November 2008

Shorter Warner Todd Huston:

• Anyone who helps black youth register to vote is a race hustler. As a white man, I am totally qualified to comment on the terrible state of black culture. Fo’ shizzle. …Wait, why isn’t anyone interested in talking about race with me?

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard, and shamelessly pilfered from Sadly, No.

Sara Robinson deftly and eloquently dismantles Ten Myths Conservatives Believe About Progressives. An excerpt:

4. Liberals hate our troops.

We love our troops. We love them so much that we want them brought home safe and sound to their families, as soon as possible.

This one’s almost depressingly easy. Who blocked the new GI Bill because it might encourage troops not to re-up? Who refused to increase VA funding? Who oversaw last year’s debacle at Walter Reed? Who is making soldiers buy their own body armor?

News flash: it ain’t the libruls. Putting a yellow ribbon decal on your car is not enough. Making sure our troops have everything they need to do their jobs — and keeping our promises to them when they get home — is putting our money where our mouth is. Liberals have been there doing the heavy lifting from the start, while the conservatives in government have been nowhere on the scene unless there was a photo op involved.

(hat tip: Dangerous Intersection)

One thing about wingnuts: Once they latch on to a lie they like, there’s virtually nothing that will get them to let go of it.

Take Scott Malensek, a writer over at the wingnut blog Flopping Aces:

In fact, most of the WMD claims that were made before the invasion turned out to be true.

No, mumbles. Those claims were pretty much dismissed as fantasy years ago, as Media Matters has documented:

Sometimes I wonder if humankind is just too damned stupid to survive. Then I hear of brilliant kids like Stanislaw Gunkel, who champion the power of reason and logic, and I realize we’ve got a pretty decent chance:

My mom told me that I shouldn't base my election analysis on "feelings" (I like him/her) or "beliefs" (I share his/her beliefs) but on logical arguments. She asked me to create my own rational explanations for my support of Obama. Here is one of my arguments:

McCain and Palin are not be qualified to be President / Vice President of the U.S. The President's job is to do good for the country and the world. To do good for the country, the President must make smart decisions on important situations.

Governor Palin believes the world is 6000 years old. This is absurd. This is not a rational belief. This is a mistake. Scientists, experiments and evidence have shown this to be completely false. Therefore, she is not rational. If she is not rational, she should not be allowed to be President or Vice President.

Please vote for Barack Obama.

Go get ‘em, Stas.

(hat tip: Crooks and Liars)

Political cartoonist Ted Rall offers a less-than-glittering appraisal of the state of the American polity:

…[V]ery nearly half of the American electorate voted Republican. After seven years of not finding (or looking for) Osama. After five years of horror in Iraq. After eight years of shrinking paychecks. After everything that's happened, nearly half of voters wanted more of the same.

If the Republicans had picked a better candidate, they would have won. If Obama had presented a truly distinct alternative to conservatism — socialized healthcare, say, or opposing both stupid wars rather than the least popular stupid one — he would have lost. Conservatism? Dead? Not a chance.

A change is gonna come. But this ain't it.

The election of Barack Obama is a first step towards an American future based on rationality, justice, and compassion — not an end in itself. There is still much work to be done.

I’ve been seeing a lot of this from the wingnuts in recent days:

Robert at American and Proud:

Working together is a two way street Barack Hussein Obama and when you were on the other side of the street, you never exhibited ANY “working together” traits, neither did HARRY REID or NANCY PELOSI. So “Working together as you call it, really means “Kneel before me”.

Kneeling will not be happening in the conservative realm.. Buck Farack Obama.

Ken Marrero at Publius’ Forum:

I say, Obama will be the President; but he will never be my President.

Raven at And Rightly So:

Just say no to Barry.

“Emperor” Misha at Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler:

So now that you’ve finally gotten your Messiah elected, you “52 percenters” are all about making up with us “48 percenters”, working together and promising to listen to us and respect us even, it is to laugh, “fight for us?”

For the sake of “unity?”

…you are very cordially invited to go fuck yourselves in anatomically impossible ways with rusty, sharp farm tools.

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ:

Sorry, folks. No frakkin’ sale. We remember “Jesusland.”… You spent the last eight years engaged in a disgusting orgy of divisive political hatred and now you want to play nice and pretend we’re all united now?

So it looks like America has its own little cadre of dead-enders — refuseniks who are determined to do everything they can to hold this country back from the progress that it must make to ensure a secure and prosperous future.

And to them I say: Go for it. Please.

John Amato point out that all this childish obtuseness from the right is a good thing:

I saw this last week and didn’t get a chance to make the clip, but Bay Buchanan was on CNN and told us how the right wing will bring bipartisanship to the table as Obama takes office.

BUCHANAN: Well, it all depends on which direction the country—Obama wants to take the country. If he is really going to govern from the center and recognizes that the nation is center to right, then we’re gonna work with him, just as we worked with Bill Clinton to get welfare reform…

Obama won a clear mandate to lead this country the way he sees fit and America wants to get things done. So this statement by Buchanan, and dozens of other conservative talking heads like her in the days since the election, is very dangerous for the Right. If they are perceived as obstructionists during this time of heavy economic crisis then their brand of politics will be damaged all the more.

Personally, I hope they do it. They helped make the case for Obama with their constant personal attacks as well as calling him a “Socialist” and a “Marxist.” Keep up the good work, guys and gals. You are making my job so much easier.

The more the wingnut dead-enders sit and whine and hold their breaths till they turn blue, the more they will marginalize themselves. I certainly hope they will make good on their promise to do nothing but obstruct, obstruct, obstruct for the next four years. There is little that would benefit the tone of political discourse in this country as much as seeing these mindless fanatics make very public asses of themselves.

The wingnut right is having a field day blaming the election of Barack Obama for recent drops in the stock market. The facts, as usual, are a bit more complex.

To wit:

One cannot expect a wingnut to pay any attention to the facts. Such complex mental gymnastics are far too much work.

(hat tip: Matthew Yglesias)