If you’ve been reading the news today, you already know that Newsmax columnist John L. Perry basically called for a military coup to take over the US government in order to resolve what he refers to as “the Obama problem”. Oh, of course, he gave the caveat that “describing what may be afoot is not to advocate it,” but that one sentence doesn’t do much to counter the rest of his piece, which concludes thusly:
Military intervention is what Obama’s exponentially accelerating agenda for “fundamental change” toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama’s radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.
Unthinkable? Then think up an alternative, non-violent solution to the Obama problem. Just don’t shrug and say, “We can always worry about that later.”
In the 2008 election, that was the wistful, self-indulgent, indifferent reliance on abnegation of personal responsibility that has sunk the nation into this morass.
Honestly, I have no clue what that last sentence is supposed to mean, but the rest of it is an attempt to justify military overthrow of the duly elected Commander in Chief. Let’s deconstruct a bit, shall we? Mr. Perry opens with these assertions:
# Officers swear to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Unlike enlisted personnel, they do not swear to “obey the orders of the president of the United States.”
# Top military officers can see the Constitution they are sworn to defend being trampled as American institutions and enterprises are nationalized.
So he supports turning military officers and enlisted personnel against each other. Unless, that is, he believes that all enlisted personnel will choose to break their own oaths. Nice he has so much respect for our soldiers.
Apparently, our military officers were all asleep on duty during the Bush administration and missed its constitution trampling, not to mention the bank bailout. I assume the assistance provided to US industry in order to keep it from going under en masse is what he means by “nationalized”. I missed the part where our government took ownership of private businesses and installed its own management. Hell, it doesn’t even look like we’ll get a public option for health coverage that would compete with private insurers, much less a government-run single payer.
# They can see that Americans are increasingly alarmed that this nation, under President Barack Obama, may not even be recognizable as America by the 2012 election, in which he will surely seek continuation in office.
Well, maybe some Americans. The ones who get their “news” exclusively from Rush and Glenn. Sane people who object to President Obama’s policies will look to the ballot box, not the military, for relief, just as those who opposed George W. Bush did. Mr. Perry completely misses the irony of ginning up fears of an “unrecognizable America” to bring on a coup that would turn this great country into a banana republic led by a military junta. That would be an unrecognizable America.
Newsmax is now attempting to walk back this incitement, removing the column from its website and painting the author as an “unpaid blogger”. That would be the “unpaid blogger” whose bio page describes him as as an “award-winning newspaper editor and writer” who “contributes a regular column to Newsmax.com.”
He’s also a former senior editor for the site, working in that role from late 1999 until October 2001.
Perry has written for the site regularly — nearly every single week — since November 1999. Newsmax was founded in 1998. (Check out the archives here and here.)
On the site’s “Blogs” page, he’s listed alongside other contributors including Ben Stein, Grover Norquist and Christopher Ruddy, the founder and editor-in-chief of Newsmax.
Yeah, just some anonymous guy who posted a diary. Right.
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Thomas Friedman published a column just yesterday pointing out the parallels between the Israeli right’s attempts to delegitimize Prime Minister Yizhtak Rabin and the American right’s attacks on President Obama.
They questioned [Rabin's] authority. They accused him of treason. They created pictures depicting him as a Nazi SS officer, and they shouted death threats at rallies. His political opponents winked at it all.
And in so doing they created a poisonous political environment that was interpreted by one right-wing Jewish nationalist as a license to kill Rabin — he must have heard, “God will be on your side” — and so he did.
That sends chills down my spine.