So, when did you stop stoning your wife?
By Thoreau
Republican Congressman Pete Sessions said yesterday that the Republican Party needs to mount an insurgency like the Taliban. I cannot believe that the Congressman would dare to compare his honorable party to the Taliban. The Taliban are a bunch of militant religious zealots. Their base of support is largely rural, uneducated, and deeply religious. They believe in second class status for women, other ethnic groups, and religious minorities. They have close ties to all sorts of shady figures in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and their ideology demands violent struggle that would destabilize their entire region. They are utter hypocrites on morality, simultaneously cracking down on all that they consider sinful while working with drug smugglers. They have no regard for the civil rights of those that they rule over, and if allowed to regain power they would again devastate the country that they ruined before being forced out of power.
The Republican Party, by contrast….um, yeah. OK. Never mind.
Seriously, obviously there’s quite a bit of hyperbole here, but just how thick-skulled is the Congressman to make that comparison? That’s the sort of stupidity one would expect from either an uneducated Pashtun militant or a member of Congress.
Comment by max —
February 6, 2009 @ 12:50 am
He’s really insulting the Taliban here. They have balls for one thing.
max
['Balls, not gall.']
Comment by Anon —
February 6, 2009 @ 1:02 am
Seriously, obviously there’s quite a bit of hyperbole here, but just how thick-skulled is the Congressman to make that comparison?
He is, in fact, solid skulled. Thanks for keeping the questions simple, Doc!
Comment by bad Jim —
February 6, 2009 @ 4:51 am
I want to speak up for the thick-skulled among us. When I was, I don’t know, 5 or 6, my father built us a set of swings. When I tried it out for the first time, the wrench he left on top fell off and hit me on the head. Ouch!
The lesson I took was that head-banging is mostly inconsequential.
Comment by wok3 —
February 6, 2009 @ 6:58 am
Why on earth would this idiot even USE the name of the Taliban, what is wrong with these people?
Comment by Mr Duncan —
February 6, 2009 @ 8:23 am
Oddly enough, I haven’t seen any discussion of this in right-wing venues in the first several pages of Google results, nor in the usual places like Instapundit and Pajamas Media. The only mention I saw was a National Review article which said, “When pressed to clarify, Sessions said he was not comparing the House Republican caucus to the Taliban, the Muslim fundamentalist group. ‘I simply said one can see that there’s a model out there for insurgency’”.
Comment by dhex —
February 6, 2009 @ 10:04 am
“but just how thick-skulled is the Congressman to make that comparison?”
very?
seriously though, in context he could have made a greater point…if he were a rhetorician of tremendous skill. rescuing that particularly shitty analogy would have been the feat of legends. if he wanted to push the insurgency concept, there are better ways to do it…like using the tamil tigers.
ho ho ho.
Comment by BigHank53 —
February 6, 2009 @ 10:38 am
He’s not stupid; he’s just an asshole.
Comment by Michael —
February 6, 2009 @ 11:32 am
It’s a great sad day when Monty Python becomes the model for political dialogue.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
February 6, 2009 @ 11:50 am
If the partisan Republicans are the Taliban, that means the Democrats are the Americans. Does that make the ineffective moderate Republicans, like Arlen Specter, that the Democrats are trying to prop up Hamid Karzai?
Comment by Eric the .5b —
February 6, 2009 @ 4:28 pm
Egad.
Comment by Barry —
February 7, 2009 @ 11:18 am
joe, it probably does. Basically ineffectual f*cks who, if they’re smart, will milk the occupying force for some money, but get out long before the inevitable loss.