Idiot Conspiracies

The blogosphere has been examining the left's incoherent rage, as expressed on the one hand by "serious" writers like Keillor, Ivins, Moyers - and, on the other hand, the tattered criers in the "Democrat Street"; on the web and elsewhere:

" … alert: possible bush/republican coup: sen. wellstone assassinated … u.s. senator paul wellstone killed in mysterious plane crash right before pivotal, ‘too-close-to-call’ election, just like mel carnahan in 2000 ….

"remember how just before congress was going to vote on signing away our constitutional rights to the usa patriot act, how mail laced with anthrax was sent to members of congress ….

"remember how the nazis set the german parliament building (reichstag) on fire ….

"this is it, folks. We need to mobilize *IMMEDIATELY* … against a potenital [sic] republican fascist assault …. "

Ron Rosenbaum in the NY Observer writes this excellent article about the raft of lefty conspiracy theories that surrounded Wellstone's death:

Why aren’t those who railed against paranoid, right-wing, murder-list Clinton-hatred standing up to this "cesspool" of incoherent Left Bush hatred? A few, like David Corn in The Nation, have tried to combat idiot conspiracy theories. But who can take left dissent seriously if it doesn’t separate itself from Bush assassination and anthrax charges? Who can take left dissent seriously if it defends Mr. Vidal’s ludicrous charge that Bush engineered the mass murder of 9/11? If it defends Mr. Vidal’s crackpot conspiracy theory—as a couple of letter writers did in these pages—as dissent. Of course we must take Vidal’s ravings seriously, they said in effect; it’s Bush he’s talking about, and so proof is unnecessary. But let’s face it: In a sense, they’re right. For much of the Left, dissent has degenerated into nothing more than incoherent, impotent Bush hatred...

Yes, there still is some issue-based dissent, but it’s drowned out by the incoherent rage. So any idiot conspiracy theory Mr. Vidal feels like floating that accuses Bush of arranging the 9/11 mass murder is just fine with today’s Leftists, because it’s Bush, don’t you see: It’s His Satanic Majesty, the Longhorn Lucifer, the Prince of Harkness (Yale reference), George W. Beelzebub.

Sad, self-destructive, but true.

And Speaking of Sore Losers - Go to this site, and see how many times they refer to the Administration as "The Bush Reich".

Posted by Mitch at November 22, 2002 04:32 PM