Nicholas Kristof absolutely burns Bill O’Reilly in his column this Sunday.
Look, I put up a “Christmas tree,” rather than a “holiday tree,” and I’m sure Mr. O’Reilly is right that political correctness leads to absurd contortions this time of year. But when you’ve seen what real war does, you don’t lightly use the word to describe disagreements about Christmas greetings. And does it really make sense to offer 58 segments on political correctness and zero on genocide?
Perhaps I’m particularly sensitive to religious hypocrites because I’ve spent a chunk of time abroad watching Muslim versions of Mr. O’Reilly - demagogic table-thumpers who exploit public religiosity as a cynical ploy to gain attention and money. And I always tell moderate Muslims that they need to stand up to blustery blowhards - so today, I’m taking my own advice.
Like the fundamentalist Islamic preachers, Mr. O’Reilly is a talented showman, and my sense is that his ranting is a calculated performance. The couple of times I’ve been on his show, he was mild mannered and amiable until the camera light went on - and then he burst into aggrieved indignation, because he knew it made good theater.
Kristof goes on to theorize that it’s possible that O’Reilly is a plant put up by liberals to discredit the right because nobody could be that insane. Who told??!!!
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I am not sure if OReilley is a plant, but I often think Coulter MUST be.
We don t throw it back in your face everytime Randi Rhodes or her fellow travelers on Air America suggests that someone kill the president.
1. Actually the one time she did suggest that, you (or at least your fellow travelers) did throw it in our face. Repeatedly.
2. Randi Rhodes specifically suggested not that “someone” kill the president but that Jeb and George I kill the president. She was obviously joking. Not so O’Reilly or Coulter.
3. Randi Rhodes made that comment once. O’Reilly has been waging his war on multiculturalism every day for the past several weeks.
4. You wingnuts keep telling us that no one listens to Air America, yet you compare Randi Rhodes to Bill O’Reilly and Anne Coulter?
5. If by “literally” you mean “seriously”, I don’t take either of them seriously either. unfortunately millions of your fellow travellers do.
Come on guys….fight fair!
We don’t throw it back in your face everytime Randi Rhodes or her fellow travelers on Air America suggests that someone kill the president.
Ya can’t take O’Reilly literally…Coulter either, shoot, I don’t.
Nicholas Kristof: A Challenge for Bill O’Reilly
Nicholas Kristof has managed to do something I never thought would actually be possible. Make me agree with Oliver Willis on something more substantial than whether kittens are cute or water rumoured to be wet. This is an extremely fine
Durbin didn’t say anything wrong. The documented treatment of prisoners at Gitmo was indeed akin to the treatment of prisoners in gulags: torture and degradation. You’re only pissed because you support torture and inhumane treatment. Dubrin had the guts to say out loud that these were the tactics of Nazis and Stalinists and that the US should hold itself to a higher standard. You don’t think the US should hold itself to a higher standard. You don’t care if we use Nazi or Stalanist tactics. You’re in the “whatever it takes to keep us safe” camp. You think we should be picking up pointers from the Nazis and Stalin. Durbin didn’t say our troop were Nazis, but you would turn them into Nazis and never bat an eye.
This is remiscent of another conversation we have going on re the miltary, Durbins and criticisms thereof. I can accept that O’Reilly might play things up, maybe exaggerate for ratings etc and that those things will generally be on the right side of the agenda (much more is done overall by the left - but this is about O’Reilly) . But it strikes me funny that no one on the left is criticizing the ‘political correct-irization’. Rather they are nitpicking the criticisms from the right. Same with Durbin. What he said was wrong, we are told, but since the right wing critics went overboard, we on the left said nothing.
Dugger
If I’m not mistaken, hasn’t it come to light that the U.S. has multiple ’secret’ satellite prisons in “pro-torture” countries, and that much of the evidence that was used to justify the invasion into Iraq was extracted by using old Soviet torture methods designed to “force confession” rather than extract viable intel?
I mean, seriously Dugger….Durbin was right, this administration has created Gulags. They’ve even gone a step further, and are now spying on American citizens without requesting warrants.
Can we not call a Nazi a Nazi, or a fascist a facist until it’s too fucking late?
Look, right wingers, I know you want to change the subject from what the problem is, but here’s the reality– O’Reilly has devoted almost 5 dozen segments to his various unimportant hobby-horse of the “GWOC” (Global War on Christmas). Similarly, day after day after day he started screaming “Ward Churchill, Ward Churchill” until the rest of you lemming-like dopes started repeating it along with him. Why? Because that foolish indignation gets you all excited and distracts you all from being concerned about important things in the world. Which is eactly what Fox News wants.
If you’re going to reference our previous exchange, do it accurately.
“We on the left” were indeed saying something. We were saying, “Stop misrepresenting what Durbin said. He didn’t compare the troops to Nazis and you know it.”
“We on the left were indeed saying something. We were saying, Stop misrepresenting what Durbin said. He didn t compare the troops to Nazis and you know it.
Indeed, “we on the left” had zero to say about Durbin. He got a free pass from the left. Please come to the military next election and exlain why we should vote left.
Durbin:
“If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime Pol Pot or others that had no concern for human beings,” Durbin said.
Lets see Quaker, the ‘Americans’ in question were troops and Durbin not only described the troops actions in terms of what Nazis did, but worse,he used commies and Pol Pot. So I’m sure you’ve got some fine distinction that makes it OK for Durbin to use a Nazi and commie modifier when describing actions of our troops, but I don’t know what it is. Nazis murdered about 6,000,000; commies about 100,000,000. How many did US soldiers murder at Gitmo?
Dugger, the left gave Durbin a free passs
Whatever happened to the “few bad apples” dodge, Dugger?
Durbin clearly–very clearly–wasn’t talking about all Americans or all the troops. He was talking about a very few who perpetrated an abuse of prisioners, behavior that doesn’t rise to the standards of American military conduct.
Elsewhere, members of the military have been put on trial and put in jail for such behavior. Is that an insult to all troops as well?
I’ll tell you why the military should vote Left, my friend, because the Right has absolutely zero respect for them.
Durbin described what the soldiers did, Bush ordered them to do it. See the difference?
Durbin said nothing wrong. Have you heard the old saying, “Condemn the behavior, not the person”? I keep coming back to it Dugs, you support the behavior: torture and degrading treatment. What’s fucked up is that you don’t have a problem with our soldiers using Nazi tactics. Is that why you keep attacking Durbin, because he called it what it is?
“Nazis murdered about 6,000,000; commies about 100,000,000. How many did US soldiers murder at Gitmo?”
It isn’t the numbers Dugger it’s the methods they used to get there, which included torture.
Quaker,
Dodge ball par excellence. Now just where did Durbin use the term a ‘few bad apples” in that little smear-the-troops screed? I missed it.
Lets face it, most of the now empowered left hates the military. I still wonder why no one here on the left challenged Corrigan’s Nazi analogy re the Marines. But I think I know why.
Dugger, The left gave Durbin a free pass
‘ “Nazis murdered about 6,000,000; commies about 100,000,000. How many did US soldiers murder at Gitmo?
It isn t the numbers Dugger ‘
Classic frame.
Dugger
You’re still getting it backwards, dugger, it’s the still very powerful Right that hates the military. It’s not the Left that has put them in a position that has degraded them and, in some notable cases, stripped them of their humanity.
Those monsters that we saw at Abu Ghraib, and all the ones we don’t see at Guantanamo Bay and the secret camps in Europe, they were made, not born. The Nazi analogy is not an inappropriate one. After all, there were Nazi soldiers and guards who probably started out as decent people, or could have been decent people. They may have loved their families and their country. But they fell into the hands of evil and powerful men who didn’t care what happened to them. Just like our soldiers today.
You may hate the Left, and that’s your prerogative, but you can’t automatically translate that into “the Left hates the troops.” It’s not the sixties anymore. The old “hippies = enemies, squares = friends” formula doesn’t hold, if it ever did.
You have to say it’s about the numbers Dugger because you support the methods that the Nazis and Stalinists used to get them. In your book imprisoning and torturing a million people to death without due process is bad, but imprisoning and torturing one to death without due process is a-okay. Do you have a number for dead prisoners in your head beyond which you would not support torture?
“Nazi analogy is not an inappropriate one”
Thank you Sadie for acknowledging what was obvious. Durbin did use a Nazi analogy re the troops and the reason no one on the left said anything about it, was that they AGREED with it!
And isn’t it strange Sadie, that if the right wing hates us soldiers (I’m a retired one) we still vote strongly Republican. How do you figure that? I mean you’d think we would want to vote for somebody who equates us to mass murderers, right?
frame,
In addition to your tendency to name-call, you have recently become rather childish, taunting etc, and seem unable to debate honorably and intellectually. Be glad to talk to you again, when you get things straightened out. And if this brings on a nasty tirade from you, so be it.
Dugger
“Durbin did use a Nazi analogy re the troops and the reason no one on the left said anything about it, was that they AGREED with it!”
But Dugger, you’re own stated position on torture means that YOU agree with what Durbin said. You have stated that you support torture knowing full well that the Nazi used the same and similar tactics on prisoners.
Debate honorably and intellectually? You’re the one who hasn’t addressed the fact that your support for torture puts you in a morally ambiguous position when it comes to criticizing Durbin. Durbing was attacking the behavior of US soldiers, not the soldiers themselves. You collapse the two to make a partisan political point that, in and of itself, contradicts your stated support for torture. Your whole position is compromised because you have stated that you support torture and degrading treatment knowing full well that the Nazis used the same tactics. Indeed, you don’t care that we’re using the same tactics as Nazis and Stalinists. You’ve even tried to argue that what worked for them could work for us. You haven’t got an honest leg to stand on in this discussion because you support Nazi tactics.
Factcheck –
Exactly. And Dugger is a prime suspect. It’s his only response on issue after issue.
In other words:
Durbin criticized the treatment of prisoners at GITMO because it called to mind the tactics used by Nazis and Stalinists.
You support the treatment of prisoners at GITMO regardless if it calls to mind the tactics used by Nazis and Stalinists.
Given you’re stated position on torture it’s clear that your only problem with Durbin is that he thinks using the tactics of Nazis and Stalinists is a bad thing. You think it’s a good thing.
Frame, I’ve noticed that affliction often in the far right, it is not wrong to torture, it is wrong to point it out.
It is not wrong to eavesdrop without a warrant, it is wrong to point it out in the NY Times.
It is not wrong to lie about WMD, it is wrong to call them on their lies.
It is not wrong to go to war for nothing, it is wrong to mention it and ask for reasons why.
No, you’re just making stuff up.
(BTW, the “few bad apples” reference wasn’t about anything Durbin said; that was a reference to the generally offered explanation of what happened at Abu Ghraib. When the military itself singles out the actions of a few soldiers, the administration quickly says “a few bad apples.” But if a Democrat singles out the actions of a few soldiers, why he “hates the military.” Funny, ain’t it?)
Dugger supports torture and doesn’t haven’t have a problem with authorizing the military to use it, but it’s the left that hates the troops. Don’t you understand Dugger that as much one can separate bad behavior from the individual who commits it — a good person can do bad things — our military is still judged the world over by its actions? I believe that the vast majority of the men and women in the military are good people but when the President and others on down authorize the use of bad behavior — and then compel our military to carry it out — we stain the reputations of the good people who serve. It doesn’t help to spread democracy when, alongside it, we’re also practicing torture. Those on the left who don’t support torture want to remove this stain and restore our collective honor by condemning the behavior and ending it. You revel in that stain, you cheer it and mistake it for a badge of courage.
“…most of the empowered left…”; versus “…the leftist posters on this site…”
Put those goal posts right back where you found them, please.
Dugger said that most of the empowered left hates the military. Quaker opined that. “No, you re just making stuff up.”
Really. Lets see how the leftist posters on this site feel about the military.
“Can we not call a Nazi a Nazi, or a fascist a facist until it s too fucking late? ”
“What s fucked up is that you don t have a problem with our soldiers using Nazi tactics”
“Durbin was right, this administration has created Gulags.”
“The Nazi analogy is not an inappropriate one.”
Dugger, Your Honor, The Prosecution Rests (defense begins presentation based on premise “but we really like our Nazi soldiers)
Happy Saturnalia, everyone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturnalia
From CNN, back in real time, on the Durbin uproar:
Once again, Dugger, if the GOP seriously thought that Durbin’s remarks posed a threat to the morale of the troops, they wouldn’t work so hard to keep those remarks front and center.
Or would they?
Dugger, the military itself has said that the abuse of prisoners is criminal. The military has tried and convicted soldiers for mistreating captives. Is that the same as calling all soldiers criminals?
Quaker,
“Dugger, the military itself has said that the abuse of prisoners is criminal. The military has tried and convicted soldiers for mistreating captives. Is that the same as calling all soldiers criminals?”
Lets be clear , heres the report from the Sf Chronicle on Gitmo (july)
“Military investigators examining alleged abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, say they found treatment such as leashing a terror suspect and forcing him to behave like a dog. But they say they found no evidence that there was torture or that senior leaders imposed faulty interrogation policies.”
This is the basis of Durbin’s Nazi comparison. You remember Nazis. Murdered 6,000,000. Think Durbin was wise? Right? Moral? Fair?
Dugger
Why did you quote my question and then change the subject?
The military has said that the abuse of prisoners in some cases is criminal. Is that the same thing as calling all soldiers criminals?
It’s a simple question.
Additionally, I seem to remember someone going to great lengths to explain that it doesn’t count if you “conditionalize” it.
I guess that principle has certain limits.
Quaker, More dodge ball. Anybody’s abuse COULD be criminal. Once thre is a finding, that spefici abuser is a criminal. But until there is a clear finding of criminality, they are NOT criminals. And by no means have they acted like Nazis and Commies. By no means. Except perhaps to the political left who has yet to criticize soldiers who are risking their lives for us all, including the political left.
Dugger
I follow you, Dugger.
When the Army says Pfc. England is a criminal because she abused detainees, then they’re talking about her only, and not all the rest of the troops. Seems fair to me.
But when Sen. Durbin says that a few unnamed interrogators have behaved in a way that doesn’t measure up to American ideals, he’s insulting every soldier who serves now and has served in the past.
Do I have that about right?
Besides, he conditionalized it!
Try it this way, Dugger. Suppose a reliable source reported this:
What country would you guess was holding these prisoners?
“And isn t it strange Sadie, that if the right wing hates us soldiers (I m a retired one) we still vote strongly Republican.”
It is strange, yes, but at least some of your comrades are catching on — eight Iraqi vets to date now are running for office as Dems in 2008. They have figured out who is one their side and who is just using them, as props, and worse.
Quaker, Still strongly disagree .
There is a curious lack of willingness on your part to get into Durbin’s statement. If I held a press conference, and said ‘Quaker is a gem of a person but he acts like a Jew hating, mass murderer”, what is important in that statement? What will the media focus on? What will the the public remember?
And you seemed to have ignored the results of investigations which found no torture at Gitmo. So exactly how did the Gitmo soldiers behave in a fashion that deserved the Nazi/Commie metaphor?
When will you acknowledge that Durbin went way overboard and should apologize for his remarks and that the left should have criticized it. And re the Nazi metaphor, is what went on at Auschwitz etc no worse than what went on at Gitmo. Did the concentration camp Jews gain weight like the Gitmo detainees? How many did we kill at Gitmo? Near 6,000,000?
Dugger
Sadie,
Gee I didn’t know 8 Iraqi vets are Democrats. I take back my statement completely that soldiers favor Republicans. Eight! Omigod! its gonna be Pres Kucinich, now.
Dugger
There is a curious lack of willingness on your part to portray Durbin’s remark honestly.
He didn’t say: “All the troops are just like Nazis.”
What he said was: “If I read you this report and asked you to guess who did this stuff, you’d probably guess ‘Nazis.’”
Back to what I said earlier: somebody around here went to great pains to argue the signifigance of conditionals. Any idea who that might have been?
Also: If I read that FBI report to you (and you didn’t already know the answer) would you really guess that Americans were treating captives that way?
Yes….
…as soon as you acknowledge that Durbin did apologize–twice–for the remark and that the right made a fuss about it strictly for political advantage, not because of their concern for the military.
All the troops are just like Nazis.
Which I have never said. However, by demeaning a segment of the military with his broad brush smear, Durbin hurt more than just those he smeared.
And you seem to have zero sense on conditionals. Did Durbin state ahead of time that his Nazi smear was not be taken seriously? Only applied to actual US NAzi soldiers? Exaclty what conditon did Durbin set? Of course, the answer is none and your point is a non-starter.
You are correct Durbin did apologize, but only after the Anti-Defamation league stepped in and raised hell about his remarks demeaning the Holocaust.
But as I understand it, in your view he needn’t have apologized. The real problem here was Republican objections to Durbin’s remarks associating Nazis and Commies with a group of troops. Those d*mn Repubicans. Why can’t they just let a good compassionate Senator smear troops with a Nazi descriptor and shut up about it.
Dugger
Another mischaracterization. What “segment” of the military did Durbin describe?
There was no “segment.” He read an FBI report and said: “If you had to guess, you wouldn’t guess Americans.”
You looked it up and quoted it earlier and here it is again: “If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis…”
If I didn’t tell give you the answer, you wouldn’t guess Americans, you’d guess Nazis.
Like I said, it appears “conditionalization” only works for one side.
You still won’t admit that the whole uproar was a politically motivated GOP tactic to divert attention from what Durbin actually had to say. Here’s the Washington Post, reporting in real time:
All the GOP whining and crying was phony from the start.
And you persist in your mischaracterization. Would you really read that FBI report and say, “Sounds like Americans to me”?
Let me put it this way:
Read it and tell me that’s typical of how our soldiers treat captives. That would be smearing the troops.
Its real simple. Durbin used the word Nazi as a descriptor concerning the efforts of americans (these would be US troops). Nazis murdered 6M. US troops at Gitmo murdered none. US troops at Gitmo did not even torture.
The problem, Quaker, is the choice of the word Nazi (and COmmie and Pol Pot).
I have yet to see a ‘conditon’ that subtracts out any of those words. None. Are you trying to argue that Durbin did not mean soldiers at Gitmo when he said Americans?
Dugger
What?
You can’t do it, can you?
Look at the description above and tell me: “Yup. Sounds like Americans to me.”
If you can’t do that, then that description sounds like it’s about somebody else.
After all this back-and-forth, now you’re going to prove you knew you were mischaracterizing all along? “…concerning the efforts…” Not “smearing the troops,” not “comparing soldiers to…”. Durbin was–and we are–talking about specific actions.
If I give an open-handed stiff-armed salute, am I not performing an action you would expect of a Nazi? If a dance around in a goofy little jig when a city is destroyed, wouldn’t it be fair to characterize that as “something Hitler did”?
Yeah, that’s a problem. I could have reworded that speech seven different ways so that Durbin made exactly the same point, but without using the n-word (or the c-word or the p-word). But in every single formulation, he would have been saying exactly the same thing: listen to these words and tell me that Americans shouldn’t be doing this.
Now I’ve exhausted my patience with this topic. I’ll sum up by returning to your original question: Why didn’t “the Left” pile on Durbin? Because the “outrage” was fake, phony, and contrived. Also manufactured and bogus. They were piling on Durbin, not to defend the military, but just to make political hay. Nothing anyone on the Left said or failed to say would have changed that a jot.
I’m tired of this also.
Just two “gotcha lasts”.
“Why didn t the Left pile on Durbin?’
Pile on? Come on. The left didn’t even get within the same zip code of criticizing Durbin. My entire gripe.
Your last point. Durbin himself initially argued that he didn’t know the ‘Americans’ at Gitmo were soldiers.
Dugger
Very well. Briefly:
1) Strike “pile on” and substitute “criticize”
2) No, that is not what I was arguing.