On Principle
By Mitch Berg
Hearing this from Michelle Malkin might jolt a few people awake…:
I need a man.
Luckily for Mr. Malkin, it’s just about politics. And it’s a dang fine point:
A man who can say “No.” A man who rejects Big Nanny government. A man who thinks being president doesn’t mean playing Santa Claus. A man who won’t panic in the face of economic pain. A man who won’t succumb to media-driven sob stories.
A man who can look voters, the media, and the Chicken Littles in Congress in the eye and say the three words no one wants to hear in Washington: Suck. It. Up.
Someone who embraces limited government and a doctrine of supporting prosperity rather than subsidizing failure, maybe?
I don’t want to hear Republicans recycling the Blame Predatory Lenders rhetoric of Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Jesse Jackson. Enough with the victim card. Borrowers are not all saints.
That’s my biggest worry about Romney’s victory in Michigan; the sound bites I’ve heard look like he got at least part of the win by triangulating toward the center.
January 16th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Always remember Nixon: run to the Right to get the nomination; run to the Left to get elected.
If Romney’s tacking Left already, it’s either because he thinks the nomination is in the bag, or because that’s his natural bent. Neither is a good sign.
.
January 16th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Michelle Malkin has a dictator fetish – who’da guessed? Too bad Mussolini’s dead, eh?
January 16th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Michelle Malkin has a dictator fetish
Now you’re just phoning it in.
January 16th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Oh please. She is so obviously ready to put out for whatever guy in the room has the fanciest uniform. Hard to believe you take anything she says seriously.
“A man who can look voters, the media, and the Chicken Littles in Congress in the eye and say the three words no one wants to hear in Washington: Suck. It…”
January 16th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
That was AC being all tolerant, non-sexist and enlightened, for those of you not familiar with his “style.”
January 16th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Apparently Malkin using the phrase “Chicken Little” is perfectly fine, but “Chicken Hawk” is vile and offensive. Sounds like Malkin isn’t the only one wishing that she had a penis.
January 16th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
“Chicken Little” is perfectly fine, but “Chicken Hawk” is vile and offensive.
Chicken Little is a fairly mild way to call someone to task over excessive alarmism. It refers to something someone actually said, and behind which they presumably stand (presuming the “sky is falling” remarks were taken in reasonable context). And Malkin was referring to a group, not attacking someone personally. It impugns nobody’s integrity, merely the propriety of their response to something or other.
Chicken Hawk is a very personal attack on someone’s integrity. Beyond saying “you’re not a veteran, therefore you have no right (or diminished credibility) to comment on defense or military-related subjects” (which is illogical enough), it adds an accusation of cowardice, not to mention the perverted subtext (“Chicken Hawk” is also a slang term for pedophile).
So, yes. They convey very different subtexts, and they are vastly different in degree of offensiveness.
January 17th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Difference of no distinction.
You call people pro-surrender, but calling them Chicken Little, that’s ok.
You call people Islamo-facists, but calling them Chicken Little, that’s ok
The point Mitch, is you have a double-standard. What you think is fairly mild, others take great offense at, because they should. Your concerns about assaults upon Christianity or Gun Rights, could be easily referred to as ‘Chicken Little’ attitudes, should you not take offense.
Two standards, one where you get to be offended, the other where anyone taking offense isn’t a man, that wasn’t mild, it was a vulgar, childish slur from a vulgar, childish woman who wouldn’t have following one if she weren’t a pretty 30ish girl (and I say girl because she is so clearly NOT a woman).
Getting pissed off over the use of Chicken Hawk, a cartoon character from our youth, is no less silly, no less unmanly, than not being “a man” in the manner Malkin is seeking. She apparently needs a man to tell her what to think, and my comment is, she sure shouldn’t look to the ultra-right extremists, because they get pissed off over nothing, they need a penis, no less than she needs one.
January 17th, 2008 at 1:09 am
You want to keep Chicken Hawk? Then forget being called the Democratic Party. You are DEMOCRATS.
January 17th, 2008 at 1:11 am
You call people pro-surrender, but calling them Chicken Little, that’s ok
You are correct on both counts.
You call people Islamo-facists, but calling them Chicken Little, that’s ok
Er, I think you’re unclear on the concept. Lynching gays/flying planes into buildings/strapping on a suicide vest and walking into a Jewish restaurant/stoning women who go out without burqas is a bit different than whinging about how the Republicans want to throw old people out in the cold – right?
Right?
Your concerns about assaults upon Christianity or Gun Rights, could be easily referred to as ‘Chicken Little’ attitudes, should you not take offense.
Let’s try to break this down. I’ve fielded many attacks on gun rights. One of them goes “the Second Amendment is a collective right”. The other one is “gunnies are compensating for something”. Both are wrong, and dumb; one is dumb and wrong and a little insulting (albeit the sort of thing I ignore or mock as my mood bids).
Calling someone “Chicken Little” is saying they’re overly exciteable; “Chicken Hawk” is a lot more defamatory (although it’s pretty much always best ignored because it IS a deeply stupid slur).
Two standards, one where you get to be offended, the other where anyone taking offense isn’t a man,
WRONG. Didn’t say that.
Getting pissed off over the use of Chicken Hawk, a cartoon character from our youth
…and, let us not forget, for six decades a slang term for pedophile.
January 17th, 2008 at 8:54 am
“The terrorists are coming, the terrorists are coming!!!”
-Chickenhawk Little
January 18th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Mitch,
The point is that Islamo-facist implies a ubiquitous movement among Muslims to become and export facism, which is a flatly untrue characatrue made up by you righty extremists to invoke fear and spur an ignorant and useless response.
Get it?
The concept you’re unclear on is that you very frequently use names that are rightly seen as offensive, but miss the boat, thinking they either aren’t, or not understanding how foolish and/or stupid the commentary is. THEN you get your undies iin a twist, bring up meaningless racial comparatives, over something as innocuous as “Chicken-Hawk”, because, as is so frequently the case, the right can’t stand to be seen as vascilating or weak – when the facts are that your leadership ducked the wars their peers fought – not because the term is mild or unmild.
As for Right.. Right??! again with the no patience thing? I don’t hang on every word, and so I’m not going to reply on your schedule, sorry. More than that, trying to turn this argument into defending terrorists, from one about the poor use of wording, well, that’s a fool’s errand, you first ok? I wasn’t defending muslim extremists, and you darn well know it – or should – retelling their horrific conduct is both tautologic and pointless. Please do me the favor of not being quite so predictably silly in trying to make the argument something it wasn’t so that you don’t have to argue what it was. Islamo-facism is as stupid a term as has come out of anyone’s mouth in a long time. I’ve said it before, and you are fully aware it’s true, the resemblence between the extremist Wahabi movement and Facism is about as strong as that between Evangelism and Facism.
Bin Laden is a monster, but he’s not a Facist, that’s just ludicrous, but what’s worse, is it lumps EVERY muslim who doesn’t like the US in with him, an extraordinarily foolish thing to do. It creates an impression that we only have to fight this problem one way, against one position, with one strategy, an extraordinarily foolish thing to do. It creates the impression that with the one hammer you have your toolbox, everything is a nail. Iran gets out of line (in your opinion), military action is what you threaten and obviously desire, don’t talk to them (as European nations did, successfully shutting down Iran’s nuke program), you don’t find a non-military solution – as Bush eventually did with N.Korea – albeit four years too late. Same thing with Syria – bluster about military action – after a while, what do you think Muslims think? It’s not fear, other than fear that we’re unbalanced, it’s revulsion and resentment, and since the VAST majority of MUSLIMS aren’t Arabs, well, we’ve created a world where our name doesn’t mean much any more, we’re perceived as shallow and dishonest. In your scenario, the only countries you aren’t going to attack are Pakistan (because it’s too tough and too big and we would loose) or someplace like Somalia, which has no strategic worth and is so fractious, nothing really can be done. It’s also subterfuge, in that the real intent in Iraq, a nation NOT INVOLVED IN WAHABISM, never was one which should have been on the ‘get rid of Islamo-facists’ because it wasn’t lead by someone advocating theocracy. Instead, and obviously, our interest was securing a strategic asset, both in Saudi Arabia (by putting a military presence next door – and by removing our troops from SA whose inflamatory presence was fueling Wahabism in SA) and by grabbing Iraq’s oil. To the world, our conduct against ‘Islamo-Facism’ was hollow – we did little to nothing to resolve it in Pakistan, let Afghanistan fall back into chaos, and attacked a nation whose Sunni population – the one that would have supported a Sunni Caliphate (the goal of Wahabis) opposed Islamic theocracy. This is preciselyl what Patreaus understood, and is why AQI is fading rapidly – once we stopped treating all Muslims as “equally the enemy” in that fool’s errand scenario – we started succeeding in Iraq, because they had no more interest in Wahabism than you do. We stopped lumping ALL resistance into one bucket called “Islamo-Facism” because it all isn’t the same- Get it?
Furhermore, the use of the term created enormous concern among Muslims that we simply were too stupid to get that they aren’t ‘all the same.’ So Mitch, not only don’t I give a damn if you offend Bin Laden and his peers and following in the Arab/Muslim world – I don’t give a darn if you offend Suffis – but I do happen to have some concern about what the world is going to be like in 20-30 years, and the use of idiotic terms like Islamo-Facism makes that future less positive, not more. But you don’t appear to care about that, it’s fine, it’s just a word, well if it’s just a word, then so is Chicken-Hawk, and you all need to grow a pair. THAT’s the point .. and you know damned well no one was using it to imply your leadership is pedophiles, get real.. talk about hyperventilation… and while YOU didn’t say that THEY weren’t men, Malkin did… and you posted it, implying your agreement… you are responsible for the opinions you endorse.
January 18th, 2008 at 8:53 am
My apology, I said racial comparitive, I meant child-molestation comparative.. no one implied that, ever, about the leadership of the Republican party – through the use of the term Chicken Hawk. Mark Foley was an anethma, but we all also believe he was an anomaly (sic)… such complaints are either getting far too worked up over something that was never implied – or are cover for not having to deal with the fact that insulting commentary comes from both sides… Mitch included, or is implying people aren’t ‘man-enough’ not an insult any longer?
January 18th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
You spelled anomaly correctly, but misspelled anathema 😉