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Thursday, April 22, 2004

Kerry/Clinton

I see that Rush Limbaugh’s April 15 speculations about Hillary-as-VP have picked up some commentary from a couple of lefty bloggers I trust, namely, No More Mister Nice Blog and David Neiwert.  OK, it’s last week’s news, but then this week it turns out that Rush’s jocular suggestion that Hillary would have Kerry killed-- “if Kerry wins there’s always Fort Marcy Park"-- is now making the rounds in what passes for conservative “comedy,” as you can find in this Lloyd Grove bit on FoxNews.com pundit Julia Gorin (also linked by Neiwert):

“John Kerry better hope Hillary doesn’t decide to become his running mate. Does he really think she’ll let him live long enough to see the first 100 Days? She’s not waiting four years to become President; she’ll let him get inaugurated, but then he’ll go the way of Ron Brown, Vince Foster and Buddy the dog.”

So everybody’s all up in a lather about these little far-right wingnut assassination fantasies.  Neiwert says “anyone with an ounce of decency in them should be raising hell about this.” But I think you all are missing the point, on two counts.

First and foremost, there’s no way Hillary would have John Kerry killed in Fort Marcy Park.  Remember:  we never use the same strategem twice, unlike our plodding, unimaginative GOP counterparts who just keep tinkering with Democratic Senate candidates’ small planes.  As Ishmael Reed wrote in Mumbo Jumbo, with regard to the Freemasons’ plans to assassinate Warren G. Harding,

They can’t use the lone psychopath emerging suddenly as the President’s party enters the train station.  They used that with Garfield.

Hillary is so much craftier than to redo the Vincent Foster routine.  After all, look how deftly she got Rush himself hooked on drugs!  Even Rush doesn’t realize it-- yet!

Second, most liberals and progressives I know tend to think that when the wingnuts talk about assassination, they’re engaging in projection pure and simple; unable to acknowledge their own murderous desires, the wingnuts attribute them to precisely the enemies they most fervently wish to kill.  I think this couldn’t be more wrong.

Think back to the ur-text of Rush Limbaugh’s murder fantasies, from way back in 1995, long before Ann Coulter had made a career out of such things:

“I tell people don’t kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus - living fossils - so we will never forget what these people stood for.” —Denver Post, December 29, 1995 (thanks to Truthout for preserving this one).

Now think of Florida state representative Jennifer Carroll’s little joke, just this past Saturday, about Hillary being assassinated (thanks to Jesse at Pandagon for the link):

Carroll opened her remarks during a discussion of Senate races by making a joke about Clinton. She said the New York senator and former first lady was visited by the ghosts of three presidents - Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln - and asked each what she could do to help the nation.

Carroll said Lincoln’s response was “Go to a theater.” Lincoln was assassinated in Ford’s Theater in Washington.

Florida Democratic Party Chairman Scott Maddox and Welch called for an apology.

“I am shocked that an elected official would suggest anything having to do with an assassination of a U.S. senator. She should apologize,” Maddox said. “It’s completely fair to joke about a policies or personal traits, but to joke about assassination is in poor taste.

Carroll said she didn’t think the joke was inappropriate.

“You infer what you want to infer, but I never said assassinate, or kill or maim,” Carroll said.

Point is, people like Carroll and Limbaugh aren’t failing to acknowledge their fantasies of murder; they’re expressing them loud and clear.  This isn’t projection, folks, it’s something else entirely.  And I’m taking the time from my busy schedule to tell you all what it is.

It’s the wingnut version of ‘60s nostalgia.

Seriously.  You didn’t think that conservatives could be nostalgic for the sixties?  Please.  Those were good times for right-wing crazies.  Back then, you know, they didn’t have to mount these tedious, expensive, time-consuming smear campaigns against annoying liberals (oh, the Drudgery of it all).  They could just kill ‘em! Evers, Schwerner, Goodman, Chaney, King, the Kennedys . . . dude, those were the days.

Trust me-- underneath these seemingly brutal right-wing fantasies there’s a core of real pain, a heartfelt lament for a bygone era and a simpler time.

Posted by Michael on 04/22 at 06:18 AM
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