Must We Make It So Easy For Obama?
If I didn't know better, I'd begin to suspect that Glenn Beck was basing his show on daily talking points from Rahm Emanuel.
The great scoop-collector Eli Lake reports today in the Washington Times that the Obama administration intends to follow the Clinton administration in focusing its law enforcement energies on right-wing militia groups. Lake writes that the Department of Homeland Security has issued a report
1) It's disturbing that an administration that is busily downgrading and euphemizing the threat from Islamic extremist terrorism (sorry: "man-made disasters" to use the now preferred term) would redirect its energies from a global threat to national security to a handful of creeps, weirdos, and malcontents skulking in the mountains.
2) On the evidence of the past decade, violence by maladjusted immigrants represents a much greater threat to innocent life than nativist violence against immigrants, as incidents like the Los Angeles Airport gun attack.br /><the Virginia Tech massacre, the Santa Clara mass family killing, the Binghamton NY rampage. and many others remind us.
3) After eight years of listening to Democrats complain about the Bush administration’s alleged exploitation of actual terrorism for political purposes, it is grimly ironic to see the Obama administration preparing to exploit hypothetical terrorism. In this, it is taking a leaf from the bad example of the Clinton administration, which cynically attempted to link congressional Republicans to the Oklahoma City bombing in its 1996 re-election strategy.
As I said: These are the things I’d wish to say. But the Obama administration has one great – really invaluable – asset as it prepares to hype the threat from gun nuts and survivalists: Fox News’ new star. For months now, Beck has spoken excitedly – almost yearningly – about a “bubba factor”: the possibility that white Americans “pushed to the wall” by “political correctness” will snap and start shooting their neighbors. He and his guests have fantasized about a collapse of society in 2014, in which Americans will succumb to “Mexico City-style” urban violence. He has warned of an imminent imposition of fascism on the United States and mused about FEMA concentration camps for opponents of the Obama administration. He and his guests have urged viewers to “resist” the impending overthrow of constitutional government. They hasten to insist that the resistance they envision should not be armed. But if fascists really are planning to seize power in the United States, debauch the currency, and impose tyranny, it would be cowardly not to arm against them.
None of this is seriously of course. Beck is a comedian at bottom, and he does not want to incite anyone to do anything except stay tuned through the following commercial announcements. But if the Obama press team had consciously designed an Exhibit A for their coming campaign of defamation against conservative America, they could not have asked for anything better than what Beck and the Fox network have provided them.
In fact, one can already see the shape of the tacit deal between Obama and the Fox team. The conservative network’s ratings have jumped handsomely since Obama’s election, while liberal MSNBC’s have slumped. From a political point of view, Fox’s behavior may seem manifestly self-defeating. But Fox is a business, and from that point of view its behavior is perfectly rational.
What is irrational is the failure of conservatives and Republicans to perceive the divergence between Fox’s interests and their own. Republican leaders should have put a hundred miles between themselves and Glenn Beck the first day he began dwelling lovingly on the possibility of right-wing armed violence in the United States. It’s a little awkward to do so now: that would look like falling in step with the Obama administration’s contrivances. But party leaders should quietly urge anyone with an (R.) after his or her name to keep as far away as possible from this unwitting tool of Obama administration spin.
The great scoop-collector Eli Lake reports today in the Washington Times that the Obama administration intends to follow the Clinton administration in focusing its law enforcement energies on right-wing militia groups. Lake writes that the Department of Homeland Security has issued a report
There are a lot of things I'd wish to be able to say about a report like this. For instancewarning law enforcement officials about a rise in "rightwing extremist activity," saying the economic recession, the election of America's first black president and the return of a few disgruntled war veterans could swell the ranks of white-power militias. A footnote attached to the report by the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines 'rightwing extremism in the United States' as including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority. "It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration," the warning says.
1) It's disturbing that an administration that is busily downgrading and euphemizing the threat from Islamic extremist terrorism (sorry: "man-made disasters" to use the now preferred term) would redirect its energies from a global threat to national security to a handful of creeps, weirdos, and malcontents skulking in the mountains.
2) On the evidence of the past decade, violence by maladjusted immigrants represents a much greater threat to innocent life than nativist violence against immigrants, as incidents like the Los Angeles Airport gun attack.br /><the Virginia Tech massacre, the Santa Clara mass family killing, the Binghamton NY rampage. and many others remind us.
3) After eight years of listening to Democrats complain about the Bush administration’s alleged exploitation of actual terrorism for political purposes, it is grimly ironic to see the Obama administration preparing to exploit hypothetical terrorism. In this, it is taking a leaf from the bad example of the Clinton administration, which cynically attempted to link congressional Republicans to the Oklahoma City bombing in its 1996 re-election strategy.
As I said: These are the things I’d wish to say. But the Obama administration has one great – really invaluable – asset as it prepares to hype the threat from gun nuts and survivalists: Fox News’ new star. For months now, Beck has spoken excitedly – almost yearningly – about a “bubba factor”: the possibility that white Americans “pushed to the wall” by “political correctness” will snap and start shooting their neighbors. He and his guests have fantasized about a collapse of society in 2014, in which Americans will succumb to “Mexico City-style” urban violence. He has warned of an imminent imposition of fascism on the United States and mused about FEMA concentration camps for opponents of the Obama administration. He and his guests have urged viewers to “resist” the impending overthrow of constitutional government. They hasten to insist that the resistance they envision should not be armed. But if fascists really are planning to seize power in the United States, debauch the currency, and impose tyranny, it would be cowardly not to arm against them.
None of this is seriously of course. Beck is a comedian at bottom, and he does not want to incite anyone to do anything except stay tuned through the following commercial announcements. But if the Obama press team had consciously designed an Exhibit A for their coming campaign of defamation against conservative America, they could not have asked for anything better than what Beck and the Fox network have provided them.
In fact, one can already see the shape of the tacit deal between Obama and the Fox team. The conservative network’s ratings have jumped handsomely since Obama’s election, while liberal MSNBC’s have slumped. From a political point of view, Fox’s behavior may seem manifestly self-defeating. But Fox is a business, and from that point of view its behavior is perfectly rational.
What is irrational is the failure of conservatives and Republicans to perceive the divergence between Fox’s interests and their own. Republican leaders should have put a hundred miles between themselves and Glenn Beck the first day he began dwelling lovingly on the possibility of right-wing armed violence in the United States. It’s a little awkward to do so now: that would look like falling in step with the Obama administration’s contrivances. But party leaders should quietly urge anyone with an (R.) after his or her name to keep as far away as possible from this unwitting tool of Obama administration spin.