Cripplehawk
Myself and some others were admonished recently for taking a blind pol at face value, when we mocked Kareem Dale, Obama’s special assistant for arts and culture, for admitting the White House’s feelings of love for MSNBC.
But that was actually treating the handicapped like human beings who are no different from the rest of us. This is what abuse of the handicapped looks like:
Maguire at JustOneMinute channels some classic lefty hypocrisy. It’s Joe Klein, quoted at Politico, on Charles Krauthammer. Praise and pity for the lame, with an entirely unmerited slam a wheelchair-bound man’s ability to write and think, due to his spinal cord injury.
“He became Ground Zero among the neo-cons, but he’s vastly smarter than most of them,” said Time’s Joe Klein, an admirer and critic who praised Krauthammer’s “writing skills and polemical skills” as “so far above almost anybody writing columns today.”
“There’s something tragic about him too,” Klein said, referring to Krauthammer’s confinement to a wheelchair, the result of a diving accident during his first year of medical school. “His work would have a lot more nuance if he were able to see the situations he’s writing about.”
I think, due to the neo-con references, its actually a sort of modified chickenhawk argument. More of a cripplehawk argument, I guess.
OK, I don’t know whether Joe Klein has ever put himself in harm’s way. I’d have to read him more often than I do, which is virtally never. Scanning his bio, I see a career spent covering political hacks. No war correspondence or indications he’s sought out nuance anywhere more hazardous than Manhattan. Please fill me in if I’m missing something.
Looking past this unwarranted attack on a man’s life-changing injury, I extend to him the same challenge I extend to everyone who raises the chickenhawk argument. Like peace? Hate Yankee Imperialist warmongery. Human shield. Go plant yourself in front of the Afghan villagers the next time the Taliban take them hostage in a firefight. There are still carbombs going off in Mosul, Baghdad and Baquba, plenty of opportunity to sacrifice yourself for George Bush’s crimes. Or just take up residence in a barrage balloon over downtown Manhattan. Come on.
I have no respect for these chickendoves. But slamming a man and suggesting he is not entitled to his opinion because he sits in a wheelchair is beneath even the cowardice of a Sean Penn.
“Stand up, Joe Klein, so we can kick your ass,” comments Maguire. But it’s really not worth it. He doesn’t even rate as a chickendove with those remarks. Just a chickenshit. Ask yourself who’s the cripple in this scenario.
(BTW, should any chickendoves show up with helpful suggestions, this is getting tiresome, but yes, I put my money where my mouth is. At least seven close calls that I am aware of, close enough that another 10 steps and I’d be dead, close enough to hear bullets go past my head, close enough to have to turn my head to track the RPG flying past, close enough that friends had to use grenades, close enough that the ringing in my ears hasn’t stopped to this day. My only regrets are that my newspaper, due to financial constraints, stopped sending me overseas, and I was too old to enlist in time of war. I hope that’s sufficient though I understand remain guilty of thought crimes.)
Gateway notes the evolution from tea-bagging jokes … which always struck me as particularly tasteless coming from the supposedly more homo-tolerant wing of American politics.
Betsy’s Page: “Is he saying that all people confined to wheelchairs have narrow, unenlightened views?”
To paraphrase Betsy, that makes Franklin Delano Roosevelt the most prominent, least nuanced STFU ignoramous of the modern era.
Podhoretz, introducing some Kraut nuance with his post’s title, “A Small Man” … it’s a play on “Klein,” if you don’t happen to speak Hoch Buckethead … makes the FDR connection and takes the low argument to a loftier plain:
Is it possible, in this day and age, for someone seriously to argue such a thing? We cannot go back in time and visit the battlefields of the Civil War, or Agincourt, or the Peloponnese—are we therefore incapable of seeing their nuances?
Dan at Protein Wisdom, hurtfully making the cripple-bashing all about other people’s disabilities, cruelly asks: “I wonder what he thinks of David Paterson.”
Allahpundit at HotAir, to his credit, tries harder to understand Klein’s nuance than Klein deserves.
Maguire updates with Klein’s limp, if windy excuse. Klein explains that he didn’t intend to insult disabled people, that he regrets that right-wing nutjobs created that impression, that in fact he actually thinks disabled people might have greater insight than able-bodied people, but he’s sorry if he inadvertantly caused any disabled people any discomfort. Something like that. Also, he suggests that people he doesn’t agree with are mentally and visually disabled, which Maguire notes may be a new infraction. Klein almost appears to be suggesting that if they follow his preferred methodology, they will agree with him, or at least disagree with him less, which frankly sounds a tad cultish. Maguire, who picks apart the wretched mea not exactly culpa, tu neanderthalensis throwbackus in more detail than I could be bothered to, calls him a “classless buffoon.” I think Maguire is being charitable.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:31 am on Wednesday, May 20, 2009
10 Responses to “Cripplehawk”
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May 20th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
[...] Jules on the “Cripplehawk” smear [...]
May 20th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
I’ll take Krauthammer with his physical disability over Klein with his clearly deficient thought processes, any day.
May 20th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
[...] Jules Crittenden dryly suggests, “I think, due to the neo-con references, its actually a sort of modified chickhawk argument. More of a cripplehawk argument, I guess.” [...]
May 20th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
[...] Jules Crittenden: [...]
May 20th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Gawd. They win the election, you would think they would be happy, but no, they grow even more loathsome.
May 20th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
[...] has a suggestion: Looking past this unwarranted attack on a man’s life-changing injury, I extend to him the same [...]
May 20th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Jules,
I truly believe that Klein, and all the other leftist trash, hate folks like Charles because they put the lie to everything the leftist stands for.
Krauthammer has risen to repectability, and has a reasoned, thoughtful approach to his topics. He’s also been able to ply his trade and earn a living. That flies in the face of the leftist meme that he’s a victim, and needs to embrace his victim’s status in order to gain credibility. Rather than be seen as someone who has done good things despite his injuries, he’s admonished BECAUSE he has done good things despite his injuries.
This tripe-sucking crapweasel attitude of Klein’s just p!sses me right off. The only reason i can think of for this sort of attitude is that Klein is concerned about his own job. He’s seeing the slowing economy, the layoffs, and is arguing that the cripples ought not to be employed since they can get disability and stay home all day, rather than take a slot from someone like slow Joe Klein..
To toss the argument back to Joe, I could ask why he has a job? i thought being a journalist required a brain, but in his case, obviously not.
May 20th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
[...] Tom Maguire, Michael Goldfarb at The Weekly Standard, John Podhoretz in Commentary, Betsy Newmark, Jules Crittenden. Joyner writes: Upon first reading the quote, I was prepared to believe that Smith was reading [...]
May 20th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
I dismissed Joe Klein years ago, just from reading his opinion pieces in Time Magazine (which I also cancelled years ago because it had become ineptly presented lefty propaganda). Klein is a nasty little man, unworthy of attention by anyone with intelligence.
May 21st, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Umm, who’s Joe Klein? Does he write for any periodicals that are worth reading?
I found listening to Krauthammer rewarding when Brit Hume was the anchor for Special Report. Krauthammer’s reasoning was outstanding, and an enjoyable educational process.