There are times I truly feel sorry for Markos Moulitsas Zúniga AKA “Kos.” His fans and worshipers number in the millions. He has the top political weblog in the country. He gets thousands of dollars a month in advertising.

Well, okay. I don’t feel that sorry for him. After all, his nickname, “Screw ‘em” Kos, was given for the curious epitaph Mr. Zúniga’ directed at those unfortunate souls in Fallujah two years ago who were murdered and then hung from a bridge while a crowd danced a jig in celebration. I’m told the offending post has mysteriously disappeared from his archives. Too bad he didn’t go ahead and delete most of what he wrote during the last election cycle.

But let’s give credit where credit is due. Kos has had it with the tin foil hat crowd:

Today I did something I’ve never done before (not even during the Fraudster mess), and wish I’d never had to do.

I made a mass banning of people perpetuating a series of bizarre, off-the-wall, unsupported and frankly embarrassing conspiracy theories.

I have a high tolerance level for material I deem appropriate for this site, but one thing I REFUSE to allow is bullshit conspiracy theories. You know the ones—Bush and Blair conspired to bomb London in order to take the heat off their respective political problems. I can’t imagine what fucking world these people live in, but it sure ain’t the Reality Based Community.

So I banned these people, and those that have been recommending diaries like it. And I will continue to do so until the purge is complete, and make no mistake—this is a purge.

A purge! A purge! Oh, really?

Update: I’ve been reinstating some of the banned accounts as they email me. Some people wondered why there wasn’t any warning. There have been warnings from others—repeated pleadings for people to ground themselves in reality.

It’s telling that I have NEVER done something like this before. Because this has been an extreme situation. This isn’t about disagreeing with what people are saying. If that was the case, everyone would’ve been banned by now. The myth of the “echo chamber” is just that. A myth.

But as for warnings, well, this has been my warning. I wanted it clear that I was serious, and I think that has come through. I am reinstating those who ask to be reinstated. But the message has been sent.

The message has been sent…but has it been received? Here’s one of the first commenters on this “Purge Post”:

Who decides which conspiracy theories are acceptable?

The American people were lied to repeatedly in order to go to war against Iraq. Conspiracy theory? Nope, fact.

Don’t know enough about either of the last two to decide either way. That’s up to the individual.

This “Emily Litella” moment is predictable and, as Kevin at Wizbang points out, it “makes one wonder how many Kossites will be left?”

Because once you get down to it, the modern Democratic Party is little better than a third world conspiracy mill that constantly feeds its wild eyed members ever more bizarre and outlandish intrigues in order to assuage all the slights – both real and imagined – received at the hands of their political opponents.

This flight from reality would be amusing if we weren’t fighting a war for our survival and trying to overturn centuries of oppression in the middle east. The sad fact is, as I’ve stated many times on this site, we need the left in order to win this war and succeed in the middle east. But like Tom Cruise in Top Gun following his crash that killed his best friend, the left simply is incapable of engaging the enemy. They are standing on the sidelines like a bunch of old men at a shuffleboard tournament, kibitzing and criticizing while not lifting a finger to help.

To say that they were obstructionists would be incorrect because they’ve made themselves totally irrelevant in the national security debate. The harm they do is that their conspiracy theories and overinflated rhetoric about Nazis and death camps are used as propaganda by our enemies to provoke and inflame the passions of the Arab street. In short, while they hate it when I say it, their rhetoric gives aid and comfort to the people we’re fighting. It gives them the only thing they have at this point – hope. Hope that the people who really want to fight this war and win will be thrown out of office and people who have no stomach for the fight are put in. It’s the only chance they have and like a drowning man hanging on to a piece of driftwood, the terrorists have latched on to it and are hanging on until help arrives…

The Democrats and their apologists who make up the community of Kos.

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin:

Wouldn’t it be something if the Democrat Party took a hint and tried draining its own fever swamps, too?

Now that would be a public works project that I could support enthusiastically. The only drawback would be the size and scope of the endeavor. Maybe we should start with something a little more manageable.

Like draining the Everglades.

Charles Johnson is also noticing and has a thought about Kos’ deliberate use of the word “purge”:

Once this revelation dawned upon him, in true reactionary fashion he carried out a “purge” to get rid of some of the nuts—and then had to un-purge and let them back in.

You ever hear a conservative use the word “purge” to describe an ideological cleansing? Hitler “purged” the S.A. and had his buddy Ernst Roehm murdered after dragging him out of the bed he was sharing with his male lover. Stalin “purged” the Red Army by having tens of thousands of officers executed, many of whom committed no crime whatsoever. It seems that the word has meaning and usage for only the most despicable tyrants in history.

That would place Kos in familiar territory.