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Righties Being Wrong

Jul 7, 2006

maha

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Bush Administration, Iraq War, blogging, conservatism

I don’t know why this popped into my head this morning — possibly because it’s turning out to be a lovely summer day — but as I sipped coffee and admired the aforementioned day through the window I remembered something. Last April a rightie blogger predicted “this is going to be a vindicating summer for supporters of the Bush Administration.”

The MSM is predictably trying to throw cold water on this new story as AJ Strata comments on the NY Times take. But the pure and simple fact is as I told you this is going to be a vindicating summer for supporters of the Bush Administration.

Well, it’s July 7. “Vindication summer” has been a bust so far.

The cause of last April’s optimism on the Right was the firing of Mary McCarthy from the CIA on allegations that she leaked classified information to reporter Dana Priest. Naturally the Right Blogosphere immediately declared McCarthy to be a traitor. But they were also very certain McCarthy’s would be just the first head to roll. They were supremely confident that the noggins of Larry Johnson, Ray McGovern, and the like would soon follow.

I guess they were wrong.

What Really Happened is that two weeks after CIA Director Porter Goss fired McCarthy, Goss himself was fired. McCarthy, who maintains her innocence, dropped out of the news. Conventional wisdom says that Goss was fired because he unwisely butted heads with John Negroponte, or else because of his association with one “Dusty” Foggo, who had fallen into bad company. Since then, there have been no new developments on the McCarthy story that I’m aware of, although she’s mentioned in this WaPo Op Ed from June.

One suspects the White House wants the firing of Mary McCarthy to drop into a very deep memory hole.

Much more recently righties celebrated the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as a major turning ponit in the war in Iraq. I wrote at the time, “since it’s unlikely this will make any bleeping difference to the insurgency or the activities of the Iranian-sponsored Shiite militias — whoop-dee-doo.” This rightie blogger found my attitude shocking.

Well, guess what? The pace of killings in Iraq has increased since Zarqawi’s death, and even the American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, admits that killing Zarqawi has not made Iraq safer.

The non-effect of Zarqawi’s death wasn’t a hard prediction to make if you have even a rudimentary idea of who’s doing what to whom in Iraq. The reality is that diverse factions are killing each other for diverse reasons. Al Qaeda is only one of the factions, and a small one at that. But since the righties persist in maintaining their simplified cognitive model (bad guy terrorists v. good guy coalition), they don’t get it.

Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin, who has made a career of stirring up hatred of ethnic (and other) minorities, is bashing “Democrats” because of a bigoted remark made by Sen. Joe Biden. Naturally, if one Democrat makes a bigoted comment, all Democrats must be bigots. That’s logical, right? Oh, wait …

One wonders why a bigoted remark would bother Malkin, since bigotry is her stock-in-trade. (See David Neiwert for the connections between Malkin and white supremacists.) Jill at Feministe expresses my views on the matter. See also Jill’s Crazy Conservative Round-up.

Be sure to add your own favorite examples of righties being wrong to the comments.

Update: Speaking of Malkin — David Weigel of Hit and Run has a follow up to the story about UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Denice Denton, the target of a Malkin hate campaign who recently committed suicide. True to form, Malkin expresses no contrition for her possible contribution to Denton’s state of mind. Instead, she complained that Weigel’s asking for a comment is some kind of harrassment.

“Making Malkin angry is like shooting orca in a barrel,” says Weigel. Heh.

Spotlight

12 Comments

Steve Nichols • Jul 7, 2006 @4:25 pm

Dead Wrong Rightie

http://kenlayscreaminginhell.blogspot.com/

My memorial to Kenny Boy.
Swami • Jul 7, 2006 @6:37 pm

Well, Cheney was a little bit off on his prediction of the Iraqi insurgency being in it’s last throes.
Shawn • Jul 7, 2006 @7:46 pm

Joe Biden is not a bigot; he’s just an idiot. He needs to aplogize instead of trying to defend himself.
nea • Jul 8, 2006 @5:48 am

I am not terribly political, but I wanted to make a comment about “NO child left behind.” After about, what three years now that it has been in effect, the schools have quite successfully managed to dedicate most of the school year in preparing the kids to take ONE test. I have talked to the principal at my son’’s school about the CRCT’s and she says each school’s and it’s teachers worth is being evaluated by this one test.

I know it was supposed to work, as all good plans are supposed to work. But someone really didn’t think this one through. There are some schools in Texas that “help” their students take the test. They can’t really prove this, but the test scores of this one school are off the charts, although the students regular grades are not.

Personally I think maybe there are some children who are just going to be left behind. And their parents are going to have to pick up the slack. Right now an entire classroom is being dummied down to it’s slowest students.

I don’t really think that the government is in a better position to evaluate a child’s progress, I say give it back to the teachers.

If you have a student who gets A’s all year, but is lousy at tests and chokes and fails…..the test…..you going to hold this student back another year. Some teachers tell me yes, personally I think this is crazy. What happens if the child was just sick that week.
Donna • Jul 8, 2006 @12:10 pm

nea, #4, the No child left behind program, by design, creates automatons instead of thinkers and reasoners. We might as use Pavlov conditioning if the goal of education is to elicit ‘proper answers’ by rote instead of education’s historic goal of nurturing the abilities to arrive at proper answers.

Speaking of Pavlov…..I have been doing some thinking about the term ‘lapdog’ as that term is applied to righties. I have for a while been pondering the mysterious dynamics of those Bush die-hards who so successfully, consistently and selectively ignore facts, and who demonstrate such a quickness to attack critics of Bush….often a whole pack of them attack and snarl together once an alpha sort starts the attack.
Well, isn’t that behavior very like what we see in the canine world?
Pet dogs do demonstrate total loyalty but can also be trained by their owner-bosses to attack others viciously. Pet dogs are also totally dependent upon their human owners to give them the basics of life like food and shelter and rewards. We who have pet dogs know that they are willingly subservient and eager to ‘please’ us.

There is something about the die-hard righties that reminds me of dogs who have been very tamed and very trained. When I look at how many times we try to communicate with facts and reasoning, but the righties just keep staying ‘loyal’ to an idiot and keep attacking and snarling viciously…..I begin to conclude…. well, maybe its time to recognize that a lot of them may not be approachable with human-level discourse.
6thcitizen • Jul 8, 2006 @2:26 pm

What part of Malkin’s post do you consider constitutes “bashing”? In fact, she does the opposite, and indicates that Biden’s remarks were below her PC radar. It seems to me that “bigot” and “racist” are terms that are thrown about rather freely, often unfairly, and are a lazy argument. Kind of like me saying “you’re a jerk” as a response to an argument.
Here, you call Biden’s comments bigoted, and attribute to Malkin an attempt to paint “Democrats” with that label. I don’t see it, although I agree her remark about dems and Indian jokes is unreasonable. IMO, charging someone for bigotry when they are not is worse than being a bigot. It is simply character assassination, and useless as a meaningful argument.
maha • Jul 8, 2006 @3:22 pm

What part of Malkin’s post do you consider constitutes “bashing”?

See the title — “Democrats and Indian Jokes.” Also the sentence “Plus, it sure is weird how Dems are so comfortable making cracks at Indians’ expense.” Those were clues.

Here, you call Biden’s comments bigoted, and attribute to Malkin an attempt to paint “Democrats” with that label. I don’t see it,

Apparently, you can’t read.

As far as Malkin being bigoted, I cite as examples the first blog post she ever wrote through to her most recent one, plus most of what she’s ever written for print media. And if you can’t see the gross bigotry that shines through about every other sentence — son, you got problems.
6thcitizen • Jul 8, 2006 @4:37 pm

Well, see, when you say that apparently I can’t read, I might respond in kind “you’re a jerk”, but I won’t. (BTW, the quotes imply that it is not directed at you but an example of a non -responsive utterance, sorry if I didn’t make that obvious enough. Sounds like you got angry)
Was Hillary’s joke bigoted? Do those jokes and comments make them bigots? Maybe, and I think not, respectively. No real difference between her joke and Biden’s comment If you say that Hillary’s joke was bigoted, does that constitute a trend for dems? Again, I think not. Yet, you indicate that Malkin is stating that all democrats are bigots because she comments on Biden’s impolitic remarks, when in fact she doesn’t feel that the remark reflects bigotry. Hmm, is that bigoted? Am I a bigot if I don’t feel that Biden’s remarks were bigoted? That’s what feministe is saying (if I am reading that correctly, I never know with these things)), although some of her commenters and readers seem to disagree.
Bigot bogot bagot racist racist racist. Those words used to mean something serious and ugly, and now they are thrown around freely and are near meaningless as a standalone charge.
In my comment, I did indicate that Malkin’s linking Dems and Indian jokes was unreasonable (see, I can read), I just didn’t see that as “bashing”.
As far as Malkin being a bigot, I leave that to you. I don’t read her as she is far too xenophobic for my taste.
maha • Jul 8, 2006 @6:25 pm

6thcitizen, dear, you’re the one who presumed to criticize me for criticizing Michelle. Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it.

FYI: Malkin’s “unreasonable” comment is part of a well-established bashing pattern (see David Neiwert’s “Unhinged” series, beginning here), and xenophobia is a common form of bigotry.
6thcitizen • Jul 8, 2006 @6:26 pm

Heh, do the creators of “The Simpsons” fall under the bigot label too?
6thcitizen • Jul 8, 2006 @7:20 pm

Barb, honey, you misconstrue. Criticize Malkin all you like. After all, she seems to comprise the basis for most of your blog. I was concerned about how the term bigot is tossed around. You termed Biden’s remark as bigoted, and then accused Malkin of clumping all Democrats under the “bigot” label. Again, if he makes a bigoted comment, or Sen Clinton, does that make him (them) a bigot?
“Goes without saying, of course, that if the comments came out of a GOP senator’s mouth, the NYTimes and company would go ape.” MM, from her post.
“Will the news media and most Democrats will now politely drop this little matter, as if it had never happened? If a Democrat had made this gaffe, of course, we’d never hear the end of it.” That’s you, talking about Trent Lott.
maha • Jul 8, 2006 @9:59 pm

Wow, citizen, are you stupid, or what? Ah, I see you have an AOL email address. Of course.

she seems to comprise the basis for most of your blog.

Which tells me you haven’t been here before, and you judge my blog without bothering to read more than a couple of posts.

You termed Biden’s remark as bigoted, and then accused Malkin of clumping all Democrats under the “bigot” label. Again, if he makes a bigoted comment, or Sen Clinton, does that make him (them) a bigot?

Follow this closely. It may get complicated.

If Senator Biden makes a bigoted remark, I take this as evidence he could be a bigot.

If Senator Clinton makes a bigoted remark, I take this as evidence she could be a bigot.

Are you with me so far? It’s complicated, I know.

Now, if thest two Democrats are bigots, does that mean the 60 million or so Americans who vote for Democrats in the United States are bigots? This is, I think, where you are having trouble with basic logic. I suggest you take time to reflect on this point.

Malkin did, in fact, imply — hell, she more than implied, she came out and said it — that “Democrats” are “comfortable” with making bigoted remarks. Now, to most English-speaking people, this is an accusation that Democrats are bigots. Perhaps you need a translator.

Since you are obviously a right-wing shill, you won’t be commenting here any more.