In a post today at
Unclaimed Territory,
Relegating Extremists to the Fringes, Glenn Greenwald discusses and provides several examples of the loud voice the extreme right wing is giving to a few Al Qaeda members and Iranian office who seem to be taking some glee in the recent political turn of events here in their continuing attempts to link Democrats with terrorist organizations or supposedly-threatening foreign regimes.
Glenn dismisses their pathetic fear-mongering and guilt-by-inference with his usual precision and posits that we may have a unique opportunity to relegate these radicals to their deserved ignominy and isolation. This diary presents a few more points related Glenn's strong post, concluding with why it is essential for Democrats to start investigations immediately upon assuming power.
The purveyors and promoters of extremism from Bush/Cheney down through the Bill Frists, the Tom Delays, the Fox Newses, the Heritage Foundations, the James Dobsons, the Rush Limbaughs, the Charles Krauthammers and the John Hinderakers have mangled foreign/domestic policy and political discourse with their radical ideologies to the point that it may take many years, if ever, to straighten it all out, and it is even more important now to expose and isolate these charlatans because, as Glenn notes, they become even more rabid as events turn against them or prove them to be the false prophets that they are.
Glenn may be a little optimistic on the timing and thoroughness of these extremists' demise, but he obviously isn't too optimistic judging by his almost daily dissections of these dilettantes. (Please keep it up, Glenn.) Even after the political sea change, many of them still possess great, if somewhat weakened, political power. Also, one certainly cannot assume that enablers such as clueless presidents and bottom-line driven MSM will discontinue supporting and legitimizing their radical agenda. The Clinton years should be sufficient reminder that their voracity for power will do anything but abate.
Before addressing any of the right wing's sulfurous offerings, such as the latest emissions linking Al Qaeda/Iranian good cheer and Democratic political success, it is always best to frame any response with the realization that their thought process is and always has been exactly backwards of the normal reasoning process: they have already arrived at their conclusions and only use or distort facts to support conclusions they have already reached or political policy decisions they have already made.
The neo-cons reached their radical conclusions years ago in an intellectually incestuous way using "think tanks" and the like that resembled scholarly research only in their lofty names such as Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute; they utterly rejected objectivity, proportion, and consideration of others' differing situations and viewpoints in favor of an ideology of the like-minded. Facts were not used to update or revise previous conclusions; they were only cherry-picked or distorted to bolster these extremists' preconceptions. What better example of this twisted thinking process and the disasters it has produced could there be than the Bush Administration and their approach to the Iraq War?
The inane responses from the right that are the subject of Glenn's post are only more of the same backward analytical process. They have already arrived at their conclusions that, at best, Democrats are soft on terrorism and, at worst, the Democrats are sympathetic with the terrorists. The utterings of a few Al Qaeda members are then taken as gospel and blown out of proportion by these imbeciles to justify their preconceptions. It is ironic that these ever-vigilant watchdogs of "liberal media bias" are so willing to accept the renderings of Al Qaeda members at face value.
Finally, Ed Morrissey's words, noted by Glenn as being more reasoned and sober than some of the others quoted in his post, are not quite as reassuring to me, and, in fact, contain a clear warning to the Democrats that illustrates the absolute need for full-scale investigations once the Democrats take power. His "bring the guilty so-and-so's in here and give them a fair trial" attitude toward the Democrats indicates that he seems to be quite willing and able to assign blame to Democrats if things go wrong.
In accounting, there is a term called "cutoff", proper application of which is necessary to correctly measure operating results from period to period. If the Democrats don't do the work to find out exactly what they face in Iraq (and in the vast number of other areas where the Bush administration and complicit Republican congress bungled things or let them deteriorate and kept citizens in the dark about it) when they assume power, they will be assumed responsible by many more than just the Ed Morrisseys of the world unless they can prove otherwise. They can only prove otherwise by doing a proper "cutoff".
It goes without saying that this duty to investigate extends to much more than mere political CYA, but that certainly should be ample motivation for the Democrats.