The absurd rhetoric from the religious right about Obama continues, as Robert Knight, formerly one of the men who ran the group Concerned Women for America and now a “senior fellow” at the American Civil Rights Union (one of the numerous wingnut legal groups that thinks it’s incredibly clever to name themselves in a similar manner to the ACLU), says that if Obama is reelected it might destroy the republic.
Knight believes Obama would really be emboldened if he is elected to a second term.
“The sheer unconcern for Congress’ constitutional powers if he gets re-elected will be magnified several times, which is frightening,” the conservative offers. “We’re right on the edge of losing our constitutional republic, and I’m wondering if a president who doesn’t respect the Constitution and is emboldened by a re-election might just push us over that edge.”
This refrain that America will be destroyed if Obama is reelected is spoken so often that it has almost become a mantra for the wingnut set.
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Randomfactor
September 27, 2012 at 11:43 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
He’s right. It could.
As opposed to Romney’s election, which would doom us for sure.
fifthdentist
September 27, 2012 at 11:49 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Cats and dogs living together … mass hysteria!
thisisaturingtest
September 27, 2012 at 11:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Just to be the one to point to the obvious…couldn’t (and wasn’t) the same thing applicable to Bush’s re-election? Why is it only a problem with Obama? Oh, right; the “America will be destroyed” thing only applies when it’s their version of America they see threatened. Carry on.
raven
September 27, 2012 at 11:53 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The truth is the opposite.
Bush came as close as anyone.
Two of my friends ended up dead in Iraq, as well as my 401(k) plan and millions of other ones. The country is in a recession, unemployment especially among the young is sky high, birth rates have fallen for 4 years straight, poverty levels are rising. The recession is projected by the fed to end in 2018. Maybe.
This is a lost generation.
With Romney, you could add another lost generation. Two lost generations. This is what has and is happening to Japan. They really haven’t gone anywhere since the early 1990′s.
fifthdentist
September 27, 2012 at 11:58 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
OT, but is this some of that voter fraud they keep telling us about?
“The Republican Party of Florida is dumping a firm it paid more than $1.3 million to register new voters, after Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher flagged 106 “questionable” registration applications turned in by the contractor this month.
“Bucher asked the state attorney’s office to review the applications “in an abundance of caution” because she said her staff had questions about similar-looking signatures, missing information and wrong addresses on the forms.”
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/local-govt-politics/questionable-palm-beach-county-voter-registration-/nSL5Y/
Ace of Sevens
September 27, 2012 at 11:59 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Is there something about the name Robert Knight that breaks people’s brains?
F
September 27, 2012 at 12:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Crap, bro, I was on the fence, but now I am certainly voting for Obama because I wanna destroy America too!
Michael Heath
September 27, 2012 at 12:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Robert Knight:
raven responds:
I think the harm President George W. Bush did and Mitt Romney promises to do will be far, far worse than the harm Mr. Bush has done so far. That’s due to the actions of both him and his Administration on global warming. President Bush enabled if not effectively promoted Republicans en masse denying the reality of global warming, the harm of global warming, and the threat global warming presents, which is exponentially amplified by Republicans successfully obstructing sufficient global mitigation efforts to greatly reduce the harm and threat. Where Mitt Romney denies human culpability and the need to act quickly and aggressively.
The media in my mind has morally failed in a spectacular manner as well. The biggest threat humanity now faces, a threat which is exceedingly rare in the history of humanity, going back even to the advent of written history. And yet this grave threat is rarely a topic of discussion in this election season and when it is, quickly and shallowly covered, with no scientific perspective presented which falsifies the view of today’s Republican politicians.
Larry
September 27, 2012 at 12:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Not to mention being complicit in the mass transfer for US jobs overseas, the institutionalization of warrent-less wire tapping of US citizens, the acceptable use of torture, the permanent incarceration of people without trial.
Obama has a long way to go to surpass those “achievements”.
miles
September 27, 2012 at 12:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@ #5 fifthdentist
That’s voter registration fraud… Different animal, and a lot more common than actual voter fraud. Ye pay somebody to get registrations, they get greedy and scam you. If you recall when Obama got elected, Acorn was dealing with something like that and it caused a big hubbub with righties freaking out.
Granted, when Acorn turned in bogus voter registrations, they had recognized these were bogus and were turning them in AS bogus registrations (I think they were legally required to report it?)
At least, if memory serves…
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)
September 27, 2012 at 12:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Unfortunately, the USA is not unusual in this. While outright AGW denialism is less common in Europe, economic troubles have driven the issue more or less completely out of public discourse.
matty1
September 27, 2012 at 12:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I won’t comment on the first one but of the others as far as I’m aware the only one Obama has ended is torture, and given he brought in the execution without trial of US citizens* you might want to consider if that was a good trade.
Has Obama improved America relative to where Bush left it sure in many respects, but the war on terror is not one of them.
*Yes Al-Awaki was a bad man so is Khalid Shaikh Mohammed but that didn’t make it right to water board.
dingojack
September 27, 2012 at 12:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Kt b5 c7 x ???
Raven, my sincere condolences for your 401(k) plan’s death in Afghanistan, along with millions of others, shit-loads of IEDs I assume.
:) Dingo
gshelley
September 27, 2012 at 12:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well yes, Obama has done many things that are actually bad. I don’t think Romney had criticized any of them, so it’s a little hard to see any rational reason for thinking Obama must lose to put an end to them.
Randomfactor
September 27, 2012 at 12:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Fifthdentist, the reality is even worse than that. It appears that a lot of voters now THINK they’re registered to vote in the Democratic Party, when in actuality their registration forms may have been round-filed. I think many folks may show up at the polls and find out there’s no record of them.
But then again, when has Palm Beach decided an election?
Voter registrars are required to turn in all the forms they get, phony or not.
matty1
September 27, 2012 at 12:33 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Don’t misunderstand me, I was responding to #9 who unfortunately chose weak ground on which to compare Bush and Obama. I wasn’t making any claim about Obama vs Romney but for the records I think RMoney is a BEAUTIFULLY UNIQUE SPARKLE PONY and if I were American would probably vote for Obama as the least worse option.
coragyps
September 27, 2012 at 12:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I thought that Obama already destroyed or great Republic back in 2009 when he confiscated all the guns in the country.
Or was that a different failed prediction?
eric
September 27, 2012 at 12:47 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
We hear it every single election cycle, regardless of which party is in power. Probably since the early 1800s or even before. So while its absurd in terms of how well it may reflect reality, it doesn’t seem to be absurd in terms of the history of American politics. In that context, its positively normal and mainstream.
In fact, I’d say that it would be a highly unusual election if nobody claimed one candidate or the other was going to end the Republic, bring the wrath of God down on the country, etc., etc.
Draken
September 27, 2012 at 1:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Does not compute. Does not compute.
fifthdentist
September 27, 2012 at 1:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@ miles,
Snark doesn’t come over so well online. But it shows that whatever Republicans accuse Democrats of doing, they’re going to try to do it on an even larger scale. Expect lots of flyers in poor neighborhoods reminding voters to cast their ballots on Wednesday. (At least there won’t be any waiting in line the day after the election).
Randomfactor, apparently that company has gotten into trouble in the past for trashing Democrats’ forms. It also still is operating in several swing states, including North Carolina, for this election, and reportedly was recommended by the Romney camp for some of the contracts.
Never misunderestimate Republicans’ capacity for cheating.
laurentweppe
September 27, 2012 at 1:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I strongly suspect that the day there’s not enough food to feed everyone on earth, the very same AGW denialists will say
Larry
September 27, 2012 at 2:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
matty1
No where did I suggest Obama has solved or eliminated any of the issues I mentioned. As a supporter, it greatly disappoints me that he hasn’t. But the fact remains, they came about under Bush’s watch and I consider them to be far more threatening to our system of government than a 2nd Obama term, all his faults not withstanding.
fastlane
September 27, 2012 at 2:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well, not directly, but the US and other countries’ continued plodding along with little being done about the various potential environmental catastrophes we face might. I doubt very seriously that it will happen on Obama’s watch, but I’m glad I don’t have any kids.
- Global warming
- Ocean acidification (This is potentially the most disastrous for anything living that’s larger than, say, a mouse…)
- Outright pollution in the ecosystem
etc, etc.
bmiller
September 27, 2012 at 2:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
While W was a vile failure as a President and his man, too many of the nasty foreign policy adventures and policies can be attributed to previous adminsitrations. It’s a case of the chickens coming home to roost. Heck, to me one of the unacknowledged Dire Wolves of the American Presidency was Woodrow Wilson, from his (common for the time) virulent racism to his pious and scary foreign policy.
Afghanistan, Central America, Iran…Carter (D)
Financial Meltdown…at least partly can be laid at the foot of the Great Empath Bill Clinton, who also gutted “welfare”.
It’s BIPARTISAN, folks. As bad as The Smiler is, or The Chimp…the D Party has been at least as bad if not worse. It will be a craven D Party cog who ends Social Security and Medicare.
bobcarroll
September 27, 2012 at 7:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Concerning Knight’s mantra: I hope that Obama (and his guardians) are especially cautious against attacks on our President if he is reelected. The ubiquity of this idea, which is likely to embolden the dangerous nutcases, is enough to scare the bejasus out of me. Remember that Lincoln was murdered shortly after being reelected.
Freeman
September 28, 2012 at 6:53 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@Raven #4,
Your astute comment had this old Rush song running though my head:
Between the wheels
Wheels can take you around
Wheels can cut you down
We can go from boom to bust
From dreams to a bowl of dust
We can fall from rockets’ red glare
Down to “Brother can you spare –”
Another war — another waste land –
And another lost generation…
Freeman
September 28, 2012 at 7:00 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@Larry #9,
Obama has a long way to go to surpass those “achievements”.
Obama also has a long way to go to reverse any of those “achievements”, even though he ran on that four years ago.
democommie
September 28, 2012 at 7:31 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Afghanistan, Central America, Iran…Carter (D)
Financial Meltdown…at least partly can be laid at the foot of the Great Empath Bill Clinton, who also gutted “welfare”.”
Really? You got some empirical data to go with that assertion sundae?
“I think the harm President George W. Bush did and Mitt Romney promises to do will be far, far worse than the harm Mr. Bush has done so far. That’s due to the actions of both him and his Administration on global warming.”
This is tangenital to Mr. Michael Heath’s comment.
Last evening I was listening to the “Capital Pressroom” on NY Public Radio and they were talking about the more than 10,000 natural gas and oil wells which have already been drilled in this state and the over 4,000 which are “uncapped”. They also talked about the hundreds of millions of gallons of “fracking” effluent which winds up, sooner or later (usually sooner) in the surrounding surface and groundwater table. They were not predicting what would happen IF hydrofracking happens, as its backers would like it to happen, across the entire state and not just its southern tier. The for profit press and other news media are largely silent on this issue.