Yesterday, John Brennan, President Obama's chief counterterrorism adviser, tried to remind Americans about an important truth: "I think we have to remember who the enemy here is. The enemy is al Qaeda."In Minnesota, a Republican congressional candidate has offered a slightly different take on the nature of America's enemies.
Allen Quist, a Republican candidate seeking the nomination to go up against Rep. Tim Walz (D-MN), has made a serious pronouncement: That the political battle against the Democrats is the defining fight of this generation, even greater than the fight against terrorism.
"Now why am I doing this? I don't need to be in lights, I don't need to speak, I don't need to be before a TV camera, I don't need to be in the paper. I have been there, I have done all that. I don't need to be there," said Quist, a former state Representative who ran for governor twice in the 1990's, and even won the state party convention's endorsement in the 1994 primary against the incumbent moderate GOP governor.
"It's because I, like you, have seen that our country is being destroyed. I mean, this is -- every generation has had to fight the fight for freedom. This is our fight. And this is our time. This is it. Terrorism, yes -- but that's not the big battle. The big battle is in D.C., with the radicals. They aren't liberals, they're radicals. Obama, Pelosi, Walz -- they're not liberals, they're radicals. They are destroying our country. And people all over are figuring that out."
For what it's worth, Rep. Walz, the one Quist is describing as a radical enemy of the U.S. and a more serious threat than al Qaeda, is a 24-year veteran of the National Guard, retiring as a command sergeant major and the highest ranking enlisted soldier in southern Minnesota.
It's going to be a long year.
John Cole: I Kinda Agree With This Guy
Steve Benen links to this quote from up and coming wingnut wannabe Allen Quist, a Republican candidate for the House:
“It’s because I, like you, have seen that our country is being destroyed. I mean, this is—every generation has had to fight the fight for freedom. This is our fight. And this is our time. This is it. Terrorism, yes—but that’s not the big battle. The big battle is in D.C., with the radicals. They aren’t liberals, they’re radicals. Obama, Pelosi, Walz—they’re not liberals, they’re radicals. They are destroying our country. And people all over are figuring that out.”The thing is, I agree with him. Maybe I’ve just gotten soft on terror, but I really do not see Al Qaeda as an existential threat. I’m just not afraid of terrorism anymore- I’m more likely to choke to death on an apple or get hit crossing the street or to wreck my car than I am to get killed in a terrorist attack. If we’ve learned anything the last couple of years, it is that no matter who is in office, the National Security State is going to reign supreme- because everyone is terrified of having an attack on their watch and of being called soft on terror.
In short, what terrorists do has very little impact on my life. On the other hand, the Republicans in congress have an enormous impact on my life. The banksters and the FIRE crowd have an enormous impact on my life. The insurance lobby has a big impact on my life. The gun lobby has a big impact on my life.
If the Republicans get their way, they’ll be privatizing social security, deregulating more, and my retirement fund and my social security will get looted. If Republicans keep their way, every time I eat a hamburger from a fast food joint, I’m sucking up ammonia. And on and on and on.
So while everyone wants to pile on Quist, they should realize he is exactly right. What the radicals in Washington and in your state house do is far more threatening than anything the terrorists can do. Quist just can’t figure out who the radicals are.
- from the comments:
beltane
The Republicans have somehow managed to transform themselves from a mere political party to a major threat to Western civilization. According to a GOS diary, when this Quist person’s wife died while seven months pregnant, he had the dead fetus removed from her corpse so everyone could see and mourn it. As an amateur medievalist, I can say this guy ranks right up there in the Ghoul for Jesus category.
demkat620
Well, this was true in 2001. They never have been an existential threat.
btw, this was part of an actual email I got from a winger friend today.
As usual, you try to bring facts to a debate where facts are irrelevant. Your party is aligned with the ACLU. If something terrible happens, your party will not get a free pass because Bush let people out of Gitmo at the request of mouthy democrats. Your party is in charge now, and you have to start taking ownership.
Yes, facts are irrelevant in a debate.
This post is exactly right. Remember—the GOP has long been the party of branding. Some years ago, they and their wingnut wingmen/women took one of the most radical agendas imaginable, labelled it “conservative,” and sold, sold, sold, baby.
It’s of a piece with the reimagining of words to remold reality that is the chief product of GOP “thought”: liberalism as fascism, regulation as socialism, voting while non-white as corruption and so on. And it has been surprisingly effective across the board—but nowhere so much so as claiming that religious tyranny and the arbitrary exercise of state power in defense of established interest is “conservative.”
So yeah, JGC is entirely right: this yahoo is onto something, but his problem is that he imagines a window while he’s staring into a mirror.
At the inception of the tea party phenomena, organizers insisted that “the movement is not tied to the Republican Party.” But in recent weeks, the Republican Party has been going all out to bring the vocal activists into the GOP’s fold. “We need to stop looking at the tea parties as separate from the Republican party,” Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) told National Review last month. In a Dec. 29 interview on Fred Thompson’s radio show with guest host Jed Babbin, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said that if the GOP were “wise,” they would “allow themselves to be re-defined by the tea party movement”:BABBIN: What should the Republican Party be doing to capture this political energy and turn it into votes next year?
BACHMANN: Well, it’s embrace the tea party movement with full arms and hold as many open forums as they possibly can to bring people in and listen to them because the leadership right now is truly coming from the tea party movement because it is disaffected Democrats, Independents, Republicans. It’s really people who love the country and who brace what ultimately has been the mission statement of the Republican Party. If you look at the two parties, Democrat and Republican, there’s no question that the heartbeat of the tea party movement would be more in line with the mission state of the Republican party certainly than that of the Democrat party. So if the Republican Party is wise, they will allow themselves to be re-defined by the tea party movement. And I hope that that will be the case.
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