The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged
(by Frank Rich - N.Y. Times Op-Ed: Feb. 27th, 2010)
...the gradually coalescing Tea Party dogma had its Washington coming out party at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), across town from Capitol Hill. The most rapturously received speaker was Glen Beck, who likened the G.O.P. to an alcoholic in need of a 12-step program to recover from its âprogressive-liteâ collusion with federal government. Beck vilified an unnamed Republican whose favorite president was the progressive Theodore Roosevelt â that would be McCain â and ominously labeled progressivism a cancer that âmust be cut out of the system.â
A co-sponsor of CPAC was the John Birch Society, another far-right organization that has re-emerged after years of hibernation. Its views, which William F. Buckley Jr. decried in the 1960s as an âidioticâ and âirrationalâ threat to true conservatism, remain unchanged. At the conferenceâs conclusion, a presidential straw poll was won by Congressman Paul, ending a three-year Romney winning streak. No less an establishment conservative observer than the Wall Street Journal editorialist Dorothy Rabinowitz describes Paulâs followers as âconspiracy theorists, anti-government zealots, 9/11 truthers, and assorted other cadres of the obsessed and deranged.â
William Kristol dismissed the straw poll results as the youthful folly of Paulâs jejune college fans. William Bennett gingerly pooh-poohed Beckâs anti-G.O.P. diatribe. But in truth, most of the CPAC speakers, including presidential aspirants, were so eager to ingratiate themselves with this claque that they endorsed the Beck-Paul vision rather than, say, defend Bush, McCain or the partyâs Congressional leadership. (It surely didnât help Romneyâs straw poll showing that he was the rare Bush defender.) And so â just one day after Stack crashed his plane into the Austin I.R.S. office â the heretofore milquetoast Minnesota governor, Tim Pawlenty, told the audience to emulate Tiger Woodsâs wife and âtake a 9-iron and smash the window out of big government in this country.â
Such violent imagery and invective, once largely confined to blogs and talk radio, is now spreading among Republicans in public office or aspiring to it. Last year Michele Bachmann, the redoubtable Tea Party hero and Minnesota congresswoman, set the pace by announcing that she wanted âpeople in Minnesota armed and dangerousâ to oppose Obama administration climate change initiatives. In Texas, the Tea Party favorite for governor, Debra Medina, is positioning herself to the right of the incumbent, Rick Perry â no mean feat given that Perry has suggested that Texas could secede from the union. A state sovereignty zealot, Medina reminded those at a rally that âthe tree of freedom is occasionally watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.â
In the heyday of 1960s left-wing radicalism, no liberal Democratic politicians in Washington could be found endorsing groups preaching violent revolution. The right has a different history. In the months before McVeighâs mass murder, Helen Chenoweth and Steve Stockman, then representing Idaho and Texas in Congress, publicly empathized with the conspiracy theories of the far right that fueled his anti-government obsessions.
In his Times article on the Tea Party right, Barstow profiled Pam Stout, a once apolitical Idaho retiree who cast her lot with a Tea Party group allied with Beckâs 9/12 Project, the Birch Society and the Oath Keepers, a rising militia group of veterans and former law enforcement officers who champion disregarding laws they oppose. She frets that âanother civil warâ may be in the offing. âI donât see us being the ones to start it,â she told Barstow, âbut I would give up my life for my country.â
Whether consciously or coincidentally, Stout was echoing Palinâs memorable final declaration during her appearance at the National Tea Party Convention earlier this month: âI will live, I will die for the people of America, whatever I can do to help.â
Note: All this blather from the WingNuts makes me want to ask them: "You say you are willing to die for your country...but you never served in the U.S. Military where that is both a possibility and a traditional basis for citizenship...why did you not serve?"
posted by Richard at
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
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