UPDATED BELOW
The insane amount of tsuris and pearl-clutching that has arisen out of Teamsters’ President James Hoffa’s Labor Day speech and whether an apology is in order, or whether President Obama should distance himself from those comments is . . . well, insane. This is an entirely manufactured scandal, the outrage exhibited by Teabaggers and the Fox News chasing media having been conjured out of thin air.
The insane amount of tsuris and pearl-clutching that has arisen out of Teamsters’ President James Hoffa’s Labor Day speech and whether an apology is in order, or whether President Obama should distance himself from those comments is . . . well, insane. This is an entirely manufactured scandal, the outrage exhibited by Teabaggers and the Fox News chasing media having been conjured out of thin air.
Unfortunately, this is also nothing new. Manufacturing outrage by misquoting a political speaker in order to make it appear that speaker was advocating violence is an old way to demonize one’s enemies. When that occurs in connection with domestic politics, as here, it is just a sad commentary on the state of our discourse and how easily the Republican Wurlitzer can mislead a large swathe of the American public in order to gin up the GOP base against their political enemies.
But when it occurs in the context of talking about – say – Iran, it becomes something much more dangerous, because it provides grist for the warmongers among us who are still so very, very anxious to march on Tehran.
