George,

Reading the various screeds of the supporters of the lunatic fringe, "neo-John Birchers," is the material of scary nightmares! For example, their sudden concern about the lack of security at the White House and the Amsterdam International Airport, seems to dramatically point out their collective amnesia--they have forgotten the "mother of all terrorist attacks" took place while their "heroes" were running the show back on 9-11-2001.

Warning after warning, from every corner of intelligence and "concerned" individuals from Richard Clarke, Warren Rudman, Gary Hart, retired airline pilots, culminating in a Presidential Daily Briefing on August 6, 2001 that gave every detail and intent of the plans of Osama bin Laden, omitting only time, date and specific buildings to be targeted.
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Each and every warning ignored.

Bush with palpable disinterest, flew off to Crawford, Texas to "cut brush!"

But you have heard it all before.

I turn to White House "security" during the Bush Watch. Remember James Guckert, alias "Jeff Gannon?" He was the shill sent to ask Bush pre-arranged questions during presidential news briefings. He was never cleared by the Secret Service or the F. B. I. owned and carried a Beretta hand gun and was only discovered after it was revealed he was a homosexual male prostitute, advertising his "wares" via several web sites (e.g. MilitaryStud.Com).

These semi-literate "fascists in waiting" aren't even worthy of contempt much less a responsible effort to respond. Watching the Tea Party rallies, I'm reminded of a comment I heard many years ago regarding another "outraged" extremist group. The comment went something like this, "the only difference between these clowns and the Klan is the length of their robes. "

We are at the twilight of our republic, like it or not, when an individual of the caliber of Sarah Palin can get the "old, reptilian brained" idiots like these "Tea Baggers" to stand in -10 degree weather with a wind chill of -50 degrees at 4 a.m. (Billings, Montana) just to get her Going Rogue, ghost-written book packed with lies, half truths, self praising stupidity, autographed by an individual that thinks Africa is a nation, and foreign policy experience is enhanced by air carriers from other nations flying over her state.

But the media seems to be endlessly fascinated by Palin and her followers, and the money pours in!

Finally, as I told a recent dyspeptic critic of ANY health care plan. . . "Steve, throughout the history of our democracy, the Right Wing of this nation has NEVER supported anything resembling social legislation, I'll give you just a few examples, they were against the Pure Food and Drug Act, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, child labor laws, mine safety laws, women's right to vote, Social Security, against any effort by FDR to try to lift this nation from the grip of the Great Depression, helping nations in Europe to stave off the onslaught of Hitler's Nazi Armies, rearming the United States (they called FDR a "war monger"), the GI Bill after WWll, the Marshall Plan, Head Start, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. etc, etc. "

The big difference between now and then is the Republican Party had responsible individuals who put the nation first and followed the dictates of the Preamble to the US Constitution and not the dictates of oligarchs, corporate crooks and financial manipulators, propagandists and entertainers like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter and their ilk who welcome divisiveness and hatred of government and the presidency unless it can fatten their coffers and give them exclusive control of the "government plum tree" vis a vis, Halliburton, Kellog Brown and Root etc. etc."

Need we know more?

Harry Tenney (Electronic mail, December 30, 2009)