In 1968, Richard Nixon won the presidency by invoking The Silent Majority. These were the supposed decent, hardworking people, too busy to protest the doings of our government. They were not like the lefties. In reality, Nixon’s constituency was a majority of angry white people reacting against the changes brought to America by the civil rights movement. Despite what Glenn Beck and other right-wingers say, Martin Luther King was never their hero.

Now the Silent Majority has become the noisy, angry mob called the Tea Party. What has remained the same is the hatred that inspires them. The behavior of anti-Islamists surrounding The Park 51 project and the Dove Church Koran Burning rally planned for September 11 should make that pretty clear. (Is that Dove, as in peaceful little birds?)

Today, the silence is coming from the politicians on the right. With great conviction, General Petraeus has asked Pastor Terry Jones to call off the Koran burning, pointing out that it may well cause the loss of soldiers’ lives. The only politicians with any chance of influencing the Koran burners are on the Republican right — John McCain, Sarah Palin, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, you know the lineup. None of them have opened their yaps.

McCain, above all, should speak out. But he hasn’t. His silence is worse than his bullshit.