I find it terribly funny (but more terrible than funny) that the insufferable Paul Krugman stated outright in the New York Times yesterday that the right is mostly to blame for the coarsening national debate and the violent imagery.
Krugman gives examples but somehow manages to neatly skip over the entire 2001-2009 time period. Huh. That's 8 years when many on the left were constantly comparing Dubya (who I despise, by the way) to Hitler, and when fantasies about assassinating Bush were such fertile ground that the BBC made a mockumentary about his murder — a sort of political snuff film. The movie even won an international Emmy Award.
Can you imagine the howls of outrage on the left if someone made such a movie about Barack Obama? But those same people were overwhelmingly silent in 2006, when the Bush-murder movie came out.
Decry the violence (I do), condemn the "dangerous" tone of our national discourse (I'm not convinced, but fine); but I can only take people seriously who are consistent in those beliefs, who protest regardless of whether or not their party is in power.
Everyone else? They're poseurs, like the hypocritical Krugman, who throws more gasoline on the partisan fire while pretending to want to douse the flames.
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P.S. Ross Douthat, on the other hand, saves the Times from sounding shrill, moral-panick-stricken, and dishonest — with this memorable column.
"That's 8 years when many on the left were constantly comparing Dubya (who I despise, by the way) to Hitler,"
The incident I recall was a crowd sourced campaign video effort, which was promptly eliminated from the competition. I'm sure there were other examples but I don't agree with your many and constantly. I also suspect that you have minimal exposure to right wing radio and Fox News, consideration of which calls into question your alleged equivalence (or beyond) in violent rhetoric. A few random commenters on liberal blogs are no match for a huge media empire in shaping the public attitudes. I also recall reading several thoughtful and highly critical articles on the BBC program, which I suspect were from the "left" since that's the bulk of my informational diet, though I prefer folks such as Glen Greenwald and Rogier Van Bakel that don't fall into the false left/right split.
Furthermore, the idea that Krugman is some sort of leftist is ridiculous. If the term means anything at all, let's save it for folks who actually advocate for the interests of working people, not just for a veneer of decency over the larceny of the financial criminal class.
Posted by: Tom Karnofsky | Saturday, January 15, 2011 at 04:49 PM
bad news mate it more like channel 4 bias then bbc bias
Posted by: kevin | Sunday, January 16, 2011 at 09:59 PM