Duncan Hunter, dumbass.

The paratroopers jump out of planes, therefore throwing a prisoner out of a plane isn't torture.

The GOP is so awesome.

Do you remember when a coalition of Republicans in Congress tried to kill George W. Bush's legislative initatives?

I don't either.

Why we keep these people in the party is truly a mystery.

Innocent omissions, the Star Parker Way

Oddly enough, a Star Parker column entitled "A time for truth on abortion" does not include the phrase "I've had four of them. And I was on public aid when I had them. You do the math and figure out who paid for them."

Is "Uncle Tom" a gender-neutral term or is there a separate female version that should be running through my head when I read her crap?

Independence Day

Obama's approval ratings are falling.

He's not losing any Democrats. Republicans, as expected, don't support him. Independent support is falling. WTF is up with that? Well, it helps to understand what "Independent" really means in the context of survey research...

Israelis seem to understand...

...that no one is above the law. Why is that so hard for Americans to swallow?

Things that make you go "Hmmmm."

"I risked my entire career to bring [Charles Murray's] brilliant book, The Bell Curve, into the bounds of respectable conversation because I believe his intellectual honesty is self-evident, even if you believe he is wrong about everything. ... I have long counted him and his brilliant wife as friends."

Gah.

Charitable explanation: Sullivan is trying to give Tim F. heartburn.

Less charitable: between his continued humping of The Bell Curve and Betsy Mccaughey 's pernicious ideas, Sullivan is simply a stooge who can turn a phrase.

At this point, I don't give a damn how "good" Andrew Sullivan is on torture and whatnot; that he evidently believes that African-Americans lack intelligence and that "No Exit" was something more than excrement is more than I'm willing to take.

What Americans really want is for Republicans to run things again.

Yeah, sure they've given Democrats huge majorities in the House and Senate and the White House, but what they really want is George W. Bush's party back in charge.

This year at Summer Slam, you will feel the wrath of Hulkamaniacs everywhere

The teabagging movement just got classier. Bets on how long before Glenn Reynolds is interviewing him? Oh, and FYI, to make this even more pathetic, GuaranteedLowerPropertyTax.com is a business, not a non-profit advocacy group. You have to pay for the service.

Dear Ruben Navarette

We do not enforce the law in this country by show of hands. Crack open a fucking textbook and take a freshman logic class before attempting any arguments more complex than your weekly random essay on immigration.


Love,
Instaputz

Pssst...You're Not Helping!

Huffington Post does itself no favors printing shit like this:

We don't know how much Kennedy was affected by [Mary Jo Kopechne's] death, or what she'd have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history. What we don't know, as always, could fill a Metrodome.

Still, ignorance doesn't preclude a right to wonder. So it doesn't automatically make someone (aka, me) a Limbaugh-loving, aerial-wolf-hunting NRA troll for asking what Mary Jo Kopechne would have had to say about Ted's death, and what she'd have thought of the life and career that are being (rightfully) heralded.

Who knows -- maybe she'd feel it was worth it.

Emphasis mine.

Wondering such things -- and then reaching the conclusion she does -- may not make Melissa Lafsky a "Limbaugh-loving, aerial-wolf-hunting NRA troll" or whatever, but it does make her an embarrassment.

It's difficult enough to speculate on what a long-dead person would think about, well, anything, 40 year after the fact. But to suggest that Ms. Kopechne might, in essence, be grateful for her untimely death is crazy.

Lafsky's taken some crap for writing that, will surely get a lot more by the day's end, and (I don't mind saying) she deserves every bit of it.

Confederate Wankee on Treason.

Bob Owens on...

• The MSM: "the near-treason of CNN's Eason Jordan..."
  
  
• Muslim-shaped 9/11 memorials: "...let those who would murder the memory of the 9/11 dead that you will not stand for this treason to their memories."
  
  
• Inconvenient truths: "Dick Durbin joins a growing litany of hysterical Left-wing voices that will say or do anything, stoop to any level, slander any person or group, and yes, even commit acts of treason and sedition against this nation in their naked pursuit of political power."
  
  
• "Black sites": "The leaker(s), potentially compromised real agents and intelligence operations, and have committed nothing less than some form of treason or sedition against the United States."
  
  
• John Murtha: "Murtha's treason--and I do now classify it as such-- is even more shameful in my opinion, as he seeks to undermine not only the United States while at war..."
  
  
• The AP: "Dupes, or semi-treasonous? You make the call."
  
  
• Brian DePalma's movies: "What would once have been quickly identified as treasonous or seditious in past conflicts is now something that appears to be quite fashionable among certain aspects of our society."
  
  
• Ted Kennedy: "...he was a treasonous son-of-a-bitch as well, conspiring with the Soviet KGB during the Cold War in an attempt to undermine President Reagan for his own political gain."

Bob Owens, yesterday:

I don't like to use the word "treason."

Megan comes back for even more stupid!

She just doesn't know when to stop digging.

I wish Putz would read this comment by Nelson Alexander underneath. I cannot edit it, it's too good.

How Many Gun Advocates Can Dance on the Head of a Pin?

This is a delightful example of the way in which "libertarian economics" has become the medieval scholasticism of the American Empire, pure dogma and creed gussied up as expertise, arcane logic, and methodology.

By comparison to other advanced nations, the United States has an enormous gun industry, gun sales, gun profits, and gun lobby--complete with lavishly funded gun groups, gun advocates, gun think tanks, gun research, and gun-partial economists.

Consequently, the United States has:

(A) More guns, guns, guns, by any measure, than other nations. Way, way more. Something like 350 million floating around, all of which start out as legally purchased commodities. The U.S. also has:

(B) More gun deaths than any other advanced nation. Way, way more. Over 30,000 per year, over 80 blood-splattering deaths per day, etc. (More overall than have been killed in all wars by all foreign enemies, if we exclude the Civil War.) People in other advanced nations find this, well... grotesque.

The role of the "libertarian economist" is to formulate numbers, studies, and scholarly sounding words to prove that there is NO POSSIBLE relationship between A and B. Many medieval proofs of this are religiously and loudly chanted.

Consider some famous demonstrations of libertarian scholasticism: First Proof: If the angry co-worker did not own that assault rifle, he could have killed his colleagues with the stapler on his desk. It just would have taken longer. Second Proof: "Normal" gun owners do not kill people. Only "abnormal" gun owners kill people. How do we know which gun owners are "abnormal"? Easy. Those are the ones who kill people. Third Proof: If everyone carried a gun, we could all shoot shooters before the shooters shoot someone, so everyone is safer.

Needless to say, there is always generous patronage for any licensed "Doctor of Economics" who can torture some data into a further "proof" of the social benefits of more and more guns. Like debt, obesity, and cringing faith in the wisdom of The Market, the right to carry a big, ballistic phallus is just part of the American way. ("Just try it, Pal! Just try and take my phallus!") It is the work of libertarian scholasticism to demonstrate why it is all logical.

All I can say is "bravo."

Wingnut Field-trips.

Yuck?

PERSPECTIVE: Rachel Lucas blogs Auschwitz.

Offensive verbiage aside, I'm pretty sure no one's been clamoring for the wingnut blogger perspective re: death camps.

However, at least Ms. Lucas's jaunt wasn't for naught. She's written some world-class wankery that's almost worthy of Althouse:

I was struck by the presence of weeping willows along the border of the camp there. What better tree, symbolically?

and

You think of Auschwitz, or Poland in general after the Nazis invaded, and you think of bleakness and dreariness.

No shit?

Students of history

Students of the history of the Second World War will surely recall Naval Cmdr. Winfield Cunningham's famous morse code message to the 14th Fleet when his forces were beseiged by thousands of Japanese during the Battle of Wake Island: "SEND MORE JAPS." While the use of the term "japs" is awkward to our modern sensibilities, the message stands the test of time as an example of determination in the face of terrible odds.

Upon reading the comment section from yesterday's post by BT on the reaction to Ted Kennedy's death, I have but one message for Mr. Treacher: "SEND MORE TARDS."

Or as a dear former president said, "Bring it on," which doubles as the title of Treacher's favorite film.

Megan McCardle officially jumps the shark.

Hey, no problem at all with guns at political events! Nope, nothing could possibly go wrong, there.

What an assclown.

This comment is terrific.

I grew up on a farm, our only vacation was deer and elk hunting season after the harvest. I served in the Marine Corps in Vietnam. I fully support the right to posess firearms.
BUT. Anyone not a police officer who shows up at a public meeting carrying a firearm, loaded or not, by definition qualifies as not normal.
AND. I have never and would never own an assault rifle, a hand gun or a short barreled open choke shotgun because the only thing they are designed for or any good for is killing people.
"The rate of crime associated with legal gun possession or carrying seems to be very low." I followed the link and it contains NO statistics related to the topic except that the incidence of gun violence per capita is low and that people in prison who had used guns mostly got them illegally.
Obviously you have no experience with guns. Do me a favor, go to a local gun club, rent a Glock and spend a half hour shooting holes in human form targets and then sit down and analyze the emotional responces you experience.

TS ADDS: How would McSuderman feel if every one of her wedding guests carried a gun? Inquiring minds want to know!

Edward Kennedy Dies, Wingnuts Cover Themselves in Glory. (updated throughout the day, presumably)

This was inevitable.

Robert McCain:

Whenever Kennedy would inflict his pompous self-righteous liberal moralizing on us, I'd always hear Ann Coulter's immortal words: "Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment."

And so I've used that line for the last time. And the knowledge of that finality is the only sadness I feel about Ted Kennedy's death.

Roger Kimball:

The Kennedy family has issued a eulogistic statement about the death of the Senior Senator from Massachusetts. Right and proper, I suppose, but I couldn’t help recoiling from its lists: “Edward M. Kennedy — the husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle we loved so deeply — died late Tuesday night at home in Hyannis Port.”

“Edward M. Kennedy,” I heard echoing behind those words, “Liar, cheat, drunk, philanderer, and — let’s not forget — inadvertent murderer.”

Roger L. Simon:

This was not a life well lived.

Jim Treacher:

Think of it this way: If they get to bring up Camelot, we get to bring up the lady in the lake.

William Jacbobson:

Another Wellstone memorial?

Macsmind:

No doubt know liberals will use his passing to trumpet the need for Universal Healthcare in “His Name”, count on it. The fact is it’s the last thing we should pass now that he’s dead. Let it go to dust just as he did.

Kevin McCullough:

It is indeed a sad day for the Kennedy clan. A beloved patriarch is gone. But for the nation, Kennedy's legacy is not even a mixed bag. It was an embarrassment, and I trust and hope that we are given a proper chance to recover from his impact in the days to come.

John J. Miller:

Three years ago, I wrote for NRO on My Senator and Me, an illustrated children's book by Ted Kennedy. Its narrator is a dog whose name is — I kid you not — "Splash."

The Anchoress:

What can one do when one is likely unfit for heaven, but possesses just enough charity and love to stave off hell?

Dan Riehl:

Given word of his passing, the Senate, as predicted by Rush Limbaugh, is considering re-naming the health care bill in Ted "The Liberal Liar Lion of the Senate" Kennedy's honor, while also amending it to include mandatory long distance swimming lessons, as well as CPR and breath control classes for all Americans.

Why does Peter King hate America?

Here's someone who doesn't understand what makes this country special.

A "furious" Rep. Peter King, the hawkish, maverick Long Island Republican, blasted a "disgraceful" Eric Holder for opening an investigation of CIA interrogators and chided his own party for what he described as a weak response to the move in an interview just now with POLITICO.

"It’s bulls***. It’s disgraceful. You wonder which side they’re on," he said of the attorney general's move, which he described as a "declaration of war against the CIA, and against common sense."

There's a scene in John Adams where, after Adams agrees to defend the British soldiers who participated in the Boston Massacre, Sam, his cousin, accosts him. I'm paraphrasing, but it goes like this.

"What side are you on, John?!" Sam demands. Adams replies, "The side of the law. What other side is there?"

Exactly.

Rule of law means nothing to people like Peter King, and it's still shocking to me that people like him hold positions of power in our government.

They need to be purged.

Peter Brookes: the Usain Bolt of Retarded

Peter Brookes straps on his golden track shoes and tries to break the record for the most logical fallacies in under 250 words.

Once we get beyond claims about the alleged mishandling of interrogations by CIA officers, there are a couple of things that people should keep in mind:

1. The interrogation program provided critical information that led to the disruption of terror attacks against U.S. interests in the difficult, early days after 9/11.

Unproven. The supporting evidence for this claim is "George W. Bush said so."

2. It isn’t by chance that there hasn’t been another terror attack on U.S. soil since 9/11.

Holy fuckballs, are you kidding me? Cum hoc, ergo propter hoc, dickhead.

3. These actions were taken by well-intentioned individuals who were likely doing what they thought would help keep their fellow Americans safe.

i.e. They acted in good faith. Just following orders. Appeal to ignorance.

4. The Justice Department investigation will likely have a chilling effect on CIA officers in the field, who will wonder if they should be getting the terrorist or getting lawyers.

Speculation. Appeal to consequences.

5. Let’s not forget: We’re still at war, and our intelligence professionals represent our first line of defense.

Appeal to emotion. Red herring. Card-stacking. Begging the question. And just plain stupid.

Get this man a medal.

The saddest of all pleas

So I have made a committment to TS and BT to review Roger Simon's memoir "Blacklisting Myself." As it is self-published, I cannot find a library that carries it. I'm really, REALLY not eager to give Roger Simon any of my money by buying it. If any Instaputz reader happens to have access to a copy of this steaming pile of literary mule shit, please leave a comment if you are willing to share it. For the greater good.

No questions asked. I don't want to know where you got it or why you have it. I'm not here to judge. Well, I'm going to judge Roger Simon, but not you.

Charming.

When it comes to the New York Post and the gays, it's always 1953:

OPENLY gay Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank looking uncomfortable at a party in Fire Island Pines surrounded by thousands of shirtless homosexual men dancing on the beach.

By the by, Frank's been "out" for more than 20 years, so the inclusion of the first two words serve no purpose other than to pander to the Post's largely retarded readership.

From now on, all references to the editor of Page Six will begin, "According to noted grasswidower Richard Johnson..."

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Krugman: No good argument against public option.

Matt Yglesias weeps.

Ctrl A + Ctrl C + Ctrl V = All in a Day's Work.

It's a mystery why Sarah Palin pays her spokeslady, Meg Stapleton, anything at all.

Marc Ambinder -- who apparently has not learned his lesson -- is still under the impression that his purpose in life is to reproduce the rantings of a crazy person.

In other words, he's doing Meg's job at a cut-rate:



And... that's it.

Sorry, pal. 'Hey, look what this unemployed asshole wrote' is not analysis.

Howard Dean is crazy!

So they all said in 2004.

We Feel For You, Bob.

Unburdening of the Soul

Tom Ridge talks about Ashcroft's attempts to strong-arm him into raising the terror alert level immediately prior to the 2004 election. Not that anyone pays the slightest bit of attention to the terror alert level, but...

This is going to be a fun decade, what with all of the guilty Bush apparatchiks attempting to appease their guilty consciences.

Says the Guy Who's Spent the Last Year Pimping Joe the Plumber and Kenny Gladney.

Putz:

OUCH: ABC’s Charles Gibson to Cindy Sheehan: Thanks for your sacrifice. Now get lost. Hey, when the useful idiots aren’t useful anymore, they’re just, well, you know . . . .

It must be weird to live in a world in which Cindy Sheehan is simply a representation of something you despise -- the anti-war movement -- as opposed to what she actually is; you know, a mother whose son was killed.

That bit of unpleasantness, Casey Sheehan being dead and all, has never fazed Putz. Consider the special brand of callousness it takes to endorse the descriptive of Sheehan as "a lefty Terri Schiavo." But that's Glenn Reynolds for you.

Dept. of Here Let Me Google That For You.

Megan McArdle, in a post titled "Who's Crazy Now?":

Talk of death panels and crazy signs is, if polls are to be believed, a tiny fringe of the many Americans who do not like this health care plan much.

Well, that's funny, because I happen to have Mr. McLuhan some stats right here, so, so, yeah, just let me...

Greg Sargent has the numbers from a forthcoming Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll that found only 43 percent of Republicans explicitly ruled out the conspiracy theory that “the health care reform plan being considered by President Obama and Congress creates ‘death panels’ which have the authority to subjectively determine whether or not a gravely ill or injured person should receive health care based on their ‘level of productivity in society.’”

Thirty-one percent are not sure whether such a proposal is in the bill; 26 percent think it is.

Sorry, McSuderman. That's not the fringe; that's the base of your nihilistic party.

False equivalency

Putz says:

IT’S LIKE ENRON FOR GREENS: Arrests In Carbon-Credit Trading Scam.

Yes dickhead, it is just like Enron. Except for the fact that it didn't involve billions of dollars and tens of thousands of people losing their life's savings. But now we have evidence that Both Parties are Just as Bad!

QOTD.

Jim DeMint actually said this:

Well, I grew up watching Andy Griffith, and this is a story that involved Opie, and he was essentially being blackmailed. And of course Deputy Fife got involved. But it turned out that Opie decided to take the matter into his own hands, and fight for his own freedom. And after Andy shared a story from his childhood with him about a fishing hole that a bully was running him off from, but the end of it all is that Opie took charge, he got a black eye, but he was proud of himself, and he was responsible for his own actions, and he made a difference in his own life. And it’s not always easy to be responsible. And the temptation is to give up your freedom for some kind of supposed security. But that little story just reminded me that I need to keep swinging.

Like Zombies.

This morning whilst KL was in the shower (singing the theme song to The Wire), I told her about the 39% of Americans who are too stupid to breathe and warned her that this was yet another reason not to move to/visit Staten Island.

We pondered what might be done about such people, as it was clear to us both that they pose a significant danger to others, and to kittens.

My solutions were, well, icky. She, however, is a real humanitarian and suggested that the feebs be "quarantined."

"You know, like zombies!"

Cough.

The town halls are working! The conservatives are winning!, Part Two

Still nope.

Just 34% of voters nationwide support the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats if the so-called “public option” is removed.

G-O-P! G-O-P! G-O-P!

Stossel, meet your fanbase

John Stossel writes a somewhat coherent editorial warning health care opponents that making up ludicrous charges (he cites the "death panels" hobgoblin) ultimately damages the effort to push back against the proposed reforms. Fair enough, John, although your lame-ass "Econ 101" argument doesn't help much either.

Now read the comments. They take well to being exposed to reason.

The town halls are working! The conservatives are winning!

Nope.

You sort of wonder if Putzhole and the Teabaggers realize that in the process of shitting on everything Obama does, they're doing absolutely nothing to advance their own party.

Might hit them in 2010 when they lose another round, but I think it's going to take much longer than that before they get the message.

Hehindeedy!

In line with BT's post yesterday, this Gawker comment sums up the state of affairs beautifully:

Just to keep score - we've now had a black guy, a gay guy and an Israeli Jew who have all been accused of being Nazis. Kids, this is what happens when you sleep through history class.

Heil Hitler!

Just an ordinary, concerned patriotic American there.

And very compassionate, too.

KGIL Drops John Ziegler, Massive Douchebag.

Sarah Palin's cabana boy goes down:

John Ziegler is off the air again. The former KFI-AM talk host is now also a former KGIL/1260 AM talker, gone from the station after only two months.

So what happened? Ziegler declined Tuesday to discuss the details of his exit at this time. “The real truth of this matter will eventually come out, as it always does,” he said. ...

Ziegler said his departure from KGIL had nothing to do with his work with Palin. He said an earlier version of this story suggested such a connection and was "filled with lies and distortions."

It's a long way from L.A. to Denver from the governor's manse to this big time appearance on, um, Blog Talk Radio. So sad!

Keep walking toward the light, Charles.

Little Green Footballs denounces the group (described as "full of Alex Jones type nuts" in the comments) behind the Let's Bring an AR-15 To An Obama Event stunt in Arizona, where unconcealed carry is legal. Keep walking toward the light, Mr. Johnson. It's pleasant over here.

On a side note, we really should commend the Secret Service for controlling the incidents in both New Hampshire and Arizona. If I were an agent and I saw a guy approach an Obama event wearing a pistol and the t-shirt Timothy McVeigh was arrested in, I'd drop him long before he had a chance to explain his idiotic self. As TS noted in the previous post, that's probably going to happen at some point as the "protestors" grow bigger balls.

Word.

THEY'RE NOT ANTI-HEALTHCARE REFORM -- THEY'RE JUST ON THE OTHER SIDE:

...put me down as not believing we should allow the brandishing of firearms in proximity of the president as an acceptable way of expressing opposition to the president.

Unfortunately, at some point the Secret Service is going to pop one of these goddamn crackers, providing Kenny Gladney with some company on the Wingnut Martyr Express.

Dept. of Low Expectations.

Conor Clarke:

Kudos to Ross [Douthat] for pointing out what is indeed quite obvious: The Democratic plans will not, in fact, euthanize your grandmother.

I'm pretty sure CC isn't being facetious, which means that kudos are handed out a tad too promiscuously for my taste.

(Of course, if I'm wrong than that's actually kinda funny.)

Sharon Waxman Is A Rather Unpleasant Person.

Sharon Waxman, erstwhile Timeslady, says

Leave it to the New York Times to take 5,000 words to give us a small amount of new information about the ailing Weinstein Company, which David Segal (um, who?) does in Sunday’s business section just weeks after one of the paper’s Hollywood correspondents weighed in on the very same subject.

Jealous much?

Waxman's playing above-it-all now, but she once seemed grateful to Mr. Segal when she, way back in the day, went to the Grammys "to play back-up" for him.

But I guess now that she runs shit Nikki Finke won't print works for a very prestigious website, she can elide the fact that Mr. Segal worked for the Post -- her alma fucking mater -- for 14 years. I guess that's not a long time!

Yes indeedy, she is a not very nice person.

This is exactly the narrative that will take hold if we lose the public option.

Yep.

There are growing signs that President Obama may be willing to drop one of the key parts of his health care reform plan. If it happens, chalk up a big victory for the Republicans and the insurance companies.

No one likes a loser.

Bring the crazy, but not the stupid.

I'll let you know when I get a response from the Dean of the Wisconsin Law School.

Obama doesn't have a mandate?

Putz, naturally, linked to this drivel.

My response is at FDL.

The short version? Obama's got a better mandate than Reagan did in 1980.

Great Moments in Summary Judgment

Benjamin Zycher, America's pre-eminent authority on academic merit, offers the following Shorter Michelle Obama summary:

Now, let me be blunt: Michelle Obama, the product of lifelong affirmative-action coddling, is an intellectual lightweight who fancies herself a serious thinker. Just read her Princeton senior thesis, an intermittently coherent stream-of-consciousness pile of leftist jargon, campus pseudo-seriousness, and racial-identity babble. Can there be any doubt that the Princeton administrators accepted it only because of her skin
color?

"Let me be blunt" is wingerspeak for "I haven't the time to pretend that I don't have serious psychological issues with the negroes."

Great Moments In Punditry.

Hugh Hewitt, 2005:

A Texas prosecutor with a history of abuse of his office, Ronnie Earle, has indicted Tom DeLay. Earle is a sort of Jim Garrison without the integrity. Soon to follow: Giant MSM coverage, show trial, acquittal and exoneration, DeLay's return to Majority Leader for another 20 years.

Ahem.

Public option, DOA?

Shit.

I don't see how this helps Obama. If he thinks giving away what he campaigned on to mollify a few Blue Dogs and a few Red State Senators is worth it, he's kidding himself.

"No one in America should go broke because they get sick."

Key line from Obama's op-ed.

Excellent frame -- how can one disagree with that?

But the left has Code Pink!!!!!!!

Again with this crap.

Everyone I know on the left considers Code Pink clowns. And aside from the fact that Code Pink also targeted Dems, I don't remember Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid praising them, do you?

When did Glenn Reynolds call for Bush to "moderate"?

Very nonpartisany!

BYRON YORK: GOP thinks the unthinkable: Victory in 2010. If it happens, they’ll have Obama to thank. If he’d governed as the moderate he pretended to be, they’d be facing a sure shutout.

I don't remember Putz suggesting the GOP needed to be more "moderate" after getting their asses kicked out of every level of government in 2006 and 2008. Rather, I recall him suggesting the GOP was losing because they weren't conservative enough.

At any rate, the idea that Obama's 53-39 in the Gallup is somehow cause for Republican celebration is hilarious, given the fact that they're about as popular as dogshit.

Andy McCarthy: Idiot or Liar?

Andy:

To recap, the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, started this episode by comparing American citizens who oppose Obamacare to the Nazis and asserting that her political opponents were donning “swastikas.”

Wrong.

This is what Pelosi said:

"I think they're Astroturf... You be the judge. They're carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on healthcare."

And here are photos of Teabaggers carrying swastikas.

Really, if these people couldn't just make shit up, they would never write anything.

UPDATE
Feel free to email Andy and tell him to stop making shit up.

Compare and Constrast.

Putz's bloodthirsty joviality...

CRIME CONTROL, NOT GUN CONTROL: Harlem Store Owner Shoots 4 Robbers, Killing 2.

...With a quote from the store owner in question:

His feelings the day after he pulled the trigger? “I wish I didn’t need to,” he said.

QTOD.

Please note, the following is from John Solomon, editor of The Washington Times.

John Solomon.

Of The Washington Times.

"...it is wrong, inaccurate, irresponsible and insulting for the New York Times to brand an entire newspaper as "decidedly opposed" to President Obama because of the voice of its editorial pages. Nothing can be further from the truth when it comes to our newsroom. Our news pages have no agenda except to accurately and fairly cover the news, including that made by the administration."

...said John Solomon.

Editor of The Washington Times!

[your TS coughs, gurgles, dies laughing...]

What would Friday be without Nooners?

Shorter Pegs: The lack of Republican support for Obama's health care reform proves that it sucks.

Oh, For Fuck's Sake.

Althouse:

If Obama can't convincingly prove he's not a Muslim/not born in Kenya, it only means the rumors might be true[.]

Really? So if, say...

-- Sarah Palin can't prove she didn't fuck her husband's business partner;
-- Michelle Malkin can't prove she's not an 'anchor baby'; or
-- Roger L. Simon can't prove he didn't defraud Aubrey Chernick and Jim Koshland out of $7 million

...it only means the rumors might be true?

Good to know.

Anonymous Pulitzer

I can't believe this post is attributed to "NRO Staff" - how will we know who to give the Pulitzer Prize to? It's not every day that someone breaks a story as big as "Obama polls poorly in Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah."

Can we just give the award to the entire staff? Let's tell K-Lo it's foil-wrapped chocolate and have a laugh watching her punch her incisors through the brass.

(So Say We All.)

SoT, I think I love you.

Megan McArdle discusses whether or not a married woman should change her name. We do not care.

Starbursts.

Ours pals at The Arena done made a funny:














Hehindeedy!

Glenn Reynolds vs Bruce Bartlett

For 8 years, Putz was Bush's economic cheerleader. "They love him on Wall St.," "Dude - where's my recession" etc., etc.

And naturally, as soon as Obama was inaugurated, you started seeing those photos of businesses closing with the caption, "In the time of hope and change" and images of the stock market's decline.

Liberal left-wing Obamatard Bruce Bartlett thinks all that is BS.

Conservative protesters should remember that the recession, which led to so many of the policies they oppose, is almost entirely the result of Bush’s policies. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the recession began in December 2007—long before Obama was even nominated. And the previous recession ended in November 2001, so the current recession cannot be blamed on cyclical forces that Bush inherited.

Indeed, Bush’s responsibility for the recession is implicit in every conservative analysis of its origins. The most thorough has been done by John Taylor, a respected economist from Stanford University who served during most of the Bush administration as the No. 3 official at the Treasury Department. In his book, Getting Off Track, he puts most of the blame on the Federal Reserve for holding interest rates down too low for too long.

...

Throughout the Bush years, many conservative economists, including CNBC’s Larry Kudlow, extravagantly extolled Bush’s economic policies. As late as December 21, 2007, after the recession already began, he wrote in National Review: “the Goldilocks economy is outperforming all expectations.” In a column on May 2, 2008, almost six months into the recession, Kudlow praised Bush for having prevented a recession.

But the truth was always that the economy performed very, very badly under Bush, and the best efforts of his cheerleaders cannot change that fact because the data don’t lie.

Read the whole thing.

One more time: not about health care.

I suspect Katy Abrams is like 99% of the Teabaggers at these town halls.

They're not objecting to health care reform, they're objecting to "SOCIALISM!"

Get ready for a wild ride to nowhere!

Jillian Bandes: "Santorum Iowa trip may portend Presidential aspirations."

I can really relate to this news item given that Rick and I have exactly the same odds of being elected in 2012.

Crazy 'Cuda.

Palin doubles down on "death panels."

This is what DeLay did, and what Limbaugh does. No matter how outrageous or offensive, they never take it back.

Adventures in Civility.

From CJR's interview with a New York Times photographer:

AF: You mentioned the crowd taking control of the event. There have been memos circulated online from organizers on both the right and the left about trying to get into the news media lens and approaching reporters proactively. Were people media savvy at this event? Were they coming up to you?

DW: I get the feeling that people at this point, this far into it, realize there’s a lot more media scrutiny at these events, and I think they’re much more aware that there are a lot of eyes on them and what was happening there. So I get the feeling that people were a little more careful. I don’t think we were necessarily warmly greeted as journalists covering the event. Especially a few times, once people found out I was working for The New York Times, I would get really kind of nasty remarks and these kind of things that were making assumptions that I myself or we as a newspaper had preconceived notions about them. Another photographer working for the times that day, a freelance photographer, Jessica Kourkounis, got pushed by an audience member once they realized she was working for The New York Times.

Insane.

This is going to be a long eight years.

Choices

I want whatever magical health insurance plan wingnut columnists get.

Elections have consequences.

Yes, America. It was all on paper in black and white for you to read. And you elected Obama to create a public plan.

Rod Dreher Makes a Pass At Homosexuals.

Sort of.

Eve Tushnet is a lesbian Catholic who is faithful to Rome and its teachings. She writes that Catholicism offers some unique gifts to gay Catholics, which (tragically) aren't well known. Catholicism rejects both the idea that homosexual inclinations should be blessed and indulged, and the idea that those desires can always be eliminated. So what can be done with them within a context of faithful Christian life?

The answer, of course, is for gays to "celebrate their love while still requiring that this love express itself as chaste friendship or mystical approach to God rather than as gay sex."

In the "you can't make this up" department, Rod's next post implores evangelicals to get married sooner so they can fuck each other.

It Burns.

#24.

According to wingnut bloggers (i.e. "the base"), the following are the most "respected" conservatives in America:

23) John Stossel
23) Mitt Romney
23) Daniel Hannan
23) John Bolton
16) Fred Thompson
16) Antonin Scalia
16) Glenn Reynolds
16) Bobby Jindal
16) George W. Bush
16) Sean Hannity
16) Tom Coburn
14) Victor Davis Hanson
14) Dick Cheney
12) Ed Morrissey
12) Ann Coulter
10) Jonah Goldberg
10) Newt Gingrich
9) Jim DeMint
7) Mark Levin
7) Glenn Beck
6) Charles Krauthammer
5) Mark Steyn
4) Michelle Malkin
3) Thomas Sowell
2) Sarah Palin
1) Rush Limbaugh

At least four of the top ten should be institutionalized. That's very telling.

...For the record: Levin, Beck, Malkin and Palin.

Glenn Reynolds: nothing wrong with taking a gun to a presidential event.

Really, what an asshole.

Compare that post to the extremely reasonable Allahpundit at HotAir.

Considering the lengths to which the Secret Service normally goes to investigate threats against the president, I’m amazed he wasn’t hauled in for questioning at the scene as a potential threat. People are going to beat the Second Amendment drum in the comments, but (a) I doubt it would have sat well with our readers if lefties carrying Bushitler signs had shown up to Dubya’s events packing heat and (b) having a right doesn’t mean you’re obliged to exercise it, particularly in circumstances where it would be provocative to do so.

Allahpundit also notes that death threats against 400% higher than they were against George W. Bush.

The Pride of Joan Walsh.

Camille Paglia's Drudge-bait column begins:

Buyer's remorse? Not me. At the North American summit in Guadalajara this week, President Obama resumed the role he is best at -- representing the U.S. with dignity and authority abroad. This is why I, for one, voted for Obama and continue to support him. The damage done to U.S. prestige by the feckless, buffoonish George W. Bush will take years to repair. Obama has barely begun the crucial mission that he was elected to do.

Having said that, I must confess my dismay bordering on horror at the amateurism of the White House apparatus for domestic policy. When will heads start to roll? I was glad to see the White House counsel booted, as well as Michelle Obama's chief of staff, and hope it's a harbinger of things to come. Except for that wily fox, David Axelrod, who could charm gold threads out of moonbeams, Obama seems to be surrounded by juvenile tinhorns, bumbling mediocrities and crass bully boys.

Indeed, the First Lady's Chief of Staff, Jackie Norris, was replaced.

However, while there are rumors that Gregory Craig's job is in trouble, he has not been fired.

Duh.

Aminder: the crazy teabaggers are hurting the GOP's chances to stop the health care bill.

I think this is correct.

They ramped up much too quickly. When smaller, conservative groups Astroturfed, they inevitably brought to the meetings the type of Republican activist who was itching for a fight and who would use the format to vent frustrations at President Obama himself. There were plenty of activists who really wanted to know about health care, and some who were probably misinformed -- scared out of their chairs -- to some degree, but the loudest voices tended to be the craziest, the most extreme, the least sensible, and the most easy to mock.

...

Unrestrained, these town hall meetings are going to turn off the type of voters Republicans most need to pressure Blue Dog Democrats -- independents who don't have red genes or blue genes. Both Fox and MSNBC televised Sen. Arlen Specter's raucous town hall meeting live. It was full of confrontation and protest. There were boos when Specter reaffirmed his president's Americanness.

Yeah, they went from zero to crazy way too quickly. The problem for the GOP is their shock troops are nuts, so relying on them to pursuade the middle ain't gonna work.

These town hall protests aren't about health care reform.

I made this point at FDL over the weekend, and I think it bears repeating. The Teabaggers aren't protesting health care at these town hall events, they're throwing a temper tantrum over SOCIALISM!

Listen to the "conservative Republican" woman immediately after the old nutter gets tossed.

I don't believe this is just about health care...this is about the systematic dismantling of this country. I don't want this country turning into Russia, turning into a socialized country.

This woman, presumably like the Teabagger who yelled at Lloyd Doggett, likely also opposes Social Security and Medicare. And Medicaid and welfare and public schools.

There is no rational debate to be had with people like this about the government's reform of health care.

Claudia Rosett, Communist.

Claudia Rosett, last seen here equating Bill Clinton with Neville Chamberlain, is very, very angry that Laura Ling and Euna Lee may have a deal to write a book about their North Korean ordeal. In short, Ms. Rosett simply does not care for the capitalist system:

While no one deserves the terror of being subjected to North Korea’s version of “justice,” there is something that feels simply wrong about the prospect that the two women, now safely home, stand to make a killing out of their story.

When another blogger suggests that Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee should

mortgage your homes now and start writing checks to repay the taxpayers for whatever your ransom cost us.

Rosett replies, "That sounds reasonable."

Really?

She continues, "It would be entirely fitting for Laura Ling and Euna Lee to donate whatever money they make from their story to some of the private charitable organizations whose staff — often at considerable sacrifice — dedicate themselves to genuinely helping the North Korean refugees whom these two women set out to write about."

A good rule of thumb? If you've worked in the service of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Roger L. Simon, don't presume to tell anyone about the moral obligations attached to a paycheck.

A few misguided souls update.

Cue the banjos.

An early look at a new Public Policy Polling survey finds that among North Carolina Republicans, a stunning 47% think President Obama was not born in United States, while 24% say he was and 29% are not sure.

By my math, that means 76% of North Carolina Republicans are total idiots.

So many misguided souls!

Drudge: The Leading Purveyor of Three-Day-Old News.

Please note: the bracketed headline is from a story that was published last week.

Is it possible that Drudge et al have run out of inflammatory health-care-related material?

They're Called 'Consequences.'

This is a pervasive sentiment:

"And we're tired of the government's saying that we're paid and that we're organized. We are not. We're everyday citizens," the man explained "We get together on Internet Web sites to figure out where things are going on, and what's going on -- just like the other side does. And we're sick and tired of this, we gotta take back America now."

To this guy and his fellow teabaggers, I say: Fuck you, you lost the election. See you in 2012.

El Rushbo to the ADL: screw off.

But...but...Pelosi said, but...but...Durbin said...Geebus, he sounds like he's 4 years old. Pathetic.

An adult, after pissing off the Simon Wiesenthal Center, might say, "Gee, I guess I crossed the line."

Not the leader of the conservative movement.

That Word "Enviable", I...

Ross Douthat:

No movie has made saving — and saving, and saving — your virginity seem as enviable as “The 40-Year Old Virgin,” whose closing segue into connubial bliss played like an infomercial for True Love Waits.

Really?

Glenn Reynolds now in favor of protesting.

Putz asks,

Remember when protest was patriotic?

I don't recall Putz calling protesters of the Bush administration patriotic. I do, however, remember him accusing them of treason.

And you can actually leave comments and remind him!

Glenn Reynolds calls President Obama a "thug."

Very non-partisan!

This is what upsets Putzy.

Yesterday, at a rally for R. Creigh Deeds in Virginia, President Obama said: “I don’t want the folks who created the mess do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don’t mind cleaning up after them, but don’t do a lot of talking.”

For Barack Obama, democracy appears to be a distraction. He really does seem to view himself as a Caesar.

Putz asks, "What would the reaction be if a Republican President said this?"

If?

"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."

No socialized medicine!

IOKIY White, Stupid and Republican.

But I repeat myself:

When someone talks back to a cop in his own house, that’s disorderly conduct.

When people make death threats and start fights in public, that’s exercising their First Amendment rights.

Nooners pulls a Putz.

She covers for the nutjobs.

"Obama's the one who's at fault for all this fear and anger," so it's justified. And there's just been a few boos, anyway.

Amazing.

Calling them what they are.

Liars.

As a columnist who regularly dishes out sharp criticism, I try not to question the motives of people with whom I don't agree. Today, I'm going to step over that line.

The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.

Read it. It's good.

I Swear She Says Something About 'Scrambled Eggs for Jihadis.'

I watched a couple of minutes and then decided it would be more pleasant to have a lutefisk enema.

Lynchings are so funny.

They've crossed the line.

This is starting to remind me of the pitchforks and torches we saw during McPalin events. That didn't work out so well for them.

Still waiting for the correction

(Readers of both blogs may note the stylistic difference between this one - short, mean, and to the point - and my other blog - long, mean, and taking the most enjoyable road to the point. Nonetheless I feel like this needs a cross-posting due to its Putz-heavy emphasis)

I just had a long phone conversation with Glenn Reynolds. He told me that he is going to post a lengthy correction and apology regarding a post he made on March 2. Here is what he said:

THE DOW-JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE since the passage of the stimulus bill. Looks like a vote of “no confidence” to me.

In the five months since he decided that the DJIA was a reliable indicator of Presidential and/or policy performance the benchmark index has risen by 37%. 37%! So tomorrow Glenn is going to write about how the Market God has bestowed upon our President the most confident of votes.



Noting that two things happen at the same time and assuming that causality exists between them is called spurious correlation. It is what stupid people do when they are getting ready to make really bad predictions - not just the bad "I think this is the Cubs' year" kind, the epic-bad JFK "I think it's OK to leave the top off the convertible today" kind - or lose a lot of money in the stock market. The fact that both the stimulus and the Dow Jones Average are related to the same central theme (our macro-economy) creates the reassuring but incorrect sense that correlation does in fact imply causation. False. Anything can be correlated with market movement and causality is always - always - a bad assumption. The market is like secret recipe hobo stew: there are so goddamn many ingredients, many of which the average person does not care to know about, that no one can say with certainty what causes what.

To wit: let's say I shaved my balls on Friday. Note that the market responded positively, only to once again decline as a vote of no confidence when the team of international observers (led by Jimmy Carter, former Canadian PM Brian Mulrooney, and the Dalai Lama) detected the growth of stubble.



The evidence is beyond dispute. My balls move markets.

Back in January the USA Today noted that the stock market performs significantly better - nearly 25% - in years in which the Steelers win the Super Bowl. And that America-hating prick Larry Fitzgerald almost ruined it all.

The market is not rational regardless of how many business school professors pitched tents over its majesty as an arbiter of every political, social, and economic process. Remember, the market once told us that DrKoop.com was worth $45/share. It decided that theGlobe.com was worth $97/share (3 months later: a dime). It is not a parliament which issues meaningful votes of confidence and no confidence. Only a long view of market trends can provide useful (and retrospective, mind you) insights. Trying to use its day-to-day and week-to-week fluctuations as evidence of one's preferred version of current events is logical to the same extent that cavemen banging on drums to make the sun rise (and it worked - every day!!!) made sense.

Another right-wing shooter.

Again.

Following on the heels of Richard Poplawski, Scott Roeder, and James von Brunn, 48-year-old George Sodini, angry about miscegenation between black men and white women, the liberal media, and Obama getting elected, allegedly opened fire last night into a Pittsburgh gym killing three women. For some reason, the AP leaves all the gender, racial, and political stuff out.

A few things should go without saying: This man has little in common with mainstream conservatives. At the same time, right-wing extremist violence, partially due to people who are unable to handle a black man being president, is a problem that the Feds should be worried about -- which, at the same time, doesn't give the government the authority to ignore people's individual rights in the name of security.

It's unclear to me why conservatives can understand the former, but can't seem to grasp the latter, and continue to pretend that men like this don't actually exist.

The Pittsburgh shooter wasn't "left" or "right" -- he was just crazy.

[/Anchor Baby]

Lady Onion Ring Delivers.

When evaluating the Althouse oeuvre, one must confront the eternal question: Abject stupidity or performance art? The answer, I'm pretty sure, is the former:

There is something about the way the 2 seated men are posing as such good little boys with their hands in the I'm-behaving-myself position that demands that what I really want to see is Bill Clinton reach over and feel the thigh Kim Jong-Il, who exclaims: "No broh job!"

I've read enough Althouse that the stupid no longer burns -- but it sure does tingle.

Personal responsibility update.

From Jamie Kirchick.

Kathleen Parker on the GOP's Southern problem.

Ya think?

Not all Southern Republicans are wing nuts. Nor does the GOP have a monopoly on ignorance or racism. And, the South, for all its sins, is also lush with beauty, grace and mystery. Nevertheless, it is true that the GOP is fast becoming regionalized below the Mason-Dixon line and increasingly associated with some of the South's worst ideas.

US Journalists Freed

Bill Clinton meets Kim. Journalists pardoned hours later.

Just remember that you can't negotiate with Evil and it is a sign of weakness to have dialogue with The Enemy. It would have been so much more effective if we invaded.

Big Dog=Appeaser? (update)

"Clinton expressed words of sincere apology to Kim Jong Il for the hostile acts committed by the two American journalists against the DPRK after illegally intruding into it," the news agency reported. "Clinton courteously conveyed to Kim Jong Il an earnest request of the U.S. government to leniently pardon them and send them back home from a humanitarian point of view. --CNN

So, who will be the first wingnut to equate Bill Clinton with Neville Chamberlain?

• Ralph Peters
• One of the mung-slurpers at the Corner
• Putz
• Bob Owens
• Michelle Malkin
  

First prize, a Cadillac Eldorado...

UPDATE: Dougj, my friend, we have a sort-of winner. It is, of course, Claudia Rosett (last seen comparing Obama himself to Chamberlain):

But the huge and disturbing question is, what else has Bill Clinton delivered? And to whom? ...

What will be the real costs of this high-profile brand of ransom payment? It’s not only the tyrant regime of Pyongyang that’s noting the rewards of hostage politics – which is becoming hard to distinguish from Obama’s broad efforts in any event to engage with the world’s most ruthless and manipulative tyrannies. Iran has just picked up three Americans accused by Iranian authorities of straying over the border from Iraq. Which ex-president should Iran now expect to come calling? Or, given the current calculus of hostage politics, and appeasement whatever the cost, should we expect that Obama will do it himself?

Blue Dog uses RNC talking points.

They're not even pretending anymore.

Boren is the worst of the worst.

Glenn Reynolds thinks you're stupid.

Well, at least his wingnut readers.

The Tea Parties are working! The Democrats are retreating!

Nope.

An analysis of Gallup Poll Daily tracking data from the first six months of 2009 finds Massachusetts to be the most Democratic state in the nation, along with the District of Columbia. Utah and Wyoming are the most Republican states, as they were in 2008. Only four states show a sizeable Republican advantage in party identification, the same number as in 2008. That compares to 29 states plus the District of Columbia with sizeable Democratic advantages, also unchanged from last year.

Read it and weep, Putz.

Texas, the red state Douthat most admires.

Really easy to smack down.

And again, the only reason we're not running a budget deficit is the very blue Obama stimulus.

Alchemy

Michelle Malkin's book about the first six months of the Obama presidency comes out six months and seven days after his Inauguration on Jan. 20. I'm no mathemagician, but one might reasonably wonder how in the name of Jesus H. Tap-Dancing Christ that is possible.

I think I figured it out, though.

Wingnuts and Statistics.

It's not a pretty sight:

I'm at a conference at the beach in Florida. I just read at Ann Althouse's blog that people aren't going to the beach as much this year. But this place seems fairly busy so I'm not seeing much evidence of that.

This kind of myopia is at the root of the conservative opposition to health-care reform -- i.e. they don't know anyone without health-care, so who could possibly need it? It's the inverse of the apocryphal Pauline Kael Nixon quote.

We're not against it, we just have differences.

Yuval Levin's guilty conscience prompts him to note that:

All sides in the contemporary debate are trying to find a way to provide health insurance to more people more efficiently and cheaply. They are not divided about any fundamental ethical question. People on the Left are not saying we should provide unlimited medical care to all without thinking about the cost because health care is a right: They’re arguing their approach would cost less and work better for more people. People on the Right are not saying we should forget about the poor because health care is just a privilege: They’re arguing their approach would cost less and work better for more people.

See, wingers don't oppose healthcare. They just support the option that means some people won't have it. That doesn't make them bad people!

The Rump of the GOP.

Putz appears proud that his new stupid pals made an obnoxious spectacle of themselves at the Philly townhall.

He shouldn't be:

When I asked one of the belligerents why he and his companions wouldn't stop shouting so others could speak and be heard, he shouted that it was his right to yell under "the first amendment." I then asked why he couldn't respect the first amendment rights of others and he answered by glaring at me and walking away.

After the question and answer segment ended, I asked three of the boisterous opponents of health care why they do not support it and one of them pulled a copy of the Constitution from his hand and waving it, said, "Health care is not covered in the Constitution." Their arguments were illogical and based on lack of knowledge and an abundance of fear. I commented to them that they were being had, that they were working against their own best interests and they kept waving the Constitution.

The fury and rancor in the faces of the right wingers at the town meeting made it clear that this was not about health care only. It is about fear and raw anger, already inside them, now directed toward the health care debate. They see defeating health care legislation as their opportunity to re-visit the Presidential election.

Indeed.

...Wow. These are some creepy folks.

Lose the morning.

Creepy!

Yes, Politico's "Arena" feature sucks, but sometimes it sucks in surprising ways. Take today's contribution, for example. It's from some Cato guy named Roger Pilon:

I have little doubt that President Obama was born in Hawaii, but the issue is a bit more complicated than birther critics have made it out to be. It turns out that the “certification of live birth,” which Obama has made available, has considerably less information, including signatures, than Hawaii’s “certificate of live birth,” which Obama has not made available. Obviously, he could settle this matter in an instant (except for the lunatic fringe), simply by asking that the “certificate” be made available. So why hasn’t he? Is there something in that certificate that he wants concealed? Or is it that he wants the issue, for its political value? Again, I have little doubt that there’s nothing here. So let’s resolve that “little doubt.” If we don’t, the issue could become dangerous.

Buddy, the mere fact that you ask these questions means you are the lunatic fringe.

Well done, Politico, for giving this dirtbag "policy scholar" a platform.

Oddly Appropriate Caption.

Eric Cantor: birther movement is all the liberal bloggers' fault.

The GOP is the party of personal responsibility.

I guess we can officially categorize World Nut Daily as a left-wing blog.

Michelle Malkin explains why Skip Gates was arrested.

Very helpful!

Though how they reconcile this with "I need an AK-47 to protect myself from the coming Obama police state" is hard to figure.

Hahahahaha!

I was unaware that our buddy, Robert S. McCain -- a former colleague calls him a "white supremacist," doncha know? -- had such a sense of humor. RSM looks into the rumors that the Palins are getting a d-i-v-o-r-c-e, and fumes:

Among the Old School editors for whom I worked was the legendary Wes Pruden of The Washington Times. Wes would have personally fired any reporter who ever turned in such a smelly pile of steaming nonsense, which wouldn't have gotten past any assistant metro-desk editor who valued his paycheck.

Oh lord, Stace, that is a good one.

Perhaps when my back was turned, Pruden's rag finally confirmed that Hillary Clinton hung pornographic ornaments from the White Christmas tree [The Clinton Wars, p. 333], that the Clintons covered up the murder of Vince Foster [The Hunting of the President, p. 97] and that Bill Clinton's penis has a "distinguishing physical characteristic" [The Hunting of the President, p. 97].

Up by your bootstraps.

Hehindeedy!

Move over, Kristols, Kagans and Podhoretzes, a new dynasty is emerging. To check it all out, read Jonah link to Lucianne to support Josh, who's now employed by Lucianne. They all agree that more Americans ought to stand on their own two feet.

Splitsville for 'Cuda and the First Dude

Real America, patriotic America values.

AlaskaReport has learned this morning that Todd Palin and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin are to divorce. Multiple sources in Wasilla and Anchorage have confirmed the news.

Not your father's GOP.

Despite Putzy's insistence that the GOP hasn't changed much over the years, it has. A lot.

Problem is, bipartisanship ain't what it used to be, and for one fundamental reason: Republicans ain't what they used to be. It's true that there was considerable Republican congressional support, back in the day, for Social Security and Medicare. But in the '30s, there were progressive Republicans who stood to the left of the Democrats. Nebraska Republican George Norris, who for decades called for establishing public power companies to compete with price-gouging private companies, was the father of the Tennessee Valley Authority. In the '60s, Rockefeller Republicans supported civil rights legislation and Medicare.

Today, no such Republicans exist. In New England and New York, historically the home of GOP moderates, Republicans occupy just two of 51 House seats. Nationally, the party is dominated by Southern neo-Dixiecrats. In their book "Off Center," political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson compared congressional Republicans of different eras and concluded that a Republican House member in 2003 with a voting record that placed him at the median of his party was 73 percent more conservative than the median GOP member of the early '70s.

Max Baucus, then, isn't negotiating universal coverage with the party of Everett Dirksen, in which many members supported Medicare. He's negotiating it with the party of Barry Goldwater, who was dead set against Medicare. It's a fool's errand that is creating a plan that's a marvel of ineffectuality and self-negation -- a latter-day Missouri Compromise that reconciles opposites at the cost of good policy. Obama should thank the solonic six for their work, and, as much as is politically practicable, ignore it.