Tuesday, November 21, 2006
The War Against Strawmen
It seems Sen. Jay Rockefeller has signed on.
He was being interviewed on NPR this morning, and the reporter actually did seem to be displaying liberal bias, the way he was handing questions over the Sen. Rockefeller ... he was all but setting up perfect talking points for Sen. Rockefeller.
And what did Sen. Rockefeller do? While making darned sure we all knew that his position was 100% different than GW Bush's, he also proceeded to wage war against the same strawmen liberals against whom the GOP is always railing. While I should think that for the interests of having a complete spectrum of political views in this country it would actually be nice if some people were to actually oppose any sort of government wire-tapping, the fact of the matter is that (practically) nobody is actually making that argument.
If people were making that argument, then Sen. Rockefeller would be positioning himself as a sensible moderate between two ridiculous positions. However, by making this argument, Sen. Rockefeller is per force positioning himself as a moderate but begging the inference of which people hold the liberal strawman position -- and people will infer that it is moonbats like myself who hold this position, thus making anyone to the left of Rockefeller un-electable. Which is good for Rockefeller, but not good for anyone else along our political spectrum, which would include in the demotic imagination all Democrats except for Rockefeller. Why do moderates like Rockefeller have to reflexively position themselves as such? What is it with the self-centeredness of such people? Why can't they admit that liberals agree with them on this issue?
It's bad enough when the GOP mis-represents our positions, but why do other Dems. need to misrepresent the positions of Democrats in order to paint themselves as moderates? It's almost a kind of bullying, isn't it? Casting aspersions on others to make yourself look "better" (as our society is Hellenistic enough to believe moderation is an inherent good?)?
It's good that Sen. Rockefeller wants to provide some real over-sight for what Bush is doing with intelligence gathering. But why does he have to mis-characterize the position of us moonbats -- we just want the same thing he does: oversight -- via Congress and/or the Courts. By mischaracterizing our position he's ultimately discrediting his own as we have similar positions ... so what's going on here? It wasn't as if the interviewer was leading him to distance himself from some liberal strawman or something ... the interviewer was setting him up perfectly. Perhaps, after so much abuse by the SCLM to Dems., he's
a little wary ... but still, someone who wants (quite correctly) to exercize an oversight roll regarding intelligence gathering ought to know when the candy's poisoned and when it's not. So, in not even figuring out that he was being set up to make a good talking point rather than being set up to sound like a fool, Sen. Rockefeller has proved his incompetence -- and to the extent that we Dems. have won based on "we are more competent than they are", this undermines what we Dems. have electorally ...
Sheeze ... reflexive, self-indulgent, bullying centrism, demonstrations of incompetence ... the Dems. still haven't learned, have they? Oy gevalt!
He was being interviewed on NPR this morning, and the reporter actually did seem to be displaying liberal bias, the way he was handing questions over the Sen. Rockefeller ... he was all but setting up perfect talking points for Sen. Rockefeller.
And what did Sen. Rockefeller do? While making darned sure we all knew that his position was 100% different than GW Bush's, he also proceeded to wage war against the same strawmen liberals against whom the GOP is always railing. While I should think that for the interests of having a complete spectrum of political views in this country it would actually be nice if some people were to actually oppose any sort of government wire-tapping, the fact of the matter is that (practically) nobody is actually making that argument.
If people were making that argument, then Sen. Rockefeller would be positioning himself as a sensible moderate between two ridiculous positions. However, by making this argument, Sen. Rockefeller is per force positioning himself as a moderate but begging the inference of which people hold the liberal strawman position -- and people will infer that it is moonbats like myself who hold this position, thus making anyone to the left of Rockefeller un-electable. Which is good for Rockefeller, but not good for anyone else along our political spectrum, which would include in the demotic imagination all Democrats except for Rockefeller. Why do moderates like Rockefeller have to reflexively position themselves as such? What is it with the self-centeredness of such people? Why can't they admit that liberals agree with them on this issue?
It's bad enough when the GOP mis-represents our positions, but why do other Dems. need to misrepresent the positions of Democrats in order to paint themselves as moderates? It's almost a kind of bullying, isn't it? Casting aspersions on others to make yourself look "better" (as our society is Hellenistic enough to believe moderation is an inherent good?)?
It's good that Sen. Rockefeller wants to provide some real over-sight for what Bush is doing with intelligence gathering. But why does he have to mis-characterize the position of us moonbats -- we just want the same thing he does: oversight -- via Congress and/or the Courts. By mischaracterizing our position he's ultimately discrediting his own as we have similar positions ... so what's going on here? It wasn't as if the interviewer was leading him to distance himself from some liberal strawman or something ... the interviewer was setting him up perfectly. Perhaps, after so much abuse by the SCLM to Dems., he's
a little wary ... but still, someone who wants (quite correctly) to exercize an oversight roll regarding intelligence gathering ought to know when the candy's poisoned and when it's not. So, in not even figuring out that he was being set up to make a good talking point rather than being set up to sound like a fool, Sen. Rockefeller has proved his incompetence -- and to the extent that we Dems. have won based on "we are more competent than they are", this undermines what we Dems. have electorally ...
Sheeze ... reflexive, self-indulgent, bullying centrism, demonstrations of incompetence ... the Dems. still haven't learned, have they? Oy gevalt!
# posted by alberich @ 3:06 PM 
