Who You Callin' Un-American?

[babylonsister]

Who You Callin' Un-American?
by Stephen Pizzo | October 18, 2008


Something quite extraordinary, and frightening happened last night, and it was live and on television. I was stunned -- something I thought was not possible after 18 months of political food fighting.

Rep. Michele Bachmann calls for investigation of 'anti-American' members of Congress

In a stunning interview with Chris Matthews of MSNBC, Rep. Michele Bachmann called on the media to investigate anti-American sentiment in Congress, after slamming Barack Obama as "anti-American."

On MSNBC, she said, "What I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think the American people would love to see an expose like that."

Minnesota Democratic Party Chairman Brian Melendez cautioned Bachmann: "The last politician who used that term that carelessly was Joe McCarthy, and Michele Bachmann seems anxious to step into his shoes."

(Full video of her remarks at link)

Yes, that's right. Back to the future. Back then it was not Joe the Plumber, but Joe McCarthy, who in a February 1950 speech in Wheeling West Virginia claimed the US government was lousy with "anti-Americans," especially the US State Department, where he had already started a list;

"I have here in my hand a list of 205--a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department."

And so, 58 years later, the Republican party has come full circle. No longer the party of General Eisenhower or, for that matter, Barry Goldwater. Today's GOP has become a party run by the lowest common denominator-types, the kind of folks you'd expect to meet at tractor pull competitions or evangelical tent revivals. The Walter Middy "Minutemen" types patrolling the Mexican border with their trusty (pro-American) firearms hanging on their hips.

These kind of low-grade intellects who fear anything new or anyone different from themselves, have always been around. The only difference is that, over the past 20 years or so, the GOP decided that there were enough of these knuckle-draggers out there to swing elections their direction and that all they had to do to get them to ballot box was to stir them up enough: "the minorities are living off your tax dollars," "the United Nations is an anti-American front organization," "Europeans are trying to rope America into a world government," "atheist liberals are trying to drive God from public life," and now, "Democrats are anti-American."

And so the GOP stirred and stirred and, lo and behold, they were right. There were enough ignoramuses out there to swing elections to Republicans.

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