The indispensable Charlie Pierce points us to a NYT piece
on how the military junta is talking about the overthrow of Mohamed
Morsi to the people of Egypt. Turns out they’re talking a whole lot like
any random American rightwing radio host; people can no longer trust
the American government, because Pres. Obama is secretly in bed with the
Muslim Brotherhood and trying to destroy Egypt.
"However crackpot that view may sound," the Times reports, “it is widespread among supporters of the military.”
But Pierce zeroes in on one extremely disturbing paragraph in the piece:
Tea Party conspiracy theorizing is finding its way into Egyptian propaganda. How long before other despots, criminals, and dictators follow their lead? How long before the ravings of Louie Gohmert, Michele Bachmann, and Steve King become the voices that speak for America, carefully cherrypicked because of all the helpful lying?
Tea Party BS doesn’t stop at America’s borders, apparently. And it’s not the world’s brightest beacons who find it useful — not people like Nelson Mandela or Aung San Suu Kyi.
No, it’s the killers and the tyrants people like that fight against who find Tea Party lies most useful. And that tells you all you need to know about the original authors of those lies — don’t trust them any farther than you can throw them, because they are most definitely not good people.
[photo by Gage Skidmore]
"However crackpot that view may sound," the Times reports, “it is widespread among supporters of the military.”
But Pierce zeroes in on one extremely disturbing paragraph in the piece:
Many Egyptians refer to YouTube clips played repeatedly by the pro-military news media, quoting Representative Louie Gohmert, Republican of Texas, who recently equated giving $1.5 billion in aid to the Morsi government with support for terrorists."Be proud, all of you who voted in the worst Congress in the history of the Republic," writes Pierce. "Be proud. Republican leadership, which has proven to be unable or unwilling to control the flying monkeys in its midst. You’ve done something remarkable. In the streets of Cairo, the face of American foreign policy is Louie Gohmert, scourge of Terror Babies, and the biggest bag of hammers in the House Of Representatives. This is a blow from which diplomacy may never recover."
Tea Party conspiracy theorizing is finding its way into Egyptian propaganda. How long before other despots, criminals, and dictators follow their lead? How long before the ravings of Louie Gohmert, Michele Bachmann, and Steve King become the voices that speak for America, carefully cherrypicked because of all the helpful lying?
Tea Party BS doesn’t stop at America’s borders, apparently. And it’s not the world’s brightest beacons who find it useful — not people like Nelson Mandela or Aung San Suu Kyi.
No, it’s the killers and the tyrants people like that fight against who find Tea Party lies most useful. And that tells you all you need to know about the original authors of those lies — don’t trust them any farther than you can throw them, because they are most definitely not good people.
[photo by Gage Skidmore]
