"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo comic strip, 1971
Nicholas Kristof has apparently embraced the Walt Kelly view of America. When it comes to the war in Iraq, the only evildoers the New York Times columnist seems to see are Americans.
At the foot of his pay-to-play of column of January 23rd, Kristof invited readers to submit their literary analogies for President Bush and Iraq. In today's columnn, Kristof mentions having received over 400 reader responses.
And which entry does Kristof choose to feature at the column's beginning and that might fairly be taken as his unofficial winner? One that analogizes the various actors in the play to characters from Harry Potter. I set forth below the reader's analogies, followed by a description of the character as culled from their Wikipedia entries.
Dick Cheney is Lord Voldemort: The series' main villain, bent on securing unmatched power, he harbors a genocidal hatred of humans without magic and is obsessed by achieving immortality through the practice of the Dark Arts.George W. Bush is Peter Pettigrew - An evil wizard who takes the form of a rat, Pettigrew is a minion to Voldemort.
Donald Rumsfeld is Lucius Malfoy - Another evil wizard who employed the wizarding terrorist organisation led by Lord Voldemort. [Note that "malfoy" is a Latin construction meaning "bad faith."]
The American public that supports the war is Cornelius Fudge - a bumbler who is hostile to hero Harry Potter, a paranoid and suspicious person who uses smear campaigns to attack his enemies.
Fox News is Rita Skeeter - A reporter who fabricated information in order to write an appealing story, she was an antagonist to hero Harry and his friends.
As remarkable as the analogies Kristof found so appealing are those that are missing. No Saddam Hussein. No al-Qaeda in Iraq. No Moktada al-Sadr. No Ahmadinejad pulling murderous strings. In the view of Kristof and his like-minded readers, all the villians are Americans, and all the Americans noted are villians.
Perhaps NewsBusters readers would like to engage in some literary analogizing of their own for a variety of characters -- beginning with Kristof himself.
Mark was in Iraq in November. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net
—Mark Finkelstein is a NewsBusters contributing editor and host of Right Angle. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net.
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And the hits just keep on com
February 4, 2007 - 09:24 ET by ThisnThatAnd the hits just keep on coming....
This is the Left's mentalit
February 4, 2007 - 09:36 ET by motherbeltThis is the Left's mentality; they don't just disagree, they insult. It's never "I think you're wrong", it's "you're stupid". Maureen Dowd got the ball rolling at the Times some time ago. She started doing "schtick"..... parodies of Bush and Cheney as Pinky and the Brain, and what I called the "Dick and Rummy Show" where Cheney and Rusmsfeld sat around drinking Scotch while they patronized a moronic Bush and discussed taking over the world. These oh-so-sensitive Liberals, who blanch (oooh, is that a racist word?) at the word "clean" when applied to a black man, are so vicious when they talk about those with whom they disagree.
They are completely incapable of disagreeing without throwing in personal insults.
I read more fictional humor here than the Left can write today.
February 4, 2007 - 10:24 ET by acaiguanaI read more fictional humor here than the Left can write today.
There is a dearth of intellect on the Left. That's one of the 'big secrets' of the Left. If you take a group of people who are fixated on 'personality cult' rather than on the attraction of ideas; well this is what you get.
The US, until recently, never elected leaders based on the cult of personality. This is what happens in less free societies. The concept extends to the rule of law over the rule of man's caprice. This concept is the primary intellectual debate in the 17th and early 18th century that led to the founding Father's intellectual acumen and base of ideas that created the Constitution.
I'm being a bit esoteric here, so I'll break it down.
Liberals and the Left are devoid of ideas that derive from their own thought processes. If they had creative ideas they would not be writing Harry Potter analogies but books of satire or analogy to current times that did cover the whole picture.
That's why this analogy didn't bother to include the 'evil' Al Qaeda. They don't see Terrorists as evil. They see Bush as evil. Theirs is a cult of the personality.
And that's my take this Sunday morning over coffee.
Thanks Mark the the chance to wander down fantasy lane.
ACA
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Hillary Clinton says: "I want to take those profits."
Leftists' hatred for America,
February 4, 2007 - 15:48 ET by aeroLeftists' hatred for America, more than anything else they say or do, makes me despair about the American left. In most other ways, I feel like it's worth debating them. But against America hatred and self-loathing, I'm completely at a loss. I simply can't wrap my mind around how they can look at the same history and current events as I do and reach the conclusion that we're always the bad guys in the world. How can they possibly look at all the billions and billions of dollars we spend on aid and peacekeeping efforts around the globe and think we're evil? How can they look at Saddam Hussein and George Bush and see Bush as the bad guy? How can they look at the billions of dollars in private donations Americans made after the Indonesian tsunami and after Katrina and think the American people are worthless? Yes, we as a country have made mistakes and done some bad things. But in the end, I think it's clear to any thinking person that the net positives brought to the world by the United States far, far outweigh the negatives. It boggles my mind, and it makes me very, very sad for these America haters and for our country. This is the greatest, most generous country on the face of the earth and in the history of the world, and they can't find anything to love about it. I don't know how to combat that.
analogy for the New York Time
February 4, 2007 - 17:20 ET by jcrapes4analogy for the New York Times:) Sure I got one. In the star wars expanded universe the Emperor had a bunch of seers steeped in the dark side called Dark Side Prophets of the Sith. That is what the New York Times does. They have visions on how things should run they try to implement them by any means necessary. Ted Turner and his CNN offspring is Jar Jar Binks:) If you don;t like that analogy you can call the entire view of liberalism as the Borg collective from Star Trek:)
Kristof...the walking talking
February 4, 2007 - 17:32 ET by bigtimerKristof...the walking talking perfect definition of the enemy within.
I wished he and all his ilk had to apply for citizenship to get into the USA or leave for good...it would be interesting who would apply and who would pass the tests.