According to crowd estimates, 9000 folks—mostly white—turned out over the weekend for a Sarah Palin indoctrination at an Arizona Rally for Republican Senator John McCain, the former statesman politician now caught in the throes of partisan dementia. Even though McCain lifted Palin from obscurity by selecting her as his running mate in the 2008 Presidential campaign, I’m surprised at her support of the Senator, rather than his GOP opponent, J.D. Hayworth. After all, the former Congressman expressed Palin-like ignorance a few weeks ago by claiming that legalizing gay marriage could lead to man/h0rse matrimony. Palin should find Hayworth’s stupidity appealing.
Anyway, she marches on. In fact, the 9000 people attending the rally is more than ever voted for the political candidate I often compare her with—nut-case, Lyndon LaRoche. Recent news stories disclose that a number of LaRoche followers have found a home in the Tea Party movement, which embraces Palin so whole-heartedly.
For those unfamiliar with the LaRoche cult, I recommend they do a google search. It is quite entertaining. He is the only candidate to offer colonization of Mars as a plank in a Presidential campaign. After qualifying to receive federal election funds in 1984—his third consecutive campaign for the presidency—LaRoche proselytized his Mars plan in a 30-minute national telecast. LaRoche’s political beliefs were just as loopy, ranging from socialism to Nazism with a few other “ism’s thrown in. Unfortunately for the perpetual candidate, his 1988 presidential campaign was short-circuited when he was convicted of 13 counts of mail fraud in connection with phony loans his organization obtained. Released from prison in 1994, LaRoche maintained he had been the target of a government conspiracy, one of many plots in the minds of the wacko candidate and his followers.
So when Sarah Palin launched her misinformation campaign by claiming that health reform legislation included a provision for “death panels” to pull the plug on granny, LaRoche conspiracy theorists quickly became her disciples. They also found a new home in the Tea Party movement. It was a natural fit.
I had my own experience with the LaRoche crowd in the early eighties. Indeed, I was tempted to file a lawsuit against the organization because its newsletter praised me as the embodiment of Edward R. Murrow—not that I have anything against such a fine characterization. However, the accolade was an insult considering the source. It was sort of like being saluted by the Ku Klux Klan.
The LaRoche publication commended me for my investigation of overzealous federal prosecutors. In a series of reports for a Boston TV station and an ABC Close Up documentary, I revealed corruption by federal and state lawmen in their dealings with convicted criminals recruited to testify in trials of high profile targets. The LaRoche tribute given me was a companion story to an attack on NBC investigative reporter Brian Ross, now chief investigative correspondent for ABC. Brian, a friend and former colleague years ago in Miami, took several shots LaRoche in a series of reports. Therefore, I was the good guy in comparison. Since people are often judged by the company they keep, I certainly didn’t want anyone to think I had anything to do with the LaRoche cult.
I try to resist the temptation to judge folks by the company they keep—at least most of the time. But when I see a bunch of screaming maniacs like the people outside the nation’s Capitol last weekend, it is hard not to judge. I have a hunch that a vast majority of the demonstrators would be hard-pressed to articulate an opinion about health care that was anything more than an echo of propaganda spread by right-wing Internet websites, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin. In other words, these folks gain their knowledge from dumb bloggers (as opposed to smart ones like me), two ex-disc jockeys, an ex-bartender and a former beauty queen, who quit her job as Alaska’s Governor in order to make a few bucks. And if anyone doubts the ignorance of Sarah Palin, just listen to her for awhile.
The shame is that Palin’s ignorance is contagious.
My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. It is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.
Since their inception the Teaparty crowd (not a movement since they do have the numbers or clout) have been “haters not debaters”. In my opinion this is what the small portions of the republican party of “birthers, baggers and blowhards” have brought you. They are good at “Follow the Leader” of their dullard leaders, they listen to Beck, Hedgecock, Hannity, O’Reilly, Rush and Savage and the rest of the Blowhards. Are you surprise at what they do when you know what they think? The world is complicated and most republicans (Hamiliton, Lincoln, Roosevelt) believe that we should use government a little to increase social mobility, now its about dancing around the claim of government is the problem. The sainted Reagan passed the biggest tax increase in American history and as a result federal employment increased, but facts are lost when mired in mysticism and superstition. Although some republicans are trying to distant themselves from this fringe most of them are just going along and fanning the flames. Lets face it the Republicans had 8 years to deal with health care, immigration and financial oversight and governance and they failed. They could not even win one of the two wars they started, the body bags are still coming in. The Republicans wanted to give Obama his Waterloo defeat over healthcare but instead they gave themselves their own Waterloo defeat by not participating in the debate of ideas and by becoming the party of obstructionist. But they now claim they have changed, come on, what sucker is going to believe that?
Thanks for the comment. You are right on target.