Monday, January 10, 2011

Lessons In Equivalence

Andrew Klavan:
The Times’s Paul Krugman — who once encouraged readers to hang pro-war Democratic senator Joseph Lieberman in effigy — chimed in on his blog, deploring right-wing political rhetoric and linking a Sarah Palin–backed political ad to the murders.
Could this effigy-hanging example involve a straw man?
As for leftists’ reaction to the Arizona shooting, call it Narrative Hysteria: a frantic attempt to capitalize on calamity by casting their opponents, not merely as racist or sexist or Islamophobic this time, but as somehow responsible for an act of madness and evil.
It's impossible to understand why these demon liberals could imagine that their opponents might be racist or sexist or Islamophobic; that they could think their ideological opponents capable of an act of madness and evil is beyond the pale.

SURVEY THE HEAD OF ANDREW KLAVAN.



13 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Plural possessive, also, because I'm a forgetful grammar Nazi.
~

bjkeefe said...

Wingnuts love to howl about that one Krugman line, and it's mystifying: how stupid do they have to be to be unable to get that he's being sarcastic and saying what a stupid thing it would be to do?

Well, strike that. Someone like Klavan is doubtless aiming at an audience that actually is that stupid, willfully so in some cases.

But still, you'd think a hack like Klavan -- i.e., someone getting paid to preach to the choir -- would be able to come up with something better than that.

I mean, given how the horrible left's rhetoric is, as I am frequently assured in sweeping (example-free) statements by guys just like him.

J— said...

SURVEY

Dope-smoking liberals have most likely forgotten, but this was an important element in Palin's rhetoric when she campaigned for good conservative candidates last fall. "Personal responsibility means having your own theodolite."

fish said...

SURVEYORS SIGHTS?!?!?!?!

Have you no decency man?

mikey said...

Well, that's just silly.

Theodolites don't survey, PEOPLE survey.

When theodolites are outlawed, only OUTLAWS will have theodolites...

Smut Clyde said...

I was under the impression that a theodolite was a fossilised God poop.

Hamish Mack said...

Careful surveying of Mr Klavan's head has revealed it to be a remarkably hermetic structure. Indeed, underground radar has revealed a colony of fossilised bats as being the only signs of any life from any stage in the head's existence

Theo D. Olite, Registered Surveyor said...

Theodolites don't survey, PEOPLE survey.

I beg to differ, sir.

M. Bouffant said...

I haven't watched (& won't, you betcha) but it still seems as if I should leave this no doubt flaming bag of poop here.

No, don't thank me.

Substance McGravitas said...

Okay then!

Substance McGravitas said...

The Klavan video starts funny: Some conservatives are arguing that the beginning of the Obama era has been a disaster.

I think the beginning of the Bush administration was smooth sailing.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

I think the beginning of the Bush administration was smooth sailing.

Memory Hole! Memory Hole!

Besides, that was all Clinton's Penis' fault.

Smut Clyde said...

SURVEY THE HEAD OF ANDREW KLAVAN.

Am I alone in hearing this as a Siouxsie & the Banshees song?