OMG COMMIES!!!!!

Don’t take my word for it. Rep. West shot his mouth off (in the direction of his foot) here.

There are so many valid policy reasons to go after any sitting member of the executive or legistlative branches this November, but somehow none of those avenues are as sexy as saying “YER A COMMIE!!!1!!1!!!!”

Proliferation of this kind of lunatic fringe rambling is what elbows rational policy discussion out of the way. It reduces a populace that could be an informed electorate to a group of schoolchildren playing “Telephone,” amplifying the rumors a little bit more as they get passed on. It sucks the air out of the room for actual information, leaving nothing but hearsay and just plain old lies.

P.S. I’ve heard your brain dies without air.

P.P.S. I also heard that all those Congressional Commies EAT LIVE HAMSTERS WHEN THE C-SPAN CAMERAS AREN’T ROLLING. They’re so delicious.

Hey! Speaking of calling out Commies:

(“But Earl!” I hear you saying, “decrying [insert currently sitting political figure here] is an unpopular cause! The [liberal/conservative] media is out to silence those of us who feel that way! That Murrow quote doesn’t back up your case!” Well sure it does. It can back up anyone’s case. The real question is: can anyone in the modern political sphere do Murrow proud and back up their case factually without a boatload of innuendo and rumor to make it “sexy”? Or is it an ability political operatives have lost and a basic flavor of truth that we, the people, are forgetting to demand?)

I think what disturbs me the most in this election cycle is that there aren’t enough people decrying bad information, shoddy reporting and rumor-mongering from their own side. And yet surely they know that there’s nothing to be gained by having their side of the debate co-opted by the lunatic fringe. What are we saying to the future here? That the outlandish wingnut accusations are okay so long as they agree with the side you’ve already taken?

Mr. Murrow’s comments are taken from a written transcript of his pivotal broadcast here, and remain blisteringly relevant almost six decades later as rumormongering continues to gain ground as a popular pastime among those with a mouthpiece. If excerpts from Murrow’s dismantling of the McCarthy machine were replayed even half as often as the latest half-baked crackpot conspiracy theories from either the left or the right, people in this country might remember to think.