Too Crazy for Me

You kinda had to expect, if you thought about it at all, that electing a non WASP to the Presidency of the United States would generate some rather crazy stuff as we proceeded along. You had to suspect that some of the hard decisions and actions that needed to be made in trying to get this society off the rocks after 8 + years of GOP rule would generate some repercussions in the wackiest of the insane right but Jeebus whou'da thunk it would get this insane?

The announcement that the President would broadcast a speech to America's school children next week urging them to to "work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning" has invoked a major freak out on the right and we are talking mainstream right and not the truly nutty fringe. Jim Greer, the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida no less, seems to have something of a breakdown. He actually issued a statement condemning the president for, among other things, trying to "indoctrinate America's children to his socialist agenda" while adding that that Obama "has turned to American's children to spread his liberal lies."

Mr. Greer was hardly alone in the wilderness of bat shit crazy as much of the right apparently went simply apoplectic over this. None other than the Prince of Bat Shit Crazy, Glenn Beck, began organizing a campaign to keep children from going to school the day of President Obama's speech. Beck came up with this latest insanity whilst continuing to harp on the delusional idea that Obama and his minions had actually staged a 'coup' by getting themselves elected. Obviously Mr. Beck hadn't bothered to page through a dictionary for the definition of 'coup' before beginning his rant much as he didn't look up 'oligarhy' either.

I am beginning to think that it is not healthy for my sanity to even pay attention to these rantings anymore. There used to be some dim hope that, by and by, this group of fellow citizens would begin to come to their senses and that it might be possible to actually begin to have a reasonable discussion with them about the problems facing us. I would swear I remember the GOP being the party of 'personal responsibility' not so long ago but I must be mistaken. I am obviously wrong because it is just getting worse as each week goes by. Or as Matt Yglesias put it, "Probably the biggest moral of the story is that the contemporary conservative movement is run by crazy people with no scruples, who'll turn anything into a pretext to level wild accusations."

There was a time, not that long ago, when some of this was actually kind of funny. It was just the fringe of the fringe just being crazy and doing so quite predictably. It's no longer even remotely humorous and has morphed into frightening. Assault rifles carried openly at presidential town meetings, the president being called a Marxist on national TV, the poorest and neediest people in the country rejecting health care reforms that will save their and their children's lives and on and on. It is just getting too crazy for me.