What's Breaking News Tonight?

I think the conservative movement needs to worry about something besides Rahm Emanuel. Even if Rahm has made some historically inacurate statements, the author's own credibility on history is doubtful. I find his version of history fantastical and sentimental. I find the so-called conservative arguments against any progress the Obama administration wants to make to be inconsistent and tired. Conservative thought has become muddled and contradictory, and I would be more worried about that. This article, like the Republican party, is focused on a triviality, and is missing the larger point.

Father Coughlin, the radio priest, was a vicious anti-Semite. His bishop finally shut him up. The Birch Society is a haven for anti-Semites, too.

Anyone who defends those two, is comfortable with racism. Beck and Limbaugh, who are both junkies, are trying to incite a lone wolf. See Drs. Slepian and Tiller.

"a gifted, Canadian-born Catholic priest who served greater Detroit at the famous Shrine of the Little Flower Church and took up a spectacular career as a pioneering radio preacher on WJR after 1926."

Thanks for confirming you have a Klan uniform in your closet. I've always said the conservative movement is riddled with anti-Semites, white nationalists, theocrats, tax rebels and assorted other kooks.

Any Jew who lies down with conservatives, just gets fleas.

"All the politics that Coughlin, Welch...have in common"

What they have in common is virulent anti-Semitism, and they detested black people and Asians.

Jesse Helms: 'UNC stands for university of ni---rs and communists.'

Hagee: 'The anti-Christ will be Jewish, as was Adolph Hitler.'

Any Jew who lies down with conservatives, just gets fleas.

When asked about Afghanistan by Charlie Rose on the 'Charlie Rose Show' you could see Rahm Emanuel had no answer in reply and was trying to play past the question asked, in another attempt by Charlie Rose, Rahm indicated his sense of power in the White House and how he was lapping it up, and would use it for the sheer satisfaction of the feeling it gives him knowing he's got it. It's gone to his head, not in the same way one would lust for power, but as one lost in a power lust with no end. He even portrayed himself in one instance of being more important in decision making than US General Stanley McChrystal, who wants more troops on the ground in Afghanistan. A General who was actually serving the country while Rahm Emanuel was trying to be a Ballet Dancer. Rahm like his partner Obama are too big headed for the country and have less concern for America than for the power and glory they are so desperate to have. There is a feeling that comes through loud and clear they have no actual knowledge of what they are doing for the country nor do they have any real sense of purpose.

GOP christianity = fascism

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." Sinclair Lewis

GOP christianity = fascism

Coughlin became convinced that President Roosevelt and his "Jewish conspirators" were keeping the country from reaching its full potential. He blamed Jewish bankers for the Russian Revolution. In 1938, Coughlin published a newspaper, "Social Justice," which for all intents and purposes, was a newspaper aimed at directly attacking Jewish people.

Then at a speech Coughlin gave in the Bronx - perhaps his most famous - he gave a Nazi salute and yelled out, "When we get through with the Jews in America, they'll think the treatment they received in Germany was nothing."

Father Coughlin's anti-Semitism made him a hero in Nazi Germany, where newspapers ran daily, stating that "America is not allowed to hear the truth." Some of the American public shared Coughlin's views, and 2,000 supporters gathered and marched in New York, protesting the migration of Jewish refugees from Hitler's camps. These protests were not short-lived; they went on for several months, and Coughlin embraced his supporters. 

At the height of his anti-Semitism, Coughlin had joined forces with an organization named the "Christian Front," which cited the now-famous priest as a vital influence. In 1940, the FBI shut down the Christian Front, after discovering the group was arming itself and planning to murder Jews, communists, and even United States Congressmen. 

So we have a bunch of junkies, getting into bed with racists. Sign me up.

When you think Pat Buchanan, think Father Charles Coughlin six decades ago, the chief engineer of the most dangerous anti-Semitism to ever plague America.

Like Buchanan, Coughlin started his career as a respectable figure in the mass media. But both men share the same beliefs.

Welch's famous book, The Politician, caused a stir even among many loyal Birch members who were shocked by Welch's assertion that President Dwight D. Eisenhower was "a dedicated conscious agent of the communist conspiracy." 

The Birch Society promoted the book "None Dare Call It Conspiracy" by Gary Allen who included a discussion of the Rothschilds and other Jewish banking interests as part of a sketch of a much larger conspiracy.

The JBS opposed civil rights.

Bullshit. He was dead on correct.

Rahm thinks he is the smartest guy in the room. Not.

I think Batchelor mistakes ignorance for interest. Emanuel doesn't care. It's probably part personality and part strategy. Either way it's served him well.

rahm emanuel doesn't know history? who taught you american history, john, gerald l.k. smith? 
try googling "father charles coughlin, anti-semetism" & you'll get 115,000 references. he blamed the depression, for example, on an "international conspiracy of jewish bankers."
in fact, the man you call a "gifted priest" is known as the "father of hate radio." his anti-new deal/-fdr/-jewish
rants eventually got his radio show cancelled--are you listening glenn beck?

Ooookay, so maybe Emmanuel is wrong about history, and maybe there've been some towering conservative minds out there (your examples of which seem to be all dead) - what does that have to do with the conservative movement today? If they don't stand for whatever it is Emmanuel thinks they do, what do they stand for? Because all I'm hearing is a lot of crazy cacophony. In fact, that volatile legion, while not using the exact words as Coughlin, Welch and Scaife, are sounding just as loony.

So, tell me, Mr. Sober Literate Historically Accurate Guy - what does the Right actually represent, and why should the entire country embrace it?

There are the wack cases and nativists like Limbaugh who purposely rile up racial hatred, and there are responsible opposition people like Batcheler and Sen Grassley, who unfortunately, don't have the courage to read the haters and wack cases out of the movement. Dems fall all over themselves to condemn even the Move On Betray-Us Ad, but the few GOP pols with the gumption to express some reservations about where Limbaugh, Beck et al are leading them have to execute a craven apology the very next day. There's just too much of the unhinged in the movement on a percentage basis now, the clowns who want the government to keep its hands off their medicare, or who bring monkey signs or guns to town halls. The moderates have fled -- the Becks hate the McCains, and always have -- so how do you weed out your lawn, when it has very little actual grass left in it? 
If Buckley or Goldwater were here, and in a truth-telling mood, they'd admit that your party is paying a high price now for letting the fundamentalist low-information crowd take over the party in the Reagan years. Although Reagan had the good sense to yes the rubes to death, and give them nothing.