Freedom Fries redux
by digby
Joe Sudbay catches the best Villager he said/she said I've seen in years:
Chuck Todd: Perry-Obama would be a picture of sharp contrasts.
David Gregory: You know, Perry talked about potentially seceding from the union. You think that's extreme. Well people on the other side think that introducing health care reform for the whole country is akin to European Socialism.
Gregory doesn't seem to endorse the idea that health care reform actually is akin to "European Socialism" but does apparently agree that being favorable toward "European Socialism" -- the outlaw countries of Germany and France --- is as extreme as advocating secession from the union. (This from a guy who was famously put down by George W. Bush for knowing how to speak French.)
It's very telling. There just isn't anything you can realistically claim about liberals these days that is even close to being as radical as what the Republican presidential candidates are spewing on a daily basis. If the worst they can come up with to paint liberals as extreme as Rick Perry's closet fascism is Barack Obama's policies and a tolerance for "European Socialism" then you have to assume the right is just batshit crazy --- and the left is non-existent. Gregory should point that out not pretend that "both sides do it." It's reaching the point of total absurdity.
As Sudbay writes;
They create an equivalency between Democrats and Republicans, as if the right wing's extremism is somehow, well, normal. It's not. Yet, Gregory legitimized Perry's secession talk.
So, 2012 could become a battle between secession and health care. And, the traditional media and pundits will consider that a legitimate debate.
I don't doubt it.
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