Marshall's Khmer Rouge analogy

Josh Marshall, who recently derided the failed GOP movement to call the Democrats the "Democrat Socialist" party, engaged in some absurd labeling of his own in a post mockingly titled "Khmer Rush Strikes Again." The title compares Rush Limbaugh and his GOP supporters to the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime that killed more than one million people during its rule of Cambodia.

Marshall is a talented journalist who has increasingly engaged in misleading or inflammatory rhetoric as his blog has become more partisan (including likening Rudy Giuliani's hand gestures to those of Joseph Goebbels). Unfortunately, the tactic of comparing domestic political opponents with hated political figures and regimes has become increasingly common across the political spectrum in recent years. These tactics poison rational debate and minimize the crimes of the hated figures and crimes being invoked.

Update 6/3 11:21 AM: Matthew Yglesias agrees:

I kind of think this is a funny pun, but given that liberals everywhere raised a hew and cry about various conservative efforts to label Barack Obama the second coming of Stalin or Hitler I think maybe Josh Marshall should have kept this one to himself.

Comments

[David]

I fully agree with Brendan.

IMHO this sort of nasty pun is more used against conservatives than liberals. Sure, Rush Limbaugh attacks liberals this way, but the mainstream media use this technique against conservatives.

E.g., when Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House, the Time Magazine cover blurb was The Gingrich Who Stole Christmas. Newsweek's was: How the Gingrich Stole Christmas!

[rone]

"Sure, Rush Limbaugh attacks liberals this way, but the mainstream media use this technique against conservatives."

Prove it, pretzel boy. Please show your work that the "mainstream media" attacks conservatives in this way more than people like Beck, Coulter, Hannity, Limbaugh, and O'Reilly do.

I still have that Newsweek, by the way. It was a political cartoon's title, not Newsweek's cover blurb.