Crazed by the thought of President Barack “the Islamic Shock” Hussein Super-Allah Obama, Andrew McCarthy’s hilarious descent into sheer madness continues, as he is now openly wondering whether Bill Ayers wrote Obama’s autobiographies.
I give it another week before he writes his NRO GBCW, and moves on to Larry Johnson’s No Quarter, where he can feel freer to speak truth to power.
*** Update ***
BTW, for those of you a little longer in the tooth- is this what it was like in 1992-1996? I was just getting off active duty and was busy as an undergrad, playing sports, raising hell,doing the National Guard thing, working two jobs, etc., and while I paid attention, I did not play close attention to the crazies. Did it start in the fever swamps and then just get crazier and crazier like this?
Comrade Incertus
Maybe that’s why you get sick every year. You go to those websites and the stupid leaks out all over you. That’s not healthy.
Pennypacker
He can join the Bob Owens of the Confederate Wankee in that crazy notion. It’s sad to see the dead-enders with nothing more to do than sitting around spinning the wool between their ears.
Polish the Guillotines
When Obama wins, I hope he signs an executive order commanding the Defense Department to build a fleet of black helicopters.
You know, for the kids.
Perry Como
Blumenthal interviewed one of Palin’s tin foil hatted AIP buddies.
Richardson
Dreams from My Father, with a new preface by Osama bin Laden and a new afterword by George W. Bush. (Sorry, they were the two worst living men I could think of off the top of my head.)
Doug H. (Comrade Fausto no more)
I think you’ve got it the wrong way around. I’m waiting for Agent Flowbee, Riverchucky, and the others to take their houses of crazy over to NRO. For Hillary, of course.
NonyNony
I personally like publius’s thought on this over at Obsidian Wings:
Zing!
On a stranger note – I wonder if McCarthy realizes that Ayers is a white dude. I have a conservative older relative who did not, until recently, even realize that Ayers was a radical of the "dirty hippie" school and not of the "militant black Muslim" school of 60s radicals. Shocked the heck out of me, because I knew Ayers was white and unlike him, I didn’t actually live through the 60s..
nabalzbbfr
So Obama/Biden are cruising to the finish line with a landslide on Nov. 4?
Perhaps not, if the markets have their say
And buckle your seatbelts, there may be an
October surprise coming.
Punchy
Ayers wrote the Scary Negro’s autobio? Did Ayers go blackface and debate MaCane, too? Did Ayers have Michelle’s kids? How far does this make-believe go?
Jay Severin Has A Small Pen1s
Must be tough for Andrew to realize the next president is able to both read AND write.
Dennis - SGMM
Remember, back in June, when the McCain campaign released this statement about candidates’ spuses:
Seems like that’s another promise that McCain has broken as he flails his way to defeat. TPM Election Central has the full story but here’s the heart of it:
The attack on Michelle came on a McCain conference call with reporters this afternoon featuring John Murtagh, who has been hitting Obama over the Weather Underground’s attack on his family’s home back in 1970. Murtagh noted that Dohrn and Michelle Obama had both worked at the firm starting in the late 1980s.
The firm’s Chicago office currently employs more than 500 lawyers.
Murtagh didn’t even bother alleging that the two even knew each other, instead suggesting that they might have. If so, he said, the Obamas have known the two longer than suspected.
Doug H. (Comrade Fausto no more)
SATSQ: Yes.
Suck it, Trebek. Suck it long, and suck it hard.
Just Some Fuckhead
Thank Allah we’ve got random pseudonymous wingnutz on the toobz to give us the real skinny.
Doug H. (Comrade Fausto no more)
Its funny that I keep hearing about ‘October Surprises’, and they don’t realize the surprise is already upon us.
Hint: Check your 401k.
Steve V
Spinning fantasy demon tales, from the safe, powerless perch of the opposition, is what these people do best. The ’90s were a golden era for them. It’s unbearable but it’s still a fug of a lot better than when they govern.
Dennis - SGMM
Barack Obama is Bill Ayers’ illegitimate black love child?
Perry Como
@nabalzbbfr: Illuminati Productions? Seriously?
The Dangerman
It would be impossible for Ayers to right the book because I wrote the book. To highlight this fact, I’ve written the following, too:
I wrote the book that make the whole world sing.
I wrote the book of love and special things.
I wrote the book that make the Reichtards cry.
I wrote the book, I wrote the book.
Just Some Fuckhead
Anyone who has followed Andrew McCarthy’s career should have seen this coming. Christ, the dude fell in love with a mannequin and then started toting a dead guy everywhere.
Dennis - SGMM
@Perry Como:
Insane Clown Posse was already taken.
Perry Como
Bill Ayers is actually Barack Obama in white face.
Marshall
Let’s just cut to the chase here – Bill Ayers obviously is Barack Obama. I mean, really, have you ever seen them in a room together ?
Just Some Fuckhead
Barack Obama is the scientifically-produced offspring of Bill Ayers and Ward Churchill. Some of the black leaked out of Obama’s heart and discolored his skin.
Johnny Pez
Or, alternatively, Ayers is Obama’s illegitimate white love child.
Did I mention that Obama has stolen the Doctor’s TARDIS? We are ALL Obama’s illegitimate love children! Bwahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaa!
Just Some Fuckhead
These old people gettin their racist freak on at McCain rallies seem to be a pretty good reason to end social security.
kommrade jakevich
Oh, is that how it works? Well in that case, John McPOW said nothing when Super Terrorist Pal Barack Obama ran for Senate, was silent when Super Terrorist Pal Barack Obama was elected and actually worked with Super Terrorist Pal Barack Obama, so he’s tainted too!
This is as funny as their attempts to blame Obama for some of the rants in left-leaning blogs. If the McPOW wants to screech about birds of a feather, let him.
In the meantime, I’m calling this thread for JSF.
calipygian
Only 25 days until Comrade Ayatollah Hussein Obama gives the order to us Jihadi/Cultural Revolutionaries to round up bourgouise deviationists like McCarthy and the rest of the running dogs at NRO and send them to the Bill Ayres run re-education madrassah for collective consciousness instruction.
Dennis - SGMM
I see it as a pretty good reason to allow the re-establishment of the Confederate States of America. Then they’ll all have a place where they can hang out with like minded people and sew homespun garments by candlelight.
George
Guy brings Obama monkey doll to McCain/Palin event.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/11/161149/03/790/627718
What sad and pathetic man.
Doonhamer
@nabalzbbfr:
That’s a nice story.
/George_from_Dead_Like_Me
Just Some Fuckhead
Kerry’s treason and war crimes followed by Barack Obama’s secret radical Muslim terrorist agenda make me nostalgic for the days when Democratic presidential candidates were just lying commie sympathizers.
Keith
Damn, the wilderness is not going to be kind to the GOP. It’s gonna take 5-10 years for the party to realize that they cannot allow themselves to be around by these wackos.
Comrade Stuck
We have our eyes on Mr McCarthy as a potential franchise maker for the Funhouse. His training should be complete by inauguration day. A bonus is included if he tell us what’s wrong with K-lo.
And BTW.
It’s Saturday Special night at the Funhouse Arcade & Roadhouse Cafe (FARC)
Tonight’s entree will include Wingnut EEl (alive and slippery as ever) complimented by Confederate Wanker soup appetizer made with BUGS! BUGS! BUGS!. For desert there is Black Russkie Shaky Pudding — topped with a coco-nut sprinkle likeness of Comrade Paulson.
And as always the stalwart Bolshevik alternate choice of Sauteed Banker Toe. Enjoy!
ploeg
@Just Some Fuckhead:
If John John "Get Off My Lawn" Sidney "POW!" McCain the Turd gets elected, I think he’d oblige in killing Social Security.
But then the racist old folks would want to move in with their kids. Scratch that idea.
The Grand Panjandrum
From the post Cole linked to:
…
Win.
I’ll be laughing about that post for a week. I’ve still got tears of laughter running down my cheeks and the kids just came running downstairs to see if I’m OK.
calipygian
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Andrew McCarthy approvingly posted a letter in NRO that advocated taking Gitmo prisoners, dropping them off in a field, counting to ten and releasing the hounds (AC-130s) rather than release them if the Supreme Court so decreed.
Andrew McCarthy is MURDEROUSLY mad, not just plain old keep-your-dead-mother-in-a-rocking-chair-in-the-basement-of-a-creepy-house mad.
handy
I wouldn’t put it past McCain to stoke the "Obama was born in Kenya" rumors at this point. The Ayers connection was joke but that didn’t stop them from trying to "turn the page" on the disaster of their campaign and throw it out there.
Svensker
Nozzleboffer says:
The October surprise is that Obama’s birth certificate is suspect?
Hahhahahhahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Dennis - SGMM
@Svensker:
Nozzleboffer? You owe me a keyboard.
Notorious P.A.T.
McCain has said that Social Security is an "abomination". So, if someone supports him for President, they should forfeit their S.S. It’s only fair.
Just Some Fuckhead
This is more than the decline of the Republican party. It’s the resurgence of the Know-Nothings.
t jasper parnell
This, from the ironically named "American Thinker,"
is proof positive. I mean how could one look up the word "ballast" before Google? And who but a sailor would have heard of this odd and rarely used term?
Sarah Palin has made them all dumber.
Dennis - SGMM
More class from Team Maverick supporters. From The Iowa Independent:
dslak
@t jasper parnell: Yeah, it’s not as if the English language is permeated with seafaring metaphors or anything.
ThymeZone
@nabalzbbfr:
That’s one of the lamest trolls I ever saw, and I have been watching them for 13 years.
No soup for you.
SamFromUtah
@Svensker: The October surprise is that Obama’s birth certificate is suspect?
Haaaahahahahaaha indeed. Funny when the wingnuts forget that not everyone is short-term-memory-only.
Nothing galvanizes the public like a good Kerners Are Go, though.
The Grand Panjandrum
Frank Rich concludes his column that appears in tomorrows NY Times with this:
Brian J
A few questions and comments:
1. Do these people, who have either written books or know people who have and who work in the literary community, who as writers at political magazines, realize that there are editors? An editor isn’t going to turn garbage into gold, but a good editor can turn a good book into a great one.
2. That said, why not contact the publishing house(s) that sponsored Obama’s works and ask them about it? The worst that’s going to happen is that they will say they don’t remember or they won’t comment.
3. You’d think that these idiots would remember that the reason some works surpass others so grandly is that the writers are speaking from the heart and from being there. I couldn’t write about being in a concentration camp during World War Two with the same sort of authority as Eli Wiesel because he was there and I was not. Obama wrote books about his own life, so it make sense to think there’s a powerful personal narrative.
4. Towards the end of Cashill article mentioned by McCarthy, he describes how Ayers allegedly wanted to launch Obama’s political career and knew that a spiffy biography would help. (Why a biography is necessary for running for the State Senate in Illinois is beyond me, but whatever.) It seems to imply that in the same span of time that Obama’s book was published, Ayers and his wife met Obama, decided they wanted to help him along in politics, and therefore Ayers helped him with the book. It doesn’t give out specific dates, but Cashill’s sequrence of events doesn’t seem to add up very well. If he really had a tight case, I imagine he would have spend the time looking for the details.
5. WTF is this bizarre sentence supposed to mean? "In the way of background, both grew up in comfortable white households and have struggled to find an identity as righteous black men ever since." Somehow I doubt Ayers struggled with his identity as a black man, regardless of the name of his son.
Ehh, fuck it. I am done with this nonsense. The original article by Cashill, found here, is a hodgepodge of tenuously connected details and simple guesses about what might be true, if Cashill is indeed correct. If you decide you have some time to waste with stupid nonsense, I urge you to read it. It’s clear this guy is grasping at straws.
MLP
Notice that no one at the Corner has taken McCarthy’s bait. No one has commented on this. Perhaps, he is now even crazier than K-Lo and that takes talent and hard work.
Way to go Andy!
cain
He’s doing his best to get rid of all the independent. Nothing like a prayer that smacks of ‘My God can Beat Up Your God!’ Yeah.. that’s real full of the awesome.
BTW what do people snack on while reading BJ? Obviously it’s not cheetos..? :-)I"m eating Trader Joe’s Ginger Senbei Snacks cuz it is yummy and the ginger tastes makes me feel all fuzzy and stuff.
cain
calipygian
@John Cole:
Short answer to your question: yes, it was this crazy. Teh ‘Tubes just distribute it much more efficiently. Think Pat Robertson and his 1988 book "The New World Order":
vishnu schizt
John you ask:
Not sure what you mean John, are you asking if the fever swamp came up with total bullshit out of thin air on Clinton? Just wild crazy shit like, uh, let me see, uh hypothetically that for instance: Clinton killed Vince Foster or that Clinton ran a drug ring in Little Rock or was a secret communist because he went to the former Soviet Union when at Oxford. Crazy ass shit like that that no one in their right mind would believe? No, not to my knowledge. Is that what you are asking?
Dennis - SGMM
@dslak:
I’m taken aback by your comment. It’s awash with left wing smugness. To come in loaded to the gunwhales with scorn just because just because someone on the right nails their colors to the mast is enough to make true conservatives clear the decks and batten down the hatches.
Just Some Fuckhead
Curious, George. Very curious.
calipygian
@MLP:
Two of the saner guys (I know! I know!) at The Corner, John "I like little girls" Derbyshire and Andrew Stutteford (who is usually sane even if he is an anthropogenic global warming denier) have quit posting there.
Probably out of embarassment.
There has been a lot of conspicuous radio silence (with a few exceptions) over the Buckley defection, too.
Joshua Norton
There was still a little decency left back then. It started getting really bat shit crazy when people started freaking out over gays and n*****s and immigrants getting "special rights". They couldn’t get the laws to bend to their will, so they started Fundie cults to selective bible quotes and decided that "God’s law" was what they would follow.
Then their candidates pandered more and more to their bigotry that was helped along by the likes of hate radio and Fux Noise. Throw in the wholesale rise of a warped Calvinistic "greed is good" and you suddenly have spawned a whole caste of slick fat suburbanites and seedy rednecks who are putty in GOP paws.
Bullshit media pundits and neo-conservative scam artists alike have now convinced people to vote against their own interests. The former do it because they are naive coiffed twits, the latter because this national lie serves them well.
Fux and AM radio froth fests supply an unusual blend of meanness, stupidity and obliviousness to all things not involving money. They let people believe that there’s nothing wrong with being the most disgusting, mindless, bigoted consumer that ever clawed the aisles of Wal-Mart or Bloomingdale’s. The "American Dream" was being touted to turn people into Republican assholes.
So how’s that worked out for them? Are they broke enough yet?
Matt McIrvin
is this what it was like in 1992-1996?
Pretty much. Only with more bombings, and I assume those will start up again before long.
I remember thinking when Gore conceded in 2000, "Well, at least the right-wing crazies will finally shut up." I’m never going to think that way again.
Comrade Incertus
I don’t remember it getting really stubatshit until 1996-7, but I was also in my own little world before then, so I’m probably not the best judge either. But that was when Rush Limbaugh really started to flex, and he tossed around some crazy shit with no one on the other side to call him out. Maybe what makes today seem crazier is that everyone has a voice now.
Oh, and I’ve got the monkey video too if anyone wants to drop by.
Just Some Fuckhead
Fetus jerky, what else?
t jasper parnell
@Dennis – SGMM: Yes, just like a liberal any port in a storm when he or she is unable to pilot the ship of state.
The Grand Panjandrum
John back in those days you were asking about the blogs obvisously didn’t exist so the only outlet was talk radio. And yes they were about to go nuts over it but they didn’t have as wide open a forum as blogistan. A buddy of mine (former Marine) would go on and on about Clinton and basically regurgitate everything he heard from Rush. It was how I found out who Rush was. The obvious thing that has not changed a lick is that they get talking points from a few fuckers like Rush ( and these days Hannity, et al) and just go on and on like its the end times if the Librulz win.
I had to remind him that I was a Librul. He would sputter and mutter something about me being different from the rest of them. Every time I think back to some of those conversations I am also reminded of the kid being interviewed and him telling the reporter how much he hated black people (using the n word of course). The reporter couldn’t help but ask the obvious question. Why was this young man wearing an Emmitt Smith jersey if he hated black people so much. The kid’s response was that Emmitt Smith wasn’t a (insert n word here) because he was a good guy. It was all the rest of "them".
In other words this irrational and intemperate behavior is new. Its louder, and getting bounced around the blogosphere more. I think its now very obvious that the establishment media news cycle is very heavily influenced by whats flying through the blogosphere. The blogs are able to piece together many disparate pieces of reporting and pick up patterns quickly. In sense you might think of it as a meta neural network. The system dynamics of the blogosphere are truly fascinating, no?
t jasper parnell
@Comrade Incertus: The video is priceless.
Comrade The Other Steve
Pretty much, but the difference was in the 90’s the media took them as serious arguments. Did Bill Clinton in fact kill Vince Foster? Was he running drugs in collaboration with the CIA in Arkansas?
This crazy seems to be turning people off, and particularly the media is not putting up with it.
I’d say the hens have come to roost.
Svensker
Did Frank Rich just call Gov. Palin a DOG?
Plus, he used the word "onus". Also, he used that word close to the word "man". In the pre-Google era of dreams, wouldn’t that be a sure sign of, um, teh gay?
Also, TZ, nozzleboffer was a regular troll over at Glenn Greenwald’s place for a long time. He hasn’t been around much lately, so it is quite pleasing to see him here. Many have speculated that he is too perfect of a troll and that he must be a spoof, but long hours of research and pondering finally led to the conclusion that he is indeed who he says he is. Not sane, but true. Also!
Brian J
According to Wikipedia, Dohrn stopped working at the firm in 1988, the same year Michelle Obama graduted law school. Assuming they were even there at the same time, it was for less than a year. And as you said, there’s no proof that they even knew each other.
Comrade Fwiffo
It was similar. Worse actually. Mostly the same. The Vince Foster stuff was some of the worst. You had actual Republican congressmen shooting at watermelons to prove somehow that the Clenis did it.
But a lot of it is the same. There were supposed to be "secret" photos of Kitty Dukakis burning a flag, then the same thing for Hillary Clinton, then again for Tipper Gore. The current Obama "death list" floating around is almost identical to the Clinton "death list". I think some of the names are even the same.
Chris Matthews was actually making the comparison the other day. He brought up the passport thing, and the drug dealing thing, and the Russian Manchurian candidate thing…
SamFromUtah
@Comrade The Other Steve: …the difference was in the 90’s the media took them as serious arguments.
Unlike, say, now.
With a bit of luck the media will stop doing so, one of these days.
NonyNony
Kind of. Except without the web to propagate and expose things, it was different. Mostly I recall Limbaugh simultaneously going insane AND surging in popularity as he became more relevant in opposition than he ever was as a sycophant.
Unfortunately, I expect the nutbags like Limbaugh and Coulter to experience a Renaissance in popularity in an Obama presidency. As will FOX news. They may not like living under Democrats, but it’s good for business.
Brian J
According to the latest Newsweek polled, as described by TPM, McCain still leads Obama by two points among independents, but leads in every other group, even men. I find this bizarre.
qi4all
My 1st election was ’76 and this is the absolute worst it has ever been in my time. I honestly think it is the combination of the "race" issue and the ignorant meme that Obama is a Muslim. Ignorant people are always highly resistant to change.
eglenn
The crazy was there, but it was a lot more spread out. There was Perot-crazy, Buchanan-crazy, Robertson-crazy and talk radio-crazy, but they never had meetings to get the story straight so it was more of a noise than a chorus.
Plus, now that they agree, you can only get noticed by going from Apeshit to Apeshit+1, i.e. NRO.
Comrade Incertus
@t jasper parnell: It’s the "oh shit" look in his eyes and the nervous smile as he tears the sticker off and palms it that makes it all worth while.
Calouste
@t jasper parnell:
Shorter wingnut logic: "I am stupid and ignorant therefore everyone is stupid and ignorant."
xyzzy
I remember both of the Clinton-era elections, albeit hazily, and I recall the craziness in full effect back then. There were actually people buying videos purporting to detail all the many people that Bill Clinton had personally murdered, for example. I still remember my dad (who, sadly, was a rightwing nut) frothily screaming "Clinton is a MURDERER!"
That being said, I feel like the current atmosphere of rank partisan fury didn’t really get going until the Gingrich era, sometime around the time of that Contract With America bullshit, when it became clear that the republicans were on an all-out witch hunt and the democrats would rabidly defend Clinton even if he molested and ate a newborn infant on live television.
Things have gone downhill since those halcyon days.
mikesdak
QT at the Chicago Sun-Times posted this little item.
JohnMcCain.com announced last week that Leonore Annenberg, widow of ambassador and philanthropist Walter Annenberg, is endorsing McCain.
It is not mentioned that former Weather Underground radical William Ayers has served on the Annenberg Foundation charity board.
McCain . . . Annenberg . . . Ayers . . .
Is McCain palling around with terrorists again?
George
I remember watching the Phil Donahue show after Clinton was elected. Eleanor Clift and Peter Hamill were on. Phil had invited some young Republicans to appear as well. What a bunch of shrieking, panic-stricken whining crybaby ninnies. You’d think that we were two minutes from that scene at the beginning of RED DAWN when the paratroopers rained down on the high school and shot the teacher.
Bob Dole got on TV and said that Clinton didn’t get 50 percent, so he wasn’t legit.
Rush began each show with an "America Held Hostage" announcement, which he didn’t take off until Oklahoma City happened.
t jasper parnell
@Comrade Incertus: Yes, his sudden realization that all his friends and family will now know that old Joe is a racist fool and golly willikers, what seemed like a good idea is suddenly exposed as too stupid for words. I also liked how he tried to hide behind the McCain/Palin sign.
Anne Laurie
John, that was when the Wall Street Journal was hawking a "special report" insisting that Governor Bill Clinton was responsible for "dozens" of murders in his role as the head of a CIA-funded international drug-running cartel, aka "Mena-gate".
Back in 1988, these same Republicans were "reluctantly raising the question" of whether Dukakis was even eligible to run for president, since he was LYING about being treated for serious mental illness… or, even worse, he was telling the truth and had never sought help for his serious mental illness.
And St. Ronnie Reagan was not too santimonious to ask whether Jimmy Carter had "permitted" the Iranians to take Americans hostage in return for secret cash payments from the Ayatollah. Of course, we know now that Kissinger, acting for Reagan, was simultaneously negotiating with the Iranians to keep holding the hostages until after the election.
American presidential politics have never been smear-free, but the REAL rot started 35 years ago, when the Watergate small-timers that Ford let slither away unpunished — people like Cheney, Rumsfield, and Perle — decided that the lesson to be learned was not "Don’t be evil, like Nixon" but "Nixon was just not evil enough."
Comrade Incertus
After reading all these comments and thinking back on what Rush was saying then–and I was a listener then, too–I wonder if the reason I didn’t think it was as crazy then is because I wasn’t involved in the conversation the way I am now. It was one-way then–Limbaugh talked and I listened (along with a shitload of other people). There was no talking back like there is now.
r€nato
that’s what I recall, too. Clinton’s re-election really drove the right around the bend and they have not come back.
I do not think they will ever again regard any Democrat’s election to the White House as legitimate. Prepare for a replay of the Clinton years.
If the right doesn’t start howling for Obama’s impeachment beginning on Inauguration Day, I’ll be amazed.
Comrade Incertus
I figure they’ll spend Inauguration Day still claiming that the election was illegitimate. They’ll start the impeachment calls on the day after.
Dennis - SGMM
@Comrade Incertus:
Followed shortly thereafter by outraged howls from some of the Left as Obama fails to undo all of Bush’s damage in his first two weeks in office.
srv
1992-1996. Hitlery and her ninjas sent Bill’s Arkansas bodyguards to their deaths at Waco, had Janet cover it up, took their entrails to frame somebody or other in the White House Travel Office, and then killed Vince Foster with the left-over travel vouchers. All while she was unsurping the US Gov’t with her national health care star chamber.
This was all pretty much standard fare on Limbaugh, 5 days a week.
Just Some Fuckhead
Nah, they gotta pillory McCain and Palin first. When they’re done with their circular firing squad, Obama is next.
Juan del Llano
Geez, if THAT constitutes "long in the tooth," you must still be in diapers, and I have fucking shoes on my incisors.
Delia
@nabalzbbfr:
I knew it. I just knew the Illuminati had to be involved somehow. Everything suddenly makes sense now.
Delia
What strikes me as different this time is that the presidential candidates used to make at least some sort of pretense of staying above the mudslinging. That was standard operating procedure. Now the gooper presidential candidate is egging on the mob and of course the veep candidate is simply a braying hyena
(um, footnote: do hyenas bray? Whatever she does, it’s very raucous, mindless, and unpleasant.)
abrxas
I was around and plugged in during those elections, but I don’t actually recall the vitriol being so bad. On the other hand, I didn’t subscribe to National Review or the Weekly Standard or any other conservative rag and couldn’t stomach listening to Limbaugh even then, so maybe it was just as vitriolic and I didn’t catch it. At any rate, it didn’t filter up into the mainstream media as much and nowadays we all have easy access to the fever swamps of both sides.
I recall 96 being a snoozer of an election, without any excitement, never mind vitriol.
***
Come to think of it, the wingnuts were peddling the Clinton as drug-dealer/rapist/murderer meme around since as early as 92, maybe 91. So, yeah, it probably was just as bad. Or close.
I don’t know, it’s hard to judge these things. But I think the main difference is that the aforementioned fever swamps have a larger audience thanks to the Intertubes.
Anne Laurie
Before McCain’s arrival, a minister delivering an invocation said, “There are plenty of people around the world who are praying to their god, be they Hindu, Buddah, or Allah, that (McCain’s) opponent wins. I pray that you step forward and honor your own name.”
In other words, if by some unGodly fluke the Candidate-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wins, it will be because Blue-Eyed Bible Jesus got ganged up on by all those grammatically confusing not-true-gods. And also, because you McCain supporters didn’t clap loud enough, dammit.
As for the Eternal Rethuglican Craziness, I think Eglenn and Incertus have a point: It’s always been out there, but the rise of the Intertrons makes the call-and-response nature of the beastliness much more visible. These days, maybe nobody on the internets can tell you’re a dog, but YouTube can guarantee that every apeshite crazy will have his/her arse-flashings distributed world-wide and lovingly preserved for posterity.
EddieInCA
John –
Yes. It was like that.
And…
After Jan. 20th, it will be like that again. But this time, Rush, Hannity, Medved, Prager, Hewitt, Gallagher, Boortz, Liddy, O’Reilly, Ingraham, Coulter, and the rest have much larger microphones.
It will be ugly.
kommrade jakevich
Long in the tooth? [Raises arthritic middle finger]
I was in Bloomington, IN, hanging out with law students, DFHHs and other undesirables, so I always assume things seemed worse: I was looking for this kind of shit and Bloomington is an oasis in the Whackjobbery Desert. However, there warn’t no internons like we got today so a whackjob in California had to leave his mom’s basement to engage in wankery with other whackjobs. Now he just has to sit at his computer and engage in a circle jerk with thousands of his spiritual kin. Plus, standing up in public and shouting about the dirty islahomofacists requires at least a modicum of courage (even from beneath the protective covering of a fancy white dress and dunce hat). The internons allow those rats to spout their crap without fear of catching a rotten tomato with their faces.
And no reporter would ever dream of relying on something called The Drudge Report as a source.
Ah the good old days.
Of course this is all Al Gore’s fault.
nabalzbbfr
Obama’s puppetmasters will soon be flushed out. Ironically by sometime leftist hero Patrick "Fitz"gerald.
Eric U.
I don’t know where it came from, but one of the guys at my work stood up and declared "he’s going to be impeached," sometime between Clinton’s election and his inauguration. This guy was not one of the sharpest knives in the drawer, so he got if from somewhere. Maybe Gordon Liddy? Why oh why did Carter pardon that guy?
El Cid
I listened to the right wing militia / white supremist movement scream on shortwave radio of imminent socialist / Satanist / whatever takeover for years before the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma federal building.
The ugly militia ultra-rightist f***ers whom Ronald Reagan cultivated to run all his death squad friends did not just vanish when the Central American peace accords were signed.
And the military triumphalists were pretty damn d***-hard for years after Gulf War 1 taught us that the ‘Vietnam Syndrome’ was over and now we could blow up any country we wanted and not have it make a mess.
This sh*t was this bat-sh*t crazy and people only really started to notice it going ‘mainstream’ when, I dunno, maybe when NAFTA was passed and the last barrier to the ‘one world government’ nut squads was removed.
1994 was the year that "The Clinton Chronicles" came out, and you had mainstream rightwing radio a**holes like Limbaugh and the other nutcore types suggesting on air that maybe the Clintons had had all sorts of people killed.
1994.
I think it was about then that the mainstream far right Gingrich Republicans started figuring out how to simultaneously push a super-elite world business agenda while dog-whistling the ultra-paranoid violence-fascinated rightists into their corner.
Dennis - SGMM
This all goes to show how far we’ve advanced in the handling of the mentally unbalanced. In the old days being batshit insane would get you locked in the cellar or the attic. Now it gets you a spot on "The Corner," or a radio show or, if you’re really lucky, a shot at being Vice-President.
ThymeZone
This is the first time I’ve seen him. My first impression is, second rate troll, no spoof.
I’ve seen some serious troll. I’ve seen guys that carried on exactly the same troll (exactly the same topic and material) for years. You know the kind I mean. If you are familiar with all Usenet traditions, let me just say "chemtrails." Or Nancy Luft.
Heh.
Slide
hey, a bit off message but just some info….Tuning into my beloved NY Ranger hockey game tonight I was surprised to learn that Sarah Palin was to drop the first puck at the game in Philodelphia. Huh? ok… well, it seemed to me that she was greeted with a chorus of boos…. yes some cheered of course, but the reaction was decidedly mixed with lots and lots of boos cascading down on the hockey mom.
that was fun.
Comrade Jake
@nabalzbbfr:
Man you are dumb as rocks.
calipygian
@Slide:
It being Philly, I expected a chorus of "Show us your TITS!!!!" followed by a volley of D-cell batteries when she didn’t comply.
Comrade Jake
nabalzbbfr:
I love that you actually linked to a story at rightwingnuthouse.com. I’m sure that’s where you get all your leads. You’re the man.
Comrade Jake
@Comrade Incertus:
I think we can also anticipate a period during which the right describes Obama as the first "Affirmative Action" President.
John W
@24-Johnny Pez: Dammit, I just knew "Harry Saxon" managed to regenerate! Next January: Attack of the Toclafane!
ThymeZone
Hell no. I had a lot more hair then, and I could drink without getting a note from my doctor. I was riding my bike 100 miles a week.
This is nothing like then.
John Cole
No one in their right mind would go anywhere near Philly fans willingly. Period.
cain
I think it’s donkeys that bray. hyenas laugh, chatter or whatever they do.
cain
Napoleon
Speaking of how the right will try to stick it to Obama check out Matt Y’s site where he links to a report where the Pentagon is planning after the election to spring on the new President a sudden $450B increase in the Pentagon’s budget to stick it to the new president (my words, not Matt’s).
Comrade grumpy realist
Dear Andy:
you aren’t.
Love and kisses–
The proletariat
t jasper parnell
Not only is Obama not a citizen, if we can believe Philip Berg, and we cannot, he does seem to have the goods on the current Administration:
That’s craziness we can believe in.
Doonhamer
@John Cole: Amen from a Mets and Red Sox fan (I know we’re talking hockey vs. baseball, but, ya know, the spillover). Yeesh. It’s why I’ve stopped reading Eschaton during the baseball postseason.
Comrade Jake
Good luck to them. If the Pentagon’s dumb enough to telegraph their punches like that, they’re fucked.
Comrade grumpy realist
(damn, that didn’t work. OK, let’s try again, without the link:)
Dear Andy–
Lorenzo Valla you aren’t.
Love and kisses–
The proletariat
milo
As I recall, Rush limited himself to talking about himself to about 60% of the show, not like the 80-90% he does today. And no, you couldn’t talk politics to most people hung up on draft-dodging slick Willie.
Otherwise vishnu schizt @52 has it completely correct.
PeakVT
is this what it was like in 1992-1996?
From what I read and watched, the true crazy was basically House Republicans and televangelists. Gingrich was busy pushing the laughable "Contract to Fuck up America" on the back of the 93 budget deal. Google "93 budget deal" to see the loony predictions about how it would cause mass unemployment, a recession, etc. The print media wasn’t quite so cowed back then, so there was some decent reporting on how it was all crap. But they still printed the crazies on the editorial page and engaged in a lot of he said/she said. TV news was well into its decline by then and Gingrich was the next big draw after Perot lost. He got a fair amount of airtime. Then in 94 the House and Senate flipped to Republican, and the country started down the path to where we are today.
Slide
oh… and the Rangers are up 3-0 in the first 10 minutes of the game. LETS GO SARAH. USA USA USA
milo
Oh, and if you want the flavor, check out:
Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Liar, by Al Franken
or
The Hunting of the President, by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons
cyntax
Where have all the quality trolls gone?
Napoleon
Now TPM is reporting that "Michael Barone bemoans the "Coming Obama Thugocracy." ‘
Johnny Gentle (famous crooner)
is this what it was like in 1992-1996?
Well, it was crazy in the ’90s, with the foaming, unhinged Clinton hatred, but it wasn’t like this. As they say (incessantly), 9/11 changed everything. It gave republicans not just license to hate Democrats, but to put them on the side of American-murdering terrorists. Republicans always had a patriotism fetish (except when, y’know, rightwing domestic terrorists were doing the bombing), but 9/11 broke the dial.
Now they could hitch their jingoism, xenophobia and racism to an actual catastrophe.
Now a party that always thrived on lowest-common-denominator, Atwater-style demagoguery against Democrats could up the stakes exponentially. Forget all that "Democrats raise taxes" and "Democrats are soft on crime" crap–now we’ve got "Democrats will let you and your family die!" Electoral jackpot!!
And of course, there’s the rise of Christian fundamentalism in politics, which allowed republicans to sell the idea that Democrats are not only against your politics, but against your God.
Take an already atavistic party, add the crippling fear of terrorism and Islam, smother it all in the premise that you’re fighting liberals to save God, and that’s how we’ve arrived where we are today.
apocalipstick
John,
I remember Molly Ivins’ quote from the 1992-96 era. When a conservative friend asked her if she’d seen anything like the animus stirred up toward Clinton, she replied:
"Yeah. Right before they shot JFK."
Steve V
I fear there will be more domestic political violence than there was during the ’90s. Nothing like Oklahoma City, but I expect the militia movement will suddenly be reinvigorated.
I had totally forgotten that Bush rifled through Clinton’s passport file in 1992, until this year when it happened again. It was a small incident, but it’s a nice little window on how the right operates — draw connections between the Democrats and the "Great Enemy" (in the case of Clinton, the USSR) any way you can. Of course it’s only intensified since September 11, when now every Democrat is a terrorist appeaser (or heaven forbid sympathizer). After decades of associating their political opposition with the country’s enemies, it seems safe to assume that Obama, with his funny name and all that, will put large numbers of them completely over the edge. I just hope he survives.
calipygian
@Johnny Gentle (famous crooner):
What kills me about this hitching the hate to 9/11 is that, to this day, New York City remains a center of latte sipping, immigrant welcoming and DFH-dom elitism that the Right despises.
If Osama hadn’t succeeded, some redneck Limbaugh listener would have tried.
And this Native New Yorker is fucking sick of it.
magisterludi
It wasn’t as bad in the 90’s , not by a long shot, but it was bad.
Back then the GOP was larger and more moderate. The Dobsonites were not mainstream in the party.
Now, the party is smaller in number and in mind. Dobson is a powerful voice. And he and his brethren are ignorant and dangerous:
"I would also pray, Lord, that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their god — whether it’s Hindu, Buddha, Allah — that his opponent wins, for a variety of reasons. And Lord, I pray that you will guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you will step forward and honor your own name with all that happens between now and election day."
Rev Arnold Conrad at a McCain rally today.
Dennis - SGMM
Here’s a link to the full article on the Pentagon’s plan to demand the extra $450bn. And get this: that figure doesn’t include the inevetable supplementals for Iraq/Afghanistan. The military has been in those countries for five and six years respectively yet they can’t seem to come up with a budget for them in advance.
The "top brass" who are trying this well worn squeeze play seem to forget that the president calls the shots. They may well wind up toting a rifle in West Bumfukistan.
Richard Bottoms
Remember when I wrote a couple weeks ago to focus on the militia movment connection and FIJA?
Well it come out my experience following these guys from BBS chatter to full blown domestic terror mode from 1991 to 1996.
When Obama is elected the militia movement will rise again only this time they will have Iraq war vets and their knowledge of counter-insurgency at their disposal.
It will get ugly and lethal. Again.
Napoleon
@Dennis – SGMM:
Even without this story, if I was an incoming Democratic President I would use the first excuse any general gave me, like looking at me the wrong way to strip them of their rank and kick them out of the military (I assume that as a matter of practice this never happens but as a legal matter the President as C in C can simply kick someone out). I would make someone an example of somebody, anybody, right off the bat.
Back to the subject at hand I have no doubt that right wing attacks in this country will go way up in number.
Tonybrown74
If some people were to be believed, Hillary Clinton was a lesbian who was having an affair with Vince Foster, and that is why she had him killed. Yet she was very upset when he died.
Or something …
Oh yeah, Bill Clinton raped Juanita Broderick (I believe she actually claimed that on TV around the time of Monica Lewinski).
There were a bunch of other "rumors" but I cannot even begin to recall them all.
Existenz
There was no right wing blogging back in 92-96, nor any Fox News, but the vitriol spewed on right wing talk radio was just as bad as all this.
Rush Limbaugh in particular was part of the cabal calling Hillary Clinton the murderer of Vince Foster, saying Bill Clinton was a commie because he once went to Moscow as a college student, saying that Clinton’s election would mean the end of civilization, etc. Rush was writing bestsellers like "I Told You So" about how big a FAIL Clinton would be.
Meanwhile, in Congress, the Republican Senators led by Bob Dole basically filibustered most of the things Clinton tried to do during 93-94. Then they blamed Clinton for inaction and somehow won the 94 midterms! It was ridiculous.
At least now we get to tell Rush — we told YOU so.
Roza Hussein
LOL Larry Johnson I forgot about that loon
time for the whitey tape no doubt
Flappy McScrotum
Was it bad back during the 90s? The rightwing was calling for Clinton’s impeachment even before he was sworn in for his first term. In 93, Bill Clinton was simultaneously a secret homosexual (he supported gays in the military) as well as a perverted rapist out to attack every woman in sight (Jennifer Flowers, etc.).
He was also a secret Communist, a drug king-pin, an anti-American supervillion and a stupid redneck from Arkansas.
Do a google search for "The Clinton Chronicles" and remember that you could buy that video through the 700 Club or at any gun show in the country. For a good laugh (or cry depending on how you feel) also look into Rep. Dan Burton’s watermelon experiments.
Conservatively Liberal
Regarding Palin dropping the puck, one press comment I saw said that she was greeted with a mixture of boos and applause, which turned to applause when she dropped the puck. Why the change?
The way it dropped, she (and the official) should have just handed it to the Flyers. It was not between the sticks…lol! No wonder the crowd cheered. ;p
neddie jingo
Nuh-nuh-nuh… Folks, this has been going on since the depths of the Reagan era. Watch the K R A Z E E in the Crossfire piece between Frank Zappa (FSM rest his soul) and Bobby "This is bullshit" Novak. Particularly amusing is to watch the hairpiece on John Lofton fly to the ceiling like Principal Wetherbee’s when Frank suggests that the solution is that people actually vote and run for office ‘n’ stuff…
priscianus jr
"is this what it was like in 1992-1996?"
Don’t you mean 1992-2000?
Well, first, although they started it during the Clinton campaign, it didn’t really get revved up until well after he was elected, at least that’s how I remember it. And it never stopped. The development of right-wing talk radio and the phoney "echo-chamber" journalism bouncing unsubstantiated reports from London tabloids to American papers, that was a big part of it.
You’re right to see a resemblance, and it’s emanating from a lot of the same sources. But one thing that makes it different is the overwhelming racist component, another is the mood of the country, both factors mean that it is not working the same way at all. It’s just not playing with the mainstream, in fact there’s a judo factor in which it’s flipping into more support for Obama.
McCain thought it would help but he already realizes that it’s not helping at all, and besides it’s gotten out of his control; Palin is actually enjoying it and in her view it is helping her, in the sense that she will wind up as undisputed political figurehead of America’s fascist wing. However, I don’t think her political career will be too much more successful than that of, let’s say, David Duke.
Johnny Gentle (famous crooner)
@Calypgian – yeah, notice how quickly they did away with all that NYC-love? Didn’t Coulter write that she wished one of the planes had hit the NYT building? Hell, you even had Rudy lisping about Obama being too "cosmopolitan" at the RNC. This, of course, was 4 years after they held their convention amidst the ashes of the dead. NYC is a useful national-security prop to them, and that’s about it.
Steve V
The thing that most annoyed me about the thrashing Clinton got in the 1990s was that it was so self-defeating; Clinton was far and away the best Republican president of the whole batch over the last 30 years.
eyelessgame
Oh hell yes. I got forwarded the list of all the people Clinton was responsible for murdering, back in 1993. And a list of his drug connections. And the evidence that he was a Russian spy and a communist. It was nuts back then.
The impeachment was the culmination of it – years and years of throwing every single species of shit against the wall to see what stuck. And now that you’ve been traded to our team and line up with us on the left side of the line of scrimmage, you get to watch it happen again.
jenniebee
It wasn’t like this in either ’92 or ’96, as I remember it. In ’92, it was just this energetic young southern governor who obviously had a zipper problem but who was smart and focused on the economy while Bush Sr… wasn’t. Bush was reading his handlers’ cue cards and getting soundbites in which he said – quite literally – "Message: I care" while the economy was behaving like a dying fish. The race was tired old & cold smart guy vs. young & empathetic smart guy just at the time when a lot of people needed jobs.
’96 was a repeat of that, except the young guy had delivered the jobs and had a bigger zipper problem. There was the Vince Foster craziness floating around the fringes, but it never made it into the mainstream the way the Bill Ayers stuff has. By this time in ’96, I remember Dole giving speeches that were just despairing. He wasn’t firing up his base, he was just going through the motions. A lot of people (including the rest of my family, who conducted a "Draft Muriel" campaign to write-in my grandmother) had been turned off of Clinton by the smoke machines the RNC & WaPo had set up around him, but there were jobs and there was money and the debt was getting under control. That election, Dole was in the unhappy position of trying to convince a million+ people to do the electoral equivalent of switching jobs just when they’d gotten a promotion, were going out to dinner once a week and had started paying down their credit cards.
And in both cases there was a wack-job third party candidate standing by to pick up any independent voters anybody might want to alienate through serious negativity. So that helped some too.
jimBOB
One thing to bear in mind is that the reason they were able to make the crazy stick is that they, after 1994, owned the House. Gingrich and his merry band of lunatics assumed they were the wave of the future and proceeded to act like the petty tyrants they were. What they didn’t realize as that the GOP ascendancy of the 1990’s was in large part an historical accident coming from the fact that the GOP solidified its southern base a few years before the Dems solidified theirs. The prospects of a new GOP House majority going forward are practically nil, and without it, their brand of crazy is doomed to be shouted fecklessly from the wilderness.
jcricket
I love how Republicans managed to turn Clinton (in their minds) into this horrible hated figure, and the media played along. Despite his record high popularity ratings, even at the height of his impeachment scandal.
Think the inverse of Preznit Bush.
Steve V
He balanced the budget! He reformed welfare! What didn’t he do? Go to war with Cuba over Elian Gonzalez?
Bokonon
Yeah… it was this bad in Virginia in 1992 and 1993.
The bumper stickers saying "Impeach Clinton" started appearing on cars even before the inauguration. My car was vandalized for having a Democratic sticker on it (for Mary Sue Terry, who was running against George Allen for Virginia’s governor). And the craziness began to build and circulate … the sort of X-Files "truth is out there" BS about conspiracies, murder, mayhem on the left. It started circulating in potluck suppers and cocktail party conversation, in talk after church … I lost friends and gained enemies. It didn’t help that I had introductions from conservative friends on Capitol Hill, and went to these parties and prayer breakfasts, and I pissed in the punchbowl by talking back and pointing out the bad thinking. My credentials were revoked. Wherever conservatism was headed, doubters and squishes like me were not going to be welcome.
It was a descent into a culture of hatred and illogic. It ultimately cost me my career on Capitol Hill and K Street. But … having lived through it, and having straddled both the left and the right, I can tell you that the current meltdown on the right is directly tied into the same currents. No wonder they are having a hard time – what do you do when all your myths explodes, except create new and stranger ones?
— Bokonon
AlanDownunder
The fertile ground goes back to the civil war. The US is an adult warped by a traumatised childhood. Near half of America still doesn’t accept the reality of evolution. All kinds of other stark irrationalities are equally present in the drinking water.
To irrationality, add ignorant arrogance – bipartisan exceptionalism – my country right or wrong – flagpoles on lawns – hand on heart on sleeve.
Who watered these well-manured seeds? Primarily Attwater, Ailes and Rove. So the descent from well-meaning dufus to planet enemy no.1 was well on its its way by the early 90s. The final descent started with St.Ronald who did a great job of greasing the skids.
Origuy
The Internet didn’t start when Marc Andresson wrote NCSA Mosaic (1992, but it took a while to catch on.) Usenet and listservs have been around since the seventies. I remember plenty of conspiracy theories being posted on Usenet newsgroups in the nineties. The difference now is that everyone is on the internet, not just programmers, scientists, and students. Plus it’s a lot easier to find stuff because it’s all linked together.
When the Web really took off, there was a saying that "It’s September all year around now." because in September freshmen would get their new net access and start posting all kinds of crap.
COINOps Advisor
Yes, this is what 96 was like (I was in grad school in Scotland for 92, so missed what was happening and no real internet then…). Then I was working on my doctorate and teaching polisci, crim, and religion and it was nuts. Though the lack of hi speed internet kept things somewhat confined to TV and Radio. What I can tell you is disturbing is that I’m currently serving in Iraq as a non lethal COIN advisor to a brigade commander and I keep up with the straight news reporting (ie wire reports) as well as a host of commentaries such as yours, and I’m wondering what kind of country I’m returning to next month.
rachel
@nabalzbbfr: :D What if Obama appoints Fitzgerald AG?
satby
I guess I’m a sabre-tooth mine must be so long.
Well, I remember that things were pretty heated during the 60s and 70s, where the DFH meme got started. We were traitors then too, the Red Squad of the Chicago Police dept. constantly showed up even at concerts, and the John Birch society was the pre-eminent voice of the crazies. MLK was openly called a Commie traitor by some mainstream types, George Wallace ran a third party campaign and got lots of votes, and the fear and paranoia was palapable sometimes because there was a lot of violence, especially directed at civil rights workers.
Only difference to me is that the echo chamber has grown, and without the Fairness Doctrine (gutted by St. Ronnie, I think) people now can easily avoid hearing the other side of the argument.
LongHairedWeirdo
Re: 1992-1996, it got bad pretty fast. I think the problem was two-fold. First, for whatever reason, the right just *despised* Clinton. And, second, they couldn’t really hurt him, no matter what they threw.
In 1994, the year of Newt, there was definitely a hateful edge to the air. Things got worse with both success (they did take back Congress) and failure (they couldn’t land a telling blow on Clinton).
I think that might have been what sent some of the more moderate (NB: not "moderates", just those closer to moderate/centrists than Newt and co.) folks over the edge. A lot of what Clinton did would have been damning, but all too often, it was investigated and found to be pretty pointless.
e.g., the lawsuit. Flashing your dick really, truly, honestly is not the basis for a civil judgment. It’s a stone stupid thing to do (because it can lead to an expensive and embarrassing lawsuit), but barring a quid pro quo (or offer), or a hostile work environment, it’s not illegal.
There’s a lot of people who’d have loved to see Paula Jones kick Clinton in the crotch or punch him in the nose or whatever… but given the facts on the table, there was no need for a lawsuit.
To many on the right, that was "excusing behavior that they despise". But no one excused the behavior. Hell, if Paula Jones had kicked him in the crotch, and she’d been so much as arrested (or, if Clinton couldn’t have stopped the arrest, prosecuted – I’m assuming as governor he could insist that no charges could be filed, or issue a pardon), I’d have despised the man.
I can’t defend the action. Hell, even if he "merely" propositioned her rudely, it’s indefensible.
But I can say that I think that he didn’t deserve to have to defend himself against a lawsuit, and especially not while acting as President.
But it does sound like a double standard to some. And I’m not sure I can entirely blame them. There’s a subtle difference between "this lawsuit is a sham" and "this behavior doesn’t merit punishment".