"Have you no intelligence, sir? At long last, have you no intelligence left?"

[Atticus]

That is a paraphrase of Joseph Welch's disgusted inquiry to Congressman Joe McCarthy during Congressional hearings in June of 1954. He was concerned with McCarthy's "sense of decency" rather than his intelligence, but he, too was dealing with myopic anger and willful ignorance on a scale that had not previously dared to rear its head in civilized political debate. Compared to today's Teabaggers and their friends, "Tailgunner Joe" was a cream puff.

Hence, my question: when will someone in a position of public trust and resposibility rise up in righteous indignation and REAM these ignorant bigots and blithering idiots who claim that competence and "common sense" are synonymous, but possess neither?

Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman, Christine O'Connell, Joe Miller, Sharon Angle and---hell, just about every Tea Party candidate who attracted a lot of attention---are simply not intelligent enough to manage a one car parade, let alone deal with the barracudas of Wall Street, K Street, North Korea, China and the Middle East.

Common sense, even if one possesses some, is NOT all you need to understand and deal with credit default swaps, mortage bundling, carbon sequestration, the cultural and religious flashpoints of the Islamic world or, for that matter, how our government functions.
Vague generalities and high-sounding pronouncements don't accomplish anything in the real world that lies beyond campaign ads and the warm and fuzzy world of Fox News interviews.

People with an IQ above room temperature---even wingnuts---know that Limbaugh is a racist mysogynistic homophobe and that Beck is a whining lunatic. Why doesn't someone---someone with some stature, not a nobody like me---call them out? Why can't someone with some clout ask us to boycott the sponsors of these two and the legion of wannabes now poisoning the airwaves with their ignorance and hatred?

What would you give to hear some Congressman or Senator or similar national public figure, when asked about the latest loony-tune statement by Palin or Bachman or whoever, simply look into the camera and say: "That is so far below the standards of intelligence, responsibility and, yes, decency we expect of our leaders that it is not worthy of response. And, if that's too difficult for her to understand: the comment is too stupid for responsible people to discuss."

These people are like walking flesh-and-blood cartoons. We should refuse to pretend that they deserve anyone's respect or deference. They, and those who support them, are unworthy of either.

[tblue37]

1. Lindsay Graham suggested that Limbaugh was unnecessarily strident

and divisive--and was forced to backtrack and kiss Limbaugh's ring soon afterward. The Republican leaders are scared to death of Limbaugh, Beck, Palin, Bachmann, and their followers.

[struggle4progress]

2. People don't call them out because:

(1) calling them out gives them attention
(2) calling them out takes time and energy that could otherwise be used to advance real issues
(3) calling them out will frequently backfire with the uninformed, who can readily be brought to the view that "both sides engage in negative tactics"

[immoderate]

3. Everyone lives in his or her own reality.

Think of it as each person in a separate dimension that intersects all the others except the rules are different for each one.

--imm

[StarsInHerHair]

4. they should be called out & that person should not budge a

millimeter, they ARE part & parcel of 'real issues', hell, I'd make the GOP kowtowing to Rush a major issue. Fighting lies with the truth does not fall to the same level, getting very angry at the lies & hatred does not fall to their level; saying nothing/doing nothing to counter their rising calls for violence among other things implies surrendering to their madness.

[starroute]

5. Never call Joe McCarthy a "cream puff"

People were being sent to jail during the McCarthy era -- and it didn't end in 1954. People were having their careers destroyed. People -- including my parents, as I found out only in the last few years -- were living in fear that a mailing list with their names might get into McCarthy's hands.

The current bunch are nasty and potentially dangerous, but they haven't yet done a fraction of the damage that McCarthy did. Here's just one example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Seeger

On August 18, 1955, <Pete> Seeger was subpoenaed to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Alone among the many witnesses after the 1950 conviction and imprisonment of the Hollywood Ten for contempt of court, Seeger refused to plead the Fifth Amendment (which asserted that his testimony might be self incriminating) and instead (as the Hollywood Ten had done) refused to name personal and political associations on the grounds that this would violate his First Amendment rights: "I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this." Seeger's refusal to testify led to a March 26, 1957 indictment for contempt of Congress; for some years, he had to keep the federal government apprised of where he was going any time he left the Southern District of New York. He was convicted in a jury trial of contempt of court in March 1961, and sentenced to 10 years in jail (to be served simultaneously), but in May 1962 an appeals court ruled the indictment to be flawed and overturned his conviction.

In 1960, the San Diego school board told him that he could not play a scheduled concert at a high school unless he signed an oath pledging that the concert would not be used to promote a communist agenda or an overthrow of the government. Seeger refused, and the American Civil Liberties Union obtained an injunction against the school district, allowing the concert to go on as scheduled. In February 2009 the San Diego School District officially extended an apology to Seeger for the actions of their predecessors.

[Dr Morbius]

6. Do not look to those with perceived stature.

If our nation is to grow past the Limbaughs and the Becks, it will ultimately need to be done by the "nobodies" anyway.

YOU need to do this. And me. And the next fellow, too.

Tell people this: fuck Glenn Beck! Fuck Rush Limbaugh! These POS's are not worth the time of day! Find a better level of entertainment! And when someone turns back to you and says they watch Beck or listen to Limbaugh, ask them to justify it. Refuting their reasons should be like shooting fish in a barrel (though why anyone would want to shoot at fish in a barrel when a net snatches them out easily is beyond me!).