NewsBusters, a project of Brent Bozell's wingnut-welfare Media Research Center, has a front-page post up today attacking my recommended diary Monday about the far-right in Dallas in November 1963, and purposely missing the point.
The diary argued that the nasty Bircher opposition to JFK, in Dallas on that day, is echoed today in the nasty tea party opposition to Obama.
Tim Graham, the MRC's Director of Media Analysis, didn't mention that much. The title of his post -- "Daily Kos: Tea Parties Much Like Texans Who Cheered JFK's Assassination in 1963" -- shows that he doesn't understand how this site works, and that he's pretty dishonest in his media criticism.
But you all probably knew that already.
A response, below.
First of all, I'm just an occasional diarist and commenter here. My diaries are not, as Graham insinuates, something that Daily Kos says as an institution -- they are just my opinions that happen to be posted here.
More importantly, Graham takes reports of some Texans celebrating JFK's death that were in a blockquoted column by Texas Observer Editor Bob Moser (and uncommented upon by me), and claims that I was comparing those sick people to the tea partiers of today.
The blogger with the handle "Devtob" claimed some Texans cheered the death of Kennedy in the "nut country," and presumes today's Texans would cheer Obama's death.
Of course, I "claimed" no such thing, and I did not say, imply or presume that "today's Texans would cheer Obama's death."
Interestingly, in the comments under the diary there were several first-person accounts of sickos who cheered JFK's murder:
neverontheright -- I was in 5th grade and I remember some of the students cheering when we got the news.
That was in Utah. Texas/Utah ... not much difference in far right political extremism.
BigDuck -- Only one kid in my (Austin, TX sixth-grade) class was joyful. He was the son of people we knew to be actual birchers.
bablhous -- I was living in Winchester, VA in 1963. On the 22nd, my father and I were shopping at a 5 & 10. When the announcement was made over the store's PA system that Kennedy had been shot, several people cheered.
We went and sat at the lunch counter (where the radio was on) and waited for updates. When the announcement was made that he was dead, the cheers went up again.
At that, my father, with tears running down his face, got up and left the store.
We sat in the car for about 15 minutes until he felt in control enough to drive us home.
The world never felt the same to me again.
So cheering did happen, not much certainly, but burned in the memories of those who witnessed it.
Graham also blockquotes the last of four examples of Bircher rhetorical violence (a call to hang Chief Justice Earl Warren at the 1961 National Indignation Convention in Dallas) and my summary of all of them.
Notice the Kosmonaut doesn't have the decency to actually produce evidence of the "same extreme language" about killing public officials.
(Note the "Kosmonaut" -- dogwhistling "communist.")
Here's the summary:
Today, the tea-partying political descendants of early-'60s Birchers are spinning similar conspiracy theories and using practically the same extreme language about a young, non-WASP Democratic President, and played an important role in electing scores of like-minded neo-Birchers to office earlier this month.
Aside from the hang-Warren quote, there was plenty that was indeed "practically the same extreme language" in the Bircher full-page newspaper ad, their "treason" flyer, and a racist-rabble-rousing speech by a leading Dallas Bircher.
Graham did not have the "decency" to accurately describe my diary, because if he had, he would have had nothing to rouse his rabble with.
Because the plain fact is that some tea partiers today are saying much the same thing as Dallas Birchers in November 1963.