Split from: Hitchen's Signature Behavior [Archive]

pomeroo

21st January 2007, 03:31 PM

Glenn, I'm astonished by your evident lack of familiarity with Christopher Hitchens's work. A bi-partisan Senate investigating committee determined that Joe Wilson did indeed lie when he claimed that his wife did not suggest him for the assignment to Niger. That same committee concluded that Wilson's visit did not refute the findings of British intelligence but, rather, lent support to them. Here are links to several pieces Hitchens has published on Slate.com that deal with Iraq's attempts to purchase yellowcake from Niger:

"Wowie Zahawie"--www.slate.com/id/2139609/

"Clueless Joe Wilson"--www.slate.com/id/2140058/

"Case Closed"--www.slate.com/id/2146475/

"Into the Fray"--www.slate.com/id/2144017/

"Hello. Zahawie, My Old Friend"--www.slate.com/id/2148995/

"Christopher Hitchens Responds"--www.slate.com/id/2150433

If you want to pretend that MoveOn hasn't made a practice of comparing Bush to Hitler, you run into a brick wall of reality. Among the dozens of articles castigating MoveOn.org for its despicable ads, Tammy Bruce's "Move On Freudian Nazi Ad" remains one of my favorites:

www.Frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11604 (http://www.Frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11604)

Following a storm of protests from the Republican Party, Move On agreed to discontinue the ads.

Stephen Hayes has published in the Weekly Standard a series of articles detailing the operational contacts between the Mukhabbarat and al Qaeda. If you want to argue that he doesn't know what he's talking about, you must acknowledge the existence of those articles and demonstrate that you are in possession of information that contradicts them.

The Wall Street Journal's editorial yesterday provides perspective on a travesty that consumed the mainstream media for far too long.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110009555

Sandy Berger's theft of sensitive national security documents was a serious crime for which he received a slap on the wrist. A Republican guilty of a comparable felony would surely have gone directly to jail. I have no desire to exonerate the Republican Party for the corrupt practices it has allowed to flourish in the dozen years it has controlled Congress. I am no mindless water-boy, a la Perry Logan, for incoherent organizations of pathologically ambitious, comprehensively mediocre people. I contend, however, that the uncritical acceptance of one side's spin, promoted by a highly partisan national media, serves the country poorly. Liberal myths are still myths.

Hitchens is not the one whose views are shallow and uninformed here.

RecoveringYuppy

21st January 2007, 03:36 PM

Unfortunately, Hitchens' own argument largely missed the point. The question was not about what the Koran says, because like all religious texts, it has many contradictory statements and is interpreted and cherry picked differently by different people of that faith. The question was about what Muslims actually do.

On top of that point, I think his argument was factually incorrect about his claims that the Koran and/or Islam were unique in those regards.

Didn't he claim the the Koran was uniquely intolerant in claiming the completeness of the Koran? Many Christians would cite Rev 22:18 to the same effect.

Didn't he claim Islam was unique in proclaiming a holy language? Hebrew was at a time and Christianity had Latin at a time. Even today some small cult of Christians insist that the Bible didn't become inspired until it was translated in to the English of King James. (And to bolster the point that it's more about what Muslims actually do here is a link (http://forums.randi.org/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_Yusuf_Ali) to a Muslim who translated the Koran in to English)

What other claims did he make? I remember being annoyed the whole time that his "facts" were questionable.

TsarBomba

21st January 2007, 03:46 PM

IMHO Christopher Hitchens displayed true courage by challenging the fatuous liberal cliches spouted by Scott Dikkers. Dikkers point was quite clear that the reason the Islamists hate the United States is because of all of the real and imagined immoral things that the bad bad bad United States of America has done to the world since 1945--i.e. that the Islamists hate us because of what we have done to them. Dikkers was clear as glass that this was how he viewed the world.

Christopher Hitchens had the guts to call a spade a spade and point out that the Islamists don't hate us for what we have done but for who we are--i.e. infidels. He correctly pointed out that the Koran (or Quran or Q'uran or whatever other fashionable transliteration you want to use) and the Hadith seperate the world into Muslims and Infidels and that Infidels are not deserving of life and freedom. Mr. Hitchens was also quite correct in pointing out the deafening silence from the Umma on atrocities carried out by Muslims, including the almost daily bombing of Mosques in Iraq by Muslims. Dikkers' statment that Hitchens had misunderstood what he said seemed more like an embarrased retraction than a truthful clarification.

I will repeat what I said to Hitchens when I shook his hand at the forum party: "Thank you for having the courage to stand up to Dikkers' idiotic remarks."

We need more clear thinking, plain talking people like Christopher Hitchens.

RecoveringYuppy

21st January 2007, 04:05 PM

TsarBomba

21st January 2007, 05:32 PM

The current US "war on terrorism" as presently run by the Bush administration is killing both Americans and Iraqi's many times faster than al Qaeda ever did. Hard to label Dikker idiotic in the face of that. We'd have literally been safer had we simply ignored 9/11.

(Given Hitchen's misunderstanding of a similar point, I feel obliged to say that I'm not faulting the war in Afghanistan with this post)

You seem to forget that Islamic terrorism did not start upon the invasion of Iraq at the start of the Second Gulf War (or the First Gulf War for that matter). As Mr. Hitchens eloquently pointed out, the Barbary states kidnapped American sailors and sold them into slavery. When President Jefferson asked them why they were attacking American shipping, their reply was that the American sailors were American sailors were infidels and that the Koran was very clear that capture and enslavement were not only legal under Sharia, but moral and proper.

Americans and other "infidels" have been victims of Islamic terrorism for many years now. Just to name a few: Munich, Entebbe, New York (first bombing of the WTC), Jersualem (100 plus times over), London, Madrid, Russia, and the list goes on and on. In one sense Dikker is right that our actions have brought these actions upon us--in that our very existence as "infidels" is an "action" of some type.

The fact remains that the Islamists the entire world under Islamic control. If and when that happens we will have the choices of: (1) forced conversion; (2) Dhimmitude for religious Christians and Jews; (3) Slavery for everyone else--if they are very very very lucky, death is more likely. Anyone that thinks that this is not the case is ignoring the facts.

Based on what he said, it seems that Dikker would rather us appease the Islamists by stopping all of the bad bad bad things that our evil evil evil country does (and I will stipulate that this is my description of what he said, not a quote). I don't think that he limited what he said to the current Iraq war. It seemed to me that he would have included our support for Israel, our support for the Saudis, and every other thing that we have ever done in the Islamic war. While I might disagree with many actions of American foreign policy over the years, to blame the existence of the Islamist threat on America's actions is contrary to history and reality.

RecoveringYuppy

21st January 2007, 05:59 PM

No, I don't forget that Islamic terrorism goes back a long way. Why do you think I forgot that? Do you think that if I add them in to the total that will change the fact that the current war on terrorism is more dangerous than terror itself?

And what is your point in repeating Hitchen's point that someone once said that Islam justifies slavery? That's yet another dubious claim that Hitchen's made. He was attempting to claim some innate immorality in Islam. How he could overlook the similar claims of the Bible is beyond me. Slavery is no more "innate" to Islam than it is/was to Christianity or Judaism. How long has it been since a Muslim claimed we should be enslaved? That seems to me a point that's already been rationalized out of Islam as it's been rationalized out of Judaism and Christianity. It would seem to me that Hitchen's claim was an anachronism for nearly two centuries before he made the claim.

While I might disagree with many actions of American foreign policy over the years, to blame the existence of the Islamist threat on America's actions is contrary to history and reality.
I don't think that was Dikker's point. If it was I'd agree it was wrong. But his being wrong about something won't make Hitchen's any more correct.

I think the point is that we shouldn't be more dangerous to the world than al Qeada is. And right now we are. We've made an extremly big mistake.

Elentar

21st January 2007, 07:33 PM

I agree with Hitchens point, though I'm sorry he targetted Dikkers so hard. On the other hand, I have no problem with someone playing hardball, as I do it myself when I think someone is presenting a facile position. Dikkers stumbled into a rather simplistic fallacy, which is that the West has all the power and is responsible for all the bad things that happen in the world. This was not his intent, and Hitchens should have given him the benefit of the doubt, and prefaced his objection with "If you are claiming that..."

I will grant some leeway on the idea of Western responsibility--the installation of the Shah in Iran in 1953 to counter the Marxists was a tactical blunder which we are still paying for over half a century later. Yes, there was a time when the CIA could actually get things done, and a lot of those things were short-sighted and disastrous in the long term. My chief objection to this strategy was that the American intelligence community seemed to lose faith in the strength of democracy and played the Soviet game too much. They should have backed the people, who will always be there, rather than individual despots, who are a dime a dozen.

Nevertheless, the view that the West is responsible for everything is even worse than what Hitchens claimed: it's a thinly veiled twist on White-Man's Burden, in which we refuse to hold the people of the third world in any way responsible for their misfortunes because we regard them as some sort of children who are incapable of managing their own affairs. In essence, we believe that nothing that they do matters--the ideological cornerstone of colonial imperialism. It turns my stomach to realize that this patronizing attitude comes in the velvet cloak of political correctness. We've found yet another way to make our own bigotry palatable. Those who hold this attitude are poisoning the very people they claim to be helping.

Look at the record for the Muslim world. Only 9 Nobel prizes, only 2 for science, with 1.2 billion people. Spain translates more books into Spanish in a year than have been translated into Arabic in the last thousand years. Scott Atran, at the Beyond Belief conference, insisted that Islamic terrorists do what they do because they are marginalized and want respect--but he ignored the elephant in the room. The reason that there are so few Muslim Nobel Prize winners, the reason that the infrastructure in Muslim countries is kept running by imported western labour, the reason that the Middle East served as a chew toy for every world power that took an interest in it, and the reason that they are marginalized and that no one respects them, is that they are saddled with a religious ideology which makes them culturally, scientifically, politically, and economically sterile. Muslims are oppressed by Islam. And they are oppressed by Islam because they choose to be, which means that they have the option to choose not to be oppressed. It's not up to us at all. They have the power to help themselves. They've been wearing the Ruby Slippers all along.

I'm afraid that Hitchens was right on the mark in talking about the core principles of Islam. Christianity has been used for every conceivable attrocity, but its founder, at least, never drew blood, and discouraged his immediate followers from doing so. Islam is absolutely triumphalist, and its founder was a violent brigand who pursued a long career of conquest and conversion, and advocated the same to his followers. That moderate Muslims exist does not alter the content of the religion; this content will always be there, waiting to reassert itself, like an old mine waiting to be stepped on.

More troubling to us as skeptics and rationalists is Islam's utter contempt for science. Yes, there was a period of Ijtihad, in which open enquiry was permitted, but this ended with the fall of the Caliphate. In the 11th century the Imam Al-Ghazali wrote a book entitled The Incoherence of the Philosophers. One of the chief claims of this book was that God maintains the world from moment to moment, and therefore no solid principles of nature can be established, because God can change his mind at any moment. In other words, science is impossible. This idea is now so deeply entrenched in the minds of many Muslims that the very idea of skepticism is a non-starter. I had a discussion with a Muslim on Slashdot, and this belief was an absolute fortress against rationality. There was simply no point of access.

Where I do disagree with Hitchens is not on principle, but on strategy. I believe we're right and they're wrong, but I don't think that we can use soldiers to make the point. Like all terrorists, Bin Laden wanted to provoke an overreaction, an aggressive response that would solidify the tribal identity of Muslims against a common enemy. This is exactly what Bush gave him. We need to recognize again that Muslims are not an existential threat. Rather than play up the fear of terrorism, we need to play it down, to reward their threats with laughter and disdain. As John McCain put it, we need to suck it up, go back to life before 9/11, put pressure on the leaders to keep them in disarray, but laugh at the juvenile amateur would-be terrorists. Let's face it, radical Islam is just the new punk, a way for marginalized losers to look scary and important. That whole thing with mixing explosives on a plane never would have worked--apparently the intelligence community never bothered to ask a chemist, who would have told them that you need a lab to make those explosives, not just a couple of bottles of reagents. We need to arm the pilots, stop taking our shoes off in security at airports, ease up on the paranoia, and even if a plane does go down, we need to shrug it off. You don't reward these people with two-hour prime-time specials. You make them the butt of a fifteen second joke on the Daily Show. What Bin Laden really wants to be is famous in America.

You can't live in the home of the free unless your also the land of the brave. Suck it up.

drapier

21st January 2007, 08:04 PM

From Salon.com on Moveon.org:

"In fact, as those who've followed the story know, MoveOn didn't sponsor or create, let alone televise, ads comparing Bush to Hitler. MoveOn's issue-advertising arm, the MoveOn Voter Fund, ran an innovative contest, "Bush in 30 Seconds," challenging its members to make their own political ads illustrating the shortcomings of the Bush administration in a humorous, creative way. (The contest winner will have his or her ad nationally televised by the Voter Fund.) The online advocacy group got more than 1,000 ad submissions, and posted the vast majority on its Web site. Its network of more than 2 million activists was eligible to vote to narrow the field to 15 finalists, and selected them this week; a celebrity panel will pick a winner, to be announced Jan. 12. Both Hitler ad submissions scored poorly with MoveOn supporters, and would have been consigned to history without the publicity boost from the RNC. (Now, ironically, the only place you can find them is on the RNC's Web site.)"

dir.salon.com/story/opinion/feature/2004/01/07/moveon_ads/index.html

If you want to pretend that MoveOn hasn't made a practice of comparing Bush to Hitler, you run into a brick wall of reality. Among the dozens of articles castigating MoveOn.org for its despicable ads, Tammy Bruce's "Move On Freudian Nazi Ad" remains one of my favorites:

Following a storm of protests from the Republican Party, Move On agreed to discontinue the ads.

RecoveringYuppy

21st January 2007, 08:10 PM

I agree with Hitchens point, [snip]
Really? If so, Hitchen's made his point very poorly because I don't see much parallel between your post and his argument.

pomeroo

21st January 2007, 08:17 PM

Salon's explanation of those notorious ads is more than a little disingenuous. George Soros, the organization's principal backer, has made a practice of comparing Bush to Hitler. The claim that the two ads scored poorly with MoveOn supporters rings very, very untrue.

TsarBomba

21st January 2007, 08:22 PM

Quote:

My original post:
While I might disagree with many actions of American foreign policy over the years, to blame the existence of the Islamist threat on America's actions is contrary to history and reality.

Recovering Yuppy's response:

I don't think that was Dikker's point. If it was I'd agree it was wrong. But his being wrong about something won't make Hitchen's any more correct.

I guess that we will have to agree to disagree on that, because when I heard him speak I thought that it was exactly his point--I would go so far as to say it was the point, the whole point, and nothing but the point.

At the risk of getting philosophical and completely off topic, perhaps this demonstrates what some would describe as the inherent unreliability of eyewitness testimony. We were both there. We both heard what the man had to say, and we both came away with completely different versions of what his point was. From a skeptical point of view, maybe this shows that truth and observation are in the eye of the beholder.

SezMe

21st January 2007, 08:49 PM

The claim that the two ads scored poorly with MoveOn supporters rings very, very untrue.
What does that mean? "Rings untrue"? If you've got some data to refute the claim, by all means put it on the table. If it just means you don't believe it, so what?

Glenn

21st January 2007, 08:50 PM

JamesDillon: Very eloquently put.

AZAtheist: Thanks. And I completely agree with you: TAM5 was terrific. I've been to all 5 and each gets better. I'd call this the one tiny hiccup in an amazing Amazing Meeting. (Which is the only reason I mentioned it, it stood out.)

Pomeroo: Thanks for taking the time to make those points. You're incorrect to gather I am unfamiliar with Hitchens' work, I've read all of his Salon columns and followed up on them. He has yet to provide hard evidence, he is basing it all on speculation. And his speculation is highly implausible.

You claimed that MoveOn has made a "practice of comparing Bush to Hitler," but that is a patently false claim. Even the article you referenced points out the solitary incident that has ever vaguely come up, which was not even MoveOn's doing -- as noted in Drapier's post.

I've read a great deal about the supposed Hussein-al Qaeda links, and all have fallen through the cracks. I don't recall if I've read Hayes, but I will double check and see if what you say holds water.

I wish folks would stop misrepresenting Dikkers. His point was very simple and not thorough, which is why I said Hitchens was right to amend it. But he missed the point too.

varwoche

21st January 2007, 09:23 PM

If you want to pretend that MoveOn hasn't made a practice of comparing Bush to Hitler, you run into a brick wall of reality. It may be the case that Moveon makes such a practice -- I don't know because I don't read them. (And if true, I would condemn them.) I do know about the incident though.

Moveon ran a contest and someone submitted a Bush/Hitler ad. It was on Moveon's site along with all the other submissions. Then there was a stink and the ad was removed. To pin this ad onto Moveon is bogus in the extreme.

Among the dozens of articles castigating MoveOn.org for its despicable ads, Tammy Bruce's "Move On Freudian Nazi Ad" remains one of my favorites: This article shamelessly distorts the facts by falsely pinning the ad onto Moveon.

If it is true that Moveon plays the Bush=Hitler card, backing it up with bogus evidence is counter-productive to making your point.

pomeroo

21st January 2007, 09:36 PM

pomeroo

21st January 2007, 09:55 PM

It may be the case that Moveon makes such a practice -- I don't know because I don't read them. (And if true, I would condemn them.) I do know about the incident though.

Moveon ran a contest and someone submitted a Bush/Hitler ad. It was on Moveon's site along with all the other submissions. Then there was a stink and the ad was removed. To pin this ad onto Moveon is bogus in the extreme.

This article shamelessly distorts the facts by falsely pinning the ad onto Moveon.

If it is true that Moveon plays the Bush=Hitler card, backing it up with bogus evidence is counter-productive to making your point.

Tammy Bruce states very clearly that Moveon did not produce the ads and repudiated them. I see no shameless distortion of facts. That leftists have compared Bush to Hitler countless times is shameful.

Glenn

21st January 2007, 11:41 PM

If you want to pretend that MoveOn hasn't made a practice of comparing Bush to Hitler, you run into a brick wall of reality. Among the dozens of articles castigating MoveOn.org for its despicable ads, Tammy Bruce's "Move On Freudian Nazi Ad" remains one of my favorites:

We are kidding, aren't we? I said that GEORGE SOROS, MoveOn's principal backer, has made a practice of comparing Bush to Hitler. That much is incontrovertible.

In your first post (quoted above), to which I was responding, you never mentioned Soros. You said MoveOn compared Bush to Hitler. You said MoveOn has made a "practice" of it.

So no, we are not kidding.

However, presented with evidence, you changed it to Soros in a later post. That's perfectly fine, end of MoveOn discussion.

Re Soros: I can only find one such reference. If you have evidence that Soros has indeed "made a practice of comparing Bush to Hitler," I'll accept it. I wouldn't even be shocked by it (except that it's incredibly simpleminded), I was merely responding to your MoveOn allegation. Not that I'm a fan of MoveOn, just clearing up a misunderstanding.

The sole reference I can find for Soros is from Nov. 2004, in a Washington Post interview: Soros, an emigre from Hungaria, said he felt the White House was guided by a "supremacist ideology," adding that "America, under Bush, is a danger to the world.... When I hear Bush say, 'You're either with us or against us,' it reminds me of the Germans.... My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitized me."

That's not a direct Bush-Hitler comparison, but it's close enough that I'd count it, more or less.

But you said Soros has made it a practice. I'm not sure how many times qualifies as a "practice," but I am sure it's not one. Let me know if you know of others, for what it's worth.

Pomeroo, I'm not ignoring your other points, I'll get to those tomorrow. I want to respectfully answer with references, which I don't have offhand. Must finish other work, then I'll reply.

SezMe

22nd January 2007, 12:40 AM

pomeroo, you seem to be upset that Soror may have funded some organizations that compared Bush to Hitler. Without judging the basis for that, were you equally upset that rich rightwingers accused Clinton of murder and running drugs? And selling a video with those charges? Under cover of a religious organization?

Were you equally upset that Richard Mellon Scaife funded equally heinous charges?

And would you like to discuss a comparison between Bush/Hitler and accusing the President of a capital crime? If both have no basis, which is more egregous?

pomeroo

22nd January 2007, 02:30 AM

I acknowledge that Moveon.org removed the offensive ads after the Republican National Committee and various Jewish groups raised hell. Soros has backed away from some of his more outrageous remarks comparing Bush's America to the Third Reich, but what did he actually say in his book? For a useful analysis, see:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15710 (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15710)

Googling "Bush and Hitler" produces about 2,040,000 results. The left has promoted this insane comparison for years, starting with false allegations about the father of George H.W. Bush. Prescott Bush was not the "Nazi's financier," nor did he make money from the death camps. Yet, the madness persists. It is impossible to contend that the Bush-Hitler trope, grotesque though it may be, hasn't been a staple of leftist rhetoric.

My relative indifference to the electoral fortunes of the Republican Party contrasts sharply with the unthinking devotion bestowed on the Democratic Party by certain uncritical types. To me, Republicans are preferable in the sense that a C-minus student is a better scholar than an F student. Perhaps I am damning him with faint praise, but Bush, for all his flaws, struck me as having a far clearer understanding of the jihadist threat than John Kerry, whose sonorous incoherence revealed no understanding of it whatever.

A major difference between me and the Democratic sycophants is that I have no interest in defending indefensible behavior. The outlandish rumors circulated about Clinton by rightwing groups, his murders and drug-running activities, served no useful purpose and managed to debase the level of political discourse--never very high--in this country. Nevertheless, drawing bogus parallels between an American politician and the genocidal maniac who caused World War II is far more pernicious than making baseless accusations of wrongdoing. There's a problem with turning your political opponents into comic book super-villains. You need comic book super-heroes to combat them and they're hard to find.

Darat

22nd January 2007, 02:52 AM

....snip... As Mr. Hitchens eloquently pointed out, the Barbary states kidnapped American sailors and sold them into slavery. When President Jefferson asked them why they were attacking American shipping, their reply was that the American sailors were American sailors were infidels and that the Koran was very clear that capture and enslavement were not only legal under Sharia, but moral and proper.

...snip...

Hang on a mo' that does seem rather a one-sided view of the world at the time since wasn't at Jefferson's time slavery morally proper and also legally enshrined in USA law?

brodski

22nd January 2007, 03:38 AM

Hang on a mo' that does seem rather a one-sided view of the world at the time since wasn't at Jefferson's time slavery morally proper and also legally enshrined in USA law?

It's not the same! Because, um, because… it's not as if anyone tried to use the Bible to justify slavery!
Oh, wait, never mind.

drapier

22nd January 2007, 08:40 AM

Googling "Bush and Hitler" produces about 2,040,000 results. The left has promoted this insane comparison for years, starting with false allegations about the father of George H.W. Bush. Prescott Bush was not the "Nazi's financier," nor did he make money from the death camps. Yet, the madness persists. It is impossible to contend that the Bush-Hitler trope, grotesque though it may be, hasn't been a staple of leftist rhetoric.

My relative indifference to the electoral fortunes of the Republican Party contrasts sharply with the unthinking devotion bestowed on the Democratic Party by certain uncritical types. To me, Republicans are preferable in the sense that a C-minus student is a better scholar than an F student. Perhaps I am damning him with faint praise, but Bush, for all his flaws, struck me as having a far clearer understanding of the jihadist threat than John Kerry, whose sonorous incoherence revealed no understanding of it whatever.

A major difference between me and the Democratic sycophants is that I have no interest in defending indefensible behavior. The outlandish rumors circulated about Clinton by rightwing groups, his murders and drug-running activities, served no useful purpose and managed to debase the level of political discourse--never very high--in this country. Nevertheless, drawing bogus parallels between an American politician and the genocidal maniac who caused World War II is far more pernicious than making baseless accusations of wrongdoing. There's a problem with turning your political opponents into comic book super-villains. You need comic book super-heroes to combat them and they're hard to find.

The left? Other than Soros, who is part of this monolithic left, issuing orders to their sycophantic minions?

Comic book super villains? You mean like the Axis of Evil?

George Bush as C- on the jihadist threat -- yes, he's done a heck of a job over there.

varwoche

22nd January 2007, 08:51 AM

Tammy Bruce states very clearly that Moveon did not produce the ads and repudiated them. I see no shameless distortion of facts. That leftists have compared Bush to Hitler countless times is shameful. Here is the first paragraph of Bruce's rant about the ad: The Leftist extremists now in charge of the Democratic Party are either so desperate or delusional they are now comparing this nation to Hitler’s Third Reich and the president to Hitler himself. This is a classic smear. Who are the leftist extremists "in charge of the democratic party"? Certainly the random bozo who submitted the ad is not in charge of the democratic party. Even Soros is not in charge, and nor is he responsible for the comparison in this instance.

And here again is what you first posted while citing the Bruce article: If you want to pretend that MoveOn hasn't made a practice of comparing Bush to Hitler, you run into a brick wall of reality. In the incident being discussed, Moveon did not compare Bush to Hitler, as you inferred here.

You might also address Glenn's points about the "made a practice" aspect.

Subsequent goalpost movement notwithstanding, you and Bruce (I can't say about Hitchens because I wasn't there) grossly distorted the truth.

Reager

22nd January 2007, 08:55 AM

That event hardly made it a free-for-all. Really, you don't want the whole thing to be a giant pat-each-other-on-the-back, do you?

~~ Paul

I'm not complaining about healthy (or even raucus) debate, but please explain to me what the Iraq war or Muslim extremists has to do with Skepticism and the Media? I realize those are two dominant issues right now, but at every TAM both Hitchens and I've attended (which is all of them) that's what he's talked about. Enough already.

One problem is we need a moderator who is able to keep the panel focused, something we did not have this year.

pomeroo

22nd January 2007, 12:34 PM

Here is the first paragraph of Bruce's rant about the ad: This is a classic smear. Who are the leftist extremists "in charge of the democratic party"? Certainly the random bozo who submitted the ad is not in charge of the democratic party. Even Soros is not in charge, and nor is he responsible for the comparison in this instance.

And here again is what you first posted while citing the Bruce article: In the incident being discussed, Moveon did not compare Bush to Hitler, as you inferred here.

You might also address Glenn's points about the "made a practice" aspect.

Subsequent goalpost movement notwithstanding, you and Bruce (I can't say about Hitchens because I wasn't there) grossly distorted the truth.

No, I did not distort the truth and neither did Bruce. The left has promoted the vicious Bush-as-Hitler smear in countless venues. The article on Soros to which I linked reveals the ideology animating the man who gave over $24 million to defeat Bush.

You might want to read 'The Shadow Party,' by David Horowitz and Richard Poe.

varwoche

22nd January 2007, 02:54 PM

No, I did not distort the truth and neither did Bruce. The left has promoted the vicious Bush-as-Hitler smear in countless venues. The article on Soros to which I linked reveals the ideology animating the man who gave over $24 million to defeat Bush.

You might want to read 'The Shadow Party,' by David Horowitz and Richard Poe. It's not every day that I see a goalpost made of straw moving hither and yon so quickly yet clumsily.

The gross distortions that I and others have pointed out are abundantly clear. Since our dialog has no bearing on the forum section we're posting in, I'll refrain from further comment. (If you want more feedback, start a thread in the Politics section.)

pomeroo

22nd January 2007, 04:15 PM

It's not every day that I see a goalpost made of straw moving hither and yon so quickly yet clumsily.

The gross distortions that I and others have pointed out are abundantly clear. Since our dialog has no bearing on the forum section we're posting in, I'll refrain from further comment. (If you want more feedback, start a thread in the Politics section.)

The left's ugly smear of Bush continues. There are no "gross distortions," as no one has claimed that the ads comparing Bush to Hitler were anything but entries in a contest. The two ads appeared on Moveon.org's website and were removed when the RNC and various Jewish groups complained. It is preposterous that Moveon's audience "disapproved" of the very thing these types say ALL THE TIME. The book Soros wrote speaks for itself. Much of this discussion is disingenuous.

Skeptic Ginger

22nd January 2007, 04:28 PM

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

22nd January 2007, 04:44 PM

This is not the politics forum.

~~ Paul

Cleon

22nd January 2007, 04:59 PM

This is not the politics forum.

~~ Paul

A wee bit late for that, for one thing. For another, expecting anything involving Hitchens to NOT descend into politics is like expecting him to give up drinking.

Skeptic Ginger

22nd January 2007, 05:01 PM

....
I will grant some leeway on the idea of Western responsibility--the installation of the Shah in Iran in 1953 to counter the Marxists was a tactical blunder which we are still paying for over half a century later. Yes, there was a time when the CIA could actually get things done, and a lot of those things were short-sighted and disastrous in the long term. My chief objection to this strategy was that the American intelligence community seemed to lose faith in the strength of democracy and played the Soviet game too much. They should have backed the people, who will always be there, rather than individual despots, who are a dime a dozen.

Nevertheless, the view that the West is responsible for everything is even worse than what Hitchens claimed: it's a thinly veiled twist on White-Man's Burden, in which we refuse to hold the people of the third world in any way responsible for their misfortunes because we regard them as some sort of children who are incapable of managing their own affairs. In essence, we believe that nothing that they do matters--the ideological cornerstone of colonial imperialism. It turns my stomach to realize that this patronizing attitude comes in the velvet cloak of political correctness. We've found yet another way to make our own bigotry palatable. Those who hold this attitude are poisoning the very people they claim to be helping.....From 1900 on (and you could go back further if you look at more than just oil), the US and Britain literally split up the Mideast oil resources among their proxy oil companies. Even though China and Russia were developing communism then, and maybe the US government had concerns, the "Cold War" didn't start until the end of WWII.

It was nationalizing of private assets, some of which were American, that sent us interfering in every country on the planet. However, in our stupidity, ignorance and greed, when we could have supported labor organizations instead of oppressive dictators, we chose the dictators and we even trained their armies in labor union leader murder techniques. Instead of developing democracies, we repressed them when the elected leaders didn't suit us.

Those countries did need capital investments. And nationalizing a company's assets after they set up the infrastructure to pump your oil resources was not right either. But we are seeing the results now of really poor solutions then.

And then there's Bush. Just after the initial most recent invasion in Iraq, what announcement did he make to the Iraqi people? "Don't burn the oil wells". While he may have been thinking of the Kuwait experience, it was no less a serious blunder.

And what did Bush do next? He sent Paul Brenner over to set up the corporate dream world. Labor unions were outlawed as one of the first acts.

But Hitchens is listening to Islamic fundies proclaim Sharia Law, growing indoctrinated armies in the Madrassas, and spreading the same around the world. It certainly isn't something we can ignore.

It just isn't a black and white world. And there is a big culture clash that is going to be hard to resolve. You have the religious fundamentalism on three sides in conflict. And you have the intolerable status of women in societies such as the Taliban created. For that matter, the intolerable religious control is a pretty broad gap to cross.

I think Hitchens did have a point there even though he ignored the fact there are lots of Islamists who aren't totalitarian.

TsarBomba

22nd January 2007, 05:01 PM

In other words, you agree with Hitchens, so it doesn't bother you that his bloviating (and whatever prompted it) about the Islamic boogeyman have nothing to do with skepticism and the media. Thanks for being honest.

Frankly Reager, I think that your statement is a complete non-sequitur, but I will say that absolutely and completely agree with everything that Hitchens said. As I said before, at least Hitchens had the guts to challenge Dikkers statment blaming Great Satan for the existence of Islamist terrorists ( and before you reply, I acknowledge that he didn't say "Great Satan," that is just my unfair and biased summary of his statments). In a our wonderful modern, multi-cultural, politically correct world full of the mealy-mouthed, the timorous, the people who watch everything they say so as to avoid giving offense, Christopher Hitchens is a breath of fresh air. Horray for Christopher Hitchens.

Skeptic Ginger

22nd January 2007, 05:05 PM

From Salon.com on Moveon.org:

"In fact, as those who've followed the story know, MoveOn didn't sponsor or create, let alone televise, ads comparing Bush to Hitler. ...Thank you, drapier. It's like the right wing propaganda machine attributing blog replies to the blog author.

Skeptic Ginger

22nd January 2007, 05:07 PM

TsarBomba

22nd January 2007, 05:11 PM

I think Hitchens did have a point there even though he ignored the fact there are lots of Islamists who aren't totalitarian.

At the risk of appearing pedantic, I must point out the real and important distinction between a Muslim and an Islamist. Islamists are followers of a specific stream of Islam called Islamism. There are plenty of Muslims who are not totalitarian, but all Islamists are totalitarian.

Wikipedia defines Islamism as: "A neologism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neologism), denoting a political ideology that holds that Islam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam) is not only a religion to be practiced by individuals, but a political system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_system). Islamism holds that all Muslims should live in a state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theocracy) which is governed according to Sharia law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia)." Here's the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamist.

Any state governed by Sharia is totalitarian, this all Islamists are totalitarian, because they want the state to be governed by Sharia.

Skeptic Ginger

22nd January 2007, 05:15 PM

We are kidding, aren't we? I said that GEORGE SOROS, MoveOn's principal backer, has made a practice of comparing Bush to Hitler. That much is incontrovertible.

The articles by Hitchens that I linked to are "implausible"? Why, pray tell? I understand that they are highly inconvenient to the Big Lies of the left, but they are manifestly accurate. British intelligence, incidentally, stands by its findings?

The bi-partisan Senate investigating committee that determined that Joe Wilson lied when he claimed that his wife didn't recommend him for the assignment to Niger--how do its conclusions square with the myth of Wilson as Fearless Whistleblower?The word Hitler does not appear in this Source Watch bio of Soros (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=George_Soros).

Care to find a source for your curious beliefs.

And just which bipartisan committee report would that be which found Wilson both a liar, and a supporter of the Bush statement about the Niger yellowcake deal. Aren't you using a double negative there?

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

22nd January 2007, 05:15 PM

A wee bit late for that, for one thing. For another, expecting anything involving Hitchens to NOT descend into politics is like expecting him to give up drinking.
You are correct, sir.

~~ Paul

Skeptic Ginger

22nd January 2007, 05:23 PM

... For a useful analysis, see:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15710 (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15710)

Googling "Bush and Hitler" produces about 2,040,000 results. .....Well I was going to look up http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Authors.asp to analyze it as a valid source. But as I started listing the authors, I got to the last one here and decided I need go no further.

Stephen Brown

Mona Charen

Phyllis Chesler

Jacob Cohen

Peter Collier

David Horowitz

Ann Coulter
Not exactly a basket of credibility there when Coulter is listed as a contributor.

And you aren't doing your credibility any favors listing how many times "Bush and Hitler" comes up on Google as useful data.

I got 2,020,000 for jesus and hitler. So?

Skeptic Ginger

22nd January 2007, 05:38 PM

I did find Hitchens's talk about how the media totally chickened out on the Danish cartoons spot-on. However, to begin his reply to Dikers by accusing him of "liberal masochism" was typical Hitchens behavior, and out of line, IMNSHO. There's not that much difference between the debating tactics of the "drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay" and those of Ann Coulter aside from the British accent and a better vocabulary. They're both professional controversialists. Of course, every now and again he writes something that has me saying "Hear, hear!"

The problem of Islamist extremism is a very complex one, and all simple answers are wrong.And I mucked up my question on that too. I wanted him to discuss what he thought of the press' excuse. They followed the first replies like sheep. Not free speech, just respect for the religion. That's nonsense. Christians didn't burn down the art gallery that had Jesus on a cross in a tank of piss.

I think it came from the majority of reporters not really knowing what the typical Islamic reaction to the cartoons should normally be. The reporters were sort of cow towing to a bunch of vocal extremists. Oh sure, everyone should know a blasphemous picture of Mohammad requires rioting and burning.

It only would have taken a 15 minute search to find the last 50 published pictures of cartoon Mohameds where no rioting occurred. Any decent reporter should have thought of that.

Skeptic Ginger

22nd January 2007, 05:42 PM

At the risk of appearing pedantic, I must point out the real and important distinction between a Muslim and and Islamist. Islamists are followers of a specific stream of Islam called Islamism. There are plenty of Muslims who are not totalitarian, but all Islamists are totalitarian.

Wikipedia defines Islamism as: "A neologism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neologism), denoting a political ideology that holds that Islam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam) is not only a religion to be practiced by individuals, but a political system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_system). Islamism holds that all Muslims should live in a state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theocracy) which is governed according to Sharia law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia)." Here's the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamist.

Any state governed by Sharia is totalitarian, this all Islamists are totalitarian, because they want the state to be governed by Sharia.

Thanks. I didn't know that. I'll read a bit more about it.

ForPete'sSake

22nd January 2007, 06:30 PM

Was anyone else silently anticipating a Hitchen's invective? I sat there in the audience and knew it was coming. Seen it before....will see it again. He always reminds me of the classic school bully...locate the weak and hone in. Scott Dikkers is not a political commentator or a journalist. It says it right there in his bio. He's a comedy writer. When asked about his political philosophy (a rather personal question to begin with), he responded by simply implying that he applies critical thinking when viewing our government's development and implementation of US foreign policy within the Islamic world. Well if there is one area in which Hitchens deplores skepticism, that's it. For Hitchens is a man who I think has been successfully terrorized. He demands we all buy into his view of a monolithic Islam bent on holy war. Failure to do so or even questioning his position elicits venom and vitriol. To me, it is just so ironic that a man who earlier had spent 15 minutes discussing the consequences of fear and terrorism, shows no apparent control over his own.

Reager

22nd January 2007, 06:49 PM

Frankly Reager, I think that your statement is a complete non-sequitur, but I will say that absolutely and completely agree with everything that Hitchens said. As I said before, at least Hitchens had the guts to challenge Dikkers statment blaming Great Satan for the existence of Islamist terrorists ( and before you reply, I acknowledge that he didn't say "Great Satan," that is just my unfair and biased summary of his statments). In a our wonderful modern, multi-cultural, politically correct world full of the mealy-mouthed, the timorous, the people who watch everything they say so as to avoid giving offense, Christopher Hitchens is a breath of fresh air. Horray for Christopher Hitchens.

My statement was not a non-sequiter, because the point of my original post was not whether Hitchens was justified in his response to Dikkers, or whether Dikkers was being a bad widdle wiberal, or whether you are quoting Hitchens correctly. My point was that Hitchens' obsession with Islamic extremism has grown tired at a conference devoted to something besides Islamic extremism. Hitchens is a broken record. Give his spot to someone else at TAM6.

pomeroo

22nd January 2007, 06:56 PM

I'll have to look at your sources before taking you on here (actually in a new thread when I get to it) but I do have a comment now.

Actually, three comments.

Even Bush now admits the Niger yellow cake incident was false. Your claim Wilson's report backed the lie is incredulous.

Whether or not his wife had anything to do with the assignment (I'll look at your citations), Wilson had done work in Africa, knew the political territory, and was qualified for the job. As evidence, he got it right, didn't he?

And three, the Scooter Libby trial (http://www.google.com/search?q=scooter+libby+trial&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a) jury selection continued today.

No, Bush does admit anything of the sort. British intelligence claimed that Iraqi agents were seeking to negotiate the purchase of yellowcake from Niger, a country that doesn't have anything else to sell. A bi-partisan Senate committee determined that Wilson's trip supported, rather than contradicted, the British findings. Bush never claimed that Iraq actually obtained any yellowcake.

Hitchens has written extensively on Joe Wilson and the Plame kerfuffle (see the Slate articles I linked to). The Wall Street Journal editorial on Saturday asked reasonable questions: Given that the leaker was Richard Armitage and Fitzgerald knew the leaker's identity long ago, which means that Fitzgerald KNEW LONG AGO that neither Cheney nor Rove had anything to do with it, why does this prosecution continue? Is this not another example of a political witch hunt conducted by an out-of-control special prosecutor?

According to Hitchens, Joe Wilson was an unqualified Democratic operative who, along with his wife, was simply out to undermine Bush.

pomeroo

22nd January 2007, 07:01 PM

Well I was going to look up http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Authors.asp to analyze it as a valid source. But as I started listing the authors, I got to the last one here and decided I need go no further.Not exactly a basket of credibility there when Coulter is listed as a contributor.

And you aren't doing your credibility any favors listing how many times "Bush and Hitler" comes up on Google as useful data.

I got 2,020,000 for jesus and hitler. So?

So, skeptigirl, you're really closed-mindedgirl. I'm not an Ann Coulter fan, but that doesn't mean that everything she writes is wrong. For that matter, the other writers you mention are not responsible for Coulter's excesses. I suspect that your opinions don't require many facts to bolster them.

pomeroo

22nd January 2007, 07:05 PM

The word Hitler does not appear in this Source Watch bio of Soros (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=George_Soros).

Care to find a source for your curious beliefs.

And just which bipartisan committee report would that be which found Wilson both a liar, and a supporter of the Bush statement about the Niger yellowcake deal. Aren't you using a double negative there?

My belief is far from curious. If you won't trouble yourself to read the article I linked to, it's a bit silly to ask about sources. Did you try ANY of the Hitchens pieces in Slate that I mentioned?

I assume that the question about the Senate Intelligence Committee's report reflects genuine ignorance. Here is a link (I hope I'm not violating some rule here, but I don't know how else to provide references to support my opinions):
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/007135.php

pomeroo

22nd January 2007, 07:17 PM

Thank you, drapier. It's like the right wing propaganda machine attributing blog replies to the blog author.

I think we've worn this to rags. Moveon sponsored a contest. The two ads comparing Bush to Hitler were featured on the website until enough people complained about them. If you want to pretend that this particular vile smear is unusual in the left-blogosphere, that Bush isn't compared to Hitler CONSTANTLY, I'm afraid that's one bridge I'm not buying.

Cleon

22nd January 2007, 07:22 PM

So, skeptigirl, you're really closed-mindedgirl.

Trying to emulate Hitchens' arrogance and vitriol doesn't do much for your argument, such as it is.

Cleon

22nd January 2007, 07:24 PM

I think we've worn this to rags.

Indeed. The original claim:

If you want to pretend that MoveOn hasn't made a practice of comparing Bush to Hitler, you run into a brick wall of reality.

has been completely, totally, and unequivocally debunked.

pomeroo

22nd January 2007, 07:42 PM

Indeed. The original claim:

has been completely, totally, and unequivocally debunked.

Gee, I guess we must have established that Bush really "admitted" that lyin' Joe was right after all.

I'll concede that Moveon.org backed away from the ads that were posted on its website. Will you concede that far-left types, as typified by Moveon.org, CONSTANTLY compare Bush to Hitler?

I didn't think so.

Cleon

22nd January 2007, 07:51 PM

Will you concede that far-left types, as typified by Moveon.org, CONSTANTLY compare Bush to Hitler?

Will you provide some actual evidence of this?

I didn't think so.

pomeroo

22nd January 2007, 07:56 PM

Will you provide some actual evidence of this?

I didn't think so.

You could read this piece by Byron York. Again, I apologize if I'm breaking a rule here, but I don't know how else to present my case.

"Of Course They Think Bush Is A Nazi"
Move on ads are no aberration
http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200401070805.asp

Skeptic Ginger

22nd January 2007, 08:00 PM

The Bad Astronomer

22nd January 2007, 08:04 PM

I'll comment here. I might as well, since I was on the panel and mulling over the goings-on while they were going on.

I'll split up this discussion into two things: what Hitchens did, and what he said.

What he did was be a jerk. No two ways around that. There were many ways he could have disagreed with Dikkers. He chose to be a jerk. I was pretty upset by that, especially since the rest of the conference was upbeat, jovial, and convivial. Hitchens's behavior was like finding a bug in the middle of your ice cream cone.

This should not be mixed up with what he said. What he said was wrong. Or more accurately, oversimplified. So was what Dikkers said, sorta. Dikkers said the first place he looks when things go sour is at himself. This is a fine course of action; it prevents you from trying to unfairly avoid blame. He didn't say that was the only place to look, but he did stop short of actually saying that. He corrected that after Hitchens finished.

Hitchens, however, was wrong. Yes, fanatic religions and millennia of social traditions are at work here. But the US propped up Saddam Hussein, and his reign in Iraq is largely due to US efforts. That is simply a fact. Hitchens wants to lay the blame entirely on Iraq. That's ridiculous.

So there is truth in what they both said, but they both missed the point (though Dikkers did correct himself). Basically, the US threw gasoline on an already existing fire. To deny our role in this is insanity, but to blame ourselves entirely is also wrong.

I'll add that when Dikkers corrected himself, he upstaged Hitchens in two ways. One, he admitted he wasn't complete in his statement, and therefore got closer to the truth than Hitchens did. Second, he took the high road, while Hitchens simply attacked.

After Dikkers spoke the second time, I sat there for a moment thinking about stepping in and saying basically what I have written here, but decided against it. Hitchens is an accomplished speaker, and would have ripped me apart verbally, even though I would have been correct. Second, the political nonsense had gone on long enough, and there was no need for me to prolong it.

All in all, I found Hitchens to be highly objectionable during that question on the panel. I found him otherwise to be a fascinating and eloquent speaker, which makes it more the pity he made two such bad decisions : to behave so poorly, and to make such an egregiously oversimplified and erroneous argument.

Cleon

22nd January 2007, 08:11 PM

You could read this piece by Byron York.

I read it. It does not substantiate your allegation. The article was able to find three individuals who are not employees or spokespeople for MoveOn making such comments on three separate occasions (occasions that were not related to MoveOn in any way, shape, or form). Of course, it also mentions the infamous "Hitler ad," which we all know was not sponsored by MoveOn. It didn't even win the damn contest.

So the article in question does not substantiate the allegation. If anything, it's inability to find an occasion of MoveOn issuing any sort of publication making such a comparison or any spokesman or employee of MoveOn making such a comparison is an indication to the contrary.

Now for the kicker. Enter the following into Google: "site:moveon.org hitler" (sans quotes, of course). What this does is google MoveOn's site for the word "hitler." You get seven (7) hits. Of those,

5) are referencing the "Hitler ad," which again, we know was not supported, funded, or produced by MoveOn.org.
1) is actually a link to an NYTimes article that I'm not going to pay money to read.
1) is a link to the main page for some reason. No "Hitler" referenced. (If I had to guess, I'd say it was a reference to the "Hitler ad" that Google cached.)

One would think that if MoveOn was "CONSTANTLY" comparing Bush to Hitler, we'd get a wee bit more than the above.

So, as far as I can tell, what you have provided evidence for is the existence of the allegation that MoveOn is "constantly" comparing Bush to Hitler. But evidence for the allegation itself seems to be somewhat lacking.

The funny part is that I don't even LIKE MoveOn. But, this being a skeptic's forum, when you make an empty claim, people are going to want evidence.

Cleon

22nd January 2007, 08:16 PM

Fair comments, Phil. Thanks.

Geek Goddess

22nd January 2007, 08:16 PM

Oh yes, better than Tobias even.

:dl:

pomeroo

22nd January 2007, 08:20 PM

Trying to emulate Hitchens' arrogance and vitriol doesn't do much for your argument, such as it is.

You're seriously contending that refusing to read an article because an author you disapprove of appears occasionally on the same site is rational behavior? I don't think you've persuaded me.

Margaret K

22nd January 2007, 08:21 PM

I had no problem with Hitchen's thesis - ie that Islamic fundamentalism is dangerous! What I did have a problem with is where he went with it. Islam has not always been, and even now is still not, 'fundamentalist' in all its manifestations. Maybe because of who he is and what he does Hitchins has to be a 'contrarian', but I think he misses the point when demonising Islam as the only religion which preaches intolerance, violence and destruction!!!

The real danger in our world comes from fundamentalists of all persuasions - religious, political and dare I say it, environmental. (I no longer have much respect for the Church of Greenpeace.) Osama and his mates are dangerous people because they are fundamentalists. Islam is the context. These fellows have no problem demonising anyone who doesn't fit into their own world view and have proved that they absolutely have no conscience about doing whatever it takes to achieve their ends. They aren't reasonable people, and we make a grave mistake in thinking that they are!!!! We also make another grave mistake in accepting blame for the mess that some people manage to get themselves into. I get sick of seeing America and Western civilization being cast in the role of scapegoat by people who, for whatever reason, can't leave their tribal and/or barbarian pasts behind.

Maybe Shermer could send Hitchens a copy of 'Why People Believe Weird Things'.

I'll get off my soapbox for now.

Cleon

22nd January 2007, 08:23 PM

You're seriously contending that refusing to read an article because an author you disapprove of appears occasionally on the same site is rational behavior?

I didn't say that, did I? I said that trying to emulate Hitchens' arrogance and vitriol doesn't do much for your argument. I will repeat that advice, as it seems you've decided to ignore it:

Trying to emulate Hitchens' arrogance and vitriol doesn't do much for your argument.

Margaret K

22nd January 2007, 08:31 PM

I need to clarify something from my previous post.
I thought Bush's decision to invade Iraq was a dumb one and nothing that has happened since then has made me change my mind - quite the reverse. Iraq is a 'mess' that Dubya has managed to get himself (and his country) into. Our Prime Minister Honest John Howard has taken us along for the ride! I had no problem with the overthrow of Saddam. He was not a nice man and did not deserve a nice fate! My concern was that his overthrow would leave a vacuum which would spring open the proverbial can of worms. Sadly, this is what has happened. I really wish people would study history instead of repeat it!

pomeroo

22nd January 2007, 08:33 PM

I read it. It does not substantiate your allegation. The article was able to find three individuals who are not employees or spokespeople for MoveOn making such comments on three separate occasions (occasions that were not related to MoveOn in any way, shape, or form). Of course, it also mentions the infamous "Hitler ad," which we all know was not sponsored by MoveOn. It didn't even win the damn contest.

So the article in question does not substantiate the allegation. If anything, it's inability to find an occasion of MoveOn issuing any sort of publication making such a comparison or any spokesman or employee of MoveOn making such a comparison is an indication to the contrary.

Now for the kicker. Enter the following into Google: "site:moveon.org hitler" (sans quotes, of course). What this does is google MoveOn's site for the word "hitler." You get seven (7) hits. Of those,

5) are referencing the "Hitler ad," which again, we know was not supported, funded, or produced by MoveOn.org.
1) is actually a link to an NYTimes article that I'm not going to pay money to read.
1) is a link to the main page for some reason. No "Hitler" referenced. (If I had to guess, I'd say it was a reference to the "Hitler ad" that Google cached.)

One would think that if MoveOn was "CONSTANTLY" comparing Bush to Hitler, we'd get a wee bit more than the above.

So, as far as I can tell, what you have provided evidence for is the existence of the allegation that MoveOn is "constantly" comparing Bush to Hitler. But evidence for the allegation itself seems to be somewhat lacking.

The funny part is that I don't even LIKE MoveOn. But, this being a skeptic's forum, when you make an empty claim, people are going to want evidence.

Well, you win. I have concluded that the sea of posters I encountered at those "peace" rallies in 2002 and 2003 showing Bush with a Hitler-mustache was a figment of my imagination. I was hallucinating. Margaret Cho doesn't compare Bush to Hitler; Janeane Garofalo doesn't; Bob Fertig doesn't; Bob Fitrakis doesn't; Julian Bond doesn't. Nope. Not a single one of the show-biz types who routinely compare Bush to Hitler really does it.

Come to think of it, even mainstream politicians like Charley Rangel don't indulge in the Nazi stuff. I and thousands of conservative pundits and bloggers fabricated the whole thing. Those loony-left blogs that compare Bush to Hitler on a daily basis--they're not real. We're just all crazy to think that the left has employed this vicious smear tactic countless times.

Who would have thought that I needed critical thinkers to show me a whole new fantasy world:boggled: ?

Cleon

22nd January 2007, 08:35 PM

Well, you win. I have concluded that the sea of posters I encountered at those "peace" rallies in 2002 and 2003 showing Bush with a Hitler-mustache was a figment of my imagination. I was hallucinating. Margaret Cho doesn't compare Bush to Hitler; Janeane Garofalo doesn't; Bob Fertig doesn't; Bob Fitrakis doesn't; Julian Bond doesn't. Nope. Not a single one of the show-biz types who routinely compare Bush to Hitler really does it.

So no evidence, just more anecdotes, this time with a snarkier attitude. Do I need to repeat my advice about trying to emulate Hitchens again?

pomeroo

22nd January 2007, 08:39 PM

I didn't say that, did I? I said that trying to emulate Hitchens' arrogance and vitriol doesn't do much for your argument. I will repeat that advice, as it seems you've decided to ignore it:

Trying to emulate Hitchens' arrogance and vitriol doesn't do much for your argument.

Attributing arrogance and vitriol to me is a form of ad hominem attack. They are your subjective impressions of me and have no relevance to the points I'm attempting to make.

pomeroo

22nd January 2007, 08:40 PM

So no evidence, just more anecdotes, this time with a snarkier attitude. Do I need to repeat my advice about trying to emulate Hitchens again?

Yes, you're right: I've presented no evidence.

a_unique_person

22nd January 2007, 08:48 PM

pomeroo

22nd January 2007, 08:50 PM

Hitchens is hardly the authority on Wilson.

At what point do you continue to look at Coulter's nonsense before deciding none of it is of value, pom?

Along the same vein, at some point there is enough evidence to conclude there is no point in actually discussing issues with you. You are fixed in place.

Hitchens has provided us with some real investigative reporting, the sort we rarely encounter nowadays, in his series on Wilson and Zawahie. You blithely state that Hitchens is "hardly the authority on Wilson." Actually reading what he wrote might change your mind. Hitchens happens to be an outstanding authority on Joe Wilson's tangled and self-serving tale.

By the way, is Coulter wrong in her analysis of the Duke University "rape" travesty?

pomeroo

22nd January 2007, 08:54 PM

Fine, lets look at the evidence. How much uranium was found in Iraq?

I guess it wouldn't do any good to keep pointing out that nobody is saying that the Iraqis actually obtained any yellowcake. I wonder why nobody will READ Hitchens's articles?

SkeptiKilt

22nd January 2007, 09:13 PM

I have read many of Hitchens's articles on Iraq, and what I find is a drunken former socialist who is so afraid of Muslims that he has embraced a philosophy of "Kill 'em all." To this end has written multiple apologias for the disastrous weltanschauung of a neocon cabal, and is in too deep to extricate himself with anything resembling grace. He and George W Bush are well-suited to each other; they are both congenitally unable to apologize.

And to think that a decade ago Hitchens was railing at Clinton for not being liberal enough; from Trotskyist to neocon in just a few short years.

noblecaboose

22nd January 2007, 09:20 PM

I think Hitchens lived up to my previous impression of him. He's outspoken and a jerk who chooses to see things through the lens of his existing opinion. For example, his article on why women aren't funny really pissed me off. While I agreed with some of his theories about it, I disagreed with his major premise. It was insulting to me, as I made comedy my career to some extent. When I confronted him about this at the forum party, he was quite willing to debate it with me, and my conversation with him was one of the highlights of the weekend for me.

Unfortunately, his behavior on the panel was one of the low points for most of us, but I can speak for only myself when I say that I slightly enjoyed hearing people disagree for once. I can't think of a group of people more difficult to offend, and it was kind of exciting to have the calm waters churned up. True, there's a fine line between polite debate and schoolyard scrapping, and that came dangerously close to the latter. Peter Sagal diffused things perfectly, and thank goodness for that. I voiced my opinion by NOT clapping for Hitchens when I disagreed, and only clapping when I did. I definitely don't agree with the man on all points, but his behavior was no surprise. There's no excuse for that, but it's what one ought to expect from a man who can blithely eviscerate Mother Theresa.

Besides, wouldn't it have been cool to see someone go all Buzz Aldrin on him (i.e. Pop him one)?

ravdin

22nd January 2007, 10:19 PM

it's what one ought to expect from a man who can blithely eviscerate Mother Theresa.

And what is so terrific about Mother Teresa?

infidelguy

22nd January 2007, 10:33 PM

I admit I was taken aback by his responses. Turned me right off. I didn't wish to hear anything else he had to say. A man of his intellect I thought would be beyond blanket assertions and ad hominems. I guess I was wrong. :(

articulett

22nd January 2007, 11:00 PM

Hence my use of the word "unnecessary". :)

Agreed. I find it hard to be as nice as Randy, I must say--and he is far more likable than Hitchens. Moreover, his solution to the "faith=truth" problem is much less bloody and more effective than Hitchens' warmongering approach!

Educate the young--use the internet--they (we) will educate each other...the old blow hards are not educable, but they will die--and if we educate their young, we keep the old woo blow hards from exercising their influence in destructive ways. It is uncritical crowds letting a single person do the thinking for the group that are frightening--

And thanks to the person who posted the clip of Hitchens' on Maher's show. Bill Maher is a Libertarian too, isn't he? I'm too polite to boo Hitchens--I walked out. But I would have preferred if Hitchens was off entertaining the troups rather than being at TAM. That being said, you can have a bunch of Hitchens-types at TAM, and you won't keep me away. TAM has been the highlight of my year for the 4th year in a row. But if we are going to have atheist Libertarians, maybe we can ask Bill Maher to come next year. He'd love it more than Hitchens, I'm sure, and he'd be much more enjoyable to the crowd. And boy would it be great (to me at least) if he was a regularly attendee!

ravdin

22nd January 2007, 11:08 PM

I agree with Phil that there's a big difference with saying that Hitchens' behavior was wrong and that his comments were wrong. I agree with the general consensus on the thread that Hitchens was a jerk on the panel. But I also agree with just about everything that Hitchens said- my issue is that he overreacted and directed his tirade at the wrong target.

Our invasion of Iraq has been unfortunate for many reasons, but among them is that it's a distraction from a very huge threat. We have an enemy that has already murdered thousands of our citizens and is determined to do it again. Let me be very clear: Wahabi Islam is poison. It is deeply rooted in a totalitarian mindset and is antithetical to our civilized values.

It's part of our values to be tolerant of different views, which is a good thing when we're dealing with people with weird but harmless beliefs. But we must demand reciprocity for our tolerance. Hitchens' tirade was rude but it was a valuable wake up call all the same.

Dikkers took the high road and was a true gentleman. I wouldn't have wanted to take a thumping like that and he handled it very gracefully.

Euromutt

23rd January 2007, 04:09 AM

Fine, lets look at the evidence. How much uranium was found in Iraq?Well, that's precisely beside the point. The whole kerfuffle started over the "Sixteen Words"--when Bush claimed in the 2003 SotU that:The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.The operative word have being "sought," which is not the same as "acquired."

Wilson made a stink when the NYT ran an op-ed piece by him on 06-Jul-2003, titled "What I Didn't Find in Niger." In this piece, Wilson stated that he had not found any evidence that Iraq had acquired yellowcake uranium from Niger (which was true), and that Bush was lying when he uttered the "Sixteen Words." Later, in his subsequent book The Politics of Truth, Wilson claimed:In [the NYT piece], I stated that the Bush administration had been informed a year and a half earlier that their claims of Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium from Niger were false.

I turn now to the Senate Intelligence Committee's "Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq." (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/senateiraqreport.pdf) On page 43, there is a description of a CIA report based on Wilson's debriefing following his return from Niger:The intelligence report [based on Wilson's trip] indicated that former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki was unaware of any contracts that had been signed between Niger and any rogue states for the sale of yellowcake while he was Prime Minister (1997-1999) or foreign Minister (1996-1997). Mayaki said that if there had been any such contract during his tenure, he would have been aware of it. Mayaki said, however, that in June 1999, [redacted] businessman, approached him and insisted that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq. The intelligence report said that Mayaki interpreted "expanding commercial relations" to mean that the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales. The intelligence report also said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to the UN sanctions on Iraq."The long and short of it is that the Wilson apparently found that Iraq had apparently sought to acquire yellowcake from Niger, but had not succeeded in actually acquiring any. Thus, Wilson's subsequent claim (in his book) that there had been no such attempt contradicts the report based on his debriefing. The Senate Intelligence Committee's report goes on to describe that, when interviewed by the Committee, Wilson emphasized the obstacles to Iraq actually acquiring yellowcake from Niger, but did not make any statements to the effect that no attempt had been made.

The net result is that what Wilson claims he said is at odds with what everybody else says he said. Sure, maybe there's a conspiracy to misrepresent his findings from hi trip to Niger, but bear in mind that we have a special sub-forum just for conspiracy theories, and we have it for a very good reason.

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

23rd January 2007, 09:17 AM

Hitchens's behavior was like finding a bug in the middle of your ice cream cone.
I was thinking more like a piece of bitter dark chocolate in the middle of a pasty vanilla ice cream cone that was about to fall off the edge of a cone of blandness.

~~ Paul

saganite

23rd January 2007, 09:20 AM

I think Hitchens lived up to my previous impression of him. He's outspoken and a jerk who chooses to see things through the lens of his existing opinion. For example, his article on why women aren't funny really pissed me off. While I agreed with some of his theories about it, I disagreed with his major premise. It was insulting to me, as I made comedy my career to some extent. When I confronted him about this at the forum party, he was quite willing to debate it with me, and my conversation with him was one of the highlights of the weekend for me.

Noblecaboose, you have made my day. I confronted Hitchens about the very same article, at the very same forum party, because it also pissed me off. My misstep? I was already drunk when I tried to do it, and realized only after I'd already spoken that I was not prepared to get into an argument with a guy who specializes in rhetoric. I backed off right away and made a mental note to raise the argument later--which then never happened. But maybe if nothing else, I primed him to speak about it rationally with you later on. Good for you! His arguments in that article are so wrong.

Reager

23rd January 2007, 09:23 AM

I was thinking more like a piece of bitter dark chocolate in the middle of a pasty vanilla ice cream cone that was about to fall off the edge of a cone of blandness.

~~ Paul

It's possible to spice up a "bland" event without being a wanker to fellow guests and attendies.

PS. You thought TAM was bland? Perhaps we weren't at the same conference.

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

23rd January 2007, 09:42 AM

It's possible to spice up a "bland" event without being a wanker to fellow guests and attendies.
Agreed. I'm not praising Hitchens so much as saying "that's Hitchens for you" and letting his behavior pass on by.

PS. You thought TAM was bland? Perhaps we weren't at the same conference.
I thought the panel discussion was a bit bland, probably because I think of panel discussions as debate forums. But we all agree on these subjects, more or less! We need a few woos to spice things up, I guess.

It wasn't that I liked Hitchens's behavior per se. I just enjoyed a bit of voice-raising.

~~ Paul

TsarBomba

23rd January 2007, 11:51 AM

Because it seems like this thread is getting a little repetative, I won't say anything substantive, but I will take this opportunity to pimp my podcast, Dogma Free America (available on Itunes or at dogmafreeamerica.com). The new episode, which is due to be released some time on Saturday, will feature an interview with Joe Kauffman of Americans Against Hate. We will discuss many of the same issues that Mr. Hitchens brough up in his statments during the panel. If any member posting to this Forum wants to appear on the podcast to give a counterveiling opinion (i.e. that radical Islam is not a serious threat to Western Civilization), please let me know, and I will have you on the Podcast at a later time. Please send a private message if you are interested.

pomeroo

23rd January 2007, 12:55 PM

Well, that's precisely beside the point. The whole kerfuffle started over the "Sixteen Words"--when Bush claimed in the 2003 SotU that:The operative word have being "sought," which is not the same as "acquired."

Wilson made a stink when the NYT ran an op-ed piece by him on 06-Jul-2003, titled "What I Didn't Find in Niger." In this piece, Wilson stated that he had not found any evidence that Iraq had acquired yellowcake uranium from Niger (which was true), and that Bush was lying when he uttered the "Sixteen Words." Later, in his subsequent book The Politics of Truth, Wilson claimed:

I turn now to the Senate Intelligence Committee's "Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq." (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/senateiraqreport.pdf) On page 43, there is a description of a CIA report based on Wilson's debriefing following his return from Niger:The long and short of it is that the Wilson apparently found that Iraq had apparently sought to acquire yellowcake from Niger, but had not succeeded in actually acquiring any. Thus, Wilson's subsequent claim (in his book) that there had been no such attempt contradicts the report based on his debriefing. The Senate Intelligence Committee's report goes on to describe that, when interviewed by the Committee, Wilson emphasized the obstacles to Iraq actually acquiring yellowcake from Niger, but did not make any statements to the effect that no attempt had been made.

The net result is that what Wilson claims he said is at odds with what everybody else says he said. Sure, maybe there's a conspiracy to misrepresent his findings from hi trip to Niger, but bear in mind that we have a special sub-forum just for conspiracy theories, and we have it for a very good reason.

Thank you, Euromutt. You have restored my faith in this forum (Hmmm, faith in skepticism--well, what's wrong with a little oxymoronic insight?). Some people here have so insulated themselves from reality that they simply can't accept the fact that just about everything Joe Wilson said turned out to be incorrect. He is a self-promoting liar. His fellow Democrats have prudently distanced themselves from him since his story fell apart.

Margaret K

23rd January 2007, 11:06 PM

I think I remember Hitchens saying that he was a former Marxist.
A bit later he added that the Marxist interpretation of history was the correct one!
Is this a non sequitur piece of logic or what?
I don't think too many real historians (those who haven't let themselves and their work be entirely highjacked by postmodernism) would agree.
My guess is that they'd tell him that a Marxist interpretation can only ever be part of the story. At times it can be a valuable part. This is particularly true when economic factors are major drivers behind events. But economic factors never provide the full story.
Hitchens seems not to have abandoned his Marxist mind set - thesis, antithesis, synthesis which becomes the new thesis, antithesis, synthesis........ repeat ad nauseum.
Karl Marx would have to be close to being the most boring writer it has ever been my misfortune to have to read.
Now if Hitchens meant Marxist as in Groucho and his brothers, then that would be a different story!

MadOverlord

24th January 2007, 05:12 AM

Googling "Bush and Hitler" produces about 2,040,000 results.

One should take care when using Google hit numbers as an argument. For example. "Randi and Hitler" returns 893,000 results, "Clinton and Hitler" returns 1.4m results, and "Martin Luther King and Hitler" returns 1.1m results. When I put my own name in with Hitler, I only get 16,300 results -- I guess my diabolically subtle plan for world domination is perhaps a tiny bit too subtle.

I found him otherwise to be a fascinating and eloquent speaker, which makes it more the pity he made two such bad decisions

Well said. Remind me to buy one of your books in the near future :)

Dikkers took the high road and was a true gentleman.

Plus he can get his revenge in The Onion any time he so desires. :D

Osama and his mates are dangerous people because they are fundamentalists. Islam is the context.

Or perhaps, more generally, ideologues. I am more and more convinced that the problem isn't religion, but ideology in general. Which leads me to the dilemma of whether my skepticism about -ism's should also apply to the -ism of skepticism.

Now please excuse me while I recurse until my stack overflows.

Skeptic Ginger

24th January 2007, 06:06 AM

I think we've worn this to rags. Moveon sponsored a contest. The two ads comparing Bush to Hitler were featured on the website until enough people complained about them. If you want to pretend that this particular vile smear is unusual in the left-blogosphere, that Bush isn't compared to Hitler CONSTANTLY, I'm afraid that's one bridge I'm not buying.Since I live on the left, I can tell you no one has even mentioned Hitler and Bush in any blog I've read or conversation I've heard since about the time of the Moveon ad contest in '04. This is '07. Why you are so hung up on this is probably easily explained. If you focus on straw men, you don't have to focus on the disasters Bush has actually brought on the country.

D'Nile floats a lot of boats.

Skeptic Ginger

24th January 2007, 06:45 AM

...The net result is that what Wilson claims he said is at odds with what everybody else says he said. Sure, maybe there's a conspiracy to misrepresent his findings from hi trip to Niger, but bear in mind that we have a special sub-forum just for conspiracy theories, and we have it for a very good reason....What I Didn't Find in Africa (http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0706-02.htm) is in Wilson's own words. What is in the "Intelligence Report" which was what page 43 in the 911 report was referring to was hearsay. I see nothing in Wilson's own words that allude to any failed transaction or attempted transaction. Wilson does refer to what we now know to be forged documents which were the origin of the claims about Iraq's attempts.

In addition, if you look at the bottom of page 44 of the 911 report, it says the opposite. It says "the ambassador" found no evidence of an attempt to buy yellow-cake. There is a reference above that the former Prime Minister suggested Iraq may have requested "expanding commercial relations" which might have been interpreted as an attempt to buy uranium. It wasn't from Wilson's report.

You have a forged document, Wilson found no evidence, and the former Prime Minister said Iran attempted to buy yellow-cake. The Iraq reference is more indirectly described.

There's no conspiracy here. It's clear from other evidence the CIA told Bush the Niger document was likely forged, the ambassador said there was no truth to the allegations, and Bush ignored all that regardless of any vague attempt which I'm not clear from those reports Bush even knew about at the time.

Merko

24th January 2007, 06:48 AM

Editing

Merko

24th January 2007, 08:38 AM

I found that heated moment very interesting and I don't think it was a big problem at all. Sure, if that kind of tone had been dominant at TAM it would not have been the pleasant event that it was, but it was just a short moment of antagonism, not a big deal.

The way I interpreted it is that Hitchens has developed an allergic reaction to some real or imagined leftist positions related to the Iraq war and Muslim extremism in general. Mr Dikkers just happened to utter some key words that triggered this reaction, whether Dikkers in fact holds the position Hitchens can't stand or not, I don't know
(and clearly Hitchens was not in a position to know either, based on what little Dikkers actually said). If Hitchens didn't agree, it would have been proper for him to ask Dikkers a straight question, not exploding in a series of insults.

I believe the reason for Hitchens anger on this issue is that he has put himself in a very difficult position because of his support for the Iraq war and all his debates against war opposers. Clearly his position is that 'something has to be done' about Muslim extremism, and for him, the Iraq war is a necessary part of that 'something'. The problem for me is that he seems to equate opposition to the Iraq war with a strawman position of doing absolutely nothing about Muslim extremism.

I also dislike the way Hitchens puts Muslim extremism as basically a category of its own. It is ridiculous when he singles out the Koran for its claims of finality, considering how the Bible claims the same (remember how Jesus says not a letter of it can be changed..). I'm fine if he claims that Muslim extremism is the most dangerous religious extremism in the world today, because of the support it has, the power it wields, and the dangerous intolerance that is part of it. But to describe it as something qualitatively different than other forms of extremism is just plain wrong. He also seems to imply that Islam, unlike other religions, can't change or evolve, which I think is ridiculous.

I also think he was a bit too one-sided in his speech about the Danish cartoon controversy. While I completely agree with the main point, eg that there was not enough principled support for the right to publish the cartoon, and too much 'understanding' of the supposed Muslim right to be outraged, it seemed to me that he was more or less giving hero status to Jyllands-Posten for this action, making them far too more innocent than I believe they actually are. While the cartoons were fine with me, by themselves, this paper has capitalised on Muslim-bashing for a long time, feeding anti-Muslim sentiments in Denmark in a shameful way. I do not believe the intents of the editors were so heroic as Hitchens seemed to imply. We should defend their right to print whatever they want to print, but that doesn't mean we should like them.

SkeptiKilt

24th January 2007, 09:54 AM

Hitchens has developed an allergic reaction to some real or imagined leftist positions related to the Iraq war and Muslim extremism in general. Mr Dikkers just happened to utter some key words that triggered this reaction, whether Dikkers in fact holds the position Hitchens can't stand or not, I don't know (and clearly Hitchens was not in a position to know either, based on what little Dikkers actually said).

[snip] The problem for me is that he seems to equate opposition to the Iraq war with a strawman position of doing absolutely nothing about Muslim extremism.

[snip] I'm fine if he claims that Muslim extremism is the most dangerous religious extremism in the world today, because of the support it has, the power it wields, and the dangerous intolerance that is part of it. But to describe it as something qualitatively different than other forms of extremism is just plain wrong.

[snip]We should defend their right to print whatever they want to print, but that doesn't mean we should like them.

Well said, Merko. I think you've summarized it about as well as anyone could.

The only thing I can add is this: You hire Hitchens to come to your meeting, you get Hitchens. You hire Rosanne Barr to sing the national anthem, you get Roseanne Barr (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHMVuT3Gl6g).

RecoveringYuppy

24th January 2007, 09:57 AM

The only thing I can add is this: You hire Hitchens to come to your meeting, you get Hitchens. You hire Rosanne Barr to sing the national anthem, you get Roseanne Barr (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHMVuT3Gl6g).
Then I would propose we get Lilly Tomlin for future TAMs.

NotJesus

24th January 2007, 10:42 AM

I don't think anyone has mentioned something that may be a contributing factor to Hitchens' intensely personal antagonism towards Islam -- He's a very good friend of Salman Rushdie.

KingMerv00

24th January 2007, 02:21 PM

Noblecaboose, you have made my day. I confronted Hitchens about the very same article, at the very same forum party, because it also pissed me off. My misstep? I was already drunk when I tried to do it, and realized only after I'd already spoken that I was not prepared to get into an argument with a guy who specializes in rhetoric.

Hitchens was almost certainly drunk at the time too. Of course...

Popeye:Spinach::Christopher Hitchens:alcohol.

pomeroo

24th January 2007, 02:51 PM

Since I live on the left, I can tell you no one has even mentioned Hitler and Bush in any blog I've read or conversation I've heard since about the time of the Moveon ad contest in '04. This is '07. Why you are so hung up on this is probably easily explained. If you focus on straw men, you don't have to focus on the disasters Bush has actually brought on the country.

D'Nile floats a lot of boats.

Yes, and the preposterous attempt at denial by a handful of leftists of the left's most repugnant and overused smear is the height of disingenuousness. For sheer chutzpah, this one takes the cake! Create your alternate realities and Orwellian exercises for people who never check out democrats.com, or Cannonfire, or the Democratic Underground, or the dozens (hundreds?) of sites that spew this Bushitler crap (have you tried Googling "Bushitler" lately?). As you may have noticed, I'm not buying.

pomeroo

24th January 2007, 02:57 PM

What I Didn't Find in Africa (http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0706-02.htm) is in Wilson's own words. What is in the "Intelligence Report" which was what page 43 in the 911 report was referring to was hearsay. I see nothing in Wilson's own words that allude to any failed transaction or attempted transaction. Wilson does refer to what we now know to be forged documents which were the origin of the claims about Iraq's attempts.

In addition, if you look at the bottom of page 44 of the 911 report, it says the opposite. It says "the ambassador" found no evidence of an attempt to buy yellow-cake. There is a reference above that the former Prime Minister suggested Iraq may have requested "expanding commercial relations" which might have been interpreted as an attempt to buy uranium. It wasn't from Wilson's report.

You have a forged document, Wilson found no evidence, and the former Prime Minister said Iran attempted to buy yellow-cake. The Iraq reference is more indirectly described.

There's no conspiracy here. It's clear from other evidence the CIA told Bush the Niger document was likely forged, the ambassador said there was no truth to the allegations, and Bush ignored all that regardless of any vague attempt which I'm not clear from those reports Bush even knew about at the time.

Please, if you truly know nothing about this controversy, stop pontificating. The forged Italian documents are a red herring: they played no role in shaping the findings of British intelligence. As you refuse to read Hitchens's essays on the subject, you are in no position to dispute his conclusions.

Cleon

24th January 2007, 06:02 PM

Yes, and the preposterous attempt at denial by a handful of leftists of the left's most repugnant and overused smear is the height of disingenuousness.

I find it interesting that you persist in refusing to provide any substantial evidence of this beyond skewed opinion articles, but you still claim to be incredulous that we're not buying it.

(have you tried Googling "Bushitler" lately?).Honestly, I'm starting to think that "evidence by Google count" should be its own fallacy. It's statistically meaningless, it doesn't establish who's using a word how frequently, and doesn't filter the results for purpose or use.

For example; you can google the forum for "bushitler" by clicking on the "search" dropdown at the top; every single use is by Bush supporters mocking Bush opponents. Every single fracking one. I'm sure in the global google, many of them are "real," but I'm sure many of them are used in the same way.

But ok, let's play this game.

"Bushitler" generates 87,600 results.

"Hitlery" generates 94,500. "Hitlary" generates an additional 19,100, for a grand total of 113,600.

Care to comment? Or are comparisons with Hitler only objectionable if the target is Bush?

a_unique_person

24th January 2007, 06:12 PM

I guess it wouldn't do any good to keep pointing out that nobody is saying that the Iraqis actually obtained any yellowcake. I wonder why nobody will READ Hitchens's articles?

My point is that he says of course the only reason this person would go to Niger was to by Uranium. According to his logic, it's the only reason anyone would go there, since that's all the place sells.

Fine, if that's the only reason to go there, then he must have been buying some uranium, only, he didn't. That Saddam was a dangerous nut who would like to be a regional tyrant as well is not in dispute, as to whether or not he actually had the ability to further his aims using nuclear power is quite clear, he had no ability at all. No infrastructure, no uranium, nothing. That was known, due to UN inspections. To say he would like to rule the world is just pointless.

RecoveringYuppy

24th January 2007, 06:16 PM

Yes, and the preposterous attempt at denial by a handful of leftists of the left's most repugnant and overused smear is the height of disingenuousness. For sheer chutzpah, this one takes the cake! Create your alternate realities and Orwellian exercises for people who never check out democrats.com, or Cannonfire, or the Democratic Underground, or the dozens (hundreds?) of sites that spew this Bushitler crap (have you tried Googling "Bushitler" lately?). As you may have noticed, I'm not buying.
OK. I went to Democrats.com and did a search for Hitler. I found a few such comparisons in their user contributed content over the past year and the last one produced by democrats.com itself is about five years old now. It's archived so I can't really tell if they actually compared Bush to Hitler or merely considered the possibility.

If it's so overused why not just prove the point by posting a bunch of links from the past week? At the moment, this looks as serious as the war on Christmas.

NotJesus

24th January 2007, 06:22 PM

If it's so overused why not just prove the point by posting a bunch of links from the past week?

I'm a Democrat and I think Bush is like Hitler.

So there's one.

pomeroo

24th January 2007, 06:24 PM

I find it interesting that you persist in refusing to provide any substantial evidence of this beyond skewed opinion articles, but you still claim to be incredulous that we're not buying it.

Honestly, I'm starting to think that "evidence by Google count" should be its own fallacy. It's statistically meaningless, it doesn't establish who's using a word how frequently, and doesn't filter the results for purpose or use.

For example; you can google the forum for "bushitler" by clicking on the "search" dropdown at the top; every single use is by Bush supporters mocking Bush opponents. Every single fracking one. I'm sure in the global google, many of them are "real," but I'm sure many of them are used in the same way.

But ok, let's play this game.

"Bushitler" generates 87,600 results.

"Hitlery" generates 94,500. "Hitlary" generates an additional 19,100, for a grand total of 113,600.

Care to comment? Or are comparisons with Hitler only objectionable if the target is Bush?

Are you seriously trying to pretend that leftists haven't trumpeted their Bush-is-Hitler trope for over five years? This is a joke, right? Do you require that I provide evidence proving that the North won the Civil War? What point are you trying to make? Is everyone who complains about this vile tactic hallucinating? :boggled:

pomeroo

24th January 2007, 06:26 PM

My point is that he says of course the only reason this person would go to Niger was to by Uranium. According to his logic, it's the only reason anyone would go there, since that's all the place sells.

Fine, if that's the only reason to go there, then he must have been buying some uranium, only, he didn't. That Saddam was a dangerous nut who would like to be a regional tyrant as well is not in dispute, as to whether or not he actually had the ability to further his aims using nuclear power is quite clear, he had no ability at all. No infrastructure, no uranium, nothing. That was known, due to UN inspections. To say he would like to rule the world is just pointless.

"I wonder why nobody will READ Hitchens's articles?"

pomeroo

24th January 2007, 06:28 PM

I'm a Democrat and I think Bush is like Hitler.

So there's one.

Your opinion is irrational nonsense, but at least you admit to holding it.

Cleon

24th January 2007, 06:40 PM

Are you seriously trying to pretend that leftists haven't trumpeted their Bush-is-Hitler trope for over five years? This is a joke, right? Do you require that I provide evidence proving that the North won the Civil War? What point are you trying to make? Is everyone who complains about this vile tactic hallucinating? :boggled:

Once again, more incredulity, zero actual evidence.

I also notice you're ignoring the bit about "Hitlery." Funny, that.

pomeroo

24th January 2007, 07:26 PM

I confess that I'm mystified. Are you actually pretending that leftists haven't been comparing Bush to Hitler for the last five years? I mean, seriously? Would it help to link to hundreds of articles on conservative sites that complain about this despicable practice? I assume you're committed to claiming that everyone who complains is hallucinating. Do I have this right, or am I misrepresenting your position? Can you possibly be contending that leftists DO NOT ROUTINELY compare Bush to Hitler? I can't be the only person who is blinking in disbelief.

RecoveringYuppy

24th January 2007, 07:43 PM

Would it help to link to hundreds of articles on conservative sites that complain about this despicable practice? I assume you're committed to claiming that everyone who complains is hallucinating.
Here's a novel idea: Why don't you do what people are asking for and provide links to the organizations you cited routinely comparing Bush to Hitler?

Geek Goddess

24th January 2007, 07:52 PM

But ok, let's play this game.

"Bushitler" generates 87,600 results.

"Hitlery" generates 94,500. "Hitlary" generates an additional 19,100, for a grand total of 113,600.

Care to comment? Or are comparisons with Hitler only objectionable if the target is Bush?

Goddess Hitler got 595,000 hits. I win.

RecoveringYuppy

24th January 2007, 07:58 PM

Sorry, we of the left have been disparaging you as "Geek Hitler" which only gets two pages of hits. Soros just doesn't pay us as much for your disparagement.

Cleon

24th January 2007, 08:00 PM

I assume you're committed to claiming that everyone who complains is hallucinating.

No. The only one who has made any claims is you. Claims that you have failed to substantiate, and in at least one glaring instance (the Moveon.org bit) was completely debunked.

You're the one making generalized claims about "the left," MoveOn.org, and more. Not me.

Either put up, or shut up.

ETA: Still no comment about "Hitlery?" I wonder why that is...

pomeroo

24th January 2007, 08:11 PM

Here's a novel idea: Why don't you do what people are asking for and provide links to the organizations you cited routinely comparing Bush to Hitler?

I tried pointing out that for five years I have been arguing with people on Cannonfire, the Democratic Underground, Democrats.com, Brad's blog, etc., for comparing Bush to Hitler. I've heard lots of reasons why Bush IS similar to Hitler. Nobody, until now, has tried claiming that I'm dreaming--that I'm imagining that this is happening. Insane though it may be, I'll admit that what's being attempted here is a creative approach.

I once had an economics professor who offered these wise words: On occasion, you will encounter people who point at the noonday sun and insist that it's an unusually bright full moon. Keep in mind that you will NOT win an argument with such people.

Now, I'm perfectly willing to throw in the towel here. That sea of posters I grew accustomed to seeing at "peace" marches sponsored by A.N.S.W.E.R and Nion and other Marxist groups, the ones depicting Bush with a Hitler mustache--all in my head. It's an illusion. Never happened. Those protesters at the Republican National Convention two years ago with their Bush-as-Hitler posters--we all imagined it.

This is towering madness, but I know when I'm licked.

RecoveringYuppy

24th January 2007, 08:15 PM

Cleon

24th January 2007, 08:16 PM

Nobody, until now, has tried claiming that I'm dreaming--that I'm imagining that this is happening. Insane though it may be, I'll admit that what's being attempted here is a creative approach.

I'll give you credit. You've made an art form out of completely evading the point, moving the goalposts, and then making an argument from incredulity out of a complete strawman.

It's amusing, if nothing else. You've pretty much hit every logical fallacy in the book at least once, including a brand-new one (argument from Google count).

pomeroo

24th January 2007, 09:15 PM

No. The only one who has made any claims is you. Claims that you have failed to substantiate, and in at least one glaring instance (the Moveon.org bit) was completely debunked.

You're the one making generalized claims about "the left," MoveOn.org, and more. Not me.

Either put up, or shut up.

ETA: Still no comment about "Hitlery?" I wonder why that is...

Your "debunking," by the oddest coincidence, is identical to the debunkings I've received on the 9/11 fantasy sites. I am frequently assured that "science" has "proved" that the Twin Towers were brought down by explosives. I invariably find their technique as impressive as I found yours.

For the record, Moveon.org sponsored a contest to create anti-Bush ads. Two ads comparing Bush to Hitler (Bush morphs into Hitler--or it was the reverse?--in one) appeared on the organization's website. The Republican National Committee and various Jewish groups raised hell. Move on removed the offending ads. So far, we're all on the same page.

Move On's official line is that the ads were unpopular. I, along with every other conservative and, I suspect, many centrist Democrats, think they're lying: lefties compare Bush to Hitler all the time and they're not the least bit shy about it. But, if that's Move On's official line, then we should take their word for it. Nobody suggested that the ads were created by Move On. Your "complete" debunking debunked absolutely nothing. But, then, you already knew that.

I've lost count of the number of times Alan Colmes, or Bob Beckel, or Kirstin Powers has countered Hannity, or O'Reilly, or Mike Gallagher by pointing out that mainstream Democrats reject the Bush-is-Hitler nonsense. Are you suggesting that they're taking the wrong tack? Perhaps they should try saying, "You are getting very sleepy. Your eyes are heavy. You are drifting off. When you awake, you will not remember anyone on the left comparing George Bush to Adolf Hitler. It has never happened. Ever."

Initially, I thought we misunderstood each other. Your insistence that you've debunked something is a bit too reminiscent of my jousts with the fantasists. Let me repeat: this discussion is highly disingenuous.

Are there rightwing nuts who compare Hillary to Hitler? Sure. You just don't see thousands of them in the streets waving posters.

LostAngeles

24th January 2007, 09:28 PM

Your "debunking," by the oddest coincidence, is identical to the debunkings I've received on the 9/11 fantasy sites. I am frequently assured that "science" has "proved" that the Twin Towers were brought down by explosives. I invariably find their technique as impressive as I found yours.

For the record, Moveon.org sponsored a contest to create anti-Bush ads. Two ads comparing Bush to Hitler (Bush morphs into Hitler--or it was the reverse?--in one) appeared on the organization's website. The Republican National Committee and various Jewish groups raised hell. Move on removed the offending ads. So far, we're all on the same page.

Move On's official line is that the ads were unpopular. I, along with every other conservative and, I suspect, many centrist Democrats, think they're lying: lefties compare Bush to Hitler all the time and they're not the least bit shy about it. But, if that's Move On's official line, then we should take their word for it. Nobody suggested that the ads were created by Move On. Your "complete" debunking debunked absolutely nothing. But, then, you already knew that.

I've lost count of the number of times Alan Colmes, or Bob Beckel, or Kirstin Powers has countered Hannity, or O'Reilly, or Mike Gallagher by pointing out that mainstream Democrats reject the Bush-is-Hitler nonsense. Are you suggesting that they're taking the wrong tack? Perhaps they should try saying, "You are getting very sleepy. Your eyes are heavy. You are drifting off. When you awake, you will not remember anyone on the left comparing George Bush to Adolf Hitler. It has never happened. Ever."

Initially, I thought we misunderstood each other. Your insistence that you've debunked something is a bit too reminiscent of my jousts with the fantasists. Let me repeat: this discussion is highly disingenuous.

Are there rightwing nuts who compare Hillary to Hitler? Sure. You just don't see thousands of them in the streets waving posters.

That's nice dear, but I don't see a single cite in any of your posts, simply unbacked assertations and anecdotes.

If you wouldn't mind taking the time before your next post, to do the research and pull up a few links substantiating your claims, we'd appreciate it greatly.

Thank you again.

P.S. If you don't know where to start, here (http://www.just****inggoogleit.com) is as good a place as any.

Cleon

24th January 2007, 09:34 PM

Your "debunking," by the oddest coincidence, is identical to the debunkings I've received on the 9/11 fantasy sites.

And more fallacies. Will they never end...

For the record, Moveon.org sponsored a contest to create anti-Bush ads. Two ads comparing Bush to Hitler (Bush morphs into Hitler--or it was the reverse?--in one) appeared on the organization's website. The Republican National Committee and various Jewish groups raised hell. Move on removed the offending ads. So far, we're all on the same page.

Move On's official line is that the ads were unpopular.

Did MoveOn endorse, produce, fund, or support said ads in any way? So far the evidence, contrary to your original claim, indicates a resounding "no."

I, along with every other conservative and, I suspect, many centrist Democrats, think they're lying:

So first, you're claiming to speak for "every other conservative." (Trying to emulate Hitchens' arrogance again, I see.)

Second, you can think whatever you please. You can think MoveOn is lying, you can think 9/11 was an Israeli conspiracy, you can think Bush was right and that Iraqi WMDs either have been found or about to be. (Hey, you wouldn't be alone, Neal Boortz is still convinced they've been found.)

But get this. I don't CARE what you think. I don't care what Hitchens thinks, what Michael Moore thinks, what Janeane Garofalo thinks, or what Binky the mother****ing Clown thinks.

Show. Me. The. Evidence.

So far you haven't done so. You've established that at least some high-profile conservatives have made the same claim, but the evidence of a MoveOn-backed campaign to compare Bush with Hitler seems to be somewhat lacking.

Nobody suggested that the ads were created by Move On.

Really?

So when you said "if you want to pretend that MoveOn hasn't made a practice of comparing Bush to Hitler, you run into a brick wall of reality," what exactly were you referring to?

So far the ONLY example of MoveOn supposedly engaging in this "practice" has been the ads, which you correctly note were NOT created by MoveOn--nor were they endorsed, produced, funded, or supported by MoveOn in any way.

So where is this supposed "practice of comparing Bush to Hitler" that you attribute to MoveOn?

I've lost count of the number of times Alan Colmes, or Bob Beckel, or Kirstin Powers has countered Hannity, or O'Reilly, or Mike Gallagher by pointing out that mainstream Democrats reject the Bush-is-Hitler nonsense.

So if that's the case, where's the great big giant "leftist" Bush=Hitler campaign you keep going on about about?

(...And we're back to a demand for evidence, which I'm sure you will not supply.)

Are there rightwing nuts who compare Hillary to Hitler? Sure. You just don't see thousands of them in the streets waving posters.

Ahhh...So you're willing to dismiss the ones who dismiss the conservatives who say "Hitlery" as a few "nuts," but you won't similarly dismiss the ones who compare Bush to Hitler. That's very interesting.

Do you have any evidence that "Bushitler" is more popular among critics of Bush than "Hitlery" is among conservatives? Any evidence at all? Or just repetition of the same opinion by those who share yours?

Getting back to something resembling on-topic, if you want to make a case that partisan political speeches belong at a skepticism conference, you should probably that there's some critical thinking involved.

pomeroo

24th January 2007, 09:45 PM

That's nice dear, but I don't see a single cite in any of your posts, simply unbacked assertations and anecdotes.

If you wouldn't mind taking the time before your next post, to do the research and pull up a few links substantiating your claims, we'd appreciate it greatly.

Thank you again.

P.S. If you don't know where to start, here (http://www.just****inggoogleit.com) is as good a place as any.

Actually, I would very much mind taking any more time to post links that get ignored or distorted. The National Review, the Weekly Standard, and Commentary, to name only the journals that immediately spring to mind, have published articles examining the left's Bush-as-Hitler trope. You are pretending--and doing a highly unconvincing job--that the vile smear is given voice by a tiny fringe. You are wrong. If you want to peddle snake oil about a comparable rightwing element that routinely compares Hillary to Bush, you're still blowing smoke. There will be no articles in leftist journals about "all" those conservatives who employ Nazi smears because there just aren't very many--as you know.

It's funny that whenever people try to con me by criticizing MY use of logic, their own capacity for logical argument turns out to be negligible.

delphi_ote

24th January 2007, 09:52 PM

Hitchens basically makes a living out of being an ass. No human could possibly hold all of the extreme points of view he supposedly does and live day to day life. To some degree, I think his career is performance art. He enjoys his life as the profound, poetic contrarian, taking stances nobody could possibly defend and railing on them long enough and eloquently enough to get people to consider the issue with an open mind.

Please understand that I like Hitchens very much, I just hope Dikkers didn't take him too seriously and get offended. I'd like to have both of them back next year. Jon Stewart seems to understand Hitchens. I hope Dikkers has the same sensibility.

ETA And wasn't it the most exciting part of the panel discussion? As soon as Dikkers opened his mouth, I knew we were in for a ride. :D

Cleon

24th January 2007, 09:52 PM

Actually, I would very much mind taking any more time to post links that get ignored or distorted. The National Review, the Weekly Standard, and Commentary, to name only the journals that immediately spring to mind, have published articles examining the left's Bush-as-Hitler trope.

No. They've presented opinion pieces about it.

The fact that you cannot differentiate between "opinion" and "evidence" speaks volumes.

You are pretending--and doing a highly unconvincing job--that the vile smear is given voice by a tiny fringe. You are wrong.

Then show us the evidence of that, already.

Repeated Assertion != Evidence. Yes, even if the assertion is also made by others.

Also, before you go on about "imagining" things, I should also point out:

Incredulity at Strawman != Evidence.

Tough, ain't it?

delphi_ote

24th January 2007, 09:54 PM

have published articles examining the left's Bush-as-Hitler trope
LINK to the articles mentioned and your argument is made for you.

LostAngeles

24th January 2007, 10:04 PM

Actually, I would very much mind taking any more time to post links that get ignored or distorted. The National Review, the Weekly Standard, and Commentary, to name only the journals that immediately spring to mind, have published articles examining the left's Bush-as-Hitler trope. You are pretending--and doing a highly unconvincing job--that the vile smear is given voice by a tiny fringe. You are wrong. If you want to peddle snake oil about a comparable rightwing element that routinely compares Hillary to Bush, you're still blowing smoke. There will be no articles in leftist journals about "all" those conservatives who employ Nazi smears because there just aren't very many--as you know.

It's funny that whenever people try to con me by criticizing MY use of logic, their own capacity for logical argument turns out to be negligible.

Actually, I've been sitting back and observing and would like to see some support for your assertions.

Welcome to the JREF forum, my dear, where you are expected to produce evidence for your claims.

pomeroo

24th January 2007, 10:19 PM

Actually, I've been sitting back and observing and would like to see some support for your assertions.

Welcome to the JREF forum, my dear, where you are expected to produce evidence for your claims.

Welcome yourself. I've spent a little too much time with 9/11 conspiracists who have learned the trick of feigning a rational demeanor while spouting fantastic nonsense to be taken in by the transparent sophistry on display here. If you want to pretend that there exists a contingent of conservatives who liken Hillary to Hitler comparable to the enormous number of leftists, from glassy-eyed "no-blood-for-oil" loons to Michael Moore Democrats (shame on them!), who have played this disgraceful game for five years, well, be my guest. I'm not buying any bridges or used cars from you. You are as logical as the twoofers.

Cleon

24th January 2007, 10:23 PM

Welcome yourself. I've spent a little too much time with 9/11 conspiracists who have learned the trick of feigning a rational demeanor while spouting fantastic nonsense to be taken in by the transparent sophistry on display here. If you want to pretend that there exists a contingent of conservatives who liken Hillary to Hitler comparable to the enormous number of leftists, from glassy-eyed "no-blood-for-oil" loons to Michael Moore Democrats (shame on them!), who have played this disgraceful game for five years, well, be my guest. I'm not buying any bridges or used cars from you. You are as logical as the twoofers.

*yaaaaaawn*.

More over-the-top rhetoric, still zero evidence. I will contain my shock and disbelief.

LostAngeles

24th January 2007, 10:29 PM

Welcome yourself. I've spent a little too much time with 9/11 conspiracists who have learned the trick of feigning a rational demeanor while spouting fantastic nonsense to be taken in by the transparent sophistry on display here. If you want to pretend that there exists a contingent of conservatives who liken Hillary to Hitler comparable to the enormous number of leftists, from glassy-eyed "no-blood-for-oil" loons to Michael Moore Democrats (shame on them!), who have played this disgraceful game for five years, well, be my guest. I'm not buying any bridges or used cars from you. You are as logical as the twoofers.

Can you keep straight who you've been talking to? I just popped up to echo the call evidence. You've been discussing the matter with Cleon and skeptigirl.

Or are you misreading the simple joy of my avatar?

Cleon

24th January 2007, 10:33 PM

Can you keep straight who you've been talking to? I just popped up to echo the call evidence. You've been discussing the matter with Cleon and skeptigirl.

Or are you misreading the simple joy of my avatar?

You're just part of the Conspiracy Campaign, Lost.

pomeroo

24th January 2007, 10:34 PM

Can you keep straight who you've been talking to?

Yes.

I just popped up to echo the call evidence. You've been discussing the matter with Cleon and skeptigirl.

No kidding?

Or are you misreading the simple joy of my avatar?

No.

pomeroo

24th January 2007, 10:35 PM

*yaaaaaawn*.

More over-the-top rhetoric, still zero evidence. I will contain my shock and disbelief.

I think you've been exposed.

LostAngeles

24th January 2007, 10:37 PM

No.

Well, as you can't figure out how to use quoting, I find your claim dubious.

Edit: Sorry, I should say, I find the implication that you're not easily confused to be dubious.

Cleon

24th January 2007, 10:39 PM

I think you've been exposed.

You're right, I must be part of the Conspiracy Campaign as well.

bignickel

25th January 2007, 12:11 AM

I must say how completely disappointed I am in this thread. I was sure that this was going to be the "Penn's retardos remarks" thread of TAM5, and instead it's become just a "They said/Where did they say" bleh thread. Where's the fun in that?

In the infamous Penn thread, we had pages on and on about theism, atheism, the role of skeptics in the media, rationality, faith, etc etc etc. This thread? Bleh, the usual Repub vs Dem stuff. For shame; how is this thread going to get Chris Hitchens to have someone post a response for him here, or better yet, sign up for an account? Now THAT would be a fight I'd love to read.

I did have high hopes early on in this thread, I must admit. Reading about this fight of words between people on a panel discussion, the only thought I had was "dang! Why couldn't I make it to TAM5 this year!?" Now..., [Jon Stewart] meh. [/Jon Steward]

Ah, I'm lying. I still wanted to go. I would have gladly traded places with anyone in this thread. Even if I walked out on the panel discussion, I'd still love it. I never get to witness such discussions in everyday life, and I certainly missed the opportunity to this year. (I suspect there are many who echo my thoughts)

Glenn

25th January 2007, 02:49 AM

Sorry for the long absence after starting this, I'm battling a major deadline. Some random responses:

Delphi_ote: That's a fascinating theory, about Hitchens and performance art. What a great way to look at him, even if he doesn't see himself that way. Makes me love the stuff I do love about him even more.

It's not every day that I see a goalpost made of straw moving hither and yon so quickly yet clumsily.
That's just a beautiful sentence, in any conversation. It bore repeating for the smile it brings.

In a our wonderful modern, multi-cultural, politically correct world full of the mealy-mouthed, the timorous, the people who watch everything they say so as to avoid giving offense, Christopher Hitchens is a breath of fresh air. Horray for Christopher Hitchens.

For what it's worth, Richorman, I don't care for political correctness or timidity, etc. either. But it doesn't take "guts" to be a prick. It doesn't take "guts" to attack someone for something they didn't really say (I know you interpreted it as something else, so I'll grant that we agree to disagree). It doesn't take "guts" to offer an opinion that isn't really all that gutsy, but rather oversimplified, with shades of widely accepted truth. Phil and others have dissected it quite well already so I won't. I'm also all for robust debate. But irascibility isn't the same as robustness. And it's not guts, either. It's actually quite, well, weak.

Phil/TBA and ForPete'sSake: BRAVO! You nailed it in every way. As have others. I enjoy reading the different opinions too, this is all interesting.

Oh, Bignickel, don't worry, I'm going to start quoting verbatim huge sections of last year's thread in a few minutes, just to liven things up.

The rest of this lengthy post (my apologies) is about other stuff brought up since the original topic. Hell, it's long. I'll break it into two.

Pomeroo:

You seem to have a misconception.

And it seems to really bother you.

So let me ease your concerns.

So you can sleep easier at night.

Your conception of the monolithic left is just a fantasy.

Doesn't exist. Neither does the monolithic right, by the way. There are probably more splinters in the left, as that's part of the nature of the left, but the non-monolithic quality of both political poles is something that should comfort you.

And let you sleep nights.

You seem to believe that all -- or even most -- people who consider themselves liberals of one stripe or another are hateful, horrible people who love spewing lies and hating, and when they're done lying and hating they fill their time by comparing Bush to Hitler. Then a bit more hating and lying, before killing puppies. Oh, scratch that, the latter is the right wing. I get confused with the inane rhetoric. (Before you get upset, that's what we call in the business, a joke.)

Maybe you're looking at too many blogs. Blogs are not good places to take the pulse of the masses. You know perfectly well you can find as many wild, crazy right wing blogs as left wing ones. Neither means a thing. The people who write the wildest ones have agendas, they want attention, they want to vent their emotions, they want to use hyperbole to make a point or a joke, they want to get people riled up. They seem to have gotten you riled up. May I recommend doing what I do: ignore them.

Oh, they can also be stupid. Just like people at marches. Marches and rallies bring out all kinds. I'm sure you can find sloppy Hitler comparisons to many people at many protest marches. Have you ever been to right wing protests? You see some pretty ugly things at them, too. I mean offensive ugly. Angry people vent. On the left and right and everywhere else. They sometimes go too far. It makes no sense to judge their whole political party or group based on those individuals' behavior in those moments of irrational venting.

I have a theory. If you avoided making generalizations based on relatively minute, unrepresentative samples, if you avoided saying things like "the leftists" and "the very thing these types say ALL THE TIME," and if you avoided mischaracterizing and slandering the entire "left" as a monolithic group, you might find that you can have some interesting dialogue.

If that's what you're interested in.

The way you speak -- and I know you may not intend this -- you seem to be searching for stuff to get angry at. Stuff that isn't even really there.

Here's an example:

You suggested that the number of hits generated by a basic Google search for the words "Bush" and "Hitler" shows that "the left has promoted this insane comparison for years." I know you're smarter than that. I see others have addressed this, but I still want to illustrate the flaw in this argument:

Here's a very slight improvement on your methodology. (And I mean slight.) "Bush" is a common word. Let's go with the President's full name:

- "George Bush" and "Hitler": 1,330,000 hits (which could apply to his father too, especially since when he was president, the "H.W." was almost never used)
- "George W Bush" and "Hitler": 1,440,000 hits
- "Bill Clinton" and "Hitler": 1,090,000 hits
- "Hillary Clinton" and "Hitler": 1,050,000 hits

These are all in the same ballpark. By the logic you employed, we must conclude from this that the right has promoted this insane comparison between the Clintons and Hitler for years!

Relax.

Breathe.

Ignore the overemotional.

You'll sleep easier.

And by the way, I'm a solid Democrat and I do not think Bush is anything like Hitler. He's like Hussein. (Joke.)

Merko

25th January 2007, 02:51 AM

I don't think it makes any sense to 'compare Bush to Hitler'. However, most of the time when someone is yelling about this kind of thing, they are just too stupid to understand what the discussion is all about.

For example, if someone discusses propaganda in the US today and how it relates to other well known examples of propaganda, let's say in the US prior to entering WW1, or the Soviet Union, or the Third Reich, then someone will instantly pop up and yell about how completely unfair it is to claim that the US is an evil totalitarian state like the USSR or nazi Germany, even though no such claim was ever infered.

When it comes to Bush and Hillary Clinton, I would expect more vitriol towards Bush than towards Clinton, assuming the same level of moronic opposers to both, simply because Bush has been President for 6 years while Clinton is merely a Senator. An observation which may be relevant is that I have organised a 10000 strong demo with the motto 'Bush Not Welcome', and I didn't have to fend off any references to Hitler or swastikas or such (and that was the kind of things we were specifically looking for.. because as an organiser you should know that if there is even one such sign, that will be the sign shown in the tv images).

Skeptic Ginger

25th January 2007, 02:52 AM

Ignoring the po...oo, I have it from reliable sources (a fellow TAM attendee) Hitchens was intoxicated when observed away from the podium. That explains a lot of his behavior.

Do you suppose he's lurking? It would be interesting to debate his points in a rational forum discussion.

Glenn

25th January 2007, 03:18 AM

Pomeroo: Okay, back to the questions you raised about Hitchens' lies, or at best, errors.

1) Joe Wilson.

When I said Hitchens incorrectly claims Wilson's been lying, I wasn't referring to the bit about his wife Valerie Plame. But since you bring that one up, allow me to debunk Hitchens.

Hitchens is relying on old data. Specifically, the erroneous "additional comments" section attached by Republican Senators Roberts, Bond and Hatch to the 7 July 2004 Senate Select Intelligence Committee's Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessment on Iraq.

Very shortly after the report was published, the assertion about Plame was discredited.

Here's a later report about it, dating 10/28/05. This is from an interview between Wolf Blitzer and CNN's National Security Correspondent, David Ensor. (You can find the full text here (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0510/28/bn.02.html)):

DAVID ENSOR: "Secondly, the suggestion that's been out there quite a bit, and there's even some discussion of it in the Senate Intelligence Committee report, that -- that Valerie Plame suggested her husband be sent to Niger, I have talked to very high intelligence officials who say that just isn't true, that it was senior officers above her who had the idea of sending Ambassador Wilson, knowing that he'd been in Niger before and was an experienced hand in Africa, a former ambassador on that continent, and they thought he'd be good.

"They then went to her and said, well, what do you think? And she responded with an e-mail that said, yes, he'd be good for following reasons. That was in response to higher-ups at the CIA who suggested that Joe Wilson be sent."You can also read the thorough explanation in Wilson's published letter (http://dir.salon.com/story/opinion/feature/2004/07/16/wilson_letter/index.html) to the Senate Intelligence Committee, which points out the errors in the Republican senators' additional comments to the report. We obviously can't rely on him as a final source, but he illuminates a great deal, and backs it up. Here's one snippet:

In fact, it is my understanding that the [CIA Counterproliferation Division] reports officer has a different conclusion about Valerie's role than the one offered in the "additional comments." I urge the committee to reinterview the officer and publicly publish his statement.

It is unfortunate that the report failed to include the CIA's position on this matter. If the staff had done so it would undoubtedly have been given the same evidence as provided to Newsday reporters Tim Phelps and Knut Royce in July 2003. They reported on July 22 that:

"A senior intelligence officer confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked 'alongside' the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger. But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. 'They [the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story] were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising,' he said. 'There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason,' he said. 'I can't figure out what it could be.' 'We paid his [Wilson's] airfare. But to go to Niger is not exactly a benefit. Most people you'd have to pay big bucks to go there,' the senior intelligence official said. Wilson said he was reimbursed only for expenses." (Newsday article "Columnist Blows CIA Agent's Cover," dated July 22, 2003).

In fact, on July 13 of this year, David Ensor, the CNN correspondent, did call the CIA for a statement of its position and reported that a senior CIA official confirmed my account that Valerie did not propose me for the trip.Also, this is from a 7/18/04 interview Wolf Blitzer did with Wilson right after the Intelligence Committee report came out (you can read the whole thing here (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0407/18/le.00.html)). Here Wilson is answering Blitzer's question about the claim of his wife's involvement:

WILSON: There are a number of journalists who have gone to the CIA directly and asked about that, including David Ensor, who was told a different story about how that may have come about. In fact, my understanding -- and I don't want to put words in his mouth, so you better ask him -- is that he was told that somebody in that chain of command had asked Valerie to do my list of curriculum vitae.

But the fact of the matter is, the decision -- the invitation, the offer, or the request that I go out to Niger was made at a meeting, after this issue was discussed in a group of involving analysts from the CIA and other agencies. My wife was not at that meeting, and she specifically absented herself from that meeting, so as to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

BLITZER: And I spoke to David Ensor, our national security correspondent, who says that a high-ranking CIA official does say the Senate Intelligence Committee report got it wrong on that specific point.

WILSON: Well, on July 22nd of last year, a Newsday journalist asked the same thing. And he was told by a senior intelligence official that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked alongside, but said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment.Again, what's relevant here is looking at the unbiased sources that back Wilson up. The accusation has been put to rest.

So is Hitchens ignorant, or lying? He's a smart, informed man, so I have to guess the latter. Hitchens: Stop lying. Thank you.

2) Nigerian yellocake:

So what exactly is Hitchens' hard evidence? His own articles speak of conjecture. He proffers no hard evidence. But if I've missed it, kindly list the hard evidence he lists, and I'll assess it. Please don't rant about nobody reading the articles. I have. If I've missed it, please be a gentleman and share it. You could convince me. Thank you.

Cleon

25th January 2007, 03:20 AM

Ignoring the po...oo, I have it from reliable sources (a fellow TAM attendee) Hitchens was intoxicated when observed away from the podium. That explains a lot of his behavior.

He was most likely intoxicated while at the podium. Hitchens is well-known as an alcoholic, to the point where he even makes jokes about it. (I think he made a crack about "turning water into wine" being his favorite miracle.)

Seriously, this is not news to anyone, not even his supporters.

pomeroo

25th January 2007, 03:21 AM

No. They've presented opinion pieces about it.

Gasp! Opinion pieces in JOURNALS OF OPINION?! I can understand now why you have decided that you are a deep thinker. Your grasp of tautology is comprehensive.

The fact that you cannot differentiate between "opinion" and "evidence" speaks volumes.

Let me see: Many, many articles have been written about the left's despicable tactic of comparing Bush to Hitler. The subject is debated frequently on political talk shows. But there is no evidence that leftists, to be more precise, MOVEON.ORG types actually compare Bush to Hitler. Nah, no evidence at all. Again, you can't possibly be serious.
It is a matter of opinion whether or not leftists are JUSTIFIED in making the comparison. If you are trying to pretend that they don't actually make it, you have entered an alternate reality.

Then show us the evidence of that, already.

I've tried.

Repeated Assertion != Evidence. Yes, even if the assertion is also made by others.

Just when I conclude that you are the most hopelessly illogical human I've ever encountered outside a conspiracist site, you stumble onto an accurate observation. Yes, if the behavior of a group is being heavily criticized by many people, we can, without reaching a judgment on that behavior, conclude that the behavior in question has, in fact, been observed.

Also, before you go on about "imagining" things, I should also point out:

Incredulity at Strawman != Evidence.

Incoherent

Tough, ain't it?

Nearly impossible.

Chaos

25th January 2007, 03:39 AM

I find it interesting that you persist in refusing to provide any substantial evidence of this beyond skewed opinion articles, but you still claim to be incredulous that we're not buying it.

Honestly, I'm starting to think that "evidence by Google count" should be its own fallacy. It's statistically meaningless, it doesn't establish who's using a word how frequently, and doesn't filter the results for purpose or use.

For example; you can google the forum for "bushitler" by clicking on the "search" dropdown at the top; every single use is by Bush supporters mocking Bush opponents. Every single fracking one. I'm sure in the global google, many of them are "real," but I'm sure many of them are used in the same way.

But ok, let's play this game.

"Bushitler" generates 87,600 results.

"Hitlery" generates 94,500. "Hitlary" generates an additional 19,100, for a grand total of 113,600.

Care to comment? Or are comparisons with Hitler only objectionable if the target is Bush?

I found about 1.18 million results for "tooth fairy" on Google. Surely this means that all "leftists" (whoever these bogiemen are) all believe in the tooth fairy, right?

a_unique_person

25th January 2007, 03:41 AM

"I wonder why nobody will READ Hitchens's articles?"

I read it, hence my response. His evidence in an article was one of Saddam's aids went to Niger. That was it.

MadOverlord

25th January 2007, 05:17 AM

IMNSVHO this thread has become yet another example of the Usenet/Internet truism that whenever anyone brings Hilter into the discussion, the discussion is over.

It is clearly insulting to compare Bush to Hitler. All you guys are now arguing over is which of the two is more insulted by the comparison.

pomeroo

25th January 2007, 05:27 AM

I found about 1.18 million results for "tooth fairy" on Google. Surely this means that all "leftists" (whoever these bogiemen are) all believe in the tooth fairy, right?

Whenever people who fancy themselves very tricky prattle about moving goalposts, I assume that they're telling me about a technique they favor. Am I supposed to believe in a monolithic left? Do I regard Leslie Cagan as indistinguishable from Chuck Schumer? A silly question, but Alan Colmes apparently does. He famously called the old Castroite a "liberal." I wonder if that Democratic big tent is big enough to accommodate Kim Jong Il, given that it's not big enough for Joe Lieberman.

When Bob Beckel complains about Michael Moore's prominence at the Democratic Convention or the influence the BusHitler crowd, someone should explain to him that it's all in his imagination. There is no sense in debating the size or infuence of a phenomenon that doesn't exist. Right?

pomeroo

25th January 2007, 06:52 AM

[quote=Glenn;2284363]Pomeroo:

You seem to have a misconception.

And it seems to really bother you.

So let me ease your concerns.

So you can sleep easier at night.

Your conception of the monolithic left is just a fantasy.

Your conception of my conception is the real fantasy.

-

Doesn't exist. Neither does the monolithic right, by the way. There are probably more splinters in the left, as that's part of the nature of the left, but the non-monolithic quality of both political poles is something that should comfort you.

As true as it is banal.

-

pomeroo

25th January 2007, 06:59 AM

NotJesus

25th January 2007, 10:45 AM

Your opinion is irrational nonsense, but at least you admit to holding it.

If you weren't so hot under the collar you might have realized it was a joke.

He's more like Mussolini.

Cleon

25th January 2007, 10:51 AM

Wolf Blitzer, an unbiased source--now there's objectivity for you!

What errors does Stephen Hayes make in the following article:
http://weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=6217&R=111ED1759B

:dl:

The sad part is that you probably don't get why this is so funny...

Hutch

25th January 2007, 10:58 AM

Chaos

25th January 2007, 11:25 AM

Whenever people who fancy themselves very tricky prattle about moving goalposts, I assume that they're telling me about a technique they favor. Am I supposed to believe in a monolithic left?

Am I supposed to believe that the guy who accuses "the left" of saying Bush is Hitler does not believe in a monolithic left, as in "the left"?

Do I regard Leslie Cagan as indistinguishable from Chuck Schumer? A silly question, but Alan Colmes apparently does. He famously called the old Castroite a "liberal." I wonder if that Democratic big tent is big enough to accommodate Kim Jong Il, given that it's not big enough for Joe Lieberman.

When Bob Beckel complains about Michael Moore's prominence at the Democratic Convention or the influence the BusHitler crowd, someone should explain to him that it's all in his imagination. There is no sense in debating the size or infuence of a phenomenon that doesn't exist. Right?

Boy, do I miss that crazy lady with the American flag hat. At least she had the excuse of being insane. What´s your excuse?

pomeroo

25th January 2007, 05:41 PM

If you weren't so hot under the collar you might have realized it was a joke.

He's more like Mussolini.

I stand corrected. I don't know the poster and it is impossible for me to make that assessment from what was stated. For roughly five years, I've been tangling with bloggers and street protesters who scream that Bush is Hitler. Such types are not distinguished by subtle wit or a keen sense of irony.

pomeroo

25th January 2007, 05:49 PM

:dl:

The sad part is that you probably don't get why this is so funny...

The sad part is that you regard Wolf Blitzer as an unbiased source. And thanks for pointing out all of those errors.

We all get the idea that it is in their interest for Republicans to demonstrate Joe Wilson's mendacity. Why, I wonder, have his fellow Democrats been giving lyin' Joe such a wide berth? Shouldn't they be attempting to counter the disinfo spread by Hitchens, Hayes, Byron York, Krauthammer, Jonah Goldberg, and few dozen other conservative pundits?

pomeroo

25th January 2007, 05:55 PM

Damn, I come to the TAM and meetings subforum and I find that the Politics subforum has invaded!! :eye-poppi ;)

I do not plan on getting involved in this one, folks, except to say Cleon and friends are well ahead on (debating) points, but in re: Hitchens', he is, IMHO, like Absinthe and Light Bondage during sex, an acquired taste.

And I'm out.

When you actually read what they write, their huge lead vanishes. You conjure up a N.Y. Times book reviewer tasked with criticizing a conservative book. His review copy got lost in the mail, but he hated it anyway.

Cleon

25th January 2007, 06:18 PM

The sad part is that blah blah blah

Yep, no idea. :D

pomeroo

25th January 2007, 06:31 PM

Am I supposed to believe that the guy who accuses "the left" of saying Bush is Hitler does not believe in a monolithic left, as in "the left"?

Yes, a disturbingly large, extremely vocal segment of the left promotes this Bush-is-Hitler nonsense. No, I do not believe that everyone standing on the spectrum that extends from liberal Democrats to the fever swamps deserves to be labeled a loony-leftist. But, then, you already knew that.

Boy, do I miss that crazy lady with the American flag hat. At least she had the excuse of being insane. What´s your excuse?

I understand that the Bob Beckel anecdote was inconvenient to your deception. Your evasion was far from smooth.

Yep, no idea. :D

That's right, no idea. Ralph Kramden would remind you that "I know that you know that I know that you know..."

articulett

25th January 2007, 07:38 PM

And, in addition to not providing evidence of your original claim you are now (and for several posts I might add) trying to change the claim. No one will argue that some people have compared Bush to Hitler. You made a stronger claim than that.

This is your first mention of Marxist groups.

Now that pomeroo has mentioned it, I think valid comparisons can be made between Bush and Hitler. Or maybe Bush and the Pope. To me, the people who support him seem to cheerfully brag about it no matter how egregious or inane the man is--and they seem to expect others to respect him who have no such knee-jerk allegiance. It's almost as if it does not matter how many people die at the hands of this mans "war on terror" or how screwed up the environment gets because of his deceit and cronyism--they still think he's sainted. Doesn't every body who has allegiances to any regime feel similarly about their leader. I can't figure it out. They cast aspersions against his political adversaries and expect others to know the reasons while ignoring an amazing amount of suffering and expenditure and lies by the guy. It just seems like they are brainwashed to me. They see people attacking him where I see people bending over backwards to respect an obvious buffoon. They pretend he's not religious even though I'm certain he'd gladly malign their secularity. They pretend all other options are worse without ever giving a reason. I dunno...isn't that the way the Nazis felt? We're they blinded to their leaders faults? Didn't they value loyalty over the truth? Didn't Hitler use biblical platitudes to preach his truth? Wasn't it about preserving the status quo for rich white christian guys? I guess I do find the zealotry of the right wing crowd a bit scary--it seems like church to me. They seem to smeer others without facts as pomeroo does--and then get mad when anyone points out an actual fact about their sacred cow that they don't feel is respectful. It seems the right wing skeptics where their party affiliation on their sleeve--wheras, for Randi and most others, you don't know unless you ask. I was disgusted when people cheered Hitchens' warmongering. I prefer Randi's "educate the young" approach. I think the warmongering right wing crowd is a blight on America when it comes to our relations with other countries. It reminds me of blind faith. Is that Hitleresque?

Glenn

25th January 2007, 08:43 PM

I stand corrected. I don't know the poster and it is impossible for me to make that assessment from what was stated. For roughly five years, I've been tangling with bloggers and street protesters who scream that Bush is Hitler. Such types are not distinguished by subtle wit or a keen sense of irony.
I'm so curious: why do you bother doing that, Pomeroo?

Why seek out the nuttiest people to get angry at? I don't get the point.

That's amazing to me that you didn't get the joke. I don't know the poster either, but it was patently obvious it was a gag. I wonder how many jokes you've missed and taken seriously because you're so eager to assume so many people are rabidly nuts. It does take a certain level of sophistication to get sarcasm and wit. Not a lot, but some. I'll bet you have it. Just relax. You'll laugh more.

I wasn't just quoting Blitzer, by the way, it was the various people who've checked it out with the CIA and found Wilson was correct.

And moreover, I was pointing out that the SOURCE for the claim about Plame/Wilson was quite biased: 3 GOP senators attaching a thought to the end of the official report. It wasn't part of the report proper. They didn't do their homework.

I don't know what the Hayes piece has to do with Hitchens' lack of hard evidence or misinformation about Plame/Wilson.

RecoveringYuppy

25th January 2007, 09:01 PM

He's more like Mussolini.
What planet do you live on???

Amtrak Delays Leave Passengers to Fend for Themselves (http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/01/amtrak_delay.html)

pomeroo

25th January 2007, 09:16 PM

Now that pomeroo has mentioned it, I think valid comparisons can be made between Bush and Hitler.

The problem is that a truly rational thinker would find no valid comparisons between Bush and Hitler. Your ideology betrays you here.

Or maybe Bush and the Pope. To me, the people who support him seem to cheerfully brag about it no matter how egregious or inane the man is--and they seem to expect others to respect him who have no such knee-jerk allegiance. It's almost as if it does not matter how many people die at the hands of this mans "war on terror" or how screwed up the environment gets because of his deceit and cronyism--they still think he's sainted.

So, who is bragging? I commented on a different thread that I disagree with Bush on more issues than I agree with him. You impute to me a "knee-jerk allegiance" that exists in your own mind and nowhere else.

The remark about "this man's" war on terror tells me much of what I need to know. I gather that the jihadists are passive reactors, occasionally lashing out in response to some American provocation. That's a step up from the conspiracist fantasy that the jihadists aren't real, but I'm not too reassured by it.

Doesn't every body who has allegiances to any regime feel similarly about their leader. I can't figure it out. They cast aspersions against his political adversaries and expect others to know the reasons while ignoring an amazing amount of suffering and expenditure and lies by the guy. It just seems like they are brainwashed to me. They see people attacking him where I see people bending over backwards to respect an obvious buffoon.

I'll help you to figure it out. Your inability to meet the arguments of people who don't regard Bush as a devil figure never shakes your quasi-religious faith in your own prejudices. It simply doesn't occur to you that what your side brands as lies are simply policy disagreements. Admittedly, it is easier to call someone a liar than to develop a cogent argument.
If you want to try selling me the notion that Bush hasn't been vilified to a degree unseen since Lincoln's day, you probably won't succeed.

They pretend he's not religious even though I'm certain he'd gladly malign their secularity.

Who is guilty of this? I take Bush at his word that religion has entered his life. Your certainty about his eagerness to malign the secularity of others is based on absolutely nothing. People who actually know the man paint him as tolerant and undogmatic. Of course, what would they know?

They pretend all other options are worse without ever giving a reason. I dunno...isn't that the way the Nazis felt? We're they blinded to their leaders faults? Didn't they value loyalty over the truth? Didn't Hitler use biblical platitudes to preach his truth? Wasn't it about preserving the status quo for rich white christian guys? I guess I do find the zealotry of the right wing crowd a bit scary--it seems like church to me.

Some of us find the zealotry of the unthinking left pretty scary.

They seem to smeer others without facts as pomeroo does--and then get mad when anyone points out an actual fact about their sacred cow that they don't feel is respectful.

My facts are quite solid. This discussion began when I complained about MoveOn's odious Bush-is-Hitler stance. I was met with the usual disingenuous counterattack: Move On repudiated the ads, which it did not create.

True, but it didn't repudiate anything until the RNC and various Jewish groups raised hell. The ads were entries in a contest to produce some righteous Bush-bashing, but someone selected the Bush-as-Hitler crap to appear on the website. We get the idea that the organization will, as official policy, distance itself from such crackpottery (which, incidentally, you don't regard as crackpottery at all). Denying that the ads reflect the sentiments of a significant portion of Move On's membership is pure butt-covering. It strikes me as an untenable position.

It seems the right wing skeptics where their party affiliation on their sleeve--wheras, for Randi and most others, you don't know unless you ask. I was disgusted when people cheered Hitchens' warmongering. I prefer Randi's "educate the young" approach. I think the warmongering right wing crowd is a blight on America when it comes to our relations with other countries. It reminds me of blind faith. Is that Hitleresque?

Again, calling Hitchens a warmonger for recognizing the evil of Saddam Hussein and advocating his removal speaks volumes.

To answer your last question, the desire of many of us to change the dynamic that currently prevails in the Middle East is not Hitleresque.

pomeroo

25th January 2007, 10:49 PM

I'm so curious: why do you bother doing that, Pomeroo?

Why seek out the nuttiest people to get angry at? I don't get the point.

I do it for the same reason I confront the 9/11 conspiracists. Sorry if the following sounds like preaching, and I do realize that you already understand the point I'm about to make, but political discourse, the exchange of serious ideas, is vital to a democracy. We can--and should--argue with one another about various issues that affect our lives. When we marshal our evidence and attempt to persuade the other side, we are engaging in civilized debate. For people committed to the promotion of extreme, irrational views, civilized debate is a losing proposition. They must demonize the opposition, grotesquely distorting all opposing views, and in the process, they tend to develop a lynch-mob mentality. For conspiracy fantasists and the America-hating far left, their kangaroo courts have already convicted the villains and they don't want any evidence muddying the water.

The presumption that I'm angry is, as you know, a tactical device. By characterizing me as a choleric sort, you hope to convey the impression that my arguments lack intellectual rigor.

That's amazing to me that you didn't get the joke. I don't know the poster either, but it was patently obvious it was a gag. I wonder how many jokes you've missed and taken seriously because you're so eager to assume so many people are rabidly nuts. It does take a certain level of sophistication to get sarcasm and wit. Not a lot, but some. I'll bet you have it. Just relax. You'll laugh more.

Maybe the poster was joking. Neither you nor I have any way of knowing. That we are arguing over the question, incidentally, suggests that the technique of our aspiring satirist, assuming that's what he is, could stand sharpening. When you write that his intent "was patently obvious," you really can't expect to fool many people. How was it obvious? The statement that he is a Democrat who thinks that Bush is like Hitler can either be taken at face value or we can invest it with irony.

Lacking any objective basis for making a judgment, we will tailor our interpretations to suit our respective stakes in the outcome. Frankly, it serves my interests if I can point to another Democrat who embraces the Bush-as-Hitler trope. You, on the other hand, want to demonstrate that the sentiment I rail against is shared by just a few wackos. I continue to contend that you're fighting a hopeless battle. What is, in fact, patently obvious is that a disturbingly large slice of leftist opinion gives voice to this particular slander of Bush (is it necessary for me to direct your attention to a post on this very page?).
You are trying to sanitize people who are saying that they don't want your help. They are only too happy to proclaim from the rooftops that Bush is a Nazi. You may be embarrassed by the excess, but they are not--they should be, but they aren't.

If you knew something about the poster, your opinion of his intent would outweigh mine. You acknowledge that you don't know any more than I do, and yet you manage to project confidence. Is it real, or are you blowing smoke? Forgive me, but I'm not yet persuaded that your level of sophistication dwarfs my own.

You're mistaken about how eager I am to assume that people are "rabidly nuts." I am dismayed that so many really are.

I wasn't just quoting Blitzer, by the way, it was the various people who've checked it out with the CIA and found Wilson was correct.

No, Wilson was not correct. He didn't conduct any sort of investigation and was caught lying about documents he could not have seen.

And moreover, I was pointing out that the SOURCE for the claim about Plame/Wilson was quite biased: 3 GOP senators attaching a thought to the end of the official report. It wasn't part of the report proper. They didn't do their homework.

I don't know what the Hayes piece has to do with Hitchens' lack of hard evidence or misinformation about Plame/Wilson.

Hitchens makes a compelling case that Zawahie was attempting to negotiate the purchase of yellowcake.

Look, you seem to be a decent guy, and there's no reason why this discussion should become acrimonious. Why don't we see how the Libby trial develops and resume our debate later?

rustypouch

25th January 2007, 11:33 PM

I do not plan on getting involved in this one, folks, except to say Cleon and friends are well ahead on (debating) points, but in re: Hitchens', he is, IMHO, like Absinthe and Light Bondage during sex, an acquired taste.

Wow... three things I enjoy, but it's been too long since I last experienced them.

Skeptic Ginger

26th January 2007, 12:47 AM

He was most likely intoxicated while at the podium. Hitchens is well-known as an alcoholic, to the point where he even makes jokes about it. (I think he made a crack about "turning water into wine" being his favorite miracle.)

Seriously, this is not news to anyone, not even his supporters.Oh, well I didn't know, but thanks for the info. Alcohol certainly contributes frequently to belligerent behavior.

a_unique_person

26th January 2007, 12:50 AM

Hitchens makes a compelling case that Zawahie was attempting to negotiate the purchase of yellowcake.

Look, you seem to be a decent guy, and there's no reason why this discussion should become acrimonious. Why don't we see how the Libby trial develops and resume our debate later?

I never saw the 'compelling' part, the most I saw was circumstantial. Saddam was into many scams, and Niger is also a hotbed of scams and dirty money. The rhetoric had a 'compelling' tone to it, which Hitchens does very well.

delphi_ote

26th January 2007, 09:22 AM

For roughly five years, I've been tangling with bloggers and street protesters who scream that Bush is Hitler.
Are you a street fighter for Bush? :confused:

SkeptiKilt

26th January 2007, 10:15 AM

How does a blogger "scream"?

LostAngeles

26th January 2007, 10:23 AM

Are you a street fighter for Bush? :confused:

He totally is. Why, have you never seen the picture of the guy dressed up like Ryu and trying to Hadouken the protesters?

Cleon

26th January 2007, 10:36 AM

He totally is. Why, have you never seen the picture of the guy dressed up like Ryu and trying to Hadouken the protesters?

Y'know, I think I found a video of pomeroo practicing (http://youtube.com/watch?v=NKt4EhTXrCI)....

Badger

26th January 2007, 11:04 AM

Forgive me if I am mistaken, and I'll be referring to the DVD's to make sure I'm certain, but I thought that during that outburst Hitchens said (almost mumbled under his breath) something to the effect that "This applies to Judaeism and Chrisitianity equally" and then continued on against Islam.

Did anyone else catch that or am I mistaken? Because that's the point, for me, where his whole diatribe turned into being about all religion, and by extension lack of critical thinking.

I'm not going to apologize for boorish behaviour, but I will say that it seemed that Hitchens' response to Dikkers was such that it was a knee jerk reaction to the "same old ill informed blather" that maybe he was accustomed to getting accosted with so he just went off.

Also, to whoever contrasted Hitchens and Randi, I just wanted to say I found that irony quite delicious, given recent discussions around here about the "tone" of SWIFT sometimes.

I respect and admire both men because from my perspective they both appear to stand by their principles and not suffer fools gladly.

And I'm out.

pomeroo

26th January 2007, 01:27 PM

How does a blogger "scream"?

Loudly. Usually in caps, using naughty words.

varwoche

26th January 2007, 02:57 PM

I can't refrain and I blame Glenn! ;)

The Tortured Tale of the Moving Goalpost Made of Straw

If you want to pretend that MoveOn hasn't made a practice of comparing Bush to Hitler, you run into a brick wall of reality. You have yet to provide credible evidence supporting this claim.

As you are well aware, a random bozo submitted an ad as part of a contest, and it was placed on Moveon's site along with all the other submissions. And yet you morph this into a Moveon ad and a "practice".

(I repeat my disclaimer: I don't read Moveon and hence don't know about their practices. If they do what you say, I would condemn them unequivocally.)

Among the dozens of articles castigating MoveOn.org for its despicable ads, Tammy Bruce's "Move On Freudian Nazi Ad" remains one of my favorites And here is the absurd strawman Bruce constructs to start her rant (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11604) about the ad in question, and you defend, as if the random bozo, or Moveon, or Soros is in charge of the democratic party:
(http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11604) The Leftist extremists now in charge of the Democratic Party are either so desperate or delusional they are now comparing this nation to Hitler’s Third Reich and the president to Hitler himself.

I said that GEORGE SOROS, MoveOn's principal backer, has made a practice of comparing Bush to Hitler. That much is incontrovertible. If it's "incontrovertible" that it's a "practice", it should be a slam dunk for you to cite multiple examples, with links, hold the mayo spin. Yet you haven't.

Goalpost summary: Random bozo > Moveon > Soros.

That leftists have compared Bush to Hitler countless times is shameful. Random bozo > Moveon > Soros > leftists.

Soros has backed away from some of his more outrageous remarks comparing Bush's America to the Third Reich, but what did he actually say in his book? For a useful analysis, see...
Argumentum ad Kevin Baconum. As Cleon rightly points out, you should cite Soros, not third party opinion.

Googling "Bush and Hitler" produces about 2,040,000 results. And with this absurd factoid, your goalpost has qualified for the marathon in the Bejing summer olympics!

Random bozo > Moveon > Soros > Leftists > idiotic google search

Yet it doesn't stop there...
A major difference between me and the Democratic sycophants is that I have no interest in defending indefensible behavior. In addition, you have no interest and/or ability in defending your own claim: "If you want to pretend that MoveOn hasn't made a practice of comparing Bush to Hitler, you run into a brick wall of reality." For the nth time, bring on the wall.
Margaret Cho [et al] doesn't compare Bush to Hitler... Random bozo > Moveon > Soros > Leftists > idiotic google search > Celebrities

Come to think of it, even mainstream politicians like Charley Rangel don't indulge in the Nazi stuff. Ah, it's nice to see that the goalpost is capable of backwards motion! Afterall, it wasn't that long ago that you defended Bruce who hung Bush/Hitler on "extremists now in charge of the Democratic Party". Or is the party run by a secret cabal headed by Soros and Margaret Cho?

Those loony-left blogs that compare Bush to Hitler on a daily basis Random bozo > Moveon > Soros > Leftists > idiotic google search > Celebrities > loony left bloggers

Yes, you're right: I've presented no evidence. As to the original goalpost location, yes, this is essentially true.

And I don't think that anyone posting here disputes there is a loony left that, unfortunately, does the Bush/Hitler routine. If you want to retract your original claim and start over with "the loony left", be my guest (though I suggest you be more specific and cite examples).

LostAngeles

26th January 2007, 03:15 PM

varwoche, that was so damned funny and well done, I had to nominate you.

LA- doing her part for the leftist conspiracy.

Chaos

26th January 2007, 03:27 PM

varwoche, that was so damned funny and well done, I had to nominate you.

LA- doing her part for the leftist conspiracy.

It *would* be funny, if he wasn´t absolutely right.

strimmer

26th January 2007, 03:36 PM

Hello
I'm new to the JREF forum, but i was at TAM 5 and thought Christopher Hitchens speech was Great! During the board discussion i felt he could have been nicer to fellow guest Scott Dikkers, but his comments were interesting and good for the panel discussion. Christopher Hitchens is no doubt intelligent, politically incorrect, and controversial and he is a must have for TAM 6 and every other TAM as far as i'm concerned..

pomeroo

26th January 2007, 05:15 PM

I can't refrain and I blame Glenn! ;)

The Tortured Tale of the Moving Goalpost Made of Straw

You have yet to provide credible evidence supporting this claim.

It's an easy game when any evidence I supply is instantly rejected as "not credible."

As you are well aware, a random bozo submitted an ad as part of a contest, and it was placed on Moveon's site along with all the other submissions. And yet you morph this into a Moveon ad and a "practice".

(I repeat my disclaimer: I don't read Moveon and hence don't know about their practices. If they do what you say, I would condemn them unequivocally.)

Very tricky, but the "random bozo" is a typical Moveon member whose ad was selected to appear on the site. Was every ad submitted to the contest shown there as well? I don't know, but apparently the prominence given to the Bush-as-Hitler stuff provoked the following response:

(from Worldnet.daily)

In November, Soros compared Bush to Hitler in an interview with the Washington Post.
Saying he believed the White House was guided by a "supremacist ideology," Soros complained: "America, under Bush, is a danger to the world ... When I hear Bush say, 'You're either with us or against us,' it reminds me of the Germans ... My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitized me."
Soros, a Hungarian emigre, announced before the interview was published he was donating $5 million to Move On, the organization's single biggest contribution ever.
In an editorial in the Wall Street Journal today, Jack Rosen, president of the American Jewish Congress, decried the comparison between Bush and Hitler: "Comparing the commander in chief of a democratic nation to the murderous tyrant Hitler is not only historically specious, it is morally outrageous. Comparing an American president, any American president, to Hitler is an outrage. The MoveOn.org ad was inexcusable. Political figures such as Al Gore, who have associated themselves with Moveon.org, have a special responsibility to condemn these ads; donors to the group such as George Soros have the same responsibility. They owe it not just to the memory of the millions who died in the Holocaust. They owe it also as a simple matter of decency."

And here is the absurd strawman Bruce constructs to start her rant (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11604) about the ad in question, and you defend, as if the random bozo, or Moveon, or Soros is in charge of the democratic party:
(http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11604)

If it's "incontrovertible" that it's a "practice", it should be a slam dunk for you to cite multiple examples, with links, hold the mayo spin. Yet you haven't.

Goalpost summary: Random bozo > Moveon > Soros.

Random bozo > Moveon > Soros > leftists.

You attempt, clumsily, to pretend that the ads featured by Moveon constitute a strawman. I don't believe you, and I'm not alone. People here have given me sophomoric lectures explaining that the left is not a monolith. Perhaps if you search hard enough, you might discover someone who actually thinks it is, but that's your problem. George Soros and Moveon.org do not yet control the Democratic Party, but they exert a powerful influence (ask Joe Lieberman). Your "random bozo" may be a bozo, but he is very far from being an anomaly.

Argumentum ad Kevin Baconum. As Cleon rightly points out, you should cite Soros, not third party opinion.

And with this absurd factoid, your goalpost has qualified for the marathon in the Bejing summer olympics!

Random bozo > Moveon > Soros > Leftists > idiotic google search

You seem to overlook that the link I provided refers us to Soros's words in his own book. Less time spent admiring one's own debating skills would permit more time for reading what I actually wrote.

Yet it doesn't stop there...
In addition, you have no interest and/or ability in defending your own claim: "If you want to pretend that MoveOn hasn't made a practice of comparing Bush to Hitler, you run into a brick wall of reality." For the nth time, bring on the wall.
Random bozo > Moveon > Soros > Leftists > idiotic google search > Celebrities

As often as I present evidence for my argument, you will deny the validity of the evidence. I get the idea.

Ah, it's nice to see that the goalpost is capable of backwards motion! Afterall, it wasn't that long ago that you defended Bruce who hung Bush/Hitler on "extremists now in charge of the Democratic Party". Or is the party run by a secret cabal headed by Soros and Margaret Cho?

Random bozo > Moveon > Soros > Leftists > idiotic google search > Celebrities > loony left bloggers

We both agree that Bruce is exaggerating. She isn't far wrong, however, or Michael Moore would not have received a seat of honor at the Democratic National Convention.

And I don't think that anyone posting here disputes there is a loony left that, unfortunately, does the Bush/Hitler routine.

I disagree.

If you want to retract your original claim and start over with "the loony left", be my guest (though I suggest you be more specific and cite examples).

I'll stick to the formulation "moveon types" as characterizing a portion of the like-minded ideologues who comprise the broader segment accurately termed the loony left. I reiterate that Moveon the organization, as opposed to its individual members, was sufficiently prudent to back away from the Nazi comparisons.

Jonah Goldberg skewers the BusHitler crowd neatly in this piece:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=9709

Here is the link to Traub's article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/01/magazine/01WWLN.html?ei=5070&en=e61172b96d72ede8&ex=1169960400&pagewanted=print&position=

LostAngeles

26th January 2007, 05:16 PM

It *would* be funny, if he wasn´t absolutely right.

Never heard of the maxim: "It's funny 'cause it's true"?

Merko

26th January 2007, 08:07 PM

What errors does Stephen Hayes make in the following article:
http://weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=6217&R=111ED1759B

Well, he claims Wilson is lying because he would have said he debunked
the forged Niger documents. But he doesn't offer any evidence that
Wilson would have said that. Basically, the article appears to support
the idea that Wilson was one of several whistleblowers, which seems
to be what Wilson himself is claiming.

Additionally, I love this part:

Some current and former Bush administration officials remain convinced
that the French role in this matter was no accident. They speculate
that French intelligence, seeking to embarrass the U.S. government,
may have been the original source of the bad documents.

Well, it may be hard to believe that the French administration would
be as incompetent as the Bush administration, but I didn't know this
sentiment was shared by the Bush administration itself!

Besides, I think even the Bush administration would have been able to
come up with a better forgery.

JamesDillon

26th January 2007, 08:13 PM

Boy, do I miss that crazy lady with the American flag hat. At least she had the excuse of being insane. What´s your excuse?

I was sitting just a few seats down from that crazy lady. Did anyone else notice that she was cheering for Hitchens and Dikkers with equal fervor?

Skeptic Ginger

26th January 2007, 08:20 PM

SkeptiKilt

26th January 2007, 08:58 PM

Fyn

27th January 2007, 12:43 AM

From what I understand, Hitchens isn't Pro-Bush. He's Pro-disarming-crazy-islamist-fundamentalists, and pro-democracy in a region that desperately needs it. I've seen him do his share of Bush bashing, but its clear he views Bush as a vehicle of (possibly) accomplishing things he feels are drastically important on a global level. People seem to be in agreement about the importance of stemming global warming, why wouldn't we be in agreement about preventing crazy people with no value for from getting technologically advanced weapons. Do people really think that if we leave the area alone, all these fundamentalists will just go away?

No one is saying that other religions didn't have their dark periods. The issue is that *right now* Islamic fundamentalists are the threat, and we need to pay attention to that.

Fyn

Euromutt

27th January 2007, 04:38 AM

What I Didn't Find in Africa (http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0706-02.htm) is in Wilson's own words. [...] I see nothing in Wilson's own words that allude to any failed transaction or attempted transaction. Wilson does refer to what we now know to be forged documents which were the origin of the claims about Iraq's attempts.I didn't refer exclusively to "What I Didn't Find In Africa," but also to Wilson's subsequent book The Politics of Truth. If you scope it out on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/078671378X/ref=sib_dp_pt/002-9075958-3004867#reader-link), you can see that on the first page of chapter one, Wilson states that:In it [that is, "the piece I had written for the New York Times op-ed page on July 6," meaning "What I didn't Find in Africa"], I stated that the Bush administration had been informed a year and a half earlier that their claims of Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium from Niger were false.As you say yourself, Skeptigirl, you "see nothing in Wilson's own words that allude to any failed transaction or attempted transaction," but in The Politics of Truth, Wilson says that something to that effect is there, even though you and I agree it is not.

(Note, incidentally, that I cited the above passage in my previous post, stating that Wilson had claimed in the book that there had been no attempt on Iraq's part to acquire Nigerien yellowcake.)

What is in the "Intelligence Report" which was what page 43 in the 911 report was referring to was hearsay.Just for clarification, by the way, the Senate intelligence committee's report on prewar intel assessments of Iraq is not the same thing as the 9/11 report. I'm sure you knew that, and your referring to it as "the 911 report" is just the result of a Freudian slip or something, but I just want to establish we're on the same page here.

You say the material in the CIA report based on Wilson's debriefing was hearsay. Taken by itself, perhaps, but Wilson himself provided corroboration, again in The Politics of Truth. From the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54640-2004Apr29?language=printer):Tenet's statement noted that Wilson had reported back to the CIA that a former Niger official told him that "in June 1999 a businessman approached him and insisted that the former official meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss 'expanding commercial relations' between Iraq and Niger. The former official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales."

In his book, Wilson recounts his encounter with the unnamed Niger official in 2002, saying, he "hesitated and looked up to the sky as if plumbing the depths of his memory, then offered that perhaps the Iraqi [i]might have wanted to talk about uranium."Comparing Wilson's recounting with the Senate report, it's safe to assume that the "unnamed official" in question was former Nigerien prime minister Ibrahim Mayaki.
There is a reference above that the former Prime Minister suggested Iraq may have requested "expanding commercial relations" which might have been interpreted as an attempt to buy uranium. It wasn't from Wilson's report.I'm not sure what you mean by "Wilson's report." In "WIDFiA," Wilson states that he "did not file a written report." The reference to Iraq attempting to "expand commercial relations" comes from a report by CIA Directorate of Operations (DO) based on a verbal debriefing of Wilson by DO personnel, which is, for all practical purposes, "Wilson's report." And, again, Wilson provides confirmation for the claims from this report in his book.

Note that the Senate report mentions an earlier INR intelligence assessment which concluded that it was next to impossible for Niger to actually export uranium ore to Iraq, but did allow that "some [Nigerien] officials may have conspired for individual gain to arrange a uranium sale."

With regard to whether it is plausible that "expanding commercial relations" meant buying yellowcake, it's worth noting that the CIA World Factbook (https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html) lists Niger's export commodities (https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ng.html#Econ) as uranium ore, livestock, cowpeas and onions. To give you an idea of how important the uranium is in this equation, note that Niger's primary export partner is France, which takes 47.9% (presumably by price) of Niger's exports. France is a major producer of nuclear power--probably the largest in Europe--and is notoriously protectionist when it comes to agricultural products, so it's a safe bet Nigerien exports to France consist entirely of uranium ore (which would explain the degree of French control over Nigerien uranium ore production). The same considerations apply to the US, which takes another 20.3% of Niger's exports. So yellowcake almost certainly accounts for at least two thirds of Niger's income from exports.

So if you were to ask "how plausible is it that 'expanding commericial relations' necessarily involved yellowcake uranium ore?" it's a reasonable response to ask "how plausible is it that it could mean anything else?" With Niger having some of the largest uranium deposits in the world, how likely is it that an Iraqi trade delegation would be looking to buy livestock (more readily imported from, say, Australia, like the Arabian Gulf states do) or onions?

In addition, if you look at the bottom of page 44 of the 911 report, it says the opposite. It says "the ambassador" found no evidence of an attempt to buy yellow-cake.Correction to my previous post: yes, Wilson, when interviewed by the Senate intelligence committee did "refut[e] the possibility [...] that Iraq approached Niger to purchase uranium." Unfortunately, this contradicts not only what he reportedly told his CIA DO debriefers, but also what he wrote in The Politics of Truth.

You have a forged document, Wilson found no evidence, and the former Prime Minister said Iran attempted to buy yellow-cake. The Iraq reference is more indirectly described.The forged sale agreement has no bearing on my argument, so I'll dismiss that for the straw man it is. The reference to the reported Iranian purchase attempt is a red herring, as an attempt by Iran to purchase uranium ore from Niger does not preclude an Iraqi attempt to do the same. That leaves Wilson.

Since Wilson, in his own words, conveniently did not file a written report, it's impossible to tell what he actually told his CIA debriefers. What can be established, however, is that Wilson's account of his findings is highly inconsistent. His statement to the Senate intelligence committee "refuting the possibility [...] that Iraq approached Niger to purchase uranium" seems to have been the only time he denied outright the salient point of the Sixteen Words, namely that Iraq attempted to acquire uranium ore from Niger; the rest of the time, he's obfuscated, claiming that the Sixteen Words weren't true because Iraq hadn't actually managed to acquire any yellowcake, as if that had any bearing on whether or not they tried. Moreover, he has personally confirmed evidence which strongly suggests that Iraq did make such an attempt, albeit an abortive one.

Too thin to base the Sixteen Words on, sure, but bear in mind the Sixteen Words weren't based on anything Wilson reported (or was alleged to have reported). But the claims that the Sixteen Words were false are based entirely on Wilson's say-so, and his collected statements fail to actually support that accusation.

(Note: for the record, my argument relates exclusively to Wilson's criticism of the Sixteen Words. This has no bearing on my opinion with regard to the administration's subsequent cack-handed attempt at retaliation against Wilson, which I believe was petty, vindictive, unethical, unjustifiable and above all breathtakingly stupid.)

a_unique_person

27th January 2007, 05:24 AM

a_unique_person

27th January 2007, 05:27 AM

I'll stick to the formulation "moveon types" as characterizing a portion of the like-minded ideologues who comprise the broader segment accurately termed the loony left. I reiterate that Moveon the organization, as opposed to its individual members, was sufficiently prudent to back away from the Nazi comparisons.

Jonah Goldberg skewers the BusHitler crowd neatly in this piece:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=9709

Here is the link to Traub's article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/01/magazine/01WWLN.html?ei=5070&en=e61172b96d72ede8&ex=1169960400&pagewanted=print&position=

You have got to be joking, surely? Jonah Golberg is using "Holocaust Denial" as his argument?

We may be living in the worst period of Holocaust denial since the Nuremberg trials. I'm not referring to the twisted morons who insist that the Holocaust never happened the way the Monty Python guys insisted the parrot wasn't dead. I'm referring to the legions of Holocaust deniers in the Democratic Party, on the Web, on college campuses, in the mainstream press and, most acutely, in my e-mail box every morning, who reduce to the Holocaust to a triviality.

:eye-poppi:boggled::jaw-dropp

delphi_ote

27th January 2007, 10:13 AM

Never heard of the maxim: "It's funny 'cause it's true"?
Right. It's funny because it's NOT true.
ABYt2FnLBsU

douglips

27th January 2007, 10:24 AM

He made a point of saying Islam was totalitarian which I took as implying the other religions weren't. I remember thinking the other two religions, Judaism and Christianity, met Hitchen's criteria for totalitarianism, that of purist dogmatic view of the tenets.

My recollection of what he said about this was that Islam is wrong in the same way that all other religions are wrong. My impression was that he doesn't think Islam is any worse than Christianity used to be, but that Islam has no human leader who can evolve the faith over time like the pope. This lack of a human leader to provide any flexibility means (in Hitchens' opinion) that Islam is unable to change and is therefore stuck in the global conquest/sharia mindset.

varwoche

27th January 2007, 06:24 PM

Very tricky, but the "random bozo" is a (1) typical Moveon member whose ad was selected to appear on the site. (2) Was every ad submitted to the contest shown there as well? I don't know, but apparently the prominence given to the Bush-as-Hitler stuff (3) provoked the following response: (from Worldnet.daily) (1) Typical Moveon member? How in Odin's name do you know that? Answer: You don't. You're just making inferences that suit your wandering position.

(2) As best I recollect, yes, every submission was on Moveon's site.

(3) Opinion from Worldnet Daily -- a biased, agenda-driven source, is useless to an extreme. If you wish to make a case about Moveon or Soros, you need to quote the words of Moveon or Soros.

You seem to overlook that the link I provided refers us to Soros's words in his own book. Less time spent admiring one's own debating skills would permit more time for reading what I actually wrote. What a load of evasive nonsense. If there are quotes from Soros in the article that make your point, quote them here.

I would appreciate it if you would desist with the indirection and array all of the quotes from Soros that you think make the case that he has a practice of comparing Bush to Hitler. Anything less I will consider evasive and dishonest.

We both agree that Bruce is exaggerating. Exaggerating? To say the least. Those were the first two paragraphs -- the very premise -- of her absurd straw heap. She engages in the same type of mindless blather that you so vociferously (and disjointedly) object to when it comes from the left. Yet you hold it up as a shining example when it comes from the right.

douglips

27th January 2007, 07:13 PM

I believe you're correct, Skeptigirl. Dim resources of my aged brain seem to have some memory of him saying that islam is unique in that it insists that islam is the last perfect revelation and that not only must everyone convert, but that the entire world must be ruled by shari'a law.

Personally, I don't think that's much different from the philosophy that birthed the christian theocratic Dark Ages, and islam is at that same awkward age. In Hitchens's favor, I will say that the prospect of nukes in the hands of theocratic warriors is a good bit more daunting than were trebuchets, but I sense some unexplored issues behind his pro-Bush position.

I swear I already said this, but I can't find it, so here it is again:

I recall he said that all religions are wrong for the same reasons. His point about Islam being unique had to do with the fact that there is no supreme human leader like the Pope that can say "We were wrong, let's all give the Jews a big hug!". Sort of like how Mormon Prophets can say "Gee, all that stuff about black folks bearing the mark of Cain, well, God just told ME he was kidding! Come on in here, you African-American brothers, and commence oppressing your wimmenfolk!"

I think someone made the point that Islam is where Christianity was 700 years ago, and that's when Hitchens pointed out the lack of an Islamopope as a reason to Be Very Afraid. Direct quote: "If you don't believe me [that Islam is dangerous] just wait a few years."

pomeroo

27th January 2007, 08:05 PM

(1) Typical Moveon member? How in Odin's name do you know that? Answer: You don't. You're just making inferences that suit your wandering position.

Let's see, now. The members who created the Bush-as-Hitler ads were echoing a sentiment that remains popular in far-left circles. That would make them atypical because...? I think at least some of us have noticed whose position has wandered.

(2) As best I recollect, yes, every submission was on Moveon's site.

Really? All of them?

(3) Opinion from Worldnet Daily -- a biased, agenda-driven source, is useless to an extreme. If you wish to make a case about Moveon or Soros, you need to quote the words of Moveon or Soros.

What a load of evasive nonsense. If there are quotes from Soros in the article that make your point, quote them here.

Yes, your attempted rebuttal is certainly evasive nonsense. I deliberately chose to quote Worldnet Daily to see if you would latch on to that bogeyman to evade the substance of my argument. You did not disappoint. What if I hadn't mentioned Worldnet Daily and simply pointed out that Soros compared Bush to Hitler in a Washington Post interview? Jack Rosen's quote appeared in the Wall Street Journal--another "biased, agenda-driven source," no doubt. We agree, then, that Worldnet Daily is irrelevant to this discussion.

I would appreciate it if you would desist with the indirection and array all of the quotes from Soros that you think make the case that he has a practice of comparing Bush to Hitler. Anything less I will consider evasive and dishonest.

The article I linked to examines what Soros wrote in his book--as you know. Evasive and dishonest, indeed.

Exaggerating? To say the least. Those were the first two paragraphs -- the very premise -- of her absurd straw heap. She engages in the same type of mindless blather that you so vociferously (and disjointedly) object to when it comes from the left. Yet you hold it up as a shining example when it comes from the right.

Much huffing and puffing to say that Bruce is exaggerating slightly. Moveon has no problem with comparisons of Bush to Hitler. It has a problem with being exposed as a watering hole for kooks and crackpots.

SkeptiKilt

27th January 2007, 08:10 PM

His point about Islam being unique had to do with the fact that there is no supreme human leader like the Pope that can say "We were wrong, let's all give the Jews a big hug!".

There are hundreds of christian sects, the majority of which do not have a hierarchy which includes a supreme leader who is considered infallible on matters of faith and morals. AFAIK, judaism is similarly structured. This argument is an extremely poor one, and it shows why people like me continue to "misinterpret" his position as one that lumps all muslims together into an indistinguishable mass of 'eathen wogs.

Direct quote: "If you don't believe me [that Islam is dangerous] just wait a few years."
"The arabs are coming! The arabs are coming! We must run and tell the king!"

a_unique_person

28th January 2007, 03:55 AM

I swear I already said this, but I can't find it, so here it is again:

I recall he said that all religions are wrong for the same reasons. His point about Islam being unique had to do with the fact that there is no supreme human leader like the Pope that can say "We were wrong, let's all give the Jews a big hug!". Sort of like how Mormon Prophets can say "Gee, all that stuff about black folks bearing the mark of Cain, well, God just told ME he was kidding! Come on in here, you African-American brothers, and commence oppressing your wimmenfolk!"

I think someone made the point that Islam is where Christianity was 700 years ago, and that's when Hitchens pointed out the lack of an Islamopope as a reason to Be Very Afraid. Direct quote: "If you don't believe me [that Islam is dangerous] just wait a few years."

Christianity doesn't have that, either. To many 'xians', the Pope is the anti-christ, for example. The Orthodox Church is quite large, and nothing to do with Western xianity as well.

Merko

28th January 2007, 05:10 AM

What if I hadn't mentioned Worldnet Daily and simply pointed out that Soros compared Bush to Hitler in a Washington Post interview?
Then you would still be wrong. Please post any quote of Soros comparing Bush to Hitler in a Washington Post interview. I bet you can't, because as far as I know, he never did that.

There is a reason why people in this thread ask that you submit original sources rather than links to biased columns by people of low reputation. You know, just because one of those people write something in their columns, that doesn't mean it is true. These people are known to twist facts or even post outright lies. That is why they have a low reputation.

SkeptiKilt

28th January 2007, 11:17 AM

People at the extremes of political opinion have a tendency -- make that "a habit" -- of parsing statements by their opponents as tightly as possible and statements by those with whom they agree as loosely as possible.

As an example of the former, Senator Dick Durbin read aloud a description by the FBI of the treatment of some prisoners at Abu Ghraib and opined that the average person reading that would have thought it was done by a totalitarian regime such as Hitler's or Stalin's, rather than by Americans. This became "Turban Durbin says our soldiers are Nazis!!!!"

George W Bush sat at a photo op with Kofi Annan and said The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in.As we all know, there were UN weapons inspectors in Iraq who were not having any success at finding WMD stockpiles or factories, so the statement is untrue on its face. For this they were ridiculed as incompetents and buffoons. After a number of weeks of work that did not back the US position, they were told to leave, and then "coalition" forces invaded. Bush supporters said that what Bush "really meant" was that Saddam was not cooperating with the inspectors; this might be so, but it isn't what he actually said.

Therefore, when I read that someone at the Weekly Standard says that George Soros said George Bush was no better than Hitler in a certain interview, my response is "Show me the full transcript."

pomeroo

28th January 2007, 03:01 PM

People at the extremes of political opinion have a tendency -- make that "a habit" -- of parsing statements by their opponents as tightly as possible and statements by those with whom they agree as loosely as possible.

As an example of the former, Senator Dick Durbin read aloud a description by the FBI of the treatment of some prisoners at Abu Ghraib and opined that the average person reading that would have thought it was done by a totalitarian regime such as Hitler's or Stalin's, rather than by Americans. This became "Turban Durbin says our soldiers are Nazis!!!!"

George W Bush sat at a photo op with Kofi Annan and said As we all know, there were UN weapons inspectors in Iraq who were not having any success at finding WMD stockpiles or factories, so the statement is untrue on its face. For this they were ridiculed as incompetents and buffoons. After a number of weeks of work that did not back the US position, they were told to leave, and then "coalition" forces invaded. Bush supporters said that what Bush "really meant" was that Saddam was not cooperating with the inspectors; this might be so, but it isn't what he actually said.

Hans Blix, who dearly wanted to embarrass Bush, said that Saddam was not cooperating. The Duelfer Report tends to be ignored by everyone on the left. As its findings are extremely inconvenient to the fantasies of the Bush-bashers, it is safe to say that we won't be hearing much about it. The "ridicule" of the U.N. inspectors is a figment of your imagination. It was widely understood that they were being thwarted by another of Saddam's shell games.

Therefore, when I read that someone at the Weekly Standard says that George Soros said George Bush was no better than Hitler in a certain interview, my response is "Show me the full transcript."

Yes, Soros has denied the words he spoke in the Washington Post interview. No, he didn't? Well, for this debate, I guess you'll have to pretend that he did.

SkeptiKilt

28th January 2007, 03:11 PM

pomeroo

28th January 2007, 03:45 PM

Are you really this obtuse? (Yes, that's a rhetorical question.)

Please provide a link to the Washington Post interview in question or just admit that you haven't the slightest interest in going to the primary source.

The Washington Post interview is long and fawning. The relevant part is the one I keep quoting.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0401/13/ldt.00.html
News from the campaign trail tonight. Charlie Fisher of Denver wins moveon.org move on President Bush ad contest by focus on the debt that our children will inherit. CNN runs it this weekend. It may also become the first political ad ever broadcast during the Super Bowl. Financier George Soros heavily funded the group which was attacked for ads on its Web site that compared George Bush to Hitler. Soros told CNN, in fact Wolf Blitzer, that he has never compared Bush to Hitler.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE SOROS, SOROS FOUNDATIONS: I have also been accused of comparing Bush to a Nazi and I did not do it, would not do it, exactly because I have lived under a Nazi regime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DOBBS: But a "Washington Post" interview two months ago contradicted Soros' statement. Reporter Laura Blumenfeld quotes him saying "When I hear Bush saying you are either with us or against us, it reminds me of the Germans."

According to the Post, Soros said it conjures up memories of Nazi slogans on the wall.

SkeptiKilt

28th January 2007, 03:54 PM

The Washington Post interview is long and fawning. The relevant part is the one I keep quoting.

Thanks for acknowledging what's been apparent all along, that you are quote-mining just like Dembski and the rest of the creationist cohort.

pomeroo

28th January 2007, 04:02 PM

I have been complaining that this whole debate has been characterizied by disingenuousness. Why don't we listen to Soros explain himself to Wolf Blitzer? I like his comment right at the end when he admits that maybe he should have kept this stuff to himself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DuafAqAHrc

pomeroo

28th January 2007, 04:11 PM

Thanks for acknowledging what's been apparent all along, that you are quote-mining just like Dembski and the rest of the creationist cohort.

Ah, maybe I'm supposed to be a creationist now? I've been reading "The Skeptical Inquirer" since it was "The Zetetic"--how about you?

Do you understand the meaning of "quote mining"? Yes, it's a rhetorical question. Nobody is disputing what Soros said, least of all Soros. So, tell us what has been apparent all along. Don't be shy. Is it that I, or someone else, distorted what the Post quoted Soros as saying? No, that isn't it. You can read the Post story here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24179-2003Nov10?language=printer

Is it that Soros really doesn't make comparisons between Bush and the Nazis. No, can't be that. Something is apparent, however. Tell us what it is.

We get the idea that Soros and Moveon had it pounded into their heads that although comparing Bush to Hitler is popular with leftist yahoos, it scares off sane folk. They made a tactical decision to clean up their rhetoric.

articulett

28th January 2007, 04:49 PM

Saying that Bushes ideology reminds him of the Germans isn't really saying Bush is Hitler. And frankly, Bush's ideology does remind me of the Nazis. If you question the policies you get radicals like pomeroo screaming at you for being unpatriotic, biased, unfair, etc. I think Bush should be tried for war crimes. He lied; lots of people died; lots of money has been spent; Halliburton and Exxon have profited hugely from this war, money should be used for domestic problems such as healthcare, many lives have been destroyed completely--there is no evidence that anyone's life is better (Except for Bush and his main supporters)--we've wasted lives, money, and good will on a war mongering liar. And though Bush may lack the charisma of Hitler, you pomeroo, sure do have the loyalty of a Nazi. Everybody believes they are on the good guys side. The problems with wars is that the people who suffer the most have very little to gain from the war and very little say over the government desicisions that destroy their lives.

Why do you guys avoid the horrors and expenses of this war while failing again and again to say what it is for and what good has come out of it. How are you different than the Nazis who were blind followers of their leader? Your war mongering policies are responsible for many, many destroyed lives. Your loyalties have made a dumb man into an egotistical power hungry idealogue who believes that god told him to invade Iraq.

By the way, I'm registered as an independent, and try to avoid politics because I find it distasteful. I think many people in the sciences are similar. But a large majority of people in the sciences have united in see this presidents destructive tendencies curbed. And you loyalists are an enigma, I can't fathom.

pomeroo

28th January 2007, 05:20 PM

Saying that Bushes ideology reminds him of the Germans isn't really saying Bush is Hitler. And frankly, Bush's ideology does remind me of the Nazis.

Soros compared Bush to the Nazis; he didn't say that Bush was Hitler. Yes, many leftist radicals make the ludicrous comparison, although Bush's policies do not resemble Hitler's in the slightest. Your frankness is not what certain disingenuous apologists for this vile smear want to hear. They would prefer you to deny that the BusHitler nonsense resonates with your fellow leftist ideologues. You are being honest; they are not.

If you question the policies you get radicals like pomeroo screaming at you for being unpatriotic, biased, unfair, etc.

To describe a conservative with libertarian leanings as a "radical" suggests that you have no command of the vocabulary of political discourse.

I think Bush should be tried for war crimes. He lied; lots of people died; lots of money has been spent; Halliburton and Exxon have profited hugely from this war, money should be used for domestic problems such as healthcare, many lives have been destroyed completely--there is no evidence that anyone's life is better (Except for Bush and his main supporters)--we've wasted lives, money, and good will on a war mongering liar.

As a leftist radical, you believe that Bush should be tried for war crimes, although he hasn't committed any. The left's Big Lie that Bush really didn't think we would find any WMD in Iraq is sheer insanity, but that doesn't stop the propagandists from parroting it. Sure, sitting atop personal approval ratings in the seventies, Bush decided to invade Iraq on the pretext of finding weapons that he knew weren't there. Politicians often try to lose elections. Great critical thinking skills you've got there.

And though Bush may lack the charisma of Hitler, you pomeroo, sure do have the loyalty of a Nazi. Everybody believes they are on the good guys side. The problems with wars is that the people who suffer the most have very little to gain from the war and very little say over the government desicisions that destroy their lives.

Nah, you guys aren't wedded to the Nazi crap.

Why do you guys avoid the horrors and expenses of this war while failing again and again to say what it is for and what good has come out of it. How are you different than the Nazis who were blind followers of their leader? Your war mongering policies are responsible for many, many destroyed lives. Your loyalties have made a dumb man into an egotistical power hungry idealogue who believes that god told him to invade Iraq.

We guys say over and over what the war was for, but your side is deaf.
Your fact-free assertions show the futility of attempting a debate.

By the way, I'm registered as an independent, and try to avoid politics because I find it distasteful. I think many people in the sciences are similar. But a large majority of people in the sciences have united in see this presidents destructive tendencies curbed. And you loyalists are an enigma, I can't fathom.

There were a lot of similarly "independent" scientists who assured us in the eighties that the proper response to the Soviet Union's massive buildup was unilateral disarmament. Bush's "destructive" tendencies amount to a dogged, perhaps even simplistic, determination to prevent another attack on America and a willingness to adopt bold policies designed to change the dynamic in the Middle East. A poster responding to an article in "The Guardian" hit the nail on the head. Discussing the far-left's bizarre de facto alliance with Saddam Hussein, he pointed that even a fascist dictator is okay if he's an implacably anti-American fascist dictator.

You understand people like me well enough. You understand that we mean to resist the weakening and eventual destruction of America.

SkeptiKilt

28th January 2007, 05:45 PM

Ah, maybe I'm supposed to be a creationist now? I've been reading "The Skeptical Inquirer" since it was "The Zetetic"--how about you?Here is a perfect illustration of the fallacy of your entire argument. I am not saying that you are a creationist -- and your choice of reading material has nothing to do with whether you are or not, by the way -- I am saying that you are using a technique that creationists also use.

Do you understand the meaning of "quote mining"? Yes, it's a rhetorical question. Nobody is disputing what Soros said, least of all Soros. So, tell us what has been apparent all along. Don't be shy. Is it that I, or someone else, distorted what the Post quoted Soros as saying?

It is precisely that. You do not differentiate between making comparisons between two entities and equating those two entities; in fact, you shift back and forth between them as if there were no difference. That is distortion prima facie.

Examples:
Are you seriously trying to pretend that leftists haven't trumpeted their Bush-is-Hitler trope for over five years?

leftists have compared Bush to Hitler countless times

The left has promoted the vicious Bush-as-Hitler smear in countless venues.
We get the idea that Soros and Moveon had it pounded into their heads that although comparing Bush to Hitler is popular with leftist yahoos, it scares off sane folk. They made a tactical decision to clean up their rhetoric.

That casts doubt on your challenge

Will you concede that far-left types, as typified by Moveon.org, CONSTANTLY compare Bush to Hitler? Soros, in that clip, points out that while he did write there were similarities between the fearmongering and accusations of disloyalty by the current administration and the Nazis, that there were also important differences between the two. Yes, he compared the two, but he did not equate them. When you say that there are absolutely no similarities between Bush and Hitler, you are also "comparing" them. Do try to be a bit more precise.

Glenn

28th January 2007, 06:13 PM

pomeroo

28th January 2007, 06:23 PM

Here is a perfect illustration of the fallacy of your entire argument. I am not saying that you are a creationist -- and your choice of reading material has nothing to do with whether you are or not, by the way -- I am saying that you are using a technique that creationists also use.

You keep asserting that my argument is fallacious, but you have failed to demonstrate it. You are saying, incorrectly, that I employ a technique favored by creationists. There was no quote mining by me, and I stringly suspect that you are aware of that fact.

Incidentally, my choice of reading material surely has at least something to do with my being a creationist or not. A lifelong skeptic probably isn't a creationist.

It is precisely that. You do not differentiate between making comparisons between two entities and equating those two entities; in fact, you shift back and forth between them as if there were no difference. That is distortion prima facie.

I do differentiate between comparing two entities and equating those entities. It is to your credit that you note the distinction, one that is often blurred. Soros, it is true, did not accuse Bush of being identical to Hitler. His comparison, his evoking of Nazi resonances, is distasteful, and he knows it. My purpose is not to distort, but to object to a leitmotif that runs through much far-left rhetoric. We can split hairs and delineate precisely who equates Bush with Hitler and who merely discerns similarities between the two, but I am offended by the whole schtick.

Examples:

That casts doubt on your challenge

Soros, in that clip, points out that while he did write there were similarities between the fearmongering and accusations of disloyalty by the current administration and the Nazis, that there were also important differences between the two. Yes, he compared the two, but he did not equate them. When you say that there are absolutely no similarities between Bush and Hitler, you are also "comparing" them. Do try to be a bit more precise.

Fair enough. You strike me as a thoughtful person who is making a reasonable request.

pomeroo

28th January 2007, 06:31 PM

Pomeroo: Quick technical aside. You may know this already, but if you want to break up someone's quote and respond to each part separately, you copy and paste the opening "quote=" in brackets before each section, and copy and paste the "/quote" in brackets after each section. This way your own responses don't look like they're part of the other person's original post, and your words stand out better. I've missed some of your responses because they're hard to distinguish from the posts being quoted. It also makes it harder to quote you, since quotes don't get automatically copied. Hope this helps.

BTW, anyone: If there's an easier way to do this, can someone let us know? Thanks.

Glenn, I sincerely thank you for trying to help me with this problem. Clearly, I'm missing something. Someone in another thread complained about a conspiracist's inability to use the multi-quote function and I remember thinking that I was equally clueless about it. I seem to recall one poster insisting that cutting-and-pasting was not the way to go. I don't want to be a nuisance--not on technical matters, anyway--so I'd like to get a handle on the multi-quoting once and for all.

Is Glenn's suggestion the method I should use?

SkeptiKilt

28th January 2007, 07:12 PM

Soros, it is true, did not accuse Bush of being identical to Hitler. His comparison, his evoking of Nazi resonances, is distasteful, and he knows it.
The similarities are there, and I find them distasteful and not a little worrisome; I do not consider pointing them out to be distasteful. YMMV, and apparently does. Does your reading include Santayana?

I do find the frequent equation by many on the right of the war in Iraq to WW II and Saddam to Hitler to be both inaccurate and distasteful, particularly the oft-repeated "If liberals had been in charge during WWII, we'd all be speaking German." Hate to break it to you lads, but FDR was denounced as not only a liberal, but a socialist.

Glenn

28th January 2007, 08:18 PM

Re: "Trope":

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think "trope" is quite the word you mean to be using. A trope is a figurative use of language to mean something other than it usually means, a rhetorical figure of speech that consists of a play on words, such as irony. True, hyperbole is a type of trope, but it's not the same thing. Maybe you meant "tripe"? Or maybe there's a usage of "trope" I'm unfamiliar with, in which case, you've taught me something.

Re: Hitchens' Niger claim:

Hitchens makes a compelling case that Zawahie was attempting to negotiate the purchase of yellowcake.

Look, you seem to be a decent guy, and there's no reason why this discussion should become acrimonious. Why don't we see how the Libby trial develops and resume our debate later?
I don't find it compelling because he doesn't present any hard evidence. It's interesting, but not compelling. Again, if he does present hard evidence, I'd honestly consider it if you could quote that portion.

Anyway I agree with you, let's wait and resume later. Depending on what the trial reveals, it may not convince either of us, but there's a chance it will.

Re: Presumption of anger:

The presumption that I'm angry is, as you know, a tactical device. By characterizing me as a choleric sort, you hope to convey the impression that my arguments lack intellectual rigor.
Whoops -- not at all, and sorry if that was unclear. I wasn't impugning your intellectual rigor with my question, "Why seek out the nuttiest people to get angry at? I don't get the point." That was in response to you saying [emphasis added]:
For roughly five years, I've been tangling with bloggers and street protesters who scream that Bush is Hitler. Such types are not distinguished by subtle wit or a keen sense of irony. for five years I have been arguing with people on Cannonfire, the Democratic Underground, Democrats.com, Brad's blog, etc., for comparing Bush to Hitler. Your insistence that you've debunked something is a bit too reminiscent of my jousts with the fantasists.I personally don't see the point in tangling/arguing/jousting for five years with the most extreme people -- that would surely make me angry at and frustrated with them. I gathered the same was true for you, in part based on how you describe them and the extreme positions some of them take. Here are some of your descriptions:
"sites that spew this Bushitler crap"
"shameful"
"groteque"
"madness"
"ugly smear"
"vile smear"
"vile tactic"
"looney"
"vicious"
"repugnant"
"irrational nonsense"
"despicable practice"
"I've spent a little too much time with 9/11 conspiracists have learned the trick of feigning a rational demeanor while spouting fantastic nonsense"
"who have played this disgraceful game for five years"
"Just when I conclude that you are the most hopelessly illogical human I've ever encountered outside a conspiracist site, "
"glassy-eyed 'no-blood-for-oil' loons"
"shame on them!"Anyway, no worry, I honestly did not hope to convey anything about the quality of your arguments. Only wondering why you spend so much time with the people you describe as you do above. In any debate, I find it's far more effective (not to mention pleasant and rewarding) to work on the undecideds who are closer to the middle, than the irrational extremes.

Re: Ironic humor:

Maybe the poster was joking. Neither you nor I have any way of knowing. That we are arguing over the question, incidentally, suggests that the technique of our aspiring satirist, assuming that's what he is, could stand sharpening. When you write that his intent "was patently obvious," you really can't expect to fool many people. How was it obvious?
I don't think NotJesus is an "aspiring" satirist. I think the level of NotJesus' satire is top notch. Then again, such things are of course subjective, and even the greatest humorists are always aspiring to be better... so never mind.

Seriously, when I read NotJesus' post:
I'm a Democrat and I think Bush is like Hitler.

So there's one. I laughed out loud. Perfectly timed dry comedy. Analyzing humor is one of the lamest human endeavors, but if I must, I'd say the two cues are 1) it's so outrageous a statement, so blunt and unadorned that it had to be satire (don't mention the people who do make Bush-Hitler comparisons, it's the way this was stated, in context); and 2) the follow-up, "So there's one," further tips us off to the fact that it's not serious. If it were, the follow-up would have been some variation of "And I'm not alone, there are thousands of us," and it would almost certainly have included explanations for why the comparison is valid. Also, the timing in the thread, after all this serious debate, made it obviously dry wit to me.

That's the last I'll say about analyzing humor, so you can have the last word if you want.

Re: Claim about MoveOn.org:

My facts are quite solid. This discussion began when I complained about MoveOn's odious Bush-is-Hitler stance. I was met with the usual disingenuous counterattack: Move On repudiated the ads, which it did not create.

Only because you accuse me and others of having been disingenuous, I must assure you: it was 100% sincere. And only because you're mischaracterizing it again, please let me set the record straight as simply as possible:

You did not merely complain about "MoveOn's odious Bush-is-Hitler stance" (however even that is a bogus claim -- the organization MoveOn takes no such stance; in fact a Google search of "Hitler" on all of MoveOn.org's pages produces only 6 distinct hits, of which only 4 actually mention Hitler, and all are about that non-MoveOn ad). Several of us responsed specifically to your claim:

If you want to pretend that MoveOn hasn't made a practice of comparing Bush to Hitler, you run into a brick wall of reality.

And that specific claim of yours was accurately countered. With sincerity. That's all.

Re: No "monolithic left":

People here have given me sophomoric lectures explaining that the left is not a monolith. Perhaps if you search hard enough, you might discover someone who actually thinks it is, but that's your problem.

Pomeroo, you've derisively called my (and others') points about the non-monolitic nature of left "banal" and "sophomoric," but I take you at your word that you do not believe in a "monolithic left." Just so you understand why it has sounded like you do, here are some of the statements you've made in this thread :
"I understand that they are highly inconvenient to the Big Lies of [B]the left, but they are manifestly accurate."
"The left's ugly smear of Bush continues."
"Googling "Bush and Hitler" produces about 2,040,000 results. The left has promoted this insane comparison for years, starting with false allegations about the father of George H.W. Bush. Prescott Bush was not the "Nazi's financier," nor did he make money from the death camps. Yet, the madness persists. It is impossible to contend that the Bush-Hitler trope, grotesque though it may be, hasn't been a staple of leftist rhetoric."
"That leftists have compared Bush to Hitler countless times is shameful."
"Are you seriously trying to pretend that leftists haven't trumpeted their Bush-is-Hitler trope for over five years? This is a joke, right?"
"Are you actually pretending that leftists haven't been comparing Bush to Hitler for the last five years?"
"Can you possibly be contending that leftists DO NOT ROUTINELY compare Bush to Hitler? I can't be the only person who is blinking in disbelief."
"The National Review, the Weekly Standard, and Commentary, to name only the journals that immediately spring to mind, have published articles examining the left's Bush-as-Hitler trope. You are pretending--and doing a highly unconvincing job--that the vile smear is given voice by a tiny fringe. You are wrong."
"Move On's official line is that the ads were unpopular. I, along with every other conservative and, I suspect, many centrist Democrats, think they're lying: lefties compare Bush to Hitler all the time and they're not the least bit shy about it"
"Yes, and the preposterous attempt at denial by a handful of leftists of the left's most repugnant and overused smear is the height of disingenuousness."Can you see how repeated use of blanket terms like "the left," "leftists" and "lefties" gives the clear impression that you are lumping all on the left together? In the last quote above, you even suggest that only a "handful" of those on the left are distinguishable from the rest of the left who supposedly regularly compare Bush to Hitler. Many of us on the left find such a suggestion objectionable, just as many on the right find it objectionable when they're confused with being the same as some extremists of their wing.

Even the phrase "moveon types" is inaccurate, considering the vast numbers of MoveOn.org supporters who do not engage in the sort of rhetoric you're arguing against.

Also, since you mention people like Margaret Cho, I think it's important to distinguish between comedians and straight political commentators. The former -- which includes cartoonists and other satirists -- are always granted much more license to use hyperbole, sarcasm and irony. It's their job. Even if you believe there's truth behind what they're saying, you have to take it with a grain of salt, whether they lean left or right (e.g., PJ O'Rourke, Dennis Miller, etc.).

Finally, it's not always an egregious thing to draw loose comparisons between something bad and its most extreme extension or distortion -- depending on how it's stated and the point being made. I agree with you that it's usually mindless and inflammatory. But sometimes it's perfectly legitimate to sound the alarm on curtailments of freedom in a free society, and remind us of the most drastic consequences of such a path. It doesn't mean the speaker actually believes the current administration is similar to Hitler's; often the point is far subtler than that.

Never mind, SkeptiKilt clarified the distinction between comparing and equating better.

SkeptiKilt

28th January 2007, 08:39 PM

But sometimes it's perfectly legitimate to sound the alarm on curtailments of freedom in a free society, and remind us of the most drastic consequences of such a path. I quibble with the word "sometimes"; I think "always" is more appropriate.

It used to be considered a duty for conservatives to do this, but since 9/11, people who identify themselves as such have turned a blind eye, telling us that the events of that day "changed everything," and that if we do not accept every intrusion and limitation imposed on us by the current administration, we're all going to die. This is shameless fearmongering, and the results of the 2006 Congressional elections suggest that a majority of the electorate has heard the cry of "WOLF!!!" too often.

I thank you for the compliment.

articulett

28th January 2007, 09:03 PM

I guess everyone who doesn't agree with pomeroo is a leftist with evil intent.
It reminds me of Ann Coulter--assuming that every "darwinist" is godless and every godless person is liberal (and presumably every liberal person is godless).

To me it seems that the right wing are fanatictical about labeling people. They never tell us what this war is good for--what successes we can expect nor how much they are willing to risk in lives and money. And they blame the left everytime someone speaks up instead of blaming the liar they worship. To me, Pomeroo sounds like Muslim extremists and all other extremists --certain of his rightness...and not at all concerned as to who suffers to meet his nebulous ideals. Like our President, he seems completely unable to engage in discourse or take advice and blames everything on the media and the left instead of looking out his own shortcomings or possible flaws in logic.

I just find such people scary. Do you not understand that the people whom you advocate killing think your government is as evil as theirs is. Do you think it's okay to destroy a bunch of innocent lives because you've concluded that the people at the top are evil? If so, then why wouldn't you expect that others would do the same to us. They did that to us on 9-11; and now we've done it to Iraq--only much worse. Your fidelity to your party has made you mentally incoherent, pomeroo.

Maybe it really isn't everybody else who has been "brainwashed" by the media.--Maybe it's you. And maybe you're (gasp) wrong.

varwoche

28th January 2007, 09:35 PM

From the all roads lead to Rome department...

Pomeroo, rather than array quotes from Soros so I can evaluate if he engages in a practice of comparing Bush to Hitler, you expect me to play a game of whack-a-mole (you as mole) by providing one link after another, mostly to opinion pieces:

1. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2275680#post2275680) Frontpage Magazine
2. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2278019#post2278019) National Review
3. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2289924#post2289924) Worldnet Daily
4. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24179-2003Nov10?language=printer) WA Post (news story)

Seeing these links, a reader (who is lazy and gullible) might think you have supported your claim by citing four different quotes from Soros.

Except, each of these sources contains the same Soros quote, and as best as I can tell, no other quote.

(Since you insist on debate via link, it can't be ruled out that I overlooked something. Or maybe I inserted a bent quarter.)

It's quite misleading to hype your evidence this way.

pomeroo

28th January 2007, 10:19 PM

SkeptiKilt

28th January 2007, 10:56 PM

Why not simply watch Soros explain himself to Wolf Blitzer?

I did, and I posted about it, and you seemed to agree with some of my points. No matter how hard you hit it, that horse is not going to get up.

HAND

Merko

29th January 2007, 11:57 AM

You can read the Post story here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24179-2003Nov10?language=printer

Well, I think when Soros claims he didn't compare Bush and Hitler, we have two choices. Either he's lying. Or he didn't. I think it is generally good to avoid assuming that people are lying unless there really is no other explanation.

But looking at that actual quote (and thanks for finally posting it) I don't think Soros was comparing Bush to Hitler at all. I see something very different in that quote.

Soros, as you might know, is of part Jewish ancestry, and he had to flee the nazis in his youth. Later, the nazis were driven out of his native Hungary only to be replaced by another totalitarian regime--the Soviet union. When Soros talks about how he hears echoes of occupied Hungary, he isn't so much saying that Bush is exactly like Hitler (or Stalin), but rather explaining why he has such strong feelings when someone says something like Bush's "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html)

Now, I have noticed that Bush has in fact modified his rhetorics in a significant way. In more recent years, he has even made a point of stating that dissenters can be good Americans, etc. We might think that this is only a 'tactical decision', but to me that doesn't matter so much as the fact that he actually does it. While I'm sure this doesn't make Soros a Bush supporter, I'm sure it reduces his feeling of echoes from occupied Hungary.

We get the idea that Soros and Moveon had it pounded into their heads that although comparing Bush to Hitler is popular with leftist yahoos, it scares off sane folk.

There is another problem with your argument here. I know you've acknowledged that the left isn't monolithic, but Soros isn't even part of the left to begin with. He is the world's leading sponsor of free-market economic 'reform' politics, and thus an arch-enemy of much of the left. It is true that his opposition to Bush has brought him into an alliance with many leftists (in the form of Moveon), but that doesn't make him a leftist.

My impression is that Soros thinks that the issue of civil liberties trump the issue of free-market economics, and thus he can cooperate with leftists who equally think that civil liberties trump social interventionist economics. I'm part of that latter group, so even though I disagree very strongly with him on economics, I can still have respect for him. He has meddled a lot with the politics of many countries, but he has always done so in an essentially 'fair' way, as far as I'm aware.

TobiasTheViking

30th January 2007, 09:52 AM

Oh yes, better than Tobias even.
LIES ALL LIES :cry1

articulett

30th January 2007, 10:17 AM

You understand people like me well enough. You understand that we mean to resist the weakening and eventual destruction of America.

I guess that's the ideal Bush has inserted into your head. I think his policies have done more to divide and destroy America than anything else. And I remember the 80's as a time when Reagen incurred huge deficits (not unlike this President) to design a Star Wars Sci Fi pie-in-the-sky missile defense system which this current administration was going to be promoting on the day our own low tech airplanes were used as missiles. Whoever put the propaganda in your head did a good job. I'm sure the Nazis were convinced that they were resisting the weakening and destruction of Germany. I bet the Muslims are certain they are resisting the weakening and destruction of Islam. If you blow hards would kill each other instead of destroying the lives of those of us without a choice as to what our government does or what propaganda it expects us to kowtow too then it might be fine. But like Hitchens...those who benefit from certain leadership, are never the ones putting their lives, mental health, property, money, or loved ones on the line for their damned ideals.

pomeroo

30th January 2007, 01:54 PM

Re: "Trope":

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think "trope" is quite the word you mean to be using. A trope is a figurative use of language to mean something other than it usually means, a rhetorical figure of speech that consists of a play on words, such as irony. True, hyperbole is a type of trope, but it's not the same thing. Maybe you meant "tripe"? Or maybe there's a usage of "trope" I'm unfamiliar with, in which case, you've taught me something.

I'm using the term to mean "any literary or rhetorical device, as metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony, that consists in the use of words in other than their literal sense" (Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Second Ed., Unabridged). The loony-left's favorite metaphor is, I assume, not to be understood as meaning that Bush and Hitler are the same person (but, then, ya never know).

Re: Ironic humor:

I don't think NotJesus is an "aspiring" satirist. I think the level of NotJesus' satire is top notch. Then again, such things are of course subjective, and even the greatest humorists are always aspiring to be better... so never mind.

Seriously, when I read NotJesus' post:
I laughed out loud. Perfectly timed dry comedy. Analyzing humor is one of the lamest human endeavors, but if I must, I'd say the two cues are 1) it's so outrageous a statement, so blunt and unadorned that it had to be satire (don't mention the people who do make Bush-Hitler comparisons, it's the way this was stated, in context); and 2) the follow-up, "So there's one," further tips us off to the fact that it's not serious. If it were, the follow-up would have been some variation of "And I'm not alone, there are thousands of us," and it would almost certainly have included explanations for why the comparison is valid. Also, the timing in the thread, after all this serious debate, made it obviously dry wit to me.

That's the last I'll say about analyzing humor, so you can have the last word if you want.

[/quote]
Your offer to allow me the last word is so gracious that I feel churlish accepting it. Of course, that's never stopped me before, so...

I just think you're seeing what you want to see. It's probable that the poster was making a simple declaration.

Incidentally, I don't have the slightest idea of why your words turned blue or how they got underlined.

Re: Claim about MoveOn.org:

Only because you accuse me and others of having been disingenuous, I must assure you: it was 100% sincere. And only because you're mischaracterizing it again, please let me set the record straight as simply as possible:

You did not merely complain about "MoveOn's odious Bush-is-Hitler stance" (however even that is a bogus claim -- the organization MoveOn takes no such stance; in fact a Google search of "Hitler" on all of MoveOn.org's pages produces only 6 distinct hits, of which only 4 actually mention Hitler, and all are about that non-MoveOn ad). Several of us responsed specifically to your claim:

And that specific claim of yours was accurately countered. With sincerity. That's all.

I continue to believe that MoveOn had no problem at all with those ads. When people started complaining, they treated the ads like off-color jokes that are perfectly acceptable around the dinner table at home, but inappropriate in a restaurant.

Re: No "monolithic left":

Pomeroo, you've derisively called my (and others') points about the non-monolitic nature of left "banal" and "sophomoric," but I take you at your word that you do not believe in a "monolithic left." Just so you understand why it has sounded like you do, here are some of the statements you've made in this thread :

"I understand that they are highly inconvenient to the Big Lies of [B]the left, but they are manifestly accurate."
"The left's ugly smear of Bush continues."
"Googling "Bush and Hitler" produces about 2,040,000 results. The left has promoted this insane comparison for years, starting with false allegations about the father of George H.W. Bush. Prescott Bush was not the "Nazi's financier," nor did he make money from the death camps. Yet, the madness persists. It is impossible to contend that the Bush-Hitler trope, grotesque though it may be, hasn't been a staple of leftist rhetoric."
"That leftists have compared Bush to Hitler countless times is shameful."
"Are you seriously trying to pretend that leftists haven't trumpeted their Bush-is-Hitler trope for over five years? This is a joke, right?"
"Are you actually pretending that leftists haven't been comparing Bush to Hitler for the last five years?"
"Can you possibly be contending that leftists DO NOT ROUTINELY compare Bush to Hitler? I can't be the only person who is blinking in disbelief."
"The National Review, the Weekly Standard, and Commentary, to name only the journals that immediately spring to mind, have published articles examining the left's Bush-as-Hitler trope. You are pretending--and doing a highly unconvincing job--that the vile smear is given voice by a tiny fringe. You are wrong."
"Move On's official line is that the ads were unpopular. I, along with every other conservative and, I suspect, many centrist Democrats, think they're lying: lefties compare Bush to Hitler all the time and they're not the least bit shy about it"
"Yes, and the preposterous attempt at denial by a handful of leftists of the left's most repugnant and overused smear is the height of disingenuousness."Can you see how repeated use of blanket terms like "the left," "leftists" and "lefties" gives the clear impression that you are lumping all on the left together? In the last quote above, you even suggest that only a "handful" of those on the left are distinguishable from the rest of the left who supposedly regularly compare Bush to Hitler. Many of us on the left find such a suggestion objectionable, just as many on the right find it objectionable when they're confused with being the same as some extremists of their wing.

Ah, but that's the problem. People on the right tend to be more fastidious about separating themselves from the wackos. As I wrote in another post, Alan Colmes went so far as to call Leslie Cagan "a liberal." That monument to fuzzy thinking (James Burnham used to say that for liberals, there is no enemy to the left) is comparable to Hannity calling some beer-soaked, gun-totin' survivalist who hears the whirring of helicopter blades above his head "a conservative."

Even the phrase "moveon types" is inaccurate, considering the vast numbers of MoveOn.org supporters who do not engage in the sort of rhetoric you're arguing against.

I, and many other conservatives, believe that the Bush-as-Hitler rhetoric resonates with many MoveOn types.

Also, since you mention people like Margaret Cho, I think it's important to distinguish between comedians and straight political commentators. The former -- which includes cartoonists and other satirists -- are always granted much more license to use hyperbole, sarcasm and irony. It's their job. Even if you believe there's truth behind what they're saying, you have to take it with a grain of salt, whether they lean left or right (e.g., PJ O'Rourke, Dennis Miller, etc.).

Finally, it's not always an egregious thing to draw loose comparisons between something bad and its most extreme extension or distortion -- depending on how it's stated and the point being made. I agree with you that it's usually mindless and inflammatory. But sometimes it's perfectly legitimate to sound the alarm on curtailments of freedom in a free society, and remind us of the most drastic consequences of such a path. It doesn't mean the speaker actually believes the current administration is similar to Hitler's; often the point is far subtler than that.

The left's rhetoric is rarely distinguished by subtlety. For most Bush-bashers, the sledgehammer and the mud pie remain the weapons of choice.

Never mind, SkeptiKilt clarified the distinction between comparing and equating better.
[/quote]

It is a useful distinction.

Skeptic Ginger

30th January 2007, 01:58 PM

... You understand that we mean to resist the weakening and eventual destruction of America.Really? I thought you were a Bush supporter.

Between the horrendously failed war policy, gutting of the country's ability to respond to Katrina like disasters, trading security for the cheap labor benefits to corporate cronies of having a wide open border to the south, and the worst foreign debt in the history of the country you may need to do a lot of resisting real soon.

NotJesus

30th January 2007, 02:25 PM

Seriously, when I read NotJesus' post:
I laughed out loud. Perfectly timed dry comedy. Analyzing humor is one of the lamest human endeavors, but if I must, I'd say the two cues are 1) it's so outrageous a statement, so blunt and unadorned that it had to be satire (don't mention the people who do make Bush-Hitler comparisons, it's the way this was stated, in context); and 2) the follow-up, "So there's one," further tips us off to the fact that it's not serious. If it were, the follow-up would have been some variation of "And I'm not alone, there are thousands of us," and it would almost certainly have included explanations for why the comparison is valid. Also, the timing in the thread, after all this serious debate, made it obviously dry wit to me.

That's the last I'll say about analyzing humor, so you can have the last word if you want.

Your offer to allow me the last word is so gracious that I feel churlish accepting it. Of course, that's never stopped me before, so...

I just think you're seeing what you want to see. It's probable that the poster was making a simple declaration.

I think you're refusing to see what you don't want to see. The joke has been pointed out to you and explained to you. But you would prefer to believe that A) In the midst of all this wrangling about comparing Bush to Hitler, I decided to make the simple declaration "Bush is like Hitler" and then B) I got cold feet when you chided me for being irrational and tried to pass it off as a joke.

I realize it's embarassing to have a defective sense of humor, but continuing to posture without first wiping the egg off your face just makes you look silly.

SkeptiKilt

30th January 2007, 03:42 PM

The left's rhetoric is rarely distinguished by subtlety. For most Bush-bashers, the sledgehammer and the mud pie remain the weapons of choice.

Political discourse of any stripe these days is almost completely devoid of subtlety. Sledgehammers, mud pies, cluster bombs and rhetorical nukes abound. 'Tis strange that you only seem to care about them when they comes from one side. Here are the first two grafs of a recent Ann Coulter screed: Fortunately for liberals, the Iraqis executed Saddam Hussein the exact same week that former President Ford died, so it didn't seem strange that Nancy Pelosi's flag was at half-staff. Also, Saddam's death made it less of a snub when Harry Reid skipped Ford's funeral.

The passing of Gerald Ford should remind Americans that Democrats are always lying in wait, ready to force a humiliating defeat on America.I submit that this is a bit stronger than "There are some disturbing similarities between the rhetoric of the White House and that used by the Nazis."

And now, since Godwin's Law has been amply demonstrated, it is time for the pancake bunny.

:bunpan

LostAngeles

30th January 2007, 03:53 PM

...

And now, since Godwin's Law has been amply demonstrated, it is time for the pancake bunny.

:bunpan

I suppose we could chalk it up the extreme unfun of printing out my Logic textbook (which is legal to so, as it's only up online and I'm enrolled in the class), but man, that is a mesmerizing emoticon.

Is it kitten & recipe time yet for this thread also?

pomeroo

30th January 2007, 04:17 PM

Really? I thought you were a Bush supporter.

Between the horrendously failed war policy, gutting of the country's ability to respond to Katrina like disasters, trading security for the cheap labor benefits to corporate cronies of having a wide open border to the south, and the worst foreign debt in the history of the country you may need to do a lot of resisting real soon.

The Bush-bashers have been shrieking about Iraq since 2002, making it difficult to tell when they noticed that the situation there had actually deteriorated. Many of Bush's shrillest critics seek an American defeat so fervently that one wonders if any of them have thought through the consequences of a failed Iraq becoming a satellite of Iran. It is beyond me that people can mount a moral high horse when their vision of the Middle East is a stagnant, benighted region where tyrants and corrupt plutocrats oppress their peoples and work mischief on the global scene. As someone wrote to The Guardian the other day, how can any liberal possibly be proud of having advocated keeping Saddam Hussein in power? This is carrying the enemy-of-my-enemy business to ludicrous extremes.

pomeroo

30th January 2007, 04:35 PM

I think you're refusing to see what you don't want to see. The joke has been pointed out to you and explained to you. But you would prefer to believe that A) In the midst of all this wrangling about comparing Bush to Hitler, I decided to make the simple declaration "Bush is like Hitler" and then B) I got cold feet when you chided me for being irrational and tried to pass it off as a joke.

I realize it's embarassing to have a defective sense of humor, but continuing to posture without first wiping the egg off your face just makes you look silly.

Necessarily I have a defective sense of humor. It is inconceivable that you're not very witty.

Your alleged joke was pointed out by someone who has an interest in maintaining the fiction that the reprehensible practice of linking Bush to Nazism is not widespread. I don't read minds, so I had no way of determining how serious you were. My point, the one that everyone is aware of but pretends to overlook, is that the prevalence of the BusHitler crap on the left makes it impossible to assume that a statement such as yours is a joke.

But, you already knew that.

There is much posturing here, none of it by me. The fact remains that far too many garden-variety Democrats--not, I insist, merely far-left extremists--buy into the Bush-as-Hitler nonsense. Those same Democrats would scream bloody murder if the right compared their political heroes to Stalin.

pomeroo

30th January 2007, 04:45 PM

[SkeptiKilt;2300458]Political discourse of any stripe these days is almost completely devoid of subtlety. Sledgehammers, mud pies, cluster bombs and rhetorical nukes abound. 'Tis strange that you only seem to care about them when they comes from one side. Here are the first two grafs of a recent Ann Coulter screed:I submit that this is a bit stronger than "There are some disturbing similarities between the rhetoric of the White House and that used by the Nazis."

It may serve your forensic purposes to pretend that I am indifferent to Coulter's nastiness, but your insinuation is false. I have criticized her often for her role in debasing debate in this country. She is certainly no better than the most relentless and mindless of the professional Bush vilifiers.

And now, since Godwin's Law has been amply demonstrated, it is time for the pancake bunny.

I like the bunny.
:bunpan

NotJesus

30th January 2007, 04:54 PM

Necessarily I have a defective sense of humor. It is inconceivable that you're not very witty.

Not at all. My joke wasn't even all that witty. I don't mind if you don't find it funny. I mind very much that you persist in insinuating that I'm a liar.

Your alleged joke

See?

was pointed out by someone who has an interest in maintaining the fiction that the reprehensible practice of linking Bush to Nazism is not widespread.

And yet, throughout this interminable discussion, you have consistently failed to demonstrate that this reprehensible practice IS widespread.

I don't read minds, or have a sense of humor, so I had no way of determining how serious you were.

Fixed your post.

My point, the one that everyone is aware of but pretends to overlook, is that the prevalence of the BusHitler crap on the left makes it impossible to assume that a statement such as yours is a joke

But, you already knew that.

Nope.

There is much posturing here, none of it by me. The fact remains that far too many garden-variety Democrats--not, I insist, merely far-left extremists--buy into the Bush-as-Hitler nonsense.

No evidence. Again.

Those same Democrats would scream bloody murder if the right compared their political heroes to Stalin.

Probably. You got one right.

articulett

30th January 2007, 05:29 PM

So, everyone who disagrees with pomeroo and his beloved president is evil leftist bush bashers bent on destroying America? Wow, that is some heavy propaganda you've been seeping your mind in. I haven't heard much of the Bush being Hitler analogy, though pomeroo assures us it is everywhere, though I do remember the brouhaha about how if the left was in charge, we'd be speaking German. I think there's a world of people who have huge problems with this president and Hitchens warmongering...and they don't even live in America or vote. I think there are plenty of people in his own party. I think you have to be completely brainwashed to sound like Pomeroo. I suspect that you can plug in other names or regimes and get identical statements coming from Stalinists, North Koreans, Muslim Extremists, and Aryan Supremecists. They all think they are the good guys keeping their holy group from being weakened and destroyed by silencing dissent and destroying others. You are one sick puppy, pomeroo...

I don't even think the drunken Hitchens is besotted with Bush and as blinded to his very impeachable offenses as you are. It would be nice if you had some facts behind your weakening and destruction of America fear tactics, but I fear people like you more than all those "evil others" out there that we are supposedly being protected against. I think countries should provide for their own before fighting the battles of others who didn't ask for and don't want their help. I think it behooves us and our President and the brainwashed to learn to hear others instead of aiming weapons at them and shouting them down and telling them how wrong they are to dare and disagree or not trust inane claims. I can't tell one "faith based" radical from another...rather it's faith in your political party, god, some ideal or something else.

The weird thing is, if Muslim extremists were saying the same things you are, but putting the "US" in place of all your derogatory terms and fighting to save Islam--you'd see how horrific such "I'm right no matter who I kill" thinking is.
You ought to read Mein Kamf. I have a feeling you'd actually find it an insightful book. If they didn't tell you who wrote it, I bet you'd find him a respectful author on par with the President. Really.

Merko

30th January 2007, 07:30 PM

I, and many other conservatives, believe that the Bush-as-Hitler rhetoric resonates with many MoveOn types.

That is abundantly clear. However, you haven't submitted any sort of evidence that this would be the case. Arguing this point entirely from your subjective opinion of something that you clearly have less experience of than those debaters in this thread who are more supportive of MoveOn, isn't likely to convince anyone.

As someone wrote to The Guardian the other day, how can any liberal possibly be proud of having advocated keeping Saddam Hussein in power?
I'm not aware of any liberal having advocated keeping Saddam Hussein in power. The advocacy was about not ousting him with a military campaign bound to end up in massive human suffering. It is however true that these alternative strategies would, at least in the short run, have allowed Saddam Hussein to stay in power.

Now, I am proud of having advocated a policy that would have allowed Saddam Hussein to stay in power. I am proud of this because the facts speak clearly: The number of people being killed or tortured today is far higher than the numbers being killed or tortured towards the end of Saddam Hussein's regime. Additionally I believe the majority of Iraqi claim that it was better in those days.

No doubt, it was a good thing that Saddam Hussein was toppled, but it was not worth the price. The object of politics should always be to make things better.

pomeroo

30th January 2007, 08:12 PM

[quote=NotJesus;2300667]Not at all. My joke wasn't even all that witty. I don't mind if you don't find it funny. I mind very much that you persist in insinuating that I'm a liar.

See?

I am not insinuating that you are a liar. When I'm dealing with a conspiracy liar, I don't restrict myself to insinuating. The rationalists on this forum, including those with whom I have political differences, merit respect. If you claim that you weren't serious, I'll take your word for it. I acknowledged in an earlier post the possibility that you might have been joking. Although it was not obvious to me that your intent was ironic, it might have been if I knew you better.

And yet, throughout this interminable discussion, you have consistently failed to demonstrate that this reprehensible practice IS widespread.

Actually, I think I have demonstrated it. There is a reason why so many conservative pundits write about this reprehensible practice and I've heard fair-minded liberals on talk shows condemn it as well.

pomeroo

30th January 2007, 09:16 PM

=Merko;2300985]
I'm not aware of any liberal having advocated keeping Saddam Hussein in power. The advocacy was about not ousting him with a military campaign bound to end up in massive human suffering. It is however true that these alternative strategies would, at least in the short run, have allowed Saddam Hussein to stay in power.

This is verbal gamesmanship. If you strongly opposed removing him, you advocated keeping him in power. His continued oppression of the Iraqis, particularly the Kurds and the Shiites, would have certainly continued to produce human suffering on a vast scale. Leftists--and I anticipate the anguished howls--are famously indifferent to the bloodbaths caused by the totalitarian tyrants they are so fond of.

Now, I am proud of having advocated a policy that would have allowed Saddam Hussein to stay in power. I am proud of this because the facts speak clearly: The number of people being killed or tortured today is far higher than the numbers being killed or tortured towards the end of Saddam Hussein's regime. Additionally I believe the majority of Iraqi claim that it was better in those days.

You have nothing to be proud of. You are pontificating from the comfort and relative safety of a civilized Western nation. Would Iraqis who were brutally tortured and who were forced to watch the tortures and murders of family members be impressed by your complacency with the nighttime raids by the Mukhabbarat, the mass graves, the rape rooms, the jails for children? Saddam's nightmarish police state may have totally suppressed the individual freedoms of his subjects, but clearly he didn't affect your own. You are willing to allow faceless others to live in constant fear, to endure hopelssness and despair, in exchange for being able to flaunt your exquisite sensibilities to moral poseurs who take comfort for granted. Sorry, that sort of moral preening has always offended me. The members of Congress who cut off funds for South Vietnam dislocated many a joint patting each other on the back. But not one of them accepted any responsibility for the plight of the boat people, for the re-education camps, or the Cambodian genocide.

Iraqis understand the enormous difference between the abuses committed at Abu Ghraib by a handful of American soldiers and the real tortures Saddam's henchmen specialized in. You are quite wrong in imagining that a majority of Iraqis pine for the good old days. The last poll I saw, about two weeks ago, showed that 80% were glad Saddam was gone. And why should that result surprise anyone?

No doubt, it was a good thing that Saddam Hussein was toppled, but it was not worth the price. The object of politics should always be to make things better.
[/quote]

It is a very good thing Saddam is gone--good for the nations he will never menace with his weapons programs, and much better for the people of Iraq, who have the opportunity to create a free and prosperous nation.

bignickel

30th January 2007, 09:20 PM

I ask, for the sake of accuracy, that this thread be renamed "Pomeroo's signature behavior"

Although, someone might then think the thread was about Pomeroo's signature.

SkeptiKilt

30th January 2007, 09:30 PM

It may serve your forensic purposes to pretend that I am indifferent to Coulter's nastiness, but your insinuation is false. I have criticized her often for her role in debasing debate in this country. If you choose to believe that moveon.org "constantly" equates Bush with Hitler despite considerable evidence to the contrary, you'll have to allow me to take that statement with several pounds of salt -- especially since you are quite the mimic of her rhetorical style, viz. Many of Bush's shrillest critics seek an American defeat so fervently that one wonders if any of them have thought through the consequences of a failed Iraq becoming a satellite of Iran.

1) Was that a sledgehammer or a mudpie?
2) One wonders if the neocons considered the possibility of the Shia majorities in both countries aligning before they decided to muck with the balance of power in the powderkeg commonly known as The Middle East.

As someone wrote to The Guardian the other day, how can any liberal possibly be proud of having advocated keeping Saddam Hussein in power?Saddam was a murderous ratbastard, but there are lots of murderous ratbastards running countries around the world. Was deposing him and stirring up a hornets' nest in the ME worth the cost we have paid and will pay in blood and treasure?

This is carrying the enemy-of-my-enemy business to ludicrous extremes.
Yes, it was.

pomeroo

30th January 2007, 09:37 PM

[=articulett;2300737]So, everyone who disagrees with pomeroo and his beloved president is evil leftist bush bashers bent on destroying America?

Your debating technique is quite sophisticated. I'll bet you love Air America.

Wow, that is some heavy propaganda you've been seeping your mind in. I haven't heard much of the Bush being Hitler analogy,

I don't believe you.

though pomeroo assures us it is everywhere, though I do remember the brouhaha about how if the left was in charge, we'd be speaking German.

Funny that you should allude to World War II. The idealists of the American Communist Party organized a "peace" march (sound familiar?) in New York City back in 1940. Stalin and Der Fuhrer had signed a pact, and those lovable liberals-in-a-hurry, as they were styled, wanted to make sure that FDR wouldn't aid the imperialist nations of Europe. When Hitler stabbed Uncle Joe in the back and invaded Mother Russia, why, they turned on a dime and couldn't get America into the war fast enough.

I think there's a world of people who have huge problems with this president and Hitchens warmongering

I know lots of people who have a problem with preposterous charges of American warmongering in the light of a decade of jihadist attacks.

...and they don't even live in America or vote. I think there are plenty of people in his own party. I think you have to be completely brainwashed to sound like Pomeroo. I suspect that you can plug in other names or regimes and get identical statements coming from Stalinists, North Koreans, Muslim Extremists, and Aryan Supremecists. They all think they are the good guys keeping their holy group from being weakened and destroyed by silencing dissent and destroying others. You are one sick puppy, pomeroo...

Don't worry. I don't question your patriotism (that statement, snide though it may be, is literally true).

I don't even think the drunken Hitchens is besotted with Bush and as blinded to his very impeachable offenses as you are.

Hitchens agrees with Bush on a single issue, and that is the struggle against Islamofascism. Incidentally, Bush has committed zero impeachable offenses.

It would be nice if you had some facts behind your weakening and destruction of America fear tactics, but I fear people like you more than all those "evil others" out there that we are supposedly being protected against. I think countries should provide for their own before fighting the battles of others who didn't ask for and don't want their help. I think it behooves us and our President and the brainwashed to learn to hear others instead of aiming weapons at them and shouting them down and telling them how wrong they are to dare and disagree or not trust inane claims. I can't tell one "faith based" radical from another...rather it's faith in your political party, god, some ideal or something else.

I can, however, tell Muslim fanatics from civilized Westerners with the greatest of ease.

[/quote]
The weird thing is, if Muslim extremists were saying the same things you are, but putting the "US" in place of all your derogatory terms and fighting to save Islam--you'd see how horrific such "I'm right no matter who I kill" thinking is.

They attacked us. I wonder why the people I meet at "peace" marches never seem aware of that fact.

You ought to read Mein Kamf. I have a feeling you'd actually find it an insightful book. If they didn't tell you who wrote it, I bet you'd find him a respectful author on par with the President. Really.
[/quote]

Yeah, I guess I learned from this thread that I tend to exaggerate the BusHitler stuff.

pomeroo

30th January 2007, 09:46 PM

[=SkeptiKilt;2301320]If you choose to believe that moveon.org "constantly" equates Bush with Hitler despite considerable evidence to the contrary, you'll have to allow me to take that statement with several pounds of salt -- especially since you are quite the mimic of her rhetorical style, viz.

If I concede that MoveOn doesn't constantly compare Bush to Hitler, can we acknowledge that the two ads were not anomalies and that people who should know better are far too indulgent of such excesses?

1) Was that a sledgehammer or a mudpie?

Neither.

2) One wonders if the neocons considered the possibility of the Shia majorities in both countries aligning before they decided to muck with the balance of power in the powderkeg commonly known as The Middle East.

Saddam was a murderous ratbastard, but there are lots of murderous ratbastards running countries around the world. Was deposing him and stirring up a hornets' nest in the ME worth the cost we have paid and will pay in blood and treasure?

Saddam was no ordinary ratbastard. Unless we lose our nerve, deposing him and changing the dynamic of the Middle East might well justify the costs to us.

Yes, it was.
[/quote]

I think you understand that no American President of either party would have acquiesced in the Iranians sweeping across the region, provoking Israel to use its nukes. We made the best of a bad situation and achieved the stalemate we sought.

SkeptiKilt

30th January 2007, 09:55 PM

You got one thing right; we have definitely changed the dynamic of the Middle East. If your last line is a reference to the Rumsfeld-Saddam handshake, I think you might want to look up what started the Iran/Iraq war.

:bunpan

DNFTEC

articulett

30th January 2007, 11:34 PM

Y

They attacked us. I wonder why the people I meet at "peace" marches never seem aware of that fact.

Are you an idiot? Actually Al Quaeda attacked us--they killed innocent people because they felt our government was evil and corrupt. Al Quaeda is not Iraq. We killed innocent people in much greater numbers than Al Quaeda because we supposedly believed the Iraqi government was evil, bent on destroying us on our land, and because they supposedly had weapons of mass destruction. Amidst all your mudslinging do you ever address facts? How about photos like the one skeptikilt provided. Or are these people evil leftist propagandaist peaceniks that can't seem to realize that we were attacked first too?

Yeesh, I hope nobody thinks you a representative of most Americans-- Does anyone think you make sense or aren't a rabid warmongering blowhard with poor arguments all around. Anyone? Do you have friends that understand you? To me, you sound like Fred Phelps for a different ideal. Extreme, angry, and unable to reason when it comes to your pet delusions.

Yes, I do love my country. And I'm embarrassed that other countries think that people such as you are representative, when you are clearly (and thankfully) in an increasingly small minority. Your hatred and continual use of the word "leftists" makes it real clear what your politics are--I just think you're an embarrassment to anyone who would normally consider themselves conservative. Kind of the way most religious people don't want to be aligned with the fundies and most Muslims don't want to be aligned with the extremists. Every faith/authoritarian entity has it's wackos--it's just that your party seems to have an embarrassing influx of them lately. And you guys are only right, noble, and good in your own heads--just like the people you want to blow up.

Is there any respected intelligent person who relates to you? And I'd say you have to be the most brainwashed of boobs if you think that Bush hasn't committed an impeachable offense. Lying about a blow job is an impeachable offense if you recall. Bush has lied about much worse--repeatedly--and on tape--much of his cabinet and cronies have been indicted. And why would I care if you believe me. It's you who has a credibility problem--in almost every statement you make. I'm more than willing to provide evidence for what I say, accept evidence to the contrary and acknowledge an opinion for what it is. But I'm not the one saying asinine things. And you are the person who seems to take issue with everyone. I get along with most people--the people I don't get along with are often people like you who don't seem to engage well in dialogue with anyone --I don't go to protest marches or involve myself in politics much, mostly because I think people like you are crazy and scary. I did read the Downing Street Memo and stay abreast of the news--but since I read that John Stewart's audience are better informed and accurate when it comes to current events than Fox news viewers per an independent study, I've avoided Fox news.

You're the one that seems to have a lot of opinions that don't really coincide with the facts--and no matter what facts people show you, it only strengthens your allegiance and certainty of your rightness. How is that different than being brainwashed? Is there anything that could possibly make you think that this particular war is a really bad thing that has accomplished more harm than good? Why do opinions and facts asserted by others send you into tizzies of ad-homs and conspiracy complaints about the left. I really can't tell the difference between you and Ann Coulter; perhaps you can illuminate it for us, or point to someone who can.

And I must find out what you look like so I can avoid you at future TAMS as well.

Glenn

31st January 2007, 02:48 AM

Pomeroo, Glad the quote thing is working for you. Much easier.

Look: I do not hear all this supposed "Bushitler" stuff you keep going on about. I really don't. If you call me a liar like you suggested Articulett is, you will further prove you have zero interest in a rational, fair-minded discussion. Listen to (read) what I have to say, I am telling you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

I'm a lifelong Democrat, a damn strong liberal. I don't listen to much AM talk radio, I can't take Limbaugh for more than 43 seconds at a time, but now and then I'll tune in to Ed Schultz or Al Franken -- and have never once heard a Bush=Hitler statement. I was at the last Democratic convention (and the 3 prior), and never heard it. I go to many Democratic political candidate speeches, and never hear it.

I do not go to anti-war rallies, where I'm sure I'd see some of the stuff you've seen. And I don't read posts on political blogs, where again, you can find all kinds.

Once in a great while I have heard people make comparisons to Nazi fascism, usually as hyperbole to make a point, as I described above, or as a satiric joke. Once in a great while.

That's FAR less often than I hear some rightwingers make inane, antagonistic claims about liberals -- like that we hate America (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard) or that we want to lose a war, or that we want the economy to tank, or that we're trying to destroy this "Christian nation," or that we're trying to destroy families, etc.

I could go on and on about all the bile that comes out of some on the right about the left. But see, I don't focus on that. There's plenty bile and rhetoric to go around. You honestly think the right is more subtle in their rhetoric? Ha! And better at distancing themselves from the nuts in their ranks? Ha! How beholden to the religious right has most of the GOP been? How afraid are they to distance themselves? You know the answer.

There is a reason why so many conservative pundits write about this reprehensible practice
You keep saying that your best evidence for proving that the left constantly compares Bush to Hitler is that so many conservative pundits keep talking about it. That's just flawed logic, Pomeroo. Has it occurred to you that the rightie talkers have a vested interest in constantly talking about it? In making mountains out of molehills, and manufacturing a controversy? It's their job. It makes the left look bad. It gets people in a frenzy. That's good for the pundits. It's no different from the "war on Christmas" b.s.

Your alleged joke was pointed out by someone who has an interest in maintaining the fiction that the reprehensible practice of linking Bush to Nazism is not widespread. I don't read minds,
Pomeroo, you may now apologize for your obnoxious and wholly inaccurate accusation.

You claim you don't read minds but you're trying to read mine. You think I have "an interest" in "maintaining [a] fiction"?! You accuse me of lying? Your effrontery and lack of decency is terribly offensive. I hoped we could have a rational and respectful discussion, but clearly you're not interested in that. It's not worth the effort. Good luck, dude.

pomeroo

31st January 2007, 10:13 AM

Are you an idiot?

No.

[/quote]Actually Al Quaeda attacked us--they killed innocent people because they felt our government was evil and corrupt.

Inaccurate and misleading. Al Qaeda believes that our society, Western civilization broadly construed, is decadent and impious. Jihadists don't give a rat's patoot about Republicans, Democrats, or Karl Marx, for that matter.

Al Quaeda is not Iraq. We killed innocent people in much greater numbers than Al Quaeda because we supposedly believed the Iraqi government was evil, bent on destroying us on our land, and because they supposedly had weapons of mass destruction.

Nobody thinks that al Qaeda is Iraq. Stop your puerile lefty deceptions. We heard during the Vietnam era that we were there to kill babies. Of course, none of the oh-so-sanctimonious moralists who bleated about our mostly fabricated savagery ever said a word about the real savagery of the communists. We toppled Saddam Hussein to remove his ongoing threat to the region, using his repeated violations of the ceasefire agreement he signed in 1991 to justify our actions. In the wake of 9/11, the possibility of an avowed enemy of America providing WMD to terrorist groups was alarming to many people.

Amidst all your mudslinging do you ever address facts? How about photos like the one skeptikilt provided. Or are these people evil leftist propagandaist peaceniks that can't seem to realize that we were attacked first too?

The idea that we regarded Saddam Hussein as an ally is false. We have correctly viewed Iran as our principal enemy in the region since the hostage crisis of 1979. A temporary confluence of our interests and Iraq's does not forever taint our policies toward the Middle East.

Yeesh, I hope nobody thinks you a representative of most Americans-- Does anyone think you make sense or aren't a rabid warmongering blowhard with poor arguments all around. Anyone? Do you have friends that understand you?

Yes, many people think I make sense. Coincidentally, those same people find it highly amusing when rabid leftist blowhards are reduced to psychobabble to justify their irrational positions.

To me, you sound like Fred Phelps for a different ideal. Extreme, angry, and unable to reason when it comes to your pet delusions.

Wrong on all three counts. Incidentally, your fellow pop psychologists would call your approach here "projection."

Yes, I do love my country.

I don't much care one way or the other. Many lefties hate America for symbolizing the failure of Marx's vision. Their hatred of our system of relatively free markets leads them to support, insanely, all sorts of totalitarian monsters who have the single redeeming virtue of opposing America's interests.

And I'm embarrassed that other countries think that people such as you are representative,

I'm frightened when I reflect that some jihadists regard people like you as represnetative of all Americans.

when you are clearly (and thankfully) in an increasingly small minority. Your hatred and continual use of the word "leftists" makes it real clear what your politics are--I just think you're an embarrassment to anyone who would normally consider themselves conservative.

There's that projection again. Leftists take a back seat to no one when it comes to spewing mindless hate.

Kind of the way most religious people don't want to be aligned with the fundies and most Muslims don't want to be aligned with the extremists.

You're sure about those elusive "moderate Muslims"? What is the source of your information?

Every faith/authoritarian entity has it's wackos--it's just that your party seems to have an embarrassing influx of them lately. And you guys are only right, noble, and good in your own heads--just like the people you want to blow up.

When did Dennis Kucinich become a Republican?

Is there any respected intelligent person who relates to you? And I'd say you have to be the most brainwashed of boobs if you think that Bush hasn't committed an impeachable offense. Lying about a blow job is an impeachable offense if you recall. Bush has lied about much worse--repeatedly--and on tape--much of his cabinet and cronies have been indicted.

What you're doing here is lying about lying. I recall that perjury is an impeachable offense. You can't point to a single unambiguous lie that Bush has told. You are labeling policy disagreements as lies for your own convenience. I must have missed all those indictments of his cabinet members.

And why would I care if you believe me. It's you who has a credibility problem--in almost every statement you make. I'm more than willing to provide evidence for what I say, accept evidence to the contrary and acknowledge an opinion for what it is.

Well, you display a sense of humor. You present blatant falsehoods, offer no evidence, work up a self-righteous froth, and then pretend you're the voice of reason.

But I'm not the one saying asinine things.

You should see yourself from my angle.

And you are the person who seems to take issue with everyone. I get along with most people--the people I don't get along with are often people like you who don't seem to engage well in dialogue with anyone --I don't go to protest marches or involve myself in politics much, mostly because I think people like you are crazy and scary. I did read the Downing Street Memo and stay abreast of the news--but since I read that John Stewart's audience are better informed and accurate when it comes to current events than Fox news viewers per an independent study, I've avoided Fox news.

Have you ever read an actual book? I'd agree that people who rely exclusively on Fox news for their opinions are no better than people who buy into the mainstream media spin. There are people who take the trouble to develop coherent arguments and generally they write books.

You're the one that seems to have a lot of opinions that don't really coincide with the facts--and no matter what facts people show you, it only strengthens your allegiance and certainty of your rightness.

Your falsehoods haven't disproved too much of what I believe. You have failed to show where my opinions conflict with reality.

How is that different than being brainwashed? Is there anything that could possibly make you think that this particular war is a really bad thing that has accomplished more harm than good?

Sure, if Iran establishes a regional hegemony as a result of Iraq's disintegrating into warring sections, then the effort to remove Saddam Hussein will have had a negative outcome.

Why do opinions and facts asserted by others send you into tizzies of ad-homs and conspiracy complaints about the left.

Why do you make up such silly stuff?

I really can't tell the difference between you and Ann Coulter; perhaps you can illuminate it for us, or point to someone who can.

And I must find out what you look like so I can avoid you at future TAMS as well.

Well, you can watch the debate I hosted between Mark Roberts and the Loose Change boys.

pomeroo

31st January 2007, 10:52 AM

[=Glenn;2301711]Pomeroo, Glad the quote thing is working for you. Much easier.

Thanks, but I'm not doing any cutting and pasting.

Look: I do not hear all this supposed "Bushitler" stuff you keep going on about. I really don't. If you call me a liar like you suggested Articulett is, you will further prove you have zero interest in a rational, fair-minded discussion. Listen to (read) what I have to say, I am telling you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

I believe that you're telling the truth.

I'm a lifelong Democrat, a damn strong liberal. I don't listen to much AM talk radio, I can't take Limbaugh for more than 43 seconds at a time, but now and then I'll tune in to Ed Schultz or Al Franken -- and have never once heard a Bush=Hitler statement. I was at the last Democratic convention (and the 3 prior), and never heard it. I go to many Democratic political candidate speeches, and never hear it.

I do not go to anti-war rallies, where I'm sure I'd see some of the stuff you've seen. And I don't read posts on political blogs, where again, you can find all kinds.

I don't listen to AM talk radio (during the baseball season, I confess that I occasionally phone-in rants to a sports show).
I hear this stuff all the time on political blogs. I make a point of milling around at "peace" protests and "anti-war" rallies (the people in attendance have no problem with war unless it conduces to something beneficial for America) where such rhetoric is rampant.

Once in a great while I have heard people make comparisons to Nazi fascism, usually as hyperbole to make a point, as I described above, or as a satiric joke. Once in a great while.

That's FAR less often than I hear some rightwingers make inane, antagonistic claims about liberals -- like that we hate America (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard) or that we want to lose a war, or that we want the economy to tank, or that we're trying to destroy this "Christian nation," or that we're trying to destroy families, etc.

But, there again is that distinction between liberals and leftists that not enough people are fastidious about. Chuck Schumer is a liberal, Michael Moore is a leftist; Hillary Clinton is a liberal, Cindy Sheehan is a leftist. Liberals don't hate America. While the behavior of most congressional Democrats throughout Bush's tenure has been appalling--clearly, they do want our effort in Iraq to fail-- it is animated less by ideology and more by a shortsighted fixation on political advantage.

Liberal pundits and pols certainly have created the impression that they want the economy to tank.

I could go on and on about all the bile that comes out of some on the right about the left. But see, I don't focus on that. There's plenty bile and rhetoric to go around. You honestly think the right is more subtle in their rhetoric? Ha! And better at distancing themselves from the nuts in their ranks? Ha! How beholden to the religious right has most of the GOP been? How afraid are they to distance themselves? You know the answer.

We agree that there is far too much bile and too little serious thought. The right is objectively better at isolating the nuts. The religious right finds itself in an uncomfortable position. They view the Democrts as their sworn enemies, but complain that they don't really get anything from the Republicans.

You keep saying that your best evidence for proving that the left constantly compares Bush to Hitler is that so many conservative pundits keep talking about it. That's just flawed logic, Pomeroo. Has it occurred to you that the rightie talkers have a vested interest in constantly talking about it? In making mountains out of molehills, and manufacturing a controversy? It's their job. It makes the left look bad. It gets people in a frenzy. That's good for the pundits. It's no different from the "war on Christmas" b.s.

There is some truth to what you say. Obviously, tying the BusHitler loons around the neck of Democratic politicians is comparable to the Jerry Falwell albatross for Republicans. I'd argue that the comparisons of Bush to Hitler and the war on Christmas, although not mountains, rise considerably higher than molehills.

Pomeroo, you may now apologize for your obnoxious and wholly inaccurate accusation.

You claim you don't read minds but you're trying to read mine. You think I have "an interest" in "maintaining [a] fiction"?! You accuse me of lying?

You're growing overheated. It was in your interest to interpret that post as you did, just as my interpretation was in my interest. My point remains that neither of us had any way of knowing the poster's intent. Where do you get the idea that I'm accusing you of lying? You were attempting a debater's trick: insisting that something ambiguous was actually clear. Not what I'd call lying.

Your effrontery and lack of decency is terribly offensive. I hoped we could have a rational and respectful discussion, but clearly you're not interested in that. It's not worth the effort. Good luck, dude.
[/quote]

Your indignation strikes me as a bit overdone. I do not disrespect you.

NotJesus

31st January 2007, 11:50 AM

I am not insinuating that you are a liar.

Flatly untrue.

I stated unambiguously that my "Bush is like Hitler" post was a joke and you continued to doubt it. That clearly implies that I may be lying. There is no other possible interpretation.

Merko

31st January 2007, 01:21 PM

If you strongly opposed removing him, you advocated keeping him in power.

No, this is not true. The US, as well as several European states, were for years actively keeping Saddam Hussein in power. It was during this time that his most serious atrocities were committed. I did not advocate that.

Leftists--and I anticipate the anguished howls--are famously indifferent to the bloodbaths caused by the totalitarian tyrants they are so fond of.

You can't really expect to get any sort of respect if you go around claiming that leftists would have been fond of Saddam Hussein. That's like equating Bush with Hitler just because you don't like him. It is vile, disrespectful, distasteful, and above all, fundamentally stupid.

You are pontificating from the comfort and relative safety of a civilized Western nation.

You have to be remarkably blind not to realise that the same applies equally to yourself.

You are willing to allow faceless others to live in constant fear, to endure hopelssness and despair, in exchange for being able to flaunt your exquisite sensibilities to moral poseurs who take comfort for granted.

This is exactly what you do. I do not downplay the cruelty of the Saddam Hussein regime. I compare it with the cruelties of today's Iraq. And that comparison can only end one way: the fear, the hopelessness and despair, and the amount of human suffering, is without the slightest doubt greater today, than it was during the later period of Saddam Husseins regime.

But not one of them accepted any responsibility for the plight of the boat people, for the re-education camps, or the Cambodian genocide.

Every reasonable estimate agrees that the horrors inflicted by the Southern regime/US far surpassed those perpetrated by the north. Additionally, it seems reasonable to assume that the end of US intervention contributed to North Vietnam's ability to direct their forces to fight the Khmer Rouge, ending that genocide. Of course, communist Vietnam has not been a model society, but it has been infinitely better than the horrors suffered during the war.

Iraqis understand the enormous difference between the abuses committed at Abu Ghraib by a handful of American soldiers and the real tortures Saddam's henchmen specialized in.

They do? Tell me how it is so much better to be beaten to death by an American, than by a baathist.

The last poll I saw, about two weeks ago, showed that 80% were glad Saddam was gone. And why should that result surprise anyone?

Which is completely irrelevant. The issue, outside your imagination, was never pro- or anti-Saddam Hussein. The issue was whether Iraq is better off after the invasion, or not. If you have brain cancer and I cut your head off, we will all agree that it is good that you got rid of the tumour. But that does not mean I was justified in beheading you.

It is a very good thing Saddam is gone--good for the nations he will never menace with his weapons programs,

Which weapons programmes? Sorry, but I believe politics should be based on reality, not on your imaginations.

and much better for the people of Iraq, who have the opportunity to create a free and prosperous nation.
I fail to see how they would have a greater opportunity to do that now, than before the invasion. The situation was very bad then, but it is clearly worse now.

Glenn

31st January 2007, 02:39 PM

We agree that there is far too much bile and too little serious thought. The right is objectively better at isolating the nuts.
Objectively? That's quite a claim. Prove it. Objectively.

I hear this stuff all the time on political blogs. I make a point of milling around at "peace" protests and "anti-war" rallies (the people in attendance have no problem with war unless it conduces to something beneficial for America) where such rhetoric is rampant.

Once again, you really cannot rationally go to political blogs and protest rallies as a source of major pulse-taking. You know full well you're relying on a small, self-selected population, and that anonymous blogs and protest rallies bring out the most hyper and irrational emotions from that self-selected population. You also have no idea whose doing most of the talking on blogs. (You must know that some people do write bogus posts on blogs to make their opponents sound worse and to provide quotes to turn around and attack them with. An often pointless endeavor, given all the hyper irrational emotions already present.)

If you want to make claims of objectivity, point to some respected polls. That's the only way you'll convince anyone you're being objective and rational. By your own claims thus far, you're basing your opinions on a very limited subjective personal survey. And right-wing pundits.

Many lefties hate America for symbolizing the failure of Marx's vision.
Point to the reliable polls that reveal even .001% -- hell, start with .01% -- of Americans feel this way. Point to the reliable polls that show that more lefties hate America for symbolizing the failure of Marx's vision than righties hate America for symbolizing the failure of Christian theocracy. Unless you can do these things, you cannot be expected to be taken seriously with these wild claims.

Inaccurate and misleading. Al Qaeda believes that our society, Western civilization broadly construed, is decadent and impious.
That's the common refrain from many on the right, and while it has some truth to it, it broadly misses the boat. Many Islamists have been mobilized with this sense of indignation, that's true. But the leaders -- Bin Laden et al. -- their motivations and rage stem not from some generalized disdain for the American way of life. That's effective Bush administration PR, to make the enemy a purely evil "other" out to destroy us merely because of our innate goodness. (It's a time-tested story. Make it about pure good and pure evil, 100% black and white, to really sell it.)

The fact is, the leaders primarily hate our bases in Saudi Arabia and our support of Israel. And a few other things (like Bin Laden's home Saudi Arabia kicking him out and siding with the U.S.), but those are the big ones.

To elucidate this is not to engage in "masochism" or "blaming America," as some like to claim as an evasive debating tactic. If America were wrong or foolish or capricious in these choices, then maybe it would be. But America is right to have bases in Saudi Arabia, and America is right to support Israel, and America will rightly not change its policies no matter how much Bin Laden and his ilk stir up terrorism against us.

The rhetoric of "They just hate our freedom" is ignorantly simplistic, just as is the rhetoric of "We've wrongly provoked them, it's our fault." The accurate assessment isn't sexy. It doesn't sell easily. But "They hate our freedom" is sexy, it's bumper sticker simple, and it sells well. As you've demonstrated.

You have a very interesting style, Pomeroo. You accuse people of engaging in "debating tricks," most of which you yourself have engaged in. You make inaccurate or highly speculative claims that you try to recast once they're disproved. When you disagree with someone, or believe they've said something wrong, you often attack them. Not so strongly as to be overt ad-homs, but close... you claim (inaccurately) that people are only saying things because they have ulterior motives; you insult people with things like "Stop your puerile lefty deceptions," instead of addressing the facts in a reasonable manner; you make jabs like "your fellow pop psychologists" or "Have you ever read an actual book?" as an attempt to belittle those you disagree with... etc.

These tactics stand out because you so keep claiming that others are engaging in mere debating tricks. That makes you sound awfully hypocritical. Just something to think about.

Where do you get the idea that I'm accusing you of lying?

Very simple. You claimed I said something because I have "an interest in maintaining the fiction that the reprehensible practice of linking Bush to Nazism is not widespread."

You accused me of having an ulterior motive (not true) to maintain a fiction (not true).

I think you need to reread yourself a bit more carefully. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you probably didn't realize what you were typing. But your tactic here of making a bold statement and then retreating is yet another debate trick that isn't working very well for you.

SkeptiKilt

31st January 2007, 03:22 PM

There is no point to engaging Mr. P further, folks. Some places they call them trolls, some places they call them energy creatures. What's the accepted parlance here?

Cleon

31st January 2007, 03:48 PM

There is no point to engaging Mr. P further, folks. Some places they call them trolls, some places they call them energy creatures. What's the accepted parlance here?

"Twits." :D

In any event, Glenn just delivered the best smackdown I've seen in a long, long time. My hat is off to you, sir.

pomeroo

31st January 2007, 04:46 PM

=NotJesus;2302980]Flatly untrue.

I stated unambiguously that my "Bush is like Hitler" post was a joke and you continued to doubt it. That clearly implies that I may be lying. There is no other possible interpretation.

In post no. 239, I wrote:
"If you claim that you weren't serious, I'll take your word for it. I acknowledged in an earlier post the possibility that you might have been joking. Although it was not obvious to me that your intent was ironic, it might have been if I knew you better."

Flatly untrue? Really? Evidently, something is unclear to you. What part of "I'll take your word for it" is causing the problem? You seem to be claiming, bizarrely, that I have continued to contend that you were serious after you assured us that you were joking. I never said that I was certain of your original intent, only that I saw no reason to think that you were joking. Considering that I don't know you, I can't begin to estimate the probability that you are lying. You are the only person who can be certain that you're telling the truth, but for me, common courtesy requires that I accept your word. We really can't push this any further.

NotJesus

31st January 2007, 04:57 PM

In post no. 239, I wrote:
"If you claim that you weren't serious, I'll take your word for it. I acknowledged in an earlier post the possibility that you might have been joking. Although it was not obvious to me that your intent was ironic, it might have been if I knew you better."

Flatly untrue? Really? Evidently, something is unclear to you. What part of "I'll take your word for it" is causing the problem? You seem to be claiming, bizarrely, that I have continued to contend that you were serious after you assured us that you were joking. I never said that I was certain of your original intent, only that I saw no reason to think that you were joking. Considering that I don't know you, I can't begin to estimate the probaility that you are lying. You are the only person who can be certain that you're telling the truth, but for me, common courtesy requires that I accept your word. We really can't push this any further.

Post 228 (to Glenn)

I just think you're seeing what you want to see. It's probable that the poster was making a simple declaration.

NOTE: Not "It seemed probable." "It's probable."

And then in post 234 you refer again to my "alleged" joke.

Evidently, something is unclear to you. What part of YOUR OWN WORDS is causing the problem?

pomeroo

31st January 2007, 05:42 PM

[=Merko;2303261]No, this is not true. The US, as well as several European states, were for years actively keeping Saddam Hussein in power. It was during this time that his most serious atrocities were committed. I did not advocate that.

Your statement is incorrect. France and Russia were particularly egregious offenders, undercutting the U.N. sanctions regime by engaging in extensive transactions with Iraq, but Germany was far from innocent. If you want to argue that Poppa Bush betrayed the Kurds and the Shiites by seeming to offer them support and then allowing Saddam to slaughter them, hey, I'm with you. What were Saddam's "most serious atrocities"? His oppression was ongoing.

You can't really expect to get any sort of respect if you go around claiming that leftists would have been fond of Saddam Hussein. That's like equating Bush with Hitler just because you don't like him. It is vile, disrespectful, distasteful, and above all, fundamentally stupid.

Yes, for leftists to side with Saddam Hussein was extremely stupid. It demonstrates the lunatic lengths their anti-Americanism will drive them to.
Jesse Jackson's revolting performance at a London "peace" rally during the run-up to the war set new, hitherto undreamed of standards for moral idiocy. As one speaker after another vilified America, a woman expressed a desire to relate the horrors her family had suffered at the hands of Saddam. Jackson silenced her, saying "We are not here to talk about Saddam Hussein." What a guy!

I thought that in my time I had seen the limits of political insanity, but when a gaggle of American lefties offered themselves to Saddam to serve as human shields, the phrase "too stupid to live" took on a whole new meaning for me.

You have to be remarkably blind not to realise that the same applies equally to yourself.

You have to be remarkably blind not to realize that I am well aware of how fortunate I am to be an American. I would not find much cause for self-celebration in allowing the Iraqis to continue to be oppressed.

This is exactly what you do. I do not downplay the cruelty of the Saddam Hussein regime. I compare it with the cruelties of today's Iraq. And that comparison can only end one way: the fear, the hopelessness and despair, and the amount of human suffering, is without the slightest doubt greater today, than it was during the later period of Saddam Husseins regime.

You write that the suffering in today's Iraq is "without the slightest doubt" worse than before. Without the slightest doubt, you are completely wrong. The mainstream media hypes the violence in Baghdad, but much of Iraq has been pacified and the country's economy, despite the turmoil, is growing nicely.

Every reasonable estimate

Translation: According to thoroughly exploded leftist myth.

agrees that the horrors inflicted by the Southern regime/US far surpassed those perpetrated by the north.

Perhaps a few French Marxists and the usual dotty American academics will buy this claptrap. You will never sell it to any Vietnamese. The Vietcong's terror campaign, which involved public tortures and hangings of village leaders, left lasting memories. After the North's war of conquest proved victorious, the plight of the boat people should have shaken the consciences of the Anointed (Thomas Sowell's perfect description), but, of course, injecting doubt into people who are morally infallible is no easy task.

Additionally, it seems reasonable to assume that the end of US intervention contributed to North Vietnam's ability to direct their forces to fight the Khmer Rouge, ending that genocide. Of course, communist Vietnam has not been a model society, but it has been infinitely better than the horrors suffered during the war.

Your chronology is creative, but you might want to read a history of the Vietnam War.

They do? Tell me how it is so much better to be beaten to death by an American, than by a baathist.

I'd venture a guess that the American guilty of beating someone to death will be punished severely for committing a crime, whereas the Baathist is executing state policy.

Which is completely irrelevant. The issue, outside your imagination, was never pro- or anti-Saddam Hussein. The issue was whether Iraq is better off after the invasion, or not. If you have brain cancer and I cut your head off, we will all agree that it is good that you got rid of the tumour. But that does not mean I was justified in beheading you.

Okay, Iraq is vastly better off without Saddam. Does that mean you've come over to my side?

Which weapons programmes? Sorry, but I believe politics should be based on reality, not on your imaginations.

We can start with the weapons programs noted by the U.N. during the nineties. Understandably, leftists pretend that the Duelfer Report doesn't exist. One its most inconvenient conclusions for the mythmakers was that Saddam could have reconstituted his programs very quickly upon the collapse of the sanctions regime.

By the way, Bill Clinton bombed Iraq intensively for four days in 1998. The official line was that he targeted WMD facilities and Republican Guard barracks. If you want to pretend that he "knew" that no WMD existed, wouldn't he be guilty of a war crime by killing all those Iraqi troops who had no idea they were at war?

I fail to see how they would have a greater opportunity to do that now, than before the invasion. The situation was very bad then, but it is clearly worse now.

Preposterous.

pomeroo

31st January 2007, 05:55 PM

[=NotJesus;2303828]Post 228 (to Glenn)

NOTE: Not "It seemed probable." "It's probable."

And then in post 234 you refer again to my "alleged" joke.

Evidently, something is unclear to you. What part of YOUR OWN WORDS is causing the problem?
[/quote]

When Gerald Ford stated in one of his debates with Jimmy Carter that Poland was not dominated by the Soviet Union, he could have minimized the damage by acknowledging that he had misspoken. Instead, he insisted for days that he actually meant the nonsense that had slipped past his lips. Now, you can reread my post and reflect on the part where I said I'd take your word for it, or we can continue what promises to be an embarrassment for you. Here is a big hint: posts 228 and 234 came BEFORE post 239. A bigger hint: what did I say AFTER you announced that you weren't serious? That's AFTER, not BEFORE.

pomeroo

31st January 2007, 06:01 PM

[=Cleon;2303658]"Twits." :D

In any event, Glenn just delivered the best smackdown I've seen in a long, long time. My hat is off to you, sir.
[/quote]

It must have been quite a smackdown. I didn't feel a thing. Of course, the conspiracy loons on the tinfoil-hat blogs ALWAYS manage to refute everything I say. They have real science on their side.

Incidentally, going back to my college debating experiences, when I have lost to a sharper, better-informed opponent, I sure as hell realized it.

pomeroo

31st January 2007, 06:03 PM

[=SkeptiKilt;2303607]There is no point to engaging Mr. P further, folks. Some places they call them trolls, some places they call them energy creatures. What's the accepted parlance here?
[/quote]

Tough opponents.

NotJesus

31st January 2007, 06:08 PM

When Gerald Ford stated in one of his debates with Jimmy Carter that Poland was not dominated by the Soviet Union, he could have minimized the damage by acknowledging that he had misspoken. Instead, he insisted for days that he actually meant the nonsense that had slipped past his lips. Now, you can reread my post and reflect on the part where I said I'd take your word for it, or we can continue what promises to be an embarrassment for you. Here is a big hint: posts 228 and 234 came BEFORE post 239. A bigger hint: what did I say AFTER you announced that you weren't serious? That's AFTER, not BEFORE.

Oh dear.

I said in post 236 that you insinuated I was a liar. That statement clearly refers to posts 228 and 234. It can't possibly refer to post 239. Surely even you can follow this?

Post 239 begins with your disingenuous denial and then you belatedly agree to 'take my word for it.'

I'd prefer an apology for your earlier offensive insinuations, but since you seem to be incapable of admitting you're wrong, even when the facts are against you, I guess I'll just have to let it drop.

pomeroo

31st January 2007, 06:48 PM

=Glenn;2303486]Objectively? That's quite a claim. Prove it. Objectively.

Where does the left draw the line? When David Duke got the idea of re-baptizing himself as a Republican, Poppa Bush told him to take a hike. Pat Buchanan's increasingly anti-Semitic columns provoked a sharp rebuke from William F. Buckley. Buckley also broke with his old friend Joe Sobran for the same reason. Back in the late fifties and early sixties, Buckley and the National Review tossed the entire anti-Semitic and super-patriot-John-Birch-Society crowd out of the modern conservative movement.

By sharp contrast, the N.Y. Times ran an absolutely disgraceful piece on a group of old commies, still unrepentant Stalinists, the entire mood being, hey, aren't these feisty oldsters just too charming for words. Michael Kelly asked what the reaction would have been to a comparable portrait of aging Nazis. Maureen Down fawns over Mother Sheehan and Michael Moore is given a seat of honor at the Democratic National Convention. Alan Colmes calls Leslie Cagan--Leslie Cagan, for chrissakes--a liberal.
Oh, yes, two words: Al Sharpton.

Naturally, nothing I can say will have slightest impact on you, but, frankly, you must be kidding.

Once again, you really cannot rationally go to political blogs and protest rallies as a source of major pulse-taking. You know full well you're relying on a small, self-selected population, and that anonymous blogs and protest rallies bring out the most hyper and irrational emotions from that self-selected population. You also have no idea whose doing most of the talking on blogs. (You must know that some people do write bogus posts on blogs to make their opponents sound worse and to provide quotes to turn around and attack them with. An often pointless endeavor, given all the hyper irrational emotions already present.)

But one of the major themes of the 2004 campaign, sounded by liberal pundits as well, was the influence of the far-left on the Democratic Party. You act as though I'm making up something. The Howard Dean phenomenon was a chilling hint that a highly energized, well-financed group of extremists just might be able to hijack a major party.

If you want to make claims of objectivity, point to some respected polls. That's the only way you'll convince anyone you're being objective and rational. By your own claims thus far, you're basing your opinions on a very limited subjective personal survey. And right-wing pundits.

Objective claims are based on polls? That's breathtaking. Remarkable results can be produced by imaginative wording. A poll showed that 30% of German university students do not believe that Americans landed on the moon in 1969. Does that mean that almost a third of Germany's future leaders are drooling morons?

Point to the reliable polls that reveal even .001% -- hell, start with .01% -- of Americans feel this way. Point to the reliable polls that show that more lefties hate America for symbolizing the failure of Marx's vision than righties hate America for symbolizing the failure of Christian theocracy. Unless you can do these things, you cannot be expected to be taken seriously with these wild claims.

You have a funny way of attempting to discredit claims that make you uncomfortable. Dozens of essays have appeared in a wide range of journals addressing the question of anti-Americanism. No clear consensus has emerged, but the implacable hatred for America felt by many leftists can plausibly be ascribed to this nation's historic role as the global opponent of the Soviet Empire. America's victory in the Cold War signified a defeat for the communist vision. What makes a reasonable thesis a "wild claim"?

That's the common refrain from many on the right, and while it has some truth to it, it broadly misses the boat. Many Islamists have been mobilized with this sense of indignation, that's true. But the leaders -- Bin Laden et al. -- their motivations and rage stem not from some generalized disdain for the American way of life. That's effective Bush administration PR, to make the enemy a purely evil "other" out to destroy us merely because of our innate goodness. (It's a time-tested story. Make it about pure good and pure evil, 100% black and white, to really sell it.)

When an interpretation of jihadist behavior has to invoke the devil-figure George Bush, it probably misses the mark. Robert Spencer, IMO, explains it well in his scathing review of Dinesh D'Souza's new book: http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=26650

The fact is, the leaders primarily hate our bases in Saudi Arabia and our support of Israel. And a few other things (like Bin Laden's home Saudi Arabia kicking him out and siding with the U.S.), but those are the big ones.

We no longer have any bases in Saudi Arabia.

To elucidate this is not to engage in "masochism" or "blaming America," as some like to claim as an evasive debating tactic. If America were wrong or foolish or capricious in these choices, then maybe it would be. But America is right to have bases in Saudi Arabia, and America is right to support Israel, and America will rightly not change its policies no matter how much Bin Laden and his ilk stir up terrorism against us.

The rhetoric of "They just hate our freedom" is ignorantly simplistic, just as is the rhetoric of "We've wrongly provoked them, it's our fault." The accurate assessment isn't sexy. It doesn't sell easily. But "They hate our freedom" is sexy, it's bumper sticker simple, and it sells well. As you've demonstrated.

They hate our defiance of the will of Allah.

You have a very interesting style, Pomeroo. You accuse people of engaging in "debating tricks," most of which you yourself have engaged in. You make inaccurate or highly speculative claims that you try to recast once they're disproved.

Wishful thinking on your part. Not much of what I've written has been disproved.

When you disagree with someone, or believe they've said something wrong, you often attack them. Not so strongly as to be overt ad-homs, but close... you claim (inaccurately) that people are only saying things because they have ulterior motives;

I call them simply, motives. It sounds less sinister and we all have interests that we seek to promote or defend. Your interpreting that post as a joke didn't stamp you as a bad guy to me.

you insult people with things like "Stop your puerile lefty deceptions," instead of addressing the facts in a reasonable manner; you make jabs like "your fellow pop psychologists" or "Have you ever read an actual book?" as an attempt to belittle those you disagree with... etc.

Well, perhaps I was debating too robustly. I find it irritating when an opponent has nothing substantive to say and attempts, ineptly, to probe my psyche.

These tactics stand out because you so keep claiming that others are engaging in mere debating tricks. That makes you sound awfully hypocritical. Just something to think about.

I try not to accuse people of engaging in trickery when I can't effectively answer their arguments. I like to believe that I restrict myself to calling only actual debating tricks by that name.

Very simple. You claimed I said something because I have "an interest in maintaining the fiction that the reprehensible practice of linking Bush to Nazism is not widespread."

You accused me of having an ulterior motive (not true) to maintain a fiction (not true).

You seem to be arguing that the practice of comparing Bush to Hitler is not widespread. I'll assume that your belief is sincere, but I happen to disagree.

I think you need to reread yourself a bit more carefully. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you probably didn't realize what you were typing. But your tactic here of making a bold statement and then retreating is yet another debate trick that isn't working very well for you.

I'll try to be more careful. I do not, however, regard you as a liar. And I don't recall doing much retreating.

pomeroo

31st January 2007, 06:58 PM

[=NotJesus;2303971]Oh dear.

I said in post 236 that you insinuated I was a liar. That statement clearly refers to posts 228 and 234. It can't possibly refer to post 239. Surely even you can follow this?

You're the one having trouble following. Until you posted an explanation, I felt that you were making a straightforward statement. After you clarified your intent, I said I'd take your word for it. Even people who support you in this rambling debate must be wondering where you're going here.

Post 239 begins with your disingenuous denial and then you belatedly agree to 'take my word for it.'

Are you using the word "disingenuous" because you want something pejorative or do you really not know its meaning? What denial?

I'd prefer an apology for your earlier offensive insinuations, but since you seem to be incapable of admitting you're wrong, even when the facts are against you, I guess I'll just have to let it drop.

You're asking for an apology because my interpretation was incorrect? Unlike many of my debate opponents, I am capable of committing errors; my judgment is not perfect. I'll apologize for guessing wrong if you'll apologize for writing unclearly.

LostAngeles

31st January 2007, 07:02 PM

...

Wishful thinking on your part. Not much of what I've written has been disproved.

...

Fixed it for you.

Let the call for actual evidence in the form of links be made once more.

Glenn

31st January 2007, 07:14 PM

Re Saudi Arabia: You're quite right, we pulled out nearly all our troops in '03; I should have said our presence in the region, which is what I meant.

When an interpretation of jihadist behavior has to invoke the devil-figure George Bush, it probably misses the mark.
"Devil-figure?" Your words, not mine. Not even my implication. This is just... weird.

"Has to?" Not at all. That was purely an aside.

Your bizarre tactics continue to surprise.

Thank you, Cleon! It's sad when someone who is clearly intelligent lacks self-awareness. So close... and yet so far. Don't worry NotJesus, it's clear to everyone else.

pomeroo

31st January 2007, 09:16 PM

Re Saudi Arabia: You're quite right, we pulled out nearly all our troops in '03; I should have said our presence in the region, which is what I meant.

[quote]
"Devil-figure?" Your words, not mine. Not even my implication. This is just... weird.

"Has to?" Not at all. That was purely an aside.

Your bizarre tactics continue to surprise.

We simply don't share the same mindset. To me, the notion that the threat of jihadism will fade away when Bush leaves office and is replaced by a gentler, more empathetic Democrat is pure moonshine. Robert Spencer chastised D'Souza for his superficial understanding of Sayyid Qutb. My impression is that, for the most part, people on the left have no interest whatever in the ideology that animates our enemies. For many of them, we are always our own worst enemies, and it is sufficient that we engage in endless introspection and walk on eggshells around Muslims. If only Bush were less of a... simpleton. If only he could feel their pain they way Bill could.

Al qaeda understands inflicting pain, not feeling it. The jihadists have been attacking us for a decade because they have determined, perhaps correctly, that we lack the stomach for a prolonged struggle.

Thank you, Cleon! It's sad when someone who is clearly intelligent lacks self-awareness. So close... and yet so far. Don't worry NotJesus, it's clear to everyone else.

When everything is so very clear to a group of like-minded thinkers, I begin to suspect that they harbor a host of unexamined prejudices. Self-awareness is difficult to achieve. I confess that I have not finished the process. Are you quite sure that all these people who are so certain about so many things that they really don't understand very well are qualified to put me on the path to enlightenment?

Glenn

31st January 2007, 11:01 PM

We simply don't share the same mindset. To me, the notion that the threat of jihadism will fade away when Bush leaves office and is replaced by a gentler, more empathetic Democrat is pure moonshine.

There you go again, ascribing things to me that I never said or suggested. Like you've done to others here.

I'll keep this simple for you:

1) What made you insert the incendiary phrase "devil-figure" into your interpretation of what I said? Explain. Clear and simple. Do not evade the question again, do not put words into my mouth again.

2) Learn to listen. Discuss what was actually said, not what you imagine people are saying to you. Admit you put words in my mouth with your quote I pasted at the top about my "mindset"... if you have any integrity.

G

When everything is so very clear to a group of like-minded thinkers, I begin to suspect that they harbor a host of unexamined prejudices.
Pomeroo, back atcha.

pomeroo

1st February 2007, 12:19 AM

[=Glenn;2304404]There you go again, ascribing things to me that I never said or suggested. Like you've done to others here.

There you go again, pretending that I'm ascribing things to you that you never said or suggested. If I may offer a tip, your best defense would be to refer readers to your original post where they can see for themselves that you didn't call Bush a devil-figure. To facilitate progress, let us agree that it was I who introduced the term.

During William Buckley's 1965 campaign for Mayor of New York City, he was asked by reporter Gabe Pressman if he was accusing his liberal Republican opponent John Lindsay of being soft on communism. "No," Buckley replied, "I am precisely not saying that: I am saying that he does not have any apparent appreciation of the problem of internal subversion,
which is different." Later, columnist Dick Schaap echoed most of the pundits when he wrote: "William F. Buckley is saying that John Lindsay is soft on communism...He has picked up the most tired and meaningless phrase of all..."

Nah, liberals wouldn't dream of putting words into a conservative's mouth.

In an exchange of letters, Roy Wilkins, then executive director of the NAACP, chided Buckley for his "exhortations against dat ole debbil Communism." Buckley did not huffily accuse Wilkins of putting words into his mouth for the simple reason that he would have looked very foolish: nobody actually thought that Buckley had used those exact words. Wilkins was gently mocking what he perceived to be the right's preoccupation with the subject. That, as should be obvious, is what I was doing--mocking the tendency of Bush's opponents to invariably assume the worst about him. He can never be right. His framing of an issue must always be superficial, simplistic, downright wrong-headed. I called Bush a devil-figure because that is how I think everyone on your side views him. How wrong am I?

Incidentally, putting words into another person's mouth, while usually a very unfair tactic, can sometimes be defensible. If someone states that absolutely everything Bush has done is bad for the country, I can say that this person thinks that the tax cuts are bad for the country. When I am attacked for ascribing to the person things he didn't say, I can respond that my critic is illogical and is arguing in bad faith.

I'll keep this simple for you:

How much deconstruction is this little jab worth? Should I feign indignation at your implication that I am simple-minded? I don't believe that you regard me as particularly obtuse. I think you were--how did I put in an earlier post?--debating robustly. I'll pass over this because I'm just not all that offended.

1) What made you insert the incendiary phrase "devil-figure" into your interpretation of what I said? Explain. Clear and simple. Do not evade the question again, do not put words into my mouth again.

2) Learn to listen. Discuss what was actually said, not what you imagine people are saying to you. Admit you put words in my mouth with your quote I pasted at the top about my "mindset"... if you have any integrity.

Yadda, yadda.

Pomeroo, back atcha.

What is this--tennis? You complained about my lack of self-awareness first. Soon we'll be double-dog-daring each other to do something or other.