Frank Rich: The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged

[Me.]

“No one knows what history will make of the present — least of all journalists, who can at best write history’s sloppy first draft. But if I were to place an incautious bet on which political event will prove the most significant of February 2010, I wouldn’t choose the kabuki health care summit that generated all the ink and 24/7 cable chatter in Washington. I’d put my money instead on 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.

What made that kamikaze mission eventful was less the deranged act itself than the curious reaction of politicians on the right who gave it a pass — or, worse, flirted with condoning it. 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.” 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. 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.

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. Then again, what King euphemized as “the incident” took out just 1 of the 200 workers in the Austin building: Vernon Hunter, a 68-year-old Vietnam veteran nearing his I.R.S. retirement. Had Stack the devastating weaponry and timing to match the death toll of 168 inflicted by Timothy McVeigh on a federal building in Oklahoma in 1995, maybe a few of the congressman’s peers would have cried foul.

It is not glib or inaccurate to invoke Oklahoma City in this context, because the acrid stench of 1995 is back in the air. 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.” Cont…

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28rich.html

[liberalhistorian]

1. It's really funny to hear politicians condemning the IRS.

Why? Because the IRS does NOT NOT NOT make tax laws or tax policies, period. CONGRESS makes the tax laws and tax policies and charges the IRS with the task of enforcing them. That is all the IRS does, enforce the tax laws and policies that CONGRESS passes and enacts. But the IRS makes a good scapegoat for them, since too many people don't actually know that.

And politicians bitching about taxes is really rich. Where do they think the money for their fatcat salaries and benefits and perks, and all of their precious earmarks and pork for their own districts, comes from? The Great Washington Cherry Money Tree? Sheesh. And do people who bitch about taxes but who then have their hands out for all kinds of goodies for themselves and their states (I'm talking to you, fellow citizens of my state of SD, and also WY, MT, etc.) think the same damned thing?

[Faygo Kid]

2. Frank Rich is an American hero, and a favorite of mine. I'm glad he's out there.

[Me.]

5. This Is An Especially Good Piece

[gratuitous]

3. Stack might prove bad for the Republicans

Except for one little thing: Nobody will ask any Republican candidate from March 1 until Election Day anything about Stack. Republican candidates will get a free pass, invoking Stack via dog whistle to please the Nitwit Brigade, but never being asked a direct question about him.

[heli]

4. Very good article

Thanks for posting it.

[Hissyspit]

6. kick nt

[Faygo Kid]

7. K&highlyR - a Must Read.

We are in some scary times now. Limbaugh and Hannity are trying to hold the far right as tools of a privileged Republican Party that cares nothing for the average person, and are now looking to destroy Beck, who is a threat to that smug power. Beck is a madman, but he has touched a chord, including race. The coming weeks will be interesting. The GOP has lost control, but do not underestimate them - they stop at nothing.

[Me.]

8. K