Crushing the Puppy Edition (Hanna Rosin & Ann Althouse)

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Originally Posted by Bloggin' Noggin

Where does Ann get her certainty that Obama will play the same word-games as Bush (we do not torture by definition)? I have seen no evidence of that kind of blatant dishonesty so far, and Ann, of course, never presents any -- the very idea of presenting any seems not to occur to her.

Yeah, that was sort of the low-point of Althouse's argumentation. Confronted with evidence that she was wrong she replied (without a note of doubt or uncertainty) that she still believed Obama would act like Bush anyway. Not a very flattering reaction IMO.

Which gets me to the Obama = Bush thing. It was entertaining a couple months ago, when the alternative was fawning comparisons to Lincoln or FDR, but it's starting to get really played out and insipid. He's been in office long enough that you can find real stuff to criticize without having to make absurd stretches and dubious predictions. At least the people comparing him to Hitler and Stalin and Mussolini are putting some effort into it.

It's been a while since 2001 but IIRC Althouse is also wrong when she said that people were constantly finding fault with Bush. That's without even correcting for a much more divisive election or a period of relative calm.