Pawlenty calls DHS rightwing extremists report ‘absurd’
Friday, April 17, 2009 at 2:46 pm
- 5 Comments
On Neil Cavuto’s show on Fox News Thursday, Gov. Tim Pawlenty called it “unfair” and “more candidly and bluntly… absurd” that a leaked Department of Homeland Security report on right-wing extremists should include “groups opposed to abortion,” as Cavuto put it. But both Pawlenty and Cavuto misrepresent the report: It includes mention of abortion a mere two times, including once in a footnote.
A section titled “Revisiting the 1990s,” references “white supremacists’ longstanding exploitation of social issues such as abortion,” not mainstream abortion opponents. A footnote on page two defines the report’s key term (emphasis mine):
Right-wing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.
Pawlenty then goes on to say that there’s “a media perspective that, if you’re conservative, you’re somehow, you know, deranged, or you’re somehow deficient, that, if you were a rational, well-thought-of, intelligent person, that you — you couldn’t be a conservative.”
Like Pawlenty, right-wing groups are incensed, and one, the Thomas More Law Center, has filed a lawsuit against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for targeting conservatives “for disfavored treatment on account of their political beliefs.” (That’s a familiar talking point on the right, with heavy hitters Michele Malkin and Power Line leading the charge.)
But, according to a Fox News reporter, the study wasn’t an Obama administration project. Fox’s Catherine Herridge said the report, plus an earlier one about left-wing extremists, “were requested by the Bush administration but not finished until President Bush left office.”
One critic, Mississippi Democrat Rep. Bennie Thompson, said he was “dumbfounded” by the report. By why would he be? As a ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee in 2005 he put out a similar report (pdf) on rightwing extremists. It referenced abortion not twice, but six times.
5 Comments
Comment posted April 17, 2009 @ 6:31 pm
Did they even watch the T-Bag party on tax day. How about Texas Govenor talking succesion from the union. There was some real racist & extreme views.
Comment posted April 18, 2009 @ 6:21 pm
How pathetic that Mr. Pawlenty, a formerly reasonable guy, has joined with the “conservative victims” movement …. as though the conservatives weren’t running the whole show up until recently.
His leap to the right may endear him to national right-wingers, but this is one independent who will no longer consider voting for him for any public office.
BTW, Mr Pawlenty is not required to wait until the Mn Supreme Court rules before signing the election certificate from my point of view; there is a Court decision rendered that declared that Mr. Franken should receive the election certificate. As Mr. Pawlenty knows full well that these unimpeachable jurists ran a fair trial and reached a fair conclusion, he really has no excuse to deny Minnesotans our second senator in the US Senate. No more excuses, no more delay.
Comment posted April 18, 2009 @ 7:45 pm
The difference – for those who care about such things – is that the earlier repots named under the Bush Administration went into specifics; they actually named specific groups and concerns. The Napolitano report was essentially a shopping list of “conservative” wedge issues, with no specifics whatsoever.
And yes, I’d be pissed off if any administration treated liberal groups the same way.
“Eddie”
Have I ever said you were a class act? No? Well, there’s a reason for that.
Comment posted April 19, 2009 @ 8:16 pm
“The Napolitano report was essentially a shopping list of “conservative” wedge issues, with no specifics whatsoever.”
Oh, so no anti abortion groups have ever engaged in violence, right? And there have been no acts of anti immigration violence, right?
That’s a hell of a short “shopping list”. It cites examples of movements that have been responsible for violence, which you well know, but won’t admit.
Napolitano stands by the report, as she should.
The FBI says the same thing – they must also be victimizing the right wing, eh?
Comment posted April 20, 2009 @ 9:12 am
Conservatives are flipping out over this report and others. It’s scaring them because (1) the report was generated by a repub president, and (2) it makes them look, well, unpatriotic.
So conservatives wish to be perceived as non-violent and rational. What about the Florida radio host who posted to the Web last year his opinion that anyone caught swimming across the Rio Grande river should be shot on sight? In other words, his racist anger at Mexicans warrants that be executed without a trial.
Pawlenty is right about one thing. If you’re a rational, intelligent person, you are not likely to be a right-wing nutcase.
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