By MARC MCDONALD
"At least he got a stroke in, which is more than the girl he drowned could manage. He should be rotting in jail, not making law. Disgusting."
----Geoff, a commenter at RightWingNews.com
For normal, sane Americans, the news that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was hospitalized on Saturday after suffering a seizure was a cause for prayers and concern.
But if you browsed many of the right-wing blogs on Saturday, you'd find that they were full of jokes, insults and sarcastic remarks about Kennedy's hospitalization. (This, despite the fact that many of the big right-wing blogs had warnings against posting offensive comments about Kennedy).
Despite such warnings, the comments on right-wing blogs were full of vile posts that featured sick humor.
For example, an anonymous poster at the right-wing blog Gateway Pundit wrote, "One Liberal down! Looks like he (TED) may have to answer for his drunk driving accident in the 60's. Maybe the SUBJECTS of MA will get there (sic) SECOND Ammendment (sic) rights BACK."
The sentiments were similar, over at RightWingNews.com. There, "guest blogger" Kathy Shaidle (of the blog "Five Feet of Fury") expressed annoyance over the media's "eulogies" for Kennedy. In a post under the headline, "Oh pu-leeeeeeze," she wrote, "In the midst of this embarrassing, wrongheaded preemptive media eulogizing of Edward Kennedy, at least spare a thought for the woman he killed."
Meanwhile, Geoff, a commenter on RightWingNews.com wrote, "At least he got a stroke in, which is more than the girl he drowned could manage. He should be rotting in jail, not making law. Disgusting."
Another RightWingNews.com commenter named Lord Locksley chimed in with the remark, "They don't call him 'Nazi Joe's last big mistake' for nothing."
The hatefest continued over at the right-wing Sister Toldjah blog. There, commenter Severian wrote a hate-filled post that seemed to take issue with another poster's remark that he didn't "wish a fellow human being any ill."
Severian responded:
"Just a philosophical question here, at what point is it justifiable to wish a fellow human being ill? What you say is a nice platitude, but it also reeks of more than a touch of holier than though attitude. Would it have been OK to wish Hitler ill? Yes, no? How about Ted Bundy? Saddam Hussein? Osama Bin Laden? How many reprehensible traits and acts does one have to commit before it is OK to wish them ill? Ted Kennedy, while said to be a charmer and nice guy in person, has been personally responsible for creating some of the most toxic political environments on Capitol Hill, lynching Bork among others, and is responsible for much of the ill will and problems we see coming out of the liberal Dem side of the aisle. While perhaps not rising to the level of actively wishing him ill or trying to harm him, I’ll be honest enough to admit that when his day comes, as Mark Twain said, his will be an obituary I’ll read with approval."
Actually, none of the above hate-mongering should be surprising in the least, as anyone who has ever listened to the filth spewed out daily by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, and the rest of the Right-Wing Noise Machine.
Nor should we be surprised by the glee the right-wing expresses when Democrats have misfortunes. We've seen this happen again and again.
Recall the hostage crisis episode in November, when a distraught man wearing what appeared to be a bomb walked into the campaign office of Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire. Then, as now, the right-wing blogosphere was full of laughter and sick jokes about the incident.
I have to admit, I never really understood the right-wing sense of humor.
Like when Ronald Reagan joked in 1964 about the 17 million people who then went to bed hungry every night in America, saying that "they were all on a diet."
Or when Rush Limbaugh called 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton a "dog."
Or when George W. Bush yucked it up over the issue of the non-existent WMDs in Iraq during a "comedy" skit in the Oval Office.
News and opinion with a progressive viewpoint.
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
ReplyDeleteO you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,
Knew you not Pompey? (1.1.39)
Ye gods, it doth amaze me,
A man of such a feeble temper should
So get the start of the majestic world,
And bear the palm alone. (1.2.129)
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones. (3.2.79)
-Shakespeare: Julius Caesar-
If the right wing elite were so elite, where is their respect for their enemies when they fall ill or die? Instead they shoot their mouths off like the narrow-minded niche dwellers they are and practically fart on Ted Kennedy's grave before he fills it. I think the last conservative I had respect for was Dwight Eisenhower when he told us to distrust the military industrial complex his party helped build, yet these scavengers worship and serve to this day. Yes Ted Kennedy had his faults, but you don't see me lambasting him with insults while half his motor skills are dead and gone from stroke. It just makes me ill to hear about this kind of thing coming from the mouths of so-called well-educated, well-informed citizenry.
The wingnuts routinely joke about violence against Democrats. And the likes of Michael Moore and the Dixie Chicks get death threats.
ReplyDeleteBut the interesting thing is, these people can dish it out, but they can't take it.
If anyone dares to speak out about their beloved Fratboy-in-Chief, they throw a big hissy fit.
Further proof of the infantile nature of the conservative mind. I think many of these people stopped emotional development at around 13. Just like George W. Bush.
ReplyDeleteI'd bet not one of those negative commenters ever thought of turning down a benefit he or she has received because of Kennedy's hard work. If they dislike Kennedy so much perhaps they should turn down portable health care when they switch jobs or health care privacy.
ReplyDeleteSay or believe what you want, I say it was and still is the most wonderfull news for the last ten years! Justice finally!!!!!
ReplyDeletere:
ReplyDelete>>>Say or believe what you want, I
>>>say it was and still is the
>>>most wonderfull news for the
>>>last ten years! Justice
>>>finally!!!!!
Well, that's not really surprising, coming from a NeoCon. (Neither is the fact that you hide behind an anonymous post).
Hi, WageslaveZ, thanks for your comment.
ReplyDeletere:
>>>I think the last conservative I
>>>had respect for was Dwight
>>>Eisenhower when he told us to
>>>distrust the military
>>>industrial complex his party
>>>helped build
I don't Eisenhower was really a "conservative," (as that term is understood in today's politics). Recall how the top end tax rate under Eisenhower was 90 percent (and Ike himself fought back attempts to lower that rate, saying that the nation needed to be fiscally responsible and pay its bills). Quite a contrast to today's NeoCons, who advocate simply putting the nation's titanic deficits on the tab (and letting our children and grand-children worry about paying these deficits).
Hi, Ellen Beth: great point.
ReplyDeleteYou're right: these Rush-listening, Bush-voting NeoCon idiots never give the slightest bit of thought to the various benefits they enjoy as a result of progressives' hard work.
I guess they think that the 40-hour week just spontaneously happened one day when Corporate America was in a generous mood.
First the politics, and then the point:
ReplyDeleteWith all due respect, as an average American, I feel I pay a lot more for these "benefits" than I actually get. I worked a lot of years to get to make a decent salary and half of it is sucked into the government hole between state and federal and so-called entitlements. Its getting to the point where its just not worth working that hard since the government seems intent on making sure that everyone is middle class regardless of talent and hard work. So, Im not really a big Kennedy supporter when it comes to politics.
That said, I appreciate and admire what Senator Kennedy has put in to doing things he sincerely believes are in the public interest. Just because my beliefs are different than he is does not diminish his dedication to public service in my eyes. This is every bit as ugly as the Ronald Reagan Alzheimer's saga which was a punch line for years. I only bring that up because that was the only other time I've really wondered what the heck is wrong with people...why cant people put their ideology aside out of basic human compassion? It happens on both sides and its just as sick either way. It really shows America at its worst, and thats almost as sad as watching an American icon, and no matter what your politics are Kennedy is one, get old and suffer.