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Bloviating Zeppelin: Self-Destruction and Hatred

Bloviating Zeppelin

(in-ep-toc'-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Self-Destruction and Hatred

I recently visited the Chatterbox Chronicles and left some comments regarding her post. In the process of my response I realized: there's a reason for all this recent nonsense, and it's very simple. The question is: why?

First, to what nonsense am I referring?

The continued (and thoroughly entertaining!) self-immolation of the Democrats via their self-destructive, based-in-emotion and logic-lacking pandering comments -- see my previous post, for last Monday's wonderful examples. Or Miss Chatterbox's comments. Or Fetching Jen's comments. Or Hugh Hewitt's General Zod comments. Powerline had this comment. Revka's Take posted this. Texas Fred made this salient note.

In my opinion, the rise of stupid, thoughtless comments from the Left has been stunningly geometric in, say, the past month -- and even moreso the past week or two. It's as though they're building up to a purposeful crescendo. But it's a crescendo that isn't leading to an insightful epiphany -- it's leading to a political downfall and its backpressure and rain of fallout is hurting the country, plain and simple. One Democrat has recently written about this fallout: former New York Mayor (1978 to 1989) Edward Koch.

Politics are politics. I understand that -- most everyone else does too. But what is the point of attempting to eviscerate one's country with a suit by the ACLU on behalf (of all people) of Christopher Hitchens and James Bamford who both -- get this -- think the NSA tapped into their phone conversations. They say the US must -- get this -- prove it didn't. Oh so easy, yes, to prove a negative?

What is the point of objecting to the protection of one's country? What is the point of objecting to ensure another 9-11 does not occur on domestic US soil? What is the point of objecting to the US taking the fight to the enemy -- an enemy whose stated goals are no less than the Islamization of the entire planet, the eradication of America, of "Zion," and the suppression and/or outright deaths of those who would disagree with radical Islam.

And yes, sometimes things really are that basic.

That's the self-destruction part. Here's the hatred part:

It's all about the hatred of George W. Bush.

First, the Left believes GWB "stole" two entire elections. They believe it with all their hearts. And therein lies the elemental rub and major difference between the two parties and philosophies. It is no surprise that the truism is this: Democrats and liberals are driven by emotions; Republicans and conservatives by facts, history and reality.

Jonathan Chait in the 09-29-2003 issue of The New Republic made some rather prescient, back then, observations, admitting that GWB was not his best friend:

I hate President George W. Bush. There, I said it. I think his policies rank him among the worst presidents in U.S. history. And, while I'm tempted to leave it at that, the truth is that I hate him for less substantive reasons, too. I hate the inequitable way he has come to his economic and political achievements and his utter lack of humility (disguised behind transparently false modesty) at having done so. His favorite answer to the question of nepotism--"I inherited half my father's friends and all his enemies"-- conveys the laughable implication that his birth bestowed more disadvantage than advantage. He reminds me of a certain type I knew in high school--the kid who was given a fancy sports car for his sixteenth birthday and believed that he had somehow earned it. I hate the way he walks--shoulders flexed, elbows splayed out from his sides like a teenage boy feigning machismo. I hate the way he talks--blustery self-assurance masked by a pseudo-populist twang. I even hate the things that everybody seems to like about him. I hate his lame nickname-bestowing-- a way to establish one's social superiority beneath a veneer of chumminess (does anybody give their boss a nickname without his consent?). And, while most people who meet Bush claim to like him, I suspect that, if I got to know him personally, I would hate him even more.

Mr. Chait continues:
Have Bush haters lost their minds? Certainly some have. Antipathy to Bush has, for example, led many liberals not only to believe the costs of the Iraq war outweigh the benefits but to refuse to acknowledge any benefits at all, even freeing the Iraqis from Saddam Hussein's reign of terror. And it has caused them to look for the presidential nominee who can best stoke their own anger, not the one who can win over a majority of voters--who, they forget, still like Bush. But, although Bush hatred can result in irrationality, it's not the product of irrationality. Indeed, for those not ideologically or personally committed to Bush's success, hatred for Bush is a logical response to the events of the last few years. It is not the slightest bit mystifying that liberals despise Bush. It would be mystifying if we did not.

Mr. Chait then gets down to the meat of his article:
But Bush is never called to task for the radical disconnect between how he got into office and what he has done since arriving. Reporters don't ask if he has succeeded in "changing the tone." Even the fact that Bush lost the popular vote is hardly ever mentioned. Liberals hate Bush not because he has succeeded but because his success is deeply unfair and could even be described as cheating.

Now if you enjoyed that, then you'll enjoy this next bit:
But perhaps most infuriating of all is the fact that liberals do not see their view of Bush given public expression. It's not that Bush has been spared from any criticism--far from it. It's that certain kinds of criticism have been largely banished from mainstream discourse. After Bush assumed office, the political media pretty much decided that the health of U.S. democracy, having edged uncomfortably close to chaos in December 2000, required a cooling of overheated passions. Criticism of Bush's policies--after a requisite honeymoon--was fine. But the media defined any attempt to question Bush's legitimacy as out-of-bounds.

Yes, you read it correctly -- as I expressed in one of my recent comments on another blog -- the Left think the MSM or DEM actually gives Bush a "pass" for excoriation. Can you possibly feature that? The Left-driven MSM "looking the other direction" with regard to any issues involving George W?

There really appears to be little remaining of their collective Left realities.

Victor Davis Hanson has a great article about the issue from 2004 and reflected:
Let's start with the admission that much of the invective is irrational, fueled by emotion rather than reason. Thus the black leadership uses slurs such as "Taliban" and "Confederacy" against Bush, even though no other president has selected an African-American secretary of State and national-security adviser or pledged so many billions for AIDS relief in Africa. Liberals talk of social programs starved, but domestic spending under Bush increased at annual rates greater than during any Democratic administration in recent history. Just read howls of conservatives who worry about Bush's Great Society-like programs.

Mr. Hanson distills it down further: Bush is a conservative southerner with a drawl. He is a "bible thumper." Bush is a Manichaeist -- he breaks life down into black and white, Good vs. Evil. And he is a renegade aristocrat -- not a blueblood easterner.

Further, Michael Novak from National Review Online wrote in a July, 2004 article:
Nevertheless, George W. Bush has been re-conceived and re-wrought into everything that the sophisticated Leftist absolutely hates about Americana: Its innocence. Its boyishness. Its Christianity. Its unpretentiousness. Its heedlessness of all the shibboleths the Left most highly values.

And, in addition, the president exercises unsuspected political skills. The man has actually won most of the political fights he's taken on. And he has turned the country in a far more Reaganite direction than anyone ever imagined under that anodyne term, "compassionate conservatism."

Personalizing Social Security? Cutting the teachers' unions out of total control of the schools? Supplanting the governmental plantation with private charitable initiatives, which actually show better success rates than the welfare state? The handwriting is on the wall, piercing through the dreams of the big-government Left, foretelling the end of the social-democratic illusion.

How did this hick have the nerve to be so radical in government — he who so barely won the election of 2000? (Stole it, the most bitter partisans still say, despite all the studies disproving it.) How did he have the nerve?

The Right tends to think that the Left is stupid — never learns, keeps repeating the same old errors. The Left is different. The Left tends to think that the Right is mean, narrow, selfish, evil (on top of being stupid). I once had a professor at Harvard who was trying to explain what it was like for Immanuel Kant, the greatest philosopher of his time, to have succeeded in winning a teaching position only in Konigsberg, far from the glittering list of leading universities in Germany. That would be, he said, like winning tenure at . . . at . . . at Ohio State. (So superior do Harvard professors feel toward Middle American universities.) In this spirit, the Left also thinks the congenitally evil, conservative Bush is also stupid and second-rate.

Who is Bush to drive the last nails into the coffin of social democracy, and all those big-government dreams? The Left can feel the demography slipping away from them, and the strong currents of the future, too, and the bilious taste of failed ideas rising in their throats. It is now or never for the Left. It is desperation time.

In an August 2004 issue of Newsmax, Youngstown Mayor George McKelvey was quoted as telling Ohio's cheering Republican delegates at a breakfast that "the left wing hates George Bush the most because he believes in God, and you better believe that."

You know, it could be that simple, too.

18 Comments:

Blogger James Manning said...

That's a funny picture.

Wed Jan 18, 11:34:00 AM PST  
Blogger Dionne said...

Awesome post. Love that picture!! I may have to snag it sometime. Thanks for the links.

To be honest even after 5 yrs. I'm still flabbergasted at how much the left hates W. To be honest no matter what I read and see I just don't get it. When we disliked Clinton we had an endless list of legitimate reasons. For them it just seems to be this blind, irrational hatred where they are pulling things out of nowhere to see if they can get something to stick.

I'm glad you linked to Ed Koch, I am very proud of how outspoken he has been in support of the war. In fact to be honest I think he is probably my favorite democrat after Zell Miller. He makes some excellent points in that article.

I have to smile too whenever I hear his name. In my senior year of highschool I had an economics class. My teacher would have us look up current events from the newspaper and we would have to read them in front of the class. I can't begin to tell you how clueless I was about current events and politics then. It didn't affect my life so I didn't care. Anyway, I get up there to read my newspaper clip and Ed Koch was Mayor at the time and his name was in the clip. I said his name several times as Ed Cock. Totally clueless about what I was doing. When I sat down one of my guy friends clued me in. Not a pretty moment :-).

Anyway, great post and great quotes from those articles.

Wed Jan 18, 11:43:00 AM PST  
Blogger Bloviating Zeppelin said...

James: I wish I could Photoshop that well. Sigh. I can't.

LMC: Zell Miller -- now there's your Democratic classicist. The only one left, that I can determine, is Joseph Lieberman.

The deal about Ed "Cock" made me larf out loud!

Wed Jan 18, 12:53:00 PM PST  
Blogger Rivka said...

All fed up... that was a great picture you wrote.. ha!

Blo, yes, this hatred thing the libs have going is going to be the end of them. They have to turn a corner soon or they are going to implode. The thing that urks me is they don't see this. They don't see how irrational they are. Sometimes I worry about our country buying into all this crap, but I have a feeling there are more of us out there who 'think' than there are those who drink the koolaide.

Wed Jan 18, 04:40:00 PM PST  
Blogger TexasFred said...

OK, Now HERE is an entirely POSSIBLE scenario, given the idiocy of the majority of Louisiana voters, Nagin will be the next US Senator from Louisiana..

And THAT is VERY scary...

Wed Jan 18, 04:41:00 PM PST  
Blogger echotig said...

You got the caption all wrong...W wouldn't be asking to open that can. He'd be telling!

Wed Jan 18, 05:21:00 PM PST  
Blogger Rivka said...

O.K. blo... Your picture means more now than ever. After hearing the new Bin Laden tape, and hearing cheney speak.. It is urgent that we snuff out these idiot dems.. Cheney said.."It is NOT BY ACCIDENT WE HAVEN'T BEEN HIT AGAIN". The NSA wiretaps, whatever it takes.. whatever Bush has done, he has protected us... he has WHOOPED ASS.. and we CAN'T BACK DOWN.. WE CAN'T LET THESE DEMS WIN THE MEDIA WAR, AND THE WAR PERIOD. THE POSTS ON MY BLOG ARE THERE FOR A REASON. WE HAVE ENEMIES, AND WE CAN'T PANDER, AND PUSSY FOOT LIKE WE DID IN THE PAST. WE NEED LEADERS WITH GUTS LIKE BUSH. SOrry.. had to get that out..
Just hearing Cheney saying that today flamed the fire in me against the libs. Evidently, we really should have been attacked by now, and have stopped a lot of efforts to attack us again BECAUSE of NSA and all the other things we are doing.
THIS ISN'T A TIME TO WORRY ABOUT OUR PRIVACY BEING VIOLATED WHEN WE COULD END UP NUKED SOME DAY... THEN OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES WON'T MEAN POOP.
Sorry, but I am so fed up with the libs. They really are becoming America's enemy and the terrorists ally.

Thu Jan 19, 10:09:00 AM PST  
Blogger Bloviating Zeppelin said...

Folks, thank you one and all for your very focused comments. All Fed Up: REALLY glad to see you back in the mix!

If life were different, if some of the collected terrorist acts hadn't occurred, if the Twin Towers weren't subject to their 1991 explosion, if the various other acts hadn't occurred, the USS Cole, etc., I would perhaps be more concerned because, yes, then we would have a case for seemingly indiscriminate NSA tapping of domestic calls. And yes, FISA courts should be applicable then.

But things are different. And you shouldn't make decisions in a vacuum. Unfortunately, many of our collected national decisions processes are made in that same vacuum. It's as I've always said: not nearly enough judges, executives, senators, congressmen are hurt, raped, killed, shot in the head, had their lungs blown out with a Semtex charge, been beheaded with a scimitar or found a kukri buried between their ribs. Because, you see, if these same types were subject to the very same consequences of you and me, as citizens, as soldiers, as international travelers, as normal civilians attempting to cope with everyday worries -- well, you would have seen many, many, many things change years and years ago.

The problems is that those decision-making groups are ALLOWED to make decisions in a vacuum, protected by layers of law and physical barriers and armored vehicles and planned security routes and well heeled neighborhoods and insular cocktail parties.

In a perfect world, yes, I would prefer my phone not be tapped. I would prefer there be no terrorists. I would prefer my country pristine and my fellow countrymen and women untouched.

But it isn't a perfect world. And 3,000 Americans were turned to liquid in the falling of the World Trade Center towers.

And the Islamofascist cells within this country have been planning, plotting, mixing with the public, hiding in mosques on sovereign American soil, hidden behind the skirts of CAIR, hidden from view, protected by the ACLU, mixing, smiling, driving our streets, making their maps, constructing their IEDs, speaking to those over them -- I'd wager maybe even one of us has unwittingly seen someone who is a member of a like group.

The threat is real. The threat is here. It is no longer an abstraction. George Bush is doing the best he can to attempt to protect us. He could do more, in my opinion, but HE doesn't operate in a total vacuum because there are many, MANY who oppose him -- not just his plans, his processes or his rhetoric -- but oppose him personally and on a visceral level of unmitigated hatred.

All levels of law enforcement and the military have been working overtime to protect American citizens on American soil. And I DON'T need to know how or why or when, and I DON'T need to have this information placed in the PUBLIC DOMAIN. Because terrorists, being the advantagists they are, would use this information AGAINST us the second it were made available.

It's a different world now. It just is. And we either MAKE it work FOR us, or we ALLOW it to work AGAINST us.

And we then take a balcony seat in the theatre of our own demise.

Thu Jan 19, 02:29:00 PM PST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is absolutely disgusting, and must be stopped.

http://tinyurl.com/awm83

Thu Jan 19, 04:52:00 PM PST  
Blogger bigwhitehat said...

Not only does Bush need to dislodge some domestic tailfeathers, he needs the help of a couple of presidential hopefuls. What I wouldn't give to see my man JC Watts excoriate a few politicians on TV. General Honoray needs to retire and go to work for the white house. He would be a fine president.

I want Bush to find that first love again. I miss having Ari tell the reporters that their questions were stupid. I miss having democrats dumbfounded by the fact that he actually delivers on campaign promises. I miss the but kicking, hell yes I have an MBA, "Say it. Do it. Done." attitude.

Thu Jan 19, 06:55:00 PM PST  
Blogger Bloviating Zeppelin said...

BWH: Man, you have about summed it up. I couldn't make it plainer than that.

Some paths are that self-evident.

Thu Jan 19, 07:44:00 PM PST  
Blogger Rivka said...

Blo,
Here is a link i found this morning that talks about the abramoff scandal, and a blog on washington post.com. I guess they had to shut down the comments because of the hateful leftist remarks when she posted that Abramoff gave to the Dems as well.
Apparently, the libs did their hate thing and the comments were so nasty, they had to shut the comment section down.
Typical libs.. full of HATE.. The very thing they say they are against.. intolerance.
Anyway, thought you might find it interesting. The libs hate Bush, and they hate conservative ideals period..
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/01/19/D8F82TA80.html

Fri Jan 20, 07:29:00 AM PST  
Blogger Gayle said...

Excellent post. Absolutely excellent! And I think the libs know way deep down where it counts that Bush didn't steal either election... they simply can't admit to themselves they could lose any other way!

BTW: I stole your picture! It's great. I'm going to post it and link back to you as most of my readers haven't been here yet. I hope you keep this post up for awhile. :)

Fri Jan 20, 07:40:00 AM PST  
Blogger Gayle said...

Okay, you are linked on "Let Our Voices Be Heard" and reference is made to this wonderful post you have here.

Fri Jan 20, 07:55:00 AM PST  
Blogger Bloviating Zeppelin said...

Rebecca: THANKS for sending the link!

Gayle: thanks for linking me to the site!

Neo, soc: welcome aboard and thanks for the kind comment!

All Fed Up: ya know, I can hear that particular cut in my head right now. One of my favorite Leary songs is: "Life's Gonna Suck When You Grow Up."

Fri Jan 20, 10:22:00 PM PST  
Blogger Dionne said...

BWH: I just want to say Amen to your comments. Looooooove JC Watts and wish he would run for president in 2008. I loved Ari and sooo miss him. Scott Mclellan looks like a deer in the headlights all the time. That makes W look weak I think.

Sat Jan 21, 10:56:00 AM PST  
Blogger Rivka said...

Blo,
I don't know if you received my e-mail. I normally don't e-mail people, but can i use some of your pictures on your "forget" post?? I had an idea for my next post.

Sat Jan 21, 11:29:00 AM PST  
Blogger Bloviating Zeppelin said...

Rebecca: I admit it; I'm bad about e-mail. I should look at it more consistently. I'll go there now and send the photos you want.

Sat Jan 21, 05:05:00 PM PST  

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