Conservatives sure do love their domestic terrorists.
A conservative
ponders his side's inability to vet its folk heroes, a failing that consistently leads to heartbreak and embarrassment.
[W]e find conservatives trapped in a cycle of abusive relationships. It’s almost like a trap. It usually goes like this: Government or the media oversteps its bounds, conservatives embrace the un-vetted victim, who — once feted and promoted on cable TV and talk radio (this is good business for conservative media, allowing them to pander to their viewers and listeners, and drive their political agenda) — says or does something utterly stupid. Then, MSNBC (and other liberal outlets) then spend weeks covering the boomerang part of the story.
… And then we repeat the cycle a few months later. What almost always starts out as a boon for conservatives leaves them with egg on their face.
The government totally overstepped its bounds by letting Bundy get away with not paying grazing fees for over 20 years, and by getting a court order authorizing the impound of the cattle. Such tyranny cannot stand!
Not sure how the Bundy mess was ever a boon for conservatives, but regardless, this is the best part of my job: watching Republicans embrace some wackjob because he said mean things about Obama or reinforces their biases, then having us laugh when it all blows up on their face. Whether it's Donald Trump, James O'Keefe, Joe the Plumber, Sarah Palin, Dean Chambers, Ted Nugent, Dinesh D'Souza or Cliven Bundy. It even blows up in their faces when they try to reverse this dynamic, such as claiming Don Sterling was a Democrat (he was registered the opposite of that).
The conservative movement's anti-government rhetoric inevitably breeds eliminationist and/or delusional cranks, and there is no shortage of Sean Hannitys cheering them on.
There is no similar phenomenon on the Left, not even close. We didn't rush to embrace Lyndon LaRouche because he said mean things about George W. Bush because we're apparently much better at sniffing out the crazies. There is no one in liberal punditry as consistently wrong as Bill Kristol, Dick Morris or Jennifer Rubin, because we don't need to bend reality to sleep at night. And when genuine liberals go down, like Anthony Weiner, Elliot Spitzer and John Edwards, we don't feel compelled to rally around them and invent conspiracy theories. If someone is a scumbag, party ID doesn't rescue them from our scorn.
Some conservatives wish their side wouldn't rush headlong into hero worship of creepy criminals and whatnot, but it's baked into their worldview. Weird, but true.