EITHER OR BORE
Perhaps because everyone around President Bush realizes he was a false choice, he has amped up his false-choice rhetoric to a truly prepsterous degree:
"Nobody from the Democratic Party has actually stood up and called for the getting rid of the terrorist surveillance program. You know, if that's what they believe, if people in the party believe that, then they ought to stand up and say it. They ought to stand up and say, the tools we're using to protect the American people shouldn't be used. They ought to take their message to the people and say, vote for me. That's what they ought to be doing."
--Dumbya, yesterday
Bartcop.com replies as follows (I merely offer the quote; take it as you will):
"Nobody from the GOP has actually stood up and called for the lynching of every black man in America (although some have called for the killing of every homosexual in America). You know, if that's what they believe, if people in the GOP believe that, then they ought to stand up and say it. They ought to stand up and say, "We're gonna hang every black man we can find. They ought to take their message to the people and say, vote for me." If that's what all Republicans believe, who don't they have the courage to say the words out loud?
I think Bart is missing the point. He is suggesting, through his analogy, that some or most Democrats want to, at a minimum, stop ILLEGAL spying ("The Terrorist Surveillance Program") AND want to go further (stop spying on Al-Qaeda at all), but that, if these cowardly Democrats said so, the public would be outraged and turn on them, just as the public at-large would be outraged if people from the GOP called for lynching of black people.
Here's the difference: polling has shown that a slight majority of America believes that the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" (the one that violates FISA) is illegal and improper. To therefore assume that if Democrats came out against it en masse would all of a sudden turn off "the public" (who, for purposes of this discussion, includes Democratic voters, 75% of whom disapprove of this program)? If the Democrats came out strongly against this program, my goodness, people would respond favorably, because people would finally see evidence of the Dems growing a spine!
For all of the talk about how Russ Feingold didn't win the succor of, and didn't endear himself to, the Washington punditocracy with his censure motion, a rasmussenreports.com poll states that 38% of America supports censure and 45% does not. Rasmussen predicted the margin of Bush's popular vote victory (and the popular vote percentages) more accurately than ANY major polling organization in America, and it is consistently more accurate on a wide array of issues than any other organization. In the cosmic order of things, could - could it just - could it just be the POLITICIANS who are out of touch, and could it be their constantly telling us ("projection") that WE'RE the ones out of touch that is responsible for people not reacting sometimes to Russ Feingold-type measures the way the Russ Feingolds of the world want them to?
I offer as Exhibit A in support of my thesis Hurricane Katrina. The devastation happened so fast, so utterly, so inexorably, so irrevocably, that even the spin-shellacked Fox News Room's stable of GOP talking heads from Denny Fatstert's House could not spin away the images people had seared into their minds of an entire city going under.
Similarly, Feingold's censure motion, at least to people who don't follow Washington news obsessively, appears to have come out of nowhere. Peope heard about it and digested it before Republicans were able to call him a terrorist. Likewise, John Kerry's decisive win in the 1st debate in 2004 (the win that brought him back into the race) was such an early rout that even Karl Rove evidently was having difficulty communicating with Bush through whatever bulky wire contraption Bush appeared to be wearing.
Message to Democrats: grow some reflexes, some intuition, and some initiative, in addition to growing a spine.
By the way, the real observation to be made from Chimpy's comment is that the comment, like so many of his comments, is couched in the language of false choice: the very language implies that Democrats have only two options - to accept his program and sanction his lawbreaking, OR to NOT SPY ON AL-QAEDA AT ALL. Of course, there is a third option: to spy on Al-Qaeda in a manner not violative of the Constitution. The non-false-choice option should be the starting point, not the ending point, of Democratic criticisms of Bush's actions. Democrats can learn the art of criticism by implication or omission by saying: "I propose a spying program that is legal and that is sanctioned by Congress. When we offer my proposal, the American people can listen to President Bush as he tries to explain why breaking the law is actually and morally needed to capture terrorists," instead of saying, "Bush lied, he didn't consult us, he broke the law, oh, and by the way, now that you asked, we do need to have some kind of lawful spying program - I'll get back to you on my ideas about that some day."
Bush also loves brandishing the false-choice stick by saying "Some say we should have done nothing after 9/11." "Some say we should wait for our enemies to come to us." First of all, the man doesn't listen to radio, TV or newspapers, and gets the "news" from his advisers' brainwashing him, so he isn't even in a position to know who these hypothetical "some" are. Who are they, George? The flying spaghetti monsters in your nightmares? More to the point, all of these comments represent the first comment in a series of remarks that constitutes a false-choice paragraph, such as "Some say we should have done nothing after 9/11. Well, I disagree. I like knocking down my own straw man. You see, on that day, America - and by that, I mean me - changed the way it viewed the world. We realized that oceans no longer protected us. Actually, America - but not me, of course, came to this realization over 200 years ago, but who cares about facts when you've got terra on your side! And so, on that day, when Ossama Hussein - I mean, Saddama bin Laden - attacked us, I realized that the only way to keep America secure was to fight (create) the terrorists over there (the Yanks are coming!) - never mind that we didn't actually do this and Osama escaped, so (the craeted terrorists would be too busy killing us over there AND plotting over there to kill us here) we wouldn't have to fight them over here. Wow! This last sentence, apart from being ridiculous, is actually a false choice within a paragraph that constitutes nothing BUT one big false choice. Nice work, Karl."
"Nobody from the Democratic Party has actually stood up and called for the getting rid of the terrorist surveillance program. You know, if that's what they believe, if people in the party believe that, then they ought to stand up and say it. They ought to stand up and say, the tools we're using to protect the American people shouldn't be used. They ought to take their message to the people and say, vote for me. That's what they ought to be doing."
--Dumbya, yesterday
Bartcop.com replies as follows (I merely offer the quote; take it as you will):
"Nobody from the GOP has actually stood up and called for the lynching of every black man in America (although some have called for the killing of every homosexual in America). You know, if that's what they believe, if people in the GOP believe that, then they ought to stand up and say it. They ought to stand up and say, "We're gonna hang every black man we can find. They ought to take their message to the people and say, vote for me." If that's what all Republicans believe, who don't they have the courage to say the words out loud?
I think Bart is missing the point. He is suggesting, through his analogy, that some or most Democrats want to, at a minimum, stop ILLEGAL spying ("The Terrorist Surveillance Program") AND want to go further (stop spying on Al-Qaeda at all), but that, if these cowardly Democrats said so, the public would be outraged and turn on them, just as the public at-large would be outraged if people from the GOP called for lynching of black people.
Here's the difference: polling has shown that a slight majority of America believes that the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" (the one that violates FISA) is illegal and improper. To therefore assume that if Democrats came out against it en masse would all of a sudden turn off "the public" (who, for purposes of this discussion, includes Democratic voters, 75% of whom disapprove of this program)? If the Democrats came out strongly against this program, my goodness, people would respond favorably, because people would finally see evidence of the Dems growing a spine!
For all of the talk about how Russ Feingold didn't win the succor of, and didn't endear himself to, the Washington punditocracy with his censure motion, a rasmussenreports.com poll states that 38% of America supports censure and 45% does not. Rasmussen predicted the margin of Bush's popular vote victory (and the popular vote percentages) more accurately than ANY major polling organization in America, and it is consistently more accurate on a wide array of issues than any other organization. In the cosmic order of things, could - could it just - could it just be the POLITICIANS who are out of touch, and could it be their constantly telling us ("projection") that WE'RE the ones out of touch that is responsible for people not reacting sometimes to Russ Feingold-type measures the way the Russ Feingolds of the world want them to?
I offer as Exhibit A in support of my thesis Hurricane Katrina. The devastation happened so fast, so utterly, so inexorably, so irrevocably, that even the spin-shellacked Fox News Room's stable of GOP talking heads from Denny Fatstert's House could not spin away the images people had seared into their minds of an entire city going under.
Similarly, Feingold's censure motion, at least to people who don't follow Washington news obsessively, appears to have come out of nowhere. Peope heard about it and digested it before Republicans were able to call him a terrorist. Likewise, John Kerry's decisive win in the 1st debate in 2004 (the win that brought him back into the race) was such an early rout that even Karl Rove evidently was having difficulty communicating with Bush through whatever bulky wire contraption Bush appeared to be wearing.
Message to Democrats: grow some reflexes, some intuition, and some initiative, in addition to growing a spine.
By the way, the real observation to be made from Chimpy's comment is that the comment, like so many of his comments, is couched in the language of false choice: the very language implies that Democrats have only two options - to accept his program and sanction his lawbreaking, OR to NOT SPY ON AL-QAEDA AT ALL. Of course, there is a third option: to spy on Al-Qaeda in a manner not violative of the Constitution. The non-false-choice option should be the starting point, not the ending point, of Democratic criticisms of Bush's actions. Democrats can learn the art of criticism by implication or omission by saying: "I propose a spying program that is legal and that is sanctioned by Congress. When we offer my proposal, the American people can listen to President Bush as he tries to explain why breaking the law is actually and morally needed to capture terrorists," instead of saying, "Bush lied, he didn't consult us, he broke the law, oh, and by the way, now that you asked, we do need to have some kind of lawful spying program - I'll get back to you on my ideas about that some day."
Bush also loves brandishing the false-choice stick by saying "Some say we should have done nothing after 9/11." "Some say we should wait for our enemies to come to us." First of all, the man doesn't listen to radio, TV or newspapers, and gets the "news" from his advisers' brainwashing him, so he isn't even in a position to know who these hypothetical "some" are. Who are they, George? The flying spaghetti monsters in your nightmares? More to the point, all of these comments represent the first comment in a series of remarks that constitutes a false-choice paragraph, such as "Some say we should have done nothing after 9/11. Well, I disagree. I like knocking down my own straw man. You see, on that day, America - and by that, I mean me - changed the way it viewed the world. We realized that oceans no longer protected us. Actually, America - but not me, of course, came to this realization over 200 years ago, but who cares about facts when you've got terra on your side! And so, on that day, when Ossama Hussein - I mean, Saddama bin Laden - attacked us, I realized that the only way to keep America secure was to fight (create) the terrorists over there (the Yanks are coming!) - never mind that we didn't actually do this and Osama escaped, so (the craeted terrorists would be too busy killing us over there AND plotting over there to kill us here) we wouldn't have to fight them over here. Wow! This last sentence, apart from being ridiculous, is actually a false choice within a paragraph that constitutes nothing BUT one big false choice. Nice work, Karl."
posted by EnterCenter at 3:00 PM
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