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Brian Tiemann
Silicon Valley-based purveyor of a confusing mixture of Apple punditry and political bile.

btman at grotto11 dot com

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Sunday, January 4, 2004
19:38 - I believe it's called a "punt"
http://www.rnc.org/moveonvideo.htm

(top) link
Some would respond to this ad by MoveOn.org by invoking Godwin's Law: The moment you mention Hitler or the Nazis in your discussion, the argument is over and you've lost.

I dunno. I think it's more accurate to describe this as a punt. The Left-- and the Democrats, unless they specifically repudiate ads like this in tomorrow's debate-- have gathered up all their remaining strength for a "last, best hope" sortie to launch with all their might. MoveOn.org has been running the so-called "Bush in 30 Seconds" campaign to solicit ideas for airable anti-Bush ads, with the promise that $7 million would go toward promoting the winning ad throughout the campaign process, whichever one might be the winner.

We want to run ads that are of the people, for the people, and by the people. Joining us in this effort is a great panel of celebrity judges, including Jack Black, Michael Moore, Donna Brazile, Gus Van Sant, Michael Stipe, Margaret Cho, and Moby.

With that kind of clout, you know they'll produce something worthy of Kubrick. (Fuck. Margaret Cho?! Has not a single comic or actor on the face of the planet not been eaten by the body-snatchers?)

Or will they?

If this is what wins, and what they air in the coming months, the Left will have spent all its remaining points. Instead of making a real argument surrounding Bush's policies, they're going to spend their precious thirty seconds morphing Hitler into Bush, and Hitler's statements about "protecting the homeland" into Bush's eerily religiously-charged statements about defeating al Qaeda and Saddam. (Statements which, if you google for them, you'll find that Bush never said.)

And they're proud of this.

I sure hope it wins. Because then every man, woman, and child in America will see clearly what the Left has reduced its arguments to. This is all that's left of it.

Even the least politically astute viewer will understand that there's this little thing called 9/11 which throws any spooky analogies into a cocked hat. And the newshounds and political busybodies will extend the metaphor, concluding that in MoveOn.org's estimation, al Qaeda and Saddam are the same thing as Poland and the Jews: unjustly attacked and ethnically cleansed to serve political ends.

I don't think any significant number of Americans is likely to fall for such lunacy. But I'd love to see this ad air, just because the blowback will be so amusing to watch. From a safe distance.

UPDATE: The baldfaced demonization of religion in this ad, by the way, further bolsters my belief that the Left thinks quite honestly that America has either out-evolved a need for religion, or deserves to be eclipsed by countries whose people have. Those who know me know I'm pretty much devoid of any religious conviction, but the principles of faith fascinate me, and I'm not so chauvinistic as to claim (as I did in high school) that to believe in a higher power is inherently irrational. The MoveOn.org-style Left, however, views religion with unmasked revulsion, and I somehow don't think that'll play very well in Middle America.


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