Next demonization installment

Okay, now I understand where some of the miscommunication between Jim and myself lies.

Jim, when I say "association with iconic evil," I don't mean "mention of iconic evil." I mean that you either explicitly or else implicitly (but unmistakably) suggest that the target of your rhetoric is in the same class as Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot.

So, let's look at the passage that bothered you:

if you were in the left-hand half of the American Left, I suspect that you would react to being called “Osama” with rather less outrage and hurt feelings than if one of your fellow Kossites were to call you “Dubya.”

Now, the point here is that I did not, in fact, call anybody “Osama.” If someone were to address a Kossite as “Osama,” then that would be demonization. If one Kossite were to address another Kossite as “Dubya,” that would also, in those social circles, be taken as demonization, simply because Dubya has attained the status of iconic evil among Kossites and the Democratic Underground.

The point I was making is that at this point, if you wish to arrange to be punched in nose by one of the denizens of Daily Kos and HuffPo and the DU, my impression is that you could do so far more efficiently by accusing them of being like Bush than you could by accusing them of being like Osama -- that, in fact, if you simply look at the vitriol spent in accusing Bush of being evil and compare it to the vitriol spent in accusing Osama of being evil, the lunatic left is way more invested in Bush's evilness than in Osama's. But to point out what seems to me to be a largely indisputable fact involving the Kossites' attitudes toward Osama and Bush, doesn't become demonization just because Osama and Bush both happen to count as iconic evil to the Kossite subculture -- because I am not saying, "The Kossites are just like Osama and/or Bush."

If, however, I were to say, "Just like Bush with his family-revenge-driven fixation on getting Saddam, the Kossites desperately seize at any excuse to claim that Dubya must be overthrown by any means necessary so that Al Gore's stolen election can be avenged..." Now that would be saying, "The Kossites are just like that icon of evil, George W. Bush." Which, in the vocal and (within the Democratic Party at least) influential circles where Bush and the Devil are indistinguishable, would most certainly qualify as demonization.

Jim, do you see the distinction I'm making between "association with" iconic evil and "mention of" iconic evil?