What's Wrong With Calling Bush A Devil?

From AlterNet:

Across the U.S. political and media spectrum, there was wide agreement yesterday: Name-calling and personal attacks are bad for national and global dialogue. Prompting the unity were Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez' comments that President Bush was the devil incarnate, "El Diablo."

Among those exercised (and exorcized) about Chavez' name-calling were some of the loudest name-callers in American media today -- including Rush Limbaugh and other rightwing talk hosts. Limbaugh tried to equate Chavez' remarks with the alleged Bush-bashing that comes from top U.S. Democrats. In case you've forgotten, it was Limbaugh who ridiculed Chelsea Clinton, then 13, as the "White House dog."

It was Limbaugh in 2001 who routinely referred to Democratic leader Tom Daschle, literally, as "El Diablo."

Click here for the rest.

The essay's writer, Jeff Cohen, director of liberal watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, goes on to make the point easily that right-wing rhetoric, especially in the mainstream media, is actually much worse than Chavez's simple "devil" remarks, and their outrage is hypocritical, if not calculated. Alas, Cohen makes a needless nod to the concept of civility, and condemns Venezuela's president while asserting that only the pundits and politicos of the left, who have to some extent stayed away from name-calling, and not the frothy-mouthed right, have the moral authority to make such a condemnation.

Of course, I call people names all the time, myself, so I suppose I don't have any moral authority here. But I don't really want to condemn Chavez, especially because he's absolutely right. I'm assuming that "devil" is metaphor, and, given the death and destruction unleashed by our boy-President since 9/11, it is entirely appropriate. I suppose one could say that such volatile language is dangerous as far as diplomacy is concerned, but old Hugo is trying to get together a viable coalition of nations that oppose US imperialism. Consequently, it really does look like he's trying to fire up the crowd. In other words, calling Bush a devil may very well piss off lots of Americans, but I think it made lots of other people pretty darned happy.

Like me, for instance.

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