Talk-radio host Michael Brown, of Heck've-a-job Brownie fame, felt no need whatsoever to challenge Rep. Mike Coffman Tues. as Coffman explained to Brown that America should have an "active counter-intelligence effort, to make sure that our [military] ranks are not infiltrated by those sympathetic to radical Islam."
Coffman told Brown, who was filling in for Mike Rosen on KOA, that the United States has "got to do a vetting of people, a counter-intelligence, the same that we did during the Cold War and an acknowledgement that we are at war today with an ideology, and it's cloaked in a religion called radical Islam."
"We need that same mentality today, to have that active counter-intelligence effort, to make sure that our ranks are not infiltrated by those sympathetic to radical Islam, like Major Hasan [Fort Hood], like Private First Class Abdo. And I think that is very important. And I think that it would also help Muslim Americans who are serving, because then those soldiers, Marines, and airmen, serving alongside of them would understand that they have been vetted and that they can be trusted," Coffman told Brown.
I had a inkling that vetting members of the armed forces, based on their religious affiliation, didn't sound kosher in terms of the U.S. Constitution. Criminal activities I can see, but religious?
Talk radio is, basically, an entertainment medium, and it was proven Wednesday night on the stage of, appropriately enough, the Comedy Works in conservative Greenwood Village, where Denver's top talk-show hosts squared off in hyped "battle."
You'd expect to get plenty of meaninglessness from a two-hour event featuring 10 yappers skilled at yapping plus two moderators.
I mean, what were they thinking? How could a panel of 10 normal people converse intelligently in such a setting much less 10 talk-radio hosts?
And sure enough, it was pretty stupid-and yet enjoyable, to an extent.
(Updated with Jon Caldara's fascinating and predictable input, a few more links to the Right's eliminationist rhetoric and a Golden Oldie from Boyles. - Z)
Both sides might do "it". That's the talking point. Mini-Limbaughs like Lou Pate on KOA dutifully started the process Saturday night. (Where do they find these infinite, cheap clones of Limbaugh, and do they all get a time slot on KOA?) Anyway, Lou says Democrats will blame Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin and 1,000 others for this avoidable tragedy. But Lou won't take responsibility for a word of it, even his own.
The "it", as we all know in this discussion, is two very different things: two different sets of rhetoric, different tactics with differences in scope and tone and intent. Our "side" does it here:
Their side does it in this chilling list of political and media right-wingers fantasizing about blood in the streets and a locked-and-loaded citizenry. Jon Caldara was saying last night that the rhetoric doesn't matter. I tend to agree with Krugman:
Where's that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let's not make a false pretense of balance: it's coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It's hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be "armed and dangerous" without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.
If Krugman is wrong and Caldara is right, then I fully expect Jon-boy stop talking about taxes and privatizing everything....because it doesn't matter.
So we await the list of National and Local Major Media and Political Figures on the Liberal side who do the same as the Conservatives who claim they do.
