The Pantomime Horse of the Stupidocalypse

Echo chamber er er

Over at Sadl No Gavin M has some fun with Johah Goldberg.

Goldberg claimed that "that conservatives don’t actually question the patriotism of liberals". Huh ? When called on it, he claimed that Democrats do it too. In one example, he accuses John Kerry of questioning patriotism and poor rhyming when Kerry said "creed of greed".

Gavin M argues that Goldberg got all of his examples from an article b Morton Kondracke

Sen. Bob Graham (Fla.), when he was a candidate, said that Bush’s Iraq policy was “anti-patriotic at the core.” Last September, Kerry said that Bush “lives out a creed of greed for he and his friends” and that it was “unpatriotic” for Bush’s “friends” (i.e., corporate executives) to move jobs offshore. It was a regular staple of retired Gen. Wesley Clark’s campaign to say that Bush’s policies were “not patriotic.”

Howard Dean, when he was a candidate, charged that Ashcroft “is no patriot. He’s a direct descendant of Joseph McCarthy.”

Sure looks that way. Note that Kondracke didn't claim that Kerry claimed that Bush was unpatriotic, but that's just a detail. Kondracke did accuse Kerry of poor grammer as "he and his friends" should be "himself and his friends".


googling

"creed of greed" AND Kerry shows that Kerry is indeed guilty of a silly rhyme but there is no evidence of the grammer booboo [or the accusation of unpatriotism based on little evidence alleged by Goldberg].

Gavin googled the whole phrase and found that, surprise surprise, Fred Barnes writes by cutting a pasting without attribution or checking quotes.

The repetition of the grammar error shows this. Thus " The Last Refuge of the Democrats " was cowritten by Barnes and Kondracke [although Barnes didn't share credit for the misquotation]. Brad DeLong might call the beastie who wrote that article the pantomime horse of the Stupidocalypse.

Sad to say, Kaus and Krauthammer seem to make up their own inaccurate quotes.