It has been the nation's yoke - but also its salvation.
The Neo-Cons, the Bushies, the Contractors from Contract With America - the whole cornucopia of schemers, manipulators, and corner-cutters - have a thirst for power and control that is exceeded by only one personality facet:
Their stupidity.
Our latest winner, David Frum, the auteur of The Axis Of Evil, the guy who decided it was a good idea to try to sandbag his intellectual superior, Rachel Maddow, and wound up lucky to not have his eyebrows singed off.
He has done it again.
He has attributed a quote to me about the Reichstag fire - leaving no room for doubt that I said it, that I somehow said it about him, that I even called John McCain a "Nazi."
As convinced and unequivocal as the "evidence" demanding the invasion of Iraq.
And just as wrong.
I never said anything of the kind, on television or off. The quote he attributed to me was from a blogger. And here's the biggest shock - he hasn't corrected it.
Frum may believe he legally covered his laughable ass by preceding his NRO post with the phrase "I'm told last night" that I spoke out about his appearance with Rachel.
But then he drops the hypothethical and goes into unambiguous assertion of fact.
Called me "naively idiotic or idiotically naive." Then he said
McCain and Palin have set the table for these outbursts with their attacks and then committed the sin of omission by not truly quelling them. Sort of like standing outside the Reichstag holding a gas can, and calmly suggesting that someone might want to call the fire department.
Frum goes on to use standard Right Wing Umbrage form 047/332(a), sarcastically calling "my" remarks "an excellent riposte" and marveling at the idea of "the most partisan Democratic broadcaster in the country call John McCain a Nazi!"
Yeah.
Here's the problem, Bub.
The Reichstag quote is from blogger Ian Gurvitz at the satirical 23/6 website. Gurvitz was reacting yesterday to Frum's self-mutilation on Rachel's show Monday.
Since somebody "told" Frum I said all this, it obviously wasn't necessary to even check a tape or a transcript or put the phrase in The Google. You know: invade first, ask questions second.
What I actually did say on Countdown about Frum and Maddow adds another lie to the Frummian soup (and this is from my script page, it may vary by a word or two from what I actually read on air, but nothing of substance changed):
...invited on Rachel's show to do so, didn't have the stones to admit he'd been forcefully critical of the McCain Campaign's not-so-benign neglect of the hate-mongers in its audiences, and instead tried to draw some equivalency between those inciters of violence and Rachel's program.
Well, he got his head handed to him -- politely of course, it was Rachel -- and it should've ended there.
But today, in a blog post, Frum lied about why he was asked on the program.
"Just before I traveled to Afghanistan," he wrote, "I accepted an invitation to appear on 'The Rachel Maddow Show'...Anyway I was unprepared for the sarcasm and anger of what I saw. So when it was my time to go on air - and instead of being asked about Afghanistan I was asked about how awful and hateful the John McCain campaign was - I got a little grouchy."
Frum's implication was that he was asked on to talk about Afghanistan, and was ambushed or sand-bagged with questions about McCain.
He was not.
The "pre-interview" conducted with Mr. Frum - as a pre-interview is conducted, usually same day, with all guests on all such shows - references these topics and these topics only "GOP Chaos... On Using Ayers... On Temperament... On Obama Presidency... On Palin North Korea/Pakistan Gaffes."
He never mentioned Afghanistan.
Afghanistan was never on the menu.
Reichstag - Afghanistan? What's the diff? They both got "g" in 'em!
I don't mean to dismiss this as merely representative of the fact that they're out of bullets over to the other side of the political fence (or they've been aiming the gun the wrong way). Already today another website excoriated me for (not) calling McCain a Nazi (then put up a tepid correction), and I will be reading about this falsehood as long as there is an internet and it will become an urban legend and for all I know McCain will make an ad out of it.
But it is, ultimately, pathetic, and that's underscored by one last little gaffe to mention here, about which I almost hesitate. It should've been a tip off as to the astounding research that goes into Mr. Frum's work.
The headline of Frum's phony blog post about me (italics mine):
Ketih Olbermann on me
Sigh.
I've been misspelling my own name all these years!
Finally, not to reduce my conclusion to anticlimax, but we have another head-scratcher from "The Weekly Standard" and a fellow named Brian Faughnan who did not like part of last night's Special Comment.
Keith Olbermann led off his 'special comment' yesterday with an attack on Sarah Palin for her failure to denounce an audience member who allegedly shouted out 'kill him' during the comments of the local Congressional candidate. What Olbermann failed to mention was that Palin had not yet arrived when the comment was made.
To return to Nurse Diesel: A-hem! (again, italics added):
...this is where the satire ends and the Special Comment begins.
Because this is not even remotely funny.
1:25 PM Eastern Time, today, in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
During the warm-up act by a Red-Meat Congressional Candidate aptly named Chris Hackett, Hackett mentions Obama and a Palin audience member shouts "Kill Him."
And Governor Palin - as usual - does nothing about it - says nothing to these thugs and psychos.
She may not have heard this one.
It is impossible to believe that by now she has not heard about the other ones.
Her silence is deafening.
Honestly, watching the far right over the last few weeks is like watching Lee J. Cobb come apart like a cheap suit at the end of "Twelve Angry Men."
UPDATED AT 4:30 PM EDT: After the intervention of MSNBC's crack PR team, Frum has "corrected," after a fashion:
PS - I'm told wrong. I have the transcript now, and I see that he called me the runner-up "worst person in the world." Always a bridesmaid ...
Keep trying, Dave. We'll make more.
SECOND UPDATE AT 5:25 PM EDT: David could be celebrating tonight, if only he could understand the history to which he contributed. Countdown defeated The O'Reilly Factor in the "advertising demo" (viewers aged 25 to 54) last night, 931,000 to 829,000 (CNN, 365,000). In fact MSNBC beat Fox for the evening.