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August 21, 2004

Two Updates: Oliver "Grimmace" Willis and John Forbes Kerry's Silver Star

Earlier I posted an article questioning why John Forbes Kerry had a 1986 citation for his Silver Star, signed during Reagan's second term by the then-Secretary of the Navy John Lehmann.

The facts most likely are on Kerry's side. There is the possibility of shenaningans here, but it's not a strong possibility, and it's less likely that we're talking major shenanigans.

First: I asked if there were earlier reports of Kerry's Silver Star. This was a rather ignorant question. Several posters informed me he got his Silver Star in 1969 or so. The actual question about the citation is over the citation itself, not the actual Silver Star, which wasn't issued in 1986, but fairly contemporaneously with the war.

I was "wrong" in the sense that I was asking a dumb question because I didn't know enough not to ask it.

On Thursday's Brit Hume (I love DVR), Brit Hume asked a Lt. General Cowell (?) about this, and he said he didn't know why a 1986 citation was issued, nor why that fresh citation contained new, more glowing language about John Kerry's alleged heroics. He guessed that Kerry simply asked for copies of his previous citations (they are often lost, and sometimes vets want good, fresh copies for framing), and the Navy sent along the new citation -- with new language -- gratis.

He and Brit Hume seem to think it most likely that the Navy did this of its own accord. And its reason for doing so? John Forbes Kerry was now the junior Senator from Massachusetts. Both men said this wouldn't be the first time one of the services had kissed up to a Senator or an important Congressmen in the hopes that somewhere down the line they might receive a positive vote on a weapons system. (Of course, in the case of John Forbes Kerry, all such hopes were dashed.)

That doesn't exactly settle the issue, and it's possible that Kerry requested new language making him seem more heroic, but it does suggest that this is probably not something which will end in some juicy revelation.

Now that that's out of the way, let's get to the important stuff:

Over at Shamu's House of Fish Stix, a commenter made this point:

Some of your posts (and the resulting threads) have focused on how Malkin looks in these unflattering shots from the interview. Because of remarks you've made in the past about certain types of personal attacks against you, it surprises me that you would resort to such petty teasing when there is so much actual content to debate.

Sort of a good point, no? Especially considering that Grimmace cries foul when you point out that he looks like Weeble with a metabolic imbalance.

But Grimmace doesn't back down:

I think she has crazy eyes. I'm sorry but it's true. I also think she's quite attractive. She can call me beady-eyed if she wants, because I am.

Well, Oliver sure seems highly restrictive about what personal, looks-based insults Ms. Malkin can offer in return. He deigns to allow her to respond that he's beady-eyed.

Well, he is beady-eyed. But, on the list of things that are unappetizing about Shamu's appearance, anything involving his eyes clocks in no higher than Number 657. The very fact that he has two of them counts in his favor, given his other, rather more compelling problems.

With all due respect, Chubbsy McLipidsac, if you attack someone on what you find to be the worst aspect of their appearance, they're allowed to attack you back on whichever part of your appearance they find most disagreeable, not just some minor flaw you've come to grips with.

And I'm no bodyist or whatnot, but I would say that your biggest problem involves, how do I put this delicately?, your gigantic sagging man-ass and big flopping he-tits.

I'm sorry but it's true. If you must, you can criticize me for my eyelashes, which have just never been as lush or as sultry as I might like. I, like most other men of my age group, have just never gotten over the fact that I didn't grow up to be Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran.

posted by Ace at 01:22 AM

Comments

I can't breathe after "Chubbsy McLipidsac." I only have enough lung capacity left...FOR A HAIKU...

Michelle's beady eyes
Stir Chubbsy McLipidsac.
If he's brown she's down.

Posted by: Joe R. on August 21, 2004 02:42 AM

Has Willis ever made any TV appearances? Surely any animated discussion of his caught on videotape would offer numerous frames to be extracted out of context and scorn applied. See how he likes it.

Problem is, Malkin, old married with children sort though she may be, is a fox even when caught in a goofy expression but Willis the ugly going 24/7/365.

Posted by: Eric Pobirs on August 21, 2004 03:44 AM

I think OTubb's most fetching feature is his huge, buddah-like head.

which brings to mind a line from one of my favorite movies:

"I'm not kidding, that boy's head is like Sputnik; spherical but quite pointy at parts! Aye, now that was offsides, now wasn't it? He'll be crying himself to sleep tonight, on his huge pillow."

Posted by: Matt Navarre on August 21, 2004 06:05 AM

Hmmm...don't you think all this O-Dub thwacking is getting gratuitously mean?

I mean, it's fucking funny as hell - Chubbsy McLipidsac will live in infamy, oh yes - but still, it seems a bit around the bend. Sure he's a tired hack who coincidentally happens to be grotesquely, revoltingly overweight, but it seems to be in bad taste to constantly harp on it.

Perhaps the Ace has a link to previous posts which explain why he's conceived such contempt for Willis? (I'm open to being convinced!)

Posted by: Jeff B. on August 21, 2004 08:52 AM

Ahh, but lets see how many people are talking about Michelle Malkin versus Ollie (I also added in cowbells)

http://www.blogpulse.com/trend?query1=%22Oliver+Willis%22&label1=Olliver+%22Biggie%22+Willis&query2=%22Michelle+Malkin%22&label2=Michelle+%22Hottie%22+Malkin&query3=cowbell&label3=

Notice that more people talk about cowbells than they do Oliver. That's gotta hurt.

Posted by: Sharp as a Marble on August 21, 2004 10:12 AM

Perhaps the Ace has a link to previous posts which explain why he's conceived such contempt for Willis? (I'm open to being convinced!)

1) Willis is a facile hypocrite. I've previously linked how he became so pro Bush and a hawk immediately post 911 (including saying we needed to take out Saddam). Yet, for example, today he says "the candidate of the Democratic party is John Kerry, and he’s seen this president preside over the largest terrorist attack ever in the history of this nation, responding by a half-assed attack in Afghanistan...."

Afghanistan? Willis backed Afghanistan to the hilt.

2) Look at what Willis is currently advertising on his side bar: "Checkpoint, a novel by Nicholson Baker."

Do you know what this book is about? Whether assassinating President Bush is justified.

Yet hypocrite Willis talks about how he "believes in the heroic ideal," whereas Republicans must be stopped because they're a "perversion of democracy" and "they’re destroying the soul of America."

I think "Magnetite to Stupid" deserves at the least a few fat jokes.

Posted by: Nicholas Kronos on August 21, 2004 01:23 PM

Taking still frames from a video to make people look weird is an old trick. I suggest people set their vcrs, tivos, whatever, to record their favorite lefty bloggers and do the same to them and post them. I would love to see stills from a video of atrios.

Posted by: julie on August 21, 2004 01:45 PM

Could this be the secret motivation behind Professor Reynolds' oft repeated claim that Oliver Willis is "perfect for TV?"

Oh, that would be sweet.

I do believe, however, that Instapundit's seeming endorsement on that front IS a cloaked insult. (Notice how sparing he is with truly harsh words for bloggers? He went off - relatively speaking - on Joshua Micah Ezekiel Haggai Amos Nahum Zechariah Marshall once and I was taken aback since it was so out of character.)

Posted by: Jeff B. on August 21, 2004 02:40 PM

Perhaps the Ace has a link to previous posts which explain why he's conceived such contempt for Willis? (I'm open to being convinced!)

Well, I echo everything Nick said.

My main beefs with Willis are these:

1) Willis got linked by Instapundit a lot in the beginning.

Honesty compels me to admit this. So chalk some of this up to envy. (I don't really need to envy him anymore as regards traffic, but then, he is getting those Soros-bucks.)

But part of the problem I have with Willis is that he is overhyped and overread for the pitifully poor writer and thinker he is. If he were only getting a couple of hundred visits per day, I wouldn't pick on him, because he wouldn't be getting traffic disproportionate to his talent, and because I wouldn't probably even have heard of him.

Josh Marshall has an undeserved reputation for being a "reasonable liberal." Oliver Willis has an undeserved reputation. Period. No one should have ever heard of him, and I'm physically angry that I am confronted on a daily basis with the evidence of his insignificant existence.

2) Building on point 1: He's not funny. He has never written a single funny line. And yet he's one of those guys who thinks he's funny.

I find this personally offensive. A man should know his limitations.

3) Also building on point 1: He has nothing interesting to say. Has Willis ever written a post that took on an issue in a novel or interesting way? No, he has not, and I've checked.

All he does is link Josh Marshall or whatnot or whoever. This is especially repulsive, because he, in his not-funny way, "invented" the phrase "Right Wing Wurlitzer" to (poorly and unhumorously) describe right wing bloggers who do little but link/parrot the opinions of others.

One would think that someone making such a charge would be required, at least once per month, to come up with his own new take on things-- something original, something interesting. Not only doesn't he do this (it's beyond his capacity), but he furthermore doesn't even make an effort.

I've never even seen him attempt to write an "Important Post" and then fail.

4) He cries racism over fat-jokes. "Fat" is not a race, first of all. And then this Double-D Darling calls people like Limbaugh fat.

5) He cries foul over "attacks on his looks." But then he attacks others on their looks-- even if they're smokin' hot, like Michelle Malkin.

6) He's a kneejerk Kool-Aid leftist.

I could go on and on, but it would get repetitive. I can only repeat: Unfunny, untalented, unoriginal, uninteresting, unperceptive, wildly hypocritical, often dishonest, but sadly not unread.

Posted by: ace on August 21, 2004 03:46 PM

Well, in that case...pass the filet-o-fish.

Posted by: Jeff B. on August 21, 2004 04:59 PM

He cries foul over "attacks on his looks." But then he attacks others on their looks. . .

Have a video of him??

Posted by: julie on August 21, 2004 07:22 PM

I have fabulous eyelashes.

Posted by: Dave in Texas on August 21, 2004 10:53 PM

I love Britt. He can convey so much with a look and a tone of voice.

Posted by: Jane on August 22, 2004 01:28 PM

"...didn't grow up to be Nick Rhodes..."
I'm freakin' crying and my wife's looking in the office wondering what the hell I'm doing that is so damn funny.

Posted by: TC-LeatherPenguin on August 22, 2004 01:59 PM

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Funniest thing I've read about the Virginia mess. Back when they were hustling the referendum through the assembly both Senators, Warner and Kaine, advised them to go slow and play by the rules. Louise Lucas said she respected them but didn't need advice from the "cuck chair" in the corner. The gerrymandering was overturned and Louise is heading for the big house. Edward G. Robinson voice "where's your cuck now?"
Posted by: Smell the Glove

I posted his post on twitter and it's gotten 25K views so far. Thanks, Smell the Glove

Chris
@chriswithans

"Ahhhhh ahh I put my career on the line for Louise Lucas and Jay Jones thinking they'd vault me into presidential contention and we ended up costing Democrats 20 House seats and unleashing a Reverse Dobbs ahhhhh ahhh"

Forgotten 80s Mystery Click That Sums Up the Democrat Communist Party Today
Something is wrong as I hold you near
Somebody else holds your heart, yeah
You turn to me with your icy tears
And then it's raining, feels like it's raining

TJM wonders about world building in stories, mostly The Hunger Games

"It's f**king f**ked."
-- reportedly a genuine comment offered by a "senior Labour source"
Correction: I wrote that Labour is losing 88% (now 87%) of the seats it is "defending." I think that's wrong. The right way to say it is the seats they are contesting -- that is, they don't necessarily already hold these seats, but they have put up a candidate to run for the seat. It's still very bad but not as bad as losing 87% of the seats they already held.

Basil the Great
@BasilTheGreat

🚨ED MILIBAND [a Minister in Starmer's government] SAYS KEIR STARMER WILL RESIGN AS PRIME MINISTER

He has reportedly reassured Labour MP's that Starmer will be resigning following the disastrous results tonight

It's over

"The end of the two party system in the UK" as first the Fake Conservatives and now Labour chooses political suicide rather than simply STOPPING THE INVASION
Incidentally, the only reason this didn't already happen in the US is because of the Very Bad Orange Man (who is right on 85% of all policy calls and extremely, existentially right on 15% of them)

No political party that is NOT also a doomsday religious cult would EVER choose a cataclysmic loss -- and possible extinction as a party -- to support a toxically unpopular favoritism of NON-CITIZEN ILLEGAL MIGRANTS over actual citizen voters.

Only a cult does this.

Now they've lost 84%.

Annunziata Rees-Mogg
@zatzi
If this continues Labour loses 2,148 seats tonight.

That is much worse than the worst case predictions I’ve seen.

Cataclysmic

Update: They've now lost 88% of the seats they're defending. As I mentioned earlier, I think I heard that London will not bail them out, as many of those Labour seats will probably flip to "Muslim Independent" or Green. Detroit's 5am vote will not save them.

Yup, Labour is losing 80% of its seats...

The British Patriot
@TheBritLad

🚨 BREAKING: Labour have lost 80% of all seats contested as of 2:25 AM.<
br> If this continues, Keir Starmer will be out of office next week.

Reform has surged and projected to pick up between 1700-2100 seats.

Wow, up to 1700-2100 seats. It's not incredible that this is happening. It's incredible that the Davos crowd is so absolutely determined to privilege Muslim "migrants" over the actual native population who elects them, no matter how loudly the natives scream that they want to be prioritized, that they will gladly self-extinguish as a party rather than simply representing the interests of their own voters. Astonishing.
Remember, when they call other people "cultists" -- they are the ones so imprisoned in their social reinforcement and discipline bubbles that they will choose political death rather than dare upset the Karen Enforcement Officers of their cult.
Update: Now they've lost 83% of the seats they were defending.

(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges

Reform are basically wiping Labour out in the North. It's not a defeat. It's not even a rout. Labour are simply ceasing to exist.

Nick Lowles
@lowles_nick

Tonight’s results are calamitous for Labour. Not just for Keir Starmer's leadership, but for the very future of the party

STARMERGEDDON: In early returns, Reform gains 135 seats, Labour loses 90, the Fake Conservatives lose 36 (and I didn't even know they could fall any further), the Lib Dems lose 4, and the Greens gain 6. Note that the only other party gaining seats is the Greens and they're only gaining a handful of seats.
Update: Reform now up 145, Labour down 98.
Labour projected to lose Wales -- where they've ruled for 27 years.
Fulton County Georgia just discovered 400 boxes of ballots for Labour
Update: REF +156, LAB -107, CON -45
Brutal: In four out of five council seats where Labour is defending, they've lost. 80%.
I'm sure it's not this simple, but Reform is straight taking Labour's and the "Conservatives'" seats. They've lost almost exactly what Reform gained. If understand this right (and warning, I probably don't), all of London's council seats are up for election, and Labour might lose hugely there, as their old voters abandon them for Reform, Muslim Indenpendents, and the Greens.
REF +190, LAB -134, CON -56.

Updates on the Labour collapse in council elections -- which wags are calling #Starmergeddon -- from Beege Welborne. There are about 5000 seats up for grabs, Labour is expected to lose 1,800, Reform will probably gain 1,580, up from... zero. So this would be more than that.
People claim that while Labour has adopted the Sharia Agenda to appeal to the million Muslims it allowed to migrate to the country, those voters are ditching Labour to vote for the Muslim Independent Party or the Greens. Delicious. This shadenfreude is going straight to my thighs.
Oh, and if Starmer loses about as badly as expected, Labour will toss him out of a window Braveheart style and replace him. He will announce he is resigning to spend more time with his Gay Ukrainian Male Prostitutes.

Media bias and senationalism are as old as, well, the media:

That was written by Denny O'Neill and illustrated by, get this, Frank Miller. Editor to the Stars Jim Shooter was in charge at the time.
I always thought the gag was original to the comic book, but in fact the "Threat or Menace" headline was a satirical joke about media bias and sensationalism for a long while. The Harvard Lampoon used it in a parody of Life magazine: "Flying Saucers: Threat or Menace?"

Hamas is Humiliating Trump's 'Board of Peace'
[Hat Tip: TC] [CBD]

Tucker Carlson is pretty sure Trump is a wizard

Ted Turner Dies At 87 [CBD]

Podcast: Starting a new season, CBD and Sefton discuss their personal journeys to conservative principles, is Nick Shirley the beginning of a trend?, Iran trying to reignite the war, the Left attacks itself, even on "Best Guitarist" lists, and more!

TJM definitively ranks the films of Billy Wilder, like Some Like It Hot

TJM talks about Billy Wilder