Greg Krehbiel
When you elect a Chicago politician …
by Greg Krehbiel on 1 February 2012
This is an interesting article.
In this country, we regard the use of official power to oppress or intimidate private citizens as a despicable abuse of authority and entirely alien to our system of a government of laws.
But maybe only if you’re a Republican.
2012-02-01 » Greg Krehbiel
1 February 2012 @ 11:17 am
Oh the poor Koch brothers.
1 February 2012 @ 11:50 am
Glenn Reynolds, the libertarian Instapundit, often points out that supporters of civil liberties and limiting government should vote Republican because those are the only circumstances under which the Fourth Estate pays them any attention.
smitemouth: I’m not sure of your point. Why is sympathy for the Koch brothers not appropriate? Is it because they have a lot of money? Because of their support for libertarian causes?
1 February 2012 @ 6:50 pm
I believe that the Republican candidates have made negative comments about Warren Buffett. Certainly the Koch gang is every bit as involved in politics as is Mr. Buffett. If the Kochs, Buffets, or Soros’s of the world want to get involved in the political debate of the country, then they shouldn’t be whiny little b*tches when they get broadsided–it isn’t beanbags. It’s ironic that a Rupert Murdoch publication would complain about unfair treatment.
1 February 2012 @ 11:18 pm
So the fact that some people aren’t in a great moral position to whine about their maltreatment means there’s nothing to see here when a President has an enemies list?
I guess it’s okay to do anything bad if you just make sure that it’s hard to have sympathy for the victims.
2 February 2012 @ 10:50 pm
I’m sure the list includes the Constitution and the American People.
3 February 2012 @ 9:59 am
What do racists and conservatives–especially conservative talk radio hosts–have in common? They both play the victim. If you would have listened to that nut Tom Metzger when he was on talk shows in the 80′s and 90′s you would have seen them playing the victim. The reason white folks couldn’t get jobs was because of all the non-whites. Listen to Fox News or Limbaugh and they are always playing the victim. Can’t get a job? Well it certainly wasn’t Republican policies that caused the collapse to be at fault. Now we hear, boo hoo, about the poor victimized Koch brothers. Boo hoo. Oh those poor victimized billionaires. Boo hoo.
3 February 2012 @ 10:13 am
Okay, SM, so you go ahead and make a list of the people that the president can single out and bully, and tell us why he can bully those people, but Nixon was wrong to have an enemies list.
3 February 2012 @ 10:20 am
You want to bully Buffett’s secretary. See Matt 7:5.
3 February 2012 @ 11:45 am
Asking (not forcing) someone to provide evidence of a politically charged accusation before you believe it, is morally equivalent to using government power against those whose activities interfere with the desires of government officials? Really?
3 February 2012 @ 11:45 am
I should say claim, not accusation.
3 February 2012 @ 5:27 pm
These accusations are rather scattershot, even by your standards, smitemouth. So far you’ve accused the Koch brothers of being a gang, used words you had to asterisk, compared conservatives to racists because they both like playing the victim I guess, brought Fox News and Rush Limbaugh into it somehow, and seem really attached to this image of people sobbing. “Boo hoo”.
I’m not sure if you think that there really are people who are literally sobbing over this, or if you think that pretending that there are people who are sobbing because the Koch brothers might be being mistreated will help you make the idea look silly? If the former, I doubt it, and if the latter, it doesn’t seem to be working.
Well, it’s making _something_ look silly, I suppose.
7 February 2012 @ 10:24 pm
I noticed smitemouth couldn’t answer Greg’s question. The hypocrisy of the left never ceases to amaze me.
10 February 2012 @ 11:59 am
Ok, the “article” in question was written by Theodore B. Olson. At the bottom of the article, it is stated: “Mr. Olson, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., and a former solicitor general of the United States, represents Koch Industries.”
Ok, this isn’t an article or opinion piece by a journalist or citizen looking in from the outside. It’s from an attorney representing the Kochs–or at least Koch Industries. Now, when an attorney goes to the media, is it really an honest opinion? Were the attorneys for the tobacco industry honest? How about Ford’s attorneys in the early days of the Pinto scandal. How about Bob Bennett, Gloria Allred, or Johnny Cochran? Attorneys aggressively represent their clients. In a court of law, they have to at least theoretically represent the truth. OTOH, to the media, an attorney is not so obligated. The fact that this is the Koch brother’s attorney tells me that it is a piece of propaganda.
Now when a conservative person puts on his blog a supposed article by a conservative author, it is assumed that the article is true. If they post an article that Obama is not a natural born citizen, it’s up to the other side to prove otherwise. If there was an article in conservative press that Obama was a cannibal, then it would be the responsibility of free thinkers to to prove that Obama was not a cannibal. Just the fact that a bad thing is in the press about Obama seems like it is good enough for conservatives. They really don’t seem to care about the facts of the original assertion. The original assertion doesn’t need any backup–only an allegation is needed. Then somehow, the other side has to show that the original assertion was a damned lie.
Now in the original article, it’s stated that the president singled out by name the Kochs. I tried to Google it. I couldn’t find it. What I did find was that the president singled out a Super PAC–”Americans for Prosperity”–which is basically a political arm of the Kochs.
I think Gingrich has become a believer that these Super PACs are not a good idea. When Gingrich complains about Romney’s Super PAC and its distortions, conservatives say, “yeah, that probably isn’t right.” But when Obama responds to a Super PAC, then all of a sudden it is Nixonian. When Gingrich in a debate goes right at Romney and calls him on the distortions, supportive conservatives applaud. If Obama does the same thing with the Super PAC, or the people behind it, all of a sudden it is Nixonian.
The article seems to wax on with all these conspiracy theories about Obama and his attacks on the Kochs, but it is pretty short on actual facts and data. The author/lawyer works like a good magician with words. He talks about “bills of attainder” and “procecutorial power” and all of these other things which don’t apply to political speech. He tries to make it seem that if the President were to make a political speech that mentions someone, then he’s abusing his power. Not so. When Reagan made speeches against his political opponents, was he abusing his power? No. But, of course if Obama does it then that’s different.
Oh, yeah. I do try to have a life trying to raise my 15 year old daughter on my own. Sorry that not making an immediate response makes me a hypocrite.
10 February 2012 @ 3:21 pm
Ah, you’re disputing the FACTS of the case, and the equality of Olson’s argument! Well now, that seems like a constructive approach.
If you had a problem with the facts or the way they were argued, you might have started with that, rather than with implications that nobody should care if the President has an enemies list, if it’s someone we can’t bring ourselves to feel sorry for.
You’re not under any obligation to argue in any particular way to suit me, but if you start out with a tu quoque and the suggestion that no one should care about alleged abuses of executive power because it’s the Koch brothers who deserve no better, perhaps you oughtn’t be surprised if people think your attack rather poorly founded, and say so.
10 February 2012 @ 3:22 pm
Sorry, “quality” of Olson’s argument.