The following comments are excerpted from one of the most influential “progressive” sites on the web, Daily Kos — routinely a pander node for leftwing politicians looking for money, support, or political affirmation and approval. The Huffington Post, home to limousine liberals who are rarely if ever as clever as they believe themselves to be, at least had the sense to close comments on their entry. Probably because they were afraid all the celebrating of Snow’s life by their kindhearted readership would cause a massive move toward McCain.
Ahem.
From the comments at DailyKos, in response to a diarist’s rather thoughtful tribute to Snow’s life:
HIs death sucks? (0+ / 0-)
If only his cancer was contagious and the thugs he worked for caught it, it would have saved the suffering of actual innocent people. He was part of the mafia that took over this country and frankly, I’m glad he’s dead.
***
Tony Snow was paid to lie, and lie he did. Helms was an unreconstructed racist, and Rockefeller is a traitor. Plain and simple. What diminishes us is the thought that being a good father excuses lying about genocide and torture. These were and are not “good men”, any more than the leaders of the inquistion were “good Christians.”
There is nothing honorable in calling a lying political hack “a good man”, before, or after their demise.
***
I wonder, too (12+ / 0-)
The deification of the dead is not one of my things.
If a rat dies, it doesn’t become a Unicorn, it is just a dead rodent.
Same thing with people.
***
I have had people in my family who have died of cancer, including my mother of brain cancer. My father has cancer now. I was holding my grandmother’s hand as her life slipped away from pancreatic cancer.
If you lead a terrible life as Tony Snow did – enabling G.W. Bush to trash America, our economy, our military and their families – you don’t pretend it didn’t happen. If you want to honor the people who have died for America – you tell the truth.
***
This isn’t about politics – this is about a liar (0+ / 0-)
who wanted to profit from a warmonger thief Administraton(BushCo).
I am being compassionate – I care about the people that they killed with their lies. They matter. I care about the people that will die and have died in this country due to Tony Snow’s lack of compassion and honor as he propped up Bush. They matter.
Being a progressive does not mean you have to be a blind fool. On the contrary – we should face the truth no matter how unpleasant. We can’t fix what we don’t acknowledge.
Tony Snow is responsible for his horrible legacy – not me. To honor him is to dishonor those who died and our suffering because of his actions. That’s not politics, that’s a fact.
What is happening in our country and to our country would not have been possible without people like Tony Snow.
***
It is indeed hard to lose a loved one. But I can’t even muster any good thoughts to send his family and friends.
Here is a man who could of used his power and talents to help people, to better the world. And he didn’t — in fact he did the complete opposite. He was a liar, we all know what the consequences of those lies have been and will continue to be until God knows when.
I am not sad he’s gone. Sorry if that’s offensive to anyone. I’ll save my sorrow for those who suffered because of the lies Mr. Snow pertetuated.
***
There is a certain irony in him being killed by his own rotten ass.
***
I will be laughing with the deepest respect in the privacy of my religious worship area, with my hands clasped, beseeching the lord to stop my irreverent giggling.
***
Tony Snow enabled Bush to get his war on. He enabled bush to destroy what we hold dear in America. He deserves to be remembered for what he did. Don’t blame us for the life he chose.
Tony Snow saw the opportunity to benefit from lying us into war. He was willing to let our soldier’s Die so that he could profit from it. That’s who he was and it sure as hell is not our fault. That was Tony Snow’s choice and his legacy. If the truth hurts, so be it.
***
I think of a family that backed a serial liar (0+ / 0-)
They earned their grief. This is exactly the time for this comment. Maybe someone can picket his funeral.
***
Snow was a shit head piece of FOX NEWS lying crap. He and the rest of BushCo need to be jailed.
That anyone here would dare praise him is beyond an insult to Progressive Democrats like me.
UNREAL!
***
every day because of people like Snow, 5 Iraqi Tony Snows die, as do 5 Iraqi Ghandi’s, Iraqi Jon Stewarts, 5 iraqi intellectuals, 5 iraqi Cindy Sheehan’s, 5 American soldiers, lots of babies that would remind us of our sons, daughters, nieces, nephews…But the man partly responsible for that died, yes lets have a moment.
I guess when Dick Cheney dies, we can expect to see diaries that remember his best side? What about Dahmer, anybody? HE’S dead, cmon lets hear about his non murderous soft underbelly.
Whatever
***
There have been some aggressive/murderous dictators over the years that have no doubt felt they were doing what was the best thing for the Chinese, or the Germans, Americans or the Hutu’s or God. RIP to all of them too? Or just RIP to the American warmongers?
***
in the spirit of celebrating Tony’s life-work I can’t help noting that the phrase “Here lies Tony Snow” will continue to serve as accurately henceforth as it did during his tenure as White House spokesperson and Fox media figure.
***
Just saying, to me your diary (7+ / 0-)
made him seem like a real scumbag – i.e., spreading death and destruction at the behest of the Bush Cabal, not because he actually believed in it, instead, it was just his job.
I will leave it to the reader to do their own search on “the banality of evil” . . .
***
Yes, he was a hatemonger. (16+ / 0-)
Everytime anyone of of any notoriety dies we must weep the tragedy of death. Thousands of people die every hour, I would rather salute those who have lived the truth and lived wiht honor rather than this vile hate merchant. I listened to his Friday O’Reilly substitute on the radio and he was all hate. Just a month ago he was trying to argue that every thug should be calling Barack with his middle name. He was doing the Wright rehash, and mocking Obama’s patriotism and bringing up every thug talking point. Sadly, there are other thug Snow replacement haters lining up to fill his hateful boots.
***
F**k Tony Snow, early & often (3+ / 3-)
He’s in the deepest corner of Hell right now, bent over next to Joe Goebbels, with Satan’s forked dick way up in his rotten cancerous colon.
***
RIP Adolf Hitler- We Saw A Different Side of You (8+ / 0-)
Then one day we were sitting around, chugging some, lagers and they were very upset. One of the friends in their circle had just offed himself in a bunker. Being a political junkie, I mentioned what a coincidence that was, Adolf Hitler had just offed himself in a bunker. They got silent and said “Adolf Hitler is one of the friends from our circle.” They were both in tears.
I couldn’t believe it. The Adolf Hitler they had described was so much different than the one we saw in the newsreels.
To them Adolf Hitler was not an arch-racist, totalitarian ultra-nationalist dictator, who started a world war and exterminated the Jewish community of Europe. He was simply a buddy, a prankster, a guy with a funny mustache, a painter, an animal-lover, someone with whom you could escape and forget about politics and shoot the shit.
***
There are many, many more — and to be fair, a (very) few people in the thread express distaste for the timing of such sentiments (or express fear that the “wingnuts” will use the expression of such sentiments against them) — but the bile is there, in full view, ostensibly being spewed on behalf of all the dead Iraqi children that Bushco killed, and whose deaths Snow, through his lying lies, enabled. Snow was, according to this politically “active” constituency so routinely courted by Democratic politicians, the moral equal of Hitler, Jeffrey Dahmer, a rodent, Tomás de Torquemada, Goebbels and the Chinese propaganda czars — even the very cancer that killed him. All because he supposedly spread lies — itself a ridiculous question beg, and one that very few politicians not named Denis Kucinich are willing to officially sign on to.
The fact that Iraqis killed in the course of creating their own fledgling democracy and self rule are so easily conflated with Iraqis killed because, say, Uday or Qusay got a bit coked up and wanted a hummer on a big Persian pillow before allowing their dogs to tear apart that evening’s unwilling concubines, speaks to the depths of the ludicrous, muddle-headed moral equivalence that animates the compassion of these loathsome “progressives” — and to their willful blindness to same — all in service of pretending to a moral righteousness that they have never deserved, and whose precise opposite their sentiments, as expressed here for all to see, clearly embody.
These people are not “outliers,” either. They are the activist base of the democratic party and the progressive movement, the political junkies who spend their Saturdays on political websites turning the death of a good man into a political issue.
And they aren’t alone. Here, for instance, is how the AP has chosen to “report” on Snow’s passing:
Unlike McClellan, who came to define caution and bland delivery from the White House podium, Snow was never shy about playing to the cameras.
With a quick-from-the-lip repartee, broadcaster’s good looks and a relentlessly bright outlook  if not always a command of the facts  he became a popular figure around the country to the delight of his White House bosses.
[…]
He resigned as Bush’s chief spokesman six months later, in September 2007, citing not his health but a need to earn more than the $168,000 a year he was paid in the government post. In April, he joined CNN as a commentator.
In that year and a half at the White House, Snow brought partisan zeal and the skills of a seasoned performer to the task of explaining and defending the president’s policies. During daily briefings, he challenged reporters, scolded them and questioned their motives as if he were starring in a TV show broadcast live from the West Wing.
Unlike, say, the quiet, statesmanlike dignity of a Barack Obama public appearance. Which, let’s be honest: if his cultish followers were somehow able to orchestrate a laser show and have Korn as the backup band, that’s what we’d be seeing as the CBS News lead story each time the Messiah let slip a silent waffle fart in some heartland mall food court.
As I noted in the earlier thread, I feel genuinely sorry for those who relish Snow’s death as certain people would, say, the death of Zarqawi. But if I met any of these people personally, it would be the contempt I likewise feel for them that they’d almost certainly remember from our exchange.
Make no mistake. These are people whose self-proclaimed compassion extends only to those who agree with them — or at least have manners enough to pretend to — and this includes a willingness to turn en masse on one of their own, as the Kos diarist responsible for trying to cast Snow in a more “human” light is finding out today.
The rest of us are their mortal enemies, and our deaths are to be celebrated, and even embroidered with colorful fantasies about finding ourselves deep in hell, where we’ll be eternally cornholed by the forked cock of Satan.
To vote these people into power by way of their representative proxies is to ensure that we move more and more toward a totalitarian society in which “hate speech” comes to mean anything not sanctioned by those who legislate themselves into the position of moral arbitrators.
All I want to do is tend my garden. But if it comes down to it, I’ll use my weed whacker to defend the perimeter.
Bet on it.
****
More here.
update: Seems the diary entry mentioned here as a “rather thoughtful tribute” to Snow has been removed, along with the attendant comments. But other diary entries less compassionate have thus far been allowed to survive the purge:
I’m sorry but it just sickens me to read diary after diary of silly, bleeding-heart little condolensces to Snow and his family.
I swear some of you weak-kneed progessive brethren of mine have no clue about the vicious nature of the ideological battle we are in. When a bad guy dies, we should rejoice, not sing his praises of wish him anything by scorn.
There is a fundamental reason why the progress/liberal movement is so often impotent in delivering effective blows to the right-wing machine– it has to do with “toughnessâ€Â.
liquidstoke’s diary :: ::
Tony Snow was a co-conspirator in probably the largest know fraud ever perpetuated and executed on the American public by it’s own elected executive branch.He was Fox news anchor in the likes of Hannity, Cavueto, & Wallace. This guy was a practiced liar and propagandist before he ever stepped foot into the White House Press briefing room. The precise reasone Bush chose him was for his ability to so effectively lie and dance around tough questions that the American people demanded answers to.
So now he’s dead. I said “good riddance†and hell, some of your are falling over each other to condem me for it…
But you know what? I DON’T GIVE A FUCK what you think of my “heartless†comments, because what i see is a parade of soppy condolensces for a co-criminal that far outpaces and far outnumber any conversations about the death of our own innocent citizen soldiers nor the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis.
Disgusting….
How do we win this generational ideological battle when we’ve got silly sissies on our side wailing over a another scumbag’s death?
I suppose when Karl Rove kicks the bucket, i’ll have to endure more of the same weepy, hysterical, gullible eulogies….
In the comments to my post, SEK shows up to lecture us on the near equivalence of my having pointed to the bile offered up by a site courted by actual leftwing politicians (many of whom have published on that very site, or advertise there, or attend their official functions) and the bile itself — a neat rhetorical trick in that it attempts to turn my outrage at the politicization of a man’s death into the same kind of political opportunism routinely engaged in by his progressive brethren, for whom he here tries to act as a “rational” apologist.
But of course, SEK’s complaint is both forced and disingenuous — and is meant only to try to forge a kind of rhetorical equivalence between the two political “sides.” The problem is, I’m writing here as a human being who watched as a man who’d just died was slimed in the vilest of ways by people who state outright that there is no disconnect between the personal and the political (a formulation that I don’t happen to agree with), knowing as I do, from first hand experience, the pain that comes with thinking that one day your children my come across this morass of hatred and have to live a new sort of pain.
As I noted in my response to SEK’s hamfisted attempted to mitigate the Kossack’s depravity,
If you find it “almost equally repugnant†for me to highlight the vile shit leveled at a man who just died of cancer by those who are the self-styled leaders of the progressive movement  the argument being that by “politicizing” how they have politicized the man’s death to the point of hatred, I have grabbed the same tar baby (appropriate that I’m able to use that here, by the way)  than you yourself have slipped so deep into forcing untenable equivalencies as a means to mitigate your role as a full-bore apologist for your progressive fellow travelers, that I will happily point out that I find your attempts to “contextualize†both the comments aimed at Snow and my decision to point out said comments as “almost equally repugnant†as the comments themselves.
So right back at you.
Try putting your feet on the ground for once and keeping them there, Scott. It’s liberating not having to dance all the time.
yet another update: Patterico emails, “While you’re on the topic…L.A. Times blog commenters joyously revel in Tony Snow’s death. On a blog where comments must be approved to be published.”
Outliers. Nuance.
The AP (which these mopes see as in the bag for McCain) and the NYT both had the gall to suggest that Snow was short on the facts, even when the totality of their hit jobs dressed as obits show that what irked them was that he knew more than they did and embarassed them and their partisan questioning.
I ticks me off that I even have to note that so soon after his death, but the MSM seems bent on maintaining a level of class thisclose to the Kos Kidz.
I do sorta give credit to HuffPo for closing their comments. They know their commenters are an embarassment and act accordingly.
Snow was able, cheerful, effective. They feared him, so they hate(d) him. They wished him dead.
They have the bad manners to say so now and congratulate themselves for a fulfilled wish. Disgusting.
Feel free to pass this post along. I want people to know who it is we’re dealing with in this political age.
But I really have to step away from the computer. I’m going to go beat the shit out of a heavy bag.
Hoo boy.
Two words.
Range day!
RIP, Tony. Your service was appreciated, your memory is honored.
I can’t fathom the depth of their hatred.
The AP video is more classy than the print report. Brit Hume’s piece for FNC is also at the link.
I can’t read much of this crap and I don’t see the point in it as I’m all too well aware of how diseased and deluded so many members of our progg left are. Mental illness is not pretty. Stewing in hatred is not healthy. Projection is not your friend. We cannot and we must not put these people in charge. And the fact that this is a possibility confirms my belief that reality is stranger than fiction could ever be.
Tony Snow was a class act and the complete package. He was also the best WH press secretary I’ve ever seen and maybe the best there’s ever been. Authentic, funny, smart as hell, quick on his feet, confident and fearless. I would have loved having a few beers with him, especially if his guitar was laying around.
Jeff, you wouldn’t happen to have any kind bud planted, would you? I might could take a turn on the wire.
Charges that Jeff “cherry picked hate filled comments” from a lefty poster in 5…4…3…2…
I refuse to read such dreck. People tried to get me to read the stuff on FreeRepublic about Ted Kennedy’s brain cancer and I refused. It just does not tell me anything important about people except that there are people sitting at their computers displaying behaviors that I know they were not raised to display, but they think they can be clever and get a bit of attention so they ALWAYS do it. These are the same people who immediately made up jokes about the Challenger explosion, think dead baby jokes are hysterical, and think someone’s death is a perfect time to bring up some ridiculous political drivel.
N.O’Brain, this shit is really not exclusive to either side of the aisle. Why do you think that Yahoo shut down it’s message boards? They were the most popular news message boards on the web. But people were so offensive and horrible that they just could not bear keeping them going. I think the last straw was when a tech executive and his wife and child went missing then were found dead during a blizzard. Thousands upon thousands of the vilest messages piled up on that story. Shortly after that, Yahoo announced they were yanking the boards.
People can really be nasty filthy things.
Just proves that liberalism is a mental disease.
From Washington’s Rules of Civility:
Nothing else to say really. Those Kos idiots should take this to heart, but we all know they won’t.
True Lisa, we can be and are. And to think it all got going from those sweet little fruit-eating tree shrews, wot?
Lisa —
I didn’t pick this from the Democratic Underground. I picked it from a site actively courted by leftwing politicians. While it’s true you can find hatred on both sides of the aisle, it is NOT true that you’d see this kind of thing on Powerline, or Hugh Hewitt.
Not only that, but I believe I fairly represented the majority of those commenting — though I admit to pulling out some of the less artfully presented diminutions of Snow’s life, if only because they struck me as so vile.
Sorry, but your moral equivalence argument falls flat here precisely because Kos is the home of the netroots. I haven’t gone over to Hamsher’s site yet, but it wouldn’t suprise me to find a Photoshop of Tony Snow with rotting flesh and horns.
[…] …and Protein Wisdom gathers up the reactions of the moonbats! […]
All that separates us from the savages of 40,000 years ago are more stylish clothes and technological toys. The ten or twenty percent of the population who has surrendered to its darker angels is a danger to us all. God help us if they win an election.
I can only wish that the late Tony Snow had a better class of enemies. They don’t demean him, but only themselves in a small, mean way. Tony. You deserve better.
If FreeRepublic revels in the misfortune of others, then I’m glad I have never gone there, and now I never have to go there.
BTW, I thought this line from J.G. in the comments to the previous post deserved more exposure
That sums it all up for me. I wish I had said it.
“These are people whose self-proclaimed compassion extends only to those who agree with them…”
That’s the takeaway point for me, and what I realized when I went there for my daily dose of bile.
Hatemonger = says things I don’t agree with.
If Bush had never gone into Iraq, these appalling comments directed at Snow would still have been made.
Instead of Iraq it would have been Medicare “cuts” or food stamps “cuts” or the ozone hole or global warming or taxes or Abu Mumia Jamal or potholes or some other argument.
Henry Adams, cynic that he was, argued that politics was the “systematic organization of hatreds.” Aka, the “tribalism of politics” where, for those whose lives are entirely involved in politics, the tribe is everything.
Something to that.
Since Lisa brought up Free Republic, I was curious, as I rarely visit there. Here’s the thread breaking the news about Kennedy’s cancer. I didn’t read the whole thing, but the part I scrolled through holds up pretty well against the Kos Kidz.
And, yet Obama’s netroots really think America desperately needs Americans to Change into them?
I’d rather take Tony Snow’s traditional way; a life of decency, respect, humor, commonsense, goodwill, hardwork, and faith which filled his heart with so much love for family, friends and country.
Every time my hothead starts to flame in anger fueled by moonbat’s vicious howls I’ll take moment to squelsh the fire with a few thoughts of Mr. Snow. God Bless You Tony Snow, your life showed me the meaning of hope for a better world.
Not to mention, Kennedy didn’t, you know, die.
“Comment by Lisa on 7/12 @ 12:04 pm #
N.O’Brain, this shit is really not exclusive to either side of the aisle.”
Bullshit.
It. Happens. Every. Time.
I’m turning more and more to the view that reactionary leftist true believers are motivated by some sort of virulent, hate-filled religion.
Ever since Kos said, “Screw ‘Em,” about what happened to those 4 military contractors, I knew I would never need to visit there. He meant it sincerely. What people say the first time is almost always what they truly believe, and when they write it, look at it, and then hit the publish button, they have removed all doubt.
Wow Karl, I just took a peek at your link; how could such things be said!
It seems that the Moderators are policing it, making a clear statement regarding what is considered acceptable behavior.
I didn’t read the whole thing, but the part I scrolled through holds up pretty well against the Kos Kidz.
There’s a reason for that:
Comment #139 Removed by Moderator
Comment #140 Removed by Moderator
Comment #141 Removed by Moderator
Comment #145 Removed by Moderator
&c. &c. &c. In light of that, I think it’s telling the thread Jeff linked to isn’t there anymore.
#21: Well, I don’t want my prior comment to come off as a total defense of FR, either. They apparently moderate comments, and some of the early comments suggest an awareness that some moderating was going to be required. But the number of comments there that are decent and humane toward Kennedy’s plight does say something.
I guess on this one, I’m sorta between Jeff G and Lisa. I do think both sides have their share of classless morons. But I also think that the progg tendency to conflate the personal and the political results in a greater acceptance on the Left of the sort of stuff you’re seeing today at Kos. And that the cases of Snow and Kennedy have factual distinctions that go beyong Snow’s actual death. You can bet, for example, that none would say what is said of Snow if it was Glenn Greenwald who — in his capacity as a lawyer — voluntarily chose to represent a neo-Nazi.
It seems that the Moderators are policing it, making a clear statement regarding what is considered acceptable behavior.
The larger point would be, then, that they had to do that because the lowest common denominators over there are sort of like the lowest common denominators at Daily Kos.
To be honest, this kind of politicization of Snow’s death is almost equally repugnant. The man just died. Do you think it’s necessary for him to become a chit in a self-reinforcing mythos quite so soon?
Lisa, I’ve come to love your comments, but this time I think you’re embarrassed and temporizing, trying to make the best of a sick, sad situation ,and guttural, and shameful display among your peers.
– In fact its such the debasement of the human state, that sort of public utterances and vitriol toward a man who never did anything in his life to any of them, I’ll choose to leave it at that, and refuse to believe that yourself, a highly intelligent person, really believes theres no difference.
– If I’m wrong and you really think theres no difference between the two sides of the aisle, take a look at Karl’s link.
– Thats the difference.
…and since I was typing while SEK was responding, I note that the first deleted comment he names was #139.
Also, what the deletion of the Kos thread tells me is that so much embarassing bile piled up that no amount of moderation could save it.
SEK,
Yes. Of course. Pointing out the sickness and depravity of the jackals at Kos over a man’s death is to be avoided, because it’s not classy.
Take a look below you at the shark you just valted.
– I’ll give you an example. When the medical situation developed with Kennedy, I commented on Kopekne, saying I couldn’t help wondering how her family felt, but she wasn’t available for comment.
– What I did NOT do is wish him ill will, and most certainly not say he should be dead.
– Thats the difference.
Lisa
I’m sorry but Free Rep is the far right equivalent of Demo Underground. DailyKos is more like HuffPo or (on the right) Townhall. High profile right-of-center commenters, bloggers and columnists all wished “Godspeed” to Ted Kennedy, and much of those that think he’s a useless piece of work kept our mouths shut (we all remember our grandmas’ admonishment of “if you can’t say anything nice …”)
It has been one of the foundational elements of the Left (notice I didn’t say “liberal” though these days it get harder to tell the difference) that “the personal is the political” (coined in the 70’s). Thus when Tony Snow first got cancer I read on many a left or feminist blog that either he deserved it or he gave it to himself (conservativism is so evil when you supress your inclination to be good it feeds on your innards and thus you get cancer).
BTW
It looks like the Kos entry has been pulled … watch the stuff go right down the memory hole. Just like Markos’ “screw ’em” stuff.
I can’t even pull a cache of the Kos entry
Are they more embarrassed by the comments or that a diarist even mentioned Tony Snow with sympathy?
No one ever said the right doesn’t have its fair share of assholes. We would prefer they didn’t poop in public, and will try to clean up after them and shoo them into a kennel when they do. However, it is telling how long it takes for the assholes to appear on either side. On the left, they drop their drawers almost immediately, it seems.
Darleen: both, or they could’ve just killed all the comments and closed them.
I remember how clips of the ineffectual McClellan were mainstays on NPR. Tony Snow you just never heard near as much.
SEK,
No, that would be a rather narrow point. The larger point, which Jeff has already elucidated, is that crap like that is allowed to stand on dkos, home of the netroots and the politicos who want them. Meanwhile, Freeperville is pretty hard right, no darling of politicians, and even they won’t put up with hateful bullshit of the type that will remain in perpetuity as Dkos. They’ve deleted the post that spoke well of him but have left this sewage up.
Find something like that left standing at Free Republic and then you can talk about moral equivalence.
– Since its the Lefts way to always be totally above board and transparent with everything they do, they’ll probably show true class and principles, as is their normal policy, and shortly explain the reasons Darleen.
I live out in the country. When you see a dead rabbit, or groundhog, it takes no time for the maggots to cover it, teeming with activity. It’s really kind of gross. But you never see a single maggot holding up a sign at a funeral, because maggots never work alone.
These are the same people that think an off-hand comment or joke about someone’s race, sexual preference, or gender is hate speech (in which, of course, they would never take part). These comments are true hate speech – spawned from hatred.
SEK:
Indeed. Tell it to all your Lefty friends, won’t you? I guess the Right is supposed to always let this garbage slide by, though it is so predictable that the HuffPo routinely bars comments on such stories now.
Here’s a fun game. What if Tim Johnson had been a Republican?
In case Pablo’s link goes down the memory hole:
But far be it from anyone to criticize this dirtbag, lest SEK lecture us about politicizing a man’s death.
I assume that the Left will be understanding and accepting of the legitimacy of similar comments upon the deaths of Teddy Kennedy, Robert Byrd, Dan Rather, Bill Clinton, and other left-wing luminaries. After all, “there is nothing honorable in calling a lying political hack “a good manâ€Â, before, or after their demise.”
Oh, lookie. Scott has broken out the grad level rhetorical tricks.
If you find it “almost equally repugnant” for me to highlight the vile shit leveled at a man who just died of cancer by those who are the self-styled leaders of the progressive movement — the argument being that by politicizing how they have politicized the man’s death to the point of hatred, I have grabbed the tar baby (appropriate that I’m able to use that here, by the way) — then you yourself have slipped so deep into forcing untenable equivalencies as a means to mitigate looking like a full-bore apologist, that I will happily point out that I find your attempts to “contextualize” both the comments aimed at Snow and my decision to point out said comments as “almost equally repugnant” as the comments themselves.
So right back at you.
Try putting your feet on the ground for once and keeping them there, Scott. It’s liberating not having to dance all the time.
A comment from the link provided by Pablo in 40.
Wow, talk about a strong sense of denial.
Since SEK seems to be in drive-by mode today, I’ll denounce myself pre-emptively.
NPR and MSNBC and all the rest, hate. Their goal is to engender unthinking contempt for people like Tony Snow. It works.
I grabbed a screenshot of Pablo’s link.
What an indecent excuse for a human being!!!
In a black humor way, I gotta laugh at these “progressives” tossing the word “evil” around when it comes to Snow and the Bush admin… “progressives” who cannot even begin to describe Islamist suicide bombers or terrorists who saw off the heads of people like Nick Berg or Daniel Pearl as “evil”.
They are more than morally bankrupt, they are morally crippled.
Jeff G,
I must respectfully disagree. The knee-jerk invocation of a double-standard is not grad-level at all. It’s pretty infantile, really.
“Wow, talk about a strong sense of denial.”
– Not so much denial as Projection. The coin of the realm for the Left.
– I was wondering how long after they spewed their ugly guts it would take them to get around to saying “the wingnuts made them do it”. Remember, being Progressive means never having to take personal responsibility.
“They are more than morally bankrupt, they are morally crippled.”
Try moral black holes.
“…It works.”
– No it doesn’t “work”, and I truly believe some day soon you are going to see just how badly it fails.
I’m guessing these maggots don’t have families either, which is comforting. This is American History happening before our eyes. Will the schools in 2032 teach the children that when a man who had not one bad word to say about anyone died, thousands of “liberals” came out of their spider holes to uulate and dance like monkeys? Little pussy monkeys who should come over to my county and hold up a sign so that they can be easily identified.
I suppose the death of a lion makes a hyena feel happy and powerful.
But it’s still a hyena.
I didn’t pick this from the Democratic Underground. I picked it from a site actively courted by leftwing politicians.
That’s just it, isn’t it? Obama himself has both posted there and gone to the convention associated with the site. Next week, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, and Harold Ford will participate in their Netroots Nation event.
John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Russ Feingold, John Conyers, Jim Webb and a host of others have written diaries on the site.
It isn’t just some random bulletin board.
I note that the first deleted comment he names was #139.
Because there were three in a row and required less cut-and-paste.
Also, what the deletion of the Kos thread tells me is that so much embarassing bile piled up that no amount of moderation could save it.
Absence of evidence doesn’t constitute evidence. This is what I mean when I say “self-reinforcing mythos” — any evidence, even its absence, constitutes proof of what you already believe.
Yes. Of course. Pointing out the sickness and depravity of the jackals at Kos over a man’s death is to be avoided, because it’s not classy.
Using a man’s death to score points is reprehensible, and that’s what Jeff’s done here. If he’s truly broken up about Snow’s passing, he wouldn’t be so quick to use it for political advantage, i.e. “know your enemies.” I mean, if I take issue with Jeff’s argument, it’s going to look like I’m doing the same, to wit:
The rest of us are their mortal enemies, and our deaths are to be celebrated, and even embroidered with colorful fantasies about finding ourselves deep in hell, where we’ll be eternally cornholed by the forked cock of Satan.
This is absolutely false — it’s not that these people are enraged with all conservatives, only those who, like Snow, were in the unique position to sell the nation on policies which have led to the deaths of so many American soldiers, &c.
See how I’m cheapening his death to score cheap points? You feel it, don’t you, like I’m stepping over a line by discussing the abhorrent policies the man espoused in the hours after his death. That’s why I won’t do it in earnest.
They’ve deleted the post that spoke well of him but have left this sewage up. Find something like that left standing at Free Republic and then you can talk about moral equivalence.
Again, this is the same self-reinforcement in action. The post they took down had been voted onto the front page, and as such was extremely visible. The post to which you link is one of thousands posted today, buried beneath at least twenty pages of diaries — I tired of looking. It’s a grain of sand on a vast, vast beach. Will they eventually delete it? Maybe, if someone checks the server stats, sees the incoming hits, readers the diary, &c. But that’s not an automated process, and when you have that many users, you can’t expect humans to vet it that quickly.
As for moral equivalence, I’ll adopt Karl’s logic and assume every single one of those comments deleted on Free Republic said the most vile thing possible about Kennedy, otherwise, why would they have been deleted?
– The p;ain fact is the Left is much the minority, and still politically impotent, so their craziness and lies surprises me not in the least.
– As long as we keep them that way, all they can really do is be loud, disgusting, and stay impotent.
The knee-jerk invocation of a double-standard is not grad-level at all. It’s pretty infantile, really.
Actually, it’s grad-level now. Back in the day, maybe a half-century ago, it was still considered infantile. How the times change!
This is really depressing: first Tim Russert, then Tony Snow. I am beginning to think that God hates America for real and he’s hastening its decline, just to get it over quickly and with less pain. Maybe that’s the only response now; put us down before we do some real damage.
And by “us” I really mean “them,” because “they” are in charge of academia, the media, the law, the courts, labor, both houses of congress, and are on the verge of seizing the presidency. Is that an octofecta?
Just saw that myself, cranky. Apparently psychotic delusion is just part and parcel of being a member of the “reality”-based community.
Scott has broken out the grad level rhetorical tricks.
I learned “chit” from Derrida himself. Just how I roll.
I will happily point out that I find your attempts to “contextualize†both the comments aimed at Snow and my decision to point out said comments as “almost equally repugnant†as the comments themselves.
Which is, of course, exactly what I said would happen in the previous comment, because I do believe that using a man’s death to demonize political opponents is almost as repugnant as using a man’s death to demonize the policies of the man himself. It’s the using that’s loathsome Jeff, not the use to which it’s put.
Since SEK seems to be in drive-by mode today, I’ll denounce myself pre-emptively.
This is the sort of logic I almost mocked in the previous comment by saying, in response to Pablo, that it’s unrealistic to demand things move at the speed of internet. I spend a couple of minutes reading the stuff I’m replying to and am accused of driving by. God forbid I think through my position before I set my knee to maximum jerk.
Moral black holes – !Racist!
SEK —
Really, take your semantic games elsewhere today. You have a lot of nerve lecturing people even as you’ve decided on my motivation in direct contradiction to what I’ve said my motivation was.
I’m not interested in your academic exegesis on my post. You’re an apologist, and I’m not interested in having a debate over that with you. What is “almost equally repugnant” is your desire to come in here and try to turn my post into the near equal of the garbage being spewed over at Kos.
I went through the thread. There were over 450 comments when I went over there. I grabbed representative comments. If you want to try to play rhetorical games to convince yourself that there is a way for you to mitigate the damage — JEFF IS THE SAME AS THOSE WHO ARE HOPING TO SCORE POLITICAL POINTS OF SNOW’S DEATH — I’ll just point out that, without that original thread, I’d have nothing to respond to. Describing what you see after reacting viscerally to it is in no way similar to what was happening over at DKos.
If you’re too blinded to recognize that, you need to take your nose out the books for a bit and go talk to some actual people who live outside the ivory covered walls.
This is absolutely false  it’s not that these people are enraged with all conservatives, only those who, like Snow, were in the unique position to sell the nation on policies which have led to the deaths of so many American soldiers, &c.
That’s a ridiculous thing to say whether Tony Snow were alive or dead.
Of course, I’m sure you had similar thoughts when Johnson died.
I do want to test the boundaries, here. If a candidate lies about another candidate’s positions, and the lied-about candidate issues a statement saying the first guy’s a liar– are they equally reprehensible?
“Try moral black holes.”
Consider thyself denounced, N’Ob.
This was the first thing I woke up to this morning before going to an appointment. And the sadness I felt was topped by a dread that the usual suspects would be airing their filthy glee at his untimely death. That feeling I had was confirmed by Jeff’s post. I could feel angry, and I do, but more and more I feel just sad at how low civil discourse has fallen in this country. As Ric Locke has said, start praying, and if you don’t have a deity, find one.
I used to respect SEK.
Using a man’s death to score points is reprehensible, and that’s what Jeff’s done here. If he’s truly broken up about Snow’s passing, he wouldn’t be so quick to use it for political advantage,
Because, Scott, no one on the right is allowed to show moral outrage, is that it? The usual LEFT meme that sez “Republicans aren’t mistaken they are EVVVILLLLL”…so nothing no one right of center ever does is free of evil ulterior motives.
When did you become such a tool, Scott? I thought better of you.
as if he were starring in a TV show broadcast live from the West Wing
That’s not as from out of nowhere as it comes across.
Why, yes. Those poor, earnest progressives have been swiftboated here. It isn’t their behavior that makes them ugly, IT’S YOU POINTING AT IT, JEFF!!!
Feh.
Except that I’m not demonizing political opponents in a vaccuum. I’m demonizing them for something they actually did. I am reacting not to some concept of my political opponents, but rather to their actual words, and what those words imply.
And I am not reacting to them as part of some political tribe. I am reacting to them out of revulsion as a father and a human being — and in the process, drawing lessons from what it is that they themselves have exhibited without provocation (unless you wish to count Snow’s death as “provocation”). Again, these are members of a site that is ACTIVELY COURTED BY REAL-LiVE CANDIDATES, AND PEOPLED BY THOSE WHO REAL LIVE CANDIDATES PANDER TO. These candidates post there. They attend events sponsored by the Kossacks. To pretend that this ample outpouring of hatred is somehow not exemplary is so disingenuous as to boggle the mind.
So you can play your equivalence games all you want, Scott, but the fact remains, you have not a leg to stand on. And everyone here knows it.
Try to pass that shit off on those who get off on sophistry. Here, it’s not worth the pixels used to represent it.
[…] Right on schedule. Sheesh. The miserable […]
Interesting how expressing genuine disgust at something that is genuinely disgusting, is “using it for political advantage.”
I’ll never understand how anyone can regard being disgusted as no better than being disgusting.
SEK, you take the cake.
It isn’t their behavior that makes them ugly, IT’S YOU POINTING AT IT, JEFF!!!
Yep, it’s like if you quote Rev. Wright’s own words, Wright isn’t the racist, YOU are!
Proggs are gradeschool “Heads I win, tails you lose” bullies.
Scott used to be a reasonable liberal, he’s acting like an amoral “progressive.” He needs a long sabbitical away from the poisonous academic arena and actually hang with real folk.
– Oh hell dicentra, as coach Lombardi once said, “fatigue makes cowards of us all”.
– That isn’t going to win it for them. They believe if they infiltrate, and just keep the lies and rhetoric going, somehow they’ll be able to change America into their Marxist model of the Utopian collective, where individuality disappeares, and we all live to serve the cult leaders wishes.
– They believe this on the sole basis of their own narcissistic self love, their religion of Theism.
– They picked the wrong country to try their great experiment. America is, always has been, and always will be in the vast majority, a nation of fierce individualism. Collectivism goes against the grain of everything we fought for and believe in as a people. The Left can;t just sweep that under the rug with an ocean of rhetoric. The man at that lever will always vote for freedom in the end.
– The Academia is quickly falling further and further into ill repute, the Congress is at a 9% level of job performance approval, the relic Liberal media is down to giving their product away to make it look like they have respectable readership, and the Left is running a Marxist apartheid believer as a candidate, and Iraq xontinues to improve, which bodes well for us and our WOT with the Jihadists, as well as Israel and the people of the ME in general.
– Take heart. I think it looks a lot worse than it really is.
– Just wait till this fuel mess rolls over the Democrats and their tin-horn candidate. McCain won’t even matter. He’ll be lost along with the rest of them in the flood for a time, but he’ll survive because the Dems won’t be able to hide.
– I’m optimistic, not the least bit fearful. The wonderful thing about our fight with the Left is that we have truth and principle, morals and common sense on our side, and that fierce individuality I mentioned.
– Note to the amoral brain dead Left. Bring it on!
I’ll just point out that, without that original thread, I’d have nothing to respond to.
Without a very typical outburst by the lowest common denominator of anonymous commenters on the internet, you’d have nothing to respond to? Because you can’t always find the lowest common denominator of anonymous commenters on the internet saying terrible things after the death of a partisan public figure?
JEFF IS THE SAME AS THOSE WHO ARE HOPING TO SCORE POLITICAL POINTS OF SNOW’S DEATH
You might want to quote my “almost” again, because I don’t think that’s quite the same as “the same.” I know this is just a rhetorical trick of sheltered left-wing academics, but in the interest of accuracy, you know.
Look, I pointed out that you’re using second-order outrage to capitalize on the death of man you claim to respect — outrage which, if answered, makes the person answering look like an insensitive boor. Put differently, in response to Jeff and Darleen:
JG: Describing what you see after reacting viscerally to it is in no way similar to what was happening over at DKos.
D: Scott, no one on the right is allowed to show moral outrage, is that it?
Yes, they certainly are, as are those on the left. They’re outraged by the ostensibly mainstream media’s whitewashing of Snow’s culpability in administration policy just because he happened to die a sympathetic death. They’re outraged that the death of a man complicit in the deaths of so many others is all over the news, while coverage of soldiers in Iraq is scant and typically anonymous, &c. I’m not making this argument, not today, but if you’re to be allowed your outrage, why should they be denied theirs?
Well put, McGeehee. Had I made the considered decision to hold off on expressing my outrage — wait, anyone know the approved delay period? — I would have avoided the charge of being “quick” to profit “politically” from this show of progressive depravity.
It’s all about the timing, you see.
Whereas Scott’s probably been out all morning trying to turn the “use” (read: shining a light on the kinds of bile being launched against Snow and his family on the day of his death) of actual comments about Tony Snow in the wake of his untimely death into something as reprehensible as the comments themselves.
How dare you use the depravity of the progressive’s movers and shakers to make a case for the depravity of the left’s movers and shakers! Why, that’s nearly as bad as the depravity you claim to despise! WE MUST RESPECT EVERYONE’S OPINION!
Really. Does anyone buy that argument?
I’ll never understand how anyone can regard being disgusted as no better than being disgusting.
If I understand SEK logic, it’s OK to be disgusted. In private; perhaps with one’s spo-, er, significant other, in the privacy of one’s own bedroom.
It is not, however, appropriate to express this disgust so that anyone [left of center] might become aware of it.
Scott, it’s bad to speak ill of the dead. So I’ll speak ill of the living.
You’re an idiot.
Snow’s culpability in administration policy just because he happened to die a sympathetic death. They’re outraged that the death of a man complicit in the deaths of so many others is all over the news
That’s the problem, though. Not the answer to the problem.
“Complicit in the deaths” is loaded beyond rationality.
Bless you comrade SEK, it is just like old times. Give me a ring later and we’ll polish up the “enemies of the peoples” list.
SEK
a man complicit in the deaths of so many others
That is a morally suspect …no morally INDEFENSIBLE position.
If you in anyway agree with what you wrote, you need some serious psychological help.
I am aghast.
Without a very typical outburst by the lowest common denominator of anonymous commenters on the internet, you’d have nothing to respond to? Because you can’t always find the lowest common denominator of anonymous commenters on the internet saying terrible things after the death of a partisan public figure?
Quit being such an ass. We all know what’s going on here. If you want to admit that DKos is the “lowest common denominator” of the political left, be my guest. But that’s a tough charge to make stick.
The fact of the matter is that the thread over at Kos was so vile it had to go down the memory hole (I read it prior to its deletion), while a somewhat similar thread at one of the most right-wing sites on the internet is filled with best wishes and prayers, and only about 20 deleted posts in the first 200.
Compare that.
…Snow’s culpability in administration policy…
His job was to communicate it, not create it.
They’re outraged that the death of a man complicit in the deaths of so many others
Bull.
is all over the news, while coverage of soldiers in Iraq is scant and typically anonymous, &c.
No, they’re not. If they’re outraged by the coverage of soldiers in Iraq, it’s only because the casualties have plummeted.
Consult the First Rule of Holes.
btw Scott
When was the last time the Left on dKos “outraged” at Hamas? or Al Qaeda? or Hezbollah?
Not one can call radical Islamism “evil” but an effective, talented press secretary working for an administration with an “R” after it?
Fuck the Left.
To pretend that this ample outpouring of hatred is somehow not exemplary is so disingenuous as to boggle the mind.
If you want to grab random diaries and call them exemplary, why not this one or, say, this one:
Are these also exemplary, or do only the most vile comments count? If so, why?
You keep saying that, Scott, even as you studiously ignore that this was not DU, but rather a place that includes ACTUAL BIG NAME POLITICIANS AMONG ITS CONTRIBUTORS. This is, as others have pointed out to you, the home to the activist base of the progressive movement. You want to present 450 comments, followed by the airbrushing of the entire thread, as some kind of unfortunate anomaly, and those who participated in the attacks on Snow and his family as inconsequential cranks.
Well, you can try going that route if you’d like, but what remains true is that what I posted represented the overwhelming majority of those commenting. An awful lot of “outliers” to associate yourself with if you happen to be courting those very people.
Wait, you mean like the AP’s “whitewashing”? The NYT’s?
Again, you assign motives that seek to mitigate the bile I hightlight. And then you show yourself as an apologist by characterizing their sentiments as heartfelt “outrage” on the order of those outraged by the incivility with which they express themselves.
Snow’s “culpability”. Meh. In what, exactly? The platforms, policies, and strategies of an Administration he worked for. IF HE WEREN’T ALREADY DEAD WE SHOULD STRING THAT MURDEROUS FUCKER UP AGAIN!
You’ve lost, Scott. The fact that you pulled out one instance where I jokingly used “same” after the numerous instances where I was careful to directly quote your “almost equal to” shows me that you’re now reaching for whatever looks like it might work as a sharp stick.
Sad.
Comrade SEK,
I suggest in your next comment you refer to terrorists as minutemn. That is always a most successful tactic.
They’re outraged that the death of a man complicit in the deaths of so many others is all over the news, while coverage of soldiers in Iraq is scant and typically anonymous, &c. I’m not making this argument, not today, but if you’re to be allowed your outrage, why should they be denied theirs?
Following your own, ahem, “logic”, merely stating that argument is almost as bad as actually making it.
Nice going foot-in-mouth guy, you should apply for a job with Obama.
Did I say the diary was exemplary? No. I said the 450 or so comments were exemplary. I said the diary itself was “thoughtful”. Which is why the writer of said diary was torn to shreds by most of the commenters.
I also pointed out that some folks there — few though they were — found what was happening troubling.
But they are not exemplary precisely because they were not only in the minority, but becaue those with the temerity to express such sentiments were often shouted down.
In fact, the writer of the original diary, who I take it is an historian, was forced to defend against charges that s/he, by virtue of whitewashing Snow’s crimes against humanity, was complicit in those crimes.
Cherrypick all you’d like to, Scott. I read through the thing. I know what position held sway.
As others have pointed out, at least the Huffpo was cagey enough to shut their constituency up preemptively.
I suspect SEK is defending them because he agrees with them.
That right there is a Quote of the Day.
Had I made the considered decision to hold off on expressing my outrage  wait, anyone know the approved delay period?  I would have avoided the charge of being “quick†to profit “politically†from this show of progressive depravity.
Isn’t the answer to your question sort of obvious: when it’s not too soon to criticize Snow, it’s not too soon to respond to criticism.
That is a morally suspect … no morally INDEFENSIBLE position.
TOO SOON. See, I did it. It’s not that difficult.
If you want to admit that DKos is the “lowest common denominator†of the political left, be my guest. But that’s a tough charge to make stick.
I’m not saying Kos is the lowest common denominator, but that as a site with 1,000,000 daily visitors — or whatever it is now — and slight moderation, you’re going to find a much greater cross-section of humanity.
I think his moronic “culpability” comment illustrates that nicely, MayBee.
If you want to grab random diaries and call them exemplary, why not this one or, say, this one:
Christ on a crutch you are stupid.
Hint: there’s a difference between “diarys” and “comments”.
First Rule of Holes, indeed.
Keep digging, SEK, you’ll get there eventually.
I want to know which Administration has not been complicit in the deaths of so many? FDR? Truman? Kennedy? JFK? Johnson? Carter? Nixon? Clinton? Reagan?
They’ve all, by omission or commission, had Americans and foreign nationals die as a result of their policies.
Perhaps we should celebrate every politician’s death, and every person that worked for that politician.
Absence of evidence doesn’t constitute evidence.
And that’s just super-convenient if you can manage to make the evidence…disappear.
We are at war with Eastasia. We have ALWAYS been at war with Eastasia.
So then I wasn’t being “quick” to make use of the “criticisms” of Snow. Good, glad that’s settled.
Leaving us to dicker over your use of “criticism.” “I’m glad he’s dead” and “I wish the cancer had spread to the whole administration” — not really “criticism” as I use the term. But then, I’m not part of your political tribe.
— Who, at a ratio of a 100 to 1, were exulting in the death of Tony Snow.
I’d hate to have to extrapolate that out to 1 million or so daily visitors…
Keep digging, Scott. If this is what you need to justify your inclusion in a political movement peopled by uncivil jackals, have at it. I’ve got better things to do with my day that to watch you battle an identity crisis.
Liberals are really awful people. Look at “SEK” here — trying to criticize people for being shocked at the way others have insulted the memory of a man who just died. Decent behavior is wrong, insane hatred is right.
Liberals are consciously, actively evil. They have chosen to embrace all that is wicked and harmful. May all the things they have wished on decent people like Tony Snow or Jesse Helms afflict them tenfold.
Saddam Hussein when he died didn’t get near this vicious a remembrance.
You want to present 450 comments, followed by the airbrushing of the entire thread, as some kind of unfortunate anomaly, and those who participated in the attacks on Snow and his family as inconsequential cranks.
I’ll claim that on a site with 1,000,000 hits daily, there are absolutely, positively, no trolls who proclaim their position loudly, repeatedly, and with great passion. Wait, I won’t claim that, because you, I, and anyone who’s used the internet knows that.
But they are not exemplary precisely because they were not only in the minority, but those expressing such sentiments were often shouted down.
So the loud, obscene trolls shouted down the people who plead for reason? This surprises you? I have to edit bile from hate-spewing analytic philosophers on a literary theory site.
In fact, the writer of the original diary, who I take it is an historian, was forced to defend against charges that s/he, by virtue of whitewashing Snow’s crimes against humanity, was complicit in those crimes.
I’m friends with his co-blogger — both write for Progressive Historians — and I’m sure they’re upset by the trollish behavior of elements of the Kos community.
Cherrypick all you’d like to, Scott. I read through the thing. I know what position held sway.
Why — besides this being your blog — does your cherrypicking carry more weight than mine? Because it validates what you already believe, whereas mine only validates what I do?
Saddam Hussein when he died didn’t get near this vicious a remembrance.
Remember when Zarqawi was killed and the netroots were all “Not In My Name”
If you want to grab random diaries and call them exemplary, why not this one or, say, this one:
OK, let’s do that. Here are some COMMENTS:
“I didn’t post any of those things or anything like those things.
But I find them appropriate.
Seriously, were people all broken up when Jesse Helms died??
Not to be corny but…the future of our nation is at stake. We. Have. To. Win. (F*ck Purity Trolls!)”
______________________________________________
“Why are you hating on the Tony Snow haters?”
_____________________________________________
“I am a proud Tony Snow hater and too old to have someone give me a lecture.”
_____________________________________________
“I spew hatred, I delete it if possible. Sure, I have a lot of built up anger, but I agree with your premise that ad hominem expression of it makes me look bad. I only do that when I can’t take the news anymore.
Tony Snow… my best venomous rant:
Who?
Oh, him, RIP.
“We laugh because it hurts.””
_____________________________________
“Tony Snow was scum in a suit. A man paid to lie to us, his salary was paid with our own money. He was a liar whose job was to deceive American citizens. Why should I respect him after his death any more than I did when he was alive? There is nothing special about death, we all die.”
_______________________________________
“If Tony Snow didn’t want to be called an evil, heartless, soulless hack, he probably shouldn’t have shilled for the Bush crime family for all those years.
Just sayin’.”
____________________________________
Want more?
I’ll claim that on a site with 1,000,000 hits daily, there are absolutely, positively, no trolls who proclaim their position loudly, repeatedly, and with great passion. Wait, I won’t claim that, because you, I, and anyone who’s used the internet knows that.
The deleted thread had 777 comments on it. The vast majority were vile.
Of course, only the bad apples posted to that thread, huh?
Why  besides this being your blog  does your cherrypicking carry more weight than mine? Because it validates what you already believe, whereas mine only validates what I do?
I don’t think the cherrypicking is the problem. The problem is the (almost) equivalence, the defense, and – the cherry on top- your apparent agreement with the thoughts that motivate them.
Had you come on and said, “But wait! I’ve found some comments very supportive of Snow,” you would have made a fair point.
[…] knew this was coming. Remember: DU is one thing, but DKos is where the likes of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, […]
Look at “SEK†here  trying to criticize people for being shocked at the way others have insulted the memory of a man who just died.
“Shock” would be registering dismay at a comment. Writing five hundred words about how certain behaviors typify political opponents isn’t “shock,” it’s a concerted effort to use the occasion of someone’s death to make a point.
Put another way: I thought Jeff would’ve been above it, and registered my sentiments.
I suspect SEK is defending them because he agrees with them.
Actually, you’ll note that I’m specifically not defending them. This whole thread started because I was disappointed that Jeff would use the occasion of Snow’s death to score political points. He can spin it however he’d like — he was only reacting to the unconscionable comments others made to make a larger point about everyone who shares an aisle with them — but he’s still used Snow’s death in a way I found beneath him. He asks whether he should’ve waited a few days, I say he should’ve.
there’s a difference between “diarys†and “commentsâ€Â.
Yes, diaries can be written by anyone who belongs to the Kos community, whereas comments can only be written by anyone who belongs to the Kos community.
And now Meteor Blades is there on a new recommended diary, telling people they need not hold their tongues.
Of course, he is just one person out of millions per day.
Here are some COMMENTS
You don’t think it might be because the people reluctant to speak ill of the dead aren’t speaking ill of the dead, whereas people with no such compunction are speaking ill of the dead?
Actually, you’ll note that I’m specifically not defending them.
No, I’ll not note that, due to this:
BBH: Oh hell dicentra, as coach Lombardi once said, “fatigue makes cowards of us allâ€Â.
You are of course correct. I will be the first to admit that I give up too easily. Comes from 30 years of depression and 6 years of unrelenting physical fatigue brought on by thyroid problems and who know what else. And from the fact that my meds haven’t kicked in today.
Just the same, I have to wonder a few things:
If there were blogs in 1860, would the North and the South be this vitriolic towards each other? Probably, and we survived that.
If there were blogs in 1968, would the anti-war folks and the rest of the country be this vitriolic toward each other? Probably, and we survived that.
However, to what degree do the existence of blogs make it easier for us to vent our bile directly on our enemies, and to what degree do blogs reinforce the Great Chasm between Left and Right these days? It’s one thing to despise those who live on the other side of Mason-Dixon, where we don’t have to deal with them or hear their taunting. It’s quite another to be exposed to the actual words in real-time.
Dennis Prager thinks it’s a fantasy to think that the Left will finally go too far, America will wake up, and we’ll purge their ideas from our midst and take back the country. Because history shows that after a point, the decline is inevitable: people are too fat and contented to fight against government incursions, especially when their bad effects aren’t immediately felt. We scream “drill, drill, drill!” when gas prices hit our pocketbooks, but back when congress was passing the foolish laws against domestic drilling, we dozed on.
Again, I’m a born pessimist, and I admit it. Please, please, please prove me wrong, I beg you.
– You have to marvel the upside down rhetoric of the Left, the sheer mendaciousness and fecklessness of their whole existence and narrative.
– History has shown that every time the Left, Marxist, Socialist, Communist, any sort of totalitarianism, gets involved in peoples lives in any sort of conflict, 10, 100, maybe 10000 times as many people end up dead.
– They preach their sermons of care and humanity, but history is so re pleat with the hoards of dead and dying as a direct result of their Utopian ideas, at times there were not enough places to bury all the dead bodies.
– Making a statement like “…all the deaths Tony Snow is responsible for…”, is so perfidious and such a huge lie, it can only be attributed to running from the complicities of their own history as a movement.
– If I were a member of such a humanity loathing cult I can easily understand why they often commit suicide.
No, this doesn’t surprise me. The sheer numbers of those who DIDN’T get upset about the tenor of what was being said — and in fact added to it — is what is telling.
Because my “cherry picking” wasn’t cherry picking. It fairly represented the tenor of the thread, and the opinions of those participating in it. I noted that the diarist wrote a thoughtful piece. I noted that a (very) few people over there seemed dismayed by the bile they were witnessing. The real question is, why are THEY surprised.
Meanwhile, you plucked out examples of those (very) few comments that seemed slightly aghast at what was unfolding, and you are attempting to suggest that, despite the overwhelming disparity in the types of comments in question, those representing the majority position that they’re glad Snow is dead are really just a vocal majority — and that there are hundreds of thousands of readers who think otherwise, but have chosen not to speak up.
Sorry. But my interpretation differs.
Actually, it was pointing out how actual political opponents behaved. The point one draws from it is secondary and open to debate, but judging from those comments, it seems to me my argument of what that behavior typifies seems pretty dead on.
Of course, none of this gets said had I not been appalled by what I read — which I wouldn’t have read had it not be willfully and unashamedly published.
You don’t think it might be because the people reluctant to speak ill of the dead aren’t speaking ill of the dead, whereas people with no such compunction are speaking ill of the dead?
No moron. Check out the over 500 comments at “crazed right-wing” Free Republic regarding Ted Kennedy with any DKos excretion. At FR, they came out in droves to offer condolences and prayers. At Kos, no so much.
There is a completely different level of humanity between the left and right. And the evidence is staring you right in the face.
There’s no suggestion that anyone is mourning Tony’s death. Not a hint, really, that his passing might be smething to be mourned. At least they sure couldn’t find anyone. It’s not like when Tim Russert died. That was sad for real.
You know, there are elements of leftist ideology that I sympathize with. I’m pretty far from a far right conservative.. but the sorts of comments at Kos and the people that leave them are the very reason I can never consider myself one of them. Those sorts of vile comments aren’t anomalies, they’re the norm… the progressive mainstream.. I have a very hard time believing that they’re the comments of grown men and women mentally striving to understand the problems of our world and offer constructive opinion on them.. Theyre the yipping of mean little dogs that respect nothing and no one beyond themselves and their immediate wants.
Like him or hate in life, he’s was a man. From what I’ve seen a decent man. A man who was ultimately dealt a shitty hand by fate. There but for the grace of God.. He’s due the respect in death that all men are due. the respect that recognizes our common condition, and his family is due sympathy and common courtesy in their grief. It would be a good time for people to remember the old adage “If you have nothing good to say then say nothing at all.”
God speed Tony. You fought the good fight now rest in peace.
We’re setting a really high bar for ourselves here.
– dicentra, I’m not saying you personally might not have perfectly legitimate reasons for feeling down about the culture wars we are presently engaged in.
– What I am doing is pointing out that, as always with anything having to do with the Left, the perceptions are generally cotton moons on a craft paper sky.
– You have a gaggle of people who seek to elevate the cultural identity of a dinky little country like France, a country that has enjoyed a historical recognition that dwarfs any such real world deservance, and is in an absolute Socialistic quagmire, above that of our own.
– Why would you take anything they say or do seriously. Its such a clear case of raw snobbery and eclectic jealousy, I just laugh at them.
– “My mouse is more intelligent than you’re big brutal lion”. Its actually amusing. The Colonists were supposed to see the error of their ways and run back to mama. Instead we had to save the asses of the “masters”. They will never get over that “shame”
– Most of these assholes would be speaking German, save for our sacrifices. I find them idiots to the extreme. I have no intention of even wasting my time with their blather, much less accepting their goals for America. Isn’t going to happen.
No, I’ll not note that, due to this:
They’re outraged that the death of a man complicit in the deaths of so many others is all over the news, while coverage of soldiers in Iraq is scant and typically anonymous, &c. I’m not making this argument, not today, but if you’re to be allowed your outrage, why should they be denied theirs?
There is an argument to be made about the culpability of a White House spokesman in the actions of the administration he represents in an official capacity, but I’m not going to make that argument today. (But needless to say, it’s not “SNOW HAS BLOOD ON HIS HANDS!”)
The sheer numbers of those who DIDN’T get upset about the tenor of what was being said  and in fact added to it  is what is telling.
How do you know how many people didn’t write something on the internet? I wasn’t moved to register for Kos just so I could comment on that thread, because the existence of assholes with loud mouths on anonymous forums comes as no surprise to me. Does this mean I approve of those comments?
It fairly represented the tenor of the thread, and the opinions of those participating in it. I noted that the diarist wrote a thoughtful piece. I noted that a (very) few people over there seemed dismayed by the bile they were witnessing. The real question is, why are THEY surprised.
I’m sure they weren’t. I certainly wouldn’t be if I posted something there, but I’m not under the delusion that many forums are dominated by loud, obnoxious trolls. (Nor am I inclined to defend them, or claim that the loudest, most obnoxious of them are exemplary.)
Meanwhile, you plucked out examples of those (very) few comments that seemed slightly aghast at what was unfolding, and you are attempting to suggest that, despite the overwhelming disparity in the types of comments in question
There are more than a few diaries, and hundreds of comments, about the earlier diaries and comments. You’ll see some of the same stuff — likely mouthed by the same people — but you’ll also see a push-back in favor of respect for the dead. If you choose not to read those, or to only pay attention to the trolls, you’ll see what you want to see.
SEK
I know you’ve seen my comments because you cherrypick which sentences to respond to.
Why does the Left reserve the word “evil” to apply to only conservatives and/or Republicans?
Nor am I inclined to defend them
Hmm… for a non-defender, you’re certainly rolling out a lot of verbiage in this thread.
There is an argument to be made about the culpability of a White House spokesman in the actions of the administration he represents in an official capacity, but I’m not going to make that argument today.
No there isn’t. The buck stops somewhere else. With the guy that got elected, mostly. It’s a democracy thing. You’re thinking of Cuba maybe.
They’re outraged that the death of a man complicit in the deaths of so many others is all over the news, while coverage of soldiers in Iraq is scant and typically anonymous, &c. I’m not making this argument, not today, but if you’re to be allowed your outrage, why should they be denied theirs?
There is an argument to be made about the culpability of a White House spokesman in the actions of the administration he represents in an official capacity, but I’m not going to make that argument today
You simply aren’t fleshing out the argument today. You are stating the defense, you are even giving credence to it. You just aren’t going into details. You are making that argument today, but not wanting to engage in it today.
Which is good because, as I said, all US Presidents have blood on their hands, but I don’t want to celebrate all of their deaths. I certainly don’t want to see those celebrations justified nor do I want to see criticism of those celebrations equivocated away.
I’m for this, sort of. I’m against celebrating their lives, certainly, in every case. But even by that standard, Snow’s no one to get all dance-on-his-grave-y about.
He was mostly not a politician, and exceptionally unpolitical — in the specific way that others aren’t — as a TV host, etc. For the short time that he was a purely political figure, because of D.C. press hostility to the President he spoke for, he accomplished none of the evils imputed to him — which, as listed by his grave-dancers, are all imaginary anyway.
Even if you do think he was really out there fully knowingly trying to fool us all into [insert Hitlery shit here], no one was so fooled. So have a little chuckle, maybe, if you think that’s what happened, at the failed Goebbels, fading from the history he couldn’t make.
But he wasn’t that, was he? Just one guy on a list of similar guys, doing not much, not very successfully.
It’s the randomness of the left’s targets for demonization — Rove and Snow have been the most frequently summoned Infernal Names among the Kos-likes, since Ashcroft left, despite their small political footprints (and the instantaneousness of the 2004 Ashcroft-to-Rove shift would make a worthy subject for a group-psychological study) — the illogic of their choices of which marginal figures to aim all their rage at, and the stunning degree to which they all do obediently join in that dumb rage, in the Summoning of the Names, that’s disturbing.
Hating politicians is good. They’re shitty people, worse than the rest of us — though by not much. Ganging up and aiming your hate at specific otherwise-insignificant figures whose names have been chosen by others, or by witch-hunt-style animalistic crowd-madness, to become ritual gang-unifying chants, concealing the unremarkable reality of the people they identify — that’s not the same thing at all. It’s fucking crazy.
“We’re setting a really high bar for ourselves here.”
How so? Recognizing that Tony Snow played a part in lifting the tyrant’s boots from the necks of fifty million people would seem high only in contrast to those whose lives are dedicated to licking those same tyrant’s boots.
I suppose that the edge of the curb looks high beyond reach to the bootlickers living in the gutter but it really isn’t unreachable for anyone possessing a spine. I won’t mourn Kennedy’s passing anymore than I mourned Russert’s but I won’t take joy in it either. A moment of remembrance for Mary Jo Kopechne and then back to work.
– SEK – Your arguments are descending from wrong headed apologetic to tendacious.
– Are you really that worried that the oil issue, the one your party has single handedly created by being in the pockets of the climate change “industry”. is going to blow you and your empty suit candidate out of the water?
“…There is an argument to be made about the culpability of a White House spokesman in the actions of the administration he represents in an official capacity….”
– Are you guys feeling so fucking desperate you can’t even shut of the propaganda on the day of a good mans death?
– What a bunch of tools.
I wandered over to J0hn C0le’s asylum and even when he specifically said to his commenters NOT to piss on Snow’s still warm body, they not only can’t help themselves but they are angry with him that he even asked them to hold their tongues.
So, Scott, just more anomolies?
Oh. It’s just that death is a lot the only way a lot of these people ever go away anymore. Like Arlen Specter and Daniel Schorr. And Ted Kennedy too. Bitterenders. They’re kind of not like other people in their narcissistic insistence on their own indispensability. We need more Johnny Carsons and Tina Turners and Chers what know how to retire with grace I think. It makes them seem like real people.
FireDogLake at least has the good sense not to post anything about it.
Here Scott, more anomolies
Notice what I emphasized, Scott? The Left doesn’t want to engage in political debate with those that disagree with them…they want US DEAD.
How can you stand there and defend that?
SEK, you defend the assdundant screepings of the muttonheads on dKos because, apparently, Tony Snow was complicit in the deaths of (what is it up to now in the Lancet?) 50 billion people.
Please let me know how many of those cretinous fuckwards howled to the heavens about Daniel Pearl’s death, or the hangings of gay or raped Iranians, or the grocery-shopping Iraqis bombed into splatters by homicidal Al-Quaeda-in-Mesopotamia-and-not-really-in-Iraq-so-don’t-even-think-they-are. In Iraq.
I’m curious, that’s all.
–“How can you stand there and defend that?”
– Once you’ve taken the chocolate, theres no going back.
– Sort of the “pleasure Island” trap for immature adults. It takes a strong self image to rebuke the sum total of your existence, and if you had that you wouldn’t be following a cult in the first place.
BBH
Somewhere, Stalin is smiling.
Liberal Fascism, indeed.
DAILY KOS commentors trash Tony Snow (did we expect anything different, given that they are ‘Progressives’ ?)…
Jeff Goldstein alerts us to the not-so-hidden inner thoughts of the people who drive the engine of progressivism, by way of comments posted on that wonderful island of tolerance and compassion, the award-winning and much-celebrated Daily KOS.
Jeff com…
But also there’s an uncomfortable sort of analogy here where Scott is being made to stand in for the evilness of the Satan’s forked dick people just like the Satan’s forked dick people are making Tony representative of the evilness they impute to Bush. Scott is good people and I like him a lot, and also there’s some respects where he’s a lot likely to have his own perspective on this. I can see how he would be sympathetic to an idea that Tony’s tragic death at a young age from cancer and all is not a de facto sanctification of his life. I would say that more better and with more nuance and all but I’m late for lunch.
where Scott is being made to stand in for the evilness of the Satan’s forked dick people
unfortunately, hf, Scott volunteered for the position, it was not thrust upon him.
Why does the Left reserve the word “evil†to apply to only conservatives and/or Republicans?
I didn’t respond because I can’t respond for some monolithic entity you call “the Left,” nor would I try to. I call things I think be evil “evil.”
for a non-defender, you’re certainly rolling out a lot of verbiage in this thread.
That’s because for every one comment I leave, ten people respond. The “being ganged up on” aspect of this is neither 1) pleasant nor 2) conducive to the impression that I’m anything other than a self-important windbag.
Of course, if I don’t respond to every comment, Darleen scolds me. It’s not like I can win here.
No there isn’t. The buck stops somewhere else. With the guy that got elected, mostly. It’s a democracy thing. You’re thinking of Cuba maybe.
happy, TOO SOON. (Plus, if you baited me into speaking ill of the dead, it wouldn’t count as an Official Leftist Speaks Ill of Dead Moment.)
Alright, now I’m off because I have errands to run and I can’t do them sitting here. More comments will have to wait. (PATIENCE! I’M TALKING TO YOU KARL!)
SEK’s rhetorical gymnastics are Olympic-standard.
“Oh, I certainly don’t APPROVE of these fellows, but they are angry at Tony Snow’s complicity in the Deaths of so many (well, there’s some complicity, and oh let’s have this argument later), and they’re just trolls you know, most dKos members are gentle as lambs, give you the shirt off their back, too damn nice if you ask me, and anyway the real issue is how wrong it is of you to take umbrage at their umbrage. Because, you know, we own all the umbrage around here. Well, we leased it through Jan. ’09, anyway, with a right to renew if you-know-who loses.”
Feh.
– Suggestion to any visiting Secular Progressives:
– Never be afraid to expand your education beyond the edge of the collective village. Talk to Jim Jones son to see what he thinks of cult movements.
– A few people who were smart enough to keep an open mind, escaped Guyana. It can be done. Just takes a little personal courage.
Fine, one more:
You are making that argument today, but not wanting to engage in it today.
Out of respect for the recently deceased. That’s kind of my point. What, do you think I’d say “I now have no qualms with anything someone who subscribes to a different ideology said and did because they’re dead”? Of course not. I’m simply refusing to invoke the recently deceased in order to make larger points which could be made later.
Somewhere, Stalin is smiling.
Uncle Joe’s in the house, Darleen !
Bless you comrade SEK, it is just like old times. Give me a ring later and we’ll polish up the “enemies of the peoples†list.
“Of course, if I don’t respond to every comment, Darleen scolds me. It’s not like I can win here.”
– Sure you can. Stop mouthing the party line and talk like a human being with a real POV, instead of a party hack reciting the narrative. Its easy.
– You know Scott, from what I can tell by the words of other regulars here, at one time you were a reasonable guy they held some respect for. What the hell happened too you?
“I’ll just point out that, without that original thread, I’d have nothing to respond to.
Without a very typical outburst by the lowest common denominator of anonymous commenters on the internet, you’d have nothing to respond to?”
No. They are the reactionary left. It’s what they are, it’s what they do.
Take off a leftist’s mask, find the gibbering fascist underneath.
[…] are some real black hearted people on the web, Protein Wisdom has managed to find some that would find glee in another’s death. There comes a point when we […]
Scolding you, Scott? Geez, can I accuse you of ageism?
You step in to defend those that are pissing on Tony Snow and doing it by making a direct assault on JeffG and those of us outraged on the pissers. You dismiss their pissing as being the moral equivalent of our outrage “why don’t they have a right to their outrage?” which is really a childish tact. Certainly, the indecent Leftist pissers have a “right” to do anything they like, and decent folk have the right to publically chastise them.
Just because something is legal doesn’t make it decent or moral.
But then, that comes down to the essential difference between the Left and those of us that disagree with them. Us disagreeable sort should NOT have that right. We are “evil”. We are lying liars. We want to starve children, kill old people, ruin Mother Earth. We are deserving of only death, the sooner the better.
Those are the people you are defending, Scott.
“I’m friends with his co-blogger  both write for Progressive Historians ‗
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHAAAAA!!!!!
There was no famine in the Ukraine.
Right, Scott?
Unfortunately for Scott, he is but a pinkie finger, and the dam has sprung a thousand leaks. Cole’s place, carpetbagger report, etc. — these people think they are being edgy in doing away with civil niceties. Damnit, Snow was a murderer, and they are willing to say it! Not only that, but they are willing to PUBLISH it so that everyone can see it.
THEY HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE.
Of course, that these things are generally posted under fake names, well, that’s just nitpicking on the BRAVERY, isn’t it?
Cowards.
“Why  besides this being your blog  does your cherrypicking carry more weight than mine? ”
DING DING DING DING!!!!
I win, I win, I win!!!!!
YAY ME!
Justifying the prayers for the deaths of your politcal enemies is the first step, of course. Once you have acquired enough power…
I can kinda see where SEK is coming from, at least I saw that position before.
One time I was driving down the road, and there was this little doggie that was hit by a car I guess on the side of the road dead, and there was like 50 vultures all over the thing.
Well I said to my friend who was in the car with me “look at all those vultures tearing up that dead doggie, there must be fifty of them!”
And then he said “So, there’s probably a thousand vultures around here”
So I said “yeah, but that there is a lot of vultures on one little doggie”
Well, he turned to me, and I will never forget this, he said “why are you so amazed there is so many vultures gorging themselves on that doggie? YOU must be wanting to gorge on him too”
I didn’t know what to say to that, because I thought it was kinda weird BTW, so I just rolled my eyes and kept driving, but I am still amazed there were so many vultures.
And now I think my friend is kinda weird because he said that.
“History has shown that every time the Left, Marxist, Socialist, Communist, any sort of totalitarianism, gets involved in peoples lives in any sort of conflict, 10, 100, maybe 10000 times as many people end up dead.”
You forgot that other leftist ideology, Fascism.
a real piece of work, karen marie, over at carpetbaggers answers me … and Scott, too … with this
Do you understand, now, Scott?
I’m simply refusing to invoke the recently deceased in order to make larger points
So we’re merely haggling over price, then.
SEK,
so if Snow was “complicit” and “culpable” by your standards what would that make John Kerry?
John Kerry repeated lies and men have said that they were brutalized by their captors due to this.
John Murtha was complicit in lies being told about Marines at Haditha.
I am a liberal so definitely every liberal single commenter on the internet represents a perfect copy of my thoughts and attitudes.
Fortunately there are no mean or crude conservatives. Thank goodness for that.
SEK, not to put too fine a point on it, but you are a lying sack of shit, and can kiss my hairy white ass.
You have wasted an inordinate amount of bandwidth here today trying to defend the indefensible. The sad simple fact is that your pals over at Kos ARE the norm…for proggs, and you goddam well know it (or if you don’t you are even more moronic than I thought). Hateful, cruel, mendacious and so intellectually shallow, none of them could think their way out of a New Orleans whorehouse.
This is the NORM for your side. Your “slice of humanity”, as you put it.
The only lying going on here today is YOURS. Jeff wasn’t politicizing Snow’s death; that’s total bullshit. What he was in fact doing was pointing out what I myself observed earlier today, on my first and last visit to the Kos site. That is, that you had a boatload of your proggie pals over there crapping on the man before he was cold, spouting the most inane lies about him in the process.
In other words, they were doing what lefties always do when something bad happens to someone they disagree with; they celebrate, and in the most horrid, disgusting way possible. And horrid and disgusting is the only way to describe the torrent of vitriol your pals were spewing today. Clearly that’s how Jeff G saw it, as did I, and a lot of other people here today.
Tony Snow didn’t do a goddam thing wrong, period. Hell, people who actually knew the guy, whether left or right, all loved him and said he was an outstanding human being. I never met him, but had been listening to him on the radio and reading his commentaries for the past 15 years or so, and that was my take on him as well. For damn sure he did NOTHING to deserve the kind of garbage we’ve seen today from your leftie friends, and there isn’t a thing you can say to justify it.
And the saddest part is that this is indeed the norm for you people. All this “equivalence” crap you’ve been spouting (I saw that Lisa tried it early on, too, but got her ass handed to her and had the good sense to withdraw) is total horseshit. Every time something bad (death, illness, whatever) happens to someone the proggs consider an “enemy”, you get out and do the little monkey dance in celebration. Never fails.
Yet when the same things happen to a progg, you DO NOT see this kind of crap on conservative sites. Why? Because conservatives generally have a little something called…class. And you leftist assholes don’t. It’s just that simple.
Deal with it.
Out of respect for the recently deceased. That’s kind of my point. What, do you think I’d say “I now have no qualms with anything someone who subscribes to a different ideology said and did because they’re dead� Of course not. I’m simply refusing to invoke the recently deceased in order to make larger points which could be made later.
As I said, you agree with them. You defend them. You are stating their argument. You criticize those that criticize them. You just don’t want to get into the back-and-forth of the argument today out of “respect for the dead”. That’s the only new caveat you are adding.
I now have no qualms
Qualms with someone’s ideology is a far, far cry from what you said and what is being said on DKos. Qualms with ideology is fine. It’s wonderful. It is American. You know rhetoric well enough to know that isn’t what you expressed.
Perhaps we can talk about the not-dead. As I asked earlier, which President’s deaths should we not celebrate? They all have blood on their hands due to their policies.
Clinton? He isn’t dead. How many Iraqis died under his sanctions? Will you criticize me if I celebrate his death? Will you accept someone calling you repugnant you for that criticism?
Obama? He is willing to let as many Iraqis die as necessary to pull out troops (who might die under his watch as well). Should we start wishing for his death?
Neither of them are dead, SEK, so go ahead and make your argument.
No byproxy, you are obviously a saint. That is why you are perfectly justified in condemning comrade Snow to an agonizing and early death. Dop by the Lake of fire later and we’ll bat around some ideas as to who else should die young. Elections are coming up one must be prepared.
“Fortunately there are no mean or crude conservatives. Thank goodness for that.”
Fuck you.
FOR THE IRONY!
FWIW, I don’t think this is a generallly liberal thing. I do find it a shame that liberal politicians find these types of events (and there have been pleny at DKos) so non-noteworthy that they continue to participate in that particular forum.
I’ve just been reading today…mostly because JeffG has stayed up to bat and those in the circle and on deck have said what I wanted to say better than I could say it anyway. Plus I lost $150 bucks on the golf course earlier and I’m half drunk. Just seems that it gets to the height of ridiculousness to even debate this kind of thing (even if the other guy is somewhat respected as a “classical liberal” or whatever).
We EXPECT this from them (and you can kiss the fattest part of my ass Lisa. You’re funny. You seem level headed and honest, but “them,” in this case, is 100% deserved and accurate). I’m not going to gaze at Scott’s or SEK’s or whateverthefuck his name is navel because it’s got magical ivy league lint in it. He VOLUNTEERED to give an argued, insincere, shameful, apology full of blithering dreck on behalf of, what he apparently feels, are his learned liberal brethren.
While some here have taken the better part of a nice Saturday to take considered, well thought out, devastating chops to his pedantic, weak kneed sophistry, I’ll just say, “fuck you,” and be on my merry.
Now, on to more important topics. Is Obama really gonna sponsor a NASCAR Sprint Series car?!
Actually, I always admired the job Tony Snow did. I kinda got a kick out of him even though I disagreed with nearly everything he said. He was obviously a total pro, but even if he wasn’t, it’s sad when anyone dies in the prime of life like that.
byproxy
please don’t conflate “liberal” with “left”. They are NOT the same. JFKennedy would be a good example of an anti-left liberal.
So, you slander honest liberals by deliberately confusing them with leftists.
I agree with Pablo… DKos is being “swiftboated”
the horror of being hoisted on their own petard. The inhumanity of holding people accountable for the evil things they say. The indignity of spewing evil and then seeing it “moderated” like as if this is a civil society or something.
How dare they point out that evil is given safe haven at Kos.
Right or left, the only proper response is deletion, denunciation, banning. Do and say what you like, but you cannot do it here. Refuse to allow your constituency to demonize the opposition.
The Kos kiddies have demonized everyone associated with Bush to the point of hating Snow and SEK defends them (albeit obliquely) because of Snow’s “complicity”.
There is an argument to be made about the culpability of a White House spokesman in the actions of the administration he represents in an official capacity, but I’m not going to make that argument today.
Culpability!? Culpabilty!?
Squat Erk Queefman, Tony Snow (RIP) isn’t guilty of anything more than being a spokesman for an administration you disagree with politically
You fucking Maoist!
Do you look at every one
Is Obama really gonna sponsor a NASCAR Sprint Series car?!
but he won’t support drilling for oil
can you smell the hypocrisy (not the least of which is because you KNOW he hates the NASCAR crowd).
Do you look at every one who disagrees with you politically as guilty of a crime?
Does shooing the vultures off a fresh corpse and giving it a decent burial make one a vulture?
I could never be a dirty, dirty leftist….
Nothing more than I’ve ever expected from the left. Hatred is only the half of it…the other is ignorance, a lack of facts, and a lack of intelligence/common sense show by an appreciation for conspiracy.
I wish Tony would have the opportunity to respond to them in heaven, but frankly, I don’t see any of them making it there to bother him.
:-P
One thing though, while pure, vile hatred should not be tolerated on the right under any circumstances (we do have a more responsible image to maintain folks, and better lives to live), I must say that there is no comparison between Ted Kennedy and Tony Snow, regardless of what happened to either. I’m not sure what was written over at Free Republic, so I can’t make a judgment on it, but Tony Snow led an exemplary life, and Ted Kennedy murdered a woman….. (www.ytedk.com), so obviously, whether Kennedy is alive or dead, there is some room for serious criticism of the man. Nothing vile, or purely hateful, or unnecessarily personal, no reveling in his sickness, those are sick, hateful things to do, but criticism of Ted Kennedy is definitely in order.
Scolding you, Scott? Geez, can I accuse you of ageism?
Recently, didn’t one of his people claim the use of “scold” was sexist?
Didn’t some of this political ilk complain over cartoons showing the 9/11 murderers waking up in the flames of hell?
Fuck them. And SEK, for caring more for his political fellow-travelers than for common human decency.
Recently, didn’t
one of his peoplea specific barking moonbat claim the use of “scold†was sexist?According to The L.A. Times, a rather civil and sensitive tribute to Snow appeared in The Nation. It’s no more and no less cordial than, say, Hugh Hewitt’s coverage of the passing of Tim Russert.
– Maybee, many of us have felt for a long time theres a hard core of total assholes that use the Liberal platform to get out their vitriolic psychotic rants, That may or may not be true.
– But either way the Liberals, the Democratic party, except for rare ocassions even their candidates do not disabuse themselves very often of the obvious Marxist ideas of rhar core. Thats one reason why the Left continues to take it in the ass for the actions of what they claim is a “few”. Little wonder why people feel that Liberalism has been co-opted by a far left Marxist cult group, many of whom are the self-same conspiracy buff nutbags that claim our own government blew up the WTC. (fire doesn’t melt steel – apparently you use a very large pair of pliers to form I-beams.)
– Secular Progressive is just a cover name for the Peoples Party. They have about as much to do with Classic Liberalism as my cocker spaniel does.
–
Someone from feministe refused to read my counter argument to their attack on me as “racist” because I used the word “scold.” That tripped the breaker. There was no use proceeding. The ship sailed. No sale. Somethings are just too outrageous to get beyond.
Of course, my guess is she read the whole thing, realized she had no leg to stand on, and decided to play the victim game. Much easier than putting together a rebuttal — particularly when you have an entire likeminded community you know will wink at what you’re doing.
SEK,
I’m with JD; I used to have respect for you. Not that you care, obviously, as you would apolgize for those who would see Tony Snow as cancer, all the while suggesting that anyone upset by that is “almost” as morally repugnant.
For all of your academic airs, you have revealed yourself today as someone with no moral sense. Or “almost” no moral sense. Feel better that I added the “almost”?
That, by the way, was purely rhetorical, as I have now wasted all the time I care to on you.
Thanks, SI. Of course, when The New Republic called Kos out on his Townhouse list, Kos responded by kicking the New Republic right out of the liberal establishment. Despite its solid historical standing as a stalwart of liberalism.
And that’s because the left isn’t generally liberal. Kudos to the Nation for showing some class — although it troubles me that I have to give kudos to anyone on the left for something that requires nothing more than basic human decency.
Think the Kossacks will have balls big enough to try to label the Nation as right wing? That’d be a hoot…
Oh, bullshit. For my entire adult life I’ve listened to the crap spewed from the left; to put it bluntly, they hate anyone who doesn’t toe their line. That you cannot see it simply means you’ve never expressed a thought they found egregious enough to excommunicate you. For God’s sake, the mainstream of the left “critiques” conservative policies by declaring we want to kill people, bring back slavery, etc.
Actually, Rob, SEK has been on the receiving end of such an attempted excommunication. But so invested is he in his progressive identity that he refused to leave. Instead, he gradually slid back into their good graces.
Much like The New Republic, come to think on it…
– Its amazing how one simple true statement of common sense can send an entire group of liars and hypocrites into a mob fury.
Okay, I misspoke, because I missed this gem from SEK:
Actually, you spent a great deal of time and energy defending those who did exactly that, and of course alluded to their claims (#78). Because you’re a mendacious sack.
Utter bullshit. They had less bile for the death of Saddam, who was truly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands. For fucks sake, most of the beasts making these comments about Snow would prefer Saddam still be in power and Bush hanged.
more anomolies
See, there it is again. Those that disagree with the Left deserve nothing but death.
Yep, being a non-leftist CAUSES CANCER.
Come on, Scott. How many swallows do I have to point out before you admit it is summer?
These comments are typical at these Idiot-pools when a Conservative dies. To suggest otherwise is insane.
And this is EXACTLY why I will never vote for Obama. I refuse to be associated in any way with these people. Ever.
FWIW, I just saw ABC’s evening news story on Snow’s death. It was classy, and at the end, the anchor said something like, “thanks for a good story; I know that was hard for you.” He said it to a woman whose name I forget but she’s a well-known reporter. She was all choked up. I guess she knew him and knew he was good people.
Refreshing. And the comments at the ABC story are predominately classy, from all sides of the spectrum.
“HOW DARE YOU NOTICE THE THUGS IN MY CORNER!!!”
One other thing.
If Scott wants to accuse Jeff and others of “politicizing” this, fine.
I suggest compiling a list and send them to your Democratic Congressmen/Senators asking them if they’ll be making any future or return trips to DailyKos or Huffington.
These clowns need to be exposed.
“…It only took 53 years for karma to get him, but get him it did.”
– I don’t think the SecProg collective understands the word “Karma” deosn’t mean whet they think it does.
Oh good god
Tony was never did anything good in his life because he was on Fox!
(at carpetbagger) What a bunch of indecent children.
Bullshit. Scott’s sucking the monsters’ cocks. Willingly.
“Think the Kossacks will have balls big enough to try to label the Nation as right wing?”
No they’d just call them Fascists.
I used to respect Squidward Ellers Karpetkrawler III too. By recasting Einstein a hardened atheist (his last hit and run in these pages) he started to lose me.
But then transparently denying rightmindness its very obligation to be so in the wake of the untimely death of a true gentleman and scholar, as Scorecard Endrunner Krowddiddler Ph.D does here, repeatedly, is quite an ode to one’s depravity.
It might be illuminating to see how SEK conducts hmiself when he feels safe among his ideological brethren, as amply demonstrated in the links http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/i-read-conservative-blogs-so-you-dont-have-to/ and http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/reverse-torture-porn/. Well, “illuminating” may not quite be the right word.
I’ll be darned — my newest irony meter is actually able to register in logarithmic notation.
– The way I look at it, fellow PW’ers, we can just record their own words, and that will be their testimony when the SecProgg movement passes into the dustbin of political history, like all the cult groups before them.
– The vilest of words, from the vilest of groups.
But BBH, we already know that quoting them accurately is “attacking them!”
Ah, well, I stand corrected. However, that merely makes me think less of SEK, if his response to such thuggery was to bow and scrape.
Remember the Wellstone funeral? Remember when a handful of Republican pols showed up to show their respect? How were they received?
Why should we expect any better from people who behaved that way?
Just for fun, here’s dKos reax to Saddam Hussein’s death:
An overwhelming sense of sadness
by wilbur
Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 09:59:02 PM PDT
I have just read that Saddam Hussein is dead. Hung by the neck until dead – isn’t that the phrase they always use on television? And I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness…
***
White House Ghouls celebrate Saddam’s death
by dsjwriter
Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 09:09:54 PM PDT
And so we have learned that under George W. Bush, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue contains enough ghouls to populate a George Romero movie…
***
The Execution of Saddam Hussien is a War Crime
by NicolausCopernicus
Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 08:52:22 PM PDT
The administration will, in due course, stand to account for a war crime committed in Iraq by executing the Iraqi dictator…
I did find one Kos Kid who was put off by this… or at least thought it hurt their cred. So a poll was posted asking whether they really thought Bush was more evil than Saddam. Guess who won? Yep, no surprise there.
The way I look at it, fellow PW’ers, we can just record their own words, and that will be their testimony when the SecProgg movement passes into the dustbin of political history, like all the cult groups before them.
But how does it pass? The cult of Nazism and Italian Fascism is sitting on the dustbin of history, but Germany and Italy suffered greatly as a result. And the former Soviet Bloc countries have high suicide rates and low fertility rates. They’re dying out and being replaced by a primitive culture that will soon raze the cathedrals when they get enough power.
What can we do? America is different, granted, but that doesn’t mean we won’t suffer greatly as a result of this Left/Right chasm. The Liberal Fascists cannot easily or peacefully be rooted out of Academe, the State Department, Congress, the Courts (federal and state), the Media, etc.
Ok, I’ll crawl back under my rock until I can get a better attitude…
Dicentra, sunshine is always the best disinfectant, and my worst enemy.
– You know, sometimes I get the feeling that the people that started the SecProgg cult by playing to the paranoia and undirected rage of people with deep-seated mental issues created a monster that has completely escaped the leash, and now they don’t know what the fuck to do to get them back under control. Pitiful.
“that when you believe in angry, hatful things that stress can cause cancer”
Physican, heal thyself.
fO!rbidden planet !!!
Jeff, are there any comments derived from your ten million hits (Sedgewick Erstwhile Kragen feels a faint million hits just guarantees you some whackos, dammit) that wish death and disease upon others?
Thought not.
I have ample experience with some two hundred million pages a month, SEK, and never in a decade have I once, ever, seen the likes of the above. About these intartubes you possess some myth there, pal.
Never once have I seen the dysfunction the left blogosphere has carved itself a rock-hard reputation for attracting. Parse that all week if you wish but don’t give me that bullshit equivalency, ‘k, cause it just don’t effing exist.
“Come on, Scott. How many swallows do I have to point out before you admit it is summer?”
No, no. It’s just a small cross section…cuz Kos gets 100,000,000,000 hits a day. It’s not “representitive.”
It’s like the community blog on the Death Star. Only a handful of those guys were assholes. The “DailyEmpire” started out more as a socialist’s Craig’a List kinda deal. It became much more political later on when Grand Mof Tarken started showing up at their conventions and soliciting campaign donations. Darth Vader would sit in the corner wearing a tin foil helmet muttering about Padme.
It’s true. Ask SEK. The whole Death Star thing started out as an environmental project. Most of the EmpireCorps (the evil, racist right-wing Rebels called them “Storm Troopers”) thought they were just building a giant solar panel. For years there were “truthers” on that thing that claimed it was the Rebels that blew up Alderaan.
To sum up (and because the ice is melting in my snort of 18 yr old Macallan), Han Solo was a Republican…which is why he fucking fired first.
Starring [George Soros] as Walter Pidgeon.
Shorter SEK: ‘We are a bunch of assholes. I demand you look the other way. This is a private party.’
Too late – I already shunned you.
I get it now. Since all points of view are equally valid, to call the diarists at the daily KOS classless scumbags is spewing hatred. Because what is displayed here is equally distasteful to the diarists at the daily KOS.
That’s one fucked up point of view you guys got there SEK.
Lamontyoubigdummy,
But what of those contractors mentioned in Kevin Smith’s “Clerks”?
Were they not complicit in the deaths of millions on Alderaan?
protein wisdom is one of the few blogs that supports free speech.
That said, Mr. Snow was a professional liar for a gang of liars called that Bush admin and a willing “Fixed Noise” Rupert Murdoch sockpuppet.
He could not even be honest about his disease.
But I’m sorry for his kids.
“protein wisdom is one of the few blogs that supports free speech.”
That should be… protein wisdom is one of the few right-wing blogs that supports free speech.
called that Bush admin
Kind of like “That 70’s show”, huh?
David,
Thanks for stopping by and outing yourself as a moral bankrupt. I’m sure his kids would thank you for your concern and for verbally pissing on their dad’s corpse on the day he died.
– Just to show how spot on those garbage bags that claim themsekves as humans over at Kos really are, That “evil” Bush’s first act on learning of Tony’s death was to call Tony’s widow and express his and the first ladies sorrow and personal condolences, and offer the family anything they could do to ease their loss and suffering. Truly the actions of an evil bastard.
– They are absolute scum.
– I we were like them, about now we’d be calling for the return of firing squads, but we’re not, so we won’t.
You assume, BBH, that ramping up the rage and paranoia of that monster wasn’t the goal. The left has, for all my life, been intent on destroying the credibility and functionality of the institutions that hold society together.
Duly noted and logged.
Godspeed you and yours.
for 216-7
David, btw, is –like the others — a chickenghoul. Why don’t people like him track down an address for Snow’s family, so that they can convey their concern in pissing to the family?
Most “right-wing” blogs support free speech. The right is not the wing of “hate crimes”, speech codes, the “Fairness Doctrine”, and “human rights commissions” that censor political speech.
– I understand that Rob, they were doing that back before some on here were born. What I meant to convey is that it seems even they have completely lost control of their own creation. Ankle biting, and steady chaos generation is fine, but it does the collectivists no possible good if their egregious gaggle gets totally knocked down from over the line behavior.
216-7
Thank you for your concern, David, I’ll say a prayer for you.
And I’m an atheist.
Hey, SEK, go ahead and explain it to me in small words, is david out of context?
I’m all ears.
Jeff G.: Forget Kos. I don’t know who those dreadful creatures are. But they are not representative of anyone but themselves. You can rely on filth coming from them. It is mostly a cesspool. It always has been. They continue to alienate anyone who has a modicum of decency. Every few months, they do or say something that is just beyond the pale (usually it they are excoriating some figure on the left that is not “pure enough”). Yet, they continue to get attention from the media and the folks at the Democratic Party. I am always disappointed when both my side and yours continues to prop up its importance.
I am not going to argue with you about the “moral equivalence” nonsense. When some scandal bursts forth at Little Green Footballs about some 700 comment long thread of pure bile, I don’t give a crap about that either. And sorry, but it is all the same to me no matte what side it is coming from. I do not have any illusions that either side is nicer or classier than the other. As I said earlier, Yahoo shutting down their message boards was a perfect example of how nasty people can be no matter how the pull the lever on election day.
Today is a sucky day: Someone of note died. He was far too young and that is a terrible thing. He was, by all accounts, a fine individual, which makes it an even worse thing. What was nice about his tenure as director of communications was that he did not seem to hold a grudge against a fairly hostile press. He did not seem rattled at the tough job he had (he assumed the job of white house communications director at a time when there wasn’t a whole lot of good news to communicate for the white house). He did it without complaint and with a smile and an occasional wink. He was a class act, no matter where your politics are.
I guess I don’t get it. When someone dies, it is inappropriate to use that as a forum for your political bleatings no matter where your politics are. People in the real world don’t do that kind of thing. What they do do is say kind words and send flowers. Or they quietly remember the deceased and utter a prayer for them and their families. But not online, online they ratchet up the Outrage Meter and screech about their political grievances and how the recently departed fit into their ongoing bullshit. Which is why I am increasingly getting disgusted with the internet. I don’t even have as much fun on this lovely site. The online world is so disconnected from reality and just keeps sliding further away, with its unceasing offense and constant state of outrage about the pointless and unimportant.
With that I am off.
Rest in peace, Mr. Snow.
David…:::sigh:::
That lying liars who lied us into war and should be perp marched, then hanged, then perp marched again is SO 2004.
Just because you keep saying “they LIED” doesn’t make it so. You sound like the 9/11 Troooothers.
Please take off the tinfoil hat.
Karl,
That was the Death Star in “Jedi,” and Randall made a fair argument. That thing wasn’t completed and was sparsely manned by Imperials (unlike, say, Congress). So local union plumbers, dry wallers and roofers got blowed up real good.
It sucks, but that thing had to go. I would have let it hang around long enough to blow up those awful muppets on Endor, but Lucas didn’t consult me. Probably because I was only 11 and didn’t yet have the Madeline Albright like persuasive and communicative skills I have today.
Anyway, as far as the “Jedi” Death Star, omlettes and eggs and whatnot.
Jeff G.: Forget Kos. I don’t know who those dreadful creatures are. But they are not representative of anyone but themselves
How do you explain their convention last year, with all of the Dem candidates attending?
How do you explain their convention next week, with Pelosi and Dean attending.
What, given that they are a player in Dem politics, does “forget” them mean?
People in the real world don’t do that kind of thing.
I guess it depends on what people you run across in RL. Living on the leftcoast, I’ve been at numerous public functions and had the [mis]fortune to hear some of the most jawdropping stuff between people who think everyone at the function thinks like them.
Hang out with politically active (leftist) public school teachers sometime. Yowzer.
I don’t think they much care if they lose at the ballot box because the mob got too ugly. It just lets them pump the mob up a bit more — after all nobody they know voted for the opposition, and why do we let those hicks in the red states have so much say?! When you’re trying to discredit the political process, a legitimate victory could actually set you back.
That was my point exactly, Maybee. These are people who mainstream politicians actively court and pander to. They even contribute to that site.
Think about that. Then look again at what was written today.
Blast.
Maybee, Darleen, Lisa’s just playing the “no true Scotsman” card. The folks at Daily Kos aren’t representative of the left because the left’s not like that. Never mind the amount of attention their paid by politicos and media folks; they just aren’t.
Jonah Goldberg quoted an email he received a couple of days ago, to the effect that the left lets itself off the hook for the evils of communism and fascism by simply defining the left as unalloyed good — that way, when someone does something bad, they’re clearly not on the left! One of the “serious” responses to “Liberal Fascism” made much the same claim — that there’s some sort of essential reflex that kicks in on the left when they get too close to authoritarianism.
What really happens is that when a leftist goes too far for even other leftists, they simply write them — or, at the least, their offensive views or behavior — out of their history.
The point is that leading mainstream members of the Democrat Party regularly decide to associate with Dailykos. They’re welcome to those associations. I’m [welcome] to consider their decisions.
I am less concerned that N. Pelosi, H. Reid or H. Dean attend the thing than that H. Ford Jr. is set to go. Were Harold to read what went up today I think he might reconsider his intention to attend.
when a leftist goes too far for even other leftists, they simply write them  or, at the least, their offensive views or behavior  out of their history.
As a Soviet dissident once opined “The future is known, it is the past that is always changing.”
Lisa,
I apologize. That was honestly candid and very well said.
Even though I was joking, if you’d have called me on it and offered to “kiss the fattest part of my ass” I would’ve had to provide you with an SUV and a map of north Texas (I need to get back in the gym).
BBH: It does embarass me. I am terribly ashamed to see people acting that way. I always wonder why they don’t police themselves at least a little tiny bit. But they seem to think that being assholes is the best way to highlight their devotion to the First Amendment.
I always hope that each new scandal will make them shrivel like a slug in the sunlight, but it never does.
Darleen: I have hung out with real crazies. Some of my best friends are crazies. I have a friend I met at an antiwar protest back in 2003 who believes in the 9/11 conspiracy (and some other madness called “chemtrails”). She is crazier than a shit house rat. However, she emailed me this morning and one of the things she said was “everytime [sic] they show clips of him I think of all of the years ahead for his family to have to cope with the hole in their lives that will never be filled and I just want to cry”
You are right that people can be the lowest scum. Especially when they think they don’t have to be held accountable. But thankfully, our lives are mostly filled with decent people who would toss their politics aside without a thought to give comfort to the grieving.
Sorry, meant “this afternoon”
LOL Lamont, no offense taken. Thank you though.
Rob: Kos sucks. If you want to say that all people to the left are represented by Kos then have at it. I know you are always disappointed that I don’t mount stupid arguments defending the worst kinds of behavior, because after all I am a lefty and I am supposed to be a true believer and stand up for all that is filthy and vile. Sorry to disappoint once again. Anyway Jonah Goldberg has already tied the left to much worse. Kos is small potatoes. And there are no conclusions being drawn here that are not drawn every single day here. All roads lead to said conclusion. It would be amusing if it weren’t so predictable.
The thing is, Lisa, you’re arguing against our experiences.
#205,
“Dicentra, sunshine is always the best disinfectant, and my worst enemy.”
And humor, laughter works miracles.
If I was going to start doing parody schtick right now I would probably make myself vomit.
It may have been missed in the volume of comments above, but an understanding of where SEK is really coming from on this can be provided via the links http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/i-read-conservative-blogs-so-you-dont-have-to/ and http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/reverse-torture-porn/. Giving him the benefit of the doubt doesn’t really seem all that warranted.
Rob: I am actually not arguing against anything. You get to hold whatever opinion you want. Just don’t expect me to dance a jig to the tune of your favorite stereotypes.
“Comment by David on 7/12 @ 6:14 pm #
“protein wisdom is one of the few blogs that supports free speech.â€Â
That should be… protein wisdom is one of the few right-wing blogs that supports free speech”
As opposed to the reactionary leftist blogs that censor, delete and ban.
Good call.
[…] Tony Snow is spilling out like water over Victoria Falls. It is beyond disgusting that the left can not give a fellow human being even one day to be dead in peace before they rhetorically defile his corpse. These comments do not […]
Lisa
I’m glad you don’t fall into the Leftcult mindset. If you are politically liberal (which is NOT the same as being one of the Left) then we can each passionately argue our POV in good faith then retire to the nearest bar of your choice
boilermakers, sake bombs or martinis
If Reagan could do it, who am I to do less?
What I have problems with are those who disagree with me politically and never allow that my arguments are made in good faith. That mindset is most dominent on the Left. Look how they have treated Joe Lieberman.
My father died of the same kind of cancer that killed Tony Snow. He was 54 years old. I watched the life go out of his eyes and my first thought was: Now he is free of the pain. When I think of how my father suffered and what his death did to my family I honestly can not understand how any human being can say the things posted at Kos.
And to try to justify it because of the war does not make it ok. Saddam Hussein was not Mr. Rogers for Chrisake, the man was known as the Butcher of Baghdad for a reason.
Lisa is the kind of “classical liberal” I’d want to go out and drink with from time to time. It would mostly be for nice company, but also because she’s close to the edge, and invariably-at some point- we’d probably get assaulted and robbed at gun point in the parking lot.
She’d be a hard core conservative by 6:00am the next morning.
I think what is confusing about morality, ethics and tradition is that they really truly do change over time. What’s more, we are, in much of the world, in possession of this tool that helps us to adduce knowledge; the enlightenment paradigm. What’s interesting and confusing about this to my mind is that the organic evolutionary process that I believe is responsible for the shape of our ethics, morality and tradition is being altered by the presence of this tool. The enlightenment paradigm is a very new phenomenon; social evolution is much much older.
So what of this question of how to deal, socially, with the question of the death of a person? Obviously there is no shortage of diverse sacred ceremonies which often prove useful. These ceremonies predate the enlightenment. I think the convention whereby people do not metaphorically “piss on the grave” of the deceased is similarly non or pre-rational. The utility of such a convention is difficult to demonstrate precisely because it was evolved into existence and not poofed there by fiat.
Which brings us to a place where the rhetorical tools of the enlightenment, unhinged as they necessarily are from tradition, are being used to challenge the utility of these kind of conventions. I suspect there is value in such exercises (even if that value is in demonstrating the unarticulated imporance of such conventions through the spectacle of idiots flauting them.) Further, I suspect that “little fiat” is the engine of social evolution. In other words, while most people revel in tradition and give little thought to it’s evolution, some few bother to attempt innovation.
This is where I think it gets confusing, because I find it difficult to be certain about what is innovation and what is debauchery. I can imagine Rob C. thinking as he read that last sentence that I find it difficult to be certain about that because I’m morally bankrupt. Whether I’m fair in speculating about Crawford’s predispositions, I think such a suggestion is facile. I have a Jewish friend with whom I’ve spoken at length about this notion he tells me is important in Judaism, that truth is not something of which one takes possession, but rather something with which one struggles.
That said, this time out it’s not particularly confusing. These assholes aren’t innovating by flauting the convention of respecting the dead; they’re just really very stupid and mean.
People claiming that the folks at DKos aren’t representative of progressives are like the ones that keep telling us to appeal to moderate muslims to keep the rest in check. Where do you find the moderate muslims?
Apologies to Lisa.
And to think I was saying something about piling on. Now, if I’m responsible and only answer every question explicitly directed at me, someone’s going to say something like:
Of course, I’m not trying to defend the indefensible. In point of fact, from the get-go, I expressed dismay at the fact that Jeff would use Snow’s death to illustrate a point which is both 1) obvious (most people of all stripes are assholes even before you factor in the anonymity of the internet) and 2) could be made a week from now.
Put another way, Jeff’s completely shifted the attention of people from the specific fact of Snow’s passing to the general fact that you violently disapprove of the scum beneath the left’s barrel. Is that an appropriate thing to do right now? Would you be less inclined to being irate a few dates from now?
Imagine you’re at a funeral of a well-known roustabout who half the town loves and half the town hates. Is it appropriate for someone to tell his mother “He’s a damned rat-fuck and I’m glad he’s dead”? Of course not. Is it appropriate for someone to tell his mother “Half the town thinks he’s a damned rat-fuck and is glad he’s dead”?
I wager not. Jeff thinks otherwise. I registered my disapproval of both in my first comment — linked above — so all this frothed blather about what I’m defending and guilt-by-association is nothing more but so much noise. I’m not defending those who speak ill of the dead, but I won’t defend those who ruin the funeral by vociferously defending them either, because it strikes me as a violation of decorum.
You can claim “They did it first,” but that’s not much of a claim.
You step in to defend those that are pissing on Tony Snow and doing it by making a direct assault on JeffG and those of us outraged on the pissers.
You’ll note, as I said above, that I by no means defended those comments. In point of fact, I said I thought they’d all crossed a line. I’m not sure how you missed this, what with all the talk of me saying Jeff was as bad as them. (Which I also didn’t say.) Fact of the matter is, to be “as bad as them” strongly suggests they’re misbehaving.
Do you understand, now, Scott?
That anonymous people on the internet can be assholes, Darleen? My point sorta kinda was you don’t really need evidence of that. But the internet ≠All Leftists Everywhere. In fact, the millions and millions of people who read Kos aren’t but a drop in the well when it comes to the general electorate. Count all the people who voted for Obama and Clinton and subtract 1) the ones Limbaugh encouraged and 2) the Kos kids and you’re likely to end up with about 95 percent of what you started with.
[S]o if Snow was “complicit†and “culpable†by your standards what would that make John Kerry?
I’m not going to discuss this today, nor will I be baited into a discussion about it. Period. End of story.
Cave Bear, I’m not sure who you’re talking about, but it isn’t me. Kindly redirect your anger elsewhere, please.
As I said, you agree with them. You defend them. You are stating their argument. You criticize those that criticize them. You just don’t want to get into the back-and-forth of the argument today out of “respect for the deadâ€Â. That’s the only new caveat you are adding.
MayBee, you seem to be missing the point that I think it’s TOO SOON to politicize Snow’s death. See my funeral analogy above for why I think this. While you’re at it, kindly refrain from telling me what I believe. Your assumptions will make you look silly in the long haul.
I’m not going to gaze at Scott’s or SEK’s or whateverthefuck his name is navel because it’s got magical ivy league lint in it.
Um, what?
Squat Erk Queefman, Tony Snow (RIP) isn’t guilty of anything more than being a spokesman for an administration you disagree with politically. You fucking Maoist!
Very creative, but no, you completely miss the mark on all accounts. Thank you for playing.
Recently, didn’t one of his people claim the use of “scold†was sexist?
My people? I’m not sure, let me ask the wife. She denies this, so I don’t think any of my people said it.
Actually, Rob, SEK has been on the receiving end of such an attempted excommunication. But so invested is he in his progressive identity that he refused to leave. Instead, he gradually slid back into their good graces.
Come on, Jeff, who is this “they” you’re talking about? I’ve done nothing more than what I’ve advocated here: 1) ignore scum and 2) stick to my principles. I could’ve decided that the intellectual decisions I’ve come to were invalidated by the fact that some people who share some of them are complete fucks, but I decided that reason should prevail over anecdote. So yes, I still hold the same beliefs, despite the fact that I despise many who share them.
I used to respect Squidward Ellers Karpetkrawler III too. By recasting Einstein a hardened atheist (his last hit and run in these pages) he started to lose me.
Really, are we at the point of name-calling? Also, again with the drive-by thing. Look, I’m of the opinion that sometimes you have to agree to disagree, especially when it comes to matters involving religion. I could’ve pursued my argument, but I could see it wasn’t going anywhere because it would descend into the random quotation of decontextualized statements made over the course of an entire life. That didn’t seem like a productive conversation, but it certainly could’ve become an endless one.
It might be illuminating to see how SEK conducts himself when he feels safe among his ideological brethren
A. Pendragon, you’ve nailed me. I forgot I wrote that on the internet! Still, one post about how a particular response to torture strikes me as unduly lascivious, and another discussing how Malkin’s commenters flesh out my thesis obviously condemns every conservative everywhere. I mean, it doesn’t, but if you’d like to believe otherwise, you’re welcome to.
I have ample experience with some two hundred million pages a month, SEK, and never in a decade have I once, ever, seen the likes of the above.
Then they must’ve been in books, JHoward, because they certainly weren’t on the internet.
Hey, SEK, go ahead and explain it to me in small words, is david out of context?
As Official Ambassador for All Things Liberal, I’d love to oblige you, but I can’t figure out what the fuck he’s getting at.
Ditto. Lisa, you are important to me because you help me resist what might otherwise be an utterly overwhelming tide of disgust. I’m a long way from writing off the whole human race, but days like this threaten to drag me closer.
That’s why I’m really glad you showed up in this thread. Stick around, Sugartits.
I still love you, Scott.
A. Pendragon, people saw the results of your mad Google skillz earlier, they probably just read what I’d written under my real name, realized I wasn’t talking about them and moved on. (Unless, of course, I was talking about them, in which case I hope they’re reevaluating their relationship to torture in socially constructive ways.)
SEK, not so much. He disgusts me, and I don’t care if he thinks that makes me just as bad as the people he’s trying to convince himself he’s not defending.
A. Pendragon, you’ve nailed me. I forgot I wrote that on the internet! Still, one post about how a particular response to torture strikes me as unduly lascivious, and another discussing how Malkin’s commenters flesh out my thesis obviously condemns every conservative everywhere. I mean, it doesn’t, but if you’d like to believe otherwise, you’re welcome to.
What it means, SEK, is that you’re dishonest and anything but arguing in good faith. What it means is that you are the owner and proprietor of some ridiculously reactionary opinions of anyone to the right of yourself that belie the blandly genial air that you affect in your appearances here on one of your “anthropological” expeditions into the wilds of Wingnuttia. What it means is that anyone expecting to engage you in anything like an honest discussion is in need of being forewarned that such just ain’t gonna happen. What it means, SEK, is that you’re displaying, to an extent I sincerely doubt you fully realize, just how completely full of it you are, as well as the contempt for those you encounter in venues such as this.
Tony Snow died? Damn, I always admired the guy. Best to his family.
True Darleen. I know I can be guilty of reading too much, too little or something totally weird into a person’s argument. I often catch myself in the “oh ho ho ho, so what you’re trying to do here is_______” in which I accuse someone of making an argument in bad faith.
I think it is a pretty standard error that if one really is seeking to have a fairly reasonable debate they can catch and back up from – or they can accept their fellow’s remonstrance and back up.
It is depressing to see people incessantly, deliberately employing that as a rhetorical tactic. The Perfesser has said it before: It is meant to shut you down rather than discuss it with you. It is the finest implement for removing someone from a conversation that there is. That shit used to not fly as much as it does now in the post-Crossfire soundbite era. Also, our online flamewar mob-mentality is a fertile place for that kind of crap. One person gets to declare you a racist/sexist/evilmotherfucker and therefore unfit to even make an argument – and ten more people get to pile on and legitimize it. Then you are officially out of the game, per the slavering mob.
Sigh. What a crappy Saturday night. Not only am I not out doing something fabulous, but I am sitting at my computer thinking about death by the ever-rapacious cancer, a grieving family, how much I miss my dad, and how awful people can be.
Holy shit, guinsPen, are you actually accusing me of not respecting the dead by linking to a post in which I praise a living, breathing McCain? How does that work exactly?
the ones Limbaugh encouraged
sorry, Scott, I missed it. Where did Limbaugh encourage people to piss on a dead political opponent?
How could you people have misunderstood the obviously clear intent and meaning of SEK’s rambling discourses, lectures, backpedaling, dissembling, rhetorical ploys and personal attacks?
I am outraged!
He is saving his arguments for another day as he clearly stated and merely showed up to piss on Jeff’s post for shits and giggles.
What it means, SEK, is that you’re dishonest and anything but arguing in good faith.
Evidence, please. Saying “some people harbor a pornographic lust for torture” ain’t quite the same thing as saying “all conservatives harbor a pornographic lust for torture.” As proof of my intellectual honesty, I offer my exchanges with RTO Trainer in that thread. As proof of my endless perfidy, what do you offer?
What it means is that you are the owner and proprietor of some ridiculously reactionary opinions of anyone to the right of yourself that belie the blandly genial air that you affect in your appearances here on one of your “anthropological†expeditions into the wilds of Wingnuttia.
Only you’ll note that I specifically don’t claim they’re representative of all conservatives. You’ll also note that I sometimes venture into the wilds of white supremacism without claiming they represent the entire conservative movement either. Sure, their border policies accord with the ones McCain opposes or embraces, depending, but I don’t paint with a broad brush.
What it means is that anyone expecting to engage you in anything like an honest discussion is in need of being forewarned that such just ain’t gonna happen.
You’ll find plenty of evidence that that ain’t the case, but if you’re willing to ignore it, I’ll have no choice but to grant you the point.
What it means, SEK, is that you’re displaying, to an extent I sincerely doubt you fully realize, just how completely full of it you are, as well as the contempt for those you encounter in venues such as this.
Are you the one who stole my Contempt-o-meter? I’ve been looking for it for weeks. That said, my contempt does feel like it overfloweth — as you can no doubt tell, having stole my Contempt-o-meter.
Scott, I missed it. Where did Limbaugh encourage people to piss on a dead political opponent?
My mistake there. I meant, “the ones Limbaugh encouraged to vote for Hillary,” as they’re not to be counted among True Believers.
“Um, what?”
Best you could do SEK? Or was my comment beneath you?
Like Dan, I kind of love you too Scott.
But only because you don’t “get me” and I’m desperate for acceptance.
“Put another way, Jeff’s completely shifted the attention of people from the specific fact of Snow’s passing to the general fact that you violently disapprove of the scum beneath the left’s barrel. Is that an appropriate thing to do right now?”
Yes.
Geez, SEK, have you ever, even once in your life, attempted to argue anything honestly and in good faith?
And you do so in criticism of a post in which Jeff makes a stronger version of the exact same argument. Jeff’s post is critical of people who cannot avoid spitting on the man’s corpse before it’s cold on political grounds. You criticize Jeff for an offense that consists of his criticism of others for the same offense.
Which makes you either stupid or dishonest, and we’re all pretty sure you aren’t stupid.
Regards,
Ric
Tony Snow, 1955-2008…
Patterico lays down the line at his blog: “Anyone who says anything bad about him in this thread is banned and the comment will be deleted. Anyone who says anything bad about him today anywhere on this blog will be banned and the comment will be dele….
Stupid cudlips.
Its tribalism all the way down.
“It’s the randomness of the left’s targets for demonization  Rove and Snow have been the most frequently summoned Infernal Names among the Kos-likes, since Ashcroft left, despite their small political footprints (and the instantaneousness of the 2004 Ashcroft-to-Rove shift would make a worthy subject for a group-psychological study)  the illogic of their choices of which marginal figures to aim all their rage at, and the stunning degree to which they all do obediently join in that dumb rage, in the Summoning of the Names, that’s disturbing.”
Good stuff, psycho… It reminds me of seeing a flock of hundreds of Red Winged Black Birds in flight all change direction simultaneously (“almost” simultaneously?). One of the wonders of nature I don’t understand. They probably have some rational thought process that allows them all to make the same decision at the same time that is alien to me since I am one of those irrational Xians (“almost” irrational?).
Put another way, Jeff’s completely shifted the attention of people from the specific fact of Snow’s passing to the general fact that you violently disapprove of the scum beneath the left’s barrel. Is that an appropriate thing to do right now?”
It is kind of telling that the prior post, the one that says “Rest in Peace, Tony Snow” has less than 20 posts, but this one is fast approaching 300 and will probably end up another 500 post thread. I think it is more that there is a huge amount of frustration that so many people seem to think it is perfectly acceptable to be horrible online. You know, I said earlier that most people in the real world are not horrible like that, but I have to correct myself because eventually this shit DOES bleed into the real world. Faculty members have to chide their students not to use “OMFG and LOL” in essays all of the time. I am sure that it won’t be long before the vapid, soulless mentality of the internets follows.
Look guys, I agree with Jeff that it’s false equivalency, but going further than this specific argument and stating that Scott’s a dishonest so-and-so is generalizing too far from this one specific issue. What he’s pointing to is a matter of aesthetics, which in my view, unfortunately, too many “liberal” arguments reduce to.
I made the first comment to Darleen’s initial post on Snow’s death, and I thought of writing “5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 to first lefty posts applauding his death.” But I didn’t, because it’s more important to remember Snow for what he was than for someone else’s venom. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think it’s reprehensible to crow over his corpse and accuse him of all kinds of bad faith. It is. But it’s still more important to do as Moran has, and remember him as the decent, convivial, caring person that he was.
Scott’s wrong. I’ve been wrong. That doesn’t make either of us bad people.
Why are you ghouls politicizing the death of Tony Snow?
We know, Scott. You just showed up here to remind us that not everyone on the left shares the positions of those posting on Daily Kos. As if we all needed your help in figuring that out.
Of course, my post was about DailyKos as the central gathering point of the activist progressive base, who I specifically identify in my post.
You then try to make the argument that I could have waited several weeks to show my outrage at what was written on a site that mainstream leftwing politicians court, write for, and pander to. I still have no idea what your reasoning is for such an argument; as I said, had I not read it today, I wouldn’t have responded viscerally to it. And I see no reason to put off a visceral response simply because doing so would follow some rule of decorum that, to the best of my knowledge, exists solely in your skull.
Finally, you can knock off the crap about believing I was above “using” the depravity on display today to make a political point. I actually noted that the diarist on Kos wrote something respectful. I pointed out that a (very) few people tried to intervene during the escalation of the schadenfreude. Which means, necessarily, that I was not indicting everyone on the left.
But then, you know that.
Still, it is perfectly acceptible to condemn a type of political culture peculiar to this brand of progressive activist that is depraved, uncivil, and should be universally condemned — especially by any politician who is serious about “changing the tone,” blah blah blah.
To act as if a political site that has hosted Reid, Kennedy, et al as contributors is just a collection of anonymous assholes with no political muscle is so disingenuous that, were you Pinocchio, your nose would have pierced your keyboard and gone right on to pin your knee to your foot.
Please, though. Continue to try to make this about me and my reaction — and not about what you’d like us all to believe are the handful of insignificant nobodies who acted like assholes on some little internet site that nobody reads (and even if they did, they read it for the people unlike today’s jackals, who are really just outliers, and only outnumbered those trying to put an end to the embarrassment by some 100-1 because on Saturdays, all the REAL progressives are off working in soup kitchens).
Your arguments have fallen flat. You’ve tried any number of rhetorical maneuvers, each one more transparent than the last.
At some point you are going to have to recognize that those who share your principles, and, more importantly, who represent your principles by virtue of making up the vocal, activist base that agitates for those principles, are not people you’d particularly want speaking in your name.
There’s a reason that your site isn’t the one getting a million hits a day, and that Kos’ is. It’s time to stop pretending these people aren’t like you. You may not be like them, but — like it or not — politically speaking, they are carrying your water.
Try not to blame me because I notice.
Racist!
Yes.
And you think this is a good way to celebrate a man’s life? I don’t.
You criticize Jeff for an offense that consists of his criticism of others for the same offense.
Ric, read my first comment: it consisted of me saying I thought Jeff was above it. If he wants to violate decorum because someone else did, he’s welcome to. But in my book, a violation of decorum’s a violation of decorum. All the material about “almost equally repugnant” above indicates, I think solidly, that I 1) find what was said about Snow repugnant but 2) thought responding to it at this time was repugnant too. To repeat my funeral analogy:
Imagine you’re at a funeral of a well-known roustabout who half the town loves and half the town hates. Is it appropriate for someone to tell his mother “He’s a damned rat-fuck and I’m glad he’s dead� Of course not. Is it appropriate for someone to tell his mother “Half the town thinks he’s a damned rat-fuck and is glad he’s dead�
I wager not.
I still don’t, and won’t ever, because that’s how I was raised. You might think it’s alright to pick fights at other people’s funerals, but I don’t.
SEK, have you ever, even once in your life, attempted to argue anything honestly and in good faith?
I’ll note that I presented you with 1) counterexamples, 2) counterarguments, and 3) links containing both, and you’ve responded with a generic insult devoid of content. Again, I point you to my conversation with RTO Trainer in the thread you yourself linked to as evidence that I don’t condemn all conservatives for the beliefs of a few, but that’s where you should start. The rest of my comment is full of arguments you can, if you’re inclined, directly address. If you choose not to, intellectually honest observers will keep that fact in mind when weighing the validity of your claims.
Best you could do SEK? Or was my comment beneath you?
It wasn’t beneath me, it just wasn’t about me? Ivy lint? Really? If I called someone from Louisiana a fucking racist cracker because they were from Louisiana, I’d be calling myself a fucking racist cracker. Just because I’m in academia doesn’t mean I’m Ivy. Far from it. So if you can make your point without needless and inaccurate insult, I’ll address it. As is, you can understand why I’m not inclined to think you’d engage me honestly.
As I may have to abandon the computer in a couple of minutes, I want to reiterate, before these goalposts shift forever, that my original comment expressed dismay at Jeff for what I considered a violation of decorum. (Consult the funeral analogy here.)
I didn’t say the people he responded to were fine upstanding citizens, nor did I defend them. If you claim I did, you’re willfully misreading and just shat your pants.
And if you say responding to questions explicitly directed at me is evidence not of Southern-bred politeness but overweening hubris, you also just shat your pants.
So fire away, but be mindful of what you might inadvertently admit.
As long as we’re speaking honestly, though (well, some of us), I’ll give you some psychological insight. The comment that got me and that prompted me to put up this post was the one about how his family deserved to suffer — that they “earned their grief” and that somebody should picket the funeral.
I thought of what the family must be going through, and how they might feel in the future when they see people expressing that kind of sentiment. And it made my blood boil, quite frankly.
Scott can pretend that, among progressives, these people are just a small and vocal internet minority. But I don’t believe it for a second. When the political is the personal, it follows, from their worldview, that those who are enemies to their politics are enemies to their person.
And so it is hardly surprising that they cheer the death of their enemies. I think it a bug. They seem to think it a feature.
Which is what totalitarians do.
And I’m glad I pointed it out before it, like much else that doesn’t depict “progressives” as the caring nurturers they pretend to be, was airbrushed out of history. Scott, for whatever reason, seems particularly proud of his funeral analogy. I happen to find it ridiculous.
Therein lies the discrepancy.
It’s sort of common for the SchutzStaffel to look down on the SturmAbteilung isn’t it? Different backgrounds, different education, different function within the party and all.
Perhaps it would be better to focus on the distinctions between the two rather than to be caught up in condemning the coarseness of the SturmAbteilung?
“It is kind of telling that the prior post, the one that says “Rest in Peace, Tony Snow†has less than 20 posts, but this one is fast approaching 300 and will probably end up another 500 post thread.”
Hey, I’m making (awesomely stupid) comments on all posts around here tonight. So don’t try to paint me with your broad, hot, sweet, sexy, liberal, sugartit brush.
I’m offended.
So, tu quoque, then. Nice argument, Scott. Except that Jeff isn’t using Snow’s death for anything. He’s simply pointing out that decency got caught in a train wreck at Democrat Central.
It did. And you’re excusing it by equating this thread to it. Bah.
You’re trying to misdirect again.
1) Jeff posts, criticizing the Kos Kidz for indecorous conduct.
2) You reply, criticizing Jeff for indecorous conduct which consists of his criticism of the Kos Kidz.
You may blather and handwave and use big words. You may respond, quite correctly, to some of the offbase comments others here have posted. At the end of it all, the only possible interpretation of your attitude is that the KKs are entitled to do as they wish, and Jeff (and the rest of us) are not privileged to criticize it on the ground that to do so is “indecorous” and repeats the offense Jeff (and we) are offended by.
I’m not impressed by polysyllabic profundity and obscure syntax.
Regards,
Ric
You know something, SEK? It’s telling to me that you’ve spent a good chunk of the day over here trying to convince us that we’re the ones in the wrong instead of starting your own dKos diary and telling them how wrong they are.
You’ve spent pretty much the entire day standing there with your hands on your hips, giving us the poochy lip, and chiding us for trying to chase the jackals from the barely-dead corpse of a fellow human being while occasionally shaking your finger at the jackals and saying “now, now”. And we’re supposed to treat you kindly?
Look, either get with the jackal-chasing or get the hell away until they’re gone. That’ll give you time to get that big tanker truck of sanctimony all lined up for us. Won’t that be fun for you?
Perfesser: I think you are going too far in condemning the site and everyone who has ever had a diary on it for this nonsense. Yes, they SHOULD do a hell of a lot more banning of idiots over there – but they love those bazillion hits they get a day more than having a good reputation. I see you going down the road of: Every person who has ever had a diary there or hung out at one of those nutrootish conventions is a hateful cocksucker who dances on the graves of the dead! I hope I am wrong.
Look, when an evil dictator dies, we sigh and say the world is well rid of the bastard. Only in THAT case do we dispense with the niceties and move on – it would be stupid to try to say nice things out of respect for the dead. But when someone we don’t necessarily agree with dies, we don’t spit on their corpse and justify it by yammering on about the destructive policies they supported and the jerks they worked for. This was a person with a family and friends – people now have an empty space that will always be there. It never gets filled, they will just learn to live with it. It is unconscionable that someone would sling shit at those grieving people to make a political point or prove to their fellow e-dirtbags that they are really “pure” and “fighting the fight”.
I am all over the place with this one. On one hand, as a person who lost her father to cancer, I want to rip the throat out of anyone who would fix their fingers to type such shit about anyone. I can’t even imagine someone having to be exposed to such a thing about their dad at a time when they are so devastated they just want to crawl away somewhere and die themselves. But on the other hand, I am trying to keep some perspective. Kos is one of the most popular sites on the internets. They have done enough to get themselves on the map and crown themselves the Versailles of the netroots. All manner of Democratic superstars have had diaries at Kos. However, it is still online and it is not everyone. I bet if you took a poll of the Democratic and Republican parties, 90 percent of the respondents will never have heard of Daily Kos. I am hoping that it stays that way and that perhaps one day the commenters over will cannibalize themselves into non-existence.
The Daily Kos, got it’s fame, with that ‘F@#$#$ they’re mercenaries’ line to an image of the four
mutilated contractors in Fallujah; it’s gone downhill from there. Everytime there’s an issue of importance, it goes for the vilest expression almost entirely against the United States, Never against our foes. The difference between that blog and Huff Po or Depleated Uranium, is not a matter of quality, but quantity.
Imagine you’re at a funeral of a well-known roustabout who half the town loves and half the town hates. Is it appropriate for someone to tell his mother “He’s a damned rat-fuck and I’m glad he’s dead� Of course not. Is it appropriate for someone to tell his mother “Half the town thinks he’s a damned rat-fuck and is glad he’s dead�
I wager not. Jeff thinks otherwise.
Well that’s just horseshit.
Let me fix your analogy to make it comport to reality.
“Imagine you’re at a funeral of a well-known roustabout who half the town loves and half the town hates. Is it appropriate for someone to tell his mother “He’s a damned rat-fuck and I’m glad he’s deadâ€Â? Of course not. Is it appropriate to stand outside the funeral home and say “There are a whole bunch of assholes in there dancing around the coffin, throwing a big party, and calling the man a damned rat-fuck only because he used to work for the Mayor.”
The latter is a lot closer to what Jeff has been doing. He’s not telling the roustabout’s mother any damned thing (and what a nice touch equating someone who was by every count an honorable and incredibly kind man with a simple unskilled laborer or “one who stirs up trouble”). He is telling everyone watching the funeral that the people pissing on the dead man’s face because of his politics are not only supreme assholes but also really valuable allies of the opposing political party. He’s making sure you and everyone else sees the real motivation for the defilement they’re committing because they sure as shit aren’t hiding it.
You are. For instance, the diarist who wrote the tribute I noted as “thoughtful” should be praised — just as those who stood up to the jackals should be praised.
Not every member of the nutroots is beyond redemption. But the problem is the hive mind that shouted down those who dared protest the vileness. That held sway, until someone was finally embarrassed enough to nuke the whole thing.
It is impossible, given the nature of this beast, not to deal in generalities from time to time, but I try to make distinctions as frequently as I can. And the fact is, that site has its own personality, and the comments I highlighted today represent that personality. Given the fact that we have politicians actively courting that particular site — which has a personality that is historically fairly consistent — we have, it follows, politicians courting and engaging with and even contributing to, that particular personality.
Surely you can see why I find that reprehensible.
SEK,
Why are you still here with these people? You and I, we have pogroms to plan. A man who can watch an atroctiy and then blame those the atroctiy horrifies for their horror will go far in my organization.
Mine too!
At any rate, folks, it’s been a tough day. I’m now going to disappear into some bourbon and diet ginger ale, being too poor this month, after the Chicago and Baltimore trips, to afford a proper single malt.
Good night. And, if I happen to die this evening, find the bastards who piss on my memory and beat them with a salami for me. I’d do it for you.
If you could work a little more blaming of the victim in your next dispatch that would make it even better, btw!
Yes, they should. And they don’t. And that doesn’t stop major Democrat pols from polishing that apple. You mentioned the Free Republic thread on Senator Anvilhead’s brain tumor. But no one quoted it, because there was nothing left there to quote. What there is instead is this:
If there’s a right wing nut job central, Freeperland is probably it. And that thread is dripping with prayers and has zero tolerance for the nasty shit. I feel sort of silly because I seem to be defending Freepers. But there’s a hell of a contrast here.
That said, you’re doing a much better job than Scott is. Sincerity rocks.
I am not as impressed with this SEK. His blaming the victim schtick comes a little late for me.
Which makes you either stupid or dishonest, and we’re all pretty sure you aren’t stupid.
Do not number me among those, Scott.
SEK,
You came back. And still a mendacious sack. We’re not buying it.
That fish starts stinking at the head. Screw them.
It’s still very sad. I skimmed to try and catch up but I didn’t see where anyone had posted how you can send something to whatever it is the family wants done. I would like to give to an actual Tony Snow Foundation or whatever but if it’s the American Cancer Society or whatever that would be nice too. But if it had been Scott McLellan I think this thread would be a lot shorter.
I thought of what the family must be going through, and how they might feel in the future when they see people expressing that kind of sentiment. And it made my blood boil, quite frankly.
So you repeated it and enshrined it on the internet forever? Given that it’s been deleted, the only way his family might see it in the future is if they see it here. If you want to avoid that, I’d recommend deleting it or Google-proofing Snow’s name, because if anyone in his family knows from memeorandum, they’ll land here. Point of fact, those are the only ways you can ensure they’ll never see those comments.
Which, to be frank, makes my point for me: I thought you’d be above partisan mudslinging today. Instead, you embraced it with great gusto and in so doing enabled the very thing that enrages you to actually happen.
Scott, for whatever reason, seems particularly proud of his funeral analogy. I happen to find it ridiculous.
That’s because you’re not thinking it through — it doesn’t matter what some assholes in a bar say when they read an obituary. They’re assholes and behave accordingly. But if you’re concerned with their behavior coming to the attention of the bereaved, it’s not a good idea to repeat it in front of their faces. I’m not proud of it, Jeff, it’s just accurate. You’re preserving the vile words they wrote in order to score points, which is the equivalent of repeating what the assholes across town said before the family of the deceased. That’s not as offensive as what they said, but it damn well ain’t polite, and I did think it beneath you.
Scott can pretend that, among progressives, these people are just a small and vocal internet minority. But I don’t believe it for a second.
And your evidence for this is … a small and vocal internet minority? I might be pretending, but you’re admitting to baseless speculation here. I’m fully willing to accept 10 percent of the Democratic coalition is comprised of vociferous, uncouth assholes. I’d wager 10 percent of the Republican coalition is too. In the end, all we’ve done is demonstrate 10 percent of Americans are vociferous, uncouth assholes, which leaves us exactly where we started.
At the end of it all, the only possible interpretation of your attitude is that the KKs are entitled to do as they wish, and Jeff (and the rest of us) are not privileged to criticize it on the ground that to do so is “indecorous†and repeats the offense Jeff (and we) are offended by.
Or that I think more of Jeff than I do of them. I’m fairly certain what 1) past behavior, 2) persistence, and 3) what I’ve said should be pretty conclusive here.
It’s telling to me that you’ve spent a good chunk of the day over here trying to convince us that we’re the ones in the wrong instead of starting your own dKos diary and telling them how wrong they are.
First, you’ve just shat your pants. Second, I think you missed the whole “grain of sand on a vast, vast beach” thing above. The signal-to-noise ratio at a place like Kos is hopeless. I could do that, but because no one already reads my diary, it’d be a useless gesture.
And we’re supposed to treat you kindly?
As a matter of course, actually, kindness is the best policy.
However, it is still online and it is not everyone. I bet if you took a poll of the Democratic and Republican parties, 90 percent of the respondents will never have heard of Daily Kos.
Don’t say it, Lisa! Kos is the entirety of the party! It represents it all, despite all the evidence that people behave online in ways they’d never behave in one-on-one human interaction! Seriously, you’re going to get slammed for this comment. Except the onslaught any second now …
Lisa,
Not really. Take a look upthread to see how much more sympathetic Kos Kidz were to Saddam than they have been to Snow.
Are they representative of everyone left of center? No. Are they a group to whom Obama, Clinton, et al believe they must pander? Yes. As such, worthy of note.
SEK,
Still.Mendacious.Sack.
SEK, btw, repeated all of the crap about Snow being complicit in mass murder.
Because he was afraid Snows kids would Google it someday and miss it.
Sack.
[…] Pablo’s comment #301 at PW: “That fish starts stinking at the head. Screw them.” (a reference to Markos’ […]
Yes, yes, this SEK is perfect or me. The beautiful thing is his defense of useless cruelty is so sincere one can almost suppose he believes it himself. Of course if he does believe it himself he is one frightening hombre…which means I like him even more.
So you repeated it and enshrined it on the internet forever? Given that it’s been deleted, the only way his family might see it in the future is if they see it here. If you want to avoid that, I’d recommend deleting it or Google-proofing Snow’s name, because if anyone in his family knows from memeorandum, they’ll land here. Point of fact, those are the only ways you can ensure they’ll never see those comments.
To the family of the great Tony Snow:
Please skim over the horrible comments that have been kept here so that those that support the offending website can be held accountable for their blind hate. Ignore any comment by SEK as he slitherings of a pompous faux intellectual only interested in making himself look smart, but just ends up looking like a dillweed.
And just know that those of us who admired this great husband and father will always remember the truth about Tony Snow. That he was the best in all of us. He will be missed and he will always be an example of a real American man. His goodness easily outshines the wasted lives of those who take pleasure in hate.
I am simultaneously amused and repulsed by SEK — supposed academic intellectual — assuming that if someone in Snow’s family ever finds this thread, they will be so fantstically stupid as to miss the context here, which is condemning that which SEK is defending.
Sack.
“}He was one of the biggest liars and blowhards of the past ten years. Some doctors report that when you believe in angry, hatful things that stress can cause cancer.”
The irony would be if the person who made this statement later dies of cancer.
Or to put it another way, should any member of Snow’s family ever find this thread, I cannot imagine that they will hold SEK in any higher regard than I do.
Do not number me among those, Scott.
Don’t need to, as you’ve done a fine job of it yourself
what a nice touch equating someone who was by every count an honorable and incredibly kind man with a simple unskilled laborer or “one who stirs up troubleâ€Â
It’s a compliment. Do you really think someone who attempts to cross partisan lines and consort with the enemy on the Wild Wild Internets would consider it an insult?
“There are a whole bunch of assholes in there dancing around the coffin, throwing a big party, and calling the man a damned rat-fuck only because he used to work for the Mayor.â€Â
So you remove them from the premises as quietly as possible. If you have any regard from the family, you don’t proceed to shout them down at length and call the authorities three hours later. This isn’t that difficult: your vision of propriety is a debate about deceased in the middle of the funeral, whereas mine’s removing unruly elements now — effected here by nothing more complicated than ignoring them — and taking them behind the woodshed later.
Finally, I won’t be responding to anyone whose defense of decorum involves calling someone a mendacious sack, even if said insult is moderately witty. Also, stupid pseudonyms of dictators past will be ignored, as such devices stopped be funny circa 1994.
You see comrades, the people that committ the acts of cruelty, they are necessary. But the intellectuals who will minimize those acts and defend them, they are mose useful still. People like SEK, they are worth a great, great deal to people like me. And what’s more, they arenormally ot so expnsive. All one need give them is a little approval from their peers.
What Karl, you couldn’t say that in 400+ words? Philistine.
Oh, I forgot to add:
Sack.
Yes, Scott, but I do agree that one ought to remove them from one’s own side of the bailiwick first, if at all possible, rather than quarrel with righteous indignation from the other side.
In other words, you have more gravitas on your own side, which is virtually always the case.
Of course SEK won’t be responding. He has none that does not reveal him to be a mendacious sack. He’ll have to go through life wondering if today was the day that one of Snow’s kids caught him defending some of the most vile jackals on the ‘net.
Because of course, SEK owns this site and can make up his own rules as to who is worthy of reponse. Goodness, the meglomania of the man is nearly as attractive as his vicious dishonesty. I hope he has a brother I coud use two men such as he.
Do not number me among those, Scott.
Don’t need to, as you’ve done a fine job of it yourself
I rest my case. Nothing further.
Scott
There’s a problem here. Everytime a non-leftist ignores the left attack, everytime s/he “turns the other cheek” or doesn’t address the attack directly, it is the non-leftist that carrys the smear. It is the non-leftist whose reputation is forever marked by the slander as “troooth.” Look at every nasty “tony was shit and he deserved to die and I can hardly wait until all Rethuglicans follow him” rant. Everyone begins at a false beginning — that the “bush crime family” has lied, stolen, blown up the WTC on 9/11, ad nauseum.
NOT pointing out that mental sickness is to allow it to fester unopposed. “Swiftboating” has be co-opted by the Left as some sort of slander, when not one factual assertion by the Swiftboat veterans was disproved. “Bush lied us into war” is almost a given…not because its fact but because the Left bleets it so often they should gets medals from the old Soviet Pravada.
This is an instance of Lakoff’s shrill call to the Left to capture the narrative.
YOU would have JeffG and other non-leftists shut up. Why, Scott? Because YOU are shilling for the narrative(tm)?
Sorry, alppuccino, that should’ve read:
Look, more anomalies.
BTW, SEK did engage in a total strawman there — the same one he’s been trying to knock over like an inflatable clown for some time now. I am not defending decorum. I am condemning jackals pissing on a still-warm corpse. As they committed the offense, I feel no particular need to exhibit decorum in ridiculing either them or their apologists, like the aforementioned mendacious sack.
Of course SEK is shilling for the narrative. One cannot build a paradise without people like SEK shouting down the screams of those the foundations are poured upon. That he is convinced he is doing good work makes him all the more terrifying…and wonderful.
SEK – tireless twatist. And Sack.
Twat.
Karl, you know how you’re supposed to be nice to terrorists because it will erode your moral authority and make “the world” not like you if you aren’t? Same deal here. Contain your revulsion or you’ll be just like them.
SEK-
I have read all of your posts this evening and have tried to understand your defense of something I found disgusting to be, well, disgusting. I believe you to be an articulate advocate of your beliefs, however, I find your post # 257 to be the most telling of all you have said tonight. You believe it obvious that most people are assholes. That is the most revealing statement you have made in this thread. I have found the opposite to be true, most people are not assholes, they are doing what seems to be the best thing they can do for themsleves and their families and their thinking is pretty much tied up in that effort. That may not measure up to your level of acceptance, but by and large I think they are better than you are. You denigrate without understanding, without thought, because of a mindset that has no feeling for anyone else’s opinion but your own, and those that share your opinion. I take it from other comments that you are a teacher, a professor, which indicates a position in an institue of higher learning. I grieve for those you might influence.
Rick Smith
Darleen,
Of course that is what SEK has been doing all day. His rule is that Kos Kidz get to attack the dead for some period of limitations he gets to impose, and no one may point it out, so that the Kos Narrative is what prevails. It really pisses him off that he cannot get rid of this post or the comments, because in true progg/liberal facist fashion, he wnts total control over debate.
There certainly are multiple mendacious sacks at whom one ought rightly take offense. Those principally to blame are those who are actually saying this crap about Tony Snow. I think that you are justified in being angry at Scott if that’s your pleasure. Otherwise, he’s an apologist for the submoronic, who really ought to come in for more abuse.
YMMV.
Hmmm. Then don’t fucking initiate it.
See, it was you started down that particular road, SEK, a road you tried here again today and got your lying rhetoric handed to you a dozen times. The above is, not so incidentally, yet more of that same bullshit, blaming others for debunking idiotic arguments as much as you blame Jeff for having the audacity to make an observation on obvious and clear depravity.
Where did you learn such tactics? When exactly did you shelve the integrity necessary to prevent trotting out such rot and the judgment to so consistently think it’d hold water?
The man’s dead of cancer at 53, leaving behind an entire family. The pop-Left has spoken its mind in places the pop-Left typically speaks its mind. So piss off already.
Scott, but I do agree that one ought to remove them from one’s own side of the bailiwick first, if at all possible, rather than quarrel with righteous indignation from the other side.
It’d be nice if I had the keys to Kos and could edit at will, but I don’t and won’t be held accountable for the actions of others. I expected more from Jeff personally, not politically, and expressed my disappointment. That’s something I can do. Restrict the bile from the bilge of my side of the aisle? I don’t have any control over that.
Of course SEK won’t be responding.
I’ll respond to this, but not the next sentence. If you believe childish insults vault you above what you abhor, have at it. Please, I’m sure by the hundredth time you call resort to playground tactics, it’ll start to have some effect besides making you look like someone who resorts to playground tactics.
I rest my case. Nothing further.
You may want to rethink that.
Everytime a non-leftist ignores the left attack, everytime s/he “turns the other cheek†or doesn’t address the attack directly, it is the non-leftist that carrys the smear.
Carries the smear? I’m not sure what you mean there.
YOU would have JeffG and other non-leftists shut up. Why, Scott? Because YOU are shilling for the narrative(tm)?
Besides all the arguable things you consider settled in what proceeds this — and even though you believe what you believe, you have to be willing to believe these points are arguable, since intelligent folks (Y.T. not included) on the other side can muster convincing arguments to that effect — my point was much simpler: if you honestly believe some arguments shouldn’t be have in the immediate wake of someone’s death, you don’t engage them. I don’t believe they should be had, so I was disappointed Jeff engaged them.
End of story, no matter what you say about who or what I shill for.
Of course, Dr. Caric likes to point out that I’m actually worse than the racists, because I give them intellectual cover. I would beg to differ, but I don’t beg from bums.
Ric Locke does a nice bit about those who do not support the war in Iraq are culpable in the deaths of so many at the hands of Saddam, Uday, and Qusay.
I wonder who has the higher death toll.
Pablo,
Agreed. I mean, I could have just called him “progressive” throughout the thread, but he wouldn’t have gotten that such encompasses “mendacious sack,” “moral relativist,” and so on. He would have likely considered it to be an accurate description, which it is. He just doesn’t like when it’s broken down into its component parts.
SEK, Walter Duranty, not a pimple on your ass…not even a pimple.
You may want to rethink that.
OK Scott, out of courtesy, I did a lap around your link circle and I still would not like to be numbered among those that are sure you aren’t stupid.
I’m not looking to “score points,” because I don’t think of any of this as a game. I’m looking to highlight who they are, how they think, and what they do.
I didn’t know that the post in question would be nuked. But it doesn’t matter, as the depravity is evident elsewhere. And I would hope that should Snow’s kids ever come across this and see the words written about their father, they’d realize that a whole lot of people found those words SO FUCKING OFFENSIVE that they took time out of their day to make sure the behavior of those responsible was put on record.
I expect they’ll forgive me for my outrage.
Your attempt at a gotcha failed — mainly because, as I said, a single finger can’t stop the leaks that have sprung up around you.
In other words, SEK, which is more destructive to principle and truth, loudly dragging a body through the streets in broad daylight while slandering it until caught out, or urgently suggesting such a thing is improper?
Because, jackass, the latter is in fact precisely the principled means with which to put an end to the former. And if that outcry does not occur, the abuse will continue.
Good luck parsing yourself a tenth time.
I mostly agree with Dan except for that I think Scott has earned a really pretty good amount of goodwill to where today things just didn’t go really very well. He’s still a good person. This was just a bad day. I mean … I dunno. Insert coherent statement here.
SEK seems to have confused “childish insults” with accurate descriptors. For example, calling someone “almost” as morally repugnant as the jackals for condemning them is both a childish insult and mendacious.
And someone who writes that he did not want to engage in the argument, but came here to pick a fight with Jeff? Mendacious.
And someone who feigns concern over Snow’s kids while passively flogging the claim that Snow was complicit in mass murder? Mendacious.
#333: Dan wrote:
That is standard Leftist thought, by which lights “mendacious sack” is being rather kind to SEK.
Carries the smear? I’m not sure what you mean there
Oh comeon, Scott. As awkward as my phraseology was (I admit it, it’s Saturday night and I’ve had two martinis) the context should give you a clue.
A lie unchallenged is a lie that becomes “truth”.
One of the most frustrating things about the Bush Admin has been GW’s unconcern about taking it toe to toe with the people who find joy in slandering and libeling him and his admin. We get the same idiocy over and over about “lying the US into war”. It is not true. It is demonstratively not true.
But it hasn’t stopped the lying and it then becomes part of the “accepted wisdom”.
I almost spewed a drink over the laptop when on one of the threads that called Tony Snow “evil” for mocking Helen Thomas – portraying Thomas as “asking the hard questions.” What kind of fucked up reality is that?
Scott, this is junior high on a national level. If you don’t stand up to the bullies, then what the bullies call you becomes the “reality.”
Sorry comrades, SEK is right. It is the depravity that must be defended, and all attmpts to call attention to and stop the depravity must be crushed. This is how totalitarianism works. Please get with the pogrom…er, program.
Standing up to the bullies? How long would I have lasted if more people had been willing to do that? No, no, no the bullies are your friends. Tell them SEK, you silver tongued devil, you.
And quite frankly, if SEK cares not to respond, that’s really fine. Beacuse debating a mendacious sack really does not accomplish much.
Squat Erk Queefman, Tony Snow (RIP) isn’t guilty of anything more than being a spokesman for an administration you disagree with politically. You fucking Maoist!
Very creative, but no, you completely miss the mark on all accounts. Thank you for playing.
Hey, you used the word “culpable” implying some kind of guilt. The only thing he was “guilty” of was being a spokesman for an administration you disagree with politically.
I’d say I nailed it perfectly: once you make the political personal and disagreement criminal, you are a Maoist.
Scott can be reasonable. He is fully capable of rationality. But it isn’t a talent he applies regularly.
“So you repeated it and enshrined it on the internet forever?
– Yeh. I can certainly see how that might be a tad embarrassing.
For a mind that can’t be bothered to complete an argument it started simply because it’d be unseemly to argue, and for a mind that fears the power of this blog more than a million-
hate-hit-per-day site, it all makes sense, Karl.Plus, I’m fairly sure Jeff G called these people out because he couldn’t get a drum circle together on short notice.
Leave me out of this. Josef might be willing to hang about with this loser, I’m not.
BTW Scott
ever found me a post by a proclaimed Leftist (just one, anyone, mind you) calling people who blow up buses full of Jews “evil”? And call them “evil” WITHOUT any additional “buts”?
let me know, m’ky?
Certainly you recognize that Jeff did not engage their arguments. There were no arguments to engage.
That said, I believe I understand your position. I’ll attempt to paraphrase: Ethics and aesthetics would seem to militate against debate over the political positions taken by the very recently deceased.
Inasmuch as that is your thesis, I think you’re missing something important. By way of elucidation, I ask you to consider the following: The strategy Ghandi employed in resisting the British would have been completely ineffective against the Nazis. As Ken Wilber once put it, “the Nazis would have thanked them for saving money on bullets and just rolled over them with their tanks.” The Kos thread has the very real impact of normalizing that kind of behavior; especially among the wooly-headed adolescents that compose their target audience. To sit by like some kind of supercilious Zen master is to embolden them to aspire to even greater feats of ignominy.
What you are endorsing strikes me as appeasing the bully because standing up to him is ostensibly stooping to his level.
– Someone suggested Scotts time would be better used writing a serious humane diary on Tony, and upbraiding his gaggle for their animal behavior. That won’t happen because he knows better than anyone what a bunch of rapacious gutter snipes do in a heartbeat to anyone of the collective that sneaks a toe off the narrative, much less calls it honestly. He’d be the immediate object’ du darte’. It would be bye bye Scott, includinf wishing him dead from cancer.
– If I found myself spending time with people of that ilk, I’m absolutely sure I’d be seriously rethinking my lifes game plan.
Lisa: When some scandal bursts forth at Little Green Footballs about some 700 comment long thread of pure bile
LGF is sometimes pretty harsh, but if you think Charles Johnson would tolerate this kind of bile, you simply don’t know what you’re talking about.
Compare and contrast the LGF reaction to Ted Kennedy’s recent health problems.
In particular, note Johnson’s message #19.
Sorry, Lisa. I’m calling total bullshit on this.
A lefty in favor of appeasement? Whoda thunkit?
Just so you all know, I still rock.
I have a serious question. Besides “The Valve” and PW, are there any other intelligent Classic Liberal sites that eschew the polemic, and hair brained craziness of the Progressives?
SEK, there are other posts on Kos that the “cleaning crew” hasn’t gotten to yet, so saying that they will only find those comments here is technically correct; however, they will find other posts on Kos with a great deal of the same dreck still standing unless Kos gets Huck Finn and company to break out the whitewash on those posts as well. Same thing with HuffPo, FireDogLake, etc.
And I really don’t think that there would be any time that would be right to politicize Snow’s demise or Russert’s demise. Even though Russert also served as a politicians press secretary. His politico didn’t make it to President, so maybe Tim is off limits. If people keep lowering the bar though, that might not be the case. Right now, it just seems to me that Tim is off limits due to the (D) after his name, and for no other reason. That seems to be a pattern for HuffPo, where posts on Cheney rapidly fill with comments calling for his death, ditto Bush, ditto damn near every Republican that HuffPo posts about.
Same applies to many Kos writers.
Jeff G,
I, for one, knew that. But there are aways new visitors.
People need to be reminded from time to time, Karl. After all, not everyone has seen me eat a hamburger in a tank top.
I see that comrade Goldstein has updated this post to inform one and all that Patterico has found more of the type of behviour SEK would defend. How many times must I tell you comrades, one doe not confront the bullies…one helps them hustle the dissenters out of bed in the dead of night and club them senseless. This really is totalitarianism one-0-one.
Where do they serve hamburgers in tank tops?
Not at any upscale places, Sean. Which is why I don’t eat at such venues.
Ever try downing a burger in a tie?
Agrees with Darleen that one has to call bullshit when they see it – let it go unchallenged and it might end up wiggling its way into the “fact” column.
I bitch and whine all the time about sweeping generalization and the whole “you see how you people are” stuff all the time. But fuck it, the ammo was provided by Kos tonight. I am too tired to make the pointless argument about about how we on the left are not that horrible. It is pretty obvious that not everyone on the left not is like that, but the people who are like that do deserve scorn. My knee jerk reaction was to make those arguments. But it is tiresome and distracting to even go there. It is worth examining why someone would feel that it is okay to be glad someone died and fervently wish for them to be burning in hell. And the fact that that kind of behavior is celebrated over there and the rudest people seem to get the most popularity points in their little “recommendation” system is something worth mulling over as well.
Darleen and the Perfesser have made me thirsty. I think I will nip next door for a refreshing beverage.
Goodnight!
BBH, what is this “The Valve” of which you speak? You talking about this? That’s the only thing my lazy google-fu is providing me this evening.
– Joe. Shut up. You’re dead, and no longer of any use to us. We tried that “keep it going” thing with comrad Lenin. Formaldehyde is too damn expensive to keep replacing, and the best he ever did was a 140 at the Moscow bowling Emporium, so stuff a sockpuppet in it.
My father died of cancer and was in (local) politics. If people said the things about him they are saying about Tony Snow, I would have been grateful if someone like Jeff pointed out how disgusting their behavior was. And I would have hated SEK from the depths of my soul for using my grief as an excuse to let these sick, vile comments go unanswered.
So you repeated it and enshrined it on the internet forever? Given that it’s been deleted, the only way his family might see it in the future is if they see it here. If you want to avoid that, I’d recommend deleting it or Google-proofing Snow’s name, because if anyone in his family knows from memeorandum, they’ll land here. Point of fact, those are the only ways you can ensure they’ll never see those comments.
You have got to be joking.
You think Mr. Snows family is oblivious to the behavior of his political enemies today?
You think they will be as resentful of Jeffs condemnation of the behavior as they are with the ones he is condemning?
You think all traces of the disgusting comments on the internet will be erased, except PW and others that condemn said comments?
Wow.
I would say this behavior is going to become (if it hasn’t already) SOP for the left, and your attempt at painting the condemnation of it as morally equivalent is an enabler.
It’d be nice if I had the keys to Kos and could edit at will, but I don’t and won’t be held accountable for the actions of others. I expected more from Jeff personally, not politically, and expressed my disappointment. That’s something I can do. Restrict the bile from the bilge of my side of the aisle? I don’t have any control over that.
So, are you saying since you can’t stand up to the bully, you decided to attempt talking anyone else that does out of it?
I think I’m beginning to see another motive here. You want to be seen as heroic even though you are a coward.
Thanks, Zelda. And Lisa? Try a nice Islay single malt. It’s like sucking on the ocean. Which is like sucking on life itself.
– That be the one mala. Jeff engaged in a lively debate over the signing thing back a long time ago. Haven’t been there in some time so I don’t know the current “personality” of the writers.
I am not dead..not so long as people like SEK believe!!! Besides with Lenin one could never be sure whether he was breathing or not. I should know, when I cam to power I held a pillow over his face for a half hour to find out. Oh well, back to the lake of fire. I have an early tee time with Saddam in the morning.
So, what’d I miss?
Gorditas!
Try a nice Islay single malt. It’s like sucking on the ocean. Which is like sucking on life itself.
Hmmmmm…. Now I’m gonna feel all gay when I drink Laphroiag. !!11!!1!11!
Why? Life is almost certainly a chick, Gray.
Embrace the sucking. With a clear conscience.
oh, so I’ll feel gay. NTTAWWT.
It ain’t gay if chicks do it, Maggie. It’s art.
BECAUSE OF THE PATRIARCHY!
Imagine you’re at a funeral of a well-known roustabout who half the town loves and half the town hates. Is it appropriate for someone to tell his mother “He’s a damned rat-fuck and I’m glad he’s dead� Of course not. Is it appropriate for someone to tell his mother “Half the town thinks he’s a damned rat-fuck and is glad he’s dead�
What you are doing is saying to the mother, “Half the town thinks he’s a damned rat-fuck, but I don’t want to talk about that today because it is TOO SOON”
If you want a real example, though, we could look at Fred Phelps and the Freedom Riders. Who does the soldier’s family generally appreciate more at the funeral?
MayBee, you seem to be missing the point that I think it’s TOO SOON to politicize Snow’s death. See my funeral analogy above for why I think this. While you’re at it, kindly refrain from telling me what I believe. Your assumptions will make you look silly in the long haul.
I’m not trying to tell you what you believe, I’m trying to figure out what you believe. Perhaps the M. Night Shyamalan surprise ending will be that you think Tony Snow is not complicit and culpable in the dark activities you allude to. If that is it, though, why not just say it? Why not just defend him now? Is it too soon? If it is too soon to say anything at all, why say anything at all?
I love you, Maybee.
sure, it’s probably just the Dickel talking. But for one night at least…
I think it must be that I’m one of the few blondes competing, Jeff.
Or the Dickel. Either.
Jeff, you’re going to make a poor man out of RTO if you aren’t careful.
“It ain’t gay if chicks do it, Maggie. It’s art.
– Man, thats a mouthfull.
Reading the KOS comments, the movie 28 days popped in my head. Progressives have become the rage zombies.
– And Maybee. I think SEK did a Dickel tuck, and retired under a hail of relentless searing comments. I think near the end he couldn’t get up for it anymore.
Yeah, Sandra Bullock IS scary.
;)
SEK:
“I’m not saying Kos is the lowest common denominator, but that as a site with 1,000,000 daily visitors  or whatever it is now  and slight moderation, you’re going to find a much greater cross-section of humanity”
If the Kos crowd represented anything remotely resembling a cross-section of humanity, humanity would be in serious trouble. It would be far more sensible to argue that that they don’t even represent a true cross section of the left, instead of attempting to reframe the reprehensible display in question as little more than the intemperate expression of otherwise justifiable rage. Of course, I suspect it’s considerably less harrowing to temporize over here than it would be should it actually occur to you to issue cautions over there. If you have, in fact, simultaneously taken it upon yourself to register equivalent disappointment and recommend equivalent restraint at equivalent length to the denizens of the left, perhaps you would be kind enough to point us to the results.
Sean
28 Day Later
you got me!
This thread has become, like, way tautological. Jeff posts the condemnation of the KosKritters’ bile, SEK feigns a half-assed attempt at moral equivocation, Jeff expounds on the argument, providing further context, SEK reiterates his nonsense, rinse repeat. Essentially a microcosm of the current state of Left-Right dialogue, i.e. the right makes a reasoned argument why something is worthy of scorn and ostracization, the left offers emotional, aesthetic counterargument that is defending the indefensible, yet the left never relents because, gosh darnit, their just so right and noble.
Karl, not Jeff. My bad.
If he wants to violate decorum because someone else did, he’s welcome to. But in my book, a violation of decorum’s a violation of decorum.
How does this work out if say someone walks up and grabs his womans ass or boobs?
It’s really something that a progressive says it’s wrong to criticize or be appalled at disgusting behavior, actions and sentiment, and then attach a timeline when the criticism can legitimately occur. Anyway, I thought this was their definition of patriotism.
Dash Rendar @ 12:47 am – Yes. Tireless Twatists.
DON’T QUESTION OUR DEPRAVITY!!!!, so says SEK.
I still don’t really get this whole deal. Jeff’s post made a very good point, and it’s really unlikely I would have had any idea about the meanness and revelling that went on at Kos and, more interestingly really, the LAT blog if he hadn’t written it.
Then Scott had a point of view that started off kind of on the wrong foot to where he was saying Jeff was wrong to have called attention to the mean liberal people. I think he sort of backed off to a position that the invectivey stuff is what it is and it’s not really surprising anyway. It really isn’t very surprising I don’t think, and there’s a big difference I think between liberals venting their mean ugly liberal point of view on Kos and disseminating that sort of thing at a mainstream sort of news place. That’s Kos for you. Screw em blah blah blah.
But then Scott tried to say hey it’s not like they don’t have a point or something. And that more than anything made people mad at him. But we know how they think. Scott’s right at least insofar as liberals really do a lot think they have reason to despise Tony Snow. That’s just how they are. And I think they do a lot have the blessing and enticement even of the NPRs and MSNBCs and LATs and NYTs of this world.
That troll woman … sheesh – I can’t think of her name, but for real she’s still alive and that’s really unfortunate I think. But anyway, that troll woman used to say things that were really equally as vile, she just couched them more better. Tony knew how to handle her with equanimity and grace to where she just looked like a stupid troll woman.
I just think if he could comment today, he’d say something really cool and kind of defusey. He was in tv most of his life. Those people are really tough, and I think his extraordinary character obscures that he must have been as tough as any of them.
Do I have a point? I don’t know. But Scott can have his own take without him being all sacky and whatever. The Satan’s forked dick guy is really the alarmingest thing. That’s sick. Scott’s not.
Oh. Helen Thomas. I better call her a vile troll woman now while I can cause she can’t be long for this world.
I’m not refreshing, as I don’t want to deal with this any more tonight, but I just wanted to note for those who care what I have to face whenever I want to engage in an honest debate with a conservative community whose members I mostly respect.
Mostly.
Somehow I’m able to remain civil, a willing participant, despite:
You claim to want a liberal who’s willing to argue, doesn’t engage in ad hominem, &c., and yet every time I participate in a thread here, this is the sort of “argumentative,” non-ad hominem I’m subjected to. Outside of happy, Dan, and Pablo (!?!), I’m hard-pressed to find someone willing to do something other than argue. This used to not be the case. (Pablo, for one, used to be an utter ass. I’m not sure what happened, but it’s for the better.)
It’s one thing for JHoward and Darleen to insist, for the eightieth hundred billion time, that they’ve lost respect for me, as by their estimation, I’m now raping babies for sport. I can deal with that. But there’s a strong tendency here of late compelling dissenting voices to avoid company they once enjoyed. I’m guessing it has something to do with the election ramping everyone up, but whatever it is, it’s fucking ugly.
I’ve never interacted with you, but you might want to take a look at Lisa, who’s been recognized by a lot of people here as a thoughtful liberal, and who goes out of her way to be civil, even sometimes when some of the commenters here aren’t toward her.
Unlike you, she acquitted herself well during this thread. And, unlike her, I’m going to be uncivil and call you an asshole. Because you deserve it, asshole. And a hearty fuck you, for good measure.
That’s another misrepresentation too, isn’t it. SEK. Another misdirection.
Somehow you’re able to remain dishonest, that despite adequately civil, willing participation in exposing it to your face, right? I find it no less characteristic that in the end you’d have no problem victimizing yourself by lying about those who simply called you on a reckless position.
In other words, because of the appearances. Not because of the integrity or its lack, no. Because of how stuff looks and in that, how it makes you appear. You know, the very nerve of those who see you for what you are.
Evidently not.
While those who dare disagree are raving incoherents, stuck in their one-note critique of all that is beauty and light, no? Damnable spot. Oh you hero.
Happyfeet, scan this.
“klrfz1, you’re a pathetic excuse for a troll. I’ve had trolls email me my home address and threaten to rape my wife; you, however, partake of mid-’90s warboard cliches and think yourself clever. If you really want to go toe-to-toe with me, I’m game. Be warned, though, that I will obliterate you. One of the reasons I’ve tired of anonymous flaming is that, compared to the likes of you, I’m just better at it. I’m an old warboarder, you see, and the lame salvos you ineffectively deployed above, well, that’s what I’d expect from someone who resorts to “your momma.â€Â
If you want to go down that road–and believe you me, you don’t–I’m more than willing to. You’ll look foolish, sure; and your reputation will be shot, most definitely … but at least you can put to rest that nagging feeling that you could’ve been someone. Because by the time I’m through with you, you and the rest of the literate world will know better.
Wait, what am I saying? All this hyper-masculine, warboard-blustering’s made me forget that I’m not here to forward empty arguments, but to engage people with whom I disagree in intelligent conversations. Sure, I could step into those shoes again and reveal klrfz1 to be as brilliant as his handle’s pronounceable, but that’d be juvenile. That’s precisely the sort of empty rhetoric I bored of in eleventh grade … which makes me wonder why some “adults†are so eager to engage in it.
Posted by Scott Eric Kaufman | permalink
on 09/18 at 01:53 AM “
To be fair, I was ridiculing his degree in English. Still, to compare me to a rapist was entirely uncalled for. SEK also used his absurd rhetorical trick of then taking it back. He always “could make that argument” but won’t. Yet somehow he always does. I just wish he would try that in a bar sometime.
No, Happyfeet, SEK is not a good man. He’s just clever enough to sound like one sometimes.
“Given that it’s been deleted, the only way his family might see it in the future is if they see it here.”
That’s a despicable statement.
Go on, blame the victim.
“You claim to want a liberal who’s willing to argue, doesn’t engage in ad hominem, &c., and yet every time I participate in a thread here, this is the sort of “argumentative,†non-ad hominem I’m subjected to.”
HA!
From something I wrote at the pub.
This gives the Left many advantages in the political arena and some disadvantages…. The disadvantage is, if they seem to be losing, they and their base can become very agitated and extreme. This only hurts them if it is seen by the general public, thus their efforts to shut up all who might report the craziness that pours from the left.
Thus the attempt to tell Jeff G. to shut up. Striking while the iron is hot is only for them, not us.
Oh for pity’s sake, cudlips.
You do it too.
The only difference is the age demographic between the rightside and the leftside.
Dems are demographically younger and therefore more intemperate and hotheaded.
Conservatives are older.
For your troubles, Scott, I engaged you repeatedly. And you responded each time by talking nonsense about decorum, attempting a really flimsy equivalence sally. Lord knows I’m willing to argue. I just haven’t seen you make an argument in this thread worth taking seriously.
If it makes you feel better to pretend, in the course of the 400 comments or so, that you haven’t been engaged on multiple occasions by those who have addressed your points in good faith, I’m not sure I can help you. Because quite frankly, I haven’t the patience to go through and make a list like the one you made that points up those good faith rejoinders.
It is troubling, though, that you’d bother to draw up a list that you seem to be suggesting is illustrative of the commentariat here and choose to go with the invective over the substantial — particularly when your entry into this thread included the suggestion that my pointing out the depravity of the Kossack hive mind, which included the shouting down of those who wandered from the approved narrative of evil by association, was nearly on par with the very depravity I’d hoped to draw attention to.
For someone offering up such a thesis, I’d say your arguments were treated with more seriousness than they deserved.
None of which is to suggest you are person of low moral fiber who should spend his death bent over Satan’s pool table. Just that your arguments here were silly and, for reasons only you can know, meant to be provocative.
I have no idea who cudlips is, or what quellcrist falconer is addressing. I do know, though, that my kid got me up way too early, and that now that I’ve given him his breakfast, I’m going back to bed.
For his part, he’s free to watch whatever DVDs he picked out from the library yesterday, so long as Handy Manny isn’t involved. Not before we see a green card, at least.
Oh, wow. Do you consider yourself an intelligent person? Because, that’s one of the most intellectually dishonest arguments I’ve heard in a long time. You’ve reduced yourself to making Jeff responsible for the bad behavior of others because he reported it.
And they whine and screech when OReilly call them “left wing hate sites”.
Wishing a guy as nice as Tony Snow dead is pretty much, well, how can you get any lower? I guess they could fantasize in that masturbatory way they do about how he dies…
Their response is kinda of a masturbation. They masturbate over death, pretty much anytime a conservative dies. I wanted to check out McCain’s adoption yesterday because I was curious, and over at TPM, it was much of the same nasty, filthy masturbation over her drug problems.
Leftism is a philosophy of death, as we know from the results.
Sick people, very sick.
I just wanted to note for those who care what I have to face whenever I want to engage in an honest debate with a conservative community
I call bullshit. You didn’t come for an “honest debate”. You came here to lecture Jeff on moral equivalence.
Cudlip is a group appellation for the commenters here.
And most commenters everywhere.
You are all herd animals indulging in within-group behavior dynamics.
Villification of the “other”.
The Kos site villifications are more extreme because the kossacks are demographically younger as a group of cudlips.
But you are all still cudlips.
Timid ruminants locked into group behaviors.
You didn’t even read the thread, did you quellcrist?
Save the lectures for your students. I attempted to engage you civilly and in good faith and you didn’t respond. Many others here engaged you in good faith. As has been suggested, why don’t you take your Seth Pecksniff act over to Kos and see what kind of response you get over there.
What’s more, many of your arguments had the distinct appearance of wolves in sheep’s clothing. This whole, “I’m not making the argument that Snow deserves opprobrium because it’s too soon, but I’ll imply it in the service of castigating Jeff over a point of parliamentary order” schtick seems rather disengenuous for example.
I suppose it is in keeping with the stereotype that you should play the victim; especially rich in light of your polemics here regarding decorum.
Well thank Eris you dropped in to editorialize about our stupor, quellcrist. At least you’re not an overweening jackass.
#408
Moo. You got a problem wit dat?
Comment by Rusty on 7/13 @ 7:48 am #
#408
Moo. You got a problem wit dat?
That’s not timid enough!
Baaaaaaa! Would you like some milk?
Let’s just say my level of respect for you has been in flux. The needle on that one is still moving.
Where I’m sitting, SEK’s bizarre argument that it’s wrong to notice and report on the poor behavior of others is really just an attempt to cover up for his fellow travelers. Toss in his “I’m not going to argue that Snow was a murdering bastard this close to his passing” crap, and I think it’s a fair statement that he’s really supporting the creeps at Kos — he’s oh-so-cleverly making the argument while claiming he’s above it.
I stand by my metaphor that SEK’s “sucking the monsters’ cocks”. He’s so desperate to appease the beasts that he’ll resort to any argument, no matter how incoherent, inconsistent, or bluntly insulting.
The Left-wing blogosphere reminds me of Wiliam Golding”s novel Lord of The Flies.
On one of the (numerous) previous occasions that they descended into one of these orgies of savagery Glenn Greenwald attempted to establish a rule analogous to Godwin’s Law that would discourage blog posters from making political generalizations based on rude comments. At the time I was buying into his reasoning that there are random nutcases in the commentariats everywhere. Since then I’ve changed my mind. This type of mob degeneracy that is a regular phenomenon on the Left-wing blogosphere just doesn’t happen at right-wing blogs. Ever. Not even at Free Republic.
I notice that people here are being very careful to say that the riot at DKos is not representative of anything. I’m starting to think that it is representative of the Left in some way.
You didn’t even read the thread, did you quellcrist?
It’s nishi. The marginal literacy and poorly-understood pop-sci gives her away every time.
The Kos site villifications are more extreme because the kossacks are demographically younger as a group of cudlips.
C’mon Nishi.
I used to call them the Kos Kidz, but Kossacks kept lecturing me that the average age over there is (I forget exactly what they claimed) like 45 or 50.
That would make them older than me :O
More at Swampland (TIME magazine blog).
Note that Karen Tumulty shows up in the comments and does not mention any displeasure with the previous commenters, nor does she reappear later to do so, even though she obviously reads her comments section.
I also wonder if Time Mag is throwing a party at the Netroots Nation/Yearly Kos convention again this year.
And finally, we see it was the diarist himself that deleted the Kos diary. It wasn’t Kos or one of his front pagers (we knew it wouldn’t be, because Meteor Blades encouraged talking “openly”). It was the poor guy who tried to write something nice that deleted it so it wouldn’t look like something that Freepers, Faux News-ers, and RedStaters could point to and say “See, that’s what Kossacks are like.”
This morning, these cretins remind me of this.
And while we’re discussing who is representative of what, a couple more posts at Patterico’s are instructive:
AP Urinates on Tony Snow’s Memory
More Viciousness at the L.A. Times About Tony Snow
Outliers to the left of me, anomalies to the right…
Funny how these sites always have to always clap a hand over the mouth of their commentariat, so that no one gets a false impression of what they are like.
One lesson you can take from this thread, I think, is that push-back time has finally arrived.
Kos – Why are you missing? You are needed.
by CryptoPolitico
Sat Jul 12, 2008 at 01:23:11 PM PDT
This is embarrassing.
A former White House spokesman has died –- a man who once spoke officially for all Americans — and now our country is mourning. However, some anonymous bloggers think that they have a responsibility to point out that Tony Snow was not a perfect human being.
Some are even criticizing those of us who have expressed our condolences to Snow’s family and to the Bush administration. Apparently, we are all supposed to immediately be engaged in analyzing the ways Snow failed as a journalist and public servant, and forgo the grieving.
These sad few do not reflect well on our online community.
Please, Kos, do something now to correct this!
Apparently at least one diarist just figured out that people are not nice on Daily Kos (and that it does not really reflect well on the progressive online community).
Stay tuned, next they will discover that the earth is, in fact, round and the sun rises in the east.
Juan Williams has some very touching thoughts on his personal and professional relationship with Snow on NPR.
Blast from the past (May 30, 2008):
When SEK stated that Snow was complicit, I lost interest. When he displayed the inability to discern the difference, as McGehee pointed out, between disgusting and disgusted, he showed that he was nothing but an apologist for the reprehensible behavior. His problem is not with their vile words, just the timing.
Which translates to: I’m into a moral equivalency built on tone related to, you know, age — it’s the “only difference”. Or: Since I cannot control the language, how about I just impute the meaning by way of some personal bigotry.
Not happening, nuggie, and you’re eternally free to document pages of pw commenters reveling in the deaths of fatal illnesses of political foes and their families and associates.
Meanwhile, SEK elects to leave uncleared the conflicts in #350 and naturally won’t touch the question in #339. While I too desperately fear being obliterated by said old warboarder, I must say that those remain problems for the equivalency premise, do they not nuggie?
Nevermind with the cut and paste of the Kos diarist: Apparently, that is supposed to be “snark”. Asking people to not be vile is supposed to be hilarious.
That is why I avoid those dreadful people.
Moralist indignation, Lisa. Like hatred, its for a good cause.
Jeff,
I’m not looking to “score points,†because I don’t think of any of this as a game.
Well then, don’t make it seem like one. This seemed like a tit-for-tat “your asshole idiots are more idiotic than my asshole idiots.†The fact that you wrote it the day he died made it seem less like you were concerned about decorum than you were about being FIRST! to point out what everyone only needed to be reminded of. It seemed crass and opportunistic. I said as much, and no more, although I’ve been a heady object for other’s projection in this thread.
Your attempt at a gotcha failed  mainly because, as I said, a single finger can’t stop the leaks that have sprung up around you.
Didn’t attempt a gotcha, because you can’t gotcha something everyone already knows. If you’re compelled, for whatever reason, by the behavior of angry trolls to write a post denouncing the behavior of all liberals, you’re pandering to the level of the scum you denounce.
And you responded each time by talking nonsense about decorum
I don’t think it’s silly, but that’s just how I was raised. You don’t brawl at the funeral, no matter how uncouth some of the guests are, because in the end, you all get arrested.
If it makes you feel better to pretend, in the course of the 400 comments or so, that you haven’t been engaged on multiple occasions by those who have addressed your points in good faith, I’m not sure I can help you.
My point was that it’s increasingly difficult to stomach dissenting here, as the tenor of the responses has gotten increasingly stupid. Disagree with me if you will, but “mendacious sack†isn’t a reasoned response to an argument. You might think I’m one — I won’t share my feelings about Karl — but if you’re interested in engaging people who disagree with you, it’s the sort of thing you ought to discourage.
NOTE TO PEOPLE INCLINED TO BELIEVE I’M A FASCIST: I’m not saying anyone be censored, just that certain modes of engaging people are more productive than others, and one in which anyone who disagrees is subjected to a seemingly endless profane rant ain’t all that productive.
It is troubling, though, that you’d bother to draw up a list that you seem to be suggesting is illustrative of the commentariat here and choose to go with the invective over the substantial
I was illustrating a point: namely, that if this sort of invective is allowed to flourish, the only liberals you’ll have to engage will be masochists. Not all the liberals who would want to comment here are, as Darleen implied of Lisa, “secret classical liberals†and thus suitable for having a beer with. There are people with whom you genuinely disagree who should be able to trade shots with, but I suppose since it’s an election year, that sort of humanity matters less than it ought to.
happy,
Thanks for that. It won’t fly here anymore, it seems, but I appreciate it.
Karl,
It really pisses him off that he cannot get rid of this post or the comments, because in true progg/liberal facist fashion, he wants total control over debate.
Not in the least. I acknowledge that assholes exist, and that they show their true colors when allowed to vent anonymously on the Internets. Have you seen me claim any differently? Of course you have, because no matter what I say, you know what I really mean. So have it.
JHoward,
First, you forgot to mention how this has caused you to lose more respect for me. I suppose in your mind I’m raping mentally-challenged infants at this point. Second:
The above is, not so incidentally, yet more of that same bullshit, blaming others for debunking idiotic arguments as much as you blame Jeff for having the audacity to make an observation on obvious and clear depravity.
You’ll not that I didn’t blame Jeff for anything. I noted that I was disappointed he took Snow’s death as an opportunity to a point he could make anytime, anywhere. If you honestly believe Jeff can’t identify and handle the shit stuck to the bottom of the Left’s barrel, you don’t respect him all that much.
While those who dare disagree are raving incoherents, stuck in their one-note critique of all that is beauty and light, no?
Yes, because I’ve said that.
klrtz1,
If you want to post something I wrote in the voice of an immature war-boarder, as indicated by the last sentence you quote — “which makes me wonder why some ‘adults’ are so eager to engage in it†— go right ahead. I think most people, then as now, will see that I was parodying the very style I denied validity in the last sentence. You’ve been unable to understand this for ages now, but I hold out hope you’ll one day see the forest for the forest.
Darleen,
ever found me a post by a proclaimed Leftist (just one, anyone, mind you) calling people who blow up buses full of Jews “evil� And call them “evil†WITHOUT any additional “buts�
This is utterly irrelevant, and I could easily pull the same gambit on you: point out a conservative who uses the phrase “collateral damage†and is genuinely upset about the deaths he or she describes.
Big Bang Hunter:
Haven’t been there in some time so I don’t know the current “personality†of the writers.
I’m not sure I’d say anything nice about the Valve tonight, as I’m the editor.
David,
SEK, there are other posts on Kos that the “cleaning crew†hasn’t gotten to yet, so saying that they will only find those comments here is technically correct; however, they will find other posts on Kos with a great deal of the same dreck still standing unless Kos gets Huck Finn and company to break out the whitewash on those posts as well.
I don’t doubt that such points are being made, or that some people are horrible. What I objected to, initially, was Jeff’s treatment of predictable slugs as typical of a type. They are, but they’re typical of anonymous internet assholes, not liberals or leftists per se. This struck me as a cynical move, and I said as much.
You want to be seen as heroic even though you are a coward.
Absolutely, lee. You should’ve seen my get-up last night. Body armor, bat-wings, the whole nine yards.
MayBee, when I say I won’t speak ill of the dead, I mean I won’t speak ill of the dead. You’re just going to have to deal with it. Even honest, legitimate criticism is uncouth right now, so I’m not going to engage in it.
SEK,
A mendacious sack who maintains a civil tone does not make himself actually civil, or less mendacious. Indeed, thuggish totalitarians the world over are capapble of being civil in tone, usually at the UN, all the while remaining mendacious and worse.
I have detailed your dishonesty in this thread in several respects and you cannot respond on the merits because there is no legit defense to them. At some point, calling you out for the mendacious sack you are is what is left because, as noted upthread, there is nothing to be gained from civilly engaging a fundamentally dishonest opponent.
#339 and #350, SEK. Spare me the endless bullshit about tone. Even if you were raised to put it before principle.
Oh, and explain Google-proofing, SEK. For the children.
BTW, another example of mendacity is taking great exception to Jeff’s rather nuanced categorization of the diarist vs. “some” (right there in the title) commenters, but apparently not bothering to condemn those far less civil commenters on the thread at Kos when the thread was still up, before declaring Jeff to be “almost” as morally repugnant for what most every truly civil person would have to people writing about the freshly-dead being sodomized by Satan’s tail. That’s how people ascertain your intent — they look at what you are actually doing, not the tone with which you are doing it.
Another example of mendacity? Claiming Jeff should have waited to condem the Kossacks, while you jumped on Jeff immediately.
Get it? We’re seeing what you’re doing, regardless of the tone. And you have easily earned the tone you’re getting here, so own it.
Fine, fine. I’m a shit then, and am done here. Have at it.
Can’t we all just get along?
Right, because it couldn’t be simply what it appears to be on its face, and what Jeff has repeatedly said that it is; a genuine expression of revulsion at abominable behavior. There must be a sneaky right wing plot behind the post. Why else would Karl Rove have his hand so far up Jeff’s ass? QED, it seems to me.
Aside from justifying the bile at hand and declaring Snow complicit in the deaths of many people, that’s almost correct. So it seems.
Wow. I show up at the end of a barfight, and nothing to do but sweep up the eyeballs and make bail. Fuck it.
JFTR, not that anyone will care at this point, I both disagree with most of SEK’s points, and disagree that he’s a mendacious sack. I think he actually believes what he says, but that he’s mistaken.
Which is not, contrary to sentiment expressed here, mendacious in any way.
Ah, the best (and most desperate) denier’s defense: Self-victimization. Seen it before, SEK.
You really are about appearances, aren’t you?
And in doing so misrepresented wat he wrote to make a convenient strawman. That’s really the crux of it. That’s the nub of your mendacity. He put “some” in his title. He flagged Kos as notable as “one of the most influential ‘progressive’ sites on the web… routinely a pander node for leftwing politicians looking for money, support, or political affirmation and approval,” He distinguished the HuffPO and the authoring diarist. And you held it up as a blanket assertion. All the rest of your dishonesty has been tapdancing to avoid the basic dishonesty of your attack on Jeff. That’s why people question your motive — because you are actually far less clever, and far more transparent than you think you are.
Yep. Came to miscast, stayed to misdirect and deny, and still rode out on the big white horse, dincha.
Damnable conservatives. The uncivilized, illiterate louts can’t even converse; what’s a hero to do.
For the record, I never called SEK a “shit.” I called him mendacious, and explained why, repeatedly. He had no effective rebuttal.
SEK’s a scholar, Karl. He’ll decide meaning.
You know, because words have such.
Falconer/Nishi: In the greenest salad days of my youth, when I might have had a fool idea or too and some intemperate passions, I never did and never would say such things the way those awful people said them. I propose that youthful people properly brought up are not gratuitously vile, nor devoid of any sense of propriety or perspective, simply because they are young.
too=two
They are, but they’re typical of anonymous internet assholes, not liberals or leftists per se.
SEK, I’ve already the LGF thread on Ted Kennedy.
Sorry, this won’t fly.
SEK: I think your posts have been outstanding. I don’t know you but you do seem to be really decent and kind. However, I don’t think that pointing out when someone is being vile is feeding into it. It is making a pretty decent point. It is vile to trash a dead person because you did not like his politics or his former employer. There are way too many people in the world who think it is ok to treat people really horrible because of some political point they are making. That, I think, was the point. Two other points that I want to make: Kos is not the shit stuck to the bottom of the barrel. They are pretty flush with cash and they are very influential in the nutroots community. True, the online community is still considered the creepy-computer-addicted-Cheeto-eating crowd by the real world, but as far as that crowd goes, Kos is one of the most well known. The second point: Any diaries that have been less than completely vile to Tony Snow have been scrubbed. Any commenters that have called for decency have been flamed. There are at least a dozen gleefully nasty diary entries defecating on Snow (with hundreds of approving comments for each). I would have to say that that gives one the impression that that is the majority opinion over there.
Whether Kos is influential enough to “set the tone” for the left is debatable. Obviously, since they suck so bad, the right would love to assert that they are indeed the heart and soul of the left. That is total bullshit and both sides know that. But we are wrong for ignoring them or trying to minimize how shitty they are. That is just encouraging them. They think they are e-Abbie Hoffmans speaking truth to power – and no one tells them they are just turds with vocal cords so they keep doing it. Someone from OUR side needs to get pissed off like this and write about how stupid they are at Kos. They expect the right to have fits (they even have a poll up asking whether Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly will have vapors on air first). Maybe someone other than the usual suspects should get outraged for a change.
Lastly,
I forgot?
If by “this” you mean the general descending content of recent of your otherwise high-toned arguments — such as they are — er, no: See comment #196 by JHoward on 7/12 @ 5:35 pm. Which was half the thread and sixteen hours ago, SEK.
And to which in #257 you reestablished that if something you promote turns out rhetorically doomed, just abandon it.
Perhaps you’re victimized by various fallacies, SEK, and not they who merely point them out.
I am rather heartened that there are those on opposite sides of the aisle (Lisa, and SEK), that can treat the death of someone of the opposing faction with sympathy. Even those commenting at HuffPo, by and large, were able to put partisanship at bay. It has to mean something that the overwhelming majority of Americans would think well of Tony Snow and be sorrowed by his loss, as they were by Tim Russert’s. Surely the numbers here are good news?
I can also understand why Lisa and SEK would seek to distance themselves from the like of DKos. Anyone with an ounce of self respect would not wish to be tainted by association with the well of hate and infantile behaviour they represent. But what interests me is what proportion of the Democratic party they speak for. Are the Kos Kiddies not as influential as SEK would have us believe? Or are they the single biggest faction within the Democratic Party today? You would have to believe they must represent a sizeable fraction, for the presumptive presidential candidate to post on their forum.
Are most reasonable American Dems appalled by these thoughts, or is the party in fact a reflection of these jackals? I really don’t know, and have no way of guessing.
Scott
You will have noticed, and it would seem deliberately ignored, that I criticized your behavior here (“you are acting…”) not you as a person. And yes, your lecturing on some weird moral equivalency vibe that the person who points out the bad actors is the same as the bad actors IS behavior I find reprehensible.
and this: This is utterly irrelevant, and I could easily pull the same gambit on you: point out a conservative who uses the phrase “collateral damage†and is genuinely upset about the deaths he or she describes. re: the occassions the Left uses the word “evil” (always directed to non-left American government, conservatives, or Israel, never at terrorists or anti-American totalitarian governments abroad) is non sequitor. What I asked you was not a “gambit” but again to demonstrate the bass-ackwards “morality” of the Left. I have made pains to differentiate it from “liberal”.
You will note from Patterico’s site that a lot of Left ugliness turned up in the comment area of a [respectful] article on Tony Snow and those comments have to be approved before they appear. So the LATimes could have it both ways… “officially” doing the right thing, then let the slamming ugliness against a person who didn’t toe their Leftist line.
How many swallows before it’s officially summer, Scott?
SEK, if you’re still reading, you might consider #354.
And again, lastly:
So I’m a liar?
Are most reasonable American Dems appalled by these thoughts, or is the party in fact a reflection of these jackals? I really don’t know, and have no way of guessing.
Here’s a good test. Let’s see how many high profile Dems publically denounce Markos and his site and then refuse to participate. Every high profile Dem that writes there after this affair should be confronted with the question of why they are writing at a hate site.
You know what else annoys me: They keep mentioning and comparing Snow with Helms. How can you equate a man who was nothing but professional and by all accounts kind and a delight to know with Jesse Helms. The only thing those two had in common was that they were republicans. Doing that kind of shit mucks up things and diminishes the meaning of being a lifelong, unrepentant racist . That is not the moral equivalent of someone being the Whitehouse spokesperson for an admin that you don’t particularly like.
(and even being a lifelong racist does not give your detractors carte blanche to dance on your grave)
[…] Kos and his diarists? Yep, happy that three young children are now left fatherless (linked to Protein Wisdom who has the quotes, so I don’t have to link to the vileness […]
“klrtz1,
If you want to post something I wrote in the voice of an immature war-boarder, as indicated by the last sentence you quote  “which makes me wonder why some ‘adults’ are so eager to engage in it† go right ahead. I think most people, then as now, will see that I was parodying the very style I denied validity in the last sentence. You’ve been unable to understand this for ages now, but I hold out hope you’ll one day see the forest for the forest.”
So you were never a warboarder, SEK? You were just lying about that? You were just kidding when you compared me to a rapist? This was all just a piece of performance art?
Well, I am embarassed. Here I hold this grudge for years and it was just another one of your little jokes. Gosh, you sure made me look stupid here. Too bad you’ll never read this and know just how right you are, SEK.
BTW, my insult was “your mommie” which is entirely different than the “your momma” insult. In fact, I believe I doubted your maturity first. And yet I just couldn’t get that when you compared me to a rapist you were just joking. I am so dumb. Isn’t that ironic.
And yet you came here to express your dismay that Jeff was calling out people who do that very goddamned thing! For fuck’s sake, SEK, when will the left deal with the fucking redwood sticking out of its eye rather than focus on the plank in the right’s?
It’s not that there are assholes on the left; duh! It’s that they’re feted and kowtowed to and courted by the supposed mainstream of the left. Then the self-described “reasonable” left gets its panties in a wad and sand in its vagina when the assholes are pointed out — and spends more time castigating those who had the gall to point at the assholes than confronting the assholes themselves.
I’ve watched the left descend into ever deeper madness over my life. There have certainly been moments of madness on the right in that time, but I’ve seen more people on the right take on the idiots on that side than I’ve seen lefties take on the idiots on the left. But, hey, “no enemies to the left”, correct?
I’m not being civil because, frankly, I’m tired of seeing people make excuses for the inexcusable. And that’s all you’ve been doing here. You couldn’t simply pass it by, you couldn’t say, “yeah, what a pack of shit heads over at Kos”, no, you had to say it was wrong to even point it out.
MayBee, when I say I won’t speak ill of the dead, I mean I won’t speak ill of the dead. You’re just going to have to deal with it. Even honest, legitimate criticism is uncouth right now, so I’m not going to engage in it.
I don’t really care if you want to speak ill of the dead or not. Why do you think I want you to, or that it is too hard for me to handle? However, I propose that you already have done, even though it was wrapped in a blanket of “it’s too soon to talk about how complicit he was”-ness. But that is a bit beside the point (even if it is too clever).
It is the underlying sentiment that you think it is “too soon” to discuss that I have a problem with. That, and your original criticism of Jeff. That, and your claim that Jeff has somehow exposed the family to these horrors. That and the fact that you don’t want to answer my questions about Presidents that are alive or died long ago, and which ones do (and will and did) have blood on their hands and whose deaths shall be celebrated.
There has been a lot of Obama assassination porn on the left. If I said, “It would be ok for Obama to be assassinated before he takes office because he is going to be complicit in the murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis if he is allowed to implement his policies. His death would save a lot of lives”, would your criticism of my statement be that it is simply “too soon!” to say such a thing?
IF THERE ARE ANY FEMINISTS reading this thread, please go to http://acephalous.typepad.com/ and let Scott know what you think about his “joking” about someone raping his wife. Personally, I don’t joke about rape. I’ve even given up making jokes about homosexual rape in prison. It’s just not funny.
Thank you.
And I patiently explained to you that you were wrong — that I reacted viscerally to what I’d read.
And there it is, the strawman that stirs your drink. Not only did I include “some” in the title and carefully bracket those over at Kos who weren’t engaging in such behavior, but in fact my argument, such as it is, requires that not “all liberals” behave the same. If they did, there could be no shouting down, or forced compliance, or excommunication from the flock. And that’s what the diarist himself experienced before he removed the thread himself.
Beyond the fact that such a distinction was necessitated by the argument itself, you have further evidence, should you wish to look, that I was not speaking of “all liberals.” First, I identify as a classical liberal, and I clearly wasn’t condemning myself with yesterday’s post (that was left up to you to do). Secondly, I have ALWAYS and CONSISTENTLY attempted to distinguish between rote Dem voters, ordinary left liberals, and “progressives.” Third, I’ve noted in other posts that many “progressives,” it is my belief, are completely unaware of the kinds of philosophical assumptions that hold together their belief system. And fourth — and here is where I get really obvious for those who might wish to suggest I’m generalizing in order to dismiss the argument on those grounds — I point out that I’m speaking of the vocal activist base of the progressive netroots, and a site on which major political figures regularly post, and whose readers (and, by extension, whose commenters) these politicians routinely court.
I’d have broken it down even further, Scott, but the next step would be to name individual names, which — considering how that might have bumped the post up past even the 500 word mark — would have caused me even more tut-tutting about my indecorous use of blog space.
If you think you are being chased away from here by virtue of being called a “mendacious sack,” you need realize that that phrase, much like “sugartits,” is kind of a running inside joke of the commenters.
But here, as a scholarly experiment, I’d like you to try something. Pretend to take a conservative viewpoint. Be civil in your explanations and arguments (if you need help with the conservative arguments, ask me, and I’ll see if I can’t help). Then head over to a progressive site and, if you’re allowed past moderation, leave your comment.
Then watch what happens.
I’ll give you a list of sites to try:
Think Progress
Kos
Huffpo
Firedoglake
Atrios
Crooks and Liars
Pandagon
Feministe
Bitch PhD
carpetbagger
Greenwald’s Salon column
Report back on how you are treated. But give it a few weeks before you start. Don’t want to tip them off if they happen to find this comment. Besides, decorum. You understand.
I’ll make this prediction: it’ll never happen. In an environment in which clear corruption of a high-profile political figure is barely touched upon, in which the politician can respond to questions about it with “why are you trying to embarrass me?”, the odds of a politician on that side of the spectrum being asked about associating with the likes of Kos are near zero.
It’s not just that the left condones it; it’s that they never see a reason to question it. “No enemies to the left” is a much more deeply-held belief than Reagan’s “thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican”.
It’s not that there are assholes on the left; duh! It’s that they’re feted and kowtowed to and courted by the supposed mainstream of the left.
Yes, and that.
Darleen, do you think any of the elected Dems or their representatives will cancel their plans to go to Netroots Nation next week? Do you think even one of them will reprimand the Kossacks publicly?
Jeff G,
Another good reason for you to have not broken it down further is that it would not have mattered. Someone who insists on misrepresenting your argument — even though it was obvious from the outset, yet still further broken down by you in the comments — to make their little strawman clearly does not care how much you broke it down.
That’s why I started going with “mendacious sack.” Once it was obvious that SEK was operating in total bad faith, I no longer felt any need to engage him on a civil level, because his civility was his pose.
Gosh, that was fun. How ’bout a Fresca?
Rob and MayBee
I don’t expect anything like that will happen either.
So it answers Silver Whistle’s question. The Dem party has been subsumed by the likes of dKos and its fellow travelers.
… the irony that they complain that the GOP is in thrall of god-botherers!
It is like a rhetorical hair-mussing from Judge Smails.
Then head over to a progressive site and, if you’re allowed past moderation, leave your comment.
You know, this is what bugged my a lot when reading SEK and his poor me routine. Lefty sites strictly enforce the no alternative view comment rule and no lefty who shows up on an alternative point of view site will ever deal with that fact. Whenever it’s raised they just ignore it.
I also think it’s ironic that the original KOS diarist is compelled to delete the entire diary. I recall the WAPO comment dust-up the left was outraged that the WAPO would delete distasteful, ad hom and general vile comments.
Watching SEK’s contortions was rather like the rhetorical version of a monkey trying to fornicate a football.
Why is the left anti torture on jihadis but pro torture in hell with forked devil dick on a guy whose sin was being white house spokeperson in a difficult time? A job that demands circumspection, deflection, nuance, partisanship.
Go back and find transcripts of Carters press secretary after the Iranian hostage rescue debacle or Clinton’s after the Mogadishu mess…. is torture in hell OK for them too?
Of course not. Any reasonable decent person would stand strongly against that type of hate and not give it the nod of understanding (culpable, complicit).
People who hate need strong courageous persons from their side of the aisle to shout the idiot haters down like Bill Clinton did to the 9-11 truthers.
Clinton showed the left how it is supposed to be done… can you, Scott, emulate his greatness? Are you big enough and are there others who will go down into the left fever swamps and shout out the truth and demand civility?
The answer is probably a no from you.
You are smart, you write well, you are a leader, and if you could stand against the demonization of those with whom you disagree without that wink or nod or crossed fingers, you’d also be a better person.
This whole thread is about: Will the left police it’s own crazies or will it let them run wild?
The leaders of the left have let the Bush hatred thing run so deep that even the press secretary is demonized on the day of his death.
You guys have let the whole hatred thing go way too far.
God knows that moving forward from this lesson, I want to be much more careful about how I express my thoughts to those with whom I disagree.
And if I dance on the grave of the dead I want to be shouted down. (bin Laden and his ilk excepted)
Steve
SEK had a shitty argument when he first made it. It was not made better with its seventh or eighth repetition.
Absolutely, lee. You should’ve seen my get-up last night.
Body armorcondescension,bat-wingsmoral ambiguity ,the whole nine yardsthe cloak of self-victimization.Oh, I saw it all right.
And underneath it all you are still a coward hiding behind the shield of decorum.
So it answers Silver Whistle’s question. The Dem party has been subsumed by the likes of dKos and its fellow travelers.
If this is true, then I would think that, like the British Labour Party in the 70s, they are destined for unelectability (is that a word?). I refuse to accept that the majority of voting Americans shares common cause with the haters.
The leaders of the left have let the Bush hatred thing run so deep that even the press secretary is demonized on the day of his death.
You guys have let the whole hatred thing go way too far.
To be fair to the the left commenters, it’s not as if they have had stellar examples of “decorum” from their leaders. Witness the creepy (and narcissistic) demonstrations at iconic Democrat funerals. Wellstones tribute of life was a political rally (talk about the ultimate attempt at point scoring) and Corretta Scott King was very little about her but disgusting headline grabbing “truth to power” tackiness.
i read the thread.
you are all cudlips as far as i can tell, leftside, rightside.
mirror cudlips.
LGF is the mirror of dKos.
quell is the new me.
time to evolve.
im making a new blog too.
nishi, is that you?
I will not be cowed.
nishi is dead.
i bet a kajillion $ that the commenters makin the vile remarks are 20-somethings.
rightside 20somethings are vanishing rare, so you dont see exactly the same extremes.
so, yah, Jeff, outliers.
but outliers that don’t exist on the repub side.
but you’re all the same.
cudlips alla the way down.
even you feets.
<stentorian movie preview announcer>
There’s a new scum in the pond…
<ominous chord>
Don’t be quick to rule out the possibility that rank and file democrats, exposed to the vilifications of Mr. Snow now pouring out in some quarters, will be repulsed by them, just as Lisa and others here are, and will, in consequence, undertake to do something about it, for the sake of their own reputations, if for no other reason. Upthread I mentioned as one such person Harold Ford jr., who I believe would immediately upon learning of the hateful stuff on the Dkos boards about Tony Snow denounce them and distance himself from them. The question is only whether he learns of it or no.
1. Cuds do not have lips. Trust me. I am a scientist.
2.”quellcrist falconer” sounds like an 80’s soap opera, one where all the women wear shoulder pads
3. I’ll take that bet. What with the ex-wife and all, I could use a kajillion bucks
All of this makes sense when you consider the Left as a “shame culture” and the Right to be a “guilt culture”.
[…] even sorrier that so many liberals in this country are such pathetic pieces of human debris. Here is just a sample of this type of hope and change. Unsurprisingly, from the mental deficients […]
Quellcrist Falconer fictional political activist/revolutionary.
So it answers Silver Whistle’s question. The Dem party has been subsumed by the likes of dKos and its fellow travelers.
Bullshit.
Sounds to me like someone needs to back away from the computer and the teevee and get out and have a conversation or two with some actual people.
Cheers.
Lisa,
That is exactly the kind of information I would like – I have no real feeling for how the Dems are influenced by the nutroots. I hear lots of statements that they are in thrall to them, but until real live Dems actually answer my question, how am I to know?
Lisa @ 486:
How do you measure subsumed?
On a headcount basis I would agree with you that the Koz Kidz comprise a statistically small portion of the overall pie.
On a power basis it appears to me that the Prog Left wield power in much greater proportion than their actual numbers would suggest. I think this explains how they were able to manipulate the levers of power to displace Lieberman yet still lose big in the actual election.
So long as the Prog Left enjoys disproportionate representation at the levers of power and continue to use it in Borg like fashion to assimilate all who oppose them they should be treated accordingly.
I’m in good company I think, qf. Quelling Christ I think is a lot the same demonizing CO2. Every objective measure says we are moving towards a less carbon-intensive society anyways.
20-somethings. They’re easily programmed I think.
But that’s low-hanging fruit. It’s not revolutionary. People grow up and stop watching The N and have babies and get jobs and have decided opinions about hardwood flooring.
Oh. same *as* demonizing CO2… My point is I think you a lot miss that America evolves a lot to the side of cool without messiahs. Don’t need. Baracky wants to destroy faith in that. It’s really mean-spirited I think.
Oh. Sorries. Here’s a link for that quote.
Electric youth
Feel the power, see the energy
Comin’ up
Coming on strong
The future only belongs
To the future itself
And the future is
Electric youth!
It’s a theme song for real. There is much wisdom there I think, but the kids never seem to buy the follow-up album. I don’t know what’s wrong with them.
That rather reeked of nishi. I ran (or, more accurately, re-ran) across a quote recently that she might rather enjoy:
#488: I don’t know. Maybe I am wrong. I kind of think they exist in the Matt Drudge reality. They are able to influence what gets talked about (sometimes). I don’t know a whole lot about Kos because they repelled me years ago – with their mob mentality and inflated view of themselves. But it has been said that there is piles of money in that group of freaks over there. They are young, well-educated, generally don’t have any kids, and pull down some very high incomes. I don’t know if it is true or not. But they are never hurting for funds and they throw money around to people who please them rather generously. The guy Markos is really hideously arrogant and gets on cable news talking about how he is going to give money to this guy and withhold money from that one based on whatever progg code various politicians break from day to day. They are all so stupid and misinformed about everything I just can’t even bear them for a few minutes even when some other blog that I like links to them for some godforsaken reason.
If they are the heart and soul of the left, then we are all fucking doomed.
Falcon Crest,
rightside 20somethings are vanishing rare, so you dont see exactly the same extremes.
Except in the military. But I guess they don’t count.
#489: The Lieberman thing was more about how the war was going (or appeared to be going) at the time and Lieberman sticking to his guns about it. The nutroots had a lot to do with keeping it in the news, but people were talking about how annoying they found Lieberman for a long time. The nuts just tapped into some long-standing discontent.
Like I said, they can put a story on the front page if they jump up and down enough, but a lot of the time, they just fall on their asses.
I love the progressive blogosphere, but the sites who think they are “in the game” are the most annoying sites. They are also generally the rudest, most piggish and thoughtless groups of shitheels I have ever come across.
Happy was that a song by Debbie Gibson? Or that other annoying girl who used to sing in malls…what was her name?
Those lyrics scream acid washed jean jacket and feathered hair (throw in a little Bonnie Bell lipgloss to complete the picture).
You nailed it, it’s Debbie. But really it’s not just a song, it’s an anthem.
Except in the military. But I guess they don’t count.
the mil are too busy to blog, dude.
thus, invisible and mute.
quellcrist falconer
#499: OMG like….totally.
I think it’s rather sad that nishifishiwhatever can’t seem to find a life of her own to enjoy….
rightside 20somethings are vanishing rare
Liar.
the mil are too busy to blog, dude.
Liar.
So, how does it feel to know that I identified your trademark illiteracy in one post, liebot?
nishi/quellcrist —
You’re beginning to remind me of the Mitch Hedberg bit about turkey — where he’s going through the grocery store and, with some regret, watching turkey strain to find a group identity: turkey ham, turkey bacon, turkey sausage… At which point Hedberg cries out, “Just be yourself. I like you for who you are! I used to draw you…!”
It’s on youtube somewhere. Look for it. Good stuff. And in this instance, poignant.
SBP,
Must be the shoulder pads. Falcon Crest was was always big on shoulder pads.
Oh, nish. Fuck off.
Yes, one never sees a soldier with a blog.
Good to see the new nishi’s as given to grand, sweeping statements of frantically stupid bullshit as the old one.
Because, you know, I’m a conservative, and change scares me.
487: Lisa,
You could start with the Yearly Kos convo:
Nishi, you should’ve chosen “Sylvie Oshima”, from the same science fictional series (who knew?), because ‘Quellquist’ was stored for 100 years in orbital RAM. Before coming back as Sylvie.
Where she learned proper language arts, let’s hope.
Because blogging is the only form of expression in the world!
Seriously, nishi, get a fucking life. The military isn’t “invisible and mute”, they’re actually doing something. They’re having a more positive effect on the world and on the future than you’ll ever have, regardless of which fictional character you think you are.
Actually, before you get a life — get some professional help. You appear to have some serious mental and emotional issues you need to work through; your unwillingness/inability to form a consistent identity is troubling.
What’s the point of changing identity without seriously rethinking your positions? There isn’t one. Just like people who move elsewhere to “start over” inevitably bring all their invisible and yet powerful baggage along with them, and their lives inevitably become the same as they were.
this is myself now Jeff.
i killed off jinnderella and shut down the Needle.
what a twit she was, stupid neocon bush-lover.
the major’s politics were vastly different than jinn’s, but im outgrowing those too.
nishi/griefer was just angry.
im evolving.
my new blog is gonna be called “Things I Should Have Learned by Now”.
i had an epiphany when u, Jeff, couldn’t be bothered to look at my analysis of Jefferson’s Last Letter because it didn’t conform to your within-group interpretations.
I have more empathy for quell than sylvie, altho wireheads are pretty cool.
perhaps i can be a n-djinn in my next instantiation. ;)
l8r, cudlips.
You could start with the Yearly Kos convo:
Ah, but you don’t understand, Karl…
The entire Democratic leadership fellating Kos –> does not count.
Some moron posting on Free Republic –> does count.
Obama attending a whackjob, racist minister’s church for 20 years, getting married there, raising his children there –> does not count.
Some whackjob, racist minister giving an unsolicited endorsement to McCain –> does count.
Democratic Senator who is a former Grand Kleagle of the KKK –> does not count.
Republican Senator saying something that can be construed as mildly racially insensitive (if you squint hard) –> does count.
OK, Quell.
If you haven’t already done so you should read River Of The Gods by Ian McDonald. I guarantee you’ll love it.
Really rob. I agree. The nicest blogs are the communities where people post something interesting when they get a moment.
The self-annointed “important” full-time bloggers really get on my nerves. The pretentiousness is just unbearable. And when they get out into the world and realize most people have never heard of them nor are they interested in finding out, they literally go scurrying back to their hideyholes to angrily vent about how dumb everyone is (that happened to John Aravosis when he came to DC in 2004 and pretentiously approached a group I was with at Nathan’s – we thought he was some fat dorky Hill staffer even after he told us his name and that he had a blog. He was so annoyed that when he got home he blogged about what a bunch of morons the citizens of the DC/Baltimore area are).
Why are you suggesting I couldn’t be bothered to look at it when you’ve already decided there’s a reason I ignored it — a reason I couldn’t possibly know without having looked at it?
Truth is, I haven’t looked at it, or much of anything. I got back from Chicago, and my wife is immediately off on trips for work, so I haven’t had time to do anything, actually.
So really, I ask for no footnote in the story of your transformation. Any such connection is purely in your mind. If there is, in fact, something you wish me to look at, email me. I’m about 700 emails in arrears, but I’ll try to get to it. Promise.
Just be yourself, turkey!
To make it worse, we were at a table with a bunch of Republicans from Texas who were in town for the inauguration, lol.
I think Barack Obama did not make a statement about Tony Snow’s death.
MayBee, if he didn’t know the man or even have occasion to meet him he should just shut up. Maybe send condolences to the family if anything.
He managed to publicly express sympathy for Benazir Bhutto’s family, Lisa. He’d never met her either. He was shocked and saddened.
i bet a kajillion $ that the commenters makin the vile remarks are 20-somethings.
rightside 20somethings are vanishing rare, so you dont see exactly the same extremes
You are probably right. They would be the youth cohort who are driving Obama’s popularity. No sane or decent person should vote for a candidate who represents this kind of Lord Of The Flies politics.
Aside from the utter cowardice and vulgarity of kicking a guy who is dead and cannot kick back, it doesn’t even make sense to blame Tony Snow for the Iraq war. Even if you believe that the decision to go to war in Iraq was wrong, evil,and disastrous it is hardly fair or rational to lay it at the feet of a guy who joined the Bush administration as a spokesman (not a policy-maker) in 2006, three years into it.
Maybe you could make a case for kicking Snow’s corpse if he had been guilty of Westmoreland-like lies to cover up an increasingly untenable situation in Iraq, but in fact the exact opposite happened during Snow’s tenure: The situation in Iraq improved from 2006 to 2008 more than anyone hoped or expected. The current situation is better than even the best-case scenarios envisioned in 2006 when Tony joined the administration. So, even looking by their own vulgar standards the Obama Youth are behaving irrationally.
#486 Lisa
Bullshit? Well, clue me in when those high-profile Dems who cozy up at dKos distance themselves from Markos, ok?
Good lord, Lisa, Phil Gramm makes an “inartful” statement in an interview (and one not entirely wrong) and the McCain camp fall over themselves to throw him under the bus. O!’s mocking was especially vitriolic, not the least of which is the Gramm IS a doctor and has forgotten more about economics than O! has ever known. SNAP..so much for O!’s pledge to run a “different” campaign.
And that what it comes down to. No matter the actual numbers of kosskiddies and their ideological brethren at pandagon, feministe, carpetbagger, firedoglake, et al, when they aren’t publically denounced for their “inartfulness” like every non-leftist is skinned and hung out for public humilitation for lesser deeds, then dKos is indeed in the driver’s seat of the Dem. party.
I wish I was wrong, because I actually think two loyal advisaries in politics is a good thing. But the “stopping at the water’s edge” was abandoned long ago, and you can thank Jhimmi Carter for that.
Darleen,
I in no way defend Carter, but the water’s edge stopped over ‘Nam.
[…] or decency at all, especially in the wake of the passing of a fellow human being, when it’s so plainly untrue. Category: The Loony Left ♦ […]
512: SPB,
I certainly get the double standard. But Lisa wrote that she avoids dKos because it has so many jerks, and thus wondered what influence it really had. So I was providing the link. Any number of prominent Dems, including Pelosi, have blogged there. One can argue if it’s influential — as one could with any number of interest groups — but it is a constituency to which the Dems pander.
#s 510-11: Heh. Indeed.
Ah, the old joke comes to mind: You can’t have everything; where would you put it? Apparently our friend has found a host with a few free dozen terabytes to enumerate what she doesn’t know, that she ought to have clued in to by now.
Karl
You’re correct… I’m just thinking about how ex-Presidents were supposed to conduct themselves. Jhimmi raised the bar on being anti-American abroad.
One theory that has been floating around in my head is that people (particularly Americans) work themselves into a self-righteous tizzy when the world is not how they see it – like when their party or general political philosophy is out of favor. All manner of fuckery is excused by the idea that one is being “victimized”. The bad behavior of some of my fellows these last 8 years is pretty unprecedented. However, we have this new crop of jerk-assed uber-cosseted iYouth coming of age during a time of uncertainty and discontent. These are the spoiled dickheads who were speaking Swahili, could name what wine went best with roast duck, and could whip up a nice baba ganoush before they were three. They are assholes and think the world completely revolves around them because that is what their parents drilled into them from birth. Now, I am curious to see if, as the national pendulum swings left and the out-of-favor young conservatives (and their parents) act as shitty as the progg yunguns due to their newly “oppressed” status (this is assuming McCain loses and the swing to the left continues). I suspect we are going to see the weirdos who wrote all of those odd books about the dozens of murders, illegitimate black babies, and lesbian love affairs of the Clintons come crawling back out of the gutter to write some very amusing/horrifying “literature” about the Obamas. The good thing is that conservatives just consider it bad form to be a jerk when someone is sick or dying. But they don’t have a problem with accusing you of killing off half of your acquaintances (after impregnating them with black babies).
/end snark
A generation more arrogant and insufferable than my Baby Boomers!?
How dare you even suggest such a thing!?
LOL @ Comment by McGehee on 7/13 @ 6:24 pm #
Be careful with fire around the straw men. The burn real easy.
Safety first and all that.
Cranky I hope you don’t think what I posted was a serious argument. I was just musing about why people act the way they do and wondering if as the political winds shift the more conservative youth will act as deeply annoying as the progg youth (young people tend to cleave to the idea that if things arent going their way, they are being oppressed and therefore are excused from acting like reasonable human beings). Just random thoughts.
I don’t know if people are still addressing this, but I have to say something for my own peace of mind. Tony Snow as a talk show guy seemed incredibly human, no bluster, no hypocrisy. He was genuinely warm ,self effacing,liked rock ‘n roll, baseball normalcy. As a matter of fact he was everything this left wing offal isn’t; a real likable person.
Who are his critics? They are failures, miserable, twisted, envy ridden little eunuchs. Snow was a good looking guy which is probably why the fat grotesque hairy dykes on KOS revile him. They were the riot g-r-r-r-ls at the alternative prom with the other ugly step-sisters who couldn’t get the ugliest dog in Amerikkka to pee on them if they tied a pork chop around their neck.
And what of their brethren; the 60 year old movement heavies with their grey ponytails ,living off mom’s Social Security check, riding the bus, reading Stalinist newspapers, weeping as they listen to scratched CSNY albums. I would wish their younger cohorts an eternity being Stalin’s buttboy in Hell,but that would be a pleasure to their sick self hating pea brains.
The one fact to rejoice in is when the votes are counted,times come and go ,folks like Tony Snow will live rich lives of love, purpose and family. Meanwhile the rejected sub-turds on the left will continue to be the unmourned, forgotten blot on humanity they’ve always been.
I suspect we are going to see the weirdos who wrote all of those odd books about the dozens of murders, illegitimate black babies, and lesbian love affairs of the Clintons come crawling back out of the gutter to write some very amusing/horrifying “literature†about the Obamas.
Oh, it will be worse than that. America was not on-line for most of the Clinton presidency. Chimpy McHitler had the misfortune to be the first President of the new internet era. I believe that the phenomenon of BDS is directly related to the internet. People who had no store of knowledge about politics, no historical perspective, no critical thinking skills, were getting wild speculation, lies, and conspiracy theories mainlined to their computers every morning, and they went batshit crazy.
it might be a little better for Obama than it was for Bush, because the blogosphere has matured in some ways (except for DKos obviously), but it will still be worse than it was for Clinton.
of course people will crawl out from under whatever slime they live in to attack Obama, and McCain.
They are already out.
It is important for us to stay on top of them and tell them to zip it.
On a side note, I think it is telling that SEK came over to lecture Jeff and us instead of going over to Kos and using his skills and intellect to demand civility.
We are the bad people who need lecturing… the losers who posted horrid stuff about Snow? Nope.
Brave guy… hahahahahahaha… can’t face his own…. hahahahahahahaha
Agreed Aldo. A perfect example of what you said is the utter dimwittery that gets chainmailed around and is taken as the absolute truth. When you try to point out that Tommy Hilfiger is not a racist and never appeared on the Oprah show to call people niggers, people actually get angry because “their cousin La Quita sent me that email and she is NOT a liar!!”. Same goes for political emails. All manner of crankery gets passed around on the net by people who should know better to people who don’t know any better and don’t really do a lot of surfing the net but DO read their emails.
You are right, this is going to be interesting.
#538: I have been banned as a “concern troll” from Kos, Taylor Marsh, Cannonfire, and Americablog, probably some more but I can’t remember. Happily, there are lots more progressive blogs where you can mix it up and have a good time arguing. But the “popular” progressive blogs? Not so much.
SEK may have suffered the same fate.
I missed the whole Kerfuffle, since I was camping. But, my husband heard about Tony Snow on the radio and told me, and I was saddened. He was a Detroiter – yet the stupid local radio hosts were taking smack and disrespecting him simply because of his relationship to Bush. Thankfully, the callers REALLY took them to task for being flaming assholes.
And, FTR, the STUPID local paper buried the story around page 6 and simply ran with the AP piece. Way to GO! STAY CLASSY FREEP!
Lisa, you must have an amazingly limber yoga mind to straddle both sides of the ideological divide the way you do.
Aldo, it could be she just loves playing devils advocate…
I don’t know. I was reading some statistic today: Close to 100% of blog readers exclusively stay on one side or the other. Very few people read both Right-wing and Left-wing blogs.
Yeah, I can believe that. I don’t go anywhere near lefty blogs myself.
They trigger my gag reflex.
Aldo:
That is why the blogosphere is so nutty. If you read only blogs that share your point of view, all of the cranktastic ideas you could ever dream up just get bounced around in the echo chamber and never get challenged. That is the fertile ground in which conspiracy theories, bigotry, and the idea that it is okay to fart in the face of someones cooling corpse in the name of “speaking truth to power” flourish.
I get yelled at for not being a true believer for any side on the wankosphere all of the time. But I would rather walk away from the internets forever than stop listening to all sides. Maybe one day America will have this stupid ideological war everyone keeps mumbling ominously about, but until then I will continue to be the moonbat who paeks over the fence to chat amiably with her wingnut neighbors.
Cool.
When I was growing up there were two newspapers in town that were ideologically opposite in their editorial slant. My dad subscribed to the one he he didn’t agree with. He always said that he already knew what he thought, so he wanted to find out what the other side was thinking.
The problem I have is that most Lefty blogs are all about building the movement rather than discussing ideas. Plus they have cooties. (Kidding)
Anyway, I’m off to dinner. Have a good night.
I want to have an epiphany too.
I want an Oompa-loompa now!
What do we want?
OOMPA-LOOMPAS!!!
When do we want them?
NOW!!!
That’s really how Veruca ruined the protest movement for me.
Very few people read both Right-wing and Left-wing blogs.
True, but most people who read righty blogs also read the New York Times. Most beople who read lefty blogs boycott Faux News.
Oh. Well now that I’ve thought about it I think it’s more that I’m more afraid of not having epiphanies anymore than really necessarily wanting one now or anything. I just can’t remember really when I last had one of any real consequence. I guess the last one was when I stopped watching tv, and that was forever ago.
Lisa
One of the problems I have with the more rabidly left blogs is that I cannot even begin to engage them in conversation. I was banned from dKos within TWO comments (I said that Israel was a legal nation and had a right to defend itself). I’ve posted at atrios’ pandagon feministe carpetbagger and others and have unfailingly tried to remain reasonable and polite, but almost always end up getting bounced. I still lurk on this sites from time to time but don’t really post there because my comments, if allowed at all, go into the moderation cue and rarely get out and I just get a big old heap of snark… like St. Amanda dismissing me with “men own your vagina.”
From JeffG here to Patterico to Eric at Classical Values to Beth of MVRWC (and the rest of the Tiara Media) to any number of non-left sites (from mildly libertarian to conservative) a liberal will get a fair shake and a non-profane leftist will survive banning as long as they aren’t being flaming trolls.
The reason for the popularity of talk radio and Fox is not one of an “echo” chamber, but almost the ONLY opposition to the left monolith populated by CNN NBC CBS NPR NYTimes, LATimes, SFGate, et al.
And even with that few arenas of balance, Pelosi, Reid and O! will bring back the “Fairness Doctrine” within two weeks of O!’s swearing in.
Count on it.
Yeah, that’s my experience too, and I stopped bothering quite a while ago. I usually only go over to the leftosphere now to watch train wrecks like this one, and even that has lost its novelty. Its all so very predictable.
Lisa, where can I go find a good honest argument in the proggosphere in which I can engage without getting deleted/banned/moderated into irrelevance?
You can go I guess, Pablo.
oh. That got all tagged up wrong. It’s crossposted here, which has more comments already.
oh crikey, hf, Scott’s sniveling little whinefest made me mad
but I posted a very polite albeit pointed reply
grrrrr
I saw. He’s definitely digging in. But still, I think there’s probably a way to reframe this to where it’s not as polarizing. Kind of beyond my skill set though.
hf
how can it be reframed when Scott doesn’t even believe the outrage we feel at the bullies is sincere? He dismisses us as having “feigned outrage”
Well see I don’t get that either. Ok for real let’s just posit that the hatefulness was not the inert kind.
I see happy’s linked to my post, which is fine, given that I hid it on the Internets and all, but I’m not reading the rest of this thread. Kitchen, heat, &c., whatever. Kitchens have cooks, cooks have purpose, but I’m not going to loiter somewhere people jack the oven up for no reason.
That said, Pablo, my place(s) — Acephalous, The Valve, and Edge of the American West — lean awful hard to the left, and you won’t be banned from any of them. Dissent at will.
It all makes me uncomfortable though cause I’m a very hateful person when it comes to some of these liberals and especially the media ones. And the John Warners and Arlen Specters and Chuck Hagel’s of the world? Hate em. Baracky? Hate him to pieces, I really do.
For real Scott I hope you rethink the part where you’re done with us. I never don’t read you when you want to weigh in around here. I really think part of the deal was that the hatefulness quoted in the original post really colored the way people approached this topic. That’s really insightful I think. Yay me.
Takes too much energy for me to hate people like that. I mean, if Snuffagopoulos bit it I don’t think I could really find that gratifying, even though I detested him sometimes when he spoke for Clinton. I think that people like that are really mentally ill, and I wish them healing and peace and wisdom.
I don’t want to get caught up in any kind of mirror version of Olbermann’s Worst Person schtick, where someone who disagrees with me politically causes me more outrage than murderers, or rapists, or libellers, or frauds. That way lies madness.
I know but when Daniel Schorr kicks I’m doing the Snoopy dance and you better not judge me.
SEK: “Out of respect for the recently deceased. That’s kind of my point. What, do you think I’d say “I now have no qualms with anything someone who subscribes to a different ideology said and did because they’re deadâ€Â? Of course not. I’m simply refusing to invoke the recently deceased in order to make larger points which could be made later.”
IOW, you’ll join the shrieking monkeys flinging poo at some later, more socially acceptable date?
SEK: “As a matter of course, actually, kindness is the best policy. ”
As evidenced by the heart-felt empathy of the Kos-Kids, no doubt…
SEK: “So you remove them from the premises as quietly as possible. If you have any regard from the family, you don’t proceed to shout them down at length and call the authorities three hours later. This isn’t that difficult: your vision of propriety is a debate about deceased in the middle of the funeral, whereas mine’s removing unruly elements now  effected here by nothing more complicated than ignoring them  and taking them behind the woodshed later. ”
IOW, please don’t point out the turd in the punchbowl, it would be rude… and please give SEK’s allies time to stuff all the bile down the memory hole.
SEK, solemnity and propriety are a bit like virginity — once it’s broken, it’s gone and no amount of false smiles and pretend is going to unring the bell. Wringing your metaphorical hands and decry someone for pointing out that the Kossacks are crude toe-rags is a wee bit like Captain Renauld in Casablanca… shocked, shocked to find *gambling* in this establishment.
I think SEK is just disappointed that he dropped by for some satisfying finger wagging and got thoroughly bitch slapped instead. Of course, as he pointed out, maybe all the commenters here have changed their attitudes, it being an election year and all. The bitch slapping couldn’t have anything to do with him of course.
[…] least when the Kos kidz, Think Progress, and LA Times commenters do it, they don’t invoke your name. (Though there is […]
Figures he ran back and made a post out of his silly funeral analogy. He seemed quite impressed by that, he did.
No use reading it, though. I think at this point he’s just stuffing it with more words, hoping to convince himself that he’s made some sort of profound argument. Long, overstuffed analogies have that affect on folks.
Jeff G.: “No use reading it, though. I think at this point he’s just stuffing it with more words, hoping to convince himself that he’s made some sort of profound argument. Long, overstuffed analogies have that affect on folks.”
The sad part is that it is the wrong analogy.
All that happened is that someone pointed out that the emperor has no clothes…
Karl, so what. I read the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times from cover to cover every day. Do you want someone to give you a gold star for reading the newspaper everyday? You are supposed to read the newspaper everyday, fool.
(I call you fool with affection…exasperated affection though)
Er, Lisa
Karl was making the point (please don’t let your exasperation get in the way) that conservatives/libertarians move in a left-dominated media. We cannot help but get the other POV, it is shoved at us at every turn.
But if you live anywhere near a large city or on either coast you’ll easily find liberal or leftists who are shocked to hear any challenge to their accepted wisdom. Shocked, I tell you.
BTW, only the editorial portion of the WSJ is “conservative.” I’m glad you want to hear all POV, unfortunately too many other “liberal” people don’t hold that sentiment. They don’t think non-leftism is legitimate, so why bother with it?
You are supposed to read the newspaper everyday, fool.
They are supposed to publish editions worth reading.
…are you actually accusing me of not respecting the dead by linking to a post in which I praise a living, breathing McCain?
Actually, no.
SEK breaks his thread-ban in order to restate it:
Same Internets that hid Jeff’s
horrific exposesymmetrical engagement of comparably hidden Internets material…that should be asymmetrically Google-proofed? Which makes it asymmetrically hotter in this particular kitchen. But you can’t be bothered to read requests for consistency.Close? Oh. You were being tongue in cheek. But above mere loitering. Or something.
SEK, thanks for bothering to respond to my argument. I’m glad my attempt at a genial exchange went completely unnoticed and glossed-over in your attempt to paint this thread as nothing but a vicious attack on poow wittew yew.
Lisa, if you had a blog I would read it and post there. We could bitch about the governor and the new hotel next to Camden Yards.
And if you do have a blog, well…
[…] None of which stopped Obama from blogging at Daily Kos, telling the Kossacks that he does not see America embracing progressivism, even as he reminds them he voted against Chief Justice John Roberts, who was confirmed in a 78-22 vote.  Combined with the video appearance at the convention while out of the country, Obama still seems to feel some sense that he must at least schmooze a community known for vile hatred. […]