Rick Perlstein on Right-Wing Retardation

[Valmy]

It won't matter though, since right party leaders NOT saying insane shit isn't newsworthy, and won't be reported.

Good point, good point.

[Razgovory]

It won't matter though, since right party leaders NOT saying insane shit isn't newsworthy, and won't be reported.

Good point, good point.

Not really.  It's more of the blame the MSM stuff.

[PDH]

It won't matter though, since right party leaders NOT saying insane shit isn't newsworthy, and won't be reported.

Good point, good point.

Kind of like more moderate types of all colors...

[Admiral Yi]

So the responsibility to stop scurrilous claims is on the the defender not the attacker?

Who are you calling an attacker?  Hillary?

[Razgovory]

So the responsibility to stop scurrilous claims is on the the defender not the attacker?

Who are you calling an attacker?  Hillary?

The GOP nuts.

[Admiral Yi]

The GOP nuts.

Ah.

If you had been paying attention you would have noticed that Shelf and I were having a discussion about the responsibility of GOP politicians who are not attackers.  Ergo, your inference does not follow from my statments.

[Sheilbh]

The vote was like 98-2.  That's hardly proof.

Okay but you asked for Hillary giving speeches about the silliness of 'no blood for oil'.  Surely the correct analogy would be Hillary or any other senior Democrat politician being asked about 'no blood for oil' or what have you and saying 'well actually we should be concerned that this might have been a war for oil/Halliburton/whatever'.  I think with this death panel stuff you have senior Republicans indulging in and seeming to support the right-wing equivalent of Denis Kucinich madness.

It won't matter though, since right party leaders NOT saying insane shit isn't newsworthy, and won't be reported.

I think senior Republicans denouncing the 'death panel' stuff would make the news precisely because it would be contradicting other senior figures in their party (Palin, Steele, Gingrich, Grassley and so on) who have said there's something to it.

So people like Shelf make a big deal about the liberty tree whackjobs, even though they really do know that they are just the fringe.

I've not said the liberty tree, gun carrying 'kill Obama' are anything but a fringe.

I've said several times that right wing fruitloops are fruitier but left wing nutbars are more numerous.

I'm not so sure.  A plurality of self-identified Republicans (44%) say they don't know that Obama was born in the US; this is after the birthers were widely mocked, by both right and left. 

I believe about 45% of Republicans believe that the bill being discussed has death panels that basically means mandatory government-run euthanasia.  That the Republican leadership is either encouraging this nonsense about death panels (Palin), or pandering to it (Grassley) indicates that it's a significant enough part of their party that they want on-side.

As I say I can't remember any senior Democrat doing the same with the extremes of the left. 

Now that isn't to say that there isn't a sane conservatism, or even that it doesn't form the majority of the right (though at this point it looks like a silent majority) but I think for that to change that sane, policy, reality-based conservatism needs to come out and condemn the insane stuff.  I think the National Review has started and that's good, but senior intelligent figures like Grassley and Gingrich should do the same.

I think this William Buckley article sums up my opinion:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/goldwater--the-john-birch-society--and-me-11248

Moving on, Baroody brought up the John Birch Society. It was quickly obvious that this was the subject Goldwater wished counsel on.

Kirk, unimpeded by his little professorial stutter, greeted the subject with fervor. It was his opinion, he said emphatically, that Robert Welch was a man disconnected from reality. How could anyone reason, as Welch had done in The Politician, that President Eisenhower had been a secret agent of the Communists? This mischievous unreality was a great weight on the back of responsible conservative political thinking. The John Birch Society should be renounced by Goldwater and by everyone else—Kirk turned his eyes on me—with any influence on the conservative movement.

How can the John Birch Society be an effective political instrument while it is led by a man whose views on current affairs are, at so many critical points . . . so far removed from common sense? That dilemma weighs on conservatives across America. . . . The underlying problem is whether conservatives can continue to acquiesce quietly in a rendition of the causes of the decline of the Republic and the entire Western world which is false, and, besides that, crucially different in practical emphasis from their own.

[MadImmortalMan]

I have seen a great deal of criticism of the birthers coming from prominent people on the right. It's fair to acknowledge that at least.

[Admiral Yi]

Shelf:

If you can dig up a quote or two on Democrats calling blood for oil nonsense I'll be convinced.  As a matter of fact I do have vague recollections of Democrats making comments about Cheney going to war to make his Haliburton buddies happy.

On health care the right is far, far nuttier.  But you're leaving out things like globalization protestors, environuts, impeach Bushers, Rev. Wright America God Damners, Chomskyites, Naiderite corporation lynchers, Israel haters, etc. etc. etc.

p.s. Grassley is not intelligent.

[Sheilbh]

I have seen a great deal of criticism of the birthers coming from prominent people on the right. It's fair to acknowledge that at least.

I do.  I say they've been widely mocked by right and left, though there was some initial equivocation by some Republican congressmen who initially said they 'didn't know' whether Obama was born in this country.  But overwhelmingly cultural figures on the right, like Bill O'Reilly (who is, far and away, my favourite Fox commentator) and Republican politicians have denounced and criticised them, which is right.  I think derision's what they deserve.

[Ed Anger]

(who is, far and away, my favourite Fox commentator)

Next, you'll say Keith Olbermann is witty and intelligent. 

[Sheilbh]

If you can dig up a quote or two on Democrats calling blood for oil nonsense I'll be convinced.  As a matter of fact I do have vague recollections of Democrats making comments about Cheney going to war to make his Haliburton buddies happy.

I'll look around.

On health care the right is far, far nuttier.  But you're leaving out things like globalization protestors, environuts, impeach Bushers, Rev. Wright America God Damners, Chomskyites, Naiderite corporation lynchers, Israel haters, etc. etc. etc.

There is one difference with the corporation lynchers/environuts/globalisation/Israel haters and so on.  I think they're a permanent presence because they're largely single-issue guys associated with single issue movements, like PETA which is a nutty that's different from general left-wing nutty.  So I think they're more analogous to the immigration nuts and Pat Buchanites on the right.

But you're right my concern with the right-wing nuttiness is based on a few things.  It's quicker than anything on the left with Bush.  The fringe seems more intense ('kill Obama', the 'liberty tree').  I'm not convinced that nuttiness ('death panels', birthers) is any smaller than the left nuttiness.  Finally that it (the 'death panel' nuttiness) is being used by the mainstream, the party/movement 'elite' quite cynically.

p.s. Grassley is not intelligent.

Noted.

[Eddie Teach]

(who is, far and away, my favourite Fox commentator)

Next, you'll say Keith Olbermann is witty and intelligent. 

Dude, he's being compared with the likes of Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck.

[Sheilbh]

(who is, far and away, my favourite Fox commentator)

Next, you'll say Keith Olbermann is witty and intelligent. 

 

In terms of butch liberals I prefer Rachel Maddow.

To be fair the only ones I've seen are Beck and Hannity.  Beck strikes me as just disturbed.  I think he should be in a hospital somewhere.  I've seen the man cry on national (and international TV).  Hannity is just a whiny bitch.

O'Reilly's the only one I watch with any regularity though.

[Admiral Yi]

 

In terms of butch liberals I prefer Rachel Maddow.

Thundering indignation vs. smirking contempt.  Its a tough call.