In other words, sort of like John McCain.

I’d be insulted by that if it actually came from someone who hasn’t shown their own difficulty with the language and a complete inability to see the beam that is in their own hypocritical eye.

Funny thing. This a fairly apt description of the right wing blogosphere in general. What Day said is de rigueur on a lot of right wing blogs: “Muslims, all of them, want to kill us because Islam is a religion of conquest and war.” Now in this instance Day himself may have misspoke but the sentiment of his “misstatement” is a widely held belief on the right. What sounds like “yelling at a fire hydrant” to rational people is, in fact, entirely accepted on the right.

The reason why Republicans keep pushing the idea that everything a war hero says is wise, eloquent and beyond reproach is because the only defense they have against rationality.

Yes. So is Jay Tea, SaveFarris, Sean, and a few others.

They seem to lack basic understanding of the English language, yet they repeatedly try to communicate in that language.

But if Barack Obama says “The people responsible for the 9/11 attacks are still at large,” then he DID mean ALL of them, right Jay?

I guess it depends on the meaning of “the.”

Yes, ‘cuz I just know they don’t mean me.

Note to Bud Day: Stop talking now, kthxbai.

This is ridiculous. Just completely ridiculous. The exact opposite of what you’re saying is true, Jay. People with even minimal brain activity are aware of the fact that “The Muslims” or “The Catholics” or “The Anything” refers to the group as a whole. If I said, “The conservatives who have commented in this thread are idiots” would you be sitting at home thinking, “Well, he probably didn’t mean me”?

The guy may have misspoke, but let’s not attack the language and meaning as we know it.

I see a few possible alternatives –

1) he misspoke and forgot the necessary qualifiers because people do that sometimes, and on top of that he’s an old fart who’s probably never met but three or four Muslims at the most and so when he’s speaking would maybe think they’re not a monolithic beast, but would forget to say it.

2) he misspoke and intentionally left out the necessary qualifiers, for any number of nefarious and sinister reasons (whip up the xenophobic wing of the GOP, etc.), even though a campaign aide would come out later and clafify.

3) he said what he really thought about Muslims, and about McCain being the holy warrior to lead the struggle against their EEEE-vil ways, such that a campaign aide had to later come out and let us know that the kindly grandfatherly figure would never make such a sweeping generalization about over a billion people, heh heh, didn’t mean it that way.

In any case, here’s a foxnews.com blurb (likely to be as fair as is humanly possible to McCain and his supporters), claiming that he intended to say ‘radical muslims’ but basically blew the line. Whether that’s true or not… Hard to tell, from where I’m standing. He very well could have said what he meant.

Good god, do I have to explain this, again?

I know English is your second language, but try and keep up here.

Saying, “The Muslims have said either we kneel or they’re going to kill us.” is referring to the group as a collective whole. Finding some Muslims that do fit the description doesn’t make the statement true.

Saying, “The people who were responsible for murdering 3,000 Americans on 9/11 have not been brought to justice.” refers to a group as a collective whole. Finding some that were brought to justice doesn’t make the statement false.

I am being consistent in my interpretation, because I am using the rules of grammar.

Any questions?

It would have been correct if he had said, “The Muslims that attacked us…”

He said “The Muslims…” So yes, by standard rules of grammar, he meant Muslims as a collective.

Want moronic? Read some of the comments from the left wingers at that link. It scares me that people so stupid actually vote.