That pro-Hezbollah tree near my house

If you support a progressive agenda, then support a progressive candidate.

The far right has completely lost its mind.

Not all conservatives, mind you. Some of them recognize the damage that their namesakes are doing to the country.

But the most extreme right wingers are so completely irrational and out of control that they must be exposed as such.

Some of you are surely saying, "Brian, it’s taken you this long to figure that out?"

Of course, I realized this years ago. But what I'm just coming to understand is exactly how quickly this problem is accelerating as they face the real risk of losing power to that greatest of their enemies: someone that may put an emphasis on (gasp) diplomacy. A rabid wolf backed into a corner is even more dangerous than an ordinary wolf.

The delusional far right imagines a terrorist threat under every strangely located rock. I think there's a pro-Hezbollah tree near my house because its leaves are yellow and green!

Take two recent incidents.

First was the Rachael Ray scarf flap. The ubiquitous Food Network star, who grew up locally, ran an ad for Dunkin Donuts. In it, Ray happened to be wearing a fashionable (?) scarf.

I saw the ad and thought nothing of it. I didn't even give the scarf a second look except to think it looked a little gaudy.

Michelle Malkin, arguably the most hallucinatory of the far right mad dogs, saw the ad and conjured up a scarf that symbolized Arab terrorism.

WTF?!

Of the course, the main difference between Malkin and responsible citizens is that we don't make a comfortable living whipping up xenophobia.

But this is only the second most serious national security problem we face.

If anyone says boo about Laura Bush, the extreme right goes apoplectic with rage. Spouses of candidates are untouchab... so long as the candidates have an (R) after their name. The right attacked nominee spouses Hillary Clinton in 1992 (and to some extent in 1996) and Teresa Heinz-Kerry in 2004. Now, they're aiming their smear guns and keyboards at Michelle Obama.

What is this malefactor's crime? How has she tarred humanity? How does she threaten America?

She and her husband… bumped fists at a campaign rally.

Yes, the fist bump has now replaced equal rights for gays and even Rachael Ray's scarf collection as the greatest threat to America.

Sane people viewed the fist bump and thought it was just a loving couple celebrating a political victory, in much the same way team sport athletes do after a win or a good run of play.

I often fist bump my soccer players when they come off the field. Send me to Gitmo right away!

The unhinged right viewed this benign act and saw "Hizbollah hand jabbing" (Human Events blog) and "terrorist fist jab" (Fox 'News' Channel).

And this was less than two months questions were raised about the crisis of Obama's refusal to use American flag-embossed salad forks.

Americans better hope that we never face a real terrorist threat. This 'boy who cried wolf' hysteria has so drained the far right’s credibility that even if there is a true terrorist threat at some point in the future, no one’s going to believe it.

Whatever world the far right occupies, I truly wish I were there. I wish I lived in a place where the Obamas' fist bump was one of the most pressing issues facing that world. It must be a nice tranquil place with few real problems.

But I live in a world called reality. I and most normal Americans live in a place where a weak economy, high gas prices and skyrocketing food prices make the 'scandal' of Rachael Ray’s fashion tastes absolutely trivial.

And since the far right obviously doesn't even live in our world, they can't possibly have any claim to rule our country.

Hillary: bigot or power hungry at any cost?

I've never liked Hillary Clinton and I've never quite trusted her, but I've never loathed her. But I'm starting to. My senator seems bound and determined to eradicate every last shred of respect progressives have for her.

It's bad enough that she's a corporate tool, the favorite candidate of lobbyists and special interests. But now, she's apparently lowered herself to exploiting Islamophobia.

CNN reported that a photo's been circulating of Barack Obama in traditional Somali Islamic dress. This was from a trip the senator took last year to east Africa.

The Obama camp accused the Clinton camp of circulating the photo. The Clinton camp offered a tortured smokescreen but refused to deny the allegation.

Obama is Christian but his father was Muslim. Both the far right and Hillary's camp are keen for this to be more widely known. This is why the Obama camp rightly accused the Clinton camp of hate mongering, of pandering to Islamophobia.

Maggie Williams, Hillary's Karl Rove, offered this lame obfuscation: “Enough. If Barack Obama's campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed... This is nothing more than an obvious and transparent attempt to distract from the serious issues confronting our country today and to attempt to create the very divisions they claim to decry."

You can easily envisage a Bush-esque smirk on her face as she's saying this.

Now this diversionary huffing and puffing begs the question: if a photo of Obama in Islamic clothing during a visit to an Islamic country is a non-story, then WHY DID THE CLINTON CAMP CIRCULATE THE PHOTO?

It's really no different than the far right fearmongers who insist on using Barack Obama's middle name (Hussein). And then when challenged, they accuse critics of being Islamophobic saying "Gee, why do you object to his full name?" This, when they don't use the middle name of any other candidate....

(Let's bear in mind that if Rush Limbaugh or someone of his ilk had circulated a photo of First Lady or Senator Hillary in Islamic garb, they would've gone ballistic, raged about the right-wing smear machine and whipped out the martyr card yet again)

The mere fact that she's so power hungry that she'd pander to hatred and bigotry to obtain it should automatically exclude her from presidency.

We've spent the last eight years with a divisive, corporate-owned, fear mongering president with a gargantuan sense of entitlement. The last thing we need is another eight years of it.

The counterreaction to fear mongering torpedoed the Rudy Giuliani campaign. Hopefully it will do the same to Hillary's.