with former alive person and former dictator Quadaffi made it too risky to stay in Tripoli and Banghazi was the rebel base/stronghold. We wanted to show who we stood with while our planes bombed Lybia without Congressional approval. We evacuated the Tripoli embassy in February 2011. Though it is not real clear, and the media does not seem too interested, apparently we kept the interim facility open for thngs like sending our ambassador there to sweep up or water the plants or to make sure the fridge didn't leak while he was gone.; 9/17/12, 5:09 PM
Cedarford said...: Revenant said...
"What if his movie was funded b Al Qaeda?

Dumb question. Al Qaeda has the same inalienable right to insult Islam that everyone else does.

You suffer from the delusion that freedom of speech doesn't apply to speech that might cause psychotic people to go on a killing spree. You're wrong, both as a matter of morality and as a matter of law.

=============
No, Revenent, your attempt to play armchair lawyer is limited by your inability to understand enemy subversion.
Enemy don't get a pass.
Lincoln and Truman shut down enemy attempts to infiltrate our media organs to turn infowar against America.

Besides Al Qaeda, what if, as a hypothetical, it was learned Chinese intelligence services funneled money to the Copt con artist and crook in a ploy to harm American interests in the Muslim world? To get us out of influence in Central Asia, Malaysia, as well as the Middle East? Purge America from lands with resources China wants to control?

What if it was Iran funding it to hopefully kill Americans and set the Arabs and America up in a conflict Iran strategicaly benefitted from??

Take your absolutist "1st Amendment rights even Al Qaeda can access in America and exploit to use against us"...and shove it up your ass.; 9/17/12, 5:15 PM
Cedarford said...: Revenent - What your sort of fascist never quite understands is that "freedom of speech" applies to our enemies as well as to ourselves. Even if this guy was part of some bizarre conspiracy to piss off the entire Middle East, that is entirely legal and Constitutionally permitted.

==============
What is it about false flags, enemy subversion, being manipulated by puppetmasters fon't you get, Revenent???

You are like people who claim Mohammed Atta had scared liberties in a land of Freedom Lovers!! to be free to recruit Islamoids and to take flying lessons and the only time we had a right to stop him was 30,000 feet in the air when the "first real crime outside his Constitutional rights and liberties actually took place".; 9/17/12, 5:21 PM
Trochilus said...: There is no prosecution for free speech.

You know, this all reminds me of a similar incident in New York years ago.

Anyone remember the time, way back during the Clinton Administration, when federal authorities intentionally rounded up some local jack-booted enforcement thugs from New York City, and they all headed down to Union Square in the middle of the night, with CNN cameras in tow, to bash on the door of and harass Salman Rushdie who was living there at the time to intentionally harass him and expose exactly where he lived on camera, and then drag him out of the house in a "perp walk" in front of the cameras in order to take him in for questioning, as a result of the several murders, attempted murders, bombings and other violence that took place as a reaction, in several locations in the Muslim world, to the open publication of "The Satanic Verses."

And, who else can remember the pressure they put on Viking Press to not publish the book?

Anyone? Anyone? How about you Garage?; 9/17/12, 5:23 PM
Cedarford said...: I also note that we properly whacked al-Alawki for using his "precious free speech rights" to subvert the likes of Major Hasan Nidal...
and we have lodged treason charges under Bush's DOJ against Adam Gadan for "exercising his sacred 1st Amendmendment Rights".; 9/17/12, 5:23 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: The thing is, with the cable guy I can go, "So we got this constitution and a bill of rights that identify who we are and what we are about why we are different and the very first change they agreed to make to that is an amendment about ensuring in writing a right to free speech. The very first thing. That's how important that is. so all administrations and all administrations at all levels are sworn to protect that, and never act against that because it defines who we are." And the guy's face light up. Literally. His eyes got bigger so more eye white showed and his visage changed to happiness and white of teeth showed like he just heard a most agreeable logical concise little history summation. Like hanging out here has turned me into a professorial sort so it comes out of me conversationally.

And I just don't get that kind of respect for mah authoritah around heyah.; 9/17/12, 5:32 PM
David said...: AllieOop said...
What if his movie was funded b Al Qaeda? Who cares about Westboro.

Tinfoil hat territory, Allie. You are really showing your true colors. The guy is, by all evidence, a Copt. They have been persecuted by Muslims for over 1000 years. So unless he is a true Manchurian Candidate, with a long term fake identity, your speculation is beyond silly.

AQ has easier ways to inflame a mob against Americans. In addition, you are contradicting yourself insofar as you still cling to the notion that this was a spontaneous protest that went wild. AQ may be part of this, since there was a armed militia involved. That remains to be seen, but there clearly was a paramilitary organization behind it.

That said, your buddies Holder and Obama are pulling this off again. The focus is now on some idiot Copt from California, not on them or on the failure in embassy security.

Indeed, in a classic stonewall, State has said it will give no more information on the attack until the FBI "investigation" is "concluded."

How much do you want to bet it will conclude after the election? And why should we trust it?

Leaving those diplomats that vulnerable in that city in that country was a fuck up. It's directly Hillary's fuckup and indirectly Obama's. I would say the same of a Republican Secretary of State and President.

Once again the administration ducks responsibility. Successfully I might add.; 9/17/12, 5:44 PM
David said...: Allie: "Crack may be right about many of you here, sheep, baaaa, baaa."

Running out of substantive arguments, Allie? At least fake one. Set up another straw man. At least Crack preceded his epithet with a discussion.

And by the way the right wing "what if's" (speculating that the whole thing was an Obama plant) are just as silly as your lefty speculation. It's a governmental fuck up. Governments do it all the time. Republicans and Democrats. It's the nature of humans and their institutions to make mistakes.

What sets this administration apart is its failure to take responsibility for anything.

Could someone just say "Obviously, our security was inadequate. The results of the attack are the only evidence needed for that conclusion. We thought we had adequate preparations but it turned out that we did not. This only increases our anguish over the losses from these terrible murders. We will be reviewing embassy security intensively to assure that we do not have a repeat of this terrible incident."; 9/17/12, 5:56 PM
cubanbob said...: Allie normally you are a civil and intelligent commenter albeit wrong on most issues (IMHO). Why this today? You are almost agreeing with C4 which is never a smart thing. Who is behind this movie? Who knows? But even if for the sake of argument your thesis is correct, what of it? Do you believe the crazed sub-section of Muslims are going to question the trailer? No amount of proof will persuade them because they want to believe it. Trashing our own free speech rights will gain us no favors with that section of crazies, it invites further erosion of our other liberties and obviously makes us look weak in the eyes of other adversaries. There is no upside.

Free speech isn't an absolute right, there no absolute rights especially if one can be legally executed or aborted. That said, there are times, in very specific and narrow instances where for national security reasons speech can be curtailed but those instances are relatively few and the connection to national or military operational security is pretty straight forward. This trailer or whatever it is isn't such a case.

All the talk about this trailer inflaming the Muslim masses is a red herring, it distracts from what really happened, a major screw up by the Administration in not acting on timely and actionable intelligence reports. Even if we had no clear cut 'war' warning how much foresight does it tale to foresee AQ pulling these actions on 9/11 to revenge themselves for killing bin Laden and other top AQ leaders? Admit it, the Administration truly screwed this up. You will vote for Obama for whatever other reasons you want to, but he, and as Truman said the buck stops with the president, Obama screwed this up royally and since you are an intellectually honest person you will admit that much.; 9/17/12, 6:05 PM
CWJ said...: Barry Sanders,

I hope you see this. Thank you for the context. It was extremely helpful to me. Though as the end of your comment made clear, the context in turn raises its own set of questions.; 9/17/12, 6:09 PM
chickelit said...: @David: Well said at 5:56 PM.; 9/17/12, 6:36 PM
damikesc said...: I find is very strange and weird that some here basically want to turn this Nakoula character into a Saint and American hero, what twisted thinking.

Yes, opposing a rather blatant attempt to stifle speech is the same thing as attempting to sanctify somebody.

It's about protecting innocents, innocents who are now dead.

Perhaps somebody should've attended a security briefing rather than one of his dozens of fundraisers. But, hey, what are dead Americans when weighed against Obama's need for cash?

Lyssa, What about speech that is seditious?

I thought it was widely accepted that the Alien and Sedition Acts were amongst the worst things America has ever done.

...I guess I was wrong.

I'm asking questions, I'm wondering why you folks are NOT.

We are.

Why were the embassies so under-protected on a day known to be a bit of a high activity day?

Why did the Resident skip the majority of his security briefings?

Why is the Resident's team so desperate to place the blame, SOLELY, on a YouTube video nobody watched?

What if his movie was funded b Al Qaeda?

Would that somehow make free speech less of a right if the funding was deplorable?

Heck, Soros --- who worked with Nazis as a youngster --- funds lots of groups.

The Kennedy clan made their money off of close ties to the mafia.

Matthew, it is painfully evident that you and others do not want to get to the bottom of this because it will mess with your narrative and group think, that is PATHETIC and dangerous,considering that we are in a war with terrorists.

I think you're funded by Al Qaeda. Thus, we should investigate you closely.

What evidence do I have of that? Well, you need to just ask the questions.; 9/17/12, 6:37 PM
Tarzan said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/17/12, 10:38 PM
Tarzan said...: NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR YOUR ART.; 9/17/12, 10:40 PM
kentuckyliz said...: That picture is red meat for the Muzzie terrorists trying to baptize the world in blood to get ready for the 12th Caliphate. It says, go ahead, riot--it works! It guarantees more violence and attacks and murders.

I will blaspheme Mohammed daily wrapped in bacon if there is any attempt to limit free speech out of respect/fear of Muslims' religious feelings. Fuck their fucking feelings. I will become so outspokenly blasphemous until they habituate it as their new normal.

Silence=Death.; 9/18/12, 12:03 AM
kentuckyliz said...: "I've suffered for my art--now it's your turn."; 9/18/12, 12:04 AM