With Tom Toles update (see below)Living with the Great Right-Wing Noise Machine means we always get a show. Alas, the show they most enjoy giving us is an especially schlocky low-budget horror flick.by KenIf the Republicans pooled their lying carcasses to be carved up and sent to a lab for careful analysis -- and I mean the best lab, with the finest detecting equipment -- there is no chance that you would find anywhere in the rubble so much as a single honest cell. These are creatures so debased that they are now committed to going to their graves without ever publicly telling the truth about anything at all.So now, naturally, they're bathing us in an orgy of fear. Of course fear is one of the things they always do bestThere isn't anything in the universe that these scumbags could protect anyone from. Nothing. Of course while some of them are all bluster and bullshit, many of them are capable of being as violent or brutal -- or of having other people who will inflict violence and brutality -- as freely as you could please, and would probably be thrilled to experience the joy they apparently don't get from activities like stimulating reading and sex in doing so. But with all of that, I say again, there is nothing they could protect anyone from. They, are of course, are the life forms we are in most urgent need of protecting from.But especially with an American public as brutally moronified at the Right has managed to make it over these last several decades, galactic-scaled fear sounds like a no-brainer, from people who have nothing else to offer anyway.Here is Jeremy W. Peters' lead item from this morning's newyorktimes.com "First Draft on Politics" e-mail. (Sorry, I don't have an online link. What is claimed in the e-mail to be a link to this isn't. Which is too bad because I'm omitting the scads of links in it, which I would normally tell you can find onsite. Well, if you want to read more, I bet you know how to find it. [UPDATE: Okay, here's a link.])
G.O.P. Finds a Campaign Theme: ‘Be Very Afraid’With four weeks to go, the election has taken a dark turn as conservatives use warnings about Islamic State militants, the Ebola virus and terrorist acts to send a message: The world is a scary place, and the Democrats can’t protect you.Take a new Republican ad aimed at Representative Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona that warns of terrorists streaming across the Mexican border. “Evil forces around the world want to harm Americans every day,” it says. “Their entry into our country? Through Arizona’s backyard.”Another one, against Senator Mark Udall in Colorado, plays a clip in which he says the Islamic State does not pose an imminent threat. “Really?” the announcer asks. “Can we take that chance?” An ad in another Arizona House race features the footage of the journalist James Foley right before his beheading.The commercials play on Americans’ well-documented fears in a world grown more chaotic. A recent Associated Press survey found that 53 percent of Americans believed the risk of another terrorist attack inside the country was extremely or very high. In a new Pew poll, 41 percent said they did not have “too much confidence” or “no confidence at all” that the federal government could prevent a major Ebola outbreak in the United States.National Republican leaders have heard those worries, too. Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana have criticized President Obama for leaving Americans vulnerable to an Ebola epidemic. The Daily Caller has christened him “President Ebola.”In an interview with First Draft, Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, said the constant stream of bad news at home and abroad allowed Republicans to raise questions about Democratic leadership.“It’s the accumulation of ineptitude that’s hovering over Obama and, in turn, his lieutenants that are running for U.S. Senate,” Mr. Priebus said. “I think it’s a powerful message because No. 1, it’s true. And No. 2, it’s simple.”
This is, of course, just what I was talking about last night. Reince Priebus doesn't know anything about Obama's supposed "ineptitude." All he knows are the constellation of lies he and his chums yammer. In fact, I wonder whether he knows anything at all about Obama apart from the color of his skin. And Reince Priebus certainly doesn't know anything about what is or isn't true. (Confidential to Reince P: If it's in your head, the chances are overwhelming that it isn't true.)But one thing you have to give him is that it is indeed simple. Even Reince P knows from simple.And it will work. As a result of which the Americans who fall for it won't be a whit safer, except insofar as the decibel level of the fear-mongering subsides after these creeps have gotten from it what they wanted.So sure, by all means be afraid. Of the right-wingers are in full fear-mongering yammer. They ought to scare you to death.UPDATE -- WaPo's TOM TOLES IS ON THE CASE[Click to enlarge]#
