The right wing in this country has been completely taken over by irrational ideologues who make Stalinists look like free thinkers. Typical was a commenter over at Tapped in a discussion of impeachment who said that if the Democrats were able to remove Bush by means of impeachment that this would be a coup and every right winger, including the bulk of the U.S. military -- would get out their many guns and begin the revolution. Its hyperbole, of course, but the guy wasn't trying to be funny.

What's especially interesting about the exchange, in addition to the willingness to resort to mass violence against their own countrymen, was what it showed about how blind the right wing extremists are about any sense of consistency in principles, any sense that there is a problem with blatant hypocrisy, or any sense of self-awareness about projecting their own motivations on others.

This commenter seemed utterly unconscious of the fact that the hypothetical scenario he was describing as a coup would have been the utterly legal result of the application of American Constitutional law. The same application of American Constitutional law that the commenter himself undoubtedly supported in 1998.

When thinking this disordered and this blind and this irrational becomes widespread and takes over a major political party in a country, that country is headed for wickedness.

Just to follow up on my earlier post, the really scary thing about these eliminationist right wingers is that they are so brainwashed and irrational that you literally cannot reason with them. No amount of good faith argument and logic has any effect on them.

I think a lot of us keep waiting for that moment when the contradictions finally become so clear that no one can deny them and then the right wingers will go slinking off in shame, sort of like after Nixon. But that isn't going to happen. In fact, its not even what happened after Nixon, as all the old Nixon Republicans simply regrouped under Reagan and the Bushes.

The contradictions and the lying and the shameless power plays are already here -- and they have been for some time now. These irrational extremists are literally incapable of shame. They have no principles, but they are unaware that they have no principles. They fundamentally don't know what having a principle is like. And that is what makes them so dangerous.

We had better grasp this fact now and treat it like the crisis it is before it's too late. The Republicans are evolving toward some form of authoritarianism, if not outright fascism. We had better change the current course of development by getting tough and holding some people accountable now, because it will only get harder and harder and eventually reach a tipping point, after which comes the horror.

We haven't reached that tipping point yet. But if we don't get the centrist Democrats and the media whores and any residual moderate Republican elements that may still exist, to begin to demand more honest political communications very soon, we are doomed.

Thanks once again Glenn for putting your finger right on it.

This IS the key factor in the debate.

And what's especially maddening is no one has actually done the polling to see if that is what the public actually thinks anyway. Ceertianly there are no public polls I have seen that do. At this point, as with Hussein and 9/11, the public may have been sufficiently propagandized that they do equate defunding with running out of bullets during a firefight, but I would like to see some polling that presents arguments on both sides of that issue and see what kind of threat, if any, Democrats would actually face for voting to defund. As far as I know, and my sources are excellent, none of them have actually polled this question that way.

al Qaeda practices torture? Dog bites man.

The U.S. practices torture? Man bites dog.

Post Bush: The U.S. practices torture? Dog bites man.

Bush and many in his administration are guilty of war crimes. They have the morality of dogs, not men.

Whatever, dude. Not impressed with your analysis at all.

Pet Sounds. lolololololololol

Dude, you had me with you up until you included John McCain as one of the exceptions to the rule of mythological false confidence. Then you definitely lost me.

The Times is guilty, as usual, of dependence on governemnt sources. They make this "mistake" so consistently and despite having been criticized for it so many times, that it can only be called a willful and voluntary act.

The media have utterly failed us in recent years and are overwhelmingly likely to fail us again. They just don't care.

Why?

Another typically spot-on post from Glenn. I only have one quibble.

Glenn says, "The relationship between official Washington and the permanent Beltway media class has become infinitely closer and more cooperative than ever before...Many elite national journalists are incentivized to protect and defend powerful political leaders with whom they so frequently interact and on whom they depend for their access and their 'scoops.'"

This seems to be a plausible explanation but it fails once you look back at the 90's. It only works that way if you are Republican.

That is why the media whores, like Richard Cohen, are guilty not just of sins of omission, they are actively harming non-Republicans. And, by extension, since the Republicans are actively undermining the principles and values this country was founded upon, the media whores are complicit in those crimes as well.

I've been watching this occur for the last 20 years or more. These conclusions are firmly established.

So what are we gonna do about it?