John Podesta is well-known for wanting President Obama to go around Congress with his executive powers. He told Glenn Thrush at Politico the president should “focus on executive action, given that they are facing a second term against a cult worthy of Jonestown in charge of one of the houses of Congress.”
The House Republicans are somehow comparable to a suicidal-slash-murderous cult that killed 900 Americans. Podesta is channeling an occasional liberal media meme, that Jonestown is an apt metaphor for Republicans or Catholics or lame reporters or even all of us. Below is a little collection I've gathered from over the last 20 years of MRC analysis: [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
"But on Law and Order they do have inner cerebral lives of the richest complexity. Their scars glow in the dark. Watch Chris Noth at the shocking end of Wednesday's episode. Look at Moriarty's face. It's not just that all the craziness in the world can't be blamed on fundamentalist Muslims or Shining Path or Khmer Rouge. But Jonestown and My Lai are everywhere. It's also that there's a Jonestown in each of us."
-- CBS Sunday Morning TV critic John Leonard, October 31, 1993.
“Matt Taibbi wrote in The New York Press at the time that it was like a mini-Alamo for American journalism. I'd say it was more a collective Jonestown-like suicide. At least the defenders of the Alamo put up a fight.” – Bill Moyers discussing the last Bush press conference before the Iraq war to Buzzflash.com, October 28, 2003.
Bill Maher: The true axis of evil in America is the brilliance of our marketing combined with the stupidity of our people. George Bush has $180 million to spend. With that kind of money, he could convince Americans to drink paint, and he probably will.
Chris Matthews: Is that your prediction?
Maher: In fact, I believe that's his environmental policy.
Matthews: Is that your prediction for November, November 2, that the American people eat paint? (Laughter)
Maher: Vanilla paint, Chris.
Matthews: I'm beginning to think like Jonestown here. I'm getting worried. It's one thing to drink the Kool-Aid, but to drink the lead-based paint? – Exchange on Hardball, April 28, 2004.
Tom Monaghan: "That was a statement made in the Wall Street Journal for which I got an apology in writing from the publisher of the Wall Street Journal for. That was a very nasty statement, because it's nowhere near what we're about." – Nightline, August 7, 2007.
“The amazing thing to me right now is how the Republicans are reacting. They’re kind of doubling down on it. They’re drinking their own Kool-Aid. It’s getting pretty close to Jonestown, I think.” – Time columnist Joe Klein discussing Sen. Scott Brown’s election to the “Ted Kennedy seat” on Hardball, March 25, 2010.
“I mean, if there was an organization, let's just say the -- you know, the -- I don't want to say that, but the Boys' Club, or one of the- you know, had the history of child abuse, you know, child torture and rape that the Catholic Church has, would you ever give money to the Boys' Club or the Girls' Club?...I'm saying that, to support an organization that, at the top of the infrastructure, are people willing to ignore the mass child abuse and torture and sexual molestation of its own constituents. I mean, it's almost like when you read about- you know, cults, Jonestown and all these cults -- that they allow -- you know, sexual perversity and sexual behavior.” – Rosie O’Donnell on her XM Radio talk show, April 5, 2010.
“But let me tell you what this is, Cenk. This is classic political overreach. And Pat has seen it. I`ve seen Democrats do it and Republicans do it. They get in office. There`s that arrogance of power. Think ignore the polls, they ignore their consultants. They`re determined, they think they`re right. And they go and they just simply overreach. I think it`s like political Jonestown. You know, Paul Ryan mixed the Kool-Aid, John Boehner served it and forced everybody to drink it.” – Bill Press discussing the debt-ceiling debate on MSNBC Live with Cenk Uygur, May 26, 2011.
“This intellectual rigidity has produced a GOP presidential field that’s a virtual political Jonestown. The Grand Old Party, so named when it really did evoke America, has so narrowed its base that it has become a political cult.” – Richard Cohen on pledges GOP presidential contenders made to Americans for Tax Reform and the Susan B. Anthony List, July 4, 2011.
The irony in all these liberal Jonestown attacks is that Rev. Jim Jones was revered in liberal Democrat circles in the 1970s, hailed by Democrats both nationally and locally. See Mike Bates on that point.
