Jonah Goldberg Mentions Democratic Underground

[bryant69]

Yep--Goldberg's latest is on articles and essays comparing George W. Bush to Hitler. Goldberg, editor of National Review Online, comments, "At every event protesting war, Bush, America, this, that and the other thing, one can find pictures of various administration officials in SS garb or bearing Hitler mustaches. On the Web, leftwing forums like Democraticunderground.com overflow with insubstantial people bolstering their self-esteem by pretending to "speak truth to power" to the unfolding Nazification of America."

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm pretty substantial; frankly I wish I were a little less substantial. But everytime I try to walk through a wall (to steal stuff, or just to snoop) I fail.

At any rate his overall point I sort of agree with; comparing President Bush to Hitler is a faulty comparison, and trivializes the Holocaust. (Obviously I know that some on here will disagree with me on this point; so let me reassure that I am 100% in favor getting rid of that guy who has emptied the treasury and embarked in moronic military adventures).

The article is here --> http://www.townhall.com/columnists/jonahgoldberg/jg20030905.shtml

My website is here --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

Bryant

[MrBenchley]

1. Gee considering he's a guy

who owes his job to his ma, he's got some nerve sneering about anybody else being insubstantial...

[ewagner]

2. So let me get this straight...

If we're insubstantial what the hell are the Freepers?

there is more thoughtful discussion here in one hour than the whole freeper board in it's entire existance.

[ixion]

3. more neocon rabble

I always find it ironic the way neocons play the 'I-am-what-I-accuse-my-enemy-of-being' card, and people fail to call them on it. Goldberg, in this case, is the one speaking rubbish to power the nazification of 'Murika.
O'Reilly deploys the same tactics, when he accuses the 'left' of demonizing him. You can't become something you already are. ;-)

[Patriot_Spear]

4. Jonah Goldberg is talking head...

If you check Goldberg's Bio, you'll see it's fairly light academically- There are a legion of DUer's who are far more qualified to ascertain whether or not the Hitler Comparrison is valid- but more to the point, why does anybody read this blowhard?

He's never held office, he's never served in the Armed Forces and he slipped out of a non-accredited northern private school on the gimmick that he was one of the first male students at a womens college. What's his deal you ask? Jonah is frustrated by the continual disdain of the very people he longs to be counted among.

If you've read more than one of his articles, you'll notice he loves to attack the academic community; because, he desparately wants to be recognized by the same. However, his punch-line / popular culture form of writing clearly lacks the intellectual depth and clarity to merit serious interest or response- hence he's left playing the psuedo intellectual to those who can't tell the difference.

Jonah is the kid who who stamped his foot and wailed like a banshee when he didn't get picked for the team- who promptly turned around and claimed he didn't want to join the dumb ole' team anyway.

I'll bet Jonah lurks on DU quite a bit- and I'll bet dollars to dimes it drives him insane when our members, of any academic background, reduce his crayon scibblings to the verbal pap they are.

[ArkDem]

5. Good Comparrison

..

[glarius]

7. You've summed up that pathetic jerk PERFECTLY!

:hi:

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

9. A Mind Meld couldn't have told the story any better.

[w4rma]

11. I'm going to disagree with you Patriot_Spear

I think Jonah Goldberg simply misses or ignores all of the trends, for whatever reason.

I think he's arrogant in this editorial, but in politics you get alot of arrogance, everywhere.

His definition of Hitler's rule seems to be limited to only the holocost and a holocost is the only think he'll accept to compare someone to Hitler. Hitler was more than a holocost. And I think it's important that folks study Hitler and the totality of his beliefs to understand better how to prevent another holocost (or the destruction of a democratic republic like the Wiemar Republic).

[ILeft]

12. Nice character sketch!

I would have just dismissed him, maybe called him a name- a little twerp or something like that- but you show that it's worth examining people like Jonah Goldberg, if for no other reason than entertainment value. I just hope I live to see loyal right wingers like Goldberg get their cummupins. (An orange jump suit and ankle irons would do, too. After the trials, of course.)

[Lexingtonian]

16. yep, a lightweight

one of the first male students at a womens college

I should point out that this group tends historically (e.g. at Vassar) to be in very high proportion homosexuals. Try very hard not to think "closet case" or "Log Cabin boy"....

he's left playing the psuedo intellectual to those who can't tell the difference

I nominate him for the 2003 Judah Benjamin Commemorative Award. He can join his mother, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, et al in being so, um, honored.

[Jack Rabbit]

6. This stretches it

I agree with Bryant that Bush is not Hitler and that comparisons bwtween the two trivialize Hitler's worst crimes. However, for Mr. Goldberg to equate this with Holicaust denial is absurd. It is nothing worse than hyperbole based on a faulty perspective.

Comparing Bush to Hitler is a little like comparing Willie Sutton to Charlie Manson. Hitler was a mass murderer. He did steal things, such as gold teeth from the victims of his death camps, but that was incidental to murdering them. Bush is first a foremost a thief. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been murdered in the process of invading and occupying their country, but that is incidental to seizing Iraq's oil fields and placing them in the hands of Bush's campaign contributors.

Furthermore, Hitler was a self-made man.

[lebkuchen]

8. DU was also mentioned in the Austrian paper Die Presse

http://www.diepresse.at/default.asp?channel=p&ressort=a&id=370361

In the first paragraph, where it talks about how it didn't take long for a smear campaign to begin against Arnold Schwartzenegger inre: his father's Nazi past. And then it discusses his father's Nazi past and rumors of his sexual escapades, but says that in the end, it is all good timing for Arnie because it helps to promote his new movie.

[w4rma]

10. I think Godwin's Law may be outdated

Lawyers Furious as US Builds (Gitmo) Death Chambers

LAWYERS expressed outrage yesterday at plans to put al-Qaeda suspects, including two Britons and an Australian, on military trial in Guantanamo Bay.

They would effectively be tried by a “kangaroo court”, stripped of all basic rights of due process that would be afforded in criminal courts in Britain or America, they said.
…
He said: “The construction of execution chambers makes virtually every lawyer in the Western world extremely angry. The idea that there is an artificial creation or enclave which, according to the Americans, is beyond the purview of all recognised systems of law is repugnant.”
…
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0705-05.htm
http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=8201&forum=DCForumID71

The Courier Mail: US Plans Death Camp (May 26, 2003)
THE US has floated plans to turn Guantanamo Bay into a death camp, with its own death row and execution chamber.

Prisoners would be tried, convicted and executed without leaving its boundaries, without a jury and without right of appeal, The Mail on Sunday newspaper reported yesterday.

The plans were revealed by Major-General Geoffrey Miller, who is in charge of 680 suspects from 43 countries, including two Australians.
…
"This camp was created to execute people. The administration has no interest in long-term prison sentences for people it regards as hard-core terrorists."
…
http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,6494000%255E401,00.html
http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=3258&forum=DCForumID71

CBS Producer Fired For Comparing The Mood In America To That Of Germans Who Helped Hitler's Rise To Power
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2845.htm

Producer Is a Casualty in CBS's 'Hitler' Miniseries
…
In the April 12 TV Guide, the publication says that "Gernon stated his belief that fear fueled both the Bush administration's adoption of a preemptive-strike policy and the public's acceptance of it." According to the article, "Gernon said a similar fearfulness in a devastated post-World War I Germany was 'absolutely' behind that nation's acceptance of Hitler's extremism."

Gernon is quoted as saying of the miniseries, which tracks Hitler's rise to power in 1930s Germany: "It basically boils down to an entire nation gripped by fear, who ultimately chose to give up their civil rights and plunged the whole world into war.

"I can't think of a better time to examine this history than now," he added.

The article further quotes him as saying that "when an entire country becomes afraid for their sovereignty, for their safety, they will embrace ideas and strategies and positions that they might not embrace otherwise."
…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A5649-2003Apr10¬Found=true

[Cocoa]

13. he's attacking easy targets

people on ALL sides say ridiculous things, and it doesn't represent the whole.

Spend a little time over at free republic and you could draw the conclusion that pro-Hitlerism is significant in the Republican party.

[kodi]

14. ugh, his momma's uterus is a WMD

unlike allegedly "mainsteam" pundits on the far right who have massive distribution of their messages of hate, the likes of hannity, coulter, limbaugh, o'reilly (SHUT UP!!), novak, sobran, charen, joe scarborough, mike savage, the late mike kelly, pat robertson, jerry falwell, et al. DU is not in a position to affect the national narrative with its rhetoric as the aforementioned satanic spawns are and as such having a jitbag like goldberg use DU as an example of what he indicates as mainsteam progressive thought as indefensible and abominable rhetoric is in fact a far greater abomination agains the truth.

oh that DU had as much opportunity to set the national narrative as those royal flaming asholes on the far right.

[Skittles]

15. INSUBSTANTIAL PEOPLE?

THAT'S WHAT HE THINKS ABOUT VOTERS?

[Eloriel]

17. You'd be right re Bush/Hitler IF

the Holocaust were all Hitler did, not just the last of his atrocities. The whole history of Hitler's rise has been pretty fairly mirrored by what has happened here in the U.S. under Bush.

Check it out.

And it only "trivializes the Holocaust" to the extent that that's all people think about re Hitler -- IOW, if they don't know their history better.

Eloriel