Right Wing Nut House

The world can be too real at times, what with a possibly stolen election in Iran, an economy teetering on the edge of an abyss, and Joe Biden in charge of…anything.

That’s why a digression into fantasy is just what the doctor ordered today. Of course, there’s nothing in the world that defines fantasy better than Hollywood movies.

In the past, my forays into top ten lists for films have featured original music scores, villains, one liners, and Star Trek rankings. Today, I’d like to pay homage to the bread and butter of all Hollywood action films, the fight scene and my 10 favorites of all time.

You will probably disagree with many of my choices. I am not into martial arts films nor have I seen a a lot of films in the last 5 years or so. No matter. My attempt here was to engage in some pleasant reveries, going over as many movies in my mind that I could, and pulling out fight scenes that thrilled me, or surprised me, or have become so much a part of the experience in viewing the film - especially those I’ve seen several times - that I have become intimately familiar with the way the action unfolds and “bits” that the actors, directors, and fight choreographers put into the action to enhance the realism of the battle.

What make a good fight scene? In my opinion, believability is a good start but not a pre-requisite. One of the better “fight scenes” that I can recall is the pie fight in The Great Race. Timing the thrown pies was absolutely crucial in that scene as was expert editing. But believable? Not hardly.

The use of furniture and other objects can also enhance a fight scene but again, is not necessary. Another great fight sequence is from Red River where it’s just John Wayne and Montgomery Clift going at it hammer and tongs.

Those two are in my “Honorable Mentions” for my list but don’t rise to the level of excellence of those I have selected. That’s because beyond anything else, a good fight scene must give you a visceral reaction to to the war taking place on screen. You must feel the blows. Or, be so transported into the moment that you feel yourself in the fight itself. Then, there are a couple of scenes on my list that are just so wonderfully choreographed that the delight is in observing the craft itself. The scene almost becomes a dance with characters executing marvelously difficult feats while getting their brains beat in.

I have placed the scenes in a rough order regarding how much I enjoyed them. You are invited to make your own lists or tell me what a dope I am in the comments.

10. Philo Beddo vs. Jack Wilson - Any Which Way You Can

Using the entire town of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the bare-knuckled brawl between Clint Eastwood and muscleman William Smith is one for the ages. The movie is incredibly silly but the fight is a real bone cruncher, smash mouth, ass-whuppin’ crowd pleaser. The “I owe you one” theme that runs through it was pretty original too.

9. Li Mùbá vs Yù Jilolóng - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Not the best swordsmanship or the best moves. But no one can dispute the dream-like beauty of watching Zhang Ziyi and Chow Yun Fat fly effortlessly through the air, fight on the thinnest of tree branches, with the moon in the background giving the entire scene a marvelous blue wash that enhances the surreal nature of the battle.

8. Corporal Melish vs. the Bald Nazi - Saving Private Ryan

The best, most realistic knife fight ever filmed. Melish appears to have the upperhand until slowly, painfully, and terrifyingly, the bad guy turns it toward the GI’s chest. “No, no. wait,” pleads Melish as the blade hovers an inch from his heart. Bad guy shushes him soothingly, like trying to stop a baby from crying as the blade sinks in.

Not ranked higher because sometimes, I just can’t watch due to its intensity.

7. John Wayne et. al - McClintock!

Has there ever been a funnier fight scene? Tough to decide between this one and the pie fight in Race but Mclintock! wins for sheer inventiveness. The slide into the claypit was hysterical as was the reaction from the Indians whose unison turns of the head watching people slide down the chute was priceless. Kudo’s to Maureen O’Hara for doing the stunts herself - including getting a dunking on what she described later as a very cold day.

6. Rudolph Rassendyll vs. Count Rupert of Hentzau - Prisoner of Zenda (1937)

Ronald Coleman was forgettable as a swordsman. But the final duel between he and Douglas Fairbanks was classic Hollywood with banter back and forth and Fairbanks, slashing and dashing, shucking and jiving his way off screen, finishing with a spectacular swan dive into the moat to make his escape.

We are not sorry he wasn’t captured.

5. Bruce Lee vs. Bolo - Enter the Dragon

As I mentioned at the outset, I am not enamored of martial arts films. But the speed, athleticism, power, and grace of Bruce Lee had to be recognized somehow. Bolo, a master martial arts fighter in his own right, supposedly “played down” to Lee’s inferior level. It doesn’t matter. This was showmanship at its finest and Lee’s work influenced several generations of fight choreographers.

4. Captain Love vs. Alejandro Murrieta (AKA “Zorro”) - The Mask of Zorro

The scene played out marvelously over the trappings of the gold mine with both Antonio Banderas and Matt Letscher whacking away at one another, cutting and thrusting, the clang of steel on steel very realistic. They looked like they really wanted to kill each other. Some good stunts too as the adversaries leapt from one level to another, precarious footing forcing them to fight with a desperate abandon. It was perhaps the most realistic sword fight (as was the one between Anthony Hopkins and Stuart Wilson playing Don Rafael) I can recall, although the sword fighting in the Michael York version of The Three Musketeers was probably closer to reality. In that film, it was no holds barred as the duelists used every underhanded technique to gain an advantage.

Still, for pulse pounding action, I’ll take Zorro.

3. Rocky Balboa vs. Apollo Creed - Rocky

Up until the time Rocky was made, there were only a handful of fight movies that were realistic (John Garfield was a great actor but a boxer he was not). But the Creed-Balboa fight was epic, believable, and the ending that saw Rocky losing the fight but finally finding the manhood to say “I love you” to Adrian is among the best moments in any sports movie ever made.

The bout was so well done from first punch to last - the sound of glove on flesh was very good, with different sounds for different parts of the body that were struck. Excellent cutting contributed to the realism as did the react from fighters when the blows landed. “Cut me, Mick” is one of the great lines in movie history.

2. Sean Thornton vs. Will Dannaher - The Quiet Man

If Every Which Way But Loose featured a fight that played out throughout the entire town of Jackson Hole, it had nothing on the donnybrook between John Wayne and Victor McLaglen which went over the hills, through the woods, across the river, into the town of Innisfree and concluded with perhaps the best straight right in film history. That punch sent Dannaher through the door of the pub all the way out into the street. “Homeric” as Michaleen Flynn would have said.

Some might find the Irish stereotypes in the film off putting. Speaking as someone with 100% Irish in my background, I loved it.

1. Robin Hood vs. Guy of Gisbourne - The Adventures of Robin Hood.

There have been better sword fights - perhaps even the other classic Errol Flynn - Basil Rathbone duel on the beach in Captain Blood was more precisely choreographed. Other fights have been more intense, more realistic. But none, in my opinion, has been more entertaining or thrilling to watch.

Rathbone, a very serious actor, took fencing lessons for months prior to the shoot. Flynn was not so serious but his tremendous athleticism made him seem even better than Rathbone. Of course, what makes the scene one of the true classics were the asides spoken back and forth to each other as they were locked in mortal combat:

Sir Guy of Gisbourne: You’ve come to Nottingham once too often!
Robin Hood: When this is over, my friend, there’ll be no need for me to come again.

Sir Guy of Gisbourne: Do you know any prayers, my friend?
Robin Hood: I’ll say one for you!

It just doesn’t get any better than that.

Couple that with the sharp editing, the dramatic lighting, and the stirring score by Eric Korngold and you have a masterpiece of film making and a perfect climax to a great film.

Courtesy of Hot Air, this is an eyebrow raising story of a blogger who achieved a modicum of success after blogging about her terminally ill unborn child. She carried the baby to term only to see the child die a few hours after delivering at home.

It’s a heart tugging story that captivated a good slice of the Right to Life Movement as well as others who got caught up in the drama. At it’s peak, “April’s Mom” writing at the blog “Sharing the story of Today” was getting 100,00 visitors a week.

The eyebrow raising part of this story is that it was a hoax:

The woman behind the hoax isn’t “April’s Mom” — a single expectant mother who lay awake at night terrified her unborn child would die at any time, according to the Chicago Tribune.

She is actually Beccah Beushausen, a 26-year-old social worker from the Chicago suburb of Mokenka who says she didn’t know how to free herself from the web of lies she wove.

“Soon I was getting 100,000 hits a week, and it just got out of hand,” she told the Tribune. “I didn’t know how to stop. … One lie led to another.”

The blog reached its peak at nearly a million hits when Beushausen wrote that baby April Rose was born alive at home — and then died mere hours later, the paper reported.

Anti-abortion supporters were captivated by her story, logging on each night to read about her plight and saying they were praying for her.

Some followers even sent gifts and photographs to the post office box she listed online. Parenting Web sites that oppose abortion promoted her site.

[...]

“I know what I did was wrong,” Beushausen told the Tribune. “I’ve been getting hate mail. I’m sorry because people were so emotionally involved.”

There’s no evidence that Beushausen profited financially from the hoax or committed a crime.

(Note to Fox fact checkers: The suburb is “Mokena, IL.”)

The hoax was discovered when Beushausen posted a picture of her “baby” which was immediately recognized by a dollmaker who had the exact same doll in her collection.

And the idea that she did not “profit financially” from her hoax is absurd. Her site is covered with ads. The advertisers who took out those ads were paying based on traffic - traffic generated by a hoax. And if they were paying by the number of clickthroughs, that amount of money would also have been influenced by the deception.

I am not a lawyer but receiving money under false pretenses should be against the law if it isn’t already. Do we still prosecute snake oil salesmen?

It is unfortunate that the victims of this hoax - the pro-life community who sought validation for their cherished beliefs - should have been played in such a shameful way. The fact is, there are stories that, while not quite as dramatic as Beushausen’s lie, nevertheless serve as an example of people whose moral commitment to the unborn is so profound that they knowingly carry babies to term who suffer from disease or malformation that will make raising them an enormous challenge.

As a pro-choice conservative, I can admire that kind of personal commitment to a moral code. And even though I have a less than expansive view of Sarah Palin’s talents as a politician, I admire her choice to knowingly bring a Down Syndrome child into the world. I was shocked by the reaction by some on the left - especially some feminists - to the Palin family’s choice. Evidently, there are “choices,” and there are leftist choices. But calling yourself “pro-choice” and living up to that credo was apparently too difficult for some who mercilessly criticized Palin for not aborting her baby once it was clear the child would be born with Down Syndrome.

Whither then Ms. Beushausen? The Chicago Tribune gives us some clues about her motivation:

Beushausen said she really did lose a son shortly after birth in 2005. She started her blog in March to help deal with that loss and to express her strong anti-abortion views, she said.

She had expected only a handful of friends to read it, but when her first post got 50 comments, she was hooked.

“I’ve always liked writing. It was addictive to find out I had a voice that people wanted to hear,” Beushausen said.

“Soon I was getting 100,000 hits a week, and it just got out of hand,” she said. “I didn’t know how to stop. … One lie led to another.”

A good friend from college was unknowingly drawn into the drama and offered this:

“When I heard that she was pregnant, I called her and said if she needed anything, I was there for her,” said Myers, who lives in Nashville. She said she spoke to Beushausen almost every day for the last few weeks.

Myers sold T-shirts online to benefit Beushausen and PASS, a Tinley Park crisis pregnancy clinic that Beushausen asked the couple to donate to. The couple said they also sent her a few hundred dollars.

Even after learning of the hoax, Myers said she and her husband don’t regret their involvement.

“She’s someone who needed love and attention, and we gave her that,” Myers said.

Her father confirmed that the stress of hiding the hoax got to her and she spent a couple of days in a local hospital. No mention is made of what she was being treated for but an educated guess would be she was on a suicide watch. Her dad adds, “She’s a very talented young lady who hit some hot buttons,” he said. “She knows she made a big mistake.”

I reject the notion there is any political lesson to be learned from this incident. There will be those who will seek to denigrate the pro life movement because one of their own was temporarily successful in playing to their most heartfelt beliefs. Can’t imagine what angle they would use but I’m sure they will come up with something appropriately inane. And I don’t believe that pro-lifers need be defensive about anything. Blogs have built-in credibility now, and while there have been some of these hoaxes exposed over the years, blog audiences are a trusting lot - as well they should be.

But blog audiences have also become much more discriminating over the years when it comes to “original reporting” by websites. Much less is taken for granted today than 4 or 5 years ago. This is a result, no doubt, of several cases where bogus information was passed along as truth. Having been burned, most blog readers are much more discerning in what they believe and what it takes to convince them.

But Beushausen was writing on a small mommy blog and relating her supposedly personal story. None of the skepticism that would attend a political or celebrity story was present. The idea that someone would lie about something as serious as a terminally ill baby just never entered into most people’s minds. Anyone who would do such a thing would be (and I love this word) a female cad.

And that’s what Beushausen is. She is a bounder, a blackguard, a heel. Shamelessly playing with the emotions of her readers, - for profit or not - she has damaged the credibility of all bloggers by her actions.

The quicker we forget about Beushausen, the better. Let her slide back into a well deserved anonymity while taking note that perhaps, we won’t be quite so easy to fool next time.

UPDATE AND CORRECTION

It appears this woman is really something of a fabulist - a pathological liar of sorts.

Via Blue Crab Boulevard, it appears that Beushausen, identified in the story as a “social worker,” is no such thing:

In response to a June 12 article in the Chicago Tribune and a related Associated Press story about “April’s Mom”, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-baby-hoax-12jun12,0,5601624.story, the National Association of Social Workers has confirmed that the troubled young woman who created a huge online following with a fictitious account of her pregnancy IS NOT A SOCIAL WORKER. According to sources at the NASW Illinois Chapter, Beccah Beushausen is not licensed in the State of Illinois as a social worker and is not a member of the National Association of Social Workers.

Maybe “she” is actually a “he” or perhaps that rigmarole about losing a baby is also a fib. I think it wise at this point to assume everything that has been written about this person is a lie on her part until we find someone who has the straight dope.

This is getting annoying as hell.

Conservatives trying to make the case that the Holocaust Museum shooter James von Brunn is some kind of liberal or leftist sympathizer are tilting at windmills:

So I guess the obvious question is this: if von Brunn were looking for a mainstream political activism site on which to broadcast his views to the largest number of likeminded individuals (or individuals susceptible to coming around to his point of view), would he find a warmer reception at RedState, or DailyKos? I submit that the answer to this question might be a far more useful metric of von Brunn’s political leanings than the baseless assumption propounded by unthinking leftists that because von Brunn is a racist, he must be a right-winger.

That’s just one of a series of blog posts that is raising questions about von Brunn’s ideology and trying frantically to transfer the killer’s core beliefs to the left.

Von Brunn is indeed a right winger - a far, far, out in the boondocks, beyond belief, wild eyed, drooling extremist of a right winger - but a right winger nonetheless. My post yesterday that briefly questioned his “right wing Christian” credentials was silly in retrospect, although identifying him as a “Christianist” is incorrect. And if you read the post, you will notice that this meme was a very small part of my overall criticism of the left’s politically motivated attack on conservatives.

Anti-Semitism may be a disease that afflicts liberals as well as conservatives. And racism on the left is not unknown as anyone who has ever read the brutal and nauseating racial attacks on Michelle Malkin can testify.

But this guy was identified by the FBI two decades ago as a far right whacko. The idea that he’s changed his stripes in the intervening years is ridiculous and only makes those who are trying to hit back against leftist smears of all conservatives by trying to mis-identify where this guy is coming from ideologically do no service to the truth or to conservatives.

I will freely grant this this guy is a man of the extreme right. To posit the notion, as many on the left have been doing the last few days, that this guy has any connection whatsoever either in his philosophy or ideology with mainstream conservatism is ludicrous. It is equally fanciful to blame “right wing hate speech” emanating supposedly from mainstream conservative media outlets for this guy’s actions. The idea that von Brunn needed any motivation at all beyond his sick, twisted, personal extremist ideology and whatever demons possessed him ignores reality - about what we’ve come to expect from the “reality based community.”

By the same token, desperately seeking a way to disown von Brunn because the left has seen fit to smear all conservatives with his racist, anti-Semitic stench is equally ludicrous. We don’t have to disown him. It is self evident to any rational, semi-fair minded person that this guy had as much to do with mainstream politics as a member of the Black Panther party or some other far out, whacko leftist group. To think otherwise is to believe nonsense. To think that anything said by a mainstream conservative set this guy off and contributed to his rampage is equally bogus. The only people who believe that are those who are pre-disposed to believe the worst about conservatives. And nothing anyone says will change their idiotic, exaggerated, hysterical notions about the mainstream right.

So give it a rest - both sides. This is one of these issues where liberals and conservatives are only looking silly by bandying about ridiculous ideas that don’t convince anyone except those who already harbor the same views. Taking a dump into a water well just to hear the turds echo when they hit bottom is a pastime for village idiots, not supposedly rational political opponents.

Your government has just taken a gigantic step toward regulating your life in ways that today, can only dimly be understood.

The senate passed a bill yesterday giving the Food and Drug Administration the power to “limit nicotine in the cigarettes that kill nearly a half-million people a year, to drastically curtail ads that glorify tobacco and to ban flavored products aimed at spreading the habit to young people.”

Sounds great, eh? The New York Times thinks so:

After more than a decade of struggle — and countless smoking-related deaths — the Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill on Thursday that gives the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco products. The House approved a similar bill in April, also by an overwhelming margin. The days when this rogue industry could inflict its harmful products on Americans with impunity are drawing to a close.

This is an enormous victory for public health. For that, we owe thanks to tireless advocacy by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a nonprofit organization, and strong endorsements from medical groups.

A “rogue industry?” An “enormous victory for public health?” All this just to keep tobacco products out of the hands of our children?

Not exactly:

It still might not have passed without the decision by Philip Morris, the industry leader, to accept regulation. The company apparently believes it can thrive better under regulation than its competitors, who complain that it will now be much harder for them to introduce new products to challenge Philip Morris’s dominance.

The bill is not perfect. It will not allow the F.D.A. to ban cigarettes or nicotine — a concession made years ago to avoid drawing intense opposition from smokers and free-market advocates. But the agency will still have far-reaching powers.

Yes, the New York Times likes nothing better than granting any government agency “far reaching powers.” And cheering on the monopolistic practices of Philip Morris and their cynical acceptance of regulation so that they have a leg up on their competitors is truly public spirited legislation, don’t ya think?

It’s just too bad that the cowardly bastards didn’t have the guts to do what their weeping, wailing, emotionally charged rhetoric about the dangers of cigarettes to kids would lead one to believe they support; a total ban on the growing, manufacture, sale, and use of tobacco products. Even the Times admits they are cowards, terrified of facing the wrath of smokers and free market supporters. But if the product is that dangerous - and it is - by allowing this hypocrisy to continue, Congress and the feds are complicit in the deaths of half a million smokers a year, at least by their reasoning. If they can regulate the product in ways that almost no other product in America is regulated, they can certainly ban it. If nicotine is going to be classifed as a “dangerous drug,” then why not ban it the same way that crack cocaine or heroin is banned?

The fact is, the government cares more about the tax money they are getting from smokers than the citizens who are dying as a result of using the products. And every time they make a move like this and say “it’s for the kids” I am going to call them out on their hypocrisy.

It’s not about “the kids.” It’s about power; the power to regulate, control, and influence the lives of private citizens. And it’s only the beginning.

You might be nodding in satisfaction at the fact that the government can tax smokers who have freely chosen to light up into penury. Many of you may even find satisfaction in the way local municipalities have violated the property rights of smokers by banning smoking in their own condos or apartments. Perhaps many of you think nothing of banning smoking in one’s personal auto. And who cares if a municipality wants to ban smokers from lighting up in their own back yard?

Not my ox being gored, right? Wrong. What the Obama has in store for you smug, self righteous, anti-smoking zealots will make what the government has done to smokers pale in comparison.

Man, I am going to do a sack dance when the health Nazis Obama has hired start coming after you:

Don’t be fooled by the presidential burger runs. Obama and Congress are moving across several fronts to give government a central role in making America healthier — raising expectations among public health experts of a new era of activism unlike any before.

Any health care reform plan that Obama signs is almost certain to call for nutrition counseling, obesity screenings and wellness programs at workplaces and community centers. He wants more time in the school day for physical fitness, more nutritious school lunches and more bike paths, walking paths and grocery stores in underserved areas.

The president is filling top posts at Health and Human Services with officials who, in their previous jobs, outlawed trans fats, banned public smoking or required restaurants to provide a calorie count with that slice of banana cream pie.

Even Congress is getting into the act, giving serious consideration to taxing sugary drinks and alcohol to help pay for the overhaul.

To some, it smacks of a “nanny state on steroids” — but for others who fret that America is turning into one big Overeaters Anonymous meeting, Obama’s prescription is like a low-fat dream come true.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Obama is welcoming into his administration the exact same fanatics we have been calling “health Nazis” or “health nannies” for the last 25 years. He is enabling an assault on personal freedom the likes of which have never been seen in America.

Granting the FDA power to regulate tobacco companies is only the beginning. While HHS will handle the administration of the national health care program, the FDA will become the strong right arm of the government, clubbing the food industry into changing what we eat, and bullying consumers into eating “healthy.” Why? Because the government will see this as one of the primary ways to bring down the cost of health care. Cramming “healthy” food down the throats of citizens will be an easy way to reduce the use of health services - so the thinking goes.

How far will they go? Well, certainly taxing “inappropriate” food products will be first on the list. The government needs money obviously, and what better way to get it than to make a soda as expensive as cigarettes? How about $5 for a Twinkie?” Ice cream will be a luxury item. Gone from parties will be chips and dip, foie gras (already banned in Chicago restuarants), crackers and cheese. Otherwise, hostesses will have to take out a second mortgage just to get the money to fund their soirees.

After the taxes will come the minute examination of ingredients. Trans fat will be out, of course. Most preservatives will be a thing of the past (eat quickly). Food dyes? Uh-uh. A trip to the grocery store will become a regimented activity.

Exaggerations? I think mostly yes. At least in the near future. But who knows what justifications the government will use 10 years from now? Or 20? This is a classic slippery slope and to believe that people who have advocated the most draconian measures to control the lives of individuals when it comes to their idea of “health” won’t take advantage of the enormous power the Obama administration is granting them, is a pipe dream. Given the frightening deficits over the next 10 years, who knows how high the taxes will go on products the government deems aren’t “good for you?”

If nothing else, as bureaucrats, they will follow the long standing dictum that in order to continue to receive increases in funding, they have to prove they are needed. This leads to all sorts of bureaucratic mischief as we have seen in the past with other agencies, other departments.

Yes, it is petty and childish of me to look forward to the day when those who have approved of government restrictions on the individual freedom of smokers get their comeuppance. But if you would have been forced to put up with the crap I have had to just to enjoy a perfectly legal product that I choose to use, you might be a little more understanding.

Note: A word about the false premise that smokers drive up the cost of health care and therefore, increased taxes are necessary. Actuarial figures show that smokers live almost 20 years less than non smokers. Because of that, health care dollars spent on non smokers during their lifetime far exceed the amount spent during a smoker’s lifetime.

And if that were justification, why not tax and regulate alcohol the same way - a drug even more addictive than crack cocaine, heroin, or nicotine? The social problems caused by alcohol alone far exceed the amount of money that the state spends on the effects of smoking. Broken families, battered wives, child abuse, crime, homelessness - the list goes on and on. But the government will never tax alcohol as high as cigarettes because distributors are huge contributors to political campaigns of both parties.

This is about power and hypocrisy - not health or the kids.

I don’t quite know where I’m going with this so let’s just start a free form, free association post on ass-hat conservatives and childish Republicans.

Yes, here I go again. And again. I don’t care if the left “does the same thing” or that criticizing and riding conservatives whose appalling antics make me cringe in embarrassment for even being associated with such schlock artists causes some of you to explode with indignation that I won’t play ball with “the team” and spout idiocies about how wonderful the public face of the GOP and conservatism is. I am not in the business of excusing the stupidity of anyone - right or left.

If you take the time to peruse the nearly 3,000 posts on this blog you will note that my criticism of the left for their tactics and behavior is, if anything, more hyperbolic, more sarcastically bombastic than almost anything I say about righties. My liberal-bashing credentials are as sound as anyone’s and I defy anyone on the right to say otherwise.

In short, I am an equal opportunity purveyor of snarky goodness. Right, left, center - doesn’t matter. Do something or say something idiotic and I have no qualms of calling you out for it. If you guys haven’t realized that by now, I don’t know what else I can do to convince you.

Be that as it may, Jon Henke, as levelheaded a politico (and conservative) that you’ll find anywhere, wrote last Friday at Next Right:

Many of the most prominent voices in the Republican Party appear determined to behave like children.

At some point, Republicans have got to start demanding their leaders behave like adults instead of demagogues and buffoons.  We need at least one grownup party.

Those links lead to (in order):

* a Steve Benen blog post on Hannity telling his viewers that the president “decided to give 9/11 sympathizers a voice on the world stage,” by saying during his Cairo address “I am aware that there are still some that would question or even justify the events of 9/11.”

*Senator Inhofe calling Obama’s Cairo address “un-American.”

* Michael Steele, guest hosting for Bill Bennett had this to say about “Sotomayor: “God Help You If You’re A White Male Coming Before Her Bench.”

First, how Obama making mention of the wide-spread belief (especially in Egypt) in the Arab world that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by Israel or the CIA could possibly be construed as “giving 9/11 sympathizers a voice” is just plain stupid. In fact, in one of the few strong parts of the speech, Obama said belief in such conspiracy theories about 9/11 was an Arab fantasy:

But let us be clear: Al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on that day. The victims were innocent men, women and children from America and many other nations who had done nothing to harm anybody. And yet al Qaeda chose to ruthlessly murder these people, claimed credit for the attack, and even now states their determination to kill on a massive scale. They have affiliates in many countries and are trying to expand their reach. These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts to be dealt with.”

A sincere thank you to the president for standing up and saying what needed to be said to those ignorant, conspiracy mongering anti-Semites in the region.

Hannity is as bad as any Media Matters flunkie who consistently takes what conservatives say out of context in order to make it appear that the right eats babies in the morning, rapes virgins in the afternoon, and tops off the day by lynching black people at night.

I’m supposed to be proud to be associated with someone who utters such monstrously misconstrued, patently false statements as Hannity - a true cotton candy conservative with about as much intellectual heft as helium balloon? The fact that he does it on a regular basis and is cheered on by many on the right is even more depressing.

And what about Senator Inhofe? Here’s a conservative who is standing athwart history yelling “stop” at the sun, demanding it not rise. His campaign to promote conspiracy theories about global warming is an embarrassment to anyone who values open debate and respect for the scientific process. I can understand the desire to push back against those whose climate sensibilities are informed by a left wing political agenda. But spouting ignorant nonsense about climate change doesn’t advance the cause and, in fact, has set back the campaign by skeptics to get at least some of the science re-evaluated. He is reckless in that he constantly gets his facts wrong. Advocates for sanity on Climate Change like him, we don’t need.

It is one thing for some internet hack to accuse the president of being “un-American.” It is quite another when a United States senator says the same thing. I tire of trying to explain that Obama’s liberalism demands that he bring America down, airing our dirty laundry to the world, exposing America’s “sins” (as he sees it).

He loves America in a different way than conservatives. Does that delegitimize it? I can’t find the words to describe how idiotic it is to believe that one’s patriotism is more heartfelt than another’s, as if love of country is something that can be quantified or measured. Criticizing America is not the same as hating it - period. Anyone who has ever taken a high school freshman course in history could tell you there is plenty to criticize in our past and anyone who is aware of the post World War II activities of the CIA can also find much fault with the actions of our country. Does that mean we should love it any less? Does that mean that someone who sees these transgressions, these black marks against us, and talks about them is necessarily “un-American?”

I personally find it offensive that Obama feels the need to run around the world talking about our mistakes without, at the same time, extolling our many virtues with equal fervor. By doing so, he plays into the hands of the anti-Americans who like nothing better than to have their nonsensical views of America validated. Obama is wrong - not un-American. And Inhofe is a cretin for saying otherwise.

Finally, what to say about GOP chairman Steele and his ignorant statement that white males will need God’s help if they are luckless enough to appear before Judge Sotomayor after she is confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice? Yes, it’s over the top. Yes, it’s idiotic based on her record (Ricci aside which, as many have already pointed out, denied a couple of Hispanics promotion in the fire department as well). And yes, the statement by Steele is an insult - just like when a liberal calls a conservative a racist.

I oppose Sotomayor’s nomination because I believe she is undistinguished as a judge, her selection was identity politics played to the hilt, and her beliefs about federal judges making law is contrary to the constitutional principles on which America was founded.

But she is not a racist - although she appears to dwell on the issue of race quite a bit. And there is no evidence whatsoever in her 10 year career on the federal bench that white people are treated any differently than people of color. If Steele had bothered to read anything about her instead of spouting talking points, he would certainly find much to criticize without intimating that she’s some Hispanic version of Al Sharpton or David Duke.

Finally, for some real Blowhardiness, Jay Severin wins the cuckoo prize. The Boston area talk show host has just returned from “indefinite” suspension for some remarks he made on air about Mexicans:

The proximate cause of Severin’s latest banishment was a fusillade of intemperate remarks that he made about Mexican immigrants, whom he labeled “leeches,” “primitives” and “criminaliens.” Hospital emergency rooms, he said, have become “essentially condos for Mexicans.” He also blamed, in the midst of the national hysteria over swine flu, our neighbors south of the Border for bringing disease into the United States. “In addition to venereal disease and the other leading exports of Mexico — women with mustaches and VD — now we have swine flu.”

But this was not the first time that Severin, a former political consultant to Pat Buchanan, had made disgusting comments about a whole group of people on his WTKK radio show. In a 2004 conversation with a caller about whether the United States should “befriend Muslims,” Severin retorted, “You think we should befriend them; I think we should kill them.” How’s that for a foreign policy!

Yeah, but liberals say worse stuff, ya know.

Hard to imagine, that. Liberals only say that kind of stuff about Republicans - usually. Letterman’s poisonous hatred of Sarah Palin (and the rest of the media’s apparent belief that you can say any kind of vileness about the Alaska governor and not have to make a trip to the penalty box because whatever you can come up with, Democrats have already said worse) is certainly worthy of stern disapprobation. But Severin’s rants against entire ethnic groups and religions are sublime in their utter disregard for rational discourse and revealing of a petty, small minded, ignorant worldview.

One of my favorite movie quotes is from Gettysburg where the “tough old Mick” sargeant Buster Killrain is talking to Colonel Chamberlain about black sufferage and whether it’s a good idea.

“Only a peawit judges by the group.”

Thank you Buster.

I am not on the best of terms with Dan Riehl but that has not prevented me from congratulating him from time to time when he nails it:

It’s a wonderful thing to be able to get yourself worked up on a topic, or in a spat, and just blurt out what you think or have recently discovered. You may even have convinced yourself it’s the coup de gras if things have turned into a fight. Then all of seconds later, if you’re smart, you get to appreciate what you just did as a reader if you look at your blog. It’s usually about then that you realize you’ve just done something significant for the whole world to see before having taken enough time pre-post to figure out just what it might be. Heh!

Whelan can relax in knowing that his liberal critics have now etched the moment into their collective soul in blog code and will inject it as the ad hominem of choice in any and every heated debate for some time: this from a guy who blah, blah, blah. If it’s any consolation to Whelan, you usually stop wincing after the first few times. And for now you know the worst your critics can and will do - forewarned is forearmed and all that. My advice is to ignore it. It’s done.

It’s ironic that given blogging’s technocentric existence, it’s still its ability to remind us that we’re human that’s often the most fascinating element. Except for Reynolds, of course. He was designed by a consortium of scientists from the tech industry to give them the next new rationale to sell more PCs back in the day. The group has moved on to Twitter and applications beyond these days.

In any event, discovering our humanity, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, is always a good thing to my way of thinking. As human beings, it’s one of the best ways we learn. And it won’t be long before some blogger somewhere makes the next greatest reminder that we’re all human of a blog post and we all too often inhuman bastards that are bloggers will be certain to circle round to pick the bones.

There couldn’t be a better blood sport for intellects in this information age.

I am closing in on 3,000 posts for this blog (2986), most of them essays of more than 1000 words. Not only is that a lot of hot air but also a lot of myself that has been poured on to this site. Readers familiar with my work know that few topics are off limits including some personal stuff that others might have a hard time putting out there for all the world to see. And I get into trouble a lot of the time because I don’t view this space as “publication” as much as I see it as an online diary of sorts - or a virtual scratch pad. Hence, sometimes my thinking is muddled, confused, disconnected, and even illogical as I seek answers to questions that some other bloggers might wait until they have fully formed their reasoning about a subject before hitting that “publish” button.

Far from seeing this as a disadvantage or a minus, for me it is a godsend. “Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man,” quoth Sir Francis Bacon. And if writing forces me to organize my thoughts and place them into some kind of rational context while helping me gain insight into why I think the way I do about people and issues, then I have accomplished what I set out to do by writing in the first place.

I would estimate that out of those nearly 3000 screeds, there are probably at least 100 that should never have seen the light of day. Maybe less, I don’t know. Ironically, a couple of them directed to Mr. Riehl would fall into that category. On the other hand, my sometimes emotional outbursts are quite theraputic and while I wouldn’t recommend it as an answer to thoughtful discourse, sometimes screaming about something serves the dual purpose of getting your point across while making you feel immensely better after letting off some steam.

Riehl is correct; blogs help one discover their humanity; in all its glory, its sordidness, its generosity, its stupidity, and its brilliance. It also helps you know yourself better; your strengths, weaknesses, limitations - everything that Erasmus’s “examined life” should reveal.

We all want to know ourselves. Sometimes the revelations are quite disturbing - as when I discovered shortly after starting to blog that I have a very thin skin. Sometimes, they are sublime. I have developed an enormous measure of confidence in my cognitive abilities and insight that, while not claiming Pope-like infallibility, nevertheless proves me right more often than wrong. I am certain I would not have developed this confidence without blogging for going on 5 years.

When I am shown to be in error, I almost always acknowledge it. To some, this proves that I blow with the wind on some issues rather than, when exposed to new information or a new point of view, believing that altering your thinking is the correct path to follow. To some, this makes me a squish. But I value being honest with myself and my readers. I am not 100% successful but then there’s that “humanity” that prevents me from overcoming my own pride and emotional investment in order to achieve the unachievable.

Just writing this post has helped clarify my thinking. From now on, I will be a model citizen of the internet. I will never again take off after the left in a personal, insulting manner. I will never again criticize a conservative for being an idiot. I will never again take a fellow blogger to task for writing something that makes no sense or uses illogical arguments to get their point across.

Yeah - okay. But I can dream, can’t I?

I don’t know the man so I can’t say definitively if this apology is a self serving effort at damage control or whether it is sincere. But it strikes me as genuine - a realization by Whelan that his actions caused real damage to a real person:

On reflection, I now realize that, completely apart from any debate over our respective rights and completely apart from our competing views on the merits of pseudonymous blogging, I have been uncharitable in my conduct towards the blogger who has used the pseudonym Publius. Earlier this evening, I sent him an e-mail setting forth my apology for my uncharitable conduct. As I stated in that e-mail, I realize that, unfortunately, it is impossible for me to undo my ill-considered disclosure of his identity. For that reason, I recognize that Publius may understandably regard my apology as inadequate.

Short, sweet, and to the point. It appears that Mr. Whelan, despite publishing a lot of stuff online, really had no clue of the consequences of revealing someone’s identity on the internet. It is no excuse for his actions but, as Publius himself points out, at the very least, Whelan has started a much overdue debate about a blogger hiding his identity by using a pseudonym:

Ed Whelan has written both publicly and privately and apologized. I know it was not an easy thing to do, and it is of course accepted. I therefore consider the matter done, and don’t intend on writing about it anymore.

The real story here wasn’t really about me anyway — it’s about whether the norm of pseudonymity is a good thing. And there’s a legitimate debate about that. Personally, I think that pseudonymity is a net benefit, whatever other costs it brings. More voices are better than less — and pseudonymity (to me) enriches the public sphere by adding voices that could not otherwise be heard. But people can disagree in good faith about these things, as Whelan correctly notes.

Anyway, I’m moving on. I appreciate Whelan’s update. And that’s all I have to say.

Well done by Publius on all accounts - accepting the apology and wanting to move on to other, more vital matters.

I note a couple of things from the comments and emails I’ve received on this matter. First, I found it more just a little ironic that many of those defending Whelan were anonymous commenters themselves. I think it also revealing - at least, based on an unscientific survey of comments on my site and elsewhere - that many bloggers, even on the right, sympathized with Publius and even supported his right to anonymity while many commenters did not.

The real issue of anonymity as far as I’m concerned has nothing to do with bloggers but rather with those who comment on their sites. Yes, there is a difference - a big one. I don’t think I can recall a single instance where a blog commenter lost their job, or was harassed or stalked, or suffered in any way for commenting on a blog post using their own name. If there are such cases, they must be very rare and not well publicized. What are the chances of an employer of a blog commenter who uses their real name, running across a comment made on a website - even if they’re looking for it - and firing that commenter for something he said?

The problem of stalking and threats may be a different matter but it is no accident that blog commenters who use their real name are much less likely to engage in “fighting words” hyperbole when commenting than the blog commenter who hides ignobly behind a fictitious character.

For these reasons, the use of a pseudonym when commenting on blogs is a device employed not for protection but rather to hide behind. Many find anonymity more comfortable when personally attacking a blogger using the most vile and disgusting language, because they would never say anything similar to the bloggers face if they were using their real name. “Fighting words” take on a whole new dimension when reality sets in and the “conversation” between a blogger and a commenter is based on two human beings exchanging thoughts rather than one human being and one fictional character throwing verbal bombs at one another. In this way, the pseudonymous commenter can ignore the minimal societal strictures that prohibit the kind of personal insults which, if said face to face to another human being, would result in the commenter coming to regret their vile attacks.

Is that the definition of cowardly? You betchya.

I suspect that most of these commenters who troll the blogs trying to start a fight are really quite mild mannered, milquetoast sorts of people when they push themselves away from the monitor, scared of their own shadow, and easily dominated by others be it their spouses or their bosses at work. They hit back at life by developing an alter ego where they can pour out all their frustration, all of their hate, all of their bile where it is assured that no one will ever connect them to their real life personaes.

I realize that not all pseudonymous commenters are trolls and many anonymous commenters are quite circumspect in their commentary. But the motivation is the same; they feel more comfortable in criticizing someone by wrapping themselves in a comfortable cloak of anonymity rather than taking the risk that if someone were to then criticize them, that criticism would be personal. Instead of being directed at a fictitious character, the criticism of their thoughts, their ideas, their logic strikes at their self-identity. In my opinion, this too, is cowardly.

Save investigating every commenter to determine if the handle they are using is of a real person, I see no way that this practice will change anytime soon. But most bloggers with whom I have discussed this behavior believe the anonymity of nasty, unprincipled commenters on their site to be the most frustrating part of blogging. And I suppose it’s something that bloggers are going to have to live with until the technology is developed to deal with the problem, or blogging culture itself changes.

We knew this sort of thing was possible the moment we laid eyes on him. The strong chin, thrust upward with a serene confidence that melted our hearts. The eyes - so open and honest that we could see into his soul (as he could see into ours). The smile with impossibly white teeth that lifts one up whenever his steady gaze meets our unworthy eyes - and suddenly, you feel almost worthy, as if granted a gift from on high.

And what about those pecs, eh? It’s not enough our God-thing be the smartest, the most gentle, the most courageous being in the universe. He’s also sexy as hell and causes men to contemplate same sex marriage and women to dream of bearing his children after torrid, sweaty, multi-orgasmic lovemaking under a waterfall or on a deserted beach.

All this pales in comparison to what The Lightworker can do when he opens his mouth, expelling a fresh air that smells like peppermint (except after he’s eaten garlic and then it smells like daffodils), and his beautiful mouth forms words that can cause the sun to rise and set, move mountains, cause the tide to recede heal the sick, raise the dead (even the gooey ones who have been deceased a while), and melt the hearts of the wicked.

His recent speech to our brothers and sisters who worship Allah and sadly, have no Lightworker to guide them, is a beautiful example of how the planet has changed since Barack Obama (PBUH) alighted from his chariot in Washington to save us. Our Barack generously offered to share himself with the Mohammedans and heal their hearts of hatred by uttering soothing words of brotherhood and love.

The result? An amazing transformation in Lebanon! A miracle! Oh ye of little faith who doubt the Lightworker’s power, look upon his work in the Levant and be amazed!

With idiot conservatives questioning the point of making a stirring, beautiful speech to win over the hearts and minds in the Muslim world, it looks like those efforts to nudge public opinion are already bearing fruit:

An American-backed alliance appeared to retain control of the Lebanese Parliament on Sunday in a hotly contested election that had been billed as a showdown between Tehran and Washington for influence in the Middle East.

Preliminary results reported on Lebanese television showed the alliance, known as the March 14 coalition, had managed to preserve its majority in Parliament. If those results are confirmed, they would represent a significant and unexpected defeat for Hezbollah and its allies, Iran and Syria. Most polls had showed a tight race, but one in which the Hezbollah-led group would win.

So wooing minds in the Muslim world has helped tip an election towards a pro-western coalition in a notoriously divided Lebanon.

When I try to sometimes wrap my head around what about conservative thinking bothers me so much, it comes down to this:

conservatives care more about means than ends.

This case is the perfect example. The end in this particular foreign policy issue is weaken the strength of violent extremest forces in islamic countries. Obama thinks that by opening up dialogue with the region and improving America’s image in those countries is the best way to achieve that end.

But conservatives aren’t really interested if that end is achieved. They are more interested in having means that look cool on TV and that satisfy a gut emotional craving to just do something, goddamit, like making the Bagdad sky light up with the force of American airpower. Anything short of that just isn’t getting the job done, because something in their minds lacks the capacity to make the cognitive leap that soft power can sometimes be much better at achieving the end they profess to care about.

Obama just achieved a significant end, and conservative heads are exploding because they just cannot compute how. I can’t wait to see their reaction when the Iranians toss out Ahmadinejad in a week.

Ho-Ho! Soon, another target for our Lightworker’s incredible, miraculous powers will be revealed as the Persian hordes will transmogrify into lambs before our eyes and turn their faces away from the temptations of building map wiping weapons to use against the Hebrews. We can be sure that the 7th century peasants who know no better, will vote to to displace the angry elf Ahmadinejad not because he has destroyed the economy but because the calm visage of our Lightworker will magically appear before their eyes while they are casting their vote and they will experience the light of truth, justice, and the way of the Great Soul who guides us and tells us what to do.

Our Lightworker’s magic voice - so mellifluous, so achingly seductive, it can cause the Sirens to throw themselves into the sea, frantic and desperate to reach HIM - placed a spell on the well meaning but ignorant cave dwellers and goat herders in the Lebanese electorate and, without them even being aware of any internal political considerations whatsoever, wondrously caused them to vote for the American backed forces while forgetting all about the Hezzies.

For all of my misgivings about President Obama’s Thursday speech in Cairo, I have to admit that the first mass response from an Arab body politic was more than I had hoped for…and more than I expected.

[...]

Had Hezbollah won the balloting, the results it would have heaped scorn on the president’s address. It the court of measurable Arab public opinion the tally is 1-0, our side wins.

It’s the same trick he used on us and it worked fantastically.

Is there nothing he can’t do? Might it be possible that he is - dare I say it - more than a man?

Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is ‘we are above that now.’ We’re not just parochial, we’re not just chauvinistic, we’re not just provincial. We stand for something – I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God.

And lest there be any doubt that this is an opinion formed by a partisan, the words of this Frenchmen ring equally true:

When dining out Saturday night at a no-star bistro, La Fontaine de Mars, the presidential party was served water, Coke and table wine to accompany foie gras, lamb and steak with shallots, and paid for meals “like any client,” said owner Jacques Boudon. “It’s just what they wanted.”

“And I think they were very happy since they stayed three-quarters of an hour after dining,” he said by telephone.

Boudon was over the moon.

The table had been reserved 10 days earlier but he only knew his guests were the Obamas that morning.

“I saw God before me,” he said, “because I saw this smile that a million people have seen around the world. I saw her (Michelle) radiant.

Another God sighting, this time in the Land of the Frogs. And his saintly companion and partner, whose rap can bring down the thunder or tame the savage beast, watches over us with a benign presence and bare armed beauty. She is mother to us all. Wife, lover, mistress, same sex partner, and harlot - Ambassador to the Masses. She is Gaia’s secret agent. She is All. And she completes our Lightworker so completely that while it might seem impossible he needs completing she nevertheless is completely complete in her ability to, well, complete him.

First Lebanon, then Iran. What other historic, extraordinary feats of love and statecraft can our Lighworker achieve? Will he magically remove the scales from the eyes of the One Whose Name We Always Get Mixed Up With His, causing a transformation so profound that he Whose Name We Always Get Mixed Up With His will order his construction companies to rebuild the towers - for free? With Barack, anything is possible, any dream can come true. We live in an age where miracles are mundane and feats of legerdemain commonplace. They will look back on this time 10 million years from now in awestruck wonder that such a one as HE, of flesh and bone, actually walked the earth.

Now if he can only figure out how to fix the economy…

UPDATE

Hey! Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Obama’s speech did indeed affect the election in Lebanon.

Of course, not quite the way the Lightworker’s drooling sycophants would have us believe:

Michael Ledeen:

Second, I cannot help thinking that the Lebanese learned something from Obama’s Cairo speech (and Bush’s second term), namely that they cannot rely on the United States to confront terrorists like Hezbollah. They, and others all over the area, are going to have to do a lot of their own fighting, and take their own chances, even though they know they cannot count on American support.

We already abandoned Lebanon once. When Saddam invaded Kuwait, RealPolitik demanded that we entice President Assad to join us by giving Syria a free hand in Lebanon. The rape, theft, murder, and domination of Lebanon that followed wasn’t entirely our fault but we had a big hand in letting it happen.

No doubt, Obama’s “pragmatism” in Cairo brought back painful memories for some Lebanese.

Someday, someone is going to make a million by writing a book on what so far is largely unwritten; the rules and etiquette of blogging.

When that happens, we won’t have internet ignorant philistines like Ed Whelan running around destroying the anonymity of bloggers who choose to remain unknown. Or maybe we will, if they prove as unable to control their anger as Mr. Whelan has demonstrated.

Whelan, a legal writer of some repute whose stuff has appeared just about everywhere one would expect from a brilliant legal mind, but is perhaps best known for writing Bench Memos at NRO, became annoyed with Publius of Obsidian Wings for some of the cracks the blogger made about Whelan’s analysis of Sotomayer’s remarks about judicial policy making.

Responding point by point to Publius’s piquing of Whelan’s demonstrably thin skin, the President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center couldn’t leave it at that. Instead, he decided to act rather unethically and dig unto Publius’s personal life in order to discover who this mosquito nibbling on his backside might be.

Sounding for all the world as if he had solved the mystery of Area 51, Whelan wrote triumphantly:

I’ve been reliably informed that publius is in fact the pseudonym of law professor John F. Blevins of the South Texas College of Law. I e-mailed Blevins to ask him to confirm or deny that he is publius, and I copied the e-mail to the separate e-mail address, under the pseudonym “Edward Winkleman,” that publius used to respond to my initial private complaints about his reckless blogging. In response, I received from “Edward Winkleman” an e-mail stating that he is “not commenting on [his] identity” and that he writes under a pseudonym “[f]or a variety of private, family, and professional reasons.” I’m guessing that those reasons include that friends, family members, and his professional colleagues would be surprised by the poor quality and substance of his blogging.

I am very happy Ed has enjoyed his Captain Queeg moment and solved the mystery of the missing strawberries. Such sleuthing no doubt builds up an appetite to which Whelan might consider eating the plate of slightly overdone crow that is sitting in front of him.

And since Publius’s opinion differs from Whelan’s on Sotomayor’s beliefs regarding judicial activism, the only obvious explanation for his anonymity is that he is trying to keep his family and colleagues in the dark about the “poor quality and substance of his blogging.”

Could it be something else? Publius explains:

As I told Ed (to no avail), I have blogged under a pseudonym largely for private and professional reasons. Professionally, I’ve heard that pre-tenure blogging (particularly on politics) can cause problems. And before that, I was a lawyer with real clients. I also believe that the classroom should be as nonpolitical as possible – and I don’t want conservative students to feel uncomfortable before they take a single class based on my posts. So I don’t tell them about this blog. Also, I write and research on telecom policy – and I consider blogging and academic research separate endeavors. This, frankly, is a hobby.

Privately, I don’t write under my own name for family reasons. I’m from a conservative Southern family – and there are certain family members who I’d prefer not to know about this blog (thanks Ed). Also, I have family members who are well known in my home state who have had political jobs with Republicans, and I don’t want my posts to jeopardize anything for them (thanks again).

All of these things I would have told Ed, if he had asked. Instead, I told him that I have family and professional reasons for not publishing under my own name, and he wrote back and called me an “idiot” and a “coward.”

Whelan obviously doesn’t get out much. Or read the news. He is certainly an ignoramus about blogging if he hasn’t read about the dozens of cases of people who have lost jobs, been stalked and threatened, or forced to give up writing by employers all due to their passion for blogging.

My own case is instructive, although not for the reasons cited above. For the first 7 months this blog was in existence, I used the nom de blog” Superhawk” as a handle. The reasons was simple; being the brother of a national journalist known to most in the blogging community, I wanted to establish myself as a writer/blogger before coming out. I had always intended to write under my own name eventually. But I wanted to assure myself - quite understandably, I believe - that any success I enjoyed was due to my own efforts.

The irony, as it turned out, was that my own brother outed me on the Hugh Hewitt Show. He did it at almost the exact moment I was thinking of coming out of the anonymity closet anyway so it actually worked out pretty well.

The point is, there are a lot of good reasons for bloggers to remain anonymous and Ed Whalen has no right to decide differently just because he got steamed about someone’s response to his analysis. Did Publius commit a crime? Was he slandering Whalen? If not, Whalen’s fit of personal pique looks low, tawdry, childish, and vengeful. The closest Publius got to getting personal with Whelan was in calling him a “know-nothing demagogue.” And this was after making the point that Whelan knew better and was simply pandering to conservative sensibilities.

Holy Jesus, Ed. I’ve got pretty thin skin myself but it would take a helluva lot more than that to set me off. Questioning my integrity will do the trick as will trying to tell me what to write on my own site. And if you plan on commenting on this or any other post without reading what I’ve written and instead, substitute what you think I wrote or make the same points I made in the post and try and convince me I didn’t make them, you might as well be prepared for some skin flaying because that is my number one pet peeve.

But a “know-nothing demagogue?” In the rarefied atmosphere you inhabit at NRO and other elite bastions of opinion, them’s might be fightin’ words, but in the blogosphere, that’s almost a compliment. To point out that almost any blogger has experienced much, much worse (and dished it out accordingly) would be to mention the obvious to anyone who has spent more than an hour reading blogs.

So, through Whelan’s towering ignorance, he has outed someone for no good reason save his own sense of payback with still unknown consequences to a man he doesn’t know, who never did him any personal harm, and couldn’t affect his reputation one way or another even if that was his intent.

Yeah - way to go Ed.

The question of anonymity of bloggers is, I think, something to be settled by each individual blogger for the reasons I gave above. But what about anonymous commenters? Should they be granted the same comforting cloak that a blogging pseudonym brings?

There are so many sneering, snarky, ignorant, racist-bigots-haters out there in Blog Commentville - many more proportionately than actual bloggers - that I find it disgusting that these reprobates don’t have the guts to use their real names when chastising me or anyone else. If they want anonymity, they should start their own blogs. Their poison is spread to a far wider audience than they deserve as they glom onto sites with large traffic and where like minded anonymous trolls gather to cheer on each other’s putrid rants.

Even in the free wheeling atmosphere that blogs inhabit, if one were to attack fellow bloggers using the language and insults hurled by these anonymous commenters, they would never get the kind of attention they get on larger blogs. Hence, many bloggers are contemplating outlawing anonymous commenters altogether. Most publishing platforms today give the blogger the option of forcing their readers to register if they wish to comment, the registration being activated only when a link to a valid email address is sent.

While this stops the most rabid of trolls, it can’t stop anonymous commenters from fouling a site. The only option for the blogger is to ban the IP and name of the transgressor - a sometimes fruitless exercise as it is relatively easy to establish a new IP, get a new email address, and change one’s handle. In the end, one has the choice of banning comments altogether or simply deleting the objectionable ones.

If Publius had been a commenter at some blog attacking Whelan personally, or spreading lies about him, or simply calling him names, I would not be very sympathetic. But the blogger - one of the few left of center bloggers I find reasonable and thoughtful - gave what most bloggers would consider a mild rebuke to Whelan’s analysis and was outed for his trouble.

I would recommend that Mr. Whelan familiarize himself with blogs and the nature of the beast before going off half cocked and making himself appear a vengeful, spiteful, small minded man. I lost far more respect for Whelan through his outing of Hilzoy than anything the blogger has written about him.

What does that tell you, Mr. Whelan?

EMBARRASSING UPDATE

I stupidly wrote “Hilzoy” was the blogger outed when the actual victim was “Publius.” No excuse, just carelessness.

I am writing an in-depth piece for Pajamas Media on the speech but I wanted to get some thoughts down while some of them were fresh in my mind.

I saw the speech this morning and just finished reading the transcript. My initial impression from watching it was, I believe, correct; it was a very good speech with some eye popping assumptions that were just plain false, a glossing over of some points that needed to be hit harder, and a troubling lack of candor about the Muslim world regarding extremism that he either believes or deliberately failed to address.

Positive parts of the speech were that he did indeed tell the Muslim world some things they needed to hear: Denial that al-Qaeda carried out the attacks of 9/11 and the reality of the Holocaust are two subjects that are absolutely essential for the Muslim world to accept before any progress can be made. I think he also said some things that we in the west needed to hear about Islam although that part of his speech will fall on deaf ears in this country. Those predisposed to believe the worst about Islam and Muslims will not change (and that goes double for the other side).

I also thought Obama gave a good defense of our invasion of Afghanistan - something we should be reminding Pakistan of every day. And while I wish he would have hit the Iranian nuclear problem much harder, he laid out the consequences of an Iranian bomb realistically and without bombast. What he can do about it is another story.

He said some nice things about religious freedom and the democratic aspirations of all people on the planet. But Bush had been saying basically the same thing for years. And as far as religious freedom, his dubious claim of tolerance for other religions by Islam either proves his naivete or he has been misinformed about Christian persecution in Islamic lands.

His suggestive rhetoric that we are “imposing” democracy on Iraq or Afghanistan was pretty strange. While the Iraqi constitution borrowed some western concepts, it is much more beholden to Arab and Islamic practices than western-style government. I don’t recall anywhere in the US Constitution where it says the Koran inspires the law as it does in the Iraqi document.

Besides, should we have “imposed” another dictatorship on the Iraqis instead? I see no evidence that we were seeking to impose our values or culture on the Iraqis either. Just where this “imposing democracy” line came from would be a mystery except that is standard leftist tripe going back to Viet Nam.

He said almost nothing about government corruption (”stealing from the people”) when most citizens in the Middle East view the issue as one of the major problems in their countries. And he was virtually silent about separation of church from state. This was understandable but a truly brave speech would have addressed the issue head on. Islam is not incompatible with modernity but when governments use its traditions and teachings to control the people, impede economic development, stifle free speech, and maintain power, it becomes a dead weight on realizing progress toward a free, open, and prosperous society.

Stylistically, I thought the speech was near brilliant. It was extremely well organized, and the segues from topic to topic were rhetorically smooth and logical. It was both easy to follow if you were watching and easy to read.

The rhetoric was flowery without being obnoxious. Obama’s speeches have a tendency to take rhetorical flight and have trouble coming in for a landing sometimes. He avoided that pitfall by carefully crafting imagery that was substantive and somewhat subdued. The tone was at times hectoring - almost like a teacher scolding a class. But there was much beauty in the language and he mostly succeeded in walking the line between preaching and conversation.

There were many specific passages that will be taken out of context to attack the speech - many of them justified in my opinion. His belief that no one country should dominate in this brave new world is nonsense - unless he intends to deliberately subsume American interests to please other countries and the United Nations. You can bet the Russians and the Chinese were laughing at that passage. They have no intention of not acting in their vital interests - even if the world condemns them for it - as they seek to match or supplant America as the dominant power on the planet.

Was it a great speech? I subscribe to Theodore H. White’s view of what makes a great speech where three elements have to be present for a political speech to achieve immortality. First, the moment in time must amplify the words spoken. Since Obama’s Cairo address had no dramatic event or backdrop, that alone would disqualify it from being considered with even the top 100 American speeches much less being analogous to several of Churchill’s ringing addresses.

But the other factors that White believed made a great speech - the place the address is given and the words themselves, which should be great both spoken and read - came close to being fulfilled with Obama’s address. Martin Luther King speaking when he did and where he did acted as a gigantic megaphone for his words. Certainly Obama’s address will receive wide play around the world and the fact that he delivered it in a Muslim country will amplify the message . And the words in the speech itself will be seen in a context that guarantees the address will live beyond the daily news cycle.

In short, a good speech that could have been braver.

UPDATE

There’s a lot of good commentary both right and left. Ignore the politically motivated on both sides and concentrate on independent analysis.

On the right, Ed Morrissey and Christopher Preble of Cato have reasoned analysis. On the left, Peter Daou has an interesting critique. But the reality is, most on the right are trashing it and most on the left either believe it the second coming of the Sermon on the Mount or take great delight in linking to righties trashing the speech.