When the Right revolts

Regular readers of the In Box know that I'm a big fan of serious debate. I actually love being convinced (by argument or new facts) that I'm wrong about something.

The world is more interesting when it's shaped and reshaped by nuance. And in that conversation we need all stripes, from the very very liberal to the very very conservative.

But I find myself recoiling more and more often from a type of rhetoric from the Right that leaves me frankly disgusted.

I recoiled during the congressional campaign when Rush Limbaugh cracked wise about Dede Scozzafava's "bestiality."

I grew up in a conservative family attending a conservative church and there's no way that kind of disgusting language has a place in any serious conversation.

I recoiled again this week when certain elements on the Right tried to smear President Obama after the shootings at Fort Hood.

The highly influential Drudge Report placed a prominent link on their front page for two days to a blog post called "Ragged Thots" alleging that Mr. Obama's response to the shooting was "jolting, if not emotionally disturbing."

The meme? This is a President disconnected from America's military, insensitive to the death of our soldiers.

Meanwhile, prominent conservative propagandist Jerome Corsi posted to WorldNet Daily (another prominent conservative website) arguing that the shooter at Fort Hood "advised Obama transition."

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged shooter in yesterday's massacre at Fort Hood, played a homeland security advisory role in President Barack Obama's transition into the White House, according to a key university policy institute document.

As you can probably guess, the most cursory journalistic rigor demonstrates that both of these suggestions are utterly, categorically, demonstrably false.

For starters, the video shows clearly that Mr. Obama speaks substantively and sensitively to the tragedy, calling it "a horrific outburst of violence."

"My immediate thoughts and prayers are with the wounded and with the families of the fallen," said Mr. Obama.

Meanwhile, Mr. Corsi's claims about the shooter's involvement with the Obama transition are frankly ludicrous.

It turns out Hasan once attended a non-governmental event involving homeland security discussions -- as an audience member.

This from NPR's Tom Gjelten:

Frank Cilluffo, the HSPI director, says the participants' list, published as an appendix to the Task Force report, was no more than a tally of those people who RSVP'd to a notice of the roundtable meetings, which took place between June 2008 and February 2009. "Hasan joined as a member of the audience," Cilluffo says.

These incidents speak volumes about the wretched, stomach-turning calculus of the far Right.

They will say anything, exploit any incident -- even the death of American soldiers -- to discredit and delegitimise this President.

There are, of course, many areas for reasonable debate, for disagreement, for argument. Mr. Obama's agenda is, on many fronts, controversial.

Many conservatives have called for a national "rebellion" against the Democratic leadership.

Fair enough. But this kind of dishonesty and ugliness is merely revolting.