Don’t take that tone of voice with me, mister! The new rule for political debate and news coverage.

Posted by Deuce Geary on October 21st, 2009

Ace posted about how Mika Brezinksy not only dutifully spun the White House line immediately upon receiving an email correction, but went above and beyond the call of duty by “absolving the White House from any bad behavior regarding Fox News at all.” Watch, then keep reading:

“A very calm and understated manner.”

Got that? That’s the new standard for political debate; whatever you say in a calm and understated manner must not be alarming, and thus people must not act as if they are alarmed, no matter what it is.

This notion of an overblown reaction to understated remarks merely continues the stupid emphasis (by both left and right) on means rather than ends, form rather than substance, and the idiotic principle of proportionate response.

While administration flacks may not be going over-the-top in the way that Democrats at large, and especially the lunatic left, did over the last eight years, the velvet fist is the perfectly predictable result of adding “the Chicago Way” to the mix by electing as president a total unknown with exceptionally thin skin from the nation’s most politically corrupt city. How is it understated to say, as David Axelrod did last Sunday, that Fox News is not even a news organization and should not be treated as such by other news organizations? It’s just another way of saying that the single television news organization that doesn’t regularly suck the president’s dick must be shut out for that reason. Is it somehow less offensive or threatening because he said it calmly?

NeoLibertarianDotCom

October 22nd, 2009 at 9:24 am · Reply

I think this is actually an under-discussed part of Alinskyism. The polarization that Alinskyism wants comes from the obvious path of painting your opponents as extreme but it also comes from white-washing your own group’s extremism. This makes it much easier for moderates to migrate to your position through use of a classic negotiating tactic: when you seek to make one position appear untenable, you also provide an easy, and face saving, alternative to make it easier for people to come to your side.

Thus I disagree that this is the result of a thin skinned or inexperienced administration not being able to take criticism: this is Alinsky tactics at a level of ruthlessness and sophistication far above what we have seen from the Left before.

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