alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

September 3, 2006

Attack Politics

by AltHippo @ 5:22 pm. Filed under rhetorical fallacy, propaganda

I like what Glenn Greenwald has been doing lately. He’s really going at the old saw about Democrats being insufficiently manly in the post 9.11 world in a way that shows he understands the psyche of the right-half of the blogosphere. What their strengths and weaknesses are.

Make no mistake, right-wing bloggers are very good at attack politics. Take for instance, this recent post at Power Line: (ellipsis in the original)

Liberals have been announcing the imminent Nazification of America for some years now, and yet…to the presumed embarrassment of nutballs like Keith Olbermann and Howard Dean…the dark night of fascism stubbornly refuses to fall. Not only has Bushitler refrained from rounding up liberals and putting them to the sword, the heady air of freedom has never been headier.

The attack here is that liberals are irrational, and can therefore be dismissed. Any argument that the left puts forth is irrational, and has no basis in fact. Lefty bloggers are “nutroots” and “unhinged”. Noteably, Michelle Malkin wrote a book with that title.

This appears to be a variation on the Rove strategy of attacking an opponent not at the root of his weaknesses, but at his strength. If anything, what distinguishes the left half of the blogosphere is a love of ideas, an interest in the arts, sciences, and humanities, and a fondness for expressing their ideals verbally.

You and I might be tempted to respond to taunts of this variety by pointing out that it’s the Powerlines, Instapundits, Malkins, and NRO’s of the world that are the unhinged ones. I’d like to suggest that the approach that Greenwald is taking is more effective. He’s going after their perceived strength: machismo.

Take this excerpt from today’s post:

The creepy spectacle of watching one warrior after the next insist that we must risk other people’s lives and bomb more people so that we don’t feel girlish and scared and submissive is repugnant enough, in itself, to have to witness on a daily basis. But the fact that these same people are the ones whose deep, irrational fears of The Terrorist override virtually all other considerations, and who demand that we change our nation and relinquish all of the values and liberties which have always defined it and which make it worth fighting for, all because they believe that doing so is necessary to allow them some marginally greater chance of avoiding death, renders their accusations and warrior dances — on top of everything else — an exercise in the grossest and most absurd hypocrisy.

I read this, and am tempted to post something along the lines of: Who’s the girlie man now, Hinderacker?

Hopefully, just as the Washington Post has been careful about documenting the irrationality of the left, they’ll be sure to write something up on the cowardice of the right.

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One Response to “Attack Politics”

  1. « The Long Goodbye Says:
    September 4th, 2006 at 1:59 am

    […] […]

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