Sunday, October 21, 2012

Garden Variety Ignorance

Much is being made of DNC Chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz's fantastic claim on Debate Night that she'd never heard of President Obama's Kill List. The jury is out as to whether DWS is truly an ignoramus (Glenn Greenwald)or just a disingenous obfuscator.

I will go with the latter. It is pretty obvious that Democratic surrogates have gotten their marching orders and talking points should they ever face the embarrassing question of Obama's self-appointed role as judge, jury and executioner of suspected terrorists (a k a Muslim males in the primes of their lives residing in Middle Eastern backwaters largely inaccessible to Western journalists.)

A reporter from Gawker had confronted various Democratic bigwigs and propaganda flacks at last month's DNC confab in Charlotte, asking if we can trust Mitt Romney with the Kill List. For the most part, they did what Debbie Wasserman Schultz did. They played stupid and walked away. Or else they played stupid and immediately launched into their preapproved scripts.

Included among those fleeing the questioner in abject panic without saying a single word were Senators Kay Hagen of North Carolina and Carl Levin of Michigan. Cory Booker, that hedge fund-loving mayor of Newark who got in so much trouble for defending Bain Capital on a Sunday talk show, has definitely learned his lesson. He simply adopted the other tried-and-true tactic of first demeaning the reporter before walking away. Publicity magnet Gloria Allred, a delegate, replied that she would not trust Mitt Romney with her body, or the bodies of any women. But she trusts Barack Obama with bodies in general. Rival publicity magnet Sen. Chuck "never met a camera he didn't like" Schumer just ignored the question and burbled out a word salad of non sequiturs. Lanny Davis (whose DNC position was defined by Gawker as "asshole") derided the question as beneath his dignity as a party hack.

And last but not least was the unidentified character in a fright wig, who said he trusts Obama with the Kill List, because his decisions to obliterate certain people are derived from a sound moral character. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, would even kill people who are not on the Kill List.

So, it is really unfair for Glenn Greenwald to single out Debbie Wasserman Schultz on her "remarkable, unfathomable ignorance." The ignorance is all too deliberate, common and banal. The ignorance spreads itself out in a putrid puddle a mile wide and half an inch deep. Despite its murkiness, it's shallow enough to see straight down to the bottom.

5 comments:

Cirze said...

And it's hardly ignorance, is it, K?

There is little real ignorance in those circles.

Venality.

And arrogance.

In their temporal positions certainly.

But hardly ignorance.

The stoopids.

Love ya,

S

Jay–Ottawa said...

The leadership of the Democratic Party: is it Dumb or Dishonest? With charity – or could it be irony, which he’s resorted to recently – Glenn Greenwald supposes the DNC Chairperson is ignorant; Karen Garcia, on the other hand, suspects Chairperson Wasserman Schultz is a slippery obfuscator, just like all the other hacks in today’s political pack.

I stay up nights asking myself the same question about the US electorate. I read some of you as having the same thoughts. Especially as it revolves around the TLOTE question. On one side, we have many big betrayals; on the other side, so many big threats. What’s a voter to do?

Do voting patterns old and new tell us Americans are stupid? Or are they trying to play their own version of deep chess from election to election in desperation to hang on to at least part of what they once enjoyed? Yes, yes…. Maybe we can ride out this storm and stay afloat, that is, at least gain another vote or two on the Supreme Court, if we throw the Bill of Rights overboard.

After reading George McGovern’s op-ed of thirty years ago, I begin to lose my grip on the calendar. The issues then are the issues now. What happened when the question was put straight at the American electorate ten years earlier in the election of 1972? Voters overwhelmingly embraced Nixon/Agnew, two crooks, both of whom left office in disgrace. We always knew, or should have known, they were dishonest before we voted for them. As for the McGovern/Shriver ticket, it got a wretched burial. The popular vote: 47 million to 29 million. You begin to lose credence in the old saying that “God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America.”

This time around (2012) liars and crooks head both big tickets. And they are intent on more mayhem. Choose! Give one or the other a green light. Try not to be too dumb or too clever. Try not to be blind. Don’t be naïve; be realistic. Try not to be a collaborator.

Is the ship of state really sinking? If so, try not to be the one who saved his pets first while abandoning the wife and children, or the less fortunate whom you might have helped. What would Debbie Wasserman Schultz do? What would George McGovern do?

James F Traynor said...

Yes, Wasserman is definitely not ignorant and I think Greenwald is being generous in his evaluation. I think, in his case, he feels it's the lesser of two evils. But that is my assumption. I'm also assuming that she is, in fact, ignorant. Two assumptions, the latter far more probable. Still, I stick with my conclusion. The woman's a goddamn liar; the truly evil possibility.

James F Traynor said...

Please insert 'not' before the last 'ignorant'. Im finding it difficult posting a comment lately.

Pearl said...


Debbie Wasserman Schultz, from whom I receive daily e-mails for money as a
Florida voter, is dangerous in the sense that were she a trusted adviser to Obama should he return, we would be involved in a war with Iran pronto. She is a spokesperson for the right wing bigwigs in Israel and speaks her views as if they came directly from the White House.

I also feel that the foreign policy strategy of the Democrats (mostly behind the curtain) is not any better or safer than the Republican ones. As Denis pointed out, the brouhaha about what happened in Libya recently was created by previous decision making creating the opportunity for terrorist activity. This is true about almost any foreign invasion or decisions the United States has been involved in for decades if not longer, and includes presidents from both parties. The apparatus is in place and whomever comes into office picks up where the previous president left off. The Intelligence agencies, the military leaders to say nothing of the corporate representatives don't change their spots but become the advisors and guides to the current and next administrations.

Change has to come from the bottom and hopefully without the use of firearms on either side. What one has most to fear is the attempt to annihilate in one way or
another views of people like McGovern, Martin Luther King, and many others with the cooperation of the media. Yes, as Norman
Pollock's article , On the Cusp of Fascism, I mentioned, speaks so powerfully about. This is where the internet becomes a vital tool to counteract this brainwashing if it is allowed to function freely.

Thank you Karen for always writing such honest, hard hitting columns which keep our thinking on track.