When the Far Left Needs to Just Shut Up

Why can’t we just continue to let the McCain campaign, the RNC and assorted Right-Wingers make asses of themselves throwing around words like Marxist and Socialist, faking beatings by Obama supporters, race baiting at rallies and talking about things like ACORN?  They simply further marginalize themselves day by day – now hour by hour - on the way to Election Day.

Well, here come the Lefties.  I don’t mean the Keynsian economics lefties or the folks who believe health care is a right.  I’m talking about the straight-up emotionally unstable idiots who tilt to our side and feel the compulsion to say some crazy shit right before the election.  Just like when every time I hear blowhards like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity speak the crazy talk and hang it on the Republican Party, my Republican friends here the Erica Jongs of the world say something stupid and they doubt Democrats.  I read about Jong’s incendiary remarks to an Italian media outlet earlier today.  Here’s what Jong said:

“The record shows that voting machines in America are rigged.” 

“My friends Ken Follett and Susan Cheever are extremely worried. Naomi Wolf calls me every day. Yesterday, Jane Fonda sent me an email to tell me that she cried all night and can’t cure her ailing back for all the stress that has reduces her to a bundle of nerves.”

“My back is also suffering from spasms, so much so that I had to see an acupuncturist and get prescriptions for Valium.”

“After having stolen the last two elections, the Republican Mafia…”

“If Obama loses it will spark the second American Civil War. Blood will run in the streets, believe me. And it’s not a coincidence that President Bush recalled soldiers from Iraq for Dick Cheney to lead against American citizens in the streets.”

“Bush has transformed America into a police state, from torture to the imprisonment of reporters, to the Patriot Act.”

The Second American Civil War?  “Blood will run in the streets …?”  Good Lord, give me a break.  I talked last week about Ashley Todd’s antics being irresponsible and reprehensible.  I have to say the same thing for Jong, although I might agree with her on some issues such as the Patriot Act and the Bush Administration’s legalization of torture – the new family value.

Jong’s words are just as irresponsible as Todd’s carving a backwards “B” into her own gourd.  There is a tinge of racism in her words with “Civil War” and “blood will run in the streets.” 

This race is still tight.  Barack Obama has stayed on message for nearly two years and we’re still running too close to call in too many places.  The few undecideds or those wavering need to understand that most Obama supporters are in it for the change in economic and energy policies, the hope that this man who would be president will finally deliver on the Clinton promise to put people first over special interests. 

Crazy talk doesn’t help us get there.

Sparklepony: “Own it Bitches”

Thanks to Tim at Blogger Interrupted for bringing this into the Ohio blogosphere, but especially thanks to Princess Sparkle Pony.  You need to check out her photoblog — it’s smart and funny.  Princess Sparkle Pony said she couldn’t even write about Young Republican whack job Ashley Todd’s stunt.  I did here.  To sum it up, when you’re bereft of ideas and and your campaign is rooted in sleaze and hate, someone could end up getting hurt.  Real patriotic, assholes.

Crazy-Ass McCain Volunteer or Just Feeble Minded?

I had a little debate with a friend the other day that was essentially about whether or not Democrats or those farther to the left in American politics are as violence and hate-prone as our Republican and “conservative” friends on the right. After the last 24 hours, I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have framed that debate differently: which side fosters more twisted, sick behavior?

That brings me to this stupid person. Her name is Ashley Todd and she is a 20 year-old volunteer with Team McCain. In her bid to put Country First, she hatched up a scheme to mutilate herself by etching a “B” into her cheek and reporting she’d been mugged and beaten by Barack Obama supporters. I’m not sure if she reported them as being black or sexually assaulting her white Texas ass, but if she had an even more refined sense of history and hot-buttons she could have thrown that in for good measure.

You see the problem is she lied. She did all the physical harm to herself and then filed a false police report. After less than 24-hours as the latest right-wing wacko cause célèbre she admitted she lied.

The super patriots on the right never cease to amaze me with their twist on hardball politics. Their language has been so incendiary for so long that the young and impressionable or the just plain feeble minded have taken to actions like Ms. Todd’s. Here in Ohio we have a decent public servant in our Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner receiving yet another missive in the mail this week from the right, complete with powder and with a return address of Save The Babies, San Diego, CA.

Remember after 9/11 when Sikh Americans were assaulted – and in one case killed – because some pea-brained patriots took to the streets looking for “ragheads?” Ms. Todd’s actions could have caused similar incidents.

There’s nothing patriotic about lying to make a political candidate or their followers look bad.