Who Are the Actual 'Crazy' People in American Politics?

My Salon colleague, Mark Benjamin, writes about last night's Larry King Show
-- featuring a debate between Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson and GOP Rep.
Michelle Bachmann -- and does so by repeatedly branding Grayson as
being every bit as "crazy" as Bachmann. Beginning with the article's
headline ("Bachmann and Grayson: A diary of crazy") to his sarcastic
description of "these two towering intellects" to his claim that
Grayson and Bachmann are "the Candy Stripers of Crazy of their
parties," Benjamin denigrates Grayson's intellect and mental health by
depicting him -- with virtually no cited basis -- as the Democratic
mirror image of Bachmann's rabid, out-of-touch extremism. This view of
Grayson has become a virtual Washington platitude, solidified by The New York Times' David Herszenhorn's dismissal of Grayson as "the latest incarnation of what in the American political idiom is known as a wing nut."

There
are so many things wrong this analysis. To begin with, it's a classic
case of false journalistic objectivity: the compulsion of journalists
to posit equivalencies between the "two sides" regardless of whether
they are actually equal (since I'm calling a GOP member of Congress "crazy," I now have to find a Democrat to so label). Benjamin cites numerous Bachmann statements that demonstrate her penchant for bizarre claims (and there are many he omitted),
but points to only one Grayson statement: his famous floor speech in
which he claimed: "If you get sick in America, the Republican health
care plan is this: Die quickly." One could reasonably object to that
statement as unduly inflammatory rhetoric, but Grayson was one of the
only members of Congress willing to forcefully connect health care
policy to the actual lives (and deaths) of American citizens. There's
nothing crazy about dramatically emphasizing that causal connection;
far crazier is to ignore it.

But
more important, Grayson has managed to have more positive impact on
more substantive matters than any House freshman in a long time
(indeed, he makes more of a positive impact than the vast majority of
members of Congress generally). He has tapped into his background as
successful litigator and his Harvard degrees in law and public policy
to shape public discussion on a wide range of issues -- from his highly effective grilling of the Fed Vice Chair regarding massive, secretive Fed activities and aggressive investigation of the fraud surrounding the Wall Street bailout to his unparalleled work exposing defense contractor corruption, his efforts to warn of the unconstitutional underpinnings of anti-ACORN legislation (a federal court proved him right), his creative (if not wise) legislative proposals to limit corporate influence in politics, and his successful, bipartisan crusade to bring more transparency to the Fed.
What conceivable basis exists for disparaging as "crazy" one of the few
members of Congress who is both willing and able to bring attention to
some of the most severe corruption and worst excesses of our political
establishment?

The most significant point highlighted
by this attack on Grayson as "crazy" is that, in our political
discourse, the two party establishments typically define what is
"sane," and anyone outside of those parameters is, by definition,
"crazy." "Crazy" is the way that political orthodoxies are enforced
and the leadership of the two political parties preserved as the only
viable choices for Sane People to embrace. Anyone who tiptoes outside
of those establishment parameters -- from Ron Paul on the right to
Dennis Kucinich on the left, to say nothing of Further Left advocates
-- is, more or less by definition, branded as "crazy" by all Serious,
mainstream people.

The converse is even more
perverse: the Washington establishment -- which has endorsed countless
insane policies, wrought so much destruction on every level, and has
provoked the intense hatred of the American citizenry across the
ideological spectrum -- is the exclusive determinant for what is
"sane." As long as one remains snugly within its confines, one will be
shielded from the "crazy" appellation regardless of how many genuinely
crazy views one embraces. Positing proximity to the Washington
Establishment -- of all things -- as the Hallmark of Political Sanity
is about as irrational as it gets, yet that continues to be the
barometer of Political Normalcy.

Just consider who is
supported and embraced by those who slap the "crazy" label on the
forehead of every perceived dissident. Hillary Clinton -- the ultimate
embodiment of Democratic Party Seriousness and Sanity -- supported the
invasion of Iraq by warning of scary weapons and Al Qaeda ties
that did not exist ("Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical
and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his
nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to
terrorists, including Al Qaeda members"), and she spent her campaign
beating her chest and doing things like threatening to "totally obliterate" Iran.
While in office, Barack Obama has endorsed putting people in cages with
no charges, assassinating American citizens with no due process,
eavesdropping on Americans en masse with little oversight,
increasing military spending beyond its shockingly inflated levels
while searching for ways to cut Medicaid and Social Security, and
blocking judicial review of presidential felonies and war crimes on the
ground that those criminal acts constitute vital "state secrets" and
must be protected. Most Serious, Sane Democrats have supported all of
that insanity.

Meanwhile, the GOP establishment from
top to bottom spent a decade cheering on torture, disappearances,
abductions, unprovoked wars, chronic presidential lawbreaking and truly sick McCarthyite witch hunts.
Both of the Sane Parties conspired to transfer, with little
accountability, massive amounts of public wealth to the very Wall
Street firms which virtually destroyed the entire world economy, while
standing by and doing very little about tragic levels of joblessness or
the future risk of Wall-Street-caused financial crises; kept us waging
war for a full decade in multiple countries (while threatening others)
even as we near the precipice of bankruptcy, the hallmarks of
under-developed nation status and the disappearance of the social
safety net; and are so captive to the corporate interests which own the
Government that they viciously compete with one another over who can be
a more loyal servant to those interests.

While all of
that is happening, those whom all Serious, Sane people agree are Crazy
-- people like Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul and Alan Grayson --
vehemently oppose most if not all of that and try to find ways to
expand the realm of legitimate debate and political alliances beyond
the suffocating stranglehold of those responsible. So who exactly is
Crazy? That Grayson sometimes treats our political discourse as
the ludicrous freak show that it is, rather than pretending that it is
substantive, sober and Serious, is evidence of his sanity -- not the
opposite.

Are there positions held by people like
Kucinich, Paul and Grayson that are fairly characterized as radical and
wrong? Certainly: that's true for everyone, most of all the mavens of
the Washington Establishment whose followers claim a monopoly on Sanity
and demonize as Crazy all who deviate. But between establishment
crazies and those who have been marginalized by them as Crazy, the
former have wrought far more damage than the latter. It's not even a
close call. There are many legitimate ways to measure Craziness; the
extent to which one deviates from the orthodoxies of the political
establishment is most assuredly not one of them. If anything, given
the character and record of the American political establishment, such
deviation is a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for actual
sanity.

UPDATE: Here is a classic example of this dynamic: back in mid-January, a mere six weeks ago, Grayson went on Hardball
and advocated that the Democrats pass health care reform through
reconciliation, which would enable them to avoid a GOP filibuster. But
back then, all Serious People (i.e., dutiful Party Loyalists) insisted that the mere suggestion was crazy
(because neither party's leadership had yet deemed it acceptable), and
Matthews thus angrily berated Grayson as crazy, unrealistic, an
"outsider" and "pandering to the netroots" for suggesting such a
thing (Beltway journalists are nothing if they're not mindless
amplifiers of establishment orthodoxy). But now? Thirty-three Democratic Senators are calling for the passage of a public-option-inclusive health care reform bill via reconciliation, and the President himself wants to use that process
as well (albeit without a public option). Now that Party Leaders have
embraced reconciliation, it's been magically and instantly transformed
from Crazy Fringe Loser Talk into Serious, Sane, Responsible Advocacy
-- all within a matter of weeks. That's virtually always how the
"Crazy" label works: as a means of marginalizing those who advocate
ideas that the Washington Establishment rejects.