bad americans

former leading member of the christian evangelical movement frank schaeffer says enough is enough! and he's pointing fingers and naming names.

maddow: do you think that calling the president a "nazi" ... calling the president "hitler" ... is an implicit call for politically motivated violence?

schaeffer: yes i do. in fact this rings a big bell with me because my dad who is a right wing evangelical leader wrote a book called a christian manifesto ... and in that book he compared anybody who was pro-abortion to the nazi germans; and he said that using violence or force to overthrow nazi germany would have been appropriate for christians including the assassination of hitler. he compared the supreme court's actions on abortion to that. and that has been a note that has been following the right wing movement that my father and i helped start ... so what's being said here is really two messages: there's the message to the predominatly white, middle-aged crowds of people screaming at these meetings trying to shut them down; but there's also a coded message to what i would call the "looney tunes" — the fruit loops on the side — that's really like playing russian roulette. you put a cartridge in the chamber and you spin and once in a while it goes off, and we saw that with dr. tiller, we've seen it happen numerous times in this country with the violence against political leaders whether it's martin luther king or whoever it might be. we have a history of being a well-armed violent country. and so, really, i think that these calls are incredibly irresponsible. but the good news is is that it shows a desperation. the far right knows they've lost. they've lost the hearts and minds of most american people ... but they also know that they have a large group of people who are not well-informed, who listen to their own sources, who buy the lies ... and these people can be energized to go out and do really dreadful things and we've seen it in front of abortion clinics — i'm afraid we're going to see it with some of our political leaders. and the glenn becks of this world literally are responsible for unleashing what i regard as an anti-democratic, anti-american movement in this country that is trying to shut down legitimate debate and replace it with straight out intimidation. ... these are very bad signs and i'm not at all optimistic about how this is all going to end in terms of violence although i do think that obama is going to win the day in terms of most americans. the problem is we're not talking about most americans. we're talking about a small angry group of white people who — to, y'know, paraphrase bart simpson, "the election broke their brains." they're angry and they're ready to do just about anything to stop the process at this point because they'd rather see us all lose than admit defeat. that's where they're at. ... you have a group of people who, like rush limbaugh, would rather see the president and the country fail, and their coded message to their own lunatic fringe is very sinful, and that is "go for broke". when you start comparing a democratically elected president who is not only our first black president but a moderate progressive to adolf hitler, you have arrived at a point where you are literally leaving a loaded gun on the table, saying "first person who wants to use this, go ahead, be our guest." now, all these people, when something bad happens, will raise their holy hands in horror and say "of course, we didn't mean that, we were just talking about being americans. it's american to protest ..." B.S.! they know exactly what's out there. there is a whole public there who went out and stocked up on ammunition and guns thinking obama would take away their weapons. one such person shot down three policemen in pittsburgh. i'd like to know exactly what glenn beck and fox news will say the morning after someone takes a shot at our president or kills a senator or congressman ... and if it's one of the people who we find a little note in their car or their literature or their television watching habits who's tied to these people who are stirring the pot, or tied to these foundations that people like dick armey are running, trying to use insurance company money to make look these fake grass roots movement, then we'll see what happens. but at that point we'll be in a new zone, and it'll be too late. so my warning to my old friends on the right ... without the work of my father, c. everett koop and myself, there'd be no pro-life movement, no religious right to be fomenting these things from, it's this same cast of characters. i came to a place in my life when i realized that i'd made a big mistake. now we've crossed a line into which hate and vitriol have gone to a point where it is anti-democratic and anti-american. these people do not want america to succeed. they'd rather see our system go down than have a black president, someone with different political views, someone appointing people like sotomayor, hispanic people, women and others, and we've arrived at a point where enough is enough! so these people are hate-mongers ... spreading this rhetoric, spreading these lies ... these are bad americans and they're putting us all at risk.

mcjindal

the reviews are in — but haven't we seen this movie before?

keith olbermann, rachel maddow and chris matthews on msnbc:

josh marshall @ talkingpointsmemo:

jindal's comments and presentation was just weird and cringy and awful.

david brooks on pbs news hour:

... uh, not so well. you know, i think bobby jindal is a very promising politician, and i oppose the stimulus because i thought it was poorly drafted, but to come up at this moment in history with a stale "government is the problem," "we can't trust the federal government" — it's just a disaster for the republican party. the country is in a panic right now. they may not like the way the democrats have passed the stimulus bill, but that idea that we're just gonna — that government is going to have no role, the federal government has no role in this, that — in a moment when only the federal government is actually big enough to do stuff, to just ignore all that and just say "government is the problem, corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending," it's just a form of nihilism. it's just not where the country is, it's not where the future of the country is. there's an intra-republican debate. some people say the republican party lost its way because they got too moderate. some people say they got too weird or too conservative. he thinks they got too moderate, and so he's making that case. i think it's insane, and i just think it's a disaster for the party. i just think it's unfortunate right now.

andrew sullivan @ the atlantic:

close your eyes and think of kenneth from 30 rock. i can barely count the number of emails making that observation. i'm told olbermann's open mic got it right: jindal's entrance reminded one of mr. burns gamboling toward a table of ointments. ... there was, alas, a slightly high-school debate team feel to the beginning. and there was a patronizing feel to it as well — as if he were talking to kindergartners — that made obama's adult approach so much more striking. and i'm not sure that the best example for private enterprise is responding to a natural calamity that even ron paul believes is a responsibility for the federal government. and really: does a republican seriously want to bring up katrina? as for the biography, it felt like obama-lite. with far less political skill. ... but give him his due: he did in the end concede that the gop currently has a credibility problem on the fiscal issues they are now defining themselves with.... the rest was boilerplate. and tired, exhausted, boilerplate. if the gop believes tax cuts — more tax cuts — are the answer to every problem right now, they are officially out of steam and out of ideas. and remember: this guy is supposed to be the smart one.

kathryn jean lopez @ the national review:

e-mails i’m getting are from disappointed conservatives. they wanted a full-throated response to obama and expected and/or wanted more.

not even fox news is interested in rescuing poor bobby:

brit hume:	the speech read a lot better than it sounded. this was not bobby jindal's greatest oratorical moment.
nina easton:	the delivery was not exactly terrific.
charles krauthammer:	jindal didn't have a chance. he follows obama, who in making speeches, is in a league of his own. he's in a reagan-esque league. ... [jindal] tried the best he could.
juan williams:	it came off as amateurish, and even the tempo in which he spoke was sing-songy. he was telling stories that seemed very simplistic and almost childish.

okay, enough with the paid opinions — what are real patriotic god-fearing usurper-hating americans saying?:

back to the drawing board, GOP!!!!

someone needs to teach the GOP about youtube and other networking sites. from what i can tell, there's still no "official" GOP rebuttal video posted.

the first 10 minutes was a disaster. oh wait, the speech was only 10 mins long? well, i was hoping he would do well but did not impress. we need four things four years from now. personality, can give a speech, conservative, and can raise $500 million. i think the only person who can do all four is palin. i did not connect with jindal at all tonight and i don’t know if anyone else can raise %500 million.

jindal’s speech was a stinker. to begin with, i’m sick of hearing republicans going on and on about how the election of 0bama was so so historic. jindal’s delivery was poor, and his attempts at personalizing stories kind of fell flat. i’ve heard him speak before, he’s a smart guy, but he’s very dull. if he were to get the nomination in 2012 he’d draw mccain size crowds, maybe a bit bigger. bored, unenthusiastic crowds don’t volunteer, don’t donate, and sometimes don’t even vote. last i heard he’s only rejected $98 million of the stimulus for louisiana, which is just over ten percent. palin has rejected about 50 percent of the $1 billion offered her state. all she’s taking are for construction projects.

we have GREAT candidates but they keep being shown in an awful light. that’s the problem.

i've read about jindal for months now, but this is the first speech i've seen him make. an unmitigated disaster. ... jindal is off my list for potential 2012 nominee. which leaves...no one.

i heard jindal on the radio earlier today. sounded squishy. a republican should have gone on tonight and said: why have you spent over a million dollars keeping your birth certificate locked up? are you a natural-born citizen? are you even a citizen? since your grandfather, father, mother, and mentor, and all your associates since childhood have been communists—why aren’t you a communist? or are you? why have you seized control of the census? why have you given acorn $4 billion? isn’t there enough thuggery and vote fraud to satisfy you? of course the “stimulus bill” had no earmarks—it was 100% pork from beginning to end. earmarks are pork! if a bill is 100& pork, there’s no need for earmarks. why is the money supply shooting up like a moon rocket? and why have you spent over a million dollars keeping your birth certificate locked up? (i know—i want to see this question repeated.)