Last Friday, Miranda noted that birther, conspiracy theorist par excellence, and WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah was publicizing one of the more ridiculous right-wing scare-stories: that President Obama will refuse to leave the White House after his second term is over in January 2017. Farah said in a column last week that “there’s great concern” about the possibility “out there across the fruited plain.”
In classic Fox News and far-right trolling style, Farah said he didn’t actually believe Obama would refuse to leave office, but was just asking questions: why should we should take a departure for granted given what he calls Obama’s “contempt of the law” and “disrespect for American tradition” – and “the ever-present reality that Obama himself may not even be constitutionally eligible for office.”
Farah was seemingly not pleased that RWW poked fun at his column, responding over the weekend with an appeal to another unimpeachable source of information on the president’s plans, Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh, says Farah, responded to a Friday caller raising the same question by spinning out a hypothetical scenario in which Obama refuses to go. Here’s Limbaugh:
“So as a service to the nation, he is going to forget the 22nd Amendment and either not leave office or run for re-election himself as the Democrat nominee. Just imagine that scenario. I don’t care how unreal it sounds, how unbelievable it sounds. Imagine it.
What would anybody do? What would Mitch McConnell do? What would John Boehner do?
Adds Farah,
“There’s simply no organized opposition to Obama’s illegal, criminal actions and behavior. He’s getting away with all of it. There are no serious repercussions. No political price. No major media opposition. Few judicial rulings that worry him. Not one political, religious or social institution that is holding him accountable – least of all the Republican Party."
Farah was apparently bothered that Miranda’s RWW post did not include a pledge that People For the American Way would “use all of its influence and legal firepower” to stop Obama from chucking the Constitution in a White House power-grab. Of course we don’t take the possibility seriously, but since Farah seems to, let’s offer him a proposition: If President Obama refuses to allow a constitutional transfer of power to his successor, we will join you at the barricades. If the American republic miraculously survives, you will stop polluting the public discourse with toxic nonsense. Deal?
