Mike's Blog Roundup
I don't recall any eruptions of right-wing outrage when a beaming Richard Nixon shook hands with a man responsible for the deaths of untold millions. Or rending of garments and gnashing of teeth when he greeted this sworn enemy of freedom. There were no reports of wingnut tantrums when St. Ronnie was palling around with this dictator. Of course, a mere handshake can't compare to the love and support lavished on this butcher by every Republican president - and this GOP candidate - from Nixon to GWB. Hell, any semi-literate citizen could fill the page with similar examples for the history-challenged, but excitable denizens of Wingnuttia. Obama shaking hands with other leaders does not endanger America, but cynical, calculated hypocrisy surely does.
The Mahablog: Must reads at TPM. I guess I coulda put this together, but Barbara already did it for us...
William K. Wolfrum Chronicles: Now is the time for reflection, not retribution
Emptywheel: Dan Quayle's and Jon Snow's flunkies putting greed ahead of America
unbossed: Another wrinkle in the Bush/DOJ attorneys' scandal
The Aristocrats: silent treatment
Lincoln. The dictator freeed the Negroes on his own authority.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
all the really nice South American drug lords GHWB and his crime family have done business with for decades.
This wasn't really a reply - just a new comment,but I hit the wrong button.
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
you could've used the opportunity to amplify on Nixon, and how he shook hands with dirty fromming hippie protesters. I would have but I knew he was drunk that night and Lincoln wanted to be left alone. Besides my space was up.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
The hand shake is so yesterday's outrage. What's today's earth shaking outrage? Remember it has to be something small that can be blown up into an "Oh My God" moment.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
and cursed the failure of his Attorney General to toad the line...all as a show of strength, of course.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
I wonder why the homophobes didn't just rise up and smite Bush when he kissed and held hands with the Saudia Arabian king? I thought kissing and holding hands with a person of the same sex was such a big no-no for the repugs. Where was the outrage then.
All them Arabs dress so unisexual. Easy mistake. He made it up with the German chick.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
That was so much fun to see. I really would have loved if-as you call her-the German chick, would have turned around and told him to knock it off. But of course Bush would have just stood there pouting that someone would call him on his chauvinism.
grabbed her breasts.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
that Bogden was illegally fired for his marital status or are we asked
to assume he was part of Teh Gay Agenda?
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
he didn't bring false charges up against democrats. He needed to be fired.
snark!
And it usually does, didn't Bush shake hands with Hugo Chavez?
That is, when he wasn't kissing the Sultan of Saudi Arabia on the lips and taking him on a tour of the White House Rose Garden.
That should read:
You see my friends, it is a tremendous challenge to surmount the sixty years of propaganda by the Fascists. It creeps into your world view constantly.
WHO told you that Mao was responsible for millions of deaths? Who failed to tell you the real story of Viet Nam. None other than the National Security State of the United States, a Fascist regime.
Mao was fighting the Nationalist Chiang Kai-shek whose corruption was so legendary that even the Americans pulled back support in '46-'48.
Maybe Mao was a bad actor, maybe not, but I will not believe anything from the NSA unverified.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Anyone seeing any outrage?
for 8 years apparently.
the rightwing's tiresome criticisms of the handshake btwn obama and chavez helps demonstrate just irrational and hypocritical the right has become.
as Mike, Alice and others point out, the right has been historically supportive of the US govt's involvement with dictators.
and i certainly don't recall the rightwing echo chamber protesting uzbek president islam karimov's partnership with the US. And karimov has political opponents BOILED to death. boiled.
its funny, also, that a lot of the criticisms of chavez, coming from the right, are hypocritical as they cheer govt rescue of american firms.
Alice, there is no "maybe" with regard to Mao Tse Dung. We're into "can you bottom this" territory here, but Chiang Kai Shek, Nixon, Hitler, Stalin, and even Genghis Khan are dwarfed by 'The Great Helmsman's' record of murder. The exhaustively researched " Mao: The Untold Story" documents the atrocities. The number is between 60 and 80 million
before we can get around to those other guys, thank you.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
Then the picture of Mao and Nixon should read:
Does anyone feel better? Not me.
As I said, I will not take the NSA as my primary source.
Mao was China's problem, Nixon, the National Security State and its 60 years of propaganda is our problem.
I suffer from no illusions of heroic revolutionaries.
Neither do I suffer from illusions of uncorrupted American 'Patriots'.
Power corrupts, the failure of every political system at its core is the failure of human nature, arrogance and hubris.
Every since the National Security Act of 1947, the CIA, the MIC and the invention of the Cold War to keep the war bucks flowing we have had institutionalized corruption.
Eisenhower warned us, the great covert cold warrior. Too bad he didn't mention how much in full swing it already was.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
is a book, from what i have seen/read, that has a lot of problems... not exactly the definitive record. this is not to defend mao, just to give pause when refering to this book.
just sayin'
Not that Genghis Khan was a humanitarian, but many western accounts have been inaccurate and the west tend to demonize him in a way they don't with their own world conquerors. The Smithsonian had a a great exhibit on him years back that I believe has been touring around the country. I still wince at the memory of a horrible Biography episode on him that simply made up crap, ignored a leading expert they actually interviewed, while later in the same week they praised Attila the Hun, of all people.
But your larger point remains - and it's not as if Chiang Kai Shek deserves any praise, either, and in America, we tend to be far more familiar with Hitler's atrocities than with Stalin's or Mao's. (The Great Terror by Robert Conquest is a good overview of Stalin's crimes, and older Russians have some very chilling tales. I'll have to check out the Mao book.)
once revisionists are finished with the real story of the Bush victories in Iraq.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
the right wing outrage when Nixon went to China but it certainly existed. The Birchers went absolutely apeshit. I'm quite certain Gordon Skene could provide examples.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
That's an interesting point - but how influential were they at the time? And as Digby pointed out once, of course Nixon could go to China, because Nixon wouldn't red-bait himself as he would with anyone else. I've never quite boutht that Nixon deserved so much credit for acknowledging that one of the most populous countries in the world actually existed. It seems to be partially because pundits want something good to say about Nixon, and because there's a group of people who really think "the silent treatment" is sage, effective foreign policy. But hey, there's even an opera about it...
It's always pointed out to intelligent Americans just how hypocritical Faux's Right Wing-NutO liars and Reslug and Resluts hate talk radio are everytime they open their ignorant pie-holes and say something desperately dumber.
Damn, Mike breaks out the full paragraph of link whoop-ass today!
Nice post.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
I'm pretty damn old, so I do recall some murmurs of protest, but nothing like the organized howling that we're seeing now. As Batocchio points out, Nixon had premptively immunized himself with a political career built on red-baiting demagoguery. Before Kennedy met with Kruschev, he sought Nixon's approval because of Nixon's anti-commie cred and a realistic understanding of the backlash that the meeting could cause.. Another factor here, is the vast differences in the power and reach of media today as compared to that era. But perhaps more importantly, yesterday's 'lunatic fringe' is today's mainstream Republican party. The Republican power brokers of 40 years ago wouldn't recognize today's party, and vice versa.
and ABC's fossil of the month had no need to pay organized howlers to come on the air to boost their ratings. Of course I am sure my chronology of the anchors v. China trip is off, but you get the point.
Also Dems were wimps even back then and secretly applauded Nixon's tacit admission of Americas failure in Vietnam. Bill Clinton was still in college?
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
But perhaps more importantly, yesterday's 'lunatic fringe' is today's mainstream Republican party. The Republican power brokers of 40 years ago wouldn't recognize today's party, and vice versa.
Damn, ain't that the truth.
i looked around but i think i missed the thread on jane harman...
or... was there not a thread on the huge story about her?
The god damned conservatives are terrified of two black men, the most powerful men in the Western Hemisphere of being friends and turning the hemisphere Democratic Socialist. That would be a good thing.
Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity. Albert Einstein
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