Lunatics no longer on the fringe
Published: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 9:59 AM CDT
Somebody's going to have to teach the Republican leadership that
bipartisan isn't a synonym for weak. That somebody may have to be
Barack Obama. The success of his presidency may depend upon it. No
professorial lectures, please. It's not possible to reason with people
peddling grotesque and preposterous lies, bargain with people who are
screaming, or negotiate under threats of violence.

It's not a professional wrestling exhibition, it's our democracy.
Persons whose behavior would get them thrown out of a Rolling Stones
show should be removed by security. Period. President Bush, it will be
recalled, almost never appeared before audiences not pre-screened for
loyalty. Potential dissenters were prevented from entering, and
sometimes arrested.

Democrats shouldn't act that way. At his recent "Town Hall" in New
Hampshire, Obama calmed the crazies by simply asking questioners to
identify themselves. Also, even Sarah Palin's most rapt supporters may
have understood that shouting down the president would likely backfire
politically. More broadly, however, Democrats appear once again to
have been surprised by the near-hysteria of the GOP's lunatic fringe.
It's been building for a generation. Early in Bill Clinton's first
term, evangelist Jerry Falwell devoted his TV show to peddling "The
Clinton Chronicles," a crackpot video alleging that the president of
the United States was a drug smuggler who had political enemies
whacked.

Rush Limbaugh, currently comparing Obama to Hitler, reported that that
White House aide Vince Foster had been murdered in an apartment owned
by Hillary Clinton. Several federal investigations were eventually
required to stifle conspiracy theorists. Nor were these absurdities
confined to paid programming or the nether regions of the AM radio
dial. These "issues" got voluminous coverage on the Wall Street
Journal editorial page, among others.

The so-called "mainstream" media provided little help. Fearful of the
dread "liberal bias" charge, establishment reporters not only flogged
the fake Whitewater scandal, but lionized figures such as Limbaugh,
Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck and Michael Savage.

On TV, conflict builds ratings. "Balance" often means equating
reasonable views with fantastical lies. Ordinary viewers too often
can't tell the difference. Short of an opportunity to chronicle the
exploits of the risen Michael Jackson, that's not going to stop.

As Bob Somerby has documented relentlessly at DailyHowler.com, Web
site, the 2000 presidential election was probably decided by the
falsehood that Al Gore claimed he invented the Internet; the 2004
contest by the "Swift Boat" smear against smear Democratic nominee
John Kerry. Time was when journalists and public figures that
habitually misrepresented facts were relegated to the fringes. But
that time's gone, and it ain't coming back.

Meanwhile, an entire industry devoted to inventing calumnies against
Democrats has flourished, while liberal and opinion leaders have gazed
thoughtfully into the ambient air. Ironically, given the current
rhetoric about Obama the Nazi, its themes have always been broadly
fascist, depicting liberal Democrats as the Enemy Within.

Writing about Ann Coulter's "Slander," I once noted that "the
'liberal' sins (she) caricatures -- atheism, cosmopolitanism, sexual
license, moral relativism, communism, disloyalty and treason -- are
basically identical to the crimes of the Jews as Hitler saw them."

Which brings us back to Palin, Empress of the Arctic. In her
characteristically fatuous, self-involved way, Alaska's former
governor has uttered something so cosmically stupid only True
Believers could possibly credit her.

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby
with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death
panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment
of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy
of health care," the former Republican vice-presidential nominee wrote
on Facebook. "Such a system is downright evil."

In consequence, millions of Americans do fear that "Obamacare" means
euthanizing geezers and handicapped children like stray dogs. Almost
needless to say, that fear is based upon a gross and palpable lie,
although not of Palin's invention. It appears to be the brainchild of
one Betsy McCaughey, the former Lt. Gov. of New York, and a
propagandist for the conservative Hudson Institute. On a July radio
program, she claimed that, "Congress would make it mandatory --
absolutely require -- that every five years people in Medicare have a
required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life
sooner."

The fraudulent claim quickly went viral on the Internet. Palin,
gullible soul that she is, appears to have swallowed it whole.

But here's the difference. Unlike previous right-wing hoaxes -- the
Clinton "death lists," the "Swift Boat" controversy, Obama's birth
certificate, etc. -- this hits people where they live. Quite like the
Terri Schiavo episode, which Republicans also mistook for a winning
issue, it's not about abstract ideology. It's about the most intimate
and solemn decisions we all must make. People think about such things
harder than about politics, and they bitterly resent being lied to.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist Gene Lyons is a National Magazine
Award winner and co-author of "The Hunting of the President" (St.
Martin's Press, 2000). You can e-mail Lyons at eugenelyo...@yahoo.com.