A Further Perspective
Frankly Kooky
Conservative success drives liberals crazy.
Accusing opponents of dangerous insanity has become so commonplace in the Age of Obama that such discourse is now taken for granted. Frank Rich devoted the entirety of his Sunday New York Times column to insinuating that the Tea Party movement is a paranoid aggregation motivated by "frothing anti-government, anti-tax rage," and thereby complicit in the Feb. 18 crime of Andrew Joseph Stack III, who piloted his Piper airplane into an Internal Revenue Service office in Texas.
This rhetorical conflation of political protests and Stack's kamikaze crash required Rich to overlook the quite specific grievances described by Stack in his profanity-strewn suicide note. Stack alluded to a "$10,000 helping of justice" -- apparently a penalty for failure to file a tax return several years ago -- and blamed his accountant and the IRS for a more recent audit involving $12,700 of his wife's unreported income.
Along with his strictly personal ax-grinding against the IRS-CPA axis, Stack also ranted about "the vulgar, corrupt Catholic church," "the monsters of organized religion," "presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies," the "rich" and "wealthy." None of that bears meaningful resemblance to the politics of Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Glenn Beck or any of the other name-brand figures swept up in Frank Rich's all-encompassing indictment of what he calls the "anti-government right."
Of course, there is no prominent conservative whom Rich hasn't similarly smeared in the 16 years since he forsook theater criticism for political commentary. Like many another latter-day liberal, Rich is fond of employing dead conservatives as sticks with which to beat the living. He endorses William F. Buckley Jr. for having repudiated the John Birch Society in the early 1960s. (Were we tempted to play along with Rich's guilt-by-association game, we might ask whether he also now retroactively approves Buckley's early-'60s opposition to the Rumford Fair Housing Act.)
This reckless invocation of Buckley's ghost -- imagine what that departed spirit might actually have to say to Frank Rich -- is strictly a means of castigating the Conservative Political Action Conference for having accepted the Birchers among a hundred or so co-sponsors of this year's gathering. CPAC's sponsors represented a broad spectrum of belief from GOProud (gay-friendly Republicans) to Focus on the Family (not nearly so gay-friendly). With the conservative "Big Tent" evidently bursting at the seams -- a record 10,000 attended this year's 37th annual conference -- perhaps the organizers figured there was room enough for the JBS without being accused of pandering to conspiracy theorists.
Political double standards being what they are, if CPAC rents exhibition-hall booth space to any controversial group they will face the charge that they thereby endorse that group's opinion. Meanwhile, we have been assured by the bien-pensants of the respectable press, Barack Obama spent 20 years in the pews of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church without absorbing any of the reverend's radicalism. And don't dare mention Obama's association with Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers -- how mean-spirited of you! -- let alone young Barack's Marxist mentor, Frank Marshall Davis.
Conservatives who attempt to turn the tables on the Left in this manner inevitably discover the liberal concept of innocence by association. There is no Democratic scoundrel who cannot exculpate himself by supporting the liberal legislative agenda. Ted Kennedy was a notorious philanderer whose most remarkable career achievement was escaping justice for the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, but he voted pro-choice and sponsored the Violence Against Women Act, so Teddy was celebrated as a feminist hero. What liberals celebrate as Democratic virtue, they condemn as Republican hypocrisy. Robert Byrd and Strom Thurmond were both once segregationist Democrats, but while Thurmond became a Republican, Byrd remained a Democrat and therefore receives praise from the liberal press that Thurmond never got.
The only way any Republican can be redeemed is either to follow the "centrist" path of Arlen Specter, or else die and become one of those Buckley-type names with which liberals conjure when condemning the living Right. Combining these two redemptive strategies is a specialty of certain second-generation ex-Republicans, among them Frank Schaeffer, whose late father was a conservative Christian eminence. Last week, Schaeffer uncorked a video rant touting his status as "a 57-year-old white guy who used to be a Republican" and interpreting Dick Cheney's CPAC cameo appearance as an expression of racism.
Applying his telepathic powers, Schaeffer declared:
[W]hat they really want to be saying is, "We don't want a black guy in the White House…. We'd rather see the economy go down in flames than work with a black man." And since they can't say that, they spout all this other B.S. But their own audience knows perfectly well what they're saying, which is what Dick Cheney said at CPAC: "We want to make this guy a one-term president." He didn't actually use the N-word, but you look between the lines and it's there: "We don't want this N in the White House."
Conservatives could play the "look between the lines" game and cite this video as evidence that Frank Schaeffer is nutty as a fruitcake, but no matter how many kooks are attracted to liberalism -- remember Peggy Joseph, who declared that Obama would pay her mortgage and put gas in her car? -- liberals never see these kooks as representative of their own ideology.
There is no cure for the liberal disorder of political psychosis, which erupts whenever it appears conservatives are gaining ground. If present trends continue, Republicans ought to make one concession on health-care reform -- free Xanax for Democrats on Nov. 3.
And don't let Frank Rich get his hands on a pilot's license.
About the Author
Robert Stacy McCain is co-author (with Lynn Vincent) of Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party (Nelson Current). He blogs at The Other McCain.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (93) | Leave a comment
Leave a Comment
Related Articles
More Articles by Robert Stacy McCain
More Articles From A Further Perspective
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/03/01/frankly-kooky
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
Current Issue
- The Pearls of Pauline
- Religion Is Not the Enemy
- The Man From La Fortaleza
- Digital Subscription (Save 78%)
- Buy a single issue (Save 50%)
- Send Spectator as a gift
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
Pingback| 3.1.10 @ 7:07AM
Remember: If You Didn’t Vote for Obama, You’re a Dangerous Nut : The Other McCain links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Mattled| 3.1.10 @ 8:19AM
Thanks for the heads up for all AmSpec readers as I noticed a trend last week.
The Obama presentency (misspell purposeful) has DUMBED DOWN America---especially Rich, Klein, Krugman and Chait---etc. etc.
He ran on Hopey Changey and Bob the Builder (Yes We Can).
Since, he has bumbled, fumbled and the only praise has come when he just rubber stamps Bush-era policy.
Reading their post-analysis of the Summit, was a fiction tale worthy of The Onion. Then reading Newsbusters last week, their resident Lib trollers were on the offensive on the Toyota recalls and sounded like the most ignorant, ill informed bunch I have ever read.
Welcome to OBAMA's America---where Dumb is the new Black.
Alan Brooks| 3.1.10 @ 10:09PM
Don't gloat so prematurely; Grover Norquist is a cooler head: "Will 2010 be Another 1994? (coming soon)
Five surprise developments in 2009 point to a great reversal this fall."
You are the chumps, not Obama.
Alan Brooks| 3.1.10 @ 10:14PM
... 1994 led to Clinton's re-election in 1996.
You say it is too early to say for sure?
Then it is too early for you to gloat. Obama CAN eventually triangulate; and if triangulates as well as Clinton, then he can be re-elected. Look, you have every right to play your families for chumps
-- but no one else.
We are loyal to America, NOT TO YOU!
Get it straight.
Reaganite Republican| 3.1.10 @ 8:28AM
Well done sir, featured and linked at Reaganite Republican-
http://reaganiterepublicanresi.....-youre.htm
Alan Brooks| 3.1.10 @ 10:16PM
We are loyal to conservatism, not to the GOP.
Pingback| 3.1.10 @ 9:27AM
Speaking of Dogs that didn’t bark… « DaTechguy's Blog links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Galen| 3.1.10 @ 10:13AM
Obama did not dumbdown Frank Rich. He was not worth reading when he was a drama critic. The question is why Pinch made him a Pundit?
Tenn Slim| 3.1.10 @ 10:24AM
Opine
Does not matter. The Article may froth and fume, but the USA Electorate now is awake, alive and well.
We Will Prevail, come November 2010
Semper FI
end
davelnaf| 3.1.10 @ 10:32AM
These days the Dems frequently resort to the Big Lie to avoid responding to sensible criticism. The current object of their over-the-top hate fest is criticism by Tea Partiers that the Federal government is too big and that Democrats want to mindlessly grow it even bigger so that it can “become more efficient.” Of course, the point is to obscure the Partiers’ argument by throwing out something that requires rebuke and for this the Democratic Party seems to have a super abundance of willing and deranged propaganda assets. But their rebukes come right out of Goebbels’s and the communists’ propaganda play book and most people see right through it.
Doctor Right| 3.1.10 @ 11:30AM
SO the gist of this article is that Liberal-left journalists willfully distort the truth about Conservatives, even when they don't understand it..?
And this is news..???
Let me spell it out for you: If I cared what an intellectually bankrupt moron like Frank Rich thought, I'd read his "column". WHY waste time and space even responding to his non-unique brand of idiocy..?
C'mon guys...I expect better from TASOnline. This stuff is elementary.
Yosemeti Sam| 3.1.10 @ 11:59AM
" ... Frank Rich devoted the entirety of his Sunday New York Times column to insinuating that the Tea Party movement is a paranoid aggregation ...."
Look who's talking!
A pseudo journalist who floats liberal flotsam and jetsam in every column he writes.
Margie| 3.1.10 @ 12:20PM
Or.. for yet another glimpse at insanity and Leftist drivel, read the latest by the bloviating gas bag, Al Gore, in that same Leftist Rag~
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02.....odayspaper
Franklin| 3.1.10 @ 12:58PM
Margie, the goracle's article should come with a warning label: “May cause vomiting or severe hysterical laughing”.
I tried to read it all, but failed miserably since I almost lost my lunch!
Margie| 3.1.10 @ 1:15PM
It's hard to bear, and I couldn't finish it, either. I went from disbelief to appalled at his arrogance, to angry that he actually has a following, to outraged at his despicable lying character. Just the usual reaction to the usual suspects! Ugh!
"Friends don't let friends vote Democrat!"
Warn your friends and neighbors! :^)
Deborah D| 3.2.10 @ 6:03AM
Margie -- we must be kind to the mentally ill! Goodness, this guy is off his meds.
Kenneth E. MacAlister Jr.| 3.1.10 @ 1:17PM
Frank Rich = Typical sychophantic barking moonbat leftist. Rich is a card carrying member of the padded cell brigade & is beyond help. Rich is the Michael Smerconish of leftist newspaper columnists. Lots to say, but no one left to listen. Go take your meds Frank Rich!
Deborah D| 3.2.10 @ 6:08AM
Wasn't Rich the guy that candidate George W. Bush was referring to when he said, "That's the major league a$$hole from the NY Times." And Cheney replied, "oh, yeah, big time." Oops, nope it was Adam Clymer. It does apply, however!
Margie| 3.2.10 @ 12:03PM
Ha! Thanks for the laugh, Deborah D.
"Thanks for the memories," GW & Mr. Cheney!
Pingback| 3.1.10 @ 1:59PM
Fausta’s Blog » Blog Archive » Reviewing Frank Rich links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
PolishKnight| 3.1.10 @ 2:02PM
I remember a discussion I had with a leftist when I brought up their new affiliation or at least tolerance of Islamic terrorism. He asked me rhetorically: "Was Timothy McVeigh a Muslim?"
Indeed, I took the opportunity to point out, McVeigh has been dead for a decade and his attack was directed at a government building while the targets of the leftist terrorists continue to be innocent civilians and inconvenience all of us in our daily lives. We took off our shoes to be "safe" and now we have to be subjected to groin pat downs. Next thing, one of them will hide something in their mouth and we'll all have to have cavity inspections.
All because the left refuses to profile. Oh, wait, unless it's "Timothy McVeigh" types. Then they're all for targeting white males because that isn't "racist" or "sexist."
Pete| 3.1.10 @ 4:23PM
I wondered why I got the wang-brush the other day in security. You see, I recently injured my leg and have to wear a large brace/boot that I cannot remove on doctor's orders. That made me an instant criminal and I got the full treatment, wang-pat included. At least I think it was the boot...maybe it is my white (I mean Italian-American" appearance.
Proud Dumb @ssocrat| 3.1.10 @ 2:13PM
"Welcome to OBAMA's America---where Dumb is the new Black."
Dumb is beautiful.
Dumb Supremacist.
maverick muse| 3.1.10 @ 3:01PM
" Stack's kamikaze crash "
Constitutional Conservatives eschew terrorism vs. propagandists who feed terrorism in the quest to attain guaranteed wages from authoritarian rule.
Anthony| 3.1.10 @ 3:15PM
Frank Rich is a nasty drama queen, former critic, cum leftist political hack propagandist. He, like Dowd, Krugman, and Herr Friedman, (who recently opined to hell with bipartisanship, up with the tyranny of the majority) are in a full leftist mental meltdown, as is groundhog Algore, who yesterday, emerged from hiding, saw his ample shadow and predicted in the NY Times, 6 more decades of drowning polar bears.
Unfortunately, these loons will implode long before we get to have our fun with them.
maverick muse| 3.1.10 @ 3:33PM
Terrorism via KOOKY Stacked IRS
Just note well that NO autopsies from that crash site have been or will be made public.
As things stand, all evidence against Stack has been produced by the IRS, made available through IRS employees, including the "rant".
Yet Stack's adult daughter in Norway stated that the "rant" does not reflect her father's views or mannerisms.
Meanwhile, everyone who knew Stack including his first wife say that he was an easy going person who did not talk party politics.
His clients are not making statements; they include members of our national intelligence community.
Stack's second wife and step-daughter refuse to give any statements themselves. "Their" only statement was read by a neighbor who happens to be an IRS agent and former stranger to Mrs. Stark until the day of the crash.
An eye witness to the plane flying into the IRS office stated that the pilot was laying back in the seat as if comatose when the plane flew into the bldg.
Governor Perry refuses to allow the Texas Rangers to investigate and make their own report. The Austin Fire Dept. has not been investigating the scene of the plane crash, and has not made known any findings of either fire (including Stack's home). Of course the Democrat Mayor of Austin is not getting involved, leaving the chief who practiced records fraud in Los Angeles to make public statements although the Austin Police Dept. has NOT been investigating the crime scene taped off by federal investigators.
There are simply too many strange elements in the media's Stack/IRS story. It is not strange that those who are comfortable jumping at the opportunity to accept a single source of information as the full account for such a queer event also feel comfortable making obscenely unfounded conclusions as if to legitimately negate all conservative protests against government corruption.
Frank Rich wasn't even the first, only one more media revisionist jumping on the bandwagon to ignore America's Constitutional Governance in favor of authoritarian newspeak.
There is nothing original about Frank Rich's work; he's a hack who never attended any Tea Party August 2009 Protest. The typical resource for MSM hacks is not personal investigation, not scholarly research, but regurgitation of previous accounts written by people who also failed to witness from within the Tea Party protests. There was no large MSM coverage from the center of activities at Tea Party events reflecting what was happening as it occurred.
And unlike the trashy Leftist Woodstock anti-government corrupters of nature in the name of being natural, the Washington DC Tea Party Protest left the grounds clean.
Leftist radicals who grew up idolizing the hippy fraud opportunist ideal (Ayers and the SDS) just never could see past their own nose with respect to supporters of our US Constitutional Governance. Constitutional Conservatives function legitimately in government, contrary to the hippy radical botox drug-head socialists who believe in revisionism at all costs, including the destruction of our nation, the bankruptcy of our government, and the destruction of our economy and Dollar.
Whatever it takes for socialists to rule the world, they will do, terrorism and all.
Whereas, Constitutional Conservatives are using the supreme status of our Constitution, rule of law, our civil rights and our unalienable human rights to legitimately rescind power from authoritarians who have abused their authority, ignoring limits on their powers, to oppress US citizen taxpayers into forfeited UNalienable rights as if ours are transferable/inalienable to be lost by citizens and assumed by government authorities.
Petronius| 3.1.10 @ 3:45PM
My question to Frank Schaeffer is how can anybody "work" with anybody who does not know the meaning of that word and has never done any? The cultural imperatives that explicitly define real Americans are honesty, industry, and virtue. These are not and never will be negotiable or debatable. The Franks and co. do not qualify.
Ben (Australia)| 3.1.10 @ 6:45PM
Frank Rich should stick to ballet reviews.
Pingback| 3.1.10 @ 7:49PM
If I Were A Rich Man… | The Sundries Shack links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Trapped in NYC| 3.1.10 @ 9:43PM
Did you see the old coot Buffett saying we need health care reform now?
Buffett is a welfare queen, he wants something from Obama, probably the old coot promotes health care so he gets Obama to leave his new train set alone.
Pingback| 3.1.10 @ 10:15PM
The American Spectator : Frankly Kooky links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
tanarg| 3.2.10 @ 12:34AM
Rich will always be an asp.
Pingback| 3.2.10 @ 6:56AM
Frankly Kooky | Republican Party of Door County links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 3.2.10 @ 9:21AM
Dennis Prager, Charles Johnson and Understanding the Left’s Smear Tactics : The Othe links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Richard Baker| 3.2.10 @ 9:26AM
Rich shows that one need not be knowledgeable about a subject to expound on it.
Pingback| 3.2.10 @ 12:27PM
White Supremacist Robert Stacy McCain Whines About Being Called Insane - Charles Joh links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 3.2.10 @ 5:57PM
Robert Stacy McCain: Those Shelbyville Kids are Always Eating Candy; They Love the S links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 3.3.10 @ 1:08AM
PPC Ninja Review With Bonus Worth $1800+ | Concert Frame | Advertising Marketing Wisd links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Ralph Novy| 3.3.10 @ 5:12PM
Robert:
What elevated Buckley -- a tad -- above the generally fearful, ignorant, selfish rabble who loudly proclaim the virtues of "conservatism" (keeping things the way they are) was not so much his diction as his willingness to eschew name-calling and get down to the "brass tacks" of national economic/political policy.
I fondly remember his honest debates with John Kenneth Galbraith.
Your article, here, however, is short on policy discussion and long on name-calling/labeling.
Learn.
Pingback| 3.5.10 @ 12:49PM
Send the Body to Keith Olbermann : The Other McCain links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 3.6.10 @ 11:06AM
Richmond Liberty Alliance Blog » Blog Archive » New Age Of Fiscal Conservatism Dawns links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 3.10.10 @ 6:20PM
Sanders: ‘One year later, the White House gets it’ | HealthCareDaily.info links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
mrrealtime| 3.31.10 @ 10:01AM
"Frank Rich"...actually its Frank Schaeffer, son of Francis Schaeffer. Obviously you wouldnt want to make the connection between the cheif architect of the neoconservative movement and his son, who saw the hypocrisy and hatred in the movement and left, and write him off as "Kooky". Frank speaks the truth, and the GOP, who loves living off the backs of their slaves, dont like to face the mirror because it reveals how ugly they truly are. The "Family" is the American Taliban.
Pingback| 4.1.10 @ 9:47AM
So Much for That ‘Rising Risk’ : The Other McCain links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
watches| 4.28.10 @ 11:27PM
hublot
elscooter| 11.23.10 @ 11:38PM
Thanks for sharing your article.
Electric scooters from china
童貞| 2.15.11 @ 3:23AM
My best regards in the future.
سوريا| 6.25.11 @ 1:27AM
g
http://www.soryh.com
出会い| 7.20.11 @ 4:46AM
bad
ブログ| 8.8.11 @ 1:54AM
kokodayo
ブログ| 8.8.11 @ 1:55AM
matigaida
ブログ| 8.8.11 @ 1:55AM
genzai
ブログ| 8.8.11 @ 1:55AM
kokokara
ブログ| 8.8.11 @ 1:56AM
kyoukeiyaku
ブログ| 8.8.11 @ 1:56AM
kanazawa
ブログ| 8.8.11 @ 1:56AM
kanazawa
ブログ| 8.8.11 @ 1:58AM
koudesu
ブログ| 8.8.11 @ 1:59AM
ponpon
ブログ| 8.8.11 @ 1:59AM
koredakaraiyanannda
ブログ| 8.8.11 @ 2:01AM
simohanki