Interesting exchange in the comments at that Hiltzik post I discussed yesterday. The first commenter, a lefty appropriately named Asinistra, made the patently absurd suggestion that I consider the real enemy to be, not the terrorists, but the L.A. Times:
Patterico’s take makes perfect sense when one factors in that in his world the real enemy is not Hamas, but the LA Times. I suspect the Times’s dedicated Zarqawi, Hugh Hewitt, will be getting his listeners strapped up with explosives to visit you later today.
(All emphasis in this post is mine.)
This is ridiculous on its face. I may not like the L.A. Times, but I know who the real enemy is. The question is, do leftists? I ultimately decided to make this point explicit in this comment:
By the way, the first commenter could not be more off-base. In my world, the real enemies are terrorists, not newspapers. Unfortunately, I see far too many on the left (and I don’t include Hiltzik in this sad group) for whom the real enemy is not the terrorists, but rather George W. Bush.
Guess what? Lo and behold, the leftist who made the original comment comes back and admits that she is among the group of people who consider George W. Bush to be a bigger threat than the terrorists are:
Patterico says:
“I see far too many on the left…for whom the real enemy is not the terrorists, but rather George W. Bush.”
On behalf of this “sad group,” let me briefly outline for Patterico why we see George W. Bush as the real enemy rather than the terrorists.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Asinistra follows with reasons 1 through 6 why Bush is the real enemy, and near the end of her comment makes this observation:
I could go on. The bottom line, Patterico, is that as an enemy Mr. Bush acquits himself unusually well (and I will resist anything so inflammatory as to match his body count of dead Americans against Osama bin Laden’s.)
She “will resist” — but she clearly doesn’t want to.
“Asinistra” thinks the real enemy is, not the terrorists, but George W. Bush. I wonder how common this sentiment is among the left?
I despised Bill Clinton, but I recognized that he was trying to do what he thought was best for this country (as long as it didn’t interfere with what he thought was best for Bill Clinton). I can’t imagine saying that he was a bigger danger than the enemies of this country, who want to kill us all. At worst, he enabled our enemies; that doesn’t make him worse than they are.
Yet I see this sentiment expressed about President Bush fairly often among elements of the unhinged left.
So I throw it open to the lefties here. Can I get a clear statement from you that you consider the terrorists to be a bigger threat, and a bigger enemy, than George W. Bush? Nobody is asking you to say you like Bush or his policies. We just want to know whom you consider to be a bigger threat.
For some of you, this will be easy. For others of you, making a clear statement to this effect will be well-nigh impossible. I think that I could easily predict who falls into which category, but it would be more interesting to sit back and watch how it plays out.
What do you say, lefties? Who is the bigger enemy? Osama bin Laden? Or George W. Bush?
