--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "shempmcgurk" <shempmcg...@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "shempmcgurk" <shempmcgurk@> wrote: > > > > > > ANSWERS BELOW, INTERSPERSED (READ TO THE END, PLEASE) > > > > > > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > > > > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "shempmcgurk" <shempmcgurk@> > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > Maddow complains that "Nazism is not a metaphor". > > > > > > > > > > Well, if she is unhappy with activists using "Nazi" or "Hitler" > > > > > metaphors, she should first complain about the #1 website that has > > > > > been using these very terms for the eight years that Bush was > > > > > president ON A DAILY BASIS. > > > > > > > > > > I'm talking, of course, about the huffingtonpost.com, the left-wing > > > > > Obama-supporting site. > > > > > > > > > > The following is an advanced google search on the words "nazi" or > > > > > "hitler" appearing just on the huffingtonpost.com. Note that there > > > > > are OVER 45,500 hits: > > > > > > > > > > http://tinyurl.com/mu6elw > > > > > > > > I looked through the first three pages of hits. > > > > Not one was to an article that used the terms about > > > > the Bush administration (although there were a > > > > couple of commenters who did). > > > > > > Who said anything about the hits belonging ONLY to the > > > articles or the authors of the articles? Not me. > > > > BZZZZZZT. You said, "...she should first complain about > > the #1 website that has been using these very terms...." > > > > Case closed. > > No, not case closed. > > The term "website" as it refers to the huffingtonpost.com > INCLUDES BLOGGERS AND COMMENTATORS ALIKE.
Only in your weird language, Shemp. Nobody else would include commenters (not commenTAtors) in the "website that has been using" formulation. If what you meant is that a Hitler-Bush comparison has occasionally appeared in HuffPo's comments, you could easily have said that. But you were trying to make folks think it was HuffPo writers who were doing it (and that HuffPo was "the #1 website" doing it, and "ON A "DAILY BASIS," at that). Highlighting the occasional unacceptable comment on a blog as if it characterized the entire left (or right), or even just the blog it appears on, is a tactic known as "cherry picking" and is rejected by those (of the left OR right) with any intellectual honesty. Virtually any blog you can name, especially the big ones, that allows comments will have some comments from nutcases. That tells you exactly NOTHING about the the blog writers' predilections. You might make a case that a particular blog attracts a high percentage of nutcase commenters by tallying the percentage of nutcase comments, but that would be a near-impossible job with a blog as extensive as HuffPo over eight years. Again: If you want to document your claim that Maddow is a hypocrite for not criticizing HuffPo for using Nazi/Hitler terms to describe the Bush administration, you'll need to find at least a few blog posts/articles that do so (I'll let you off the hook for your "ON A DAILY BASIS" hyperbole). To use a Google search tallying the number of times "Hitler" or "Nazi" were used *somewhere* on the blog in *some* context and claim that tells you *anything at all* about the blog is patently absurd. I'm no fan of either HuffPo or Maddow, BTW. But in this case the hypocrites are those on the right who screamed bloody murder about an entry in a video contest for MoveOn.org that made a Hitler/Bush comparison (which was quickly taken down--the entries weren't prescreened) but think it's just fine for such prominent right-wing pundits as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter to make such comparisons to Obama.
