The Daily Show, South Park, Court TV and Paul Krugman

Yesterday, the New York Times printed a valentine from Richard Stevenson to Karl Rove and the Bush administration…fine group of fellas doing a fine job. Last week, a writer for the NYT who I love to hate, John F. Burns, reported that there are significant improvements in the situation in Iraq. This morning, Salon.com says that Lawrence Kaplan of The New Republic thinks there is good stuff happening in Iraq that the media is not reporting. And la-la-la…everything's ducky in the land of Rupert and Moon. (BTW, if some hotshot animators don't come up with a Rupert and Moon toon, they're missing out on a sure-fire hit.) In any event, when you want the truth you read NYT's Paul Krugman and you watch Jon Stewart, the South Park kids and Court TV. So what can we do about the religious fanatics whose lies and distortions have oozed and slithered into what Carl Jung called our “collective unconscious”? This morning, regarding Tom DeLay's involvement in the Schiavo case, Paul Krugman wrote, “Now he and his party, shocked by the public's negative reaction to their meddling, want to move on. But we shouldn't let them.” And the reason we can't afford to let the GOP off the hook and let them distract us from their latest distraction is because the GOP is being led by extremists and there is only one possible end result. As Krugman says, “The closest parallel I can think of to current American politics is Israel. There was a time, not that long ago, when moderate Israelis downplayed the rise of religious extremists. But no more: extremists have already killed one prime minister, and everyone realizes that Ariel Sharon is at risk. “America isn't yet a place where liberal politicians, and even conservatives who aren't sufficiently hard-line, fear assassination. But unless moderates take a stand against the growing power of domestic extremists, it can happen here.” The majority of Americans are not far-right religious fanatics. Seventy-seven percent of us are liberals and moderates. And we have to take a stand in every venue we have at our disposal--particularly in the voting booth. But perhaps our most potent defense against far-right zealots is laughter.