A BuzzFlash Interview
March 16, 2004
[Excerpt]
This is what you've been waiting for. Bruce J. Miller's Take Them At Their Words: Shocking, Amusing and Baffling Quotations from the G.O.P. and Their Friends, 1994-2004 (Academy Chicago) is a compendium of hundreds of right-wing GOP quotations. Miller, brother of Mark Crispin Miller, has assembled the bitter, spiteful and downright bizarre ranting and ravings of the people who now rule America, along with their supporters.
Who could forget Barbara Bush on Good Morning America: "Why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many...It's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"
Or Ann Coulter, opining: "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."
Or George W. Bush to the Palestinian Prime Minister: "God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you can help me, I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them."
At first you will laugh, but keep in mind what Sidney Blumenthal, who wrote an insightful introduction, noted: "You may read and laugh, but, remember, they mean it."
BuzzFlash: You just edited a book, "Take Them At Their Words: Shocking, Amusing and Baffling Quotations from the G.O.P and Their Friends, 1994-2004." When you say, "Take them at their words," what do you mean?
There's a double standard about this, because if Democrats say anything that's the least bit controversial, they're hammered on it by the right wing media chorus. But should we take Republicans at their words? Does Ann Coulter mean that Timothy McVeigh would have been bettering off targeting The New York Times building? Are we to take them literally? Are they as dangerous, violent and bilious as they often sound?
[Good question. Unfortunately those who can answer it best are the victims who are either sold-out, dead or incommunicado.]
See the rest here.
Posted by jules_siegel at March 19, 2004 07:54 AM | TrackBack