How to use Twitter to make anyone look like a morally odious lout.*

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*Because when I call something a cheap rhetorical trick, I don't just mean when other people do it.

Comments

[Justin]

Scott, that's a comment thread where people refer to Obama as "Barcky", while Patterico calls a State Department spokesman "[Obama's] shill." I would not advise trying to intervene there by making rational arguments.

[Justin]

It occured to me after I commented that "Barcky" could be a misspelling of "Baracky" or something like that. So I guess the comment thread is a smidgeon less crazy than I implied. So still a whole lot of crazy.

[Patterico]

All hail President Kaufman!

You'll make a terrible President, to be sure -- but not as bad as Obama.

What's that? You're *not* President? Well, then. That renders this entire post a cheap rhetorical trick.

[Ahistoricality]

That was fun..... Was it just me or did that discussion go kind of this way?

[Patterico]

By the way, that was some keen photoshoppin'. How did you do that, technically?

[Karl Steel]

Patterico: you're right. So long as anyone is suffering, no one is allowed to have ice cream.

[Karl Steel]

I had a shamrock shake today in solidarity with the Iranian protesters. I thought that was important.

[Patterico]

Karl Steel: you're right. What the president does is meaningless.

Strawmen are fun!

[Ahistoricality]

Patterico, You know you've set it up so that Obama can't win: if he stops doing fun things with his family in public, Obama will be accused of hiding something, of hypocrisy, and of failing to support the US economy by modeling the consumerism which will revitalize our tertiary (but most important) sector. (Note to self: Bush said we should go shopping, but did he ever actually model the behavior he wanted to see in us?) As I noted in the linked comment above, I don't actually believe that there's anything Obama could do which would satisfy you, and you're proving it by wilfully ignoring the most basic arguments in favor of his current course of action. I'm not saying that you have to agree with them, but to be fair, you could try engaging them a little bit, maybe even admitting that people holding these views and tactics aren't necessarily political and ethical failures.

I don't think you're capable of it.

[Ahistoricality]

P.S. What's kind of freaky is that there actually is a "grimreaper" on Twitter.

[The Wrath of Oliver Khan]

Somehow, though, spending a month clearing brush in the middle of nowhere is different.

How is it different? Um, shut up, that's how.

[Karl Steel]

What the president does is meaningless.

Strawmen are fun!

And not having ice cream with his daughters--or tweeting solemnly about universal human rights--would help the Iranian democracy protests exactly how?

I gargled with listerine this morning in solidarity with Iran.

[Jon H]

Don't you remember when George W. Bush announced he was going to forsake nookie and lemonade until the Burmese people are free?

[Wally]

Who is this imbecile? Wait, don't answer that, I'm better off not knowing. As were you, once!

[Rich Puchalsky]

This whole thing is idiotic. Some reporter tweets that the President has eaten ice cream. And Patterico says that this is important because he's the President, and therefore ... should not eat ice cream while there is a world crisis anywhere? Should not let reporters report on vapid human interest stories? What?

It makes no sense. There is nothing to learn from it, nothing to say about it. It's not even good rhetoric. There is no reason to pay any attention at all to these people.

[Justin]

I realized something earlier today. The whole ice cream flap is pointless, even for someone who thinks Obama has the whole Iran thing wrong. Patterico et al. are saying Obama should be saying something about the situation in Iran. I don't think anyone is proposing we pick up the army and ship them over today (thank god...)

That would take roughly an hour? Two?

So he could easily make a statement, hold a press conference, answer questions, and then have plenty of time to go out for ice cream. It's not like he's not saying things because he's lazy--he's doing it because he thinks it's a bad idea. That's the real issue. Even if Patterico was right that Obama should be loudly condemning the Iranian regime, the ice cream would be a complete sideshow.

[Ahistoricality]

I know you're not a huge fan of Sadly, NO but sometimes they nail one.

[Nate]

All of you other commenters are missing SEK's real goal here. It's in the title. "How to use Twitter to make anyone look like a morally odious lout" implies that the "anyone" subjected to Twitter quoting is not *actually* a morally odious lout but is only being made falsely to appear as one. SEK, who says he has a PhD in English from the University of California at Irvine, would have us believe that he is not in fact a morally odious lout while in fact presenting no evidence to support this view. That he has the temerity to do this in the middle of such a terrible crisis makes this doubly damning.