Michelle Obama (now with gorgeous up-to-date eyebrows!), who declared she was proud of her country for the first time in decades at several campaign rallies, explained her burst of patriotic fervor: “What we’ve learned this year is that hope returns.” Her husband repeatedly implored voters to reject the “politics of fear” that was so diabolically imposed on the country after 9/11. November’s elections marked a dramatic and historic departure from the senior ways as hope triumphed over fear. But with Democrats firmly hidden behind the levers of power in Washington, fear returns.
It all started with Rush Limbaugh’s stupid brawl. During one of their daily conference calls, an elite group of liberals – James Carville, Paul Begala, Rahm Emmanuel and George Stephanopoulos – concluded that a public campaign caricaturing Rush and stigmatizing him as head of the Republican Party would bring political benefits. The left, desperate for a up-to-date post-Bush enemy, quickly joined the ranks.
First, the President of the United States warned a Republican congressman to ignore a talk show host. A few days later, CNN “analysts” Begala and Carville began working on their freshly created meme. Stephanopoulos dutifully reached out to Republican Eric Cantor (R-VA) during a Sunday morning interview, asking him about Rush’s influence on the party. Then White House spokesman Robert Gibbs began taking regular shots at Rush from the press room podium, and the leftist media pawns continued to grow. Liberal talk show host Ed Schultz played clips of Rush’s CPAC speech on his show, interspersed with audio of Hitler’s speeches. Are you comparing the conservative boogeyman du jour to Hitler? What creativity, Ed! And brave, of course. Schultz was rewarded with his own MSNBC show.
While this strategy largely backfired, making the White House look petty while driving Limbaugh’s approval ratings to record highs, it cannot be discounted that a coordinated demonization effort was launched – from top to bottom – against a private citizen.
Of course, this tactic comes as no surprise to anyone who has been monitoring the Obama campaign’s behavior throughout the fall. Obama’s team, among other things, tried to shut down and smear investigative journalist Stanley Kurtz for his research on Obama’s ties to ACORN and Ayers, asked the Justice Department to prosecute an independent advocacy group for running a harsh but truthful anti-Obama ad, and reviewed life personal plumber from Ohio after he surprised candidate Obama with a uncomplicated question. Efforts to discredit, intimidate and marginalize opponents were very much part of their modus operandi.
With Operation Limbaugh failing and Obama’s crisis-to-disaster stimulus rhetoric coming to an end, the left needed a up-to-date source of fear-mongering. So the tragic shooting of Richard Poplawski in Pittsburgh created an crucial opportunity. Within hours of the bloodshed, journalists began to wonder aloud whether Popławski’s murderous rage was not caused by a vaguely dominant right-wing anger. MSNBC’s David Schuster asked New York Times columnist Charles Blow “who is responsible for [the killings]? Is it this deranged guy, or does what is on the right-wing megaphone contribute to this?” Blow responded that while Popławski’s trial will reveal more details, “What’s going on in this echo chamber is very perilous… and I feel that if you allow these people to keep talking, if they feel that this is a responsible way to operate the platform that have , then it is very unfortunate.”
CNN’s Rick Sanchez also weighed in on the story, twisting it to be ideological. “This weekend’s tragedy involved a man who allegedly shot three policemen in icy blood. Why? Because, no doubt after watching Fox News and listening to right-wing radio, he was convinced that this quote: “Our rights were violated,” he explained. No evidence of correlation, let alone causation, has been provided. Just a baseless, ugly claim: The killer must have been “without a doubt” inspired by several talk show hosts and a cable network that regularly clears Sanchez’s ratings clock.
The subtext of these media tirades? Shut up, conservatives. You encourage madness and murder. This grotesquely cynical story reached a whole up-to-date level earlier this week when Roger Hedgecock and the Liberty Papers uncovered a nine-page Department of Homeland Security file detailing the domestic “threat” from “right-wing extremist groups.”
Please note that this department is part of an administration that refuses to call detained terrorists “enemy combatants” and is replacing the term “war on terror” with the term “foreign contingency operation.” Also consider that the manager of this particular department avoids the phrase “terrorist attack” due to its inherent fear-inducing qualities. He prefers “man-made disasters.”
Given DHS’s knack for describing the obvious threats posed by Islamic terrorists in soothing, gentle language, reviewing the DHS report on the looming scourge of homegrown right-wing violence is harrowing. Please tell me who are these potential terrorists?
“Right-wing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and supporters that are primarily hate-oriented… and those that are primarily anti-government, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local governments, or rejecting government authority altogether.” It can include groups and individuals committed to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.” In other words, bigotry can include, but is not confined to, pro-lifers, pro-Tenth Amendment supporters, and those who support immigration enforcement. (Following paragraphs add Second Amendment supporters to the list of haters.)
Surely DHS has plenty of evidence to support such inflammatory claims, right? Really, “[DHS] there is no specific information that domestic right-wing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence, but [they] can attract up-to-date recruits by exploiting concerns about several emerging issues.” I see? There is absolutely no intelligence pointing to a single real threat, but these nebulous groups may be gaining recruits. Chief among these unconfirmed up-to-date recruits are U.S. military veterans. After all, Timothy McVeigh was ex-military, so why not cast suspicion on the many thousands of honorable soldiers returning home from the battlefield?
Using euphemistic language to quell public fears of unimagined Islamic terrorism is perilous for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. It is downright shameful that the same department is raising up-to-date fears of potential domestic terrorism that they believe is likely being perpetrated by our returning veterans.
As for McVeigh, the DHS report contains the same logical fallacy – or intentional misrepresentation – as mainstream journalists insisting that the Pittsburgh killings be blamed on the right-wing media. Highlighting the behavior of one crazy person, whether his name is Popławski or McVeigh, and using it as an indictment of an entire political movement is not a convincing argument.
The left angrily condemned the politics of “guilt by association” when Republicans dared to raise questions during the campaign about Obama’s long relationship with racial demagogues and unrepentant terrorists. But today they unite for a cause, using intellectually dishonest guilt by association designed to intimidate the public. They hope to scare average Americans by conjuring images of right-wing militants attacking randomly to satiate their seething rage, and they especially try to intimidate right-wing Americans into hesitating or self-censoring before speaking out against the ruling class.
While the details vary, the overarching message is consistent. To conservatives: be silent. Your political speech is irresponsible and may encourage violence. To other Americans: be afraid of these borderline insane people. Their radio host rants and tea parties/hate fests (“not exactly family friendly” according to one CNN correspondent) are appalling and appalling.
Hello again, fear. Hope, we barely knew you.
