Query: were the 9/11 truthers even entirely a phenomenon of the left? I didn't follow it, but had thought I remembered that they were also present in some of the nuttier precincts of the right. (Some of them may have been difficult to place on the left-right axis.)

Yes, that is exactly correct. If some of the bile I've heard Michelle Bachmann spew about Obama had been said by any Democratic member of congress when Bush was president, there would have been a House Resolution condemning our Rep voted on ASAP. Jeez, doesn't anyone remember the 'General Betrayus' resolution against MoveOn.org? Where are the Democratic resolutions against the Birthers and some of the other crap being spewed out?

...And when did these 'left wing' whackos get on the Sunday-morning programs? Ever?

Shorter: The fringe is the Republican's base.

Plain and simple.

Not long ago, O'Arrogantone was still criticizing both HuffPo and Media Matters for not monitoring their sites in order to eliminate hate speech attacking the right. Wonder when he will jump all over sites such as Free Republic, where a poster was allowed to keep his post up showing Obama in white face, with the scroll beneath each such photo stating "Socialism". Matthews showed this same photo, yesterday, on his Sideshow.

Good post. I've been making the points Kevin and Steve mention to people attempting false equivalencies for a couple of weeks now -- the only thing I'd add to this list is that there are nine members of Congress sponsoring birther legislation. It's not just cowards running away from bloggers who want to pin them down on this issue. Nine people have gotten on board with legislation.

How many more before the right will admit it's got more than a few wackos on its hands?

to stay squarely in my role as a nutjob of the left:

it is the job of the insane right to try to drag this country thru it's own "darkness at noon" choice of freedom or fascism. we beat fascism militarily, but we have never faced it as a weltgeist in this country's own "soul."

in a real sense, the us has led the world to a precipice, and this country is coming to a fateful moment in its history.

bush was too uninvolved to worry about distinctions between freedom and fascism, cheney really didn't want to be bothered by such trivia. the smart conservatives these days are cheney-esque. (that why the excremental droppings of little fat fools like doughy-brains are so celebrated.)

The problem with insanity is that it's insidious. People can be "carriers" in a loose sense of the term. Many of us have that one friend, that ex-spouse or lover, who can easily sway us into saying or doing ridiculously stupid things, things we wouldn't do with anyone else, things we'd never think of if that little devil who is or once was so close to our hearts weren't whispering in our ear, goading us into jackassitude...

Those in the GOP, and their mouthpieces in the media, know what they're doing, but the more they cater to the frothing elements of their base, the birthers and the Obama's-gonna-kill-your-momma brigade and the people who know he's a Socialist Muslim Homo Jew terrorist sympathizer, the more that element of their ase is going to rub off on them. They're sociopaths preaching to a choir of psychotics, and they know the things to say and the buttons to press to set them off. Our main hope is that, the uttier they seem, the less inclined mods and indies are to align themselves with them, but that depends on how persuasive that element can be. Who's believing them when they talk nonsense about health care, or about Obama's place of birth? Who's being swayed and played? Who can see the insanity for what it is, and who's getting swept up in the moment, and who's so fearful of the nutjobs' wrath they they play along in the hopes of riding out the crazy?

Superfly is onto it.

Rove's strategy was to pitch everything to the bitter frighty whiteys. That's why they're the core of the GOP now. The nutters aren't just out on the intertubes, they're members of Congress.

It didn't used to be that way, but that's where they are now. It's going to take a while before they can redefine themselves.

The biggest thing that concerns me about the right-wing crazies is that they all seem to own guns while we crazies on the left seem content to hug trees and blog. I read way too many comments over at USA Today posted by the righties that literally ooze hate -- they truly hate all liberals and they especially hate Barack Obama. I mean c'mon, you wouldn't think USA Today would be a magnet for radicals from EITHER side. Even scarier is that many brag about owning lots of guns, they're complaining about how hard it's become to buy ammo, and they frequently talk about taking things into their own hands. How long will it be before they decide just disrupting town hall meetings isn't enough?

It's worth pointing out, I think, that there is some truth in some of the "left wing wackiness" : Bush was warned about the potential of an attack (including the ultimate means). If memory serves there had been plenty of "chatter" that summer and then the infamous PDB gave him five weeks lead time during which he did, apparently, nothing. He was on one of his vacations, of course. Presidenting is hard work.

There is also a kernel, at least, of truth associated with Diebold. It is an openly partisan company and there have been many documented mistakes associated with its machines. Curiously, those mistakes seem to always (?) favor Republicans. Even more curious is their capability to make ATMs that perform flawlessly & give receipts.

I am Diebold guy, but my concern was strictly with removing a paper trail from electronic voting.

Bush knew about 9/11, to me, was heinous simply because of where the administration's priorities lay. It certainly wasn't Islamic Fundamentalism and Failed State terrorism and they weren't so much concerned with that after 9/11 either. Since NYC was attacked by Saudi hijackers trained in Afghanistan, the obvious solution was to attack Iraq.

Over the weekend I was forwarded an email about: "Our lying president" is doing everything he can to take guns away. And the email contents, after a quick google search led me to the the fucking NRA website, turned out to be a mish-mash of two un-related bills - one from 1999 - that never saw the light of day. I called the sender out on it.

Then today I get the "GODBAMA is forcing citizens to turn on each other just like in Nazi Germany!" email.

The biggest thing that concerns me about the right-wing crazies is that they all seem to own guns while we crazies on the left seem content to hug trees and blog.

Dude, if you really think that only righties are gun nuts, you've been reading too much right-wing propaganda.

The difference between a left-wing gun enthusiast and a right-wing gun enthusiast is that the left-winger rarely views his gun collection as a substitute penis, and so rarely has to go out and brag on the innertoobz about how big his gun collection is, or how much ammo he has, or whatever.

Trust me - I know plenty of left-wing "gun nuts". They're all over the midwest. They keep their politics to themselves mostly but you might know them because they tend to complain bitterly that the right-wing nutjobs are getting played by the NRA and it's driving up the cost of ammo and making their hobby more expensive.

Second: the conservative lunatic brigade appeared so goddamn fast.

Conservatives are inside liberals' OODA loops.

What are the odds that we get through August without some nut opening fire at one of these town hall meetings?

Many of the more vocal party members on the right think their loyal followers are sane, but I also believe that some can't help but believe, in private anyway, that they are not but that they are at any rate useful and necessary. I'm sure that they are smart enough to recognize that their Party would be decimated if they stripped the looney tune crowd and the religious fringe away. Moderate Republicans, if there are any left, have the choice to leave or go along with the present program and stay with ones that brung them if they have any hope of staying in power. Maybe they believe that there is still hope that sanity will one day return. A fools errand to hold out such a false hope I think.

I'm a gun-owning liberal/progressive.

Of course, I guess now I'm also an intolerant facist-commie-nazi, too.

(Some of them may have been difficult to place on the left-right axis.

Indeed, a lot of them were more hard core anti-government folks to begin with. I don't think that there was ever a large segment of the typical left that was swayed by their arguments.

The nutters on the right have their own TV shows, they have their own news channel, they own the a.m. airwaves, and they frequentlty pinch off a new book that is then given away in order to boost faux "sales figures". The nutters own the Right's center. The "crazies on the left" have none of this.

I just challenged Joyner to come up with a time when the DKos front-pagers, even, had been halfway as crazy as people like Cornyn and Inhofe and Coburn and Boehner and Cantor and Pence had been just in the past 6-7 months.

How's that for a fair comparison? On the GOP side, U.S. Senators and their party's House leadership. On ours, a bunch of folks who are too far left to be considered part of the country's acceptable discourse by our nation's media gatekeepers.

And it's no comparison: their side's freakin' nutso, and our side's sane.

The "crazies on the left" have none of this.

You misunderstand. According the to typical republican, the "crazies on the left" have the Whitehouse, Senate, Congress, and Supreme Court, plus the entire media with the exception of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

I still find it incredible that you believe this stuff. The republicans are the whacko fringe...they just managed to keep it hidden and while there are many who corrupt the movement the 9/11 "truthers" base their rhetoric on fact and not conjecture. The right weirdos start with conjecture and never are able to support it with facts while the left are just the opposite starting with facts.

The only way to not know that 9/11 was an inside job is to not 'want' to know. It's difficult to find a progressive who doesn't believe this and when you do, it's a progressive who will not talk about it or listen...they don't want to know...because it is supported by facts. And with all that has come out since 9/11 about the corruption of the Cheney administration it further supports that to not know is to not 'want' to know.

What is not mentioned is the fact the republican party got the party it has been cultivating for the past 30yrs. The divisive party of greed fear and hate which they are now paying to be vocal in order to protect the holdings of the very wealthy and their multinational corporations. It is not that "suddenly" conservative whackos appeared en masse...they have merely been *exposed*. (Easily demonstrated when you consider you'd be hard pressed to find one piece of legislation the republicans have given us that was for the good of the people in the last 30yrs...just one) The republican party is the corporatist party who are now instigating fascist activities which they feel they can control and prevent from hurting them.

This is class warfare and the 'brownshirts' have been cultivated by fear anger and hate(brought to us by Fox and friends) to destroy "the other" whoever the corporate paymasters tell them the "other" is. Obama could be anybody and they would still react the same way to prevent anyone from taking what they deem is theirs or interrupt their profiteering. Try finding leftist on street corners at rallies spouting all conservatives should be killed...kill them all. The right whackos are without substance just like their party.

I don't think the Republican fringe appeared so quickly. They existed for a long time but now with the GOP out of power completely they aren't getting spoon fed their dog whistle reassurances with a wink and a nod that they are the 'real Americans'.

Absent their dog whistle cues, the dogs aren't very well trained.

How long will it be before they decide just disrupting town hall meetings isn't enough?

If you're a lefty but, like me, you think that elements of the left went way over the line in the late '60s and early '70s (the Weathermen, etc.), you can easily imagine that the right is exactly replicating that history. Soon there'll be violence all the time; it will seem routine. We'll be the "silent majority" that just wants political questions resolved peacefully. They'll be the ones trying to blow it all up and tear it all down. The only question is whether the "dirty f***ing hippie" will still be the default image people have of a violent crazy.

In any event, this is the 1990s all over again, but more people have internet access.

It's difficult to find a progressive who doesn't believe this

You need to get out more.

The difference is that these are media created events. They're spurred on and exaggerated and shaped by the media. There is no sane reason why the birthers should even be getting any national coverage, same with these nuts. The tea bggers, for all the non stop publicity the media lavished on them they showed up in anemic numbers on the big day.

The left wing conspiracy kooks during the bush years were ignored and pretty much relegated to Roswell conventions. But now, the media has taken a small knot of right wing, white ttrash bigots and elevated them to a position of dictating the national debate. It's a disgrace.

NonyNony - Right on, brother. Us socialist commie liberals down here in Texas gots some righteous armament ourselves, dontchaknow. Even got our very own shooting club ("Liberal Gun Club," natch). That said, I'm not at all certain the twinger craziness won't end tragically. I personally am not afraid, but it's clear that we're talking about psychotic chickenshits of twisted character and extremely limited intelligence.

As for Mr. Benen's excellent post, it's heartening to see his and other voices calling this teabag (and in general 'conservative') shite for what it is. The time for nicey-nice fence sitting has been set aside. Great post.

The question that I might ask is, "Which side's nutjobs have more influence/power?" Hey, I just asked it...

The question that I might ask is, "Which side's nutjobs have more influence/power?"

So far, one side's nutjobs forced a sitting Senator to switch parties...

For cryin' out loud, the right wing crazies go all the way to the top in the Republican party, but we on the left are supposed to think that the wingnuts wouldn't push a few buttons and use a black box to steal elections?

Many on the right truly believe that Obama is the devil, just like Kerry was, just like Gore was, etc. But somehow those same crazies are supposedly trustworthy enough to be allowed to own the machines we use to vote with and never be required to submit those machines to actual testing.

I am disgusted by the logic of people on the left who think that if we just treat the Republicans like adults then they will act like adults. These are paranoid delusionals who need to be watched like a hawk. Probably the only reason why they haven't figured out how to rig the elections better is because they're stupid, not because they haven't been trying. But again, without a look inside the secret code in the Diebold boxes we will never know. What we do know is pretty bad.

As for 9/11, Bush was warned. He told the guy who warned him to get lost, that he had "covered his ass". Richard Clarke showed how well Bush was warned. No he obviously didn't have a hand in the planning (otherwise the attackers would have been made out to be Iraqis) but he was warned pretty well that it was coming and he did nothing to stop it, and much to ensure that Clarke couldn't prevent them either.

another difference, and i can't claim credit for pointing this out, is that the lefty 9/11 truthers didn't have 11 congress people introduce a bill in congress about their crazy conspiracies.

The fact that the Republicans are now primarily a southern party with much of their leadership from the south is at least part of the reason. Since at least the days of Jackson,prominent southern politicians have been notorious for their unrestrained and vicious attacks (not always limited to verbal attacks) on their opponents. In recent times, we had the examples of Wallace, Maddox, Thurmond, and Helms, but the line goes back to a wide range of people from Huey Long to "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman, Edmund Ruffin, Preston Brooks and to Jackson himself.

The other day at the gym I overheard a couple of guys talking about the recent Johnny Depp gangster movie.

"I would've given it an A if Depp wasn't in it, so I give it an A-" said one.

"Yeah, I hear you" responded the other.

"I mean, it's one thing to be from this country and live here and say the kind of crap he says about the USA, but he is from here and he lives in France and says it. So I'm like, why don't you just stay there?" said the first.

I couldn't fathom the point. I suppose they would have been okay if someone said the things Depp does (i.e., largely critical of American foreign policy, critical of the Iraq war) if they only lived here permanently, or something. Not sure I get it.

But the thing is, these guys were late teens, and they 'came to manhood' under the banner of war under Bush. They apparently think the USA can do no wrong, and worse, that criticism equals treason.

I shudder to think how these young men will grow up, what their politics will be.

Some of my old friends I've recently caught up with on facebook (yeah, I know, I know) had a bunch of anti-Obama posts and photoshopped images (e.g., "Buck Ofama"). These are people who I thought would know better. But I suppose you just never know how people will turn out.

Not sure of the point of this post, but I just wonder sometimes if reality is two-sided: those who care enough about things to investigate issues and dig for truth, or those who prefer Colbert's "truthiness" and/or who just can't get over some personal issues such as racism. Kind of sad I think, but there it is.

Actually, some "lefties" do have one issue there's some nuttery about. That Sarah Palin did not give birth to Trig (I think that's his name), but rather covered for daughter's birthing of Trig.

I read some Alaska-based blogs, and "our" people up there are convinced Palin did not give birth. One explained, when I questioned her on it, that it just adds to Sarah Palin's deviousness and bad character and deeds. I responded that there was ALREADY enough evidence of Palin's nuttery and thuggery without bringing a completely bogus issue into it.

No one can explain to me why Sarah Palin, not exactly known to be the most giving of people or the most attendant mother, would claim Bristol's baby as her own. To save Bristol the ignomy of being branded as an "unwed mother"? Please, in today's society, no one cares.

Anyway, there's no way a birth can be hidden or records changed in today's world. Way too many people would be in on the "secret" and the truth will out. It's as discrediting a claim on OUR side as that stupid and - potentially dangerous - "birther" movement is on the other. It destroys our credibility.

Left wing nutcases are just not given a platform to speak on national mainstream media outlets. Right wing nutjobs are. Every day.

This moral equivalence fails. It's not just the "wackos" on both sides- it's the "wackos" in Congress from the RIght. Seccesionists, fearmongers Palindrones, oh my! Ok the left had Kucinich who some could be considered fringe and rumormongers who were Trig-truthers( w/e it was all about Palin putting her family on display Jackson style anyway). The right has a list two pages long, Starting with the letter B for Bachmann. The 911 truthers and Birthers cross-pollenate and are platform agnostic ( as well as reality-agnostic)

phoebes-in-santa fe (@3:55PM), I was mildly interested in that story, too. The contention was that in pictures of Palin, from days or weeks before the birth of the child in question, she showed no overt signs of pregnancy. Unless they are extremely obese, women who are 8 or 9 months pregnant show, at least a little bit. Sarah didn't, and wasn't even wearing maternity clothes.

I wouldn't have pointed fingers or said anything, since I, myself, am a "love child" of the 60s, but the story certainly raised my eyebrows.

Left wing nutcases are just not given a platform to speak on national mainstream media outlets. Right wing nutjobs are. Every day.

that's because many of the right wing nutjobs carry titles such as Rep. or Sen. in front of their names. or are daughters of former vice presidents.

Pretend you're a CNN producer.
What's more interesting - Michelle Malkin frothing, or Michael Kinsley whinging?

I mostly agree with this but would take issue with the last sentence -- "Both sides have nutjobs; only one side thinks their nutjobs are sane." I think many on the Republican side intentionally seek to rile up their own "nutjobs" with misinformation -- say, that health reform will kill Grandma -- to further political ends that have nothing to do with Grandma's welfare.

Anyone ever seen Trig's Birth Certificate? Hospital records? Interviewed the delivering staff?

Just wondering!

Conrad's Ghost, @15:42,

We have a very active member of the local Dem "cell", a transplant from Texas, who refuses to take off his "Veterans for Obama" bumper sticker. "Pisses the hell out of the rest of them in the Gun Club", he says. And pretty much everyone "'round heah" hunts, Dem and Repub alike. But, still... There's more of them -- armed to the teeth -- than there's us. And their trigger fingers are far more twitchy, too.

Michael W@4.09p and st john@4.24p - what is the upside for Palin claiming Trig's birth if she wasn't the mother? Also, a couple of women from Juneau, who had seen Palin around the time of Trig's birth said she HAD added weight and they were not surprised at her pregnancy.

The point I'm making - and I am a Palin-hater, too - is that foolish claims like this make it harder to hit her with the stuff she did that WAS bad. Muddies the water, so the speak. There's enough this foolish woman did do - brother-in-law gate, ethics violations up the wazoo, general stupidity and nastiness, that we don't need to make unsubstantiated charges.

Trig is a Downs Syndrome baby, and just going with the odds, it's a lot more likely he was born to a woman in her 40's than a teenager.

"I mean, it's one thing to be from this country and live here and say the kind of crap he says about the USA, but he is from here and he lives in France and says it. So I'm like, why don't you just stay there?" said the first.

I think one of those two college boys you saw was in actuality my mother, because I have heard those exact words come out of her mouth. It's almost like they have a TV network that broadcasts these things to them 24/7, isn't it?

"Where are the Democratic resolutions against the Birthers and some of the other crap being spewed out?"

I think the Democrats are busy working on actual, you know, policy and stuff.

The wingnuts NEVER have anything better to do with their time than blather on, except for cutting taxes.

And don't forget that many Repuglicrats on the Hill are members of a religious cult that emulates Hitler and Pol Pot. When your "Bible studies" tell you that these are "great men," your tactics can take an extreme right turn.

I think there's a chance that "Republicans" in the general populations are wackier and wackier because many of those who used to identify themselves as Republicans, especially the mainstream business types, are so aghast at the wack jobs that they now call themselves "independents."

Don't forget that Dick Durbin was forced to issue a tearful apology for using a factual comparison. Republicans can call Democrats fascists and Nazis all they want, but when a Democrat calls torture "torture," and accurately describes the torture techniques we've employed as being no different from those employed by totalitarian regimes, he's hounded and forced to back down.

i was under the impression that lots of "truthers" were either anti-zionists, or part of the black helicopter mob? did i miss something?

"I'm a gun-owning liberal/progressive"

Me too. Not a nut, but I have/have inherited quite a collection.

And I would gladly give up all the handguns if the US banned them (which I support).

There were many fine comments, as of about 3 hours, at Drum's site. Any guesses as to whether or not Steve read any of them?

Hell, Drum doesn't read his own comments, and you're expecting Steve to read Kevin's?

When my conservative friends try to use the false equivalence argument on my, my response is always to ask them who on the left is the equivalent of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Michele Malkin or Glen Beck. Usually the only name they can come up with is Michael Moore (which isn't really true) and I then ask them how often they see Moore on TV or see Senators or Congressmen apologizing for accidently insulting him? Never. The truth is, if you were going to go with equivalence the gang named above would be compared with Ward Churchill - and when was the last time you saw Churchill on Rachel Maddow pontificating on some GOP policy?

The difference is, on the left wackos are wackos and only a fringe element listens to them. On the right the lunatics run the asylum and make the policy.

Whereas Dems kept the fringe at arm's length, Republicans embrace the fringe with both arms. Both sides have nutjobs; only one side thinks their nutjobs are sane.

Perfectly, succinctly stated.

I've spent a few days hanging out in the Yahoo "Buzz" forums, where people can post comments about current news stories. If the story has any political connotations at all (if it's about health care, rather than American Idol) then the kind of nutcases that are being discussed here are present in HUGE majorities. As a rough estimate, 9 out comments of 10 are from people who believe Obama was born in Kenya, Obama is a socialist, Obama plans to euthanize the elderly, etc.

Unless you seek out left-wing commenters in places like Political Animal, it would be easy to get the impression that the nuts are in the majority in the US.

My point (and I DO have one) is that the nuts are not just a Republican matter. The majority might be Republican (although a fair number express disgust with Republicans for being too wimpy in confronting the evil that is liberalism), but they are tainting America, not just the Republican Party.

You can't call it right-wing "fringe" if it's appearing on mainstream cable news channels like CNN.

Lou Dobbs is hosting the "birthers" - and spouting their same nonsense himself.

How is that fringe?

The difference between a left-wing and a right-wing gun enthusiast is the right-wing believes in the constitution, and the left-wing is an oxy moron a fairy tale, and none existent.

The difference between a left-wing and a right-wing gun enthusiast is the right-wing believes in the constitution, and the left-wing is an oxy moron a fairy tale, and none existent.

Posted by: Frank

Um ... I'm sure that made sense before you typed it.

It's simple, folks: There is no comparison between the two fringes because one of them is no longer "fringe." They are now the GOP.

What's frightening is that, if 25% of American adults still identify as Republicans, despite their clear descent into insanity, that's something like ... what ... 20 million or so people?

Think 'bout that: 20 million of our fellow citizens are clinically fucking insane, suffering from a mass delusion created by talk radio, Fox News, wingnut bloggers and, worst of all, members of Congress.

Call me a pessimist, but given the odds, that delusion is going to turn all too real very, very soon in a very, very tragic way.

I watch dogs bark at the mailman every day.

If Obama doesn't take over Medicare, force euthanasia on the elderly, or impose the Fairness Doctrine on talk radio (it's in the works, don't sleep on it!)... do they, like the dogs, convince themselves that great harm would have befallen the household / country had they not raised the loudest ruckus they possibly could?

Failure is just as much positive reinforcement for them as success is for the sane.

I'm not sure how one can improve the situation.

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Hi! There are certainly a lot of details like that to take into consideration. That is a great point to bring up. I offer the thoughts above as general inspiration but clearly there are questions like the one you bring up where the most important thing will be working in honest good faith. I don?t know if best practices have emerged around things like that, but I am sure that your job is clearly identified as a fair game. Both boys and girls feel the impact of just a moment’s pleasure, for the rest of their lives.