A difference between these two tribes?
I keep hearing about the beating drum of the left. But then I see pictures like the one shown here, I hear the fire-breathing rants of sore-loser clowns like Rush Limbaugh, I notice the boos during McCain's gracious concession speech (and the conspicuous absence of boos during Kerry's 2004 concession speech), and I absorb the rhetoric about a permanent conservative majority, or the "real" America vs... well, whatever the alternative to the real America is. And I wonder to myself, who's really beating the drum here?
posted by Myke @ 6:32 PM
13 Comments:
Myke, you really need to get some thicker skin, bro. If you're already getting irritated by the push-back against Obama, you're going to be really angry/miserable for the next 4-8 years.
It doesn't affect me personally, but I feel that the tone between the two parties is off balance. Alec Baldwin (no pundit is he) commented that he'll back down in his criticism of Bush because "we've been pretty hard on him the past couple of years." I disagree. Never has a president in my lifetime (in my opinion) gotten away with so little criticism after so much damage. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. On the other hand, Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove and other extremists have painted liberals as the devil. This, while they were in control. I just don't see it as being equal. But Rove comes from the dirty Lee Atwater school where being negative is all he's got in his political bag of tricks, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
I'll be first in line to bring up criticism of Obama when it's due (it will come up a lot in the next four years). But again, it feels like there's a difference in these two tribes. Not all members, mind you, but still, the negative vibe is pretty extensive.
That was Myke not Dara!
Well there's where we disagree, then. Since before Bush took office liberals were claiming that the election was stolen in an effort to delegitimize him (this is pre-9/11, remember). Since then he's been blamed for every ill in the world, compared to Hitler on innumerous occasions, had books and plays written about him fantasizing about his assassination, etc.
Every single night, "mainstream media" types sneer at him, pundits denounce him, late-night talk show hosts mock him, comedians impersonate him in an unflattering way, liberal politicians assail his "failed policies," etc. Every. Single. Night. I don't think i've seen anyone criticized so much in MY entire life. I'm not suggesting that he doesn't deserve some of the criticism. I'm just saying that if you think he's "gotten away with so little criticism" then I think you've been living on a different planet (hell, even Alec Baldwin of all people thinks he's been hard on Bush!).
Let's get off Bush for a second. How about the rumor that Palin gave birth to her own grandson? I missed whether that was Karl Rove or Newt Gingrich who started that one (or maybe Lee Atwater!). Or, how about Joe the Plumber? Approached by Obama while playing ball with his kid, he asks a simple question that Obama tripped up on. The next thing you know Democrats are digging for information illegally from multiple state databases to try and discredit him. This is what a citizen gets from the Democratic political machine for asking a legitimate question of the man who is asking for his vote for President? That's not only wrong, but scary. i could go on and on.
The problem I have with what you say is that you are blind to the viciousness of your side. Other than throwing in the obligatory "both sides are guilty...", you virtually never point out the ravings of a Keith Olbermann or a Randy Rhodes who, in my opinion, are nastier than anyone on the right (note: I do seem to remember you ripping Bill Maher once, to your credit). You may not be old enough, but I remember the trashing of Robert Bork by Ted Kennedy (Kennedy apologized to Bork for trashing him BEFORE he went out and did it!).
Furthermore, you seem to think the typical rough-and-tumble of political discourse is tantamount to calling liberals "evil." Can you give me one example where Karl Rove or Newt Gingrich called a liberal evil? To the contrary, I've heard Rove referred to as "the evil genius" by the left! Exactly the opposite of what you claim.
I don't disagree that there has been negativity employed by the Republicans. But I never see the same balance in your criticism of the vicious attacks from the left. Spend a day in the fever swamps at Daily Kos (celebrating the death of Tony Snow, anyone?) or Democratic Underground and tell me if you don't feel like taking a shower to clean off afterward. Your inability to recognize the same nastiness from the left diminishes the credibility of your argument.
I don't really know why I'm even bothering writing this on your blog. It's just that I know you are a reasonable guy and obviously I assume that you're open to persuasion.
However, you appear to be so vested in liberal grievance and victimology that you cannot see what, in my opinion, is the self-evident imbalance in negativity and viciousness from the left. It's laughable to suggest that they are any more innocent than the right. And yet you do.
Moreover, as I alluded to above, much of the stuff you write is saturated with a sense of victimization. That's why I warned about the next several years. If you are upset by the criticism of Obama now, just think how you'll feel if he gets even half the treatment that Bush has gotten since before he entered office ("selected not elected!").
Some friendly advice: You're not going to feel very good about politics for a long time unless you can remove your personal feelings from it and realize that it's a dirty game played by both sides. As long as you continue to see the Democrat party as a victim of Lee Atwater you will be angry/miserable.
Thank you for your comments Lar. They were thoughtful and well reasoned. In the interest of disclosure, I'll admit I've been coming to terms with the liberal lens through which I view the world, and my relative inability to scale that back, no matter how self-aware I think I am.
Case in point, I had a recent discussion with my friend Tom (whom you no doubt remember) about the relative bias of media outlets. My contention was that outlets such as MSNBC and FOX show their political colours a lot more than CNN. I contended that, while CNN is still biased as a result of the innate left-leaning ideologies of many journalists, they don't make a point of showing it. If it comes out, it's a matter of lapse in objectivity (and thus a lapse in professionalism), whereas I believe the other two networks above have a more specific agenda. Tom made the argument that all news networks are created (relatively) equal, and that whatever difference is there, is a matter of perception.
We went back and forth with heinous youtube clips demonstrating the bias of all networks involved, and in the end we both agreed that all networks are biased (I secretly still believe that FOX and MSNBC have a heavier political bent). But the comments posted after the youtube videos were enlightening. So many people wrote things to the effect of, “I hate CNN. I only watch FOX News for fair, balanced coverage.” Fascinating.
This tipped me off about how much a product of our environment we can be, and how distorted our views can be (that lens we’re all looking through). So over the past little while, I have tried to be open about what people in my corner are talking about and view “my side” more skeptically. As a result, I have been critical of Michael Moore, Bill Maher (as you point out), Genine Garofalo and others whose radical speeches and ideas are divisive.
Still, and I have pointed this out before, it behooves members of both parties to denounce their family clowns for who they are. I have never heard so much as a peep out of the conservative camp about the incendiary words of Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh. I never see anyone denouncing the pompous windbag Bill O’Reilly, or the more corrosive moments of Sean Hannity’s show. I once watched a Fox pundit misspeak, saying, “we have to hunt down and kill Obama.” When someone nearby corrected her Osama/Obama mixup, she made an offhand comment, “well him too.” Egad!
I’m glad you point out the hate speak of those on the left, because that requires equal exposure and condemnation. While I may miss a lot of it because of my aforementioned left-wing lens, there’s also so much media to absorb, I simply can’t catch all of it. I never watch Olbermann or Rhodes, so much of that stuff slips me by.
I would like to see people policing their own sides of the fence, and by that I don’t mean censoring the more extreme viewpoints, I mean exposing and trumping them. When the Palin rallies were reaching a boiling point, who stepped in when crowd members starting shouting things like “kill him,” and “he’s an Arab!”? A recent report by the secret service showed that death threats against Obama and his family increased exponentially at the point that Palin’s rallies became negative. Who was there to criticize these groups, or Palin herself?
Again, I can only criticize the negative things that I see. I’m disgusted by the items pointed out in my original post, as I hope you are too. Perhaps it would lend more credibility to this post if I linked to my numerous previous blog posts criticizing prominent figures of the left side for stepping over the line. Perhaps it wouldn’t seem so slanted to me if someone came out and said, ‘you know what Ann Coulter? Liberals are people too.’ And I’ll keep saying the same to the Michael Moores of the crowd.
I still perceive the negativity coming out of the right to be more than that of the left, just as I perceive FOX to be a more bias new vendor than CNN. Whether that's my liberal bias, or whether I’m wrong, these pages do not show. You brought up more than a few examples, and we could both go back to our corners and dig and dig and have days and days of articles and links showing how negative people on both sides of the aisle can be. And all that it would show is that there’s a lot of negative mojo about.
One more thing before I go. This will reinforce my previous paragraph about negative mojo somewhat, but I believe Bush deserves every bit of criticism he has gotten and so much more. Clinton was impeached for lying about screwing an intern. Bush has not been so much as a censured for misleading the public on the Iraq war, for bungling said war, for ignoring the constitution, suspending habeus corpus on a whim, condoning and inflicting torture or enemy combatants, vastly expanding executive powers, among many other faults.
While I think the Hitler comparisons are inappropriate in that they diminish the evil that Hitler inflicted on the world, Bush is directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and thousands of American soldiers, and for that there is no accountability. So I think he can take a few SNL impersonations, nasty comparisons and books and movies fantasizing about his assassination. I mean, Obama hasn’t been in power yet, and the authorities already broken up three plots to assassinate him.
As for the stolen election, it is a legitimate talking point to bring up the electoral college whereby a man can obtain the majority of the popular vote and still lose the election. That, to me, is a system which needs addressing, if not a total overhaul. But I simply cannot imagine that conservatives would have kept their mouths shut if the Supreme Court had stopped the recount and the election went in Gore’s favour instead. Images of pitch forks and torches come to mind. There’s that lens again.
I appreciate your reasonable comment, Myke. I agree with the heart of what you're saying about policing our own sides. Unfortunately, it's virtually impossible since there are so many wackos out there. I, too, have heard of many threats against Obama's life, although I don't see the correlation with Sarah Palin's rallies that you see (secret service who attended the rallies in question denied that anyone yelled "kill him" after she said Obama's name).
One last thing (very briefly), I think the reason why Bush has never been censured over the Iraq War is because it would, in the interest of fairness, require the censure of all the Democrats (including Hillary Clinton and John Kerry) who saw the same intelligence that Bush did and voted to authorize the Iraq resolution. Check YouTube for the cases that Clinton and Kerry made to justify the war. They were extremely hawkish. They didn't change their minds until it got politically unpopular to support the war--then they changed.
In any event, once again I really appreciate your reasonableness. We can disagree on many things, but I know you've got a good heart and a sharp mind.
that last comment was Larry, Myke. I don't know why it's showing "HannahMae."
Man, I was going to say, I've never had this level of conversation with Hannah before ;)
Yes, we can definitely agree that there are so man whack jobs out there, it would be virtually impossible to police. But when I see something that irritates me, I tend to post it to get it off my chest. So yeah, I probably do need some thicker skin. In time, my friend. In time.
Man, check out this article. Democrats physically assaulting an 18-year old girl because of her support for McCain/Palin.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2008/11/022059.php
Larry
That link didn't work, but nonetheless, I don't think anyone would pretend that beating up a person (especially a young woman) based on his/her political beliefs isn't absolutely heinous. We both agree on that. And I condemn such acts (as I condemn all acts of violence).
Similarly, I hope conservatives condemned the actions of the now-infamous "B" girl who tried to provoke racial hatred right before the election. Furthermore, I condemn the Bush/Hitler comparisons, and I hope that conservatives can denounce Rep. Paul Brown's recent, and highly confused, statement that (and I paraphrase) 'Barack Obama would establish a marxist dictatorship... that's exactly what Hitler did... Remember, Hitler was also elected by a democratic government.' Wow.
So I guess your point is taken that there is plenty of judgement to go around. Maybe my next post will be that I would like to see more, ardent opposition to such extremist sentiment. And, of course, to violence.
Absolutely, Representative Brown is a jackass. I was glad to hear he apologized. But still if your point of reference is always Hitler, then that pretty much discredits any argument that you make in my book. I had never heard of the guy until he popped off like a jerk. Oh, well. There's no shortage of knuckleheads on both sides, eh?
Also, I was glad to see Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) lose his reelection bid. His years of corruption were a blight on the Senate (which is saying a lot). Even though I abhor the idea of a Democrat Senate getting closer to being filibuster proof, I'm glad the voters turned that a-hole out.
God help us if Al Franken gets elected. What a joke (pun intended).
Well, there's my bipartisan take for the day.
Hope you're well, man.
All in all, I think this was a productive discussion. I think in the 20th century, there is maybe a handful of people that enter into Hitler territory. Stalin counts. Pol Pot. Saddam... these kinds of people.
I'm glad Stevens is gone too, but I must admit, I don't think the guy should go to jail. Maybe force him into the service of the country, but to throw a 84-year-old guy into prison after decades of (sometimes questionable, always loyal-to-Alaska) service, it just feels wrong to me. I think there are better ways to put him to use. But there I betray my pro-senior agenda.
Hope you're well too mister. See you for some killer bowling action on Saturday.
You big softie. I knew you were a shill for the pro-senior lobby ;=)
Dude, I didn't know you were going to the Turkey Bowl. Right on, man! Looking forward to seeing you down there.
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