The mind, it boggles:
There is a reason why those who seek to demonstrate the alleged extremism and hate-mongering in the anti-Bush blogosphere need to go digging for anonymous commenters. And the converse is also true: those who document the extremism and sociopathic mentality in the right-wing blogosphere do so by citing the twisted writings of leading right-wing pundits, not randomly chosen commenters with no connection to the content or theme of the blog. Perhaps there is a journalist somewhere who can figure out the meaning of that difference and write an article about it.
Christ. This guy is so full of himself it’s a wonder he hasn’t knocked himself up—or at least drowned himself in a flood of him.
The fact that Greenwald(s) right here is arguing that the right side of the blogosphere is positively lousy with prominent sociopaths, while the left’s extremism and sociopathology is so rare that it must be sniffed out like truffles by determined smear merchants—is itself an example of a leading left-wing pundit engaging in the very kind of cartoonish hate-mongering he pretends to detest. And if it isn’t “extremism” to accuse your political opponents of being sociopaths for, say, supporting NSA surveillance programs, or thinking it okay to house enemy combatants in military camps (rather than executing them summarily for being out of uniform)—then “extremism,” like “torture” or “racism” or “New York Times best-selling author,” has ceased to mean anything.
Still, give the guy some credit: his self-righteousness these days is so freakin’ pure you need to cut it with corn starch just to keep it from killing you during that first warm hit.
****
update: ALL YOUR HISTORY ARE BELONG TO US!
Wow.
“Perhaps there is a journalist somewhere who can figure out the meaning of that difference” between the two versions of history that unfolded over at the Huffington Post “and write an article about it”… On the other hand, if this massaging of history was performed by “anonymous” editors—and it took some “digging” on the part of PJM to point out how the original thread had been re-imagined—then perhaps we should ignore the massaging altogether and concentrate on the motives of PJM for even pointing this out.
My money is on “neo-con sympathizers and puppets of Israel who are trying to distract us from the REAL issue, namely, that rightwingers are extremist sociopaths.”
****
update 2: daleyrocks pulls this bit from Greenwald’s(’s) archives:
There are some people who treat our conflicts with the Bush administration and their followers as just a matter of basic, friendly political and policy differences—along the lines of “what should the rate of capital gains tax be?†or “what type of laws can best encourage employers to provide more benefits to their employees‗and therefore, we treat people who support the administration with respect and civility and simply have nice, clean discussions to sort out our differences among well-intentioned people.
That isn’t how I see that, and nobody should come to this blog expecting that. I don’t think I’ve done anything to lead anyone to expect otherwise. I see the Bush movement and its various component parts as a plague and a threat, as anything but well-intentioned. My goal, politically speaking, is to do what I can to undermine it and the institutions that have both supported and enabled it.
There you have it: an admission by Greenwald(s) that he is justified in using whatever bad faith arguments he must to “undermine” the Bush administration and to demonize those who support its policies.
Which makes Greenwald(s) an admitted demagogue—and explains, in large part, why his jeremiads are so transparently disingenuous. Those who cite him approvingly, it follows, are either complicit in his goal of undermining this administration, or else are his (willing?) dupes.
Either way, he’s a fraud, and his supporters either frauds or dullards.
That he spent his time today giving cover to those who essentially cheered on the Taliban marks him as someone whose hatred of Bush has, at long last, shown him to be among those whose love of country is provisional—granted on the condition that policies he likes are in place, and leaders he favors are in power.
****
More, from Ace and Webloggin
Does that mean I get to be a New York Times bestselling author too?
At least I can console myself with being an EXTREMEIST!
I can’t bring myself to click on a Salon ad after what they did to Henry Hyde. Is that extreme?
I think this is one of those “could OF been true” arguments I am going to need witheld to explain before I truly understand it.
LMAO! That’s fookin’ brilliant!
I am sooo gonna steal that, Jeff.
No need to steal it. I offer it up for the common weal.
I’ll have you plebs know that I AM THE TIME MAGAZINE MAN OF THE YEAR!
Whatever THAT means…
SB: figures86
it
Gleen Grenwald(s) or however his(their) name is spelled, is a pit of confusion and idiocy. The fact that I cannot remember how to spell or say his(their) name I think safely attests to this utter madness!
He is in fact, so completely, fully and rawly PROJECTING that it has stopped being humorous.
‘You saw it, that orphanage attacked me!’ (burning building in background)
There are no twisted, sociopathic bloggers on the Left? Amanda “Hot & Sticky” Marcotte? Yeah, straight as a chalkline. Markos ”Screw Them, I Feel Nothing” Moulitsos? No, that little catchphrase doesn’t sum up the DSM IV definition of sociopathy in five little words or anything like that.
Greenwald’s “twisted, sociopathic” targets on the Right are Reynolds and Steyn. I’m too lazy to look it up, but I wonder if their books are selling better than his.
Not sure about Reynolds’ book but my guess is that Steyn’s latest is outselling both.
Yeah, I remember when that reichwinger “Blackface” Hamsher went after “Rape Gurney” Lieberman. She tarnished us all…
Oh yeah, does this now mean GG will accept the distinction between Charles Johnson’s editorial vision for LGF on the one hand, and some of the over-rabid commentors on the other?
You are the most generous of blog hosts, sir.
Sarge6:
(imagines GG’s response…)
GG: Charles is a rabid right-wing hater, as can be seen by his comments section!
GG: (crickets chirp)
damn, you people are lazy. Steyn’s America Alone is at #59 McEllerson’s How would a Patriot Act? is at 12,614. Reynold’s Army of Davids is 24,560.
<blockquote>Perhaps there is a journalist somewhere who can figure out the meaning of that difference and write an article about it.</blockquote
This marks the fifth time in two days of not being on the internet much that I’ve seen creepily same-minded and -voiced lefties same-ly imploring the heavens for someone else to examine this suddenly more-important-than-dead-babies-in-Iraq distinction. Y’know, just throwin’ it out there all casual like. But all alike.
What happened?
(Whiskey tags.)
maggie
So what? As in who cares?
I think the really telling thing about this is that terrorists kill a bunch of people and the lefties respond by cheering them on.
I like that sentence.
Guilty as charged, maggie. But thanks for the back-up on my lazy assertion.
I read the salon article and even dove into the comments (briefly). The cheif argument from commenters is that all the top reich-wing sites don’t have open comments (huh?) while all the left-wing sites do.
No mention, of course, of those major lefty sites deleting comments that they disagree with, or that Michelle Malkin used to have open comments but had to stop when she was inundated with hateful, vile things.
One commenter even suggested that all the negative comments were actually planted by they very right-wing bloggers who then used them to discredit the left. Project much?
Those people are seriously deranged.
RiverCoctys: between the feedback loop of bad logic you put in my head and the cup of sour coffee I drank to get through the afternoon, my head hurts. I hate you. Because you’re a hate-mongering hater.
Maggie: I admitted it up front. Thanks for hating on me anyway. Hate-monger.
Terrye: Even though Maggie was hating on some of us, don’t hate on her. Two hates don’t make a right.
Geez. All this hate in blog comments. Maybe a journalist somewhere will write about it.
Are we gonna like start with the condemming thing again?
BECAUSE OF THE HATE!
From Markos’s lips to Glenns Greenwald’s ears:
—
Duncan Black famously declared that he’d ‘nuke Mecca’
The Jane Hamsher of the Left has examples ranging from Lieberman in blackface to Katie O’Beirne and has gone so far as to orchetrate group tactics against ideological foes (ginning up bad comments for O’Beirne’s book on Amazon)
Glenns Greenwald himselves started out the gate in a fairly fraudulent manner –
Glenn’s self-declared “I was apolitcal until Dubya” position is somewhat nullified by his very political actions as a 3rd year law student (search ‘google groups – ‘glenn greenwald’ earliest result),
Glenns rose-colored characterization of his employment at a Prestigious Law Firm isn’t reality-based.
His/their further mischaracterization of his role in setting up his own law firm, the one he wasn’t the senior partner of at the time of his biggest case, iirc, is also up for debate.
followed by his stint developing his own online Amen Chorus—Good Day, Sir!—in an effort to develop the untapped Angry Left segment that would rather read 7,000 word screeds written by one person than 700 10 word screeds written by Atrios’s comment section.
Which turns out to be large enough to give Glenns the sort of broadband connection a guy with all those roommates needs.
Marcotte, by virtue of her traffic, doesn’t count as ‘major’ by any substantive measure. “Though she be of minimal traffic, she be fierce” is something that Shakespeare’s sister might write – Shakespeare himself would not.
About the only sane Left of Center person out there is Jeralynn Meritt – but her apostasy on the issue of Libby is going to push her so far to the right that Kim du Toit will be recommending NRA instructors for her by the time the Libby trial is done.
–
It will be even better if said journalist is also a New York Times best-selling author who has had his words read on the floor of the Senate.
Good Day to you sir!
exactly, cranky-d.
the rest of you? I still hate.
though I may just be cranky because i’ve made a dental appointment for a certain someone, which means he should be home for a visit soon, but i’m thinking today’s goings on my delay his arrival.
That whole “had his words read on the floor of the Senate” thing? Not so impressive. Hell, in 1989 I myself spoke words on the Senate floor. Of course, I was in high school, it was the Close-up program, and the Senate was in recess, so we got a tour. But that gives me some credentials, doesn’t it?
Sarg6 asks:
RiverCocytus responds:
…but you don’t have to imagine it. The Salon piece not only links to one of his unqualified offerngs attacking LGF commenters, but also has been updated to include its own attack on LGF commenters. Because of the… y’know.
But wait… there’s more! GG’s second update:
GG apparently thinks—or knows—that his core readership is so spectacularly stupid that they will not notice that his main piece is nothing but argument by anecdote (and not good anecdotes, at that).
Apologies to Sarge6 for the typo, but it allows me to add that at some point, the set anecdotes can become so large as to be considered data.
Speaking of haters, those of you in New York can be in the presence of Amanda Marcotte this Saturday if you wish. She’s on a panel of some sort.
So GG(s) methodology is to torture data until they confess what he wants to hear.
Alrighty then.
BECAUSE OF MY CONSERVATISM!!!!
/Gleen off
fwiw, when Glenn was defending Matthew Hale he was the recipient of some exceedingly personal, vicious attacks – probably beyond anything that Malkin had dealt with.
From the press accounts, most of those attacks came from NeoNazis (Greenwald’s a Joooooooo to the Aryan Nations types, let’s not forget) and groups like the JDL.
You could posit an argument that Glenns is simply, if rather long-windedly, interpreting current political trends solely through the prism of his personal history.
Which might be a reducito ad accuratum of a sort.
–
IMHO, anyone who defends Hale has suspect judgement. The exception would be the poor bastard assigned as a public defender.
Fer crissake, we’re talking about a guy who’s Unix username in college was “zyklonb”.
Karl:
He started in a hole. All he had was a shovel. So he dug.
More to the point, he actually gets the basic issue of the argument by anecdote completely wrong. The fallacy lies in using a single example as the basis for a broad-brush argument.
He observes that LGF “post[s] individual stories every day of Muslims who engage in violent acts” and that MM ”repeatedly posts individual stories of supposed leftists engaging in illegal or violent acts.” Right there’s he’s self-negated the very fallacy he thinks he’s established.
Using plural examples is called “marshalling evidence to build a case.” You know, more examples tend to make something more probable than not, etc. But in fairness, he was a “constitutional litigator” and that kind of ham-and-egg practitioner stuff would have been beneath him.
Addendum – comments crossing in the ether – we’re on the same page here Karl.
A virtual rerun by Greenwald today. He’s almost a one man “Village People,” wearing his intertube policeman hat again today to keep that right wing rabble in its place. Yesterday it was the fireman’s hat to put out the flames created by that deceitful, lying, corrupt, zionist traitor to the Democratic party, Joe Lieberman, with his editorial in the Wall St. Journal.
The problem is that the left’s hands are not as clean as Glenn makes them seem. Even Glenn’s hands, clutch pearls here and bite pillow, are not clean. I am fond of the following bit from his blog from last December:
There are some people who treat our conflicts with the Bush administration and their followers as just a matter of basic, friendly political and policy differences – along the lines of “what should the rate of capital gains tax be?” or “what type of laws can best encourage employers to provide more benefits to their employees” – and therefore, we treat people who support the administration with respect and civility and simply have nice, clean discussions to sort out our differences among well-intentioned people.
That isn’t how I see that, and nobody should come to this blog expecting that. I don’t think I’ve done anything to lead anyone to expect otherwise. I see the Bush movement and its various component parts as a plague and a threat, as anything but well-intentioned. My goal, politically speaking, is to do what I can to undermine it and the institutions that have both supported and enabled it.
Tom Friedman is an integral part of that process, and a far more damaging part than, say, Rush Limbaugh – because everyone knows what Limbaugh is, while Freidman pretends to be something much less damaging (which is why I find, say, Glenn Reynolds so much more contempt-worthy than, say, Michelle Malkin).
Not everyone is entitled to respect and civility. For all of those reasons, I don’t believe Tom Friedman is entitled to any respect on any level—I have no respect for his unimpressive intellect and even less respect – much less so – for his moral compass, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. If that means that you’re going to read my blog less and that Mark is going to take my recommendations with a “grain of salt” from now on, I guess those are just the consequences I will have to suffer.
Glenn Greenwald | 12.02.06 – 4:22 pm | #
Glenn doesn’t specify what type of plague, but he’s pretty damn clear about blessing an absence of respect and civility.
Shorter Glenn Greenwald – Attention journalists, don’t look at those comments at HuffPo. There’s nothing to see there.
update
HuffPo – How right you are Glenn, how right you are. . . .
Surely you must all be joking, I can’t believe that anyone that once used the ingredients of a piece of bazooka joe bubblegum to paste all conservatives or Bush supporters as “cultists†would indeed cherry pick evidence or comments to show that the left wasn’t actually celebrating the possible attempt upon the life of the VP? Surely he would never take comments from right-based sites, but totally ignore his own audience’s view on the whole thing. It’s not like we can’t read the comments themselves on HuffPo, MYDD, dKOS, Salon, pandagon, etc. Oh that’s right we can, amazing how busy we on the right are to simulate comments on leftist sites that most here could never be bothered to read, nor have the time or a personal army of cabana boys to read it for us. It must be nice though to perform in front of a crowd that automatically removes all ties to rationality for you in advance, having to write & be bound to logic & reality sure can be cumbersome. No wonder little “a†never seems to get tired of the same argument over & over again.
In statistics that’s known as a “time series.”
Does he think before he writes this stuff? Forget I asked.
And, at long last, leftards–have you no shame? In the open today many of you cheered on the Taliban. And, just like good members of the hive–I see none of you condemning those sentiments.
So, Glenn et all–let’s talk about hate a little more.
Perhaps you could counter Greenwald’s assertion directly by citing some leftwing pundits (as opposed to commenters and fringe actors) that rightwingers reliably use to impugn the motives and credibility of leftwingers. There’s Greenwald, I have noticed. What other lefty opiners with a fairly large and influential choir are out there to pick on? Just got me to wondering.
Leave Gleen alone and he will die on the vine. He is worthless as a commentator. Truth will out.
Boycott Gleen.
So has Teddy Kennedy, so that’s no indicator of personal distinction.
cynn,
Read upthread, for the references to Marcotte, Kos, and Hamsher, for starters. I would toss Larry Johnson’s name into the hat as well.
Actually, we tend to cite them to impugn their own motives. It is Greenwald who cites individual right wing bloggers to impugn the motives and credibility of the entirety of Wingnuttia.
But if you want left-wing hate-mongering and extremism from highly-trafficked leftwing sites, begin with Kos and Atrios and work your way down the list.
That’ll make a guy cranky.
I talked about nuking Mecca on 9/12.
I also had this grand idea about taking that asteroid fragment off the Ka’aba and setting it up as a public urinal in Central Park.
But I got over it in a couple of days.
Sure they are. Very few people can get away with constant vituperation on any topic, it takes talent, and if it is remorselessly targeted against individuals, it becomes boring. Major caveat about being amusingly insulting, as Jeff often is.
The fact that this Greenwald character thinks that being nasty is justified by the nature of the “threat” (brother) just means that he has absolutely no conception of how rhetoric works.
Look, if all you do is shit on the (usually) public figures who disagree with you, then you end up only talking to people who agree with you. What’s the fun in that?
Does anyone else find his language a little “eliminationist”?
Tom Friedman is an integral part of that process, and a far more damaging part than, say, Rush Limbaugh – because everyone knows what Limbaugh is, while Freidman pretends to be something much less damaging…
I have seen this sort of thing so many times I’m convinced it must be some weird part of human nature. It’s the same impulse which makes people hate the US for Guantanamo more than Saddam for his multifarious deeds.
Come to think of it, it may just be a shrinking from the idea that someone can disagree with you without being evil. So he must be double super secret evil!
Did you know that Glenn Greenwald is a New York Times bestselling author?
Did you hear me? New York Times bestselling author!!!!
It’s a wonder he even takes time to talk with you riff raff.
Good DAY Sir.
Atrios, the blackguards at MYDD, a host of bit players like TBogg, Haggerty…these folks have congregations that latch onto every utterance from the pulpit and proclaim it the New Testament bought down from Progressive Mountain and proceed to prove their abysmal ignorance in vulgar displays of utter jackassery. The blog owners lap it up. They expect it. They set the tone for it in their posts. They condone and promote it. They are responsible for every insane BDS projection that results because they not only knowingly provide the forum for it’s expression, they intentionally stage it.
Jeff – I thought you would like those paragraphs by Glenn. He temporarily dropped the mask a little. I’m surprised he hasn’t gone back to delete it.
Karl, I thought of them, too, but are they really widely considered exemplars of popular leftist thought? I’m not in lockstep. (I’ve never heard of Larry Johnson.) I guess the reason I am asking this is, the leftwingers regularly haul folks like Reynolds, Krauthammer, Coulter, Malkin, Steyn, et. al into the public square for a beatdown. And the response from the right does seem defensive, rather than a point-by-point rebuttal, using a comparable leftist kook as an exhibit. I guess Noam Chomsky has been flayed pretty thoroughly, but I only read his lit crit, not his politics.
So who else is fair and appropriate game? Sorry, didn’t say this in quite the right way.
“Sadly, No”
Markos Molitsas? Sorry, spicy food mixed with blinding racism gives me indigestion.
Jonathon Chait, The New Republic. Known for writing an article about how much he hated Bush.
Al “THEY PLAYED ON OUR FEARS!!!” Gore.
Hillary “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy” Clinton.
And Marcotte had enough approval from the Democrats to be hired as a spokesman for a serious presidential campaign. Either no one saw anything wrong with her comments, or they approved. Either way…
GG = CHICKENDOVE!
False dilemma. They could be both frauds and dullards. Go read the comments “Mona” makes anywhere the Sockmaster is criticized.
So, Rob, why don’t you (not you personally) exploit all the outre aspects of the left a bit more? And don’t pretend you’re “above it” because that’s not the case. Where are the lefty diatribes, spewn from the back of a Lexus, doing 50 in a 30? Who’s that Hair Club for Men guy? He must be a lib!
What I’m saying is, Greenwald has an oblique point. Selecting a few disgusting remarks, and elevating them to the esprit of the left, is as shameful as making those remarks.
Are you saying Reynolds, Krauthammer, and Steyn are rightist kooks?
Larry Johnson has been frequently quoted as a security expert by the NYTs (to which he also contributed an OpEd). He also has a blog called NoQuarter.
He is a hothead at best, but his most infamous posting was a musing that Karl Rove’s mother committed suicide when she realized the kind of son she had.
He has also been known to threaten commenters by stating he has CIA friends who have killed. See Seixon.com for more.
Wow. Paging Pat Dollard! Potential roomie on the line!
Cynn –
Have you considered the possibility that there is no need for examples of left-wing punditry to showcase the dominant thoughts of the so-called “progressives”?
How about a list of organizations that the left have started and used to attack anyone who does not agree with their agenda:
International ANSWER (and all it’s lapdogs)
MoveOn.org (ditto)
George Soros (financier to hatred)
Media Matters (also known as “how can we misrepresent Limbaugh today”)
And those are just the recent ones that were either created or re-imagined for the sole purpose of fomenting the hatred of one man – President George Walker Bush.
Not “could be”, Rob–ARE. Just how sad is it that these dolts spend their days pining for forty years ago when speaking incoherence to power, you know, man…ROCKED! And the latest HuffPo attempt at rewriting history? Par for the course…the leftards do that about everything ALL the time.
Cold War? Watch how they tie themselves in painful knots to avoid the obivious lesson…Reagan was right.
Osama? Well, they tried to be legal about it and then indict Bush for not catching him.
Nicaragua? Quagmire. El Salvador? Quagmire. First Gulf War? Quagmire. Afghanistan? Quagmire. Iraq? Quagmire.
And then, my all time favorite–the Nuclear Freeze. See my point about the Gipper above.
Never have so many been so wrong so consistently and so incapable of learning from it.
First, it wasn’t a few remarks. Second, I don’t know that I’d want to go on record as saying that those pointing out what was said, where it was said, and what kind of site it was said on are “as shameful” as those who seemed genuinely disappointed the VP wasn’t killed, and that the Taliban weren’t more proficient in their terror.
Of course, my “aw shucks” attitude is just a cover for my disingenuousness, so take this comment as you see fit.
I left out economics. Just to be compassionate.
What the hell are you talking about?
Except it’s not “a few”, and it’s not particularly new. It’s gotten more public and a bit more virulent in the last few years, but the same “style” of argument was going on 15+ years ago.
“I left out economics. Just to be compassionate.”
Impossible, wishbone. They have a monopoly on that quality as well. Just ask them.
Oh, and, cynn, if the rabid tone is all that unusual, what’s up with all the “Bush is Hitler” crap at marches? Hell, I live in a conservative part of the country, and I see easily 20 times more anti-Republican, anti-conservative, and anti-Christian bumper stickers than ones that attack the left or Democrats.
A favorite example of their being dullards and frauds: the “we were a united country during the Cold War”. BS—while Reagan was standing up to the Russians, Kennedy was sending private envoys to the Soviets trying to coordinate messages to thwart Reagan. The left followed the Soviet talking points so closely you could see the Kremlin’s lips move. They could never see a Soviet violation of a treaty but made up treaty provisions they could claim the US violated.
But I digress…
Just walk through Urban Outfitters in any mall and look at the t-shirts.
The marketing of POINTED DISSENT!
Puppets. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
At Disney World in early December, I saw kids with a “Buck Fush” t-shirt and a Mao purse. I don’t recall seeing any items attacking Hillary or celebrating Pinochet.
Yeah, me ‘n Jeremiah usta get SO LOADED, man, we’d be freakin’halucinatin ‘n shit. He’d start all this “I HAVE SEEN IT!” shit, fuck with all the rube’s minds like, somethin’ FIERCE, man!
Good times…
SB: zipper35
head. HOO-RAH!
So he’s Glenn Plague-and-threatwald. Nice. Funny how his view of Bush is almost exactly what he is and does on the internet. Meaning, he’s everywhere and he yells at folk.
And the ‘anything but well intentioned’ part… I don’t want to go there, but that writes itself. Speaking of which, Ariana acts like she cares about what people think about her blog more than she cares about the people who frequent her blog. The Angry Left wouldn’t be what they are if they didn’t get angry over this tasty morsel. I’m sure her magical, soothing words of sycophancy will calm them down. Maybe a shout-out to a blogger on Kos about how unfair it is that the Right-Wing Smear Machine Did It Againâ„¢!
But what do I know? I was just a student82 when this here internets thing started up.
It’s pretty rad actually.
It’s “$mear machine”, Tony.
Symbols is important, y’know. Especially when they’re substituting for logic.
SB: street67
made my bones
Rob Crawford: We are the new black interewt64
Check out my “Liberal Hunting Permit” bumper sticker.
Oh, boy. I sure am edgy and politically incorrect, aren’t I?
Get the hint, Rob? Some of us are beyond fed up.
Is it me or it simply become too common place for anyone to respond to the actual deaths caused by some a-hole wearing a bomb w/o reducing it to a 3 second screed to further a political agenda? To the left, it’s a call to rise & verification for their assumptions regarding all that is taking place in the Middle East. They have, most especially that coward GlennG, reduced the deaths of innocence to a mere talking point & used it to sharpen their political spears. They have only grasped upon an incomplete headline as a means to further bleed public support, not only from the current Administration or to point towards the callousness & cowardice of our enemies, but from our allies for decades under the flag of NATO. The same allies they screamed that we needed to validate the War in Iraq, I might add. It is the disingenuousness of the left to use one side’s outrage against a possible attack upon the duly elected Vice President of the US, to further mock or supplant their opponents & it only shadows, once again, their feigned support of all things military from the US.
How valid is Glenn proclamations that they support the troops in Afghanistan now?
Notice that Glenn’s ire isn’t focused on the attack itself or the methods employed, but the response from the War’s supporters is his only goal & the only crime he sees – the defense of the troops over there, regardless of the circumstances or location. Notice that they are not capable to apply any of the same standards to themselves when their level of hate, lack of respect for the dead or hypocrisy is exposed regarding their reactions, writings or publicly posted comments & reactions.
It is the basic lack of compression for anyone but themselves or ideas that is on display & they are too enraged in their pettiness & hatred to see it. If it wasn’t so sad, it would almost be comical. I am often completely flabbergasted when the other side cannot let go of their mission long enough to mourn the fallen or condemn those who intentional kill the innocent.
There are those from the right, just as bad, but the left never realizes that those from the right aren’t our leaders or spokesmen… while their’s always are.
I eant lack of compassion, not compression
Once more, what the hell are you talking about?
If you’re talking about the stunning frequency of the expression of lefty hatred for their “enemies”, then you’re contradicting your earlier argument:
So if the left is “beyond fed up”, and expressing it crudely, isn’t it fair—and not at all shameful—to point out that it’s the “esprit of the left”? Or is this one of those “truthy” things like “smearing” someone by quoting them?
When I’m at Disney, I won’t wear t-shirts that are innocent, but potentially insulting or profane. “He’s not cute, dammit, he’s evil” from Goats (before it went BDS), “Kittens = Poptarts” from the same, or my Ale and Whores shirt from PvP. Yet someone feels comfortable enough in their hate to wear a “Buck Fush” shirt there, and no one bats an eye.
Maybe it’s my age. Maybe it’s part of the temperament that led me to be a conservative, but I think that level of hatred towards someone who merely disagrees with you is destructive. Of yourself.
On the one hand it is sort of comforting to know that every last bad thing in the world will somehow end up being pinned on those of my political persuasion. On the other…
Sorry, got nothing.
cynn,
Larry Johnson, friend and defender of Valerie Plame, is also known for his July 2001 NYT op-ed claiming Islamic terrorism is a declining threat. The sphere documents many instances of LJ frothing at the blog.
Next, I would note that (except for IP), the people identified by GG are not products of the blogosphere. They were columnists and such before blogs took off, which makes GG’s choice of targets pretty weak. But if we’re going to go that route, how ‘bout we add the unlovely cartoonist-columnist Ted Rall? How ‘bout Michael Moore and his terrorist Minutemen? How ‘bout Keith Olbermann, given a fat NBC contract after saying “the leading terrorist group in this country right now is the Republican Party.” Here’s Olby’s co-worker Chris Matthews, joking about waterboarding Cheney. “The View” hostess Rosie O’Donnell, dismissing the terrorist threat and comparing the US to apartheid-era South Africa. How ‘bout CNN’s Jack Cafferty claiming that Sen. Arlen Specter “might be all that’s standing between us and a full-blown dictatorship in this country,” which still wasn’t wacky enough for FDL?
All of the above probably have audiences as large as any of those eeeeeeevil right-wing bloggers.
Paraphrasing cynn: “Despite the overwhelming concensus and spirit of the Left fiercely opposed to everything BUSHITO AND THE RETARDICANS!!!1!, the concensus and spirit of the Left should not be taken as indicative of the Left’s concensus and spirit.”
Good luck with that, chief. Let me know how that works out.
Cynn- I think the question on everyone’s minds at this point is what is the structure and composition of the left? Are the netroots the bleeding edge of grassroots progressive movements (and wasn’t that part of the reason Howard Dean got the nod as DNC chair)? Is the DLC the voice of the democratic majority- and is that the DLC of yes-to-war Hillary or the DLC of I-really-didn’t-mean-yes-to-war Hillary?
Give us a map and a flashlight and, well, we are the types who can find an asshole.
While there are many parts of the conservative movement I don’t like, it seems conservatives are generally comfortable with the fact that they have to deal with those elements, and seek to engage them in good faith discussion and deal making- and treat them as part of the whole when it comes to being attacked. Progressives for some reason seem to shrink from that level of…compatriotism, at least when it might look bad. Marcotte slams catholics and non-po-mo-feminists? Well, it’s obviously satire and an attack because she’s a woman…but really the important thing is to get her off the big stage before too many people notice.
a haiku-
Damn you Maker’s Mark!
I was guarenteed a prize!
I must dive deeper…
One of the problems with Conservative Republicans, and indeed, Republicans of most stripes, is that we don’t get that for the Left, anger as assertion is authenticity. It has replaced reasoned argument.
Glenn Greenwald is angry, therefore he is authentic. Indeed, he is defensive in his approach to the Kill Cheney For Mullah Omar crowd, because they are just as angry as he.
A whole host of barking mad “reality based” webhosts have bought into this Minute of Hate: Pam Spaulding, the above metioned Edwards blogger from Pandagon, Glenn, TBogg, the Kos Diarists, the entire fucking crew over at DemocraticUnderground.com, Larry Johnson, and of course, most of whomever posts over at Arianna’s pleasure dome. George Bush is Emmanuel Goldstein for these people; when he is gone, they will have to invent new reasons to hate him, even in retirement.
Hating Giuliani just won’t cut it. They will live to regret Bush’s retirement. They hate him so much they will not know how to fill out their days once he is gone.
An indication as to how far this madness has seeped into the conciousness of the Democrats is the nightly rant of Keith Olbermann, the left’s answer to Howard Beale. Only Keith has none of Peter Cushing’s authenticity. His latest rant against Condi Rice, built on a straw man argument that Rice compared Saddam to Hitler, was so unhinged and so filled with bile and personal animus, that only the angry leftards could find merit in it.
And boy, did they ever. Olbermann apes their methods and receives accolades in return.
The danger becomes that the methods of Glenn Greenwald and the Kos Krowd seeps ever more into acceptability in the mainstream media. Olbermann’s rant was McCarthyesque, and could never have happened without editorial oversight and approval. The fact that Olbermoonbat’s editors believe that this kind of wretched excess is fine for evening cable should tell you how far gone is the liberal media.
Anybody else notice how since Ace, Patterico, and Jeff outed Greenwald’s legion of sockpuppets, none of them has shown up in threads like this one to stick up for their fearless leader?
Funny, that.
I don’t believe that’s a new development. Anger (and violence) as a measure of “authenticity” was the reason for feting the Black Panthers and for the admiration of third-world revolutionary movements. Capitalism does a better job of raising the living standards of the masses, but doesn’t have enough anger in it; apparently the ideas of creative competition and mutually beneficial cooperation isn’t as compelling as forced vengeance.
Get the hint, Rob? Some of us are beyond fed up.
Let me get this straight. Vengeful attacks from the right are indicative that the entire right ACTUALLY is evil and unhinged. Abusive attacks from the left are simply a result of being fed-up.
Got it.
Yeah, Robert, there is truth to that. There is a lot of the seeds of the modern moonbattery to be found in Tom Wolfe’s extraordinary Mau Mau-ing the Flak Catchers, his take on the famous party for the Black Panthers at Leonard Bernstein’s apartment. But in the end, Bernstein comes across as a reasonable, talented, sympathetic man, which he was.
For example, Olbermann is simply a partisan hack; the blame would normally fall on NBC News for lack of editorial oversight. The real story is that they actually agree with Olbermann. It’s that far gone-so it’s taken decades to develop.
Perhaps it all started at Leonard Bernstein’s party? Arianna would have fit in comfortably there.
Nah, it’s older than that. The left admired Stalin until he was denounced, and admired Hitler until he attacked the Soviets. It’s an anti-liberal impulse in the classic sense of the word “liberal”, and I’d trace it back through the contrast between Rosseau’s “noble savage” and Hobbes’ “nasty, brutish, and short”.
Rob:
There isn’t enough Romance in capitalism. Remember the MyDD guy who dreamed of being part of the revolutionary clique or circle that would bring down the old elite? It’s the same adolescent yearning for power, the Star Wars daydream, as it were. The left has a hate on the right, a hate that is reminescent of the hate a teenager has for other kids in the school – say the hate a Goth kid has for the jocks.
I say lefties like Greenwald are in a state of arrested adolescence – all emotion all the time, extreme feelings, day dreams of power in order to exact revenge, and the use of all of the immature psychological defences (see Dr. sanity).
I had a hard time taking Rousseau seriously after that discussion, although I’ve been told that I missed out on a lot. I did make it all the way through The Discourses, but I pretty much had that bit about him being completely wrong about primitive man banging about in my head the entire time.
F__K FOX!
Rumple-Pervert And
The FAUX NEWS WHORES! He rode in on!
Fascist Pigs!
One and all.
The system is terribly broken!
It has been co-opted by Fascists!
Billionaires are US!
They’re running ruff shod on the American People!
Ruining this Country!
Stealing everything!
Unlimited wealth brings unlimited problems!
For the Citizenry.
First of all,
The Wealth belongs to the Citizens. Not THE FASCISTS!That’s everyone!
Technology is a tool,
Used by them, against us,
To rule!
It is released periodically.
Under the control of system handlers.
The trump card (weapons) kept secret,
For an emergency:
Insurrection.
Without followers,
There is no system.
Without workers,
There is no King.
The system has to brought into the future!
With us.
Redefined in modern terms.
Taking into account current technology trends.
And use them for the benefit of all.
Since the beginning of modern history.
War has been a plague on humanity.
End it.
Socialism Now!
We are only doing as good as:
The least amongst us is!
This is our Judge.
A living wage!
Full employment!
Health Care!
A clean environment!
Renewable resources.
End outsourcing!
Eliminate privatization! (and CRapitalism)Nationalize American energy resources!
This is just a start.
Build on this!
With your own recommendations!
Personal wealth has to be eliminated for the common good.
Greed is a negative human trait that will be purged from the system,
For the renewal to begin.
We must look at the bigger picture!
Which includes humanity as a whole. FUCK PRIVATE PROPERTY!
We are all related
We come from a common ancestor.
We all are children of the creator.
Springing forth from universe.
The Mother Earth nourishes us.
Brother and Sisters alike.
Taking no preference!
All treated equally!
This is the pattern.
Let’s use it!
With a common goal!
To live in Peace and Harmony
Working for the betterment of all!
ELECT HILLARY
And END RACISM!!!!
As Jeff has pointed out here on numerous occasions, the left is motivated by the will to power and the guided totalitarian impulse. They have only one principle: the ends justify the means. They will lie, steal, cheat to reach their objectives. And they are not above using violence. This is true from the hard left to the soft left in varying degrees.
Everything I’ve seen, heard and experienced from the Left and especially the craven Democrats has lead me to vow never to vote Dem again, ever. Which basically means I’m disenfranchised since I live in Massachusetts.
umm…am I the only one who sees that? Because..whoa.
SGIC…I do and am a little perplexed. Satire? Parody? Moonbattery? If it’s the first two, the author has captured the beast quite well. If it’s the third, wow. What a sad little soul. Someone needs a hug really bad!
Wait- I’m confused. Are “the citizens” everyone, or “the facists”? And are facists citizens? Because that’s going to make the payouts much more confusing.
We’re going to need a time-out on the field with this one.
Parody. Check the email addy:
That’s too bad, ‘cause that was some delicious crazy.
Hi Jeff, good to have you around more often.
In Greenwald’s UPDATE II to this post, he writes:
He then goes on to offer LGF and Michelle as anecdotes to prove his argument – thus employing in his argument the very tactic that he condemns.
Douglas R. Hofstadter would be proud.
But aside from how ridiculous this makes Greenwald look, his underlying thesis is also incorrect. The examples of radical Islam that LGF provides are not so much an “argument from anecdote”, but specifics that provide a basis for generalization. There is nothing insidious or evil about generalizing from the specific – to the contrary, the ability to do so is a crucial component to the survival and advancement of the human race: if you are wary of rottweilers, it is because you have generalized from the specific.
Greenwald’s argument / anecdote point might be valid in pure logic or as part of the scientific method, but it does not apply to real life, and he cannot even express it without contradicting himself.
From the anecdotal evidence of his post, I would argue that Greenwald is an idiot.
ultraloser, indeed Q.E.D.