Those Wacky Wingnuts 3-12-09

In the comment thread at Balloon Juice, following John's post on the Conservapedia entry on Obama, we find brilliance from the GuyFromOhio:

Cole: As a connoisseur of the wingnut genre and recovering wingnut myself, I had to dive in for a taste:

Behold, you have uncovered yet another wingnut Mobius strip: one-dimensional, infinitely repeating.

C&L: "Neo" Conservative Talking Point: The Obama Administration Is ... The Matrix

Here's another discredited story that won't die: the rumor that Obama created the post of "National Coordinator of Health Information Technology" in his stimulus package, presumably to steal your most personal secrets. (The position was actually created by President Bush in 2004, with broad bipartisan support.)

The latest appearance of this folktale - call it "Obama's Health Big Brother" - comes in a Bloomberg News editorial by Amity Shlaes that boldly goes where no metaphor has gone before. "Barack Obama has dropped us all into The Matrix," writes Ms. Shlaes, adding:

In the Obama Era, it seems, we all pick our way through anxious lives that have something to do with software. Like Keanu Reeves' Neo, we realize hour-to-hour that we are being manipulated by a system that has its own larger plan.

If only we keep a cool head, we tell ourselves, our powers of logic will help us escape the web. But each move we make, even the one that feels independent, takes us deeper into the Matrix ...

President Obama's $634 billion, 10-year health-care plan undoubtedly appeals to would-be Neos out there ... As in "The Matrix," freedom is a mirage ... and there's no escape.

Freedom's a "mirage"? I thought it was "just another word for nothing left to lose." But if she seems to be pushing her Matrix metaphor a little too hard in these paragraphs, wait until she compares Peter Orszag to Agent Smith. America reads this and wonders: Do I take the blue pill or the red pill?

(Think I'll take a Tylenol. It's blue and red.)

There's a pattern developing here, a new "scare 'em with spooky computers" approach that's gaining ground in the right-leaning commentariat. Why pick on the "national coordinator for health information technology"? Maybe because it brings up memories of all those computers-are-taking-over movies from the seventies. In this new conservative meme, anything with "computers" or "information" in it is sinister and dehumanizing.

I look forward to Amity Shlaes' next piece, in which she warns of the enslavement of humanity that's sure to come if people don't stop forwarding that cute video of a dog cleaning your computer screen from the inside.

C&L: DOJ coming down to check out Sheriff Joe Arpaio's racial-profiling operations

Now, I know that Sheriff Joe told Glenn Beck he "welcomes" any investigation into his bordering-on-fascist rule in Arizona's Maricopa County. But I bet that nonetheless, he wasn't smiling yesterday:

The U.S. Justice Department has launched a civil-rights investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office after months of mounting complaints that deputies are discriminating in their enforcement of federal immigration laws.

Officials from the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division notified Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Tuesday that they had begun the investigation, which will focus on whether deputies are engaging in "patterns or practices of discriminatory police practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures."

An expert said it is the department's first civil-rights probe related to immigration enforcement.

... The Justice Department frequently receives racial-profiling complaints against police departments, but investigations are rare, said David Harris, a University of Pittsburgh law professor and racial-profiling expert.

"The fact that this has come to their attention and they have announced their intent to investigate is highly significant," Harris said. "It says there is enough there to be investigated. It's not an iffy case that (can be ignored)."

Harris said this is the first civil-rights investigation stemming from immigration enforcement. The probe could last several months.

You can read the notice here. [PDF file]

Maybe the DOJ can take inspiration from Arpaio's Brazil-esque reality-TV show on Fox, in which unsuspecting schlub criminals are duped into being busted on TV. They could build a reality show around investigating Arpaio, including footage of interviews with his victims.

Of course, in the past, Arpaio hasn't been very tolerant of people who criticize him. If you got caught applauding anti-Arpaio comments at county meetings, for instance, you might be arrested by Arpaio's deputies. But I suspect that won't work too well with DOJ investigators, especially the FBI.

This is a hopeful step forward in dealing with the mess Arpaio has made in Maricopa County, and will help make clear to the right-wing nativists out there that scapegoating Latinos is not the way to deal with whatever issues they have with immigration. It makes a mess not just in Arizona, but the whole country.

John Cole: Give Me A Break

Without question, the silliest portion of this Charles Freeman debate is occurring after the nominee has withdrawn and certain folks are pretending they had absolutely nothing to do with the assault on his character.

I will just put it this way. If you honestly thought that the folks at the Weekly Standard were quoting Human Rights Watch because of a deep concern for human rights, you are dumber than I ever was at the height of my kool-aid days.

Aravosis: OMG James Carville kinda sorta said something not even close to what Limbaugh said!

OMG. The end is nigh. Yesterday, conservatives found a quote from Democratic strategist James Carville, from eight years ago, in which he said something that isn't even close to what Rush Limbaugh said about wanting Obama to fail. Well, stop the presses and get Wolf Blitzer on the phone.

A few points.

First, James Carville isn't Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh is THE voice of the Republican party. He is the ideological leader. James Carville is neither THE voice nor the ideological leader. He's just another Democratic consultant, albeit a prominent one. Finding "a" Democrat who says something is not the same as finding the putative head of the GOP.

Second, Rush said he wants Obama to fail substantively. He wants him to fail to reform and restructure the economy. He basically wants him to fail in his efforts to stave off a depression. And I quote:

Limbaugh: "I want everything he's doing to fail... I want the stimulus package to fail.... I do not want this to succeed."

Carville, as Greg Sargent points out, wanted Bush to fail politically. A bit of a difference, especially since all people of one party want the other party to fail politically. Duh. We don't, however, want them to fail to keep the country safe and economically viable.

Third, and perhaps most important, the conservatives are running with this notion that James Carville somehow wanted Bush to fail saving the world after 9/11. In fact, Carville's comment came BEFORE the attacks happened. So it would be like Rush saying he wanted Obama to fail in a world where the US economy was soaring. Still kind of bitchy, but far different than saying you literally want the stimulus package to fail, when the stimulus package is meant to avoid another Great Depression.

But hey, if the conservatives want to help us keep the Rush Limbaugh story alive, God bless 'em.

TPM: Democracy Corps: Limbaugh Drags Down Republicans -- But The Base Loves Him

The Democratic polling/strategy firm Democracy Corps, James Carville and Stan Greenberg's outfit, is continuing to push the message that Rush Limbaugh is a political winner for Democrats -- and an inescapable loser for Republicans.

When asked if they agree with the statement, "Rush Limbaugh shares my values," or the opposite statement that he does not share their values, all voters break out at 32% yes, to 57% no. Among independents, it's 30%-58%.

But here's the thing: Limbaugh scores 60%-29% with Republicans. "There is a reason why," the polling memo says triumphantly. "Limbaugh ranks very high as a leader of the Republican Party's ideas and direction."

...

The memo concludes: "With Rush Limbaugh's vision and values so strong among the conservative Republicans who are the heart of the party's base, Republican leaders carry a heavy weight when they attempt to position themselves to act for the broader electorate."

C&L's John Amato in a new version of the infamous "leave Brittany alone" video.


TPM: Coleman Camp To Online Donors: Cancel Your Credit Cards After "Strong Likelihood" Of Breach

The Coleman campaign now has another headache to deal with: They are advising contributors to cancel their credits cards, The Hill reports, after an apparent security foul-up in late January.

Last night, Coleman's entire online donor list received an e-mail from a Wikileaks.org e-mail address, notifying them that their private information had been posted in a publicly accessible area of Coleman's campaign site this past January 28, and has circulated out of public view. The e-mail also contained a link to the Minnesota statute requiring organizations to disclose "in the most expedient time possible" to any Minnesotan if they reasonably believe their private information was illicitly accessed, and informed recipients that they were being notified as a courtesy by Wikileaks, in case the Coleman camp hadn't already.

The Wikileaks e-mail also includes a link to an Excel spreadsheet purported to contain all the donors' names, addresses, employers, and the last four digits and CSC security codes on their credit cards. ...

...

• JedL: Coleman posts credit card numbers online, doesn't warn donors, and then blames hackers.

  
  Let's get one thing straight: when you post your credit card donor database (complete with card numbers and three digit security codes) on the public internet, free of any security protections whatsoever and somebody comes along and downloads it with Firefox, then you haven't been hacked.
  
  You've been punk'd -- by yourself.
  
  That's the situation Norm Coleman finds himself in after exposing the data in late January.
  
  Now, six weeks after first discovering (and dismissing) the security hole, the data has been posted to Wikileaks.org, forcing Coleman to tell his donors that they should get new credit cards.
  
  Instead of apologizing for having screwed up, Coleman is pointing his finger at unidentified "hackers" as being responsible. But it was Norm Coleman who first posted the data on the public internet, and he needs to take responsibility for that screwup.
  
  The fact that Coleman didn't notify any of his donors about the potential security risk until yesterday -- despite becoming aware of the problem in late January -- looks bad, but it also raises a potentially thorny legal question for Coleman: Did his failure to report the exposure of private financial data to the affected individuals violate Minnesota law?
  
  At least it will give Norm Coleman's lawyers something to do after they finally lose their case against Al Franken.