The climate right now is that Republicans use everything they can to undermine and delegitimize this president. And it‘s actually un-American. It‘s traitorous, in my opinion. Do you want to give aid and comfort to our enemies? Continue to treat this president like he wasn‘t elected and he doesn‘t know what he‘s doing! He knows what he did. He knows what he‘s doing. I‘m proud of him.
–Joan Walsh of Salon.com, morphing into what she undoubtedly most despises as she decries criticism of the president as “un-American” and “traitorous”
(Via Newsbusters.)
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January 2, 2010 at 7:14 pm
What makes this even more interesting, of course, is the criticism of someone who thinks it is traitorous to criticize the President who would not have said so during the previous administration yet your not having said a thing against those who took the same position during the previous administration.
Oh, wait, that isn’t interesting, it’s just hypocritical.
Criticizing someone who is being hypocritical with criticism that is itself hypocritical is what, exactly? Ironic? Or just silly?
And this criticism of someone being hypocritical in their critique of hypocrisy? Now we’re getting postmodern.
January 2, 2010 at 7:19 pm
And that would be who, exactly? That said it was traitorous to criticize the president, I mean.
January 3, 2010 at 4:50 pm
Dick Cheney has said that President Obama is giving “aid and comfort to the enemy” the precise language you criticize here. Yet again you criticize a liberal for doing something you conveniently ignore from conservatives.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/30024.html
And of course there were the numerous cries of “Traitor!” or “Terrorist” at McCain campaign rallies by his Republican supporters.
Then there was Ann Coulter’s remark, “Or is he being the Manchurian candidate to the traitor wing of the Democratic Party?”
That was just from a 2 second google search. I’m sure if you were interested, you could find many more examples. There are whole websites full of quotes:
http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2006/07/playing_the_tre.html
January 3, 2010 at 5:25 pm
OK, here’s what Cheney actually said:
Lots of people conflate “treason” and “aid and comfort to the enemy.” They aren’t the same thing. “Adherence to the enemy” and concrete acts of assistance are required to sustain a charge of treason. And if anyone doesn’t think that al-Qaeda won’t be aided by the world-wide platform that KSM will get from a civilian trial, they are seriously deluded.
As for what clowns in the crowds at rallies shout, you’ve really got to be kidding. Ever see any of Zombie’s photo galleries of the kind of despicable crap that’s been thrown in the direction of Bush, Israel, and others by the enlightened of Berkeley and San Francisco? The point is that I don’t bother with street loons, who I’ve only once referred to here, and that was to question the connection between International ANSWER and the mainline-supported US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.
Nyhan’s post is from before I began this blog. I’m sure there’s lots of stuff that he documents that is thoroughly objectionable. If I’d been writing about it at the time, I’d have said so.
As for Ann Coulter, I’d never heard that remark. Having heard it, I don’t have any problem calling it disgusting. But here’s the real point: everybody on the left, and lots of people on the right, expect clowns like Coulter to use this kind of language. It’s what they do, right? Dog bites man story. But when liberals like Walsh–for whom dissent is supposed to be patriotic and who pose as such strong defenders of the First Amendment–talk like this, that’s worth noting.
January 3, 2010 at 8:48 pm
“Ever see any of Zombie’s photo galleries of the kind of despicable crap that’s been thrown in the direction of Bush, Israel, and others by the enlightened of Berkeley and San Francisco? ”
Actually I have. But unlike you, I’m not the one trying to excuse or rationalize that sort of “crap” from some people while criticizing it when it comes from others. Are you using those examples to say, in effect, “Well, they did it too!”? Because I doubt that’s an excuse anyone would take seriously. You won’t find anywhere where *I’ve* excused such behavior from *any* side. The point here that I’m making, as I’ve made many, many times on this blog is that you continually excuse and rationalize bad behavior from your allies (when you can be bothered to acknowledge it) that you criticize from those with whom you disagree. If you can find somewhere that I’ve condoned calling someone a traitor for disagreeing with President Obama, while letting it slide when the same was done to President Bush, then you’d have a valid reason to criticize me for the hypocrisy I’m calling you on. But you can’t. So instead, you rationalize.
If you’re going to criticize bad behavior, as I certainly think you should do, then you could at least attempt to appear to be consistent. Your continued excuses and rationalizations … don’t they seem to be wearing pretty thin by now? “I never heard that.” “I don’t know that.” Amazing how tuned in you seem to be to bad behavior on the left while continuing to be ignorant of the same behavior on the right. It would seem that, by now, you’d at least consider spending 30 seconds doing a Google search before posting one of these things to see if you were being hypocritical again.
Anything that the left does is done by someone on the right. How can it possibly be surprising that is the case by now? Seriously? That’s the dog bites man story.
Instead, you provide rationalizations where you should be providing consistent condemnation. Your indignation here would be believable if I thought you actually meant it instead of it just being yet another play in the gotcha game of lame rhetoric, talking points, and the scoring of cheap political points. — games that I would think should be beneath a Pastor.
January 4, 2010 at 9:19 am
I’m going to let you in on a little secret, Alan–I don’t write this in order to see how I stack up on your scale of moral perfection or hypocrisy meter. Nor do I do it because I enjoy being insulted. So I think I’m finally going to take Kate’s advice, and ask that you peddle your fish somewhere else.
January 4, 2010 at 10:56 am
No problem, David. I’m sorry that you feel that my suggestion that you be more consistent in your criticism of what we both agree is off-the-wall rhetoric is an “insult.”
Anyone is, of course, always welcome to comment on my blog. I’ve never banned anyone, regardless of whether I disagree with them or not. Open and honest discourse is something I value.
Thanks for the conversation and take care!