I See Stupid People: The Larry Kudlow Edition

ss_screen_01

In a post over at Media Matters about the right-wing's attempt to figure out if the Israeli-Hezbollah-Palestinian-My Uncle Morty conflict is World War III, IV, or V(?!), Larry Kudlow rises above the herd with this spectacular piece of ass-hattery (italics mine):

Lawrence Kudlow, discussing a book by former deputy undersecretary of defense Jed Babbin, said "World War IV is the terror war, and war with China would be World War V.

Note Kudlow said "would." Not could. Not might be. But would. How batshit loopy do you have to be to have planned out all of our future wars? Or as Juan Williams put it to William Kristol:

You just want war, war, war, and you want us in more war. You wanted us in Iraq. Now you want us in Iran. Now you want us to get into the Middle East.

In a just world, these guys would be wearing tinfoil helmets while pushing shopping carts. They are that crazy.

More like this

At this point, one has to wonder if there are any sane people left in the Bush Administration. In the New Yorker, Sy Hersh describes the run up to the next war: A former intelligence officer said, "We told Israel, 'Look, if you guys have to go, we're behind you all the way. But we think it…
Yes, I've cribbed the title from Chris Hedges' superb, must-read book, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. But Josh Marshall stumbles across a great insight about the Iraq War and Occupation, but doesn't quite carry through all the way. So the Mad Biologist will. Marshall writes about…
... or how the human brain is wired. Beware we'll be hearing from David Brooks, Frank Rich, William Gibson (Thomas Kuhn), and a preview of a Noam Chomsky and Robert Trivers discussion. So I'm reading David Brooks in today's NYTimes, and it's the same old thing ... he's trapped in a different…
Former enthusiastic neocon supporters running for cover heroically deploying towards a rearward area. Perhaps it's just human nature, but I've always disliked Johnny-Come-Latelys. It's never made sense to me how those of us who figured out that the Iraq War was going to become a pandimensional…

I can't believe that people haven't caught on to how paranoid and immoral neo-conservatism is. In many ways, it's nazism in a business suit and a Ph.D. in foreign policy: the emphasis on bloodshed as a means to social engineering, the delight in "struggle". It's pseudo-Nietzschean bullshit (or asshatery, as you so eloquently put it), devoid of moral content. It's not that their ends justify their means; it's that their means are ends-in-themselves.

"Note Kudlow said "would." Not could. Not might be. But would. How batshit loopy do you have to be to have planned out all of our future wars?"

I read that as the main clause of a conditional sentence with the "if it happened" implied. That's a fairly common usage, and one that Kudlow's very next sentece (quoted by Media Matters) pretty much requires. Ludlow next said, "How likely, John?"