Given their longstanding loathing for him, it was touching to see so many right-wingers express concern for President Obama’s safety this week.
A knife-carrying intruder jumped the White House fence, got past the front door, breached at least six Secret Service Safeguards, and made it pretty far into the building, before he was tackled by an off-duty Secret Service agent. Omar J. Gonzalez, a 42-year-old veteran, had been arrested in Virginia two months earlier, heavily armed and carrying a map of Washington tucked in a Bible — with a circle drawn around the White House. Gonzalez had 800 rounds of ammunition in his car when he scaled the White House Fence.
The whole mess cost Secret Service director Julia Pierson her job, and revealed that conservatives are very concerned about President Obama’s personal safety. Or are they?
- Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R, California) oversight hearing on the Secret Service descended into farce, as Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R, Utah) recommended turning to the White House lawn into a shooting gallery with “overwhelming force”, Rep. John Micha (R, Florida) took a moment promote local business by recommending that the White House install security system made by Florida-based company ADT.
- Fox News Radio host Brian Kilmeade said he “would love to see” former Rep. Allen West “in a leadership role with the Secret Service.” Former Secret Service agent and Marine Corps infantry officer Dan Emmett wrote the same thing in a Washington Post piece. In 2003, West resigned from the Army to avoid a court martial for using “harsh interrogation tactics” (also known as torture) on an Iraqi prisoner. West has called President Obama “a low-level socialist agitator” and an “Islamist sympathizer.” Naturally, right-wingers want to put him in charge of President Obama’s safety.
- Conservative blogger Melissa Clouthier blamed President Obama for “endangering himself.”
- Right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham blamed gender equality and “political correctness” for White House security breach, because of the decision to hire a female Secret Service agent to guard the entrance, and appoint the first female director of the agency.
- Politico columnist Ronald Kessler suggested that President Obama is such a bad manager that only his death by assassination is likely to bring about necessary reforms in the Secret Service.
Here’s the best of the rest of the worst in wingnuttia this week:
- The College Republican National Committee released a TV spot comparing political candidates to wedding dresses. That’s bound to win the women’s vote.
- A North Carolina College Republican Chairwoman was caught on camera allegedly trying to keep a conservative group from registering students to vote.
- Republican candidate for Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge was discovered to have registered to vote in multiple states in addition to Arkansas, and even voted by absentee ballot in the Arkansas genera election after she had registered to vote in Washington, DC. Oh, the irony!
- Former House GOP Leader Tom Delay wants to run for office again, so he can expose President Obama as “a radical Marxist with a worldview that makes him happy with the chaos that’s going on.”
- In a speech on his economic record, President Obama took a swipe at Fox News for calling affordable health care a threat to freedom. Naturally, Fox Newsers cried foul. As the saying goes, “a hit dog will holler.”
- Sounding more like the Citizens Councils of 60 years ago, Concerned Women for America attacked Attorney General Eric Holder for raising “the bitterness, malcontent, and rancor” of “minority communities.” At least they didn’t call him an “outside agitator.”
- Right-wing rocker Ted Nugent penned a horribly racist WorldNet Daily column about Ferguson, Missouri, that’s guaranteed to cause “bitterness, malcontent, and rancor” among blacks.
- In his syndicated column, Pat Buchanan accused President Obama of “stoking the fires of racial resentment” and inciting violence against police, with his remarks concerning the death of Michael Brown. Oh, and Buchanan did call the president an “outside agitator.”
- Talk show host Steve Deace said Republicans should model themselves after Dan Snyder, owner of Washington’s professional football team, and urged “gutless Republicans” to learn from Snyder’s “ruthless manliness.”
- Pat Robertson joked with “700 Club” viewers that his faith healing services might put doctors out of business.
- Robertson also told his viewers that President Obama is “pro-Muslim”, because he attended a “Muslim school” while living in Indonesia as a child.
- Rep. Michele Bachmann(R, Minnesota) caught flack from the right after saying that same-sex marriage is “not an issue,” and that the topic is “boring” now. Bachmann later assured WorldNet Daily that she’s not the least bit “bored” by gay marriage.
- Once famous for flipping out at a Broadway musical, National Review columnist Kevin Williamson recommended “hanging” for women who have abortions — not to mention the doctors who perform the procedure.
- Texas governor Rick Perry told MSNBC’s Mike Barnicle about his plan to fight ISIS with “special-ops” and “Amazon-type drones.”
- Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones told his radio audience that “ISIS basically works for” the US government, and that the Obama administration will deploy ISIS to attack “maybe 200 kids” in a Democratic stronghold, because “they really want to go after guns.”
- On his radio broadcast, Bryan Fischer, said the government should ban immigration from majority Muslim nations, because we don’t know which ones are carrying “the decapitation virus.”
- Fox News host Bill O’Reilly hyped Ebola fears, and declared that “President Obama should order an immigration quarantine.”
- Laura Ingraham called for a travel ban in response to Ebola, and claimed that President Obama’s “core ties to the African continent” undermine public safety.
- Fox News host Andrea Tantros said that African Ebola victims may “seek treatment from a witch doctor that practices santería,” not a hospital.
- WorldNet Daily columnist Erik Rush recommended bringing back internment caps for Muslims, in an article titled, “Is It Time To Deport, Intern Foreign Muslims?”
