In the Fever Swamp of the Radical Wingnuts

By Gavin McNett, AlterNet
Posted on September 26, 2007, Printed on September 26, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/62818/

The next time you find yourself inhabiting a quiet moment, listen closely and you'll be able to hear a clattery drone off in the distance. That's our right-wing opinion media, hammering and sawing away at another of those weird Trojan-animal contraptions they're always building -- another giant rickety thing with off-square corners and oval wheels, emblazoned with some slogan like "supporting our troops" or "defending marriage." They're planning to wheel it innocently up the hill, whereupon America will open the gates and let it in -- and you know how the story always goes from there.

It's always something new with those people. To switch metaphors abruptly, I cover what you might call the waterfront -- the dank and fishy between-realm that divides life as we know it from the vast sea of unexamined prejudices, of blind enthusiasms and angry yawpings that make up the right-wing urge in America. I write mostly about conservative pundits and bloggers, and mostly about the danker, fishier ones at medium-traffic blogs and at conservative news sites such as Townhall, WorldNetDaily, and Newsmax.