In a sole-searing exhibit of disdain, an Iraqi heel slung two shoes at President Bush during a news conference. To his credit, Bush displayed considerable polish in dodging the flying size 10s, utilizing the reflexes he’s developed in sidestepping criticism and blame for the previous eight years.
The shoe-thrower, an Iraqi journalist, is believed to be an Oxford graduate. Secret Service agents were momentarily caught loafing as he pumped both shoes at the outgoing president, but managed to cobble together their wits and sock him to the ground.
PAD
UPDATED 12/15: Here’s something to ponder. If other United States politicos hold press conferences in Iraq, are all Iraqi journalists going to be required by the Secret Service to remove their shoes and check them in a box outside the room. I mean, one nimrod years ago failed in an attempt to sneak explosives onto an airplane via his shoes and since then we all have to go in stocking feet through the metal detectors. So if shoes ARE being used as a means of expressing disdain, is that going to be accounted for in future Iraqi press gatherings?
• 
FTR, Rob, you’re a sorry excuse for a human being. Just thought I’d add that.
This sort of comment makes it impossible to take you seriously. You sir, are a heel.
If you say so. *shrug*
Not that I want to get into another drawn out argument with David The Guy Who Wants Us All To Know He Is A Big Shot Lawyer again, but I just want to say this. Certain propagandists, historically, have been tried as war criminals, depending on who exactly they aided with their propaganda. Joseph Goebbels being the most infamous, obviously. I view Bush’s press secretaries as propagandists who helped him sell an illegal war to the public, helped him sell “enhanced interrogation”, etc. So I call them war criminals. Whether or not that is their legal status anywhere I don’t know and don’t care; I will call them propagandists and war criminals because to me that is what they are.
That’s different from “it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” Rob, and you bloody well know it.
Actually, I didn’t. Or rather, I didn’t know it was REALLY different.
In the past when I’ve heard that statement made, it’s been in this context:
“Hey, Jack broke his leg.”
“Really? Well, Jack is an áššhølë. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”
So “couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy” to me translates to “this was a bad person whom I do not feel the least bit sorry for.”
And that’s different from actively wishing and hoping and praying day after day that something bad will happen to somebody. I don’t do that, and anybody who has said I do, or I am, is mistaken.
First, Rob’s oppinions are widespread among non-Americans. Like it or not, they’re not the oppinions of a lone extremist. Outside of the US, many people would love to see Bush and his circle hurting. He is incredibly unpopular (almost) everywhere. Rob is Canadian, if I’m not mistaken.
That I am, and that they are.
Personally, I don’t have any desire to see something bad happening to Bush or his circle, as individuals. I just want them out of power and out of politics, never to come back. But I doubt that will happen, these guys are persistent, some of them were in Nixon’s administration, for God’s sake.
Here was the great thing about Watergate getting exposed: people were held accountable. Nixon managed to escape prison, but his reputation was in tatters. Those under him were not as lucky. A clear message was sent: just because you are a member of the Executive Branch does not mean you can do whatever the hëll you want and get away scot-free.
That is the message that I would very much like to see sent to those in the Bush Administration, because it’s a lesson that they either never learned or it’s one they learned and then forgot about. That is why I wanted the Democratic Congress to try and impeach Bush, to investigate his abuses of power more vigorously, etc. Sadly, they have not and don’t intend to according to Nancy Pelosi.
So for me, even if Bush goes down in history as the worst President ever, he will still have gotten away with everything. That’s a travesty of justice as far as I’m concerned, so while I AM happy he won’t be in office much longer I think it sucks that he has not been held to account the way he should have been.
The world is not really divided to a few stupid extremists and a lot of sensible moderates. People in general sometimes are inclined to the extreme. That’s why extremists are not powerless fringes but an influential force sometimes.
To paraphrase a particular Calvin and Hobbes strip…
“The problem is that you see things in black and white.”
“Sometimes that’s the way THINGS ARE!”
In the case of whether or not Bush and everybody who is an accessory his various high crimes and misdemeanors should have something happen to them as punishment, it seems to be playing out something like this…
RIGHT-WINGERS: “He’s a good man and he was right about a lot of things, he protected us from terrorists and he shouldn’t be punished.”
LEFT-WINGERS: “He’s a monster. Not only was he wrong about a lot of things, but he knowingly committed crimes that hurt countless innocent people.”
MODERATES: “Oh, who cares? He’ll be out of office in a little over a month and then we can forget all about him because he’ll be a non-factor.”
Here’s the problem with that last statement. Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Perino and Rice and their ilk have already done irreparable damage. The most obvious way they did so was to start a war. But they did other things like expanding the powers of the Executive Branch beyond what they used to be (something that Cheney earlier this week said Barack Obama would probably be grateful for as President and would not undo), gave us the PATRIOT Act, gave us legal ways of torturing people, and so on.
For somebody to do all of that damage and at the end of his term walk away without even a slap on the wrist, and for all of his cronies to also walk away with unslapped wrists, is unacceptable. It sends a message to future Presidents that they can expand the powers of their office even MORE, and you can bet that some of them will try to do just that. We might eventually have few checks on the power of that branch, or no checks. That’s something which cannot happen. I see that as very black and white.
And that is why I do not feel sorry for these people if something bad happens to them. Whether that “something bad” takes the form of a thrown shoe, a black eye, or even an illness like cancer.
Snow knew dámņ well that people were being tortured in Gitmo. He could have blown the whistle. He could have refused to work for the Bush Administration. There are a lot of things he could have done. But what did he do instead? He took it on faith that all of the people in Gitmo–every single one, without exception–deserved to be imprisoned and tortured, and he did his very best to either cover up what was going on there or whitewash it or justify it. Part of his job was trying to convince the press and the public that “enhanced interrogation” was a necessary thing and a GOOD thing.
If you take that into account and still think I’m a rotten guy because I don’t feel sorry for him when he gets cancer, you’re entitled to your opinion.
Rob, I don’t Tony Snow and people like him took it on faith that everyone in Guantanamo was innocent. Rather, they believe it’s acceptable for some innocents to be hurt if that stops further terrorist attacks and secure American supremacy.
Rather, they believe it’s acceptable for some innocents to be hurt if that stops further terrorist attacks and secure American supremacy.
Well, that’s even worse.
You guys are naive if you believe Obama’s appearance of moderation. It’s obvious that once he is in power he will:
– open the gates for his pals in Al-Qaeda to blow up all of America’s national monuments.
– lead the poor in violent revolt against the rich.
– lead the blacks in violent revolt against the whites.
– make Christianity illegal.
– make gay marriage legal (and mandatory!)
– take away all our guns, OMG!
In case anyone needs to hear it, the senate just went on record saying that Rumsfeld ordered torture, withdrew the order, but didn’t issue a contradictory order to not torture– which validated torture under his authority. Not something he wants reviewed in a trial.
“Well, that’s even worse.”
Perhaps.
But I just don’t believe any government out there is going to prioritize human rights over what they see as the survival and success of their nation. Not America, not China, not Russia, not Europe, nor anyone.
They never say it with those words, but it’s obviously what they’re all thinking. America isn’t worse than most nations in this regard, it’s actually better than many. It’s simply more powerful and more in the spotlight.
Rene, at the rate things are going (Atrios at the left wing favorite eschatonblog.com just named him “Wáņkër of the Day”) it looks like Obama may end up taking as many hits from the left as from the right. So how long before he is accused of being “George Bush with a tan”?
And while I think that the old chestnut “If I’m being attacked by the left as well as the right I must be doing something good.” is one of the dumber statements that politicians make, it does my heart good to see the particular kinds of people who are beginning to get upset at his choices. Suckers.
re: sheltering Lieberman: his approval/disapproval ratings are clocking in as the worst recorded for a senator at about 1:2.
Maybe the reason Obama is taking hits from the left is because it’s impossible to completely pacify the majority.
Not that I want to get into another drawn out argument with David The Guy Who Wants Us All To Know He Is A Big Shot Lawyer again,
Yyyyyeah. Not helping your case as a reasonable person with that opening, Rob.
I do understand your point about propagandists. I think it’s somewhat misplaced in this case, but I do understand it. (And different press secretaries handled things in very different ways — I would call, for instance, Ari Fleischer much more of a propagandist than Snow.)
That’s different from “it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” Rob, and you bloody well know it.
Actually, I didn’t. Or rather, I didn’t know it was REALLY different.
Then my work here is done — you’ve now learned something.
So “couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy” to me translates to “this was a bad person whom I do not feel the least bit sorry for.”
And that’s different from actively wishing and hoping and praying day after day that something bad will happen to somebody. I don’t do that, and anybody who has said I do, or I am, is mistaken.
That is better, thanks.
I still don’t entirely agree. I won’t mourn Bush and Cheney’s eventual physical deaths (and will actively cheer their political demise), but Snow gets some sympathy for me just because of the way it all went down. Perhaps his death is just too close to my mother’s.
Here was the great thing about Watergate getting exposed: people were held accountable.
[snip]
This part I agree with you about wholeheartedly. The Bush administration needs to face some significant consequences beyond just political setbacks, and I hope that they wind up doing so.
TWL
As far as Lieberman goes, I can understand your feelings (though were he a republican who had supported Obama I think maybe you might be more inclined to admire his desire to do what he felt was right despite the potential political cost)
I’d appreciate the potential outcome, but I wouldn’t admire it in general. I think if you’re going to break with your party to that level, you should actually break with it and not then say “but I’ve still got these perks and you can’t take them from me, meow ha ha.”
For example, in 2004 Lincoln Chafee said outright that he wasn’t going to vote for Bush, and I did admire him for that. He did not, however, go out and campaign for Kerry or anything like that.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying that Lieberman needed to be thrown out of the caucus. It’s letting him keep his high-profile chairmanship that I thought was gutless.
And as for Obama having Rick Warren speak at the inauguration — that’s the first choice he’s made that I actively DO NOT like at all. Warren’s better than someone like Falwell, sure, but he’s still pretty intolerant in my book, and I’d just as soon not give him the veneer of respectability.
Plus, I think too many of those calling for his hide came off as barking mad and the democrats know they aren’t going anywhere else so why give them more than lip service?
That much is true, unfortunately.
(I know this may not sound like it but I mean this as a sincere compliment–I think Obama has read The Godfather as many times as I have. keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
I think that’s very true, and a healthy political trait. He’s big on what’s in effect political judo.
it does my heart good to see the particular kinds of people who are beginning to get upset at his choices. Suckers.
I hope you don’t mean that quite so gleefully, as I’m one of those “particular kinds of people.”
I applaud any politician who is willing to endorse someone from the other side. This country has way too much of a sports mentality for politics, as if everyone needs to pick a side and be loyal to that side no matter what. Elected officials should be willing to do what everyone should do, evaluate both candidates and make a reasoned choice.
However, Lieberman did more than just endorse McCain. He had promised to support Obama when Obama campaigned for him in 2006, a promise he broke. Lieberman specifically promised *not* to campaign against the Democratic party, so even though I appreciate going for the other side in general, he was committed to not doing it this time.
Lieberman also said things about Obama that were unreasonable and supported Palin in ways that weren’t intelligent. I hold that against him just like I’d hold it against a Republican who did the same things.
Well said, Jason — much better than what I was trying to say. There’s a difference between endorsing “the other side” and actively working to undermine the side you allegedly support most of the time.
I’m going to be charitable to Obama: the presence of a guy like Rick Warren in the inauguration may be very important for a President that was seen by many as a communist muslim abortionist out of touch with “real America”.
Otherwise, I can’t say I’m happy about it, as Warren is yet another of those nutjobs trying to link homosexuality with pedophilia.
And as for Obama having Rick Warren speak at the inauguration — that’s the first choice he’s made that I actively DO NOT like at all. Warren’s better than someone like Falwell, sure, but he’s still pretty intolerant in my book, and I’d just as soon not give him the veneer of respectability.
I don’t know much about Warren, except that Obama seems to like him. Wouldn’t be the first time Obama has shown a fondness for wacko preachers.
Although most of the criticism I’ve seen is over his stance on gay marriages. Well, Obama is against gay marriage! So take it up with him. Yeah, Warren supported Prop 8 but frankly, being against gay marriage and also against prop 8 is more or less a distinction without much of a difference to me.
Tim, no, I didn’t mean to paint the brush that broadly. And it isn’t like I expect to approve of everything or maybe even most things Obama does. It’s just that I voted for him on the idea that he was more moderate that people thought and many of my liberal friends voted for him on the basis of him being more liberal than he was letting on and so far I get to do the Neener neener Dance.
jason–wasn’t aware that Lieberman made that promise–yeah, that’s churlish.
We’re going to have a woman president before we have a gay president, but we’re not there yet. Obama told this guy to his face the morality of abortion was above his pay-grade, and he still wants to publicly vouch for Obama. Denying that this represents progress seems to misrepresent what’s going on.
Answering in more detail to Rob’s post –
I think the main difference between Nixon and Bush is 9/11. The communists never attacked on US soil. As the leader of a beleagueared nation, Bush could get away with a lot. Even now, Bush’s opponents must be ever wary of looking like they’re supporting the enemy.
A dangerous bit of data for Democrats: even though Bush and the Iraq War are both very unpopular, polls say Americans STILL trust Republicans more than Democrats to deal with terrorism.
Rob, do you think that trying to impeach Bush for being too hard on terrorists (it’s how many would see it) is a good idea when your candidate is a black guy with an Arab-sounding name? Can you blame the Democrats for playing safe?
Worst case scenario: can you imagine if they tried to impeach Bush and then there was a new attack on US soil? Bush would be forever a hero, the Democrats would be traitors, and we’d have Republicans as Presidents for the next 25 years at least.
I think course-correction is more important than punishment. A Democrat is a President, and I hope he’ll heal wounds. So far, Obama seems to be something Bush never was: a true “uniter”.
Bill Mulligan: “…being against gay marriage and also against prop 8 is more or less a distinction without much of a difference to me.”
That’s the same reasoning that anti-abortionists use to slag Catholic politicians who support government policies out-of-line with Catholic teachings. They cry, “How can you be against abortion if you don’t want to outlaw it?” The answer is simple: it’s possible to believe strongly in something and yet recognize that you don’t have the right to force your belief on others.
Is Obama a staunch defender of gay rights? He doesn’t appear to be. On the other hand, he isn’t pushing an anti-gay agenda like the deceptively named “Defense of Marriage Act.” It’s sometimes hard to accept that small increments of progress are better than none at all, but it’s true.
I agree with Bill Mayers. There are degrees of tolerance and opposition. As I’ve said before, I believe abortion to be morally wrong, but I don’t think I have the right to make this decision for others.
But what bothers me about Warren isn’t his opposition to gay marriage. It’s him saying that gay marriage opens the door for the acceptance of pedophilia, once again trying to link gays with pedo in people’s minds.
One third of pedophiles pray on kids of the same gender. So gays are supposed to be prone to pedophilia. It’s like saying all white males are serial killers waiting to happen, just because a disproportionately high number of serial killers are white males.
Makes me sad and pìššëd øff. I’m as viscerally disgusted by pedophilia as any other healthy person.
But if a politician is against gay marriage he or she is forcing their belief on others. Gay marriage won’t be allowed until the laws are changed. The laws won’t be changed unless politicians change them.
I’m glad Obama was against Proposition 8, though his opposition was not terribly strong (and the pro 8 forces even used a voice recording of him opposing gay marriage as an effective campaign tool.). But he does not seem likely to be a very strong fighter for expanding their rights. On the other hand you are correct that he is unlikely to stab them in the back as Clinton did with the DOMA and may reverse Clinton’s Don’t Ask Don’t tell policy. So there’s that.
Rene: “You guys are naive if you believe Obama’s appearance of moderation.”
Oh, agreed. He is the reincarnation of Josef Stalin! The idea that the government should be letting middle income taxpayers keep more of their money is tyranny! Tyranny, I say! Oh, but for the heyday of the Bush administration, who nobly and fairly took money out of our pockets to give to the rich who deserve it!
(I realize that some people may be tempted to “point out” that the rich pay a greater percentage of their income in taxes than the rest of us. I’m afraid it’s untrue.
(For example, FICA taxes stop at $102,000 of annual income. In other words, if you make $250,000 in 2008, $148,000 of your income isn’t subject to the FICA tax. There are other taxes, like the gasoline tax, that also take a greater bite out of the incomes of lower-to-middle income people because, frankly, there’s only so much driving one can do in a year.
(As for the steeper tax rates supposedly paid by people who are in the tippy-top tax brackets, you don’t actually believe anyone is PAYING at those rates, do you? There are so many different kinds of tax-sheltered investment vehicles out there it makes my head spin. Anyone in the top bracket who is truly paying that much in taxes has got to be ignorant, stupid, or both. Or principled, I suppose, but I tend to doubt it.)
Bill Mulligan: “But if a politician is against gay marriage he or she is forcing their belief on others.”
Has Obama stated that he would oppose state legislation that recognizes gay marriage? That’s not a rhetorical question. I haven’t heard him say anything like that but I’m wondering if there’s something I’ve missed.
If the answer is “no,” then I stand by my position. I’d rather see someone stand up for it, but declining to stand in its way is better than what we’ve had.
I should have been more precise regarding the wealthy and taxes. Anyone whose income puts them in the top 1% is ignorant or stupid if they’re paying the full income tax rate.
Families earning in the low six figures (which isn’t chicken feed but it’s not bathing-in-gold-coins rich either) can actually find themselves getting it up the tuchiss due to something called the Alternative Minimum Tax. Basically, the AMT slams you with higher taxes and makes you ineligible for tax credits that lower-income people (like me) are eligible for. I’ve no sympathy for the uber-rich but I don’t think people should get soaked for earning over $100K.
(My figures re: the AMT may be off. I’d have to look them up to be sure but I seem to recall that you have to crawl up into the six figure range to be in danger of getting hit w/the AMT.)
I don’t know if he has said he would oppose state initiatives. I know he supports some kind of civil unions–separate but equal, one might say.
Look, I don’t want to come down on him too harshly. It’s not like McCain would have been better. And as I said, he’s got to be better on the issue than Clinton. Just hoping for better (and reading up on the Warren controversy, this is a foolish thing for people to be harping on. It could well be that Obama is seeking some legit cover here–show that he has no hostility toward evangelicals and then gently undue some of the more egregious offenses. Don’t Ask Don’t tell should be easy. DOMA, I doubt the house and Senate have the balls to undo that mistake, maybe the courts will. But anyway, showing respect to someone like Warren seems like a typically smart Obama move and I hope this protesting doesn’t make it harder for him to maybe get some real work done. Because, after all, who gives the invocation doesn’t really have an effect on anyone’s life, which can’t be said about some of these laws.)
To my knowledge, Obama has gone out of his way to say that he wants to leave the decision up to states. However, the bully pulpit of the President is a powerful thing, so just having an opinion on it is important.
Really, any position that any politician has on any subject is going to be forcing his opinions on others. Unless an issue has 100% agreement, somebody isn’t getting everything he wants. So all I can really say is that I strongly disagree with Obama on the gay marriage issue, but I’m glad he isn’t pushing it as much as some politicians are.
I wrote, “This sort of comment makes it impossible to take you seriously. You sir, are a heel.”
Rob Brown wrote, If you say so. *shrug*
What, no appreciation for working in the shoe references? None? Sheesh. Tough room.
Mr Brown: Not that I want to get into another drawn out argument with David The Guy Who Wants Us All To Know He Is A Big Shot Lawyer again,
I don’t think I’ve ever claimed big-shot-itude. In fact I’ve pretty explicitly stated that I’m a relatively low level state government functionary. I have suggested that the threads that focus on legal doctrines (e.g. free speech, equal protection) might benefit if the people discussing them had some understanding of what those doctrines actually are. I’m only a big-shot compared to the participants who have no ammunition at all.
but I just want to say this. Certain propagandists, historically, have been tried as war criminals, depending on who exactly they aided with their propaganda. Joseph Goebbels being the most infamous, obviously. I view Bush’s press secretaries as propagandists who helped him sell an illegal war to the public, helped him sell “enhanced interrogation”, etc. So I call them war criminals. Whether or not that is their legal status anywhere I don’t know and don’t care; I will call them propagandists and war criminals because to me that is what they are.
“‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'” –Lewis Carroll
You know, maybe you’d get in fewer drawn-out arguments with “big shot lawyers” if you wouldn’t 1) proclaim ignorance of legal terms, and then 2) promptly use them anyway because they are meaningful to you.
By the way, who had Rob in the “first violation of Godwin’s Law” pool?
Look, set aside the minor detail that the person you are comparing to Goebbels became press secretary four years after the war (I suppose she could have spread propaganda selling the illegal war to the public through the time machine they keep in the East Room), any comparison of the Bush Administration to Nazi Germany is completely insane. The Nazis suspended civil government, instituted a dictatorship, conquered several countries in an attempt to establish a new empire, suspended all civil liberties, rounded up untold numbers of civilians and put them into camps where millions died, murdered 6 million people in an attempt to extirpate an entire cultural minority, and started several wars leading to another ~ 50 million deaths. The Bush Administration by contrast promoted legislation (now since amended) that expanded wiretap and search powers, put several hundred prisoners into a camp where it has been alleged they were abused (with 0 fatalities at US hands, and 4 suicides), started a war of dubious legality to occupy a country from which it’s voluntarily withdrawing, all of the preceding with legislative approval, and held several regularly scheduled elections, including the last two in which its opposition peacefully won and assumed power. Yeah, they’re exactly the same. There are many legitimate criticisms of the Administration–torture of prisoners being the worst– but it’s insane to insist that there are meaningful comparisons between the current US government and a genocidal fascist regime. So to say that it’s fair to brand a press secretary for Bush as a war criminal because the propagandist for Hitler was considered a war criminal is just ludicrous. “Depending on who exactly they aided with their propaganda,” indeed.
And really, why do you care so much whether Bush is impeached or investigated? You referred to Bush’s “ilk” as the people who “gave us the PATRIOT Act, gave us legal ways of torturing people, and so on.” No, there is no “us” involving you here. I don’t recall “us” annexing Canada in the last few years, so it’s not as though Bush has set separation of powers in your country back 60 years. Why do you care whether the FBI has to go before a FISA judge before installing a wiretap? It’s no skin off your nose if we never get single payer health insurance. I’m not just trying to be snide here– I acknowledge that Bush is deeply unpopular in most of the world’s countries, that a great deal of his unpopularity rubbed off on America in general, and that opinions of the US soared when Obama won last month. I seriously don’t understand why. We’re the same country today that we were six weeks ago. My opinion of France didn’t change significantly when Sarkozy replaced Chirac, or when Chirac replaced Mitterand. I’m an anglophile so I have a preference over whether Brown’s Labour should beat Cameron’s Conservatives in the next UK general election, but I’m not going to cry in my Theakston’s Old Peculier if the election comes out “wrong.” The US is more powerful and influential than all the countries I mentioned combined, so I can well understand people taking an interest in what happens because US policy does affect the world; but the level of passion– not to say blind hatred– over Guantanamo, over the invasion of Iraq, over the PATRIOT Act that doesn’t even apply outside our borders, over the 2000 election even before any of this kicked in, none of it makes sense to me. Where was this level of outrage when Saddam Hussein was “disappearing” hundreds of thousands of his own citizens? Why is Bush the hobgoblin of the moment, and not Omar al-Bashir? (He’s the Sudanese leader whom the ICC has accused of crimes against humanity in Darfur. If you didn’t know that until you read this parenthetical you’re kind of making my point.) I think the domestic criticism of Bush has gone off the rails a bit, but the international reaction has me completely flummoxed. The international community resents Bush in a way that seems completely disproportionate to the actual effect he has on their lives. The identity of our chief executive has a staggering effect on international perception of the other 300 million of us. I don’t get it. I just don’t.
Oh and by the way, regarding your comment, So “couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy” to me translates to “this was a bad person whom I do not feel the least bit sorry for.”? Bull. Your original statement was, She’ll be fine, and as far as I’m concerned she’s as much a war criminal as the rest of them. If she can’t end up in prison, I’ll accept a minor inconvenience like a black eye as a substitute. Too bad Bush wasn’t the recipient. FTR, I also didn’t think it was unfortunate when her predecessor, Tony Snow, died. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” I said to myself. Which part of that exactly wasn’t your rejoicing in the suffering of another person? “I want something bad to happen to her but I’ll take a minor injury as a substitute, and that reminds me of the time her predecessor died of cancer” goes a tad beyond mere lack of sympathy for them.
David the State Government Peon: “By the way, who had Rob in the “first violation of Godwin’s Law” pool?”
Actually, “Godwin’s Law” isn’t a prohibition any more than “Murphy’s Law.” According to Godwin’s Law, “As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.” It’s since been expanded to cover any discussions on the Internet.
To “violate” Godwin’s Law, you’d need to produce a discussion thread of infinite length where no one mentions Nazis or Hitler. Good luck with that. I suspect it will take forever.
There’s an old USENET corollary to Godwin’s Law that whoever invokes Nazis first, particularly if it’s hyperbole, loses the argument automatically. I endorse that interpretation. So, implicitly, did Godwin:
“And, invariably, the comparisons trivialized the horror of the Holocaust and the social pathology of the Nazis. It was a trivialization I found both illogical (Michael Dukakis as a Nazi? Please!) and offensive (the millions of concentration-camp victims did not die to give some net.blowhard a handy trope). So, I set out to conduct an experiment – to build a counter-meme designed to make discussion participants see how they are acting as vectors to a particularly silly and offensive meme…and perhaps to curtail the glib Nazi comparisons.”
You’re such a fascist, David.
Now fascism is fair game…
“Now fascism is fair game…”
Really? There oughtta be a law.
Rob Brown wrote:
“FTR, I also didn’t think it was unfortunate when her predecessor, Tony Snow, died. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” I said to myself.”
You are one sad and pathetic excuse for a human being. What happened in your life that made you into such a bitter and hateful jerk?
David –
As a bona fide Bush hater, I’m the first to admit that there is a lot of exaggeration and hyperbole when it comes to George W. Bush.
But the way things are globalized now, sometimes it seems like the President of the US is the President of the world.
First, there is the direct impact Bush had on the Middle East. Second, the economic crisis in the US has resulted in people everywhere losing jobs and changing plans (though some dispute the idea that the Republicans are to blame for the crisis, I think that is the case).
Third, American culture has tremendous impact everywhere. If America approves gay marriage, many countries will follow. If America becomes more conservative, there is also direct impact, since much of US foreign aid is tied to how much the local government is in synch with America’s attitudes. A few years back, the US threatened to stop financial aid to certain Brazilian programs because we didn’t agree with abstinency-only sex education.
Comparisions to France or England are void. You guy are the center of the world. What happens in France has no effect on you, but what happens in the US possibly has a lot of effect in France.
Rene, what you say may be true enough but speaking as just one American I have to ask–why should this be my problem?
If the rest of the world chooses to let 12% of the population dominate it, why should that 12% be blamed? It’s the choice of the other 88%.
Nobody is, to my knowledge, forcing McDonalds “food” down anyone’s throat. The people who buy them must like the flavor, price, or both. Not my problem, and I would never be so arrogant as to suggest that they be denied the choice. I can only puzzle over a culture so deficient and/or insecure that when its people choose some other cultures product the reaction is too blame the other culture.
(Note-Rene, I’m not venting at you. I’m not saying this is how you are.)
The fact that people in other lands like our movies, food, TV, music, etc in no way obligates us to give a rat’s ášš about how they think we should live our lives. I’m sure PAD gets the occasional sad loser who thinks that because he buys PAD’s work Pad somehow “owes” him something. Ain’t so. The people of the world are every bit as capable as citizens of the USA to produce culture worth having. If they aren’t it isn’t because we’re stopping them.
The attitude seems to be something like “We don’t matter! So you’d better listen to us!” Say what?
Again, I’m not trying to act arrogant here–if anything, it bums me out that we are all so reliant on American products. Seems like a lot of potential out there is realized. Since my favorite foods are foreign and a huge chunk of my favorite movies, TV, comics etc come from non-Americans i say it’s time the rest of the world picked up the slack! Why any of you allow a situation where the political winds in the USA have such a profound effect on you is beyond me. The problem is NOT that when a conservative gets in office your country gets less foreign aid form the USA the problem is that you need foreign aid from the USA! Why aren’t the politicians there forced to come up with a solution to that problem? seems like they are getting a free pass they don’t deserve.
It’s part of a suite of behavior that includes refusing to wait for weapons inspections and arbitrarily invading an oil-rich Muslim country that was no imminent threat to US soil.
If people complain about your empire, you’re options are to like it or to stop being an empire.
Bill Mulligan wrote: “This makes me wonder…can a president legally run for any other high office once he’s done? I’m thinking that he or she can, I seem to recall at least one who subsequently was a senator. I guess they could never become President pro tempore of the Senate or Speaker of the House of Representatives.”
John Quincy Adams was elected to the House of Representatives after his presidency, and Andrew Johnson was elected to the Senate. True, both of those instances pre-date the 22nd amendment, but that shouldn’t affect a former president’s ability to run for the house or senate after his or her presidency. Just– as you said– his or her eligibility for the top position in either chamber.
(also for the record, Taft became a Supreme Court chief justice after his presidency).
I wonder if Bill Clinton would be barred from serving as secretary of state on the off chance that something should happen to both the president or the vice president, or if he’d have to resign in such an event? I would imagine the former, just to avoid a number of headaches. If he had to resign, would the line of succession pass to his successor as secretary or to the next office in line? If they don’t let Clinton (or any ex president) have the job, it makes things a lot less complicated.
One thing that’s changed about the presidency since the 19th and early 20th century is an ex-president who’s eligible to run again doesn’t. Cleveland lost re-election to Benjamin Harrison in 1888, but came back four years later and won against him. Theodore Roosevelt tried again in 1912, having felt dissatisfied with Taft’s performance in the previous four years. But none since then. I did a story on that issue back in 1996. Talked to some presidential scholars and political scientists. I’ll have to dig the article out and refresh my memory as to the whys and the wherefores (beyond the apparent attitude in modern political life that if you lose re-election you’re damaged goods).
Though it is interesting to note that the coming back after a loss option is still possible on the state level. Clinton lost re-election to the governor’s office, came back next time around and won. I have to wonder. If he’d lost to Dole in 1996, could he have come back and won in 2000? Could Obama come back in 2016 if he loses in 2012?
Rick
No, there is no “us” involving you here. I don’t recall “us” annexing Canada in the last few years, so it’s not as though Bush has set separation of powers in your country back 60 years.
As I’ve said so often before I’m tired of repeating it, I have dual citizenship in Canada and the U.S. But even if I didn’t, I am sick and tired of people saying “Why do you care what America does? What business is it of yours when YOU’RE NOT AMERICAN?!” It’s everybody’s business what America does, David. Fûçk you.
The only other thing I have to say is that if you can’t understand why Dana Perino is an unethical person (regardless of when she took the job working for George W. Bush), then talking to you is a waste of time and I shouldn’t waste any more of it.
Actually, “Godwin’s Law” isn’t a prohibition any more than “Murphy’s Law.” According to Godwin’s Law, “As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.” It’s since been expanded to cover any discussions on the Internet.
And I didn’t even make that comparison. I said that Joseph Goebbels is an example of a propagandist who was viewed as a war criminal. Did I say Perino and Snow were exactly like Goebbels, that what they did was exactly as bad as the Nazis? Did I compare the Bush Administration to the Nazi Regime? No to both questions because, as Jon Stewart said, comparing people to Hitler lightly is stupid (because Hitler worked dámņ hard to be that evil, etc.). I said that Goebbels was the most infamous propagandist who’s considered a war criminal (I said he’d been tried of war crimes too, but that’s an error; he killed himself before they could capture him), thus establishing that propagandists are not always exempt from being held responsible for the crimes of the people they work for. That was my point. If I knew of a non-Nazi example of this I would have mentioned that name just to avoid getting accused of “he’s comparing Bush to Hitler” hyperbole.
Those press secretaries of George W. Bush who helped him carry out all of the acts that should have gotten him impeached are not Nazis. But they are still pretty bad, and just because they are not Nazi level bad does not mean they are innocent angels.
The problem is NOT that when a conservative gets in office your country gets less foreign aid form the USA the problem is that you need foreign aid from the USA! Why aren’t the politicians there forced to come up with a solution to that problem? seems like they are getting a free pass they don’t deserve.
Am I complaining about foreign aid? Am I complaining about how U.S. foreign policy has a direct effect on me? No.
I care about things that aren’t my problem. Imagine that! I care about people half a world away starving or losing their homes or being killed in a war, and I’m not just talking about Iraq here. Now why’s that a bad thing? Why is it that some people seem to believe that you have to have a personal stake in something before you have the right to speak out about it?
Perhaps his death is just too close to my mother’s.
I’m sorry about your mother, Tim, and in light of that information I can understand why what I said would touch a nerve, and I apologize for that.
“(Note-Rene, I’m not venting at you. I’m not saying this is how you are.)”
That is okay.
That is a very complicated issue, that also must be different from country to country. Scholars have made whole careers of studying the whys and hows other countries are dependent on America.
I’ll speak only for Brazil, and only for the cultural arena, I think the greatness of American culture is that it contemplates the middle class in a way my own Brazilian culture still doesn’t.
And I use “middle class” not only in the economical sense. We have Brazilian cultural products for the cultural elite (highbrow literature, classic music, gourmet food), and we have Brazilian cultural products for the masses (soap operas, popular samba music, traditional food), but we don’t have much of what you’d call “middlebrow” stuff. So we import it from America.
I suppose there are many reasons why that is so. Poverty, social inequality, stuff that makes the abyss between rich and poor so vast, and a middle-class that is still comparatively new and not as large and developed and culturally powerful as in the US.
I said that Goebbels was the most infamous propagandist who’s considered a war criminal (I said he’d been tried of war crimes too, but that’s an error; he killed himself before they could capture him), thus establishing that propagandists are not always exempt from being held responsible for the crimes of the people they work for.
I think Goebbels was liable for far more than his speeches. He was the guy who pretty much invented the Kristallnacht and he became one of the foremost proponents of the Holocaust. It’s for his deeds not his words that he deserved to swing.
Am I complaining about foreign aid? Am I complaining about how U.S. foreign policy has a direct effect on me? No.
I was responding to Rene.
We have Brazilian cultural products for the cultural elite (highbrow literature, classic music, gourmet food), and we have Brazilian cultural products for the masses (soap operas, popular samba music, traditional food), but we don’t have much of what you’d call “middlebrow” stuff. So we import it from America.
that’s a really interesting point. thanks for the insight.
(out of curiosity, what are the pop culture imports from the USA that have the most popularity in brazil?)
(And don’t underestimate Brazil’s own contributions. Just in horror films, José Mojica Marins has a cult following here that few foreign directors can boast. Not entirely my cup of tea but he definitely has a genius that’s unique.)
Mojica, Coffin Joe, yes. I think he is the only genre director I can think of that is Brazilian and that has been active for many years. We have a new wave of movies that are smart and pop and very good, but they’re all very new, and none of them is sci-fi/fantasy/horror.
American pop culture imports that are popular in Brazil? All of them! I think every comic book, TV show, movie, pop singer, fast food, RPG, that is popular in the US, chances are it’s popular in Brazil. There is only a couple of instances of American pop culture that don’t translate well from country to country.
Sports is one of them. We have our own sports celebrities, and we don’t have much interest or understanding of American football and baseball and hockey. We know a bit more of American basketball, but what is hot here is local football (“soccer”), and formula 1 car driving.
Pro-wrestling also remains one of the few American cultural artifacts that finds no purchase here.
Pro-wrestling also remains one of the few American cultural artifacts that finds no purchase here.
Huh. Wonder why–the WWE makes a bundle in other parts of south america.
Bill Mullgan, while there are bad reasons for the attitude (negative or positive) non-Americans have toward America — jealousy, a cover for their own countries’ impotence, the busybody interest in the affairs of others(for people living in exceptionaly boring countries) — it would still be naive to pretend that the US does not have very real direct and indirect weight and influence beyond its borders military, diplomatically, economically, and as a result of that, culturally and ecologically.
I am a big fan of American movies and TV and a very small fan — to the point of prejudice — of our local product, most of the time. But let’s not deny that the success and influence of American movies and TV compared to local productions is (also) the result of sheer economic might — production, distribution, advertising.
————-
I think I’ll stay out of the Rob discussion. I don’t have the patience.
I failed to recall your (Rob Brown’s) mentions in other threads that you have dual citizenship; I was just going by the Canadian reference earlier in this thread. Clearly, I disagree with you in some respects. As I said, I can understand why people would take an interest in US affairs. We do have a dramatic influence on world events. I don’t disagree with Rene to that extent. However, not to put too fine a point on it, if you’re not a US citizen, you don’t get to vote on what we do. People all over the world are entitled to their opinions, but there’s an unjustifiable resentment of the US when we fail to live up to the expectations of people who really have no business telling us what to do. I recognize that some people have difficulty drawing a distinction, but the Republican Party is not, in fact, the Ba’ath Party, we don’t oppress our citizens, and neither the UN nor Amnesty International really need to intervene in our domestic affairs.
And I didn’t even make that comparison. I said that Joseph Goebbels is an example of a propagandist who was viewed as a war criminal. Did I say Perino and Snow were exactly like Goebbels, that what they did was exactly as bad as the Nazis? Did I compare the Bush Administration to the Nazi Regime? No to both questions because, as Jon Stewart said, comparing people to Hitler lightly is stupid (because Hitler worked dámņ hard to be that evil, etc.). I said that Goebbels was the most infamous propagandist who’s considered a war criminal (I said he’d been tried of war crimes too, but that’s an error; he killed himself before they could capture him), thus establishing that propagandists are not always exempt from being held responsible for the crimes of the people they work for. That was my point. If I knew of a non-Nazi example of this I would have mentioned that name just to avoid getting accused of “he’s comparing Bush to Hitler” hyperbole.
Well, you suggested a categorization, provided a Nazi as precedent for that categorization, and now admit that Nazis are the only precedent you can think of even a day later. The category you’re suggesting of “propagandists who are war criminals” so far consists entirely of Republicans and Nazis. So yeah, I guess it’s good you didn’t compare the two. I am glad to see you downgraded Ms Perino from “war criminal” to “unethical person” though.
And frankly, I really don’t think you actually said that the way you claim you did. Other readers are of course free to scroll up and draw their own conclusions.
I care about things that aren’t my problem. Imagine that! I care about people half a world away starving or losing their homes or being killed in a war, and I’m not just talking about Iraq here. Now why’s that a bad thing? Why is it that some people seem to believe that you have to have a personal stake in something before you have the right to speak out about it?
And I never commented on your right to speak out about anything. (Neither has Bill, to whom you were replying in that particular snippet.) I questioned the level of interest, primarily. I expect people to care. I care about other countries. The thing that perplexes me is that people don’t just care about US (and particularly Bush) policies, they go batshit crazy, far out of proportion to what’s actually going on. And it’s not just targeted at the US either– Israel gets far, far more grief than their actual infractions justify. Still, Bush seems to be the focus of all the world’s indignation. I don’t know why the US invasion of Iraq is a war crime for some reason, when the far more egregious Sov-, excuse me, Russian invasion of Georgia is a delicate international issue. The Iraq war may have been a giant cluster, but at least we did topple a despotism. (Tony Blair thinks history will forgive that. We’ll see.) There are genuinely repressive regimes in the world, and for some reason they seem to get a free pass while everyone’s rhetoric focuses on the Administration’s sins. It’s not a new phenomenon. Campus protests in the 70s focused on Nixon, not Pol Pot. The Weathermen fomented revolution because of the US operations in Viet Nam, rather than the Soviet invasions of Prague or Budapest. The international left for years criticized Western democracies in general, and in particular the United States, for our repressive habits while making excuses for the worker’s paradise. We weren’t the ones with the KGB then, and the FBI hasn’t turned into its equivalent now. Abu Ghraib is notable because it’s an aberration for the US; “enhanced interrogation” is shocking because that’s not how Americans are supposed to do things. And you’ll notice that the US electorate just elected a candidate who planned to roll back both of those problems. We are not the bad guys. We never have been. We screw up sometimes (q.v. “Trail of Tears,” “Jum Crow”) but we atone for our mistakes. The American republic has been the greatest force for good the world has had over the last century and a half. Look at the whole balance sheet, not just the red lines.
If you want to address cruelty and suffering in the world, look into Darfur. Look into the Congo. Look at the People’s Republic of China. Look at Iran. Take a shot at ending female circumcision. For that matter, introduce a more robust freedom of speech in the European Union. Don’t stockpile your indignation for one of the freest countries the world has ever seen. (I’m not sure we’re not still in first place, but the gay marriage thing makes it at least debatable.) You have a right to speak out on whatever you want. (America, perhaps the world’s freest country, etc.) I’m just saying that fulminating over the Administration’s sins when far worse things are going on demonstrates curious priorities.
Fûçk you. The only other thing I have to say is that if you can’t understand why Dana Perino is an unethical person (regardless of when she took the job working for George W. Bush), then talking to you is a waste of time and I shouldn’t waste any more of it.
At last something we can agree on. Though I will miss your well-mannered, temperate contributions to civil discussion.
Rene: Pro-wrestling also remains one of the few American cultural artifacts that finds no purchase here.
Bill Mulligan: Huh. Wonder why–the WWE makes a bundle in other parts of south america.
Good taste?
Okay, you’re off my Christmas card list for that one, David. And you’re not getting any of my wife’s home made fruitcake either.
That’ll teach you to maliciously and misguidedly denigrate a truly classic form of entertainment.
Wrasslin’s fake.
“Wrasslin’s fake.”
Scripted? Yes.
Choreographed? Yes.
Predetermined? Yes.
Fake? Not so much.
Oh, and now you’re not you’re not getting any of my wife’s home made fruitcake next year either.
David: “…not to put too fine a point on it, if you’re not a US citizen, you don’t get to vote on what we do.”
That sort of thinking may have applied decades ago, but the world has changed. We are interdependent, and unilateralism is a luxury we can no longer afford.
Lax federal regulation of U.S. financial institutions resulted in a contagion that has dragged the global economy into a dangerous recession that still has the potential to metastasize into something worse. Other nations are upset with the U.S., and rightly so. They didn’t drag us kicking and screaming into the global economy; we were all too eager to find new markets and new ways to make money. Whenever investments are bought and sold, there is a pact made that can be boiled down thusly: I will be trustworthy with your money. The U.S., both through the dishonesty of its captains of the financial industry and the incompetence of its federal government, violated that pact.
I realize there are other countries with financial markets out there, and many of them are inadequately regulated. We’re the biggest, though, and that success carries with it additional responsibility. That’s the way of things.
By the way, two nations that have not been hit as hard by the U.S.-spawned credit crisis are Canada and France, both which are nations we in the U.S. are fond of maligning. How’d they do it? They regulate their financial institutions better than we do, and the executives who run those institutions do so more conservatively than their U.S. counterparts.
There needs to be a balance.
The problem is not a problem that people (in and outside the US) oppose the war in Iraq or Vietnam or that people in other countries have opinions of the actions of the US or Israel. The problem is the attitude — if its shallow, one-dimensional, simplistic, cartoonish. This is more frustrating when the criticism comes from other countries and seems to come from a place of self-righteousness and an unjustified sense of superiority. Even more so if there’s hypocracy involved.
When there was rioting in Tibet and China was getting flack before the Olympics I read responses by Chines, Tibetans and others in the NYTimes. I had sympathy for both sides to a degree. I knew where they were coming from. Israel is a little bit like both (while different in other ways). Some Chinese were annoyed by Western attitudes. They felt they were being singled out while Israel was getting a pass. That people had a romantic view of Tibet and did not understand what was really going on. After the attack in India their were again internet arguments between Indians and Pakistani. I had a similar feeling.
David: “We are not the bad guys. We never have been.”
I think the good guy bad guy attitude does not benefit anybody when it comes to international events. It didn’t benefit the people who decided to invade Iraq or America hating lefties. Which is not to say that here are no bad people, or bad actions. But ultimately the focus should be on how to make things good not on how to label villains.
The US literally reserved the right to torture the same people it took credit for liberating. The US Secretary of Defense literally issued the order to torture, then refused to issue the order to abstain from torture.
We’re invading you, we’re freeing you — but you live next to the suspect we’ve been ordered to pick up. We’re taking you with us and denying you Geneva protections against detention or torture. To paraphrase Forrest Gump, predator is as predator does.
To wonder why this makes people go “batsh*t crazy” is to deny them the thinnest of self-interest. To look at this 1:1 relationship of sincere self-interest and expression of it and insist there is still some mystery as to the validity of their concern seems to be maybe from you being too satisfied presenting your need for things to be as you say they are as evidence of anything at all.
How batshit crazy are some if the people calling for Bush’s head? So batshot crazy they are talking about prosecuting Obama if he fails to prosecute war crimes charges against Bush.
http://www.democrats.com/if-obama-fails-to-prosecute-war-crimes-is-he-a-criminal-too
BTW David; pro wrestling is not fake. It’s fixed. Big difference.