Unless there is a phenomenal sea change that I cant begin to anticipate, I will eagerly vote for [the president] again, Hutson emailed. He hasnt done everything I wanted him to do; in retrospect I think he probably should have been tougher with Congress. Every one time he conceded something as a show of good will and compromise, that became the new starting point for negotiations. He should have let the tea party and House GOP hoist themselves on their own petard.
The nitwit who, as a retired rear admiral, ought to know his weapons and military history, shows he knows nothing about either what a petard is or what being "hoist" by a petard means. A petard is a bomb that's hung on a gate to blow the gate open. The Elizabethan use of the verb "hoist" means blown up. Thus, "hoist by his own petard" means "blown up by his own bomb." And we're supposed to believe what this ignorant overeducated POS has to say???
Obama voters pondering whether this time the GOP has nominated someone left wing enough to suit them, I think that in the end they will decide for yes, it did.
He’s a lawyer, not a warrior.
OK, so the Admiral (ret.) is a dumbass. But what’s wrong with the idiom? Sure, the literal meaning is as you say, but the real meaning of the idiom is “destroyed by your own weapon or tactic.”
Even if his advice was stupid, I fail to see how he misused the idiom here, which I took to mean, “make political capital out of their obstructionism, rather than giving them even an inch.”
I am amused by the fact that “petard” in French is the word for “little fart,” which gave its name to the gate-busting bomb.
He came into office with stratospheric popularity, a House majority and a filibuster-proof Senate majority.
In the eyes of this crowd that means he owed it to them to implement Socialist Nirvana in his first 90 days. Now they are like spoiled children who did not get their lollipop, and the Mother of All Tantrums has commenced.
Hamlet, Shakespeare
“In 2008, several Republicans endorsed Democratic then-Sen. Barack Obama over the Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain.”
So what? John McCain did, too.
Well if this guy has never earned a buck outside the govt payroll I can see his point being a diehard Baraqqi.
What he doesn’t understand is that while the govt will continue to pay his pension and social security, it will come in Baraqqi/Bernanke/Geithner minibucks.