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Go Home Another Milestone For the Far Right

THE PLANK SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

Another Milestone For the Far Right

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

Newsmax columnist calls for military coup to oust President Obama:

There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America’s military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the “Obama problem.” Don’t dismiss it as unrealistic.

America isn’t the Third World. If a military coup does occur here it will be civilized. That it has never happened doesn’t mean it wont. Describing what may be afoot is not to advocate it. So, view the following through military eyes:

·         Officers swear to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Unlike enlisted personnel, they do not swear to “obey the orders of the president of the United States.”

·         Top military officers can see the Constitution they are sworn to defend being trampled as American institutions and enterprises are nationalized.

·         They can see that Americans are increasingly alarmed that this nation, under President Barack Obama, may not even be recognizable as America by the 2012 election, in which he will surely seek continuation in office. ...

·         Will the day come when patriotic general and flag officers sit down with the president, or with those who control him, and work out the national equivalent of a “family intervention,” with some form of limited, shared responsibility?

·         Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.

·         Military intervention is what Obama’s exponentially accelerating agenda for “fundamental change” toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama’s radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.

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16 comments

It's a great idea . . . for a remake of Seven Days in May. It'll have to be Denzel, of course, for the Frederick March role. I'd say either Ford or Penn could do a good job in the Burt Lancaster part (Ford might lack the edge of controlled anger than Lancaster gave it), and the Kirk Douglas JAG role could be cast female this time around (in fact, one of the subtexts of the original movie is Lancaster's attempts to "feminize" Douglass as the wimp, the lawyer, the liberal, etc while he himself is "the soldier").

- ironyroad

September 29, 2009 at 6:36pm

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I forget: Is the far right still the folks on Talk Radio and Fox News, or is it now the Republican party itself? Just as there are lots of codewords for race, lots can be invented for a "civilized" coup d'etat in Washington too. Let's monitor SteeleWorld and find out what they'll be. In fact, Glenn Beck was just examining a possible double entendre here. This is a true story: He takes us to a television screen and Gunsmoke is on. He points out how the Bad Guy [played by Charles Bronson before he played the Good Guy in The Magnificent Seven] is wearing a Black Hat. Marshall Dillon, the Good Guy wears a White Hat, which Beck also points out. Then the White Hat guns down and kills the Black Hat. Really, this on a major cable news channel watched by millions and millions of people. Still, we have to be grateful I suppose that Beck didn't call it a Mulatto Hat. george

- iambiguous

September 29, 2009 at 6:56pm

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I'm sorry, but as crazy as some on the left got during the Bush years, invoking revolutionary ideals to oust him from office--based on his ideology--was never something they endorsed. Newsmax is treasonous. Just flat-out treasonous.

- dylanposer

September 29, 2009 at 7:07pm

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ironyroad beat me to it. That's an old wet dream of the far right since FDR, what's a milestone on the part of Perry is the loss of any self awareness, and cultural literacy(or sense of humor) that he sounds like a rough draft of a Rod Serling script. What's even funnier is his last sentence, saying that it was an "abnegation of personal responsibility" to have allowed the 2008 election and allowing the 2010 to pass will "gamble the national survival on such political whims". In others words, he's going to have a looong eight years.

- lauraone111

September 29, 2009 at 7:10pm

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the scary thing is this lunatic actually served in 2 White Houses (or so newsmax says, in what capacity I don't know) They also show the withered old bald fool's picture. I seriously doubt it will be a long 8 years for the old goat since I am pretty sure he will be dead outside of 2 years, and when that day comes, if I so happen to hear about it (doubtful since he is pretty much a non-entity) I will be glad. Amazing how truly grannyish and wimpy the guy looks, I doubt he has had an erection since the Kennedy administration, and then probably just the once. Why is it these bald wimpy marshmallow men who talk so tough, like Cheney, Rove, this pos all gravitate to the Republican party? Oh, right, because they think it makes them into men.

- blackton

September 29, 2009 at 7:28pm

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I gotta say, this was unexpected. I checked out his bio: Perry also has had a distinguished career in public policy. He served President Lyndon B. Johnson as deputy under secretary of commerce and was a White House speech writer and race-relations trouble-shooter for President Johnson. In the Jimmy Carter administration, he was executive assistant to the under secretary of Housing and Urban Development and was interim director of public information for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. I gotta figure the guy suffers from dementia. I really have no idea how you go from the above to where he is now.

- blackton

September 29, 2009 at 7:35pm

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*sigh*

- Tgossard

September 29, 2009 at 8:07pm

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We've secretly replaced your usual batshit-crazy Newsmax column with a choice selection from the Onion. You'll never notice the difference.

- csmiller

September 29, 2009 at 8:20pm

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Fun parts: Officers, we're told, don't take an oath to the president but to the Constitution. In making this subtle legal point, the columnist neglects the fact that a military coup, I'm pretty sure, would violate quite a few provisions of the Constitution. Note that these intrepid officers would deal with Obama or "the people who control him." Curious: Who do they think "controls" Obama? Arabs? Black radicals? Black muslims? Rich, liberal Jews (the bad ones)? Kenyans? Trial lawyers? Chicago friends? Teamsters? Aliens from outer space? Michelle? I usually don't like to get into an argument about which side's nuts are nuttier or more numerous. But, really, is it fair to say that Newsmax is a right-wing Daily Kos or Huffington Post equivalent? Is it fair to say that neither of thos liberal outlets would put up something this crazy? Just asking.

- jhildner1

September 29, 2009 at 8:43pm

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A race-relations troubleshooter for LBJ?! Really? An internet search on this guy reveals this. Seems Perry's been an Obama hater since the 2004 DNC, when he was complaining about Obama's political "coloration" and imagining the various nonsense sounds rappers could make with the letters in Obama's outlandish name.

- frippo

September 29, 2009 at 11:38pm

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What's the next milestone? Assassination?

- JEFF FREY

September 29, 2009 at 11:49pm

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Hmm, any clues to the source of his hatred of Obama? Political coloration? Rappers? Couldn't be race, though....

- JEFF FREY

September 29, 2009 at 11:51pm

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Maybe he just watched the old movie and said to himself, now there's an idea . . . Come to think of it, the actor who plays the two-timing Senator Prentice -- initially he pretends to be on the president's side but is in fact in league with the conspirators -- looked a bit like Joe Lieberman.

- ironyroad

September 30, 2009 at 12:58am

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Perhaps our Newsmax commentator might want to reflect on the likelihood of this scenario after considering that US military officers have government-run health care, and seem quite happy with it.

- gea1434

September 30, 2009 at 10:42am

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The article appears to have been removed from Newsmax's website. Possibly someone in their office has made a quick and worried read of 18 U.S.C. § 2385 and realized that they have committed a serious Federal offense: "Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States...or Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence...Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both..." Call treason treason and be done with it.

- janus

September 30, 2009 at 11:12am

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I think this is the tipping point. The idea of a "loyal opposition" is disappearing from the minds of conservatives.

- zardoz67

September 30, 2009 at 1:10pm

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