Ted Nugent Strikes Again

A few years ago I was one of the guest speakers on a Caribbean cruise sponsored by National Review, the conservative magazine. Each night the speakers — a group made up of writers, TV pundits and movers and shakers from the world of politics — had dinner and conversation with the folks who took the cruise to listen to the various conservative speakers. And each night we sat with different people, so that a rotating group of guests got to dine with each of the guest speakers.

One night I was seated next to a successful businessman, originally from New York State but at the time (and still, I assume) living in Asheville, North Carolina. He wasted no time telling me how disgusted he was with Congress — no surprise given that most Americans, especially conservatives, are disgusted with Congress.

Then he decided to share with me the liberal members of Congress who really turned his stomach. Every one on his list — every single one — was Jewish.

He didn't say anything about Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid. They didn't make his list of villains. Not a peep, either, about Dick Durbin or Maxine Waters. He said nothing about Luis Gutierrez or Jim McDermott. Only Jews were in his crosshairs.

 
If this were happening someplace other than on a ship at sea, and if it wasn't a gathering of hundreds of very nice people who paid good money to listen to speakers and not watch a fist fight at the dinner table, things would have turned nasty. He (and his wife) had the good sense to leave long before dessert arrived and that was the end of it.

The incident was a distant memory until just the other day when I heard about Ted Nugent's version of my cruise story.

Nugent, who has been described as "an American musician, singer, songwriter, hunter, and political activist," as well as a "washed up rocker," is also widely known as a vile, bigoted, jerk. Earlier this month he took to his Facebook page to let his many friends know just what he thought about people who don't like guns as much as he does. Here's what he wrote under the headline: "So who is really behind gun control?"

"Know these punks. They hate freedom, they hate good over evil, they would deny us the basic human right to self defense & to KEEP & BEAR ARMS while many of them have tax paid hired ARMED security! Know them well. Tell every1 you know how evil they are. Let us raise maximum hell to shut them down!"

Then he posted pictures of these people Nugent finds so despicable. Every one of them is Jewish. One of Nugent's "punks" was the former mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, who Nugent described as "Jew York City Mayor" and said was a "9/11 Israeli agent," whatever that means.

None of this should surprise anyone who knows even a little about Ted Nugent.

At a concert in August of 2007, he said then Senator Barack Obama was" a piece of shit. I told him to suck on my machine gun," and added that Hillary Clinton is a "worthless bitch."

Ted Nugent, who is often seen in pictures holding big guns, which may or may not be his way of compensating for shortcomings in another area, is on the board of the National Rifle Association. So did the NRA kick him off the board after his Jew baiting stunt? If you said, "Are you kidding?" give yourself a gold star. After dodging news outlets for several days (including a phone call from me) the NRA issued a statement saying that, "Individual board members do not speak for the NRA." How courageous.

In the big scheme of things Ted Nugent isn't important — not in matters of culture or politics or at this point even music. What is troubling is how many conservatives think Nugent is just wonderful. His Facebook post got more than 7,700 likes.

And he has had many fans in conservative media, where the general rule is "If liberals hate you, we love you, no matter what."

Does anyone think a principled conservative like William F. Buckley would have had anything to do with Ted Nugent?

As you might imagine, Nugent did get slammed by the Anti Defamation League, the organization that fights anti-Semitism, which said in a statement: "This is nothing short of conspiratorial anti-Semitism. Regardless of one's views on gun control, this kind of scapegoating of an entire religious group is completely unacceptable and completely divorced from reality. It should go without saying that anti-Semitism has no place in the gun control debate. You should be ashamed for promoting anti-Semitic content, and we hope that good people on both sides of the gun control debate will reject his tactics and his message. We hope you will have the good sense to remove this share immediately so that it does not spread virally across the Internet."

After that Nugent took to Facebook again to make sure his critics knew exactly where he stood.

"Just when you hope that mankind couldnt possibly get any dumber or more dishonest, superFreaks rise to the occasion. What sort of racist prejudiced POS [Piece of S**t] could possibly not know that Jews for gun control are nazis in disguise?"

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