GREETINGS FROM BABEL: The demonization that never ends!

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9, 2016

Twin servants to President Trump: Charles Blow's recent column is so journalistically awful, in so many ways, that it ought to be taken to the Smithsonian, or perhaps to some underground site.

Blow's column could be preserved at that underground site for the edification of the survivors. It would be part of an exhibit which was mounted beneath this title:

How bad "journalistic" performance became during the age before the deluge, during the age when the public discourse collapsed

Blow's column was bad in so many ways it would take a month to explore them all. Unless you're reading the works of Josh Marshall, in which case it was "a very good piece" by Blow, of whom Marshall is "a huge fan."

Is Marshall really a huge fan of Blow? Did he really think Blow's column was "a very good piece?"

We don't know how to answer those questions. In our view, Marshall became a businessman during the last decade. It seems to us that, in that role, he is now inclined to say the various things that work, including various things he may not exactly believe.

As a piece of journalism, Blow's column was horrifically bad. One example:

Why did Ashley Williams, age 23, seem to think that Hillary Clinton called her a super-predator in 1996?

The question is blindingly obvious. But so what? When he interviewed the "young graduate student," the journalist didn't ask!

It would take a million analysts at a million typewriters to discuss Blow's column in full. For today, though, we want to restate one very basic point:

We want to stress the way the column continues two decades of demonization. As we do, we want to note the way the column is a virtual in-kind contribution future President Trump.

The demonized party is Hillary Clinton, a person you may or may not be planning to vote for.

(We plan to vote for Candidate Clinton or Candidate Sanders in November's general election. We can't say with certainty who we'll vote for in next month's Maryland primary.)

The demonized party in Blow's column was, of course, Hillary Clinton. The column continues a culture of demonization which started, on the national stage, in January 1992.

In many ways, that culture of demonization got started on the front page of Blow's current newspaper.

It continued through the vehicle of Pat Buchanan's convention speech about "Clinton and Clinton." It produced an era of pseudo-scandals during Bill Clinton's two terms in office.

That era was passively accepted by our hapless liberal world, except to the rather large extent that our tribe's "intellectual leaders" were actually running at the front of the mob.

Starting in March 1999, the demonization was seamlessly transferred to Candidate Gore. Twenty months later, this seamless transfer of demonization produced a disastrous result.

Once again, the New York Times played a major role in the invention of the new demon, who "had a problem with the truth" and "didn't know who he was." (At the Washington Post, Colbert King kept trashing the new official demon right to the bitter end.)

Once again, the liberal world just sat and accepted this demonization, even as our own tribe's "journalists" played leading roles in the new hunt.

By 2007, people were dead all over the world because of the silence in which we the brilliant liberals engaged during that earlier campaign. Now, Hillary Clinton began her first run for the White House.

The demonization started again. In February 2008, the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz toted up some of the misogyny which our team was perfectly happy to take, in this case from the previous era's number-one slimer of Candidate Gore:

KURTZ (2/14/08): [T]he "Hardball" host has been particularly hard on the former first lady...And there is a history here. In 1999, amid speculation that Clinton might seek a Senate seat in New York, Matthews told viewers: "No man would say, 'Make me a U.S. senator because my wife's been cheating on me.' "

The following year, he said: "Hillary Clinton bugs a lot of guys, I mean, really bugs people—like maybe me on occasion...She drives some of us absolutely nuts."

In 2005, when Clinton criticized the administration on homeland security the day after terrorist bombings in London, Matthews said: "It's a fact: You look more witchy when you're doing it like this."

In recent weeks, he has asked whether Clinton's criticism of Obama makes her "look like Nurse Ratched." He has said that "Hillary's loyal lieutenants are ready to scratch the eyes out of the opposition" and likened her to Evita Peron, "the one who gives gifts to the little people, and then they come and bring me flowers and they worship at me because I am the great Evita."

It was against that backdrop that Matthews sparked a furor last month when he said: "I'll be brutal: The reason she's a U.S. senator, the reason she's a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner, is her husband messed around." The counterattack was fierce.

"The counterattack was fierce?"

Ever so briefly, we the liberals got off our ascots to complain about Matthews' relentless behavior. Matthews and his corporate bosses decided to offer Matthews' sidekick, David Shuster, as a sacrifice to the gods.

That said, Matthews had begun trashing Clinton as "Evita Peron" all the way back in 1999, to complete and total silence from our own pitiful tribe. Indeed, Kurtz hadn't been able to include all of Matthews' gender-trashing in this one profile.

Regarding that endless gender-trashing, Kurtz noted that Matthews had called Clinton “witchy”—but not that he had compared her to a “strip-teaser.”

He reported that Matthews had said that Clinton “bugs” him—but we were left unaware of his earlier statement: “I hate her. I hate her. I hate everything she stands for.”

Also unmentioned was Matthews' astonishing statement about Gore: "He doesn’t look like one of us. He doesn’t seem very American, even."

Matthews said that to the idiot Imus shortly after 9/11. We liberals have meekly accepted this relentless behavior for the past twenty-four years.

Today, we tolerate people like Marshall and Blow, who extend this demonization, perhaps for career advancement and/or profit. That said, whatever the motives may be, the demonization speaks for itself:

We refer to the point we made yesterday. We refer to the fact that Blow named exactly one name in that appalling column.

In what way did that column by Blow produce a "demonization?"

Thank you for asking! Here's how he engaged in a demonization. This is very important:

Blow's column concerned the 1994 crime bill and "mass incarceration in general." As he pandered and fawned to a "young graduate student" who may or may not have known what the freak she was talking about, Blow named exactly one person who supported that bill.

He named the demon, Hillary Clinton. He named no one else!

Anyone who reads Blow's column will of course understand that Clinton is being demonized as a race-baiter. That's why it counts as demonization when Blow forgets to mention the fact we've mentioned before—the fact that two-thirds of the Congressional Black Caucus voted for that same bill.

How do you discuss that bill in the context of race without mentioning that fact? You do it if you're engaged in demonization—if you're extending a pattern of demonization which began in 1992.

Whose names did Blow forget to cite? Among others, he forgot to name Kweisi Mfume, an extremely impressive person who was our own congressman at that time.

Mfume voted for the 1994 crime bill, then became head of the NAACP. How do you omit that name while trashing Clinton for supporting that bill?

The answer to that ugly question extends back 24 years. Meanwhile, people are dead all over the world because of the decades of demonizing engaged in by life forms like Blow.

Blow's column is a classic example of demonization. Life forms select the latest pig, then engage in the killing.

They did this in 1999 and 2000; in the end, this sent George Bush to the White House. Today, life forms like Blow are demonizing in a way which is destined to serve the interests of our future president, the disastrous President Trump.

"A very good column," Josh Marshall said in response to the demonization. We're so old that we can remember the days before he became a mogul devoted to dumbing the liberal world down.

Again, a few basic statistics: Once again, we thought you ought to consider a few basic numbers which didn't appear in Blow's column. Below, you see the number of murders in New York City in the years when Bill Clinton ran for president, as opposed to the number of murders last year:

Number of murders in New York City
1991: 2154
1992: 1995

[...]

2015: 345

We can't say why the number has dropped, and last year's number is still very large. That said, compare it to the gigantic numbers which helped create the 1994 bill.

Those gigantic numbers help explain why black and Hispanic congressmen from New York City voted for the 1994 crime bill. As they stage their latest demonization, life forms like Blow refuse to say their names.

In the years after the deluge, survivors will understand that this demonizing column by Blow was a gift to America's final president, the disastrous short-termer, President Trump.

The people who favored Candidate Sanders will be able to see that. So will those who favored Candidate Clinton. Among the scattered bands of survivors, even liberals, at long last, will know.