Steve Benen’s on the case of one right-wing cuckoo.
Once in a great while, the right surprises me.
On the July 30 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage reacted to news that Chief Justice John Roberts had suffered a seizure that day by raising the possibility that “his health was in some way tampered with by the Democrats.” Savage said, “Something’s wrong with this picture,” after noting that Roberts’ seizure occurred just three days after Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) said he would seek in general to reject any future Supreme Court nomination made by President Bush. Schumer told the American Constitution Society (ACS) in a July 27 speech: “I will recommend to my colleagues that we should not confirm any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court except in extraordinary circumstances.” Schumer said that, since the confirmation of Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, the court had come to represent “what a diminishing clique of conservative ideologues wish for.”
Savage asked, “Am I to believe there’s no connection between Charles Schumer on Friday saying he would never appoint, or never, excuse me, approve another Bush appointment to the court, to any court? And then the chief justice suffers a so-called seizure two days later? You’re telling me there’s no possibility of a conspiracy by the Democrats to have caused this seizure in some manner?” He added: “Tell me it’s not possible, and I’ll tell you you’re a liar.”
Now, one could point out that Schumer did not, in fact, say that “he would never … approve another Bush appointment to the court, to any court,” and that accusations of attempted murder probably shouldn’t be tossed around so casually, but what’s the point? Some folks are just not well.
There are, of course, some people on the left who believe the right is behind every human tragedy that has been bad for, well, the left. Some think George H.W. Bush was behind the Kennedy Assassination. Others think that nefarious players within the modern right were behind Paul Wellstone’s death and Tim Johnson’s stroke. None of them, however, are major public figures within the mainstream modern left. Michael Savage, by contrast, has national prominence and can count many-a-congressman and senator as fans. He is also the sort of person who on a Wednesday will suggest to his listeners that a Supreme Court Justices non-fatal stroke is the result of a botched murder attempt by Democrats and turn around the next day to yelp that any fears that Republicans might rig electronic voting machines are totally nuts. How is it that the GOP gets away with fostering people like him? Is our polity really that ill?
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