I realized I haven't fisked anything in a while, and when I got to the Opinion section of the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation, durned if I didn't see a column by Molly Ivins. Now, y'all in Texas, does anyone in your state take her seriously? Is she writing satire? Geez!
Normally, I don't bother to follow the doings of the far right. Having lived in Texas all these years, I figure I don't have much to learn on that score. But I was much struck by a report in Salon, the online magazine, on the recent conference of the Conservative Political Action Committee.
And as we all know, Salon is fair and balanced.
It sounded no more than usually loony to me
And if anyone should know loony, it would be Molly. She's fast approaching Helen Thomas loony.
-- equating Islam with fascism and terrorism,
Uh - Earth to Molly. 9/11. Osama bin Laden. al Qaeda. USS Cole. Embassies in Africa. What do these have in common? Radical Islam is fascism and terrorism. .
attacks on feminazis,
Called self defense. Isn't there sumpin' Martha Burk could do to benefit women rather than trying to get Augusta National (a private club) to admit a woman member?
the dread environmentalists,
Environazi's
family planning,
Abortion.
Harry Potter and other menaces to civilization.
If they're upset about Harry Potter, I'll give Molly that one.
No crazier than the John Birch Society or the militia movement I've known all these years.
Or PETA or the enviro fuckwits who put spikes in trees to injure loggers. There are crazies on both the left and the right.
But reporter Michelle Goldberg noted one striking difference: The conference was attended by people in power. Vice President Dick Cheney gave the keynote speech, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao spoke, as did House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Senate Whip Mitch McConnell, Republican National Committee Chair Marc Racicot, etc.
Duh! CPAC is a Republican PAC. I guess it wasn't any more loony that the funeral in Minnesota that turned into a political rally. Y'know they missed one real good touch at that funeral. They needed to prop Wellstone up in his coffin and have him say "Vote for Fritz!"
"Most of the action took place in a ballroom on the second floor, where speakers lambasted liberals from a stage draped in red, white and blue, and backed by two American flags and two enormous video screens," reports Goldberg. "It was like a right-wing version of a Workers World rally, with one crucial difference. Workers World is a fringe group with no political power.
This sounds like all the Dimocratic rallies (like one in Minnesota) where Clinton would bash Republicans.
CPAC is explicitly endorsed by people running the country.
And this is wrong for what reason...?
Its attendees are Bush's shock troops,
Holy shit! It's the Bush Brownshirts! Run for the hills!
the ones who staged the white-collar riot during the Florida vote count
Ooops! It's the White Shirts with Pocket Protectors. The dreaded WSPP! It's the attack of the killer engineers! Hide the children Ethel! Damn Molly, that wasn't anywhere near as good a riot as any Dimocratic Party supportin' union could put on. There's actual head banging goin' on then.
and harassed Al Gore in the vice presidential mansion."
Poor Al!
Cheney told the crowd, "CPAC has consistently championed those ideas that make America great."
And what's wtong with that?
The great ideas that followed were Ann Coulter,
Yum! Yum!
who has to be one of the silliest woman in America,
- insert your own pot calling kettle black joke here -
attacking "the treason lobby" -- the Democratic Party -- whose platform "consists in breaking every one of the Ten Commandments." Aw, Ann, we're very big on "Honor thy father and thy mother."
Ya notice Molly didn't deny the Dims breaking the other nine? And I'm not real sure about the "Honor thy father and thy mother".
"To attend CPAC is to crash through the looking glass into a world where passionate worship of the president is part of a brave rebellion against government,
And the Dimocrats didn't worship Clinton for eight years? They defended the most corrupt president this country has ever seen. And they still kneel before him (yes I really mean that) because he can raise so much money.
where Sweden is a hellish dystopia
It's getting there fast.
and Tom Daschle a diehard Marxist," Goldberg observes.
Yeah Tommy Dasshole, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer, just to name a few, are Marxists.
"It's to realize that despite the conservative hold on the White House, the Congress and the Supreme Court, and the utter dejection among Democrats, right-wingers still fancy themselves to be an embattled minority facing an army of wily, ruthless leftists, whom they hate with the righteous fury of the downtrodden."
Amen to that! Ever vigilant. The Dims haven't given up. Haven't you been listening to Hitlary? And don't forget the leftwing bias of the lamestream media.
Environmentalists apparently stir strange passions on the right.
For a real good reason.
"For CPACers, standing up to environmentalists is not merely a matter of opposing regulations seen as onerous. Rather, they've framed it as a creationism-style holy war.
Probably because the envirowacko's look at what they are doing as a creationism-style holy war.
David Riggs, who runs the anti-environmentalist Green Watch project at the Capitol Resource Center, took to the stage to the sound of jungle roars and declared that ‘environmentalism has nothing to do with bunnies and bambis. It's about destroying free enterprise and private property.'
Which is what Kyoto would do.
Floyd Brown of the Young America's Foundation announced, ‘A lot of people who used to claim their color was red now claim their color is green.'"
Can't disagree with that.
I've been red-baited by better people than that, but I do think it's a bit much to smear all the turtle-savers, bird-watchers, backpackers and nature-lovers with trying to destroy free enterprise and private property. Get a grip, people.
No some of them are stupid idealists, others are just stupid, and the rest do want to destroy free enterprise and private property. The Republicans do not want to poison the air and the water and destroy the environment like the envirowackos, and the Dimocratic Party say. They're the ones who need to get a grip!
The nastiness of right-wing paranoia is not a new story, but the creepy resemblance of the current crop of true believers to the Leninists of yesteryear is genuinely troubling. Haters are always a menace, and those who turn political differences into jihads are not helping this country.
How ironic that she is comparing Republicans to Leninists, while the real Leninists (Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and the loony left wing of the Dimocratic Party) are just as guilty as what she is accusing the Republicans of. This is Molly's world. She just lets us live in it.
For a refreshing look at the perfect absurdity of the right's obsession with "liberal media," I recommend Eric Alterman's new book "What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News." (Obligatory disclaimer: I know Eric, and I think his daughter is adorable.)
I guess since his daughter is adorable, the book must be factual? I recommend Bernard Goldberg's Bias. Does he have a daughter? And, if so, is she adorable? Of course there is a leftwing bias in the media. Compare the press' treatment of the Bush daughters to that of the Gore children. Did you know that little Al was busted for pot? Chelsea's got quite a play in the British tabloids, but nary a peep from the American press. The reason liberals don't think there is bias in the media is because they think they are in the center. You always hear about the far right of the Republican Party. You never hear about the far left of the Dimocratic Party, do you?
Alterman is an excellent writer and a Ph.D.-trained researcher. But you don't have to be either to know that what he points out is all but self-evident. He questions why the media have been so complaisant in the face of "the deeply ignorant and dishonest conservative offensive" and diagnoses a case of media masochism.
GMAFB! I just diagnose a case of massive bullshit!
Hey, a business that can produce an hour of investigative journalism on the subject of Michael Jackson's face surely has nothing to beat it itself up about.
That's the best line of the whole column! I agree! I guess even a blind squirrel can find an acorn every once in a while.
But seriously. Can't someone in Texas do sumpin' about Molly? Maybe take her and Ann Richards and put 'em in a home for dried up disgruntled Dimocrats.
We don't need another Helen Thomas.