Blazing Wingnuts

Lots of people are making fun of Michael Gerson’s latest column, which exposes President Obama’s sinister, underhanded tactic of being reasonable. Gerson actually wrote this —

Given this weak Republican position, Obama must be tempted by a shiny political object: the destruction of the congressional GOP. He knows that Republicans are forced by the momentum of their ideology to take positions on spending that he can easily demagogue. He is in a good position to humiliate them again — to expose their internal divisions and unpopular policy views. It may even be a chance to discredit and then overturn the House Republican majority, finally reversing his own humiliation in the 2010 midterms.

The whole column is pretty awesome. Kevin Drum writes that “It might set a new mainstream media record for compressing the largest number of conservative pathologies into the smallest possible space.”

Booman says “‘The momentum of their ideology’ will now join “catapulting the propaganda” in the pantheon of awesomely-coined terms Republicans use to explain their own evil/insanity.” For some reason, thinking of Republicans being forced to do crazy things by the momentum of their own ideology reminds me of this …

See also Jonathan Chait.

Meanwhile, the NRA continues to play the Mad Dog role and is accusing the President of being a hypocritical elitist because his children get armed guard protection and other people’s children don’t. Seriously.

If the NRA were listening to me, I would argue that keeping the President’s family safe is not just a courtesy but a matter of national security. It removes the temptation to negotiate with hostage takers, for example. And I would also explain that just because the President is unlikely to promote the guards-in-schools idea, I don’t see him getting in the way of local school districts hiring armed security guards if they want to. Even if you think armed security guards in schools is a good idea, why does anyone need a federal law about it?

I’ve looked at the ad, and I don’t see it appealing to anyone who isn’t already a foaming-at-the-mouth Obama hater. The NRA may think it has a winner because polls show fairly strong support for putting armed guards in schools. However, the same polls show even stronger support for tougher gun control laws