Memo to Paul Krugman and Rep. Van Hollen: My Search Was Not in Vain (Updated)
John on March 31, 2010 at 8:37 am
In last Thursday’s column, Paul Krugman admitted to having fun watching “right-wingers go wild.” One of the things that apparently delighted him was this map which Sarah Palin posted on her Facebook page:
Each of the cross-hairs represents a Democrat from a conservative district who voted in favor of health reform. Immediately after highlighting the map, Krugman wrote:
All of this goes far beyond politics as usual…you’ll search in vain for anything comparably menacing, anything that even hinted at an appeal to violence, from members of Congress, let alone senior party officials….to find anything like what we’re seeing now you have to go back to the last time a Democrat was president.
Really, Paul? I’ll search in vain?
The map appears on this page of the Democratic Leadership Committee website (dated 2004 during the Bush years). I guess we could argue over whether the DLC counts as “senior party officials” but they’re certainly as much a part of the party as Palin who, after all, currently holds no elected office.
Granted these are bulls-eyes instead of gun-sights, and the targets are states not individual congressmen. But we’re really splitting hairs at this point. This map and the language it uses (Behind enemy lines!) are, if anything, more militant than what Palin used in her Facebook posting.
But wait, there’s more!
When Palin’s map became an issue, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, leader of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), rushed on MSNBC to denounce it, telling Chris Matthews:
I really think that that is crossing a line…In this particular environment I think it’s really dangerous to try and make your point in that particular way because there are people who are taking that kind of thing seriously.
Really, Chris? So what do you think about this map?
Each one of those red targets represents a “Targeted Republican” like this one:
There’s even a helpful legend that makes it clear that’s precisely what the little red targets represent:
You’ll never guess where I found this map. That’s right, it’s on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) website. They launched the site and the map on February 23rd of this last year, making it just over a month year old. And yet Van Hollen was quoted by Politico just today denouncing Republicans for “pouring more and more gasoline on the flames.” Right back at you, pal.
Rep. Van Hollen used MSNBC to claim Palin’s map was dangerous. In fact, the website of the organization he runs has a nearly identical map. Rep. Van Hollen should be asked to explain the differences between the two maps. Specifically, what makes Palin’s map “dangerous” and his map not so much?
Paul Krugman used the megaphone of the NY Times to state that Palin’s Facebook map went “far beyond politics as usual.” He further claimed, “you will search in vain for anything comparably menacing…from members of Congress.” Notice he didn’t say it was hard to find or rare. He said, in effect, that it didn’t exist. But since my search was not in vain, the Times should issue a correction noting that Krugman got it wrong.
Addendum: Big Jim at Gateway Pundit has dug up the ladies of the view discussing Palin’s map. Joy Behar says it looks like an “Al Qaeda Christmas card…” Will she have any similar comments for the DCCC?
Also, my earlier post debunking the rest of Krugman’s claims in the same column is here.
Correction: The map on the DCCC site was posted last February not this February. Democrats have had a full year to become outraged over this and somehow never did.
Category: MSM & Bias |
Ridiculing Krugman has become a sport in some economic circles, particularly among the Austrians. You might have seen this blog: http://krugman-in-wonderland.blogspot.com/
His research is so lazy, and his arguments so often contradictory to his scholarship, that I’m convinced that he no longer believes anything he writes. His columns are intended to engender the adulation he craves from the rich dummies in the salons on the upper east side.
March 31, 2010 @ 9:25 am[...] Verum Serum has much, much more; including one more Democratic map from 2004 (which includes the perfectly nonviolent phrase ‘Behind Enemy Lines’). Look, I know that the DCCC pulls in its personnel from the shallow end of the Democratic Party’s political gene pool these days, but surely they can at least check first the stuff that gets babbled by Van Hollen, yes? This kind of language has a long history to it, and given that yet another Republican office has been vandalized (this time in Michigan), I think that it’s time that they start cooling their inflammatory rhetoric… Sphere: Related Content Share on: Facebook | digg_url = 'http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2010/03/31/oh-no-more-political-maps-inciting-violence/'; digg_title = 'Oh, *no*. *More* political maps inciting violence!'; digg_skin = 'compact'; | Reddit Category: bald faced hypocrisy, dccc, democratic incitements to violence, van hollen [...]
March 31, 2010 @ 9:27 amWhat? Another post in the blogosphere that proves Krugman is an idiot? Hard to imagine…
March 31, 2010 @ 11:05 amDid you try contacting anyone at the Times?
March 31, 2010 @ 11:09 amAt this point it’s become clear that the “outrage” on the left is merely feigned. That for every example of right-wing or tea party “hate,” you can find ten on the left which are even more violent. Yet, it’s the right and the tea parties which take the rap.
Clearly, the left along with its willing accomplice the MSM are trying to create the meme as accepted wisdom that people on the right are dangerous. If the right doesn’t oblige by actually behaving dangerously, then the left will just make something up.
March 31, 2010 @ 11:28 am“Splitting hairs.” So, a bullseye during 2004 when there was little politically inspired violence is, according to Verum, the same thing as a RIFLE scope during a time when death threats, window breaking and murders by deranged right wing nuts are prevalent. These include: Plans to kill police officers by right wingers. Murder of an abortion doctor by a right winger. Murder of a Jewish museum guard by a right winger. Threats and racial slurs against Congressmen for voting a certain way on an economic/entitlement/regulatory reform bill by right wingers. Racial slurs against the President by right wingers. And then you have the Limbaughs and McCains encouraging it.
BTW, Please run for office Sarah, please. “I read all of them.” Wink, wink.
March 31, 2010 @ 11:54 ami <3 you.
March 31, 2010 @ 11:55 amI sent a link to Clark Hoyt, politely pointing out that Krugman made a factual claim which was false. I’d like to think that matters.
Btw Wally, the DCCC map is from last month. How is that a different environment?
Also those racial slurs rely on the word of one man. They are not audible in any videos of the day and no one has turned up evidence they occurred despite a $100K reward.
March 31, 2010 @ 12:18 pmAs I wrote here the other day
March 31, 2010 @ 12:20 pmSarah Palin’s map remind’s me of something truly disturbing I saw on the tube the other day. It was full of hate and invective or perhaps it was a Ditech comercial with Adam West the difference is so difficult to discern nowadays.
Well done.
March 31, 2010 @ 12:32 pmReally? No politically-inspired VIOLENT protest in 2004?
How soon we forget:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4660503.ece
“At least 250 people were arrested outside the Republican Convention last night as police used tear gas and pepper spray to disperse rioters attacking property and blocking roads in protest at the war in Iraq.
They had come in their thousands – grandmothers, veterans, young families and even disgruntled Republicans bearing banners and peace flags, to demand an end to the five-year conflict. And for the most part, the demonstrations passed off peacefully.
But once the main antiwar march had finished, splinter groups embarked on a violent rampage, smashing windows, slashing car tyres, throwing bottles and even attacking Republican delegates attending the nearby Xcel Centre.
Many of those involved identified themselves to reporters as anarchists. These protesters, some clad in black, wreaked havoc by damaging property and starting at least one fire. ”
How about some bullet-riddled buildings?
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/48567/
You can try to forget history. But we remember it…ALL of it.
And this stuff was only a small part of the fun and games perpetrated by leftists during the Bush administration. So don’t try to be cute. The overwhelming evidence is very clear: LEFTIST political violence is the real issue in this country and has been for years.
Members of the Connecticut delegation said they were attacked by protesters when they got off their bus near the convention centre, KMSP-TV reported. Rob Simmons, a delegate, told the station that a group of protesters came toward his delegation and tried to rip the credentials off their necks before spraying them with a toxic substance that burned their eyes and stained their clothes.
One 80-year-old member of the delegation had to be treated for injuries, and several other delegates had to rinse their eyes and clothing.
And how about a bit more down memory lane?
http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=621
March 31, 2010 @ 12:59 pmWally, I don’t see any rifle scope. Where is it? Who makes it? Do you have any experience with firearms?
March 31, 2010 @ 1:02 pmWally, yes. It is the same thing: business as usual for both parties. No cherry picking violent incidents to support bad arguments, please.
March 31, 2010 @ 1:10 pmPaul Krugman is a Nobel Prize winner? Wow, that puts him up there with Al Gore and Barack Obama, two experts at predicting the future. If any of these guys wants to bet football with you, please, please make that wager!!!
March 31, 2010 @ 2:08 pmNote how the leftocracy goes on and on about how Palin “crossed the line!” Isn’t it funny how the right is always “crossing the line”? But for some reason calling Bush a Nazi and a war criminal; denouncing our troops as stupid, uneducated, hick dupes and cold-blooded murderers; calling the Iraq War “lost” while our troops were in harm’s way; publishing a full-page NYT ad reading “General Betray-Us;” the NYT adorning its front pages with classified information that hampered our war effort; and giving an endless forum for anti-American opportunists like Cindy Sheehan were never considered “crossing the line”?
W.r.t. the Dems’ own use of target imagery – especially the DCCC’s – there’s only one way to describe them:
F**king hypocrites.
http://VocalMinority.typepad.com
March 31, 2010 @ 3:09 pmThe Jewish Republican’s Web Sanctuary
[...] crosshair by anyone who has actually looked through a telescopic sight. But there is no mistaking a bullseye! Especially when they tell you to click on the “red [...]
March 31, 2010 @ 3:41 pm[...] crosshair by anyone who has actually looked through a telescopic sight. But there is no mistaking a bullseye! Especially when they tell you to click on the “red [...]
March 31, 2010 @ 3:49 pm[...] Verum Serum has discovered, as shocking and dismaying as it is, that Democrats have used a “menacing” target Strategy map, too. This one even uses blatant militaristic language - “behind enemy lines”, the horror!: [...]
March 31, 2010 @ 3:50 pm[...] Krugman right out of his socks. (or is proof that Krugman does not have google on his enter-toobs) Memo to Paul Krugman and Rep. Van Hollen: My Search Was Not in Vain | Verum Serum WOW __________________ "When robbery is done in open daylight by sanction of the law, as [...]
March 31, 2010 @ 3:50 pmBuddo and Earl, Wow, these are unusually polite responses for a political blog. Thank you for not bashing.
On the convention protests, I think mob violence and intimidation is not a positive way to approach political protest. And such methods are indeed used by lots of protesters. But anarchists (or Tea Party members) grabbing someone’s credentials or throwing a chair through a window is OBVIOUSLY not in the same level as politically motivated murders. It simply isn’t. And the actions of the Anarchists were NOT encouraged by Vice Presidential candidates as the actions of right wingers has been by Palin.
Unkle – I am not sure what you are talking about. The image used by Palin is that of a rifle scope. I don’t think one needs to be an Army sniper or a Hutaree militia man to know that. But just in case, I work with an ex Army sniper. I asked him what that symbol refers to and he said what you see when you look through a rifle scope.
Eric, Are you aware that the U.S. has not won a war since 1946? (Well excluding its trips down to the minor leagues in Panama and Grenada.) One reason the U.S. military keeps losing is because these wars have all been wars invading other people’s homelands. The home team usually wins, even if you have your steroidal U.S. Army flexing muscles. All these wars have done what for the U.S.? Zip, nada, zero. Now, since you sound like a Likud kinda guy, I will admit that the Israeli Army is pretty good at whomping people in their own ball park. But I for one don’t see that in the U.S.’s interest. The MD that blew himself up in Afganistan said he killed Americans because of the Israeli bombing and killing of innocent Palestinians. I would prefer my tax dollars not go to instigating hatred at me when I don’t have any dog in that fight.
March 31, 2010 @ 4:13 pm[...] [...]
March 31, 2010 @ 4:22 pm[...] via Memo to Paul Krugman and Rep. Van Hollen: My Search Was Not in Vain | Verum Serum. [...]
March 31, 2010 @ 4:22 pmUm, I love to tell you, but there are no crosshairs on the Palin map. Those are
surveying symbols
.
March 31, 2010 @ 4:26 pm“Al Qaeda Christmas card.” How does that even make sense, let alone pass for a joke?
March 31, 2010 @ 5:26 pmAll of this sudden concern about violence on the Right is meant to shut down and shout down opposition to the Obamacare legislation that the Obamaphiles are unwilling and unable to defend on its merits.
March 31, 2010 @ 5:38 pmSure thing, Wally. Your argument, like the arguments of those on the Left that started this whole controversy about the image used by Palin, is childish and a joke. So, are you actually saying that Palin was encouraging Tea Party members to shoot Democrats through the use of this online graphic? Do you really believe that? Do you really believe that Tea Party members would look at the map and say, “Hey, there is a view through a rifle scope on that map in Arkansas. I think that means I should go to Arkansas and start shooting people, especially Democrat politicians.” Puh-lease. It’s amazing to me that anyone above the age of 8 could think this.
Also, do you really think there is a huge distinction between an image of a view through a rifle scope or the image of a bull’s-eye being used by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to identify “Targeted Republicans”? For example, I’ve seen those types of bull’s-eyes being used at firing ranges. Why don’t you think the message is equally as bad? No need to answer because we know that you are doing this because you are a blind partisan and you want to be a good Democrat by supporting and pushing this foolishness.
This is just another of the many idiotic criticisms that Democrats and their willing accomplices in the media toss out to shift the focus, push their own political narrative, and improve their political prospects. You’re being played and manipulated by the Democrats and the media. You should be mad at them for thinking so little of your intellect that they assumed you couldn’t see through their ruse and their attempt to shift the focus to their favorite target, Sarah Palin. But then again, you are going along with their script so I guess the Democrats were right to think so little of you and others that are actually pushing their propaganda.
March 31, 2010 @ 5:41 pmWally, you cannot be this daft, can you. Seriously…
Let’s recap:
here, for you:
- the only person arrested during the last weeks alleged ‘violent threats’ against US Dem congressmen adn senators incidents is actually a left-wing fanatic, contrbutor to Obama’s campaign, who threatened Jewish Republican Senator Eric Cantor’s life. On top a bullet has been shot at Eric Cantor’s Virginia office. No arrests have been yet made in connection with that shooting.
more here:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/35152.html
- pro-life Lawrence Pouillon, 63, of Owosso, KS, killed by a pro-choice nut but while holding an anti-abortion sign in front of a high school.
more here:
http://www.verumserum.com/?p=8350
- Theodore Kaczynski, the domestic terrorist known as th Unabomber is a product of the left, himself a deranged extreme left wing loon obsessed with enviromentalism; I would like to see extreme environmentalism movements linked to the Republican Party :-) there are none!!
- most of the WTO protesters who vandalize regularly property and threaten violence are also far left individuals; i.e.: The Ruckus Society played a major role in the 1999 radical assault on Seattle, Washington to protest a WTO meeting there. Leftist activists, including ones who learned confrontation tactics and guerrilla theatre techniques at Ruckus training camps, smashed store windows, set cars ablaze and did millions of dollars in property damage. more here:
http://www.targetofopportunity.com/misc_dom_terror.htm
- At the 2000 Republican Convention in Philadelphia, Ruckus-trained leftists planned to bring the city to a halt with rioting. More than 400 of the Philadelphia anti-Republican protestors were arrested. John Sellers (who during years of “civil disobedience” has been arrested more than 40 times) was charged with “obstruction of justice, obstructing a highway, failure to disperse, recklessly endangering another person, and conspiracy.” more here:
http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=11627
- far left Code Pink loon shouts down Karl Rove at private book launching event in Beverly Hills. more here:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/30/rove.protest/index.html?hpt=T2
And here’s a reminder for you of how ‘civilized’ the left wingnuts were during the anti-Bush era protests:
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/31/video-remember-when-the-media-thought-hateful-political-rhetoric-was-cool
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6b1VOAATNk&feature=player_embedded#
March 31, 2010 @ 6:06 pmWhat part of “In this particular environment” were you having trouble with?
March 31, 2010 @ 7:38 pmI love that they asked for “Public Defenders”, I guess they now know about the undercover FBI agent. The simpleton Tea baggers keep missing the point. These are the same whiners that were crying when the McCain/Bailin ticket lost. Now they are crying again because their yelling (because they are haters not debaters) did not stop health care from passing. They think they can scare, intimidate and force others to go along with them by comments like “This time we came unarmed”, let me tell you something they are not the only ones that are armed and not all ex-military join the fringe militia crazies who don’t pay taxes and run around in the parks playing commando, the majority understand that the world is more complicated and grey then the black and white that these simpleton make it out to be and that my friend is the point. So it’s only fitting that their leaders are Sarah Bailin, Victoria Jackson, Michele Bachmann and their turn coat Glenn Beck. So if you are bothered that there are some misconceptions of your group, well then I think you need to be more careful who you invite to give you speeches.
March 31, 2010 @ 8:48 pmHart,
So your argument is that Van Hollen was right, i.e. this is dangerous right now. But back when Democrats were doing the same thing (2004, 2009) it was no big deal?
We all remember that right after the election of 2004, with the anti-war crowd calling for Bush to face war crimes prosecutions, that was a calm, safe time to put targets on Republicans.
BTW, the DCCC map is still up. If now is not a safe time, shouldn’t they take it down?
March 31, 2010 @ 9:11 pmThese are the same loons who freaked out about the film “The Passion” — predicting subsequent pogroms against the Jews by crazed evangelical Christians.
Folks shouldn’t forget how consistently wrong the crazies can be. It’s best to ignore their hysterics.
March 31, 2010 @ 10:00 pm[...] of saying and illustrating that you’re “targeting” someone for electoral defeat is also hypocritical (HT The Corner). It’s also a tactic for avoiding the needed to defend the indefensible in [...]
April 1, 2010 @ 4:04 amThe Palin map doesn’t show ‘scope crosshairs — those are standard surveying symbols for a surveyed point.
Of course, if you’re like Krugman and want to scare the crap out of people who actually think you know what you’re talking about, anything can be a view through a sniper scope.
Hey, Paul — (+) — duck!
April 1, 2010 @ 4:24 am[...] you had probably better take all the video games away from your kids, quick! < ADDENDUM – SEE THIS FOR EXAMPLES OF DEMOCRATS DOING THE SAME THING [...]
April 1, 2010 @ 6:28 amNeither of your two examples were images of a rifle scope you Right Wing Moron!
April 1, 2010 @ 6:32 amWell our’s are bullseyes – you used crosshairs.
April 1, 2010 @ 7:40 amSean: what’s your point, you Left Wing Assmaggot.
April 1, 2010 @ 7:46 amIt could be that the Dems are worried about what faces them.
The Palin map seems quite modest in its goals.
The vociferous response from Krugman is pretty revealing.
Just sayin’…
OS
April 1, 2010 @ 8:37 amWally,
Bear witness to a great example of what is going on here: in 2002 Starbucks recalled posters that depicted two beverages next to eachother, a dragonfly in the background, and also had the word “collapse” in the verbiage. Certain people freaked out and said they hated starbucks and would never go again because they were capitlizing on the anguish of 9/11.
Which camp are you in with the Starbucks poster? The offended camp, or the offending camp? Who is right?
April 1, 2010 @ 10:45 am[...] whats the problem? The Media once again holding a double standard for the Right. Verum Serum blogged about this yesterday morning (h/t Gateway Pundit): The map appears on this page of the Democratic [...]
April 1, 2010 @ 6:24 pmWally, your knowledge of history is somewhat selective. Not to say, deficient. I believe that in WW2 we did indeed invade someone else’s homeland–three of them, in fact, and yet we still won. And perhaps it has escaped your notice that we have indeed won in Iraq. Since you’re probably more familiar with “Newsweek” than, say, “The Weekly Standard,” I refer you to the cover story of a few weeks back trumpeting “Victory At Last” in Iraq.
You offer so many more “targets of opportunity” for comment (if you’ll excuse the violent image of “target”) but I’ll content myself with your factual errors.
April 2, 2010 @ 1:33 am[...] Here’s the thing. Recently, Sarah Palin put a map on her Facebook page of Democrats to target in the November election. Apparently, Krugman took exception to it in a big way, according to this article: Memo to Paul Krugman and Rep. Van Hollen: My Search Was Not in Vain. [...]
April 2, 2010 @ 9:10 amWally, you said: “Unkle – I am not sure what you are talking about. The image used by Palin is that of a rifle scope. I don’t think one needs to be an Army sniper or a Hutaree militia man to know that. But just in case, I work with an ex Army sniper. I asked him what that symbol refers to and he said what you see when you look through a rifle scope.”
Really? After 20+ years in the printing industry and an equal number as a target rifle shooter, I can tell you that those “cross-hairs” bear a much closer resemblance to registration target marks for multicolor offset printing than they do a rifle scope’s cross-hairs.
In other words, they are merely symbolic of the concept of a “target,” but they are not by any stretch an accurate representation of what you see when you look through a rifle-scope. Maybe a little self-education is in order instead of simply swallowing what other people tell you if it conveniently fits your prejudice?
April 2, 2010 @ 2:55 pmIntellectual suicide seems to be in fashion here. The real question deals with Sarah Palin and her desire to kill people. Obviously, she has no intent on killing anyone. Read her book and get educated. Neither side is promoting taking anyones life. The closest anyone comes to taking life is the Democratic party and some Republicans insistance on killing the unborn. No rifle needed here – just medical instruments that suck, scrape and dismember a baby from it’s mother’s womb.
April 3, 2010 @ 10:02 amMy son Wally hasn’t heard the news that the Hutaree ring leader is a registered democrat who has voted straight democrat. Just like the pentagon shooter, just like Sirhan Sirhan, just like L.H. Oswald…etc etc…
Wally, in the words of Sheriff Beaufort T Justice of Florida: “Son, I can’t believe you came from my loins.”
April 3, 2010 @ 11:30 pm[...] from the left as Sarah Palin’s target map of vulnerable Dem-controlled House districts. Opps! It’s how you get Gibbs defiantly insisting that it’s impossible to “imagine [...]
April 13, 2010 @ 3:47 amThe Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee?
Never heard of it.
April 16, 2010 @ 1:42 pm[...] from the left as Sarah Palin’s target map of vulnerable Dem-controlled House districts. Opps! It’s how you get Gibbs defiantly insisting that it’s impossible to “imagine [...]
May 2, 2010 @ 11:52 am[...] zealotry where there is none, sinister motives such as racism where there is none, and even threatening and violent inclinations where there are none. In short, the liberal narrative about [...]
July 16, 2010 @ 12:39 am[...] zealotry where there is none, sinister motives such as racism where there is none, and even threatening and violent inclinations where there are none. In short, the liberal narrative about [...]
July 16, 2010 @ 6:22 am[...] leave a comment » Verum Serum shows everyone uses target maps [...]
August 3, 2010 @ 7:51 pm