It's time to check in with ole Chuckie again. Chuckie's been hearin' a lot of talk about Hillary Clinton runnin' for president.
And Chuckie don't like it.
Chuckie shares his thoughts on Hillary in Scenario 06/03/05. But to appreciate his column, you have to put yourself for a moment into ChuckieWorld and remember how things look there.
In ChuckieWorld, FOX News really is fair and balanced. In ChuckieWorld, George W. Bush speaks with the voice of God. The Republican-dominated federal judiciary is dominated by an anti-Christian Jewish conspiracy. Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage are level-headed political analysts.
And in ChuckieWorld, the biggest worry of soldiers in Iraq are speeches by Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer criticizing Bush's foreign policy. The Iraq War is going fine for the Americans. And the only problem is that the Liberal (we-don't-call-it-Jewish-in-public) Media reports only bad news and not the good. Why, the fact that Iraqis have grass and sheep is a major piece of good news that the Liberal Press! Liberal Press! Liberal Press! is suppressing. Although in ChuckieWorld, it's not entirely clear whether grass and sheep were first introduced to Iraq by the Americans.
So keeping in mind that this is ChuckieWorld, we see:
Maybe we should start now, those of us who don’t have access to Lexus Nexus, to save some of the newspaper clippings and taping some of the Bill Moyer [sic] TV show and the evening news.
You know the ones I’m talking about, the ones who blame all the the world’s troubles on President Bush and tell us that he has single handedly led us into a war that is totally unnecessary.
Chuckie should really go to the blog format, so he could link us to the ChuckieWorld sources that tell him how the we-don't-call-it-Jewish-in-public Liberal Media "blame all the world's troubles on President Bush."
What's fascinating about this one is what Chuckie imagines and fears will happen if we should get a new President Clinton in 2009:
But mark my words, if she does get elected watch the war become a noble cause. I can see it now, how President Clinton freed the Iraqi people from this century’s most dangerous and evil dictator and established a working democracy in a country which has known nothing but cruelty for over a quarter of a century. Do I smell Nobel Peace Prize here?
The Abu Ghraib type situations will disappear from the front pages of the New York Times and be replaced by sterling accounts of heroism and bravery, all in the cause of protecting America from terrorists. ...
And Social Security? Well what if Ms. Clinton came up with the unique idea to have some of Social Security taxes put into private accounts? I can see it now, "President Clinton proposes brilliant plan to save Social Security.” Oh happy day!!!
In other words, Chuckie imagines that the Liberal Press! Liberal Press! Liberal Press! will act, well, pretty much like FOX News acts toward Bush today.
But you really have to wonder how, even in ChuckieWorld, people could actually believe in this vast we-don't-call-it-Jewish press conspiracy. I mean, just this past week, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times have been arguing in apparent seriousness that there is nothing newsworthy about the "Downing Street Memo" and other recent similar disclosures about the timing of Bush's decision to go to war with Iraq were really not news at all. In fact, they argue, everyone knew at the time that Bush had decided to go to war and that his justification were bogus. Not that anyone would have been convinced of that by reading those leading newspapers at the time. (See A press coverup by Joe Conason Salon 06/17/05.)
And, so far, the national press corps is being its unfortunately usual feckless self in covering the latest radical-right smear campaign against Hillary Clinton. (See the Daily Howler 06/17/05.)
But Chuckie's projection of the authoritarian-Republican view of the world onto Hillary and the anti-Christian we're-not-sayin'-they're-Jewish conspiracy reminds me of the degree to which such projections can serve as self-justification. Theywant to do it tous, so we have to do it to them first.
In their book The Strange Tactics of Extremism (1964), Harry and Bonaro Overstreet discussed how the Radical Right of their day, and the John Birch Society in particular, tried to mirror-image the actual and imagined methods of the US Communist Party that they took to be their main enemy. They described this in six different aspects of Radical Right political activity. This is a long quotation, but it really speaks to the role of projection, which is a general human characteristic, but which seems to be stronger in fringe groups and in not-so-fringe authoritarian-minded people (my emphasis):
First, by derogating bipartisanship and what they call "me-too" attitudes, they are making it seem weak and wrong for the two major parties of "one nation indivisible" to recognize that they have large areas of agreement.
Second, they are trying, like the Communists, to "political-ize" every aspect of life. Whether their followers are reading a book, talking with a neighbor, going to church, or joining a PTA, they are supposed to be rendering service to the Rightist line. The paradox inherent in the position taken by these Radical Rightist leaders is that they want to reduce the impact of government upon our daily lives to an absolute minimum and to increase the impact of politics upon these same daily lives to an absolute maximum.
Third, they are trying to infect the groups they control with intolerance against all who disagree with them or oppose their aims: not an American-type competitiveness that combines a will to win with a will to live-and-let-live, but a Communist-type intolerance marked by a will to demolish and liquidate.
Fourth, they are trying to make political action, on every front, a constant focus of life. As Welch observed in announcing his plan for letter-writing campaigns, it is important for local members of groups to have "just one more activity, one more thing to do." Or as Verne Kaub stated at the top of his newsletter: "We Take No Vacations!"
Fifth, they put high value on secrecy—for much the same reason that the Communists do. The Bircher, for example, who infiltrates a service club or a PTA or a Young Republicans organization cannot very well announce that he and others like him are moving in, under orders, to take over the group.
And sixth—again, like the Communists—they gear their actions to a double standard and permit their followers to do likewise. They have the truth: why should they grant to carriers of falsehood an equal right to influence the minds of men?
No wonder Chuckie and his fellow travelers in ChuckieWorld fear Hillary Clinton and any Democrat to the sane side of Zell Miller (who Chuckie loves). They think the Democrats will treat them just like they're trying to treat anyone who dissents from the Republican Party's true path.
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