Hate

by tristero

This brain-killing column by Gail Collins defines the meaning of “stupid” way, way down. Since it is literally content-less – and in an idiotic way – there’s nothing striking about the op-ed except the ritualistic repetition of the word “hate,” which is very striking indeed – but probably not in the way Collins meant, assuming she meant anything coherent at all.

During the Bush presidency, when he was constantly lying through this lying teeth, it was only towards the end that Paul Krugman and others were permitted by the Times to use the words “lies” and “liars.” And, to the best of my knowledge, no major op-ed columnist, at least in the Times, ever talked about hating fellow Americans, even in jest.

There was one notable exception. Throughout this great land of ours, mainstream bullshit artists commentators heaped mocking contempt on those always mockable, contemptuous hippies (of the dirty fucking variety) who suffered from Bush Derangement Syndrome because we irrationally hated Bush so much. Never mind that there has never been a more hateful and hatable president – even Nixon was better, as Krugman noted, with not a small amount of wonder – than George W. Bush. No, “hate,” like “liar,” was an unmentionable in the mainstream for discussing Americans.

Interesting how the permissible vocabulary for mainstream discourse has changed under a Democratic president.