A couple of days ago, in passing, I referred to the president of the United States at our Dear Leader. This has caused some hyperventillation. Just to clarify: The idea that the US and North Korea are in any way similar in polity or social structure never crossed my mind.
That sort of thing is, rather, a right-wing specialty: Gibberish about “totalitarian political correctness” of the Democratic Leadership Committee, etc. is a convenient way for crazy people to signal one another, so they can meet to discuss their shared feelings of persecution.
No, my intended parallel was between the men, not the regimes.
At that level, the element of sarcastic excess, while open to misinterpretation, came pretty close to bordering on the obvious: In each case, a personally unaccomplished and otherwise altogether unimpressive son, guided by his father’s old retainers, makes his country look both terrifying and ridiculous to the rest of the world.
Hysterics love hyperbole. But not all hyperbole is hysteria.
{ 32 comments }
robert the red 09.20.06 at 8:15 am
I call him the “Beloved Leader”. I’ll let you guess at the antecedent for “him”.
Adam Kotsko 09.20.06 at 9:22 am
You have to admit that conservatives are in a strange spot nowadays. On the one hand, they control virtually everything. On the other hand, there are still some people who disagree with them. The cognitive dissonance must be overwhelming.
Nat Whilk 09.20.06 at 10:02 am
Scott McLemmee: “That sort of thing is, rather, a right-wing specialty”
Is that sort of thing really less prevalent on the left?
Don McArthur 09.20.06 at 10:03 am
Watch it, Buster. All dissent is treason. For two more years, anyway.
Steve 09.20.06 at 10:03 am
Get over yourself. The comment section you refered to had 10 comments in it, one of which was a quote from this post. Only one of them even criticized your use of ‘Dear Leader’. Are you really posting an entire topic over one comment in a previous post, and calling it “some hyperventilation,” as if you have been noticed? Dear Leader is actually civilized compared to BusHitlerMcChimpy, so I give you accolades for improving the level of discourse around here. But get a grip. Hyperventilation? You are going to have to up the level of irrational blather to be really noticed around here (re: posts by Belle).
Steve
Sven 09.20.06 at 10:48 am
It’s our way of society. Let’s continue the regime to the third generation.
Scott McLemee 09.20.06 at 11:04 am
Nat, at #3: No, it is a right-wing specialty. Folks on the left so disposed indulge in the “Bush = Hitler” garbage instead. There are similarities, of course, but different toxins are involved.
abb1 09.20.06 at 11:14 am
The idea that the US and North Korea are in any way similar in polity or social structure never crossed my mind.
I should hope so! You wouldn’t dare to trivialize The Juche Idea, would you?
pedro 09.20.06 at 11:47 am
It isn’t the posts at CT that are well characterized as irrational blather. That specific description seems to fit much better a certain fraction of the comments, particularly those spewed by the usual trolls, among them yourself.
Randy Paul 09.20.06 at 1:15 pm
The comment section you refered to had 10 comments in it, one of which was a quote from this post
Steve,
That was a trackback, not a comment.
MQ 09.20.06 at 1:33 pm
When you correct for how many advantages the United States has a society over North Korea, post-WWI Germany, or Tsarist Russia — a great constitutional political tradition, a massive, healthy, and innovative capitalist economy, a free and thriving civil society — then Bush as a leader is just as bad as many of the worst who have come before him. The US as a society is obviously far, far better but that is no thanks to Bush.
G. Winstanley 09.20.06 at 1:38 pm
Umm, yes, referring to Mr. Bush as “Dear Leader” is a popular joke in left-wing circles. It’s meant mostly to poke fun at right-wing adulation of Bush the younger, comparing said adulation to the comical encomiums to Kim Jong Il’s intellect, sagacity, courage, wisdom, and so forth, that emanate from N. Korean propaganda organs, and that N. Korean citizens are apparently expected to repeat. Part of the comedy is the gargantuan disproportion between the extravagance of the adulation and the person on whom it is lavished. Another comic element is the comparison between US rightists and the unfortunate North Koreans, frightened or brainwashed into pouring forth praise for their Dear Leader that would make Nero blush. I know it’s tiresome to explicate jokes, but since it seems called for… Hope that helps clarify things for the wing-nuts.
As for BusHitler, well… I can’t remember who first said this, but I entirely agree that comparing Bush to Hitler goes much too far. Bush isn’t nearly the orator that Hitler was.
kth 09.20.06 at 1:55 pm
I remember when Clinton was elected in 1992, a lot of right-wingers sported bumper stickers, and called talk-radio stations, to the effect that “he’s not my president!” Here’s the thing: Clinton wasn’t “my president”, either. Although I voted for him both times, I never identified with him the way certain conservatives (e.g. the Powerline blog, to whom comparisons with members of religious/ideological cults are not at all unfair) identify with Reagan or Bush. And it isn’t just because I’m somewhat more liberal than Clinton; I can’t imagine thinking of any President that way. And that unwillingness to personally identify with leaders, that reflexive disgust at the royalist tendency, is in my experience more common among liberals than conservatives.
Henry 09.20.06 at 2:03 pm
A “Google search”:http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=BUSHITLERMCCHIMPY&btnG=Google+Search reveals that there are ten or so references to BusHitlerMcChimpy on the Internets, of which the top two are by Steve himself commenting on CT (the rest are from other yammering wingnuts at LGF, Red State and assorted right wing websites). So Steve isn’t actually trolling here. He’s showing the true juche spirit by engaging in an admirable act of public self-denunciation. He deserves our very warmest admiration.
Nat Whilk 09.20.06 at 2:44 pm
Re #14: As we’ve been through before, the particular locution Steve used may be peculiar to fans of Bush, but the variants “Bushitler” and “Chimpy” certainly are not. Is the absence of “Mc” really significant? Is it that those on the left think it’s fair to call Bush a Nazi or subhuman, but they’d never stoop to suggesting that he has Scottish ancestry?
Scott Lemieux 09.20.06 at 4:33 pm
Yep, Henry gets it right. The use of the phrase “Chimpy McHitlerburton” or its equivalents is almost as sure a sign your’re dealing with a dimwitted reactionary as someone using the word “womyn.”
Nat Whilk 09.20.06 at 5:08 pm
Re #16: It appears that exactly zero of the hits for “womyn” on the front page from Google are from conservatives.
pedro 09.20.06 at 6:13 pm
Just yesterday, I had occasion to witness, during a reception for new faculty at my place of employment, an insufferable rant by a rather outspoken Bush-hating leftist colleague. So yes, there are leftist imbeciles out there. But Steve likes to suggest that those people are representative of the views on the left, which is the equivalent of suggesting that the right is represented by the fringe xenophobes and racists that inhabit it. But what is one to expect from Steve? Thoughtful criticism? Civil disagreement? Nah. Incendiary nonsense, for sure.
Randy Paul 09.20.06 at 8:39 pm
Thoughtful criticism? Civil disagreement? Nah. Incendiary nonsense, for sure.
Or the inability to distinguish between a trckback and a comment.
Kang de Veroveraar 09.21.06 at 7:35 am
So yes, there are leftist imbeciles out there. But Steve likes to suggest that those people are representative of the views on the left, which is the equivalent of suggesting that the right is represented by the fringe xenophobes and racists that inhabit it.
You appear to assume that there is some sort of symmetry between the excesses of “the” right and “the” left these days. That’s clearly not the case.
It is not hard to argue that the attitude of the Bush administration and its supporters towards Arabs is tinged with racism. Read for instance Raphael Patai’s “The Arab Mind”, and then get your mouse over to one of the many sites that treat it as a serious work of scholarship.
On the other hand, given that the Dems do not appear to take their role as an opposition party too seriously, one has to wonder whether their attitude is really informed by radical leftist imbecility…
Nat Whilk 09.21.06 at 7:58 am
Pedro writes: “So yes, there are leftist imbeciles out there.”
In your opinion, is Venezuela’s president one of them?
abb1 09.21.06 at 9:08 am
On the positive note, president Bush has won special DISINFORMATION STUPIDITY AWARD FOR BEING MOST OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY in 2006.
Kim Jong Il was nominated for STUPIDEST MAN OF THE YEAR and lost to Donald Thompson, Oklahoma Penis Pump Judge. Loser.
And last year, Mr. Bush won Stupidest Statement of the Year award with memorable “They never stop thinking of new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
pedro 09.21.06 at 9:12 am
kang de veroveraar: my remarks do not imply that there is a balance between the excesses of the right and the left in this country, nor are they the product of such an assumption on my part. Irrespective of degree and relative preponderance of the different kind of excesses left and right, to constantly ascribe to one’s political opponents the caricaturesque views of the imbeciles among them is not precisely an intelligent way to conduct oneself. (I use ‘imbecile’ and avoid using ‘radical’ because I disassociate myself from people who confuse the two.)
“In your opinion, is Venezuela’s president one of them?”
Not only is he an idiot, he is also a dangerous and profoundly irresponsible idiot. But if you think saying this makes me somehow a ‘moderate’ Democrat, you are quite wrong. I am to the left of most Democrats in this country.
Kang de Veroveraar 09.21.06 at 10:24 am
(I use ‘imbecile’ and avoid using ‘radical’ because I disassociate myself from people who confuse the two.)
I wouldn’t like to derail the thread by discussing semantics, but still…
So yes, there are leftist imbeciles out there. But Steve likes to suggest that those people are representative of the views on the left, which is the equivalent of suggesting that the right is represented by the fringe xenophobes and racists that inhabit it.
The implication is that the radicalism entailed by xenophobia and racism is akin to some sort of “imbecility”. You also imply that they are of peripheral importance in the larger scheme of all things rightist. At least as far as the Middle East is concerned, that’s utter tosh.
Oh well. I guess that your second post clarifies the matter, which I’d regard as settled.
spencer 09.21.06 at 10:29 am
Dear Leader is actually civilized compared to BusHitlerMcChimpy, so I give you accolades for improving the level of discourse around here
Um, the only people I’ve ever seen use the term “BusHitlerMcChimpy” (or anything similar) are rightwingers and Republicans who are trying to make liberals look juvenile.
Nat Whilk 09.21.06 at 11:21 am
Spencer writes: “Um, the only people I’ve ever seen use the term “BusHitlerMcChimpy†(or anything similar) are rightwingers and Republicans who are trying to make liberals look juvenile.”
Then, as Google demonstrates, your Internet experience has been atypical. In particular, there have apparently been several parts of The Lumber Room you’ve avoided.
Walt 09.21.06 at 12:35 pm
Seriously, nat, you’re taking time out of your day to investigate internet usage of BusHitlerMcChimpy? You are that psychically identified with Bush that you take it that personally? Dude, he doesn’t even know you, or care about you.
pedro 09.21.06 at 3:06 pm
“The implication is that the radicalism entailed by xenophobia and racism is akin to some sort of “imbecilityâ€.”
The implication is that the radicalism entailed by xenophobia and racism is akin–insofar as degree of marginality is concerned–to the sort of imbecility Steve denounces on the left. There is no reason to extrapolate parallels when Occam’s razor indicates that the speaker is referring to numbers.
“You also imply that they are of peripheral importance in the larger scheme of all things rightist. At least as far as the Middle East is concerned, that’s utter tosh.”
I don’t think it is the racism and xenophobia of the fringe right-wing that is of central importance in what’s going on in the Middle East. A rather minor degree (comparatively) of racism and xenophobia among the core of right-wingers does more harm than the extreme racism and xenophobia populating the fringe.
Nat Whilk 09.21.06 at 3:40 pm
Re #27: Typing a Google search takes no longer than typing a message of the length of #27. The “get a life” dodge is one of the oldest and weakest around.
Walt 09.21.06 at 10:06 pm
It’s not a dodge. I’m actually worried about your mental health. It’s just not normal behavior.
bi 09.22.06 at 3:27 am
OK, here’s the deal:
Scott McLemee, by writing the above clarification, you’ve showed your willingness to kowtow to the evil Forces of gratuitous Political Correctness. This is self-censorship, which is cowardly, and wrong. What you should have done is to handle the issue like a Real Man: “yeah, I say Bush is a pinko, so sue me if you dare! Nyah nyah nyah!”
pdf23ds 09.24.06 at 1:18 pm
Walt, if you don’t consider it healthy behavior to google claims made by other commenters on the thread in order to confirm or disconfirm them, then I pity you for what your idea of healthy behavior is.
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