Thursday, March 15th, 2007
GOP issues fatwa against John Edwards
That’s the only possible explanation I can come up with when I see recent news items involving John Edwards. First professional outrage maven Bill Dono-spew goes apeshit over Edwards’ hiring of two feminist bloggers, flinging feces nonstop until the bloggers step down. Then Ann Coulter flings verbal feces in the form of a homophobic slur at Edwards at CPAC. Conservatives yuked it up and continued along that line every time they talked about Edwards. Then his virtual HQ in the MMOG Second Life was vandalized by right-wing thugs.
Now this: yet another hoax anthrax attack - this time against Edwards’ real-world North Carolina headquarters.
It’s just the latest round of right-wing eliminationist rhetoric, which follows a certain pattern:
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Lie about or smear a liberal politician/celebrity/activist.
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Up the ante by engaging in McCarthyesque suggestions that your target be blacklisted as insufficiently patriotic.
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Make comments oozing with the Untermensch Syndrome aimed at dehumanizing your target in the eyes of your readers/listeners.
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Suggest that your target is an immediate danger to America just by existing, and that “something needs to be done.”
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Finally, when the inevitable happens, deny responsibility.
Back during the Chad Castagana affair, David Neiwert had this to say:
In the meantime, we all can probably look forward to a fresh round of white-powder-in-the-mail stories, all inspired by exploits of Chad Castagana. That’s the way it always seems to work.
This looks to be the first such story. God help us all.
