Michelle Malkin and Fox News Channel have finally blown the lid off the biggest conspiracy of our time. No, it's not the one about how the Obama administration is going to take over your computer, banish white people to FEMA camps, poison your tap water, murder your special needs children and strangle your grandmother with its government robot claws ("because they're made of metal and robots are strong").
It's a brand new conspiracy involving President Obama and an 11-year-old girl. The plot? To ask a question at a town hall meeting.
Scary. Run for your lives and all that.
Rewind to Tuesday afternoon when an 11-year-old girl asked President Obama a question about the "mean things" she observed on various protest signs outside. Malkin and other wingnuts swooped into action, investigating and exposing the girl's parents as -- shock, horror! -- supporters of the president. The girl's parents even donated some money and volunteered on the campaign.
Mind blowing, I know. It's like the Donald Sutherland scene in JFK.
But considering that there were literally millions of volunteers associated with the president's campaign, and considering that tickets for the event were available online where millions of supporters of the president typically hang out, it stands to reason that a few actual, you know, supporters would manage to acquire tickets.
Yet beyond this earth-shattering information uncovered by Malkin that Obama supporters attended an Obama event, there isn't any evidence whatsoever that the 11-year-old girl was coached or scripted by the White House. None. And, it goes without saying that Malkin and Fox News Channel are entirely ignorant of the fact that similar Bush events were revealed to be literally and entirely staged and scripted with attendees having to sign loyalty oaths.
Nevertheless, given that Republican hero Sarah Palin just recently warned everyone about attacking her kids, and given that there's no evidence of any White House meddling in this case, you would think both Malkin and Fox News Channel would back off and avoid the story, especially considering that the target was an 11-year-old child without any relationship to a public figure. Naturally, this would be the decent thing to do since there's no story here.
But decency never stopped Malkin and Fox News Channel from targeting civilian children in order to satisfy their ignorant viewers and to substitute for their utter lack of integrity, rationality and reason.
You might recall how Malkin famously stalked 12-year-old accident survivor named Graeme Frost after he appeared in a commercial supporting SCHIP, the children's health insurance program. (Incidentally, we can only assume that since they claim to hate socialized health insurance, there aren't any conservative Republicans who have received SCHIP benefits for their children. Nope. None. Right?)
And just last week on his Fox News Channel show, Glenn Beck outed an Islamic private school in Northern Virginia when the school's sole newsworthy trespass was that an application to expand its campus was approved by the local zoning board. But Beck went on an extended googly-eyed, sarcasmo rant (lots of "maybe it's just me") about the school being a de facto training camp for would-be terrorists, and even invoked September 11th imagery -- collapsed buildings and the like -- in the process. It's a grade school! Where large groups of children go for seven hours a day. And Beck risked stirring up the kneejerk vitriol of his itchy-trigger-fingered wingnut vigilante audience while also calling attention to the school's existence and general location, all because the school's zoning application was approved.
Inciting an obviously gun-toting audience to pursue adult politicians is dangerous and irresponsible enough. You may have heard that a man appeared near the president's New Hampshire town hall event carrying a loaded firearm and a placard that implied the necessary assassination of the president. Not only was he left alone with his piece and his dreams of assassination, but he was invited to appear on Hardball to talk political science later that day. The takeaway? Bring a gun, get on TV.
Today, at a town hall meeting held by Senator Cardin (D-MD), a man held up a sign reading: "Death to Obama."
Regardless of their first amendment right to assemble and to blurt out loud noises, the far-right, whether or not they're honest enough to admit it, represents the reactionary wing of American political ideology. That's a fact. They dig weaponry and they endorse violent solutions to conflicts (war, torture and the like). Contrastingly, no matter how loudly many liberals protested the Bush administration, I never heard of a liberal bringing a loaded weapon to a Bush rally. You know, because of the general message of pacifism and peace and such. Besides, as Cenk Uygur observed, if any liberal had stepped within a mile of George W. Bush while brandishing a loaded weapon. They would've been arrested -- perhaps indefinitely detained -- given a cutesy nickname like the "Shoe Bomber" and vilified by Michelle Malkin and the establishment media as a terrorist.
It's become evident this week that, unless cooler heads prevail, this modern breed of Fire-Eaters are lurching ever closer to an armed assault of some sort.
Perfect time to demagogue children, right?
As the ring leaders migrate into the arena of targeting children within the context of the increasingly hot war over healthcare reform, Malkin, Fox News and other wingnuts who orbit the right-wing satellite of crazy has evolved from being a silly, almost campy assembly of sore losers to an ignorant, dangerous posse -- a rabble of misinformed cranks who have no problem with pinning large red targets on the backs of children.
Put another way: they have identified an 11-year-old girl as a co-conspirator in this horribly misperceived socialist-fascist-Nazi-Marxist-communist-leftist-rightist-and-brown "insurgency." They have broadcast her name and her home town to every hairless wingnut freakdog who's holed up in his bunker with Glenn Beck on TV, Alex Jones on the radio and The Gimp locked inside a steamer trunk. They have defined this child as another enemy standing in the way of getting "their country back."
And she only asked the president a question. (I hasten to add that she did so with a tone far more mature than many of the easily-misled hollering goons who are upwards of 70 years her senior.)
If Fox News Channel and Michelle Malkin had any dignity or integrity left in their souls, they would personally offer to finance a private security detail to protect this girl and her family until the worst of this insanity blows over. But we probably shouldn't hold our breath. At the very least, I sincerely hope that fewer and fewer voters and politicians take these maniacs seriously, especially when it comes to healthcare reform.