alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

February 21, 2006

The Cult of Bush

by @ 7:24 pm. Filed under Uncategorized

Peter Daou and I seem to have some kind of a mind meld going on. About the same time we both noticed that Tom Maguire had done an excerpt and excise (aka hack) job on this Glenn Greenwald post.

I commented at Glenn’s place, and he wrote back: (my remarks italicized)

I find this omission significant, as it really goes towards the heart of your argument. The point is that the cult of Bush is based in personality rather than principles. For instance, that we need to be skeptical towards a government who insists on new powers, or insists that they’ve had those powers all along.

Exactly - and what I find most disturbing about Tom’s behavior - and most reflective of its intellectual dishonesty - is that in reply to an e-mail he sent me notifying me of his first post, I told him I thought he had “replied” only to a stripped-down, caricatured version of my argument - where he was able to mock it as empty only by ignoring all of its substance.

I even listed five arguments supporting my position which he ignored (including the paragraph you just cited about the disappearance among “conservatives” of distrust of governmental power), and told him that if he wanted to address the argument, he should at least characterize it honestly and respond to the substance.

After I wrote that e-mail (which he didn’t reply to), he wrote two more posts childishly mocking my argument (oh-so-cleverly calling it “flatulence” and “a brain fart”) but continuing to ignore the arguments I told him he overlooked.

And he wasn’t alone. None of them responded to the claim in that paragraph you cite, or the FISA reversal, or any of the other arguments demonstrating that loyalty to the Leader has obliterated allegiance to conservative political principles. That’s why I hadn’t bothered responding further since that first reply I wrote. Despite the large number of posts written by Bush followers about my original post, there was really nothing to reply to.

Tom?

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hip·po·pot·a·mus n. A notion, perhaps distinct from conventional wisdom, that needs to be verified by reality-based scrutiny.

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