In all of this, one passage keeps sticking with me. CJR's Corey Pein defends Bill Burkett with this paragraph:
. . . many suppositions about Burkett are based on standards that were not applied evenly across the board. In November and December the first entry for "Bill Burkett" in Google, the most popular reference tool of the twenty-first century, was on a blog called Fried Man. It classifies Burkett as a member of the "loony left," based on his Web posts. In these, Burkett says corporations will strip Iraq, obliquely compares Bush to Napoleon and "Adolf," and calls for the defense of constitutional principles. These supposedly damning rants, alluded to in USA Today, The Washington Post, and elsewhere, are not really any loonier than an essay in Harper's or a conversation at a Democratic party gathering during the campaign. While Burkett doesn't like the president, many people in America share that opinion, and the sentiment doesn't make him a forger.
Now I don't mean to make too much of my own anecdotal evidence, but I would guess that among my circle of friends and relatives, about half of them are moderately liberal to very, very liberal. Many of these liberal friends and relatives dislike George W. Bush is a serious way; a few of them are bona fide Bush-haters. None of them has ever compared Bush to "Adolf." And I'm pretty sure that they would all look cock-eyed at someone who did.
That Corey Pein thinks Burkett's views aren't "any loonier than . . . a conversation at a Democratic party gathering during the campaign" tells us quite a bit about Pein.
4 comments:
Actually, there are many similarities between Bush and Hitler (and also Stalin, but I won't get into that).
**Bush and Hitler were both considered ignorant by liberals and moderates, leading to a misunderestimation of their political powers.
**Bush and Hitler were both considered by the political establishment to be poor public speakers, but the rhetoric of both held a powerful appeal for the average citizen, who admired their plain-spokenness.
**Bush and Hitler were both considered to be mere puppets of powerful figures in their cabinets and behind the scenes. In Hitler's case, this view held until every last "puppetmaster" was discredited and ousted. Expect to see a few puppetmasters leaving within a year or two.
**Bush and Hitler both capitalized on the racist fears of the underclass.
**Bush and Hitler were both convinced that their cause was a righteous one, endorsed by God.
**Bush and Hitler both seemed to lack any capacity for self-relection, perhaps evidence of a mental illness.
What this also reveals is missing adult supervision at the CJR.
**Also both are Tauruses
Here's another good response to Pein:
http://ratherbiased.com/news/content/view/541/2/
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