They've Got a Ticket to Obscurity

James Comey purposefully set out to sabotage and destroy the campaign of Donald Trump during the campaign of 2016? Here is a beautiful example of the Republicans' low opinion of the intelligence of the American people (an opinion that I share, by the way). They're counting on most of us forgetting what really happened. If Comey was really that far into the tank for Hillary Clinton, he was the stupidest saboteur in the history of human deviousness. The former head of the FBI reopened the investigation into Ms. Clinton's emails a week before Election Day. He cost Hillary the election. This is just one of the many latest rewritings of history that these people are engaged in. And the propagandists over at Fox Noise, Sean Hannity in particular, are acting as stenographers for the GOP. I wonder if any of these people have ever taken the time to wonder how they're going to be perceived by historians seventy years from now. Do they even care?

 

Their latest foray into Laugh Land involves a "secret society". Apparently, those flaming left wing loonies - over at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (I'm not making this up) - have developed some sort of sinister cabal where they meet to plot the overthrow of all that is good and decent in this grand and glorious land of ours. The right wing politicians puke this stuff out and the right wing media dutifully passes it on. Again, I really don't think that they give a shit how posterity will judge them. It's obvious they don't at all. 


"Some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies."

 

Westbrook Pegler

Referring to Robert F. Kennedy

 

Westbrook Pegler 1894-1969

Back in the thirties and forties there once lived a columnist named Westbrook Pegler. Interestingly, I stumbled upon his grave a few years ago while I was visiting the final resting place of my great grandparents, Margaret and Edward Degan, at the Gate of Heaven cemetery in Hawthorne, NY. He's buried fairly close to them. Old Westbrook was as vile a political commentator as one might hope (or not hope) to find anywhere. I always thought that the hideous old freak was born too soon. He would have been perfectly content among the Hannitys, the Limbaughs and the Coulters - and I know beyond a doubt that he would have been crazy about the Donald. The beautiful thing about Pegler is that he was completely wrong about every single important issue of his generation. Not only was this nitwit an anti-Semite of the worst order, he was against the civil rights movement and anything (or anyone) associated with Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. His views eventually became too extreme even for the right wing Hearst organization which syndicated his column. He ended his life in total obscurity, tapping out an occasional tirade for the John Birch Society's publication. I think I'm the only person I'm aware of who even knows who this knucklehead was. As powerful as he was during his time on earth, death has left him consigned to history's garbage bin.

"Good evening Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea!"

 

Walter Winchell

Winchell

Another powerful extremist commentator of that age was Walter Winchell. His New York gossip column, which came into being in the mid-twenties, was eventually syndicated nationwide. As his fame grew, so did his arrogance. He would eventually drift from writing about show people to redefine himself as one of the worst red-baiters of his time. His power was enhanced by a nightly radio report that was heard by millions. Like Pegler, poor old Walt eventually fell of his own weight. When he died in 1972 he was so broke that there were no funds to bury him in his beloved New York. He was laid to rest in Texas, where he had been staying at the time he died. For all his one-time power and fame, the only person to attend his graveside service was his estranged daughter with whom he had not spoken in many years.

The graveyards of history are littered with the corpses of men and women who made their names by trying to put a stop to human progress. They are all pretty much obliterated from human and historical memory. There will be no lasting monuments decades into the future for Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh. Look for them only in the footnotes.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

AFTERTHOUGHT, 10:10 AM, 1/30/18:

The State of the Union speech is tonight. Be sure to tune in. This oughta be a hoot!