What Happens When the Angry Left Gets Angrier?
They throw a fit and heap vulgarity upon vulgarity of the worst sort upon their object of hatred:
Nothing in my 50-year career prepared me for the thousands of flaming e-mails I got last week over my last column, e-mails so abusive and many so obscene that part of The Post’s Web site was shut down.
That column praised The Post for breaking the story on lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s dealings, for which he has pleaded guilty to several felony counts. The column clearly pointed out that Abramoff is a Republican and dealt mainly with Republicans, most prominently former House majority leader Tom DeLay of Texas.
I wrote that he gave campaign money to both parties and their members of Congress. He didn’t. I should have said he directed his client Indian tribes to make campaign contributions to members of Congress from both parties.
My mistake set off a firestorm. I heard that I was lying, that Democrats never got a penny of Abramoff-tainted money, that I was trying to say it was a bipartisan scandal, as some Republicans claim. I didn’t say that. It’s not a bipartisan scandal; it’s a Republican scandal, and that’s why the Republicans are scurrying around trying to enact lobbying reforms.
But there is no doubt about the campaign contributions that were directed to lawmakers of both parties. Records from the Federal Election Commission and the Center for Public Integrity show that Abramoff’s Indian clients contributed money to 195 Republicans and 88 Democrats between 1999 and 2004. The Post also has copies of lists sent to tribes by Abramoff with his personal directions on which members were to receive what amounts.
Michael Crowley of the New Republic said in his blog that “while for all practical purposes this is indisputably a Republican scandal, the narrow liberal-blogger definition of whether any Democrats took money ‘from Abramoff’ — which neatly excludes contributions he directed his clients to make — amounts to foolish semantics.”
These facts have been reported many times in The Post and elsewhere. So why would it cause me to be called a “right-wing whore” and much worse?
Witness three printable examples:
“Yes, the WAPO needs an enema, and Howell should be the first thing that gets medicinally removed.”
“You Deborah Howell, stop lying about Democrats getting money from Abramoff. Democrats do not control anything in Washington, so why would he waste money bribing them. Think and do your research, and stop being an idiot.”
“This rag must be something that I pulled off a barscreen at a sewage treatment plant. Howell is simply a paid liar. How this creature endures itself is something I don’t understand. What a piece of flotsam.”
…[I]t is profoundly distressing if political discourse has sunk to a level where abusive name-calling and the crudest of sexual language are the norm, where facts have no place in an argument. This unbounded, unreasoning rage is not going to help this newspaper, this country or democracy.
And it is indeed unbounded, unreasoning rage that is at the very core of the Angry Left: a rage born of frustration at a world that doesn’t recognize the genious of the tortured worldview of the impotent purveyors of filthy discourse and lowest-common-denominator ‘arguments’ that amount to nothing more than the wretched gurgling of a drowning man determined to take the rest of the world down with him…
This is the face of the ‘progressive’ movement; this is the much-vaunted ‘base’ of the Democratic Party; these are the people who lifted Howard Dean out of obscurity into the role of Chairman of the Democratic Party. The party of hate will never be a winner in America, on that you can depend…
UPDATE 1:13 p.m.Props to long-time commenter peter for pointing out that perhaps that last paragraph is a bridge too far…for a better summary of what I was trying to say, see this post…
That the Washington Post, in engaging the blogosphere rather than hiding from it as the NYT is trying to do, should eventually run up against the Kossack hordes hardly seems surprising.
What’s intriguing is that they were surprised by it.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007849
This is pretty interesting–written by a former Lieberman staffer–on how the liberal bloggers live in an alternative universe–and it seems to me that since they’re the rabid “base” and the ones that the senior dems are listening to, they are creating a bubble of unreality (a BoU?) around the party leadership that is driving them into permanent mimority status.
Excellent article Academic Elephant. Not going to read this one in the Kansas City “Red” Star. In my opinion, one of the problems is that with the LSM tilting to the left, they reinforce the left wing ativists that they are in the mainstream when they are far from it.
Yes, AE, great link…thanks!
Uh, I think you’re going a little too far here. If you want to critize what angry people with minimal intellect or civility write to a columnist: fine, go for it. But there is no logical connection between the body of the post and the last paragraph.
Saying “this is the face of the ‘progressive’ movement” is incorrect (Barney Frank and Russ Feingold are progressives — are they hateful?). There are hateful people in every ideology, and but to conflate an entire movement with its fringe players is intellectually dishonest.
It would be just as silly to say that Michelle Malkin and Anne Coulter — two genuinely hateful people — are emblematic of conservatism. They largely share a common ideology with responsible and civil people like Bill Kristol, Sam Brownback, and Orren Hatch. There is nothing hateful in the last three, and it’s unfair to implicate them for the sins of their ideological brethren.
Finally, it’s a big leap to say that it is the base of the Democratic Party. Somehow, the “party of hate” won the popular vote in 2000 and came close to winning the electorial vote in 2004, as well as having roughly 45% of the Senate seats, Congressional seats, and governorships. Not a plurality, to be sure, but not the Socialist Worker Party either. (Incidentally, my guess is that most of the people who wrote moronic letters were Nader voters, not Gore or Kerry voters).
It would be equally unfair for me to highlight quotes from Pat Robertson (another genuinely hateful person) and suggest that they typify the GOP or its base. Picking a fight with a mythical straw man is an unfair fight.
Well, as you probably know, I’ve long made a distinction between progressives and Democrats, and the base is composed of activists, activists are for the most part progressive, and it is the progressive activists who have put Howard Dean into the Chairmanship of the Democratic Party. There is progressive, as an adjective, and yes, Feingold is progressive in that sense. Then there is progressive as a political movement, and 98% of it is neo-socialist, anti-Western, anti-Semitic, and truly vile.
So yes, I apologize for being unfair to the 2% by painting with an overly broad brush, while reiterating once more that I do not see liberal and progressive as synonyms, and none of the above should be construed as a condemnation of mainstream Democrats…
Let me add that I don’t see the Democratic Party as the ‘Party of Hate’, and I wasn’t clear on that; rather, that the Democratic Party as envisioned by the ‘progressives’ would quickly turn into such…
“Incidentally, my guess is that most of the people who wrote moronic letters were Nader voters, not Gore or Kerry voters”
Why would people who voted for Nader get mad at Howell for doing nothing more than implicating Democrats in the Abramoff scandal? I would think the only people who would become irate about that would be Democrats themselves.
And let me add that, yes, I did probably go too far in that last paragraph, peter…my partisan hackles have been raised by delving too deep into the muck this weekend…
You know what the problem is (was)? I let the Angry Left get me angry and descended into the language of outrage myself…
No problemo, Mark —
Aaron: while your post is eminently reasonable, I think you give too much credit to Nader voters by implying that they are blessed with ratiocination — I think voting for someone with absolutely no chance of winning, when the stakes are as high as they are, is a sure sign of irrationality –
[...] First up is a post on how the vulgar left shutdown discussions at the Washington Post: And it is indeed unbounded, unreasoning rage that is at the very core of the Angry Left: a rage born of frustration at a world that doesn’t recognize the genious of the tortured worldview of the impotent purveyors of filthy discourse and lowest-common-denominator ‘arguments’ that amount to nothing more than the wretched gurgling of a drowning man determined to take the rest of the world down with him… [...]
Howell’s lies brought on her own trouble. Her follow up is likely to bring more.
1. Indian Tribes are a traditional Democratic constituencey.
2. The documentary evidence looks like Abramoff says CUT BACK on donations to DEMOCRATS.
3. Financial evidence suggests the verbal threats were even stronger because the documentary suggestions are more than actual (for Democrats, only).
4. It is hard to imagine that a man so steeped in the Republican Party as Abramoff, so sharply linked to so many key Republican “leaders” including Norquest, Reed, DeLay, etc., and so specifically tied to th Republican agenda would press for Democratic donations. This doesn’t pass the laugh test. Take your lies down, you only look like a fool.
Say, NM Renamos, you’ve confused me with someone who cares…my point was about the venom of the angry left, it had nothing to do with the substance or lack thereof of Howell’s comments…people disagree all the time…get over it…and take your comment down, it only makes you look like a fool…oh, that’s right! You can’t…only I can…BWAAA HAAAA HAAAAA!…
“Howell’s lies brought on her own trouble. Her follow up is likely to bring more.”
Got yer tinfoil hat ready for you, bunky.