BROOKS: WHY ARE DEMS SO OVERHEATED? (opinion)

[rushmc 18]

I try to understand why the visceral hatred of Bush. This is one train of thought.........

BROOKS: WHY ARE DEMS SO OVERHEATED?
Sat Oct 29 2005 17:15:12 ET

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald did not find evidence to prove that there was a "broad conspiracy to out a covert agent for political gain. He did not find evidence of wide-ranging criminal behavior. He did not even indict the media's ordained villain, Karl Rove," writes David Brooks in Sunday's NY TIMES.

"Leading Democratic politicians filled the air with grand conspiracy theories that would be at home in the John Birch Society."

"Why are these people so compulsively overheated?.. Why do they have to slather on wild, unsupported charges that do little more than make them look unhinged?

Brooks quotes from an essay written 40 years ago by Richard Hofstadter called "The Paranoid Style in American Politics."

Hofstadter argued that sometimes people who are dispossessed, who feel their country has been taken away from them and their kind, develop an angry, suspicious and conspiratorial frame of mind. It is never enough to believe their opponents have committed honest mistakes or have legitimate purposes; they insist on believing in malicious conspiracies.

"The paranoid spokesman," Hofstadter wrote, "sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms -- he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization." Because his opponents are so evil, the conspiracy monger is never content with anything but their total destruction."

Brooks summarizes: "So some Democrats were not content with Libby's indictment, but had to stretch, distort and exaggerate. The tragic thing is that at the exact moment when the Republican Party is staggering under the weight of its own mistakes, the Democratic Party's loudest voices are in the grip of passions that render them untrustworthy."

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[tso-d_chris 0]

Brooks, whoever he is, is evidently not informed enough to realize that Fitzgerald's investigation is not complete, yet he draws conclusions as though it is.

Typical partisan BS.

[Droolbaby 0]

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I try to understand why the visceral hatred of Bush. This is one train of thought.........

BROOKS: WHY ARE DEMS SO OVERHEATED?
Sat Oct 29 2005 17:15:12 ET

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald did not find evidence to prove that there was a "broad conspiracy to out a covert agent for political gain. He did not find evidence of wide-ranging criminal behavior. He did not even indict the media's ordained villain, Karl Rove," writes David Brooks in Sunday's NY TIMES.

"Leading Democratic politicians filled the air with grand conspiracy theories that would be at home in the John Birch Society."

"Why are these people so compulsively overheated?.. Why do they have to slather on wild, unsupported charges that do little more than make them look unhinged?

Brooks quotes from an essay written 40 years ago by Richard Hofstadter called "The Paranoid Style in American Politics."

Hofstadter argued that sometimes people who are dispossessed, who feel their country has been taken away from them and their kind, develop an angry, suspicious and conspiratorial frame of mind. It is never enough to believe their opponents have committed honest mistakes or have legitimate purposes; they insist on believing in malicious conspiracies.

"The paranoid spokesman," Hofstadter wrote, "sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms -- he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization." Because his opponents are so evil, the conspiracy monger is never content with anything but their total destruction."

Brooks summarizes: "So some Democrats were not content with Libby's indictment, but had to stretch, distort and exaggerate. The tragic thing is that at the exact moment when the Republican Party is staggering under the weight of its own mistakes, the Democratic Party's loudest voices are in the grip of passions that render them untrustworthy."

Esentially your WHOLE thing here can be summarized into one quick easy to read statement. Let me know what you think.

"Anything to keep people in the news."

Entertainers have used it for years and politicians are doing the same thing. If you recognize my name on the ballot, you will more than likely vote for me when (and if) you get into the voting booth. Name regognition. All politicians use this tactic. You want to see some really trashy talk show crap, watch C-Span. Those guys get on there at times and yammer about stupid stuff, for the same purpose..name recognition.

...Happiness is just a drool away....mmmmm....

[rushmc 18]

If I read you right........you still have your fingers crossed?

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[tso-d_chris 0]

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If I read you right........you still have your fingers crossed?

???

Why would I have my finger crosses? Because the investigation is not complete?

Still trying to paint me with your partisan brush?

[rushmc 18]

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If I read you right........you still have your fingers crossed?

???

Why would I have my finger crosses? Because the investigation is not complete?

Still trying to paint me with your partisan brush?

If the pigment sticks

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[ViperPilot 0]

Quote

Hofstadter argued that sometimes people who are dispossessed, who feel their country has been taken away from them and their kind, develop an angry, suspicious and conspiratorial frame of mind. It is never enough to believe their opponents have committed honest mistakes or have legitimate purposes; they insist on believing in malicious conspiracies.

Seems to make a lot of sense to me. And no, I'm not saying this does not apply to the Republican party or any other party. Point is, every minority party will do anything to take control and will do their best to make everything look terrible about the other party, and will see the other party as driving the country horribly wrong. This is nothing new.

[GTAVercetti 0]

Sounds like something from "Shit I could have told you myself."

The minority party always gets excited and pissed off easily...because they have less power so they have to yell louder to be heard. In this case (as I see it), we have poorly performing "republicans" and impotent, pathetic democrats with no actual plan to do anything about it.

If the Dems were smart, they would shut the fuck up, work out a plan, and let the Republicans implode, but of course, they are not that clever. No minority party is.

So why the quotes? Cause if you think the current crop of Republicans are anything other than MORALLY conservative (and even that is questionable), you must live in some different country than the one I do. It seems more and more that the term Conservative Republican is an oxymoron of the highest caliber while in contrast, it should be redundant.

Why yes, my license number is a palindrome. Thank you for noticing.

[billvon 2,433]

> I try to understand why the visceral hatred of Bush.

Consider right wingers visceral hatred of Clinton. Now reverse roles. Easy.

[rushmc 18]

I saw them yelling but I did not see the illogical hatred.

I did not and do not like Clinton but I did not see him "destroying" a way of life or the direction of the country. But that is what the Dems (or at least the ones the news media reports about) are saying about Bush.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 18]

Hard to argue most of your points. I too see those calling themselves Republicans NOT being conservative...............especially when it comes to spending

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[billvon 2,433]

>I saw them yelling but I did not see the illogical hatred.

Here are a few statements from just one conservative on the Clinton issue:

"If you don't hate Clinton and the people who labored to keep him in office, you don't love your country."

"He (Clinton) masturbates in the sinks."

"We're now at the point that it's beyond whether or not this guy is a horny hick. I really think it's a question of his mental stability. He really could be a lunatic. I think it is a rational question for Americans to ask whether their president is insane."

Illogical hatred is a trademark of extremists on both sides of the aisle.

[crwtom 0]

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I saw them yelling but I did not see the illogical hatred.

I did not and do not like Clinton but I did not see him "destroying" a way of life or the direction of the country. But that is what the Dems (or at least the ones the news media reports about) are saying about Bush.

That's really just a matter of statistics:

If you have a population with a disapproval rate of around 57%
your distribution of opinions in the population will naturally be
centered significantly further in the negative than in a
population that exhibits a disapproval rate of around 34%.

And if you shift a bell curve by such an amount to the negative
you shift with it the negative tails of the distribution much farther
into the negative as well. You probability of encountering
extremely negative opinions thus, of course, a lot higher for the
57% distribution than for the 34% distribution.

Cheers, T

*******************************************************************
Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

[rushmc 18]

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Quote

I saw them yelling but I did not see the illogical hatred.

I did not and do not like Clinton but I did not see him "destroying" a way of life or the direction of the country. But that is what the Dems (or at least the ones the news media reports about) are saying about Bush.

That's really just a matter of statistics:

If you have a population with a disapproval rate of around 57%
your distribution of opinions in the population will naturally be
centered significantly further in the negative than in a
population that exhibits a disapproval rate of around 34%.

And if you shift a bell curve by such an amount to the negative
you shift with it the negative tails of the distribution much farther
into the negative as well. You probability of encountering
extremely negative opinions thus, of course, a lot higher for the
57% distribution than for the 34% distribution.

Cheers, T

Uhh, that was fun

It would have been interesting to see what Clintons "numbers" would have been had we a media that hated him as much as they hate GWB.

But in a realm of numbers, how about this one.

A LexisNexis search shows that the media reported over 37,000 times that the Libby charges were for the outing of a covert CIA agent. 1) There was not "outing" and 2) Libby was not charged with leaking the name of a covert CIA agent.

Numbers are fun.......

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[billvon 2,433]

>It would have been interesting to see what Clintons "numbers"
>would have been had we a media that hated him as much as they
>hate GWB.

You must not have been around when the Lewinsky scandal was on the front page of every US paper for months. THey hated Clinton a lot more. Heck, Michelle Malkin (a conservative blogger) is being considered a serious journalist nowadays. NBC is using Pete Williams, a former Cheney aide, as a reporter on the Libby issue. The New York Times publically apologized for pushing the case for war and not even questioning the administration's myths. They aren't even making a pretense of being impartial.

Time to face the facts and give up on the "the liberal media" myth. Bush's approval rating is in the toilet because he has made a mess of the Iraq war, his administration is corrupt and his party is finally realizing it. Pretty simple really; Occam's Razor applies here.

[rushmc 18]

Time to face the facts and give up on the "the liberal media" myth. Bush's approval rating is in the toilet because he has made a mess of the Iraq war, his administration is corrupt and his party is finally realizing it. Pretty simple really; Occam's Razor applies here.
------------------------------------------------------------

Not a myth here. The media had no choice on Clinton but to cover it because of what he did. The Iraq war is a mess only in the mind of media and those that choose to look at only the info they put out. And the party is mad at Bush because he has choosen to put out a consilitory hand instead of looking like the winning majority in power.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[billvon 2,433]

>The media had no choice on Clinton but to cover it because of
>what he did.

And now they have no choice but to cover Libby because of what HE did.

>The Iraq war is a mess only in the mind of media and those that
>choose to look at only the info they put out.

And the Iraqis, and the soldiers there. Believe it or not, even some conservatives care about 2000 US soldiers dying for a war that was based on faulty info.

>And the party is mad at Bush because he has choosen to put out a
>consilitory hand instead of looking like the winning majority in power.

The problem is they are starting to look like the losing majority in power. They are facing a loss of their majority in the next election, and many republicans are trying to distance themselves from Bush's failed presidency to give them an edge in the polls.

[ViperPilot 0]

Anyone want to provide some numbers on how many news articles, editorials, 60 minutes, etc. was presented on Clinton's failures vs how many are presented on Bush's failures? I'd like to see.

[rushmc 18]

The problem is they are starting to look like the losing majority in power. They are facing a loss of their majority in the next election, and many republicans are trying to distance themselves from Bush's failed presidency to give them an edge in the polls.

------------------------------------------------------------
I hope that is what the left is thinking

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 18]

The problem is they are starting to look like the losing majority in power. They are facing a loss of their majority in the next election, and many republicans are trying to distance themselves from Bush's failed presidency to give them an edge in the polls.

-----------------------------------------------------------

I think this was the conventional thinking on the left and medial before the last election cycle too? wasn't it?

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[wmw999 2,147]

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choosen to put out a consilitory hand instead of looking like the winning majority in power

Being in power doesn't mean you stomp on the people you beat. If you can consolidate your position by finding ways to work with them, then your power increases. Only a coward makes himself look stronger by stomping on those who disagree with him.

You can trust that your allies will ALWAYS be stronger, but it's hard to predict the future.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[rushmc 18]

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choosen to put out a consilitory hand instead of looking like the winning majority in power

Being in power doesn't mean you stomp on the people you beat. If you can consolidate your position by finding ways to work with them, then your power increases. Only a coward makes himself look stronger by stomping on those who disagree with him.

You can trust that your allies will ALWAYS be stronger, but it's hard to predict the future.

Wendy W.

It seems to me that the Bush administration,has bent over to try and work with the left and got taken advantage of from being in that position

I think the stomping has been others, not Bush.

I also think he was elected for specific reasons that he campained on and wether the loosing side likes it or not, they did not get elected to power.

In any event, your point is well taken.

Thanks

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[kelpdiver 2]

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Not a myth here. The media had no choice on Clinton but to cover it because of what he did. The Iraq war is a mess only in the mind of media and those that choose to look at only the info they put out. And the party is mad at Bush because he has choosen to put out a consilitory hand instead of looking like the winning majority in power.

LOL - paragraphs like this really make your original claim of 'trying to understand' hilarious to read.

I have no idea what planet you're on right now. I've not seen the friendly hand of Bush, or the smooth running occupation of Iraq.

The Newt lead GOP was frothing at the mouth angry at Clinton and went at him for years until Bill foolishly perjured himself to avoid the Paula Jones trial. Then you have a sex scandal and the possibility that he committed sexual assault. Had he fessed up, the Jones trial would likely have ended quickly in his favor.

[GTAVercetti 0]

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It seems to me that the Bush administration,has bent over to try and work with the left and got taken advantage of from being in that position

That is hilarious. I have a friend in OMB. Under Clinton, when new ideas were presented by the adminstration, they listened to what the director and higher ups had to say. Since the inception of the Bush administration, there has been NO DISCUSSION. Policy is handed down and people with years of experience are disregarded. While this is not a left/right issue, it just shows how closed Bush's administration is.

Hell, go back and read Newt Ginrich's books and listen to him in interviews. Even Trent Lott. Both worked WITH Clinton to pass legislation even through the impeachment stuff. I have high doubts you are going to find the same stories when Bush is gone.

Are the Democrats at fault? Sure, but if you think the Bush admin has bent over to try to work with people outside the administration and their party, you are just plain wrong.

The fact is that neither side these days likes to do anything but be partisan.

Why yes, my license number is a palindrome. Thank you for noticing.

[rushmc 18]

The planet I am on is not hard to figure out. Nor is the thought that your eyes and mind may be closed?

Oh, and Clinton's problem was not a sex scandle. That is what his spin machine and his lapdog media lovers made it out to be.

If Bush was accused of sexual harasment you would want his head on a platter whether or not he was guilty

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln