The right embraces Bykofsky?

August 11, 2007

The Philadelphia Daily News’ Stu Bykofsky, one of the city’s most widely-read columnists, caused a bit of a stir with his latest column, which posited a provocative idea: another 9/11-style attack to “help” America. As Bykofsky sees it, “we have forgotten who the enemy is,” and the murder of thousands of Americans would help us get back on track. As we talked about yesterday, everything about this column seems horribly misguided.

The surprising part, however, is that a variety of far-right media outlets seemed to embrace Bykofsky’s message. ThinkProgress noted that Drudge seemed to think highly of the piece, conservative radio host Mike Gallagher invited Bykofsky on to his show, and Fox News’ John Gibson went so far as to endorse Bykofsky’s thesis on the air: “I think it’s going to take a lot of dead people to wake America up.”

For a column that pines for mass murder, this isn’t the reaction I expected.

It’s possible, of course, that Gibson and other conservatives believe that if there’s another catastrophic terrorist attack, and thousands of Americans are slaughtered, then the president and those who support him will somehow feel justified in their beliefs about foreign policy and national security.

As Atrios explained this morning, they seem to have the situation backwards.

The conservative cult’s mass death wish is obviously based on a faulty premise, that if there’s a terrorist attack they and Dear Leader will somehow be vindicated. Of course the reverse is true. When it comes to “the war on terra,” George Bush and the conservative movement have pretty much gotten everything they’ve wanted. Democrats and dirty fucking hippie bloggers, despite complaints, haven’t managed to stop the Bush administration from doing what they think is important.

So if a massive terrorist attack happened, it wouldn’t be a vindication of what they’ve been doing, it would be proof that they failed to do what George Bush claims is his most important job.

All of these calls for “unity” and prayers that thousands of people die so that people “wake up” have nothing to do with anyone preventing the Bush administration from doing what they want. They’re simply expressing a deep anger that the dirty fucking hippies don’t agree with everything they say. Ultimately, they’re angry that their pet war isn’t going well and angry that the dirty fucking hippies don’t rely on quite as many adult undergarments as they do.

But if some sort of terrorist attack happens, it’s their people who will have failed to stop it. Despite our best efforts, we haven’t managed to impact Bush administration policy on this stuff at all.

Yep.

It’s interesting to juxtapose this against the very widespread right-wing libel, to the effect that many on the left are “cheered” when there’s bad news from Iraq. Or, well, even if those lefties don’t say it out loud, we know that’s what they’re thinking. I’ve sometimes seen even Andrew Sullivan expressing these views, to his shame.

It’s ludicrous, even offensive, to assume that anyone would want more violence and death just for political advantage. And, as far as I know, no established left-wing commentator or blogger has ever expressed anything like pleasure at bad news out of Iraq, though I’m sure you could find some crazy comments to that effect if you tried hard enough.

And yet, here you have an established right-wing columnist, cheered on by other right-wing commentators and bloggers, openly saying he’d welcome more violence and death because it would give his side political advantage. What’s wrong with this picture?

  • I can’t top what Herman Goering said at the Nuremberg trials:

    “Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.”

    Would Goering agree with Stu Bykofsky?

  • Maybe these idiots ought to relocate to Iran, where they can be threatened with an American attack by Cheney, live with few of the civil rights important to Americans, have their communications wiretapped (since they’re Americans, after all), no freedom of the press, no religious freedom outside what’s already established, a cultural right to more than one wife if wealthy enough, and the freedom to torture anybody they want.

    Well, they’ve made it clear what they wish would happen. How did people get so evil and twisted?

  • George Bush and the conservative movement have pretty much gotten everything they’ve wanted. Democrats and dirty fucking hippie bloggers, despite complaints, haven’t managed to stop the Bush administration from doing what they think is important.

    This reminds me of what I call the Totalitarian or Authoritarian Fallacy. The right-winger reasons that, since somebody else could screw something up or use it for purposes the winger doesn’t like if they are in charge of it, therefore the winger must be in charge of everything to make sure nothing is screwed up.

    A white conservative guy gets on a bus. Like a lot of macho guys, he’s actually a coward, and the idea of getting into a car accident really preoccupies him and scares him. So a lot of these guys, and a lot of conservative guys, really want cars and don’t want to ride buses because why? They see someone else driving the bus and they worry about him. They see a black guy driving the bus and are appalled. “At least if I were driving the bus,” he thinks, “I know I could control what we do!” To these guys’ minds, there should be a system where whenever people are on a bus, the most “competent” person on the bus at the time gets to drive it (probably some curmudgeonly old white conservative guy). You see the evidence of this everywhere, in things like reluctance to let black guys coach pro teams, or be pro quarterbacks, and a lot of criticism and resistance when they’re finally allowed.

    One of the biggest faulty assumptions of the fallacy is the holders’ belief that he’s more prepared to know than anybody, in the real world, about anything and the consequences of anything. Having the ignorant work way beyond their ken is like having a child in charge of adults. They don’t see it this way, though- they’re dangerous because they’re people who have never figured out the illusion that you’re opinions only always appear right to you because you’re always only thinking with what you know, your own knowledge. It’s like living on an island with a population of one, but thinking your island is the whole world.

  • This has been a tactic for over a decade now (maybe much longer and I’ve just been blind). Think of something horrible and then say your opposition thought it or did it. Have the bad thought, tell the world “they” are thinking the bad thought, not you. Sleazy behavior in the military? Done by Bush; ascribed to Kerry. Embracing the violence of 9/11? Done by Fox and its colleagues; blamed on The Left. And on and on.

  • This clown wants to see a few thousand people murdered in order to get more people to agree with his politics. What are his politics? A willingness to get a few thousand people murdered in order to advance the case for military action which would kill many more thousands of people. This guy just wants death, death and more death.

    But I’m sure he’s Very Serious….. a very serious sociopath.

  • It’s all about the “authoritarian right” wanting to create conformity, stifle dissent, and scare the people into fulfilling the neo-con / oil company agenda—while screwing individual liberty. The Authoritarian Right ™ basically are fascists who have nothing but contempt for freedom when it get in the way of its greater agenda.

  • My dictionary defines terrorist as “one who favors or uses terror-inspiring methods of governing or coercing government or community”.

    Perhaps if these wingnuts like Bykofsky, who as a journalist should have some idea of what words mean, understand that terrorism can be used by those that govern too. Bushco have and continue to use “terrorism” as the tool to govern this country. By no stretch of the imagination, using torture, withdrawing Habeus Corpus, spying on US citizens, and all acts of terror, and the great irony is that Binladen’s work is being done for him. This government is slowly but surely eating away at the very fabric of what this great country represents.

    So wingnuts, like Bykofsky need to be careful of advocating “terrorism” as the answer to Americas problems. Restoring the Constitution and the rule of law and all that made America great will bring this country back together. How sadly wrong and ignorant these people are.

  • I figure there are at least two other major themes worth commenting on from that FOX Clip.

    1)Lowering of Expectations:Establish the claim that it is inevitable that we will be hit again. The follow up recognizes more than the original column what an actual attack would do to those in power claiming to protect us.

    2) Dehumanizing the enemy: We are fighting “rabid dogs”. If this were true, the “war is always the answer” party would be right. You kill off rabid dogs and then you have no more. However, it is a supremely idiotic and profoundly wrong approach to dealing with, well, actual people. It also tends to make one overshoot the level of force necessary and create generational enemies within a culture.

  • After reading Stu’s column, what he really seems to want is a do-over. He yearns for the time when we were united as a nation after being attacked and before we learned in no uncertaun terms what an evil bunch of incompetent losers this nation’s current leadership is.

    Rather than wish for a new administration to rectify the wrongs of the Bushies and reverse the divisive tactics of the right, Bykofsky would rather wish for the unifying power of more spectacular mass casualties. Katrina was a tragedy that brought everyone together in common grief, yet the righties took that opportunity and made us even more divided into at least two very different Americas. If another 9/11 were to happen, the righties, whose motto is everything is political, would use the occasion as a cudgel to beat this nation into even smaller shards.

    Bykofsky’s unity through fear may seem like a reasonable way to return to those “feel so good by feeling so bad” times immediately post 9/11, but the cause of our national disunity is the Republican party and until they are forced to go away, the disunity and bickering Bykofsky so loathes will always been here, no matter what the daily body count is.

    BTW, it seems that Stu failed to notice we have had another 9/11 since 9/11 and the mass caualties are buried throughout the nation’s military cemeteries. Unfortunately for Stu the new 9/11 came in the form of hundreds of smaller explosions over 5 years rather than two spectacular ones on one day.

  • I assume all of the people who have publicly called for 9/11 The Sequel are being carefully monitored by the NSA.

    Ha ha ha ha ha! I’m just kidding, I know there are too many peace activists that need watching.

  • Untamed hatred, uncontrollable fear, prideful ignorance, self-righteous bigotry — these are the marks of our “christian” nation? Sweet Jesus, if you’re coming back, now would be an excellent time.

    If there was any lingering doubt, it should now be clear that there is no reasoning with people who would promote such an idea. Reason has no meaning to the insane. These people want to kill anyone who does not think and look like they do, and kill in massive numbers. The thought of killing energizes them — gives them a sense of purpose.

    In Bykofsky, Gibson, Drudge and their ilk we are dealing with what we once called mental illness, but is now called patriotic resolve. Right there with them is our VP, controlling the strings of the puppet whose finger is on the big red button labeled, “The End.”

    If you haven’t written the Daily News, Fox and any other media outlet that employs these sociopaths, now would be a good time for that too.

  • The American right has become a clubhouse of cowards.
    They fear EVERYTHING: Women, homosexuals, blacks, browns, yellows, beiges, slightly off-colored whites…
    Instead of forty acres and a mule and a chicken in every pot,
    their vision is a paranoid’s fear of a muslim assassin under every bed.
    I’m starting to think that what they are REALLY terrified of is their own long ugly shadow… and they feel they have to keep running from it.
    And when that doesn’t work…. they want to run FASTER.

  • Even the premise of this idiot’s column is awful; in other words, if the only thing that can “save” America is another 9/11, then America isn’t worth saving (and plese dont’t call me “anti-American,” I wrote what I did here in the context that I believe that another 9/11 certainly would not “save” America).

  • Thought #1: Deep down, the “intellectual” right (and I use that term very loosely) really does hate Americans. They have no respect for the hayseeds they fool into voting republican on empty “us versus them” social promises. They bitterly hate that somehow a large number of Americans still think in terms of community, rather than the right’s selfish philosophy. And they believe a cruel fate would be the divine punishment the decadent America deserves, which is really just pent up sexual frustration from their collective inability to get laid, which they then try to claim is a virtue. The scary conclusion: they’re serious about this.

    Thought #2: Dems play way too nice. Our side thinks it would be in horribly poor taste to actually turn this into an advertisement. Not I. We should have some suspense thriller director do an ad that just blatently and as powerfully as possible tells the American public “The right wing wants you to die. Vote to keep them in power, and you may help them get their wish.” I want these assholes to be reviled for generations to come.

  • The country isn’t “divided” and therefore “weak” as Byofsky suggest. 70% want out of Iraq and want to overturn nearly everything Bush WH has done. Far from being weak, everyone is walking around paranoid and highly vigilant toward the idea of a terrorist attack. What Byofsky wants is for everyone to be running around with their hair on fire like Trent “run for your lives” Lott who wants to stay out of Washington till after 9/11/07 because terrorist might attack. Nothing in this article is supported by fact or reality. His assumptions of being equally divided, weak, asleep have no basis in fact. Yet he sets it as the background in present day America when it couldn’t be further from the truth. So what is his real agenda here?

    Byofsky wants everyone to be behind Bush and screaming kill them all, bring back the draft, lock up the borders, attack Iran, turn out the lights so they can’t see us. A minority of war supporters aren’t getting the rest of us to shut up so he thinks the country is divided or weak because dissent to the president’s policies are everywhere and he doesn’t like it. If we aren’t running around with our hair in flames then we are asleep and need to wake up.

    What’s pathetic is that a seditious ranting like this is on the front page of any paper and then on Fox. My god, does this mean Bush is going to “let” another 9/11 happen especially after we have given him the power to tap anybody anywhere for any reason, to use torture, gave him all the funding he asked for to support his surge, actually given him everything he asked for, and are walking around paranoid and wide awake and vigilant and Byofsky thinks we need a terrorist attack and the murder of thousands of citizens so we will be more convinced to do more of the same. If there is a stupider more ignorant fear mongering argument out there I haven’t seen it.
    A retraction and an apology isn’t enough. Byofsky should be arrested and charged with sedition. Maybe we need another Katrina to prove we haven’t done enough to respond to disasters. We need several more bridges to collapse and kill hundreds to unite behind rebuilding our infrastructure.

    Byofsky has embarrassed himself beyond repair as the slobbering drunk at the end of the bar who suddenly screams out, “We need another attack…yeah…kill thousands of innocent Americans…yeah…that’ll show ’em”. Just pathetic.

  • Another thing. On 9/11 when I saw the trade center collapse I asked who was attacking us? Later when they called them terrorists I learned there was no country attacking us, it was a group of guys, like S.P.E.C.T.R.E., right out of a James Bond movie, later called al qaeda or the taliban. It was like being attacked by the mob but with another name. Like being attacked by a gang. Hell, a gang doesn’t have a country to lose so this was gonna’ be like gang war.
    We aren’t at war with any nation, that’s why the WH wants war with Iran so then we have a “nation”, a country to fight(should say one of the many reasons they want to attack Iran).

    Point is, those that attacked us are criminals not soldiers. There is no terrorist Nation. These criminals have about as much ability to “attack” us as the mob or the triad. They used our own airplanes to attack us. We are not at “war with terrorists”, we are tracking down criminals with bounties on their heads. We are breaking up the gangs.

    Al Qaeda is a gang not a nation. They don’t have an army or navy or an air force. Any attacks here will be by gang members and will be prevented by FBI and police not soldiers. Even the gangs in our own country are on alert.
    All of this is meant to keep some perspective on this situation as being in the realm of crime and punishment and not the realm of countries at war. This administration keeps trying to put it all in the realm of war and the military instead of law enforcement. In that aspect Iraq makes no sense in combating terrorism. It makes our occupation of Iraq more of an interference in ME politics than destroying the gang that attacked us. Just saying there’s a disconnect between criminal activity and military action, one Bush can’t seem to recognize.

  • “And yet, here you have an established right-wing columnist, cheered on by other right-wing commentators and bloggers, openly saying he’d welcome more violence and death because it would give his side political advantage. What’s wrong with this picture?”

    Nothing is wrong with this picture if you are a fascist. Such paeans to the cleansing and clarifying power of violence and death make perfect sense in that case.

    These guys aren’t part of an ordinary political party or movement. They want to transform the US by any means necessary. Thus far they have shrunk from direct acts of political violence — controlling the courts, for instance, has been much more important to them — but one wonders how long that will last.

  • A mass terror attack would be the ultimate vindication of President Bush’s guiding philosophy: that fighting terrorism is job #1 for America. The American people have allowed themselves to be distracted from this all-important mission. They were led astray last November by venal Democrat politicians who falsely promised them an easy way out of the hard choices that this nation must face. Consequently President Bush’s antiterrorist program has been treachorously sabotaged from within and a mass casualty terrorist strike would be just desserts in retribution. But on the positive side it would finally unmask the liberal fifth column which has been undermining our nation. The gloves would really come off and President Bush and Vice President Cheney would obtain the freedom of action to deal not only with external threats but also with the moral filth and internal treachery which is an even more mortal threat to our national existence.

  • Glenn Beck gives props to the John Birch Society.

    Now John Gibson thinks another 9/11 isn’t such a bad idea.

    I can’t wait to see who the next bat-shit crazy whackjob the wingnuts embrace.

    Tomorrow on Hannity’s America:
    “I gotta tell ya, Fred Phelps isn’t such a bad guy, in my opinion. At least he’s fighting against the moral decline in this country.”

  • In response to #21:

    A massive AQI attack would be the ultimate vindication of the Democrats’ anti-war philosophy: that ending this illegal war is job #1 for America. The American people have allowed themselves to be distracted from this all-important mission. They have been led astray since last November by venal Republican politicians who pretended to be as exasperated as they regarding the war in Iraq. Consequently, Democrats’ anti-war efforts have been treacherously sabotaged from within and a mass casualty AQI or insurgent strike would be just desserts in retribution. But on the positive side it would finally unmask the conservative fifth column which has been undermining our nation. The gloves would really come off and the Democratically elected Congress would obtain the freedom of action to deal not only with external threats but also with the moral filth and internal treachery which is an even more mortal threat to our national existence.

    Of course, I don’t mean any of this (at least not the part about feeling any sort of “vindication” over the death of our soldiers).

    But how naive would I be to think that you’d have some kind of epiphany when you realize just how disturbing your very own words are when turned back on you? Filth, indeed.

  • Shorter Bykofsky: We need another terrorist attack to restore Americans’ faith in Bush’s anti-terrorist methods.

  • Look back a bit to “bring ’em on!” Then to the more recent reply to the report that alQaida is getting stronger, Bush said, “No they are not, they are weaker!” Translated: c’mon bin Laden, bring ’em on, if you can!!!”

    Bush and his henchmen are desperate for another terrorist attack, and worse, judging from the track record, the MSM would then report the point of view that the attack was caused by resistance to Bush’s strategy and urge the country to support martial law, suspension of rights, more wiretapping, more imperialism. They would blame Democrats as if they had been in charge. A terror attack at just the right time could easily cause Bush to declare a state of emergency with elections suspended, an open ended extension of his term…sounds crazy? So did the invasion of Iraq to me.

    From my perspective, the biggest thing keeping AQ from attacking is that Bush is waging such a fantastic recruitment program for them.

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