The American Spectator : Anger Management

Text Size

Anger Management

By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. on 3.4.10 @ 6:08AM

Whatever happened to the mainstream media's high regard for "anger" in politics?

WASHINGTON -- Whatever happened to the mainstream media's high regard for "anger" in politics? From roughly the midterm elections of 2006 through the presidential election of 2008, the "Angry Left" seemed to grow in stature with the media. Liberal pundits spoke of it with a hush of awe. By the election of the Prophet Obama, the Angry Left had acquired a hallowed public status similar to that of the "muckraker" or the "consumerist," though no consumerist whom I have ever known has been agreeable company. Would you want to sit down to tea with, say, Ralph Nader? Certainly Ralph has never been known for his hearty laugh or elegant manners.

Yes I said "tea." The word has become something of a red flag among the bien pensants. Tea brings to mind Tea Parties, which for the bien pensants means angry political activists, not angry political activists of the noble variety but angry political activists of the alarming variety. That is to say, activists variously inveighed against as members of the "extreme right," the "far right," the Reagan Administration. The Tea Partiers are supposedly crazed and provincial, or as a recent chronicler of the Tea Party Movement (TPM), John Avlon, puts it, "wingnuts."

Well, gratefully we are now getting some solid information about the Tea Partiers; and, though they are angry, they are apparently not homicidal, as one member of the Angry Left proved to be recently. I am thinking of Professor Amy Bishop who blew her top at a faculty meeting at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and, it is alleged, shot six of her colleagues, killing three. Years earlier she shot her brother to death in an outburst that she survived free of criminal charges, possibly because of her family's political influence in her Braintree, Massachusetts hometown.

Between that shooting and her recent run-in with the law at Huntsville, Professor Bishop came under suspicion of mailing a pipe bomb to a Harvard University medical doctor and was convicted of assaulting a woman in an International House of Pancakes in Peabody, Massachusetts. Reports the Boston Herald,"a family source" described Professor Bishop as "a far-left political extremist who was 'obsessed' with President Obama to the point of being off-putting." For obvious reasons the identity of this "family source" has not be revealed. The source could be accused of having Tea Party sympathies.

The information we now are getting on the Tea Partiers is reassuring, at least to me. It comes from Eric O'Keefe, the head of a Chicago-based organization devoted to free markets and limited government, the Sam Adams Alliance. O'Keefe has surveyed 49 Tea Party leaders in 38 states and found that what anger these Tea Partiers harbor is mostly benign. "They want to make a difference," as good-government types are wont to say. Seventy percent told O'Keefe they hope to "have a positive impact on the country." According to O'Keefe, they are neither "political junkies nor crusty right-wing extremists." Nearly half have never been involved in politics before. What angers them is the reckless federal spending of the Democrats in 2009.

It is this combination of anger and concern over profligate federal spending that seems to have the media's bien pensants cooling their ardor for anger in politics. They contemplate the Tea Party protests, and their minds fill with visions of homicidal maniacs protesting the IRS and flying private planes into government buildings. In fact, when Andrew Joseph Stack III, a homicidal maniac angered by the IRS, flew his plane into the IRS offices in Austin, Texas on February 18, New York Times columnist Frank Rich could not get the Tea Partiers off his mind. He said it would be "glib and inaccurate" to link the murderer to the Tea Party Movement. Yet that is precisely what Rich did in his February 28 column, despite having read Stack's Website manifesto, which expresses sentiments nothing like the mild sentiments discovered by O'Keefe.

In his manifesto Stack howls against "the vulgar, corrupt Catholic church," "the monsters of organized religion," "presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies," the "rich" and the "wealthy." Actually, when I read these sentiments I thought of Gore Vidal and was reassured knowing that Gore is, for a certitude, too old to qualify for a pilot's license. How Rich could read these sentiments and think of the Tea Partiers is difficult to fathom, though I am not very well versed in the workings of a deranged mind and Rich has been mildly deranged for years.

Anytime he takes up the matter of politics in his column Rich becomes unhinged, usually drawing precisely the opposite conclusion from the evidence available. Certainly that is what Rich has done from Stack's manifesto. With its thunderclaps against organized religion, the Catholic Church, our 43rd president, and the rich, Stack's manifesto is hardly the work of a Tea Partier. It is the work of an indignado of the Angry Left. I can understand Rich's embarrassment, if embarrassment it be.

About the Author

R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is the founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is the author of the forthcoming The Death of Liberalism, published by Thomas Nelson Inc. His previous books include the New York Times bestseller Boy Clinton: the Political Biography; The Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton; The Liberal Crack-Up; The Conservative Crack-Up; Public Nuisances; The Future that Doesn't Work: Social Democracy's Failure in Britain; Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House; The Clinton Crack-Up; and After the Hangover: The Conservatives' Road to Recovery.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (40) | Leave a comment

Tom| 3.4.10 @ 7:52AM

I have read Stack's screed, calling it a manifesto gives it far more legitimacy than is deserving, and I find characterizing it as a leftist is an inaccurate as characterizing it as rightist. It is simply the product of an extremely deranged mind. Yes, it rails against W, the Catholic Church, and the rich but it also rails against big government, the IRS, and taxation without representation. Trying to place this lunatic in the leftist camp does no service to the cause of limited constitutional government. The man might have been bright but his thought process was disjointed and scattershot. Simply put he hated everything; government, religion, big business, all were equally loathsome to him.

Alan Brooks| 3.4.10 @ 8:14AM

The midterms will concentrate their anger.

Alan Brooks| 3.4.10 @ 8:22AM

PS
As the midterms are only 9 months from now,
you need not excessively worry that the left is insufficiently angry; they might very well be "corrected" a year from now, and will be as visceral & dyspeptic as you could want. Be patient-- patience is a virtue.

victor| 3.4.10 @ 7:40PM

Yes Alan, but if you're a doctor, patience are a virtue.

Mattled| 3.4.10 @ 8:45AM

Mr. Tyrrell,

We need a Media plan. Look at how successful the "Miss Me Yet" billboard was. Can you offer some suggestions? We need someone to spearhead this and you would be a good candidate.

Talk above the media. Go alternative media. Yes billboards would be alternative. That Minnesota BB has gotten millions of views.

Interesting you talk about anger. In Feb 2009 Byron York did a piece on why the Left was still angry. A Harvard Psychiatrist analyzed and said that they feel their recent victories will be short-lived. That is why they were still angry. Anger is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Left

Spot on.

It worked in 2006 and 2008. Now; who do they direct it at? Sarah Palin? (LOL)

No---they have no one else to get angry at but their leaders for epic fails.

Copyleft| 3.4.10 @ 8:52AM

Sounds like the Bitter Old Crank is jealous of Frank Rich, doesn't it? He sure hates Rich more than fingernails on a blackboard, which is a sure sign Rich is making some effective points.

Eric Cartman| 3.4.10 @ 9:38AM

The Putz squeaks.

victor| 3.4.10 @ 7:41PM

Don't you mean "the Putz stops here"?

Dick| 3.8.10 @ 11:04PM

Victor, please stop. Your jealousy is showing. You will get nothing free and like it. Stop whining.

DNC Talking Points Drew| 3.4.10 @ 10:43AM

Copybereft---since you're such a huge Rich fan (Make sure you read the "money" quote at the end---if you have that much attention span ...and can, you know, read):

Frank Rich of the New York Times retired as a drama critic in order to take up his new role as the paper's full-time drama queen. As an op-ed columnist for the Times, his assignment, apparently, is to write in such a hysterical fashion that Paul Krugman seems rational by comparison.

Currently, the most-recommended article on the Times web site is Rich's column, "The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged." The "axis," as described by Rich, includes 1) a murderer, 2) kooks, 3) Tea Partiers, and 4) Republican politicians and Presidential candidates. The point of Rich's column is to suggest, in his usual subtle fashion, that these groups are more or less interchangeable.

Rich starts with "the murder-suicide of Andrew Joseph Stack III, the tax protester who flew a plane into an office building housing Internal Revenue Service employees in Austin, Tex., on Feb. 18. It was a flare with the dark afterlife of an omen." The last sentence is classic Rich. I'll hazard a guess that Stack's murder-suicide was not an omen of anything, and will not ignite a rash of intentional airplane crashes.

Rich admits that "Stack was a lone madman, and it would be both glib and inaccurate to call him a card-carrying Tea Partier or a 'Tea Party terrorist.'" No kidding: Stack had zero connection to the Tea Party movement. None. So why would it occur to anyone to refer to him as a "Tea Party terrorist"? This is not guilt by association, this is guilt despite a complete lack of association. Rich suggests that the answer lies in Stack's online political screed:

But he did leave behind a manifesto whose frothing anti-government, anti-tax rage overlaps with some of those marching under the Tea Party banner.

No, it doesn't. Stack's essay is left-wing, not right-wing; it ends with a denunciation of capitalism and a quote from the Communist Manifesto. The Tea Party is a highly diverse movement, but you will find very few Communists in it.

Rich proceeds to try to tie conservatives and Republican politicians to this suicidal left-winger:

That rant inspired like-minded Americans to create instant Facebook shrines to his martyrdom. Soon enough, some cowed politicians, including the newly minted Tea Party hero Scott Brown, were publicly empathizing with Stack's credo -- rather than risk crossing the most unforgiving brigade in their base.

I can't find any "shrines to [Stack's] martyrdom" on Facebook, although there are a number of anti-Stack groups. The only one that could be considered pro-Stack is called "His Name is Joseph Stack." It has a whopping 343 members. Since the Facebook page highlights Stack's quote from the Communist Manifesto, I assume most of the group's members are Communist sympathizers and likely are members of Rich's Democratic Party. The Facebook group was started by a kid who graduated from high school last June and works in a deli. I don't think we're seeing a noteworthy political movement here. [UPDATE: A reader notes that there was a Facebook page that honored Stack, but Facebook deleted it. However, the prediction in the linked CBS article that "others seem sure to follow" has not materialized.]

Of course, Rich's real target isn't the deli guy. As always, it's the Republican Party, of which Joseph Stack was not a member and which had nothing to do with his murder-suicide. Thus the reference to Scott Brown's supposed "empathy" with Stack's credo. I was surprised to learn that Brown empathizes with the Communist Manifesto--even in Massachusetts, Republicans are rarely that liberal--so I looked up the comments Rich was referring to. Brown was interviewed on Neil Cavuto's television show on the day when Stack flew his airplane into the IRS building and was asked about the incident. You can watch the exchange here. Brown's comments were in no way controversial, and it is absurd to say that he "publicly empathiz[ed] with Stack's credo." To my knowledge, Brown has never in his life cited the Communist Manifesto with approval.

Next, Rich takes on Congressman Steve King. Here as elsewhere, Rich picks up on a meme that comes from the far-left blogosphere; in fact, Rich's columns, like Krugman's, mostly parrot the left 'sphere. It's easier if you don't have to think for yourself:

Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, even rationalized Stack's crime. "It's sad the incident in Texas happened," he said, "but by the same token, it's an agency that is unnecessary. And when the day comes when that is over and we abolish the I.R.S., it's going to be a happy day for America." No one in King's caucus condemned these remarks.

You can watch the King interview with someone from the far-left Think Progress web site here. What King wants to talk about is replacing the income tax with a national sales tax. Nowhere, not surprisingly, does he "rationalize" flying an airplane into an IRS building (or any other building). It's hard to imagine what anyone in King's Republican caucus could have found to condemn in the Think Progress interview.

Now Rich returns to the Tea Partiers (logical connections in his columns tend to be rather loose):

Two days before Stack's suicide mission, The Times published David Barstow's chilling, months-long investigation of the Tea Party movement. Anyone who was cognizant during the McVeigh firestorm would recognize the old warning signs re-emerging from the mists of history. The Patriot movement. "The New World Order," with its shadowy conspiracies hatched by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. Sandpoint, Idaho. White supremacists. Militias.

Barstow's article may have been "chilling," but it did not mention a single act of violence. Not one. So far, the only violent acts that have occurred in connection with either town hall meetings or Tea Party events have been perpetrated by union thugs representing the Democratic Party. There wasn't anything about white supremacism in Barstow's breathless, left-wing article, either, but Rich could hardly leave out that chestnut.

Now, for the first time, Rich actually makes sense:

Equally significant is Barstow's finding that most Tea Party groups have no affiliation with the G.O.P. despite the party's ham-handed efforts to co-opt them. The more we learn about the Tea Partiers, the more we can see why. They loathe John McCain and the free-spending, TARP-tainted presidency of George W. Bush. ...

The distinction between the Tea Party movement and the official G.O.P. is real, and we ignore it at our peril.

That's an unusual accumulation of true statements for a Frank Rich column. It's hard to understand, however, how these admissions fit with the murderer=Tea Partier=Republican theme that is the main point of the column, and to which Rich shortly returns. Rich continues by identifying three Republicans who have an affinity with the Tea Party movement and who are not part of the despised "old Republican guard":

The leaders embraced by the new grass roots right are a different slate entirely: Glenn Beck, Ron Paul and Sarah Palin. Simple math dictates that none of this trio can be elected president.

No kidding! At least two of the three aren't running--Beck is not a politician and has never sought elective office--and I don't think Sarah Palin is running, either. So, what's the point? Hard to say. Rich tries to explain:

But these leaders do have a consistent ideology, and that ideology plays to the lock-and-load nutcases out there, not just to the peaceable (if riled up) populist conservatives also attracted to Tea Partyism.

This is the kind of slur you can get away with if you're only accountable to editors at the New York Times who share your paranoid liberal ideology. I dislike Ron Paul and am not a fan of Glenn Beck, but how do their ideas "play to the lock-and-load nutcases out there"? If either of these gentlemen has done something to encourage violence, as Rich unambiguously implies, you might think that he would tell us what it is. They haven't, of course, so he doesn't. That leaves Sarah Palin, whom I do like and whose utterances I have followed rather closely for a while now. Has she done something to incite violence or "play to lock-and-load nutcases"? Of course not. Like most of what Frank Rich writes, this is sheer fantasy. If he worked for a competent newspaper, its editors would not let him get away with this kind of partisan slander.

Now Rich turns to CPAC. He notes that the John Birch Society was one of many sponsors; here I agree with him. Whoever runs CPAC should have turned down their contribution, just like the Democratic Party and its affiliates (MoveOn, etc.) should turn down contributions from George Soros. From there on, Rich's paranoia goes steadily over the top:

[J]ust one day after Stack crashed his plane into the Austin I.R.S. office -- the heretofore milquetoast Minnesota governor, Tim Pawlenty, told the audience to emulate Tiger Woods's wife and "take a 9-iron and smash the window out of big government in this country."

Such violent imagery and invective, once largely confined to blogs and talk radio, is now spreading among Republicans in public office or aspiring to it.

I criticized this part of Pawlenty's speech, but give me a break. Is Rich seriously trying to convince us that Pawlenty's ill-chosen joke constituted "violent imagery and invective"? Does he mean to suggest that Pawlenty intended to endorse Joe Stack's fatal airplane ride, or some other act of violence, or that his audience somehow took his joke that way? Frank Rich never argues--he only associates, almost always falsely or unfairly. He continues:

Last year Michele Bachmann, the redoubtable Tea Party hero and Minnesota congresswoman, set the pace by announcing that she wanted "people in Minnesota armed and dangerous" to oppose Obama administration climate change initiatives.

Here, Rich is quoting from an interview that I did with Michele on the radio last year. The point of the interview was to promote two public meetings that Michele was holding in her Congressional district on the subject of global warming. In these meetings, experts on the topic gave talks and answered questions. Michele said that she wanted her constituents to be armed with information, and therefore dangerous to the hoaxers in Washington who are trying to extend control over our economy with cap and trade, etc. Again, Rich is too lazy to do his own research, and instead channels morons in the liberal blogosphere who tried to portray Congresswoman Bachmann's support for rational debate on the issue of climate change as advocacy of political violence. Nothing could better illustrate the low standards of the New York Times. It is hard to imagine that the National Enquirer, say, would print anything this blatantly misleading.

Rich's character assassination continues:

In Texas, the Tea Party favorite for governor, Debra Medina, is positioning herself to the right of the incumbent, Rick Perry -- no mean feat given that Perry has suggested that Texas could secede from the union. A state sovereignty zealot, Medina reminded those at a rally that "the tree of freedom is occasionally watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots."

Yes, well, that's a quote from Jefferson. It's not a sentiment that I agree with, but it comes, after all, from the founder of Rich's beloved Democratic Party. More:

In the heyday of 1960s left-wing radicalism, no liberal Democratic politicians in Washington could be found endorsing groups preaching violent revolution. The right has a different history.

Let's just stop there. What Republican politician has ever "endors[ed] groups preaching violent revolution"? I am not aware of any; we'll get to that in a moment. But many liberal Democratic politicians in the 1960s and 1970s--like, for example, George McGovern, the Democrats' 1972 Presidential nominee--proclaimed their sympathy with the views and objectives of violent groups, if not the tactics used by those groups, i.e., their opposition to the war in Vietnam and their desire to take the government of the United States in a more socialist direction. In fact, many of those very Democrats--John Kerry, Bill Clinton and others come immediately to mind--are now the leaders of their party. Rich now tries to support his slander of "the right":

In the months before McVeigh's mass murder, Helen Chenoweth and Steve Stockman, then representing Idaho and Texas in Congress, publicly empathized with the conspiracy theories of the far right that fueled his anti-government obsessions.

Rich links to a rather funny and typically paranoid Times piece on Congresswoman Chenoweth of Idaho, who served three terms in Congress and then retired consistent with her term limits pledge. But the Times article to which he links, while lengthy, makes no mention of Chenowith supporting any violent acts or "endorsing groups preaching violent revolution," which was the standard that Rich applied to his own Democratic Party. Likewise, Rich's link to a Times article on Steve Stockman, of whom I have no recollection, does not in any way support his claim that Stockman somehow supported violent political action.

Rich winds up his pastiche with a swipe at Sarah Palin, who, for obvious reasons, is the bete noir of homosexual activists like Frank Rich and Andrew Sullivan:

In his Times article on the Tea Party right, Barstow profiled Pam Stout, a once apolitical Idaho retiree who cast her lot with a Tea Party group allied with Beck's 9/12 Project, the Birch Society and the Oath Keepers, a rising militia group of veterans and former law enforcement officers who champion disregarding laws they oppose. She frets that "another civil war" may be in the offing. "I don't see us being the ones to start it," she told Barstow, "but I would give up my life for my country."

Whether consciously or coincidentally, Stout was echoing Palin's memorable final declaration during her appearance at the National Tea Party Convention earlier this month: "I will live, I will die for the people of America, whatever I can do to help." It's enough to make you wonder who is palling around with terrorists now.

Would any newspaper other than the New York Times publish anything this dumb? There is no apparent connection between Ms. Stout's declaration and Governor Palin's speech; it isn't even clear which came first. In any event, would Rich put anyone who expressed a willingness to give up his or her life for his country in the same suspect category? Was Nathan Hale the first Tea Partier? Have none of Rich's fellow Democrats expressed such a sentiment? Are we to assume that, from now on, anyone who says he or she would be willing to die for our country is "obsessed and deranged"? If not, what, exactly, is the point?

Rich concludes with the suggestion that Sarah Palin is "palling around with terrorists." What on earth is he talking about? The only apparent reference was to Ms. Stout, a random woman in Idaho who is not a terrorist or anything like it. Is that what Rich had in mind? If so, Ms. Stout should sue him. Did Rich mean something else that would be completely opaque to any reader? If so, he is an incompetent columnist.

You really shouldn't read the New York Times. It has lower editorial standards than any other newspaper in America, and if you read it enough, it could make you stupid. Like Frank Rich.

ND LIKE COPYBEREFT.

bob alou| 3.4.10 @ 12:42PM

If you are signing up Rich "haters" you can include me in. The fact that you believe the shallow screeds of Rich as anything other than deranged drivel is indicative of your shallow regard for facts. Name Rich's effective point?

Copyleft| 3.4.10 @ 12:52PM

Oh, I never read Rich's stuff; it doesn't interest me.

I just enjoy this weekly rants from the Bitter Old Crank, who's so OUTRAGED that people dare to disagree with his politics! He's truly an excellent representative of the Confederate Party: an angry old white guy who's ticked off that anyone would dare to disagree with him. I can see him now in his rocking chair on the front porch, clutching his shotgun and muttering "Durn darkies and guvmint and punks... GET OFF MY LAWN!"

The Old Crank's nonsense is vastly entertaining.

Margie| 3.4.10 @ 3:36PM

I think there ought to be instead of the Nobel Peace prize, the Grand Obfuscation Award.
CopyLeftist may be even better than LiberalReader. Unless of course, they are the same person!

victor| 3.4.10 @ 8:51PM

If Copy Reader were to get an award, it should be the Mullet Surprise:

http://epicurienne.files.wordp.....et-wig.jpg

or for something completey different:

http://www.mlahanas.de/Greece/.....Fish1.html

Margie| 3.4.10 @ 9:01PM

LOL but nobody gives a flyin' fish.

bob alou| 3.4.10 @ 4:39PM

Oh how clever you are! We are all so outraged.

Dick| 3.8.10 @ 11:11PM

Wow. Could you be any more of a race hating, race baiting traitor? Do you dress up as Sharpton at night to scare little girls into giving you candy?

I'd bet you would wear a sheet and carry a torch just to prove how right you are.

bob s| 3.4.10 @ 1:08PM

Copyturd- Frank Rich couldn't make a point in a room full of pencil sharpeners.

mzk| 3.4.10 @ 3:23PM

You sound like a parody of a left-winger, completely ignoring the actual points in favor of snobbishness. I'm on to you - you're a right-wing trying to make leftists look bad.

gypsie| 3.4.10 @ 5:29PM

Its surprising that you can type with your face so far up Frank's ass. Keep on lapping up the drivel from the fossil media, douche bag

Ken (Old Texican)| 3.4.10 @ 9:06AM

Thanks Mr. Tyrrell
Good column. I have been speaking to tea-party organizers all over the country as a spokesman for
T.E.A.M. (TOGETHER EVERYONE ACHIEVES MORE) AMERICA www.myteamusa.org

My take is pretty much the same as yours...with a caveat: I seriously see a potential for adamant non-compliance should any of these "big Four" actually be passed.
Obamacare
"Fairness Doctrine" regulations
Energy regulations like Cap-And Trade
Card-Check

Most of the "anger" I have picked up on is the reaction to the absolute tin ear of our congress critters and our President.

For the rest, "anger" is in our rear-view mirror. What I am hearing is remarkable determination to utilize the primaries and the November elections to have our representative governments back... representing us.

Should we fail at the ballot boxes...all bets are off.

Tim| 3.4.10 @ 10:08AM

We,Tea Party Rebels don't let RINO Scribes,such as John Avlon to " Define " Us . This Dweeb worked on Bill Clinton's 1996 Campaign and for Social Liberal Rudy Giulliani .
The Tea Party Rebellion escalates.

Al Adab| 3.4.10 @ 10:19AM

Whatever happened to "dissent is the highest form of patriotism."?

Apparently that only applies when the benighted plebs are in charge. Now with our "proper" leaders in office all of us need to be quiet and obey.

This is starting to resemble a pressure cooker or boiler. If the steam doesn't escape, things could go bad fast. So far the ballot bax hasn't failed us. Let us all hope it doesn't. The alternative is not pretty.

Ned| 3.4.10 @ 11:42AM

Frank Rich is/was a drama queen?

Oh! Sorry... "drama critic"... actually, come to think of it, the former sounds closer to the truth.

gypsie| 3.4.10 @ 5:31PM

he's a queen alright. ask copyleft: they exchanged cock rings just last week

rainmaker1145| 3.4.10 @ 11:45AM

This is the same pattern that has been repeating itself for generations. When the anger and outrage is on the left it is a sweeping mandate for change. When it is on the right there is always the surprise and the messenger is the reason because the liberal message cannot be wrong. So they spend their time trying to kill the messenger and then they compare their own messenger and crucify this person because they can never admit to the reality that their message is one that is not sustainable in the real world, it is only sustainable in the make-believe worlds of Hollywood, Washington, Wall Street and the halls of the U.N. They have to have new "awards" to sustain the idea that what they are pushing is just as relevant and desirable as freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness when the reality is that liberalism is really a dressed-up form of tyranny being supported by the insiders who, as have been the case in each and every tyrannical realm, think they will be entitled to game the system on the backs of everyone else. This means the truth can never really be told, it can only be "presented" by self-appointed messiahs in the media who have the task of selling propaganda and making excuses (as they do today) when the program (inevitably) fails to deliver the goods. This means there must be villains upon whom the blame can be affixed for the failures. Have you ever noticed there are no "boogeymen" in the Libertarian movement? There is only freedom and the pursuit of true free-market economics. The tyrants always need someone to blame for unequal outcomes because they believe we should accept the premise that unequal efforts should still qualify them for an equal share of the outcome when this has never been the case and that's why we have brands applied to us.

At the end, they demand we allow them to exist at our exclusive cost and risk so that they can play God with our money and lives. This is the problem that has now plagued the new Republican Party almost as badly as it has infected the Democratic Party. We need to guard ourselves and seek a final solution to rid our society of their influence forever.

gypsie| 3.4.10 @ 5:34PM

the "make believe worlds" need to go up in flames, and every one of these fuckers needs to be strung up. keep squealing copyleft: half of us are bringing the tar, and the other half are bringing the feathers.

Ken (Old Texican)| 3.4.10 @ 5:58PM

Rainmaker,
your darned paragraphs are too long. It ruins my concentration when I have to go pee before finishing a paragraph.

Please do better.

Bilwick| 3.4.10 @ 12:02PM

It's really very simple. The MSM is an organ that loose confederation of statists called "The Hive" (to use the very apt name coined by, I believe, Joseph Sobran). The Hive's interest is in increasing the power of the State, (especially when their gage controls the State); and so every issue, personality, etc. the MSM deals with is filtered through that mind-set. So anger is good when it advances the agenda of the Hive, and bad when it impedes the agenda of the Hive.

Anger is "hate" and therefore bad when it stems from anti-statist sentiments. The Orwellian subtext is: statism = love. Love "Il Dufe, " as he loves you, and submit to him quietly, peasants!

John II| 3.4.10 @ 5:51PM

Slight emendation. Sobran didn't coin the term "Hive"; he borrowed it from Monsignor Ronald Knox's "Enthusiasm," a study of various religious enthusiasts of the 17th and 18th centuries. Originally intended as a pamphlet warning against the goofy illuminism of self-appointed reformers, the project morphed into a 30-year scholarly study culminating in a large book published by Oxford in 1950 and subsequently brought back into print by University of Notre Dame Press in 1994 as a classic of church history.

In his introductory chapter, Knox refers to a recurring pattern in church history in which people of enthusiast temperament "draw apart from their co-religionists, a hive ready to swarm," and eventually add a fresh name to the long list of Christianities.

Sobran, taken by Knox's hive metaphor, put it to particularly good use in the context of left-wing politics--precise use, considering that politics is the religion of the left.

Margie| 3.4.10 @ 6:06PM

Anger is not in itself, hate.

"Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger." Eph. 4:26.
~Here we see that anger itself is not wrong, but be careful how you deal with it.
Not only that, but we are allowed to hate:
"The LORD loves those who hate evil." Ps. 97:10.

Bilwick| 3.4.10 @ 12:04PM

Correction to the above: I meant to type "gang" not "gage."

Northern Rebel| 3.4.10 @ 1:02PM

The anger has always been on the left, despite their efforts to pin it on constitutional conservatives.

The true "angry white male" is the college professor who teaches hatred of American ideals, only to have our nation survive his futile meanderings.

There is anger eminating from the Al Sharpton's, and Jesse Jackson's of the world, even if it's manufactured to enable them to keep their jobs as the national poverty pimps.

We've recently witnessed the rage of Farrakhan, as he accuses Christians of wanting to assassinate someone who is self destructing before our eyes.

Old saying:
When your opponent is committing suicide, get the hell out of the way!

Constitutional conservatives aren't angry: we are determined to protect the America bequeethed to us by God, through it's founding fathers.

Watch the health care forum hosted by Barak Oprama. Look closely at the facial expressions, and see who is angry. Our Dear Leader can hardly contain himself, as obscure congressmen like Paul Ryan eviscerate his grand schemes with cold hard logic.

I think I read two or three columns by Frank Rich, before I deemed him ignorant, and dismissed him, for the same reasons I don't read the NY Times, or Washington Post, or watch network news.

( I admit tuning in to Keith Olberman for a couple of minutes, for humor purposes. Satire at it's best!)

Constitutional conservatives love America. If that's anger, I wish I could bottle it, and spread it amongst those who need it the most.

Ken (Old Texican)| 3.4.10 @ 2:31PM

Amen, Rebel.

Bill| 3.4.10 @ 6:01PM

If I were a degenerate liberal these days, I would also be angry, and a bit nervous. There are 80 millions gun owners in this republic, and most aren't nitwit liberals.

ogsendmarged| 3.4.10 @ 11:49PM

I think i need anger management, and i really dont know how to approach it.
Im only 18,, and i get really angry when stressed or annoyed.

http://ezinearticles.com/?The-.....id=3860999

Supra TK Society| 3.5.10 @ 3:27AM

I must say this is a great article i enjoyed reading it keep the good work.

Richard Baker| 3.5.10 @ 9:06AM

Was just wondering. If the term "teabaggers" is used by liberals to describe conservative Americans, would it be correct to use the term "gerbils" as a description of the liberal? Since they desire this discussion on the homosexual level, I thought I'd put my 2 cents worth in.