The contributor who blogs under the pseudonym “Eugene Victor Debs” emailed me this afternoon about my piece on the reckless talk on the right.
Your penultimate paragraph set the wrong tone to create any sort of predicate–even a crazy, hypothetical one–for Obama to be shot. I understand your larger point, but you could have written–you should have written–that if Obama was all of those terrible things, that we have a mechanism–impeachment–for dealing with him. And, that, moreover, a president that reprehensible would face the unanimous wrath of the Congress, the courts, and the media. In short, a Nazi president couldn’t be “snuck by” a nation asleep–and unleash targeted persecutions on Limbaugh and his band of minions. We need people to have more trust in the legitimacy of government institutions–not imagine conditions under which they might just take things into their own hands and murder the president.
This seems to me absolutely right, and I regret deploying the extreme hypothetical I did. There may be people actually in fact contemplating violence against this president. My hypothetical point was meant to condemn the inflammatory talk, but even in condemning I should not have raised the possibility.
18 responses so far
1 anniemargret // Aug 13, 2009 at 7:56 pm
This is one reason why I respect David Frum, even if his political views are diametrically opposite of mine. He is a rational, intelligent man with character and integrity. Thank you David for your retraction; it was the right thing to do.
2 franco 2 // Aug 13, 2009 at 8:23 pm
“If Barack Obama really were a fascist, really were a Nazi, really did plan death panels to kill the old and infirm, really did contemplate overthrowing the American constitutional republic—if he were those things, somebody should shoot him.”
Oh, the man takes radio talk show hosts quotes out-of context finds himself saying something that could be misinterpreted….
I understand context and therefore did not go after this quote but Frum might have, certainly otto and some other commenter’s here would have, had it come from an opponent.
And I really don’t think David Frum, or anyone else, by making these utterances has any kind of control or influence over someone who would be inclined to act. While I don’t advocate making these type of references either, I don’t see them as particularly causal.
Note : lots of people advanced the fantasy, somewhat less obliquely, of the assassination of Bush.
3 Spartacus // Aug 13, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Again, thank you.
4 mickster99 // Aug 13, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Why the need to counterbalance what the exteme right wing is doing now with “well the liberals did it first” or “the liberals did it too” kind of talking points. This is a most puerile argument to advance. Additionally, I would challenge you to document “lots of people advanced the fantasy, somewhat less obliquely, of the assassination of Bush. ” As for Mr. Frum’s influence I would agree. Mr. Frum is probably considered by most right wingers as being a Powell Republican and/or RINO.
5 franco 2 // Aug 13, 2009 at 10:24 pm
“Additionally, I would challenge you to document “lots of people advanced the fantasy, somewhat less obliquely, of the assassination of Bush. ”
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | September 10, 2006
SIX YEARS into the Bush administration, are there any new lows to which the Bush-haters can sink?
George W. Bush has been smeared by the left with every insult imaginable. He has been called a segregationist who yearns to revive Jim Crow and compared ad nauseam to Adolf Hitler. His detractors have accused him of being financially entwined with Osama bin Laden. Of presiding over an American gulag. Of being a latter-day Mussolini. Howard Dean has proffered the “interesting theory” that the Saudis tipped off Bush in advance about 9/11. One US senator (Ted Kennedy) has called the war in Iraq a “fraud” that Bush “cooked up in Texas” for political gain; another ( Vermont independent James Jeffords) has charged him with planning a war in Iran as a strategy to put his brother in the White House. Cindy Sheehan has called him a “lying bastard,” a “filth spewer,” an “evil maniac,” a “fuehrer,” and a “terrorist” guilty of “blatant genocide” — and been rewarded for her invective with oceans of media attention.
What else can they say about Bush? That they want him killed?
They already say it.
On Air America, talk show host Randi Rhodes recommended doing to Bush what Michael Corleone, in “The Godfather, Part II,” does to his brother. “Like Fredo,” she said, “somebody ought to take him out fishing and phuw!” — then imitated the sound of a gunshot. In the Guardian, a leading British daily, columnist Charlie Brooker issued a plea: “John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. — where are you now that we need you?”
For the more literary Bush-hater, there is “Checkpoint,” a novel by Nicholson Baker in which two characters discuss the wisdom of shooting the president. “I’m going to kill that bastard,” one character fumes. Some Bush-hatred masquerades as art: At Chicago’s Columbia College, a curated exhibit included a sheet of mock postage stamps bearing the words “Patriot Act” and depicting President Bush with a gun to his head. There are even Bush-assassination fashion statements, such as the “KILL BUSH” T-shirts that were on offer last year at CafePress, an online retailer.
Lurid political libels have a long history in American life. The lies told about John Adams in the campaign of 1800 were vile enough, his wife Abigail lamented, “to ruin and corrupt the minds and morals of the best people in the world.” But has there ever been a president so hated by his enemies that they lusted openly for his death? Or tried to gratify that lust with such political pornography?
As with other kinds of porn, even the most graphic expressions of Bush-hatred tend to jade those who gorge on it, so that they crave ever more explicit material to achieve the same effect.
Which brings us to “Death of a President,” a new movie about the assassination of George W. Bush.
Written and directed by British filmmaker Gabriel Range, the movie premieres today at the Toronto Film Festival and will air next month on Britain’s Channel 4. Shot in the style of a documentary, the movie opens with what looks like actual footage of Bush being gunned down by a sniper as he leaves a Chicago hotel in October 2007. Through the use of digital special effects, the film superimposes the president’s face onto the body of the actor playing him, so that the mortally wounded man collapsing on the screen will seem, all too vividly, to be Bush himself.”
6 ReaganismRuinedUS // Aug 14, 2009 at 3:42 am
This President carries the hopes and embodies the dreams of millions of Americans who believe he understands the magnitude of the challenges facing our nation and has a correct approach to finding means of resolving them. This President also carries the hopes of billions around the world who want to believe in the America he describes and who see in him the embodiment of the real American exceptionalism.
It is time to break the “taboo” about discussing presidential assassination. The ground is well laid now. Just beneath the surface there are disturbed souls in sprout. Fertilized by the rampant vitriol, how much time left before we know the reaping?
It is time for Americans to take a very long pause. Let those who now profess to know our fate should Obama succeed or should Obama fail consider our fate should Obama be assassinated. What will be the reaction of our society? What will be the reaction of our government? Every one of us needs to think about this. Really think about this.
Divided we fall, America.
7 ottovbvs // Aug 14, 2009 at 8:29 am
franco-2 // Aug 13, 2009 at 8:23 pm
“I understand context and therefore did not go after this quote but Frum might have, certainly otto and some other commenter’s here would have, had it come from an opponent.”
………Franco understands context….you jest surely…..Franco you constantly make up your own lies and distortions, there’s no need to invent them for me
8 ottovbvs // Aug 14, 2009 at 8:38 am
“My hypothetical point was meant to condemn the inflammatory talk”
………You were basically doing the right thing David in raising the issue and after all it’s not as if political assassination is unknown in America………..As you suggest Eugene Debs is probably right in saying a more abstract warning would have been preferable but you’re right to condemn inflammatory talk…..when passions are aroused people do dumb things
9 ottovbvs // Aug 14, 2009 at 8:46 am
franco-2 // Aug 13, 2009 at 10:24 pm
……..Firstly he says” While I don’t advocate making these type of references either, ”
………Then he follows it up with hundreds of words of grotesque speculation about presidential assassinations………just like the anti pornographer campaigner lovingly viewing his blue movie tapes and denouncing their contents…….do you have no self awareness at all Franco?
10 franco 2 // Aug 14, 2009 at 9:01 am
otto, you slay me…
11 ottovbvs // Aug 14, 2009 at 9:09 am
franco-2 // Aug 14, 2009 at 9:01 am
“otto, you slay me…”
…….Enjoy the movie Franco
12 sinz54 // Aug 14, 2009 at 9:38 am
reaganismruinedus:
It’s not OUR job to protect Obama from assassination. That’s the job of the Secret Service.
You Leftists are trying to use the fear of assassination as a political weapon to stifle the views of those who sharply disagree with you. If a conservative President had done that, you would be screaming bloody murder.
If I hear about somebody planning to assassinate Obama, of course I’ll report it to the cops. But that is all I have to do. I don’t have to watch what I say, I don’t have to watch what I do. We have near-absolute freedom of speech in this country; and as long as we’re not directly inciting violence or panic, the Supreme Court blesses everything that comes out of our mouths.
13 ottovbvs // Aug 14, 2009 at 10:20 am
sinz54 // Aug 14, 2009 at 9:38 am
“It’s not OUR job to protect Obama from assassination. That’s the job of the Secret Service.”
……..No….it is not our job to protect fellow citizens from violence
” and as long as we’re not directly inciting violence or panic, ”
…….But some of them are which was the whole point of Frum’s piece…..you wouldn’t recognize incitement to violence if it bit you in the bum……..correction: only “liberals” incite violence…..we’ll pass over the fact that the two mass shootings and murder of a doctor earlier this year were all carried out by right wing nut cases
14 franco 2 // Aug 14, 2009 at 10:57 am
“Additionally, I would challenge you to document “lots of people advanced the fantasy, somewhat less obliquely, of the assassination of Bush. ”
Someone asked. I answered. Otto wants to smear me as a assassination pornographer. Otto is a troll paid for by… who knows…..
Funny thing is he can’t write or read any more than a few words at a time and he compulsively needs to lash out at every salient point with empty phrases. Is otto the best you got? He’s certainly isn’t worth $15 per hour, that’s for sure.
15 ottovbvs // Aug 14, 2009 at 11:19 am
franco-2 // Aug 14, 2009 at 10:57 am
“Otto wants to smear me as a assassination pornographer.”
………….No need to smear Franco you provided the evidence which spoke for itself……and it wasn’t particularly pretty
“Funny thing is he can’t write or read any more than a few words at a time ”
……….I don’t spend a lot of time on you Franco because basically you’re not worth it
16 barker13 // Aug 14, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Re: Franco-2 // Aug 13, 2009 at 10:24 pm (#5) –
Thanks for posting that.
Re: Sinz54 // Aug 14, 2009 at 9:38 am (#12) –
Hear, hear! Bravo, Sinz! Right on target… (*NOD*)
BILL
17 ottovbvs // Aug 14, 2009 at 3:13 pm
barker13 // Aug 14, 2009 at 1:30 pm
………..baarking your efforts to ingratiate yourself with the school yard bullies are hilarious…….carry their bags home from class?
18 joedee1969 // Aug 15, 2009 at 9:36 am
Rush and Sean are destroying conservatism. C. Rich has been fight back and his following is huge. He wrote ” The Conservative Reconstruction Project” and along with other sites are taking conservatism back. Some one needs to tell him about this site and let him know other conservatives are righting back as well. If that writer finds out about this site and writes about it. This site will take off. We all need to work together:
http://americaspeaksink.com/2009/06/radical-conservatives-meet-joe-scarborough/
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