Thursday Reads: Bitter White Men, the Petraeus Affair, and GOP Cluelessness
Posted: November 15, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Discrimination against women, Monsanto, morning reads, U.S. Economy, U.S. Military, U.S. Politics | Tags: Benghazi attacks, David Petraeus, Diane Feinstein, Eric Cantor, Frederick W. Humphries III, GOP conspiracy theories, Jill Kelley, John Derbyshire, Kevin MacDonald, meritocracy, military and women, mind control, Noam Scheiber, Paula Broadwell, Rosa Brooks, White nationalist groups, White supremacists 55 Comments
Good Morning!!
Following on Dakinikat’s post about the bitter old white men who can’t handle four more years with a black president, I recommend you read a scary article by J.M. Berger at Foreign Policy on “Why white nationalists are thrilled with Obama’s victory.” Several white supremacist leaders are quoted in the piece; I’ll just give you a couple of examples.
Kevin MacDonald, a professor of psychology whose anti-Semitic writings make him a favorite of Neo-Nazis, penned a pro-secession piece for a prominent white identity site, The Occidental Observer, that might finally get him fired from California State University, where he inexplicably still works.
White males constituted only 34% of the electorate and this will continue to decline. It’s no accident that stocks of gun companies soared after the election, even though the stock market as a whole took a dive. What we have here is a situation in which around 70% of traditional American White men (correcting for the overly inclusive White’ category used by the media) are now pretty much officially disenfranchised in a country where they see themselves as the founding population. That’s a lot of angry White men….
It may take a while for this 70% to wake up to the reality that they are politically impotent. But it will happen. Separatist movements in the many states that are deeply red are certainly a possibility. … Is there any other realistic alternative? Apart from futile violence against the Leviathan, do White men really have any other choice?
The concept of a wake-up call articulated by MacDonald was widely echoed in posts on white nationalist blogs and forums. Some thought it would come sooner, others thought it might come later, but many agreed the writing was on the wall.
Then there’s John Derbyshire, who was fired from National Review earlier this year.
When you look at the overall picture, however, we are still fighting the Civil War. That is to say, the contest was mainly between two huge groups of white people who don’t much like each other, with the colored folk playing a marginal role. That’s how it was in the War Between the States, and that’s how it still is today.
He went on to suggest whites will ultimately have no choice but to unite as a race-based voting bloc. The current problem, Derbyshire explained, was that “Republicans are white, sure enough, but whites are not Republican.”
Berger concludes that when these groups finally realize that history and demographics are leaving them behind, they will have no choice but to turn to violence. I just hope the Secret Service and FBI are aware of and ready to deal with this threat from the right.
Disgraced General David Petraeus will testify before Congress on Benghazi today “behind closed doors,” according to the Washington Post.
He is likely to be asked — both by reporters on his way in and by lawmakers — about any possible intelligence breaches involving his biographer, Paula Broadwell. Law enforcement officials said Broadwell is the woman with whom the retired general has acknowledged having an affair….
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) told reporters Wednesday that Petraeus has agreed to testify. After his sudden resignation, acting CIA Director Michael Morell had been tapped to appear in Petreaus’s place.
“Gen. Petraeus is willing to come before the committee and the details will be worked out,” Feinstein said.
Noam Scheiber has an interesting and thoughtful piece about the relationship between Paula Broadstone and David Petraeus: Paula Broadwell, a Hanger-On in King Petraeus’s Court. According to Scheiber, the people around Petraeus could not understand how Broadwell managed to get so close to this supposedly “intellectual” general.
Petraeus wasn’t just the Army’s most famous general. He was the military’s best-known and most accomplished intellectual. If he wanted an official biography, he could have had his pick of dozens of scholars and writers. “My gosh, if you are going to have someone interview everyone who has ever touched you in your life, choose someone who has written a biography or at least a history book,” Peter Mansoor, one of the general’s top aides, told The Washington Post.
Scheiber describes Petraeus as the “ultimate meritocrat–with his Ph.D. from Princeton and his reputation as a “brainiac.”
[T]he term “meritocracy”—a bit like its cousin, “the best and the brightest”—wasn’t actually intended to be complimentary. It entered the lexicon through a book, “The Rise of the Meritocracy,” by the British social thinker Michael Young, who imagined a dystopian world in which a small group of highly educated elites controls society. The meritocrats persuade themselves that, unlike the ruling classes that came before them, they are uniquely deserving of power because they earned it rather than inherited it. (And they have the SAT scores to prove it, by God!) And yet, over time, they somehow manage to become just as inbred, self-serving, and corrupt.
Over time, Petraeus went through that same transformation, surrounding himself with
…growing hoards of groupies who descended on his command posts, including conservative think-tankers from Washington, for whom he arranged office space and aircraft….Paula Broadwell, it turns out, was the kind of hanger-on whose arrival heralds a meritocracy in decline. Outwardly, she checked all the right sociological boxes: High school valedictorian, all-state basketball player, West Point alum, Harvard master’s degree. But, up close, she could be remarkably shallow. “There was no room for a conversation of shortcomings of the Petraeus theology. She wasn’t a reporter. She struck me as an acolyte,” a wonk who met her told the Post. “I was underwhelmed….
What Broadwell excelled at instead was leveraging credentials to impress fellow achievers. She didn’t stop at her own. When my friend met her, she was fond of pointing out that her husband was no mere radiologist but a special breed known as an “interventional radiologist.” (She would draw out the word “interventional” for emphasis.) Later, she would boast about hanging out with the glitterati on the panel-discussion circuit—“Heading 2 @AspenInstitute 4 the Security Forum tomorrow! Panel (media & terrorism) followed by a 1v1 run with Lance Armstrong,” she recently tweeted, according to the Times. She was a kind of successful-person trophy collector who made no apologies for her ambitions. (My friend remembers the Facebook appeal in which she asked, “Can anyone introduce me to Lance Armstrong?”)
It’s a fascinating article, and an antidote to all the trashy coverage of the Petraeus-Broadwell scandal in much of the corporate media.
Rosa Brooks has written another serious article on the Petraeus affair at Foreign Policy: Sex and the Modern Soldier. Brooks asks:
Does the U.S. military have an adultery problem? A woman problem? A generic, all-purpose craziness, sleaze, and corruption problem? A public-image problem?
Answering these questions in order, I can offer a definitive “sort of,” “kind of, “maybe,” and “very possibly.”
The article is too long and detailed to sum up quickly, but here’s an excerpt from the section on the military’s “woman problem.”
The military remains plagued by allegations of sexual harassment and assault, and a number of studies by the Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs have concluded that women in the military face higher rates of sexual assault than do civilian women. Here again, no big surprise: The military remains an overwhelmingly male — and overwhelmingly macho — institution. Women are outnumbered and often rendered nearly invisible in a culture in which nearly all senior officers are male.
This extends to the home front, as well. In certain ways, the informal culture of military officers resembles the 1950s more than the 21st century. Military life isn’t just hard on marriage — it’s also hard on the careers of the (mostly female) civilian spouses of military personnel. Rising up the career ladder isn’t easy when you move from one military base to another every few years. One military friend of mine recalls a general telling junior officers — in a recent lecture at an official Army command training event — that they should actively discourage their wives from pursuing careers, because career women would be less supportive and flexible military wives. And though official publications now speak of officers’ “spouses” rather than “wives,” the military still produces etiquette guides for spouses, with a rather gendered focus on appropriate forms of address at social functions and the proper pouring of tea and coffee.
Yuck. Read all about it at the link.
Frederick Humphries, FBI agent
Last link on the Petraeus clusterfu&ck: The NYT has learned the name of the mystery FBI agent who sent shirtless photos to Jill Kelley and disrupted the investigation by contacting Rep. Eric Cantor.
The F.B.I. agent who spurred the investigation that led to the resignation of David H. Petraeus as C.I.A. director is a “hard-charging” veteran who helped investigate the foiled millennium terrorist plot in 1999, colleagues said on Wednesday.
The agent, Frederick W. Humphries II, 47, is also described by former colleagues as relentless in his pursuit of what he sees as wrongdoing, which appears to describe his role in the F.B.I. investigation involving Mr. Petraeus. Suspecting that the case involved serious security issues and was being stalled, possibly for political reasons — a suspicion his superiors say was unjustified — he took his concerns to Congressional Republicans.
“Fred is a passionate kind of guy,” one former colleague said. “He’s kind of an obsessive type. If he locked his teeth onto something, he’d be a bulldog.”
Humphries says that the shirtless photos were sent to Jill Kelley long before the Petraeus investigation and were simply a “joke.”
I know everyone has probably heard already about how Mitt Romney spoke to donors yesterday on a conference call and insulted women, African Americans, Latinos, and young people by claiming that these groups voted to reelect Barack Obama because he <a showered them with “gifts” during his first term. But I can’t help including it, because it’s so typical of the cluelessness that Romney and his supporters showed throughout his campaign. Here’s how the NYT Caucus Blog reported on the call:
In a conference call with fund-raisers and donors to his campaign, Mr. Romney said Wednesday afternoon that the president had followed the “old playbook” of using targeted initiatives to woo specific interest groups — “especially the African-American community, the Hispanic community and young people.”
“In each case, they were very generous in what they gave to those groups,” Mr. Romney said, contrasting Mr. Obama’s strategy to his own of “talking about big issues for the whole country: military strategy, foreign policy, a strong economy, creating jobs and so forth.” ….
“With regards to the young people, for instance, a forgiveness of college loan interest was a big gift,” Mr. Romney said. “Free contraceptives were very big with young, college-aged women. And then, finally, Obamacare also made a difference for them, because as you know, anybody now 26 years of age and younger was now going to be part of their parents’ plan, and that was a big gift to young people. They turned out in large numbers, a larger share in this election even than in 2008.”
The president’s health care plan, he said, was also a useful tool in mobilizing black and Hispanic voters. Though Mr. Romney won the white vote with 59 percent, according to exit polls, minorities coalesced around the president in overwhelming numbers: 93 percent of blacks and 71 percent of Hispanics.
“You can imagine for somebody making $25,000 or $30,000 or $35,000 a year, being told you’re now going to get free health care, particularly if you don’t have it, getting free health care worth, what, $10,000 per family, in perpetuity — I mean, this is huge,” Mr. Romney said. “Likewise with Hispanic voters, free health care was a big plus. But in addition with regards to Hispanic voters, the amnesty for children of illegals, the so-called Dream Act kids, was a huge plus for that voting group.”
Breathtaking, isn’t it? This man really needs to go away and never be heard from again. I certainly hope Obama won’t consult him on anything, including what the weather is like outside his window. Goodbye, Mitt. Please don’t ever come back.
Finally, this one is for JJ. Check out this article at Mother Jones: Top Georgia GOP Lawmakers Host Briefing on Secret Obama Mind-Control Plot.
President Obama is using a Cold War-era mind-control technique known as “Delphi” to coerce Americans into accepting his plan for a United Nations-run communist dictatorship in which suburbanites will be forcibly relocated to cities. That’s according to a four-hour briefing delivered to Republican state senators at the Georgia state Capitol last month.
On October 11, at a closed-door meeting of the Republican caucus convened by the body’s majority leader, Chip Rogers, a tea party activist told Republican lawmakers that Obama was mounting this most diabolical conspiracy. The event—captured on tape by a member of the Athens-based watchdog Better Georgia (who was removed from the room after 52 minutes)—had been billed as an information session on Agenda 21, a nonbinding UN agreement that commits member nations to promote sustainable development. In the eyes of conservative activists, Agenda 21 is a nefarious plot that includes forcibly relocating non-urban-dwellers and prescribing mandatory contraception as a means of curbing population growth. The invitation to the Georgia state Senate event noted the presentation would explain: “How pleasant sounding names are fostering a Socialist plan to change the way we live, eat, learn, and communicate to ‘save the earth.'”
There’s much much more insanity at the link.
Now what’s on your reading and blogging list for today?
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
BB…..Great roundup of right wingnut batshittery this morning. Secret mind control, really???? How do such paranoid and delusional people find their way into public office?
Mitt Romney needs to take his self-serving, takers vs. makers, plutocratic sour grapes into permanent exile. Thank the goddess of the universe that he lost and that he, his stepford wife and their brood are gone from the public stage.
It is a post full of compelling reads.
And John Derbyshire? He sort of reminds me of the secessionist SC dixienut Do-Da that was commenting here a few weeks ago. Talking about a small niche market, these pointyhat guys have one. I’m wondering if we can determine exactly which hole these rats squeezed out of so we can cement it over. 🙂
Does Derbyshire even have American citizenship? He’s a Brit or at least was a Brit, who came to America because his schtick wasn’t paying as much in his native country, so any reference to “we” in terms of the Civil War is laughable. Another deluded old white guy, who seems to have a propensity for brown partners.
Dak…..I thought of you when I read this”
“Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) strongly condemned Mitt Romney Wednesday night for remarks by the former Republican nominee blaming President Obama’s re-election on “big gifts” he delivered to minorities and women.”
Is Jindal fighting for his damn political life, or what? I suspect he took a look around and realized that Romney insulted almost every person in LA. Not a good association for Jindal at this point, especially if he wants to move forward politically.
That miserable little freak has been busy “moderating” ever since the election. Can you say scam artist?
Jindal has started his 2016 presidential campaign.
So much hate has floated to the surface in the last year and it’s frightening. It’s almost as if America has become more like Iraq & Afghanistan (with different religious sects and/or tribal groups warring with each other) than they have changed to resemble an American type democracy. Or maybe it’s just exposing the fact that we haven’t been very democratic all along. The groups Mittens spoke of in his conference call are those who have been on the outside looking in for most of our history.
Thought this was an interesting piece from Alternet this morning: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/5-giant-contradictions-sunk-gop?page=0%2C1&paging=off
Here’s just a part of the piece:
Hope everyone has a great day!
Thanks for that link, Connie. You have a good day too!
OMG, that link from the Georgia idiots…was funny in an absolutely disturbing way.
Ron Paul bids goodbye to Congress – video from C-Span at the link, along with a partial transcript of his 52 minute long speech. I’m certainly no Libertarian, but I do agree with some of what he says: constant war, Patriot Act, drones, the threat of fascism are of concern. Here’s the link: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/11/ron-paul-departs-with-our-constitution-has-failed/
Too bad he’s a nutty old neo-confederate himself.
In case ya’ll missed the video of Nancy Pelosi deftly kicking Luke Russert’s butt yesterday, here’s the video:
Brava Nancy! Thanks Connie, that was refreshing.
I am woman, hear me roar! Gives me goosebumps & a sense of pride.
Misogyny and ageism in one coifed, inane package. Who would have thought?
Yeah, I saw that. She did a very nice job of taking him down at the knees. Pisspot never earned anything in his life and strolled into his job with NBC on his deceased father’s coattails. How dare he use that tone with the former Speaker of the House and current House Minority Leader. Eat rocks, Russert.
Look at those dancers – fiercely love them.
Eco……That’s soooooo good. Especially with all the women standing behind her jeering Russert. Someone needs to talk to Russert about valuing the wisdom and experience that comes with age. And not all 70 year old people are the same, some are vibrant and strong physically, mentally and emotionally, and some are pooped. I think the process of running for POTUS requires an extremely vibrant healthy person, which isn’t as common among 70+ yr old folks as it is among 50 yr old people, but in the Congress, as long as you’re in good working order intellectually, there is no reason not to be able to endure into old age and to hold leadership positions.
Mouse – “but in the Congress, as long as you’re in good working order intellectually”. LOL!
Not sure everyone in Congress, despite their age, would pass that test. McCain, Inhofe, Chambliss, Issa and the list goes on & on & on.
LOL…..Poor John McCain. I don’t want his inability to put forth a cogent message blamed on his age. McCain doesn’t have an intellectual problem, he has a self promotion problem as does his partner in crime, Lindsey Graham. Those two have been so up and down within their own party, particularly among the Teanuts, they spend half their time trying to figure out how to score points. The latest being their ridiculous attack on Susan Rice. How McCain or Graham can declare this to be the greatest intelligence failure they’ve seen in their careers, when both of these clowns were sitting U.S. Senators on the armed services committee on 9/11/2001 and both were in those same positions when Colin Powell delivered the flawed Iraq WMD assessement to the UN, is outrageous. They’re just attention whores!!!!
What was even more amazing is McCain suggesting that Rice was not up to the job and wasn’t all that bright.
This from the same man who chose SARAH PALIN as his running mate! Does he think we have forgotten that disaster? That “Game Change” never happened when her intellectual and emotional shortcomings weren’t exposed for all to see? That even today she continues to be one of the most clueless, ignorant, and dimwitted people on the planet?
I can’t testify to how bright or competent is Susan Rice (even though she holds several degrees) but when your first decision as a possible POTUS is SARAH PALIN you have no credibility when it comes to describing the abilities of anyone else.
No matter what, John McCain will always wear the name SARAH PALIN around his neck as an albatross while casting the spotlight on his own intelligence for doing so.
Rice graduated cum laude from Stanford … McCain was like 4th from the bottom of his class at the navel academy.
Someone needs to shove his own failures up his nose. It’s no secret he decided to pay no attention to the real Iraq NO-WMD assessment offered by the IAEA and UN inspectors before the Iraq invasion. And he has never acknowledge his campaigns intelligence failures concerning his VP choice. Maybe we should start pushing back by calling him Senator John McPalin.
Someone needs to sit Russert down and explain the meaning of “nepotism.” Then he should be fired to make way for a real journalist at NBC.
Spoiled little brat who has had everything handed to him without mussing up a hair on his empty head.
I second that emotion!!!
BB, thanks for the links today. Speaking of Li’Luke, I checked his twitter yesterday it was LOL of people calling out his stupidity and nepotism.
“Spoiled little brat who has had everything handed to him without mussing up a hair on his empty head.”
He’s folliically challenged, so it won’t be long before he doesn’t have that to worry about. Everytime I see him on MSNBC/NBC I wonder how many real journalists are looking for job while he’s pretending to be a journalist.
ROFLOL – where’s the “Like” button?!
Harry Reid slaps down Scott Brown and his pretense of bipartisanship.
Good for Harry Reid for pointing out Scott Brown’s bluff that he was bipartisan during the Senate campaign. Those “bipartisan” votes he claimed were not controversial in the least as most of us here in MA could point out. But that self description was accepted by many supporters and may very well be trotted out again should he run if Kerry is pulled from the Senate for another assignment.
Paula Broadwell’s “type” is not unknown to many of us women familiar with certain types who pursue power. The type who sits herself as close as possible to men in positions at meetings, nodding and agreeing with whatever “blather” is being pushed by their male superiors.
They are they type that bring “goodies” to meetings that the leader prefers, makes sure the coffee is just the right blend, gushes over “new ideas”, brushes off the lint, and leads the applause for the mundane. They give off an aura of being “in the know” even when they aren’t and can be spotted anywhere at anytime and very often their “flattery” to those in power goes a long way in fluffing up the ego of some self satisfied dope who believes in his own “genius”.
The irony is that her “type” can be found at Little League games as well as board meetings because the outcome is to get close to power and access. Women are able to see through this transparency faster than men.
If I never see or hear from Mitt Romney again I would consider that a “good thing”. As vacant now as he was then should come as no surprise.
I hope whatever Petraeus got out of the relationship with Broadwell was so damn hot and so damn rewarding that at least he has that to look back on. Because I can imagine him beginning to rue the day he met her and responded to her and also will start to hate her as the cause of his downfall.
Stupid, stupid, stupid emailed threats to another person, someone also with connections. And, while clearly talented at self promotion maybe not all that bright. Might refer to both women, alas.
Bitter times ahead for the general with lots of looking backward and thinking “if only.” Maybe criminal charges for Paula? Investigations into Jill’s foundation and finances? Oh, my. What webs, etc.
And all because of the stupid, stupid, stupid emails! And Paula thought she could outsmart the NSA or FBI or CIA and make them untraceable??? Oooof.
Any info on what threats Paula made to Jill?
“Any info on what threats Paula made to Jill?”
I believe she accused her of jumping her claim.
I’m starting to really like Harry Reid. Hope he stays on the same course.
There’s many a slip between words and deeds. Harry Reid has often spoken the good and true and strong words, then acted far differently. So, beware.
And put not your trust in politicians. Keep the pressure on. And verify, verify, verify.
Yesterday, Obama alomost sounded like a different person at his press conference yesterday, but I still won’t depend on his words. Pressure must be kept up. We can’t enjoy our holidays, since he’ll be working toward his compromise while we’re busy baking, and wrapping, and singing carols, etc.
Note that he was not specific about how entitlements would be handled to reach a Grand Bargain/Great Betrayal.
Will we have any influence, no matter what we do? I don’t know. I can only make my calls, etc..
.
i do so hope someone taped that conference call with Romney holding forth to his donors.
Now, either he thinks he can build conservative Republican cred by attacking the groups he did and plans to run again — or he’s giving up the ghost of any political career, except in Tea Party land.
ABC taped it, among others. I’m sure it will not be forgotten. 🙂 He’s such an asshole.
Dave Weigel with a ‘these people are clueless’ article. Angry white men refuse to get it.
Slate: Steve King: Let’s Not Worry About the Hispanic Vote
Sen John McPalin is a true scumbag!
Slate: McCain Missed Private Benghazi Hearing Because of “Scheduling Error”
Josh Rogin in Foreign Policy
Republicans skip Benghazi hearing; complain about lack of information on Benghazi
Senator John McPalin doesn’t have time to be bothered by hearings that will disclose what really happened at Benghazi, because that truth might conflict with his and his buddies at Fux News Conspiracy version of Benghazi events. He’s such a limp tool.
C’mon Mouse, don’t insult tools – all of mine are very handy. He’s a wet noodle, a limp poltroon, a candy-ass.
True that HT. 🙂
“Senator McCain was absent from the hearing due to a scheduling error,”
Yeah the hearing conflicted with his commitment to stand next to Lindsey Graham and spin BS for Fux & Friends. Dumb-clucker!!!!
Aha – another one comes to mind – a chicken shit. (thanks for the dumb-clucker clue)
That miserable old man is getting on my last nerve. He’s a real prick!
Best WH petition yet. “Allow everyone to punch Grover Norquist in the dick”.
roflmao!!
roflmao!!
I can’t stop laughing…………..roflmao I like the one turn only, don’t miss.
Oh that is good.
Goddam the GOP can’t even competently deny that they’re the party of illogical nincompoops. They’re in perpetual circular firing squad mode. Fire, aim, ready.
Watch as Soledad cockpunches Joe Heck 🙂
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/15/soledad-obrien-joe-heck-susan-rice_n_2138101.html
They are pathetic!