The Last Word on Hoffa

Jonah Goldberg's take on the Hoffa quote strikes the right tone...

... I do not think that Hoffa was deliberately committing the crime (yes, crime) of willfully inciting murder. However, given the absolutely ludicrous standard created by the Democratic Party and its media enablers after the Giffords shooting, what Hoffa said was absolutely beyond the pale. But, again, that’s only because of the idiotic, sanctimonious and plain stupid standard created by Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Paul Krugman et al. You can’t bleat about Republican “eliminationist rhetoric” and a “climate of hate” and then say there’s nothing wrong with what Hoffa said, never mind find it outrageous that anybody is complaining about it. This is point I made with some pique not long ago here in the Corner, in what became the most viral post of my online career.


I think it would be a shame for conservatives to adopt the same asinine standard established by the folks at Media Matters simply because it embarrasses the Democratic Party. The issue here is not that Hoffa incited violence, but that Obama and all of his supporters and enablers are astoundingly hypocritical. If you could have ever believed that Sarah Palin’s Facebook map incited murder, you are forever disqualified from lecturing others from over-reading political rhetoric.


We can reject the standard while at the same time call out the hypocrisy.

This is what I'm referring to when I use the "civility is BS" tag. Jared Loughner (the man who shot Gabby Giffords) is a disturbed human being. Pretending that someone else is responsible for his actions based on their words -- when you don't even have a link between the two -- is disgusting, asinine, and a pathetic affront to common sense. If some jackass follows Hoffa's directive to "take some son of bitches out" by attacking a Tea Party member, that means the person who did it is a distrubed asshole and a criminal. Hoffa is just an asshole.  And that's me being civil in describing him.

Meanwhile, Tina Korbe points out that Joe Biden's decision to describe political opponents as "barbarians at the gates" isn't drawing much press.  To be fair, it's hard to cover every stupid comment by Joe Biden.

There's An App For That

Just remember, when a Tea Party member comes up with an app that displays public employee unions as hordes of  vampires sucking blood from taxpayers, it was in response to this.  The best part will be that the Tea Party's app will not require any changes to a picture of Nancy Pelosi to make her look undead.

Truth be told, this doesn't offend me.  Anyone who actually thinks Obamacare will work to reduce the deficit deserves credit for overcoming their obvious intellectual deficit to make something of themselves.

Jimmy Hoffa Takes The Early Lead For Douchbag of the Week

The award noted in the headline does not exist yet, but Hoffa really deserves it.  I'm going to have some thoughts, but let's start with the story itself...

Warming up the crowd before President Obama’s speech in Detroit this afternoon, Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. had some choice words for the Tea Party.

Hoffa warned the largely union crowd that there was a “war on workers” and urged organized labor to take to the ballot box to fight lawmakers that oppose the president’s agenda.

“We got to keep an eye on the battle that we face: The war on workers. And you see it everywhere, it is the Tea Party. And you know, there is only one way to beat and win that war. The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what? They’ve got a  war, they got a war with us and there’s only going to be one winner. It’s going to be the workers of Michigan, and America. We’re going to win that war,” Hoffa told thousands of workers gathered for the annual Labor Day rally.

“President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march… Everybody here’s got a vote…Let’s take these sons of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong,” he concluded.

See, it's stuff like that which makes me a sad panda.  But let's break this down with a few random thoughts...

1.  Jimmy Hoffa advocating violence.  There are so many different threads here that I'm going to tiptoe around it as a matter of taste.

2.  Greg Gutfeld made the point on "The Five" earlier today, but it's worth noting that since the left made such a big show of screaming about civility following the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, they're now getting called on their own bullshit.  The language is inexcusable by any standard of civil discourse, but everyone used to let it go for the left because (rightly, in my view) politics is rough and tumble, and words don't break bones.  But Hoffa's assertions are a call to violence, and the standard established following the Giffords shooting means Dems should be scrambling to condemn this crap.  An yet... silence.  But now the silence is being noticed.

3.  Ann Althouse's point here is a terrific one -- Hoffa's calling for war on behalf of unions, but he's claiming that it's on behalf of working people.  The two are not one and the same.  Perhaps they once were, but as Allapundit noted, Hoffa makes north of 300k per year.  The hypocricy of union leaders would be galling, if anyone wanted to notice.

4.  Homer Simpson is far superior to Jimmy Hoffa as a union leader.



5. I'd expect Barack Obama to dress down Hoffa for this rhetoric at about the same time he comes up with a credible econoimc recovery plan. But it would be nice to be surprised once in awhile, huh?