« BACK  |  PRINT

RS

MEMBER DIARY

Grotesque

By: Robert A. Hahn (Diary)  |  June 11th, 2009 at 11:42 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Josh Gerstein, a front page contributor at the liberal blog Politico, today trots out the old “some say” trick to spray veterans and conservatives with the acts of notorious racist James von Brunn, who yesterday shot up the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, killing security guard Stephen T. Johns.

Gerstein reminds us that Republicans roundly criticized a recent “report” from the Department of Homeland Security warning about right-wing extremism:

The sharpest criticism of the report, titled, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,” was focused on a part of the report asserting that “the return of military veterans…could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.”

As if on cue, some say that yesterday’s violence validates the DHS “report.” In this case the some are from the Southern Poverty Law Center, but any left-of-center bullhorn will do. Sooner or later one of them was bound to link the terms “Republicans,” “conservatives,” and “violent Holocaust-denying racists.” The only question was which liberal pretender to reasonableness would step in to help them try to sell it.

Here we have an 88-year-old man who last saw military service in World War II. And that’s if we believe von Brunn; so far as I know his service in WWII has not been verified. Regardless, Gerstein would evidently have us believe that von Brunn’s status as a “veteran” is somehow related to what he did yesterday. Is it just Gerstein, or are all left-wingers that nuts? Are the liberals at Politico so creeped out by “veterans” that they think we should keep these men on the ’might go off any minute’ radar well into their eighties?

Fortunately, Gerstein himself supplies the best explanation for what he’s trying to do. He quotes Newt Gingrich’s spokesman Michael Steel:

“Trying to exploit this awful tragedy to score political points – from the right or the left – is simply grotesque,” Steel said.

Tags: , ,
Get Alerts

COMMENTS

POSTING RULES  |  LOGIN TO COMMENT  |  REGISTER TODAY
  • fisk2521

    The last time I looked it was the conservatives (right) that supports Israel and condemns Muslim terrorism, not the Daily Kos, or Politico or the activists at Berekley…

    Sometimes the ‘left’ (marxists) and the ‘far right’ become the same…. there was little difference between Hitler and Stalin accept for their stated ideologies. It turned out to be the same dictatorial tyrants and murderers who cared more for the “State” than they did the individuals who lived in them.

    That is, of course, the difference in the US….our fundamental beliefs through our Constitution and Declaration of Independence insures that individual rights are preeminant. We are a government “for the people, by the people, and of the people”. We are ‘endowed’ by our creator with certain inalienable rights”. and Obama doesn’t have the right to take them away..

    It won’t be the left that demands the US give assistance to Irael if Iran or any other muslim country attacks them once again…..And it isn’t the left that regards Judism as part of the Judeo Christian ethic that led to the founding of this country. Obama can claim Islam and the Muslim world as his own….. I claim the US with it’s fundamental beliefs derived from Judism and from Christ.

  • CrabCakes

    Do you consider them a “left-of-center bullhorn”?

  • $peciallist

    If they weren’t before …they are now..

  • Robert A. Hahn

    I expect an ADL spokesperson to weigh in on a matter like this. The shooter was after all a notorious anti-Semite and his target was the Holocaust Museum.

    It was not Ms. Lauter who dragged veterans, Rush Limbaugh, and Minority Leader Boehner into the article.

    And yet… there they are. Why?

  • CrabCakes

    nt

  • Achance

    who happens to be a whacko white supremacist is hardly the beginning of the VWRC uprising. Yet I fear it will provide them with the inciting incident they’ve been waiting for. They plowed this field with the DHS “report” and endless insinuations based on that meme. Now some whackjob gives them the entre they need; we won’t hear the end of this anytime soon. Invest in precious metals!

  • jstone

    was a cheap way of avoiding ascribing any actual opinions to any actual people. I think that in this case, though, the “some” in question is clearly the SPLC and ADL.

    Also, while the article clearly mentioned conservatives and Republicans, it was in the context of their opposition to the DHS report. Nowhere did anyone use the term “violent Holocaust-denying racists,” much less link that phrase to conservatives and Republicans. In fact, the person from the ADL clearly says that the threat is from the “right wing extremist movement” in this country.

    Now, granted, it’s all too often that, in order to strengthen their case, people on both sides of the aisle tend to paint their opponents as “extremists.” Both the president and Rush Limbaugh have been described as such by their adversaries. However, I think that people on both sides of the aisle need to distance themselves from the real extremists on both sides. In that way, they can call out all extremists and return to a more civil discussion of the problems at hand.

    In other words, the recent events in Washington, Wichita and Pittsburgh all seem to offer at least some veracity to the DHS report, which warned of the emergence of “lone wolf” extremists, which the perpetrators of all three of those incidents apparently were.

  • aesthete

    Was that it was very unspecific and vague, and that a vast majority of those that fall under the criterion laid out by the report are peaceful, if not some of the most law-abiding citizens in the US, and it’s stupid to think that this memo was some sort of clairvoyant literature, or that it will lead to effective policies to limit domestic terrorism.

    Note that I hate terrorism, and if there is a serious threat from right-leaning schools of thought, I would advocate for policies to limit said terrorism. However, this memo is not serious, and really tells you, in short, that right-wing domestic terrorists are right wing (duh!). That’s not helpful, and it does lead to the impression that the current administration is more concerned with scoring political points than responding intelligently to real and stoppable threats, such as radical Islamist threats.

  • CrabCakes

    is not saying “the DHS report was right.”

    Rather, it is saying “the DHS report was right, and Rush and Boehner, who said it was wrong, were wrong” that earns one that label?

  • longwalker

    From the little information that I have seen regarding von Brunn’s military service, I tend to doubt that service.

    The available information stated that he had enlisted as a “Midshipman” in the Naval Reserves in 1943. Another item stated that he served as a PT boat commander in the Pacific.

    I hope that some of the bloggers who post on Blackfive, Obiter Dicta and the other blogs who investigate “Phony Soldier” stories do some digging on this matter.

  • CrabCakes

    “Navy enlistment records, provided by the National Personnel Records Center, indicate a 21-year-old von Brunn signed up for military service on April 29, 1942, as an apprentice seaman. Almost a year later, von Brunn accepted an appointment in the Naval Reserves to become a midshipman. He listed his reason for signing up as “patriotic,” documents show, after spending three years in college. Navy records show he had language qualifications in English and French.”

    http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/us_world/Who-is-James-Wenneker-von-Brunn.html

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens
  • CrabCakes

    took the same position on the DHS report as the SPLC. Hahn singled out the SPLC but didn’t mention the ADL. His comment clearly demonstrates that he makes a distinction between their two statements the significance of which I and $pecialist, apparently, are failing to see.

    Perhaps you could help us out?

  • Dan McLaughlin

    The word you are looking for is “profiling.” Amazing how all the lefties who hated “racial profiling” before are now all in favor of profiling.

    Profiling, if done carefully and drawn narrowly from factual experience, is a useful law enforcement tool. But profiling people based on general characteristics, especially things like race and religion and political affiliation, is dangerous and usually sloppy law enforcement. The DHS report was all that. Any liberal worthy of the name would not be defending it. Imagine if the DHS report had focused on black people – would a single shooting by one African-American be enough to justify profiling on the basis of race?

  • Streiff

    above. Now it seems you want to change the question to “compare and contrast the ADL and SPLC” which is not what this article is about.

    DHS was wrong on this no matter who says she was right. Just how wrong she was demonstrated last week when a muslim extremist killed one soldier and wounded another in Little Rock yet there was no report by DHS on muslim extremists.

    DHS also didn’t report on the danger posed by deranged, anti-semitic geriatrics.

    So how about moving on because the management is becoming really tired of this crap.

  • aesthete

    As you said, profiling is a useful tool when used correctly and for the correct purposes, but categorizing broad swaths of people as “dangerous” is dangerous. I’m certain that most leftists wouldn’t want to be judged by the works of their extremists, many of whom, unlike “lone wolf” “rightist”/Nazi extremists, are well-organized and have ties to the mainstream movement (e.g., Pres Obama and Ayers).