Author Topic: Maybe "Evil One" Is Just Wrong  (Read 1121 times)

Dos Equis

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Maybe "Evil One" Is Just Wrong
« on: May 17, 2007, 08:47:19 PM »
Rummaging through some old boxes at home and found an article I saved from the Clinton years.  Amazing how it can apply, word for word, to the criticism of George Bush today.  Also shows the evolution of Arianna Huffington, who is now a liberal.    

Maybe "evil one" is just wrong
Robert Reno - Newsday columnist

A caller to C-SPAN this week described President Clinton as "the most evil thing that God ever created."  

This carries one step further the theory advanced by conservative political butterfly Arianna Huffington that the president is not "a decent human being."  It fits neatly with the thesis of right-wing carnivore Emmett Tyrrell, editor in chief of the American Spectator, who says Clinton is "guilty of more high crimes and misdemeanors than Richard Nixon."

Interestingly, Lewis Lapham, the liberal editor of Harper's, agrees that Clinton is "a deceitful man," but his chief complaint is that the president is basically nothing either exotic or evil but merely "a Republican."  

Now, remember, the election is still more than four months away.  The more intemperate Clinton-bashers have a serious problem, which is:  Where do they go from here?

When you define yourself as running against the Antichrist and four years of Clinton vilification gets Bob Dole no more than maybe 37 percent or 38 percent in the polls, you don't give yourself much room for further development of Clinton as the candidate of the devil.

The Republican problem is that they have so saturated the debate with the idea that Clinton is evil and government is evil that they leave themselves naked to the question of how they have participated so intimately in a political system without being soiled and contaminated by the evil that flows like lava all around them.  

And how did the government get so wicked?  What party has, after all, held the White House and driven the bureaucracy in 20 of the last 28 years?

It was Oliver Cromwell who, in full generosity to his 17th century adversaries, wailed, "I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken."

Judge Learned Hand said the Lord Protector's words should be chiseled "over the portals of every church, every school and every courthouse and, may I say, of every legislative body in the United States."  It's not a bad idea.

Those who would have us believe Dole is Christ's own candidate against wickedness would better spend their time beseeching us to consider whether the Democrats are not evil but merely mistaken -- about gun control, about tobacco interests, about Social Security, about school lunches, about the minimum wage, about women's rights, about aid to education, about Medicare, about government's role as protector of the environment, the consumer and the unfortunate.  

Then again, they tried that, didn't they?  Maybe playing the devil card is all that's left to them.  

Still, it makes for a campaign that is positively heathen in its ugliness and ungodly [in] its savagery, not to mention infantile in its excesses.  

Dos Equis

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Re: Maybe "Evil One" Is Just Wrong
« Reply #1 on: January 09, 2011, 07:56:57 AM »
Bump. 

We've seen the same rhetoric with Bush and Obama. 

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Re: Maybe "Evil One" Is Just Wrong
« Reply #2 on: January 09, 2011, 08:20:34 AM »
George Bush, Evil or simply Incompetent? I report you decide.
Posted on January 24th, 2008
by psburton in 2008 Election Coverage, All News, Arizona News, Blogosphere News, Society and Culture, US Politics

I was on a political board last night and several of the posters were passionate in condemnation of George Bush as an evil man, worse then Hitler as far as one Jewish participant remarked. That I interjected is Bullshit, While I have never met the man, He is neither evil or in the same political league as a Hitler.

In fact said I in the few comments before they flamed me off the board. When it comes to Jews and Israel George Bush has done a superlative Job. We tend to forget especially during political seasons. As a general rule the vast majority of Democrats and Republicans politicians. Are decent individuals devoted to God, Family and Country, who have chosen a profession where getting the job is the most difficult aspect of the profession.

But evil and just like Hitler? I wonder how it is some people jump from I dislike your politics to your an evil person. Especially when they do not actually know the individual of who they speak. Those who do know him and still despise his policies, have said his devotion to wife and children is genuine. I have no reason to challenge their observations.

Most republicans from my viewpoint have a singular enviable characteristic in campaigning. If you listen very carefully they distinguish personality from politics. Its difficult to discern sometimes and on occasion they get carried away. As a rule its not you they dislike its your politics. Democrats have yet to express that subtle distinction. It would swing more independents into their camp.

Ronald Reagan was the unchallenged master of communicating his sincere love of all the people, while still expressing his  view he felt for the most part democrats and new deal policies. Were in his opinion the reason the Republic was in the sorry state that inspired him to seek the Presidency. While I know as a democrat that is simply not so. I still liked the guy and voted for him, twice.

The Senator from Illinois worries the old hands at the GOP. He has that same ability to reach out to people on a charismatic level. Senator McCain knows his slim chance of being President depends on facing off against Senator Clinton in the general. Pumping up her negatives as much as possible. Fair game in politics. But against a man who is dare I say of an Illinois senator. Lincolnish in his appeal his chances are not so good.

What the younger crowd in the McCain camp does not yet appreciate. those Principles their guy speaks of are actuality. The Senior Senator from Arizona could have walked out of a pow camp. Simply by telling the guys who were in charge if they let him go, He promised on his honor not to go fetch another jet and come back and bomb their asses, well O.K technically it was more complicated but that’s what it amounted do.

The only way McCain could beat Obama in a general is to play the race card. Guys like McCain will use every tactic in the political play book to win, They do not as a general rule however, listen to the Karl Roves who suggest they compromise principle. Just a little this one time they whisper, so we can win the race.

While Obama is charismatic, Clinton is the better candidate, by leaps and bounds. She is the single individual prepared and capable of taking charge the first day in office. while it may take a couple years to rebuild the shattering economy and refocus foreign policy. Of the two Clinton’s, she will leave the better social and economic legacy.

While I disagree with some aspects of her health care plan and I do not look forward to shaving a few more points off my personal income when she raises taxes. From the long term profit and loss out look as a small business owner. She cant start soon enough. The republican claim that middle and lower income folks the great American middle class. Will suffer is simply fantasy.

Money under Clinton will be worth more even if you have a little less, which allows you to buy more with what you have provided you invest just a little for the future. It will maintain the value of what your spending now.

P.S. Burton for Blogger Nations 

http://www.bloggernews.net/113340

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Re: Maybe "Evil One" Is Just Wrong
« Reply #3 on: November 10, 2015, 03:22:00 PM »
Bump.  Still relevant today.  

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Re: Maybe "Evil One" Is Just Wrong
« Reply #4 on: March 21, 2018, 09:08:16 PM »
Bump.  Even more relevant today.  Dershowitz is right:  we should not be criminalizing political differences.

Back to School: Prof. Dershowitz Calls Out Student Toobin for Being Partisan
By Nicholas Fondacaro | March 21, 2018
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2018/03/21/back-school-prof-dershowitz-calls-out-student-toobin-being