This morning I caught “Sunday Morning Square Off” on KPNX, the Phoenix NBC affiliate. It’s a show I often watch, sort of a local version of “Meet the Press,” because they at least attempt to have different perspectives represented. The host, Brahm Resnik, is okay, certainly more than an empty suit with a pretty smile, and he’s no wingnut shill. I imagine he thinks of himself as a serious, fair-minded “investigative reporter,” and on occasion he’ll challenge someone, as he did Governor Brewer when she made her “decapitations in the desert” comment. (No headless bodies have ever been discovered, something Resnik pointed out. Startled, she shifted the scene of the crime to Mexico, because it’s all one big desert anyway, right? Facts? What is this with facts?)
Today was not one of Resnik’s better interviews (video and story link). His guest for the 12-minute segment was Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, who earned his 15 minutes of fame recently when he appeared in McCain’s “complete the dang fence” ad.
There they are, Paul and John (I know, Beatles blasphemy), strolling along the border near Nogales, as if this is the sheriff’s territory. The problem is, as critics pointed out soon after the spot ran, Babeu’s county is nowhere near the border. The actual border sheriffs, those representing Pima and Santa Cruz counties, oppose SB 1070, the “papers please” law, one calling it “political fornickaboobery.” So while Babeu’s region, which is about 120 miles north of the border, certainly deals with immigrants passing through, the ad is at best misleading. (The other part of this story is that just a few years ago McCain supported immigration reform, and he said a fence was not the solution. Funny how things change when a Democratic president wants reform.)
In the wake of his staring role in the McCain campaign commercial, Sheriff Babeu has become something of a rightwing media favorite. You might be asking why the sheriff of a huge, relatively empty desert county, about the size of Connecticut but with no large cities, is being courted for his views on domestic and international affairs. Well, he’s a good speaker, he says with conviction the things wingers want to hear; and I don’t doubt we’ll see his name on other election ballots in the future. Babeu comes off like Arpaio-lite, and the one thing he’s learned from Sheriff Joe is to keep your mug in front of the camera. He said this morning that his public relations office receives about 25 calls a day for interviews. Two of these interviews, both held the second week of July, were the subject of Resnik’s program today.
On July 10, Babeu appeared on a show that certainly lives up to its name, the “Political Cesspool,” a white supremacist radio program out of Tennessee. The host introduced Babeu to his listeners this way:
“I would say of all the people we’ve interviewed on this radio station, I’d say the only people that came as close to getting me as excited was Dr. David Duke.”
Grammar aside, that’s high praise indeed. To his credit, Babeu said he did not know about the show’s warped politics, although, as Resnik pointed out, a Google search would tell you that in a couple seconds. Soon after the show, Babeu issued an apology for appearing on the “Political Cesspool,” although he did spend 20 minutes on the show, more than enough time to figure out these guys’ Stormfront views, and put down the phone.
The day before, July 9, Sheriff Babeu was on “The Alex Jones Show.” You may know this guy out of Texas, one of the leading conspiracy theorists with a radio mike, who blabbers on about 9/11 being an inside government job. Jones introduced Babeu by ranting about the “high treason” Obama has committed, and when he asked the Sheriff if he agreed, Babeu replied:
“It borderlines that. I’m not gonna outright call it that. I'm still an officer in the Army.”
Babeu is a major in the Army National Guard. When host Alex Jones asked Babeu a second time about the treason charge, Babeu did not dispute it.
Okay, that’s slimy enough – an Arizona county sheriff appearing on two wackjob talk shows where there’s a lot of manly gab about presidential treason. But today’s host Brahm Resnick was so intent on working up to a “gotcha” moment related to these two interviews, that he allowed the Sheriff to spew his lies without challenging their content, enabling his point of view, just like Alex Jones.
I remember in debate class the teacher would tell us not to dwell only on our own arguments, not to focus too much on the points we hoped to score with some fancy logic. Instead, we should listen to our opponent and look for our openings there. Well, Brahm Resnik seemed so focused on constructing his own case about whether or not Babeu had said “treason” that he left the treason charge itself go unchallenged.
“Traitor” and “Treason” are words we see plastered on a lot of signs at Tea Party rallies, but there’s usually nothing specific to them, just an UPPERCASE WORD with lots of exclamation points!!! Hitler figures in there somewhere too. In today’s interview, however, Sheriff Babeu let us in on what he means by “borderline treason”:
I do believe that our country is headed in the wrong direction, when we have a nation that now we own the major banks, the auto industry, the insurance companies, and now Obamacare.
Okay, there you go, Brahm, jump in! Let’s talk about how these charges amount to treason. No, instead he turned the conversation back to the wingnut credentials of Alex Jones, and let those accusations hang in the air. Had I been sitting in Resnik’s chair, I hope I would’ve said, “Let’s look at these four treasonous accusations, shall we?”
1. “We own the major banks.” You may recall, Sheriff, that the bank bailout began under President Bush and that your hero John McCain supported the plan. If Obama is committing treason by following through on the policy, then surely President Bush and Senator McCain are traitors too. Besides, look at the Bikini Graph. Things are not great but it coulda been Hooverville.
2. “We own the auto industry.” Like the auto bailouts or not, the loans are being repaid, the companies are turning the corner, and American plants are finally building cars people want. On top of that, states like Michigan are retooling, moving toward greener vehicles, greener energy in general. I guess that’s treason, when the government tries to save tens of thousands of blue-collar jobs.
3. “We own the insurance companies.” I don’t even know what he means by this (if anything, insurance companies own us), unless he thinks AIG regulation = ownership. Because, you know, deregulation worked so well. Or Babeu may be referring to the recent Wall Street reform, which certainly didn’t put the government in the role of “owning” any insurance giants, and provided a wee-bit of consumer protection. Treason!
4. “And now Obamacare.” That’s all they have to say: “Obamacare.” Be afraid! They don’t say what it is or what it means. I would have asked Babeu, “How has your healthcare changed under the new plan? How has the government taken it over?” The truth is, very little has changed for most people, and there’s no grandma-killing socialist takeover. Heck, my 85-year-old parents, who bitched about Obamacare, are now happy that they have extra cash to cover the donut hole, their Medicare hasn’t shut down (as they were led to believe), and they’re also pleased their grandniece won’t be denied a plan because of a preexisting condition.
I always thought treason, borderline or otherwise, had something to do with betraying your country. Now, if I’m not mistaken, a majority of Americans elected Obama precisely to enact financial and healthcare reform – hardly a betrayal of the voters (except that, for a lot of us, the administration could move faster and farther). I don’t see much treason, then, in the four charges above, but later in the interview Babeu does say Obama “is in league with a foreign government” because he fist-bumped President Calderón. Oh, that proves it! That’s right up there with lying us into war, torturing prisoners, and spying on Americans.
At a later point in the interview Babeu threw out the standard rightwing crap about “the federal government [i.e. Obama] failing us” on immigration, which is, he explained, the only reason Arizona had to enact SB 1070. Then he said Obama is “not giving us the resources” to fight immigration, dredging up the “invasion” theme Brewer is so fond of. Bullpuckey! Again, Resnik did not point out that there are many more agents along the border than there ever were under Bush. He did not remind Babeu that the border is more secure now than it has been in a long time, or that Obama has released more NG troops than the state has requested. He did not cite FBI reports that say crime in Arizona cities and along the border is down. In other words, if Obama’s border plan is what passes for “failing us” and “treason,” then BushCo. should have been locked up years ago.
Suddenly, with a Democrat in the White House, immigration is this administration’s fault, whereas John McCain has been sitting in Congress for 30 friggin' years, often with Republican presidents and majorities in both houses, without doing a damn thing about immigration. And this election it is the only issue that matters here, the litmus test du jour, doesn’t matter what office. Sheesh, Arizona is drowning in debt, much of it caused by Republican tax policies that favored corporate growth over social improvement. And the shit-for-brains crazies who passed SB 1070 have only increased the debt and unemployment, big numbers.
But rather than debate real issues, the entire campaign has become a mean-spirited exercise in blaming brown people from the south, rather than the congressional and legislative dickwads who rammed through these policies in the first place. On the right, nobody is talking about how we improve Arizona communities, other than to build a fucking wall and pass laws that jeopardize some citizens’ rights. You watch, if Jan Brewer beats Terry Goddard in the gubernatorial race, the new Senate President, a fine fellow named Russell Pearce, will introduce a pile of new racist legislation and there will be no one to veto it. I’m sure we’ll see HB 2631 resurface, an under-the-radar bill that says both people in a marriage must be American citizens before an Arizona license will be granted. Then it’ll be the 14th Amendment, and more restrictions on what can be taught in schools. Here we go, down the rabbit hole.
So, during the entire interview, while Resnik tried to smear the Sheriff by association, or tried to get him to admit he said “treason,” he never challenged Babeu on what his sense of the word means. And when you do that, you allow the label to stick.