At Least He Hates Bush!

If you've ever been the sort to dismiss "Bush Derangement Syndrome" as yet another right-wing talking point, here's a wake-up call which ought to set you straight on the matter: "Why I Have A Little Crush on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad", by Kos habitue Sally Kohn. Just two brief excerpts to give you a feel for the intensity of the insanity on display in this diary posting.

I know I'm a Jewish lesbian and he'd probably have me killed. But still, the guy speaks some blunt truths about the Bush Administration that make me swoon...

[...]

Ahmadinejad, who has flagrantly trounced due process and the rule of law in his own nation is still way ahead of Bush on this point, too.

Yes, that Ahmadinejad - who presides over a regime known for supplying suicide bombers in Iraq while murdering homosexuals and under-age rape victims at home - is the kind of man to teach George W. Bush a few lessons about "due process and the rule of law": it's all so clear to me now ...

We've seen plenty of this sort of nonsense before with the likes of Fidel Castro and, lately, Hugo Chavez, but to see a Jewish lesbian seize upon the assertions of a man like Ahmadinejad, whose credibility can be judged by his claim that Iran has no homosexuals, as some kind of stunning rebuke of the Bush presidency - that is to be so far lost to partisan hatred that one's capacity for keeping perspective has been completely forfeited. Ms. Kohn off course goes through the usual pro-forma acknowledgments of Ahmadinejad's wickedness, but so hemmed in by justifications are all the caveats she puts forward that it's clear she's only going through the motions: hers is a position as insane as an American Jew in the 1930s saying that Hitler's criticisms of Roosevelt "had a point", an expression of a death-wish made permissible by the comfortable notion that an ocean separates her from a regime which would love nothing more than to shove her into a gas chamber (or, in Ahmadinejad's case, under a mushroom cloud), rendering such self-indulgent rhetoric nothing more than a tantalizing game.

The sad thing is that in so much of the nonsense one sees being written these days about how terrible Bush is for his attitude towards Iran, Cuba, North Korea and the like, one sees an attitude differing from Sally Kohn's only in the degree of its brazen illogicality rather in any fundamentals of posture: nowadays supposedly sane, knowledgeable people have no problem openly, seriously stating that the real evils of the world are to be attributed to Bush and Israel, while tyrannies like Syria, Iran, North Korea and Saddam's Iraq are made out as peace-loving innocents passively awaiting the unprovoked wrath of the Big Bad Bush and his "neocon"/"likudnik"/[your preferred euphemism for "Jewish" here] masters. Political insanity must be a highly contagious disease in the Western world today, so widespread has it become.

PS: Another article from some time back in the same lunatic vein, this time from the Huffington Post: here Peter Mehlman explains* that Bush is worse than both Hitler and Stalin, in that unlike Bush these two monsters at least "meant well" in carrying out their mass murders. It's the thought that counts, I guess ...

*Note that the original title of this piece was "At Least Hitler Meant Well-- Unlike Bush", but I guess even the Huffington Post's editors have the odd moment of lucidity, and came to realize just how badly this would come across - hence the current nonsensical title.

Comments

[Richardson]

Backpedaling forced - currently the last comment on the post you linked to;

"My point was never to defend Ahmadinejad nor cannonize him. My point, my only point (trying to use humor as a hook --- sheesh!) was that we should be thinking for ourselves and not simply buying whole hog the Bush Administration's smear campaign against Ahmadinejad --- the same smear campaign it has waged against others when it wants to silence their critique. We have, for instance, completely bought into the build up of fear around Iran --- a fear that feeds the Right wing agenda to keep the public docile, now that Iraq can no longer serve as the threat --- and that maybe we shouldn't be so passive.

It was a piece of political satire with a point. I appreciate those who read it as such.

by sallykohn on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 05:46:32 AM PDT"

[Abiola]

Yes, she *would* make such a claim, wouldn't she, in light of all the heat that's now coming her way. Still, even so, the fact that she can say Bush is waging a "smear campaign" against Ahmadinejad - as if the man wasn't doing a fine job of it on his own - quickly following it up with puffery about "the build up of fear around Iran", as if there were nothing for anyone to fear from that country, suffices to establish for me that she meant what she originally wrote: Sally Kohn is so far lost in Bush-hating that she's driven to defend and apologize for a man far worse than Bush will ever be.

[Abelian]

Another dictactor, Chavez, is busy deconstructing his country and no one notices just because he makes 8 hour long anti-bush tirades, amazing!

[Abiola]

If Castro's multi-decade demolition of the Cuban economy hasn't dampened the infatuation with him in the West, it's no surprise that the new kid on the block is enjoying rosy treatment, especially with the price of oil still so high: you see, dictators are only worthy of condemnation if they're right wingers like Augusto Pinochet, not noble "President of the People for Life" types like Castro, Chavez and co.

[=0=]

This is silly. If you want broadsides against any political faction you'd like, let me know. There are crazy people everywhere. Hoisting this one to prove something, however, is just silly. Yes, that dumb people agree with me is an annoying fact. No, I don't stand with dumb people. Easy enough to understand, for a smart person?

[Abiola]

What's "silly" about the fact that "only" 35% of DKos voters think Ahmadinejad would make a better American president than Bush? What's "silly" about finding such lunatic views festering on far from obscure places like the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post?