Pundits blame the victims on Obama Muslim myth

southpol:

[…] Dave Weigel came the closest, writing that “At some point it became acceptable to question Obama’s American-ness, which naturally begged the question of whether he was a secret Muslim… and the WorldNetDailys, tabloids, and Drudge Reports of the world were ready to keep begging that question.”

This is the Overton Window in action. Republicans have a host of beyond-far-right outlets to scream and holler relentlessly about whatever their preferred issue of the day is and Democrats never, ever employ a similar tactic with the left. A year-long, sustained chorus about single payer, for instance, simply didn’t materialize. The left wing is either too pragmatic or too cynical with regard to their chances on these issues. That and the Democratic leadership repeatedly lets the GOP determine the talking points; e.g. Boehner is reportedly going to call for the firing of all Obama economic advisers. When The Democrat engages him on that ground, his ground, and they will, the ultimate outcome will then be that some of the advisers have to go or, at best, take a severe public dressing down. All good outcomes for the GOP in an election year.
Whether or not they should go is quite beside the point. You are allowing your opponent to set the agenda and define the margins that contain what will be viewed by the David Broders of the world as the “sensible and serious” solution. Again and again.
This is precisely why Rep. Alan Grayson is such a valuable and yet underutilized asset. With a dozen people like him talking about Cheney’s blood-drenched teeth (or what have you) and a few media outlets doing likewise, suddenly the true moderate position, or even one (gasp!) marginally to the left of center, looks awfully sensible. Instead of using Grayson in this way, the modern Democrat runs and hides from him and others, going so far as to extract the occasional tearful apology when some genuinely affecting truth leaks out. This is the primary failure of leadership in the Democratic party, and nothing will change until this does.
The facts do not matter; presentation and framing is everything. You, the Democrat, are fighting an organized party, its dedicated propaganda outlet that happens to be a wildly popular source of “news,” and a distributed right-wing noise machine on web and talk radio that reliably sets the discourse for the rest of the MSM. You’d better bring your A-game and act like you’re in a 24/7 campaign for your political life. And they never do.

Never confuse “plan” and “scenario”

Alyssa Battistoni notes the creeping cost of “privatization” (read: funding cuts) that is resulting in kids being sent to school with their own toilet paper because the school will not be providing any:

The worst-case scenario, though, is that reduced public spending on essential goods and services will continue to hollow out our infrastructure and reduce our capacity to meet the needs of most Americans. And that rather than have a real conversation about which public goods we consider essential and what we’re willing to do to pay for them, we’ll gradually starve core programs until working- and middle-class Americans grow accustomed to a lower standard of living while better-off Americans pay out of pocket for benefits that everyone once enjoyed.

We’ll leave aside her usage of “backdoor privatization” in this context and just say that this is not some worst case scenario, but rather is a succinct encapsulation of the GOP “roadmap” for America’s “future.”
However: if you’re explaining, you’re losing; let’s instead get all Democrats saying this rather elegant formulation (from Natasha Chart):

Because nothing says ‘superpower’ like when your public schools can’t afford toilet paper.

Cheap and effective.

When you see frightened Americans turning on brown-skinned people they see as potential “Muslims,” that is terrorism working. When the kind of Imam who will say Judaism’s holiest prayer in solidarity with Jewish victims of Islamic extremist terrorism and who tells Muslim audiences that the way to have a government more in line with the Islamic ideal is to be more like the United States is treated as a terrorist sympathizer, terrorism is working.

Adam Serwer
Unfortunately, these instances of terrorism working are being aided and abetted by one of the major political parties in this country. It’s one thing to combat al Qaeda or the Taliban or whatever group out there and quite another to combat this outgrowth of invincible ignorance within our own country; then ladle on top the fact that you’re being fought at each and every step in that long and slogging education initiative by both a party and its extremely popular misinformation outlet which is uncritically treated by most Americans as actual news that must bear some relation to fact, because Walter Cronkite never knowingly lied to us, now did he?
And do not believe for one second that there is any coincidence to the policy positions that lead the GOP to blithely cut funding for teachers, Head Start, and manifold other early intervention programs either. With the GOP’s demographic outlook and warm relationships with most of the emerging majorities in this country, such a move is necessary for survival. It’s their Joe Camel.

No, this has nothing to do with sound economic policy. [It’s] about a dysfunctional and corrupt political culture, in which Congress won’t take action to revive the economy, pleads poverty when it comes to protecting the jobs of schoolteachers and firefighters, but declares cost no object when it comes to sparing the already wealthy even the slightest financial inconvenience.

Paul Krugman summarizing in 50 words or less exactly why all of us on drugs out here are dispirited.

To choose and be so adamant about this exact location just a block or two away from 9/11, again is that knife, it feels like.

Sarah Palin to Greta van Susteren. You know who else talked a lot about “that knife”? Hitler. I demand Palin refudiate the Dolchstoßlegende.

Modern Conservatism

I think it basically explains why Palin believes that there’s something offensive about American Muslims building a community center on private property while [Dr. Laura] Schlessinger telling a black woman she should stay out of interracial relationships if she doesn’t want to have n-bombs lobbed at her every day is the height of free expression. The point is that Constitutional rights only apply to whomever conservatives arbitrarily place in the category of “real Americans,” and extending them to anyone outside that narrow circle is a threat to the freedoms only real Americans have a right to enjoy. As Keep America Safe’s Debra Burlingame said of the proposed Park 51 project, freedom of religion “is a Western concept.” Only “Westerners” need apply.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we here at Lemkin call: Nailing it.

(via savingpaper)

Modern Conservatism

Sorry State of The Atlantic

Don’t know how I missed Glenn Greenwald’s take on Jeffrey Goldberg’s idiotic spew in The Atlantic (Now! More neoconservative than ever paired with incisive stories about the End of Manliness!).

Jeffrey Goldberg, in the new cover story in The Atlantic, on an Israeli attack on Iran:

Israel has twice before successfully attacked and destroyed an enemy’s nuclear program. In 1981, Israeli warplanes bombed the Iraqi reactor at Osirak, halting – forever, as it turned out – Saddam Hussein’s nuclear ambitions; and in 2007, Israeli planes destroyed a North Korean-built reactor in Syria. An attack on Iran, then, would be unprecedented only in scope and complexity.

Good news! Israel can successfully end a country’s nuclear program by bombing them, as proven by its 1981 attack on Iraq, which, says Goldberg, halted “forever, as it turned out – Saddam Hussein’s nuclear ambitions.”

Jeffrey Goldberg, The New Yorker, 2002, trying to convince Americans to fear Iraq:

Saddam Hussein never gave up his hope of turning Iraq into a nuclear power. After the Osirak attack, he rebuilt, redoubled his efforts, and dispersed his facilities. Those who have followed Saddam’s progress believe that no single strike today would eradicate his nuclear program.

So good. Read the whole thing.

Sorry State of The Atlantic