Month: September 2010

Needs To Be Said

by digby

Jack Shafer at Slate takes on the notion that the site of the WTC is “hallowed ground:”

“When we speak of Ground Zero as hallowed ground, what we mean is that it belongs to those who suffered and died there—and that such ownership obliges us, the living, to preserve the dignity and memory of the place, never allowing it to be forgotten, trivialized or misappropriated,” Krauthammer wrote. But if Ground Zero belongs to those who suffered and died there, why is Larry Silverstein building on it? Because he acquired the site. The place is not sacred. It’s profane. Just look at the property records. All of this talk about hallowed ground is a lame attempt to leverage ownership of 9/11—something that can’t be owned, I’ve already insisted—and to commandeer the collective memory of the attacks. Don’t the people who can’t stop talking about hallowed ground realize that they’re the ones who are needlessly politicizing the slaughter? I’m all for remembering the murdered, preserving dignity and memory, and even building memorials. I don’t defile graveyards. I don’t desecrate churches, synagogues, mosques, or Buddhist temples. I don’t burn Qurans. I respectfully observe funeral motorcades. I blaspheme, but that’s my own business. But I draw the line at spiritualizing the WTC site and its vicinity. We honor the dead not by fetishizing the memory of their gruesome death but by respecting the living.

But there’s not nearly as much money in it.

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Progressives Unite

by digby

John Boehner’s opponent Justin Coussoule has been getting some nice endorsements lately. Check out the latest from Howie. The Democratic establishment may not want to go out on a limb and help a Democrats run a real campaign against John Boehner, but progressive Dems in the state and around the country are happy to help out.

If you’d like to help him too, the link for donations is here. We’re very close to our goal and it would be great if we could make it this next week.

Oh, and stay tuned for our next Beat Boehner ad. It’s a doozy.

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Dazed and Confused

by digby

Dday has an interesting post up about the latest bogus plan to “save” social security by destroying it. Long story short, they want to cut benefits for the middle class and give a teeny little bit more to the poor. Evidently, they think this is a good trade-off because it will equalize things in old age — all those middle class people who fail to save enough will now be just as poor as the working poor. So that’s good. (He also highlights a race in Mississippi in which both Republicans and Democrats are arguing against cuts of any kind. Of course, that would be the majority position in the country, but that’s not really influential in politics, so I don’t think it’s too relevant.)

I think we are all going on the assumption that they won’t be able to get this done because the people won’t allow it. But I’m here to tell you that the people may not understand that’s what they are doing. I had a conversation yesterday that will make you hair stand on end. (I swear this actually happened.)

I was at the local Albertson’s yesterday, very crowded. The check out guy, aunion member who went out on strike with all the other grocery workers in LA a couple of years ago, was chit-chatting with a woman who was checking out about $400.00 worth of items. So they had a long time to talk. The woman was saying that there’s no money left in the social security system, that they’d spent it all. The clerk said, “Yeah, I heard that too, there’s nothing left.” The women went on to tell this horror story about how her mother died and when she went down to sign up for her mother’s social security, they told her she wasn’t entitled to it because she was over 18. (She was in her 40s.) The clerk and the two people ahead of me gasped and said “you’re kidding” and “what happened to all that money she paid in then?” The clerk sagely replied, “it went into the congressmen’s pockets that’s what happened.”

At this point I couldn’t take it and I interjected that nobody has ever been entitled to inherit their mother’s social security and they all insisted that you used to be able to do it. All three of them. I wasn’t going to get into that absurdity in the grocery store, so I just said, “Look, the most important thing is your social security and it will be there for you unless you let your representatives mess with it right now. You should tell them you don’t want them to do anything to social security.” The clerk looked at the other customers and sort of wryly laughed, saying “I don’t think that’s right. It’s not what I’ve heard.” The woman whose mother had died recently said, “It’s not true. When I went down there to collect my money they said there wasn’t any left in the system. I want to know what happened to all my mother’s money.” The other person (also in her 40s) said, “all I know is that everybody says there won’t be any money there for us.”

If people are really this misinformed, I see no reason why the deficit scolds can’t convince them that they are saving social security by cutting it. They’re already there. At a time of economic insecurity, people are getting panicked about all sorts of things and the right wing media machine is using that panic to advance their agenda.

There’s a name for that.

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Church Of The Savvy — “He Isn’t Handling It”

by digby

I wrote about this blame the victim mentality yesterday, and now it is turning it into conventional wisdom. On Hardball today, Matthews and Fineman both made the (correct in my view) point that comparing the building of a mosque to Koran burning is morally absurd. Then they asked the Village jester, Mark Halperin, to weigh in:

I’m not sure which I would prefer. Whether they actually believe there’s a moral equivalency there or they don’t and are using it for political purposes. Either way, this is not just bad domestic politics for the president, and it is and they know it, for a variety of reasons including it takes him off the economy and divides him from Democrats which is an increasing problem, I think, for the president and the Democrats in the midterms on a range of issues.

But I almost hate talking about this as a political issue. This is a national security crisis. Both of these issues are. To get General Petraeus involved in a domestic matter first amendment issue, show the extraordinary extent to which people in the military are worried about the men and women overseas and think this is a big enough deal. And to have it be brought into domestic politics and inflamed by Republicans. Again, out of principle maybe, our of political purposes maybe. Whatever the reason it is really a national or international tragedy. And unfortunately the president, for a variety of reasons is too weak on his own to deal with it.

Howard Fineman and Matthews then commented on how Obama is an elegant egghead who lives in the clouds and tut-tutted that he needed to remind people that he was a Christian. Halperin then explained that Obama should capitulate:

Halperin: A few weeks ago I thought that moving the Islamic center was bad for America. Then I evolved to the view that said whatever the result it needed to be managed by the president and it needed to be managed with unity. Now I think it probably should move and has to move which is unfortunate.

Matthews : Explain that view because I am a little surprised by that

Halperin: I just think that’s there’s too much opposition to it and the feelings are too raw. And frankly I think most of all the people who are in charge of building it are not handling themselves well enough to build it the right way. To build it in a show of unity rather than a show of unity.

Matthews: You live in New York do you have a sense when you’re walking past — it’s going to be a big object of the news tomorrow on the Nightly News and other programs over the week-end — when you walk by and you look at that building does it seem like it’s facing the world trade center?

Halperin: I jog down there all the time. That’s where I end my runs. And it’s really close. When people say it’s two blocks, it’s steps away. And it’s just too raw. I’m fine if it’s built there if it’s built the right way. But I just have no confidence that the president and the mayor and the city and the country can build it the right way.

There was some crosstalk and then Halperin weighed in again:

Halperin: Can I just say one thing about the politics? If this were a Cold War issue and a Democratic president who was vulnerable on the cultural and national security issues of the type that are implicated here and politicians were saying these things who were Republicans, we’d have no doubt that they were doing it on purpose. That they were doing it purely to discombobulate the president and undermine his image. And again, I’d like to give those three (Gingrich, Palin, Boehner) the benefit of the doubt but you saw what the president had to do today… he had to brandish his Christian faith. And that shows the extent to which he is discombobulated by this.

Matthews: That’s called a religious test, by the way…

Matthews: Newsmax, a conservative webs site put that up today. He took his strongest position on the mosque…

Fineman: Yes, if you can build a church there, build a synagogue there, build a hindu temple there .. the president doesn’t like to be pushed on these kinds of things on the one hand. One the one hand he does the Christian riff. On the other he says they should be able to build it there. And that’s the box he’s in.

Matthews then played Obama’s statement today in which he said that about the church, synagogue etc and Matthews asked, “Way too strong Mark?”

Halperin: Way too weak. If he were my professor at the University of Chicago, my law professor, I’d say man I love my teacher. He’s really eloquent. That’s not what’s required from the president of the United States. this is not a local issue, it’s not a national issue, it’s an international issue. And if that’s his strongest position, I still don’t know what he actually thinks should be done. What I do know is that it cannot be solved now whether it’s going to be move or whether it’s built there it cannot be solved without his leadership and leadership is not taking a theoretical lawyerly position which is what he’s still doing.

This was the most confused bunch of nonsensical crapola I’ve ever seen, from Halperin’s bizarre Cold War comments to Fineman apparently believing that being a Christian equates with being against the building of the Islamic Center. But essentially it comes down to the fact that the Republicans are making political hay and it’s Obama’s fault for not being omnipotent and able to stop them, so they should move the project.

I thought Obama’s case today was quite good. I suppose he could go up to New York and get a bullhorn and talk trash in front of the Park51 — Halperin gets all gooey at stuff like that — but I honestly don’t think there’s anything he can personally do about this. Obama isn’t the big Daddy Fix-It that Halperin thinks a president should be so we have no choice but to submit ourselves to our new wingnut overlords.

It might have been helpful if everyone had been a little bit more skeptical of the Know-Nothing neanderthals on the right for a long time now, but I see no reason to hold Obama completely responsible for reversing the damage. He’s one of the major victims and while I wish he’d been tougher on the Republicans, I don’t see how he could have personally fought back all this anti-black/Muslim commie nonsense that’s been thrown his way. The press could have made a difference, but that ship sailed some time back.

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In The Name Of God

by digby

Here’s the latest story on extremist, fundamentalist terrorism. No not that kind:

Federal authorities identified Moose as the person who made the Facebook page. On it, he writes: “Whatever you may think about me, you’re probably right. Extremist, Radical, Fundamentalist…? Yep! Terrorist…? Well…. I prefer the term ‘freedom Fighter’. ‘End abortion by any means necessary and at any cost’. ‘Save a life, Shoot an abortionist’

The affadavit says that starting Jan. 19, Moose made numerous statements “advocating the use of violence in order to affect his ideological and political beliefs. The majority of these postings relate the issue of abortion and the murder of abortion providers.”

One posting on Aug. 22 was “List of death camps with address’ Do with it what you wish.” The affadavit says that post referred to a list of abortion clinics throughout the nation.

[…]

The affadavit says the Facebook page also contained four videos, including one called “Hey Man Nice Shot,”which the affadavit calls “a tribute to individuals who had murdered abortion clinic doctors.”

After obtaining a search warrant, the FBI got access to private messages on Moose’s Facebook account, the affadavit says. In one, Moose wrote, “If there’s any good that I do, I give the glory to my father God. And if there’s any bad I do, well I guess I can take credit for that 🙂 As far as I’m concerned nothing is off limits to stop abortion. Anything and everything goes.”

[…]

Moose told the informant that he is a member of the group the Army of God, which he called a “phantom cell organization. I have set up groups. I train people and this is not my first rodeo.”

During the meeting with the FBI informant, the affadavit says, Moose referred to himself and other anti-abortion extremists as “judges,” told the informant that the murder of a doctor who provided abortions in the Midwest decreased their number there and said the “ends justify the means.”

Moose also called himself “the Christian counterpart of Usama bin Laden” during that conversation, the affadavit says.

It’s tempting to dismiss this fellow as a lone nut and he might be. But the Army of God and other militant anti-abortion groups have been killing people for decades in this country. Check out the Army of God web site if you want to get a sense of what these people are about. The Olympics bomber, Eric Rudolph, was a follower of the Army of God and here’s what he wrote when he made his settlement with the government:

Abortion is murder. And when the regime in Washington legalized, sanctioned and legitimized this practice, they forfeited their legitimacy and modal authority to govern. At various times in history men and women of good conscience have had to decide when the lawfully constituted authorities have overstepped their moral bounds and forfeited their right to rule. This took place in July of 1776 when Our Forefathers decided that the British Crown had violated the essential rights of Englishmen, and therefor lost its authority to govern. And, in January of 1973 the government in Washington decided to descend into barbarism by sanctioning the ancient practice of infanticide by that act consigned 50 million unborn children to their graves. There is no more legitimate reason to my knowledge, for renouncing allegiance to and if necessary using force to drag this monstrosity of a government down to the dust where it belongs.

I am not an anarchist. I have nothing against goverment for law enforcement in general. It is solely for the reason that this govt has legalized the Murder of children that I have no allegiance to nor do I recognize the legitimacy of this particular government in Washington.

Because I believe that abortion is murder, I also believe that force is justified and in an attempt to stop it.

Rudolph, you’ll recall, was helped while he was on the run by many people in the small towns where he was hiding out. They wrote songs about him. He’s considered a folk hero, not a terrorist. And he’s not the first. There have been many who came before him:

Extreme Violence The following are incidents that were reported to or obtained by NAF. Extreme violence has the potential to destroy clinics and harm the lives of clinic staff. More Murders and Shootings Anti-abortion extremists perpetrated an unprecedented level of violence in 1993 with the first murder of an abortion provider, Dr. David Gunn. Since that time, anti-abortion extremists have murdered or attempted to murder others involved in reproductive health care. More Arsons and Bombings Arsons and bombings at clinics can cause widespread destruction. Over two hundred of these crimes have been committed against reproductive health care clinics since the mid-1970s. More Butyric Acid Attacks Butyric acid is a clear, colorless liquid with an unpleasant, rancid, vomit-like odor. Anti-abortion extremists began using butyric acid as a weapon against abortion facilities in early 1991. Butyric acid disrupts services, closes clinics for clean-up, and harasses patients and staff. More Anthrax Threats From 1998 through 2002 letters threatening to contain anthrax were used as a tool to intimidate clinics. Over 650 letters have been received, causing clinics to be closed and staff to be subjected to decontamination procedures and placed on unnecessary medications. None of the letters ultimately contained real anthrax. Clayton Waagner was convicted of sending 554 of the letters, but no arrests have been made in the remaining 100 cases. More

These are extremists to be sure. And there are violent nuts of all political persuasions. But this systematic reign of terror sponsored mostly by fundamentalist religious zealots, has been going on for decades now. Nobody has ever cared much about it. It’s abortion. It’s icky. Let’s get it off the table.
But anyone who cares about this country probably should care that the mainstream anti-choice adherents have become increasingly more radical as well and just as Rudolph did, they couch their far-out views in American revolutionary rhetoric and fold it into standard far right anti-government extremism. For instance:

In at least two separate radio interviews during her campaign for Nevada U.S. Senate, Republican Sharron Angle appeared to suggest the possibility of an armed insurrection against the U.S. government. Saying that the purpose of the 2nd Amendment “was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government,” Angle added, “if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies.”

Angle is an anti-abortion extremist who believes in Christian Reconstructionism:

Christian Reconstructionism is a political-religious movement formed in the 1960s and ’70s that seeks to return American society to the rule of biblical law. Any attempt to expand government beyond the dictates in the Old Testament — for example, by establishing Social Security benefits, education policy or property taxes — turns government into a false idol, reconstructionists believe.

This woman may very well unseat the Majority Leader of the Senate and become one of the most powerful people in the world. She’s not alone in her quest — the other Tea party candidates are just as extreme in various ways. The movement that backs them has the blessing and support of some of the richest people in the world. And they are on the cusp of becoming a powerful faction in one of the two major American political parties. I think that’s cause for just a little concern. Maybe even some shrillness.

More on this latest arrest, here. He didn’t like Obama, health reform or the “Ground Zero mosque” either.

H/t to bernardpliers

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Taxes — The Big Kahuna

by digby

Poor Greg Sargent is trying valiantly every day to show that the Democrats don’t have to back off their promise to let the Bush tax cuts expire. He’s got the data, he’s got the arguments, he’s got everything you need to show that the majority of Americans, including most of the vaunted independents, aren’t losing any sleep over the wealthiest one percent having to kick in a few more bucks in taxes.

But I think Gregg is missing the reason the Democrats are doing this. It’s not that they think the people are against it. They see the numbers. They are afraid of even having a conversation in which the subject is raised. The logic is that if the word “taxes” even come up in the debate at all, Democrats will lose.

This is, by the way, the same logic that took the death penalty and gun control permanently off the agenda. It’s what they would like to do with abortion rights as well and are making great strides in doing. Except on the margins, national security is run by bipartisan consensus.

If they manage to take taxes completely off the menu too, then there isn’t much left to fight about. That’s the the one that finally gets to the very heart of the New Deal and the whole rationale for the social welfare system on the United States — the big Kahuna, Grover’s life’s work, the preservation of the American plutocracy. Our wonderful, shiny new health care plan will die before it even begins and the existing programs will be slashed to pay for the items we have all apparently agreed are sacrosanct: military, homeland security and law enforcement. After all, somebody has to protect the wealth and security of the upper one percent.

It’s not as if this discussion is important or anything.

And no, it’s never easy to raise taxes. When times are bad, they say it will delay recovery, when times are good they say it will rain on the parade. But it’s easier to let the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy die on Bush’s schedule and come back and reinstate the tax cuts for the middle class than virtually any other scenario I can imagine. The Republicans have dumbed this down as they do everything else, but there’s really no reason that good politicians shouldn’t want this argument.

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Your Daily Grayson

by digby

CNN’s story on Alan Grayson. They’re throwing everything they have at him:

You can get Grayson’s back, here.

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Laying Out The Case

by digby

In case you were wondering what kind of fever dreams the wingnuts were planning to bring to life if they gain a majority, here’s what one of my emailers sent today. I think you can see where Sharron Angle and thsoe people at the tea party rallies are getting their kookier ideas:

“The Case for Impeachment: Why Barack Hussein Obama Should be Impeached to Save America” by Steven Baldwin covers all of these issues and more in making its arguments.

“This is the beginning of the end for the United States unless the people exercise their precious remaining liberties and stand and demand that their elected representatives impeach this president before further mortal damage is inflicted upon America,” the report concludes.

The author explains that the Founding Fathers enshrined the impeachment clause into the United States Constitution because they feared that a president intent on subverting the very principles upon which the American experiment was built would someday rise to power.

“Despite all the checks and balances and obstacles they put in place, the Founders knew a determined cabal could still gain control of all three branches of government and wield this consolidation of power to dismantle our cherished constitutional principles, and eradicate the freedoms that generations of Americans sacrificed their lives to preserve,” he writes.

“Make no mistake: That day is now upon us.”

In “The Case for Impeachment,” Baldwin, a senior research fellow at the Western Journalism Center, says the issue of impeachment “is no longer a laughing matter.”

“With the economy continuing to implode, the coming collapse of the dollar, high unemployment rates, the government takeover of entire industries, the administration’s weak and naive response to the worldwide jihadist threat, and the ongoing frontal assault on our Judeo-Christian heritage, the impeachment option is one that can no longer be ignored,” he finds.

Impeachment, after all, is based on “high crimes and misdemeanors,” an “old English common law phrase which, in the 1600s, meant negligence, abuse of power, and abuse of trust,” the report says.

“Not only has the Obama administration promoted dangerous and unsustainable policies, but it has also engaged in corrupt and illegal activities such as bribery, a crime the Founders specifically cited as an impeachable offense. Moreover, this report details numerous instances of Obama lying to the American people, a pattern which clearly indicates a character defect that in itself endangers America. Given this, we believe impeachment is necessary for the future survival of America,” says the report.

Among the factors Americans should consider:

* Obama’s violations of federal campaign and ethics laws, including the offers from his administration to Democratic U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, who reported he was offered a high-ranking government job to drop his opposition in the Pennsylvania Senate primary to sitting Sen. Arlen Specter.

* Obama’s effort “to persuade the [Illinois] governor to fill the vacated Senate seat with his longtime adviser Valerie Jarrett.”

* Suggestions from Obama’s own Federal Election Commission documentation that he got at least $33.8 million for his campaign from disallowed foreign contributions, including 520 contributions from interests in Iran as well as $30,000 from the Hamas-controlled Gaza area.

* Obama’s administration decision to drop a case that prosecutors already had won against “black nationalist thugs” who were seen on video apparently intimidating voters during the 2008 election.

* Obama fired an inspector general, Gerald Walpin, after he exposed corruption linked to one of Obama’s buddies, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson.
* The president’s system of rewarding supporters has come under question. The report confirms more than 70 individuals who raised $50,000 or more for Obama “have been rewarded with ambassadorships or high ranking jobs.”

The report documents how Obama’s actions even may have endangered Americans by “treating the war on terrorism as a criminal matter and downplaying the war on terrorism.”

“This attitude has manifested itself in a number of ways: Obama’s casual attitude may have encouraged domestic terrorist attacks, such as the November 5, 2009, Ft. Hood shooting by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan that left thirteen American military personnel dead.”

His Department of Homeland Security also has “described veterans and other law-abiding Americans [as] ‘rightwing extremists,'” the report says.

Further, the report explains how the U.S. State Department gave a grant to the Al-Quds television network, owned by the terrorist group Hamas, and invited them to the U.S. to produce a propaganda film.

Samantha Power, who once referred to the U.S. presence in Iraq as an “occupation” even as she favored sending troops to Israel to forcibly impose a Palestinian state, was appointed by Obama to the National Security Council, the report says.

And the report reveals how rapper Jay-Z and Beyonce were photographed sitting around the “Situation Room” – the confidential White House location filled with top secret communications equipment that allows the tracking of terror threats worldwide.

Access to the room normally requires a high security clearance level.

“Many of Obama’s actions, if they do not flat-out violate the Constitution, certainly undermine the spirit and intent of the Constitution as envisioned by our Founding Fathers,” the report explains.

And his fiscal policies “are causing unprecedented damage to America’s financial health and to our reputation abroad.”

The president even has changed history to remove Christian references, the report explains.

“In his 2010 Easter greeting message, Obama quoted from a sermon given by a military pastor on Iwo Jima in 1945. However, he removed passages dealing with Christian doctrine – like Christ’s resurrection – in order to make the quote appealing to all religions, even though Easter is NOT a multicultural event; it’s a Christian event. Obama altered a great historical quote in order to serve his multicultural worldview. Apparently he is embarrassed by America’s Christian heritage.”

The report also has extensive sections on Democrats’ new health-care law and what it means, as well as immigration.

“President Barack Obama has proven to be incompetent, reckless, deceitful, and naive when it comes to making economic decisions and protecting America’s security interests. His history of corruption, power-grabbing, and misleading the American people have created a pattern we believe jeopardizes America,” the report says.

“This report reveals a pattern that demonstrates Obama is constantly engaging in actions that reflect a hard-left ideology antithetical to America’s founding principles. … Obama is clearly dismissive of America’s constitutional principles and obviously dislikes the role America plays in the world. He dislikes our Judeo-Christian heritage and detests America’s historical allies.

“Less than halfway through his first term, Obama has done more damage to America than any previous president in history. Some of the damage can be repaired; some can’t. Some of his policies will haunt generations to come,” the report says. “It’s time for the American people to rise up and demand Congress impeach him.”

Did you know that there are over 80 members of Congress who are SELF- PROCLAIMED Socialists, Communists or Socialist Sympathizers?

Did you know that 70 of these members of Congress actually hold (or have held) membership in the Democratic Socialists of America… the American arm of Socialists International?

Did you know that 11 of the 20 standing committees in the House of Representatives are chaired by members of this radical group?

Did you know that up until the time she assumed the Office of Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi was the chairman of this group?

And did you know that, up until the time he assumed (some say usurped) the office of President of the United States, Barack Obama was a member of this radical group?

It’s not a conspiracy theory… in fact, it’s not even an open secret. The plain and simple fact of the matter is that this radical group of Representatives and Senators have caucused openly in the United States Congress since 1991… but the Mainstream Media has never bothered to tell you about this group.

It seems thin to me, but once you’ve impeached a president over a blowjob, I think the threshold is probably pretty low.

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Infotainment Values

by digby

I’m listening to a bunch of reporters on CNN ask each other if the press has anything to do with the Koran burning preacher story becoming international news. Seriously.(Yo their credit they all did try to put the story in the context of Obama’s election and draw comparisons between the years after 9/11 and now, which is unusual in these discussions.)

And at least they aren’t blaming it on bloggers and twitter like the NY Times apparently is with it’s question: “In the age of Facebook and Youtube, how should the news media have responded to Terry Jones and his plan to burn the Koran?” What do Facebook and Youtube have to do with this?

Anyway, Rick Perlstein patiently explains the real problem:

The problem is not the Web. Anti-JFK rallies “revealing” to every school child in Orange County, California that Communists planned to colonize the United States by the year 1970 drew bigger crowds than Tea Parties today, with nary a blogger among them.

Most mainstream of media outlets have become comically easy marks for those actively working to push public discourse to extremes.

The problem is that elite media gatekeepers have abandoned their moral mandate to stigmatize uncivil discourse. Instead, too many outlets reward it. In fact, it is an ironic token of the ideological confusions of our age that they do so in the service of upholding what they understand to be a cornerstone of civility: the notion that every public question must be framed in terms of two equal and opposite positions, the “liberal” one and the “conservative” one, each to be afforded equal dignity, respect — and (the more crucial currency) equal space. This has made the most mainstream of media outlets comically easy marks for those actively working to push public discourse to extremes.

Don’t blame the minister and his bait-and-switch bonfire either. Once upon a time anticommunist book burnings and threats of book burnings were not unheard of. The difference is that Associated Press reporters did not feel obliged to show up. That shift in news values, not the rise of the Internet, is the most profound way that times have changed.

Read on. It’s good.

When entertainment values guide the press then hucksters, showmen and charlatans will find a way to give them what they need for everyone’s mutual benefit. In fact the right wing has developed an entire industry devoted to it.

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The “M” Word

by digby

Josh Marshall caught an exchange with Andrea Mitchell and James Zogby this morning that made my blood boil. The church of the savvy is full of foolish and hideous dogma, but the parts that insist you ignore the forest for the trees are the most frustrating.

This is one of them:

Speaking just now on MSNBC James Zogby made a very good point — and pressed Andrea Mitchell on it. His point was that sure, this Pastor Jones fool is one guy, who’s managed to get worldwide attention for his stunt. But you cannot separate him, as I noted below, from the whole climate of hate speech and anti-Muslim agitation from the Newt Gingriches and the Sarah Palins and the rest of them.

At that point, Mitchell jumped in and said, wait, Palin said she disagrees with the Koran burning. To which Zogby replied, something to the effect of ‘C’mon’. And that’s just the right reply. This is the standard approach of race haters and demagogues. They keep stirring the pot, churning out demonizing rhetoric and hate speech. Then some marginal figure does something nuts and suddenly … oh, wait, I didn’t mean burn Korans. Where’d you get that idea from? We were just saying that Islam is a violent, anti-American religion and that American Muslims should stop building their mosques and focus on apologizing for 9/11 and maybe get out of America. But burn the Koran? No way.

It’s also important to note the context: this didn’t happen during the first eight years after 9/11 when George W. Bush was in the White House. The drumbeat of hatred for the secret Muslim African American socialist Democrat in the White House who’s selling out the country to the terrorists goes hand in hand with the general Muslim bashing. It’s all part of the same thing.

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