David Maraniss, Obama biographer, has come in for attention from America's rightwing. I could have told him what would happen. But he figured it out on his own, and today had the guts to call them out.
"In the introduction to my book, I took note of a sick political culture where 'facts are so easily twisted for political purposes and where strange armies of ideological pseudo-historians roam the biographical fields in search of stray ammunition.' That sentence is now cited on right-wing Web sites as evidence that I hold them in contempt. True enough, one of the few accurate things that I’ve read from them. I do hold some of them in contempt, not because of their politics, nor because of their dislike of Obama. Political debate and disagreement are the lifeblood of American democracy. No, I hold them in contempt for the way they disregard facts and common sense and undermine the role of serious history as they concoct conspiracy theories that portray the president as dangerous, alien and less than American."
Just like Eisenhower in '52, Romney is showing himself too cowardly to stand up to the rightwing crazies. At least Ike, though spineless, had his underlings work behind the scenes against McCarthy (although their results were paltry). Romney is the double coward: afraid to repudiate the haters and racists but afraid too to come right out and embrace them.
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