Islamofascists Don’t Wear Ties
Bush is a Fascist!
Before you cry foul, here’s a picture to prove it:
Notice the similarity? Is it the thirst for power? The beady-eyed stare? No, look closely…
Bush and Hitler both wear ties!
Before you start sending me hate-mail, let me make clear I realize this assertion is ridiculous. It is just as ridiculous as comparing Barak Obama to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
They both share the same sense of casual dress. Clearly, Islamofascists don’t wear ties. The only difference between these two comparisons is that the Obama-Ahmadinejad comparison made national news. Several weeks ago, CNN ran a piece where this exact comparison is actually made. CNN news analyst Jeff Greenfield, who had made the comparison, later claimed the piece was a joke.
When the piece came out many on the liberal side of the blogosphere cried foul, decrying the piece as Yellow Journalism. At the time I thought the outcry was over-reaction. The comparison wasn’t very funny, but it was clearly ridiculous. Standard tabloid fluff in mainstream news.
Except this type of thing keeps happening. Fox news recently ran a piece asserting that Obama was raised as a Muslim and attended a Madrassa as a child. Fox news went on to assert that it was Hillary Clinton’s camp who leaked the story in an effort to swift-boat Obama. Clearly a scoop, right?
No, something much darker.
The idea for the story stemmed from an article on the website of conservative Insight Magazine. It was quickly and easily shown to be a hoax. The “madrassa” Obama supposedly attended as a child was actually a normal public school. Obama has never been a Muslim, and became a practicing Christian in his 20s. Even the Clinton team has declared the story to be patently false.
To this day, Fox News has issued no retraction of the story. CNN has debunked the piece, but Fox News stands by its story. (Update: Scott has noted in the comments below that Fox News has posted an article on their website, noting their assertion was false.) Fed by Fox News, many in the conservative blogosphere have latched on to Obama as a closet Muslim, perhaps even a Manchurian Candidate waiting to be sprung on a helpless America.
We have moved beyond the joke stage. We have moved into a brave new world of swift-boat journalism.
I find this cultural shift deeply disturbing. What bothers me about this shift is not that a conservative news network has attacked a liberal candidate. I would be equally bothered if a conservative candidate was falsely skewered by liberal media (and I think that will happen as the campaign progresses). What bothers me is that swift-boat journalism prevents us from truly learning about the various candidates. Candidates can’t be honest about their past if any little mistake or coincidence could kill their chances. Swift-boat journalism means ideas are no longer important. They are trumped by discussions of clothing styles and whether a candidate went to the right kind of kindergarten. Elections get decided by news institutions whose sole obligation is to ratings and corporate sponsors.
It is strangling our democratic society.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”
We were once a country of ideas. Our country was founded on ideas. Great ideas. How far the mighty have fallen.
Image Credits:
Hitler, Bush, Ahmadinejad, Obama
January 29th, 2007 14:24
Did you not realize that Barack Obama’s middle name is Hussein?
I would feel a lot safer if all people named Barack, Hussein, Obama or anyone else with a funny sounding name, were put into some kind of detention factility so I don’t have to wory about them blowing me up.
I think a lot of Americans would agree with me, well at least a lot of Americans south of the Mason Dixon line, which is where REAL Americans live.
Now, don’t we have the right to not be scared by these foreigners all the time?
Has Obama provided information regarding his location on 9/11? What was he doing?
Why has he not publically said that he is not an agent of Al Qaeda?
I don’t think we can trust this guy any more than Bin Laden!
January 29th, 2007 16:28
Welcome L.A.K., thanks for expressing your views so clearly.
Yes, I am aware his name is Barack Hussein Obama. That is the name his parents gave him. He is also not a foreigner, but a native-born American. Only native-born Americans can run for President of the United States.
You are right that Obama hasn’t publicly declared his whereabouts on 9/11, or publicly declared he is not an agent of Al Qaeda. To my knowledge no Presidential candidate Democrat or Republican has publicly addressed those two questions. Perhaps you could write all the major candidates to ask them those questions, and see if they respond. If they do, I would be happy to publish the list of responses here on BraveHumans.
With all due respect, your comments seem to indicate you hold a great deal of fear in your heart: fear of “foreigners”, a desire to intern funny-named American citizens and deprive them of their rights. It seems a bit severe, given that the odds of dying in in a terrorist attack are miniscule. Even if a 9/11 event occurred once a year, every year of your life, the odds of dying in an attack would be about 1 in 100,000 per year, or 1 in 1300 in your lifetime. Even if there was an attack once a year, you are still more likely to drown. Perhaps it would be more prudent to ban swimming pools?
By the way, I disagree with your assertion that real Americans must live south of Mason-Dixon. Last I checked there were 50 states in the union, all of which have real Americans.
January 29th, 2007 23:24
Brian,
Two questions:
1) Is that the beady-eye stare, or the deer-in-headlights stare?
2) Do all politicians wear boring, diagonally striped ties out of submission, or do they really think those ties help them get elected?
As you pointed out, the comparisons are foolish in both examples.
It will be interesting to see how Obama uses race and religion in his run for the presidency. The point about his background isn’t so much that he IS Muslim - he is a proclaimed Christian - but that he grew up in a Muslim family.
If there is any truth to the concept that he was “born Muslim” by being born into a Muslim family, then the point of intrigue covers any or all of the following:
- do Muslims consider him an apostate because he converted to Christianity?
- does he stand up for his conversion to Christianity? - if so, is it on religious, moral or political grounds?
- if not, would he make a statement for or against moderate Islam?
My guess is that solid answers will not be coming from the media.
January 30th, 2007 12:12
Rick,
To answer your questions:
1) It could be a “did I leave the iron on?” stare.
2) I think their ties may be contractually obligated…
So far Obama seems to be keeping quiet on his Muslim heritage. It will be interesting if he brings it into play.
You raise some good questions, and I agree a candidate’s heritage and religion can be valid subjects for discussion. For example, when Kennedy ran for President, there were those who questioned whether, as a Catholic, he would be accountable to the Pope. It was a valid question to ask Kennedy. The questions you raise are also valid questions, as long as they are asked honestly and openly.
The problem I see with swift-boat journalism is it gets in the way of asking honest questions, particularly regarding faith, background and ideology.
January 30th, 2007 13:06
Not related to the politics, but to the media, this post exemplifies the fact that the chasm separating the allegedly left CNN from the allegedly right Fox is a lot smaller than imagined.
They’re birds of a feather. They both clamored after some inane sensational dung without fact checking or proofreading. The only difference being that Fox, as of yet, has not tried to cover up their stupidity by making some sorry excuse like “I was just kidding.”
January 30th, 2007 13:13
Fox has published a counterpoint on their website. I couldn’t find the original…
fwiw
January 30th, 2007 15:45
Thanks for the Fox News link, Scott! I’ve noted it in the post.
January 31st, 2007 01:25
The corporate, right-wing friendly media have an agenda: maximizing profits and in ways gross and subtle favoring whoever they perceive as most helpful to that imperative. Many a so-called journalist working for these outfits knows, on some level, which side of the bread his/her butter is on.
At Fox News it’s even more blatant. The whole outfit is a de-facto operating extension of the Republican National Committee.
Infotainment is considered more palatable and thus more popular by the TV networks, so we get today’s sorry substitute for what ABC’s “Nightline” once was.
We also get Anderson Cooper instead of Aaron Brown. Both are lightyears removed from the likes of Ed Murrow, Howard K. Smith, Eric Sevareid, Mike Wallace and their kind.
January 31st, 2007 01:33
“CNN news analyst Jeff Greenfield, who had made the comparison, later claimed the piece was a joke.”
I remember CNN’s caustic coverage of Howard Dean and John Kerry’s campaigns in 2004. Any protestations of neutrality or fairness by the Conservative News Network would be the real joke. CNN’s pandering to woo Fox News viewers is as obvious as it is disgusting.
January 31st, 2007 09:19
S.W., I agree with everything you wrote with one exception. The phrase “right-wing friendly” and by extension, the suggestion that Fox News is a GOP extension.
The media is friendly to whatever serves its purposes, which to me seem to be profit (nothing wrong with that on its face) and maintaining the division that afflicts our country.
All the media run stories that could be seen as favorable or damaging to both sides of the one big political machine. Meanwhile, they report nothing about alternatives to the big Dem/Republican machine. This perpetuates the myth in America that there are only two parties and that you must be stridently opposed to “the other side.” For every allegation of “Conservative News Network” there is an equally supported accusation of that company being the “Clinton News Network.”
I think smart people everywhere need to stop trying to lable the media as “right” or “left” and start seeing it as what it is: A business that succeeds on division, spite, and shock.
Scott
January 31st, 2007 10:36
S.W.,
A belated “Welcome to BraveHumans!” to you.
Given the current corporatization of mainstream media, how do you think we can address this? Do you think weblogs can change things? Protests? Civil disobedience?
Brian
January 31st, 2007 11:04
How to change….
Unfortunately we would have to overcome what seems to be the “immovable object” of willful ignorance. Between public schools and the entertainment (and sometimes news) industries, we’ve gotten ourselves into a bit of the Roman “Bread and Circuses” problem. The majority of the American populus appears to be concerned with its own version, “Beer and Pro Sports.”
Weblogs help, but only those who have the time and inclination to read, read, and read some more. Since the Tube tells us what we are “supposed” to know, with no effort on our part, we are less inclined to do all that reading. Besides, if it was REALLY important, it woulda been on the news, eh?
As for Protest and Civil Disobedience, what would we protest? That companies are making a profit by entertaining us because we largely won’t look in to the veracity of their reporting?
Where I am expending the majority of my efforts is at home. I have 5 kids and I am raising them with the aim of making them smart, independent thinkers who will always look for all sides of the story. the next ring of my attempted influence is with close family and friends. After that we get to my blog and comments on other blogs. It’s the best I think I can do.
How do you convince a free people that they have put their own blinders on? You can’t legislate it, because then they won’t be free.
We could go on for hours or days with this!
Scott
January 31st, 2007 11:06
just a clarification:
How do you convince a free people that they have put their own blinders on and that it’s a BAD thing? That they should take them off once in a while? You can’t legislate it, because then they won’t be free.
January 31st, 2007 18:07
Thanks for the welcome and let me invite you all to stop by Oh!pinion when you have a few minutes.
Re: people and their blinders, the short answer is there’s not much anyone or any group can do to cause people to be discriminating about their news sources, rejecting the ones that feed them infotainment crap.
Most people are very busy, very distracted and don’t much care for politics and politicians. The nuts and bolts of complicated public-policy problems and foreign affairs hassles turn most people off. They prefer as much as possible to leave all that to the experts, the politicians, lawyers, consultants, think-tank soothsayers and to a lesser extent these days, academics.
With that attitude, few complained when the 15-second sound bite was pared to eight seconds and when networks started hiring generic, no-name, day-labor reporters here and overseas to gather a lot of what passes for news. People scan newspaper headlines, hear a three-minute roundup on radio or TV, and consider themselves reasonably well informed.
They are not. Watch C-SPAN for eight hours, through hearings and debates on complicated matters. Listen to Sen. Joe Biden, Rep. Tom Lantos or Madeleine Albright discuss foreign relations at length and you’ll get an appreciation of what broad, deep understanding of complicated issues sounds like.
What happens, over and over, is that people leave it to the experts, to the pols and policy wonks who are really interested in these things — until something really big and really bad goes really wrong.
That’s where we are now. There was ample reason for anyone of normal intelligence who’d been paying attention to real issues and real results at all to vote George W. Bush out of the White House in 2004. Bush’s record was appallingly bad all over the lot. The other guy didn’t have to be better looking, more fun to go for a beer with or a certified genius, just much better than Bush. Sen. John Kerry was all that and much more, yet he lost.
Now, very belatedly, people realize George W. Bush is a raging incompetent whose ideas they never really liked and whose ideology they find backward, dumb and oppressive. They realize going for a beer with him isn’t an option but suffering through two more years of his wasting our troops and billions of our tax dollars on his unnecessary, bungled, no-win war in Iraq will be mandatory as long as he’s president. They realize they bought a lemon in 2000, kept him on in 2004 and now, no matter how much they wish he’d just disappear, they realize they’re stuck with him, his cronies and incompetence for two more years.
That’s the pattern. People leave things to the supposed experts and let them ride until they discover things are in a mess. Then for a while they engage and try to do something about the mess they often could’ve averted. When things get on a better footing, they go back to their busy lives and distractions, and to letting the supposed experts handle the boring stuff.
Do I have an answer? Not really. Modern life is busy and complicated, and people have a right to not like or bother with public-policy matters. But I do worry because one of these days we’re going to wind up in a mess that a little jiggling and a couple of elections won’t fix.
Democracy depends on a reasonably well informed and involved public. We only have that when we’re in a crisis.
February 1st, 2007 09:18
SW, I agree, largely.
One of my theories is that we’ve gotten too big. I don’t have any real theories on how to fix that, but in the early days of this country, the work of the gov’t was done by men who then went home and carried out their jobs at home. Each representative in Congress represented a much smaller number of people. It was easier for both sides to stay in touch, and it kept the representative much more accountable to and in tune with his constituents.
Nowadays, the average number of constituents per rep is unimaginably large. There’s no way to have accountability unless there’s something really glaring, like you said. We’re busy and we want someone else to be interested in that stuff and handle it for us.
As long as that is our condition, we will be in trouble, no matter who wins what election.
February 1st, 2007 19:06
Your historical perspective is good, but only to a point, Scott. While it’s true that when our democracy was starting out most Congress members weren’t full-time politicians, it’s also true that most of them represented the upper echelons of society. They were the landowners, business owners and professionals. Some counted nobles among their ancestors in whatever country was in their heritage.
Not all of them, I’m sure, but many were probably neither all that available nor all that willing to spend much time talking to the 18th-century counterpart of today’s Joe Sixpack or Sally the commuter. Try to imagine today’s Joe or Sally seeking some face time with Donald Trump, Michael Eisner or Bill Gates. It’s conceivably possible but not as a regular or frequent thing.
So today’s senator or representative, who undoubtedly meets with civic groups, does some on-the-street retail campaigning and holds the occasional town-hall meeting, is probably more accessible to most constituents than his or her predecessors of long ago.
February 1st, 2007 19:11
I should’ve included in the above the fact that starting out, our electorate and our elected consisted exclusively of property owners. The widow who took in laundry, the tinker, tailor and farmhand were largely out of the political loop, where Congress and state legislatures were concerned.
February 1st, 2007 19:59
In some ways, all of us sitting around complaining about the media and our government is like a man at a banquet complaining about being hungry. We already have all the tools we need to change the direction of this country, we just have to use them.
Take the media for example. If we wanted to, we could have the media talking about grassroots democracy by the end of the month. There are a handful of people who visit this site who have weblogs. Suppose all of them made a unified effort to talk about BraveHumans and the goal of bringing people together for real discussions regarding this country. Suppose each of them kept it up for a month, and told THEIR readers to do the same thing. Within a week we would start making ripples in the blogosphere, and by the end of the month the major news media would be talking about BraveHumans and this novel idea of participatory democracy.
The media is like an infant. All we have to do is make a noise and we will have their complete attention. We CAN reclaim our country. We just have to stand up.