Right Wing Nut House

Yesterday, The House achieved a significant milestone when some lucky bloke opened the 2,000,000 page on this site since I began to keep track with sitemeter in February of 2005.

Since it seems like only yesterday that I was struggling to get 25 readers a day, I am astonished and humbled at that figure. I would like to thank all of you who are regular readers and those who drop by occasionally, if only to point out the error of my ways. Because yes, a significant number of those pages were not viewed by right wing nuts.

I also achieved another, less distinguished but even more remarkable milestone yesterday. My excellent spam catcher Askimet devoured its 500,000 victim - a spam bot probably trying to sell insurance. This number of spam comments and trackbacks does not include the 5,000 or so that actually made it through - usually by ganging up on the program and attacking it mercilessly, giving me up to 20 spams a minute. But for the most part, Askimet has performed magnificently.

BTW - if anyone has any good ideas how I can reduce that number, I’m open to suggestion.

I want to congratulate former Senator John Edwards and the entire network of netroots activists who, through a combination of thuggish threats and wild obfuscations of the facts managed to cow a candidate for President into doing their bidding by keeping two female bigots on his staff.

Amazing. So many issues have been raised by this dust-up that my “Last Word” post yesterday really doesn’t do the matter justice - especially after the shocking statement announcing the decision was released. For in my opinion, this couldn’t have ended worse for Edwards or the netroots if Karl Rove had planned it.

The general consensus among righty bloggers who are looking at the matter dispassionately is that Edwards probably did the only thing he could do in keeping the two women on board but that the prevaricating statement he issued to announce his decision was shocking in tone and substance. Simply put, to say that the two bloggers in question weren’t trying to malign Catholics or Christians is a crock.

Ed Morrissey:

However, it’s difficult to give much credence to Edwards’ explanation. He says that both bloggers have “assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone’s faith,” but given the quoted material, it’s almost impossible to reach any other conclusion. Calling Christians “misogynists” for their beliefs on the nature of life and the Virgin Birth, and that their opposition to abortion aims to force women to produce more tithing Catholics, certainly qualifies as intentionally malignant. It’s a convenient dodge, as were the “apologies” from the pair for having been misunderstood.

Contrary to the opinions of some well-intentioned bloggers, this never had anything to do with free speech. It had to do with the judgment of the Edwards campaign in hiring two incendiary bloggers known in part for their hostility to Christians.

This brings up a point that has puzzled me since the entire imbroglio began; how can you “smear” someone with their own words? Chris Bowers used the terms “smear” several times in this post in reference to the right’s attempt to highlight what any reasonable person would conclude are bigoted references to someone else’s personal religious beliefs. And despite the denials of both Marcotte and McEwan that they were only kidding or being satirical, the context of those hateful words and phrases clearly indicates rage not comedy was at work and a deliberate attempt to inflict emotional pain on Christian believers was fully intended. Why else would Marcotte refer to Jesus as “Jebus” so often on her site (one blogger counted 114 references to “Jebus”) or so shockingly refer to Christians as “misogynists?”

I suppose I should make it known for the umpteenth time that I am an atheist and am only concerned about the impact of these words on others. For the same reason we all blanch when someone uses the “N” word in a joke or other derogatory manner due to its hurtful connotations, we should all roundly and specifically condemn these hateful, hurtful, insensitive remarks published by both these women on their blogs.

But in this case, politics has trumped decency. No major netroots blogger that I have read has taken these women to task for their extraordinarily vile and disgusting diatribes. A few brave liberal commenters on my first post regarding Marcotte expressed outrage. But the outrage of the netroots was reserved for conservatives who, as I mentioned yesterday, were using the issue to try and damage Edwards while doing a little scalp hunting. While admitting the motives of conservatives were not pure, I was still shocked that nary a peep was heard regarding the two bloggers disgusting characterizations of Catholics and Christians in general. “Christofascists” as McEwan continually referred to them.

But the extent of whitewashing being done by the netroots when they concentrate on defending the obscenities used by the bloggers rather than the substance of their remarks is truly remarkable. I actually defended Jesse Taylor former blogger at Pandagon, and the use of obscenities in this post. I doubt that a few F-bombs would have been enough to cause the kind of stink that erupted. Saying that I or any other conservative is objecting solely on those grounds is a strawman argument plain and simple.

I have my own problems with the religious right but you would never, ever catch me using the kind of invective employed by Marcotte and McEwan. For me, it makes the defense of the two bloggers all the more curious. Apparently, tolerance, like every other part of liberal dogma, is a relative thing and that it can safely be disregarded if it interferes with the drive for power that is animating the progressive community.

Goldstein:

But lost on these Marcotte supporters—who are cheering on the power of the “netroots” to cow a politician into keeping on an ugly and hateful liability—is that Edwards just showed up Marcotte and McEwan as frauds and posturing blowhards, writers who have been pulling the wool over their audiences’ eyes by posting vicious “arguments” they never truly believed. To use the loaded language of establishment feminism—he publicly castrated them—and in so doing, he made fools out of their audiences, to boot.

Further, in doing so, he has shown himself to be nothing more than a calculating political opportunist of the worst sort—one who believes the voting public so daft they might actually buy a statement like the one he just released.

As I wrote yesterday, I don’t care one way or the other, personally, about whether or not Marcotte and McEwan are allowed to keep their jobs. That’s Edwards’ call. And from a blogging perspective, I suppose Edwards’ decision is good news.

But let’s not confuse the effect with the rationale—which is both risible and insulting. Because were it really never Marcotte’s intent to malign anyone’s faith, she probably wouldn’t have dedicated so many hate-filled blog posts to, you know—maligning anyone’s faith.

Indeed. Numerous sins can be forgiven as long as those transgressions serve the “higher purpose” of electing a President beholden to progressive online community. Jeff thinks that Edward’s statement emasculates the two bloggers. Nothing could be further than the truth. With a wink and a nod at his online supporters, Edwards has included them in his political gambit of appearing to chastise the bloggers for the benefit of the press and the rest of America who view what the two bloggers wrote as beyond the pale while acknowledging to his supporters that he knows where they’re coming from.

The questions raised about Edwards in this regard are extremely troubling. If he can’t stand up to Chris Bowers, can we expect him to stand up to the Iranians? Or the North Koreans? Or perhaps China who some experts believe are ready to use force to take back their “lost province” of Taiwan in the next 5 years?

Are these unfair questions? I think not. This is what Presidential campaigns are all about. Voters examine a candidate using a variety of criteria and certainly personnel decisions are among the most important. In this respect, Edwards may have gained some online friends but lost some others - including the religious left:

“We have gone so far to rebuild that coalition [between Democrats and religious Christians] and something like this sets it back,” said Brian O’Dwyer, a New York lawyer and Irish-American leader who chairs the National Democratic Ethnic Leadership Council, a Democratic Party group. O’Dwyer said Edwards should have fired the bloggers. “It’s not only wrong morally – it’s stupid politically.”

O’Dwyer e-mailed a statement to reporters saying: “Senator Edwards is condoning bigotry by keeping the two bloggers on his staff. Playing to the cheap seats with anti-Catholic bigotry has no place in the Democratic Party.”

This is what people outside of the online community are thinking. Are they part of the “right wing smear machine?”

I have no doubt that the issues that surround the use of bloggers on campaigns is far from settled. I disagree with some of the conventional wisdom that this will necessarily make things harder for both bloggers and candidates to come together.

Joe Gandleman:

It’s the nature of blogging (unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) for many blog writers to take positions that might be controversial in content, presentation, or language (each site makes a judgment on the latter and we avoid non-newspaper language here.) While some blog writers and commenters choose words carefully, more often than not blogging resembles a cyberspace form of talk radio with little censoring. And blogwriters can be far more blunt than newspaper columnists or editorial writers.

So if this is the new standard to be applied to campaigns on the left, it’s clear there is going to be a demand for the same standards to be applied to campaigns on the right.

The Marcotte-McEwan dustup has lowered the bar somewhat but I see this as a problem much more for the angry left than the right. Bloggers who have already attached themselves to Republican candidates (with the exception of Patrick Hynes working for McCain) are pretty staid representatives of the conservative sphere. Patrick Ruffini, hired by Rudy Giuliani is a long time GOP activist and can hardly be considered a bomb thrower. And a cursory glance at the top 50 or so conservative bloggers reveal a few that resort to obscenity laced tirades but most fall into a category more vanilla than hot sauce. Skewering the opposition without using dirty or inappropriate language will not be a hindrance in hiring them for GOP Presidential campaigns.

Of course, there are plenty of lefty bloggers who get their point across without tossing F-bombs all over the place or resorting to the kind of hate speech employed by Marcotte-McEwan. I have no doubt that some of them may have moved up the list of potential hires for Democratic candidates. It will be interesting to see what will happen as a result of this controversy. For instance, the bloggers at Firedog Lake are among the most raucous writers on the left. Will this keep some of those excellent bloggers from being employed by a Democratic candidate? Time will tell.

Edwards may have guaranteed that his candidacy will last at least through the first round of primaries by keeping the netroots happy. But he may have damaged his chances beyond that point by standing behind Marcotte-McEwan and their savagely anti-Christian pronouncements. Make no mistake. He can’t have it both ways. He can say from now until doomsday that he condemns the hate speech. But by keeping the two women on his staff, he is announcing to the world that he tolerates it.

I have a feeling this candidate/blogger issue will become a blood sport by summertime as all the announced candidates begin fleshing out their staffs to include members of the online community from both right and left. What this means for blogging in general and the future of the sphere, I have no idea. But I know there’s no way I would ever open myself up to the kind of public scrutiny that these bloggers will have to go through in order to participate in The Great Game.

“Beware lest clamor be taken for counsel” (Desiderius Erasmus )

“Are we nothing more than a pack of digital yellow journalists writing pixelated scab sheets vying to see who we can lay low next? If this be the way to fame and fortune in the blogosphere, I truly fear that, like television, the last great technological breakthrough that promised to change the world, we will degenerate into a mindless, bottomless pit of muck and mudslinging, dragging down the culture and trivializing even the most important issues.” (Me)

Learning came late in life in my case. For 25 years, I goofed off in school, barely squeaking by as I was ushered from grade to grade, from high school to college, graduating only because of the kindness of professors I was wise enough to suck up to.

After college, I persisted in my ignorance, wearing it like a badge of honor and mouthing the liberal platitudes and pablum of the times. But forced to finally confront my ignorance as I set out to make a living in the world, I realized how truly deficient my knowledge of the larger world of ideas was and I began a conscious effort to rectify the situation.

Not having read much philosophy, I began by reading the Greeks Socrates and Aristotle, moved on to Erasmus, devoured Kant, Hume, and Rousseau and ended my initial explorations with Hegel and Marx. To this day, it is hard to put into words the excitement I felt when the ideas of those giants slammed into me, so powerful was was the force of their logic and personalities. This started my journey as an auto-didact. And for the nearly 30 years since those heady days in the summer of 1979, I have experienced the joy of learning simply for the sake of knowing.

Knowledge for its own sake is a concept perhaps out of style at today’s educational assembly lines where we churn out lawyers, accountants, and B-school grads. I guess when you’re paying in excess of $100,000 a year to educate your child, you tend to demand that what they learn is “relevant” to the employment conditions they will find after graduation.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this kind of education - as long as it is augmented with a well rounded curriculum that includes the humanities, the sciences, and the arts. My understanding is that these opportunities are still available to the undergraduate - even if you are pre-law or pre-med. It would be my advice to anyone going off to college to take advantage of everything the school has to offer including the study of subjects that hold no promise to assist you in whatever field you have chosen to make your life’s work.

But the accumulation of knowledge is only part of the equation. As Confucius said “Real knowledge is to know the extent of ones ignorance.” Knowledge does not automatically lead to wisdom or infallibility nor does it insulate us from making mistakes in judgement. And that, my friends, may be the most important idea you read today.

The reason for this personal digression is that I wanted you to understand not how smart I am but how truly ignorant we all are. If, as Erasmus said “Humility is Truth” then surely it follows that before one can glimpse the truth, we must recognize and admit to our own ignorance, our own mistakes. Anything less reveals a towering conceit born of ego - a hubristic mindset that brooks no opposition and where ideas are set in stone rather than existing as free agents capable of altering their shape, their texture, even the very foundations on which they exist.

Long time readers of this site know exactly what I’m talking about. You can trace the arc of my support for the Iraq War, for the President, for Republicans, even for conservatives from where I started to where I am now and see where my ideas have changed to reflect the knowledge I have gained as well as changes in perception that have colored my thinking on a host of issues. Does this make me wishy-washy? To some, perhaps. I prefer to think that it proves I am at least receptive to examining other ideas that may clash with some of my long held beliefs.

Specifically with regards to Marcotte and the left in this matter, it is obvious their desperation to shift debate on this issue from Marcotte’s hate filled spewings to what they consider to be similar sins committed by conservatives precludes their having to examine their own beliefs, their own complicity in her shockingly corrupt ideological rantings.

In truth, they see nothing wrong with her warped view of Christians, Catholics, conservatives, men, and any other enemy she targets with her vile invective. Nor do other liberal commenters who have hurled obscene racist epithets at Michelle Malkin or made wild accusations about me, about my brother, or any other individual who has questioned Marcotte’s fitness to serve in any capacity on the staff of a major Presidential candidate demonstrate the slightest ability to examine what Marcotte’s insults and hurtful diatribes mean in a wider context.

By maintaining their silence or even voicing approval for what those outside the left side of the blogosphere almost universally condemn as hate speech, the left proves once again that ignorance is bliss and that self examination, like a little knowledge, is a dangerous thing, something to be avoided at all costs lest one lose their place in the stratified pecking order of lefty blogs.

But I cannot leave this subject without examining the role of those of us on the right who flogged this story into the mainstream media and may have cost Marcotte her job. Certainly our motives lacked nobility. I will be the last to argue that anything more than “scalp hunting” animated this effort. And the questions I raised in the quote at the top of this page remains valid: Is this all we are? Is this what we have become?

In the heat of battle, it is easy to lose sight of those questions. This is not an excuse but rather an explanation. And whatever the outcome of this latest blogosphere dustup, it may be well to ask a third question: Is there anything we can do to change this dynamic? The constant back and forth of charge, counter-charge, revelation followed by the inevitable attempt to alter the discussion by pointing to the sins of the other side - all of this has become an all too familiar pattern of behavior that any rational person would have to say cheapens us all on both sides of the aisle and doesn’t solve anything. Instead, it actually breeds resentment so that the next rhubarb will follow exactly the same course with perhaps even more intensity in the use of language and invective.

I don’t have any answers. And the only thing I’m sure of is that I and everyone else will be guilty of the exact same sins the next time blogs swarm in and target someone for scalp lifting.

Nature of the beast? Or something that can consciously be changed? I don’t know. I just don’t know.

UPDATE: A LITTLE HONESTY WOULD BE A GOOD START

Statement from Edwards:

The tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte’s and Melissa McEwan’s posts personally offended me. It’s not how I talk to people, and it’s not how I expect the people who work for me to talk to people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone on my campaign, whether it’s intended as satire, humor, or anything else. But I also believe in giving everyone a fair shake. I’ve talked to Amanda and Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone’s faith, and I take them at their word. We’re beginning a great debate about the future of our country, and we can’t let it be hijacked. It will take discipline, focus, and courage to build the America we believe in.

“…[I]ntended as satire, humor, or anything else…”? How about deliberately hurtful? And the idea that Marcotte’s intention was not to malign anyone’s faith is a baldfaced lie. “Reproductive issues” - including anti-abortion beliefs - that she denigrated in such a scurrilous and vile manner are the essence of some Catholic’s faith! That and her disrespecting the Pope show that it was fully her intention to malign the Catholic faith and any statement that says otherwise is meaningless drivel.

The left now has their champions ensconced in a campaign after the principal releases a statement full of what everyone with an ounce of decency recognizes as lies. I’m all for forgiveness but how about a little honesty? If Edwards had come out and said that while he recognized that Marcotte’s views were hurtful to some Americans, they didn’t reflect his beliefs or what he was trying to accomplish with the campaign. Instead, he pretends that Marcotte’s screeds were humor or satire and he further pretends to believe them when they say that they weren’t trying to be hateful or hurtful to anyone.

None of the players covered themselves in glory over this - least of all Edwards.

Also, check out the comments by The Anchoress below as well as her post here.

UPDATE II

James Joyner agrees with me:

These statements have all the believability of 5-year-olds being made to shake hands and apologize. Further, while I have no doubt both these women believe in the 1st Amendment, it’s utterly ridiculous to claim that they never intended to criticize people’s religious views. They did so routinely. The only way that religious people would not have been offended by any of dozens of statements on their blogs was by not reading them.

Of course, that was likely the case in most instances. Blogs that appeal to rabid partisans often devolve into ridicule and dripping condescension toward those who disagree. That’s great for building a fan base, as numerous bloggers (and talk hosts) on both sides of the aisle can attest. It’s not very effective for holding a national conversation, though, let alone a presidential campaign.

Malkin: “Meanwhile, the nutroots are waving their guns around in triumph.” Yep. Firing off their weapons in celebratory triumph like all the other primitive peoples of the earth.

Goldstein:

But lost on these Marcotte supporters—who are cheering on the power of the “netroots” to cow a politician into keeping on an ugly and hateful liability—is that Edwards just showed up Marcotte and McEwan as frauds and posturing blowhards, writers who have been pulling the wool over their audiences’ eyes by posting vicious “arguments” they never truly believed. To use the loaded language of establishment feminism—he publicly castrated them—and in so doing, he made fools out of their audiences, to boot.

Further, in doing so, he has shown himself to be nothing more than a calculating political opportunist of the worst sort—one who believes the voting public so daft they might actually buy a statement like the one he just released.

See also some interesting thoughts somewhat similiar to my own about blogs and blogging from Sister Toldjah.

Allah is on fire. Keep scrolling.

Watching the destruction of Amanda Marcotte, Pandagon blogger and soon-to-be-ex “Blogmaster” for the Edwards campaign, has been one of the few bright spots in this otherwise dreary and depressing new year.

If ever there was a left wing hysteric who deserved to be tarred, feathered, and dragged through the mud and slime of their own writings, it is Marcotte. She is a perfect illustration of the liberal mindset that posits the notion of a relative moral code when it comes to racial, ethnic, religious, and gender semantics. For her, anything goes. No characterization of her political opponents is too vile. No racist, sexist, or bigoted thought is out of bounds.

This is because the left has insulated itself from such mundane considerations as good manners and decorous language by elevating themselves to what they consider to be a higher moral plane than the rest of us. Simply because they mean well, they are vouchsafed all manner of perfidious name calling and calumnious charges directed against their opponents.

The fact that Marcotte sees the world through the prism of post-modern feminism makes her impossible to take seriously on any level. Her writing is full of so many half truths, manufactured criticisms, dead-wrong assumptions, and a child like ignorance of the emotional universe inhabited by normal men and women that trying to decipher her scribblings - once you can get by the obscenities and work your way through the incoherence - is a task best left to a psychiatrist.

I won’t pollute this site with too many examples of what I mean. For that, I urge you to see Dan Riehl’s posts or Michelle Malkin’s writings on Marcotte.

This is one of those stories that starts out on the internet, jumps to cable talk shows, and finally, when the issue can no longer be ignored, appears in the mainstream press. In the case of Marcotte, her initial effort to hide some of her more outrageous and obscenity laced tirades against conservatives in general and men in particular by deleting the offending posts at Pandagon only made matters worse. In effect, it was no longer what she said (which was bad enough) that was the issue but rather her clumsy attempt to cover it up once she was named “Blogmaster” of the Edwards campaign.

But someone with a track record of stupidity as long and varied as Marcotte’s should have realized that she wouldn’t be able to delete all the offending posts written over the last few years. In the end, her weird anti-Catholic bigotry will probably end up bringing her career as “Blogmaster” to a quick and unceremonious close. Here’s Marcotte on the Catholic belief in the Immaculate Conception:

Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit?

A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.

(HT: Patterico)

And in one of the more delicious ironies I can imagine, Marcotte may be brought down by the object of some of her more unbalanced rants; the Catholic Church:

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, demanded that Edwards fire Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan.

“John Edwards is a decent man who has had his campaign tarnished by two anti-Catholic, vulgar, trash-talking bigots,” Donohue wrote in a statement. “He has no choice but to fire them immediately.”

The Edwards campaign declined to comment. McEwan and Marcotte did not respond to e-mails requesting a response.

The New York Times tries to excuse Marcotte’s ravings as a consequence of being a member of the blogosphere:

The two women brought to the Edwards campaign long cyber trails in the incendiary language of the blogosphere. Other campaigns are likely to face similar controversies as they try to court voters using the latest techniques of online communication.

This is absurd. Marcotte is not being taken to task for “incendiary” writing. Holy Smokes! Anyone peruse the DNC or RNC sites lately? “Incendiary” language is hardly frowned upon and is, indeed, a prerequisite for latching on to any political campaign.

Marcotte’s will lose her job because despite the fact that she believes herself to be well meaning and, probably according to her lights incapable of hatred directed against any group, she is a rank bigot, a nauseating, die hard dogmatist whose sickening screeds against people she disagrees with (including most non-emasculated men) have sullied the debate between right and left for far too long.

Unfortunately, Marcotte’s type will always have a home on the left. She will be welcomed back with open arms and continue her unbalanced rants, raging against people whose only transgression is that they fail to fit their beliefs into her own narrow, warped, and cockeyed worldview.

Perhaps there will be an opening soon in some other campaign, a job that she will be eminently qualified to perform as only she is capable.

I hear Ahmadinejad will be running for President again. Those two see eye to eye on more issues than either is likely to admit. Not to mention both being a couple of draughts short of a full keg.

Sounds like a match made in heaven…

UPDATE

It has been far too long since we’ve heard from the lefty’s #1 thinker, pundit, and sock puppet Lambchop.

Here, Lambchop weighs in on this controversy in his usual understated, intelligent, and perspicacious manner. And I quote:

NEENER!! NEENER!! NEENER!! NEENER!! NEENER!! NEENER!!

UPDATE II: OMIGOD THE MORANS AGREE ON SOMETHING!

My brother Terry (who has a new blog that you should bookmark immediately) gets it exactly right:

Questions: What, if anything, does it tell us about Edwards that he’s joined up with this blogger? Is Edwards’ association with a person who has written these things a legitimate issue for voters, as they wonder–among other things–whom he might appoint to high office if he’s elected? If a Republican candidate teamed up with a right-wing blogger who spewed this kind of venom, how would people react? Is the mere raising of this issue a kind of underhanded censorship, a way of ruling out of bounds some kinds of opinion? Are we all just going to have to get used to a more rough-and-tumble, profane, and even hate-filled public arena in the age of the blogosphere?

Like any good journalist, he is asking the right questions - and the questions sort of answer themselves, don’t they? (HT: Malkin)

UPDATE III

Hugh Hewitt nails it and offers a challenge:

As L’Affaire Marcotte nears its inevitable conclusion, I can’t decide who was dumber, Marcotte or the Edwards campaign. On the one hand I can’t believe that Marcotte had become so comfortable in the left wing echo chamber that she actually believed her past didn’t preclude her from publicly entering a mainstream presidential campaign. On the other hand, I really can’t believe that the Edwards campaign apparently didn’t vet a high profile hire.

I’ve got this Friday at 9:13 a.m.

Okay, Big Daddy I’ll take some of that action. Give me Thursday at 2:00 PM Central. As you know, good politicians lance boils quickly. The very good ones do it decisively. Marcotte is gone by the end of lunchtime tomorrow. Book it!

Michelle Malkin and Bryan Preston (of Hot Air) have made it to Baghdad and are currently embedded with a unit that appears to be at the center of the action:

My Hot Air colleague Bryan Preston and I have been in Iraq, embedded with an incredibly dedicated Army unit in Baghdad tasked with training Iraqi security forces (both Shia and Sunni) conducting counterinsurgency operations, and carrying out civil affairs work. Yes, there is danger and chaos and unspeakable bloodshed in parts of Baghdad. Sectarian violence–compounded by everyday street crime and tribal conflict–is rampant. Corruption, incompetence, and apathy infect the Iraqi government. You’ve gotten endless news coverage of all that. But there are also pockets of success and signs of hope amid utter despair. I’ll give you more details of our embed unit after we get home. We have much to report and will be publishing a multi-part video and audio series, blog posts, and op-eds on security conditions, media malpractice, and the big picture on the war next week. Having met, watched, and interviewed a broad cross-section of our troops during our brief but fruitful travels, my faith in the U.S. military has never been stronger– but I will not sugarcoat my skepticism and doubts about decisions being made in Washington.

First of all, I speak for (almost) everybody both left and right when I wish them good luck and pray that they stay safe.

I say “almost” everyone because if the past is any guide, there will be sneering contempt from some lefty blogs - criticism that drips with racism, sexism, and a a jaw dropping kind of obscene hate. I plan on posting the reaction from the left to Malkin’s trip to Iraq because these people must be exposed as the ignorant racists they truly are. Ignoring their hypocrisy only makes them believe they are clever rather than pond scum.

Criticism of Malkin and Preston is not the issue. It is perfectly acceptable to criticize what they write and their impressions of what is going on Iraq. But the rancid way in which some lefty bloggers will personalize their criticism will not be tolerated by me or, I imagine, a host of others.

Feel free to leave links from lefty blogs in the comments who you feel step over the line. As news spreads of the Malkin/Preston embed, I should have plenty to write about this afternoon.

For those of you who receive a feed from this site, I have broken down and finally allowed for the publishing of the entire post for each blog entry rather than the first couple of lines.

I have entered into an advertising agreement with a news aggregator who needs to publish my entire article in the feed. Hence, the change.

Don’t know what this will do to traffic. But given that I’ve got around 3,500 Bloglines subscribers alone, I’m hoping it won’t drive visitors away too much.

When I start publishing podcasts of my radio show, I intend to make those available in the feed as well.

Any comments pro or con would be appreciated.

I have purged my IP Deny list from my Wordpress C-Panel thus granting access to the 27 IP’s that I have banned in the last two years.

Some of you may be under comment moderation restrictions or blacklisted from making comments at all. As long as you behave yourselves and follow the rules, I will gladly restore your unrestricted commenting privileges. If you have trouble commenting, use the Contact Form found by clicking the link in the upper left hand sidebar.

The rules for commenting are simple and ruthlessly enforced:

1. No profanity. You want to drop F-Bombs? Go to some sewer of a blog where they don’t care.

2. No insulting other commenters. You can say that someone is naive, or oblivious, or not in touch with reality.. But comparing them to Hitler or questioning their parentage, or inane name calling will not be tolerated.

3. No insulting the host. Period.

4. Comments must be germane to the post or in direct response to another comment.

5. Hate speech is not tolerated - against Christians or Muslims. If you want to tell me that all Muslims are evil or all Christians are theocrats, go someplace more conducive to your worldviews. Don’t pollute this site with your nonsense.

Comment violators will be given a warning or, if the transgression is egregious enough, banned from commenting outright.

None of the above rules apply to me. If you don’t like it, start your own blog and then you can make your own rules.

The server used by Blogs About Hosting has been under a severe denial of service attack for a couple of days now. If you’ve experienced slow loading or have been unable to access the site, I apologize.

What has me very concerned is that I think that this has been going on now for a couple of weeks. If you click on my Sitemeter icon, you will note that my average daily visits are down to less than 1600. That number hasn’t been as low for about a year.

Until the end of November, I was averaging around 2200-2400 visitors a day. But in the last two weeks, I seem to have lost about 30% of my readership. I realize some may have been upset over a few of my recent Iraq posts but 30% would be an unprecedented exodus as far as I know.

I was wondering if you have tried to access the site and failed in the last couple of weeks. Or if you’ve had any other problems like not being able to leave comments. If so, please leave a comment to this effect. I have Blogs About looking into this but any help you can give would be most appreciated.

Talk about useless gits…

Both right and left are engaged in what is quite possibly the silliest, the stupidest, the most ridiculous debate on the war to date.

And that’s saying a lot.

Is Iraq now “officially” at war with itself? Is there “civil war” in the streets of Baghdad and elsewhere?

According to the left, Iraq has been “sliding into civil war” or there has been a “de facto” civil war” in Iraq at least 7 different times since Saddam’s statue fell. Of course, they were laughably wrong. Just as their warnings about imminent disaster in Iraq over the last three years were wrong as well. Their reading of what was actually happening in that country was so consistently off target that any accuracy that can be ascribed to their analysis to today’s Iraq might be placed in the realm of blind luck. Keep repeating the same Cassandra-like warnings of disaster over and over and over and eventually when the explosion happens, you can pretend that you weren’t so unalterably wrong for three years running.

For my fellow conservatives, I’ve also just about had enough of this nonsense. Whether the nomenclature “civil war” should be used to describe what is happening in Iraq is not the issue. The issue is dead people. Lots of them. Not just in Baghdad but all over the country. They are dying because they are Shias or because they are Sunnis and for no other reason. They are being dragged off the streets and tortured and shot or being blown up in massive car bomb attacks. People are terrified. Militias from one side are ordering people from the other side to leave or be killed. There is chaos. The rule of law and civilized society no longer exist. Whatever tenuous bonds existed between the people and their government has been ripped to shreds and it is a mystery at this point whether or not those bonds can be re-established no matter how many militia men we kill or how many insurgents are eliminated.

Call it whatever you want. “Civil War” is a handy enough descriptive but I’m not picky. Just don’t call it “progress” and don’t try and convince yourself that things aren’t as bad as what’s being reported. Things are that bad. And no amount of fauxtography, stringers who pass along disinformation, biased reporting, or outright lies will change the reality that Iraq has slipped beyond anyone’s control and only a massive effort - probably costing thousands of more in civilian casualties - will be able to bring the violence down to a level that will allow us to leave.

These dead people are not the inventions of a biased press. They are not the imaginings of idiot lefties who are so desperate to see America humiliated in Iraq that they are willing to abandon the hundreds of thousands of ordinary Iraqis - just like they were perfectly willing to abandon many, many more South Vietnamese - to whatever fate awaits them after we leave. Our enemies are winning in Iraq partly because of this refusal by both sides to see the reality of what was happening and formulate tactics and policies to confront the problems. Instead, we got a partisan food fight for three years while our enemies - roundly and soundly defeated on the battlefield day after day - directed their efforts to maximize their propaganda in order to sap the will of the American people to stick it out for the long haul.

Now we have American paralysis in Iraq as the Administration scrambles to change gears from managing the conflict to exiting the country. This paralysis has emboldened all sides and the results are there for all to see; death, chaos, and a government teetering on the edge of absolute irrelevancy.

We are about to go hat in hand to Iran and Syria, begging them to allow us to leave with some dignity intact rather than giving the American people a replay of the last helicopter leaving our embassy in Saigon. The price we pay for the help of these two terrorist enabling and supporting states will be steep - bet on it. It may involve further betrayals - not just of the people of Iraq who placed their trust in the United States not to abandon them to the forces of chaos and darkness but also friends elsewhere in the region like Lebanon and perhaps even Israel. Bargaining with despots and fanatics will always be a crapshoot. And there will be absolutely no guarantee that they will live up to any bargain we strike with them.

So stop this silly assed argument about whether Iraq is in a state of “civil war” or not. There’s enough stupidity on either side of this debate to fill the monthly quota of blogosphere angst over absolutely irrelevant issues. Best now to concentrate on what we can do to salvage something out of the Iraq mess rather than lefty “I told ya so’s” about something they’ve been wrong about 7 times over the last three years or righties seeing Iraq through rose colored glasses regarding the reality of the butchery that’s taking place.

Maybe y’all could start writing about something really important…like Brittany’s divorce or Michael Richard’s hypocrisy. At least then you wouldn’t have to pretend that you’re arguing about something important.

I may do a post later today about some PC idiots teaching our children how evil white people are for their actions toward indians but tomorrow being Thanksgiving, I will indulge myself and take the day off.

Zsu Zsu and I plan on resting and then eating our genuine T-Bone USDA prime steaks (she hates turkey) along with sublime potatoes, fresh beans from our garden, a salad worthy of a king, and for desert a chocolate fudge brownie on top of double chocolate ice cream smothered in hot fudge.

Who wouldn’t look forward to that?

I also plan on doing some long overdue maintenance to the site and computer as well as getting my Skype recording package to work so that I can record interviews for the radio show. BTW - The Rick Moran Show will resume (along with the rest of WAR radio programming) on Monday, November 27 at 12:00 noon central.

I hope everyone has a happy and safe Thanksgiving. See y’all back here soon.