Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
My colleague Daphne Eviatar suggested a dumbass quote of the day from a video that she put together while interviewing people at a rally against the civilian trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohamed in New York. She writes about the event and has the video at the Washington Independent. The one she suggested was this one:
"We know those terrorists are guilty, so why bring them here to trial them?"
And that's pretty dumbass. But the one that jumped out at me, from a weapons-grade idiot in an NRA hat, was this one:
Why would you put a terrorist on trial in a civilian court and give them Miranda rights, give them other rights in the US Constitution? Why are we doing that? It creates precedent. It's basically to embarrass America, which is what this administration is all about, let's embarrass America, it's called multiculturalism - embarrass Western civilization, embarrass the white race. This is exactly what the administration does.
Well as a member of the white race, let me just say that idiots like you are far more embarrassing than anything any multiculturalist has ever dreamed up. It's like he's just stringing together a bunch of dog-whistle buzzwords, like playing a game with refrigerator magnets with words on them.
Here's the video:
Politics
Comments
Since when is it "multicultural" to try people according to the standards of our constitution?
Posted by: Jim | December 10, 2009 9:06 AM
Was Obama's mother white?
Was Obama's father black?
Multiculturalism.
I've run rings around you, logically.
Ice9
Posted by: ice9 | December 10, 2009 9:21 AM
Since when is it an "embarrassment" to hold to the due process standards of our Constitution?
I'll ask it yet again, why do conservatives hate the Constitution? Why are conservatives so anti-American?
Posted by: James Hanley | December 10, 2009 9:29 AM
"...costing the taxpayer, me and you, 300,000,000 to 400,000,000 million dollars..."
--Woman in Tea Bag Hat
With an adult U.S. population of around 228,000,000 and if only half, including me, pay federal taxes, my cost will be....add the 3....carry the 2....about $3.51. I don't know.
On the one hand it seems a small price to affirm that we actually are a nation of laws. On the other hand I'm being deprived of a moderate domestic bottle of suds at my favorite pub (or a hotdog and small slushie at the local Gas-n-Go). This is a tough call. Being a citizen is hard, hard work.
Posted by: jimmiraybob | December 10, 2009 9:37 AM
That is seriously concentrated stupid. The collective IQ of New York City dropped 10 points while the Teabaggers were in town.
Posted by: kehrsam | December 10, 2009 9:44 AM
Stop throwing the Constitution in their face, after all it is just "a goddamned piece of paper."
Posted by: carlsonjok | December 10, 2009 9:46 AM
>from a weapons-grade idiot in an NRA hat
Redundancy
Posted by: peter | December 10, 2009 9:48 AM
Unfortunately for this country, the bulk of the political passion and commitment lies among the teabaggers. Harry Reid's obsession with Senate protocol over actual policy, and the President's obsession with reaching out the bloody stump of the hand that the rabid right bit off, in futile gesture of compromise after futile gesture, has drained the energy out of the Democratic base. What that means is that the 20% teabagging fringe becomes a lot less fringe when election time rolls around. They WILL turn out, in droves, to vote, while the Democrats who fought so hard for this meaningless 60-seat majority and all the happy slogans about Change stay home. Then the Democratic Beltway Bozos will scratch their heads in befuddlement about how it was that they got their butts handed to them at the ballot box. Since the borders of their America are defined by the 495 Beltway, they'll draw the wrong conclusion, and decide that it was because they weren't conservative enough.
I used to laugh at the teabaggers and the Palinheads. I don't anymore.
Posted by: dricey | December 10, 2009 10:06 AM
Since when is "trial" a verb?
Posted by: catgirl | December 10, 2009 10:11 AM
Teabag justice:
"They're gonna be convicted anyway, so why try them?"
President Bush:
"The Constitution is just a piece of paper."
Posted by: Rodney | December 10, 2009 10:24 AM
Sometimes, I just hate this stupid country.
Why does it seem like everything is set up to give the dumbest 10% the loudest voice in every single issue? I used to think that politicians exploited the idiots of this country. But lately it seems like I got it backwards.
Being an intelligent informed citizen is the quickest way to get your views dismissed. Maybe I should just get a tin foil hat and bullhorn.
Posted by: random guy | December 10, 2009 10:24 AM
"You're embarrassing me"* - DJ
---------------
* See second footnote here
Posted by: DingoJack | December 10, 2009 10:29 AM
A bunch of dog-whistle buzzwords? Well, it was "dog-whistle" buzzwords, until he talked about embarrassing the white race, at which point he replaced the dog whistle with a fucking trombone.
Posted by: Jeff | December 10, 2009 10:42 AM
Embarrass the... white race??? Are they White Power or something?
Posted by: Christophe Thill | December 10, 2009 10:47 AM
If you think this is bad, here's worse. Dick Cheney using constitutional language to tie President Obama to treason.
Mr. Matthews and his guests, along with Mr. Cheney, fail miserably to note the efficacy of criminal courts vs. military courts at extending far more punitive punishments to convicted terrorists. This observation makes Mr. Cheney not just a hypocrite, but so delusionally blinded by ideology he'd rather create an opportunity to criticize the President than support our country's best interests.
There is a YouTube video going around that complements Mr. Cheney's assertions, dishonestly asserting that the President is a Muslim and claiming that Mr. Obama himself claims to be with al Qaeda. Here is the video, which I've shared here before: http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=tCAffMSWSzY#t=28
My close study of Cheney leads me to believe that he had a mental breakdown on 9/11 from which has only gotten worse. He was so convinced and arrogant regarding his own competence he's lost all rationality when it comes to dealing with matters of state since he shares a major responsibility for not taking all pre-9/11 warnings seriously (since it was contra to his serving his financial constituents in the Defense industry). His actual legacy is one far from how we perceives himself, and that is something he's too much of a coward to confront.
Posted by: Michael Heath | December 10, 2009 11:06 AM
dricey @ 8 - I strongly concur; well stated.
We saw the Democrats awkwardly adopt religious 'values' after their 2004 losses. If they lose ground in 2010 should we next expect them to promote delusion and willful ignorance as new American values; with the GOP trying to maintain their competitive advantage by getting even more idiotically insane?
Posted by: Michael Heath | December 10, 2009 11:12 AM
They, er, don't seem to have any confidence in the justness of the rights bestowed to Americans, do they?
But I'm guessing they'd be the first to claim otherwise.
Posted by: Matty Smith | December 10, 2009 11:18 AM
"We know those terrorists are guilty, so why bring them here to trial them?" - anonymous protester
"When guilt is self-evident, a trial is unnecessary." - the Ayatollah Khomeini
Egads, the people protesting the trials are in league with the Islamists! It's all some diabolical plot! Or else it's all just so much idiocy!
(But at least Kohmeini used correct grammar...)
Posted by: CGM3 | December 10, 2009 11:23 AM
I'd tell you what these people sound like, but I'd violate Godwin's Law.
Posted by: Katharine | December 10, 2009 11:28 AM
So the NRA guy utters all that horrid nonsense, yet people are shocked, shocked at the mere suggestion that there could be some racism at play in the far right anti-Obama crowd.
Posted by: Barry21 | December 10, 2009 11:29 AM
Why do these people want to turn America into a Christian Saudi Arabia?
Posted by: Katharine | December 10, 2009 11:35 AM
Why does it seem like everything is set up to give the dumbest 10% the loudest voice in every single issue?
Because the dumbest 10% are the least likely to know when they should just STFU!
Rt
Posted by: Roadtripper | December 10, 2009 11:52 AM
[quote] It's basically to embarrass America, which is what this administration is all about, let's embarrass America, it's called multiculturalism - embarrass Western civilization, embarrass the white race. This is exactly what the administration does.[/quote]
Jesus Horatio Christ....
Of all the insane rhetoric I've ever seen pumped out from the right this is perhaps the most telling of all as to their groupthink.
I also wonder if the speaker in question didn't end the above statement with a handy "Seig Heil"?
Posted by: CHV | December 10, 2009 11:58 AM
@Katharine (#21) -- Because they're insecure in their faith, and if even one person doesn't conform, it puts their entire world view in danger.
Posted by: WMDKitty | December 10, 2009 12:05 PM
I just watched the rest of the clip.
Of course, these people have a right to their First Amendment speech.
I also understand the outrage of some to bring a chief perpetrator of 9-11 back to the scene of the crime, but I'm among those who feel that is precisely what makes NYC the ideal setting for such a trial which (let's face it) will be largely a show anyway as the odds of KSM being acquitted are mind-bogglingly remote.
Plus, even if a jury did acquit KSM, the judge (unless I'm mistaken) always has the option to set aside the verdict, and ship KSM to a Supermax prison anyhow which (IMO) is the ideal sentence.
The worst possible legal remedy for those like KSM and his fellow zealots is death because it gives them exactly what they want: martyrdom.
Posted by: CHV | December 10, 2009 12:14 PM
So recognizing that "non-whites" are human beings is an embarrassment to the "white race." Good to see the tea-baggers so honest about what really informs their movement.
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | December 10, 2009 12:14 PM
@rodney
Bush said many stupid things - that wasn't one of them. It was a made up quote by some liberal reporter.
Posted by: yoshi | December 10, 2009 12:15 PM
Also, one gripe I have:
If a lot of us spend so much wasted time about what the founding fathers wanted and don't realize that there are plenty of countries, such as France, which are radically different, and rightly, from what they were originally founded as, then... well, that's kind of silly.
I agree that the founding fathers were far closer to modern liberal thought than backward conservative thought, but what the founding fathers thought shouldn't really entirely be what drives discourse.
Posted by: Katharine | December 10, 2009 12:21 PM
It's too bad that they cut the second to last guy short. Someone to the left of him was trying to interject that "he can see the reason...." and then it cut away. I would have been curious to see how that exchange unfolded.
Having said this, looking at it from north of the border I can't help but think that a lot of this is "transference", things are going down the drain for most people, so they try to look for an outside person / thing to blame and the Tea Partiers identified Obama and everything he does, and an emotionally charged theme like 9/11 sure will get peoples blood boiling.
The bad news is that I see a similar attitude develop up here as well, we're going to be in for a rough ride, if not outright witnessing the end of what started with the Founding Fathers and spread to other parts of the world.
Posted by: Michael | December 10, 2009 12:30 PM
I used to think that politicians exploited the idiots of this country. But lately it seems like I got it backwards.
Just so you know, I'm hijacking this quote and using it in regular discourse. Spot on.
Posted by: Solly Hofman | December 10, 2009 12:41 PM
Michael, shit like this makes me hope that the European Union and similar places have enough firepower to dispatch America if it gets nasty enough.
Posted by: Katharine | December 10, 2009 12:42 PM
uh... how, exactly, does a black man "embarrass the white race"? Perhaps because he's half-white? Could that be what really bothers Mr. NRA Hat With Big American Flag?
Another item that bothers me about these rallies, is that many of the speakers and attendees do not seem to know that the purpose of a trial is to determine whether someone is guilty. Without a trial, you do not know (within the US legal system) that an individual is a terrorist - they are at worst a suspected terrorist. It's possible to have other knowledge, outside the US legal system, that establishes that someone is guilty of a particular crime - but a trial is the formal way in which that knowledge is introduced, cross-checked, and either rejected, or accepted. A trial is how exterior knowledge is brought into legal determinations of guilt. These people seem to think a trial is something liberals or communists invented in order to help terrorists and criminals stay out of prison.
What bothers me a bit more, is that there seem to be some other speakers and attendees who do know that a trial is the formal determination of guilt, and that without a trial, US law cannot legally establish guilt. And these people oppose the trials because they do not want an open, formal, and honest determination of guilt or innocence.
Posted by: llewelly | December 10, 2009 1:18 PM
Not every member of the NRA is a raving maniac... most of them, I'll grant you, but not all.
These guys, definitely. Unfortunately, many of things that I subscribe to (for actual well thought out reasons) are also held by raving maniacs, which means I end up looking like a fringe looney, in spite of knowing what the hell I'm talking about.
I really want to move out of the US (and Texas) into some country that has some grasp on reality...
Posted by: OgreMkV | December 10, 2009 1:36 PM
I agree with both Dricey and Michael in the concern that the rabid right will manage to shift the country towards more (ridiculously) conservative measures. I've said this on other threads when people dismiss Palin and actively hope that she will run. The problem so many seem to miss is that our country is centrist driven. The effort by the major parties is to move towards the center in order to get the vote of the moderates in the middle. While Palin and the sociopaths of the Teabagger movement represent only a tiny minority, they are a very loud and motivated tiny minority. In mid-term elections and primary cycles, very vocal tiny minorities can have an impact far larger than their numbers.
We've already seen this somewhat in the Democrats of the last 30 years or so. There was a conservative backlash to the liberal movements of the 60s (or at least how they were portrayed). We saw this in the election of Reagan and the "Reagan Democrats," as well as the very vocal "moral majority[sic]" who are by most accounts neither. What happened in the course of these reactions is that Democrats, in an attempt to regain power, shifted their stances on issues towards the middle leading us to some of the conservative Democrats we now have in Congress who are giving those of us who actually are liberal major headaches. At the same time this happened, their political opponents (GOP) portrayed them as wild-eyed radical liberals, much as they still do, despite the fact that both Clinton and Obama are, in fact, quite moderate.
My fear is, and remains, that the more these vocal fringe wing-nuts pull the Republican party to the extreme right, the more the Republicans will insist that even the most conservative Democrat is a socialist, the more they will strive to appear centrist, the more conservative (or in this case wing-nut) they will lean.
I know that there will likely be a liberal backlash to this, but in the mean time things could get rather ugly, THAT is what I'm concerned about.
Posted by: dogmeatib | December 10, 2009 3:36 PM
Re Michael Heath @ #15
My close study of Cheney leads me to believe that he had a mental breakdown on 9/11 from which has only gotten worse. He was so convinced and arrogant regarding his own competence he's lost all rationality when it comes to dealing with matters of state since he shares a major responsibility for not taking all pre-9/11 warnings seriously (since it was contra to his serving his financial constituents in the Defense industry). His actual legacy is one far from how we perceives himself, and that is something he's too much of a coward to confront.
Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who was Colin Powells' deputy when the latter was Secretary of State, has appeared on Rachael Maddows' MSNBC program several times. Based on his interaction with Cheney, he has concluded that he was in abject terror after the 9/11 incidents and is basically a coward (based, in part, on his 5 college deferments). His reactions are largely based on his terror and fear. As the good colonel puts it, he is a frightened man.
Posted by: SLC | December 10, 2009 3:54 PM
SLC - I've followed Wilkerson's communications as well; he's been a gold mine of information regarding the Bush presidency as perceived on the inside. My most significant source on Mr. Cheney was the great biography on him by Barton Gellman titled Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency. That was the best book I read in 2008 and perhaps the most insightful in terms of how White House insiders fail or succeed to drive an agenda given it gets into the nuts and bolts for mini-fiefdoms and organizational structures. Cheney's knowledge of the Executive Branch and the White House had him exploiting his knowledge to his benefit and at the cost of every other person in the White House, including W. Perhaps only Rumsfeld was a benefactor of Cheney's actions though I think ultimately not.
Posted by: Michael Heath | December 10, 2009 4:05 PM
Times the phrase "teabag," "teabagger," etc. appeared in the post: 0
Times it's appeared so far in the comments: 6
Guess what? The people in the TEA protest movement don't call themselves 'teabaggers' and the idiots currently under discussion aren't even affiliated with the TEA protesters anyway (although there may be a bit of coincidental overlap, of course). When you use this phrase, you aren't being accurate and you certainly aren't being clever; you're just being a homophobe.
Posted by: Miko | December 10, 2009 5:09 PM
What a tremendous set of comments here. I had to stop copying them for blockquoting when there became simply too many. I so want a bumpersticker of James Hanley's "Why do conservatives hate the Constitution?"
Dricey & dogmeatlib sum up my opinion of current US party politics precisely. I would disagree with the latter only slightly, and that concerns his faith (pardon the word) in a liberal backlash. The last one was due largely, IMO, to the Viet Nam draft; and possibly to post-WWII afluence leading to the first generation of kids raised under Dr. Spock-ish principles...I can't imagine any concantenation of factors anytime soon that will allow liberism to flourish.
As long as the economy remains uncertain & the factors that led to the broad prosperity of the mid-20th century US middle class are no longer in play or perhaps even possible, I think we're in for a long run of fear-driven, i.e., conservative, dominance. The US is no longer an entity unto itself, and until globalism goes through all the growing pains that got us to some level of mutual prosperity in the first place--e.g., until a multinational union movement develops to counterbalance today's reign of multinational corporations--it's gonna continue to be rough sledding...
Posted by: Diane G. | December 10, 2009 5:44 PM
"Dispensing with confrontation because testimony is obviously reliable is akin to dispensing with jury trial because a defendant is obviously guilty. This is not what the Sixth Amendment prescribes.”
from that raving liberal Antonin Scalia.......
Posted by: payaso del mar | December 10, 2009 6:04 PM
Wow - what a dumbass - it's hard to beat that one. Sarah Palin, move over - you've been out-dumbassed! "De nigga in de white house is embarrassing all us whiteys."
Posted by: MadScientist | December 10, 2009 6:26 PM
Its odd to hear people living in a federation founded on the idea that "all people are created equal", who's families originated in England, a land settled by Celts, Angles, Frisians, Norse, Saxons, French, Romans, and Picts, and are members of a party that, for decades, defended the Vietnam War as a necessary war to defend Vietnamese democracy, talk about the evils of "multiculturalism". Hell, is there any language more multicultural than English; a Germanic language with Romantic vowels and grammar?
Posted by: Julian | December 10, 2009 6:54 PM
dangit; that should be 'whose'.
Posted by: Julian | December 10, 2009 6:57 PM
Oh, meant to thank Michael Heath for the book recommendation--sounds perfect for someone on my holiday list...
I haven't been paying much attention this year...perhaps Ed should start a thread just for book ideas, political or otherwise!
Posted by: Diane G. | December 10, 2009 7:01 PM
Miko "When you use this phrase, you aren't being accurate and you certainly aren't being clever; you're just being a homophobe."
Uh. Huh? Teabagging, the sexual act, isn't a homosexual sexual act. It's the kind sexual act that's compatible with both homo and hetero, much as oral and anal tend to be. Sodomy isn't just for them, you know.
In other words, while the start of that sentence might be accurate (I haven't watched the video. My mom won't let me watch videos on the internets. She says they're full of filth!), it drifts off on to something else.
Julian "...defended the Vietnam War as a necessary war to defend Vietnamese democracy, talk about the evils of "multiculturalism"."
We weren't "defending Vietnamese democracy". We were kicking commie ass over a country that just happened to sort of have a kind of democracy. Don't confuse the two.
Generally, we don't defend democracy anyway. We defend whoever gets us ("us" being Dole and Exxon) the best deal, which is why we supported (and still do) various tin pot thugs in the third world. It's not "for the best of the people". It's "under whom will United Fruit reap the greatest profit?".
Granted, I am a sourpuss.
Posted by: Modusoperandi | December 10, 2009 7:21 PM
We know those terrorists are guilty, so why bring them here to trial them?
Anyone want to bet he supports the Official English movement?
Posted by: Shay | December 10, 2009 8:00 PM
Mthinks Miko doesn't know what "teabagging" really means.
Posted by: Rick R | December 10, 2009 8:06 PM
Miko, your concern has been noted and ignored.
Yawn.
Posted by: Katharine | December 10, 2009 9:41 PM
Whenever the liberals want to use a homo-phobic insult against someone, calling them on it is treated as "concern trolling."
For example, when GWB tried to nominate that gal for the Supreme Court, I remember commentators on Air America nudge-nudge, wink-winking about the fact she never had boyfriends, just hung out with other "Pat"-ish women like herself. Pointing out the irony of liberals sniggering into their microphones over her apparent lesbianism met with the same reaction Katherine gives Miko.
The only reason TEA partiers are called "teabaggers" is because those who use it get some titillation over linking conservatives wingnuts to homosexuals – hiding behind the “dictionary definition” is exactly what white supremacists do when they use “nigra” when we all know they mean “nigger.”
Current use of a term supersedes the dictionary definition. “Teabaggers” is used in this context precisely because of its meaning as a kind of homosexual sex-play. The homosexual aspect is intended to be an insult to neo-cons – who are purported to be homophobic. If the idea that heterosexuals might enjoy teabagging were the primary meaning, why would liberals - who supposedly believe that what goes on between consenting adults ain’t nobody’s business but their own - even mention it?
You can dance around it all you like in an attempt to brush off those who call you on it, but you’re only deluding yourselves.
Posted by: Lovesmesometeabagging | December 11, 2009 4:41 AM
Actually these now self-proclaimed 'tea partiers' originally named themselves 'teabaggers'. So there was a lot of very humorous irony involved in continuing to call these wingnuts teabaggers after they were became informed as to its reference to a certain sex act. More irony follows since it also shows the level of ignorance we're dealing with in regards to these wingnuts given they created this term. I call them Teabaggers for these reasons.
Lastly, 'teabagging' is not strictly a homosexual act. Its practice can be a form of rape by one man to either either sex whose being held down by others (though normally the victim is another male). It is also one practice within the scope of BDSM* and not exclusively homosexual.
*A compound acronym derived from the terms bondage and discipline (B&D, B/D, or BD), dominance and submission (D&s, D/s, or Ds), sadism and masochism (S&M, S/M, or SM).
Posted by: Michael Heath | December 11, 2009 7:40 AM
Well, I stand corrected, somewhat. I had no idea that the term started from ignorant self-reference. If that is true, then have at it.
But, I never said it was strictly homosexual, but that the use of the term as an insult primarily that part of the meaning.
Oh, and I play the dominatrix/whipping boy who self-flaggelates while holding my partner against the wall with a spiked heel on his throat. Which is actually quite difficult while hanging upside-down in a straight jacket. But overcoming difficulties is what life is all about, isn't it?
Posted by: LMSTB | December 11, 2009 8:13 AM
ell, I stand corrected, somewhat. I had no idea that the term started from ignorant self-reference. If that is true, then have at it.
Not somewhat, but completely. The teabaggers used teabags or images of them in the early days of their astroturf movement. Live by the teabag, die by the teabag.
But, I never said it was strictly homosexual, but that the use of the term as an insult primarily that part of the meaning.
Bullshit. And lots of it.
We make fun of them for being so ignorant and stodgy that they didn't about a relatively well-known term. Most humorous of all was the irony of the most homophobic fucking morons using a symbol sometimes associated with homosexuality to represent themselves.
I don't plan of ever letting them forget it.
Posted by: Aquaria | December 13, 2009 2:44 AM
"Most humorous of all was the irony of the most homophobic fucking morons using a symbol sometimes associated with homosexuality to represent themselves."
Are you calling BS on the fact that you said exactly what I said?
Posted by: LMSTB | December 13, 2009 7:01 PM
Speaking of Dumbass quotes:
No offense, but I'm apalled when idiots on the right make this kind of comment and just as apalled when it comes from the left. I'm surprised someone didn't call Katharine out on this sooner.
Posted by: R.C.Hughes | December 17, 2009 8:26 AM