Charles Pierce at Esquire has more on former Graham County Sheriff Richard Mack, and his conspiratorial Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association in this report, The Latest From The Front:
The great victory for freedom and liberty (!) struck at the Bundy Ranch continues to resonate across the land like a 50-pound bag of manure dropped into a massive copper skillet. The latest insanity comes to us courtesy of The Blaze, the print version of the voices in Glenn Beck’s head, which voices seem to be a bit horrified at the whole business.
Mack made the chilling revelation on Fox News’ “The Real Story” Monday, two days after the tense standoff between Bundy and the federal government came to a peaceful end. “We were actually strategizing to put all the women up at the front,” he said. “If they are going to start shooting, it’s going to be women that are going to be televised all across the world getting shot by these rogue federal officers.”
Mack obviously was inspired by the hundreds accounts of how the Minutemen hid behind their wives’ skirts on Lexington Green and Concord Bridge, and of how the ladies of the Old North Church were arrayed in battle lines up on top of Breed’s Hill in Charlestown. And surely I can’t be the only one who noticed that Mack’s account is remarkable devoid of comment from the actual women he says he was going to use as human shields. I’m sure this is an oversight.
Or perhaps Sheriff Mack is simply a dangerous career crackpot and bullshit artist.
Mack shot from obscurity to right-wing stardom in the mid-1990s when he challenged the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act and won a victory in the U.S. Supreme Court that weakened the law. For the past two years, he has zigzagged across the country spreading conspiracy theories about the federal government and promoting his organization as a “line in the sand” against government agents. Fox Business channel’s Lou Dobbs Tonight gave Mack a platform to promote his views last night. Lou Dobbs, of course, is no stranger to controversy. Mack did not disappoint, telling Dobbs that in order to “save America”, county sheriffs need to refuse to obey federal gun laws. He hinted, as he often does, that civil war might result if they fail to do so.
Why, yes, that seems entirely possible.
* * *
This is one of the leaders of the “movement” with which respectable conservative voices and some Republican politicians allied themselves over the last two weeks. Personally, I think that the reason you didn’t hear from any of the prospective “human shields” here is that Mack didn’t have the guts to ask them.
And then there is the “useful idiot,” Sean Hannity at FAUX News. Sean Hannity’s Continued Efforts To Get Somebody Shot:
He mentioned the blog the other night on his show, or so I was told. Now, Sean Hannity is running around the powder magazine with a blowtorch again.
“But let’s put these two things together here,” Hannity pressed. “We have Richard Mack, the former sheriff of Graham County, Ariz., he made the comment that he has sources inside the federal government warning that the weekend retreat was only a move to distract attention, diffuse tensions, because a raid on the family’s ranch is being planned. Couple that with Harry Reid’s comments that this is ‘not over.’ You gotta believe that something is brewing here, no?…Well if he’s saying it’s ‘not over,’ and then you have a sheriff saying he has sources inside the government, what would happen … what would happen if they came in the early morning hours one day to your ranch?” Hannity pressed yet again.
To which Cliven Bundy, or, as he known at the intersection of Ignorant and WTF?, Sagebrush Gandhi, replied:
“If they come, we’ll deal with them tonight,” Bundy responded. “If that’s what we’ve got to do, we’ll just deal with you. If you’ve got guts enough to do it, then come on.”
Dear Fox News: spread your propaganda far and wide. Let a thousand noxious flowers bloom. But this guy is playing a very dangerous game here. Please try to rein him in.
There is nothing FAUX News would like better than another Waco or Ruby Ridge to fire up the radical right against Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama. Yes, they really are that depraved and cynical.
Discover more from Blog for Arizona
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.