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Obama, planes, underpants and hysteria

It is not difficult to join the dots why the title of this posting. The hysteria surrounding the so-called underpants bomber has brought out all the usual suspects commenting on this and that.

First, Eugene Robinson at truthdig.com writes:

"It’s pathetic to break a New Year’s resolution before we even get to New Year’s Day, but here I go. I had promised myself that I would do a better job of ignoring Dick Cheney’s corrosive and nonsensical outbursts—that I would treat them, more or less, like the pearls of wisdom one hears from homeless people sitting in bus shelters.

But he is a former vice president, which gives him a big stage for his histrionic Rottweiler-in-Winter act. It is never a good idea to let widely disseminated lies and distortions go unchallenged. And the shrill screed that Cheney unloosed Wednesday is so full of outright mendacity that, well, my resolution will have to wait."

Continue reading about Cheney's mendacity, and outright lies, here.

Meanwhile, Glenn Greenwald at Salon writes:

"As dumb as our political discourse typically is, it gets dumber by many magnitudes whenever there's a terrorism-related scare (of the Islamic variety)."

And:

"What this actually illustrates is that many people are addicted to the excitement and fear of Terrorist melodramas. They crave some of that awesome 9/12 energy, where we overnight became The Greatest Generation and -- unified and resolute -- rose to the challenge of a Towering, Evil Enemy. Armao is angry and upset because the leader didn't oblige her need to re-create that high drama by flamboyantly flying back to Washington to create a tense storyline, pick up a bullhorn, stand on some rubble, and personally make her feel "safe."

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