Tom McGee's Blog

There’s a new nuttiness abroad in the land.

Just Google the nonsense phrase “Richard Holbrooke- Ultra liberal anti gun former Gov.of New Mexico” over 80 instances of it. It points to a list that the anti-Obama crowd has developed that allegedly points out the pure evil inherent in a the “czars” in the Administration.

Besides the gem in the opener (hint: Holbrooke was never Governor of that, or any other, state) we quote-unquote “learn” several other interesting things.

• George Mitchell is a “left-wing radical.” That’s the George Mitchell that has been named special envoy to everything by several presidents, headed up the baseball steroids investigation, and was Chairman of Disney.
• Herb Allison, Fannie May CEO, is responsible for the US recession by something they call “using real estate mortgages to back up the US stock market.” Despite working in investor education for a number of years, I have no idea what that means. However, it’s worth pointing out that Allison is the guy they brought in in September, 2008, after Fannie went down in flames. Somehow, he retroactively caused the crisis that made it necessary to bring him in.
• Information Czar Vivek Kundra controls all public information, including labels and news releases, and monitors all private Internet emails. He must be a very fast reader.
• Paul Volcker is anti-business.
• Terrorism Czar John Brennan is an anti-CIA activist with no training in diplomatic or government affairs. Don’t let his resume with 10 different positions in the CIA, plus degrees in political science and government, fool you.
• Science Czar John Holdren is also an anti business activist, and has no science training. Other than the aeronautics, astronautics and plasma physics he studied on the way to his bachelors at MIT, and his Ph.D from Stanford.

And that’s just the low-hanging fruit. One could go on and on with this.

Remember the “Big Lie”? The Big Lie is a lie so outrageous that people believe it. That’s because they’d rather believe the lie than believe that someone would tell a lie so big and obvious. Our basic trust in each other doesn’t allow us to believe that someone would be so grossly dishonest with us, so we accept the counterintuitive lie instead.

A list like this one is a variation on the Big Lies. Maybe call it the Big List of Lies. My guess is that you’re supposed to think something along the lines of, “well there are a few errors here but they can’t all be wrong — no one could be that dishonest. So the basic thrust must be true.”

But just like in the Big Lie, you’re being gulled. They certainly can be that dishonest. And the basic thrust is false.

People on the left aren’t perfect, but I just don’t see anyone on this side picking up nonsense like this and running with it. There aren’t any lists that say Alberto Gonzales has no legal training, or Dick Cheney has no experience in the energy industry, or George Bush has no management background. Or that Karl Rove was governor of Minnesota.

I often wonder how people continue to live with their wingnuttery. How can you continue to believe in the underpinnings of a philosophy that can’t be justified with truth, and so has to be continually defended by a phalanx of lies? Doesn’t it occur to anyone that if you have to try and shoot down something and you have to rely on BS because the truth doesn’t support your position, maybe you should re-evaluate your position?