Last week a new name started popping up on my Twitter feed: Cliven Bundy. Before I had even processed it, he was in a standoff with federal law enforcement officials over unpaid taxes and fees and Harry Reid was calling him a domestic terrorist, Sean Hannity was egging him on to start an armed rebellion and Ted Cruz seemed to be angling to get him to run on his ticket in 2016. It looked too silly/ugly/predictable to pay any attention to. So I didn't. But it didn't go away. It got louder and uglier and sillier and more predictable and right-wing imbecile Dana Loesch was already whining that poor Cliven needs better media training.
I'm not sure how old we were when Ken and I first became friends, but I'm guessing it was around 15. I asked him if he had considered writing about the Bundy crap. He hadn't. "I didn't think anyone would be eager to hear my solution, which would be to have him killed just so people would stop talking about him-- and also it would teach him a lesson. You know, it's hard even to get these criminal-crackpot types' attention, let alone teach them a lesson." I bet Hannity and some of the other Republicans who championed Bundy until he went full racist Monte yesterday, would have liked-- or at least been relieved by-- Ken's solution. No Cruz, of course; he still wants to see Rafael/Cliven presidential bumperstickers on pickup trucks in 2 years. But Dean Heller… what could that clod be thinking?
All year, the Nevada Republican senator has been trying to pull off a Susan Collins fake moderate pose, voting with the Democrats every now and then-- primarily when it didn't matter much to the wing nut base-- in the hope of looking more purple than red in a state that gave Obama back-to-back wins in 2008 (55%) and 2012 (52%)… and where only 33.7% of voters are registered Republicans. But seeing all those right-wing terrorists marching around brandishing rifles forced Heller's inner nut back to the surface. At a joint appearance with Harry Reid on Las Vegas' KSNV-TV, he proudly declared, "What Sen. Reid may call domestic terrorists, I call patriots." Oops. Heller will be working all year to get that off his shoes!
Soon after, Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) asked the Interior Department to "investigate the role of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in efforts to pass bills at the state level" that undermine federal authority over state lands and thwart the agency's duties. And that, in effect, is very much related to what Maddow's program was about last night. I urge you to watch the video up top. Grijalva: ALEC's pattern of activity raises serious questions about how changes to land management laws and regulations, especially in the Western United States, are being pushed by ALEC without public disclosure of its role or that of the corporations that fund its legislative agenda… The consequences of ALEC's positions are severe and deserving of careful scrutiny. They are entirely consistent with the position taken by anti-government rancher Cliven Bundy and his armed supporters… The ALEC vision of state sovereignty trumping long-standing federal government efforts to manage public lands has already had tangible effects on Bureau of Land Management and other agency employees' efforts to do their jobs."
So Ken wouldn't weigh in, another of our friends, though, Adam-who-watches-Fox-all-day, did. He e-mailed me this morning: "On Fox News today," he wrote, "every announcer denounced Clive Bundy when they started their shows. You should have me as your official Fox News reporter of what Fox News is saying." Oh, and The Economist weighed in too: The Rise And Fall of Cliven Bundy-- No Hero. "Bundy's charming comments… make it harder to deny that this law-breaking crank should be no one's poster boy; nor should the self-styled militiamen who journeyed from across the country to defend, at the point of assault rifles, Mr Bundy's right to trespass be hailed as heroes." Someone pass Dean Heller another aspirin.
The conservative-leaning Economist made the point that Bundy just went a little far and a little off the rails for their right-wing taste. "Bundy and his followers, energised by the spread of tea party anti-government sentiment and enabled by the echo chamber of conservative blogs and social media" seemed like a powerful wagon for politicians who complain about the size of government to hitch their stars to. Really? Let's watch and see how that works out for Dean Heller. And Rafael "Ted" Cruz.Watchdogs like the Southern Poverty Law Centre warn of fringe ideas like those animating Mr Bundy's backers migrating "from the margins to the mainstream." This dynamic has clearly been at play in the past couple of weeks. Politicians who should know better, such as Dean Heller, Nevada's Republican senator, and Brian Sandoval, the state's mild-mannered governor, were all too quick to suggest that the story's real villains are the federal officials seeking to enforce multiple court orders against Mr Bundy, rather than the ragtag posse ranged against them. These same politicians have had to move fast in denunciating Mr Bundy's comments today.
And, of course, this story could never be complete without Colbert weighing in. Is he going to be able to do this kind of thing on the new show he's going to? Would he want to?
