Still Crazy After All These Years

by digby

Yesterday, in my invitation to the upcoming conversation with Dave Neiwert about his book The Eliminationists, I wrote:

There times when a writer publishes a book at exactly the right moment and this is one of them. With violent mainstream rhetoric hitting peaks we haven’t seen in nearly 40 years, the village is struggling to comprehend where it’s all coming from and what it means. They haven’t been paying attention.

On the other hand, there are times when a writer’s timing and thesis are so wrong, it’s inuntentionally funny. For instance, John Podhoretz published his tribute to George W. Bush Bush Country: How George W. Bush Became the First Great Leader of the 21st Century—While Driving Liberals Insane just before everything went to hell in a handbasket.

Here’s another one:

Poor Kurt Anderson obviously believed the hype that America had permanently cast off its long history of racism, the right wing had been permanently neutered by the election of Barack Obama and a new era of post partisan cooperation was sweeping the the nation. I guess somebody had to write that book, but I wouldn’t have taken that bet in a million years. (Maybe for a million dollars …)

He dances quite admirably during that segment, but it’s not very pretty. After our summer of teabaggers packing heat and “Obama is Hitler” rhetoric it’s a little hard to argue that our political differences have been solved, particularly since their behavior seems to have seriously affected the debate, at least in the village.

The crazy and the hate is still with us. If you want to read a good book about modern American politics, just read Nixonland
. The original title was Nixonland: Politics and Culture of the American Berserk, but the publishers foolishly insisted on changing it. Not only was the original more interesting it was more accurate. We’re still living it.

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