I've written about two of Richard Cohen's articles, I think. One I vehemently disagreed with, the other I agreed with very much; Stephen Colbert wasn't funny. Today Cohen writes about the more than 3,500 emails he received about his Colbert article. The bulk of those emails are hate-filled diatribes.
Kapow! Within a day, I got more than 2,000 e-mails. A day later, I got 1,000 more. By the fourth day, the number had reached 3,499 — a figure that does not include the usual offers of nubile Russian women or loot from African dictators. The Colbert messages began with Patrick Manley ("You wouldn't know funny if it slapped you in the face") and ended with Ron ("Colbert ROCKS, you MURDER") who was so proud of his thought that he copied countless others. Ron, you're a genius.
Truth to tell, I peeked into only a few of the e-mails. I did this because I would sometimes recognize a name I thought I knew, which was almost always a mistake. When I guilelessly clicked on the name, I would get a bucket of raw, untreated and disease-laden verbal sewage right in the face.
We've noted this effect around here. If the left disagrees, the left dogpiles. Cohen is concerned that the level of anger and sheer hate will be counter-productive in the long run.
But the message in this case truly is the medium. The e-mails pulse in my queue, emanating raw hatred. This spells trouble — not for Bush or, in 2008, the next GOP presidential candidate, but for Democrats. The anger festering on the Democratic left will be taken out on the Democratic middle. (Watch out, Hillary!) I have seen this anger before — back in the Vietnam War era. That's when the antiwar wing of the Democratic Party helped elect Richard Nixon. In this way, they managed to prolong the very war they so hated.
The hatred is back. I know it's only words now appearing on my computer screen, but the words are so angry, so roiled with rage, that they are the functional equivalent of rocks once so furiously hurled during antiwar demonstrations. I can appreciate some of it. Institution after institution failed America — the presidency, Congress and the press. They all endorsed a war to rid Iraq of what it did not have. Now, though, that gullibility is being matched by war critics who are so hyped on their own sanctimony that they will obliterate distinctions, punishing their friends for apostasy and, by so doing, aiding their enemies. If that's going to be the case, then Iraq is a war its critics will lose twice — once because they couldn't stop it and once more at the polls.
I think he is pointing out an obvious truth here. Hate may stir up some folks to act – or act out, as the case may be – but hate generally won't win an election.
We're just saying.
UPDATE: Majablog worries about being "swiftboated". I think the issue is actual anger, but regardless, Majablog is calling for constructive action rather than destructive behavior. That's a start.
Absolutely, an unknown percentage of 3,499 emails that lambaste a so-so writer for his righteousness definitely means that the entire Left is so spitting mad they can’t speak.
Well, it’s one of those things, Dan. If you pick any random sample and all are uniformly hateful, you kind of get a general picture.
What’s so random about this sample?
He describes it. Is it scientific? Nope. But it’s probably a pretty good picture.
You might want to go read Mahablog on this subject.
Cohen is clearly a moron. He wrote an article about something that had millions of people rolling on the floor, clutching their sides and gasping for breath, and he wanted all of them to know that what they were doing was not “laughing,” dammit, because He KNOWS what’s funny.
He thinks that because the targets of the performance were not pleased to be exposed on national TV, it wasn’t funny seeing them not be pleased, that it isn’t funny to see an arrogant buffoon like Mr. Bush humiliated.
Movie makers have raked in hundreds of millions of dollars with scenes no different from the Colbert performance, but fictional. Animal House. Caddyshack. Porky’s. M*A*S*H. Back to the Future. Any Rodney Dangerfield movie.
They all made people laugh, they all paid the writers handsomely, and they all revolved around humiliating an arrogant buffoon and his toadies. This wasn’t a movie though, this was real, and the arrogant buffoon in question was the biggest, most arrogant buffoon in the world. This was light years beyond funny. It was “Porky’s” on steroids.
It was a performance for the ages. The jokes would have been only mildly funny in any other context, but delivered to the president while staring him straight in the eye? It can’t GET any better than that.
I’ll concede that Mr. Cohen did not find Colbert funny, because of course he was part of the target, but the rest of the world is having a mighty fine time at the expense of morons like Cohen.
So Cohen exposes the degree of his stupidity, and he is surprised that people think he is stupid. I guess that is just another definition of stupidity.
I wish I were stupid enough to write badly enough to make the kind of money Mr. Cohen must make.
Well, judging from that comment, you should be in about six figures right now. Don’t be greedy.
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Assuming (for the sake of argument) that hate won’t win elections, is there anything one can do to redirect the anger on the left?
Their self-elected spokesmen could redirect them to be constructive, maybe. Majablog had a good take on it.