Update:

“President Clinton weighed in that  “legitimate” comparisons can be drawn between today’s grass-roots anger and resentment toward the government and the right-wing extremism 15 years ago.”

Actually, I think the Clinton statement was a pretty fair one, all in all. It didn’t equate “right-wing extremism” with tea-party goers and anti-government activists (as the SPLC did) and it did give room for people to voice their opinions, without having to “be nice.” It cautioned, correctly, that people should stop short of advocating violence.

Any discussion of the Confederacy, said the ex-Prez, should always include a mention of slavery, which doesn’t sound like an onerous requirement to me. So too any discussion of “Islamicism” should also include a complete list of  US interventions in the said Islamicist state, right?

In short, more balance and less polemics. I hope I’ve always tried to do that on this blog.
The only thing is, can we hope the government will live up to this standard and stop short of advocating violence, say, in Iran, or in Michigan…or anywhere else?

ORIGINAL POST

Thanks to David Kramer at LRC blog, for this slimy listing by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) of Ron Paul among the “enablers’ of the “Patriot” movement, which, if you didn’t know by now is code to our dear leaders and their cohorts for “Nazi right-wing (definitely Christian)  loons-who-share-milk-shakes-‘n-training-manuals- with- OsamaJohnPatrickBedellDavidKoreshRandyWeaver-bin Laden” :

1. Michele Bachmann 2. Glenn Beck 3. Paul Broun 4. Andrew Napolitano 5. Ron Paul

On the page following, you can see what a smear this is. There’s a list of incidents making up a “Patriot” timeline (love those quotation marks) that starts with President Bush’s “New World Order” remark. (He said it, didn’t he?) and is dotted with references to anti-Semitism, white supremacy and violent acts.

Note that when “cultists” or militia members are murdered, the word used is “killed” or “left dead.” When a federal agent is killed, the term is “murdered.”