Atrios has a really great one-liner tackling this obnoxious post over at Time.
In this edition, Joe Klein courageously battles the dirty fucking hippies who live in his head and plague his nightmares.
It’s a simple yet effective setup. Beyond the mock praise and teh funny are two rather interesting strikes:
One is the use of “dirty fucking hippies”. This meme pops up in a number of nifty locales. It really captures a way of viewing dissent and the resulting discourse quite well. The association of dirt with hippie helps to cement the image of the dissenter as low-class, vile, an irrational piece of mob-fodder. (Reagan, with his courtly rhetorical style making the observation that a hippie “smells like Cheetah” is particularly telling). What Atrios does so well here is to frame Joe’s frantic attempt at framing the left into a coffin as another anti-democratic swipe at the “unwashed masses”.
The second is less a jab and more a cross. The “crazy, angry, lefty” meme has been floating about media and blogosphere discourse like a man of war. Pushing this meme into the realm of a fantasy-inducing mental disorder I think provides an interesting attack vector. In the post, Joe mockingly takes the comments asking for proof and turns it into a petulant cry of “No Fair!”. This angle of attack whether implicit or right on the table can really off balance an opponent. This isn’t simply because of the natural tendency to feel more threatened when it is one’s self and not one’s opinions which are being judged harshly. It is always worse when that incoming judgement hits on a fundamental truth. There is this nasty habit (especially prominent amongst the right) of projecting one’s worst fears and traits onto anyone who disagrees with you. This is not healthy! It is never healthy to ascribe one’s own weaknesses to another. Strictly from a rhetorical standpoint, this is an incredibly dangerous position to take. Whenever one’s hypocrisies are exposed to light, the host political organism has a hell of a time surviving. Back to Joe’s post, and that first jab at the “dirty hippy” meme. This meme is simply out of touch with reality. It also has a few of the hallmarks of projecting. Coulter’s recent hijinks are a potent example. The right funds, promotes, and generally supports the worst of the worst. Mr Willis is dead on. It is obvious that the right knows what they are in for when they put someone like Coulter center-stage. It’s a by the book example of the overton window.
The dirty fucking hippies really do live in his head. What Atrios’s one-liner does is put Joe Klien firmly in the disdainful out of touch elite club. This strikes at the heart of a right-wing criticism of the left. Lefties have been called “elitists” with mechanical frequency. Just another case of right wing projection.
Filed under: Media, Politics, Rhetoric, Uncategorized
Thanks for the heads up. I’ll go over and post in the Klein thread about “mainstream” journalists. Nice work.
BTW, Here was my response to Klein:
A “mainstream” pundit exhibits many, but not necessarily all, of the following attributes:
1) Denies that Gore won Florida in 2000;
2) Ignores his own complicity in the character assassination of Gore in 2000;
3) Ignores the exoneration of the Clintons in Whitewater and the misfeasance and/or malfeasance of the NYT et al. in reporting the story, beginning in 1992;
4) Denies the double standard in covering Democrats and Republicans, to the benefit of the GOP, or the careerist motivations which re-inforce that standard;
5) Uses the term “authentic” in referring to serial liars such as George W. Bush and John McCain;
6) Ascribes moral intentions to the political actions of individuals such as George W. Bush, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, while ascribing calculating, political motives to a plethora of Democrats;
7) Ignores that the press booed Gore in the first Gore-Bradley debate in New Hampshire on October 27, 1999;
9) Rationalizes the pivotal and irresponsible role of the press in the Swift Boating of John Kerry;
10) Rationalizes the proportionally miniscule coverage of Bush’s National Guard “service” in the 2000 and 2004 campaigns;
11) Revises history to sell inaccurate books;
12) Engages in simplistic Group Think, cliche and self congratulation regarding campaign coverage while people are maimed and killed in Iraq;
13) Often inaccurately claims to have been consistently against the invasion of Iraq; and
14) Sets up straw man arguments to create an aura of centrist common sense.
Very nifty, especially point 14. We need to call that one out, loudly, every time we catch it.