"I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing." --H.L. Mencken
In this election, it's amusing to me to watch McCain's lap dogs scrambling to separate themselves from the retro-racists and new-generation bigots who've gravitated to the McCain/Palin rallies, mesmerized by the siren sounds of hard-luck Hank and raisin Rick, set against the soft strains of race-baiting and fearmongering from the presidential pretenders at the podium.
Charles Krauthammer stepped in front of his frontman, Saturday, to plead "guilt by association" as a defense against charges of xenophobia made by their jilted lovers at the NYT. The real culprits, we're told by Krauthammer, aren't the candidates themselves who've repeatedly warned hundreds and thousands of their anxious followers that Barack Obama poses some unspoken, unspecified danger to the nation, if elected, because he won't "answer questions" about his alleged "close associations with terrorists." His 'association' with a pastor and a professor is supposed to trump the danger of the six-year flight from prosecution of 9-11 terror suspects involved with actually attacking and killing Americans, enabled by an obsession with conquering and owning Iraq.
The motive of the alarm coming from the McCain/Palin podiums is to distract from their substantively unappealing campaign and to deflect from their own unsettling and "radical" associations. The McCain/Palin pals include the Alaska Independence Party; unrepentant secessionists who express open hatred of the U.S. government, despise the flag, and actively campaign to detach their state from the Union; a white supremacist named Richard Quinn, who was McCain's political adviser in 2000; McCain's radio pal and Watergate criminal G.Gordon Liddy; McCain's buddies on the board of the U.S. Council for World Freedom who supplied aid to guerrillas seeking to overthrow the leftist government of Nicaragua in the Iran-Contra escapade and are associated with ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America.
The Krauthammer apologists want us to accept that the cause of the countless expressions of hate and violence around the nation; the cultivated anger and violence against Barack Obama, his supporters, and anyone who dares speak against their demagoguery is the fault of some "agitated yahoos" in their crowds - "total strangers, mind you." --Not the fault of the incessant drumbeat of warning from the McCain/Palin podiums about the danger of electing someone who doesn't "see America as you and I do" - "someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country."
The danger that is broadcast from the McCain/Palin podiums intends to strike to the heart and soul of our deepest fears; fanning out the memory of the flames from 9-11; hoping to spark another cry for a war on the world; to facilitate the rise of another pretend protector, waging political aggression behind the sacrifice of life, limb, and livelihoods in another imperialistic protection scheme. The danger they warn so opportunistically of is as potent as man who betrayed his nation under duress; as shameful as a cad who abandons wife and family for wealth and power; as disgusting as a prevaricating opportunist who bends and twists against his own tortured principles, embracing all that he once postured to abhor to elevate his hollow self.
The rabble that McCain/Palin have stirred to anger against Barack Obama are being lured away from the memory of the thieves, warmongers, and liars who lorded over every one of the branches of our government until they had recklessly broken our economy, our military, and our democracy. They're being stirred and baked until their memory of the tyranny of the past eight years is as twisted and contorted as the lies from the lame duck-losers at the White House who pulled the nation into Iraq, looted the treasury, and attempted to re-write the Constitution from their petty political perches, to facilitate their corporatist and militaristic fantasies.
Instead of being led to vote, and, to cast their ballots on actual issues that directly concern them (as Obama/Biden have spent their time at the podium advocating their economic, energy, defense, education, justice, and health proposals to the exclusion of divisive venom that distracts and divides) voters, who are led from the McCain podiums, are being urged to mobilize against a conjured culture war where the nation they envision is deliberately divided into "real America," who agrees with every platform of their narrow, self-serving agenda, and the rest resigned to what they consider "communist" parts of the country who have resolved themselves to stand against the invitations to prejudice and animosity against their political competition.
It's no wonder those who've followed and responded to the new cynical siren from the McCain/Palin podium are angry. Convinced of the dangerousness of their political rival by the deliberate inflaming of their fears and doubts, many have been persuaded to cling to their deepest antipathies for one another; to the exclusion of any notion that the problems they face must be solved by coming together with those who they may, initially, disagree with.
It should be recognized that not all expressions of anger and frustration from Americans have been violent, divisive, or counter-productive. There was a very immediate and visceral reaction this week to a U.S. congresswoman who opportunistically echoed the deliberate race-baiting and fearmongering coming from the presidential pretenders at the McCain/Palin podiums as she challenged the patriotism and Americanism of those within and without our political institutions who dare to differ with her decidedly jingoistic notions of our nation's needs and concerns.
After running Barack Obama down for associating with a pastor and a professor, and declaring herself "very concerned" that Barack Obama "may have anti-American views," Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann told Chris Matthews, on national television, that the Democratic members of Congress she disagreed with should be investigated for their anti-American views.
"We've seen one friend after another," Rep. Bachmann told Matthews. "It calls into question his judgment, but also what is it that Barack Obama really believes? And we know that he's the most liberal senator in the United States Senate, and that's just after one year after being there. He's the most liberal. Joe Biden is the third most liberal. You've got Harry Reid who's liberal, Nancy Pelosi who's liberal," she complained.
"Right. What's the connection?" asked Matthews.
"You have a troika of the most leftist administration in the history of our country," she said.
"Sarah Palin was around today talking about pro- American parts of America, and assuming there's other non-parts of the country . . ." Matthews countered. "What parts of America would you say are anti-American? What parts of this country?"
"Well, I would say that people who hold anti- American views," said Bachmann. "I don't think it's geography. I think it's people who don't like America, who detest America. And on college campuses, a Ward Churchill, another college campus, a Bill Ayers, you find people who hate America. And unfortunately, some of these people have positions teaching in institutions of higher learning. But you'll find them in all walks of life all throughout America," she said.
Matthews went on to ask the congresswoman, how many people in the Congress of the United States does she think are anti- American? "You've already suspected Barack Obama. Is he alone, or are there others? How many do you suspect of your colleagues as being anti-American?"
What I would say -- what I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look," answered Bachmann I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think people would love to see an expose like that."
"The People."
I guess she meant the people who live in whatever part of the country she considers "pro-American." The people in a vast majority of America, however, apparently didn't "love" Rep. Bachmann's invitation to bigotry at all. In the period immediately following her comments to Chris Matthews, her political rival, the campaign of Elwyn Tinklenberg, was deluged with support and cash totaling nearly $500,000 from American angered at the echo of the McCain/Palin siren of division and hate.
The one thing that the Charles Krauthammer's who've throw themselves in front of the impending McCain/Palin train wreck have mistaken is Americans' ability to tell the difference between those who wage bigoted attacks and those who are defending against them. To the dismay of the ultra far-right wing of the republican party and those who respond to their narrow, scapegoating appeal, there isn't going to be a gentleman's response to their boorish, cowardly attempt to cast Americans they disagree onto the other side of their ideological battlefield, expecting the rest of us to line up behind them.
In this moment, we have the awesome and swift armor of our democracy in front of us to defend, handily, against the flailing politics of these petty pretenders who would lead us against each other to elevate their hollow selves. And, as demonstrated this week, Americans fully intend to exercise every instigation of democracy at hand to overcome these divisions and obstacles which keep us from prospering and growing together.
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