Copied from an email exchange between me and Mrs. Chickenbutt:
I’d argue that Michelle Malkin is worse than Ann Coulter. Coulter is clearly just in it for the fame and the entertainment value. She really doesn’t know anything about any of the issues, she just goes on TV and says the most inflammatory thing possible so they’ll keep inviting her back. Her books are the same way. They’re poorly written and famously unsourced. Most people just read them to see what asinine thing she’ll say next.
Malkin, on the other hand, is so stupid she’s actually dangerous. She has a legion of devoted followers who will literally do anything she says. These are the wingnuttiest of the wingnuts, the people who have created a bizarre proto-reality around themselves wherein Democrats and liberals all have devil horns and white Christians are the most put-upon people in the country. (Did you know she sicced her minions on the family of a six-year-old who had the audacity to appear at a Dem photo op regarding SCHIP? They stalked the kid and his family, peered in the windows of their house and described everything in detail on her blog.)
Malkin will slam her fist on the table and shout at the top of her lungs that black is white, and when someone actually takes the time to prove to her that black is irrefutably black she’ll just shrug and move on to the next faux outrage.
I’m always amazed at the fundies’ ability to ignore pointless wars, torture, the needy, the hungry and abused of the world, but they’ll come out in full force against a plan that might actually help people.
The best term limit for Sotomayor is that she is a fat woman and will hopefully die of heart attack or stroke soon. Maybe she’ll choke to death on a jalapeño popper or a cheese enchilada.
Apparently everything, including lost socks and the fall of the Roman Empire, is ACORN’s fault.
-Your internet went out? ACORN.
-Transformers 2 really, really sucked. ACORN.
-The northeastern tomato blight? ACORN.
-That thing that collided with Jupiter? ACORN.
-The claw-your-eyes-out Free Credit Report songs? ACORN.
-When your coffee isn’t hot enough to dissolve non-dairy creamer and so it sits at the top in big glob? ACORN.
-Eczema? ACORN.
I have nothing to add to this except to say that Sessions is an ass:
“Empathy for one party is always prejudice against another.”
- Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama
I was struck by this key sentence in Sessions’ opening remarks Monday in the Sonia Sotomayor hearings, especially because he presented it as the essential logic behind their opposition to Sotomayor — their abiding fear that when she sits on the court, she’ll be ruling against every white man who crosses her path.
We know this, according to their logic, because she is Latino — and because she emphasizes her “empathy” for other Latinos, she will be prejudiced against any non-Latinos in her courtroom.
It is, as logic goes, about as obviously faulty as syllogisms get. Normal human empathy is not exclusive — that is, our ability to feel empathy for one party does not necessarily exclude empathy for another party (or moreover, in Sessions’ formulation, necessitate an animus to any other party). Being empathetic typically means the ability to place oneself in another person’s shoes regardless of background. Identifying closely with one group at the exclusion of another typically is the antithesis of empathy.
What Sessions is describing is not empathy but rather the crude tribalism that underscores and animates most racist belief systems, and has done so since time immemorial. It is, essentially, an almost astonishing confession to being racist on Sessions’ part.
And it animates not just Sessions but nearly the whole of movement conservatism and the Republican Party. If you were to poll Republican senators this week and ask them if they agreed with Sessions’ “logic,” I’d wager the numbers would be in the vicinity of 90 percent.
Is there a less legitimate news outlet than the New York Post?
In an article cleverly titled “Tail to the Chief” (that headline writer’s parents must be so proud), the New York Post echoes Matt Drudge in claiming that Obama was caught looking at a 17-year-old’s butt at the G8 summit in Italy.
Alas, the truth rears its ugly head as it turns out the picture is a freeze-frame of a video that actually shows Obama turning to help a woman down the steps. Even Fox News, infamous for its deceitful cropping and/or misrepresentation of any quote, picture or video of President Obama, debunked this nonsense when reliable wingnut Greta van Susteren described it as a “lying picture that’s going around the Web.”
Even after said debunking by van Susteren, other shows and personalities on Fox continue to harp on this non-story.
As usual, my favorite commentary comes from the Rude Pundit:
When we in Left Blogsylvania laughed our asses off at Bush’s stupid facial expression when he couldn’t open a Chinese door or when he massaged the shoulders of the leader of another country, it was because he actually did those things.
UPDATE: Still going. And the right-wing analysis just gets worse and worse.
Here’s video of Glenn Beck and some wingnut guest of his, Michael Scheuer, actually wishing for bin Laden to launch another attack on the U.S.
Actual quote: “Only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently, and with as much violence as necessary.”
MSNBC dedicates an entire segment every hour to expressing outrage over Letterman’s remarks about Sarah Palin, but they don’t seem to have any problem with far worse remarks which they pay Pat Buchanan to repeat on their network.
