Posted on 10/05/2010 9:08:58 AM PDT by toma29
Richard Cohen, from whom Frank L. Baum got the inspiration for Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, has completely veered off the Yellow Brick Road more than normal today.
From the Washington Post:
On the right, hateful words are fired like bullets
It seems that if Scarecrow had a brain, he'd also have memories of the hatred from the Left during George W. Bush's presidency - things like death threats against him and an actual assassination movie. Fired like bullets.
How does Scarecrow start his tripe-filled column? By reliving the liberal glory days of the sixties:
I still ride a bike. I do 12 miles, several days a week, and as I do so I listen to music -- the Pandora service on my iPhone. I have created a station that plays folk rock. Lately, it has repeatedly played the Neil Young song "Ohio": "What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground?" On the bike, I have to repress a tear.
Methinks Scarecrow would be crying tears of joy if W had been shot down. I'll spare you Scarecrow's "I remember where I was" reminiscence. Here's where he becomes a flying monkey:
That was the language of that time. And now it is the language of our time. It is the language of Glenn Beck, who fetishizes about liberals and calls Barack Obama a racist. It is the language of rage that fuels too much of the Tea Party and is the sum total of gubernatorial hopeful Carl Paladino's campaign message in New York. It is all this talk about "taking back America" (from whom?) and this inchoate fury at immigrants and, of course, this raw anger at Muslims, stoked by politicians such as Newt Gingrich and Rick Lazio, the latter having lost the GOP primary to Paladino for, among other things, not being sufficiently angry. "I'm going to take them out," Paladino vowed at a Tea Party rally in Ithaca, N.Y.
Notice how Scarecrow doesn't seem to know from whom Independents, Conservatives, and even many Democrats want to "take back America" in 2010?
I don't remember Scarecrow having any trouble figuring out the "from whom" back in 2007. What does it say behind Scarecrow's Messiah in this photo?
It seems Scarecrow has just enough brain stem left to be a hypocrite, but not enough to know it.
On my bike, I recalled those days and wondered if they have not returned. Sticks and stones may break bones, but words -- that singsong rebuttal notwithstanding -- can kill. We lose presidents to words and civil rights leaders to words -- homosexuals and immigrants and abortion providers, too. Richard Nixon is named in the song because he was the president at the time and because his words were ugly. He was enthralled by toughness, violence.
So according to Scarecrow, only his idols and liberals are killed by words. Notice he doesn't mention the words in the Koran that told 19 guys to kill 2,819 people on 9/11?
For this, Richard "Scarecrow" Cohen is our Mad Lib of the Day. And the Washington Post wonders why nobody reads it anymore.
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Orwell was on the money
Go away Richard and take your miserable bike with you.
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