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Political incivility

Well, it's been a bad week all-around for the politically civil. Yes, Mr. Cheney, we're well aware that the Senate's sense of comity should be given a memorial next to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, but it doesn't excuse you telling Senator Leahy to f--- himself. Save that sort of thing for when you're not on camera.

On the other hand, the left of the blogosphere has been erupting with indignation at the fact that the Bush campaign is "using images of Adolf Hitler in its campaign videos." What is often not mentioned is that the ad uses clips from a rather infamous Moveon.org advertisement.

This kind of moralism seems particularly obtuse. First of all, the argument against MoveOn.org's advertisement wasn't that it was distasteful to use Hitler in a campaign ad, but that it was odious and excessive to compare your political enemies of whatever stripe to one of the 20th century's worst moral scourges. Those who are criticizing the new Bush video fail to distinguish between comparing a candidate to Hitler, and pointing out that a candidate's supporters frequently make such an overwrought comparison. At least on this point, the Bush ads have it right: it's ridiculous for Kerry to denounce Bush's ad if he's not willing to take a swing at MoveOn or Michael Moore.

That's merely to say the ad is not morally reprehensible. It's still not a bright move. Even the Kerry website has noticed what I pointed out months ago: that Bush's website, his ads, his entire posture is simply too damn negative. There's no need to run this ad on the front page of the campaign website. Even if it had been the brainchild of a campaign staffer, the idea could have been shunted off to some politically sympathetic fringe group to turn into a net-meme. The wooly-eyed hatred of the Moores of this world doesn't need any more focus, and certainly not from the candidate himself.

This is where I'm really concerned about the Bush campaign: it's entered a bunker mentality. Under a fairly relentless barrage of criticism from all sides, it's become overly-defensive. I can understand why: when propaganda films like Moore's, screeching like that from MoveOn, all in all these things begin to hurt those who are closely involved with the candidate. There's an urge to cry 'foul' at some point. But crying foul does not befit a candidate for the presidency. There's others (like the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy of the Blogosphere) to do that. The candidate needs to remain above such sound and fury.

The Bush website should have a relentless stream of optimism on its homepage. How about a ticker noting how many of Iraq's power plants are back on line, how many schools have been started or built: the kind of mundane things that don't get covered in the news because they don't bleed, but are frightfully important? How about guest columns from some of the web's better commentators to spruce up the site? How about some actual interaction--Kerry's site gets hundreds of comments a day? But most importantly, get the images of Kerry and his cohorts off your homepage. It's bilious, angry, and the sign of a wounded tiger. Cut it out.

UPDATE: Will Baude reminds me that Cheney isn't the only pol willing to use the f-word in relation to a political opponent. We might debate whether "f--- off" is better or worse than "f--- it up," but it does put some of the griping in perspective. This election hasn't been played by the Marquis' rules.

Glancing at the Kerry blog, it's particularly instructive how some people will criticize their opponents but not their allies. My frequent rival Chris Geidner was incensed that one would use children for political ends. I wonder what he thinks about the Kerry for President lemonade stand? Ah, I'm sure those four-year olds are doing this completely independently of their parent's political views...

UPDATE 2: How sad. I found out today that I was linked off the Bush2004.com site. Unfortunately, it's a parody site, and not the real one. There goes my hopes of getting links from the Bush and Kerry blogs before this election's over...

UPDATE 3: I just noticed that Oxblog has a copy of a Kerry fundraising letter strongly taking Bush to task for using images of Hitler. Amusingly, there's no mention that the images come from a MoveOn ad.

Comments

I agree with you that the "how dare Bush compare Kerry to Hitler!" flap is very much overblown and somewhat incoherent, but I do think that your repeated attribution of the ad in question to MoveOn is misleading. As you're probably aware, MoveOn sent out an open call for submissions for thirty-second anti-Bush ads; after several rounds of voting, the winner was to be aired during the Super Bowl (of course, it didn't, because CBS refused to run the ad, but that's neither here nor there). Apparently they slapped the thousand-plus entries online without thoroughly vetting them, because I believe there were two ads which made the Bush = Hitler comparisons, and as soon as the offending ads were pointed out, they were pulled. Calling the spots "MoveOn ads", then, isn't really an accurate description, in my view: if I weren't familiar with the circumstances, I would tend to think, given that phrase, that the advertisements in question were funded, produced, written, or sanctioned by MoveOn, when that's not, in fact, the case. MoveOn did inadvertently distribute the ad, and they should have definitely done more due diligence, rather than posting them all sight unseen, but I can understand the mistake, considering the rather overwhelming number of entries. I know it's rather inelegant to have to resort to expository paragraphs justifying every idle turn of phrase, but I think in a post rightly taking people to task for pushing an incomplete picture for partisan advantage, it's worth dotting your t's. Outrage at Cheney's use of the f-bomb is similarly somewhat besides the point; personally, I think I can construct a fairly coherent explanation for why Kerry's "I can't believe they'd f--- it up this badly" was less uncivil than Cheney's point-blank ad-hominem, but I'd wager that I'm significantly more comfortable with the casual use of profanity in political discourse than the vast majority of the country, and generalizing from me is probably a bad ides.
For the MoveOn ad: I've heard the argument above, but I simply don't buy it, Mike. It's a case of functionalism in an internet context, but I'm a stickler for such things. The MoveOn contest didn't function like the Comments section here at TYoH: things weren't posted automatically without editorial control. Unless my understanding of the backend is particularly wrong, they were collected then posted. Further, at least according to some reports, they ran with "Sponsored by MoveOn.Org" taglines on them. Now, this means one of two things: either the ads came with the tagline on them, or someone did some editing. MoveOn provided considerable bandwidth for their little contest; they posted the ads themselves, not through an automated front-end; and they removed them only after the Anti-Defamation League complained, not their political opponents. To me, describing them as MoveOn.Org ads doesn't seem too much of a stretch. Considering their posting an editorial error would be overly generous. Nevertheless, thank you for posting that explanation--as you said, it saves me a rather large coda in my argument, and my readers can now judge for themselves.
The hitler piece was an independent submission to the MoveOn.org ad contest. The ad didn't win a place among the favorites in the contest and was never "shown" by MoveOn.org other than for judging. The only persons who could see the hitler submission were those who registered at MoveOn.org's website to view and vote for their favorite submissions in the contest. It was never offered to the general public or promoted by MoveOn.org. You have to be aware of these facts. If not, you're guilty of failure to perform due diligence or guilty of displaying a casual indifference to accuracy, to the facts and to the truth. Maybe you've not studied the concept of due diligence yet? If you were aware of the facts, then you're deliberately misrepresenting the context in which the ad was placed on the MoveOn.org website and the fact that it was never "run" by MoveOn.org. In addition, it is my understanding (I don't claim certain knowledge on this point) the hitler submission was removed, like all the other non-winners, after the results of the voting, not by pressure from any outside group. Neither MoveOn.org nor anyone other than the submitter(s ?) were responsible for the content of the hitler piece. Furthermore, Kerry hadn't even sewn up the democratic nomination either at the time of the submission or at the time of its final judging and subsequent removal from the site. Any attempt to connect the hitler piece to Kerry or his campaign is therefore even more dishonest and reprehensible. Ironically, the Bush ad which uses the hitler images from the hitler submission to the MoveOn.org contest, is arguably a copyright violation if the submitter wanted to press the issue (although "fair use" might protect Bush - but that would be a defense). I am assuming the submitter did not grant to MoveOn.org any of his, her or their rights or execute a waiver. All in all, the only persons guilty of bad taste in the whole episode are Bush and the Bush campaign team and the submitter. MoveOn.org is an innocent party. Kerry isn't connected in any way.
You have to be aware of these facts. If not, you're guilty of failure to perform due diligence or guilty of displaying a casual indifference to accuracy, to the facts and to the truth. Maybe you've not studied the concept of due diligence yet? Hmm. The kind of casual calumny I've come to expect from someone attempting to defend Michael Moore. First, before I can be 'guilty' (a criminal term) of 'displaying casual indifference to accuracy' (a heretofore unknown crime), I would presumably have to have some duty to do so. Or perhaps I've not studied whatever it is Adaplant thinks I ought to have. Perhaps he/she can enlighten me? In addition, it is my understanding (I don't claim certain knowledge on this point) the hitler submission was removed, like all the other non-winners, after the results of the voting, not by pressure from any outside group. Here, of course, your 'understanding' is simply wrong, as a brief bit of research before spouting off would have shown. The ADL did indeed condemn the MoveOn.org ad, MoveOn removed it before the rest of the entries. Finally, I'm quite certain you're wrong that, "Neither MoveOn.org nor anyone other than the submitter(s ?) were responsible for the content of the hitler [sic] piece." So long as uploading submissions wasn't completely automatic, then they had some degree of editorial control, and a duty to exercise it. That's in the same way that I would have a duty to screen such entries if I ran such a contest. Similarly, if anyone ever posted anything defamatory here, I'd have a duty to take it down, disavow it as soon as I found out and could reasonably investigate it, or at least contact the victim and ask what they wanted done. Now, as far as I could understand from the Bush in 30 Seconds campaigns, you couldn't just upload an ad willy-nilly: you had to submit it, and then it was posted on Move-On's site. Further, it was distributed using their organization's bandwidth and manpower. Sure, maybe it could have been a Republican plant, though if we're talking about negligence, not screening entries in an online competition for such things would seem to be closer to the mark. But unless you have any evidence that it was, you've got pointless speculation. Certainly no one's claimed it was so far, and I'd imagine MoveOn would be all over it if they could prove that. (Incidentally, they're posted subject to a Creative Commons license. If you want to make a case for a copyright violation, go ahead, but make it better than the rest of your argument: pulling less than five seconds of the spot seems unlikely to violate 'fair use', and whatever 'that's a defense' is supposed to mean, it is a valid defense, not an excuse.)
so my question is: what's the point of the bush ad with the (moveon) hitler footage? to discredit his opponents? if so, it's really not all that effective. doesn't bush know that replaying their statements just helps get their message out more?
As far as I can tell from http://www.bushin30seconds.org/rules.html and the associated entry page, submissions, as far as I can tell, were an automated process. You fill out the entry form, upload your mpg/mov/whatever and it's there's on the site.
Guilt is not a strictly criminal concept. See: Any Dictionary. Your guilt, if any, is a failure to live up to a duty of personal integrity in the context of this political issue. As I said, I wasn't certain about the reason(s) for and timing of the removal of the hitler submission from MoveOn.org's site, and although your link recognized the temporary nature of the submission posting, it didn't specifically address the timing of and reason for the removal of the ad or distinguish its removal and the timing of its removal from the countless other non-winners of the contest. Still a moot point. Being "quite certain" I am wrong doesn't in any way prove whether the process of contest submissions was or was not automatic. You could just say, you don't know. I certainly don't and I have some familiarity with back end web server processes. I am quite certain it is possible it was fully automatic, but that proves nothing either. Another moot point. According to you, once notified of the objectionable content, MoveOn.org removed the submission. Surely their duty was met. As for a priori censorship of contest submissions, editorial control, did they grant themselves that right in the contest rules? It appears, according to your theory of the timing of things, they were alerted to objectionable content of one among more than a thousand submissions, and they removed the content once they were aware of it. Your point I guess is the narrower one that they should have known before the ADL complaint and removed the submission earlier. If that is in fact your point, it is a slender reed upon which to build a substantial case of moral outrage against MoveOn.org and no basis at all on which to contruct a case against John Kerry. One the larger point I raised with regard to the timing of the submission and removal vis a vis Kerry and his campaign, you are silent. A tacit admissiopn perhaps that you recognize there is and was no connection between John Kerry and his campaign on the one hand and MoveOn.org and the hitler ad submitter on the other hand. Which brings us back to the question: Do you recognize a duty of personal integrity? I will assume for the sake of argument that you do. The question then becomes the extent of the duty. Does it extend to political issues? The jury is out.
I didn't forget the "republican plant" point you rasied. It is a silly strawman argument. I didn't raise it, I don't urge it and I don't believe it. The submitter has sole responsibility for the content of the ad. His, her or their identiy and any hidden affiliations they may or may not have had along with nefarious motives which may or may not exist are too speculative to bother exploring in a serious discussion of political incivility. Enough said.
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/6/26/173926/836
For pity's sake Tony. This one really is a case of a single individuals opinion being substituted as a statement by John Kerry. Since the individual wasn't John Kerry and has no official sanction or platform this seems a little harsh... Look, it's not even past the conventions and your guy has spent more on negative ads than any candidate for anything in history. Lets not be surprised that there are some barrels being scraped here. The only party to have broadcast the bush-hitler thing is the Republican party. And lets be honest, comparisons can be drawn in some senses. In an effort to appeal to your legalistic mind I submit that Bush is a man So was Hitler Bush ran a country So did Hitler Bush is leading his nation during wartime So did Hitler So it's not really all that hard to create a meaningful (and very small) subset of the world's population which contains both of them. Perhaps the comparison was justified after all Or maybe, just maybe it's all about context.
Incidently since this thread explicitly started with mention of Hitler don't you lose the argument automatically thanks to what's his name's law?
Tony, this is a truly disappointing post. For many of the reasons discussed above. I expect better from you. I simply do not understand how you can say it "doesn't seem too much of a stretch" to call them MoveOn.org ads. WMDRPA (weapons of mass destruction related program activities) are not WMD, and unsuccessful entries submitted by essentially anonymous third parties to an ad competition (in which, as one of your commenters pointed out [trickster], the posting process might well have been automated from looking at the competition site), held by MoveOn.org (who quickly removed them when their hideous content was brought to their attention) & which were never aired/placed/sent anywhere other than on the contest page are not justly described as"MoveOn.org ads." But then again, as Bush has said, "what's the difference?"
btw, it was always my understanding that the "Sponsored by MoveOn.org" tagline had been placed onto the videos afterward by the righty groups as part of their smear of the group & the contest. That may have been simply a rumor & incorrect. In any event, the MemoryHole seems to have posted the original videos here. Sadly, they are Quicktime files, & I do not have that player here at work, so I cannot view them. The cover image of each, however, does not seem to have any such "MoveOn.org" tag.
Don't be silly. Calling the contest submission a "Moveon ad" is exactly the sort of intellectual dishonesty you're always moaning about. What a blowhard.
I sense consensus,
Shocking, adaplant, that most of my left-wing readers reach concensus. I suppose it takes little to get one smug. First: they didn't pull it when they first recognized it, but only after they received complaints (from the ADL, no less). Now, from anyone but Martin, I wouldn't expect much more, but he and I worked together in meetings where responsible companies some times turned down our ideas for more user interactivity--something we generally promoted--because of precisely the risk that MoveOn experienced: that something would be put up on their site without their editorial control, because they didn't have the manpower to manage it. You should realize that at the very best, you're arguing that MoveOn was negligent and/or stupid in running their contest, and that's if there was no editorial control. If there was, the fact that they put it up originally and withdrew it under protest to me makes it 'theirs' in the sense that it's an entry to a contest they sponsored, promoted, and put online. Just as, when I guest blog for Crescat or De Novo, my words are 'theirs' because they've provided me with access, and if I said something offensive, I'm quite certain that Baude or the De Novo folks would take their share of the responsiblity. Then again, perhaps I just have a heightened sense of the responsibility of running a website. ;) God knows that if I ever had something posted on my site that was that bad, the deletion would be swift, the apology would be grovelling, and the ban and denouncement of the perpetrator would be as total as possible, particularly if it wasn't done in a comments section but after I'd viewed the content. And if it had been put up after I'd reviewed it, I wouldn't fail to own up for it. Now, if we know there was no editorial control, I'm willing to retract that and state they were just incompetent. Fine. Nonetheless, one then wonders why the Kerry campaign hired the man behind MoveOn's blunder as his web-guru. He doesn't seem to have been too concerned. Finally, if you look at the original article, you'll notice two things: (a) I didn't say that Kerry was connected to the advertisement in question, and (b) I too think it's a poor advertisement. (Martin's right--the Bush/Hitler thing has gotten more airtime as a result of this ad than anything else, and essentially the campaign just bought airtime for Kerry.) However, if my statement above is as disingenuous as you state, then you should at least hold Kerry to the same standards: it would be equally as disingenuous to write the campaign email he did (the Oxblog link) without mentioning that the images were quotations. (This, incidentally, is an opinion echoed by the kuro5hin post linked above.) That was the crux of the argument above. (The Bush ad doesn't say that the Kerry campaign was responsible for the advertisement, merely that his allies were, which is true as far as it goes.) Finally, adaplant, a word for you. Yes, guilty has multiple meanings. However, given that you followed up a long diatribe with 'Haven't you studied due diligence yet?' one has to wonder what the hell you meant. Either you're using 'negligent' or 'due diligence' as metaphors, in which case fine, I'll run with it, or you're not. But if you are, then the question is nonsensical: I certainly haven't studied it in the context of metaphor, and I'm certain few students do. Either the question was foolish, or rude, or both, but I chose to interpret it literally simply because any other remark made you look snide.
Wow, what a lot of space has been wasted on this. The current move-on.org ad about censuring Bush is rather dishonest, for those still out to defend that group. Secondly, according to their own apology ( http://moveonvoterfund.org/smear/release.html ) they did have a screening process and deeply regreat that two (2) Hitler ads got through... Now, since it would be more advantageous to claim NO screening process, as some of their sensible defenders here no doubt innocently opined, I think we should in charity take them at their deeply regretful word that they had one. It's just that it wasn't good enough at screening to stop Hitler comparisons not once, but twice. Oops! Now, I suppose your critics here will find it unfair that you want to hold them in any way accountable for this, but they don't have much of a leg so stand on in defending a group who opens a sluice gate and then pretends to be upset by what sloshes through.
Completely unrelated to the above controversy: The Kerry/Hitler ad (as described to me - I haven't yet seen it, as I'm at work (!) ) reminds me of the Conservatives' "New Labour, New Danger" campaign in the UK, in which they painted demonic eyes over the eyes of Tony Blair. Needless to say this crashed badly. If Bush keeps this up, he will alienate people who want to support him, I think.
I think the real issue here is still context. Moveon's site makes it clear who produced the ads (ie not them) and where they came from (the public at large). You'd only have failed to realise this if you weren't paying attention or were presented with the movie stripped of context. The subsequent life of this issue is entirely down to a Republican smear tactic and the kind of thing that should be stripped out of political discourse. Moveon's initial screening process may have involved nothing more than 'is this porn?' they do after all believe in freedom of speech over there...
Hmm... Martin, that's remarkable coming from you. Even assuming that you do describe this as a 'freedom of speech' issue, you don't see providing hundreds if not thousands of MB of free bandwidth as 'sponsorship' of any form? Are you seriously stating that the ads, without either the contest, the promise of reward, or the use of MoveOn's resources, would have existed or gained so wide a distribution?
*That* reminds me of the debate surrounding the Oxford Union, which proposed to allow a prominent holocaust-denying historian (and at other times, various other controversial characters) to speak there. Its a bit different, because the individuals concerned weren't proposing to say anything in particular (e.g. that the holocaust never happened). I *think* in that case they did cancel the speaker, and I recall arguing for that position at the time. This was because by giving the guy a slot at the Union, they were effectively giving his position a platform, and in that sense supporting his position. However I certainly wouldn't have said that allowing to speak meant the Union had adopted his views, or that if he had denied the Holocaust while speaking that this would mean the Union had denied the Holocaust. I do think this is a matter of wording: Saying that the movie had been featured on MoveOn or *maybe* sponsored by, is more acceptable than saying its a MoveOn advertisement. Then again, Robert Kilroy-Silk's Arab-bashing article in (I think) the Sunday Times was a Sunday Times article, so its debatable. End of the day, MoveOn took the thing down, after pressure, because they presumably didn't feel justified in keeping it up, and as Martin says, later discussion and use of the images constitutes shabby politics.
You know, I just wrote a VERY long article, full of links, trying to justify why it was OK to describe it as a MoveOn article. In an irony of ironies, when trying to link to the PDF of Gore's "digital brownshirts" speech off of MoveOn.Org, opening Adobe PDF crashed my browser... Oh well, you'll just have to wait. ;)
So, I finally got a chance to view the original QuickTime versions of the ads, posted at The Memory Hole (linked above). The second carries no mention of MoveOn anywhere--which fits with my recollections from viewing & voting on dozens of ads during the contest. The first ad does contain a little "Sponsored by MoveOn.org" tag at the end, in clearly identical font/style as the rest of the text in that ridiculous ad. Quite convenient. It seems like whoever made that ad wanted to be very, very sure anybody viewing it would have zero doubt about who deserved 'credit' for it. Further, the ad author's tag simply is wrong--that particular ad certainly was not sponsored by MoveOn.org. When its disgusting nature was brought to MoveOn.org's attention, it (and another ad) was removed. What MoveOn.org did sponsor was an ad contest, where they posted all the entries online for its members to vote on. That cannot be reasonably seen as sponsorship of any individual entry aside from the winner. Tony then writes: You should realize that at the very best, you're arguing that MoveOn was negligent and/or stupid in running their contest, and that's if there was no editorial control. If there was, the fact that they put it up originally and withdrew it under protest to me makes it 'theirs' in the sense that it's an entry to a contest they sponsored, promoted, and put online. Just as, when I guest blog for Crescat or De Novo, my words are 'theirs' because they've provided me with access, and if I said something offensive, I'm quite certain that Baude or the De Novo folks would take their share of the responsiblity. Yes, I'm happy to say they were negligent or naive--because, undoubtedly, they were. They should have had a) some kind of minimal screening process, or b) a more effective screening process. Nonetheless, if Will Baude allowed you to guest blog & you mentioned you'd be voting for President Bush, you don't think Will would be right to chastise me if I started describing his blog as "the right-wing blog Crescat Setentia, which has already expressed its intent to vote for Bush" or referring to "the avowed Bush-backer @ Crescat"? He'd say--Look J, you moron, that was Tony using our space as a guest. We have since said in other posts that we reject that view (or maybe have even deleted that post). He does not constitute "Crescat," & you're merely engaged in dishonest intellectual sleight-of-hand. He'd be right. Nonetheless, one then wonders why the Kerry campaign hired the man behind MoveOn's blunder as his web-guru. He doesn't seem to have been too concerned. Umm, maybe that would be because he's a web-guru, and he's being hired to be a web-guru, while the error/lapse of judgment/naivete in the MoveOn situation was one of political savvy & strategy, not one of technical ability. Further, Kerry is not hiring him as a political advisor & presumably he will exercise far, far less control over content with JFK2004 than he did at MoveOn.org. Instead, he will be charged with organizing on the web the content other Kerry advisors & strategists create. Or at least that's my understanding of his role. The main point, tho, is that you're simply being ridiculous in stubbornly insisting on calling this those despicable ads "MoveOn.org ads." They were not produced or created by any individual working for MoveOn.org. The group has explicitly repudiated them & removed them. The "ads" were never run or placed anywhere other than on MoveOn.org's contest voting area. Lastly, I find it more than a little suspicious that one of them carries a clearly home-made "Sponsored by MoveOn.org" logo at the end, as tho the author was actively trying to create something with which to tar them.
Nonetheless, if Will Baude allowed you to guest blog & you mentioned you'd be voting for President Bush, you don't think Will would be right to chastise me if I started describing his blog as "the right-wing blog Crescat Setentia, which has already expressed its intent to vote for Bush" or referring to "the avowed Bush-backer @ Crescat"? Well, no. And if the Bush-ad did that in anything except the most fevered of imaginations, I'd probably change my tune. But that's not what the commercial does. The commercial says the equivalent of: "Some of the Crescatters have expressed an intention to vote for President Bush." Now, Baude could point out that I was a former--and for that matter, temporary--Crescatter. He could say that he removed the post. But the statement would still be true. And if other Crescatters showed serious Bush-voting tendencies--say, by calling opponents of Bush 'redshirts'?--then the accusation wouldn't be that unfitting. (Incidentally, one more fact: according the MSNBC the ads were up on the site for ten days. Quite an 'editorial oversight.' The final comment in that article largely reflects my view of the ad itself, incidentally.)
End of the day, MoveOn took the thing down, after pressure, because they presumably didn't feel justified in keeping it up, and as Martin says, later discussion and use of the images constitutes shabby politics. I don't know. It's certainly bad politics--it's an awful ad. But shabby? Doesn't that depend on how well the accusation sits? Again, if MoveOn never hosted another Bush/Hitler comparison, or didn't highlight them, then what the heck, you might be right. But how can you say it's 'shabby politics' when they obviously don't think it's that far outside the lines of political correctness?

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