It is a con, but these people are authentically insane

This guy apparently merited a longer obit than Sleepy Fred Thompson.

Early on, Mr. Carto sometimes presented himself as a conventional conservative activist. In 1956, he operated what he called “a nerve center” at the Republican convention that distributed 100,000 pieces of literature. He said he was ready to offer an immediate right-wing alternative if President Dwight D. Eisenhower chose not to seek re-election.

In the 1960s, he contributed money to congressmen to try to stymie civil rights legislation, and several times was invited to testify before congressional committees. He later helped bolster what became fairly conventional rightist causes: drastically slashing the income tax and blocking a constitutional amendment to guarantee women equal rights. His positions on immigration, globalization and multiculturalism — all of which he loathed — were influential.

In the 2012 Republican presidential campaign, Representative Ron Paul accepted the support of Mr. Carto’s newspaper The American Free Press, but later stipulated he did not endorse its racial views. Some of Mr. Paul’s writing had appeared in the paper, possibly without his knowledge.

“Willis has talked to me about playing the role of a respectable conservative when his true feelings are those of a racial nationalist,” Louis T. Byers, a right-wing activist and theoretician, told The Washington Post in 1971. “I was as close to being a friend as anyone Carto has known.”

 Fortunately, there were witnesses.

Affirmative action -- Yes we did!

Andy Serwer won't quite go this far, but it's got to be more than a little galling for greater Wingnuttia to contemplate fulminate stew bitterly on the fact that their side got out-smarted by an African-American man and a woman, from San Francisco, no less.

And, yes, elections have consequences. Congratulate yourselves, people, all that hard work in 2006 and 2008 led to this righteous victory.

The tree of crazy

Nixonland author, Rick Perlstein puts the recent Town Hallz Krazy Time in historical context.

The instigation is always the familiar litany: expansion of the commonweal to empower new communities, accommodation to internationalism, the heightened influence of cosmopolitans and the persecution complex of conservatives who can't stand losing an argument. My personal favorite? The federal government expanded mental health services in the Kennedy era, and one bill provided for a new facility in Alaska. One of the most widely listened-to right-wing radio programs in the country, hosted by a former FBI agent, had millions of Americans believing it was being built to intern political dissidents, just like in the Soviet Union.

So, crazier then, or crazier now? Actually, the similarities across decades are uncanny. When Adlai Stevenson spoke at a 1963 United Nations Day observance in Dallas, the Indignation forces thronged the hall, sweating and furious, shrieking down the speaker for the television cameras. Then, when Stevenson was walked to his limousine, a grimacing and wild-eyed lady thwacked him with a picket sign. Stevenson was baffled. "What's the matter, madam?" he asked. "What can I do for you?" The woman responded with self-righteous fury: "Well, if you don't know I can't help you."

The various elements -- the liberal earnestly confused when rational dialogue won't hold sway; the anti-liberal rage at a world self-evidently out of joint; and, most of all, their mutual incomprehension -- sound as fresh as yesterday's news. (Internment camps for conservatives? That's the latest theory of tea party favorite Michael Savage.)

You can go back even earlier. In 1864, the Democratic Party invented a new word to attempt to scare voters from re-electing Abraham Lincoln and to end Republican Party dominance of Union politics: Miscegenation.

It didn't work in 1864, when Northern voters were more concerned with ending (by winning -- Atlanta had just been burned) the Civil War then they were with fears that newly emancipated Negroes would marry their sisters and daughters. Are we smarter as wise today when the stakes, though large, are not quite so high?

From his cold, not quite dead hands

The Jews were coming to get his guns, so he shot a black man. The Times reporters can explain why this "lone wolf" did it, but they can't seem to wrap their head around how.

Local and federal authorities in Washington said Thursday that they were focusing on Mr. von Brunn’s intentions and how he got the rifle. Because of his felony conviction in the crime at the Federal Reserve, he was prohibited by federal law from buying or possessing a gun. But Mr. von Brunn could have had the rifle, described by the authorities as “an older weapon,” since well before his conviction.

Mr. von Brunn brought a .22-caliber rifle and a .30-30 rifle when he moved into an apartment in Annapolis, Md., two years ago, according to the affidavit. The police recovered the .30-30 as well as ammunition for a .22 from his bedroom after the museum attack.

Um, google "ashcroft gun shows," okay? It may lead you right back to your own newspaper!

No word yet on the NRA's statement deploring...

The past isn't even past

Bob Somerby takes us down memory lane.

IT HAPPENED LAST TIME: Tragically and painfully, a certain percentage of people are mentally ill. (Translation: They strongly believe wide networks of things which are plainly absurd or untrue.) Tragically, James von Brunn was numbered among them. Yesterday, at age 89, he acted. As a result, a sane, decent person is dead.

Last week, Scott Roeder killed Dr. George Tiller. Result: Some are wondering if the rise of Obama is creating stress in the minds of some unbalanced people, stress which has led them to act. This is a thoroughly worthwhile discussion. And it’s worth remembering that the same damn thing pretty much happened the last time.

By “last time,” we mean the last time we had a Democrat president. As you may recall, that president was Bill Clinton—and crazy stories spread far and wide about his intolerable ways. The liberal world ran off and hid in the woods—and, to all intents and purposes, the “mainstream press corps” didn’t exist. And sure enough! By September 1994, a man name Frank Corder decided to act. This incident largely went down the memory hole, like most misconduct directed at Clinton. But in real time, Judy Keen reported the apparent attempt on the president’s life in USA Today.

“Crash exposes risks,” the headline said. “How tough is it to protect a president?” Even after 9/11, this event remained largely deep-sixed:

KEEN (9/13/94): Frank Corder's flight in his tiny red-and-white Cessna exposed one of the White House's main vulnerabilities—an attack from the air.

"It finally happened," says Marlin Fitzwater, press secretary to former presidents George Bush and Ronald Reagan. “Everybody has always speculated that someone could fly kamikaze-style into the White House. I don't think there's any way to prevent it.” If there is, Secret Service officials are hunting for it now.

President Clinton and his family were asleep at Blair House, across the street from the White House, when Corder flew over Washington's treetops under a sliver of moonlight, somehow evaded what's supposed to be the world's best security and crashed into an old magnolia tree two floors below the Clintons' empty bedrooms.

The worst damage: a cracked window.

But the "what ifs" surrounding the incident reignited ominous questions around the capital—questions that get to the heart of how tough it is to protect a president. What if the plane had been carrying explosives? What if terrorists had been piloting it instead of the inexperienced Corder?

The White House's occupants made light of the dramatic crash. "This has been quite an unusual day here at the White House," Hillary Rodham Clinton told guests.

Still, one fact loomed large: Monday's incident was the worst White House security breach in nearly two decades.

In fairness, the Clintons were murderers, drug-dealers, socialists. Perhaps for that reason (no one seemed to know), Corder had finally decided to act. He tried to crash his plane into the White House, hitting a large tree instead. Corder died in the incident.

It was “the worst White House security breach in nearly two decades,” Keen reported. And a few weeks later, it happened again. “Target: White House,” said the headline on Keen’s report. “Did bullets also bring a wake-up call?”

KEEN (10/31/94): Two weeks ago, President Clinton stood at a podium outside the White House's north entrance to welcome a U.S. delegation home from Haiti.

Saturday, that same north entrance was sprayed with a gunman's bullets.

If the motives for the shooting spree at the White House were murky Sunday, one thing seems increasingly clear: This president—who loves to mingle with crowds and chafes at being trapped in the Secret Service's protective bubble—is probably about to change his ways.

That may mean no more meandering across Lafayette Park on his way home from church, as he did a few weekends ago, with tourists flocking just feet away. And no more north entrance appearances.

The shooting was the second frightening White House security breach in six weeks. Last month, a Maryland man crashed a stolen plane onto the lawn, killing himself.

"These two incidents may save this president's life at some point, because he's had a wakeup call," says terrorism expert Neil Livingstone.

In this incident, a man named Francisco Duran “pulled a rifle from his coat, stuck it through the fence and started spraying rounds,” Keen reported. “It took Duran 10 seconds, the Secret Service estimates, to squeeze off 20 to 30 rounds” before “two passersby subdued him.”

Given the zeitgeist of the 1990s, memory of these incidents quickly disappeared. We recall them because, as a comedian, we did a few jokes about these events (and perhaps one other) for a brief time in early 1995. Our premise? The crazy attacks seemed to stop as soon as Newt Gingrich became House speaker. (In the wake of the November 1994 elections.) Our jokes got a few laughs in DC. (We were surprised.) We didn’t try them elsewhere.

Were unbalanced people driven to act by all the crazy talk about Clinton? Are unbalanced people being so moved by Obama’s rise today? By crazy and semi-crazy talk about him? Von Brunn, who killed a decent person, apparently believed Obama isn’t a citizen. But then, Corder and Duran may well have thought that Clinton kept murdering people. Not to mention his drug-dealing ways!

We think it’s worth remembering that this happened the last time too. Beyond that, we think it’s worth wondering why the attacks by Corder and Duran found their way down the memory hole to the extent that they did. Hint: This was very much the way of the 1990s. In its own more dignified manner, the mainstream press corps was also flying little planes into the White House at this time. (They have never tried to explain why.) Later, they spent two year flying planes into Campaign 2000. In that case, they finally got their way. Are we happy with how that turned out?

And now we have Glenn Beck.

Worth noting

And no, I don't think it's a coincidence.

Perhaps this means nothing but I feel that I should acknowledge that a black man was killed on guard duty at the Holocaust museum. That may mean nothing. But I think it should be said.

Apropos of absolutely nothing, one of my enduring memories of visiting the Holocaust Museum -- besides the shoes -- was the truly incredible afro worn by the gorgeous woman operating the till in the gift shop.

Domestic terrorism...no big deal

Just imagine, indeed.

It is interesting that there is considerably less outrage over the two political/racial assassinations that have occurred in less than two weeks then there was over the release of the DHS footnote on potential domestic terrorism.

Good for him, though it is weird to praise a Fox News blow dry simply for behaving sanely.