A Sanctimonious Shift Of Blame
Probably one of my least favorite columnists at the Washington Post is Eugene Robinson. Which is why he gets an enormous amount of pixels (since the internet doesn't do ink) on my blog. He is reliably vitriolic against literally anything the administration does. He is reliably contemptuous of the man elected to the office of President of the United States. And he is reliable in placing the blame for all the woes of the world at the feet of George W. Bush.
My but the lesser nations are getting uppity.
I do love that word, uppity. Once upon a time, it was used to describe a black person who didn't know his place. The word came back to me this week as I heard all that impertinent oratory at the United Nations, most of it aimed at the United States in general and George W. Bush in particular.
Did Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez actually call Bush the devil? And then ostentatiously cross himself? And then complain that the podium, where Bush had spoken a day earlier, still smelled of sulfur? That's exactly what he did.
And as Chavez continued his monologue, calling Bush a "world dictator" who "looks at your color, and he says, 'Oh, there's an extremist,' " his audience of world leaders laughed and applauded. Clearly, Chavez had ignored the flashing yellow lights and crashed straight through the guardrails of diplomatic propriety. Clearly, this was no way to speak about the president of the United States. But Chavez, who hosts his own weekly talk show back home in Caracas, had his audience in the palm of his hand.
Afterward, U.N. Ambassador John Bolton did what the diplomatic playbook said he had to do and refused to dignify Chavez's tirade with a response. But while his words were measured, it was hard to look at the anger in his eyes and not think of Yosemite Sam wishing he could blow that varmint to smithereens.
Chavez was so arch in manner and so extreme in his personal attacks on Bush that it's tempting to write him off as crazy, although I tend to think he's crazy like a fox. Can anyone name the last president of Venezuela, or remember when a speech by any president of Venezuela made such news? Still, Chavez may have gone so far that he hurt his chances of securing a temporary seat on the U.N. Security Council, where he would be harder to ignore.
But the uppity leader who spoke Tuesday evening, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, is another story. Like Chavez (his new best friend), Ahmadinejad controls a sizable fraction of the world's oil supply. Unlike Chavez, he has advanced nuclear technology and almost surely is working to build nuclear weapons. And also unlike Chavez — perhaps because he is on the verge of having a very big stick — he speaks softly, at least in the tone of his voice.
Please, by all means read all of Mr. Robinson's screed. For all the problems in the world, at least in Robinson's world, can be traced to one man. George W. Bush. Mr. Robinson does not, even remotely, sense his own culpability in the situation the world is in. He does not even remotely understand that the vile hatred he has spewed against the President has anything to do with the situation in the world. He does not see, even dimly, that he and his kind of vitriolic attack artists had anything whatsoever to do with the "uppity" people (his word, not mine) that feel free to urinate on the UN the left holds so dear and on the very country that lets him spew his venom. He is guilt-free, no repercussions for his actions, no payback for his words, no matter how vile and venomous.
Robinson does not see that his words, and the words of his fellow travelers have real world implications. To him, it is nothing but words attacking a man. there is no collateral damage to his country in his world. There is no emboldening of the people who would kill him in a heartbeat. There are no consequences for him for anything he writes. He acknowledges no responsibility for his words encouraging people who are a genuine danger to world peace. Robinson can sanctimoniously shift all blame away from himself and dump it on the object of his hatred.
You see, to be one of Mr. Robinson's hatred spewing kind is to be guilt, and responsibility, free. What a lovely world he lives in. Unfortunately, the rest of the world will have to deal with the situations that the Robinson's of the world create. There is this world and there is Robinson's world. We'll have to deal with the spillover from his world.
By Dan, Friday, 22 September , 2006 @ 6:39 am
Clearly we’re not reading the same column. Bush is mentioned exactly twice, and one of the mentions is actually referring to the administration, not the man.
Robinson, in fact, was saying the despite Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric, and the likelihood of a sane person choosing a democratic nation over a theocratic one, it’s largely because of the US Iraq policies that the US is becoming ever more loathsome overseas. Where else do you lay responsibility for that than at the feet of the administration who is running that show?
Are you really so narrow minded as to think that if Eugene Robinson, or Paul Krugman, or Al Franken, or any of the other Left winger editorialists/pundits were not saying what they say, and writing what they write, the US would enjoy full world support?
“He is guilt-free, no repercussions for his actions, no payback for his words, no matter how vile and venomous.
…
You see, to be one of Mr. Robinson’s hatred spewing kind is to be guilt, and responsibility, free. What a lovely world he lives in.”
Reminds me of someone else I know.