Tired of Nazi references when talking about Bush? Me, too. That is why this idioitic piece by Jack Shafer was so refreshing:
If “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il of North Korea and George W. Bush ever meet, I suspect the two will bond like long-lost brothers. Both men are first-born sons of powerful fathers who partied like adolescents well into their adult lives, after which they submitted to their dynastic fates as heads of state.
Both avoid critical thought, preferring to surround themselves with yes men and apply propagandistic slogans to the onrushing complexities of justice, culture, economics, and foreign policy. Bush churns out buzz phrases with the best of them: He believes in “compassionate conservatism” and fancies himself part of the “army of compassion.” He’s the “reformer with results” who embraces the “culture of life.” He shouts his paeans to “liberty” and “freedom” (a combined 27 times during last night’s State of the Union speech, according to today’s Washington Post) while reducing civil liberties at home.
Tell me again why Slate isn’t making a profit?
Bruce T Garrick
I have not been to slate in years because it disgusts me. It is the prelude to IndyMedia, DU, and the Daily Kos. Disgusting people who are ashamed to be Americans. I am ashamed that they are Amrecians too!
Fersboo
Slate? Who or what is Slate?
Mikey
George W. Bush is Kim Jong Il? So that’s why he hasn’t been seen lately, he’s been to busy with his secret identity.
Do any of these people ever run any of these pieces past an editor, or some other version of a human before hitting “publish”?
billium99
Uh – so 1 post claiming Slate writers are ashamed to be American (?!) 1 post who doesn’t know what Slate is, and 1 post that reacted to the skewed sample from the story just as John intended. Did any of you actually read the piece? I’d like 1 single Bush supported to offer 1 shred of lucid counter-argument to any piece of Shafer’s editorial – instead I hear a lot of Rush Limbaugh clones who attack Shafer’s (and Slate’s) character and don’t appear to be troubled at all with Bush’s handling of any number of topics including the press.
John Cole
Skewed sample? It is the first two paragrapohs, foolio, and it is linked.
Get your own fucking weblog if you don;t like how I post, but I sort of assumed the link was sufficient- people canread the whole damn thing themselves.
HH
As opposed to Bill Clinton, who rarely used the term “liberty” as one talk show host noted a few years back. Now the complaint from Al Franken, et al. is he says it too much. And there is the difference between the two.
Jeff
Atta boy Mr. Cole! Tell someone to fuck off when they ask you to provide a substantive critique of a media piece instead of empty scorn. Very insightful. Brilliant.
Mikey
Look Jeff, there isn’t much more to say when someone tries to compare George W. Bush to Kim Jong Il and actually goes beyond, “Well, both are carbon based lifeforms, we think – the jury’s still out on Kim.”
The piece doesn’t just auto-Fisk it’s the kind of piece that should get one laughed out of the profession, and would, if the punditocracy displyed as much ethics and professional pride as lawyers do.
Jim
billium99
VDH says it so much better than I can. Care to read it???
http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200502040750.asp
John Cole
Jeff- The first thing he says is I was showing misrepresentative portion of the story, when all i have done is put the first two paragraphs up. That is what I was responding too.
Now I have to explain my explanations. Jesus, folks.
Glitch the Obscure
Is it just me, or does anyone else recall a time when Slate, while still clearly left-leaning, was much more enjoyable to read? I seem to recall that when I still posted to The Fray, back in 2000-early 2002, the articles where fairly insightful and largely deviod of partisan cheap-shots (Bushisms, etc.).
The same goes for Salon. I can recall a time when I really enjoyed that site. Salon became nothing more than vitriolic, partisan sneering long before they foisted their asinine infomercial scheme on people, but there was a time when it had a lot to offer someone of any political persuasion.
I’m really not all that conservative; I’m more of a libertine libertarian, if anything. About the only reason I had to vote for Bush was that I wanted to stick it to that collection of jackanapes that are his critics. It wasn’t enough of a reason, sadly, but I still enjoyed his victory solely out of spite.
Bob
Well, Bush’s granddad did do banking for Nazi money. That’s where a big chunk of the family fortune came from, Brown Brothers Harriman, that whole Union Bank deal, etc. I don’t think that that Korean guy’s granddad backed Hitler, so I think that’s an unfair comparison.
I don’t know if Kim is an alcoholic or got too well-acquainted with the powder back in the sixties, seventies.
I’ve seen Kim in a kind of military outfit, but I bet his dad never let him really have to go to the military and get put in a position of having to fight.
Do they torture people in the name of Korea’s safety?
Probably, but they’ve been better at controlling the press.
This Kim guy managed to avoid Vietnam too.
Hey, can’t we just appreciate these two guys for what they are and never mind that their dads may have helped them along in their careers?
Kimmitt
Slate is so behind the curve. I’ve been making the “Dear Leader” joke for at least a year.
James Oneal
Why can objective commentary stand on its own? It always has to be attacked by uptight right wingers who think anyone being analytical is a communist.
Mikey
Oh. My. God. I can’t believe it. During times of peace American banks will do business with the government and businesses of a country that will eventually become a military enemy. When will the Horror! ever cease! /sarcasm off/
Bob, get a grip, and find something non-laughable to talk about.
James: If that’s analytical, then I’m Albert Einstein.
M. Scott Eiland
“anyone being analytical”
You spelled “brain-damaged” wrong, James–might want to invest in a spelling check program.
“I’ve been making the “Dear Leader” joke for at least a year.”
Yes, you have. I think we have a pretty clear idea why Slate is in decline, based on that single sentence alone.
Robin Roberts
Bob, that crap about banking for the Nazis being the basis of the Bush family finances was debunked long ago. But you just keep up the slanders, its what makes “you” “you”.
Bob
Robin Roberts, I’ve never seen any debunking. Quite the opposite, more information and documents keep coming out all the time. Prescott Bush, Union Bank, Brown Brothers Harriman. Your enlightenment is just a google away.
Bob
Mikey, first off it wasn’t just times of peace. Some of the Nazi holdings of Brown Brothers Harriman were seized under the Trading With The Enemies Act DURING WWII. If THE SECRET WAR AGAINST THE JEWS is to be believed, FDR had planned to have trials for those aristocratic Americans like the Dulles (presumably Prescott Bush), the Harrimans, Nelson Rockefeller, Henry Ford, the du Ponts and others who were way too comfortable with their Nazi brethren across the pond. FDR didn’t make it to the end of the war.
Second, Germany was good for making money because labor was so cheap. Forced labor and working people to death is always cheaper than negotiating with unions for wages. A great place to make money. Free market, unless you’re a slave laborer being worked to death.
Third, since you’re such an ignorant little bitch about these things, why don’t you put down the cereal box and read some history for a change?
Or remain to ignorant little twit you are. Your choice, little fella.
Mikey
My Bob, you certainly are a rude little jerk. Of course US corporations traded with Germany. They also traded with Italy and Japan until war was declared. Of course the banks had German securities, and as soon as war was declared they took those and made a big bonfire of them in the courtyard. /sarcasm off/
Finally, so what? So George W. Bush’s grandfather may or may not have done something. (A) He’s dead. (B) George W. Bush is not him. (C) His sins are his own, not GWB’s. Assuming you have a point (other than the one on top of your head) what is it? We’re all dying of curiousity here to see what else your fevered immagination (such as it is) can conjure up.
By the way, Bob, my toenail clippings are more intelligent than you. Thought you might like to know.
Jon
“and as soon as war was declared they took those and made a big bonfire of them in the courtyard”
How sure are you of that? Do you have anything to back it up?
The conversation started from a post which mentioned that both George and Kim Jong were “first-born sons of powerful fathers”, so going into George’s family history seems pretty on-point, doesn’t it?
And, I would hope that the president of the U.S. would have the balls to stand up and say that their father (or grandfather for W) had had shady dealings, and then distinguish themselves from it. That’s the part about George that disturbs me… that he can ignore and cover up his (or his family’s) past, and pretend that there’s no skeletons in the closet. It makes you question every other decision he’s made, once you see it in that light.
Angus Jung
“And, I would hope that the president of the U.S. would have the balls to stand up and say that their father (or grandfather for W) had had shady dealings, and then distinguish themselves from it.”
Yeah, like Kennedy did.
Robin Roberts
Except that Prescott Bush’s dealings were not shady.
Bob
Robin Roberts, because the investment portfolios that Prescott Bush managed were seized (the ones found by the govt.) under the Trading With The Enemy Act during WWII, his dealings were not only shady, they were treasonous. Big deal fucking treason for financing corporations that were killing our soldiers and gassing Jews and Gypsies by the millions. You like to sling around the word treason around here. Your current President is spawn of a Nazi-loving traitor. Feel the glow, motherfucker.
Angus Jung is right. Neither JFK nor RFK ever went public about their father’s support of the Nazis, although their father was around back then. Prescott Bush is dead now. There were a lot of rich families from that era who supported Germany for monetary and philosophical reasons. It would be nice if Ted Kennedy went public about it. It might give the Bushes courage to face their family past, although the past isn’t that far away. GHW Bush worked with plenty of the Nazi residua both in the Republican ethnic heritage movement and in his intelligence work at the CIA. Dubya used some of the old Nazis when he ran his daddy’s campaign in 1988.
Of course, our liberal press doesn’t seem to want to ask either of them about granddad. As long as nobody asks the question nobody has to answer.
Dave
Thanks. I hadn’t seen that article. You haven’t done anything to counter it, so I guess you’re providing free publicity. You must be making a ripper profit.
S.W. Anderson
Thanks for the link. That was a good read.
Mikey
Jon: I was being sarcastic. I have no idea what a bank does with foreign government securities when war is declared between the US and that foreign government.
If anyone is expecting someone to apologize for what his or her grandfather* did sixty years ago, you can forget it, it isn’t going to happen. Certainly no politician is going to do so. Give satisfaction to his enemies? Give them a stick to belabor him with everyday for the rest of his life? Help them beat him up? No, it isn’t ever going to happen and you’d be better off finding some other way to spend your time. Compared to this exercise of calling for an apology regarding grandpa’s actions, staring off into space would be productive.
*Yes I realize Joe Kennedy is Sen. Kennedy’s father.
Bob
I don’t think anyone is expecting George Bush to admit anything. After all, during the debates he couldn’t admit to making any mistakes other than maybe appointing people who strayed from his fierce vision.
What I would like, but don’t expect, would be for the free press to be free enough to tell these ugly truths, because by telling the truth the fog of history suddenly lifts and you begin to figure out how things actually work.
Of course, the press is not different than it ever was, just worse. That’s why I recommend that one or two of you here who may actually be open to something beyond their noses try to find a copy of a book like George Seldes’ FACTS AND FASCISM, published in 1943.
But then again, most of you will sit around and circle jerk and dream about beating up Ted Kennedy.
Mikey
Such anger, Bob.
It really isn’t healthy, you know.
Of course President Bush wasn’t going to admit any mistakes (assuming that he even thought he made any). He wasn’t going to give his political enemies (hint, hint) any free ammunition to shoot at him. Get real, asking for that – carrying on about that – isn’t going to get you anywhere. If the press (or his political enemies) thought there was actually something there, even a smidgen, they’d have thrown that into his face. They threw those laughable forgeries about his air guard service at him, and if they thought those other accusations meant something, they’d have used them last year, in 2000, and in his governor’s races. They weren’t used, thus the chances of there actually being something there are practically non-existent (at least something to belabor the present generation about, his grandfather currently being dead and likely to remain so).
Robin Roberts
More lies, Bob. Lots of German assets were seized under that legislation – from business deals made before the war. So your little “treasonous” comment is just more of your vile slander.
Has anyone checked to see if one of Raimondo’s dogs is missing from its kennel?
Kimmitt
Lots of German assets were seized under that legislation – from business deals made before the war.
Yeah, but who makes business deals with Nazis while they’re in the process of conquering Eastern Europe and France? That’s creepily amoral.
Not that it’s relevant, of course; sins of the father and all that. But ew.