This is an interesting article. At the heart of Mr. Stephens argument is the premise that Sid, Al and Paul are insane because they are given to outrageous statements such as maintaining Clinton’s legacy deserves a place in history alongside FDR. This is a valid point. Stephens is not trying to say that these lefty columnists actually believe Bush is comparable to Hitler or Stalin, but instead takes them to task for hyperbole, arguing they display a “palpable disconnect from observable reality.” Anyone who might suggest a parallel between the bungling and inept policies of Mr. Bush and architects of mass murder and genocide such as Hitler and Stalin is clearly and undeniably guilty of an insanity of proportion. But Mr. Stephens fails to point out that all columnists of the ilk of Sid, Al and Paul are guilty of the same type of insanity. Case in point: In an October 2003 piece titled “On Being a ‘Clinton-Hater,’” Mr. Stephens insists Clinton’s perjured deposition to Paula Jones's lawyers is a crime on a par with Richard Nixon’s Watergate era misdeeds. He concludes that, “If you think Nixon deserved to go down, then so too did Mr. Clinton.” Is this a disconnect from observable reality? I think so. But Mr. Stephens does not seem to see his own role in the hyperbole of partisan politics. He goes on in his “Just Like Stalingrad” article to chide Sid, Al and Paul for their carelessness with language, invoking the judgment of that vigilant caretaker of words, George Orwell. Yet Mr. Stephens fails to draw his readers’ attention to the most recent example of Orwellian Newspeak:
Transcript, CNBC’s “Capital Report,” June 17, 2004.
Gloria Borger: “Well, let’s get to Mohammed Atta for a minute, because you mentioned him as well. You have said in the past that it was quote, “pretty well confirmed.” Vice President Cheney: No, I never said that. BORGER: OK. Vice Pres. CHENEY: Never said that. BORGER: I think that is... Vice Pres. CHENEY: Absolutely not.
Transcript, NBC’s “Meet the Press,” December 9, 2001. Vice-President Cheney: “It’s been pretty well confirmed that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April.”
By attempting to take the moral high ground in his piece Mr. Stephens does his readers a disservice. Has the political discourse of partisan politics reached insane proportions? You bet. But it is the reader that suffers from real madness if he chooses to reject the hyperbole of one set of writers and laud the over-the-top rhetoric of another set as “the truth.”
Lack of perspective was the issue of the article. As someone who thinks we (I mean Americans) never should have got the silly Clinton witchhunt going in the first place, I still think there is a case to be made for comparing President Clinton lying under oath to President Nixon's misdeeds with Watergate. They both broke the law within the American context. Whatever you think of Richard Nixon, Watergate and his subsequent impeachment had nothing to do with murdering millions of people. On that same note, Stephens is wrong and hypocritical to criticize comparisons of President Clinton to FDR. Hey, I disagree with the comparison for the simple reason that Clinton never faced any crises comparable to the Great Depression or World War II, but it is not a totally out of proportion comparison to make.
Both of Vice President Cheney's quotations are taken out of context, so I can't comment on them, but it seems to me as no expert on Orwell that you are mixing two entirely separate ideas from the writer. Not a very effective way to combat what is still a pretty strong argument that those who compare Bush to Hitler, or the fighting in Iraq to Stalingrad are so far off the reservation as to have become useless in serious debate. I think a smarter thing to do would be to just dismiss the crazies like Sid, Al, and Paul when they make their insane arguments and move on to make legitimate criticisms of President Bush's administration in other contexts or forums.
3 comments:
This is an interesting article. At the heart of Mr. Stephens argument is the premise that Sid, Al and Paul are insane because they are given to outrageous statements such as maintaining Clinton’s legacy deserves a place in history alongside FDR. This is a valid point. Stephens is not trying to say that these lefty columnists actually believe Bush is comparable to Hitler or Stalin, but instead takes them to task for hyperbole, arguing they display a “palpable disconnect from observable reality.” Anyone who might suggest a parallel between the bungling and inept policies of Mr. Bush and architects of mass murder and genocide such as Hitler and Stalin is clearly and undeniably guilty of an insanity of proportion. But Mr. Stephens fails to point out that all columnists of the ilk of Sid, Al and Paul are guilty of the same type of insanity. Case in point: In an October 2003 piece titled “On Being a ‘Clinton-Hater,’” Mr. Stephens insists Clinton’s perjured deposition to Paula Jones's lawyers is a crime on a par with Richard Nixon’s Watergate era misdeeds. He concludes that, “If you think Nixon deserved to go down, then so too did Mr. Clinton.” Is this a disconnect from observable reality? I think so. But Mr. Stephens does not seem to see his own role in the hyperbole of partisan politics. He goes on in his “Just Like Stalingrad” article to chide Sid, Al and Paul for their carelessness with language, invoking the judgment of that vigilant caretaker of words, George Orwell. Yet Mr. Stephens fails to draw his readers’ attention to the most recent example of Orwellian Newspeak:
Transcript, CNBC’s “Capital Report,” June 17, 2004.
Gloria Borger: “Well, let’s get to Mohammed Atta for a minute, because you mentioned him as well. You have said in the past that it was quote, “pretty well confirmed.”
Vice President Cheney: No, I never said that.
BORGER: OK.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Never said that.
BORGER: I think that is...
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Absolutely not.
Transcript, NBC’s “Meet the Press,” December 9, 2001.
Vice-President Cheney: “It’s been pretty well confirmed that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April.”
By attempting to take the moral high ground in his piece Mr. Stephens does his readers a disservice. Has the political discourse of partisan politics reached insane proportions? You bet. But it is the reader that suffers from real madness if he chooses to reject the hyperbole of one set of writers and laud the over-the-top rhetoric of another set as “the truth.”
Lack of perspective was the issue of the article. As someone who thinks we (I mean Americans) never should have got the silly Clinton witchhunt going in the first place, I still think there is a case to be made for comparing President Clinton lying under oath to President Nixon's misdeeds with Watergate. They both broke the law within the American context. Whatever you think of Richard Nixon, Watergate and his subsequent impeachment had nothing to do with murdering millions of people. On that same note, Stephens is wrong and hypocritical to criticize comparisons of President Clinton to FDR. Hey, I disagree with the comparison for the simple reason that Clinton never faced any crises comparable to the Great Depression or World War II, but it is not a totally out of proportion comparison to make.
Both of Vice President Cheney's quotations are taken out of context, so I can't comment on them, but it seems to me as no expert on Orwell that you are mixing two entirely separate ideas from the writer. Not a very effective way to combat what is still a pretty strong argument that those who compare Bush to Hitler, or the fighting in Iraq to Stalingrad are so far off the reservation as to have become useless in serious debate. I think a smarter thing to do would be to just dismiss the crazies like Sid, Al, and Paul when they make their insane arguments and move on to make legitimate criticisms of President Bush's administration in other contexts or forums.
In case it is unclear, I meant I'm not an expert (or even much of a reader) on Orwell.
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