Blowing Smoke - Michael Wolraich [179]
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“The guy that James Bond goes after.” Ernst Stavro Blofeld? Auric Goldfinger? Octopussy? And who exactly is James Bond in this analogy?
Phil Kent, author of Foundations of Betrayal: How the Liberal Super Rich Undermine America, evidently found that serious Bond villains weren’t evil enough. As a guest on the O’Reilly Factor, he called Soros the name of the evilest spy movie mastermind ever: Dr. Evil. Indeed, if Soros were to shave his head and acquire a grotesque facial scar, the resemblance would be uncanny. Then Dr. Evil would have a Mini-Me and an International-Jewish-Financier-Me. (“‘Factor Investigation’: George Soros,” Fox News, 24 Apr. 2007, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,268045,00.html.)
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“Change of heart.” Freudians would love Brock, a gay man who once channeled his self-loathing into right-wing politics. He said of his fellow closeted gay Republicans, “Perhaps because they were trying too hard to fit into GOP ranks, they often embodied the worst attributes of the extreme right—racism, sexism, anti-Semitism.” (David Brock, Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative [New York: Three Rivers Press, 2002]: 43.)
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DeLay also tried blaming another bad guy for his ethical woes, insisting, “Satan is behind them. And Satan is behind the left. Satan is behind my prosecution.” (Max Blumenthal, “Republicans Slouching Toward Gomorrah: A BuzzFlash Interview with Max Blumenthal,” BuzzFlash.com, 9 Dec. 2009, http://blog.buzzflash.com/interviews/164.)
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“Competitive ballroom dancing.” Between DeLay’s cha-cha on Dancing with the Stars and former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich’s ineptitude on Celebrity Apprentice, reality television has become the standard career path for disgraced politicians.
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“The other for Azazel.” I think Azazel’s goat got the better end of the deal, but I suppose it depends on what Azazel did with the goat once it found him. If I were the goat, I’d say the hell with it and just find some nice oasis with tasty grass.
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“Christ’s return.” Apocalyptic predictions are popular among Christian conspiracy theorists, and they always present the hastening of the end times as a catastrophe. But according to the prophecy, good Christians get to go directly to Heaven before the end times. If I were a Christian, I’d be pretty excited about the whole thing.
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“Legendary crank.” Carroll Quigley was not impressed by Skousen’s “commentary.” He wrote, “Skousen’s personal position seems to me perilously close to the ‘exclusive uniformity’ which I see in Nazism and in the Radical Right in this country. In fact, his position has echoes of the original Nazi 25-point plan.” (Joe Conason, “Should Fox fire Glenn Beck? Or should he resign?” Salon.com, 16 Jul. 2010, http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joe_conason/2010/07/16/beck.)
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“North American Union.” When unification happens, I hope that we get to vote on the name; my personal favorite is Camerico.
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Beck’s Nazi comparisons are so frequent that The Daily Show has accused him of “Nazi Tourette’s.” But when some compared Arizona’s law requiring people to carry citizenship papers to Nazi Germany, Beck was aghast. “You’re out of your mind?” he howled, “Are you comparing the systematic cold-blooded extermination of millions of Jews, to America making sure people are here legally. The parallels are non-existent.” As opposed to Al Gore’s environmentalism. (Lewis Black, “Back in Black: Glenn Beck’s Nazi Tourette’s,” The Daily Show, 12 May 2010, http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-may-12-2010/back-in-black---glenn-beck-s-nazi-tourette-s.)