Where to start to explain this hysteria? Since the height of Sarah Palin's dishonest and divisive campaign last September, I've been alarmed by the unique way in which Obama's opponents paint him as "the other." For the life of me, I can't think of another American politician -- not even Hillary Clinton, although it's close -- who has spurred such visceral, irrational hatred. (Tell me if I've missed anyone in comments.) Sure, John Kerry was "French" and Michael Dukakis was Greek (and looked like a pinhead in that dumb helmet), but only Obama is a Marxist Communist who pals around with terrorists and wants to harm your children.
The hysteria Obama inspires in his far-right foes is primeval, primordial. From the Birthers' obsession with the facts of his birth -- which lets them obsess about his origins in miscegenation -- to the paranoia that he's coming for the children, there's a deep strand of irrational paranoia that can't be anything other than racial. These people don't merely disagree with him, they distrust and dislike him viscerally. He's not merely wrong, he's scary; even terrifying.
How long did it take the right to go from: "if you criticize the President you are a traitor" to "School children should not trust the President."
I've been meaning to ask that myself. One guy lied to the country, spied on the country, allowed torture to occur and caused the needless deaths of thousands of American troops and countless innocent Iraqis. The other guy, however, can't be trusted with our nation's children.
The good folks over at World Net Daily have a new crazie:
Parents across the country are rebelling against plans by President Barack Obama to speak directly to their children through the classrooms of the nation's public schools without their presence, participation and approval.
The plans announced by Obama also have been cited as raising the specter of the Civilian National Security Force, to which he's referred several times since his election campaign began, but never fully explained.
"He's recruiting his civilian army. His 'Hitler' youth brigade," wrote one participant in a forum at Free Republic.
"I am not going to compare President Obama to Hitler. We'll leave that to others and you can form your own opinions about them and their analogies. ... However, we can learn a lot from the spread of propaganda in Europe that led to Hitler's power. A key ingredient in that spread of propaganda was through the youth," wrote a blogger at the AmericanElephant.com blog, where the subject of the day was a national "Keep-Your-Child-at-Home-Day."
And back on planet Earth, here's how the Department of Education is describing the speech:
Obama will deliver a national address to the students of America. (Please note that this is a change from the originally scheduled time.) During this special address, the president will speak directly to the nation’s children and youth about persisting and succeeding in school. The president will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning.
Yep political indoctrination of course. Sure. Right. Whatever you say, pal. Politico has more fuel for the wingnut crazie:
"He will also call for a shared responsibility and commitment on the part of students, parents and educators to ensure that every child in every school receives the best education possible so they can compete in the global economy for good jobs and live rewarding and productive lives as American citizens," [Department of Education Secretary Arne] Duncan said in a press release.
An outrage! That's socialism, I say! Socialism and it stinks to high heaven!
One last thing: notice the rhetorical device (called paraleipsis, by the way) used by the freerepublic writer - by claiming this isn't a comparison to Hitler, what's being said is that it really is.
I'm not going to mention how stupid that writer sounds.
So, let me explain what reform will mean for you. And let me start by dispelling the outlandish rumors that reform will promote euthanasia, cut Medicaid, or bring about a government takeover of health care. That’s simply not true. This isn’t about putting government in charge of your health insurance; it’s about putting you in charge of your health insurance. Under the reforms we seek, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.
And:
In the end, the debate about health insurance reform boils down to a choice between two approaches. The first is almost guaranteed to double health costs over the next decade, make millions more Americans uninsured, leave those with insurance vulnerable to arbitrary denials of coverage, and bankrupt state and federal governments. That’s the status quo. That’s the health care system we have right now.
So, we can either continue this approach, or we can choose another one – one that will protect people against unfair insurance practices; provide quality, affordable insurance to every American; and bring down rising costs that are swamping families, businesses, and our budgets. That’s the health care system we can bring about with reform.
In his column today, Tony Norman explains some parts of teh crazie and starts with two sentences I never thought I'd read from him:
Let us now praise Bill O'Reilly. Let's not forget "Sideshow Annie" Coulter while we're at it. Both Ann Coulter and Mr. O'Reilly have done what many conservative elected officials don't have the guts to do: They've either mocked or denounced the so-called "birther" movement as an embarrassment to common sense and a threat to the long-term interests of the Republican Party.
And writes something a local member of Congress should notice:
Earlier this week, a reporter from The Huffington Post tried to get Rep. Tim Murphy, a Republican from Upper St. Clair, on the record about the "birthers." But the pride of the 18th District proved too fleet-footed for the running dogs of the media.
Rep. Murphy reportedly hid in a congressional office supply store for 20 minutes rather than answer the politically sensitive question about whether Barack Obama is a natural-born citizen. How many birthers can there possibly be in the 18th District to take offense?
The video can be found here, in the event you wanted to see it in all its glory. Tony, in three paragraphs, explains teh crazie:
As anyone with a relative with a tinfoil hat knows, the birthers believe Barack Obama is a Kenyan citizen who became president of the United States through trickery. They argue that Mr. Obama's presidency is, thus, constitutionally invalid. Even CNN's Lou Dobbs has given legitimacy to their paranoid ravings by insisting on "more documentation" from the Obama White House on the issue.
Birthers want to inspect the original birth certificate and not the copy issued by the state of Hawaii. They don't believe an original exists and they're critical of the "certificate of live birth" Hawaii distributed to the media to quell the controversy.
Birthers insist that a certificate of live birth and a birth certificate aren't the same animal. They also want to debunk the notion that "six of one" comes anywhere near to being the same thing as "half dozen of the other."
Can The State of Hawaii be any clearer (from the AP)?
State officials in Hawaii on Monday said they have once again checked and confirmed that President Barack Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen, and therefore meets a key constitutional requirement for being president.
They hoped to stem a recent surge in the number of inquiries about Obama's birthplace.
"I ... have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen," Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino said in a brief statement.
Then there's this a few paragraphs down:
However, it appears Congress has moved on and has accepted Obama's island birthplace. The U.S. House on Monday unanimously approved a resolution recognizing and celebrating the 50th anniversary of Hawaii becoming the 50th state. A clause was included that reads: "Whereas the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961."
I suspect, however, that all these "facts" won't deter teh crazie much.
UPDATE: The resolution passed the House by a vote of 378-0.
Mike Stark has been up on the Hill all week whipping Democrats to hold fast on the public plan, and in his spare time, he decided to ask Republicans if Barack Obama was born in the United States. Not only do they not want to answer -- they run.
He asks Republicans Tom Price, Thaddeus McCotter, Jeff Fortenberry, Charles Boustany, Aaron Schock, Greg Harper, Mike Coffman and others what they think. Tim Murphy hides, looking at pens for 20 minutes to try and avoid him.
Mike and Brave New Films cameraman Brett Vauhn finally got Arizona congressman Trent Franks to admit without equivocation that Obama was born in the United States, and that his birth certificate is valid.
The video makes clear that the Republican Party is captive to their conspiracy theory-mongering base all the way up to the top.
First they try to undermine Smith's credibility with a nine-year old traffic altercation. And then they counter with Glenn Beck:
Two hours after Smith's TV remarks about "crazies," his network colleague Glenn Beck said of the shooting in Washington, "This is not the work of right-wing conservatives."
"This guy is a lone gunman nut job," Beck said. "I'm not stirring the pot. I am pointing out that the pot is boiling and there is trouble in America. ... Common sense tells you that there are very hateful people on the right and on the left."
As I am sure many people have pointed out, if the shooter was named Mohammad, Fox "News" would be telling a different story altogether.
Myth: Led by Obama, Democrats are planning to reinstitute the Federal Communications Commission's Fairness Doctrine, eviscerating right-wing talk radio in the process.
What they believe: The government used to require radio and TV broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to public policy discussions, and to provide "contrasting views" on the matters discussed. The FCC abolished the rule in 1987, under President Ronald Reagan. The next year, America was first treated to the dulcet tones of Rush Limbaugh's national radio show, thus ushering in a golden age of broadcast wingnuttery, interspersed with ads for mattresses. So now that a Democrat -- and one as suspicious as Obama is, to boot -- is in the White House, conservatives are certain that a nefarious plot to undo Reagan's handiwork is underway. There's also a more generalized paranoia that sweeping media reforms will be implemented under the guises of "localism," "media diversity," and "community interests," which, in the right-wing imagination, can have but one purpose: to muzzle conservative voices. The terror this appears to be striking in the hearts of the right is almost charming: "As a candidate, Barack Obama was mostly relegated to filing complaints, threatening lawsuits and organizing angry mobs to intimidate dissenters," one piece on NewsBlaze warns. "As President, Obama now has unbridled power to systematically destroy the only source of checks and balances to his radical policies: talk radio."
Obama is allegedly going to clamp down with backdoor policies determining whether or not talk radio stations offer voices that are in the "public interest"; they'll refuse to renew licenses to those that don't fit their standards. World Net Daily has written that it's even possible Obama wants to go further -- by nationalizing the newspaper industry, in order to control it. "It's a program worthy of the old Soviet Union -- where the old joke noted there was no truth in Pravda and no news in Izvestia," WND contributor Joseph Farah wrote, adding a nice communist twist to the myth. (Note to Farah: The joke works only if people know "Pravda" is Russian for "truth," and "Izvestia" is Russian for "news," which you didn't mention.)
What is real: Yes, many Democrats like to grumble about talk radio, and yes, some have said they'd like to bring back the Fairness Doctrine. But even Fox News has reported that the White House has no plans to do that. Obama "does not believe the Fairness Doctrine should be reinstated," a spokesman told the network less than a month into his term. Going the belt-and-suspenders route, the Senate has also passed a bill by South Carolina Republican Jim DeMint, which would ban the return of the doctrine. (Lawmakers also approved a proposal by Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat, to affirm existing FCC policy that encourages diversity in media ownership, though, which has made conservatives antsy.)
Still, the Republican agitation about the alleged return of the policy is way overblown; they're so busy opposing it that they've skipped right past the fact that no one is really trying to do it. As Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, told the Washington Times in January, "We have enough real problems facing this country that we don't need to invent ones that don't exist." That may be true if you're trying to govern. But it's not true if you're trying to scare the right-wing masses.
In case you hadn't noticed teh crazies also believe that Obama's a "Nazi-styled eugenicist" who is in league with Planned Parenthood's evil plot:
Planned Parenthood has diabolically perpetrated their murderous plot to surgically eliminate those they deem undesirable. In other words, kill the babies of unsuspecting minority women by aborting their children. Then, tell them this is a “good thing” for you and your people.
No other ethnic group in the United States has been decimated more by abortion than the Afro-American community. The war being waged upon innocent captives in the womb is led by Planned Parenthood.
Then there's "Obama is a fascist" for bailing out some car companies. To which Salon retorts:
Bush-era torture, surveillance and aggressive warfare do not meet the standard for fascism, but bailing out a bankrupt car company apparently does.
But my favorite is "Obama is the Antichrist." The reasons?
Why, Nostradamus predicted his coming. Obama bears traits resembling the Antichrist, according to former "Saturday Night Live" cast member and current Christian wactress Victoria Jackson. He sends subliminal messages to his minions and to his master, Satan. Also, Jesus' biblical prediction of the coming of the Antichrist describes him as coming as "lightning from heaven"; that translates to "baraq o bama" in Hebrew. And if Obama were not the Beast foretold in Revelation, why would the nickname for his presidential limo be -- the Beast? And, why, on the day after his election, was the winning number in the Illinois lottery 6-6-6?
It turns out that the lottery number for that day WAS 666. So, you know, uh-oh.
Earlier this week, right-wing fanatic Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) started peddling false conspiracy theories that the world was moving toward a unified global currency — and that the U.S. might join in as early as next week’s G-20 conference. The myth was started when China’s central bank governor suggested replacing the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Though the suggestion has nothing to do with a unified global currency, Fox News’ Major Garrett decided to ask President Obama whether he supported the fictional prospect of such a move. (Obama, for the record, does not.)
Not that that's going to stop teh Crazie. I mean, they're STILL getting into a lather over the Fairness Doctrine. Obama's rejection hasn't stopped them - so why should Obama's rejection of the "One World Currency" stop them now?
Teh Crazie continues:
Today on Glenn Beck’s radio show, Bachmann declared that the U.S. will soon be moving to “give up the dollar as our currency and we would just go with a One World currency.” Such action, she warned, would mean the U.S. as a country would be “no more.”
This was followed by a lie:
Bachmann claimed that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said he was “open” to the One World currency. (In reality, he only said he was open to changes in the IMF special drawing rights, and reaffirmed his commitment to the dollar.)
Barack Obama has retaken the oath of office that was administered by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts at the ceremonial inauguration yesterday.
Legal experts had suggested the move because of the multiple stumbles and flubs at the original event.
Obama ended up transposing the word "faithfully" during his inauguration in Washington. When he should have said he would "faithfully execute the office of president of the United States," he instead said he will "execute the office of president of the United States faithfully."
True to form, it only took them 3 paragraphs to get their own reporting absolutely wrong. It was Chief Justice Roberts who transposed the word, as WND's next few lines show:
Roberts began administering the oath by stating the president-elect's name, but Obama cut him off before he could finish.
"I Barack …" Obama eagerly chimed in before Roberts could complete the first sentence.
Obama then allowed Roberts to continue.
"I Barack Hussein Obama do solemnly swear that I will execute the office of president to the United States faithfully," Roberts said.[emphasis added]
See? The oath (according to WND) continued thus:
"That I will execute …" Obama said.
Roberts repeated, " … faithfully the office of president of the United States."
"The office of president of the United States faithfully," Obama said.
"And will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God," he finally finished.
But that ain't teh Crazie. This is:
According to a Fox News report, Roberts went to the White House late today and administered the oath, correctly, to Obama. Also present were a pool reporter and a White House photographer.
The Associated Press reports, "The president said he did not have his Bible with him [for the second oath], but that the oath was binding anyway."[emphasis added]
Yep - that's teh Crazie. If you needed any help noticing, here's Glenn Beck (h/t to Think Progress):
Of course reality continues to elude Beck. Think Progress, again:
Beck is simply wrong. As Slate recently reported, official records kept by the Architect of the Capitol show that Teddy Roosevelt did not use a Bible in 1901; and Lyndon Johnson is rumored to have used “a Catholic missal aboard Air Force One after Kennedy’s assassination.” According to his own letters, John Quincy Adams placed his hand on a constitutional law book rather than the Bible. Beck’s vaunted devotion to research must have taken a dive when he moved from CNN to Fox.
They didn't get the words exactly right the first time so it was redone, in "an abundance of caution" to follow The Constitution. Fine. Given the ridiculous Crazie ranting about the "faked" Birth Certificate, it was probably a good idea to get the words exactly right - if only to head off another Crazie. But now teh Crazies are up in arms because there was no Bible present.
But let's take a look at the Constitution. Article II Section I Clause 8 states:
Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Please tell me where there's a Constitutionally mandated Bible.
But this "story" isn't from the wingnut right, it's from NEWSWEEK, for God's sake!
The author, Lisa Miller, is careful enough with her prose so that it doesn't exactly look like she's wondering whether President-elect Obama is the Anti-Christ - it's only those Millennialist Christians who do.
There's little doubt as to what she believes, however, when she writes:
Ever since Jesus Christ was crucified and, according to the Gospels, rose again in glory, his followers have been anticipating the end of history—the time when their Lord will return to earth and reign for a thousand years.
And:
Before Christ comes again, those who are saved will ascend to heaven, according to this end-times theology, in a huge, upward whoosh called the Rapture.
I don't normally pounce on the religiously minded as most of the faithful I know are rational and caring people, but this is not just crazy, but Alan Keyes crazy.
In a Newsweek article headlined "Is Obama the Antichrist?" senior editor Lisa Miller treated as newsworthy purported debate among some "conservative Christians" over whether President-elect Barack Obama is "the Antichrist." In doing so, she gave credibility to the views of RaptureReady.com editor and founder Todd Strandberg, who has, among other things, smeared gays and lesbians, Islam, progressives, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Newsweek is giving some real space to the cranks this time around, with Lisa Miller seriously considering the evidence that Barack Obama is the anti-Christ. Miller notes that Raptureready website founder Todd Strindberg has been getting a lot of emails lately, including one that notes that "one of the winning lottery numbers in the president-elect's home state was 666."
And:
These people have been using the same kind of "evidence" to predict an imminent rapture for centuries, and always to great disappointment, something Miller forgets to mention. How exactly will gay people having the right to marry and women having the right to choose "threaten the freedom" of religious conservatives? And how exactly do these positions -- which are shared by millions, not to mention the other likely Democratic candidates, provide a compelling case that Obama is the anti-Christ?
I wouldn't normally apply such a gross generalization ever, but in this case for the crazies who believe Obama's the anti-Christ (and those irresponsible in the media who push the story) Abu'l-Ala al Maarri may in deed have been right:
The world is divided into two sects, Those with religion but no brains. And those with brains but no religion.
