Sunshine Patriots

          Seven days after the worst ever attack on the United States, [9 September 2001], no elected Democratic politician at any level made any claim or suggestion that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were due to nefarious or negligent acts by the Bush administration. Seven days after the Patriots Day bombings in Boston, however, numerous elected Republicans either in or out of office are making such scurrilous charges against the Obama administration. For example:

           A Republican state legislator in New Hampshire, Stella Tremblay, is claiming        that the United States government is responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing.

State Rep. Stella Tremblay (R-Auburn) posted on conservative talk show host Glenn Beck's Facebook page Friday that the attack and the subsequent search for suspects was playing out how Beck had suggested. She said the bombings were a plot by the federal government, and included a link to a video from another conservative talk show host Alex Jones, in which Jones also claims the federal government planned the bombing. Tremblay's message to Beck was posted Friday morning, before suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was arrested.

"Just as you said would happen. Top Down, Bottom UP. The Boston Marathon was a Black Ops "terrorist" attack. One suspect killed, the other one will be too before they even have a chance to speak. Drones and now "terrorist" attacks by our own Government". Sad day, but a "wake up" to all of us. First there was a "suspect" then there wasn't  Info wars broke the story and they knew they had been "found out". 

           It is not merely some obscure state legislator, however, who is exploiting an attack on our nation to advance a partisan agenda. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said Thursday "the administration is to blame for not preventing last week's terror attack at the Boston Marathon finish line." Mr. Graham is a shameless partisan who deserves to be repudiated by every sane and patriotic American. Nonetheless, he is invited on national television shows and treated as a person of consequence.  

     Graham went into some detail about his paranoid contentions.  Asked if Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano bears responsibility for allowing Tamerlan Tsarnaev to fall through the cracks of federal agencies, Graham said the fault falls on a broader scale.

          "I have no idea who bears the blame. I just know the system is broken. The ultimate  blame I think is with the administration," he told CNN on Capitol Hill. "The FBI and the CIA are, they have great people but you know we're going backwards in national security. Benghazi and Boston to me are examples of us going backward." Note that he admits he "has no idea." He declines to acknowledge that he also has no evidence to support his accusations.

            House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Rogers had suggested that Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tsarnaev received his Miranda rights too soon. Rogers, a Michigan Republican and former FBI agent, complained that a federal magistrate had possibly stopped the FBI from gaining valuable intelligence by stepping in to advise the suspect of his legal rights.

“We can’t have, in a case like this, the judiciary deciding because it’s on TV, and it might look bad for them, to allow the public safety exemption, which is deemed legal by the US supreme court, that they were somehow going to intercede in this,” he said on Andrea Mitchell ReportsThursday.

Rogers called the judicial intervention “confusing, horrible, god awful policy” and “dangerous to the greater community.”

            Comments such as those by Ms. Tremblay, Mr. Jones, and Senator Graham exemplify the sorry state of American political discourse. Wild accusations without out evident foundation hurled into the air waves in pursuit of partisan advantage. Too often the reporters or interviewers act as facilitators for this toxic speech and fail to challenge the basis of the accusations.  Patriotism is a noble sentiment and one which all Americans should be ready, willing and able to feel. Unfortunately authentic patriotism must compete with counterfeit patriotism such as that exhibited by Ms. Tremblay, Mr. Beck, Mr. Jones, and Senator Graham.