This BuzzFlash Editorial is very funny as well as illuminating. Why the double standard: comedian makes fun of Bush -- is castigated, loses endorsements; comedian makes fun of Kerry (never mind what they did and are continuing to do to Gore and the Clintons) -- nary a peep.
Another thought on the jib-jab cartoon: did you notice that it was a total recycling of the memes from the Gore-Bush campaign? I mean, if you were to replace Kerry with Gore, what would be all that different except for a few minor details (Lurch, purple hearts)? "Stupid, likeable" (not a word about messianic beliefs) versus "smart, elitist" -- sounds like the "librul" media CW from 2000 to me... Will people swallow it a second time?
Maybe if it's packaged like candy: sweet to the tastebuds even if it is poison to the brainstem.
There comes a point where a jolly, "oh they are politicians and they are all really just same underneath after all" joke is more than just "comforting," it is just plain misleading.
And that point is when one of the "politicians" is not just a politician but rather someone who is intent on destroying the ordered political consensus. Go back and re-read Paul Krugman's intro to his latest book, where he cites (of all people) Henry Kissinger's treatment of radical political actors and why they are able to implement their "final solutions." It is because very few took the radicals and their radical ambitions seriously. Dubya is not just another "conservative gun-nut" (stupid or not) -- he intends to abolish not only the settled order established under FDR and Truman (multilateralism in diplomacy, social security, educational opportunity) but he intends to destroy the secular state established by the founding fathers when they erected a wall between church and state over two centuries ago.
Ohh, but that is so shrill, let's just pretend he is a genial dunce and that he and Kerry are really not so different after all, that is so much more comforting.
different voices
10 years ago