Hullabaloo

Friday, June 12, 2009

 
Lizard Brains Exploding

by digby

The last time we heard from Andrew Breitbart, he was forced to admit that he was an utter jackass on the pages of the Washington Times:

Late last month, my wife, Susie, and I took a day trip to Shutters, an elegant, white-veneered hotel along the ritzy Santa Monica shoreline. It's a special-occasion place, and we went there to take in a rare parental reprieve.

[...]

As they passed, the protesters stared sourly at the second story where we sat. Fellow patrons wondered aloud what this now massive conga line was all about. About 300 people into the procession, I spotted a sign that had "war" written in it. One T-shirt read, "Stop forcing our children to be your soldiers."

It's a voluntary army, you stupid kids!

A thousand marchers into the protest, the sour looks aimed at the hotel's clientele began to wear on us. The marchers' defiant smugness started to make an enemy of me.

"Oh, no," I thought. The antiwar movement that I saw growing only days after Sept. 11, 2001, was at it again. I thought: Even with a new president - and one who mostly shares their point of view - the I-love-a-protest-parade political left couldn't help itself. It likes ruining nice sunny days. Protesting is what these people do. Sneering at their fellow citizens is their chief skill. Projecting arrogance is their birthright.

[...]

As soon as my finger was raised, a phalanx of photographers began snapping away at the white middle-aged man wearing a white LaCoste shirt next to the old red, white and blue. Cognizant of the power of imagery, I owned the moment and refused to back down. The fist wielder immediately dropped his arm. I clearly had won and envisioned photos of the anti-antiwar protester making the front pages of the Los Angeles Times.

Satisfied by the small victory, I sat down to finish my cocktail...

The e-mail began like this:

"On 4/25/09 an event hosted by the Invisible Children called 'The Rescue' took place in Santa Monica. I shot the event. 4,000 youth marched in solidarity for the children abducted and forced to fight for the LRA in Northern Uganda and more recently in the Congo. I had felt a sense of hope in my generation's methods of activism at the event."

Oh, no. It only got worse.

"I believe most people in America are in agreement that human slavery, genocide and child soldiers are a terrible thing. This event was hardly controversial. The protest marched by 'Shutters on the Beach.' After reviewing the photographs I was taking for the event and confirming the facts (you were in Santa Monica at the date and time) I realized you were flipping the protesters off. I am curious to why this is the case."

So, let's just say that Breitbart isn't the most discerning political observer and has an admittedly reflexive, negative reaction to certain people based purely upon his own prejudices. You would think after an embarrassment like that, he'd question his assumptions a little bit before he opens his gob, but no:

Former Drudge alter ego Andrew Breitbart thinks James von Brunn was a "multiculturalist just like the black studies and the lesbian studies majors on college campuses." How do we know? He left us an enraged voicemail!

Go ahead, listen. Breitbart is angry that anyone would call a neo-Nazi a "right-wing extremist." Here's a sample:

It's such a fucking slander on people like me. This guy's political philosophy is more akin to the drivel that you hear on a college campuses that delineates us by group and not by individuality.... It's deeply offensive that you would use this for political gain.

He's not alone of course. Limbaugh also said, "this guy's beliefs, this guy's hate stems from influence that you find on the left, not on the right." The history of right wing extremism has been airbrushed out.

Right wing commentators have obviously developed a serious delusion. It started a while back when they disingenuously tried to brainwash young people into believing that Hitler was a product of the left. It took on steam after 9/11 when they accused "the left" of being in sympathy with the misogynistic, repressive fundamentalist Islam and has now apparently evolved into a widespread belief that the left are white supremacists due to their multiculturalism.

The cognitive dissonance may finally be taking its toll.

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digby 6/12/2009 09:15:00 AM