Fringe Follies

A couple of news items caught my attention earlier this week. I don’t know whether to call them a falling-out among thieves or simply cognitive dissonance. The left fringe is temporarily at war with the left fringe, and the right fringe is temporarily at war with the right fringe. It occurred to me that the two incidents are like deciding which disease to root for—cancer or heart disease. I opted for “neither.”

Follies on the Right: President Obama had just honored fallen soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery this past Monday. During the proceedings, there were dueling dissidents at the outer edges of the ceremony. The crazed homophobes of the Westboro Baptist Church were putting on their infamous stage-show in which they held up signs reading “pray for more dead soldiers,” and “God hates your prayers.” Nice.

At safe arms-length was another fine American institution protesting the protestors. Was it the ACLU? No. Was it the armed forces chaplains? No. How about the VFW or the AmVets? No. It was that bastion of Christian charity—the Ku Klux Klan. Now we must be careful lest we believe the Klan was there to protect the interests of black or Jewish families attending the ceremonies.

The Klan was there to support generic soldiers who gave their lives serving an America that doesn’t actually exist. A pure, white, Aryan America that somehow mistakenly allowed non-Christian, non-Aryan people to fight for America’s causes. There wasn’t enough room on the Klan’s signs to clarify that they were protesting the Westboro gang’s disrespect for dead service men and women, except for those homosexuals, Jews, blacks, and other subhumans. So they simply held signs that evidenced their bizarre sense of patriotism.

The closest historical parallel that came immediately to mind was the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky. One wanted a lot of dead enemies, the other wanted a lot more dead enemies. Which was the greater monster is entirely debatable, though Stalin was the ultimate victor. From the viewpoint of civilization, being the victor in that battle of wills was a dubious distinction.

The Klan representative, Dennis LaBonte, said: As a military veteran and Imperial Wizard of a KKK chapter, we came in support of the troops. I think it’s an absolute shame that the [Westboro crowd] shows up and disrupts people’s funerals.” Westboro spokesperson Abigail Phelps responded with “the KKK has no moral authority on anything.” Isn’t that a little like one warthog calling another warthog ugly?

Follies on the Left: President Obama continues to spike the ball on the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden. He continues to take mostly sole credit for the decision that brought down the world’s most wanted mass murderer/terrorist. The more he protests that his comments are not self-congratulatory and political, the more it becomes apparent that they are. In fact, as Republican candidate Mitt Romney pointed out “even Carter would have made that decision.”

That, after Obama’s team tried to convince everyone that Romney wouldn’t have ordered the capture and/or death of bin Laden as he hid out in plain sight in Pakistan. The truth is that the bravest thing Obama did was stand up to his own vice president who didn’t want to chance the capture or killing of the mastermind of 9-11 and other horrors.

So who was the biggest and most vocal critic of Obama’s crowing? Was it Republican speaker John Boehner? No. Was it a retired SEAL commander? No. Was it Vietnam war hero John McCain? No (well, not entirely no). It was Obama-swooner Arianna Huffington. She of the lefty Huffington Post.

Said the omnipresent and omniscient Arianna: “I agree with the Romney campaign (quick, grab my nitro tablets) that using the Osama bin Laden assassination, killing, the great news that we had a year ago, in order to say basically that Obama did it and Romney might not have done it—I don’t think there should be an ad about it.. To turn it into a campaign ad is one of the most despicable things you can do.” She obviously gets her speech-coherence lessons from Nancy Pelosi, but at least with Huffington, the point (if not the grammar) is easy to discern.

Huffington also took a couple of jabs at the Clintons. She drew a parallel to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 ad campaign which queried whether you would want her or Barack Obama answering the red phone at the White House at three in the morning when the voice at the other end was announcing a new terrorist attack. She criticized former President Bill Clinton for narrating the Obama ad that lionized Obama’s “brave decision” to take out bin Laden while indicating that Romney would not have made the same decision. “Totally unfair and untrue” says Arianna. And then there’s that small matter of Bill Clinton missing several opportunities to capture or kill bin Laden prior to the horror of 9-11.

Well, even the devil tells the truth occasionally when it suits his purpose. I’m just left wondering what Huffington’s specific purpose was (and is). Maybe she just accidentally expressed a thought that was both sensible and patriotic. Given the six months ahead, I’m sure she will find a way to backtrack in time for the presidential election.