I'M ALL FOR COURAGE, BUT HOW ABOUT A LITTLE PREPAREDNESS?

I agree that Greg Sargent's point about Democratic courage is well taken: Chuck Schumer and Anthony Weiner are not exactly covering themselves in glory by remaining silent on the question of the Islamic center near Ground Zero. It would be nice if they had the courage to stand up for tolerance and pluralism. It would be nice if they'd defy the right-wing mob.

On the other hand, would that really change anything? Even if you add some names to the list of people who could say something and won't -- a Weekly Standard blogger adds Barack Obama and Kirsten Gillibnrand -- what would shows of courage right now actually accomplish? This is yet another right-wing juggernaut; even if the president of the United States takes a strong stand (perhaps especially if he does), the wingnut mob and the wingnut noise machine have the momentum. We know how this will end: with some Fox host leading a series of made-for-TV megademonstrations against the Islamic center, with every Democratic candidate in America being forced to choose sides, with the blacklisting of anyone who works on the project (Bushie Dan Senor, according to today's New York Times, promises " to organize a campaign to persuade architects, contractors and donors to steer clear of the project.... [he] said that anybody who works with the center 'needs to know there is going to be a real stigma associated with this project'"), perhaps with a terrorist attack on the site. The righties have the momentum. They're going to win. Nothing any defender says now will change that.

How many times have we been here in the past couple of years? How many times have we been caught flat-flooted by a ginned-up right-wing fatwa of this kind? Health care? The closing of Gitmo? ACORN? The New Black Panthers? Van Jones?

And we never see it coming -- even though the wingnuts almost always telegraph their targets. (They've been talking about this for months.)

But we're supposed to just ignore all the brouhahas on the right. The non-wingnut press isn't supposed to pay attention to them. The rest of us are supposed to just laugh at them.

Well, next time, how about paying some attention to what these people are ginning up and preparing for the toxic spew? How about getting our talkers and our talking points lined up so we can kill these two-minutes' hates at birth? How about a little attention from the non-insane press so the lies in the noise machine's stories can't get traction?

Nahhh. They're just a bunch of knuckledraggers. Better to keep ignoring them -- right? That's working, isn't it?

(Via Memeorandum again.)