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| Obama compares primaries to the Bataan Death March |
| 2008-03-28 |
| Jim Geraghty, "Campaign Spot" @ National Review Obama, at a fundraiser, last night: "For those of you who are just weary of the primary, and feeling kind of ground down or that it's like a Bataan death march, I just want everybody to know that the future is bright." Jen Rubin: "Yeah, just like that. (Note to our Democratic friends: avoid analogies which compare, even in jest, the minor stresses of campaigning to war crimes; there's a candidate out there who knows something about real wars and real suffering.)" If Obama's campaign is the Bataan Death March, does that make Hillary Clinton the Imperial Japanese Army? Is Carville the analog of General Homma? . . . I'm not going to jump up and down and demand an apology or suggest that Obama is insensitive to veterans or anything like that. I'm just going to note that shortly after 9/11, when some were proclaiming the death of irony, there was a widespread sense that it was silly to apply military metaphors, associated with killing and death, to mundane inconveniences. . . . Calling a long and tiring campaign a death march is about one step removed from Reductio ad Hitlerium, because while I'm sure the candidates, their staffs, and the people who cover them are exhausted, it just doesn't compare to war atrocities. Maybe Obama's just jealous because Hillary got to dodge sniper fire in Bosnia and he missed all the fun. As Rubin notes, it gives off a whiff of "poor me, poor me" whining. Obama gets a pass this time, but this metaphor ought to be mothballed. |
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