TheAgitator.com
Blooms of Doubt
Tuesday, May 4th, 2004Liberal columnist and Bush hater Molly Ivins takes aim at the president’s attempt to characterize war opponents as racists:
Appearing Friday in the Rose Garden with Canada’s prime minister, President Bush was answering a reporter’s question about Canada’s role in Iraq when suddenly he swerved into this extraneous thought:“There’s a lot of people in the world who don’t believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern. I reject that. I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people whose skins aren’t necessarily — are a different color than white can self-govern.”
What does such careless talk say about the mind of this administration? Note that the clearly implied antecedent of the pronoun “ours” is “Americans.” So the president seemed to be saying that white is, and brown is not, the color of Americans’ skin. He does not mean that. But that is the sort of swamp one wanders into when trying to deflect doubts about policy by caricaturing and discrediting the doubters…
…This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts. Thinking is not the reiteration of bromides about how “all people yearn to live in freedom”
Well put. Only Molly Ivins didn’t write it.
And it’s a refreshingly honest and forthright column from a guy who supported the war.
Bah, you didn’t get me. No one but George Will would use phrases like “implied antecedents” and “bromides.” :D
Will also uses the term “neocons”, a handy example to use as a defense when someone accuses you of being antisemitic for using the term.
When I read this essay late last night, the last paragraph almost made me spit up my Pepsi.
Ballgame, neocons. America has no appetite for empire.
RTFC!
Much of the blogging left has wet themselves with joy. George Will dissed the president! They needed, of course, to read the whole thing – and, perhaps, so did Will….
MattG:
This isn’t about empire … this is about whether or not we can continue to tolerate nations that leave themselves wide open to being hijacked by expansionist thugs, who will leverage the wealth and people of those nations with 21st-century technology, to further 8th-century worldviews or their own greed and meglomania — in either case, agendas that seek to take away the rights of people we have significant common interest with, including ourselves, by any means up to and including lethal force on a national scale.
In an earlier thread, you expressed that our intervention has created many of the problems we face. I submit that it is not intevention alone, but HOW we have intervened, that has contributed to the problem.
For many years — either justified by the need to counterbalance the Soviet Union, or “justified” by the Leftist viewpoint that direct/decisive American intervention is NEVER the answer — our intervention left the oppressors of those who now despise us in power. Had we quickly and decisively acted to remove the oppressors when they appeared (where at all possible), would these people now have a different view of America?
Now that we do choose to act decisively, we are facing justified skepticism from these people — but that does not change the justice and prudence that underlies this action.
Not only can Iraq change … it must, or we will face this conflict again in the future — and next time, we will be justified in putting down not just the hijacker, but the nation that enabled him.
Radley, it would have been far more entertaining to leave the “George Will did” part for a future correction, to see how many commentors assailed either the leftist idiocy of the writer, or your own Bush-hatefulness for reading and linking such idiocy.
Yep, that GW is such a racist he has more minorites in his administration than any previous “multicultural” democrat liberal before him.
Yep – you convinced me Radley.
Monkey Boy,
Allow me to be the first to correct you. No one is accusing Bush of being racist on this account. We are accusing him of disengenuously playing the race card (actually, he’s the one implyng his opponents are racist) and making an egregiously fallacious argument.
fyodor: We are accusing him of disengenuously playing the race card (actually, he’s the one implyng his opponents are racist) and making an egregiously fallacious argument.
I thought Lincoln was a Republican? (i.e. I thought the Democrats loved slavery?)
And wasnâ??t it a Democrat (FDR) who interred all those â??JAPSâ? in prison camps during World War II?
How many â??people of colorâ? occupy top positions in the Kerry campaign?
How about the Dean campaign? Isnâ??t Vermont â??Lillyâ? white (like 99%)? I wonder who does all those â??menialâ? jobs up in Vermont that Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona are forced to hire illegals for (because highbred-white folks wonâ??t dare touch that work)?
Yeah, the word-manglers (i.e. Liberals) desperately want you to believe that itâ??s the Republicans that are the intolerant morons.
Any volunteers?
Serpent. None of the questions you’ve asked look remotely connected to the issue being discussed. Do you really need them answered, or are you trying to raise an unconnected rhetorical point?
“We are accusing him of disengenuously playing the race card (actually, he’s the one implyng his opponents are racist)”
phphphlllphph…. (the sound of me spitting out cheerios while laughing.
Who in this country “disengenuously” plays the race card against the republicans, nay conservitives et al, all the time? Infact, their entire platform is based on the idea that conservitives are hatemongering racists so vote fo us even though we are the ones that are truely holding back minorities.
Puh-leeeeeze.
Pull the other one. Your argument is hollow.
Monkey boy, you seem to have missed the boat on this one. If you scroll down the site a little you’ll see that Radley already wrote about the democrats’ perennial tendancy to play the race card erroneously. The accusation now is that Bush has done the same.
Your rebuttal is poorly thought out.
Bernard: â?¦ already wrote about the democrats’ perennial tendency to play the race card erroneously. The accusation now is that Bush has done the same [thing].
You know the Liberals (i.e. the word-manglers) are really getting desperate when they start asserting that there is no substantive difference between conservatives and liberals.
Serpent, I’ll take your word for it. I still don’t quite see how you’ve got from the subject being discussed to where you are.
Um, yeah, Monkey Boy’s argument is surely logically sound! Fyodor, don’t you see the connection?
Bush falsely accuses his detractors of “not believing” that people with skin colors different from “ours” can self govern, then quickly burns down that big gaping strawman.
But it’s OK, because Bush has minorities on his staff, and therefore, he’s not racist.
Hey, Monkey Boy, please tell me you were drunk or high when you wrote that post. This is like a big comedy of errors! First, Bush builds up a strawman race card argument [my opponents think that non-whites can't self-govern], then shows his ingenuity by burning down said strawman.
Then, in his defense, Monkey Boy himself builds his OWN strawman [Radley said Bush is racist], and, in true Bush form, burns HIS strawman down as well.
Let’s keep it going. Who wants to defend Monkey Boy with their own strawman? I’ll give it whirl:
Hey, Fyodor, stop calling Monkey Boy a mysogenist! He has a loving wife, and they both have equal hand in their relationship, plus, he supports womens’ rights!
Yeah, sure, Fyodor never ACTUALLY called Monkeyboy a mysogenist. But along those same lines, Radley never called (or inferred) Bush a racist, nor did Bush’s detractors ever say (or infer) that non-whites couldn’t self govern.
Anybody else want to keep this strawman circle-jerk going?
Monkey Boy, you continue to beat a dead strawman:
Who in this country “disengenuously” plays the race card against the republicans, nay conservitives et al, all the time? Infact, their entire platform is based on the idea that conservitives are hatemongering racists so vote fo us even though we are the ones that are truely holding back minorities.
Do you realize how big the hole is, that you keep digging yourself deeper into?
Now, as Bernard mentioned, Radley already criticised the left for disingeniously playing the race card.
Surely, if a LEFTIST disingenuously plays the race card, then criticises Bush for doing the same, then he/she is being hypocritical.
But, Radley is neither a leftist, nor has he disingenuously played the race card. In reality, he has criticised lefties and righties alike for playing the card. So, what you have done is created YET ANOTHER strawman, by inferring that Radley is A) a liberal, and B) has disingenuously played the race card, and therefore, C) he has no right to call Bush on doing the same thing.
None of those things are true, Monkey Boy. But, when Radley called Bush on his actions, you didn’t like it, so you immediately conferred those falsehoods upon him, and then went on to attack him for these things that are not true. You even went so far as to infer that he called Bush a racist, which he certainly never did.
It seems as though you’re venting all your frustrations with liberals by laying your attacks on someone who, by ALL accounts, is certainly not a liberal, and certainly does not disingenuously play the race card.
It’s sad, Monkey Boy, just sad. If you want to attack liberals for being hypocrits because they criticise Bush for doing the same thing that they do, FINE! Go do that. Go find a liberal who plays the race card, and who criticised Bush for playing the race card, and attack him/her. But your infantile inference that, since Radley criticised Bush, he was a de facto race-card-playing liberal, is wildly rediculous, at best.
this has got to be the only blog where i can learn phrases like “strawman circle-jerk.”
Strawman Circle Jerk. HA! As Dave Barry would say, what a great name for a rock band.
Better yet, what a great category for the next round of Agity Awards!
Hey Frank N, pass me a beer.
Monkey Boy, I’m sorry that you became the bucket that Evan decided to piss in. He is obviously not a happy person.
Now I’m speaking from a purely technical standpoint here. Can women participate in strawman circle-jerks?
Just curious.
If not, I’ll take one of those beers too and just sit back to watch the show.
Whoah…one could gather a few things about my personality from my posts, but not happy? I had a grand old time calling ol’ monkey boy on his foolishness! Not that your perception of my happiness concerns me much, however.
Frank N, if you pass Ms. Dani a beer, make it a Corona. It is Cinco De Mayo, afterall.
And, Bronwyn, none of us can participate…unless we are made of straw. But, hey, Halloween will be a “blast” this year, though there will be “seeds” everywhere.
HA. I kill me.
Back to the point (if that pleases you, Bernard), it was poor diction for Bush to say different skin color than “ours”, thereby implying America is a white nation, which it is not, despite what race-baiters on both sides will try to tell you. That hardly makes his argument straw man. I’m in the middle of finals, so I haven’t had time to go find an actual quote, but I remember hearing plenty (from obviously a minority of people, but the point is they exist) about how Arabs would reject democracy because its somehow incompatible with Islam or their history or something like that.
He’s not saying all opponents of the war dont have faith in the Iraqi population. Most of the people around here haven’t made that argument, nor have they made the opposite. So, Radley et als., you don’t have a dog in this fight. Why get defensive?
Woah, Even, have a beer and a prozac on me.
Im, neither high, nor drunk, but thanks for insinuating that I must be for my oppinions.
Fortunately my posts dont result to personal attacks in order to make argumentative points.
My with the army of Strawmen Ive created everyware, I must gather them and defend the virtual cornfields of the blogsphere.
*hiccup*
Someone pass me a beer too.
And some coke. Just don’t let Laura find out.
Jeb, I had been meaning to make that point. Thanks for reminding me.
The one piece of information missing in this debate is to whom was he referring when he said “there’s a lot of people in this world” Isn’t that important to know? If we don’t know this, then all our arguments are strawmen.
I agree that he was not inferring that all the opponents of war or all his political opponents were racist. I believe from the context that he meant a group of people in particular, maybe even one leader or one specific person but we don’t know who that is. Does anyone here know? Maybe we should ask George.
Monkeyboy:
There’s some beer in the office fridge, I think I very well may do that. As for prozac, no deal. Not until after work.
Look, It’s certainly not your opinions that I am concerned with. If it’s your opinion that liberals play the race card too much, hey, fine. If it’s your opinion that liberals shouldn’t criticise Bush for the same thing that they do, fine. Your opinion is yours, and in this little libertarianesque worldview, I wholeheartedly support your right to opine on whatever you like.
What I was concerned with was your argumentative tactics. By ascribing false assertions to people, then lambasting them for supposedly making those assertions, you made a big mistake. Most antiwar folks didn’t claim that non-whites couldn’t self govern. Subsquently, Radley (and/or George Will) never claimed that Bush was a racist.
I was merely calling you on your erronious tactics. There’s a gaping difference between your “opinions”, and ascribing false assertions to folks.
And I apologize profusely if you took the “you must be drunk or high” statement as a “personal attack”. I honestly thought that anyone who could take “Bush shouldn’t play the race card” and turn it into “Bush is racist” must be inebriated in some capacity. Offending you was not on my to-do list, I promise you that.
Ms. Dani,
When Bush said “there’s alot of people in the world”, I doubt he was referring to one leader or one small group of people. Granted, who knows, other than the man himself, who he was specifically talking about. The Lew Rockwell & CATO crowd, and many others, believe that you cannot force democracy to work with the point of gun, especially in a nation that does not have the civil foundation for it. As they (rightly) point out, democracy means more than elections.
As Patrick Basham pointed out in his report:
The long-term survival of democratic institutions requires a particular political culture that solidly supports democracy. The following cultural factors play an essential, collective role in stimulating and reinforcing a stable democratic political system:
-Political trust, i.e., the assumption that one’s opponent will accept the rules of the democratic process and surrender power if he loses an election;
-Social tolerance, i.e., the acceptance of unpopular groups (e.g., homosexuals);
-Economic development (a high standard of living legitimizes both democratic institutions and incumbent politicians);
-Popular support for gender equality; and a
-High priority on freedom of speech and popular participation in decision-making.
Now, if Bush is referring (as I believe he is) to all those people who believe that we can’t force democracy upon Iraq, then he is very, very wrong to make the assertion that he did.
Subsequently, rarely have I heard rational people make the argument that non-whites in general can’t self govern, because they’re non-whites. This is the racism that Bush referred to. Now, perhaps there are a great many people around the world who DO feel this way. Personally, I’ve never met one of them, nor have I read anything by any of them. But, if they do exist, and this is who Bush was referring to, then, so be it.
But, I think you would be hard pressed to find “alot of people in the world” who actually believe that nonsense that Bush was talking about. This article explains why democracy cannot be forced upon the Iraqi people. And it has nothing to do with the pigment in their skin.
Monkey Boy & Serpent,
I never said this made Democrats any better than Republicans, and when Democrats play the race card, they’re just as deserving of criticism. (yawn…)
Evan, you are still guessing (at best)to whom he was referring to in that statement. You said yourself “I doubt” that he was referring to a particular group and then you go on to the rest of your strawman arguments. I submit that the argument can’t be made that he is using the race card until that part of his statement is clarified.
It is not impossible nor rare for someone to communicate to a specific person or group of people a message via broad statement while addressing a larger group to whom that statement does not pertain. That is what I think he was doing. Of course, that is my opinion because I am not in Dubya’s head.
Also, I DO know people who think and have said that Iraqis cannot govern themselves and even that Arabs in general cannot govern themselves. You must live in a bubble or have your own radio show.
You are right. There are people out there who believe that dark skined peoples are unable to run a sucessful “democratic” government. Name a sucessful example.
Rich Casebolt writes: “this is about whether or not we can continue to tolerate nations that leave themselves wide open to being hijacked by expansionist thugs, who will leverage the wealth and people of those nations with 21st-century technology, to further 8th-century worldviews or their own greed and meglomania ”
Um, the Bush administration (and Chalabi and Perle, et al) seem to be the expansionist thugs who hijacked Iraq and will leverage the wealth and people of Iraq for their own greed and megalomania.
There was little likelihood of Iraq being hijacked by Al Qaeda, as Afghanistan was. Iraq was too strong, too centralized, and too wealthy compared to the Taliban.
Jon H, how is hijacking Iraq making Bush wealthy? Specifics please.
Iraq too strong??? Too centralized??? Which Iraq are you talking about? They are as divided as you can get.
Jon — it was already hijacked, by Saddam & Sons.
Get real … if this Administration was as crooked as you imply, they would have emulated the “progressive” UN and joined in on the Crude-for-Food bonanza … or Iraq would have been colonized as early as 1991.
Besides, wealth has nothing to do with susceptibility to hijacking by dictators — and everything to do with the lack of adequate structural checks-and-balances in a national government.
Democracy itself is not enough — in order to avoid further hijackings, Iraq must institute structural changes to both limit the reach of its leadership, and preserve respect for the inalienable rights of individuals within its borders.
If that can be done in ways that differ from what we have chosen, that is fine — but those structural chagnes must be made, or we will have to go in there again in the future.
The Iraqi people are human beings — and have the same capacity for adaptation that we all have. They can change … and must … change; in fact, they have a responsibility to the rest of us to do so, to keep their nation out of the hands of those who would kill to rule …
… regardless of what Al Quada does.
Ms. Dani writes: “Jon H, how is hijacking Iraq making Bush wealthy? Specifics please.”
I believe i mentioned Chalabi and Perle as being examples of the greedy. Perle has an investment company, and has given talks telling people how to make money on the war. Chalabi and his family have been given contracts and such, and Chalabi is paid $350,000 every month by the US.
Ms. Dani writes: “Iraq too strong??? Too centralized??? Which Iraq are you talking about? They are as divided as you can get.”
BEFORE the war. Now, they’re divided, thanks to us, and fertile soil for Al Qaeda to take root in.
Rich writes: “Besides, wealth has nothing to do with susceptibility to hijacking by dictators — and everything to do with the lack of adequate structural checks-and-balances in a national government.”
I’d argue that the Taliban was easily coopted by bin Laden because they were poor, and he brought in lots of money of his own, connections to obtain more money, and men. Associating with bin Laden had lots of upside, and little downside for most of their period of cooperation.
Al Qaeda’s money wouldn’t be persuasive for Saddam, because Saddam already had plenty. Bin Laden would have to make a case for cooperation on other grounds, and would have to make the deal sweet enough for Hussein to ignore the negatives (like, getting in bed with a distrusted religiously oriented group that might endanger his own rule.)
When the Administration is alienating conservative keystones like Will, you’ve just got to wonder where that party is heading.
evan-thank you for the link to the article. very informative. a few questionays. well first, a quote from said article. “iraq will not be a stable democratic nation until it is much wealthier than at present.” so, do we just leave? just pick up and high tail it? i understand that some folks are on the “let’s get the heck outta dodge” train, but is this really the best thing for us to do? it is my thought that we have an obligation, we made a promise, to at least try, which we are for the most part valiantly doing, to foster democracy in the region. after all, that is what the mission was in the first place. on top of the “depose brutal dictator” part. which we did, successfully. democracy is going to take time. nation building is going to take time. and i thought i was impatient. geez! i am curious as to iraqi democratic leadership though…i haven’t seen or heard nearly enough on that. where are the future leaders of the democratic iraq? who are the scrupulous and intelligent men, and women, that want to be elected to leadership positions in this new fledgling nation? me personally, i want to hear you stand up for it. then prove it to us, and your fellow iraqi citizens, why you are deserved. michelle
let’s see– We declared independance in 1776 and when did George the First take office? 1792? What’s wrong with these damn Iraqi’s?
Jon H, you are greatly misinformed. Iraq was terribly divided before the war between religions (Kurd, Shiite and Sunni) and the many different tribes and clerics and classes within that country. This is fact. If anything, the war has brought many Iraqis closer together. They now have a common bond and it is the appeal of freedom. It would seem that their most common bond before the war was the fear of Saddam.
Jon — you talk as if Al Quada is the only significant threat we were facing prior to taking Saddam & Sons down. I see Saddam & Sons as a formidible threat in their own right.
Even if Saddam had no WMD ready to deploy, his continued activities to develop and manufacture them have been documented by David Kay and others — and from what I see, I do not think it would have taken him long to move some of this stuff from “program” to deployable weapons. In fact, based on the Insight article by Ken Timmerman recently, it looks like he was storing CW percusors — if not the acutal weaponized “juice” — in his ammo dumps. Or, I guess they have a real problem with bugs among their ammo, huh?
Would you prefer that we waited until one of those weapons is used against us, before we took him down?
Even in terms of a conventional threat to the western Persian Gulf, the only thing holding Saddam & Sons back was our continued presence in the region. Do you really think that the Saudis would have let us stay there forever — whether Saddam was gone or not?
Do you think that the UN would have not pushed for our “unilateral” withdrawal (especially in light of their ties to Crude-for-Food) — leaving Saddam & Sons, and their armies, in place … ready to invade Kuwait and Saudi Arabia at their discretion, while the UN wrung their hands and did nothing.
Now, consider what it would do to diplomacy and economics if the pool of Persian Gulf oil was controlled by only two entities — the Iranian mullahs, and Saddam & Sons.
(And, I’m not even going to get to his support for Palestinian terrorism …)
There are three criteria that, when met in the present geopolitical environment, establish as prudent the removal and replacement of a nation’s leadership by outside forces.
> A leadership with a demonstrated history of using lethal force to deny people their inalienable rights, combined with a demonstrated history of aggressive expansionism.
> Possession of national resources, infrastructure, and a level of development sufficent to enable the widespread, lethal application of modern technologies by this leadership to such expansionism.
> A lack of structural checks and balances within that government and society, at a level of effectiveness that is sufficient to prevent the leadership from acting on its inclinations towards expansionism and brutality.
These three criteria, when viewed by reasonable people (i.e. most Americans), establish a nation as a threat to world peace — whether or not they have hit us first, whether or not we have coddled them in the past in the name of diplomacy.
This does not mean that we must invade them — it means that we must be willing to act to change that nation, by the most effective and efficient means possible … and when you have a leadership within that nation that will turn your good-faith efforts against you, probably the most effective means to institute change is the forced removal of such leadership.
Iraq under Saddam & Sons met all three criteria — and chose to continue with deception when challenged.
America only meets the technological and development criteria — and yet you act as if we are the ones threatening world peace.
This is a War on Terror, in all its forms … not just revenge against Osama bin Laden, Al Quada, or even “purist” Islamofascism.
Rich Casebolt writes:
“Even in terms of a conventional threat to the western Persian Gulf, the only thing holding Saddam & Sons back was our continued presence in the region. Do you really think that the Saudis would have let us stay there forever — whether Saddam was gone or not?”
Rich, I’d be curious to hear what you think about current U.S. military involvement around the world. Do you think we should still have troops in Germany, Japan, and South Korea? Until when should we keep troops in Saudi Arabia, in your opinion — until all the countries in the region are democracies?
MattG, we no longer have troops in Saudi Arabia…I’m not sure when they were moved out, but they are long gone.
GW should not be allowed to speak in public with out DC.
Jesse,
Rummy had them moved out in quick fashion after we had established control in Iraq. We were only there to protect Saudi from Iraq anyway.
Apparently protecting Saudi with the US military from an invading tyrant was an extreme affront to UBL. Apparently he wanted Saddam to invade? The guy has no use for the Saudi Royalty either. That guy’s post-9/11 plan sucks worse than Bush’s post-Saddam plan.