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You can find the transcript here.
Here's how things began:
MADDOW: “Let his days be few; and let another take his office,” “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.” This is such strong language in secular terms about President Obama. Can you tell me if this means something less threatening to people hearing this in a biblical context?And a little later Schaeffer cuts to the chase:
SCHAEFFER: No, actually, it means something more threatening. I think the situation that I find genuinely frightening right now is that you have a ramping up of biblical language—language from the antiabortion movement, for instance, death panels and this sort of thing. And what it‘s coalescing into is branding Obama as Hitler, as they‘ve already called him, as something foreign to our shores. We‘re reminded of that. He‘s born in Kenya—as brown, as black, above all, as not us. He is Sarah Palin‘s not a real American.
But now, it turns out, that he joins the ranks of the unjust kings of ancient Israel, unjust rulers, to which all these biblical illusions are directed who should be slaughtered, if not by God, then by just men.
But there is a crazy fringe to whom all these little messages that have been pouring out of FOX News, now on a bumper sticker, talking about doing away with Obama, asking God to kill him.Obama's dangerous. He's the Anti-Christ. He's Hitler.Really, this is trolling for assassins. And this is serious business.
It‘s un-American. It‘s unpatriotic. [emphasis added.]
And God-Crazies are being whipped into a God-Frenzie.
God help us all (can an atheist actually say that??).
2 comments:
Scary stuff. Certainly not the rhetoric of a sane political movement.
There was a time when the Republican party was basically three factions - economic, national security and religious. But now, if you listen to their rhetoric, even on economic and national security policy, it is infused with the hyperbole of the extremely religious social conservatives, who now dominate the party.
For instance, the only real economic policies left are tax cuts and de-regulation, no matter the situation. That's foolishness - that's blind devotion to dogma, not adherence to sound policy, because there is simply no such thing as a be-all, end-all economic fix. Tax cuts do not the fix for everything. Yet their faith in the idea of tax cuts is so overwhelming that they fail to see that both the Bush and Reagan tax cuts resulted in enormous deficits and national debt. They simply refuse to believe with religious fervor that such a thing is possible.
Take the hysteria over the NY trials. These conservatives want a terrorist attack; they are practically praying for it just so they can point fingers. And yet all of them in their collective freakout fail to take note of the lack of cameras in federal courts or the fact that a quite a few terrorists are being held in US prisons. They can't believe otherwise because their deranged worldview won't allow it.
And there is no one left in the GOP who can temper the insanity.
The moderates have been purged (which is ironic since they are so fond of demonizing their opponents as Stalinists and Marxists and actively engaged in persecuting any non-believers within the GOP fold).
The leadership is beholden to the zealots.
There was a poll released today showing that 52% of Republicans believe ACORN stole the election for President Obama. For one to believe that, they not only have to lack a fundamental understanding of America's electoral process but any substantial information about ACORN beyond what one would hear on Beck, Limbaugh or Hannity. But they need a scapegoat. The people who have made political hay out of persecutor people who weren't like them must fulfill the persecution fantasy.
Of course, when it was the year 2000 and a candidate had won the national vote and was down only a few hundred in Florida, these same conservatives would have nothing to do with addressing issues of fraud and successfully shutdown the recounts. In 2008, POTUS wins by 10 million votes. Since 2003, ACORN, an organization that has absolutely nothing to do with counting votes, has registered about 1,000,000 voters.
ACORN, the group that hires pimps and prostitutes, in the world of Republicans is so powerful that they can steal an election in NY-23, in a district that's gone Republican since the Civil War, and mastermind the greatest incident of massive voter fraud in the history of Western democracy!
But complain about the Supreme Court deciding an election...
What makes the increasingly toxic political atmosphere in the US so much more dangerous is that these people think they are right and that political violence is justifiable.
They are the true believers. Anyone who does not agree with them is a heathen.
Who does that remind you of?
Democrats?
(heh heh, couldn't resist)
No, I am basically in agreement with Jaywillie. You look at Poplawski, Sodini and that Roeder who shot Dr Tiller, and you see people who who are being encouraged in the own paranoid, delusional fantasies by the political (or social in Sodini's case) climate. So for conservatives to be pushing theses issues, to be fanning the flames by suggesting that health care will lead to socialism, that Obama is Hitler (because Stalin is too obscure), that the country is already lost ...you know, free speech is one thing. Questioning whether Obama can achieve his stated goals given the methods he is choosing is one thing. All very legitimate, in fact, it could be really helpful, offer a useful counterpoint to myopic liberals. However, making stuff up, taking every little innocent thing and spinning it into the apocalypse … And the Republicans want to blame Bush for McCain losing the election.
It’s like how people say they are tired of the stupid local and national six o’clock news, which screams (locally) about shootings and fires and death and mayhem, and insinuates (nationally) about the imminent demise of life as we know it. If only there was an alternative, we whine. Meanwhile, university people and hippies tune into the PBS news, with it’s half-assed attempt to present at least two sides to some issues (which is light years better than what the networks do).
A slight majority of us voted against grand pa McCain because we were slightly more tired of Republican excess than we were afraid of change. But now the Republicans are excessively screaming in our faces, and some of us have gone back to the network news because we found PBS was moving too slowly and unsurely. I just hope the reduced Secret Service can handle the crazy the Republicans are gleefully encouraging. And by the way, to you conservatives who read this blog … shame on you.
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