Article: Appeasing The Idiocracy

People are willing to believe anything.

After Chris Matthews destroyed radio host Kevin James (Not the guy from King Of Queens) for not knowing what "appeasement" he was talking about when he said Neville Chamberlin appeased Adolf Hitler, the MSNBC video hit the internet and spread like wild fire.

The right immediately got on the phony offensive. Newsbusters.com reported that Matthews, in the same segment, said the USS Cole was bombed under President Bush.

Nevermind Matthews asked James for a good two minutes, "What did Chamberlin do" to appease Hitler. "Neville Chamberlin was an appeaser," James screamed. But Matthews was obviously joking when he said the USS Cole was bombed under President Bush, a sarcastic remark directed at impersonating James, who knew no history. When James tried to defend himself, he was told by the liberal counterpoint Mark Green of Air America radio: "When you're in a hole, stop digging."

The right has become a caricature of itself, and this guy Kevin James, who will obviously never be heard from on live television again, is a shining example of what they're all about. On right wing radio, of which he is a part, all you have to do is equate two buzzwords. You take "France," you add "surrender." You take "Chamberlin," you add "appeasement." You take "Carter," you add "Worst president."

No reasons are needed because no questions are asked.

This week the right has been on the run from their own statements and has used phony outrage and the rewriting of history as a platform that only the LCD of society will buy, like the commenters on Newsbusters.com.

First, after Barack Obama referred to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a constant wound, a reasonable metaphor, Rep. Boehner said, "Israel is a critical American ally and a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, not a 'constant sore' as Barack Obama claims."

Boehner thinks we are all idiots.

And so do the editors at Little Green Footballs. Their headline on Monday read "Obama: Israel is a 'Constant Sore'". The LGF editor, Charles, even says in the comment thread that, "The context of the quote doesn't even matter."

It's not just that these people are all wrong, it's that they disdain their audience.

Bush, of course, lied again this week when he used the 60th anniversary of Israel's birth to criticize his domestic political opponents, a statement Joe Biden correctly called "Bullsh*t."

Meanwhile, John McCain decided this week he supports a timetable for Iraq. Not to be outdone by his colleague Joe Biden, McCain once said he can get Sunnis and Shi'ites to get along by sitting "Shiites and the Sunnis down and [tell them to], 'Stop the bullsh*t.'"

It's a question of our own morality. I am under no fantasitic impression that Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are going to save the world overnight in 2009. But these Republicans are the biggest bunch of bloodsuckers to wage war on a country since the 28 Days Later zombies took London.

It's not that they're wholly wrong, it's that they disrespect the public to the point of lies that would be funny if people didn't die because of them - and others didn't take them seriously. Why did McCain vote against the G.I. Bill? What is the point of Bush trying to scare Israelis over an American politician? Why did Bush tell Politico.com he gave up golf for the troops when historical evidence says the opposite is true?

They think we're brain dead. Still. And the real question we've got to ask ourselves, while McCain and Obama are actually tied for the nomination is, are we?