Actor Steven Weber at HuffPo Demands 'Nuremberg-Scale Trial' for Conservatives

October 25th, 2011 1:22 PM

... and the envelope please for Most Unhinged Rant at The Huffington Post, from among the hundreds of nominees ...

Those cursed right wingers, Steven Weber complains, what with their "rhetorical gymnastics" and "outrageously unhinged attitude," among other alleged crimes and misdemeanors.

President Obama has killed bin Laden, "Qaddafi's ka-dead and the Arab Spring's been sprung," US troops are finally leaving Iraq and the American people are "aroused and assembled," Weber writes. Despite all this, "the corporate media is taking the same sought-for outcomes which have wildly eluded the Right and reconstituting them into their kooky contrivances, constructing their alternate realities at odds with what is actually happening in the streets and in the people's houses that line them."

After insulting Republican presidential candidates, Weber comes to the overwrought point of his screed. A word to the wise: avoid ingesting any beverage while reading what's to follow (emphasis added) --

The scale of Right Wing sociopolitical sabotage necessitates a Nuremberg-scale trial for all the corporate agents and treasonous capitalisto-fascist architects of our democracy's current and most pressing misery. From the blatant Republican doublespeak emanating from think-tank sponsored word doctors to the outright obstruction and lies expectorated by Republican congressional representatives and senators, the very concept of governance can only be considered once the culprits are removed. Driven to real madness by unadulterated greed they have embraced an ideology, the success of which hinges upon the very ruin of this nation.

Gee, I don't know. Wouldn't the "very ruin of this nation" be really bad for sales? Just asking.

A potential problem with the prosecutions suggested by Weber -- even by the fluid standards of previous show trials conducted by his ideological brethren, Weber's allegations are a tad lacking in specifics. Last I checked, "rhetorical gymnastics" and an "outrageously unhinged attitude" remain legal, most especially in Hollywood where Weber plies his craft, and for which he is abundantly compensated.

Boiled to its essence, Weber's complaint appears to be twofold -- that conservatives and Republicans dare to hold different opinions than Obama while not voting in favor of his legislative proposals.

For this, Weber suggests a "Nuremberg-scale trial," thereby comparing conservatives acting entirely within their rights in a free and often boisterous democracy with monsters who engaged in industrial-scale mass murder of innocents. Such a proposal is beyond ignorant, it is obscene. The irony is clearly lost on Weber -- in calling for a trial comparable to those at Nuremberg after World War II, he is acting in a manner reminiscent of the people who stood trial there.