IT'S HOWDY DOODY TIME! (PLUS BONUS-- THE TIES THAT BIND: RAHM EMANUEL & ADAM PUTNAM)

Saturday evening I decided to take a look at the early on-line version of the Sunday Times to see if there were any stories about any of my special targets. You know how excited I get when I find stuff about the worst reactionaries, the Lynn Westmorelands or Patrick McNutcases or Rahm Emanuel. Well immediately, on page 1, I found one of my favorite Republican characters: Adam Putnam (AKA- "that Howdy Doody-looking Nimrod"). I got so excited that I wound up causing Safari to crash. And when I came back... Howdy Doody was gone. And he was gone all day. I was distraught. A friend of mine finally e-mailed a Times editor who informed him that it would run today. Sunday was a slow news day, but not that slow; someone had peremptorily yanked young Putnam's puff piece out of the Sunday paper.

You see, despite the accolades bestowed on him by his Democratic counterpart, the aforementioned sleazebag from Chicago, Emanuel, no one much cares about Representative Doody. Although Speaker Pelosi's office has pointed out that Doody is an ineffective representative-- "... a key question to ask is whether his priorities are delivering for his district, helping our troops in Iraq and our veterans, or trying to get his name in the newspaper by resorting to cheap partisan tactics and over-the-top rhetoric. Unfortunately, the latter seems to be the case."-- Emanuel sees it differently.

I consider Adam one of the best Republicans. I think he’s a worthy opponent. He does his homework. He doesn't just get up there and wing it. He knows his stuff. He's a sharp communicator.

He does his homework? After his milk and cookies? Before getting tucked in and going beddy-bye-- even before George W.?

As usual, when Emanuel disagrees with Speaker Pelosi, I usually agree with her. And I'm not the only one. Keith Olbermann recently named Congressman Doody "The Worst Person in the World." Keith:

But our gold-medalist Congressman Adam Putnam of Florida-- chairman of the House Republican Conference Committee, one of the guys who ran with, and pushed, the phony Nancy Pelosi plane request story.

He's now admitted to the Tampa Tribune newspaper that he not only doesn't know if the story was true... he doesn't care.

He read it in the Moonie Paper in Washington.

Don't know if it's true...don't care if it's true.

Watch this man. He could be nominated for President some day.

Congressman Adam Putnam of Florida... today's Worst Person In The World!

You wanna watch the video? If you know Emanuel, send it to him too. Even better was the diary EmperorHadrian put up yesterday on DailyKos.

What is amazing about Putnam is that despite his age, he still shows the exact same level of moral and intellectual atrophy as the Republican party has shown since 1994... Putnam... is not really that unique amongst Republicans. Truth and reality didn't matter to him any more or any less than it does (or more specifically, doesn't) matter to any other Republican. As long as they could keep repeating a bogus, invented charge, the more time Democrats would have to waste in responding to their manufactured charge. To this extent, Putnam shows the same contempt of reality that all other Republicans show. Fantasy gives them more material with which to attack Democrats. This also shows that Putnam shows the exact same level of partisanship and ideology as all other Republicans. Just like all other Republicans, he would rather win an election than actually do something positive for the country. Like with all other Republicans, winning is the end, not the means to an end

It is the fact that Putnam doesn't really stick out from any other Republican in his contempt of reality, partisanship, or amoral and authoritarian personality, that it lends us to a realization. He is the second youngest member of the house. If one of the youngest Republicans is this arrogant, ideological and amoral, then we can expect to be dealing with this Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) for some time into the future. The battle just started in 1994, and it by no means ended in 2006. 2006 was simply the closing of the first chapter, and the beginning of the second...

It is a very dangerous personality type, because it is so amoral. In that sense, it is quite comparable to the personality type of a sociopath. DeLay, Rove and Putnam all behave in ways remarkably similar to sociopaths. The RWA type will destroy Iraq, destroy the UN, destroy world peace, destroy the federal budget, destroy the futures of our citizens, and destroy the planet, if that means electoral victories. This is the value system of people like Putnam. They will win at any cost. They will accuse democrats of doing the exact same things that they themselves are doing. For the long term survival of the country, we will have to keep fighting them, and ensure that we are able to keep beating them. If we can't beat them, then God help us all.

Maybe Pelosi ought to fire Emanuel as Democratic Caucus Chair and hire EmperorHadrian.

So now you know what Speaker Pelosi thinks, what Rahm Emanuel thinks, what Keith Olbermann thinks and, best of all, what EmperorHadrian thinks. Time for the NY Times. Putnam is "a tousled redhead whose cherubic appearance still causes Capitol police to stop him occasionally." He "has taken on the role of attack dog over the last three months... and generally tried to eke out political points at every opportunity." (Ahh... that's why Emanuel admires him. Honor among thieves...) But, yes... it was a very slow news day. The Times may be laughable but T Boggs has the real story of Howdy Doody and why we should care.