Rep Sam Johnson, the other day:
Speaking at a veterans’ celebration at Suncreek United Methodist Church in Allen, Texas….Johnson said he told the president that night, “Syria is the problem. Syria is where those weapons of mass destruction are, in my view. You know, I can fly an F-15, put two nukes on ‘em and I’ll make one pass. We won’t have to worry about Syria anymore.”
Randy Newman, some years ago:
No one likes us
I don’t know why
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try
But all around even our old friends put us down
Let’s drop the big one and see what happens We give them money
But are they grateful?
No they’re spiteful
And they’re hateful
They don’t respect us, so let’s surprise them
We’ll drop the big one and pulverize them.
Maybe the GOP should hire Newman as a foreign policy consultant. Johnson’s decision to deliver the remarks in a church was a particularly nice touch. I wonder if he knows where the road to Damascus actually is.
Road to damascus?
Hell, he’ll throw in a strafing run as well on the way back and wipe out any bloody peaceniks wandering along, having second thoughts about the state of the world today.
Madness- to even joke about stuff like that is beyond me.
J.S.
http://voicesofreason.info
You think Congressman Sam is gonna let any dam’ Syrians mess with his Precious Bodily Fluids?
Well, boom goes London
And boom Paree
More room for you
And more room for me
Well, boom goes London
And boom Paree
More room for you
And more room for me
Any way we could get a little more than just that excerpt? Maybe a synopsis of the context? As this was a veteran’s celebration, I’m thinking more is being made of this than it deserves. I mean he said he would fly and F-15 and drop the nuke personally. That might be the first clue he was just BS’ing with the veterans. Maybe some of these soldiers were wounded or fought against Syrian armed and trained Bathist in Iraq? They probably enjoyed the bravado quite a bit.
Is he talking about wiping out Syria or wiping out the WMD stockpiles?
Obviously, we don’t know where the WMD stockpiles are, but then, I don’t think two nukes can really wipe out Syria either.
Allegedly he was repeating a remark he made to GWB. I think Atrios has it.
He was relaying a conversation he had with the President, where he explained to Bush what he thought the situation in the Middle East called for.
“Republicanism - it’s a guy thing, you wouldn’t understand.” [bobs head, adjusts himself]
I agree with Jet. If only I knew the context for calling on an unprovoked nuclear attack I’m sure I could justify it.
A fun game: what possible context (sorry ‘bravado’ doesn’t cut it) would make this kind of statement not repulsive/scary?
A fun game: what possible context (sorry ‘bravado’ doesn’t cut it) would make this kind of statement not repulsive/scary?
Too easy: it was made by one of the Good Guys, and he was talking about the Bad Guys. Therefore, if you think it’s repulsive/scary, you’re not one of the Good Guys and, in fact, you’re probably one of the Bad Guys.
Easy, huh?
/sarcasm
Thanks for pointing out Rep Sam Johnson’s comments. I’d vote for him….
And I like the lyrics. Bombs away!
whoever said two nukes would not wipe out Syria has not hoisted in what even one modern nuke could do. It looks as if someone, somewhere, is bound to give a demonstration within the next fifty years. Let’s hope it’s only one.
The updated Axis of Weasel version would replace London with Berlin.
In response to the poster who said that this might be ‘just a joke’: Walter Benjamin wrote about this long ago. He stated that there was a kind of ‘trope’ (apologies for jargon) which he called, if memory services, a ‘blague’. This is when someone on the extreme right said something ‘outrageous’ and then when challenged looked aggrieved and said, ‘well i was only joking!!! Don’t you have a sense of humour?’ Benjamin commented that various ‘jokes’ along the lines of ‘Of course we’re going to have to kill all the Jews’ were of this sort.
Later on we all found out just how funny these jokes turned out to be.
We bloodthirsty hawks prefer to call it “informal diplomatic pressure.”
Thank you Brendan. Only three hours into the conversation, and you’ve initiated the Republicans=Nazis argument. Between people like you and Howard Dean (“Its a fight between good and evil. And we’re the good”), I appreciate the gift of the House, the Senate, and probably the White House for a very long time.
Steve
Well, it looks like some things never change. As Mark Twain said:
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
It doesn’t sound like most of you know much about Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas).
He was a fighter pilot. He also served 7 1/2 years as a POW.
But he wasn’t being serious in his remarks. Of course, he will be serious if the USA is struck again, as will be another 295 million citizens.
Just think about the retaliation if a nuke goes off in the USA. All hell will break loose, and Syria will be near the top of the list if there are indications that the source/support for the effort came from the Middle East.
So, old Sam was “jus’ jokin’”, huh? Well, that makes it all A-OK, then!
Any other hypothetical situations you’d like us all to picture, movieguy?
How about one in which Republican Congressmen don’t speak like jackasses?
Wildly improbable, I”ll admit, but since we’re all just supposin’ here….
by MG:
“Just think about the retaliation if a nuke goes off in the USA. All hell will break loose, and Syria will be near the top of the list if there are indications that the source/support for the effort came from the Middle East.”
——
by Locutor:
“Any other hypothetical situations you’d like us all to picture, movieguy?”
No, this is the one to worry about. It’s the major one that DoD/CIA/HS/STATE/other agencies are planning responses for.
We can sit back out here in the civilian world and hope that it never happens, but they plan for it. And those plans include responses…
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review