New York Times Surprised That Republicans Don't Want to See Obama Murdered
Swear to God, this is the lead paragraph of a New York Times article by Peter Baker:
President Obama must be touched by all the concern Republicans are showing him these days. As Congress examines security breaches at the White House, even opposition lawmakers who have spent the last six years fighting his every initiative have expressed deep worry for his security.
If the sarcasm of "touched" and the jaw-dropping deployment of the word "even" don't make it clear enough, Baker later writes, "Yet it would not be all that surprising if Mr. Obama were a little wary of all the professed sympathy." And he finishes the article with the sardonic phrase, "all with Mr. Obama's interests at heart." What a rancid view of the world.
In unrelated news, The New York Times today announced it is eliminating 100 newsroom jobs, due to poorer-than-expected financial results.
Link via the Twitter feed of National Review writer Charles C.W. Cooke.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
More proggy projection.
Because they desperately wanted to see The Other Side's President face down in a pool of blood, they assume The Other Side wants to see their President face down in a pool of blood.
They are either shocked this isn't so, or don't believe it isn't so. Hence, the article.
Exactly. I can hear his thought process: "Heh, heh, Dubya was assassinated today. But I guess I need to put on my shocked and angry face."
To be fair, I do want to see Obama in that position.
But it can be the blood of an ISIS supporter.
"Republicans don't want to see Obama murdered; women and children hardest hit"
This is the difference between us and them, and why they are evil and must never be bargained with.
They want to, at best, shut us up, and at worst, kill us, while we have no such compulsions unless first aggressed upon.
It's out of fear and a compulsion to control others' lives. See Vonnegut's Unready to Wear.
There would be nothing worse than making this failure a martyr. That said, the security of the supposedly important buildings says a lot with regard to the capability of this country. If it has been eroded that badly based upon trivial concerns (gender balance among bodyguards and the noise the alert boxes made) then there is something seriously wrong.
That said, I don't think the person of the president has any real value, but the Office has a great deal of value as an institution - which has badly decayed over the past five/six decades
The unhinged JournoList left would probably love it. Overnight they could turn him from the dismal failure he is into their generation's JFK.
Even if the perp was an extreme anti-war lefty, they would say the conservative "climate of hate" was responsible and they'd be holding crappy TV specials fifty years from now.
It wouldn't have so much goddamned value if the govt didn't have so much goddamned power.
Take the power down about 9 notches and nobody try to kill the pres.
I often come up with farcical-but-true ways to reform this congealed mess called government. One is no government bodyguards; if the Pres or Congress Critters want them, they have to pay for them themselves.
If a government employee is too big to fail, then his job needs to be taken down a notch, and the easiest way to ensure that is prohibit government bodyguards.
Hell, make 'em walk to work too, no more free house, limos, helo, or airplane. Fly coach, take the subway or a taxi.
gender balance among bodyguards and the noise the alert boxes made
How does anyone figure that's the problem? Women can't lock doors or watch fences? Seems to me that locking the door would have pretty well eliminated any real threat the guy may have posed.
due to poorer-than-expected financial results.
Definitely not poorer than I expected.
Not as poor as they deserve, either.
Prog-jection. They can't imagine themselves being worked up about the security of a Republican President, in fact they jacked off to assassination fantasies about George W. Bush, so they can't imagine that its possible simultaneously (a) oppose a President politically and (b) want him protected from assassins.
Wait, you don't wish that everyone you ever disagreed with died horribly in a fire?
You're a terrible liberal!
Look, stop with your silliness. Liberals do not believe everyone should die like that. Only the Koch Bros, and Rush Limbaugh, and Dick Cheney, and Bush, and Sarah Palin. But that's it. Oh, and all the teabaggers and all gun owners. But that's it. Oh, and climate change deniers and all Republicans, but that's it.
Aren't all those fires going to add to Global Warming?
No, Fire is too good for all of them. I want some broken on the wheel, others to suffer the death of a thousand cuts.
In unrelated news, The New York Times today announced it is eliminating 100 newsroom jobs, due to poorer-than-expected financial results.
Someone around here described the modern NYT as a "Yuppie Zine".
I thought that was brilliant and apt. Whoever that was, I salute you.
They should stick to articles about Kale.
I don't think their concern is so much for the POTUS, but for themselves. They probably believe that if some loon can just walk right into the whitehouse and take out the prez, that the same thing could easily happen during any session of congress.
I bet 99.9% of them also believe that the only solution is further restrictions on the rights of citizens.
This is just like the impeachment stuff earlier this year. The Republicans wouldn't impeach him so the Democrats just pretended otherwise. If the progressives end up making up the history of the Obama presidency, he will have succeeded despite facing opposition that unsuccessfully tried to impeach him and then assassinate him.
Don't forget that he also stopped global warming. You know, since he is POTUS right now and right now global warming has stopped, then he gets credit.
He stopped global warming before he even became prez! Only a real God could make effect precede cause!
"Coming just weeks before midterm elections, they said, the intense focus on the matter might further undercut confidence in the government Mr. Obama runs even though it was hardly his fault an intruder with a knife made it into the White House....
"While the director of the Secret Service is appointed by the president, the White House under either party typically defers to the agency on how to handle the president's security. Even when a president is angry at missteps ? as reports suggest Mr. Obama was after a 2011 shooting at the White House when one of his daughters was home ? he rarely expresses that publicly. For one, it might come across as impolitic. For another, it might offend the very people a president depends on most."
WTF? He supervises the Secret Service, appoints the director, but it's not his fault if they mess up? And if he comes down too hard on them, they might be "offend[ed]"? And then what? They'd be so offended they would retaliate by not doing their jobs?
Nothing is ever his fault. You haven't learned that yet?
He wouldn't be the first emperor capped by his Praetorian Guards. Gotta keep those guys happy.
The Politico posted a piece arguing that it will take Obama's assassination in order to reform the Secret Service--and it would have been his fault.
I can think of a more rancid worldview than the NYT offering mild surprise at the thought that Republicans are concerned over the president's safety. Such as Republicans' total political cynicism and refusal to govern, and their shameful and dangerous cultivation of a cult of blind Obama hatred that now inhabits every corner of the American right.
Opposition to the other party: Patriotism
Opposition to *my* party: Hatred
Opposition is one thing. What they've allowed to fester is pure unhinged psychosis. I'm not even talking about you idiots. The talk-radio set. They have no ideas that serve to oppose Obama's ideas. They are motivated purely by lizard-brain rage, and it's all been deliberately stoked for cynical partisan reasons.
"The talk-radio set. They have no ideas that serve to oppose Obama's ideas. They are motivated purely by lizard-brain rage, and it's all been deliberately stoked for cynical partisan reasons"
You mean ratings?
That it's a profitable enterprise doesn't make it any less propaganda.
No but I think your retarted if you think that everyone who listens to Rush Limbaugh is a mindless robot.
Well it's not exactly NPR in terms of informativeness. And I doubt there's a lot of crossover.
I listen to both.
"informativeness"?? Really?
Is "information content" too hard to spell?
On what planet is "information content" better than "informativeness" in that sentence?
The planet where English is spoken.
Well it's not exactly NPR in terms of informativeness. And I doubt there's a lot of crossover.
I've heard some public radio that is essentially Limbaugh for the left, except of bombastic attacks they default to smug straw-men.
Regardless, if you don't think that NPR is also being run for ratings you're fooling yourself.
NPR the nonprofit that runs on donations?
If you think NPR has anything in common with Limbaugh, you've never listened to one of them.
The Times isn't all that profitable, apparently. That's why they cut all those jobs.
No, that only happened because of all the anti-union measures passed by the previous administration. Why if the Democrats were a little better at opposing Bush's radical, anti-labor agenda then the Times wouldn't have been forced by competitive pressure to reduce good-paying, middle class jobs.
It really is projection all the way down, isn't it?
I hate Republicans because they are hellbent on destroying my beloved country through sheer stupidity. They hate Obama because they are told to by fat men who tickle their blue-collar white racial resentment nerve in just the right way.
I hate Republicans because they are hellbent on destroying my beloved country through sheer stupidity I'm worried that they might not give me even more free shit than I'm already taking from the taxpayers
FIFY
Any halfway intelligent person realizes that there is not a really great difference between the 2 parties anymore. Their rhetoric and methods differ, but they mostly exist for the same purpose, to keep themselves in power and enrich themselves and their crony interests and friends.
Right, because there's absolutely no rational reason to feel anything but unbridled adoration and gratitude toward Obama. He's done absolutely nothing wrong, and the only possible reason to disagree with him is racism. Fuck off Tony, you're not even interesting anymore.
anymore ?
WINNER!!!
you're not even interesting anymore.
He never really was, though the previous handler was a bit better than the v.8 that we're currently being subjected to.
I emphatically did not say that the only possible reason to disagree with him is racism.
I said that's the only reason the vast sea of idiots who make up the GOP base disagree with him. They're too stupid to have higher-level priorities.
I said that's the only reason the vast sea of idiots who make up the GOP base disagree with him. They're too stupid to have higher-level priorities.
Uh-huh. Because if you replaced him with Joe Biden or John Kerry, but kept his policies and whatnot identical, the GOP base would be in perfect agreement with him.
Just how deluded are you?
"my beloved country"
You just hate all the people in it.
"He loves the world, except for all the people..."
"my beloved government" -FTFY
You see a lot, Tony. But are you strong enough to point that high-powered perception at yourself? What about it? Why don't you - why don't you look at yourself and write down what you see? Or maybe you're afraid to.
A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
I was afraid nobody would get the reference.
Are you kidding? In this crowd? Hell Buffalo Bill and Warty are old buds....
They are motivated purely by lizard-brain rage, and it's all been deliberately stoked for cynical partisan reasons.
That is pure golden projection right there, folks. Pure fucking gold.
What good are ideas that oppose Obama's ideas when Harry Ried will never let them come to a vote.
This whole "you don't have any ideas" argument is a load of shit.
Ideas like outlawing abortion and clean energy and making Jesus king of America? Yeah, there are a few ideas floating around out there in the elite classes. One of which I have described--win elections by making white trash as blindly angry at the opposition as possible.
Ideas like "WAR ON WOMEN," "RAPE CULTURE," and "RACIST?" Am I missing anything?
Who wants to outlaw clean energy?
Who wants to outlaw clean energy?
Ah...the Koch Brothers?
and making Jesus king of America?
What the-?
No.
You-
You can't actually be this retarded. Of all the batshit crazy that comes spewing out of your posts, you can't honestly believe that "making Jesus King of America" has a snowball's chance in hell (yeah, yeah, doesn't exist, I get it) of actually happening. Ever.
I mean, for Science's sake, is this what keeps you up at night? Are these kind of fantastic nightmares what drive your hysterical screeds? I mean, shit, I worry about alot of things, but Fundamentalist Christians taking over the government is so far off the list of possibilities it wouldn't even sound good in some dystopian novel.
Get a grip, man.
Actually that was a joke based on reality. My Polish friend said that radical Christians actually proposed making Jesus king of Poland. I'm not sure what meaningfully distinguishes the Huckabee contingent from them.
Cool story bro.
Making Jesus King actually sounds like a great idea. Since he doesn't actually exist, he'd be just the sort of king I am looking for. Far different from Huckabee since he is pretty much a Jesus loving progressive.
You can't actually be this retarded.
Oh yes he can.
What they've allowed to fester is pure unhinged psychosis.
You demonstrate that on a daily basis.
They have no ideas that serve to oppose Obama's ideas.
Obama's ideas are a cancer. You're saying that when a doctor removes cancer, that it must be replaced with something. And any doctor who wants to simply remove cancer without replacing it with something is crazy.
Thank you for so ably demonstrating that I'm right.
OMG you're a moron.
yet you keep responding to it
It's like talking to someone in a coma. You keep hoping there's a person deep down in there somewhere...
abandon all hope
What they've allowed to fester is pure unhinged psychosis.
No one ever called for "Chimpy McBushhitler" to be tried before the world court for bombing Iraq, either.
The only place psychosis is festering is inbetween your ears.
Did you sleep from 2002-2008?
And Politico is completely run by left-wing JournoList douchebags like you.
If Tony posted at Politico, he would be among the more sane trolls there. That's all that needs to be known.
That is sad but true. Tony is actually one of the smarter and more sane Progs. Progs really are that ignorant and deranged.
I can't even comprehend this.
Such as Republicans' total political cynicism and refusal to govern
Republicans do not refuse to govern, Tony Baloney. They will send their goon squads to break your head just as quickly as the Democrats will, if you piss them off enough.
Re: Tony,
I can think of a more cynical worldview than either yours or the NYT's surprise, and that is the idea of a martyred Obama.
I am sure it is also something that scares Obama as well: the idea that he will live past his term to witness being declared the worst ever U.S. president by everyone and turning into the butt of everybody's jokes.
And that's a bad thing, right?
I just want to be on the same page of the fantasy novel you're living, that's all.
Matt,
One of the most common ways people build up their self image and sense of meaning in life is by building up their enemies. If my enemy is extraordinary, then I by extension am extraordinary and involved in a meaningful struggle. That is what is going on here with the Times. They honestly believe that Republicans are evil and murderous and on a level with the Nazis. This belief has nothing to do with what Republicans actually are or anything at all to do with reality. The belief is all about the liberals at the Times not wanting to face how ordinary their lives are. Much better to pretend they are fighting a great evil and doing something really important and historic every day. And the way to do that is to pretend the Republicans are Nazis who would kill Obama if they had the chance. That is really all that is going on here. If the Times liberals ever admitted that the Republicans are just mistaken but well meaning and not evil, the Times liberals would have to admit that they themselves are not particularly important or noble. And we can't have that.
By the way Peter Baker and all the rest of you JournoList scumbags, nobody has forgotten that Joe Biden is still the V.P. That alone is more than enough reason for any rational person to want POTUS to stay safe.
And no one has forgotten that you assholes managed to blame the Kennedy assassination on the "right" even though Oswald was a committed communist angry about Kennedy's treatment of Castro.
No, dip shits, no one wants to give you that Kirov assassination, Reichstag fire moment you so desperately crave.
You're really gonna tally points on this John? How sick are you?
Fine. Guess which team gets the OKC bombing.
The truth hurts. The Left blamed the Kennedy assassination on the Right and used it to get a freakishly large majority in the 1964. I have no doubt they would do so again with Obama if they could. And no one wants that.
That last thing anyone who cares about the country wants is for something to happen to Obama. It is difficult for someone as horrible as you to understand since killing and death is the political air you breath as a Prog. You would no doubt cheered the assassination of Bush, and doubly so if you thought it was going to result in political gain. Those of use who have morals, wouldn't cheer the death of a President no matter what his politics. And those of us who care about the country, don't want people like you to be able to use the death of a President to accomplish your political ends.
This is just fucking rich coming from you. You're the one playing a game of which team killed the president. You're the one who doesn't have a single belief that isn't shaped by concern about the Republican party's fortunes. And now out of nowhere you're suggesting that I would be OK if Bush had been assassinated?
You're so proud of your patriotic stance that you don't want the president dead. A little too proud for a stance that any sane person has.
You're the one playing a game of which team killed the president.
No Tony, you are Oswald was a communist. He killed Kennedy because Kennedy was a cold warrior. Thank you though for proving my point that the Left has the ablity to lie to itself and blame even their own acts of violence on the other side.
You're the one who doesn't have a single belief that isn't shaped by concern about the Republican party's fortunes
No Tony, just because you are like that with the Dems doesn't mean everyone else is. Don't you understand that projection is a form of psychological dysfunction? You will never get any better if you continue to project your failures on the rest of the world.
And now out of nowhere you're suggesting that I would be OK if Bush had been assassinated?
It is not out of nowhere. Multiple prominant leftist journalists said as much. They even did a well recieved play in London about it happening and how great it would be. I think it was Salon that had a graphic with a picture of Bush with the sign "snipers wanted". Leftists made no secret of their desire to see Bush killed. It is what they do and who they are. And you are a leftist.
Sorry Tony just because you and the rest of the hive put events like all of the Bush assassination fantasies and a leftist who murdered Kennedy down the memory whole doesn't mean the rest of us do. Like so many things, that is part of your side's legacy and you own it.
So what you're saying is that modern liberal Democrats are responsible for the assassination of JFK? Or are you just being a tasteless asshole?
Oswald was a radical, and it doesn't really matter what specific form radicalism takes. The far-right in this country has more in common with radical communists of yore than liberals do. Libertarians have more in common with communists than liberals do. Radicalism is by definition not especially concerned with the details of policy concerns. It's a mental pathology.
I don't know about your claim about leftists, but it sounds like bullshit. Who of the left would want Cheney as president or Bush a martyr? That shoe thrown at him was, as far as I'm concerned, 100% perfect in its symbolism.
Re: Tony,
He said Oswald did it. I read his post twice.
I don't think you mean that. If Oswald had been a neo-Nazi nutjob, you would be all over that like butter on toast.
So what you're saying is that modern liberal Democrats are responsible for the assassination of JFK? Or are you just being a tasteless asshole?
Oswald was a communist and had he not killed Kennedy would have been a part of the New Left that took over the party in 1972. No one other than Oswald is responsible for killing Kennedy. But if you are going to engage in guilt by association, the only association here is with the Democratic Left not anyone on the Right.
As far as the Bush assassination fantasy, do you think we are too stupid to use Google?
It was Craig Kilborn who did the Bush sniper graphic on a national talkshow.
http://articles.latimes.com/20.....ws/mn-2108
There was a film about a Bush assassination and multiple performances put on about it. Look for yourself. And here is some more
A novella
http://www.slate.com/articles/....._porn.html
The list goes on and on. The left was obsessed with fantasies of killing Bush.
You don't see any irony here?
Libertarians have more in common with communists than liberals do.
Everyone stop. Just stop the internet. Tony just won the whole internet with an assertion that couldn't possibly be more wrong. "2+2 = Jackie Joyner-Kersey" is more accurate than "Libertarians have more in common with communists than liberals do."
It's true and you're even closer in ideological specifics, not just as a matter of you both being radical. Both are antigovernment. Both are utopian.
Um, yeah. Because free markets and planned economies have so much in common. Holy shit you're stupid.
Both are antigovernment.
Herpy-derpy doo
Where are you?
We got some threads to troll now
Guess which team gets the OKC bombing.
Team McVeigh?
Look, Tim McVeigh hated the existing order that the Republicans were a substantial part of, and his cathartic strike against it a mere six months after they achieved their biggest electoral gain in a century proves he was acting on their orders.
McVeigh was an atheist who turned against the US government after what he saw in the first Iraq war. His views on foreign policy where in line with Chomsky. He was a homicidal nut. The truth of course doesn't stop people like Tony from pretending otherwise.
McVeigh can be accurately described as an antigovernment radical whose views differ from the Tea Party's only by degree of insanity and the balls to follow through on their grievance-fueled fantasies.
Which part of the Tea Party thinks the first Iraq war was a war crime tony? Which part of the Tea Party thinks Muslims are oppressed?
My God Tony, there really isn't a single subject that you are not completely ignorant of.
Sorry, if the JFK assassination is pinned on liberals then you get McVeigh. This is your game.
No one said that the JFK assassination was pinned on liberals. Just that the guy who did it was a communist and that blaming it on the American right wing is absurd. Not everything is a binary choice.
Re: Tony,
So much for "and it doesn't really matter what specific form radicalism takes. - Tony"
I'm just wallowing in John's guilt-by-association slop. Also, he gets 9/11. Those weren't atheist liberals on those planes, they were conservative believers. Men of the right, for sure. John, why did you do 9/11?
I would have guessed Janet Reno, for firebombing the Branch Davidians.
Well, I'll say right up front that I don't wish to see President Obama assassinated. Partly because of the martyrdom effect. But, more importantly, because I'm adult enough to distinguish between opposing someone's policies and wishing someone I don't personally know from Adam dead. I'm not so sure the same could be said of Peter Baker.
I'm adult enough to distinguish between opposing someone's policies and wishing someone I don't personally know from Adam dead.
While I agree with this, I personally have no problem with the idea that those who would rule us have their own necks on the line. Don't want a "National Haircut"? Don't place yourself in a position over your fellow men. Reading about the Great Leap Forward this morning and the millions who died reminded me that the policies of the leader of a large nation are often a matter of life and death for the population so it is only just that they face the same consequences for their actions.
Were I on such a jury I might vote for the legal execution of either Obama or GW. I do not wish anyone to be murdered, including both of them.
In unrelated news, The New York Times today announced it is eliminating 100 newsroom jobs, due to poorer-than-expected financial results.
Creative destruction. The invisible hand be praised!
Amen. They can't go bankrupt soon enough.
President Biden? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
It would at least be amusing.
http://www.theonion.com/articl.....net,33250/
Please. What difference, at this point, does it matter? Biden is less scary, because he's a fool, than is Obama because he isn't. I wouldn't worry any the more if Biden was our president.
See what Bill said above.
I was watching the wild card game between the A's and Royals (great way to start the playoffs, by the way) with some friends when I read on my phone that Eleanor Holmes Norton tried to tie the recent security breaches to the sequestration cuts. Now, I currently live in D.C., am inundated with all sorts of political tripe on a daily basis, and have built up a pretty high tolerance to bullshit. But I'll be damned, this made me lose it and set me off on a rant. These people really think we are all complete morons.
A good friend of mine works for one of the police agencies down here and has told me stories of people who work in the White House or capitol building complaining about the noise level of the intruder alarms. When the higher ups complain, the security is adjusted. He also cited the case of the woman who was gunned down driving her car into White House barricades, which as he correctly pointed out is suicide bomber behavior and how embassies have been bombed in the past, as an example of the security down on the mall dealing with ambiguous orders and procedures.
Eleanor Holmes Norton tried to tie the recent security breaches to the sequestration cuts
It's pretty common. Fun fact: doubling your agency's budget in real terms over 15 years to $1.7b is just not enough to stop a deranged Hispanic with a pocketknife. Why, things are just tougher nowadays!
Good Lord, do you think anyone, no matter how dark and twisted their soul, wants to see a world where Joe Biden is president? (Except for Joe, obviously?)
Actually, I'm starting to think Joe doesn't want the blame that comes with that office.
Another one from the onion.
http://www.theonion.com/articl.....omm,36053/
It makes a good joke and Joe is a clown. Seriously, I can't see how Biden would be any worse than Obama. Hell, Biden would at least show up to work and try to do the job, which is more than you can say for President You Won't Believe My Handicap.
Best tweet of the year was from IowaHawk I think.
"ISIS forces Obama out of retirement".
I have to be honest I would really consider pulling the lever for him. Of course I'm still relatively young and childless. But still the lols would be epic.
Good Lord, do you think anyone, no matter how dark and twisted their soul, wants to see a world where Joe Biden is president?
Me, I think it would be uproariously funny.
eliminating 100 newsroom jobs
Didn't know they still did news.
Of course they're surprised. To them it's perfectly normal to wish for the deaths of anyone with differing views.
Also =
Why would Republicans want Obama dead?
He's the only person who has been able to carry on Bush's very-own policies *without criticism* from the Left
I think it was from a NYT article that I first read the term "localvore".
That's it. This is my limit. I can't even pretend; shit's just gone full retard.
That's someone who only eats locals, right?
It's 'locavore,' not 'localvore.' Clearly you need remedial SWPL sensitivity training. Hey, I bet there are some unemployed NYT reporters who you could hire to tutor you.
That joke, "how can you tell someone is an atheist ? Don't worry, they'll tell you."
I betcha that works the same way with a localvore.
That's what my first impression was.
Thats an even dumber term.
Thanks.