I guess the Neo-cons aren't aware of the Buchanan wing of the Republican Party, because
they clearly don't know that paranoid anti-government, Isolationist, 9/11-Truther rants mostly emerge from fellow-travellers on the Right. They are so completely oblivious to this verifiable fact, that they are willing to take anti-Bush rhetoric as definitive evidence, asking their readers to:
Save this link when Big Media tries to portray him as a Tea Partier or right-winger.
I guess things get confusing when you spend all of your time constructing reality and none actually dealing with it.
Update: This (the Penatagon shooting for the link-lazy out there) is the story of the day in the right-wing blogosphere. Malkin is pretending to take the high road:
But just as I passed on playing the blame game with the global warmicides earlier this week, I’m not playing MSNBC/NYTimes-style “gotcha” with this one, either.
Of course, that's just how she rolls. Pure class, all the time.
But, here's the interesting part. She actually summarizes the substance of the reality-based community's critique of all the Teabag rhetoric perfectly while trying to appear classy:
But the truth is, paranoid people simply feel threatened by the external power structure in general, so they lash out at any symbol of authority, regardless of its political affiliation.
So "respected" public figures playing lip-service to this paranoid ideology is a good idea? These guys are less likely to go postal when Perry un-apologetically implies that he supports secession or Beck emotionally asserts that we are on the precipice of full-blown tyrannical statism?
On a related note ... it's amazing how fast these people find their story and "agree" to stick to it.
Update 2: Yes, I am aware of the 9/11-Truthers in the Anarchist wing of the Left. But my point is not that such crazies don't exist, but that the left-wing establishment doesn't actively try to get them worked up for political benefit (or even really acknowledge their existence).
Update 3: Think Progress is doing a great job of connecting the dots outlining this guy's right-wing philosophy:
The blatant violations of the Constitution’s limitations on the economic role of the government accomplished through many subtle usurpations over many decades are perhaps even more pernicious than and are certainly a key motivation for the violent seizure of the United States government.
Update 4: The "lady" protests again. Make no mistake about it, the party registration of this person does not change the "Libertarian"/"Strict Constructionist" substance of his ideology. Nor does it change the willful insistence by some major players on the right to fan the flames of insurgency.
Update 5: Can we stop pretending this is a question now?
The California man who opened fire last night outside the Pentagon was a property rights extremist who railed against the government's ability to "confiscate the resources of their citizens to fund schemes that need only be justified by lies and deception," and wanted to "eliminate the role of the government in education."
In a recorded manifesto called "Directions To Freedom", the audio of which he posted online in 2006, John Patrick Bedell, of Hollister, California, praised private property as "the most successful basis for structuring society that humanity has ever known."
Bedell shot two police officers last night during the rampage, before being mortally wounded himself.
"Communist and socialist governments that abolished or disregarded private property," said Bedell in the recording, "created poverty, repression and murder on a truly enormous scale." But, he continued, "Even in the United States, however, there has been a continual erosion of protection of private property justified by the belief that government is an efficient instrument for the positive direction of society."
Bedell added: "Governments lack the profit and loss incentives that individuals and private organizations must use..."
And he warned: "When governments are able to confiscate the resources of their citizens to fund schemes that need only be justified by lies and deception enormous disasters can result."
(Emphasis mine.) Does that sound left-wing to you?
Update 6: More from Crooks and Liars pretty much in alignment with my own analysis (emphasis in original):
Remember that DHS bulletin warning of a potential outbreak of right-wing domestic terrorism that so freaked out conservatives because they claimed it "smeared" conservatives? Let's recall what it actually said:
DHS/I&A assesses that lone wolves and small terrorist cells embracing violent rightwing extremist ideology are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States.
[..] Similarly, recent state and municipal law enforcement reporting has warned of the dangers of rightwing extremists embracing the tactics of “leaderless resistance” and of lone wolves carrying out acts of violence.
[...]
As we saw in Austin, far-right extremist rhetoric plays no small role in inspiring these acts. And inevitably, it is ordinary Americans who pay the price. All I know is that if this had been a Muslim man who had walked into the Pentagon and opened fire, all the talk this morning would be about an "act of terrorism". Instead, it's just another "isolated incident." Funny how that works, isn't it?
