The dangerous left-wing hatemongering from Media Matters

By Warner Todd Huston

Eric Boehlert of Media Matters is the worst kind of American. In fact, it's hard to count him as an American at all except by accident of birth. It is plain that this Boehlert fellow is against many aspects of the American tradition chief of which is freedom of political speech. Well, perhaps, he's not entirely against that freedom. Instead he's against that freedom for anyone that isn't in wholesale agreement with him and his left-wing cronies.

One of his September postings on the extremist, anti-American website AlterNet.org stands as exhibit "A" in the proof of his anti-Americanism, his utter lack of historical knowledge, his uncivil attitude, and his desire to shut down those that disagree with him. It all goes to prove that Eric Boehlert seems to be little else than a fascist.

The left's newest meme against anyone that disagrees with it is to say that all conservatives are "dangerous" to the county. It is said in leftist circles that anyone with a conservative viewpoint is only a hairsbreadth away from committing violence against the U.S.A., its government, and citizens. Because of this, the left claims, conservatives have somehow become dangerous.

Sadly, these assumptions are exactly the sort of charge that they used to rail against conservative minded Americans for thinking of them. But introspection is not the sort of mood the extreme left is in today. Today they are in a fearmongering, hate-filled mode because for the first time in a generation they have the taste of power in their mouths. They are the ones in a position to say what should or should not be done as a matter of policy. They've become "the man."

Let us savor the irony of all this, shall we? The left used to bemoan that they were "victims" of conservative oppression. They used to agitate that "the man" was ready to put them in re-education camps, that "the suits" were forcing them to conform to the system, and that their freedom of speech was always on the verge of being eliminated by "the establishment."

Yet, now they are the establishment. And what are they doing? They are attempting to shut down conservative talk radio, they want tea party goers to be kept from the streets, and, tellingly, they insist that any talk against the administration is "dangerous" talk. In short, the left is now guilty of precisely the sort of oppressive attitudes against conservatives that they claimed was so wrong for conservatives of the past to use to keep them down.

In real life we call this hypocrisy. As I said, though, philosophical introspection is not the left's current mood. Neither is sanity, logic, or justice. Power is all that is on their minds and they will do anything to maintain it.

Boehlert's AlterNet post makes the irresponsible and anti-American charge that conservatives are engaged in a "demented national jihad" of hatred, one of which "this country has not seen in modern times." Absurdly, in allusion to the assassination of Kennedy, Boehlert goes on to claim that the "last time right-wing hatred ran wild like this a president was killed."

Let's deal with the absurd J.F.K. allusion first. If this situation hasn't been seen "in modern times" how, then, can Boehlert begin the discussion with J.F.Kennedy's assassination? Is Boehlert making the claim that J.F.K.'s death didn't happen in "modern times"? Clearly this Boehlert fellow is not a history buff... nor a maven of the practice of logic.

That uninformed childishness aside, we get to the meat of his charge: that right-wing hatred was responsible for J.F.K.'s death. Of course, once again we run smack dab into that whole truth in history thing to devastate his outlandish point. You see no "right-wing hatred" was involved in the assassination of Kennedy. Lee Harvey Oswald was a Marxist, a man of the left. And even if you don't believe in the lone gunman theory, other suspected perpetrators happen to be shadowy government agencies or Organized Crime Syndicates. None of these had anything to do with right-wing anything.

So, as this hyperbolic Boehlert does his best to cast the right as suspects of a national jihad of some sort, his main historical point is divorced from the very right he castigates.

Boehlert goes on to say that we are in an age of "increasingly violent rhetorical attacks on Obama." To be sure, violence can't be violence unless some violence has been committed. So, as a simple matter of fact, rhetoric cannot be violence. Only violence is violence. Rhetoric may advocate violence, but it is not, in and of itself, actual violence. Boehlert is plainly not smart enough to understand this truth. But even if we ignore his inability to understand the English language, his point is still off base because no one in the conservative movement has been advocating any violence against Obama, the left, or anything else for that matter.

As Eric Odom of the American Liberty Alliance reported, he's been at Tea Party meetings throughout the country these last few months and has heard not one call for violence. In fact, he says that President Obama's name has hardly even come up at these meetings.

But, let's not have truth go getting in the way of Eric Boehlert's hate.

Lastly, it must be pointed out that Boehlert's obvious fear is over the Summer's townhall meetings — and fear is mostly what he is selling to his left-wing audience. Boehlert worries about "violence" and overheated rhetoric coming from the right in this age of Obama. Naturally he focuses on showman Glenn Beck (and correspondingly ignores the foul Keith Olbermann and the halt-witted Ed Schultz, both coming form the far right and filled with ignorant hatemongering of their own). But if violence is what makes Boehlert fear for his country, it is amazing that he seemed to have completely missed the singular fact that all the violence that came out of this Townhall Summer was perpetrated by the left. Union thugs and left-wing lunatics, the sort that frequent Boehlert 's website, are the only ones that caused any violence this summer.

Further, we can point to another fact that gives the lie to Boehlert's hatemongering: no one was arrested at any of the many tea party protests this year. In fact, the only arrests made at any protest this Summer was when anarchists, and violence prone leftists protested at the G20 meeting in Pennsylvania. There weren't even any Tea Party goers arrested at the gigantic protest in Washington D.C. on September 12th. Not only that, but the conservatives at that protest even left the National Mall cleaner than it was when they got there!

In the end, this clownish Boehlert is really either mentally disabled, or a liar. And, since he spelled everything right in his AlterNet post, I am forced to conclude that he is the later.

Unfortunately, Eric Boehlert is part and parcel to the hyperbolic, fearmongering and hatred coming from the far left in America today. But, it isn't just partisan blindness that leads people like Boehlert down this rocky road to self-loathing and fascist sentiment. They know what they are doing. No, the truth is, people like Boehlert hope to whip up their mindnumbed followers into a level of hatred that will overcome any sense of logic or goodwill they might have left for their fellow Americans.

It's a tried and true application of the sort of fascist control mechanisms that have been seen is movements like Boehlert's throughout history. In the end, we should all recognize Boehlert and his ilk for what they are and assess his words accordingly.

And now, to show that it is Boehlert's side that is all caught up in so much hatemongering, here is a little video to show you what I mean...





© Warner Todd Huston