Is that the Oliver Fucking North who sold weapons to the same people who blew up over 200 Marines in the barracks in Lebanon? Is that who's lecturing us on patriotism now? The guy who subverted Congress' will, not to mention Federal law? Just checking.

Well, if I owned a TV network, I could keep some pretty good bullshit stirred up myself...

I am continually impressed at the lengths to which Republicans will go to claim the victim's mantle.

Sometimes I feel like the only person on Earth who remembers that Tim McVeigh blew up the Murrah building, not Saddam Hussein.

North and Hannity (and the rest of the easiluy-upset ones) are the people the DHS report is warning about!

I remember North saying around the time of the Oklahoma City bombing, "if people are listening to my show, they're not building bombs." One hopes that they were able to listen and breathe simultaneously.

Oliver North actually has embraced some pretty out-there militia movement-style rhetoric. He famously recommended "head shots" as a way of dealing with federal agents.

Well, I can see where North is coming from. He did team up with terrorists, death squads, and drug smugglers to conspire against our government. If the Feds aren't keeping an eye on him, I'd like to know why.

Is that the Oliver Fucking North who sold weapons to the same people who blew up over 200 Marines in the barracks in Lebanon? Is that who's lecturing us on patriotism now? The guy who subverted Congress' will, not to mention Federal law? Just checking.
Posted by: Cazart

Yup, that's the "patriotic" douchebag alright. But technically he sold those weapons to the Iranians, not Hezbollah. I always love to ask conservatives which president sold weapons to Iran.

And of course North (and the right's patron saint Reagan) helped a bunch of thugs kill a whole bunch of brown people south of the border in an illegal war the Democrats tried to shut down because it was being run by murderous thugs.

Yet another reason for Latinos to vote Republican.

A criminal talking to a blow dried hack. THey should have invited on Rove, Yoo, and Addington to make the corrupt crypto fascist round table complete.

This is just partisan hack games. You'll never counter the avalanche of bullshit smears by parsing them on a daily basis. The goal is the net effect that repeating bullshit over and over ad infinitum has not in any truthfulness.

They want to paint Obama as soft on defense, out to get our military, a tax and spend socialist hell bent on ruining our country and ushering in a fascist state.

Of course none of this has anything to do with a fairly banal DHS report that the right wing echo chamber is trying to use as another prong in a repeat of 1992-1996.

Why not just attack them back? Why try and parse their obviously fallacious argument?

My answer to them would be that right wing extremism is the greatest threat to this counry. Cite internal Pentagon and US Army reports on the military being infused with right wing extremists for the past 5 years, throw in a bit about Bush's rise to power being aided and abetted by right wing extremism and Bush's presidency severely compromising our nation and his policies and their effects resulting in a threat to our nation.

At the very least find your own message and repeat it over and over.

Not sure about North, but Hannity is definitely dumb enough to believe these arguments.

Oliver North actually has embraced some pretty out-there militia movement-style rhetoric. He famously recommended "head shots" as a way of dealing with federal agents.

I believe that was G. Gordon Liddy - the other "patriotic" douchebag.

What it is sounding more and more like to me, unfortunately, is they are rightly seeing the con movement game is up. These are fairly informed wingnuts and can read the writing on the wall. Demography and glaring and utter defeat of their ideas leaves little room for political recovery anytime soon.

They are bouncing around in an ideological vacuum searching for an out and a way to take their defeated notions with them. The idea of changing their beliefs to conform with the progression of socio/economic change that occurs naturally from national experience within a healthy democracy scares the beggeebers out of them. So they are, for now, until and hopefully when new leaders with some sense take charge, opting for sick fantasies of violent resistance to get what they want. It will get worse before it gets better. How worse no one knows.

It is not too surprising (IMHO) that they are reacting to a report that unintentionally connects with some of their ugly thoughts.

Steve Benen wrote: "Here's the thing: I suspect North and Hannity know their rhetoric is nonsense."

You can almost bring yourself to say that they are deliberate liars, rather than calling them "crazy" or "foolish" or "silly" or "confused"?

You are making great progress towards accepting reality.

But still ... you "suspect" that they know their "rhetoric" is "nonsense"?

How about: "North and Hannity are lying".

Oh, and by the way, Oliver North is an international terrorist and mass murderer, who in addition committed treason against the United States of America. He should be slowly rotting to death in a Nicaraguan prison cell.

"Here's the thing: I suspect North and Hannity know their rhetoric is nonsense. Sure, they're pretty far gone, but they're not illiterate. No one is dumb enough to believe these arguments, not even these two."

Irrationality and intelligence are not mutually exclusive.

Mike

It must be absolutely exhausting to be a member of the 'base' who listens to this nonsense. To be kept in a continuous state of frenzied apoplexy, to never achieve a release from the tension and fear has got to be one of the factors that make wingnuts---nuts. Perhaps this fatigue will cause 'em to give up and to more readily go back into their closets and caves before they have a stroke or a heart attack. ---One can hope anyway.

This may seem obvious, but forgive me -- it's Friday afternoon on a beautiful day, and I'm braindead in my office.

They can keep the story going because our "responsible journalists" allow them to. If they were properly humiliated for their lying, that might help. But then we'd have the "liberal media" bias meme going again.

Secular Animist at 3:36 beats me to it yet again. Curse you S.A. and your quick posting skills! (Shakes fist)

Which was the best since Obama "bowed."

But Obama did bow. Putting it in quotation marks doesn't mean it didn't happen. I voted for the guy. I gave him money. But he bowed. He shouldn't have.

But he bowed. He shouldn't have.

Why not? When company business takes me overseas I bow to Japanese, don't shake hands with people of certain cultures, don't use common American gestures which are considered obscene in some cultures, and wear customary headgear as asked.

Presidents, including the Founders, have bowed to royalty as a customary sign of respect since the beginning of the Republic. There is nothing obeisant about it.

The steaks! You forgot to mention the $100/lb steaks!!

He didn't kneel and bow before Zod in submission for frogs sake.

Best manufactured controversy of the month:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_04/017788.php

"THE KIND OF THING OFFICIALS SHOULDN'T JOKE ABOUT.... Rep. Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican, told the Chicago Tribune on Wednesday that Gov. Pat Quinn's (D) plan to raise taxes would be unacceptable. "I think the people of Illinois are ready to shoot anyone who is going to raise taxes by that degree," Kirk said.

Now, I don't imagine Kirk was being literal. It's a figure of speech, not a sincere call for political violence. But given the recent gun tragedies, and the over-the-top nature of conservative Republican rhetoric of late, elected leaders probably shouldn't make jokes about shooting governors over policy disputes."

An elected official saying, in public, that a governor risks being shot just because he proposes a tax increase isn't controversial?

Presidents, including the Founders, have bowed to royalty as a customary sign of respect since the beginning of the Republic. There is nothing obeisant about it.

Ask one of your Saudi friends what they thought of the bow. You do have Saudi friends, right?

I'm a strong Obama supporter, but it would have been much preferable if he had chosen an alternative sign of respect. I suspect the head of protocol gave him some bad advice.

Ask one of your Saudi friends what they thought of the bow. You do have Saudi friends, right? I'm a strong Obama supporter, but it would have been much preferable if he had chosen an alternative sign of respect.

Yemeni friends turned American citizens, not Saudi.

Why would it have been preferable not to bow when there is historical precedent? Because it doesn't play well in Peoria?

Reagan bowed to the Queen and the Republic didn't dissolve.

"unless North is prepared to argue that he and Hannity have embraced a extremist, borderline-violent ideology."

You suggest that they haven't. On what basis?

I have never heard any of that crew denouncing Timothy McVeigh. The only reason that he isn't an acknowledged hero of this crew is that they know it wouldn't go over well with real Americans. I have absolutely no doubt that, given the chance, Hannity, O'Reilly, Savage, Beck, Malkin, Limbaugh, and others too numerous to mention would advocate violence against the government if they thought they could get away with it.