Sometimes, you come across a piece of writing that drops your jaw and you stare at it in amazement. That only happens for two reasons. The piece is either amazingly well written and moves you in some way, or it's just so damned idiotic, you wonder what nut house the author escaped from.
In this case, it's the latter.
According to Peter Mehlman's bio, he is an ex-sportswriter turned scriptwriter. He wrote for the Seinfeld Show and some Dreamworks films. His bio conveniently leaves out any history education he might have received. I'm assuming it's because he hasn't ever had one that got past the Civil War.
So what did this guy write that reeks of crass ignorance?
He wrote a Huffpost article essentially saying that George W. Bush is no Hitler. In fact, according to Mr. Mehlman, Bush is way worse than Hitler. (He doesn't mention the Commie dictators, but I'm assuming he thinks they meant well too.)
So now we're six and a half years into Bush and everyone from Helen Thomas on down is declaring him the worst president ever. What no one is saying is the one overarching reason he's the worst: the Bush administration is the first that doesn't even mean well.
He sets up his case on the old dodge that liberal city dwellers are much smarter than rural peasants:
Even with the low poll numbers, liberals still feel stymied in conveying just how bad this administration is. It's been the ultimate frustration to consider the people who don't see Bush's malevolence: In 2004, rural America cited national security as their number one reason for voting for Bush. But people in the major cities, where there's actually a chance of being victimized by terrorism, people voted against Bush. Frustrating. In the cities, where most people are utterly at two with nature, people cited Bush's raping of the environment as a major reason to vote against him. In rural America, where people fish and hunt and generally do things outside, they voted for Bush. Sooooo frustrating. On Sutton Place and in Harvard-Westlake, where kids go to college after high school, they vote against Bush. In rural America, from where the majority of tragically killed kids in Iraq soldiers come, they vote for Bush.
How can we not see how utterly devoid of any goodness Bush is! If liberals believed in an anti-Christ, Bush would be it. So how does he figure Bush is worse than Der Führer?
You could argue that even the world's worst fascist dictators at least meant well. They honestly thought were doing good things for their countries by suppressing blacks/eliminating Jews/eradicating free enterprise/repressing individual thought/killing off rivals/invading neighbors, etc. Only the Saudi royal family is driven by the same motives as Bush, but they were already entrenched. Bush set a new precedent. He came into office with the attitude of "I'm so tired of the public good. What about my good? What about my rich friends' good?"
How can anyone not see it? It's not that their policies have been misguided or haven't played out right. They. Don't. Even. Mean. Well.
I voted for Bush twice. I'm not all that supportive of him these days, especially with the Shamnesty bill he is trying to foist upon us, but he is not an evil man. You can disagree with what he's tried to do, but to make the leap Mehlman does is just plain idiotic. Things might not have turned out as well as some of us would have hoped, but I cannot in all honesty say that Bush didn't mean well.
Hitler was a political genius. He also oversaw the elimination of about 12,000,000 people. He was a ruthless dictator that didn't give a damn about anyone or anything but his own blind ambition. He was ruthless, even with his own people. As the second commenter to the blog post said:
fine - I'll stick myself out there then - they didn't mean well, THEY MEANT HARM! THEY CAUSED HARM! THEY ALLOWED HARM!
They weren't just indifferent they purposely set out to cause strife, division, hate and harm AND they were never coy about it.
Bush might be a disappointment, but he is not evil. Mehlman, however, is an idiot.
OMG! Where do I begin? OK, how about the mass graves found all over the world from the actions of dictators that "meant well". I must have missed the news about the ones they found here in the US in the past 6 1/2 years.
How about the torture/rape rooms? Which state are they located in here? I missed that one too, I guess. Dang ~ I'm so out of touch...
Posted by: yankeemom | Monday, June 25, 2007 at 07:42