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An Army of One

DougJ points to a must read Rick Perlstein piece in today's WaPo.

The orchestration of incivility happens, too, and it is evil. Liberal power of all sorts induces an organic and crazy-making panic in a considerable number of Americans, while people with no particular susceptibility to existential terror -- powerful elites -- find reason to stoke and exploit that fear. And even the most ideologically fair-minded national media will always be agents of cosmopolitanism: something provincials fear as an outside elite intent on forcing different values down their throats.

Here's another article on our crazy friends: The Paranoid Style in American Politics, By Richard Hofstadter, Harper’s Magazine, November 1964, pp. 77-86. It fills in a few more details and adds to the storyline -- from a 1964 point of view -- that this right wing hyesteria is nothing new. I would say that between these two pieces we can safely assume that our present day wingnuts, teabaggers and assorted fringers are of a garden variety and really aren't anything new nor do most of them present a real threat of physical violence. An abortion doctor here, Capitol policeman there, and then before you know it some guy rents a Ryder truck and kills a whole lot of people. But those loud, obnoxious assholes shouting down Congress critters and their fellow citizens aren't the ones you have to worry about. It's the guys who watch carefully and listen closely in order to see what they want to see in these events. Every move the government makes is confirmation of their own paranoid fantasy.

Here is a link to a page dedicated to the McVeigh trial. It's fairly comprehensive. Read the trial transcript excerpt of the testimony given by McVeigh accomplice Michael Fortier. His description of their beliefs and attitudes toward the government should sound hauntlingly familiar. Most of these guys don't have the guts to carry through most of the fantastical plots they devise. Sadly, it only takes one of them to take the last step. That last step that kills hundreds, or more, of there fellow citizens.

Q. Did he ever talk to you about being at war or declaration
of war during that period of time?
A. I remember one statement he made to me driving in his car.
He was driving me back to Kingman to my house and he said that
he thought the U.S. Government had declared war on the American
public and that they were actively taking our rights away.
Q. Do you recall any plans you had for the 4th of July that
year?
A. Yes. Tim had made a flyer of his thoughts and ideas and
collections of quotes from our Founding Fathers. He condensed
it all into -- onto one piece of paper; and I had photocopied a
bunch of them at work, and we were going to pass them out on
the 4th of July. We never did, though, because Tim got called
away. He went to Buffalo. Something was the matter with his
grandfather; and I didn't have no interest in doing that by
myself, so it never came to be.
Q. And you were going to hand these fliers out where?
A. At the 4th of July, the fireworks.
Q. Where?
A. Oh, at Centennial Park.
Q. In Kingman?
A. In Kingman, yes.

This is what we are up against. Mark my words somewhere in this country these conversation about America "losing it's freedom" is being held right now. I just hope the Feds can stop the next guy who rents a Ryder truck to use for nefarious purposes of getting even with the government.

But the villians who will not even make the list of unindicted co-conspirators are Feedom Works and the other astroturf group funded by wealthy individuals or large corporate interests.

Hey Mark! Stop Digging!

Mark Sanford, in a rambling statement last week admitted to having an affair. Now in an apparent attempt to come clean.as it were, Sanford also admits in an interview with the AP that he was interested in women other than the woman he had the affair with. He then goes on to say this in the interview:

During an emotional interview at his Statehouse office with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Sanford said Chapur is his soul mate but he's trying to fall back in love with his wife.

Whoa. That is the way to patch it up with your wife? Admit to the rest of the world that you still love the other woman and that you will now try to fall back in love with your wife? That and the fact that he did not have sexual relations with those other women have got me wondering if this isn't Mark Sanford's" I did not inhale" moment.

Any governor who would leave an entire state with no executive in charge has got to either resign or be removed from office. The other stuff is between him and his wife. Sanford reminds of the complete stranger you meet at a public function and within 2 minutes of talking to them they are telling you all about their alcoholism or drug addiction. Somethings come under the category TMI. And this one is Too Much Information.

How must his wife and kids feel with these additional revelations now in the public sphere? Sheesh.

Eddie Haz Cheeseburger

Not unlike the jailhouse conversions, and find Jesus while locked up in Prison, the Right now suddenly recalls that Executive Power IS limited. Greenwald has a great take on this new found religion and pokes fun at the mouth-breathers over at Hot Air.

Regurgitating the Party Line

Dan Bartlett admits White House uses Right Wing blogs like Two-Dollar Whores :

That’s what I mean by influential. I mean, talk about a direct IV into the vein of your support. It’s a very efficient way to communicate. They regurgitate exactly and put up on their blogs what you said to them. It is something that we’ve cultivated and have really tried to put quite a bit of focus on.

Shocking news, eh? Who would have suspected a bunch of Bush Syncophants in the midst of the Right Wing Blogosphere?

The Great Shark Hunt

According to K-Lo at The Corner, Saint Michael supports the boycott of TNR advertisers because TNR has not recanted the Beauchamp story.

Michael Yon e-mails:

I intend to support the boycott being launched by Bob Owens. Boycotts against the media have proven effective: I launched one myself last year against a magazine that misused one of my photos and misrepresented me. That magazine collapsed.

The New Republic needs to be the latest example that the good old days of no-accountability are ending. They attacked American soldiers during a time of war, and they attacked those soldiers without justification. I happen to be in Baghdad with some of the soldiers they attacked. These soldiers have enough challenges with urban combat that they should not have to watch their backs for concern of irresponsible publications stabbing them.

And I thought Yon jumped the shark with his baked child AQ story. The single, unsubstantiated source story. Jesus! I wonder if its too much Wild Turkey and Brown Acid?

NEXT DIVERSION: Boycotting magazines who won’t print all the news the Right deems fit.

So let me understand this:

1. No AQ link
2. No WMD’s
3 No WMD active programs
4. Mission Accomplished!
5. Sending the ENTIRE Iraqi Army home WITH weapons!
6. Unguarded ammunition supplies
7. A resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.
8. Abrogation of the 4th Amendment to save us from a bunch of guys with no state, no army, and no missiles … Jesus, Mary and Joseph—my head is ready to explode! What have we become? A nation of pussies?

OK—now what am I missing here? Who stabbed these guys in the back? Holy mackerel Andy! Where the Hell is my flag lapel pin? DO NOT TAKE THE BROWN ACID! We have evidence the Brown Acid is bad.

Say Goodnight Gracie. The Great Shark Hunt continues!

Right Wing Sissies

The Right Wing bloggers are bravely kicking ass on a 12 year old. Not surprising that a bunch of chickenshit loudmouths would gang up on a 12 year old and his family BEFORE they had all the facts. What else would you expect from a bunch of half-bright mouthbreathers. They have too much time on their hands. Its enough to make you want to go burn down their trailer (with them in it.)

UPDATE: Was Bitch McConnell's staff involved?

"This is a perverse distraction from the issue at hand," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Reid, D-Nev. "Instead of debating the merits of providing health care to children, some in GOP leadership and their right-wing friends would rather attack a 12-year-old boy and his sister who were in a horrific car accident."

Manley cited an e-mail sent to reporters by a Senate Republican leadership aide, summing up recent blog traffic about the boy's family. A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., declined to comment on Manley's charge that GOP aides were complicit in spreading disparaging information about Frosts.

Move Over MoveOn.org!

Hey MoveOn you better move over! Someone hates America more than you do.




Andrew Sullivan makes an excellent point. Why do they blame America first? I guess personal choice and individual responsibility only count when some a god is not on your side.