Chait’s Response to the criticism offered below.
And a Little More: Now We Know What Real Humor Is….Or at Least Real Jokes
An old friend, Veronique de Rugy, has been slimed for her defense of some fundamental moral principles. I’ve known her for at least 19 years, since we organized the first English-language IES-Europe seminars (modeled on the IHS seminars in the US, which I had organized for some years before) in Szirak (Hungary) and Dalarö (Sweden). (I also stayed in her flat when she would leave Paris for weekends during the hottest Paris summer since Charlemagne; that was in 1995, and I was living in a one-room garret at 35 avenue Mac-Mahon near the Etoile. The heat was suffocating, even at night, and there was no running water, other than a tap in the hallway, so I would go to her place on those weekends when she visited her family to immerse myself in cold baths to survive the heat.) But I digress.
Vero recently criticized a proposal by Rep. Barney Frank for a special tax on high compensation and concluded “This anti-capitalist and anti-wealth mentality is scary and very anti-American.” (I suspect that what Vero was searching for was “un-American,” but you’ll understand why that may not have come to her as quickly as it might to some.) That did not sit well with two lefty bloggers. Jonathan Chait thought it clever to respond, “Hey, you know what else is anti-American? Being named ‘Veronique de Rugy.'” How very sophisticated. But, not to be outdone, Matthew Yglesias added some icing to the cake,
Veronique de Rugy is So Anti-American That She’s Not Even an American!
Jon Chait and I both likes it when Barney Frank dismissed concerns that a bank tax would drive talent out of the industry by quipping “I don’t know where people would go for comparable salaries, I guess perhaps they could star in major motion pictures.”
Veronique de Rugy begs to differ, saying “This anti-capitalist and anti-wealth mentality is scary and very anti-American.” Chait retorts “Hey, you know what else is anti-American? Being named ‘Veronique de Rugy.’”
My Googling has, however, revealed something even more disturbing — Veronique de Rugy is literally not an American. She’s French. She holds a PhD from the University of Paris-Sorbonne and is the author of an un-American book with the suspiciously French title Action ou Taxation. It’s true that she agreed to betray her native land by making this France-bashing video, but that doesn’t change the basic facts. Barney Frank is as American as an actual American.
Now, let’s unpack this. On the one hand, Chait and Yglesias just might think that people who are not from America should shut up, in which case they’re idiots. Or maybe they’re trying to be ironic, in which case they’re idiots. Or, if that’s too harsh, either they’re dim, or they’re dim.
Option one:
Yglesias and Chait are idiots (or just dim). They think that mocking people for unusual names is funny, or that only authentic Americans (perhaps native-born, so I don’t qualify, either, or citizens, or whatever) can or should ever make statements about what it is to be an American. That would qualify them as knuckle dragging neanderthals, that is, as idiots.
However, it’s worth considering whether Chait and Yglesias are attempting to be ironic. (I am going to be very careful here, as I recently criticized two dunderheads for their failure to understand the use of irony by a colleague).
So, Option Two:
Chait and Yglesias are trying to turn the tables on those who charge that X or Y is “un-American” (or “anti-American,” in Vero’s phrasing) by returning the favor. Ha ha, some may think. How clever. Yet, upon reflection, it would seem that, if that is their intent, they are too dim to understand the difference between A) calling, say, unequal treatment by the law “un-American” for violating the Constitution and the best core principles of the American tradition, and B) calling the serving of “saucisses et choucroute” “un-American,” in contrast to, say, “hot dogs and sauerkraut” [note the double irony, guys]. Vero criticized special laws punishing people for high incomes as un-American, in the way that one might call censorship “un-American” (Think! Think! The First Amendment is an amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America); she did not remark that Hindus, or Catholics, or Scientologists, or sauerkraut are un-American, or use the term in any of the other ways in which the epithet “un-American” is slung around by knuckle-draggers, who confuse “America” with cuisine, or religion, or other inessential matters, rather than with principles of government, of liberty, and of justice.
Or maybe they’ve just put their feet in their big mouths and owe Veronique an apology. I doubt it would erase the embarrassment they should feel, but it would be the decent, French thing to do.
P.S. A note I got from Vero this afternoon: “Thanks also for correction my English. My french brain can’t totally get the difference between Anti and un- american but I can see that it was a mistake. Oh well.” I don’t see them as having any substantive distinction relevant to this smear of her. “UnAmerican” is what she was searching for, but “anti-American” is merely a matter of context; it’s usually used in the context of foreign activities (“anti-American riots,” for example), whereas the domestic context (which is obviously the context for Vero’s remarks about tax policies) would normally require “unAmerican.” In any case, the smear of her for being French and having a French name is disgusting. And the nativist comments from the defenders of Chait and Yglesias support my point. They are disgusting.
UPDATE: It turns out that Mr. Chait is guilty of accusing advocates of tax cuts of being “deeply unpatriotic” after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. As usual, he could not wrap his mind around the idea that any actual taxpayers favor cutting their taxes, so he directed all his bile toward “K Street,” apparently unaware that normally “K Street” refers to DC lobbyists, who normally have their hands out for more subsidies. But here’s what Mr. “How Dare You Call Barney Frank’s Policy Positions UnAmerican” Chait wrote about advocates of tax cuts in The New Republic: “There is something deeply unpatriotic about K Street’s rush to turn the tragedy into quick profit.” Now we get it, Mr. Chait. People who want to limit government are “unpatriotic,” but referring to “the mentality” of punitive taxation (and that is the most appropriate term for Barney Frank’s proposal) as “scary and anti-American” is cause for mocking the name of the “Veronique de Rugy.” I suspect there would have been tears if someone had responded to his smear by mocking the name of “Chait.” (Some might say a foreign name like that doesn’t really sound very patriotic to them!) Grow up, little Jonathan.
Worry not my friends, I have come up with a list of suspicious un-american names we should be on the lookout for;
http://tinyurl.com/ylzytjo
Well, Chiat immediately his remark with “I digress,” and then goes on to attack, pretty comprehensively, the substance of her remark. No response to any of that?
Very disappointing to see these comments by Chait and Yglesias.
1. Its the same strategy used by the apologists of the last administration against those who disagreed with Bush policies. It is just as wrong coming from the left, as from the right.
2. Arguing who is a “real American” is a very dangerous Pandora’s box. It wasn’t that long ago that Jews werent regarded as “real Americans,” and Sarah Palin’s nativist streak is tapping into the same ugly sentiments. I doubt that Chait or Yglesias would be considered real Americans under those standards.
The only thing ironic is that the people who mistrust our government so much these days are the same people who couldn’t understand why the Iraqis mistrusted our government so much while we were invading them…I mean saving them.
I should point out something that seems to evade Mr. Palmer’s cognition: conservatives, very loudly and crassly, mocked french names, food, language, political figures, ect.. with the same empty headed approach Chait and Yglesias used.. their comments were a DIRECT reference to conservative anti-franco name-calling. They were referring to a time that to be French or associated with anything French was to be immediately discredited by conservatives. There was none of the honest, deliberate, consideration that you have provided Veronique de Rugy. It appears that cultural mocking is only distasteful when it targets an ideological fellow travelers.
Dr. de Rugy is able to defend her views on the economics of compensation. I was revolted by the shameful ugliness of Chait’s comments. Aren’t you?
But regarding the Iraq war: Vero opposed the decision to invade Iraq. Did Chait? Nope. He supported it very vocally: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/23/tnr/
Thanks, Mr. Chait! Thank you for a disastrous decision, which killed many thousands and even contributed to the financial crisis, thanks to the fiscal policies needed to finance it. Thank you so much. And thank you also for introducing ugly, coarse nativism into the discourse over tax policies.
But Ms. de Rugy is not an American. She is a French citizen who we happen to suffer to live among us. For her, a guest in our house, to claim that something that an actual American does is “anti-American” is the height of rude. When I am a guest in somebody’s house, I don’t complain about their house rules, even when I disagree with them. She owes me (and Barney Frank) the same courtesy.
Bradford, you must not have sat in on my lectures in which I pointed out the crudeness and ugliness of the right-wing attacks on the French for daring to have their own foreign policy. I have provided that consideration, and even in a seminar 2 weeks ago for Washington interns compared the French deaths fighting Fascism with the American deaths. But I digress. Vero did not mock French names or food or anything else, especially not with regard to a war she also opposed. Grow up, Bradford. If Billy calls Sally a bad name, it doesn’t justify Debbie calling Timmy a bad name. Didn’t you learn that in Kindergarten? (Oops, a foreign word again!)
Mr. Palmer,
This is really like seeing a bald spot on a guy’s crown that refuses to see it, specifically:
“their comments were a DIRECT reference to conservative anti-franco name-calling”
So…
Debbie wasn’t calling Timmy a bad name, rather Debbie was mocking Timmy by referencing how Billy called Sally a bad name. Debbie was tying what Timmy was trying to declare to the world to Billy’s bad behavior.
I understood this dynamic the second Chait and Yglesias posted, and you can’t or don’t want to see it. At least see it and disagree with it.. not seeing it is to have people giggle at a bald spot.
Don’t you think there’s a not-insignificant difference between “anti-American” and “un-American”? The former is more offensive than the latter, I would think, and therefore more likely to draw a strong response.
Bradford, then the comment should have been directed against someone other than Vero, who did not mock French people for opposing the war. She was one of them! It’s rather like making a racist attack on GOP chairman Michael Steele because some other GOP member had said something ugly, or, for that matter, making an ugly attack on an African-American Democrat because the senior Democrat in the Senate was a KKK member. It’s not a very clever strategy and merely reinforces the hate.
And JayR, you have no idea how nasty you sound. When I go to France I don’t hold my tongue about Sarkozy out of some sense that I am a guest in his country. How dare you call her a “guest in our house”? How dare you decide that the USA is like your house? If it is, it’s my house, too, and she can say what she damn well likes, whether it’s about the disastrous invasion of Iraq that Chait so enthusiastically and shamefully supported and she opposed, or about the corruption of Barney “Fannie Mae can do no wrong” Frank.
I remember reading Yglesias’s comments, and I thought they were a hilarious parody of the accusation the implicit red-baiting involved in accusing liberals of being “anti-American.” It’s not at all clear why this makes Yglesias an “idiot.” If anything, the juvenile name-calling in response to Yglesias’s gentle irony is “idiotic.” oh wait, we seem caught in an endless loop of irony and idiocy. Perhaps the only solution is for rabid right wingers to stop accusing their political opponents of being un-American… especially if those rabid right wingers aren’t American.
When I go to France I don’t hold my tongue about Sarkozy out of some sense that I am a guest in his country.
Really? I do. I guess I am just more polite than you are. In fact, I am living overseas right now, and aside from making mild comparisons in conversation to similar debates in the US, I generally refrain from venting opinions on Australian politics.
And you are right that she “can say what she damn well likes.” After all, our Constitution extends its protections equally to citizen and non-citizen alike. Bit that doesn’t shield her from being criticized by what she says.
Ms de Rugy, who is not an American, has no real idea of my values and ambitions for my country. For her to try and shame Mr. Frank or me or anyone else who actually has a real stake in what goes on here (and doesn’t have the freedom of going back home if things don’t go her way) by shaming us as “anti-American” is the height of rude. As far as impoliteness goes, what she said transcends anything that Mr. Chait or Mr. Yglesias wrote, however ineloquently they made their point.
Mr. Palmer – JayR has a point. Let me do a little bit of translation and interpretation of my own: Ms. de Rugy basically called Barney Frank an anti-American (and in spite of your generous help in offering to us a translation of what she really meant, we can only go by what we are given from the source — and the “anti-American” line is a common trope among conservatives who actually mean “anti-American” when it applies to liberal Democratic politicians such that you must forgive us if we don’t believe you and if we take Ms. de Rugy at her word). Back to the point. Are you not offended at the fact that someone who is not from this country claims to know this country so well that she adopts the presumptuous tone of calling an American with whom she disagrees basically not an American by virtue of the policy position he holds? Because that is exactly what she is doing. Let me just flip the tables here and say that being pro-capitalist is anti-French (or un-French), because we Americans all know how “socialist” that country’s traditions are. And we can silently ponder what this means regarding Ms. de Rugy’s patriotism to her homeland.
In short, when it comes to a foreigner lecturing us Americans on what does or does not make us aligned with some presumed American characteristic, Ms. de Rugy should perhaps be a bit more circumspect than she is.
I like Palmer’s crafty elision of “anti-American” and “un-American.” The “anti-American” slur was precisely the one made by war-supporters against the French in the run-up to the Iraq war. The fact that de Rugy, a Frenchwoman, was using the exact same language to criticize Frank’s tax proposal that was used to smear the French not a few years prior has, one can’t deny, a certain delicious irony. She might have meant to say “un-American,” but she didn’t in fact say that. One can’t help but admit that it’s a bit rich to be lectured on what is “anti-American” by someone who was, a few years ago, considered the paradigmatic “anti-American” by her current ideological fellow-travelers. I think that’s the point that Chait and Yglesias were trying to make that Palmer is insisting on not recognizing.
Kirk, There is nothing “rabid” about Vero. If a right-winger is rabid, it does not license a left-winger to be rabid about a non-rabid critic. And especially from people like Chait who contributed to the trashing of America’s reputation worldwide (thanks again, Mr. Chait) in a war that Vero was against. And I see nothing wrong with calling something “unAmerican” if it is a violation of a fundamental value of the American tradition. Censorship and establishment of a state church can quite rightly be called “unAmerican.” There is nothing rabid about that. Segregation existed in the US, but it was “unAmerican” in the sense of being a violation of the highest standards enunciated by the American founders. And one of the reason it was eliminated was precisely because brave people such as Dr. King made that connection. I see nothing wrong with calling something “unAmerican,” or “anti-American,” when what is being criticized is a violation of a central principle of America’s tradition. A name of a person cannot be “unAmerican” or “anti-American,” but support for injustice certainly can be.
To call a person or policy “un-American” (or anti-American) is a particularly inflammatory accusation. While it is a legitimate criticism of some policies that actually run contrary to core American principles (freedom of expression, due process, representative democracy), the phrase is mostly used as an emotional, slanderous, name-calling sort of attack. It attacks your opponent’s patriotism, wraps you in the flag, and avoids addressing the substance of your opponent’s argument.
Calling a tax policy proposal “un-American” because it treats people differently at different income levels seems to be just such a name-calling exercise. Any tax system other than a head tax is “un-American” by that standard. But generally, among polite people, you won’t hear your patriotism questioned because of your views on tax progressivity.
I’m willing to give Dr. de Rugy the benefit of the doubt, and believe that she was not intentionally taking a malicious cheap shot at people she disagreed with by calling their views, “anti-American.” But it is hardly surprising that some of her opponents would perceive it as just such a cheap shot, and respond by pointing out that the person calling them “un-American” is, in a very literal sense, even less American than themselves.
First of all, someone who is not American trying to suppress the political opinions of real Americans by calling them anti-Americans is someone who has a high amount of gall (and Gaul- in her case). America has a whole bill of rights and absolutely none of them say rich people are a protected species. We all work, pay taxes and do our part. Taxes are used all the time as equalizer and culture shapers. As soon as I hear people saying, “Oh, no. Please don’t give me my 2 million dollar bonus because it will put me in a higher tax bracket- give me a nice word of praise and an extra weeks vacation instead.” that is when I will start to worry about taxes changing the behavior of success. Until then the all too precious Miss Nice Apartment can keep her worry for America’s delicate little corporate executives in France.
I remember a similar “Was it bigotry or was it irony?” debate regarding Rush Limbaugh’s comments about a black kid beating up a white kid on a bus somewhere.
In fact here’s a post on it — read the comments from conservatives defending Limbaugh’s remarks as some kind of high-minded satire: http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/09/limbaugh_hits_a_new_low.php
Liberals, let’s not make the same arguments as Limbaugh’s defenders. Conservatives, let’s not pretend like you don’t defend ugliness from your side, even when it is much, much uglier, as it was in this case.
Your entire attack on Chait & Yglesias depends on two very specific assumptions:
1) de Rugy made an honest mistake in using Anti-American as opposed to un-American.
2) Chait and Yglesias were not being a bit snarky in their critique.
You are giving too much of the benefit of the doubt to de Rugy and not enough to Chait & Yglesias.
The writers at the corner have never been gun shy when it comes to labeling their opponents as “Anti-American.” In Addition, it seems that de Rugy has written professionally in English for quite some time and knows the difference between Anti- & Un- American.
If you gave Chait & Yglesias even a tenth of the benefit you gave de Rugy, you never would have written your post.
I see no substantive difference between “unAmerican” and “anti-American.” And no doubt you could be just as subtle en français, oder auf Deutsch. My English is pretty good, and I am confident that Chait and Yglesias would have made the same idiotic, shameful, embarrassing remarks in response to Vero.
And yes, I think that supporting the Iraq war could be called “unAmerican” or “anti-American,” because the consequences for America have been disastrous and because it violated fundamental principles, such as those articulated in George Washington’s Farewell Address http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp and Thomas Jefferson’s first inaugural address: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson%27s_First_Inaugural_Address . And one can even argue that attacking wealth and taxing people for punitive reasons, rather than for reasons of raising tax revenues, is “unAmerican” or “anti-American.” But that is a matter for discussion and reasonable people could differ. But not with the ugly, hateful nativism of Chait and Yglesias. Ugh. (And if they were trying to make the clever point that some are struggling to find in their remarks, they used the wrong person at whose expense to make it — someone who has not used such smears herself, but has now been victimized by them.)
Or … Option 3, they were just sarcastically poking fun at the fact that she used “anti-American” as a synonym for “un-American” by noting that, if these words are indeed equivalent, she is, by definition “anti-American.” Don’t see why that requires such extensive analysis.
I agree entirely with Sullivan and Palmer on this. What a shameful display of hate by Yglesias and Chait. I find it disgusting.
It seems to me surpassingly obvious that both Yglesias and Chait were kidding around. Look for giveaways like “a book with [a] suspiciously French title.” Do you really think Yglesias, a Europhile, thinks that French books are by their nature suspicious?
“And I see nothing wrong with calling something ‘unAmerican’ if it is a violation of a fundamental value of the American tradition.”
But here’s the rub. What you define as an American tradition is very much something that can be debated. I might argue that part of the American tradition is its concern for an equitable distribution of wealth, the protection of domestic industry, and a desire to regulate both the rapaciousness of robber barons and an unrestrained free market. Thus, Barney Frank’s defense of the proposal de Rugy criticizes may very well be considered as falling within the “fundamental values of the American tradition.” What rubs perhaps the wrong way is the presumptuousness of a foreigner like de Rugy to claim some privileged knowledge of a fundamental value of the American tradition that many Americans might not agree with. And I think your myopia is that because you agree with de Rugy’s understanding of these fundamental values of the American tradition, you can’t see the offense that such a presumption, framed in the language of coded rightwing patriotism memes (i.e. liberals policies and liberal politicians are anti-American), might have on those who disagree with you and de Rugy.
I am also an immigrant and I think that the best of America is that you can say what you want. Whether I agree or disagree with Ms. de Rugy, I defend her right to say it, citizen or not. And when we come to America because we admire the best here and then find America failing its own best ambitions, why should we be told to shut up? That is what people come to America to escape.
Oh, give me a break! How does one make an appeal to American nationalism (i.e. by railing against what is allegedly “Anti-American”) without actually being American herself?
It’s nationalism that’s the ugly thing, but nationalism is also a personal thing. And if de Rugy doesn’t like being called un-American then she can decide to stop using similar phrases as if they were epithets. That might not suit her fancy, but tant pis. It makes for more cogent, and if I may, a more American style of argumentation.
Mr. Palmer,
You seem to undermine your own point when you write stuff like this:
“Thanks, Mr. Chait! Thank you for a disastrous decision, which killed many thousands and even contributed to the financial crisis, thanks to the fiscal policies needed to finance it. Thank you so much.”
So, the Iraq war (& the subsequent, yet actually unrelated, financial crisis) was Chait’s decision to make, or are you being “ironic”? That doesn’t strike you as being somewhat hyperbolic?
“Billy calls Sally a bad name, it doesn’t justify Debbie calling Timmy a bad name.” Indeed. So Chait points out that it’s funny/ironic/absurd that a not-American person is calling actual-American persons un/anti-American & you, in turn, blame the Iraq war AND the Iraq-War-unrelated-financial-meltdown on Chait & his “disastrous decision”.
Come to think of it, I take back what I said about you undermining your original point (ugliness in political discourse). You’ve actually re-inforced it by showing that, even you, sir, are not above the fray.
These bloggers’ two-week-old jokes are serious business, people! Now that I know the truth about Yglesias’ hateful nativist anti-European tendencies, I will never again be able to trust him.
Raff, Pay attention. The defense of Chait has been that some idiotic right-wingers mocked the French (and poured out French wine!! Truly stupid) for daring to have their own foreign policy. Vero did not. She opposed a stupid war for which Chait was eagerly beating the drums. I am not above a fray, sir. I am just above mocking people for their names or their nationality or place of origin. But Chait should hang his head in shame for actively supporting a truly disastrous decision. He contributed to the drumbeat for war. That is a matter for shame; having a French name is not.
Who the fuck is Veronique de Rugy and why is she sticking her nose into our American business?
Tom hit the nail on the head. Good on ya, mate!
There used to be a comedian in Canada who did imitations of politicians. One of his signature impersonations was of the leader of the socialist party and and his particular, high pitched voice. The comedian would howl “I’m outraged!, outraged!” It was a funny and it became a popular recurring schtick because the politician always seemed to be outraged about something, and everyone knew, that it is constitutionally impossible to be always outraged. Anyway, this article is just silly.
P.S. A note I got from Vero this afternoon: “Thanks also for correction my English. My french brain can’t totally get the difference between Anti and un- american but I can see that it was a mistake. Oh well.” I don’t see them as having any substantive distinction relevant to this smear of her. “UnAmerican” is what she was searching for, but the difference with “anti-American” is merely a matter of context; it’s usually used in the context of foreign activities (“anti-American riots,” for example), whereas the domestic context (which is obviously the context for Vero’s remarks about tax policies) would normally require “unAmerican.” In any case, the smear of her for being French and having a French name is disgusting. And the nativist comments from the defenders of Chait and Yglesias support my point. They are disgusting.
I remember reading a book where a German was quoted praising English soldiers after the war because “ein Englander ist fair.” The English treated the Germans with justice. I think it would have been acceptable for a German to accuse an English man committing injustice as being “unenglish.” Why not? Can only an English person say that? It is a remijnder to stay true to your best self. I see no problem with Rugy’s remark and I find the attack against her offensive.
Yglesias’ and Chait’s posts were snark, which should be obvious to the most sentient reader.
Even so, it would be like Sarah Palin going to Canada and criticizing defenders of their medical system as “anti-Canadian” or Mr. Watson here going to France and calling Mr. Sarkozy “anti-French” in writing. People with class just do not do that. And Canadians and French who object to Ms. Palin or Mr. Watson having the gall to slander people by calling their patriotism and love of their own country into question like that absolutely have a point.
The screeds about positions on Iraq are red herrings designed to escape recognition of the legitimate points made here.
Screw foreigners. Who the hell are they to tell us what we ought to do?
Holy shit, Tom. Grow a sense of humor.
Clearly Chait and Yglesias were being ironic, but it’s worthwhile to dig a little deeper than you have above.
Chait and Yglesias seem to have taken issue with the anti- (or un-) American label. Why? Because the argument of “Americanism” is fundamentally a logical fallacy. It’s obnoxious and unhelpful. Obtrusive, one might say.
You argue that there are two meanings of un-American and that Rugy meant it the favorable sense of constitutionality. Puh-lease. Read the context there: “This anti-capitalist and anti-wealth mentality is scary and very anti-American.”
She says the MENTALITY is “scary and very anti-American”. That would be the first meaning. The obtrusive one. The reactionary one. The nativist one.
The irony stands. The apology is owed from HER to everyone interested in engaging in a civil discourse.
I am also a “foreigner” living in America and hoping to become a citizen some day. I think that this treatment of a professor of economics from France is beneath dignity. I also find the attack on high pay, with special taxes, as indeed not compatible with American values. I join Veronique de Rugy in her view. And I am not rich and do not receive a high income compared to most Americans. But I have no wish to punish bankers with special taxes on them. I came to America to avoid punishments of the successful.
All you foreigners can shut the f–k up. This is our country and we do what we want. The f–king French can shut up about Iraq and about everything else.
I notice that this blog post by Palmer indicates that he is a Frenchy himself!!
http://tomgpalmer.com/2010/01/31/an-appreciation-of-a-wonderful-scholar-and-human-being-leonard-liggio/
Listen to all those FRENCH accents. Ooo la la! Zut alors!
That’s the thing about those foreigners. They’re all the same: different!
It gets worse! His book was reviewed in a Kraut newspaper.
http://tomgpalmer.com/2010/01/28/realizing-freedom-reviewed-in-frankfurter-allgemeine-zeitung/
Ach du Scheisse! Ein Foreigner!
“Raff, Pay attention.
Oh, but I have been. Firstly, It wasn’t just some right-wingers “mocking” the French in the build-up to (& beyond) the Iraq War, it was “serious” pundits & actual law-makers on the hill passing actual laws (or trying to — “Freedom Fries”, anyone?). But, whatever, right?
Secondly, while I find your reluctance to mock people for their names & nationality commendable, I find your predilection for blaming a war & a faltering economy on a single powerless person — totally uninvolved with the actual decision-making process of such things — less so. I’m not defending Chait, but seriously, how much influence does he pull as compared to Kristoll, The Kagans, The Pods, etc.? None much, that’s how much.
But I digress. My point, if you were paying attention, was that in the process of calling out a couple of lefty bloggers for taking a satirical swipe at a personal friend of yours, you responded by blaming one of those bloggers (Chait) for starting the Iraq war & f@&king the economy in the a@@. Yep, well, that seems like a fair equivilance, right?
Seriously, read that again:
“Thanks, Mr. Chait! Thank you for a disastrous decision, which killed many thousands and even contributed to the financial crisis, thanks to the fiscal policies needed to finance it. Thank you so much.”
Frankly, anyone dense enough to not immediately understand that Yglesias and Chait are being ironic should probably do more reading and less writing. And yes, that does include Sully, who seems to suffer from the conservative epidemic (former conservative? pseudoconservative?) of compulsive literalism in the face of clear sardonicism.
This is ridiculous. Yglesias wasn’t saying de Rugy should shut up, he was saying it’s silly for her to be insulting Americans as anti-American. You’re trying to pretend she didn’t say what she said, and then feigning outrage at their joking response to being insulted. Absurd.
Raff, the left-wing supporters of the war gave it cover. Remember Hillary? Hmmm… Or the New Republic? (Now, where did Chait work?) It wasn’t all just the dim bulbs in the White House. It was the dim bulbs who supported them who got us into this mess. Chait can’t avoid his responsibility for that.
Actual readers will note that I considered the possibility that Chait and Yglesias were being ironic. (See above.) My point was that the irony failed utterly, as they did not understand the very important distinction between the two ways one can deploy a charge of “unAmerican.” Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King deployed it and correctly, to mean “contrary to American principles.” That is how Veronique was deploying it. It doesn’t work to respond by using it in the other, very different manner, by mocking her name or pointing out that she came here from another country.
Sorry.. I left out “also” in “It was the dim bulbs who supported them…”
I think your argument against ad hominem attacks would be more convincing, Tom, if you were equally vehement about defending liberals when conservatives call them traitors or treasonous (for example, you could start by condemning then-Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1996 for encouraging all Republicans to call Democrats “traitors,” among other charming epithets. See: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4443.htm) I’m sorry; I can’t take Republican calls for civility seriously. You guys stole a Presidential election. In the words of Dick Cheney, “go f— yourself.” (You’ve been critical of that, too, right? No. You haven’t.)
Tom, Yglesias’ post title is “Veronique de Rugy is So Anti-American That She’s Not Even an American!”, isn’t this obviously ironic? And I’m not sure how you’re dismissing the irony as failed, since I don’t think most readers had any issues with it.. If you don’t get the joke and everyone else laughs, it’s not a failed joke.
And remember that the word in the article was not “unamerican” but “anti-american”. She may not have “meant” it, but it’s what she said, and it’s clearly absurd.