Shameful

Par for the course, Henry. Here’s Michael White, writing and article entitled “Backing the Bombers”:http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_white/2007/09/backing_the_bombers.html in the Guardian, and articulating the Blairite/”decent” world-view:

bq. An irritating chap in so many ways, Martin Amis. But the novelist raises an interesting point in a new polemic published today. Why, he asks provocatively, do so many westerners on the left – “liberal relativists” he calls them – find themselves on the same side of the line as Osama bin Laden when asked to choose between the al-Qaida leader and George Bush?

What is the appeal of the bloggingheads format? Written blog posts are musch friendlier to the reader — they can be skimmed, glanced at, reread, searched, excerpted, etc. And they can be read in places where listening to a debate is inconvenient or impossible (like work — and where else do people read blogs?) if you were quoting a post by Frum, I’d click through and read it, but I’m not going to listen to this — and I doubt many others will either.

As for the writer, a written post gives them a chance to organize their thoughts, revise, quote, link, incorporate graphics, etc. Apart from the universal, deep-seated fantasy of being a TV talking head, I just don’t see what this format offers.

I don’t know what Schmitt is talking about. No Republican politician has ever tried to exploit September 11 for political purposes.

(What I find most galling about Frum’s performance in that piece is his faux-mournful tone. It pains him to have to say this about Mr Schmitt, but…).

One of the nastiest political slurs you’ve seen in a while compares somebody to …

Charles Lindbergh?

Sk

That’s why I’m so pissed off when TNR or some other “liberal” entity treats Jonah Goldberg as worthy of debate.

The guy’s an asshole, pure and simple. There are Republicans worth talking to, but he’s not one of them.

This apparently, was sufficient to brand Mark (who is a friend of mine) as the equivalent to a notorious isolationist Hitler-fancying anti-Semite.

What isn’t? “Anti-semitism”:Frum et al.::Mayonnaise:Belgians. Discuss.

I’m not sure precisely why this particular slur is so attractive to soi-disant conservative ‘public intellectuals’

Uh, I’ll take “because they have nothing intelligent to say” for five-thousand quatloos, Alex.

When are these fainting little fops going to realize that they don’t intimidate anyone?
.

Weird. Your blog just inserted code into my post that I didn’t type there, creating a link. What I originally wrote was:

“anti-semitism”:Frum et al.::Mayonnaise:Belgians
.

Preview tells you it cannot be trusted if you use Textile.

So why isn’t this little shit Frum walking patrol in Baghdad, anyway?

Cmon. Why Charles Lindbergh as a slur at this moment in American politics?

Possibly because of his America First activity?

In other words, the Republicans are not preparing the Dolchstoss, but are preparing the political ground for the next war.

Listen to the neocons long enough, and you’ll see that all roads lead back to Munich. On one side is Neville Chamberlain, in a silly (in fashion retrospect, of course) homburg hat, waving some piece of paper in one hand, limply hanging over the wrist of the other hand, an umbrella that conjures up a hectoring, but loving wife reminding a dour civil servant to take his umbrella with him this morning ‘because it might rain’. And on the other side….in his study, in front of a roaring fireplace, with pictures of his warrior ancestors surrounding him, sits Churchill. He’s brooding over the perceived weakness of his nation (read lack a manly sprirt)…sipping aged scotch, and smoking a immense Cuban cigar.

It works every time….and it works to this day.

I wonder if anyone has written an alt history in which Churchill’s reputation is not rescued by Hitler and he goes on to ignominy as an intolerant, alcoholic imperialist who can’t be trusted with the economy?

He was in exile in Canada in Harris’s Fatherland, tho it’s just an offhand mention.

C’s alcoholism seems to be greatly exaggerated; he mixed a good bit of water with his scotch, and ate more than enough to help soak up the spirits.

Lindbergh is my homie and basically came from Lake Wobegon. So did Sinclair Lewis.

Minnesota politics 1930-1940 was really quite a positive story. The Farmer-Labor Party during that period was run by populist socialists. They were as successful as any American left group has ever been, and their heritage is almost entirely positive (except to right-libertarian scum like the Powerline shits).

BUT what Minnesota had achieved was a united right-left populist-extremist popular front, united against the Republicans (the Democrats almost disappeared — they’d always been weak in Minnesota because Minnesota was founded by Union civil War veterans.)

In 1936 the only Congressman voting to support the Spanish Republican cause was John Bernard of the Duluth area, who later admitted to being a Communist. But in 1942 FL Senator Lundeen was implicated in Nazi propaganda efforts.

This is a very big tent, and when you consider that small-town bankers were important early FL supporters, you have to wonder whether it wasn’t the biggest tent EVER.

Many FL supporters were first or second-generation Scandinavian or German immigrants (though Bernard was a Corsican, of all things.) The geographical isolation of the Midwest during the early XXc was also a factor — people were aware that their lives were decided by events taking place very far away.

I still think that people around here are more willing than elsewhere to make their political commitments based on their own thinking, rather than by triangulating public opinion or deciding which kingpin will be able to deliver them the goods. People who do their own thinking tend to be erratic.

So anyway, moderation is the titraton of extremes.

The politicization of patriotism by “conservatives” is shameful. A few years ago, when I was an inside-the-beltway government bureaucrat, I began to feel conspicuous about my reluctance to wear the obligatory American flag pin in my lapel. I’m feeling the same way about neglecting to sport a “Support Our Troops” bumper sticker on my car. I’ve been opposed to the Iraq War from the start, and I fear that bumper sticker is, for the most part, a right-wing flag. It really bothers me that anyone should feel the need to display such a slogan.

“It really bothers me that anyone should feel the need to display such a slogan.”

We don’t feel the need to. We do it because we want to.

Sk

Henry, you’re the one who’s shameless. I saw Frum on theat second Bloggingheads segment and you haven’t got the vaguest idea what you’re talking about. Frum in his blog has just responded to your smear, where he essentially says: There’s a difference in saying “You’re going to hit someone someday if you keep driving like that” and “You’ve just hit someone.” If you had an ounce of good faith mixed in with your malice, you’d have put two and two together and realized that’s what he meant. Instead, with glee, you jump to the most damning interpretation. If you’re going to comment on public affairs, try not to be a public nuisance.