Hugh Hewitt Gets Desperate
Here. Dutifully linked to by Instapundit, of course. (Note Insty's hilarious suggestion that the Democrats have a problem with financial corruption that rivals the Republican's problems with sex. Heck, the Democrat's problems with financial corruption don't even rival the Republicans' problems with financial corruption...)
I understand how frantic Republicans must be right about now, but Hewitt's wild-eyed sputterings are just downright embarrassing. The post is largely a regurgitation of the Republicans' Alternative History of Earth...or History of Alternative Earth...or whatever it is, wherein all the world's evils somehow spring from the Carter and Clinton administrations.
I'm actually fairly worried about the election. I mean, the Republicans are like Jason in Friday the Thirteenth (or, in this case, perhaps Tuesday After the First Monday in November). No matter what happens to them, they just keep getting back up and trying to chop the good guys to pieces. Screwing up before 9/11, screwing up in Afghanistan, screwing up in Iraq, screwing up Katrina...all self-inflicted wounds to be sure...but the political equivalents of being shot, stabbed, burned up, electrocuted, run over by a truck... Seems like any normal party should be dead by now...but they just...keep...coming.
So I'm not saying that Hewitt is wrong when he predicts that the Republicans will pull this thing out. Heck, I won't be surprised if they do. I'm just making fun of Hewitt's silly reasons for asserting that they will. My favorite is his invocation of the terrors of "Clinton-Albright diplomacy"... Ah, yes...those were the scary old days. Thank God--to quote the inimitable Onion--that our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is over.
Here. Dutifully linked to by Instapundit, of course. (Note Insty's hilarious suggestion that the Democrats have a problem with financial corruption that rivals the Republican's problems with sex. Heck, the Democrat's problems with financial corruption don't even rival the Republicans' problems with financial corruption...)
I understand how frantic Republicans must be right about now, but Hewitt's wild-eyed sputterings are just downright embarrassing. The post is largely a regurgitation of the Republicans' Alternative History of Earth...or History of Alternative Earth...or whatever it is, wherein all the world's evils somehow spring from the Carter and Clinton administrations.
I'm actually fairly worried about the election. I mean, the Republicans are like Jason in Friday the Thirteenth (or, in this case, perhaps Tuesday After the First Monday in November). No matter what happens to them, they just keep getting back up and trying to chop the good guys to pieces. Screwing up before 9/11, screwing up in Afghanistan, screwing up in Iraq, screwing up Katrina...all self-inflicted wounds to be sure...but the political equivalents of being shot, stabbed, burned up, electrocuted, run over by a truck... Seems like any normal party should be dead by now...but they just...keep...coming.
So I'm not saying that Hewitt is wrong when he predicts that the Republicans will pull this thing out. Heck, I won't be surprised if they do. I'm just making fun of Hewitt's silly reasons for asserting that they will. My favorite is his invocation of the terrors of "Clinton-Albright diplomacy"... Ah, yes...those were the scary old days. Thank God--to quote the inimitable Onion--that our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is over.
posted by Winston Smith at
3:31 PM
7 Comments:
In 1996, Madeleine Albright was asked the following question on CBS’ “60 Minutes” by Lesley Stahl: “We have heard that half a million children have died (in Iraq). I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And you know, is the price worth it?"
Albright infamously replied, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it.”---quoted from The Nation
(Accuracy note---the lowest figure I have found is actually 30-50,000, although Osama bin Laden used the 500,000 figure that Albright did not deny in his famous 1996 fatwa that declared war on the west. The Muslim world today routinely uses the half-million figure. Of course.)
All peace has its price, and yes, I'm going to keep pounding this TVD chestnut until "Clinton-Albright diplomacy" is seen as the pejorative it should be. Its chickens come home to roost even as you read this. (What was that noise coming from the direction of Pyongyang?)
It's true the GOP is making some bad if not laughable arguments of late in defending its own failings. I don't speak for Hugh Hewitt. But as long as the perception exists and is furthered that screwups and corruption are the province of the GOP alone, such tu quoques are inevitable because let's face it, that is the sole theme of the Democratic Party's 2006 campaign.
I present that not so much as a partisan argument, but a logical one. Even if the Democrats are correct, there seems little alternative to the Republicans' counterstrategy. The people will decide whether Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's financial derring-dos are worse than Speaker Denny Hastert not getting the NSA to wiretap a gay congressman's wi-fi. (Good one that, I think.)
As for how the two administrations dealt with the Saddam problem, which I think is emblematic of the two parties' approaches, it is a discussion that we as a nation never had and never will. (My own opinion is obvious.) The Bushies could hardly admit publicly to the world, even in self-defense from the Clintonites, that the US killed (too strong a term?) tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi women and children in the name of "containment."
I do share the same disgust for "Albright" as the left has for "Kissinger," and that is my reason why.
My own opinion is obvious.
You have no idea.
Jesus Christ that's funny, cakesniffer.
I'm afraid he's got you on that one, Tom...
As for more specific points...well, if you didn't like my responses the previous ten or so times, I reckon you wouldn't like them now, so I'll just move on to something else.
As for the "Clinton-Albright" era...well, to quote the Onion: Thank God our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is over...
Yeah, I heard you the first time, WS. Every peace has its price and obviously you agree with Madame Albright that it was "worth it." Fine.
As cakesniffer was snarky and unsubstantive, and used my self-deprecation against me, his opinion and political affiliation are quite obvious, too. I'm used to the drive-bys by now, but they still disappoint me.
If that's "getting" me, then I can live with that. I was going to let the thing slide, but if you're going to high-five such infantilism, then I'm going to register my disappointment.
C'mon, Tom, you're reapeating points that werent' worth making the first time.
Seriously, dude.
Oh, it was well worth making that point again, WS.
The contrast between the keening over waterboarding major terrorists vs. the utter dumbfoundedness over a Democrat administration starving out tens if not hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women and children is quite instructive.
The silence is deafening.
And if the Democrats are going to run congress starting this January, they've got to get past this rage against the machine thing.
"Worth it" has meaning now. Every peace has its price.
Jeez, Tom, I can't believe you believe half this stuff you write.
Just incidentally:
1. Nice use of 'Democrat' to mean 'Democratic'. Sweet. I love that Republican schoolyard bit.
2. Republicans gave Saddam the weapons and other means he used to do his crimes.
3. Clinton did get rid of SH's WMDs, which is something.
4. Republicans have never cared about Saddam's crimes, they would never have attacked him in the first place if he hadn't been so foolish as to invade somplace we get oil from, and no matter how hard Clinton tried, he'd never have been able to invade Iraq. Hell, the Republicans barely let him go into Yugoslavia.
5. And that 'Peace has its price' hogwash isn't fooling anyone around here. That particular rhetorical ploy is used to suggest that the ploy-ees don't think anything is worth fighting for. Nobody around here thinks that.
Anyway, you're not fooling anyone with this stuff. It's so obvious I hardly even bother responding to it anymore.
Seriously, man. You can make good points. You should do so.
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