Counting On Paranoia

The nutbars on the right are pushing Census paranoia to new heights, as TPM's Rachel Slajda reports.

When Rush Limbaugh suggested last week that the census was deliberately skipping Republican neighborhoods in order to under-represent the right, he added yet another theory to the growing library of census paranoia stories emanating from right-wing blogs, and Republican congressmen.

Conservatives have kicked up such a fuss about the census -- suggesting, for example, that it will help legalize gay marriage or lead to WWII-style internment camps -- that Republicans have become worried that their supporters will be under-represented. The Census Bureau even pushed back, getting Karl Rove to cut an ad lauding the constitutionality of the head count. 

And I've said this before:  many on the Right understand that the Census is vitally important to everyone.  On the other hand, they've been throwing around years of complete nutjob crazy paranoia like this because they've been pushing the meme that any government headed by a Democrat is illegitimate, and any government action or program undertaken by said government is also illegitimate.

That includes the Census.  One one hand, they've been screaming CENSUS TAKERS WILL SWALLOW YOUR SOUL for a while now.  On the other hand, with millions of idiots on the right refusing to be counted, that gives all the more power to the left, who has traditionally been under-counted time and time again.

We'll see how this goes.