"Building a Nation of Know-Nothings"

Timothy Egan's latest post is a very good summary of where we're at.

I was going to say, eh, maybe if you're reading this blog you already know everything he talks about, but then one line made me reconsider.

... this astonishing level of willful ignorance has come about largely by design, and has been aided by a press afraid to call out the primary architects of the lies.

It's not so much that I think you, dear reader, are uncertain about where our president was born, or how well established AGW is, or what a lying sack of shit Rush Limbaugh is, or any of the other points Egan touches on, but maybe you're not aware just how much effort is being put into hammering the misinformation home.

Coincidentally enough, right before reading that, I had just finished an email from a friend, who mentioned that one of his right-leaning friends told him about Park51: "… it's a monument to the Muslims who flew the planes into the towers." Three guesses as to where that notion came from, and you won't need two of them.

On a related note, two Republican Senators named Jim -- DeMint and Inhofe -- are AGAIN obsessing over the Fairness Doctrine.

I'll tell you the one thing Republicans know: how to gin up fear, even about the most absurd ideas possible.