I was watching "The Daily Show" last night, and couldn't believe the nonsensical idea, propounded by New Gingrich, that Obama should be viewed as "radical" because he wanted to use the civilian courts to prosecute "the underwear bomber." John Stewart made a point which I agree with, which is that I would prefer to treat such people as criminals, and not as warriors. For me, a war is a situation in which two armies are engaged in actual battle, or are preparing for such battle within a very short period of time (except when weather prevents, as was often the case in the ancient world). In any case, clearly there is a reasonable disagreement here. You should not be called foolish, insane, or stupid for taking one side or the other.
What was clearly idiotic is Gingrich's claim that there is something "radical" about Obama's approach. Radical, in the political context, refers to things like nationalizing all major industries or imposing taxes on the wealthy in the neighborhood of 80 to 90% of their income. I have never heard this claim of "radical" in the context of the prosecution of those who commit crimes, whatever their motivation or ties to government agencies. Apparently, in the Gingrich mind, Bush was "conservative" because Reid was an "American citizen," yet Obama was "radical" because "underwear bomber" Umar Abdulmutallab was not (are there any other differences between the two?). Huh? Is there any authoritative source (or even college-level textbook on law, political science, history, etc.) where this claim has ever been made ? Gingrich spoke as if he could not be wrong, though his argument made no sense in any context I can imagine. He "supported" his case by mentioning something FDR did during World War II, which then makes one wonder if he is arguing that FDR never made any mistakes. This might have been enough for the apparently gray matter-impaired "Tea Party" crowd, but when he claimed that the "shoe bomber," Richard Reid, was an "American citizen," he was verifiably wrong. All one has to do is to go to wikipedia.org and read the entry on Richard Reid.
There is a "bigger picture" here, though. I find myself watching very little political "coverage" on TV these days, and I think this episode demonstrates why. That is, the "mainstream media" wants to be "fair," they tell us, but what they mean is that they are going to give equal time to people making nonsensical (perhaps delusional) claims or outright lying. On CNBC the other day, someone stated that Obama had a radical agenda. I said to myself out loud, "if that's the case, I must have missed it, because I've seen nothing but acts consistent with what a moderate Democrat would do." Another example is Mitch McConnell's recent statement that the American people are overwhelmingly against health care reform. It is this combination of ridiculous claims and outright lies that seems to be the only "card" such people as Gingrich have to play now. I hope Obama remembers Benjamin Franklin's point that when you are in a struggle with those who you can't compromise with, you either "hang together" or you get hanged separately. Get some things that you promised during the campaign accomplished, and then let the voters decide who the "radicals" are. Spending time on trying to "compromise" with possibly delusional liars is not the way to endear yourself to anyone, however.
Before this approach, in the first few months of the Obama administration, the idea seemed to be to make predictions about all the terrible things Obama was going to do ("kill your grandmother" with "death panels" was perhaps the most ludicrous, but probably not by much). Lately, though, there has been an interesting switch in tactics. Instead of predicting that Obama would do terrible things to the good old USA, they are now claiming that these things have already occurred or that the clear majority who voted for Obama now want him to do the opposite of what he said he would do if elected President. If the "mainstream media" keeps giving such people plenty of airtime, as seems likely, without taking them to task on such obvious nonsense, it seems possible that much of what passes for political discussion in the media will be akin to arguing about what color the Emperor's new clothes are. Or is that something that has already happened (I haven't been watching enough to really say)?