Our linkfest taking you to sites of varying viewpoints. Links do not necessarily reflect the views of TMV or its writers.
So Who’s Really Behind The Tea Party Movement? (You’d think it would be Lipton, since they’re getting a lot of verbal product placement time.) Marc Ambinder cuts away all of the rhetoric on both sides and offers these answers.
Can We Really Get Rid Of Nuclear Weapons? Here’s one look at that question.
The Next State For Same Sex Marriage Will Be…..New York. And some wonder whether Congress should amend the Defense of Marriage Act.
A Post With A Headline Being Screamed Across The Country Even More Than ‘Hey! Let’s Go To The Tea Party!” — or at least HALF of the headline. Michael van Der Galien asks “Can Rush Limbaugh Please Shut Up? (instead of attacking conservatives)” in a look at Limbaugh going after conservative writer Jonah Goldberg for DARING to give some credit to President Barack Obama for the recent rescue of Captain Phillips from pirates. He writes, in part:
Most of Limbaugh’s anger seems to be due to what he considers lack of appreciation by Goldberg for what the Navy Seals did. However, Jonah did praise them for their work, but simply added that Obama made the right call to allow them to go in. Since when is that wrong?
Well, it’s only wrong if you believe conservatives should do to Obama what liberals did to Bush during his eight years in office. And that is exactly what Limbaugh advocates doing, while Goldberg refuses to play along. That is what this minor controversy is truly all about. Limbaugh wants to tear Obama down every single day, while Goldberg believes the president should be praised when he makes the right call, and criticized for specific policies.
This is really partly generational. Limbaugh is now a poster boy for the hubris-weighted baby boomer polemecist still battling the Vietnam war — the Good Guys Us Versus Bad Guys Them. Goldberg isn’t a mentally-shackled baby boomer. Meanwhile, talk radio has made such a clear shift since the election. One year ago if someone had charged conservative talk was merely “hate radio” it could be countered (though some would disagree) that it did contain some idea content and policy advocacy. Now, as it has turned up the heat and enjoys a ratings bonanza (think of all the tea companies that’ll sponsor the shows), even a can of Chef Boy R Dee ravioli on a shelf at Stop & Shop supermarket in New Haven, CT could listen to Limbaugh or Hannity or Beck and proclaim: “That sure sounds like hate radio to me!!!”
So it’s logical the next shift would be to hate those who don’t hate enough. I mean, really: Jonah Goldberg is a RINO??!
Will The Court’s Decision That Al Franken Beat Norm Colman For The Minnesota Senate Seat Be Reversed? Most experts think it won’t.
FUROR OVER THE SURVEILLANCE STATE! That could be the screaming headline. But this time it isn’t coming from the left — but from the right. Homeland Security has warned of a growing right wing extremist threat. Michelle Malkin writes that the threat to conservatives is real. David Neiwert notes that the document never says conservatives — but right wing extremists and that perhaps some self-definition is at play. And Andrew Sullivan as always is must reading as he writes:
At several points in the last few years, as I gamely tried to convince conservatives that they should be concerned about the scale and scope of the Bush-Cheney surveillance state, the torture program, the claimed presidential right to seize, detain and torture anyone deemed an “enemy combatant”, the avoidance of the FISA law, the suspension of habeas corpus, I was ridiculed as an hysteric. When forced to defend basic civil liberties against a presidency claiming unprecedented war powers within the boundaries of the US and potemntially against American citizens, I found only one argument got through. What if Hillary Clinton got this kind of power?…Glad to have you back on the side of liberty. Where on earth have you been?
There is another point.
With rhetoric not just on talk radio but other info outlets having been raised several piping-hot notches so that now the issue is being framed repeatedly as Barack Obama will destroy America as created by the founding fathers, it’s not surprising that government security officials would be a mite concerned. After all: if you shake up a tree the strong branches and healthy leaves will stay on the tree — but some weak nuts will fall to the ground. The government has to have contingency plans.
Another aspect to this: the right is not used to be defined as a possible threat. During the McCarthy era and Vietnam eras the talk was about leftist extremism. Given the fact that there are record gun sales now as the (false) line is being spread that Obama plans to take everyone’s guns away, shouldn’t some plans be in place in the unlikely event a lot more loose nuts fall than anyone anticipated?
A Issue Worth Pondering: Regarding China…
Can Spain Really Prosecute George Bush Over Torture: Experts weigh in…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.