An Idiot, Not A Talib . . . or . . . Ignorance Is Strength.

I realize it's a little late by blogger standards, but this is the time
I have chosen to throw in my two cents about
What
Patty Murray Said . I may have more to say about stem cell research
later on too.

Coming, as it did, right after Trent Lott's thoughtcrime, many
conservatives were a little too eager to sauce the goose and portray the
speech by the "mom in tennis shoes" as an outright anti-American
endorsement of Osama Bin Laden. If we don't accept her denials of this,
then in a way we've sunk to the level of the Democrats who latched onto
Lott's gaffe like moray eels, and would allow no clarification,
explanation, apology, or reconciliation.

The first defenses of Murray claimed that her laughably absurd
implications that the US does NOT build schools and hospitals all over the
world, and that Osama not only does this, but also builds DAY CARE CENTERS
were actually accurate . I find this significant. Her comments
are typical of a certain Seattle-public-school-teacher personality type
that I am quite familiar with. To this element, such statements are
considered "accurate" because they have a strong element of ideological
verisimilitude.

By flirting with unpatriotic sentiments, words like these ensure that
they will be construed as such by those willing to play the role of Archie
Bunker, which makes them "honest", "objective", and "courageous". Speeches
like these, often given by low IQ high-school history teachers, also jive
with what journalist types learned in school, and with their
pseudo-religious beliefs that all societal evils spring from such root
causes as capitalism, imperialism, nationalism, and a lack of federal
funding/ education/ empowerment/ social justice. This is what led some to
claim (unlike Murray herself, last I heard) that her statements were
"true".

Hopefully, this will be used by her political opposition to get her out
of office not by making her out to be a Talib, but simply by letting her
show herself as the idiot that anyone who's seen her face has always
suspected her to be. That is what I have to say about What
Patty Murray Said .