Half-Truths

RFK Jr. on HuffPo commenting on Westbrook Pegler: Fascist writer Westbrook Pegler, an avowed racist who Sarah Palin approvingly quoted in her acceptance speech for the moral superiority of small town values, expressed his fervent hope about my father, Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965, that "some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies."

WallStreetJournal: It tells us something about Sarah Palin's homage to small-town America, delivered to an enthusiastic GOP convention last week, that she chose to fire it up with an unsourced quotation from the all-time champion of fake populism, the belligerent right-wing columnist Westbrook Pegler.

TPM comments: It appears that during her convention speech, Sarah Palin quoted an anonymous writer who, it turns out, once lamented that Franklin D. Roosevelt's would-be assassin hit the wrong man.

Frank Rich, NYT columnist, also called national attention to the grievous Palin pegler-lover.

Palin said: "We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity" attributing it to a writer but without naming Westbrook Pegler. (Her speech writer may have known the source but doubtful Palin did.)

So there you have it folks - Sarah is a flaming racist/bigot because she has used a 14 word sentence once uttered by the notorious and politically incorrect Pulitzer winning journalist for an exposé on corrupt Chicago union bosses, a rightwing Hearst newspaper columnist - Westbrook Pegler.

How much more proof do you need that McCain/Palin will order all not-white-enough folks into those concentration camps that Halliburton built?

Reading just the tidbits from the above mentioned sites you would have the impression Pegler was a racist, Jew hating, lynch mob supporter, anti-labor, fascist, Nazi lover, avowed racist, and an all round miserable, despicable soul.

Pegler was an anti-communist Catholic married to a Jewish woman who was also a journalist, Julia Harpman. He often wrote columns pretending to be someone else, i.e. to be Jimmy Hoffa in a column attacking RFK - which is probably where RFK Jr. got his quote. I can't believe I'm reading and thinking Jonah Goldberg makes more sense these days.

Pegler was also a critic of the FBI and DOJ.

Amazing at the press freedom on a national basis in that era. I suppose the distasteful Pegler would be the Coulter or Limbaugh of his day.

The lynching story is a 1936 column Pegler wrote in support of a mob who lynched 2 (white) men in California charged with murder and kidnapping.

I note Kos Diarist and other wannabe famous crud bloggers are omitting the word "white" when posting the lynch mob story. We know why that is, don't we? And it's an insult to the intellect because I know a sorry ass attempt at propaganda and half-truths when I see it. My knee is not jerking.