Building a Nation of Know-Nothings

[Velleity]

• Tweet

Building a Nation of Know-Nothings
By TIMOTHY EGAN

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/building-a-nation-of-know-nothings/?scp=1&sq=nation%20of%20know%20nothings&st=cse

Fox News, lies, president obama, Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh

Having shed much of his dignity, core convictions and reputation for straight talk, Senator John McCain won his primary on Tuesday against the flat-earth wing of his party. Now McCain can go search for his lost character, which was last on display late in his 2008 campaign for president.

Remember the moment: a woman with matted hair and a shaky voice rose to express her doubts about Barack Obama. “I have read about him,” she said, “and he’s not — he’s an Arab.”

McCain was quick to knock down the lie. “No, ma’am,” he said, “he’s a decent family man, a citizen.”

That ill-informed woman — her head stuffed with fabrications that could be disproved by a pre-schooler — now makes up a representative third or more of the Republican party. It’s not just that 46 percent of Republicans believe the lie that Obama is a Muslim, or that 27 percent in the party doubt that the president of the United States is a citizen. But fully half of them believe falsely that the big bailout of banks and insurance companies under TARP was enacted by Obama, and not by President Bush.

Take a look at Tuesday night’s box score in the baseball game between New York and Toronto. The Yankees won, 11-5. Now look at the weather summary, showing a high of 71 for New York. The score and temperature are not subject to debate.

Yet a president’s birthday or whether he was even in the White House on the day TARP was passed are apparently open questions. A growing segment of the party poised to take control of Congress has bought into denial of the basic truths of Barack Obama’s life. What’s more, this astonishing level of willful ignorance has come about largely by design, and has been aided by a press afraid to call out the primary architects of the lies.

The Democrats may deserve to lose in November. They have been terrible at trying to explain who they stand for and the larger goal of their governance. But if they lose, it should be because their policies are unpopular or ill-conceived — not because millions of people believe a lie.

In the much-discussed Pew poll reporting the spike in ignorance, those who believe Obama to be Muslim say they got their information from the media. But no reputable news agency — that is, fact-based, one that corrects its errors quickly — has spread such inaccuracies.
Rush LimbaughStephen Lovekin/Getty Images Rush Limbaugh

So where is this “media?” Two sources, and they are — no surprise here — the usual suspects. The first, of course, is Rush Limbaugh, who claims the largest radio audience in the land among the microphone demagogues, and his word is Biblical among Republicans. A few quick examples of the Limbaugh method:

“Tomorrow is Obama’s birthday — not that we’ve seen any proof of that,” he said on Aug. 3. “They tell us Aug. 4 is the birthday; we haven’t seen any proof of that.”

Of course, there is proof as clear as that baseball box score. Look here, www.factcheck.org, for starters, one of many places posting Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate.

On the Muslim deception, Limbaugh has sprinkled lie dust all over the place. “Obama says he’s a Christian, but where’s the evidence?” he said on Aug. 19. He has repeatedly called the president “imam Obama,” and said, “I’m just throwing things out there, folks, because people are questioning his Christianity.”

You see how he works. He drops in suggestions, hints, notes that “people are questioning” things. The design is to make Obama un-American. Then he says it’s a tweak, a provocation. He says this as a preemptive way to keep the press from calling him out. And it works; long profiles of Limbaugh have largely gone easy on him.

Once Limbaugh has planted a lie, a prominent politician can pick it up, with little nuance. So, over the weekend, Kim Lehman, one of Iowa’s two Republican National Committee members, went public with doubts on Obama’s Christianity. Of course, she was not condemned by party leaders.

It’s curious, also, that any felon, drug addict, or recovering hedonist can loudly proclaim a sudden embrace of Jesus and be welcomed without doubt by leaders of the religious right. But a thoughtful Christian like Obama is still distrusted.

“I am a devout Christian,” Obama told Christianity Today in 2008. “I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.” That’s not enough, apparently, for Rev. Franklin Graham, the partisan son of the great evangelical leader, who said last week that Obama was “born a Muslim because of the religious seed passed on from his father.”

Actually, he was born from two non-practicing parents, and his Kenyan father was absent for all of his upbringing. Obama came to his Christianity like millions of people, through searching and questioning.

Finally, there is Fox News, whose parent company has given $1 million to Republican causes this year but still masquerades as a legitimate source of news. Their chat and opinion programs spread innuendo daily. The founder of Politifact, another nonpartisan referee to the daily rumble, said two of the site’s five most popular items on its Truth-o-meter are corrections of Glenn Beck.

Beck tosses off enough half-truths in a month to keep Politifact working overtime. Of late, he has gone after Michelle Obama, whose vacation in Spain was “just for her and approximately 40 of her friends.” Limbaugh had a similar line, saying the First Lady “is taking 40 of her best friends and leasing 60 rooms at a five-star hotel — paid for by you.”

The White House said Michelle Obama and her daughter Sasha were accompanied by just a few friends — and they paid their own costs. But, wink, wink, the damage is done. He’s Muslim and foreign. She’s living the luxe life on your dime. They don’t even have to mention race. The code words do it for them.

Climate-change denial is a special category all its own. Once on the fringe, dismissal of scientific consensus is now an article of faith among leading Republicans, again taking their cue from Limbaugh and Fox.

It would be nice to dismiss the stupid things that Americans believe as harmless, the price of having such a large, messy democracy. Plenty of hate-filled partisans swore that Abraham Lincoln was a Catholic and Franklin Roosevelt was a Jew. So what if one-in-five believe the sun revolves around the earth, or aren’t sure from which country the United States gained its independence?

But false belief in weapons of mass-destruction led the United States to a trillion-dollar war. And trust in rising home value as a truism as reliable as a sunrise was a major contributor to the catastrophic collapse of the economy. At its worst extreme, a culture of misinformation can produce something like Iran, which is run by a Holocaust denier.

It’s one thing to forget the past, with predictable consequences, as the favorite aphorism goes. But what about those who refuse to comprehend the present?

[Observer]

Already starting to look for excuses for the November Massacre... 

[Velleity]

Already starting to look for excuses for the November Massacre... 

Where are your excuses for how your ideology drove us to the brink of the Great Republican Depression II? Excuses and an apology would be a lot healthier than your denialism and disinformation.

But do count your chickens before they're hatched. That's going to do you a lot of good in the longer run, especially with the demographic changes. I'm sure Glenn Beck's lunacy will draw huge crowd's today.

[IM2]

There's going to be no massacre. Already polls have shown that in states like nevada, republicans wished there was another republican candidate to vote for. The nutcases running for office in this party is why they will not regain anything back but perhaps a few seats that conservative democrats won in 06.

It's funny how Observer ignores the fact that the reason republicans are getting any favorable mention is due to lies and distortions. It seems fine for his side to lie there asses off, but he demands total honesty from democrats. It is this kind of hypocrisy that will kill the republicans in november.

[Velleity]

So far it sure looks like the MSM is dead wrong about anti-incumbency.

You may very well be right IM.

[Observer]

Where are your excuses for how your ideology drove us to the brink of the Great Republican Depression II?

That wasn't true the first time you said it. It isn't true now, and mindlessly chanting it until the end of time isn't going to make it true.

[Velleity]

That wasn't true the first time you said it. It isn't true now, and mindlessly chanting it until the end of time isn't going to make it true.

It is absolutely true and the only thing that's mindless is your denialism and apologetics.

[IM2]

That wasn't true the first time you said it. It isn't true now, and mindlessly chanting it until the end of time isn't going to make it true.

Pray tell mighty mall cop, what exactly IS the truth.

[Observer]

Peeking out from under your mama's skirt to suck up to Velleity real quick does not make me inclined to answer you, Buckwheat.

[IM2]

Here we go again with half tonto talking his crazy shit. This is the excuse you always use when you know that your shit is wrong. What exaclty are the facts Half Tonto? If you are not man enough to answer the question say so, a tough sounding excuse is still an excuse bitch.

[Observer]

You really are a stupid little bitch.

There was no Great Republican Depression II. There was no Great Republican Depression I. FDR's economic policies were a monumental failure, just as Obama's economic policies have proven to be.

THAT is the truth.

Now, go crawl back under your rock.

[Velleity]

You really are a stupid little bitch.

Nice.

There was no Great Republican Depression II. There was no Great Republican Depression I. FDR's economic policies were a monumental failure, just as Obama's economic policies have proven to be.

THAT is the truth.

More caps.

 

If you had a real argument you surely would have made it by now. So far all you have is several one syllable words that you've typed in all caps.

Now, go crawl back under your rock.

Gee, like you haven't offered up this mindless crap 10,000 times already.

Whine some more why don't you?

[IM2]

Observer,

I think highly respected historians who actually studed this and are not partisan nutjobs would tell you that you are way off base.

Obamas policies have not failed because some of them have not been implemented yet. What happened was that Obama inherited a very sorry set of circumstances that he has been forced to try fixing. This all has been caused by republican policy.

THAT, is the truth. So shut the fuck up deal with it.

The people an be stupid about all of this, and elect republicans to control everything, have them repeal whats been implemented, and return to what created the shithole we are stuck in now if they want to. Your side can propagandize everything and use their loud mouthed talkers it repeat over and over again that Obama should not be blamning this on Bush. But if we do, your ass is out of luck, no one will want to hire a security guard beause they will feel like they can provide their own security.

On top of that, you will not be safe. It doesn't matter what you claim to know how skilled you claim to be, when the housejackers come to get you, you will either give up your house and food or die.

The CBO has scored your sides plan. And your sides plan makes things far worse. So I think its high time for you to shut your fucking pie hole bitch, cause your shit has been shown to be wrong, everything you have supported has been either wrong or untrue, and yet you sit on your arrogant ass thinking that if you say wrong shit over and over again that somehow you can make people suddenly change their minds and support what has been shown to be incorrect.

You are a fucking fool half tonto.

[Velleity]

Obama's policies haven't failed, IM. What's going on now is push polling.

Nothing more; nothing less.

It's just another "conservative" disinformation campaign.

[Observer]

Nice.

More caps.

 

If you had a real argument you surely would have made it by now. So far all you have is several one syllable words that you've typed in all caps.

Gee, like you haven't offered up this mindless crap 10,000 times already.

Whine some more why don't you?

Your "Great Republican Depression" bullshit was some garbage you found on a Leftist website and you glommed on to it like it actually had some meaning. Like so many other things, you have overused it to the point where whatever little meaning it may have at one time had is long gone.

I was speaking to IM in the only language that stupid dipshit understands. Until such time as he indicates to me that he converse in a civil and cordial manner, I shall continue to address him that way. That is pretty much up to him.

You can take your "Whine some more why don't you" and shove it up your ass until it hits the roof of your mouth. You stopped contributing to actual discussion a long time ago. You have made yourself completely irrelevant.