The Smell Of Burning Straw

Predictably, Glenn Reynolds jumps on the silly and utterly beside-the-point “but Bill Clinton did it!” bandwagon with both feet, while equally predictably being dishonest enough to conflate the crucial difference between Clinton’s rhetoric and Bush’s policies. He’s as constant as the tides; you have to give him that.

The other notable thing about the post, however, is that he uses the word “Bushitler” twice, arguing that “this is the line that’s being pushed” while not offering, of course, a link to a single Bush critic using the term. This is another classic wingnut strategy, which I’m sure you’ve noticed before. For example, if you see the word “womyn” being used in an argument and the Reagan administration has ended, it’s safe to say that you’re dealing with a reactionary anti-feminist. Similarly, if you see the words “Bushitler” or “Chimpy McHitlerburton” 9 times out of 10 it’s being used by a reactionary administration hack, and the phrase is inserted where a substantive argument would more usefully belong. You’re most likely to see the term, of course, whenever someone like Reynolds might otherwise have to confront a conflict between his nominal commitment to civil liberties and his very real commitment to the big-government conservatism of the modern Republican Party. Yes, yes, we get it–Bush is, in fact, much better than the worst dictators in history. Not all forms of government illegality are equally odious, and genocide is indeed orders of magnitude worse than illegal wiretaps. Can’t argue with that. If that’s the standard you have to use, it makes your support of him despite your alleged non-partisan libertarianism even more pathetic than it already is.

…although, admittedly, he’s not afraid to make substantive arguments if it’s about expressing sneering contempt for working people and people who live in cities, or his fondness for union-busting.