Dean's World

There are several obvious responses to the question Kevin Drum asks in his piece about making appropriate comparisons. If Nazi and Stalinist references are out of bounds for civil discourse, what's in bounds?

A few simple suggestions for Kevin: "Our facilities are being run in a way that would make Thomas Jefferson ill." Or, "like a Turkish prison." Or, "like a Mexican jail." That would be hyperbolic, but at least it wouldn't mean you're comparing our troops on the ground, our people, with the worst monsters in human history.

I also notice, by the way, a certain interesting little sidestep that's so often performed by "anti-war" people when it comes to these things:

1) Someone says something outrageously hateful that smears our troops in the field and, in some cases, the entire country.

2) Some of us object strenuously. We are branded "right wing" or "conservative apologists" or some other label, whether it really fits us or not (question for Kevin Drum: Is Pavel Litvinov a "conservative apologist?")

3) Defenders of the vile remarks make allusions to McCarthyism and/or making free speech criminal--with the not-so-sublte implication that if I criticize an "anti-war" person, it must mean I want that person put in jail.

Kevin does not descend to #3, I'm thankful to say. I've seen it so often, I am actually a little surprised when some "anti-war" person doesn't trot it out. I note a similar pattern whenever someone criticizes the press, by the way. This one's an even shorter bit of faux-logic:

1) Criticize the press for slipshod, unpatriotic, shallow, stupid, and defeatest war coverage that betrays an absolute lack of any sensible historical or military perspective.

2) Be immediately accused of assaulting the First Amendment and/or having a secret desire to jail dissenters.

Here's a suggestion for serious-minded critics: why not stop with the invidious comparisons entirely, and start actually criticizing administration policies. Here's a few suggestions to try on for size:

1) "I'm not happy with the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, and I think the Bush administration isn't giving enough attention to the issue. I want them to stop chaining people to floors, and to stop allowing dogs to bark at prisoners to frighten them during interrogations. These things are beyond the pale, and they should be stopped, for they embarass the country and endanger our troops."

2) "I think the events a couple of years ago at Abu Ghraib indicate that the administration badly dropped the ball in not providing appropriate training and supervision of prison guards. This was an embarassment to the entire country and the Bush administration should be ashamed of itself."

3) "You know, while I have nothing but respect for our people in uniform, I blanched a little when I read some of the interrogation techniques being used in a couple of our military prisons. They strike me as something out of a bad spy novel or a chintzy third-world jail. I think we can do better than this. The administration should not be condoning irresponsible practices such as X, Y, and Z" (insert details here).

See how easy it is? But to do things like that, you have to lose that delicious sense of rage that comes with calling people Nazis and Stalinists and mass-murdering psychopaths. You also have to give up the notion that you can make the most hateful and vicious of comparisons, then put on a halo and say, "I was only criticizing the administration's policies."

If it's the policies you're criticizing, name them and say what you think should be done differently. Failure to make that your #1 priority says that you care more about making ad hominem attacks and issuing hyperbolic broadsides than you do about seeing any actual policies changed.

(If you can't see the full cartoon, just click on it to see it on its own page.)