One of my all time favorite New Yorker cartoons shows a bedraggled corporate interviewer rationalizing his decision to hire a rather goofy-looking applicant with “What the hell? We can use an idiot.” This cartoon came to mind when I learned that Minnesota Representative Michelle Bachman had been re-elected to Congress despite her call for an investigation of “anti-American” [read “liberal”] attitudes among her colleagues. Though distressed by this outcome, I tried to console myself by thinking that Bachman’s return made it at least arguable that we here in Georgia’s Tenth District don’t have the biggest fool in America guarding our interests in Congress.
As it turns out, however, Republican Representative Paul Brown apparently has a strong competitive streak and was not going to see himself outdone by some mere pretender to idiocy like Bachman. Hence, he has made quite a spectacle of himself in the last few days by raising the prospect that President-elect Obama plans to follow the blueprint of one Adolf Hitler by establishing his own personal military force, which will then proceed to cram Marxism down our gullets. "That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did," Broun said. "When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist."
Brounie, I hardly know where to begin, unless it’s to see about getting your UGA degree revoked. Hitler was a right-winger, not a lefty. He believed in and encouraged competitive capitalism, not socialism, and he absolutely despised what he called "The Jewish doctrine of Marxism.“ While we’re at it, even the Soviet Union as we knew it, at least, wasn’t really Marxist. None of this really matters though, does it ? Hitler, Marxism., Socialism, they all scare the hell out of people. Too bad “Communist” sounds so archaic these days because you’re obviously itching to throw that in there too.
Then there’s your suggestion—and that of others as well—that the first thing Oby will do after his storm troopers are up and running is follow in Hitler’s goosesteps by taking away our blunderbusses so that he can consolidate his power. (Before anyone dismisses this classic expression of paranoia as unworthy of serious attention, check out reports of red-blooded Americans everywhere rushing out in the wake of the election to build up their arsenals of assault rifles, handguns, and ammo. ) The people who keep this kind of thing churning simply cite each other to support the inflammatory garbage they are recycling. Take this guy who trumpets the Brounie thesis about an “Obama Dictatorship” and insists somberly, “Paul Broun is a no crackpot.” Clearly this fellow has either has his crackpot filter set on “zero” or has no first-hand knowledge of Paul Broun, but in either case, he might want to ask himself why, in Brounie’s own county where people obviously do know him, damn near two out of three of them voted for his opponent last week.
One thing’s for sure, you know you’re in trouble when your congressman sounds like a hate-radio dude. Driving through Alabama last Thursday doing my traditional AM radio search for a country oldies station, I tuned into some weasel who announced excitedly that he had found further “proof” that Obama was a Muslim. It seems a “friend” of his had texted him from Indonesia to report that people there were generally happy with Obama’s victory, and since, as everybody knows, Barack Obama was briefly exposed to the teachings of Islam in an Indonesian school before, so he says, converting to Christianity, and since, as everybody knows, Indonesia’s population is 85 percent Muslim, and since, as everybody knows, anyone who converts to Christianity is dead meat in the eyes of all faithful Muslims, therefore, hence, and ipso fatso, Obama is clearly lying when he says he converted cuz if he really had, Indonesian Muslims would be mad as hell that he had just been elected president of the United States. Well, I guess that settles that, doesn’t it?
Look Brounie, I’m not unappreciative of your substantial entertainment value, but if Obama’s victory proved anything it was that words can have truly powerful consequences. Your bunch threw twenty trillion megatons of this crap at Oby before we voted, and it didn’t stick or accomplish anything other than eliciting shouts of “Kill him!” or “Take him out!” from the likeminded loonies who hung on Governor Hatemonger’s every vapid and reckless utterance. Since there’s longer any need to adrenalize your crew for an election, and we know now that the Secret Service reported a “sharp and disturbing increase in threats” to Oby after Palin started to hang labels like “terrorist,” Marxist,” and “socialist” on him, are we left to conclude that you’re fine with democracy when it goes your way, but if it doesn’t, you’re also not averse to goading some lunatic into using a bullet or a bomb to achieve what you couldn’t get done with a ballot.? Is democracy something that you’re ready to force on others at bayonet point but unwilling to accept when things don’t work out to your liking? It sure sounds that way when you warn us to " remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany.”
Congressman, your side did its best during this campaign to stake a claim on what it meant to be a “real American” or to truly have America’s best interest at heart. If either of these notions really means anything at all to you, the best thing you can do is the heed the advice that Republican bumper stickers were giving Democrats about four years ago this time: “You lost. Get over it!” I admit that I have been mighty hard on these past eight years, but the gracious and hospitable spirit he and the First Missus showed the Obamas on their first visit to the White House truly made me proud to be an American. God know, I never thought I’d suggest this to anyone, but this is one case where you’d do well to emulate ol’ “W.”
