From TPM Reader PH …

If you would like to see how the future will look at this present, I would recommend David Halberstam’s last book, The Coldest Winter. Although the centerpiece is the Korean War, the real story is the politics in the US (and China and Soviet Union) that made the war possible. Particularly striking — and nauseating — is how the American Right became unhinged after Roosevelt died and WWII ended, and how closely that derangement matches what has happened in the last two years. Republicans had no policies to advocate that the American public would embrace, so they embarked on what became McCarthyism long before McCarthy came on the scene. It’s virtually the only contribution conservatives have made to American politics in the last 65 years.

There are several points I don’t agree with in PH’s email. But I think he is on to something in the mix of general absence of a Republican policy agenda and the hard toward xenophobia as a way to galvanize core supporters.

I struggled for a minute to figure out how to explain this one. So how about this? Click through to see how far political ad wars can descend into self-parody.

Candidate A replies to attack ad from candidate B by saying she sent husband of the star of candidate B’s ad to prison for twenty years.

First of all you know it’s going to be good when the liner notes read “Citizens United Productions presents in Association with Gingrich Productions and Peace River Company, LLC America at Risk: The War with No Name.”

Do you want to see a primer on the Clash of Civilizations and the coming Islam-fueled Armeggedon hosted by a disgraced & philandering former politician and his third and current trophy wife? If that’s a movie you need to see, join me after the jump. Read More

Having a hard time reconciling the experiences of those I know who lived through the 9/11 attacks with the emergence of “9/11” as Republican hate festival. Read More

Florida Pastor Terry Jones, on his aborted Koran-burning plans: “Not today, not ever. We’re not going to go back and do it. It is totally canceled.”

Jillian Rayfield previews this afternoon’s anti-mosque rally in New York City.

I took my kids to the park this morning. So my thoughts about the day, such as they were, I had to write up in tweets on my phone. Since I live in Lower Manhattan, the fire houses in the area each have memorials and plaques with a half dozen or so firefighters killed from that station. As we walked down 7th avenue we passed one firehouse where the bulk of the men were leaving in dress uniforms, presumably for some memorial, probably at the Trade Center site. I thought I’d share them here, since I think they capture some of my main reflections on the day.

Watching dress uniformed firemen processing out of their stations

Watching tweets from diff sides of aisle, seeing two wholly separate worlds of remembrance of 9/11 attacks

Silent remembrance, commemoration, vigil vs some mix of calls for vigilance and war cries

Stumbled out o bed, tv left on from nite b4, just in time 2c 2nd impact, groggy, took couple mins to process what I was seeing #wherewereyou

#nyfd responding to fire, morning of 9/11/2010 http://yfrog.com/n5o29vj

If you’re interested in seeing more of these riveting 140 character gems of genius, I’m @joshtpm

Jillian Rayfield tweets live from the anti-mosque rally in lower Manhattan, which gets underway momentarily.

Our Jillian Rayfield is doing great live-reporting/tweeting from the scene of the anti-mosque rally in front of the proposed site of the park51/Cordoba House project. And watching them now, I see the moment that brings it all together. The headline speaker at the rally is none other than Geert Wilders, the neofascist Dutch parliamentary. Brings it all into focus. Pam Geller, the force behind the rally, just toasted him as a “modern-day Churchill.”

Some background on Wilders: He supports a ban on the Koran, a tax on women who wear headscarves and a ban on the construction of new mosques.

[ed.note: I should add that I know there are a lot of people who are against the Park51 project, by most counts a majority of the country, though I think those numbers are placed in an important context by the equally clear polling data showing that Americans overwhelmingly support the right of the builders to go ahead with it — which is key. I don’t for a moment believe that all of those people are haters. I think some have just gotten a very distorted impression of what’s being planned. Others know the facts but just disagree. I respect that. But the people behind this protest, this is the rancid, hating fringe. If only it were more fringe.]