December 07, 2007 11:48 PM UTC

Whackotics--Is It Contagious?

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• by: JO

Getting carried away with your own fantasies is one way of describing Whackotics–the art of trying to make political capital out of, well, overactive imaginations. It seems to be a particular preserve of Republicans at all levels. Today’s example, courtesty TPM, from Arkansas circa 1990s (“the Huckabee years”):

If you’re curious why Mike Huckabee even got on the topic of pardoning, commuting the sentence of, paroling — whatever — serial rapist and murderer Wayne Dumond, you have to understand that during the 90s the right-wing whackjobosphere had managed to convince themselves that DuMond was some sort of Ozarks Ruben Carter — a victim of Bill Clinton and the corrupt regime he ran in Arkansas in the 1980s….

(T)here’s actually a book, Unequal Justice, that seems to be the bible of DuMond lionization and hagiography. What’s so damning about Huckabee is that whatever version of events you believe, it seems undisputed that Huckabee either bought into this craziness or pushed for the release of a serial rapist to pander to those who did.

Other examples come to mind: Swift Boat is one. “Psst! Obama is a secret Muslim” is another. The phenomenon is hardly limited to the national stage. Tancredo is certainly a primo practitioner on the High Plains.

How about some other contributions, either party, from CO as part of a scientific study to help determine whether Whackotics might be a contagious mental illness caught at GOP confabs, or whether it just comes with the job of running for office circa 2007.

Kevin McCaskeyKevin McCasky