Pufferfish

The Big One?

If only Althouse was right:

Rush Limbaugh has said on his show many times that once the government runs health care, there is a threat that life-or-death decisions will be made based on politics, and people will worry that if they criticize the government or espouse the wrong opinions decisions will go against them.

Then again, maybe Rush is eying the estate tax loophole in 2010...

Shoot Now, Aim Later

After a mini-blogging Sabbatical that coincided with the news that some swarthy yocal blew his balls off on a flight into Detroit (and who hasn't contemplated that when faced with landing on holiday in America's Beirut?) along with word that the Florida Gators coach was getting the vapors from Timmy Tebow's looming induction onto a CFL roster not near you, I came home to find Christmas cheer isn't doing anything to deter the right from indulging in unhealthy levels of stupidity. (Side note: a few days of not reading blogs is a detox we should all indulge in.) In fact, a dash of failed terrorism—cut with scenes of Obama playing golf instead of minding his place and caddying—mixed with a bit too much quality family time, seems to have turned up the unhinged obnoxiousness dial. We're at Orange on the wingnut threat level. This doesn't bode well for 2010:

You have to wonder if there’s a point at which these bloggers and Fox News will feel ashamed of themselves for spreading such deliberate falsehoods. They just fall in line like mindless parrots and repeat this stuff without even bothering to check if it’s true.

You actually don't have to wonder. Shame is for the weak. But at least this epic take-down of David Brooks' lame attempt to portray Obama as a Christian Soldier lifted my spirits:

Brooks is a perfect example of the kind of spineless Beltway geek we always see beating the war drum at times like these. It’s because nebbishly little dorks like Brooks and Paul Wolfowitz and David Frum got their books dumped in high school that we end up dropping daisy cutters on Afghan sheep herds and shipping working class American kids halfway around the world to get their nuts blown off. That sounds like a simplistic explanation, but anyone who doesn’t have a keen ear for the pencil-pusher’s eternal quest for macho cred is going to have a hard time understanding Washington politics. Brooks’s columns have always been the easiest way to take the pulse of that particular dynamic, and it sure seems now that bureaucratic momentum for intervention and more intervention is re-inflating the chests of these Beltway generals.

There's really only one trick left if Obama wants to placate Republicans: gratuitous dick swinging.

Boiling It Down

Al Gore, on why climate deniers get so much attention:

If the people that believed the moon landing was staged on a movie lot had access to unlimited money from large carbon polluters or some other special interest who wanted to confuse people into thinking that the moon landing didn't take place, I'm sure we'd have a robust debate about it right now.

Also, too:

This morning, Gore appeared on MSNBC, where Andrea Mitchell read from Sarah Palin’s Facebook page to ask the former vice president questions about climate change.

Mitchell is using the same medium high school boys use when bragging about fictitious sexual conquests that allegedly happened at a party the cops totally crashed to ask the country's leading figure on climate change about categorically false assertions. A while back Krugman joked that the way our media covers political debates they'd give equal play to a dispute over the shape of the earth without ever pointing out that the world is, in fact, a big fat sphere. Never mind pointing out that anyone advocating the earth is flat is a functional moron. Mitchell isn't doing anything to undercut Krugman's argument.

No Bias Is Liberal Bias

The guy who started Wikipedia adheres to the worldview of Ayn Rand. He's a self-described libertarian. And his hope for the website is to give every person on the planet "free access to the sum of all human knowledge." Hmm. That last bit sounds suspiciously subversive and anti-freedom. So it should come as no surprise that Wikipedia's founder is answering criticism from social conservatives who argue the online encyclopedia—where people anonymously collaborate to produce a collective definition—is too liberal. His response:

I think maybe for some people not having a bias is the same as having a liberal bias.

Can't put it any better than that. News editors and media production assistants take note. The greatest trick the right ever pulled was mainlining the liberal bias theme. And for those scoring at home, a website run by a Rand devotee is not conservative enough for conservatives. So it goes.

Republican Race Relations Update

Xenophobic conservative is the new black:

And this brings up the question of whether "teabagger" could be kind of a conservative N-word: to be used in the family, but radioactive outside the family.

It's pretty easy to envision George Will and David Brooks greeting each other with some dap and a "sup, Teabagga."

Morons.

Permanent Campaign

When you throw a tantrum over every slight, real or imagined, you're bound to overreach:

Even more interesting, a majority of Repubicans, 53%, says the Bow is appropriate, too, versus only 40% who said it isn’t.

But no worries. On to the next choreographed freak out.

Putting It Out There

I go back and forth over whether Ann Coulter actually believes the crap she says. Either way, the larger point is that there's a big audience for her brand of hate and it has made her very wealthy. And I guess you could say she at least deserves a bit of credit for dropping the pretenses and coded rhetoric:

It cannot be said often enough that the chief of staff of the United States Army, Gen. George Casey, responded to a massacre of 13 Americans in which the suspect is a Muslim by saying: "Our diversity ... is a strength."

As long as the general has brought it up: Never in recorded history has diversity been anything but a problem. [...]

"Diversity" is a difficulty to be overcome, not an advantage to be sought. True, America does a better job than most at accommodating a diverse population. We also do a better job at curing cancer and containing pollution. But no one goes around mindlessly exclaiming: "Cancer is a strength!" "Pollution is our greatest asset!"

Profiling The Profilers

"I say, profile away." -- Sarah Palin in an interview with The Weekly Standard while blaming a culture of political correctness that prevents racial profiling.

I'm going to make a leap of faith and assume Palin is talking about Muslim-looking Americans as potential terrorists and not Christian-looking Americans as potential terrorists.

The right has been eager to place blame on political correctness for shielding Nidal Hasan from investigators. It's an ugly critique. These conservatives are stirring up resentment against minorities instead of coping to the fact that clues were clearly missed for reasons unknown.

Until we see an internal memo stating that "Hasan is determined to strike inside the U.S., but liberal groups don't want him touched because Muslims might not like it," this PC talk should be viewed as little more than minority scapegoating that demonizes multi-cultural tolerance and as a tacit assurance that the latent fears of bigots are warranted.

Brutal, Racist Ignorance

I know it's the Washington Times. But still:

It's no fault of the president that he has no natural instinct or blood impulse for what the America of "the 57 states" is about. He was sired by a Kenyan father, born to a mother attracted to men of the Third World and reared by grandparents in Hawaii, a paradise far from the American mainstream.

Sired?

I'm sure Wesley Pruden is already working on a column decrying false accusations of racism.

Reading the comments is even scarier. There's a chilling contempt on the right desperately in need of honest, sane leadership.

Perspective

It's important to remember where you came from:

The funny thing about all of this is that no matter how bad all their ideas are, no matter how disastrous their governance has been, no matter how many horrible things they have done to the economy and this country, what really is killing the Republican party is that deep down, they are just complete assholes. You see it in the way they treat women, you see it in the way they treat minorities, you see it in the way they treat homosexuals, you see it in the way they treat anyone who is not a white Christian, and you see it in the way they treat anyone who disagrees with them slightly about anything. They just have no respect for anyone, and it shows. People don’t like to be treated like crap, and grown-ups don’t want to be associated with people who yell “You lie” or scream “socialism” or “Hitler” or accuse you of being a terrorist whenever they don’t get their way. [...]

You can’t help but notice that they are just loudmouthed jerks, stubborn bully boys, and insensitive and insecure cads. James Wolcott once wrote that Eric Cantor looked like the “pricky proprietor of the Jerk Store,” and that could be applied to the majority of the prominent Republicans out there. I guess that should be suspected from a movement in which the only thoughts are “Fuck you, I got mine.”