Keith Olbermann Rips Rumsfeld

As we’ve come to expect from the Bush administration, its members and their supporters, when confronted with criticism, their immediate response has been to accuse their critics of: being terrorist sympathizers, disloyal Americans or, simply, traitors. So, of course, it’s no surprise that Donald Rumsfeld has resorted to the same old tactics. Here’s how the Washington Post reports Rumsfeld’s attacks against war critics:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned yesterday that "moral and intellectual confusion" over the Iraq war and the broader anti-terrorism effort could sap American willpower and divide the country, and he urged renewed resolve to confront extremists waging "a new type of fascism."

Drawing parallels to efforts by some nations to appease Adolf Hitler before World War II, Rumsfeld said it would be "folly" for the United States to ignore the rising dangers posed by a new enemy that he called "serious, lethal and relentless."

In a pointed attack on the news media and critics of President Bush’s war and national security policies, Rumsfeld declared: "Any kind of moral and intellectual confusion about who and what is right or wrong can severely weaken the ability of free societies to persevere."

And while elected Democratic party members have released strong rebuttals against Rumsfeld’s attacks, I’ve not come across a more articulate response than Keith Olbermann’s on-air commentary:

And about Mr. Rumsfeld’s other main assertion, that this country faces a "new type of fascism." As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that — though probably not in the way he thought he meant it. This country faces a new type of fascism – indeed.

[...]

Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble tribute… I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow. But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed, "confused" or "immoral." Thus forgive me for reading Murrow in full: "We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty," he said, in 1954. "We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. "We will not walk in fear – one, of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of un-reason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men; "Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were – for the moment – unpopular."

Better yet, why don’t you check out Keith Olbermann’s entire video commentary, courtesy of Crooks and Liars:

Coulter: Stevens Should be Poisoned

Nice to see that our homegrown Taliban, the same group that now exerts so much influence over the one party that rules our country, is still hard at work trying to liberate patriotic Americans from the vise of those evil doers in the Supreme Court. According to some reports, Supreme Court Justices Ginsburg and O’Connor were threatened with assassination after some Republican officials subtly (and sometimes not subtly) suggested that violence against judges was understandable, and perhaps excusable. Of course, these Republican officials made those statements at around the time of the 2004 Presidential elections, and they knew that such red meat comments would go over well with the Republican right wing base.

Here’s what the AP writes:

WASHINGTON (March 16) – Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she and former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor have been the targets of death threats from the "irrational fringe" of society, people apparently spurred by Republican criticism of the high court.

Ginsburg revealed in a speech in South Africa last month that she and O’Connor were threatened a year ago by someone who called on the Internet for the immediate "patriotic" killing of the justices.

[...]

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter joked earlier this year that Justice John Paul Stevens should be poisoned. Over the past few months O’Connor has complained that criticism, mainly by Republicans, has threatened judicial independence to deal with difficult issues like gay marriage.

You gotta love how the so-called Liberal Media excuses their conservative darlings whenever they "joke" about killing a federal official. I mean, let’s say that Michael Moore joked about poisoning a Supreme Court Justice, do you think that the mainstream media would cuddle him like they still cuddle Coulter?

Hard to believe that the same woman that called for the killing of a Supreme Court Justice graced the cover of Time Magazine around this time last year — she’s certainly Ms. Right, and a great representative of everything that’s wrong with that other party and its supporters.

Update: AMERICAblog has a nice round up:

Delay threatens judges

And, let me repost something I wrote in March of last year:

Examples of religious right anti-judge hate speech:

Today, I received this email from the religious right propaganda organ AgapePress:

Judie Brown of the American Life League says the court-ordered starvation of the brain-injured Terri Schiavo is the latest evidence that liberal judges are trying to take on the role of God. "The problem with the court system is that they are moving closer and closer to condemning severely disabled Americans, as a group, to death," she says, "and that ought to frighten everyone."

Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., chief sponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment:

"Our nation has a set of activist judges in Massachusetts and a rogue mayor in San Francisco. It is evident that they will openly aid and abet the homosexual lobby. These events over the past week clearly show that gay activists will skirt the law to create a new privilege that has never existed in this country."

Republican National Committee:

In an e-mail message, Christine Iverson, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, confirmed that the party had sent the mailings. "When the Massachusetts Supreme Court sanctioned same-sex marriage and people in other states realized they could be compelled to recognize those laws, same-sex marriage became an issue,” Ms. Iverson said. "These same activist judges also want to remove the words ‘under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance.