Does comparing Barack Obama to Franklin Delano Roosevelt make YOU break out in a cold sweat? Bring on nightmares? Give you the shakes? I didn't think so....... But for Rush Limbaugh - and the Batwing Crazies he appeals to - FDR is The Horrors of Socialism made real.
I was listening to Rush Limbaugh yesterday morning, as I often turn him on for five or ten minutes in the car to hear the latest in WingNut whankery. Rush happened to be playing a clip from a speech by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the words of which went:
"... the right of every family to a decent home, the right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health, the right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age......"
The clip itself was very short. But, I was fascinated by Rush's monologue afterward. He was using FDR as a prime example of the Horrors of Socialism that will descend upon America if Barack Obama is elected President.
Huh?
Not only did Franklin Delano Roosevelt save America from the Great Depression, he also led us through World War II. Among Presidential Scholars, he's considered to be in the Top Three of America's Greatest Presidents.
I already knew that Rush was Batwing Crazy. But this goes beyond even your Standard Everyday Batwing Crazy. This stretches into the realm of Oxycontin PCP Batwing Crazy.
Seriously, what Nutball would consider a comparison between Obama and FDR to be a Bad Thing? A reason NOT to vote for Barack? Who are these Americans? What ever could they be thinking?
I was astonished. Are there really Americans out there for whom the mention of FDR - one of the greatest of American Presidents - is such a horrific nightmare that comparing him to Barack Obama is an effective way to scare them into turning out to vote???
The mind reels. What won't these people swallow? Lincoln and Marx were the same person? Washington was really the gay leader of France?
If FDR truly is the substance of Right Wing nightmares, no wonder rational discouse in our politics doesn't seem possible. We really are up against Batwing Crazy World here.........