In Tucson Shooting Fallout, Rightbloggers Find a New Public Enemy #1: Paul Krugman

[malaise]

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/01/announcing_in_t.php
<snip>
The nearly-assassinated Democratic Congresswoman is getting better, and the public discussion of her shooting is getting worse.

There's just too much nonsense being circulated to cover here, so we'll focus on a relatively narrow but instructive development: How rightbloggers have promoted to their primary object of hatred -- above even the despised Obama, at least for the moment -- mild-mannered economist Paul Krugman.

Krugman's column suggested a connection between the new rightwing tradition of talking about killing one's political opponents -- see here for some hair-raising examples -- and the Tucson shootings. "There has, in fact, been a rising tide of threats and vandalism aimed at elected officials, including both Judge John Roll, who was killed Saturday, and Representative Gabrielle Giffords," wrote Krugman. "One of these days, someone was bound to take it to the next level. And now someone has."

Krugman mentioned Michelle Bachman's "armed and dangerous" comments which, readers of last week's column may recall, were elsewhere defended as relatively harmless, even though Bachmann had also said that "Thomas Jefferson told us, 'Having a revolution every now and then is a good thing.' And we the people are going to have to fight back hard if we're not going to lose our country," which could be taken as an invitation to armed resistance.
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Nail them Krugman! :yourock:

[somone]

1. Inciting violence is like breathing air to them

it's their purpose in life. Fuckers.

[malaise]

7. So why are they in denial when 'consequences' happen? n/t

[mmonk]

2. As a Krugman fan, I find this rather cool.

Maybe it will somehow put Paul further in the limelight.

[emulatorloo]

3. I find it terrifying. There is some kook out there reading this crap and taking it seriously.

[mmonk]

4. They can be. But I don't think they can pull it off with Krugman.

It's hard to contruct a conspiracy that works around his persona.

[malaise]

5. Herbert is speaking with Rachel about domestic terrorism

and hate speech.

[mmonk]

9. Thanks.

I'll DVR a later broadcast of it.

[emulatorloo]

6. I just read the whole story. I gotta say it, some of these bloggers sound clinically insane

Their thought processes are so twisted and illogical. Case in point, the one who "argues" that Krugman is "just the same" as Fred Phelps from Westboro Baptist Church

[malaise]

8. Sound insane?

They're batshit crazy with their RW agenda. Facts be damned.

[applegrove]

10. You have to wonder if they were given marching orders to slander krugman. He is so clear and

effective the big wigs in the gop and tea party must have had their sights on him for a while.

[highplainsdem]

11. Wow, Edroso nailed it in the last four paragraphs:

Laying aside the possibility of guilty consciences (you've read them -- do you think they have consciences?), our best guess is that they're just very frustrated. Since the whole Tea Party thing got going, they've been having a blast, talking about watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants, about inconvenient politicians swinging from lampposts, "break their windows, break them now," etc.

It's been real horrorshow for the rightwing droogies, but now they find themselves obliged to behave, lest they attract suspicion. The strain tells. Sure, they love playing the victim, but man does not live by blood libel alone -- sometimes a patriot's got to blow off steam. And just because some Democrats got shot up, they can't.

Maybe this also explains their hard-on for Krugman. Lots of people have been giving them a hard time, but from Krugman it's worse because he's the ultimate liberal authority figure: Not only is he a Nobel laureate, a Times columnist, and a Hollyweird guest star, but he acts like a goddamn teacher -- his speech is mild, he doesn't shout, and he allows himself to be pictured in scarves like this was Hogwarts or something.

They like to talk about being oppressed by jack-booted Obama thugs, but what really drives them nuts is the idea of being sent back to study hall, and forced to submit to the authority of some fruity thinker just because he supposedly knows more than they do. Which, come to think of it, may explain their politics about as well as anything else does.