If This Isn't A Spoof It Ought To Be

Prof. Bainbridge questions the notion advanced by Rick Perlstein of the WaPo that America's crazies are all on the right, and names names:

The classic liberal lie: "we lefties are rational, nice, kind people who are puzzled by conservative crazies. We've got no crazies on our side, of course. Just nice rational people like me."

Oh, yeah? How about:

1. The Weathermen: "With a charismatic[3] and articulate[4] leadership whose revolutionary positions were characterized by anti-imperialist, feminist, and Black liberationist rhetoric,[2] the group conducted a campaign of bombings through the mid-1970s, including aiding the jailbreak and escape of Timothy Leary. The "Days of Rage," their first public demonstration on October 8, 1969, was a riot in Chicago timed to coincide with the trial of the Chicago Seven. In 1970 the group issued a "Declaration of a State of War" against the United States government, under the name "Weather Underground Organization" (WUO)."

Appearing in the comments, a chap signing off as "Rick Perlstein"delivers this gem:

I hate the Weathermen. Read my book. So does everyone I know on the left. And they didn't have any friends who were senators.

No friends who were Senators?  He might be right!  Unrepentant Weatherman leader Bill Ayers' buddy Barack Obama may be the world's most famous ex-Senator.

But let's be fair - given the many evasions and lies told by the Obama campaign about the Ayers-Obama relationship, and in light of the utterly blind eye the mainstream media turned to this while carrying their guy across the finish line to electoral victory, it is possible that Mr. Perstein is in the dark as to relationship of Obama to the Weatherman.

Comments

[bgates doing his famous impression of Brother Skip]

Mr. Perstein is in the dark

Meaning "ignorant", I suppose? Dark = Dark Continent = Africa = stupid, is that the way it is in America?

[Ignatz]

--The classic liberal lie: "we lefties are rational, nice, kind people who are puzzled by conservative crazies. We've got no crazies on our side, of course. Just nice rational people like me."--

On the right the loonies are properly kept locked outside like embarrassing cousins we wish we didn't know.
On the left the loonies are running the asylum and its the Bernie Sanders of the world with their hands on the keys while the Joe Liebermans are out in the cold.

[Jim Ryan]

America's crazies are all on the right.

So, Perlstein hasn't waded into the feverswamps of lunatic rage in the lefty blogosphere? Not even once? Or does its moonbattery seem measured to him?

[bgates]

I glanced at Perlstein's book on Google. His "hatred" of the Weathermen isn't expressed in the kind of frothy bile you'd see in, say, a State Department press release about a diplomatic tiff with Finland, never mind the real contempt Perlstein clearly has for me and those who think like me (ie, you).

[PeterUK]

William "Da Bomber" Ayers is too extreme an example,perhaps a world statesman like Hugo Chavez would be better for the Obama Facebook?

Maybe the Reverend Jeremiah "Damn America" Wright fits the book?

Isn't Perlstein's problem the problem that all lefties have? No self doubt,it shines through everyone of their crass actions.

Exhibit A Barack Hussein Obama.

[bad to the bone]

I barely made it through the first page of Perlstien and saw no reason to read the second. doofus

[the bishop]

Perlstein, writes as if he wasn't an author on Goldwater and the right (this was most clear on his recent excresence in Newsweek)
It's more in line with his book on Nixon , which he attributes to having caused the problems that led him to be elected; which is quite a stretch

[Jim in Bingo]

Some of us have been around long enough to remember Mr. Perlstein's own special brand of crazy during the W years. This Village Voice column is a classic:

http://www.villagevoice.com/content/printVersion/188760

And I remember one noted blogger on the right complaining about the lunatic emails from Perlstein that filled his inbox.

And now Perlstein has the nerve to tar the entire Right as crazy . . . physician heal thy . . . bah whatever.

[M. Bouffant]

Oh, by all means, lets have some evidence about President Obama's "relationship" to the Weather Underground. (Which, of course, is fully active to this very day. Isn't it? No? Oh, what a shame.)

Let's see, then. Two news items from 1969 & 1970, when our current President was eight & nine yrs. old & living in Indonesia. Can you detail his involvement a little further? No? Why not? Because it's a ridiculous fantasy?

Whoa, here's another good one:

On the right the loonies are properly kept locked outside like embarrassing cousins we wish we didn't know.

Oh yes. When the DHS report on right-wing extremism came out you were falling all over yourselves running away from the loonies. Oh, no, wait a minute, you all started proudly calling yourselves "right-wing extremists" in solidarity w/ your loony friends, & screaming about Obama persecuting you, when the report was a product of the Bush Adminsitration.

On the left the loonies are running the asylum and its the Bernie Sanders of the world with their hands on the keys while the Joe Liebermans are out in the cold.

Please. Joe Lieberman's no "leftist," he's a tool of the Israeli gov't. & the Connecticut-based insurance companies that finance him. And just what is it that Bernie Sanders has the keys to?

Projection. Look it up.

[hrtshpdbox]

Oh, by all means, lets have some evidence about President Obama's "relationship" to the Weather Underground.
Well, no one here asserted that there was one, or even mentioned Obama in the same sentence as the Weather Undeground - but you seem really smart (such a careful reader!), so if you have some evidence we're all ears!

[the bishop]

Ah good the swing shift arrived, well Ayers, 'trust fund terrorist wannabe' like Che,and Fidel, and Carlos Fonseca, followed
the Cramscian path into academe, where he met our fearless leader, on a foundation board. Where the funds were directed to the likes of his Marxist preacher. Along the way, they found that a false flag approach ala Chavez, was more successful.

Dodd is the bought and paid for stooge of the commodities and finance industry, or haven't you been keeping up with the News

[PeterUK]

"Let's see, then. Two news items from 1969 & 1970, when our current President was eight & nine yrs. old & living in Indonesia. Can you detail his involvement a little further? No? Why not? Because it's a ridiculous fantasy?"

Yes just like the launch of Obama's career at the home of Ayers. All sane politicians launch their careers in the homes of self confessed terrorist bombers.For the left,it probably adds cachet to the persona of a rather ordinary young man,but most would think it somewhat deranged.

[Winston O'Boogie]

Bouffant - get a new hair style. Maybe a pony tail you nitwitted nattering nabob of nincompoopery.

Look up radicals and by far and away you will find the "progressives" and "liberals" as taking the lead.

And it may be that Sanders has the keys to your hollow cranial shell that should hold a brain, not just a cerebral cortex.

[sbw]

Mr. Perstein is in the dark

An obviously racist reference that calls into question ... oh, nevermind.

[sbw]

Bouf might as well be Cleo.

[PeterUK]

"Bouf might as well be Cleo."

Doubt it,Cleo is a cut and paste,three lines of doggerel merchant.

Last post for tonight.

[bgates]

When the DHS report on right-wing extremism came out you were falling all over yourselves running away from the loonies.

The DHS report trumpeted the malignancy of every veteran, gun owner, churchgoer, and Boy Scout in the country based on "evidence" that amounted to little more than the ramblings on one lefty website. We ran towards the loonies, they were the ones running DHS at the time.

[the bishop]

It's kind of amusing because most of the people who should have been on DHS's radar interesting wasn't. Holocaust museum
shooter, former excon for attempted kidnapping, abortion sniper, former excon for bomb making, recruiter shooter, ex con in a Yemeni jail. Now if there were fmr Iraq
and Afghan vets in a given cell structure, you'd think DHS would apprise us of that, that doesn't seem to be the case

[Ignatz]

--Oh, by all means, lets have some evidence about President Obama's "relationship" to the Weather Underground.--

Well let's see, his political career was apparently launched from the living room of one of the founders of the Weather Underground.
I suspect you might consider that a "relationship" had George Bush's career been launched in the living room of a founder of the Aryan Nations or Christian Identity movements, ya dipshit.

[Tailgunner]

Two words: Una Bomber.

[Ignatz]

--Please. Joe Lieberman's no "leftist," he's a tool of the Israeli gov't. & the Connecticut-based insurance companies that finance him. And just what is it that Bernie Sanders has the keys to?--

Jeez, what a moron.
I know Lieberman is not a leftist, you idiot. That was the point; semi-sensible liberals like him are locked out of the asylum which is what Bernie Sanders, socialist from Vermont, has the keys to.

[glenda]

"nitwitted nattering nabob of nincompoopery".../:)very nice, Winston--but most on the left can't read.

[Soylent Red]

Almost every major liberal political figure has ties to someone from SDS, or a group run by someone from SDS.

Whatever else Glenn Beck is good for, he's pretty well exposed this fact.

[Neo]

"The Weathermen" ... you must be kidding.

Obama would never be targeted by "The Weathermen" ... former "Weatherman" Bill Ayers was reported to have "baby sat" the Obama kids (reported on this blog no less).

[Neo]

Obviously, Obama would have to be targeted by a group, any group, on the right because frankly there just aren't any groups to the Left of Obama.

[torabora]

A Blast From Their Past

Bill: " Honey, Did you leave this package on the kitchen table?...."

Bernadine: (yelling from shower) "Is it wrapped with my sparkly birthday wrap Dear?"

Bill: "No, it's wrapped with a recycled paper grocery bag...and it's making a 'ticking' noise".

Bernadine: " No Honey, I don't know what you're talking about".

Bill: ...insert sound of footsteps running and crashing through back screen door here.

[Pofarmer]

FWIW, Health and Human Services is running ads on the radio promoting, are you ready for this, Abstinence.

I can only guess what the MSM would be coming up with if these were being run under a Palin administration.

[Jason F]

Left wing nuts account for a very small minority.

Nutty GOPers account for half the party and have their own cable network.

More Republicans think Obama wasn't born in the US than do believe in evolution. Many of these are in Congress.

Do the math.

[The sadder Budweiser girl for me, for me.]

The measures of reality will always be the boundaries of the plasticity of human culture. But haven't we run this experiment past the pale over and over again? And isn't it always massively lethal? Maybe that's the point of it.

[the bishop]

Yes Jason, the left is a smaller cohort, that's why MSNBC and CNN are almost always
playing catchup to Fox, which we find gives
a modicum of balance. There's certainly more
proof of the latter, than the former. Yet the media is overwhelmingly left in their disposition. Name a conservative on any of the three prime time newcasts, you really can't. Even at Fox the majority of the on
air staff, gauging by campaign contributions
is liberal

[The sadder Budfarsi girl for me, for me.]

The right has nothing as extreme as the warmista fanatics, unless it be the radical Muslims.

[bgates]

More Republicans think Obama wasn't born in the US than do believe in evolution.

I'm not the most scientifically literate commenter around here, but I could give you a few hours on how independent lines of evidence, from observations on anatomy by the ancients up through Darwin to radiocarbon dating of fossils to variations in gene and protein sequences across a staggering array of organisms to variations in the genetic code itself, all are coherent with the theory of evolution through natural selection of random mutation.

And you know what? I can understand when people who work in the field use shorthand like "believe in evolution" instead of "think that the most powerful analytical framework to understand a myriad of observations across several disciplines is evolution". But the number of people who have done the study to come to an informed opinion on the validity of evolutionary theory isn't that big, and your comment does nothing to convince me that you're among them, and the people who think "belief" in evolution separates them from the heathen because some authority figure told them so are operating at the same intellectual and spiritual level as the Old Testament tribes who would massacre each other based on whether they sacrificed goats to a big rock called Baal or lambs to a big rock called Moloch.

The proper attitude - the scientific attitude - towards any scientific claim is skepticism. Did you overcome skepticism through study, Jason, or do you champion evolution as one of the markers that distinguishes your tribe from its rival?

[Gee, k; jest, your done.]

Yeah, and the mystery of creation is probably insoluble; I can smell the smoking bang and see the dead body splayed across the firmament, but whodunnit, and why? Why be dogmatic when the call of skepticism is so beguiling? And then again, the man who everlastingly believes nothing is everlastingly nothing.
=================================

[Gee, k; jest, you're done.]

OK, into the corner, conehead.

[Cecil Turner]

I see I'm late to the party, but . . .

Let's see, then. Two news items from 1969 & 1970, when our current President was eight & nine yrs. old & living in Indonesia.

No possible reading of Ayers's bombing activities (including those in '71, and '72 by his own own admission) can be construed to've last happened when Obama was 8 (or 9).

Ayers was a fugitive until 1980. His Weathermen buddies were active and murdering people until at least 1981 (their arrest and conviction prompting Ayers to raise their kid, eventually) . . . while Barry was 20, at Columbia (not in Indonesia), and Ayers was just down the road at Bank Street College. Obama claimed to be active with the South Africa disinvestment movement (an issue near and dear to the Black Panther and SDS alliance), which makes one wonder where they met.

More Republicans think Obama wasn't born in the US than do believe in evolution.

Or would, if only a DailyKos poll were accurate. Meanwhile, far more Democrats believe 9/11 was an inside job (and that's from Rasmussen, which is just a tad more reputable than DKos in the polling business.

[daveinboca]

...I remember one noted blogger on the right complaining about the lunatic emails from Perlstein that filled his inbox.

I only got one Perlstein e-mail after reviewing his book on my blog. The guy is crawling on all fours over broken glass to become a major commentariat presence. He actually knows much more than his moronic WaPo article indicates, but is insincere [to employ a watered-down term] and as ambitious as whatever it was that made Sammy run.

This dude, as the bishop would say, is an excrescence on the zit-brain of the useful-idiot horde.

[PeterUK]

Jason F is certainly evidence in the case against intelligent design,yet could such a creature evolve,let alone survive, without external intervention?

So you judge, Jason F,a case for or against evolution?

[Extraneus]

Speaking of Rasmussen . . .

[Extraneus]

54% Say Passing No Healthcare Reform Better Than Passing Congressional Plan

Voters who earn less than $20,000 a year are evenly divided but a majority of all other voters would prefer no action. Middle income voters, those who earn from $40,000 to $75,000 a year, are most strongly in favor of taking no action.

[the bishop]

Thanks Dave, but the evidence wouls show a degree of de-evolution in Perlstein's thinking between his first and second book.
With the likes of Jason, one would ponder the duck billed platypus, what's that about.

[RichatUF]

Cecil-

Obama claimed to be active with the South Africa disinvestment movement (an issue near and dear to the Black Panther and SDS alliance), which makes one wonder where they met.

Yep.

[Jim Ryan]

Ras: Sixty percent (60%) of Democrats say passing the legislation in Congress would be the best course of action.

Good, solid, limited-government Americans, these people. What percentage would agree to socializing all industries?

[lonetown]

Isn't Perlstein a member of "JournoList".

The place where the holders of truth hone their message.

Back to the old drawing board hack!

[Rob Crawford]

Lefties have the most incredible blind spot: they can't see any violence coming from their left.

[peter]

'xtraneus! Minus 9! Is that a new record? "....down, down, down, and the flames kept getting hotter."

[the bishop]

So Sibelius is saying that they are willing to back off on the public options, for cooperatives that were the Hillary plan, what does this even mean?

[Ranger]

Well, Barry got an OpEd spot in the Sunday NYT, and once again said absolutely nothing substative.

The one thing that really struck me was this bit:

Third, by making Medicare more efficient, we’ll be able to ensure that more tax dollars go directly to caring for seniors instead of enriching insurance companies. This will not only help provide today’s seniors with the benefits they’ve been promised; it will also ensure the long-term health of Medicare for tomorrow’s seniors. And our reforms will also reduce the amount our seniors pay for their prescription drugs.

Okay, but do we have to push through the huge monstrocity of a bill to do that? Can't we just, you know, improve the efficiency of Medicare for its own sake?

[clarice]

Has Perlstein(sp?) yet admitted to authoring that ?
If we are sure he's the author a letter we ought to make something of this...the ignorance of the chattering class.

[the bishop]

Well he answered back on Bainbridge's thread, so I think he owns it. Now did he write it after too many wine coolers, that's another question entirely

[Ranger]

Well, Perlstein might want to start looking for some Left Wing crazies pretty soon. Fox is reporting that the public plan is dead, dead, dead. If true, look for some nasty Blue on Blue fireworks this week. Howard Dean already said the public plan was a minimum.

Link at Hot Air Headlines.

[PeterUK]

A good break down of the Obama health care shake down.

[escape clause]

The country saw two of the looniest of crazies on Meet The Press this morning.

Dick Armey and Tom Coburn had just enough exposure to allow everyone to see the wild-eyed countenance of the man who is suing the US Govt to remove him from Medicare.

He thinks Medicare is tyranny. He thinks Cigna should run Medicare. Then he waould gladly participate without protest.

If it wasn't tragic, it would be humorous.

'Nuff said

[Cecil Turner]

wild-eyed countenance

IMNSHO nobody who likes DKos or Pelosi should ever use the term "wild eyed."

[Jerry Rice]

'IMNSHO'

The truest thing you ever said

[Ignatz]

--'Nuff said--

Considerably more than 'nuff.
Medicare is tyranny.
None of the enumerated powers given to congress come close to allowing it to create a nationwide health plan for any age group and the constitution clearly reserves any unenumerated rights to the people and the states respectively.
So the national government coerces 3.9% of our income from us every year and forces us into their unconstitutional system at retirement and wishes to force us in at birth, apparently. I'd call that a form of tyranny.

[escape clause]

Another looney graces us with it's crazy eyes.

[MayBee]

Ha! Cecil!

[Charlie (Colorado)]

He thinks Medicare is tyranny. He thinks Cigna should run Medicare.

Well, that's clearly silly.

Aetna, maybe. UHC is pretty good too, plus I architected some of their systems.

[Jim Ryan]

Medicare is not tyranny. I'm unable to care for myself because of an oppressive class structure. I must be forced to pay into Medicare. In fact, it's not being "forced". It's what my will, subsumed under the General Will, really is. I just have no empirical access to that will because of my false consciousness, a sorry state of affairs which is perpetuated by the pressure to limit government. Limited government is tyranny. Total subsumption into the state is liberty.

[Thomas Jackson]

When was the last time this idiot watched Oberman or Matthews?

The fever swamps of the Left are inhabitied by loons who scream that their behavior is normal. No wonder they march under the banner of such sane groups as PETA, gays, the black panthers, La Raza and the like. And what Leftist demonstration or rally is without the communist party?

[Gmax]

wasnt there a study just a few months back that showed a very statistically significant distinction in the level of Democrat voters being treated for clinical depression versus Republican voters. Not a few points either, way way higher.

The Democrats I know in Texas are to the man, the wierdest zappers on the block.

[PeterUK]

Ignore the troll, Perls before Stein.