Pick your crazy: McCain, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, and Ahmadinejad

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Question: Which is the craziest?

a) John McCain claiming that Obama is all about "the past" on Iraq.
b) Bill O'Reilly equating Arianna Huffington with the Nazis and the KKK.
c) Rush Limbaugh defending the "Husseinization" of Obama.
d) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calling Iran the world's #1 power.

I'll go with b) and d) -- a tie. McCain's claim is just silly, while Limbaugh's defence of the predictable Republican smear is, well, predictably stupid.

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Speaking of the "Husseinization" of Obama -- and I wrote the other day about how the Republican Smear Machine (RSM) will portray Obama as a black Muslim terrorist -- one of the bigger and more despicable right-wing bloggers, Pamela of Atlas Shrugs, is already on the bigoted offensive: "My objective is to unearth Obama's relationship to Islam. Islam is a political ideology and it is incompatible with democracy."

Actually, Islam is a religion, a faith, just like Judaism or Christianity. (Yes, she's that ignorant, that bigoted.) Her actual objective is to smear the entirety of the Muslim religion and to argue that Obama is a terrorist, or at least a friend to terrorists.

And given her ignorant, bigoted view of Islam as, in essence, a cult of terrorism, all she needs to do, in her own mind, is to show that Obama has a Muslim friend, or perhaps has just shaken hands with a Muslim.

Pamela is an extremist, yes, but this is what we can expect from the RSM going forward.

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There was much ado over Obama and Farrakhan, even though the former publicly rejected and denounced the latter at the Ohio debate the other night, but what about McCain and Hagee? Hagee is the pastor of a San Antonio mega-church, an evangelist -- an extremist, as crazy as they come on America's christianist right. Even the right-wing Catholic League calls him a bigot, if only because he is anti-Catholic as well as anti-Muslim -- yes, he is an equal opportunity bigot.

He is totally insane and, of course, immensely influential. And he supports McCain. And McCain is "very honored" to have his support.

(For more, see Greenwald, Benen, and Amato.)

Let's review: Obama rejects and denounces Farrakhan, but McCain embraces Hagee. And yet the media are all over Obama while giving McCain yet another free pass.

Yes, the media are crazy, too. And, should he win the nomination, Obama will be required to contend not just with the O'Reillys, Limbaughs, and Hagees of the world, but also with a media establishment that seems determined to cut him down -- yes, just as, over the years, including this one, it has cut the Clintons down.

It'll be ugly -- and an enormous challenge for Obama. I am still confident he is up to the task, but it won't be easy, not up against the RSM and its media mouthpieces, not up against the crazies of the right.