Rep. John Kline demanded and got an apology Monday from his Democratic rival, Coleen Rowley, for a doctored picture on her campaign website depicting him as Colonel Klink, a bumbling Nazi prison camp commandant in an old TV comedy series. . . .
The blog showed a photo of Ulysses S. Grant next to the picture of Kline, superimposed in Klink's uniform with a monocle over his left eye. It mocked Kline's effort last year to replace Grant's visage with Ronald Reagan's on the $50 bill. It noted that Minnesota cast presidential electoral votes for Grant in 1868 and 1872, while Minnesota was the only state that Reagan lost in 1980 and 1984.
Rep. Kline told Rowley: "You should be ashamed of yourself," and "Minnesota Republican Party Chairman Ron Carey called the photo 'a new low in Minnesota politics.'" Minnesota resident John of Powerline is extremely offended by what Rowley did, calling it a "despicable slander" and observing that "this kind of ridiculous smear is exactly what the Democratic Party is looking for in its candidates." That would be the same John of Powerline who accused Jimmy Carter of being a traitor to his country and being on the "other side" -- which, of course, isn't a smear at all but is perfectly respectable and civil political discourse.
And I'm sure that these same Republicans who find it to be the height of impropriety to compare someone to that dastardly villain, Col. Klink, were equally outraged by this:
Cleland's opponent, Saxby Chambliss, who sat out Vietnam with a bad knee, aired a spot featuring unflattering pictures of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein ... and Max Cleland. Chambliss charged Cleland, the Vietnam vet amputee, was soft on national security because he'd voted against creating the Homeland Security Act. In truth, Cleland co-wrote the legislation to create the Homeland Security Department, but objected to repeated attempts by the White House to deprive future Homeland Security employees of traditional civil service protection.
Obviously, having your photo compared to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein is nowhere near as bad as having it compared to one of Col. Klink, but it's still hard to imagine how basic dignity allows the same people expressing such outrage over the Rowley website to defend the Cleland-bin Laden-Hussein ads.
And I have no doubt that these same people will be outraged by this book cover from Jonah Goldberg's undoubtedly fascinating and novel screed entitled "Liberal Fascism: the Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton," with this really creative and incisive cover:
Here is the Amazon summary of the book presumably provided by Goldberg's publisher (h/t Brendan Nyhan):
Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg shows that the original fascists were really on the Left and that liberals, from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton, have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler’s National Socialism.
One observation from the Amazon summary is surely wrong:
LIBERAL FASCISM will elicit howls of indignation from the liberal establishment–and rousing cheers from the Right.
There is no way the Right will cheer this book, because they are profoundly opposed to uncivil political discourse and comparing one's opponents to Nazis. And this is to say nothing of the various other highly successful books which have no purpose and no point, literally, other than to argue that "liberals" are treasonous, mentally imbalanced liars who ought to have their heads bashed in.
Beginning with Rush Limbaugh 20 years ago, the Republicans have had great success in depicting their opponents as treasonous, subversive, America-hating, terrorist-loving, emotionally disturbed losers who are only thinly disguised soulmates of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Adolph Hitler and Josef Stalin. Clearly, a very effective psychological system of shame-elimination has been developed in order to allow these same persons to pretend to be so very outraged and offended by depicting a politician as Col. Klink, a television sitcom character. Maybe Rowley should have spread rumors that Kline has a black baby and then it would have been OK.
The recent bout of liberal incivilty has me shocked.... just shocked!
ReplyDeleteCreme Brulee? Anybody?
ReplyDelete:-)
I sure hope Colleen Rowley didn't apologize but gave it right back at them just like Glenn did in this post.
ReplyDeleteBut it says right in the article that she DID apologize.
ReplyDeleteThe only way to stop this disgusting double standard is to STOP caving in and start throwing it back in their faces.
Don't forget Republican Jerry Kilgore's desperate last ditch attempt in VA gov race with Tim Kaine to play the Hitler card.
ReplyDeleteRowley should have taken a page from Hackett, who when Republicans whined about his discourse said: I said it. I meant it. And I stand by it.
Or better yet, she should have just told him: Get Over It. Loser.
As an MN resident I heard about this "incident" on MPR. The explanation that Rowley gave was that a volunteer staffer placed this on her website without her knowledge. She then had it removed and apologized by saying that any Nazi reference was purely inadvertant.
ReplyDeleteI happen to agree with her that going around calling your opposition Nazis, etc. accomplishes nothing reguardless of who is doing the calling.
With that said, I feel that there no worse offenders then those within the GOP (as Glen's post points out), one need look no further than the Kennedy (R-MN) race to see the disgraceful way in which he treated his opponent Patty Wetterling (who lost her son to armed abduction). But stooping to "Rovian" tactics isn't the way to go.
Does it then follow that the progressive movement must coopt the dialectics of shame and the language of betrayal and "treason" to be effective?
ReplyDeleteThere are many ways one can descibe the current GOP movement as a betrayal of American primcuples, as well as the Constitution.
Have we been too timid in making the case, too "civil?" What do we become and foment if we cross that barrier, not just among our more vocal activists, but on the part of our party standard bearers? Or do we need to create a sizable organized movement of surrogates to push this kind of rhetoric out there, in the style of Matt Stoller's hypothetical anti-Alito camoaign posted at MyDD?
Pachacutec
great post Glenn.
ReplyDelete