Time's Joe Klein reports from Arkansas, where he attended a town-hall event hosted by Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D). He found an "astonishing" number of attendees who were absolutely certain that President Obama has "larded the government with communists." It was among many of the "vomitous, disgraceful notions" he heard from locals, one of whom said, "We are living Glenn Beck's fantasy life."Could I just say that the intensity of this getting pretty scary...and dangerous? We are heading toward a cliff and the usual brakes of civil discourse are not working. Indeed, the Republicans have the pedal to the metal -- rushing us toward a tragedy far greater than the California health care forum finger-biting Karen describes below. I'm usually not one to panic or be overly worried about the state of our country -- even when we do awful things like invade Iraq and torture people, we usually right our course before long -- but I have a sinking feeling about where we're headed now. I hope I'm wrong.
It's possible that Arkansas is just uniquely strange right now. It is a state where a majority of residents trust Rush Limbaugh, and distrust President Obama. It's a state where less than half the population believes the president was born in the United States. It's a state with one of the highest rates in the country for those lacking health insurance, but where the idea of reform is wildly unpopular.
Or maybe it's not just Arkansas and there's something very wrong with our political system, put under a serious strain by the "conservative lunatic brigade," stuck in a "perverse nonsense feedback loop."
Birthers, Deathers, Tenthers. Beck, Palin, Limbaugh. Bachmann, Inhofe, DeMint, King, and Broun. A scorched-earth campaign intended to tear the country apart, questioning the legitimacy of the president, the government, and the rule of law. It's all very scary.
Josh Marshall recently noted, "It's always important for us to remember what the last eight years have again taught us, which is that America has a very strong civic fabric, one that can withstand, absorb and conquer all manner of ugly behavior. It can take in stride a lot of angry rhetoric, townhall fisticuffs and more. But as this escalates we should continually be stepping back and thinking retrospectively from the vantage point of the future about where this all seems to be heading."
Klein's not the only one with a sinking feeling
The crazies have a political party, a cable news network, and a loud, activist base. They're mad as hell and they're not going to take their medications anymore.
Benen: CONGRESSIONAL CRAZIES...
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R) of Oklahoma sure is nutty. Last month, he raised the specter of a "revolution." This month, he's just making stuff up.
[Inhofe is] alarmed, he said, by the proposed closing of the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Obama administration wants to shutter the camp because of its association with torture.
Inhofe said: "There has never been a case of torture there. The people there are treated better than in the federal prisons."
He continued, "I don't know why President Obama is obsessed with turning terrorists loose in America."
The administration says it wants to bring 60 to 80 prisoners to the U.S. for trial. Some Republicans have said those acquitted could be released in the U.S., but authorities say they would be deported as foreign nationals.
Inhofe's third concern, he said, is that "Barack Obama is disarming America." He conceded that Obama requested more military spending, but he criticized the elimination of several weapons systems, including the F-22 fighter.
Just to briefly offer a little fact-checking of America's worst senator, Inhofe is wrong about torture at Gitmo, wrong about turning terrorists loose, and wrong about the F-22.
Matt Finkelstein added, "This kind of fear-mongering, of course, is nothing new for the right wing, but that doesn't make it any less despicable."
Or any less common. One of Inhofe's House counterparts, Rep. Paul Broun, an unhinged Republican from Georgia, continues to talk about the likelihood of an Obama dictatorship.
U.S. Rep. Paul Broun is again raising the specter of Democrats turning the United States into a totalitarian state. [...]
He told a meeting of the Morgan County Republicans on Wednesday night that Obama already has or will have the three things he needs to make himself a dictator: a national police force, gun control and control over the press.
"He has the three things that are necessary to establish an authoritarian government," Broun said. "And so we need to be ever-vigilant, because freedom is precious."
So is sanity.
I continue to think crazed remarks like these from Broun and Inhofe sound a lot like the kind of things one might say if he were trying to drive already-angry conservatives over the edge. These two see a simmering right-wing fire, and they're reaching for the kerosene.
"I have given up hope for a loyal opposition. I'd settle for a sane one."
Benen: IF WE'RE LOOKING FOR EXAMPLES OF 'INDOCTRINATION'...
So, President Obama wants to encourage kids to do well in school. The right is throwing a fit, accusing the White House of trying to "indoctrinate" America's children. Fox News has even begun promoting the idea of having parents keep children home from school so they won't be able to hear the president's pro-education message.
The attacks are even more insane than usual, but it's also fun to make note of some history.
ABC's Jake Tapper noted today, for example, that in 1988, then-President Reagan spoke to students via C-SPAN telecast. During Q&A, Reagan "talked about opposition to gun control and other issues." Does this count as "indoctrination," too?
Steve M. has an even more recent example.
And do you know what the administration is calling the "community service" organization the president wants kids to join? The "USA Freedom Corps"! That's right -- "Corps"! It's a civilian fascist army! You don't believe me? It's right there on the section of the White House Web site specifically dedicated to children!
No, wait -- it's on the archived Bush administration White House site for children.
It was Bush, so there was no indoctrination going on there, no sirree. Nor was there any indoctrination going when -- at a time when the White House was trying to brand Bush's foreign policy with the name "Freedom Agenda" -- the White House kids' site offered a "freedom timeline" that attempted to link the "American Response to Terrorism" to stories about U.S. history touchstones such as the Underground Railroad, the Statue of Liberty, the March of Dimes, and the Berlin Airlift.
The Bush gang's supplemental educational materials encouraged teachers to tell kids how those historical touchstones "relate to today's efforts to preserve freedom." They also encouraged classes to "explore the biographies" of Bush and Cheney.
None of this generated criticism, and because Bush was a Republican, this doesn't count as an effort to "indoctrinate" children. But if President Obama wants to deliver a stay-in-school message, it's an outrageous and unconscionable abuse.
These people are crazy.
Of course, it doesn't have to make sense; it just has to fit into the conservative scorched-earth strategy.
- John Cole had An Idea
If all the wingnuts are pulling their kids out of school because the President is going to speak for fifteen minutes, can we teach evolution the rest of the day?
Seriously, I think it is great Jon Henke is waging his own “jihad” against WND and I support him 100%, but if he just thinks it is Joseph Farah, he is sadly, sadly, mistaken. Go read Malkin. Go read Andrew McCarthy and the rest of the NRO clowns, go read the Free Republic, go read CPAC’s blog of the year wailing about Obama in Muslim garb, go read Sarah Palin kvetching about death panels.
Your problem isn’t just WND- as the RNC is happy to prove. The entire party has been taken over by crazy people.
Not that some people haven’t been warning about this for several years or anything.
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