7.18.2010

Fury with the fringe on top

I always enjoyed Dana Milbank’s nightly appearance with MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann until The Washington Post columnist’s fall from “Countdown” favor with a COLUMN about Barack Obama’s pre-election hubris.

In this morning’s WaPo, Milbank says the despicable message of the recent Mason City, Iowa, billboard is “supported by conservative thought leaders and propagated by high-level Republican politicians.”

A “thought leader” at the conservative Hoover Institution recently wrote in a revoltingly hypocritical column that Obama, like Hitler and Lenin, exploits "useful idiots" who don't know much about politics. Sarah Palin tweeted the link to her supporters.

“Godwin’s Law,” Mr. Milbank writes, emerged with the Internet and states that eventually when two sides argue online, one will call the other “Hitler” or “Nazi.” Such epithets, Milbank notes, have moved from the fringe to the mainstream – to cable news and even the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.

THE BECK TALLY

Milbank writes, “Consider these tallies from Glenn Beck's show on Fox News since Obama's inauguration: 202 mentions of Nazis or Nazism, according to transcripts, 147 mentions of Hitler, 193 mentions of fascism or fascist, and another 24 bonus mentions of Joseph Goebbels. Most of these were directed in some form at Obama - as were the majority of the 802 mentions of socialist or socialism on Beck's nightly ‘report.’"

By quoting a number of politicians, Milbank contends the language of the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream. Perhaps it is the other way around. It seems to me those who were once considered “mainstream” have stepped across the line and moved into the fringe.

DemWit recommends:

“The tea party makes trouble with a capital T,” Dana Milbank, The Washington Post, 18 July 2010: LINK

3 comments:

Leslie Parsley said...

A friend sent me a link to this article. I sarcastically responded:

"A real shocker this is. The WP criticizing the far right? Will wonders never cease! For two years the Post has been working over time to ensure that the public knew how brilliant and Christian Palin and all her yahoos were. Not one time did they even dare to whisper that the Tea Buggers were racist. In fact, they bent over backwards to deny such a charge."

"Milbank must have screwed the publisher to get this one in. Other than that, I love it and think it's about time the WP grew a spine."

I'm glad the publisher is a woman.

Tiny said...

Apparently this is what McConnell was referring to when he said the Rethuglicans 'got their groove back.' Personally, Tiny thinks the groove is in their back, below their belt, where such diatribe comes from!

Milbanks is letting readers know that if fringe conservatives and Tea Buggers raise enough audible and visual fury with lies it will drown out the truth of how their followers are cutting their own throats, just like they did with GW Bush.

Remember what happened when Moses came down from the mountain and the fringe crowd was worshiping the golden calf (bull). Well the far right and Tea Buggers worship at the altar of the 'bull market' on Wall Street. They care not one whit for their fellow human beings.

tnlib, Tiny borrowed your Tea Bugger label because buggers are what they are. Hope you don't mind.

Frodo, thinks Tea is for sissies, said...

Exactly what kind of Tea are we talking about? Orange Pekoe? Sweet Tea? Green Tea?

Frodo suspicions that Tea is not the drink of choice for the participants. It is an appropriate metaphor however for those seeking to mask their true motivations. George Wallace tried to achieve the same objectives directly, standing in a schoolhouse door.

If you have ever wondered what an Orc smells like. then look no more.