Yawn: Joe Klein Says Palin, Beck "Right Up Close to Being Seditious"

Another day, another leftist exploring new ways to shut down debate. Racism, the reflexive bleat of the Left, hasn't stuck. How about accusing the other side of crimes that historically carried a death sentence?

On NBC's April 18 "The Chris Matthews Show," Time columnist Joe Klein all but accused former GOP vice-presidential nominee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, along with Fox News host Glenn Beck of sedition.

"I did a little bit of research just before this show - it's on this little napkin here. I looked up the definition of sedition which is conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of the state. And a lot of these statements, especially the ones coming from people like Glenn Beck and to a certain extent Sarah Palin, rub right up close to being seditious."

New York magazine's John Heilemann got into the act, but he's still plugging the racism claim:

"And Joe's right and I'll name another person, I'll name Rush Limbaugh who uses this phrase constantly and talks about the Obama administration as a regime," Heilemann said. "That phrase which has connotations of tyranny. And what's so interesting about it to me, to get to Norah's point - what is the focus, what is the cause of this? You think back to 1994, there was Ruby Ridge. There was Waco. There were triggering incidents. There's been nothing like that. The only thing that's changed in the last 15 months is the election of Barack Obama. And as far as I can see, in terms of the policies that Obama has implemented, there's nothing."

So Heilemann thinks Palin, Beck, and Limbaugh have something in common with Waco and Ruby Ridge. I wonder what that could be? It's odd. A year ago this month, we were discussing DHS Secretary Napolitano's "Rightwing Extremists" report that happened to be sourced from Southern Poverty Law Center blog posts.

And of course he sees no "triggering incidents", no problems with Obama's policies. He has no objection to midnight votes in Congress on Obama's "signature" policy. He has no problem with back-room deals cut with the taxpayers' money. No problem hanging Israel out to dry. And no problem with spending the U.S. government into a hole it will take a generation to pay off. Nope, no triggering incidents that might make people oppose Obama.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 12:23 PM

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