The Crowbar

Markos Zuniga must have run out of coffee considering how limp his attempt to tie all conservatives to some guy who planned on murdering 88 people and then trying to kill Obama:

So conservatives are suing the Department of Homeland Security for keeping a watchful eye over neo-Nazis and militia types, because apparently they’re all part of the same team.

Still, I just don’t understand why conservatives would want to embrace this crowd: <- [Original Kos link, maybe was mistake? I found the story quoted below here.]

According to testimony given in court yesterday, authorities originally believed Daniel Cowart, 20, of Bells, and 18-year-old Paul Schlesselman of Helena-West Helena, Ark., were planning a possible attempt to rob and kill Clark and Judy Cowart.

Cowart and Schlesselman were later charged with planning a crime spree that would have involved killing 88 people and decapitating 14 blacks. The spree would have ended with an attempt to kill President Barack Obama. They were arrested Oct. 22 and have been held without bond since then.

Yeah, there’s such an uprising of conservative support out there for Daniel Cowart. Then again, I guess the only big blogs talking about Cowart are Kos and LittleGreenFootballs. For being “part of the same team” as Daniel Cowart, conservatives have a funny way of showing it. 

Aside from that, this really is Zuniga taking a crack at the conservative outrage over the DHS “rightwing extremism” report (pdf):

Seems logical that DHS would keep a close eye on potentially violent hate groups and extremist organizations, but conservative bloggers, and House Minority Leader John Boehner, and Fox News, and Rush, and Glenn Beck, and all the rest of that crowd think its outrageous that the FBI would keep close tabs on the likes of Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman.

It is logical to keep “keep a close eye on potentially violent hate groups and extremist organizations.” Attacks can come from the left and the right. However, conservatives have a right to be outraged at a report that casts such a wide net when defining right wing “extremism.” If you are “antagonistic toward the new presidential administration and its perceived stance on a range of issues, including immigration and citizenship, the expansion of social programs to minorities, and restrictions on firearms ownership and use’ then the report seems to be talking about you.

If McCain had been elected and his DHS pick produced a similarly sloppy report called “Leftwing Extremism…” what do you think Zuniga’s reaction would be? It would be epileptic.

I’m taking a wait and see attitude. I’m not convinced that Janet Napolitano’s DHS truly intended harm with this report. Anyone with half a brain would have known it would be a lightning rod. The DHS is a ginormous bureaucracy, which adds up to less than half a brain. It stinks more like overall incompetence to me.