Naomi Wolf sells the “end of America”
posted at 1:50 pm on August 24, 2007 by Bryan
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I saw this item on Newsbusters earlier today, and they have it transcribed and framed nicely but a few points remain to be made about it. The gist is that Al Gore’s former wardrobe specialist, Naomi Wolf, appeared on Mornin’ Joe to hawk her new book, the terrifyingly titled The End of America: A Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot. She is, as the title implies, prophesying the end of democracy as we know at the hands of the Bushfuerher.
No, really. She makes the Nazi connection plain, ripping through Godwin’s Law with abandon. And Scarborough goes right along with it.
Like too many liberals, Wolf starts with a premise — Republicans are evil and George W. Bush is more evil than most Republicans — and works backward from that conclusion to find or manufacture evidence to support it. It’s not science, but it is political science.
It always intrigues me that people consistently leave the Soviets out of their “evidence of encroaching totalitarianism” analogies. The Soviets were no less totalitarian than the Nazis, and had several decades more practice at it than their German socialist counterparts, and Stalin’s body count was either equal to or higher than Hitler’s. Why don’t the Commissars rate?
It also intrigues me that here, Wolf not only sheepishly giggles through an interview about a creeping police state that she either really believes or cynically says is just around the corner, but that she also plays fast and loose with the facts concerning Jose Padilla. She states twice that what happened to him can happen to any American. The fact is, as Wolf surely knows if she spent more than half a minute looking into the case, is that Padilla was apprehended on the evidence given up by captured al Qaeda handler Abu Zubaydah and he had filled out a terrorist job application form while in an al Qaeda post. I guess if you’re on Zubaydah’s rolodex and he can tell US authorities where you’re traveling and when you’re traveling there and that you’re on a scouting mission for the terrorist group, and if you’ve filled out al Qaeda’s human resources paperwork, then yeah, what happened to Padilla can happen to you too. Otherwise, no, Naomi, it can’t happen to any American.
She and Scarborough also trade kisses over roving wiretap authority, which Joe at least mentioned began under Clinton and before 9-11. But again, the two consistently miss the point that from what we know of the Bush wiretaps, they were limited to incoming calls from known terrorist sources. Why is this not a reasonable thing to do, since we know that a cell on US soil perpetrated 9-11 and there are very probably more cells lurking about either getting ready to attack or awaiting orders?
Wolf states a couple of times in the interview that she believes the threat of terrorism is real. But she consistently opposes all efforts to actually stop terrorists from attacking Americans and turns the bulk of her ideological guns on the Bush administration, not the terrorists. And, by writing books and going on national TV to “expose” the creeping Bushreich, Wolf is evidence herself that America is becoming no such thing. The same goes double for those Loose Change half-wits, who seriously believe that a government that will kill 3,000 of its own people in broad daylight in its largest city won’t slip a switchblade into its most strident critics in the dead of night. It’s absurd.
What Wolf and the Loose Change guys have in common, I believe, is narcissism. Neither can face the 21st Century reality of global jihad and terrorism, so both rewrite the story to cast themselves as heroes. It’s what gets them through the night. And in Wolf’s case, it’s what helps her sell books.
As for Joe, he just ought to know better. At some point, some cable host is going to earn some serious spurs just by calling all these Nazi analogies what they really are: obscene.
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Add Hillary to that mix. She just asid terrorism helps the GOP
William Amos on August 24, 2007 at 1:52 PM
Meanwhile, in Venezuela, the Left-tard’s favorite “Man of the People” is dismantling Democracy brick by brick.
Just like all Liberals…looking the otherway when real danger approaches.
Naomi isn’t a very bright woman. She’s more, hmm, I dunno, Earthy.
Montana on August 24, 2007 at 1:53 PM
She should get back to helping Algore with his earthtones and leave political discussion to the adults.
JammieWearingFool on August 24, 2007 at 1:56 PM
I always liked Camille Paglia’s comment on Wolf - “She’s a Seventeen magazine level of thinker.”
Slublog on August 24, 2007 at 2:00 PM
I was particularly scared at the part when Chimpy McHitler’s jack-booted thugs broke onto the set and hauled her away.
Oh… yeah, that’s right. Those things tend to not happen when you don’t live in a police state.
Sorry. I’ll go back to work now.
crazy_legs on August 24, 2007 at 2:00 PM
Good post Bryan. How anyone takes Naomi Wolf seriously is beyond me. She has always impressed (depressed) me as one of these nitwit graduate student types, who spends an inordinate amount of time and energy applying a form of criticism to a masterpiece of litierature, which is utterly inappropriate. She is pleased to dispose of what is great as she is so small.
mcgilvra on August 24, 2007 at 2:03 PM
by “close down an open society” do you mean ‘the fairness doctrine’?
Geesh…
BobH on August 24, 2007 at 2:05 PM
Bryan, of course you’re grinning with tongue planted firmly in cheek when you ask why Wolf doesn’t draw Soviet analogies when talking about totalitarianism. Wolf is a self-described “recovering Marxist”. Maybe she fell off the wagon.
DubiousD on August 24, 2007 at 2:05 PM
Damn, with MSNBC’s 150 viewers, the word is going to spread.
BobK on August 24, 2007 at 2:05 PM
That woman is insane, but a perfect guest for that dolt Scarborough.
rplat on August 24, 2007 at 2:06 PM
Riiiight, I guess in ‘09, Bush will NOT step down and let the Prez. elect take over. We’ll see what happens at the end of Chavez and Putin’s term. If what she said is true, she would’ve been arrested for saying it. Moron.
Tony737 on August 24, 2007 at 2:09 PM
Dude, whatever you get paid it isn’t enough. I can’t make it through a viewing of drivel like this without getting so mad at those half-wits that I can’t see straight.
This is beautiful…
Shame on you for introducing reason and logic! Don’t you know we on the right banished such trivialities in 1980…
Leonidas Hoplite on August 24, 2007 at 2:11 PM
Good post, Bryan… This woman is as irrelevent as she is narcissistic.
tickleddragon on August 24, 2007 at 2:11 PM
Wolf not only sheepishly giggles through an interview about a creeping police state that she either really believes or cynically says is just around the corner
Look at the means which a woman employs, consider her motives, observe her pleasures. A woman simply cannot conceal herself!
- Confucius
MB4 on August 24, 2007 at 2:12 PM
What makes you think that? I guess you haven’t watched him over the past few years,he’s towed the line for democrats consistently. At some point, you have to figure that it’s no longer a case of bowing to MSNBC’s wishes, but that it’s what he actually believes. He’s essentially a walking joke to repubs and dems at this point though for his obvious selling out/conversion, so there’s no reason to take him seriously.
forged rite on August 24, 2007 at 2:12 PM
oops-my comment is awaiting moderation-I shouldn’t have said SH#T I guess. Sorry. It’s hard to be ladylike when discussing such disgusting, vicious, scumsucking, idiotic, radical moonbats like Naomi Klein or any of the Lewis clan.
WriterMom on August 24, 2007 at 2:12 PM
if Bush was hitler or Stalin he would’ve done atleast two things the last 7 years he hasn’t, take away gun rights and silence his media critics.
all the loons like this Bit%h would be in some secret Jail with all the 9/11 Truth people and michael moore. the fact they freely spout their stupidity is all the evidence you need against them.
as usual though, the same can’t be said for Dem policy, they want to take away guns and push through the “Fairness Doctrine” to silence their media critics, if this twit had a brain capable of analytical skills she would be worried about the Dems not Repubs.
jp on August 24, 2007 at 2:13 PM
OMG. I thought it was Naomi Klein.LOL. Wrong nutty Naomi. Sorry fooks. I was refering to Naomi No Logo Klein. LOL.
WriterMom on August 24, 2007 at 2:13 PM
I substitute her reality with my own.
Vanquisher on August 24, 2007 at 2:15 PM
Bush only has another 1 1/2 in office. So, if he is going to end democracy as we know it, he better get cracking.
Blake on August 24, 2007 at 2:15 PM
What?!? How dare you question our authora-tye on such matters? We’re Patriots with a capital P! We’re Thomas Paine. We’re Ben Franklin. We’re Galileo telling the Church that the world is round. Listen to me. Listen to ME! Please woln’t you listen to me, pay attention to me, love me? Please?
/Alex Jones Syndrome
BohicaTwentyTwo on August 24, 2007 at 2:15 PM
Heh, this is by no means a unique line of thought amongst the moonbats.
Bad Candy on August 24, 2007 at 2:16 PM
Outside of Krazy Keith Olbermann (aka Edward R. Olbermann) and Chwissy Matthews - is there a more annoying (and less deserving of a show) then Joe Scarborough on cable TV?
Hilts on August 24, 2007 at 2:24 PM
Wow, I can’t believe she got air time and wrote a book. She thinks America is the enemy.
I don’t think she’s soft on terror, I just think she’s an idiot. I hate calling people names, but I can’t believe that she has educated herself and come up with these ideas.
She’s comparing a guy who is going to be gone in a year and a half to dictators. We have always had SECRET prisons. The difference now is that they aren’t SECRET anymore because they want to smear the president.
She thinks that American civil rights should be given to NON-Americans. She doesn’t understand that civil rights in America only pertain to Americans. Does she feel a need to complain about illegal search and seizure when she boards a plane? That’s a violation of civil liberties. Should we have a metal detector in the courthouses? Illegal search and seizure.
The whole ‘civil rights’ movement is a myth. There is no such thing as ‘civil rights’. Human rights are important . . . life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. Anything that the government does to keep me safe from NON-Americans is what they are supposed to do.
This person needs to travel abroad to understand what ‘freedom’ means. She has the right to write a book about this nonsense, and go on TV spouting this nonsense, and yet she doesn’t consider herself ‘free’ in this country.
Nothing new here, just another ‘I’m so free that I’m bored so America must be the enemy’ commentary.
ThackerAgency on August 24, 2007 at 2:26 PM
Yes I alwasy wondered about those moonbats who keep crying Nazism going on the air, writing books and not seeing that the fact that they can go on the air and write books - contradicts their thesis.
Hilts on August 24, 2007 at 2:27 PM
They must pay Joe a lot of money to consistently stand by quietly while Olbermann and other democrats on MSNBC consistently demean, smear, and lie about the President and conservatives. I guess that’s why he is always calling himself a true conservative republican. Because if he didn’t say it often you would forget with all his democrat butt kissing.
Complete7 on August 24, 2007 at 2:29 PM
Fixed it for ya!
Miss_Anthrope on August 24, 2007 at 2:29 PM
Ms. Wolf’s actual quote was that George W. Bush is “more eviler” than most Republicans. She should know, she was a consultant for Al Gore and was raised in a middle class home by a refrigerators magnet.
ScottMcC on August 24, 2007 at 2:33 PM
I think it’s because they can’t wrap their head around the possibility that Hitler was, in actions, much more like Stalin & other Communist totalitarians.
The fuzziness surrounding what Nazism really is makes calling someone a Nazi ‘easy,’ since few pay attention to the distinct differences between a traditional Fascist, like Mussolini, and the Nazis.
Making an accusation like this in Russia can still put you in the Gulag, or poisoned for that matter. Have fun with Communism, Naomi. You’d be better off going back to reading ‘Cosmo’ and guiding the Goreacle’s ever-changing seasonal crises.
Miss_Anthrope on August 24, 2007 at 2:38 PM
So:
President Bush supposedly promulgating National Socialism (Nazism) is bad.
Naoim Wolf promulgating Global Socialism is good.
Got it!
Lawrence on August 24, 2007 at 2:39 PM
She’s either mentally ill or she is manipulating the mentally ill to make money. Either way, her success rests on mental illness.
TheBigOldDog on August 24, 2007 at 2:39 PM
More eviler??? Really???
She’s more intelligenter than anyone here, obviously!
/sarc
Miss_Anthrope on August 24, 2007 at 2:40 PM
I watched this segment with my Dog - Dubya - he was so upset he attacked the TV - I hope that this woman never goes walking down my street - Dubya will surely remember her!
iam7545 on August 24, 2007 at 2:46 PM
MSNBC Quiz. Which is greater …..
A. Percentage of viewers with IQ over 60.
B. Percentage of operating budget spent on kneepads.
fogw on August 24, 2007 at 2:47 PM
Oh my god!
I won’t even bother to consider the source on this. It’s not worth the time it takes to consider it.
Whats next? a book about the end of the world by Billerys cosmetologist?
Masscon on August 24, 2007 at 2:47 PM
This is too easy. “Anti-racism” is to be made into the one great moral imperative. The crimes of the Nazis were sometimes based on race, while the crimes of the Communists were based on their paranoid theories of economics.
“Anti-racism” is to be the one tool by which the left is to accomplish all its objectives, including socialism. I don’t think I can repeat enough that the left is not guilty of not having an objective morality. “Anti-racism” is as objective a moral rule as one could possibly hope for. It just happens to lead to bad answers when taken too far–just like “respect for life”. We need serious discussions about moral and practical questions. Instead, we get the ACLU calling some town in Georgia “racist” for wanting to fine men who can’t seem to be able to cover their underwear with their pants.
thuja on August 24, 2007 at 2:49 PM
Bryan pretty much hit the nail on the head. All these troothers and “bushymchittler is taking over the world” types are narcissist. Regardless of what words they are using what they are really saying is “Look at me! MEEEEEE!!! I am important! I am brave! I stand up to the man! ME ME ME!”
They say and do what they want because they are safe doing so. no one will throw them in jail, or switchblade them. When true evil pops up, like Venzuella or ran they stay mum. They won’t say anythiong about those people because those people are DANGEROUSE! They could get Hurt!
Wyrd on August 24, 2007 at 2:51 PM
Anyone who can charge $10,000 a month to advise Al Gore on how to dress like an Alpha Male may be an idiot but she’s not stupid.
Labamigo on August 24, 2007 at 3:01 PM
I find it interesting that the people who are screaming the loudest about a possible takeover by a renegade administration are the same people who are trying the hardest to strip us of our ability to resist such a takeover.
Catseye on August 24, 2007 at 3:04 PM
The sooner, the better.
Kid from Brooklyn on August 24, 2007 at 3:06 PM
Think about this for a second:
The margin of error in estimating the number of people killed under communism is larger than the entire Nazi Holocaust.
Reactionary leftist don’t warn about creeping socialism.
Wonder why that is?
Could it be because they want to wield the whip?
N. O'Brain on August 24, 2007 at 3:06 PM
Darn it!….I knew that receipt for the Silent Hunter III U-boat game would give me away. I wonder, how is Argentina this time of year?
Limerick on August 24, 2007 at 3:08 PM
Wolf: we live in a police state, buy my book.
Silky: they’re trying to shut me up, send me money.
Shrill: Vast right-wing conspiracy, vote for me.
Penn: We cower from their bullying, go see my movie.
Another day, another moonbat
Great analysis Bryan.
PowWow on August 24, 2007 at 3:09 PM
If Bushitler really was a Nazi he’d put this bimbo in a brick oven. But she is on the air talking to Slo-Mo-Joe ergo Bushitler is not a Nazi.
Liberals use feelings in place of reasoning and logic. The LooseChange nerds are the same way. Remove emotion from the equation and you will see there is no way this overly bureaucratic, loose-lipped government could orchestrate such a feat as staging 9-11.
saltydogg14 on August 24, 2007 at 3:15 PM
Narcissism is a mental disorder.
Delusionalism is a mental disorder.
Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Brat on August 24, 2007 at 3:16 PM
Step out of the car please miss.
*readies baton*
BohicaTwentyTwo on August 24, 2007 at 3:50 PM
True to a certain extent; malignant narcissism (as opposed to its milder form or just ordinary narcissism) is in play here, but the mental disorder is more properly described as displacement: the inability to cope with what one really fears, and the transference of the related hate response onto something/someone less threatening.
For all her “Bush-as-Hitler” claptrap, Wolfe knows full well that her door isn’t going to get kicked in by a pair of jackboots for saying it. Which is precisely why she feels safe in comparing Repubicans to Nazis.
I really wonder what she and her ilk are going to do when BusHitler steps down from office right on time in January, 2009? Say its all a trick? Or just pretend that all their hysterical, chicken-little prognostications never happened?
Spurius Ligustinus on August 24, 2007 at 3:56 PM
Naomi is a wack job.
PMS/NBC must a a list of nuts to interview when they can’t adequately fill-in their line-up. Naomi is on the top ten for sure.
Captain America on August 24, 2007 at 4:06 PM
You will respect my authoritay!
*batters knees with baton*
(Now I know what I’m watchin’ this weekend…)
Miss_Anthrope on August 24, 2007 at 4:06 PM
Perfectly put mcgilvra and bonus points for elegance!
Montana on August 24, 2007 at 4:08 PM
Depends on who wins probably, but I’m sure Wolf will say something along the lines of “Look at ME! I helped save America!”
Bryan on August 24, 2007 at 4:09 PM
Excellent post AP, one of the few I can say I totally agree and you just left nothing else to be said… but I do have to nit pick about one little thing:
o/t, but that sounds a lot like how evolutionists roll to me.
RightWinged on August 24, 2007 at 4:09 PM
If Bush was such A Nazi as Wolf and other Liberals would have been marched off to camps long ago…but they all been free for almost 8 years to do and say what every they want….yea Bush is a real Hitler alright.
You know the funny thing is as much as the Left likes to use the “Nazi” label to hang on Conservatives/Republicans..is today if Nazi Germany rose to power the Left and MSM would oppose any steps by the US against it…and would even whitewash the anti-antisemitism of the Nazi’s and other “bad” quality’s and try to sell how much better they are than us..of course…the Hollywood left would embrace Hitler..Michael Moore would make a movie showing how much better life is under Nazi’s..Chrissy Matthews and KO would do news shows and “Special Comments’ attacking any talk of trying to stop the spread of Nazism….pretty much replace the word Terrorist with Nazi and you’ll have what the typical Liberal reaction would be.
mlong on August 24, 2007 at 4:20 PM
I know it’s easy to say someone is crazy. But I am serious when I say that Wolf is crazy. I saw an interview a while back where she talked about “seeing” Jesus in the room with her. She said she wasn’t ready to talk to about it yet. As far as I know, she never has.
I’m not saying it’s not possible to see Jesus, but given how Wolf feels about religion in general, I’m thinking she would have just slapped him.
hmm…maybe that’s why she can’t talk about it.
Rightwingsparkle on August 24, 2007 at 4:46 PM
You know that SH4 is out? But then you are an American sub killing Japs. And by JAP, I don’t mean the likes of Naomi Wolf.
Every time some leftist nutjob derides anything good as being Nazi-like in some way, I begin to question why we even bothered to fight WWII and start wondering if, like Patton suggested in the dying days of the European conflict, we were fighting the wrong enemy.
jihadwatcher on August 24, 2007 at 5:02 PM
I just can’t stand some of these liberals sometimes. They think that America is so evil. Try living in some other countries. I’m in the military and have been in countries where they throw you in jail for speaking ill of their leaders. But when Keith Olbermann calls President Bush a Nazi and calls Republicans terrorists, the only thing that happens to him is that he’s rewarded with a multi million dollar contract.
SoulGlo on August 24, 2007 at 5:24 PM
I have a nit to pick, RW…check the post’s byline.
Bryan on August 24, 2007 at 5:34 PM
Dubya will go back to Crawford in January 2001 and just as he has been classier and more respectful of the office than the previous occupant, so too will he be quieter and classier than WJC and Peanut Boy. As for any kind of facism taking hold in the US, that peril is from the left not the right as it is the lefties that want to take away freedoms starting with the second amendment then the fairness doctrine and so on. But these concepts are a bit too much for those on the left to grasp despite their obvious and oft claimed superior intelect.
oilbertan on August 24, 2007 at 5:38 PM
Had to quit listening with 4:33 left to go.
I guess she’s just so much smarter than me.
Laughably silly and out of touch with reality.
asc85 on August 24, 2007 at 6:04 PM
The Wolf that cries like a Sheep.
By this time, and after hearing years of the venomous pabulum of these tiny tools, I think I’d pay to see a movie titled: “Chimpy McBushitler” that was a lampooning of the Nazi fantasies of the extreme Left.
Just have a Curious George-ish uber-fascist monkey doing all the things these doofuses claim are happening (secret wiretaps of “progessive” people in a small town in New Hampshire to find out their choice of withdrawn library books; a planned extra large detention cage at Gitmo for Michael Moore; fugu-poisoned cocaine for Sean Penn; ad absur-dumb).
Just fulfill their paranoia in ani- or clay-mation, and show the calamitous goofiness of it all.
A cross between “MAUS” and “101 Dalamations” (with the film’s ’swastikas’ pointed in the wrong direction, since these hysterical clowns likely don’t know all that the symbol means, or how it was oriented, or why).
Naomi is probably trying to fight her way out a wet paperbag, somewhere, as I type.
profitsbeard on August 24, 2007 at 6:12 PM
My bad, apologies Allah… My point stands though. Immediately upon reading BRYAN’s sentence, all I could think of was “this is exactly the type of ’science’ evolutionists engage in all the time”.
Again, you’re of the hook here Allah… for now! I’m a dumbass.
RightWinged on August 24, 2007 at 6:17 PM
“…it’s really scary…”
Jeffersonian, if not Hegelian, if not Platonic, if not Heideggerian.
What next, Joan Rivers exposes the parallels between 2nd Bush term and second verse of “Louie, Louie“?
“…I could be called an ‘enemy combatant’…”
Nah, just a historically-ignorant goofball, fluffernutter, and flake.
profitsbeard on August 24, 2007 at 6:28 PM
1 idiot x 1 idiot = 1 idiot. You choose the gender.
oldelpasoan on August 24, 2007 at 8:25 PM
Sorry Bryan I can’t bring myself to watch the little
lying idiot. I’ve had my fill on some yak show on Fox
a few weeks back.
SHE’S NUTS and wants attention. . . . .
Texyank on August 24, 2007 at 10:02 PM
I look forward to seeing this book stacked haphazardly in a box in a dumpster behind the 99-cent store any week now…
I do have to say, bottomless pit though her mind may be, I’d hit it. At least if she’d shut up.
Sorry ’bout that last comment, thought I was at Ace’s for a second. And some interface glitch is preventing me from deleting text above this, so I figure it’s fate!
Merovign on August 24, 2007 at 11:01 PM
Is Representative Smoe subbing for Imus on MSTUVWNBC? Imus must be on vacation in New Mexico.
saved on August 25, 2007 at 9:19 AM
Sounds like she is in and out of Alternate dimensions,
and I have to wonder,possibly,in one of those dimensions
with jack booted thugs running around amuck,since her
skills at story telling go the way of fantastic science-
fiction,I’m led to believe,she got a bad perscription
from DR.Meangela.hahah
canopfor on December 10, 2007 at 9:10 PM
“We’re sorry. This video is no longer available.”
Jason Coleman on December 11, 2007 at 12:08 AM
IMO, Althouse can take credit for the definitive take down of Bag-o-Hammers Wolf.
Kadnine on December 11, 2007 at 4:00 AM