Tony Snow dies.

The BBQ Pit
241

Please. You bitch slap me regularly. Must I really dig through 7 years of threads to demonstrate that? On more than one occasion I’ve shown you far more respect than I felt like showing you by simply refraining from posting, but this is too much. You would defend the Devil himself if he was hammering on Republicans. Don’t pretend that it doesn’t happen, it happens with such regularity that an outside observer wuould be hard-pressed to characterize you as anything but a shill.

Good. The sooner you get over it the sooner you an get back to defending total and utter assholes. I’d be sad if you didn’t, it would be so out of character that I wouldn’t know how to react if you didn’t.

Leftist? Me? It is to laugh.

“Your side” consists of anybody who hammers on someone who is either a Republican, a conservative of any stripe, or someone who is even remotely right of you. You’re an attack dog, elucidator. You drop in, post something that is occasionally (VERY occasionally) humorous, and flee to await your next opportunity. You’ve generated a whole boatload of posts by doing so, but you have rarely played it straight. So play it straight now. See if you can justify your defense of Diogenes in this thread without resorting to rhetoric. Tell me why someone who has posted such bile is worthy of your defense.

242

In 2006, Tony Snow got a question about why the U.S. vetoed a U.N. resolution that would’ve put pressure on Israel to halt its offensive against Lebanon.

I heard that on the radio that day, and it has been burned into my brain ever since; when criticized about the White House’s active opposition to ending Israel’s indiscriminate rocket attacks against Lebanese citizens, Tony Snow characterized that criticism as “the Hezbollah (read: terrorist) view.”

My first thought was to say, “Wow, what a dick.” He may or may not have said other dick-like things as press secretary; I don’t listen to WH press conferences as a usual activity. I was aware of his Fox News commentary, and I don’t believe anyone has yet pointed out that he voluntarily took a pay cut to go and be the mouthpiece for an administration blatantly guilty of war crimes and offenses that will tarnish our international reputation for years to come.

My point being: Tony Snow was kind of a dick, I’m glad he left politics, and I’m not particularly likely to shed any tears that he’s dead. But I don’t wish the agony of cancer on anyone, nor especially on anyone’s family, for whom I do feel bad. I would much rather he lived to a ripe old age, and consumed with guilt, turned on the Bushites a la Scott McClellan and maybe done something positive for the world to make up for being a shill for the Bush war machine.

Jesse Helms, though, can burn in hell.

243

You know we don’t actually have that much control over the Israelis, right?

244

We could’ve expressed our disapproval, for whatever that may have been worth. I think the White House’s position was less “concern, but inability to stop” and more outright approval, if memory serves. Caveat: I think W. is an enormous tool, so there may be some bias sneaking in.

245

Well, well, what a fine thread this has proven itself to be. First Dio reveals his true disgusting colors in a way that the stink will remain on him forever. And then the funny wannabe with a batting average of .0001 in the funny department (lower than Emo by the way), Elucidator, finally gets called on his content-free sniping and incessant ball licking of anyone who goes after the right.

Now why doesn’t someone pit Elucidator and then we can watch Dio come to his defense, making possible the double reach-around. Just think how much fun they’d have.

246

I can’t have contempt for something I don’t believe exists.

“ball baggin’?”

247

I notice you didn’t question the “bitch” part. Maybe there is some self-awareness after all.

248

You are hereby excommunicated. A Southern gentleman does not march around like a damn yankee with a torch, complaining that the suffering of children who’ve lost a loving father hasn’t been sufficiently terrible. And this from a man who stomps around GD declaring what opinions a parent must hold before he would not take their children away from them. You are odious, sir. Vile. Your porch rocker has been thrown out to the curb and burned with the rest of the lawn trash. Stay in the land of frozen hearts and closet bigots where you belong. Never come back here, not even to visit. Do not even think longingly about this place. We don’t want it spoiled by the cooties of your thoughts. No, you are not from here. Just because a jackal fucked a whore and dropped you nearby does not entitle you to stake a claim.

249

Look, I know you don’t know who I am, and that’s fine, but between lurking here and being a member, I’ve read literally hundreds of your posts over the past few years, and I think I have a fairly decent handle on who you are as a poster. I’ve disagreed with many of your points, but you usually make them in an articulate and intelligent fashion.

I find it hard to believe that you continue to analogize Bush/Snow to Hitler/Goebbels with apparent sincerity. I have to ask: What the hell is wrong with you? Can you really see no moral disctinction between a regime which waged aggressive war on three continents, with over 40 million deaths on its hands, over 12 million of which were deliberately slaughtered in industrial fashion unrelated to the progress of the war, and another regime, which through its incompetent (and probably criminal) bungling has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents? Really? I know any death is one too many, but scale really does have to enter the equation when you start making historical comparisons of butchery.

You want to say Dubya is the worst POTUS in history? I could agree with that.

You want to say Snow should have known better and brought shame on himself and his family for his compliance with this administration? I could also agree with that.

But when you continue to assert an equivalence between Tony Snow and Joseph Goebbels, I (and most reasonable people) will have to agree to part company.

250

Good luck getting him to ackowledge the inappropriateness of the comparison. I made a similar point in Post 135 of this thread, and instead of retracting or rephrasing his statement, he immediately upped the ante by equating Snow with Goebbels.

Maybe I’m just a weak-willed sack of crap, but I can’t think of anyone off the top of my head whose painful death would bring me joy. Not a one.

251

You do realize that such comments as your second graf are just begging for Godwinazation of this thread? You really can’t complain about something you’re inviting, can you?

252

Perhaps to someone like you. Me, I’m just glad Hitler and his henchmen are dead and gone. I just finished reading an excellent book on the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, and while I’ll make no secret that the highlight of the book was his expiration, I don’t recall getting a boner while reading the part leading up to it when he suffered from septicemia for a week.

Besides, you were the one who brought up Genghis Khan in this thread as a way to effectively Godwinize without explicitly doing so.

253

Yes, I was. And you think you can hide behind idiotic charges of Godwinization, so you don’t have to deal with the argument that “We take pleasure when evil dictators and moral monsters are denied their cushy pensions and soft, luxurious retirements”? You can’t. Goebbels, Usay, Genghis and sadly many, many others are all available to serve as examples of condoned gloating at their deaths, but you can only shout “Godwin!” when Goebbels is selected.

I’m really interested in the subject of time-sensitivity here, because I think that is the key issue for those so opposed to any gloating about Snow’s painful demise. I believe that, for some of you, this is all about timing and taste–you probably wouldn’t even respond if Dio were to have posted in a year or two “I’m glad that Tony Snow died, and that he died unpleasantly–he was a lying sack of shit who never got the proper public censure for his smarmy crap, which he richly deserved,” at least not the gloating. (You might dispute Dio’s characterization of Snow, but you probably wouldn’t get into all the issues he’s being raked over the coals for here.) Hence, my Genghis Khan allusion–we’re all “That’s blood over the bridge, it’s no big deal if you’re doing your happy dance because he didn’t die in bed with a chocolate-covered cherry in each cheek.”

254

You seem to have a poor grasp of the term “Godwinization”. As noted here: “They [the Nazis] are generally considered the most evil group of people to live in modern times, and to compare something or someone to them is usually considered the gravest insult imaginable.” The point of even having such a term of usage is to note the dishonesty of equating lesser evils to colossal evils. By shifting the frame of reference 800 years into the past, you’ve neatly sidestepped the explicit usage of Nazis in your post while still attempting to get the same rhetorical mileage. And in fact, I noted this in Post 135, which then prompted Diogenes to the first reference to Goebbels in this thread in Post 136. If you’re upset with anyone about Godwinizing, I suggest you direct your ire towards Dio.

And I certainly have dealt with your “argument”, such as it is ("“We take pleasure when evil dictators and moral monsters are denied their cushy pensions and soft, luxurious retirements”). I noted that I was relieved that Nazis, specifically Hitler and Heydrich, were dead. However, you confuse the issue when you conflate “relief” with “gloating” or “taking pleasure”. I simply don’t revel in the deaths of others, though I may take some relief in their passing.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me, time doesn’t make a difference. Suffering is suffering, whenever it happens.

255

Actually, I think you did a pretty good job of it yourself, right there. Are you seriously alright with a “criminal,” “incompetent” war that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents just because it didn’t kill as many people as the Nazis? Jesus Christ. They may never hit that level of evil, but it doesn’t make it any less evil that they’re doing what they’re doing.

As someone who bought into the lies this administration blithely and knowingly told me in 2003, I feel somewhat complicit in these deaths of innocents, even though I never voted for that man or that administration. And I hope that each and every one of them, on their deathbeds, looks into that light and hears the screaming of each one of those innocent women and children. I hope they see the faces of every young man they’ve sent to die. Karma should allow for nothing less. I hope their last moments are filled with fear, horror, and regret for what they have done, both to the innocent people that have been killed and to this country’s psyche. And I am not ashamed for feeling this way, and I would feel this way about ANY administration that lied their way into a war that could have been averted. It’s not about them being my political opponents, it’s about them lying to us and causing the deaths of countless innocent people as a result. We should all be sickened, no matter WHO they are.

256

I’ve done this with Genghis Khan, but not with Usay. He’s maybe 800 days into the past, and thoroughly despicable. If you think there’s a significant amount of difference between Usay’s complicity in his father’s despicable deeds, and Snow’s complicity in Bush’s despicable deeds, you’re certainly entitled to your belief. I happen to think it’s a fair comparison. (I hold Americans to a much higher standard of civilized behavior, mostly because it’s the only national standard of behavior that I am held personally accountable for, sometimes fairly).

Semantics. You’re pleased that [some evil fuck] is dead, and so am I. You call it “feeling relieved” and I call it “gloating.”

So why don’t you care more that I gloat over the death of Genghis Khan?

257

Fair enough. A reasonable disagreement.

This, however, is frankly bullshit. In post 102 of this thread, in explicit reference to “someone [who] died a horrible, undignified, painful death”, and in implicit reference to Tony Snow, you said:

My relief is not synonmous with your enjoyment.

Hey, if you get off on petty sadism, that’s your bag. It doesn’t affect me in the least.

258

Might prove enlightening.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=9294546#post9294546

To wit:

Therein lies your problem. You don’t see what is there, you see what you expect to see.

Quite my point. The conversation had nothing to do with you. Nonetheless, you felt compelled to insert yourself, and object to the insult to “us”. There was no “us”. You saw what you expected to see.

Hogwash. I’ve had any number of respectful conversations with people to the right of me, being damned near everybody. Had them with you, but you forgot them.

Without rhetoric? What, I’ve got to mime it? Or just put it in terms so basic and dull you can deal with it.

OK. Diogenes is my friend, and I like him. Just as I said in my very first post on this, I think the stress of the last months have worn on him (I’m not the only one to notice that…) and eroded his genial good nature. I pointed this out, not as a scolding but as well-meaning criticism from a friend. He took it to heart, and expressed regret for an intermperate exaggeration.

Sincerity and regret, it appears, aren’t enough to ward off attack dogs who are determined to chew on his ankles. The well-intended critique had had coming, the rabid pile-on, he did not.

There were several other posters who came to defend his views. How is it you have no bile to spare for them, but only him and me? You probably don’t even remember who they are.

Since you are determined to be my enemy, I don’t have any option. It takes two to friend, and there is only me. But you give me shit, you’re gonna get it back. And with rhetoric, too!

If you change your mind, let me know. Thank you for your service, and my best to your family. I don’t expect to have another opportunity for such cordial words again, but that ain’t my fault. Not much comfort in that, but you called the tune, all I can do is dance to it.

259

But petty sadism regarding Tony Snow upsets you? I’m just looking for a little clarity here.

260

Upsets me? No. Having to come up with $1400 to buy a plane ticket home upsets me.

Your petty sadism is just tasteless and a bit sad, IMO.

Far more upsetting (though still only about a ‘4’ on a 1-to-100 scale) is Diogenes’ inexplicable equation of Snow and Goebbels. Perhaps if I was Jewish or Russian it might muster a ‘6’ on my scale.