Jun 3rd, 2009 at 10:01 am
“Khmer Rush”
I kind of think this is a funny pun, but given that liberals everywhere raised a hew and cry about various conservative efforts to label Barack Obama the second coming of Stalin or Hitler I think maybe Josh Marshall should have kept this one to himself.
44 Responses to ““Khmer Rush””
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June 3rd, 2009 at 10:06 am
Nice. Another exercise of using a label to link a conservative with mass murder. It just goes to show that liberals just can’t help themselves when it comes to hate speech.
Congratulations, keep up the good work.
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:12 am
Good reading comprehension, shooter!
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:12 am
Without necessarily defending the rhetoric, it seems obvious to me that the rhetoric which members of the media like Limbaugh and Marshall sling at each other is a different issue from the rhetoric members of the media sling at other people, such as elected officials.
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:13 am
Oh, fuck off shooter. I’m sure a Nexus search would find literally tens of thousands of examples of conservatives in the last 8 years who equated opposition to War on Terror policies as “sympathizing with terrorists” or “wanting the terrorists to win”.
The Khemer Rouge analogy is pretty apt though. Anyone who had a college education was summarily executed. Hell, even people with GLASSES were executed, because in their twisted minds, glasses implied education. Given the anti-intellectual obsessions that the right has, not to mention that its main leaders (Rush and Hannity) are college dropouts, it’s a fair comparison.
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:17 am
@ Shirt Grinder…
Hmmm. Big headline. There’s a descriptor for people that decry bad behavior even as they emulate it.
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:21 am
I like it. Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer, not a politician. There are no consequences to the nation if he acquires an unfair(?) reputation as a totalitarian ideologue. Plus, it’s not like JMM is actually saying that “Rush is the new Pol Pot and here are the reasons why.”
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:21 am
That’s hue and cry, Matt.
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:23 am
Yglesias award nominee?
Of all the many liberal commentators I read, why is it that only Matt attracts this particular breed of racist troll? Are they just banned elsewhere, or are they attracted to Matt because of his slightly foreign-sounding name?
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:30 am
Come on Matt. You surely must be joking.
Incivility in pursuit of drive-by shooters is no crime.
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:34 am
This is simultaneously tacky and a bad analogy. I’d think it’d be more like enforced Maoist self-criticism, just, you know, without all the tens of millions dead. I don’t know how many of those who departed from KR doctrine were allowed to retract their statements.
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:34 am
I don’t really care who calls whom what – that’s what libel laws are for – but unilateral rhetorical disarmament is something the Left does too much of already. What’s wrong with a perfectly good joke at the expense of an awful shit like Rush?
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:36 am
Jabba the Rush
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:38 am
It is hysterical that bullies like Rush, Hannity, and his ilk bluster and swagger and dish it out 24/7, but whoa nelly, the minute someone jabs back, the right-wing trolls come flooding in whining and screaming persecution. You right wing fucktards are such whiny little infants it’s downright pathetic.
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:41 am
I don’t think it’s that good of a joke as applied in context. I do like the Rouge / Rush play, it’s just that if you think about what most people think of if they even know what the KR was, what will come to mind is genocide, sending people from cities into fields, and of course that pile of skulls.
I don’t think too many people will make a sophisticated link between Rush & the KR and the acceptance hardline party ideology, although sometimes when the Republicans go nuts with their insults against anyone educated and anyone who lives in cities and how dare you pronounce the word ‘arugula’ in public versus the Real America as seen in the background of Walker, Texas Ranger, yeah, then some KR jokes could hold.
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:45 am
I’m voting for Jabba the Rush.
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:46 am
Oh brother. “…given that liberals raised a hue and cry about various conservative efforts to label Barack Obama the second coming of Stalin or Hitler…” What a bizarre statement. Just too bizarre. An obvious joke = “efforst to label.” And Radio host = presidential candidate/president. And the Members of Congress who carried out the “efforts to label” = Josh Marshall.
Weirdness.
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:48 am
Calling these instances of excommunication and demands for apology the “Republicultural Revolution” would have been funnier.
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:56 am
I don’t think too many people will make a sophisticated link between Rush & the KR and the acceptance hardline party ideology
Nobody’s meant to. It’s not a sophisticated analogy–it’s just a tongue-in-cheek throw-away line meant to highlight the absurdity of Limbaugh’s control of conservative message discipline.
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:02 am
This is one of those amusing throw-away coinages that normal people react to with, “hm. that was vaguely clever” but Republicans think is the height of comedic hilarity.
The problem is that we liberals have more sophisticated senses of humor, so we don’t really appreciate things like “Khmer Rush” in the way that conservatives would be doubled over in laughter and repetition-fueled glee if Rush had come up with “Khmer Rahm.”
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:05 am
So this Republican columnist got canned b/c his readership felt he had strayed.
Isn’t this analogous to Democratic primary challenges to say Joe Lieberman or Arlen Specter? Which are always cast in a good light?
I know, I know, this is different b/c Marshall is discussing Republicans.
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:08 am
When I saw that, I thought Josh was referring to Rush’s paranoia and inability to accept criticism. When someone criticizes Rush, they either are forced to immediately retract, or they lose their job. With Pol Pot, criticism of his ideas resulted in a slow and painful death. Like Rush, Pol Pot had absolutely no tolerance for dissent. So I thought the analogy was valid, but I don’t like derogatory nicknames at all. And I doubt many people saw the analogy the way I did. I’ll stick with “Rush Limbaugh.” That should be bad enough.
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:09 am
So this Republican columnist got canned b/c his readership felt he had strayed.
Isn’t this analogous to Democratic primary challenges to say Joe Lieberman or Arlen Specter? Which are always cast in a good light?
Well, yes, it’s analogous in that someone too far from the more loud parts of a party is being challenged by someone who is. It’s not analogous in that said parts of the Republican party are currently, well, completely insane, and certainly well outside of the mainstream. The analogy would work if most of the major spokespeople for the Democrats had the same views as Dennis Kucinich and all the liberal blogs said anybody right of that was a DINO.
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:11 am
I get it. I’m not freaking out. I just thought it was ‘feh’.
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:16 am
So this Republican columnist got canned b/c his readership felt he had strayed.
He’s not a columnist. He got fired from his party job because he criticized Rush Limbaugh.
Isn’t this analogous to Democratic primary challenges to say Joe Lieberman or Arlen Specter? Which are always cast in a good light?
No because the guy wasn’t a publicly elected official, and his ouster was not the result of a democratic process. You see, the joke is that the long arm of Rush Limbaugh controls the Republican Party even to the county level. And he’s just a guy on the radio.
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:19 am
So this Republican columnist got canned b/c his readership felt he had strayed.
Isn’t this analogous to Democratic primary challenges to say Joe Lieberman or Arlen Specter? Which are always cast in a good light?
I know, I know, this is different b/c Marshall is discussing Republicans.
Let’s meditate on this for second.
One was removed from the top by party officials.
The other two have faced/are facing grassroots primary challengers.
Are they analogous?
BTW, fool wasn’t a columnist, he was a spokesman. Republican Party “members” are not Republican “voters.” It wasn’t his “readership” that felt he had strayed, it was his bosses who paid him to speak.
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:20 am
Well, I personally never raised a hue, a hew or a cry about nasty nicknames directed at liberals and their candidates. Given that Limbaugh is the proud originator and chief promulgator of the the term “feminazi”, I assume he can take these kinds of slings and arrows as well as propel them.
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:21 am
Why this sudden high mindedness about being fair to Rush? He is objectively pro torture. He is objectively pro secrecy and pro surveillance. Rush is closer to Stalin and Hitler than any Democrat, ever.
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:25 am
And actually, more to the point:
Specter and Lieberman are/were challenged because, among other reasons, we (the base) feel they’re insufficiently liberal, yes. But if you spend some time listening to us instead of trolling, you’d know that we think most members of Congress and insufficiently liberal–especially the Senate leadership.
We’re encouraging these challengers because we want to challenge the dominant viewpoint of party. In shorter terms: we like dissent. We want to encourage internal dissent. We feel it makes our party stronger.
That’s the difference between us and you. That’s why we have 60, and you’re falling past 40.
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:27 am
Isn’t this analogous to Democratic primary challenges to say Joe Lieberman or Arlen Specter?
Yes. A guy getting fired by the party for pissing off a radio host is exactly the same as the members of a party using a democratic electoral process to choose their candidate.
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:34 am
He is objectively pro torture. He is objectively pro secrecy and pro surveillance.
Not just objectively but also subjectively, I believe!
Generally speaking I’m inclined to say anything goes when it comes to name-calling. The problem, though, is that demonization can often blur into advocacy of vigilantism. Obviously JMM isn’t doing this but it’s not unheard of on the Repub side.
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:41 am
Uh oh. Now TPM has “Romney Uber Alles” up. Time for another round of scolding from Matt?
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:49 am
Quite right. As the past week as show, they prefer to pick their victims off one-by-one after socially and politically isolating them.
Here, let me get out my little, tiny violin.
I think they follow Steve Sailer here.
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:51 am
That’s kind of funny, ’cause it makes me think that they got some flack for the Khmer Rush thing and went, ‘Oh, yeah? Well check this out!’
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:07 pm
What El Cid said at 10.
But seriously, does anyone think that this was anything like a sincere attempt to liken Rush to Pol Pot?
It makes sense to steer clear of such epithets but this is just not comparable to those who mean it when they compare Obama to Hitler and Stalin.
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:26 pm
And actually, more to the point:
Specter and Lieberman are/were challenged because, among other reasons, we (the base) feel they’re insufficiently liberal, yes. But if you spend some time listening to us instead of trolling, you’d know that we think most members of Congress and insufficiently liberal–especially the Senate leadership.
We’re encouraging these challengers because we want to challenge the dominant viewpoint of party. In shorter terms: we like dissent. We want to encourage internal dissent. We feel it makes our party stronger.
That’s the difference between us and you. That’s why we have 60, and you’re falling past 40.
Um I’m an Obamabot infused with Obamania…. who likes his winning strategy of reaching out to Republican and independents.
The analogy is that Republicans felt this guy was selling out by criticizing Rush, so they fired him. Many Democrats are unhappy with Lieberman’s and Arlen Specter’s sell-out voting records, so they tried/are tryint to fire them via primary challenges.
I realize that it’s similar formally while the content is different. People will agree with the spokesman who got fired for criticizing Rush and with the primary challengers.
It’s just funny that people are blind to the similarities and always try to immediately pigeonhole people like me.
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Oh and I hate Rush and think he’s gives us an idea of what the Nazi’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels was like. How’s that?
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:36 pm
My bad, slow morning, not a lot of coffee…but I feel my non-hominem points stand.
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
And no, the form is totally different. That’s my point. The Republican Party operates as a top-down hierarchal organization with little room for dissent. The problem isn’t that the party line is too conservative or too moderate, the problem is that there’s actually a party line that will get you shitcanned and blacklisted for deviation. Democrats don’t have anything like that, except maybe on Social Security.
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Um I’m an Obamabot infused with Obamania
I’m astonished that anyone would call *themselves* an “Obamabot”. The connotations of unthinking/mechanical/dronelike behavior make it, to my ears, pretty clearly a right-wing term of contempt and I’ve never heard it used elsewise. You’re an odd one, Poptarts.
Oh, and FWIW, I’ve spent the past two days at home while a contractor works at my house. He listens to Rush (and Hannity) while he works. This is my first exposure to them. My new opinion is: These guys deserve to be called very, very mean names, at the very least.
June 3rd, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I’m astonished that anyone would call *themselves* an “Obamabot”. The connotations of unthinking/mechanical/dronelike behavior make it, to my ears, pretty clearly a right-wing term of contempt and I’ve never heard it used elsewise. You’re an odd one, Poptarts.
It’s sarcasm which admittedly doesn’t translate well over the Internets. It’s what the leftwing opponenets of Obama called us during the Democrats’ primary.
However it’s a way to remind myself not to be uncritical b/c the tendency is to overlook criticism b/c of Obama’s many adversaries. I never liked Clinton who I felt was a triangulating sellout, so it’s a new, weird experience to be enthusastic about a President. Bill Clinton has been good and cooperative since the election, like admitting he had been wrong about derivatives so he is being honest with the kiddies who idolize him.
June 3rd, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Fair enough, Poptarts. I do remember Petey (long-time troll here) and other Edwards partisans throwing the label about during the primaries. Always struck me as juvenile when used earnestly but I can appreciate your ironic usage.
June 3rd, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Oh, and FWIW, I’ve spent the past two days at home while a contractor works at my house. He listens to Rush (and Hannity) while he works. This is my first exposure to them.
Well then it’s a very special day! Lucky you!
June 3rd, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Generally, all individuals should be assumed to be deserving of respect, until they lose it. Even then, you can make a good argument that some people hold positions that should be respected even if the individuals who hold those positions lose it. I don’t see how either of these apply to Rush Limbaugh. There might be something that hasn’t occurred to me, but I can’t think of any non-criminal harm which Rush limbaugh does not deserve. He has his money to console him – money he earned by maliciously sowing hatred among his fellow countrymen. He has made a concious choice to have that in lieu of respect.
June 3rd, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Hi this is Matt Yglesias from the Center for American Progress Action fund. I just want to remind everyone that the liberal blogosphere is a big place and not everyone agrees with Josh Marshall that “Khmer Rush” is an acceptable joke.