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   Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Gnter Grass still thinks reunification was a bad idea.
 Forty years of writing from Taylor Branch, James Fallows, Katherine Boo, Marjorie Williams, Joshua Micah Marshall, and more.
 With help from Washington, the for-profit college industry is loading up millions of low-income students with debt they'll never pay off.
 The best recent memoir from republican Washington is a hoax. That should tell you something.
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August 19, 2009
THEY'RE NOT DEMS.... Last week, the Weekly Standard's John McCormack noted the activists showing up at health care events with signs featuring swastikas, Nazi "SS" lettering, and images comparing the president to Hitler. McCormack described the activists as "Democrats." It's part of a twisted kind of logic. As McCormack sees it, the extremists are Lyndon LaRouche cultists. LaRouche ran a ridiculous presidential campaign as a Democrat years ago. Therefore, swastika-waving activists are Democratic activists. It is, of course, a cheap and lazy argument, even for the Weekly Standard. Tom Schaller made the strong case that McCormack "ought to take down that post, and then apologize to his readers publicly." Instead, McCormack is doubling down. Today, he noted the lunatic who confronted Barney Frank last night was a LaRouche cultist, but McCormack blasted CNN for failing to identify her as a "Lyndon LaRouche Democrat."
McCormack has to realize how wrong this is. As David Weigel explained, "This is misleading. The LaRouche cultists oppose Obama's plan because they think he's trying to euthanize old people and the infirm. They oppose it for one of the reasons that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) oppose it, and they're providing a lot of the 'research' for this smear. Instead of grappling with this or rebutting the smear, McCormack smears Democrats, who have repeatedly purged these conspiracy theorists from their party." It's tempting to ignore the substance of McCormack's comparison altogether, but it's probably worth noting that having some fringe nut run on a party ticket does not reflect any meaning on the party itself. In Indiana last year, a neo-Nazi ran for Congress as a Republican. The party, of course, wanted nothing to do with him. It would be unfair and insulting for anyone to say, "No one disputes that neo-Nazis are on the fringe -- but it's indisputable that they are fringe Republicans." I can appreciate McCormack's dual goals here. On the one hand, he's probably uncomfortable with the fact that right-wing activists and LaRouche crazies are singing from the same hymnal. On the other hand, McCormack wants to bash Democrats. This silly argument lets him do both. But that doesn't change the fact that McCormack's playing an offensive game. Update: For more background on Lyndon LaRouche and his followers, Avi Klein's article from 2007 is a must-read. —Steve Benen 1:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (20)Comments
Nobody call Moonies Republicans, despite the fact that they own the Weekly Standard. Posted by: cld on August 19, 2009 at 1:36 PM | PERMALINKAnd crazy nature lovers vote for the Green Party, not Democrats, so, you have to ask, why do worked up nutcases universally side with Republicans? Posted by: cld on August 19, 2009 at 1:38 PM | PERMALINKLikewise, Democrats are responsible for the deregulation of the financial industry and its subsequent collapse because Phil Gramm used to be a Democrat. Posted by: Jinchi on August 19, 2009 at 1:40 PM | PERMALINKthis dude McCormick aint playin' a game. He is a propagandist devious lying in order to overthrow the Obama Weimar Republic. McCormick and his ilk have a deadly serious purpose in mind -- not a game. (He's also an asshole...) Posted by: neill on August 19, 2009 at 1:46 PM | PERMALINKCornered rats While I admire your dedication, Steve (you did, after all, have to read TWS), I think your wasting your time. Expecting editorial rigor, or even basic honesty, out of a TWS writer is like expecting a pack of hyenas to use napkins and silverware. It's a propaganda organ, nothing else. I guess pushback is useful, in and of itself; But I'm kind of annoyed that you had to waste your time on it... They used the same stretched argument concerning the Fred Phelps cult because that bigot was a registered Democrat in Kansas. Of course, some lazy reporters in the MSM then described the "God hates fags" protest at military funerals as "anti-war protests". Posted by: howie on August 19, 2009 at 1:52 PM | PERMALINKWhat ? How AWFUL !! How long has THIS been going on ??
Didn't they KNOW that the Republcians wolul try and sabotage his Agenda ? Get with the Program Let's have a Democratic Agenda STOP TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF IT ALL! We live in a lunatic asylum!!! We're desperate! Get used to it!! Beam me up Scotty!! Posted by: Speed on August 19, 2009 at 1:55 PM | PERMALINK While I admire your dedication, Steve (you did, after all, have to read TWS), I think your wasting your time. Expecting editorial rigor, or even basic honesty, out of a TWS writer is like expecting a pack of hyenas to use napkins and silverware. It's a propaganda organ, nothing else. I guess pushback is useful, in and of itself; But I'm kind of annoyed that you had to waste your time on it...good job, anyway. We are all annoyed that we had to waste time on it, but, as the first half century of the television era has taught us repeatedly, someone has to call the liars out or they will win the argument. The networks and newspapers won't do it, so we get stuck with the job. Posted by: Midland on August 19, 2009 at 2:11 PM | PERMALINKAs far as I can see, it looks like Frank doesn't argue with tables at all, just stuffs everything on em into his gut. Posted by: Thingumbob on August 19, 2009 at 2:24 PM | PERMALINKhey thumb bob: barney's clean plate club is still better'n you with your head up your ass... Posted by: neill on August 19, 2009 at 2:30 PM | PERMALINKNews Flash:
I'm glad this blog keeps us posted on the latest important news. As McCormack points out, this Democrat embrace of Nazi imagery seriously weakens the position of Democrats complaining about GOP use of Nazi/Hitler words and pictures. It's disheartening to realize that both parties do this equally. Someday we as a nation will be better than this. Posted by: MatthewRQuarreler on August 19, 2009 at 2:40 PM | PERMALINKI think the really interesting thing here is that the mainstream right is now so far gone that they're indistinguishable from Larouchies. Posted by: Townleybomb on August 19, 2009 at 2:43 PM | PERMALINKThe truth is that Lyndon LaRouche has a symbiotic relationship with the GOP that goes back at least to the Reagan years, when they were circulating literature linking Walter Mondale with Communism, and when they claimed credit for getting Reagan re-elected. In 1988, Lee Atwater used them to spread and amplify lies about Michael Dukakis's supposed mental illness. They could call themselves Democrats, Republicans, Monarchists or (most appropriately) Fascists, but they are what they are, and it has nothing to do with the Democratic party. Posted by: T-Rex on August 19, 2009 at 2:53 PM | PERMALINKI will continue to hold the GOP responsible until further notice for at least half the deaths in the Troubles, and specifically for the Birmingham and Canary Wharf bombings, until McCormack apologizes. The responsible parties, after all, were elements of the Irish Republican Army Posted by: Davis X. Machina on August 19, 2009 at 2:59 PM | PERMALINKAs McCormack points out, this Democrat embrace of Nazi imagery seriously weakens the position of Democrats complaining about GOP use of Nazi/Hitler words and pictures. It's disheartening to realize that both parties do this equally. Someday we as a nation will be better than this. I don't even know where to begin with this-- we DON'T use the imagery equally, not even close. Democrats do not embrace the imagery, a few lone nuts did during the Bush years, but as someone who attended a lot of anti-war protests when I lived in DC plenty of protesters got pissed when they saw someone else comparing Bush to Hitler, even got into verbal fights about it. Here is the key difference-- not a single person who is in any kind of Dem leadership position in the party ever uses such imagery or language. OTOH, GOP leaders like Limbaugh, Beck use it all the time, refer to the dems as nazis, and it's very common among GOP activists, and I've ever heard anyone in the GOP talk about how offensive and inappropriate it is for so many republicans to be waving Obama-as-Hitler posters at townhalls. I personally do think it's totally offensive, it minimizes what Hitler and the Nazis actually did, and the vast majority of Jews like myself are truly nauseated by it. sorry zoe but to say you're full of shit is like saying the sun rises in the East. Both parties intentionally mischaracterize the others positions and use hateful imagery and out and out lies. Cherry picking one sides lies and not owning up to your own sides is just as bad as being the liar. Posted by: bandit on August 20, 2009 at 11:54 AM | PERMALINKPost a comment
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