Recent Snippets of Totalitarianism

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"I am pleased with Obama. I think he is brilliant. The Republican Party should get out of his way and stop trying to hurt him.... It would be good… if he could be dictator for a few years because he could do a lot of good things quickly."
--- Woody Allen, "La Vanguardia" (translated), 17 May 2010

"...I have fantasized--don't get me wrong--but that what if we could just be China for a day? I mean, just, just, just one day. You know, I mean, where we could actually, you know, authorize the right solutions, and I do think there is a sense of that, on, on everything from the economy to environment. I don't want to be China for a second, OK, [but] I want my democracy to work with the same authority, focus and stick-to-itiveness. But right now we have a system that can only produce suboptimal solutions."
--- Thomas Friedman, "Meet the Press", 23 May 2010

"Every murderous totalitarian government of the 20th century began with some insulated group of faux-intellectuals congratulating each other on how smart they are, and fantasizing about how, if they could just install a dictatorship-for-a-day, they could right all the wrongs in the world. It is the ultimate fantasy of the narcissist. And we’ve got whole generations of them, in control of our media and our government, all intent on 'remaking America.'"
--- Elizabeth Scalia, 24 May 2010

"A love of autocracy often lurks beneath the liberal veneer. There's this idea that the right answers are known and the people are just too deluded and distorted to see what they are and to vote for them. And Friedman openly deplores the internet...
--- Ann Althous, 23 May 2010

I guess being in charge of the White House and the Senate and the House of Representatives isn't quite enough. "The power isn't pure enough, not invincible enough."  Ah, it must be frustrating to know the ultimate solutions to all problems, and be constantly held back by internet-empowered lower people who do not understand.

I wonder what the liberal response would have been if Carl Rove in 2003 had made the same statement on "Meet The Press" that Thomas Friedman made.

 Woody Allen with his daughter/wife

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