Has anti-Bush hatred become mainstream?
Here’s a local (Philadelphia) man — with an anything-but-local message:
Mark Aronchick, a prominent Philadelphia lawyer and Democratic fund-raiser, shares the intensity. Talking about Bush, he could barely sit still:
“I haven’t seen this kind of anger and disdain directed at a president since the worst days of Richard Nixon. Bush is playing to base fears. He has a contemptible pseudosincerity. Our anger is that fundamental. It is primal. These are evil forces we’re up against. I’m 54 years old, a mature person, and I mean what I’m saying – there’s a heart of darkness. And they’re getting away with it.”
Regardless of whether anyone (except maybe that battler of evil, Michael Marcavage) agrees with this guy, something is clearly going on. Expressions like “evil” and “heart of darkness” — while they might not sound as extreme as that recent comment to this post which attracted attention — evince what can only be called hatred. I think the fact that they are made by an otherwise-reasonable adult (and taken seriously by the area’s leading newspaper) gives them a far more ominous significance than an outburst of temper by a commenter.
Remaining calm and logical is becoming more and more of a challenge.
Still, I want to return to Kerry and the revisitation of Vietnam, because I think that by focusing on the details of wartime service alone, people miss asking a more relevant question Kerry seems hell-bent to avoid: who did the most for the enemy?
What I see evolving is an election year chickenhawk campaign theme.
‘How dare you question me. I was in Vietnam!’
….”I don’t know what it is about what these Republicans who didn’t serve in any war have against those of us who are Democrats who did.”
Because it is quite clear that Kerry thinks his service in Vietnam gives him the moral authority to make 2004 the Year of the Chickenhawk, I think examining the logic of the central premise is in order.
Let’s take, um, Gus Hall and George Lincoln Rockwell. The former headed the Communist Party, USA, while the latter headed the American Nazi Party. Both served in World War II; Hall in the Navy, and Rockwell too (the latter distinguishing himself as a fighter pilot).
Clearly, Hall and Rockwell would be more entitled to serve in the government, or to comment on foreign policy, than any of the “chickenhawks” Kerry complains of.
Hey let’s do a chickenhawk count!
In the United States Senate, 19 Republicans are veterans, while only 17 Democrats are.
In the House, there are 57 Republican veterans to 43 Democrats.
Simple math. If you disallow all non-veterans from voting, then the Republicans would have an even bigger margin of control than they do now.
So why are Kerry and the Democrats pushing this chickenhawk nonsense anyway? I think it’s a loser, and it’s another reason I’d prefer Edwards to Kerry.
At least then I wouldn’t have to hear a warmed-over “Ich bin ein Hanoier” speech.
UPDATE: More Hanoiances from Kerry here in that bastion of right-wing extremism, The Village Voice:
….[Kerry] wanted to clear a path to normalization of relations with Hanoi. In any other context, that would have been an honorable goal. But getting at the truth of the unaccounted for P.O.W.’s and M.I.A.’s (Missing In Action) was the main obstacle to normalization?and therefore in conflict with his real intent and plan of action.
Kerry denied back then that he disguised his real goal, contending that he supported normalization only as a way to learn more about the missing men. But almost nothing has emerged about these prisoners since diplomatic and economic relations were restored in 1995, and thus it would appear?as most realists expected?that Kerry’s explanation was hollow.
Ugh! (via Glenn Reynolds.)
ANOTHER TELLING OBSERVATION:
What I think the Bushies are doing now is hitting Kerry with a low level of negatives. My crystal ball tells me that they have something on him, and are waiting to spring it until after the conventions, when it really makes a difference. Once the Democrats lock into Kerry [if they do], then the Bushies hit, and hit hard. (Via Glenn Reynolds.)
I don’t admire this strategy, because if anti-Bush sentiment carries the day and the Democrats win, we’ll be stuck with Kerry. Better to have the best man run — win or lose.
Comments
5 responses to “Ask what you can do for your enemy!”
The things you find that nobody else finds! That’s why I read Classical Values. Ahhh, yes…. Gus Hall and George Lincoln Rockwell bring back fond memories to me, those good old days of the 1960’s when I was a boy.
In 1992, I accumulated a collection of Nazi and Communist literature, mostly Nazi because they tend to be better writers than Communists, including Holocaust denial propaganda. A “Know Your Enemy” sort of project. I have a book by Rockwell and I also have copy of that Playboy interview. There’s a homosexual Nazi named Russell Veh, and I’ve often pictured him buggering Rockwell. I’ve often thought that if I was a man’s man I’d get off on that. I don’t read that race and hate-Jew shit any more, though, because I got tired of it.
Way back in the early 1960’s, Gus Hall came to speak at Oregon College of Education in Monmouth, Oregon* where my Dad taught history. I was too little at the time to know anything about politics or Communism, but there was a big controversy over the question of whether Hall should or should not be allowed to speak. I have a book on the history of the college which has a chapter on that episode. My parents were liberals and were for allowing him to speak there. There was a conservative group opposing him speaking there. Today, it’s the conservatives who are often not allowed to speak on college campuses. The Communists, or neo-Communists, have taken over now in many places.
*Oregon College of Education is now Western Oregon University.
Do we EVER get tired of this argument?
Or is the nation just about catching up?
I bring to you, dear friends, the revival of the Chickenhawk Argument, part XXXX: because you didn’t serve in Viet Nam, you may not criticize John Kerry’s voting record.
Uh, at what point do those t…
That “chickenhawk” argument is just stupid. Followed logically, it would mean that most women would be disenfranchised from making any decisions regarding war since they don’t serve.
It reminds me of that other stupid argument, used by those same people, that only women have a right to have any opinion about abortion. As a matter of fact, many or most of the strongest opponents of abortion are women. And, more importantly, at least half of those who get aborted (never taken into the equation by the “pro-choice” people) are female. I think that, _as a human being_, I have a right and a duty to form and express an opinion on such a crucial issue of life and death.
Both of those arguments are of a piece with the “post-modernist” premise, prevalent on the Left today, that only those who are members of some designated group can have any understanding of that group or of any issues affecting that group, and that the rest of us should just shut our mouths and obey, e.g., only soldiers can speak about war, only homosexuals can write about homosexuality, only women can write about women, only blacks can write about blacks, only Muslims can say anything about Islam, only garbage collectors can talk about taking out the garbage, etc..
Taken logically, this would lead to some conclusions that would not be so Politically Correct, e.g., only Christians can write about Christianity, only conservatives can argue about conservatism, only Objectivists can object to Objectivism, only Dead White European Males can “deconstruct” the works of Dead White European Males.
Intellectually I agree with SMA about the post-modern premise that only members of a particular group have standing to debate issues that affect the group. After all, if we believe that there is even a little bit of objective truth, then it doesn’t matter who you are when you speak about it.
But in practice, though, I have found that few non-homosexuals have had anything meaningful or insightful to say that touches on my life as a gay man. (SMA is one of the exceptions.)
Fowl play
Eric Scheie takes a look out back of the barn: Because it is quite clear that [John] Kerry thinks his service in Vietnam gives him the moral authority to make…