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And they’re just as funny as Der Sturmer

31 comments on And they’re just as funny as Der Sturmer

And they’re just as funny as Der Sturmer
: I saw little coverage of the MoveOn awards for its commercial contest this week. Only now am I hearing more about what Margaret Cho said there.

On Bill Maher’s HBO show, he recalled: “Margaret Cho said she is more afraid of the Patriot Act than of terrorists.”

Lady, let me tell what what it was like to see a jet piloted by terrorists kill thousands of people. Then let’s hear you be so f’ing glib.

So I go to Google to try to find more of what she said and all I can find is reports from right-wing pubs, like Mens Daily News (why not the mainstream?), which says:

But Cho said Bush should not be compared to Hitler because he is not as good a leader as the instigator of the Holocaust was.

“I mean, George Bush is not Hitler,” Cho stated. “He would be if he fu**ing applied himself. I mean he just isn’t.”

What has happened to this woman? Is there no moral meter left in her brain? Millions murdered, thousands murdered, they mean nothing to Margaret Cho. She’s not only unfunny, she’s amoral.

Later in the Maher show, he says that MoveOn’s Hitler entries made the fundamental mistake of not following a simple rule of maturity: If you want to be taken seriously, don’t compare people you don’t like to Hitler. Yet then he can’t help himself. He compares Bush to Hitler:

Bush is not Hitler. For one thing, Hitler was a decorated combat veteran… Hitler got more votes than the other candidate…

Amazing that leftist “comedians” can be politically correct about everything but the worst genocide, the worst moral crime, the worst evil in history. To them, that’s just a punchline.

: What’s amazing is that Cho can turn the murderer of six million Jews into a joke but she’s offended when people get offended at what she says and call her a pig. Oh, she gets most indignant on her rambling, nonsensical, and incredibly egotisticalblog:

They spit their s*** all over me, but they don’t realize I have a global posse ready to roll. That was unexpected, there was so much support out there for me, but actually it was not for me personally, just the disenfranchised voiceless people out there who truly have concern for the world.

It was through her site that I found a link to a transcript of her offense at MoveOn posted by Drudge. Make fun of Drudge if you want, but if Cho has such a supportive posse, why didn’t I read her hilarious brand of anti-Semitism at MoveOn or perhaps Alternet? Are they perhaps a bit ashamed of her? I would be.

31 responses to “And they’re just as funny as Der Sturmer”

  1. Mike Avatar
    Mike

    The elected left is too often preachy, and the entertainment left is from another planet. I read the transcript as Drudge posted it, and it’s hardly possible that he took anyone out of context. They’re idiots, they hurt the party and they should be ignored.
    So yeah, I agree.

  2. Doctor Slack Avatar
    Doctor Slack

    A couple of things:
    1. Since when, exactly, is Bill Maher a “leftist comedian”?
    2. The trivialization of the Nazis, the Holocaust and Hitler as the winning figure in the sweepstakes of evil is hardly new. The Washington Post notes a few Republican examples here); we might also look at those who talk about “Hitlery Clinton”, or at the uses and abuses of the Holocaust in the Israel debate, or at virtually any debate in which one party dislikes the other party in Western society.
    But here’s the thing. Mike Godwin propagated his famous counter-meme because Nazi comparisons had gotten so out of hand as to seemingly leach the events they were referring to of real significance. Given that that trivialization has become so widespread, arguments that the comparison itself somehow represents a total loss of moral compass start to ring hollow. It starts to look a lot like arguing that the “ring-around-the-rosey” nursery rhyme must be an abdication of moral compass because it trivializes the Bubonic Plague.
    I’d prefer the trivialization not to have happened. But by the same token, I’m wary of reading too much into this or that Hitler comparison.

  3. Dean Avatar
    Dean

    Coupla points:
    Hitler did NOT win more votes than the other candidates. Hitler won a plurality in the one free election (of ’33, iirc). So, he won more than any other single candidate, but, like Bill Clinton in ’92, did not win more than the opposition combined. (I’m curious Dr. Slack, does that comparison above make any sense to you? I think it’s wrong, myself, even though historically accurate, but, hey, don’t read too much into this or that Hitler comparison.)
    Under the laws of Weimar Germany, therefore, Hindenburg, as President, actually had little choice but to make Hitler Chancellor, since he had won more votes than any of the other candidates (although it’s pretty clear that Hitler’s Brownshirts had intimidated other candidates, beaten voters, etc.).
    As for the issue of Hitler comparisons, I’d simply suggest that ANY use of it, for circumstances short of discussing someone who’s actually committing genocide (or some other truly comparable action) really should be subject to Godwin’s Law. Right, Left, Libertarian or Green.

  4. Doctor Slack Avatar
    Doctor Slack

    I’m curious Dr. Slack, does that comparison above make any sense to you?
    It doesn’t cause me to wonder what in God’s name has happened to your moral compass, if that’s what you’re asking. It does cause me to think you’re a rude twit, of course, as does any such comparison.

  5. Alan Avatar
    Alan

    Read more about Cho’s comments here, Jeff.

  6. Sarah e.g. Avatar
    Sarah e.g.

    In the 14th century, they said you were in league with Satan. In the 21st century, they say you’re like Hitler. Same kind of accusation.
    Doctor Slack wrote:

    It starts to look a lot like arguing that the “ring-around-the-rosey” nursery rhyme must be an abdication of moral compass because it trivializes the Bubonic Plague.

    That’s a myth, actually. http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/rosie.htm

  7. Samuel Avatar
    Samuel

    Jeff,
    The left (my former position) is just killing itself. The Democratic Party has become so amoral that it is losing its wits. I loved Clinton’s neo-liberal policies but found my stomach churning defending his behavior (not just sex, but many questionable campaign contributions from foreign countries, exchanging sensitive information, and of course the pardons

  8. Jason Puckett Avatar
    Jason Puckett

    I just wanted to add that as a liberal democrat, Cho’s comments offended me deeply. However, in response to what Samuel said: “Imagine if Pat Buchanan had said exactly what Miss Cho had said! They would be screaming bigot, racist, Neanderthals!” Cho is a fringe player in politics, while Buchanan ran for president in the Republican primary. There is a big difference there.
    Also, I’d like to point out that I watched the MoveOn.org live webcast of Cho’s “comedy” and I noticed that there was very little laughter, and there was silence after a majority of her punchlines. Cho bombed big time. She spoke awkwardly, and no one was really following her comedy because she rambles so much. If anyone else witnessed it, I would like to hear your thoughts.

  9. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    It’s too bad that Cho has marginalized herself — she’s genuinely funny at times, as anyone who has seen her DVDs can probably attest.
    The problem for many of these people (“the Angry Left”) is that, having stopped engaging in rational debate with their opponents or even waverers, they have lost the ability to reach out to people and connect with them. Frustrated and angry, they turn to these ridiculous comparisons and invective, which turns on the choir but repulses most regular Americans. Cho and others have thrown away the basic rules of debate, questioning the motives and decency of their opponents, instead of winning arguments. Sad.
    Cho needs to realize that the schoolyard as life philosophy approach (nyah nyah nyah-nyaaaah nyah) has its limits. Seeing her face all scrunched up like that on Drudge just made me feel pity.

  10. Paul H. Avatar
    Paul H.

    I think one historical opinion is that Genghis Khan was the greatest killer in history (18 million is the estimate I remember). The “mountains of skulls left in his wake” is supposed to be literal truth. Stalin is #2 (I’m talking deaths due to genocide as opposed to battle deaths).
    Yet somehow comparisons to these two bring either yawns, or perhaps even convey a certain suggestion of faintly desirable ruthlessness (Leadership Secrets of Genghis Khan? no that was Attila the Hun).
    It’s Hitler that provides the never-ending supply of water from the well. I guess it was that unbeatable combination of Leni Riefehstahl-type newsreels, Goebbels, and the mustache.
    If I were Bush I’d have a weekly press conference and make it a point to highlight the most egregious Hitler comparison of the week, without further comment. I can’t imagine a better way to outrage the majority of the American people (who, I like to think, wouldn’t be quite so airily dismissive of the subject as you, Dr. Slack).

  11. Sortelli Avatar
    Sortelli

    Cho is a fringe player in politics,
    while Buchanan ran for president in the Republican primary. There is a big
    difference there.
    True, but Pat has been rejected. Hard. It wasn’t just liberal democrats who were offended by him, and he paid the price. Not that she’s running for anything, but Cho’s probably more politically viable than he is now, at least until the fringe gets moderated or blows itself up.

  12. Sortelli Avatar
    Sortelli

    Yet somehow comparisons to these two bring either yawns, or perhaps even convey a certain suggestion of faintly desirable ruthlessness (Leadership Secrets of Genghis Khan? no that was Attila the Hun).
    No one around today has lost family members to Ghengis, I suppose. I can’t think of any time I’ve heard Stalin invoked in any psuedo-positive light, but he does get a lighter rap than Hitler. I guess he comes behind Hitler on the Big Chart of Evil because he sided with us against him instead of vice versa.

  13. Jeff Brokaw Avatar
    Jeff Brokaw

    See Tim’s comment above.
    The Nutty Left just keeps talking, and keeps pushing swing voters and even lifelong Democrats into the Non-Nutty Center, were they will have to vote for GWB, or stay home. Nice strategy!

  14. Frankenstein Avatar
    Frankenstein

    I’m a little confused by the utter lack of logic in going from comparing someone to Hitler (setting aside for the moment the issue of whether or not the comparison is warranted) to hurling accusations of anti-Semitism.
    I mean, seriously, it breaks down to hating Bush=anti-semitism. That’s embarrassing and juvenile, and I would expect better.
    As for the Holocaust being the “worst genocide, the worst moral crime, the worst evil in history”… let’s try starting with the excesses of Mao (estimated dead: between 20 and 40 million) and Stalin.

  15. Reid Avatar
    Reid

    “…let’s try starting with the excesses of Mao … and Stalin.”
    There’s definitely a numerical argument to be made there. I think the difference in most people’s minds comes from who the fact Mao and Stalin primarily inflicted their horrors on their own population, and confined their worst excesses within their own borders. Meanwhile, Hitler carved up neighboring countries, killing millions of non-Germans (including over 20 million Soviets), and shipped portions of the conquered country’s population off to death camps.
    Hitler tried to export his madness and murder onto the whole world … and damn near succeeded. I think that’s why he epitomizes evil more than any other human of the past 100 years.

  16. jbm Avatar
    jbm

    something else to be ashamed of:
    http://www.apj.us/20040114CroMag.html
    from your freeper pals on the positive side.

  17. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    ‘…but she’s offended when people get offended at what she says and call her a pig.’
    Jeff–I think they called her more than that. Just a sample:which way does your p?$$y slant, baby?….Put the cheeseburger down, pull Clinton’s d!ck out of your mouth, and wise up. Because the people who adore you have AIDS for a REASON. …..Dear fat g00k: I was disappointed to read your remarks today on Drudge. I was disappointed to read that you are just another Hollywood d!cksucker….b!tch I am from the south and proud of it…at least I can’t be blindfolded with dental floss….
    Yeah, the freepers have the moral authority in this instance, so give them and Drudge another link while you are trashing the Dems. The whole thing stinks, so why not just leave it in the toilet?

  18. John Avatar
    John

    The political outlook of many in Hollywood probably would be a lot different today if those 19 hijackers had flown planes loaded with passengers into skyscrapers in downtown Los Angeles or into the Century City complex. Maher should know better because PI was done in New York before moving to Los Angeles under the ABC contract, but to Cho and others, the WTC has as much personal meaning to them as a grain silo in Nebraska.
    They didn’t drive by it every day, they didn’t know anyone who works there, they never shopped at any of the stores in the underground mall, so therefore, it’s not of any lasting consequence (or at best, no more consequence than the Oklahoma City bombing). Even the folks in flyover country have enough common sense to realize that the WTC attack shows that given lax enough conditions, Islamic terrorists could strike anywhere inside the United States. To Cho, if it didn’t happen neaqr any of her haunts, it has no chance of intruding on her “Bush is a Hiter wanna-be” thought patterns.
    The ability to X-out something that major because it doesn’t conform to your established political world view is stunningly self-centered and — if it ever did gain widespead support — would open things up for some sort of future attack on a place like Los Angeles or Las Vegas that would hit home with a few of them (or even cost them their lives if they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time).

  19. Karen Kline Avatar
    Karen Kline

    I have a question: why doesn’t slavery get a fraction of the coverage that the Jews under Hitler get??? Some fraction of coverage, it seems to me, would be in order.
    In terms of Bush, wasn’t his grandfather an actual Hitler supporter??? I’ve changed ISPs or I could send the TruthOut issue that was sent to me on this subject… last summer I think it was.

  20. O'McSomething Avatar
    O’McSomething

    John–I work across the street from the WTC site and my lungs were filled with it, too. Our office was one of the first to move back in to our offices in December 2001. The war in Iraq has made me more afraid of more attacks. As we all now know that the Bush administration had hopes of taking Saddam out way before 9/11, and as we all know that Saddam had no links to Al Qaeda’s 9/11 attack, it truly seems to me that the billions spent on the war in Iraq (not to mention the brilliant lives or our beautiful soldiers) really had no immediate effect on our safety here in NYC. The cops still don’t have enough vests and gas-masks, the firemen don’t have the radios and equipment they need for fighting high-rise infernos and they have closed many firehouse since 9/11 because of budget restraints, and I plan on asking security in our building to install some of those big planters out front because I think my high-profile building is still vulnerable to a car bomb. I plan to continue working in lower Manhattan (as I have the past 15 years) and I really hope that my son is accepted to Stuyestant HS (which would put him a couple of blocks from the WTC site for the next 4 years) because it is one of the best schools in the city. Meanwhile, the really cold weather has me a little spooked. Its hard to be on the lookout for ‘splodydopes’ when everyone is wearing big coats. So location really has nothing to do with it.

  21. angell Avatar
    angell

    No, we don’t all know that Saddam had no links to 911. We don’t know that he did not finacially support them or that they did not receive training from Iraq. Just because Al Queda calls itself Anshar Islam in Iraq doesn’t mean it’s not the same crap, different pile.

  22. O'McSomething Avatar
    O’McSomething

    Secretary of State Colin Powell reversed a year of administration policy, acknowledging Thursday that he had seen no

  23. EB Avatar
    EB

    Don’t listen to what commedians have to say about politics, nor actors. Just don’t.
    I saw President Bartlet, I mean Martin Sheen the actor endorsing Dean, Sheen called him JOHN DEAN THREE TIMES. Just don’t pay attention to anyone in show business, it’s not worth it.
    I am not interest in who Carrot Top is endorsing for President either.

  24. Joshua Scholar Avatar
    Joshua Scholar

    Dean beat me to posting that Hitler did NOT win a majority of the votes…
    Actually Hitler’s election is an important example of why first-past-the-post voting systems completely fail when there’s more than two candidates.
    Hitler won while being the least popular candidate. The other candidates split each other’s vote allowing a monster to be elected.

  25. Judith Avatar
    Judith

    Jeff sez: “She’s not only unfunny, she’s amoral.”
    I would say immoral — it’s not just that morality is irrelevant, but that she is clearly violating moral principles. (seems to me.)
    And, Karen K, look up the World War II record of Joseph Kennedy, father of the sainted Jack, if you want to find out about support of Hitler.

  26. Paul H. Avatar
    Paul H.

    Judith it would be more precise to call Joseph Kennedy a supporter of “appeasement” rather than a supporter of Hitler. I think he felt Hitler was an unstoppable force whom the U.S. should accept as inevitable, while thanking God for the Atlantic ocean.
    I’m using “appeasement” not as a derogatory term but as a dispassionate description of the British foreign policy approach to Germany as practiced by Neville Chamberlain and denounced by Churchill. Kennedy senior was a great friend and supporter of Chamberlain during his ambassadorship there. Churchill despised Kennedy and as soon as he became prime minister (10 May 1940?) he began to bypass Kennedy in his communications with Roosevelt, a factor in Kennedy’s recall prior to Pearl Harbor.

  27. terrye Avatar
    terrye

    As for Saddam and Al-Qaeda I suggest reading the Standard Weekly’s piece by Stephen Hayes. I don’t know if I would say the case is closed as Hayes asserts when he says there is evidence of a connection but I do believe that there well could have been. It always strikes me as strange that people say Saddam and OBL would have nothing to do with each other because of the secular nature of Saddam’s regime but at the same time seem to think it makes perfect sense that OBL and the CIA were best friends.
    As far as the smoking gun Powell mentioned you might never find that. We do know that Saddam supported Hamas and Hezbollah and Abu Nidal was in Baghdad for a reason. Nobody has ever said that Saddam and OBL were personal friends. In fact I read a report on the BBC long ago that linked Saddam to the first attack on the WTC back in the early 90’s and not the second one.
    In truth Saddam was in violation of more than a dozen mandatory resolutions. He had violated the cease fire. He had refused to take care of his people as he was required to under the food for oil program and had openly supported suicide bombers. He had been known to give haven to wanted terrorists within his country. The real question is not why the US finally did something about him, but why the world had not done something before GWB ever came to office.

  28. O' Avatar
    O’

    Thanks for the info, terrye, but I read the article and really learned nothing new. To paraphrase it–‘Cheney or Powell — who is a better dissembler?’ Sorry, the Weekly Standard doesn’t do it for me. It is nothing but a water-carrier for the neocons.

  29. John Avatar
    John

    O’Mc —
    As a Stuyvesant grad (Class of ’75, back when the school was at First Ave. and 15th Street), I understand your concerns about the area and the feelings that not enough has been done in the war or terror. But having spent time in both New York and California in the past two years, what I’ve noticed is that while there are certainly opponents to Bush’s plans in the city, the criticism is, IMHO, far more muted than you would expect from a city with a 6-1 Democratic registration advantage and certainly no love lost for George W. Bush (Mrs. Clinton’s votes in Congress supporting Bush’s Iraq and terror war plans I think are at least in part based on going with what she feels her electorate believes). There are local exceptions — Paul Krugman on the NYT editorial page for example — but the presence of Ground Zero seems to have put a bit of a muffler on what you would expect to be the normal objections to the Bush plan, given NYC’s past anti-war leanings during the Vietnam era.
    In contrast, the vitrol coming out of some sectors of Los Angeles and San Francisco against Bush’s plans is far more heated, and I think in part that’s due to the distances involved. Had the 9/11 attacks occured on the West Coast, I think today you’d be seeing far more muted attacks from people in Hollywood, while critism of the war would be higher in the East, due to a weaker direct connection with the location of the attacks.

  30. Floyd McWilliams Avatar
    Floyd McWilliams

    “her rambling, nonsensical, and incredibly egotistical blog”
    Boy, you weren’t kidding. Margarent Cho’s blog is what you would get if you crossed Steven Den Beste with Mark Morford.

  31. O' Avatar
    O’

    John–sorry, late to the party–Yeah, you are probably right. I don’t get out of NY much and haven’t been to Cali since I was ten. BTW–I know it is all based on the test, but have you got any pull at your old HS alma mater?