The Right Wing Fit du Jour: Obama Didn't Wheel on his Heel to Give Chavez a Cold Shoulder

 

Original photo used pursuant to this license | by Teh Nutroots | Benen:

"It's early Monday, and you know what that means: time for a new coordinated conservative tantrum. The freak-out over the Department of Homeland Security and domestic threats is so last week. The new fit is over President Obama shaking hands with the President of Venezuela at the Summit of the Americas." Yes, the yapping curs are out in force (with a snap-snap here and a snap-snap there).   It's so hard to decide who to make fun of first. 

So I'll start with Gingrich.  You can't go wrong ridiculing Newt.

Newt Gingrich thinks Obama's friendly greeting to Chavez -- he shook Chavez's hand!  He practically gave him a terrorist fist bump! --will "bolster" our enemies, which is something no Republican president would ever do or has ever done and certainly not in the last eight years.   Apparently the cause of freedom could have been advanced, instead of who-knows-how-seriously-impaired if Obama had been as rude as Gingrich -- who really must have been under a rock -- thinks Republican presidents have been and would be to the leaders of unfriendly nations.   On NBC, History Professor Gingrich said:

How do you mend relationships with somebody who hates your country, who actively calls for the destruction of your country and who wants to undermine you? ....[W]e didn't rush over, smile, and greet Russian dictators. We understood who they were.  (Think Progress)

Au contraire, Mister History Professor!  What price the soulful friendship forged between W and Vladimir Putin when W looked into the black holes that are Putin's pupils and claimed to see his soul?  Prior to the Georgia thing, they were the bestest of buds.

 Think Progress has pictorial evidence of just exactly how wrong Gingrich is, which is exactly as wrong as he is about every other damn thing he thinks or says. Reagan and Gorbachev, Newt!  The Gipper and Gorby!

At LGM, Davenoon remarked:

I realize that it's factually true that Newt Gingrich has a doctorate in history and that this peculiar fact illuminates, in a weird way, many of the deeply silly ideas dispensed from the gumball machine that people generally mistake for an actual human head. But we should always remember that Gingrich is an "historian" in the same sense that someone who last played golf in 1978 is a "golfer."

Or, to rephrase slightly, Gingrich is an historian in the same sense that someone who lost his PGA tour card in 1978 is still a golfer. I usually read that Gingrich was denied tenure; the alternate version (which I think is technically correct) is that he never actually applied for it because he'd have been turned down anyway. Regardless, Gingrich's history credentials -- to the degree that anyone, anywhere takes them seriously -- provide a great case study in the inflation of cultural capital.

Not that Newt is the only wingnut who is yapping and frothing like a dog with a burr under its tail.  Wonkette has a video in which "Col. Ralph Peters describes “all” of the “embracing and fist-bumping and making lovey-dovey in the hotel and god-knows-what-else behind closed doors” fantasy sex." 

But there's lots more.  Brian Beutler at TPM writes:

Tonight on Hardball, Pat Buchanan went on a bit of a tirade, saying "Bush and Cheney would have done a far better job of defending their country.... This guy is not a leader. This guy went down there and virtually groveled to these characters, Chris. I mean what is the matter with people."...

Dick Cheney added some thoughts of his own and his hagiographer, Stephen Hayes, took his cues and chimed in for himself on CNN:

I can tell you from having spoken to a number of those Republicans that there is considerable uncomfortability [sic], at least on the right, with the handshake. With I think the warm embrace between Barack Obama and Hugo Chavez, getting more disturbing than just shaking hands. He seemed to actually be enjoying it. And as you say, you know, this is somebody with a very long past of making comments, disparaging to the United States.

And, of course, high profile conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and bloggers at Red State weren't about to let an opportunity like this pass them by. The rhetoric thus far has been somewhat mild compared to some of the stuff we heard last week, but with an issue like this, it could easily veer into ugly territory. Keep your ears peeled.  (TPM)

The far right:  not only batshit crazy, but also suffering from collective amnesia.

Memeorandum has more

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