RedState comment: killing doctor was "the right thing to do."

Awesome.

Guess the mods over there agree.

George Tiller Dies, Christianists Rejoice.

George Tiller is dead and the Christianist crowd doesn't disappoint.

The pious Mr. McCain blames the victim:

Sometimes, when the stubborn wickedness of a people offends God, the Almighty witholds His divine protection, permitting those sinners to have their own way, following the road to destruction so that they are subjected to evil rulers and unjust laws.

La Shawn Barber, the poor man's Michelle Malkin, has a decidedly un-Christlike reaction:

Today, Dr. Infanticide was shot and killed while walking into a church. Is “ironic” the right word to describe it? ...

Update: You’ve got to dig that irony thing.

Don Surber can't help himself. After astutely observing that this is "definitely the opposite of pro-life," he says:

Rest in peace. The Lord forgives.

(Note: The "pro-life" movement would seem a lot less crazy if they focused on the misdeeds of the, you know, murderer.)

Macsmind has a eloquent response:

Here’s the killer’s website. Again, I don’t condone the taking of a life, even this worthless baby murderer, but I not [sic] morning [sic] it either.

The National Right to Life Committee says murder is bad. They "[did] the right thing," Kathryn Jean Lopez says with admiration.

Shocking video of black man saying something uppity to white man!

Ah, RedState. Don't ever change.

And We All Say, Amen.

InstaPutz has obtained video of Erick Erickson's plans for the weekend. He's into roleplay, doncha know.

Noonan busts out the "I" word again.

And yes, Putz makes the cut.

Wank. Squirt. Candy Cigarette. Exhale.

I think we can all agree that this calendar poster, even in its discounted state, remains overpriced. [via]

Maggie Gallagher is Making Sense.

Maggie, stop fucking with me.

“When you change the definition of marriage in law, you change it for everybody,” said Maggie Gallagher, president and founder of the National Organization for Marriage. “If you see a difference, you’ll be a bigot just like the people who opposed interracial marriage.”

It's like a blue moon and a black swan mated and spit out that quote.

Awesome.

Ambiguity at its finest.

[via]

Surber Google FAIL.

Surber:

4. Glenn Reynolds for the Supreme Court? No. We all need his links too much. Still, it is a nice thought: Someone who is not a Stanford or Ivy League lawyer.

Last time I checked, a J.D. from Yale (1985) makes Putz exactly that.

Hehindeedy!

...His bad. Thanks, DN!

Glenn Reynolds: WATB.

Putz:

JUST WATCHED BILL O’REILLY OFFER A NON-APOLOGY APOLOGY on the Hot Air matter — sorry, but totally inadequate. O’Reilly misrepresented something as Hot Air’s when it came from a commenter — either deliberately, or because he’s got a lousy staff that misinformed him — and he should have apologized frankly. He didn’t, and his wriggly response made him look worse.

Amato:

What O'Reilly did is typical of what some mainstream media types do to us -- and also is what Michelle Malkin, this proprietor of Hot Air, has a history of doing: He cherry-picked some crazy comments and assigned them to the bloggers as if they wrote it as one of their pieces.

...

How does it feel? Your boss has set this very standard up on her own blog by going into liberal blogger comment sections (she does that to C&L quite often) and then cherry-picking our comments to prove her own silly talking points of the moment. It doesn't feel good, does it?

As usual, these wingnuts love to dish it out, but whine like babies when they get it back.

Funny.

John Derbyshire:

Like my reader, and I'm sure a lot of other Americans, I get mighty annoyed by the unspoken implication in a lot of commentary that anyone not a member of a Protected Minority must have grown up in a twelve-bedroom lakeside mansion and been chauffered off to prep school with a silver spoon in his mouth. Judge Sotomayor was raised in public housing? So was I. Her mother was a nurse working late shifts? So was mine. When did white working poor people disappear off the face of the earth? Where are the eager listeners to their "compelling stories"?

Call me puritanical if you like, but I don't find the life and times of a pedophile mathematician that compelling.

Not unlike your last upper lower GI exam.

Words fail me.

Or She would Be, if she Was a Blonde White Girl.

Readers, meet your new bicycle Carrie Prejean, Brenda Lee:

Lee said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that she wanted to hand Obama a letter urging him "to take a stand for traditional marriage."

Homophobes are a special kind of stupid. Speaking of which, props to Dan Riehl for being first out of the gate with the racism:


I suppose we're lucky there's no reference to chitlins or fried chicken.

Decent journalism goes to the right of center to die

Thanks, Jillian Bandes:

The court decisions she is wholly or partially responsible for should be considered along with her controversial extra-judicial comments as the Senate gears up for confirmation hearings, observers say.

Don't worry, I didn't selectively edit this to make her look bad. The cliffhanger of who the observers are and why they are qualified to make a value judgment (about what "should" be taken into account) is left unresolved.

Erick Erickson: Rush = Jesus.

There's simply no way to parody these people anymore.

They make it so damn easy for Obama.

I mean, really. These guys are like the Washington Generals. Keep trotting out disgraced, unpopular, old white guys, GOP.

Naturally, Putz loves it.

Michael Goldfarb is one truly disgusting slug of a human being.

Waterboarding can't be that bad -- it gives you a buzz.

If waterboarding really is torture, why are so many folks willing to give it a try? You don't see people lining up to have their fingernails pulled off.

Guess his old boss is full of shit.

Hey Goldfarb -- why not get off your fat ass and give it a try?


UPDATE:

Can't think of Goldfarb without thinking of this.

...TS ADDS: I hope he really is a slug -- a six-pack of Bud will kill him.

Ouch.

When you're getting called lazy by the likes of Jon Friedman -- a guy who, as Gawker put it, "regurgitat[es] the conventional wisdom while offering the meaningless on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand assessments" -- maybe, Ms. Dowd, it's time to head for the nearest cliff.

The latest, greatest IOKIYAR.

Identity politics are always wrong, unless you're a Republican.

Stay Classy!

Oh dear. Looks like the Sotomayor nomination has driven Althouse crazy crazier.

To you and I me*, this photo might seem innocuous...

...but Professor Onion Ring, naturally, has a more sophisticated take...

IN THE COMMENTS: Palladian, who has expertise in art, writes:

Her knee looks like a giant grey Idaho potato hovering in the foreground. The arm of the chair repeats the shape on the right of the frame, making it look like her other knee, which in turn makes it look like her hand is dead center in her enormous crotch, pawing at her cooch. You avoid those things in portraiture. Also not good to crop her right arm off. It implies that she's an amputee.

He is right, of course...

On balance, I'm pretty sure this is an insult to Maureen Dowd.

*Thnxs!

Nobody Could Have Predicted...

NYT:

Several conservatives were already demonstrating a tactic they plan to continue: quoting criticisms of Judge Sotomayor’s temperament from commentators they call liberal, most notably a recent article by the legal scholar Jeffrey Rosen in the New Republic. (Writing on the magazine’s web site Tuesday, Mr. Rosen declared his support for the confirmation and argued that conservatives are taking his article out of context.)

To TNR's credit, they seem to be suitably ashamed of Rosen's effort, as the piece is conspicuously missing from this roundup.

Well. In the words of Tom Stoppard...

Palate Cleanser.

RS McCain: like Malkin, only dumber and wingnuttier.

Dreher:

As long as people think that Mark Levin, and splenetic remoras like R.S. McCain, are what conservatism is, we'll remain in the minority for a long, long time.

DeBoer:

Robert Stacey McCain isn’t, actually, some character from a Bruce Springsteen video. He’s a writer and thinker, a guy who pals around at Washington magazine parties and think tank frou-fras. He is most assuredly not one of the Ordinary Americans he is here glamorizing. This was the glaring idiocy of the Sarah Palin boosters within the conservative intelligentsia from last year, people decrying liberal elitists when in every material way, they themselves resembled those liberal elitists far more than they resembled what they believed Palin represented.

In response, Mr. Passive Aggressive has approvingly linked to Robert Stacey McCain twice today.

A radical named Maria.

The wingnut brigade fumbles their opening shots against Sotomayor.

Pat Buchanan: Visionary strategist

In a column entitled "Cheney Shows the Way" (*giggle*) Pat maps out the Cheney Strategy for "fighting a popular president":

1. Stake out defensible high ground
2. Do not surrender an inch
3. Go onto (sic) the attack

He forgot one:

4. Leave office with a 25% approval rating and unable to visit some European countries because of standing warrants to prosecute you for war crimes

File under "pathetic"

A small town in Montana is putting a new twist on the economics of incarceration. When every other industry leaves town we can always beg the state capitol (or Uncle Sam) for some brown folk in chains!

Flashback.

Hugh Hewitt has yet to weigh in on Sotomayor, but when he does it's best to recall his words, written the day after Harriet Miers was announced as Bush's pick:

By day's end there will be great and spreading fear on the left, and perhaps some genuine remorse among the shoot first and think later right.

Yep.

Going Out On a Limb.

After reading this, I must conclude that Rod Dreher is no more familiar with Sonia Sotomayor's résumé than he is with, say, the collected works of Ron Jeremy.

Onion Rings and Vaginas?

Leave it to Althouse to pinpoint the real problem with Sotomayor:

And let's also talk about the interesting mannerism of placing one's left hand inside one's clothing up around one's shoulder. I know someone who does that at times, and I've given a lot of thought to what it signifies. I have my theory, but I'll save it until some of you weigh in.

Can't. Wait.

SCOTUS WATB.

Oh my. I knew The Corner would be unhappy with the Sotomayor pick, but this is a novel objection:

You'd think the president would have put at least a day between Memorial Day and nominating a judge to the Supreme Court who would bury the claims of firefighters — men who put their lives on the line in service for others — on the altar of political correctness.

So Sad.

I was really looking forward to reading Jeffrey Rosen's forthcoming articles on the SCOTUS shortlist.

Glenn Reynolds: Obama has "bankrupted" the country.

Yes, Putz.

Obama's been president for just over 4 months and he's totally wasted that gigantic budget surplus and healthy, thriving economy that the Bush Administration left him after 8 years of prudent, conservative financial management of the country.

But knock yourself out with those Heritage Foundation charts.

Because 11 aircraft carriers just isn't enough.

My response to Richard Smith at VetVoice is at FDL.

Really, I just don't understand how anyone can defend $600B/year with a straight face.

American Patriotism

Just in case anyone cares to remember that Memorial Day is not, contrary to popular belief, a holiday about inhaling hot dogs and Coors Light here's the latest installment of my annual reminder.

Oklahoma: like a time machine back to 1809

Keep going, kids, you've almost reached the Industrial Revolution.

Adm. Mike Mullen, leftist.

Defeatist.

Guess Mullen doesn't think those t-shirts we're very funny.

Start the countdown

Tom Ridge insults Limbaugh. T-minus three days to the apology.

Then again, Ridge is out of electoral politics now so he may stick to his guns. But if he ever wants to get back in the game, he'd better get down on his knees and kiss that big, white, pudgy ass.

Willard's back!

And he hearts Dick.

Liberty U. bans College Democrats

Nice.

“The Democratic Party platform is contrary to the mission of Liberty University
and to Christian doctrine (supports abortion, federal funding of abortion,
advocates repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, promotes the “LGBT”
agenda, hate crimes, which include sexual orientation and gender identity,
socialism, etc.)”

That's right students, you can enjoy all the "liberty" you want at our fine institution as long as you belong to the sole political party we permit on campus. In other news, the school's annual "Do What You Feel" festival has been replaced by a "Do As We Say" festival.

Bob Gates, Dirty Boy.

[via]

Really, Chip?

Chip Reid, CBS Chief White House Correspondent, was on Imus this morning. With what I assume was a straight face, he said that people are listening to Dick Cheney's views on foreign policy:

"not because of who he is, but what he has to say."

Call me a cynic, but I find that a little hard to believe. I'm sure it's not news to Mr. Reid that the position staked by Mr. Cheney in yesterday's speech -- that state-sanctioned torture is justified -- is not exclusive to the chatty ex-Veep. After all, a Washington Post-ABC News poll from earlier this year showed that "most Republicans, 55 percent, said there are cases in which the U.S. should consider using torture against terrorism suspects."

55% of Republicans do not get coverage from major networks.

I Been Norman Mailered, Jerry Taylored.

Healther Mac Donald is, like, three seconds away from being jerrytaylored:

Call me a sissified urban wuss, but I’m having a hard time figuring out why someone would absolutely need to take his gun to a national park. ... Last time I checked, crime rates in our national monuments were negligible, and presumably no one’s gonna be shootin’ critters there. You can’t just leave your gun at home? So I have to possibly give up my frequent flyer miles bonus points in order to subsidize some lousy credit risk, just so the NRA can beat its chest in victory. I don’t think that this is where the Republicans should be demanding concessions...

Any moment now, The Corner's resident alien, Mark Steyn, will notice the Manhattan Institute on Ms. Mac Donald's resume, and thus have enough ammo to lob the ultimate insult: "obscure think-tanker."

For Posterity.

K-Lo has outdone herself. Check out the first sentence:

And she's the editor!

QOTD: George Will edition

Sayeth the Owlish Nitwit:

The Orange County Register -- if but one newspaper survives today's leveling winds, may it be this one

Yeah, I really don't know how America could get by without their vibrant
contribution to political discourse.

Stuff White People Like.

Apparently the Salt Lake City teabagging was such a melanin-free affair that Putz couldn't drum up the requisite "look, black folks!" pic.

Overheard in Da Heights.

Sexy Chick From Putzland: Can we have a booty call Saturday?

Bearded Yippie: It's not a booty call if it's premeditated.

Apparently Willie Horton was unavailable.

Stay classy, GOP.

Overdue for a Heart Attack.

Thanks a lot, Dick Cheney!

I'm really excited to hear how Dick Cheney's policies will keep the country safe.

This time.

It's always worth pointing out that the hateful old prick did a really shitty job of it the first go-round.

Harry Reid is so awesome.

I can haz new Senate Majority leader pls?

Kthxbye!

Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses scary Muslims...

G.'s essay on the Right's pissypants recoil to terrorists of a certain religious persuasion cough cough on American soil is too funny to summarize. This, though, is worth a little verbatim action:

[W]hile it's true that "not a single prisoner has escaped from Gitmo since it was created," it's also true that no Muslim Terrorists have escaped from American prisons and our SuperMax prison "has had no escapes or serious attempts to escape." Actually, the only person to even make an escape attempt from a SuperMax is Green Arrow, who hasn't succeeded despite the help of Joker and Lex Luthor.

The Bard of Brooklyn, Mr. Edroso, often expresses nostalgia for the unsavory, unsanitary, grunge-ridden City of years past. I usually recoil, as I:

• Live happily in what is basically a suburb;
  
• We only barely got through the Althouse infestation of aught-eight; and
  
• Quite frankly don't want to see my neighborhood turn into a crack den like Park Slope.

But I'm starting to come around. My guess is that if Rikers were to pick up a few of GTMO's finest, there would be a marked decrease in fannypackers asking for directions to the Promenade. This won't cut it, obviously.

*crickets*

Steele: The GOP is making a comeback. Obama is bankrupting the country, which was financially as solid as J.P. Morgan's bank vault on January 19, 2009.

Steele's speeches read like the script to a Jerry Bruckheimer movie, written by seven different people who never interacted with one another, and thus a disconnected amalgam of ideas that come from, and go, nowhere.

Why Should Sullivan Have All The Fun?

Our first Anchoress Award goes to Rev. George W. Rutler:

So annually we now have the perfect storm of boorishness in the White House Correspondents Dinner. Each year it gets worse, and this year a woman named Wanda Sykes, hired as a comedienne, failed in the useful role of court jester, as she wished sickness and worse on those "traitors" she did not like. The highest officials of our land joined in the harsh laughter and added sexual innuendos. Like the Vandals who ridiculed the archaic Roman senators, they mocked abstinence from vice and dissected virtue as weakness. The cynicism matched Oscar Wilde saying that a gentleman is one who never inflicts pain unintentionally.

A coupla notes:

a) "a woman named" is superfluous, unless the author is afraid his readers will think Wanda is, I dunno, a fish?

b) I'm pretty sure only sex tourist Rush Limbaugh was called a traitor. Singular.

c) We can debate whether or not Obama's laughter was "harsh," but what are these sexual innuendos of which you speak? Perhaps I missed it when the President put his arms at a 90-degree angle, made a thrusting motion with his hips, and pantomimed an ass-smacking.

d) The Wilde quote is useful. It case you'd forgotten, Sykes is gay!

e) It happened a week and half ago ferchrissakes.

Happy Birthday, BT!

Deep Thought.

It gives me great comfort that Glenn Reynolds will soon be able to bring a loaded and concealed weapon to Ellis Island.

...i wuz doin' it rong. Thnx, Clark! (I believe this only strengthens my point!)

InstaPutz Quiz! Yay!

When Rod Dreher says...

This really is a tragedy.

..."this" refers to:

a) the large numbers of loving gay couples who can't marry
b) landslides in the Philippines
c) the 1.5 million Pakistanis who have been displaced by the fighting in the North-West Frontier Province since May 2
d) Mel Gibson knocking up his mistress

Duh! Rod intones with appropriate solemnity,

He once made something beautiful for God. And now he has destroyed his witness and his credibility, and given a great victory to people who sneer at Christianity. He has ultimately given a great victory to the Enemy.

Hey Steven Waldman, If I Capitalize words For No reason will You Give Me a Job Two?

Putz on Kaus. What could go wrong?

Putz calls our attention to Mickey Kaus' desperate attempt to get anyone to give a shit about the alleged spiking of an Obama-ACORN story at the NYT shortly before the election:

Russ Hoyt's Sundaypooh-poohing of the "game changer" affair (the accusation that the NYT killed a story on illegal ties between Obama and ACORN because it might have affected the election) fails to satisfy in several respects

(snip)

Let's assume what's obvious: The story wasn't close to a game changer.

So the story wasn't relevant. Kinda undermines the Mickster's argument, no? Read the whole thing (heh) and enjoy how artfully Kaus avoids confronting the possibility that Obama's "illegal connections" weren't reported because they didn't exist.

Well, Is It or Ain't It?

Far as I can tell, Thomas Ricks has never said or written anything as definitive as "waterboarding=torture." But in an April FP post, he certainly hints at it. Under a youtube of a song about waterboarding, he writes, "I hate the fact that my country's leaders panicked after 9/11 and embraced torture."

So, what accounts for this exchange with Hugh Hewitt? Ricks rightly says that "making torture national policy was ... probably the second biggest mistake the Bush administration made, and one that we’ll be paying for, for many, many years to come as well."

Hewitt replies:

But of course when you say torture, you mean waterboarding, and there is a very vigorous debate that waterboarding is not torture. But I understand you’re on the position that it is.

Ricks's response:

Well, whether it is or not I don’t know.

I find that hard to believe.

Charming.

Run, Jonah!

Sister Mary Catherine Elizabeth Lopez:

Most frequently asked question when I'm out and about: "Did you beat Jonah yet?" The answer, alas, is "no."

K-Lo probably misheard the question.

Confidential to Jonah; keep the weight off, buddy. Otherwise, there will nothing left of you but a pile of marrow and a light saber.

"Do you remember when we were kids?"

Problem solved!

So funny.

I've now read a few articles and blog posts either lauding the Utah governor as a moderate or denouncing him as same. Huntsman has signed pro-life bills, voucher bills, and tax cuts. Yes, he is open to some kind of civil union for gay couples and wants Republicans to make more of an effort on environmental issues. But if that's all it takes for a Republican politician to get an image both inside and outside the party as a "moderate" these days, that's a pretty good thing, isn't it?

It's a bad thing because one can't name 3 well-known Republicans that meet those criteria. It's like saying, "All we need is a Republican who's against torture and believes in evolution!"

Good luck with that.

Big, special accomplishments

Nathan Tabor writes a column entitled "Conservative PAC Uses Facebook to Garner over 10,000 Members." Simply amazing.

For a little perspective, the group "Contraception is not abortion" has 56,000 members. "Cancel student loan debt to stimulate the economy!" has 193,000. "When I was your age, Pluto was a planet" has 1.1 million. "End Puppy Mills" has 586,000. "Fuck you, I'm Polish" has 8,100. Something called "Modelling yourself on Bernard Black is a perfectly valid lifestyle choice" has 16,600.

Whoever the hell Bernard Black is, he is 60% more popular than Nathan Tabor's beloved PAC.

Do. Not. Want.

I love the 92nd Street Y and have attended some damn good lectures there, but this is the dictionary definition of fatuous:



Even absent a recession, $27 is a lot of money to watch two middle-age white guys suck each other off.

Glenn Reynolds: How dare Obama make a joke about the IRS!

One of the biggest cheerleaders for a President that illegally spied on Americans, locked people away without charges, set a record for presidential signing statements and, you know, tortured people to death -- actually has the balls to write this.

At his Arizona State University commencement speech last Wednesday, Mr. Obama noted that ASU had refused to grant him an honorary degree, citing his lack of experience, and the controversy this had caused. He then demonstrated ASU's point by remarking, "I really thought this was much ado about nothing, but I do think we all learned an important lesson. I learned never again to pick another team over the Sun Devils in my NCAA brackets. . . . President [Michael] Crowe and the Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS."

Just a joke about the power of the presidency. Made by Jay Leno it might have been funny. But as told by Mr. Obama, the actual president of the United States, it's hard to see the humor. Surely he's aware that other presidents, most notably Richard Nixon, have abused the power of the Internal Revenue Service to harass their political opponents. But that abuse generated a powerful backlash and with good reason. Should the IRS come to be seen as just a bunch of enforcers for whoever is in political power, the result would be an enormous loss of legitimacy for the tax system.

Indeed. It's perfectly fine for presidents to make jokes about weapons of mass destruction or starting World War III. But the IRS?! Is nothing sacred?

And what were all of those idiots in attendance at the ceremony thinking when they laughed and applauded approvingly (around 3:10-3:25 in the video)?

The notion that people who are audited are probably just "enemies of the regime," coupled with the idea that big shots get a pass -- that, as Leona Helmsley is reputed to have said, "taxes are for the little people" -- is a recipe for widespread tax evasion. That's how things work in Italy, and in many other countries around the world. But do we want things to work that way here?

My goodness, no. We would never, ever, want to even hint that big shots get a pass on taxes in America.

Only George W. Bush can do that.

"That's why you've got to be careful about this rhetoric, we're only going to tax the rich. You know who the--the rich in America happen to be the small business owners. That's what that means. Just remember, when you're talking about, oh, we're just going to run up the taxes on a certain number of people -- first of all, real rich people figure out how to dodge taxes. [Laughter.] And the small business owners end up paying a lot of the burden of this taxation."

As always, for Putz: IOKIYAR.

[cross-posted at FDL]

Dance, Kurtz, Dance!

Is it me, or is Kurtz's three-sentence answer a triptych of non sequiturs?

Boonsboro, Md.: Is Maureen Dowd in any trouble with her employer for such an obvious case of plagarism? I remember the WP firing a columnist over less -- something before he was even hired. Or is MoDo teflon-coated?

Howard Kurtz: Some of you seem to think that Dowd is getting special treatment because of her status as a Pulitzer-winning star. It does seem odd that the line she says she got from her friend matches almost verbatim what was on the TPM blog. But again, it would have been a snap to rewrite that sentence, so it does seem to me to fall into the category of an inadvertent mistake.

Some thoughts:

Re: the first point. Yes, we do. I mean, Dowd has the authority to pick her date lines (via). And certainly there is no evidence that Andy Rosenthal has ever subjected one of her crappy columns to a rewrite; they all suck. (Indeed, Andy believes Dowd is "very serious.")

Re: the second point. Yes, it does seem odd. It is odd! But odder still that Dowd thinks it's okay to plagiarize her friend but not okay to plagiarize Josh Marshall. Maybe she ought not plagiarize at all.

Re: the third point. Kurtz has it ass backwards. He thinks, because it would have been so easy for Dowd to simply rewrite the passage, that her mistake must've been "inadvertent." This makes no sense to me. If it was so easy, Dowd would'vbe simply done a rewrite! That she did not is, in fact, evidence that coming up with fresh ideas is an arduous process that, because she is a Very Serious Columnist, Maureen Dowd would rather not endure.

Hehindeedy!

Roy:

Jokes, it appears, are moral hazards, unless you say "Heh Indeed" after them. Then they're adorable.

A lack of a sense of humour is a dangerous thing. This, for example, suggests that PJTV's takeaway from Michael Steele's disastrous tv appearances is that he is really funny guy!

Um...

Heh.

So last night I had a terribly successful second date with an East Villager whose hometown happens to be Knoxville.

After finishing our pizza and making plans to go back to her place -- conveniently located about 3 steps from the pizza place, ahem -- I figured this would be a good time to pop The Question:

Had she ever heard of Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds, the world-famous Instapundit?

Much laughter and then: "Who?"

Indeed.

Jon Huntsman, GOP traitor.

Let the Two Minutes of Hate begin.

Funny comment from recovering wingnut Charles Johnson:

Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr., one of the very few top GOP politicians who isn’t a creationist, doesn’t oppose gay rights, and doesn’t issue blanket denials of climate change, will be Barack Obama’s ambassador to China.

Republicans: the CIA is awesome!

Funny, it wasn't always that way.

It's hard to make Fritz Henderson look smart. Really hard.

Yet Glenn Beck manages to do it. Fritz Henderson is pretty close to retarded and Beck makes him look like Warren Buffett.

Please to forgive...

The monstrously low output. So very, very busy today.

Here, go read First Things. Sister Lopez wants a report on her desk by 0400 Monday.

EPIDEMIC!

Gay hate crimes against churches! They're everywhere!

Man is it tough to be a christian in this country.

Putz: SuperLawyer

He has many original thoughts.

STIMULUS BILL IGNITING A trade war with Canada? It’s been a long time since I was a trade lawyer, but I’ve been wondering about a lot of the stimulus / bailout stuff in the context of subsidies and trade conflict, and I suspect we’ll see more complaints from other countries. These will either fall within the WTO framework and ignite legal action — or, worse, fall outside it and ignite trade retaliation.

"Now, I don't know shit about this and that's pretty embarrassing since I'm a law professor. So let me briefly paraphrase a portion of the thing I'm linking and hope that I can make myself sound smart."

Fail.

Another stupid Insta-Poll.

These are fun, because you get to comment on them.

Enjoy.

Pajamapants Gnomes.

Mark Kleiman's post on Putz's distortions of the FDA is damn near perfect. This is where it falls apart:

Obviously the Reyonlds readership likes being bullshat. As Machiavelli didn't quite say, whoever wishes to deceive will always find another who wishes to be deceived. Reynolds hates Obama, and his readers hate Obama. As long as he keeps feeding their hatred they'll keep coming to his site, and Pajamas Media will keep making money by poisoning the well of public discourse.

Unless Crane & Co. are operating out of Putz's basement, I'm pretty sure this is unlikely.

[via George Soros]

This just in: Sarah Palin is still really stupid.

Quoth the 'Cuda:

"The liberal onslaught of malicious attacks against Carrie Prejean for expressing her opinion is despicable," Palin said. She added, "Our Constitution protects us all – not just those who agree with the far left."

Yeah, we're all equal under the Constitution, except those fags who want to get married.

My Guess.

I think Pelosi's going to be replaced by July 1. Looks to me as if she's treading water.

Tell me why I'm wrong, plz.

National Review on health care reform: no one wants it!

Are they delusional or just stupid? You decide.

Do as I do, not as I say.

Tebagger-in-chief has $150,000 in tax liens against his assets. I'd assume Putz is in the same boat, but he has that huge stream of income pouring in from PJTV.

He's Legal!

Happy birthday, you magnificent bastard!

K.'s baby mama (unconfirmed)

Man & Duck In The Can.

"Ah Think The Surge Should Considah A Few Judah Gahland Covehs..."

[via]

The Teabaggers vs. Crist.

Guess who's gonna win?

(Hint: it's not the teabaggers.)

Screaming "socialist!" ain't gonna work guys.

Stay classy, GOP.

Even Dan Freaking Riehl thinks this is really stupid.

You have to be some kind of dumbass mouthbreather to think this is effective politics. Like Putz.

Roger L. Simon's Decapitation Fantasies

Ew? For the millionth time, Roger Simon recounts his 15 minutes in a Geneva hotel:

That night I felt agitated. I couldn’t sleep well – from jet lag, of course, but also from digesting this experience. So I took an Ambien around two a. m. to get some rest. Not more than twenty minutes later someone banged on my door.

I sat up in my bed. The three floors above me had been taken by the Iranian delegation. Had they come to get me? Was I the next Daniel Perle [sic]? I knew UN officials had been reading my reports on the conference…. which weren’t friendly… why not the Iranians?

I lay there in bed for a moment wishing I hadn’t taken that Ambien. Then I screwed up some courage, threw my feet over the side and stumbled groggily to the peephole.

No one was there.

Disgusting. I hope for Simon's sake that this isn't true. Isn't it a little unseemly that, even whilst ensconced in a Swiss hotel room, he exhibits none of the spine that Pearl possessed on a daily basis on the streets of Karachi?

Circular firing squad, Vol. 52671

Charlie Crist gets endorsed by the NRSC; Stacy McCain notes the ensuing pant-shitting among wingnuts. Among Crist's sins is his recent support for the financial stimulus legislation. Funny how Governors overseeing cash-strapped state budgets like Federal dollars.

Or perhaps Florida conservatives know something about Charlie that we all know but can't quite prove.

Torture hearings today.

Whitehouse sounds like the right guy to be in charge of them.

Worstest Sentence Ever?

I think so! Take it away, Kathryn-Jonah Goldpez:

But enough explaining myself, to Wonkette of all places. What I like about this is that the loser doing the "reporting" was so invested in Wanda Sykes to turn violent at what she/he thinks is an affront to Sykes's dignity. Ah yes, because attention must be paid to her fabulous kidney-failure jokes and stirring calls for higher teacher pay! No wonder this sleuth has nothing better to do than report for Wonkette.

There are words missing also? and something about a transsexual. I think.

[via That Website That The Load Says He Doesn't Read But He Is Lying]

Also? The Sarah Palin Story.

I wonder if she'll read it...

Repeal This Shit. Now.

This is heartbreaking.

Gary Sinise? Really?

The latest GOP savior!

Notes The Agitator (an actual libertarian, unlike you-know-who):

Gary Sinise? Look gang, your problem is that you’ve defined yourselves as the party of war, torture, hating gay people, opposing stem cell research, and little else, and you’ve done nothing to distinguish yourselves from the Democrats on spending and the growth of government. Personality isn’t going to get you out of this one. You’ll need some actual ideas. And those are going to be hard to come by if you keep shunning people who actually enjoy learning.

Indeed.

The sequel will be longer.

Putz pumps a thoroughly stupid piece posted on media heavyweight "PoliticsDaily.com" entitled "5 Dead-Weight Democrats for 2010." Coming tomorrow: the second part of the series, "473 Dead-Weight Republicans for 2010."

Note that the list includes a guy who was a Republican 20 minutes ago (Specter), a guy who will waltz to re-election (Murtha), a guy who won't make it out of a Democratic primary and thus will be irrelevant (Burris), and the hilarious line "Plus he never looks into the camera when he speaks" in reference to a legally blind man.

Stay classy, dickwads.

Can It, Old Man.

Shorter Roger L. Simon:

Don't you know who I am? Why, I'm the CEO of a major media company!

Yeah. Roger, contra the title of his shitty memoir, hasn't been blacklisted from the industry -- not by himself or anyone else. If you've read his blog or memoir, you know the truth: he's an astonishingly awful writer. This, and for no other reason, is why he hasn't gotten work since the first Bush Administration. (Unlike, say, Roman Polanski, an admitted child rapist and a fugitive.)

So of course Roger Simon hasn't heard of Wanda Sykes: Why would he be familiar with someone who is never "between projects" and is by any measure a success? Simon and Sykes do not run in the same circles.

Another Swiftboat campaign for Glenn Reynolds to rally around.

Since Putz was so fond of the original, I'm sure he'll love this.

Just Desserts.

Kathryn Jean Lopez, you will be shocked to learn, didn't think Wanda Sykes was funny at the WHCD. In fact, she thought Sykes was very not-funny and insulting to her hero.

Somehow Rush Limbaugh, conservative stalwart, the embodiment of capitalist success, a man who has struggled with adversity with an inspiring humility, is someone we’re to disdain so much as to laugh at the prospect of his kidneys’ failing.

Eh.

A life-size oil portrait of El Rushbo, as he often calls himself on the air, hangs on the wall of the main staircase.

You know, I thought Sykes was great. I laughed heartily at the line about Limbaugh's kidneys failing. Not so much because the prospect amuses me, but because an African-American comic cracked the joke in the presence of an African-American president.

In other words, Limbaugh got exactly what he deserved -- from the very people that he has for years treated like absolute shit.

Right on, Wanda.

I'm Sure The Rest of the Sentence Is Awesome.

John Hawkins can haz boehner?

Dick Cheney, who is probably one of the most honest politicians you'll ever run across in Washington...

The President's burger condiment choices are not important!

It's the price of the burgers that should infuriate us.

When David Stokes dies, the coroner will state the cause of death as "God fixing a mistake."

Win the Morning!

File this under "questions asked by Politico staffers and absolutely no one else."

King of Wishful Thinking

Conservatives learn lessons from their mistakes. For instance, it was pretty embarrassing when Instarube wrote out a long list of reasons why the GOP was going to have phenomenal success in the 2006 midterm elections. No one would repeat such an error unless...well, unless the movement is composed mostly of idiots. From what our betters on talk radio tell us, that simply isn't the case.

Wait.

Shit.

My favorites are "talent senses opportunity!" from the party devoid of talent and "The Republican Party is the de facto Libertarian Party" as if that is a good thing.

Out-of-Context QOTD.

Maggie Gallagher:

[S]ometimes we just have to suck it up and wait for death.

Jonah does it again.

So now we've gone from the "GOP just needs to retool it's message" denial to the "GOP just needs the right mouthpiece" denial.

Wasn't Sarah Palin the answer?

Unreasonable People Can't Agree.

Why I despise Maggie Gallagher: John Hawkins asks her, "How can it [gay marriage] hurt the number of people getting married? How can it decrease it?"

She replies:

I don't think it's going to hurt my marriage -- but, I think it's going to change the definition of marriage for every person going forward and it's going to affect young people particularly. I don't understand how we're going to raise young men to be good family men in a culture where the government tells them that the idea that a child has a father as well as a mother is an example of hateful bigotry -- but, that's what gay marriage is about. That's saying if you see any difference between gay and straight, (you're bigoted). If you can't distinguish between these two things with regard to marriage, there is nowhere you can distinguish them. My own view is that same sex unions are not marriage. If the government passes a law that says ducks are chickens, it doesn't make it true....

It doesn't get much more pernicious than that. Here you have the leading spokesbigot for the anti-gay marriage movement saying, ahem, that "gay marriage" is "hateful bigotry."

Arguing with such crazies is futile. All that's left is savage mockery.

What's the Matter with Kansas?

In Defense of Jeffrey Rosen.

Ha ha just kidding! Fuck that guy.

Glenn Reynolds smacked by the American Conservative.

Ouch.

Glenn Reynolds has found a torture issue he can get behind—the Nancy Pelosi hypocrisy angle: “PELOSI LIED, THE WATERBOARDING ISSUE DIED: CIA Says Pelosi Was Briefed on Use of ‘Enhanced Interrogations’.” He has gone to that well several times.

Reynolds explains the real reason behind the torture issue. “But at any rate, the torture issue was mostly a political tool designed to cow right-leaning members of the punditocracy by calling them Nazis.”

I’m thinking of several non-Nazi words to describe Glenn Reynolds right now, but I’ll limit myself to the euphemistic term, “special.”

[via Sullivan]

Glenn Reynolds, are you listening?

Probably not.

As the party has shrunk to its base, it has catered even more to its base's biases, insisting that the New Deal made the Depression worse, carbon emissions are fine for the environment and tax cuts actually boost revenues — even though the vast majority of historians, scientists and economists disagree. The RNC is about to vote on a kindergartenish resolution to change the name of its opponent to the Democrat Socialist Party. This plays well with hard-core culture warriors and tea-party activists convinced that a dictator-President is plotting to seize their guns, choose their doctors and put ACORN in charge of the Census, but it ultimately produces even more shrinkage, which gives the base even more influence — and the death spiral continues. "We're excluding the young, minorities, environmentalists, pro-choice — the list goes on," says Olympia Snowe of Maine, one of two moderate Republicans left in the Senate after Specter's switch. "Ideological purity is not the ticket to the promised land."

I blame the party's downfall on pork.

Bye-bye, Gov. Color Swatch.

In light of Tom Ridge's non-candidacy, recall The Times' 2004 editorial marking his departure from the Bush Administration.

First line:

Tom Ridge was the best secretary of homeland security this country has known.

Last line:

We also hope that Mr. Ridge takes his color swatches with him back to Pennsylvania.

Gail Collins at her best.

Where Are They Now? (PUMA Edition)

If you're one of those lucky people who don't know who this guy is, acquaint yourself with the crazy.

Another anti-empathy Republican.

This is getting really funny.

How To Get a Million Hits On Your Blog and Still Suck Ass Like Stacy McCain.

Stacy McCain posits, essentially, that Homophobe Joe is an okay guy because, Hey, aren't Ordinary Americans really bigots anyway? (Or something. Dude needs an editor.)

It's a preposterous argument, of course! I like this part best:

Four decades after the Stonewall riot in New York that is generally cited as the spark that ignited the gay-rights movement, attitudes like Joe’s remain far more widespread than you might realize if all you knew of American opinion was what you’ve seen in the news media. Despite the elite consensus – which is so influential in New York, Hollywood and Washington, D.C. – the average resident of Lucas County, Ohio, probably agrees with Wurzelbacher.

Ahem. [pdf]
For some reason, I kinda doubt it? Also.

Smells Like Sour Grapes.

Mr. Frothy Mix writes:

So now we're to understand that Specter has left the small-tent GOP for the broad-minded, tolerant Democratic Party? Alas, voting records tell a different story.

[blah blah blah etc.]

I spent 12 years in the Senate. It has one doctrinaire, narrow, intolerant caucus, and Specter just joined it.

Oh dear, Little Ricky's jealous! Let's see: One guy is a Senator, the other is... not. But does have a shitty (albeit well-paying!) column for a dying paper!

Who would you rather be?

It just needs a new coat of paint. Really.

Add another strained voice to the "Conservatives are awesome and just need better PR" chorus.

And if Ebola was called the Natural Male Enhancement Flu we'd all be clamoring to get it, right?

Dept. of Humorously Bad Ideas.

Hugh Hewitt:

So there's going to be a Commission on the financial meltdown, and it is stacked 6-4 (unlike the 9/11 Commission which was evenly split.

No doubt the GOP will nominate very polite, very ineffective members who will hire very polite, very ineffective lead counsels. Thus it has ever been and so it will be again.

I nominate myself for the Commission. Unlike almost every other Commission member in the history of Commissions, I know how to ask a series of questions, and to ask again and again until they are answered.

Why are you laughing? Oh, right. Here's a recent grilling:

HH: I am joined now by National Review’s Andrew McCarthy. He’s a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and the author of Willful Blindness: A Memoir Of The Jihad, has been a guest on the show a number of times. Andy, welcome back, good to have you.

AM: Hugh, great to be here, how are you?

HH: I’m great. Have you read Lowry’s new book yet? I think you’re part of the bio on O’Hanlon, the prosecutor in that.

AM: Well, because of you, I haven’t yet read it, but it have post-its all over it.

A Grand Inquisitor, that guy.

Psssst. He Won.

NYT:

And if [Obama] appoints a gay person to the Supreme Court, he would be viewed by social conservatives ... as putting a vote for same-sex marriage on the highest court in the land.

Ahem. Who cares what social conservatives think? The election's over. He won.

And by the way: fuck social conservatives.

Probably Not the Defense Senator Bedford Forrest Sessions Wuz Looking For...

I guess the RedState crew drew straws and hogan lost. The poor bastard has to pretend that Jeff Sessions doesn't have a closet full of starched white sheets. Here's a particularly erudite portion of his argument:

In 1986, he was nominated for Federal District Judge. He was blocked by the Senate Judiciary Committee - based on, essentially, two charges: 1) that he had made an off-handed remark about the KKK once, and 2) that he once stated that the ACLU and the NAACP are (or have acted) un-American. After he was handed this set-back, Sessions didn’t whine about unfair treatment - he ran for Attorney General and won the seat of Senator Hefflin, who had voted against his nomination in committee. In 1996, he ran for U.S. Senate and won. Since then, he has been re-elected twice (most recently in 2008).

He suggests that the comment he made about the KKK (a joke about being bad because they use marijuana) was taken out of context. I take him at his word - because I actually know him, and actually know who he is. As for the second charge - again, context matters. But I can tell you one damned thing - the NAACP shoved down the throats of the American people and a totally gutless US Congress in 2006 an unconstitutional forced-gerrymandering bill under the name of re-authorizing the Voting Rights Act. We can only hope that the Supreme Court strikes parts of it down - and in my opinion, the actions of the NAACP were, in fact, un-American in that context, because the ends were political rather than promotion of civil rights. And one needn’t go any farther than the ACLU’s efforts with respect to GITMO detainees to see activity that one can legitimately argue undermines our security as a nation - and thus, could be labeled “un-American.”

Yes, InstaPutzen, you read that correctly. It was totally copacetic for Sessions to call the NAACP un-American in 1986 because a mere 20 years later -- presumably unbeknownst to Sessions? -- George W. Bush would sign a bill that RedState doesn't like.

Because they're crackers.

John Thune: just no fags, Obama.

I just don't understand why there's not more gay Republicans.

Another Democratic governor signs a gay marriage bill.

But there's no difference between Republicans and Democrats on this issue, right Putz?

Don Surber, Sexy Wingnut.

First of all, kudos to Don Surber for doing his dangest to get "the Perez Hilton Left" into the vernacular.

This will FAIL, but I hope he keeps trying.

Second, this is a great idea:

Rather than throw in the towel on gay marriage, Republicans should continue to push against it.

Social conservatism may attract minorites [sic] to the party.

Also? Snakes in ball pits. That will work, too.

The problem is that people do not understand how awesome we are.

I tell ya what the GOP needs, it's an authoritarian lecture tour to pound its talking points into Americans' heads and force ordinary people to like them.

Quoth the Japanese alien from Aqua Teen Hunger Force: "I make people like me. With violence."

Reality Bites.

At some point, Putz should prolly come to terms with the inescapable: his continued pimping of tea parties has had no effect.



Advantage, blogosphere!

QOTD.

I like the visual:

Someone should baptize Brigham Young’s mama into the Blue Oyster Cult.

...omg I just remembered that I saw BOC, like, five years ago at House of Blues. Farting dust or not, these guys played a sweet set.

GOP's Big Tent.

Andy McCarthy plays a game: How many voting blocs can he dehumanize in one headline?


I count four. I guess it's just a coincidence that everybody hates Republicans?

(Meanwhile, six minutes earlier, Maggie Gallagher tells us it's okay to be a bigot if you're well-intentioned. I hate these people so very much.)

Baldwin-approved.

The man who co-hosts "XTREME Radio" with Stephen Baldwin wrote the most persistently but vaguely threatening syndicated column I've had the pleasure to read.

That man belongs in an institution.

Torture and utilitarianism.

It's alarming that there are people like this in positions of authority in this country.

Putz, You Pretty Much Did.

Putz, not so long ago:

VIDEO: JOE THE PLUMBER weighs in on the debate. Can we vote for him?

Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher, not so long ago:

People don't understand the dictionary—it's called queer. Queer means strange and unusual. It's not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that. You know, God is pretty explicit in what we're supposed to do—what man and woman are for. Now, at the same time, we're supposed to love everybody and accept people, and preach against the sins. I've had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn't have them anywhere near my children. But at the same time, they're people, and they're going to do their thing.

...BT adds:

Yeah, but there's no difference at all between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to gays.

Memo to Jay: Love That You Suck.

Mr. Nordlinger is trying real hard to convince us that, well, you know:

Why do people think the GOP has moved to the right, when, more likely, the opposite is true? Tone. The opinion-makers know that Bush believes in God, and they know that he’s from Texas. They know that he has little respect for the New York Times and his alma maters: Andover, Yale, and Harvard. And then there’s the war—the broad War on Terror, and the particular war in Iraq. They are not very high on those.

And they give President Bush no credit for failing to move against Iran!

For some reason, I'm reminded of a lovely scene in Keeping the Faith. The rabbi, marvelously played by Ben Stiller, tries to assure a poor kid that everything's going to be okay, that he will do fine at his bar mitzvah.

"They're gonna take away my yarmulke," the kid says. "I suck."

Instead of trying dissuade him, the rabbi says

Okay. Yes, you do. You suck. But that's okay. You're supposed to suck. This isn't a talent contest, this is a rite of passage. I mean, this happens in all cultures. It's about you being thirteen years old. God knew that your voice was gonna change when you were. There's a reason why you gotta do your haftorah at this age. It's a challenge. God is challenging you. He's calling you a chump. So you gotta come back at him. So you gotta say, "Hey, hashem, you think You can scare me with a little, uh, biblical Hebrew... just 'cause my balls haven't dropped yet?' I'm serious. I'm serious. You gotta show Him what Alan Klein's made of.

How? asks the kid.

"By sucking with style," says the rabbi. "Embrace the suckiness. Just say, "I love that I suck.""

I wish Nordinger et al would embrace the crazy and spare us the nonsense about how they're actually moderates.

Sweet.

Market up 27% since Glenn Reynolds' March 9 post about how the market hates Obama.

March 9, 2009.

Since then:

I've been following Putz for a long time now, and I'm still amazed at how wrong he is about everything.

8 funny words.

ObWi's resident winger writes:

Joshua Treviño offers a characteristically nuanced look at...

Aaaaaaaaaand you lost me.

Rebrand! Conservatism 2.0!

Not so much.

This comment is hilarious:

It’s really a sickness, isn’t it?

yes it is. Egosyntonic patients are quite comfortable with themselves and never complain about their symptoms.

The problem as the GOP perceives it is not that they are unlikeable and wrong, but that others do not know how to like them. This is so puzzling for them. Many committees are needed to figure out how to manipulate folks into liking them again. In contrast to how to become more likable.

Heh.

Greenwald Writes Letters.

Ow.

Sent: Monday, May 4, 2009 9:33:54 AM GMT -02:00 Mid-Atlantic
Subject: Re: Your "Izzy" Award

Two of the most extremist and discredited entities in the United States are Commentary Magazine and Accuracy in Media. Someone who is smeared by those two groups immediately has their credibility enhanced. Don't you have Barack Obama's birth certificate to hunt down and Hillary Clinton's sex life to sniff around in?

Izzy Stone was one of the only journalists in America to challenge the government's lies about the Gulf of Tonkin incident, to oppose the Vietnam War from the start, and to relentlessly highlight the pernicious poison of the McCarthyite witch hunts, which are alive and well in the marginalized and irrelevant fringes of the Right, such as Commentary and AIM.

There is much dispute about what Stone thought in the 1940s and early 1950s, but what is not in dispute is that in one of his earliest newsletters, he wrote: "Whatever the consequences, I have to say what I really feel after seeing the Soviet Union and carefully studying the statements of its leading officials, this is not a good society and it is not led by honest men" and "nothing has happened in Russia to justify cooperation abroad between the independent left and the Communists." Those anti-Soviet statements resulted in the loss of numerous previous supporters, a courageous stance that dishonest propaganda rags like Commentary would never take.

A publication with some actual credibility, Columbia Journalism Review, conducted a comprehensive review of the evidence and thoroughly debunked these falsehoods.

The fact that Stone is being smeared by the likes of the consummately chicken-hawk, nepotistic, bloodthirsty Podhoretz family and the truly deranged, sex-obsessed, conspiracy-monger Cliff Kincaid will make me place my Izzy Award on an even more prominent shelf in my office.

Glenn Greenwald

Bringing attention to important issues like stupidity

Hard to believe the big Teabagging was only 20 days ago given how completely and thoroughly it has been forgotten. Predictably PJTV (plenty of good subscriptions still available! PayPal and buried yard silver accepted!) is still hammering away in a desperate effort to get anyone to give a flying shitball.

All that sound and fury. Those endless hours in front of the webcam trying to generate a movement that didn't exist. All those free primetime segments on Fox News in an effort to turn out enough shut-ins to make the events look "grassroots." What did it accomplish?

It gave us all an entertaining freakshow and brought much-needed attention to the epidemic of mouthbreatherism that runs rampant among our country cousins. Nice work, Putz.