Paranoid style in Republican politics

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/apr/16/republicans-right-wing-extremism-obama

This week the US department of homeland security (DHS) released a routine intelligence assessment to federal, state and local law enforcement officials. The internal report, entitled "Right wing Extremism: the current economic and political climate is fuelling a resurgence in radicalisation and recruitment," pointed to a number of factors such as the ailing economy, rising unemployment, a black president and immigration reform movements which could potentially spur on extremist individuals and groups.

While the report admits that it has no intelligence about specific plans for acts of violence at present, it's good to see the DHS doing its job: assessing and monitoring potential threats to the security of the nation. That's a positive thing, right?

Well, not for some Republicans, who managed to get hold of the report this week, sparking a ferocious conservative backlash. In fact, more alarming than the report itself has been the conservative response to it. Right-leaning pundits and politicians have been out in force on TV, on the radio and online, vehemently criticizing the report which, for some reason, they see as nothing more than Obama-manufactured propaganda aimed at demonising conservatives and opening the door for anti-conservative policies. This is despite the fact that the report was ordered and prepared during the Bush administration, well before Obama took office.

Michelle Malkin has called the report "a sweeping indictment of conservatives". Rush Limbaugh has decried the report as a portrayal of "standard, ordinary, everyday conservatives" while Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House, tweeted that "the person who drafted the outrageous homeland security memo smearing veterans and conservatives should be fired." Perhaps I'm mistaken but I thought this was a report into right-wing extremism. When did "right wing extremist" defined by the report as "groups, movements and adherents that are primarily hate-orientated (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly anti-government…" become synonymous with everyday Republican?

They can't discern the difference between a harmless idiot and a dangerous one because they're, well... idiots.

If the shoe fits, wear it. If it pinches, it's a sign that you need new shoes.

I hear a lot of the right wing pundits saying that this report denigrates the veterans coming back from the Middle East. I haven't read the report but I can guess that, as usual, the Republican propaganda machine is intentionally misreading the report and then becoming 'enraged' based on that misreading. Without even reading the report I would suspect that what it says is something along the lines of 'right wing extremist groups are targeting veterans returning from the middle east'. That does not mean it says that these veterans 'are terrorists' it just says the hate groups look at them as possible assets if they could convince them to join them. If these groups have dreams of violence of course they would target veterans who better to have on your side when you dream of a violent revolution than somebody who has fought in a war. So in the end the conservatives saw the words terrorist and veteran in the same report and came to the hasty and erroneous conclusion that the report was calling veterans terrorist. Okay, for you that have looked into this in more depth am I right?

What is really setting them off is that the light of day is being shined on their "outreach" efforts.

n/t