September 30, 2004

Yet More White House Lies About Bush's Guard Service

I know that CBS's stupidity has resulted in the president getting a free-pass on this as a campaign issue, but I still find this galling.

Posted by armand at September 30, 2004 11:45 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Politics


Comments

Reading down from the post you link to shows this post about some nasty little hush-up on the environment. Note that the primary concern of the accused is political: "the Congressman expressed concern that his political opponents would find out about it." And also note the supposed intervention of the Bush appointee, and Orcinus' accurate point about how this stuff doesn't get picked up in the mainstream media. With that in mind, are you really surprised that the voters you discuss are confused about what the adminstration actually does, as opposed to the image it presents?

And, wow, did you read even farther down, the analysis of fascism? That's some really nice work, and done in a thoughtful way that doesn't fall into the finger-pointing-you're-a-fascist trap, but shows how messing about with certain types of political language might awaken some very dangerous politics indeed. I particularly like the summary of Paxton.

Posted by: binky at September 30, 2004 12:55 PM | PERMALINK

Following Binky's second link, I just read this (an embedded quotation in Orcinus's piece):

The idea has evolved to fit the times, which is something that most people don't recognize -- you say "Fascist" and they will conjure up recognizable images (Hitler, mass rallies, WW II, etc.). Or else it's a slur without much thought behind it. No serious, practicing neo-fascist would ever use that word to describe themselves -- only the most diehard Hitler worshippers would proudly tag themselves as "fascists." I'd even wager that the most actually fascist of reactionaries would be offended if you called them that. They'd say they were patriots, and then call you a traitor.

Reading that gave me a chill. It even jolted me back into proper capitalization.

Posted by: joshua at September 30, 2004 02:59 PM | PERMALINK
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