Ben Johnson did a quick review of the leftist response to Tony Snow's death. Pretty sick stuff and pretty much what I expected.
Their post cleaned up some of the foul language and I tried to get the rest. See their post at
"Goebbels With Better Hair"
By Ben Johnson
FrontPageMagazine.com | 7/14/2008
When I referenced Tony Snow last Friday as one example of the Left’s death wish against their enemies, I had no idea he would be dead before the weekend was over. Snow served as the model for all future White House spokesmen, in addition to his accomplishments as a television journalist. His loss saddens everyone at FrontPage Magazine. Unfortunately, it has gladdened the hearts of many on the Left.
An L.A. Times editor approved hateful comments on Snow’s obituary. CNN’s iReport quickly filled with bile. However, the left-wing “alternate media” (so named for the universe they inhabit) produced the most searing and deliberately offensive coverage.
As Snow passed away this weekend, several outlets – such as Mother Jones, The American Prospect, and Common Dreams – have not yet weighed in. Surprisingly, John Nichols at The Nation penned a gentle, compassionate obituary.
Which sent his readership into a red fury. Among their comments:
• For crying out loud here is a guy defending war crimes and cleverly obfuscating the honest questions. May be there are groups where his skill is appreciated just like a group of homicidal maniacs admiring the Charles Mansons. Give us a break.
• Snow was a nasty f**k. there was no civility, he had a high handed arrogant way of conducting the press conferences. I'm glad he's dead.
Sadly, the commenters and not Nichols characterized the Left’s response to Snow’s repose. The anti-Bush website The Smirking Chimp smirked that Snow had “Gone to join Jesse Helms.” The first comment elicited:
I'm lovin it
yeeeeeehaaaaaaaa
yaahooo
LET'S PARTY!!~
The DailyKos: The Worst of the Worst
None so offended as the far-Left’s most popular blog, The DailyKos.
The hate site has long voiced its unbridled glee over Snow’s affliction with cancer. After the disease that would ultimately kill him returned last March, one DailyKos blogger tried to head-off the inevitable cheers for Snow’s blood. The post even falsely charged the blog’s enemies with its own behavior: “We at Dailykos do not swim in the Rush Limbaugh pool of scum. We do not wish ill-health on our political opponents or their families.” However, Kos posters inundated the blog with expressions of joy. The same day, a Kos diarist argued that since Snow had opposed medical marijuana and euthanasia, his cancer was “karmic.” A year later, after another downturn, the DK klan wrote: “F**k Tony Snow. Not to wish ill of his cancer or anything, but perhaps it is Karma.” And again, “Tony Snow is a cancer upon our culture.” Another “Kossack” declared, “He deserves whatever is in his future.” Months later, one Kos scribbler asked, “Should I Care That Tony Snow Has Cancer?”
If possible, after Snow’s death Saturday leftists were even less restrained.
Once again, a diarist tried to stem the tide of vitriol directed at the still-warm corpse – and castigate his political enemies as the real hatemongers:
Remember Tim Russert?
Yea, him.
The guy who was more or less treated disrespectfully by FOX news and PAGE SIX of the [New York] Post.
Please think on the fact that you are considering insulting Tony Snow, or venting your spleen…Please allow a little time to pass before you too become just like FOX news and Page SIX of the Murdock [sic.] empire.
In fact, Tim Russert received glowing coverage from the New York Post and Fox News – including several airings of his final interviews on Hannity and Colmes, Fox and Friends, and Fox News Sunday. The alleged Page Six insult seems to be the Post’s reporting that Chris Matthews rehearsed his sales pitch to become moderator of Meet the Press at Russert’s funeral, and that Keith Olbermann raged at Russert’s memorial reception that he could not get a first-class transportation and lacked ketchup packets for his lunch. (Both parties deny the allegations.) It was Alexander Cockburn who demeaned Russert’s competence in Nation. It was The Progressive’s Matthew Rothschild who, shortly after Russert’s death, branded him “a cheerleader for war.” It was the far-Left Sam Husseini who averred Russert “planted the seeds for war.” It was the leftist CommonDreams.org that longed for “the death of the journalism he represented.”
And it was this Kos diarist’s own readers who proved him a liar. They weighed in:
• Good riddance to a POS [piece of s--t] who stood in front of the American people and spewed lie after lie while good men, women of the US military died and were wounded....while innocent men, women and children of Iraq were being massacered [sic.]...while Bush, Cheney and their friends got rich... ANd [sic.] this A**E made $168,000 a year for the privilege of being their spokesman. Good riddance, and good luck in Hell.
• Go donate some money to Snow's family if your [sic.] so sad for him. His millionaire wife and kids would appreciate any extra symphathy [sic.] cash you might have around...Because with all the millions Snow made on Faux news lying to you and I, they are accustomed to a certain “lifestyle” that little people like you don't seem to understand.
• When he is buried, people can give pause, ponder and state with complete conviction, here lies one of the nation’s greatest liars.
However, the invective was hardly contained to casual readers (or possible trolls). The Kos diarists unleashed bottomless hatred.
Similar to the disinterested response to his cancer, a blogger asked, “Should we mourn Tony Snow?” Disowning any intentions of giving offense, the entry retorted,“even if I were rude, are we so certain we want to eliminate rudeness from the public discourse?” One of the comments likened Snow to Pol Pot and Robert Mugabe. Another called him “a handmaiden to fascism.” A third simply said, “Karma.” And a fourth voice resonated, “I'll save my mourning for the innocent kids being slaughtered in the mid east today by the policies this guy championed.” A fifth responded with what may be the clearest view of the Left’s true regard: “[L]et's face it--the man was Goebbels with better hair.”
Incredibly, the diarist inked a follow-up, “Should we mourn Tony Snow? (Part II)” – which bewailed media coverage, including John Nichols’ aforementioned obituary. The only outlet that “got it right” was – wait for it – Al Jazeera! (Other readers agreed.) The sophomoric comments continued:
• Better to not say anything at this point. Besides he's burning in hell alongside Jesse Helms and Jerry Fartwell [sic.] so anything I say pales in comparison.
• Simply transferred to become Satan's Press Secretary.
An indecipherable entry entitled “A Fair and Balanced Eulogy for Tony Snow,” simply concludes, “Tony Snow died.................NEXT.” A reader found it “ironic that a man who held onto and fed people the lies, the smears, the condescending attitude, who hurt so many should be overcome by the very thing that his own body was feeding and growing.” Another political Buddhist insisted: “karma will take care of Tony. We do not have to.”
Seemingly conscious of how its behavior reflected on the Left, a DailyKos writer posted “Tony Snow's Death - The Right's New Weapon.” According to him, conservatives will undoubtedly use “the occassion [sic.] of his death to besmirch, smear, and do everything but deficate [sic.] on anyone and everyone with opposing political viewpoints who don't stop what they are doing and say something positive about the man. You see, this is where conservatives and everyone else differs. [sic.]” In what way? That conservatives wish to see a certain level of basic human decency exercised after anyone dies?
Game and match.
Even attempts at balancing coverage, such as showcasing Snow’s personal acts of kindness or affability, degenerated into hate-fests. As I’ve noted elsewhere, the Left’s political dogma is its secular religion. As the angels are flesh-and-blood men and women, so too are the demons, with each group treated accordingly. Thus, any personal redeeming quality the “enemy” has must be erased, subsumed by the evil of their political heterodoxy. A DailyKos diarist summarized this mindset perfectly while reacting to Snow’s death:
I swear some of you weak-kneed progressive [sic.] brethren of mine have no clue about the vicious nature of the ideological battle we are in. When a bad guy dies, we should rejoice, not sing his praises of [sic.] wish him anything by [sic.] scorn.
The fact that others shared this Manichaean worldview was evident in the two posts that attempted to present a moderately nuanced view. A eulogy, since deleted from the website, revealed that, though its writer had no respect whatever for Snow politically, his minister (also a leftist) counted Tony as a personal friend and respected him as a man. A devotee of the left-wing cult quickly responded: “His public and private lives are inseparable” – the personal is political – and “I question his friends who were willing to ignore what he was doing.” Another: “So it makes him a better person that he just did all the terrible things he did as an act, for money?”
Another diarist shared a touching story about how Snow – as White House spokesman – took time to keep in touch with a man who suffered from a similarly debilitating disease. The comments section soon lit up with posts such as: “If you stop to examine the impact Tony Snow's work had on the world – I mean really think about it – the damage he did is somewhere between awful and unfathomable.” The diarist promptly agreed.
Instead, the bloggers spun conspiracy theories about the fallen. One diarist linked him to a much different minister, accusing him of being a knowing propagandist for the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
Tony Snow was no such thing. He was a forceful exponent of his own views, which frequently clashed with those of the Bush administration. He is missed by conservatives who shared his views, moderates who enjoyed robust and respectful debate, and liberals capable of viewing a man as more than an embodied political platform. These last are too few, and their replacements disgrace American political debate.
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Ben Johnson is Managing Editor of FrontPage Magazine and author of the book 57 Varieties of Radical Causes: Teresa Heinz Kerry's Charitable Giving.
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