This first week of the Obama Presidency has brought out an amazing selection of outlandishness among the right wing whack jobs. It isn’t just politicians saying “Bush” and “Greatness” in the same headline, either. While I’m sure I am not cataloguing all of the extremist right wing whackjobbery of Obama’s first week in the Oval Office, here are some pungent examples, starting with Bill Frist, he of the television diagnosis of Terri Schiavo, describing George Bush saving ten million lives. From CNN:

A legacy of President George W. Bush will be that he saved 10 million lives around the world.

His critics ignore it, but name another president about whom one can say that with such certainty. It is what historians will say a decade from now looking back. Not bad for a president who leaves office with the lowest approval rating in recent memory.

The bottom line is: George Bush is a healer.

This is whackjobbery, not by some solo nut or follower, but by the former Senate Majority Leader. Sure, one can praise George Bush for the AIDS initiative in Africa, but one must account for the civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan is one is going to be honest. One may praise the heavily flawed prescription drug benefit Bush pushed through, but one must at the same time note Bush’s slow dismantling of the SCHIP program. Bush a healer? Not so much, but it is not surprising that Frist, a man who diagnoses to the entire nation via a video, and wrongly diagnoses at that, can come across with such a stupid diagnosis of the Bush Presidency. Another failure in an attempt at establishing a rosier Bush legacy than he deserves? Yes. The jury is still out whether Bill Frist is a whack job, a liar, or both.

Then there’s Ben Voth of the American Thinker posing the case for the “Greatness” that is George Bush. I kid you not. He mentions Bush’s success in Afghanistan without mentioning the name Osama bin Laden once. Voth mentions swift victory in Iraq without mentioning civilian collateral damages or the insurrections ignited by the US invasion that led to thousands of lives lost. For Voth Bush’s victory in Iraq is stainless, even to the point of the issue of WMD — of course Voth thinks the WMD Saddam used on Kurds well over a dozen years before this invasion was enough to make Bush “great.” What a fucking whack job. Voth is an Associate Professor at SMU, and he belies his education by finishing his piece with the following whackjobbery:

President Bush’s legacy will mark him as a Lincoln standing at a global Gettysburg– prepared to wage war in the midst of severe public criticism for the sake of the greater good.

Yes, he compared George W. Bush to Lincoln at Gettysburg. That’s beyond the limits of reason. It is brave to fight the wars, I guess, according to Voth, who doesn’t seem to recognize any mistakes by Mr. Bush. Katrina, Katrina? HELLO?

Perhaps the most entertaining whack jobs are the ones infused with their own brand of right wing faith. I’ve got two for your consideration today. The first, Jim Brown of OneNewsNow is claiming that Barack Obama, already after only a couple days in office, is promoting an anti-Christian agenda. The poor guy is afraid of gay people getting civil rights, of the possibility of contraception becoming more available to women and men, or “don’t ask, don’t tell” being eliminated. Jim Brown is afraid the sky is falling. And he quotes Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel, affiliated with Liberty University, to help him make his case:

Matt Barber, director of cultural affairs with Liberty Counsel, believes many Americans will be shocked to find out just how radical some of Obama’s positions are on social issues.

“I certainly cannot judge whether or not Barack Obama has a relationship with Christ. That’s between him and God, and only they know that. However, scripture tells us that you will be known by your fruits, and here Barack Obama is promoting counter-biblical, anti-Christian policies,” he contends. “[These are] policies that elevate deviant sexual behaviors and dangerous sexual behaviors that are destructive spiritually, physically and emotionally, and certainly — when embraced as Barack Obama has embraced them — are destructive societally.”

Barber adds that “for all the talk of hope, change and coming together, it’s becoming abundantly clear that Barack Obama’s administration will be the most leftist, divisive, and discriminatory in recent memory.”

So Barber is afraid to judge whether Barack Obama has a relationship with Christ, though he has viewed Barack Obama pray on TV several times in the last few days, if Matt Barber is not brain dead, but he is not afraid to judge the effect of Barack Obama’s policies, even though that effect is in an unknowable future. Yes, it is whackjobbery to deny what one has witnessed in favor of a future yet to happen, but that’s par for the course for the Christian version of the right wing whack job brigade. A fuller article showing just how whacked out Matt Barber is can be found here.

I save the best for last. Jerry Falwell, Jr. wrote the following in an article in Charisma:

Since when has it been the goal of conservative Christians to obtain political power or legislate morality?

Jerry Falwell, Jr. has evidently had a lobotomy. He has forgotten that his own father founded an institution called the “Moral Majorty” that did indeed, for dozens of years in this country, try to legislate morality. That Jerry Falwell, Jr. could write such a statement qualifies him as the first nominee for Right Wing Whack Job of the Year.