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Right-Wing Crazy Is All-American

Birthers, tea parties—it's nothing new

By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff

Posted Aug 16, 2009 8:23 AM CDT

(Newser) – With the left back in power, we’re seeing right-wing "crazies"—the “birthers, tea-partiers, town hall hecklers”—getting louder. But that’s nothing new, writes Rick Perlstein in the Washington Post. In America, “the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests.” The trouble today is that the media lends credence to these voices, Perlstein notes.

Republicans in the 1950s accused FDR and Truman of “20 years of treason," while reports in the South in the 1960s suggested the Civil Rights Act “would ‘enslave’ whites.” “The similarities across decades are uncanny,” Perlstein writes. Liberal power creates “panic” among some; political “vultures” milk it, he notes. But in past decades, “a more confident media unequivocally labeled the civic outrage represented by such discourse as ‘extremist’—out of bounds.”

Randy Hook, 50, of Hopewell, Pa., yells at Sen. Arlen Specter during a town hall meeting on health care in a Penn State University ballroom in State College, Pa., last Wednesday.
Randy Hook, 50, of Hopewell, Pa., yells at Sen. Arlen Specter during a town hall meeting on health care in a Penn State University ballroom in State College, Pa., last Wednesday.   (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
William Kostnic wears a 9mm pistol as he stands outside a town hall meeting on health care held by President Barack Obama last Tuesday in Portsmouth, NH.
William Kostnic wears a 9mm pistol as he stands outside a town hall meeting on health care held by President Barack Obama last Tuesday in Portsmouth, NH.   (AP Photo/Joel Page)
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The various elements—the liberal earnestly confused when rational dialogue won't hold sway, the anti-liberal rage at a world self-evidently out of joint, and their mutual incomprehension—sound as fresh as yesterday's news. - Rick Perlstein

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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 35 comments
freethemall
Aug 18, 2009 6:38 AM CDT
You got that right, Thinker!
Toon
Aug 18, 2009 2:56 AM CDT
There was never a jiont move to the center. There has been a steady move to the right as the conservatives convince the Dems to move to the center and the Reps take up the slack and mover further to the right. Note that are so called liberal media no longer calls the right wing extremists on their bull. That should tell you something about the bias of the MSM.
Doctor-Zaius
Aug 17, 2009 12:48 PM CDT
Scooter, spin it all you like, the Bush presidency was a failure on all fronts because he was an average (or below average) guy for a job that required more. I don't care if you were the presidential shoe shine boy and talked to the last 20 presidents every day your closeness doesn't discount the fact that you can't see the forest for the trees.

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