Right Wing Nut House

Blogbud Jay at Stop the ACLU and Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit have apparently agreed to disagree regarding the ACLU and the degree to which the liberal political organization is a menace to American society.

Jay’s interview with Mr. Reynolds is a must read. One quote caught my eye in particular:

13. Do you really put puppies in blenders?

Reynolds: I like puppies.

Please notice the rather non-committal answer here. When Mr. Reynolds says he likes puppies does he mean he likes the taste of them? Or that he likes putting them in blenders and watching as cute little doggies are mashed into an unrecognizable lump of bone, sinew, and flesh? Perhaps he meant to say he likes the sound puppies make as they are twirling and swirling inside his Proctor-Silex?

A better question would have been “How many puppies have you murdered today, Reynolds?”

At any rate, Jay didn’t hold it against him as he has re-blogrolled Instapundit on his site.

And if you are wondering what all this puppy stuff is about, here is Frank J’s post that started the Reynolds-puppy-in-the-blender meme.

Quite simply, it is the funniest thing I’ve ever read on the net.

UPDATE

Bryan Preston who is guest blogging at Michelle Malkin (How’d he get that gig?) also noticed Mr. Reynold’s obtuseness regarding that last answer:

It’s kind of a non-denial denial on the whole puppy blending controversy.

I believe an investigation is in order. Hell, if we can bring down Dan Rather…

Perhaps the worst casino game one can play is “Blackjack.” The reason is the odds are so heavily weighted in favor of the house that your chances of winning begin to resemble the chance that Democrats will act like grown ups or that liberals will develop some common sense.

Most problems in trying to win in Blackjack come from getting into a game with idiots who don’t know how to play. These are the people who believe the object of the game is to hit “21.” Hence, they will ask for a card when sitting on 16 or even 17. The problem isn’t just that they lose. The problem is that they screw up the game for the rest of the players.

Be that as it may, I love Blackjack because like roulette (a game with equally excreable odds) you can usually play a while with very little money. Get on a $5 Blackjack table and you can play most of the night with $50 bucks.

Some casinos in Vegas still play by the rule that if you get a true Blackjack - A Jack of Spades and an Ace - your payout is 10:1 instead of the normal 2.5:1. But it is the “One Eyed Jack” - the Jack of Spades - that has a history that fascinates.

The Jack of Spades and Jack of Diamonds are the only face cards drawn in profile, hence the “one eyed” appellation. The Jack of Spades is a favorite wild card in many games including several varieties of poker. It is still considered one of the luckiest of cards with perhaps only the Ace of Spades having more superstition attatched to it.

All this being said, I think that the Jack of Spades is the most attractive card in the deck being much prettier than the King and as pretty as any Queen. While some may see the Jack as effeminate, they are mistaken. All the Jack of Spades needs is a decent hair stylist. Get rid of those curls and he’s the bomb.

Why all this about the Jack of Spades?

I WANT EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU TO CLICK THIS LINK - THAT’S RIGHT, THIS ONE - AND VOTE FOR ME FOR THE JACK OF SPADES IN AARON’S DECK O’ BLOGGERS.

You will have my eternal gratitude and undying affection if you cast your vote to make me the Jack of Spades of the blogosphere.

I have watched during the last week as bloggers and the MSM have finally started to focus on the real story in the case involving the leaking of Valerie Plame’s name; the fact that there is a rogue faction at the CIA who opposed the policies of the President of the United States and tried to defeat those policies by selectively leaking classified information to friendly reporters.

Last summer as I began a series of posts on this subject, there was literally no one focusing on this aspect of the Plame controversy outside of Tom McGuire at Just One Minute. On July 13, I wrote:

This is the dirty business of government being exposed to the light of day. On the one hand, you have the White House with a President duly elected that has made the tough decision to go to war. On the other side, you have a political faction at the CIA who can justify their opposition to the Administration by chalking it up as differences in policy. The amazing number of selective leaks prior to the election that constantly put the administration on the defensive with regards to what they knew about WMD before the war was another manifestation of the partisanship of this faction. Given the mountains of intelligence analyses prior to the Iraq war on WMD, to cherry pick opposing views and then leak them to the press was an outrageously partisan attempt to discredit the President.

On July 21st:

If Joe Wilson could sit by a pool sipping mint tea and talk with a few officials, why couldn’t such an inquiry be handled by agency personnel already in country? Why a “special mission?”

The answer is that the CIA wanted to make sure they got the right answers from the “investigation.” So they send glory boy Wilson on a made up errand to insure that the intelligence is “fixed” to absolve the Niger government of colluding with the Iraqis in what two separate inquiries have concluded was a real attempt to circumvent sanctions to purchase uranium. And to obscure that fact, Wilson has to make it appear that his talent and contacts alone were the reason he was sent to Niger not that his wife was part of a faction out to discredit the Administration’s WMD claims prior to going to war with Iraq.

This may in fact be the real cover-up. What started as a policy dispute between WMD experts at CIA and the “Neocons” in the Bush Administration may have escalated to include the CIA selective leaking of classified information in order to swing an election. And right in the middle of this cover up may be the Wilson-Plame connection regarding the Niger mission.

On August 2nd, I covered more selective leaking from the CIA for The American Thinker. This time it was a National Intelligence Estimate with regards to Iran’s nuclear ambitions:

The point is that regardless of recent steps to reform our intelligence capability, it appears that we’re still working with a dysfunctional system where agency personnel feel perfectly comfortable with leaking classified information in a bid to influence both Administration policy and the political process. No one expects everybody to agree on everything. But the American people have a right to expect that the unelected bureaucrats who work at the CIA allow policy making to reside with those we have entrusted for the task – the elected representatives of the people.

Now we have a host of bloggers and mainstream media columnists calling for an investigation of the CIA. Victoria Toensing:

“The CIA conduct in this matter is either a brilliant covert action against the White House or inept intelligence tradecraft. It is up to Congress to decide which.”

Deborah Orin:

Having Wilson go public was very useful to the CIA, especially the division where his wife worked — because it served to shift blame for failed “slam dunk” intelligence claims away from the agency. To say that Bush “twisted” intelligence was to presume — falsely — that the CIA had gotten it right.

When the White House ineptly tried to counter Wilson’s tall tales by revealing that he wasn’t an expert and his wife set up the trip, the CIA demanded a criminal probe — and then itself broke the law by leaking that news

Investors.Com:

We believe that someone needs to answer the questions raised recently by Joseph F. DiGenova, a former federal prosecutor and independent counsel:

These aren’t the musings of the tinfoil-hat brigade. A sober-minded case can be made that at least some people in the CIA may have acted inappropriately to discredit the administration as a way of salvaging their own reputations after the intelligence debacles of 9-11 and Iraqi WMD.

Newsmax:

But the Agency’s double-dealing on evidence of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction begs another question: Was the CIA an honest broker of information that seemed, early on, to link Iraq to the 9/11 attacks?

Then there are bloggers like Michael Barone, Mark Noonan, and Scott Johnson who are calling for an investigation of the CIA. While I wholeheartedly endorse such a probe, the question is how focused could such an investigation get?

The wide range of malfeasance on the part of the CIA has been breathtaking. Their leaking of classified information has encompassed so many aspects of American policy all over the world that it must be the work of some very senior intelligence officials. Only top level officials would be in a position to gather and collate such wide ranging intel to be put in regular briefings for policy makers or be the ones giving the briefings themselves. The latter is less likely but not out of the realm of possibility. In short, we aren’t just looking at the kind of leaking done by low-level analysts who may be disgruntled with the way the Administration used a specific bit of intelligence. We are talking about people at the highest levels of the Agency who are in a position to decide what intelligence is passed on to policy makers and what intelligence is withheld.

And no investigation would be complete without hauling before the Committee members of VIPS - the so-called “Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity” whose membership includes some of the most radical left wing Democratic party partisans working today. Did members of this group act as conduits between their friends still working at the Agency and national security columnists like Walter Pincus and Nick Kristoff? Inquiring minds want to know, indeed.

The last major Congressional investigation of CIA activities was the Church Committee. Most inside observers at the Agency claim that the revelations and subsequent fall out from the Committee’s hearings nearly destroyed the CIA. Morale hit rock bottom when Admiral Stansfield Turner became the DCIA under President Carter. Turner dismantled our human intelligence capability (HUMINT) and stressed the gathering of intel by so-called “National Technical Means.” We found out to our detriment on 9/11 how vitally important HUMINT is to the overall picture intelligence analysts try to draw for policy makers.

The satellites and other technical means we have at our disposal to gather and analyze intelligence are the most closely guarded secrets in America. By leaking some of the classified intelligence about Saddam’s capabilities and intentions prior to the war, the leakers have given our enemies hints as to what we can see, what we can hear, and what we can read from nations and individuals that try and hide these things from prying eyes. In short, leaking by Agency partisans did far more damage to national security than the “outing” of an Agency staffer whose husband apparently bragged about her CIA employment to anyone and everyone who he met.

So any investigation of the CIA must be done with considerable care. It cannot be a scattershot fishing expedition. Too much is at stake to cripple the work done by the CIA in this time of war. But an investigation must be done in order to rid the Agency once and for all of people who place partisan or career considerations above the good of the nation.

There are times when writing is a sheer joy, an uplifting combination of out of body experience and sexual arousal where all the tumblers click into place as if God ordered the mysteries of the universe to be revealed in a breathtaking cyclorama and one can almost taste colors and smell beauty.

Then there are times when writing really, really sucks.

It’s at those times that, like an addict stealing money from a roommate to feed their insatiable desire for a fix, I must confess to occasionally stealing ideas for articles from others in order to feed this demon of a blog whose screaming desire for CONTENT! CONTENT! is both ceaseless and wearying.

A notable example of my shameless plagiarism of ideas was a post I did a few months ago entitled “Moonbat Blog Taxonomy” where I stole the idea of doing a post on some of the top lefty blogs from a liberal writer (and shall remain nameless here given the nauseating racism and sexism exhibited in the article by the author) who did a hit piece on top righty sites.

This morning, after sitting in front of the monitor for two hours with a blanker stare than usual, my mouth hanging open, settling in its accustomed place to allow for the full intake of oxygen (I am, in fact, a mouth breathing right wing conservative) I happened to click a link on John Hawkins site that led me to this post by Jon Henke at Q & O Blog which reviewed conservative blog sites.

It took a couple of seconds for those tumblers to click into place but eventually I slapped my hand to my head saying “That’s it!” (Note to self: Next time put the coffee cup down before slapping your head, ninny). And since Henke shamelessly stole my idea during the last go-around with liberal sites, perhaps turnabout is fair play in this case and Jon will vouchsafe my theft of his excellent idea.

Mr. Henke approached his subjects from his viewpoint as a libertarian…or is it neo-libertarian…as opposed to a paleo-neo-libertarian like me. At any rate, since Jon was kicked out of the Conservative Book Club a long time ago for being an apostate and mortal sinner, he felt no compunction about criticizing many of the conservative blogs for their shortcomings both real and perceived.

Now Jon is a respected blogger, widely read and justifiably so for the excellent commentary he and his compatriots publish on their site. I however, am not very respected and little known outside of a small circle of people whose computers have mysteriously malfunctioned and permanently frozen on my webpage. The fact that most of them are from foreign countries where English is not usually spoken gives me the confidence to write whatever I please without fear that anyone of any note would ever take offense to anything I said about them since the odds of them seeing what I wrote approach those being laid in Vegas for a Cubs World Series championship next year.

That said, here is my review of some conservative sites that I visit everyday.

INSTAPUNDIT

Glenn Reynolds is a fascinating combination of lawyer, teacher, sage, and geek. Anyone who can start an internet wide discussion on the relative merits of various shaving blades (or lawnmowers, or cameras) deserves serious consideration as a true Renaissance man. One gets the impression at times that Mr. Reynolds is permanently plugged in to the internet with his brain downloading and processing information even as he sleeps. I also believe he is dismissive at times of the religious right and of moral arguments in general as well as being occasionally condescending to those with which he disagrees. Not a deep thinker but appears to have a clear, well ordered mind which manifests itself in his excellent writing ability.

MICHELLE MALKIN.COM

Malkin’s site has actually surpassed Instapundit as the top blog in the ecosystem according to linkage. The reason is that there is no one who has better round-ups of blog and media reaction to The Big Story. Within minutes of breaking news, Malkin has a dozen links to posts that give both information and opinion. It is not empty flattery to say that she is a blogger’s blogger, someone who provides quotable perspective and great links for one’s own blog posts. I’ve never been able to figure out what drives the left to attack her in such despicably viscous ways. Her book In Defense of Internment is one of the most provocative and from my point of view, wrongheaded books I’ve ever read. But the arguments made were I thought, reasonable and well researched. Why the left can’t see past their own myopia and judge the book on its merits instead of their using some of the most vile, personal invective imaginable is beyond my understanding. That said, there are few who wield a sharper pen than Malkin when it comes to exposing the hypocrisy of liberals. Maybe that is what’s got them in a constant lather about her.

POWERLINE

If you’ve read Jon Henke’s review of Powerline, you can see where he doesn’t much care for the trio of attorneys who write for it. I actually thought Mr. Henke was unfair in this case as he criticized specifically their “corrections policy, their interest in criticism, and consistency.” I have seen many corrections on that site as well as responses to criticisms, most recently a thoughtful response to E.J. Dionne. As for consistency, the post Jon linked to trying to equate Clinton and Scooter Libby is a false analogy - at this point. Did Scooter Libby not remember certain conversations or did he deliberately lie to the Grand Jury? There’s no such question about Mr. Clinton’s guilt in that regard.

As for the blog itself, I must confess to being more of a skimmer recently than a reader. Powerline is still the “goto” place for analysis on a Supreme Court decision or other legal issues. And their forays into music and the arts are always fascinating reads. But I now go for politics elsewhere.

LITTLE GREEN FOOTBALLS

If there is something going on in the Middle East that affects America, LGF has the link to the story. Jon Henke rightly says it’s “all anti-Islamism all the time.” I consider the site a valuable public resource that gives a perspective on radical Islam that is missing from media coverage in general. That said, I wish the proprietor of the site Charles Johnson would interject his views more often and in greater detail. And while the vast majority of his commenters (”Lizardoids”) add valuable insights and information to the discussions (many of them scholars in their own right) the level of discourse can be lowered considerably by the occasional knucklehead who spouts bigoted claptrap. To their credit, other commenters usually slap the offender down, something not usually mentioned when liberals write about the LGF community.

HUGH HEWITT.COM

Jon calls Hewitt “the distilled essence of the Party Man.” I suppose he means that as a criticism. The question is, does Hewitt try to hide his party loyalty? If not, what’s the big deal? If Hewitt was trying to pass himself off as a disinterested observer, I can see where such criticism would be in order. Seeing that Mr. Hewitt has on more than one occasion taken both the President and the Republican party to task for a variety of transgressions, Jon’s criticism - if that’s what it is - would be unwarranted. I would say there is a huge difference between Ken Mehlman and Hugh Hewitt.

Hewitt is sometimes called the “Father” of the blogosphere and I generally read him to find out what other bloggers are writing about. Content wise, I have to say that his postings since the election have appeared to be rather desultory rather than inspired. That said, I listen to his radio show where he seems much more animated and interesting. Perhaps that’s where his energies are being directed these days.

Why stop here? First of all, this post is getting tiresome and not very interesting to write which probably means if you’ve come this far with me, you are either really a fan or in some kind of drug induced stupor.

Secondly, if I don’t get this published in the next 10 minutes, I’m going to be late for an appointment. Why not leave a comment about your favorite blog with a short paragraph saying why you like it? I might even put it in an update to this post I’m doing later this afternoon.

Get busy…

My internet connection has been down since early this afternoon. It came on briefly at around 4:00 pm and again about 5 minutes ago.

Comcast says they don’t have a clue what’s wrong. I’ve already lost about 1/3 of the Carnival as it went off before I could save it.

What a mess. And depressing.

At any rate, it may be my little black box in which case I won’t have internet until Monday (didn’t get a dial up capability when I bought the computer, damnit). I’ll try again in the morning.

I HAVE TURNED OFF MY ANTI-SPAM PLUG IN WHICH SHOULD SPEED UP PAGE LOADING. IT MAY ALSO HELP THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE HAD YOUR COMMENTS REJECTED AS SPAM.

UNTIL I CAN FIGURE OUT WHAT THE PROBLEMS ARE WITH THIS SITE, ALL COMMENTS AND TRACKBACKS WILL BE MODERATED. THIS MEANS THAT THERE IS A CHANCE YOUR COMMENT MAY NOT APPEAR FOR A FEW HOURS AFTER YOU SUBMIT IT.

I APPRECIATE EVERYONE’S PATIENCE AS I TRY TO MAKE THIS SITE MORE USER FRIENDLY.

My blog is broke. It sounds like a good blues riff, doesn’t it…

Well I woke up this mornin’
My woman she done gone
Jes’ drinkin’ bad whiskey
Bein’ bad to the bone

And my blog is broke
Yeah my blog is broke
Gotta hurry up an’ fix it
And that ain’t no joke

I want to apologize to many of you who are having a horrendous time commenting and tracking back to this site. I wish I could tell you what the hell the problem is but I really don’t have a clue.

If you’ve had problems tracking back or commenting for whatever reason, please email me at elvenstar522-at-AOL dot Com (ampersand for “at” and a period for “dot”). Please tell me the following:

1. What post you tried to comment on
2. What browser you are using
3. How many if any links you tried to put into the comment
4. What the error message says
5. If you are having trouble with my trackbacks, please tell me what publishing software you are using and the URL of your site.

I will send this info to someone who will examine my site and fix this problem.

And you can email me with your comments at any time and I’ll be glad to post them. Readers of this site know that about the only thing I can’t abide in a commenter is profanity so even those who disagree will have their comment appear on the appropriate post.

Regular readers of this site may have noticed that there have been several posts recently on my beloveds, the Chicago White Sox, and their quest to break the 88-year record of championship futility for Chicago baseball teams.

While I will continue to post on other, less important subjects like war and peace, the Supreme Court nomination, the media, and liberal lunacy, until my White Sox are eliminated from World Series competition, I will be doing regular updates on the games, the players, and maybe a few thoughts on how all this relates to our society and culture. Playing a pastoral game in an urban setting has always been the great dichotomy of baseball and one of its big attractions. Of course, it doesn’t matter as much now and it has become fashionable to bash the sport for all of its many faults as well as the documented and sordid foibles of its players.

You may bash to your heart’s content. My love for the game on the field when played with the skill of Major League players will not be diminished. If you enjoyed baseball in your youth, I invite you to take this journey with me. If nothing else, it’ll be a nice change of pace from documenting the faults and foibles of the fools and knaves in Washington.

Happy Blogiversary to the House!

It seems like only yesterday - in a “Groundhog Day” sort of way - that I decided to get in on the fun and start my own blog.

At the time, the impact of Rathergate was still being felt across both the MSM and the Shadow Media so my first post was a little finger exercise entitled “An Anchorman Fairy Tale.”

I know…Pretty lame.

It had been nearly 15 years since I had tried to write anything longer than a grocery list. This after spending the previous 15 years doing little else but writing for work and trying to write creatively. It didn’t take long to discover that I had a lot of work to do.

Writing is both a craft and a vocation. It is a much more personal art than acting, something I tried to make a living as in my immediate post-college days. While acting leaves you naked and exposed on a superficial level - your looks, how you sound, how you emote - writing exposes your soul, your consciousness, the very essence of you to the critical eyes of people who, even if they agree with you, may not like the way you express yourself.

Scary, that. And at first, it didn’t matter much because, like all new blogs, nobody bothered to read what I was writing. This turned out to be a very good thing in that those early posts were atrocious; ill informed, poorly organized, and at times, incoherent.

Later on, after writing 2,000 or 3,000 words a day, the writing got better. But something else happened I didn’t anticipate; I got addicted. The blog became something of a beast that needed constant feeding and tending. I’ve since made peace with that fact of blogging and now look forward eagerly each day to the challenge of finding something that interests me to post on.

But writing, as I mentioned, is a craft. In olden days, there was a newspaper guild where youngsters would go through an apprenticeship, become a journeyman, and eventually make it to the point where they were allowed to write for a living. As late as the 1950’s, most major metropolitan dailies had apprentices. If they could put up with the grunt work for a few years as “copy boys” or gofers of one sort or another, they were rewarded with assignments like writing obituaries or other mundane tasks. If they proved themselves worthy, they would graduate to covering a beat.

Blogs have no such apprenticeship. We hit the ground running and off we go. And as I’ve discovered, there are many, many generous people out there willing to help, to advise, and to give you encouragement - especially in those early days when it’s easy to get discouraged at the fact that absolutely no one is interested in what you have to say.

For me, there are so many to thank that I don’t quite no where to begin. Certainly my blogmama Cao of Caos’s Blog should be mentioned first. It was her encouragement that kept me going in those very early days when most of my sitemeter stats were from me.

And Pat Curley from the dormant Kerry Haters and the very much alive and kicking Brainsters Blog who was one of the first to link to this site and also gave me a lot of support and encouragement.

Then there all my friends at The Wide Awakes, a site that Cao, Raven, and I started and through which I have enjoyed making many friends and blog buds.

TJ at NIF has almost singlehandedly put me within spitting distance of the top 100 blogs with his many links and kind comments.

Thomas Lifson at The American Thinker has been more than generous in accepting my articles for publication on that excellent site as well as offering his encouragement to write more.

John Cole who has challenged me to think, even when it’s gotten me into trouble.

I can’t forget the Watcher at Watcher of Weasels who, by choosing me for the Watcher’s Council, has given my writing an enormous amount of exposure.

Beth at MVRWC who has been there to help me through the rough spots by making me laugh.

And Michelle Malkin who has also been extraordinarily generous and encouraging.

There are dozens of others that deserve mention. However, this is not an Academy Awards acceptance speech and I am not Sally Fields. To the rest, you know who you are and I hope you know how much I appreciate your help and support.

And to all my beloved trolls - Steve, Kevin, Strawman, Jackie, and the rest - please keep helping to make my life interesting. This site wouldn’t be the same without you.

I grew up with a tremendous respect for language and its utility for both function and beauty. Both of my parents were voracious readers whose tastes were grounded in the classics of western civilization, running the gamut from the Greeks to Studs Terkel. (Note: Anyone who doesn’t think Mr. Terkel is a master of language and idiom should read either Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression or Terkel’s heartfelt anti-war screed Hope Dies Last which I do not agree with one iota politically but is a beautifully written book nonetheless).

My father in particular, loved poetry especially romantics like Emily Dickinson. If there is one thing about poets from that era I’ve always admired, it was the way they used the natural rhythms of the spoken word to draw pictures of ideas and emotions. Poetry in the 19th century was written largely to be read aloud. Hence, we have classics like Longfellow’s Midnight Ride of Paul Revere where you can hear the pounding hoof beats of the horse in the rhyme and meter of the language:

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

I suppose all of this makes me something of an ethno-centric elitist. Ask me if I care. No one will be able to convince me that the English language in the hands of a master like Longfellow is anything but a thing of beauty, something to be loved and cherished forever. It is perhaps an outmoded concept that children should learn, memorize, and recite classic verse in that it gives them a confidence with language that many young people lack today. One need only listen to an interview with a typical 18 or 19 year old on MTV to be shocked by their inability to express themselves. And while it’s unlikely that the language skills of today’s youngsters has been anything but nominally affected by de-emphasizing the study of classic verse in high school, it nevertheless is indicative of a lack of concern regarding verbal and written communication skills among educators in general.

What brought on these reflections regarding poetry and language were two separate blog posts; one by the eclectic and enjoyable group of bloggers at Maggie’s Farm who, in addition to highlighting a “Bird of the Week” and writing of their experiences on a rural New England farm, also regularly post poetry on the site. No commentary or analysis; just good verse from excellent poets. Their most recent poetry post was Kipling’s “Tomlinson” which tells the story of a working class man confronting his life and mortality, told in Kipling’s inimitable style of plain, rollicking language and precise meter:

Now Tomlinson gave up the ghost in his house in Berkeley Square
And a Spirit came to his bedside and gripped him by the hair
A Spirit gripped him by the hair and carried him far away,
Till he heard as the roar of a rain-fed ford the roar of the Milky Way:
Till he heard the roar of the Milky Way die down and drone and cease,
And they came to the Gate within the Wall where Peter holds the keys.

“Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and high
The good that ye did for the sake of men or ever ye came to die
The good that ye did for the sake of men in little earth so lone!”
And the naked soul of Tomlinson grew white as a rain-washed bone.
“O I have a friend on earth,” he said, “that was my priest and guide,
And well would he answer all for me if he were by my side.”

The other blog post that started me thinking in this direction was an interesting piece from Jesse Taylor, proprietor of the center-left blog Pandagon. Taylor’s impassioned “In Defense of Cursing” echoes many of my own ideas about the proprietary nature of blogs and being able to publish whatever one pleases. In particular, Taylor takes on those who object to his use of language when he tries to refute what he sees as the idiocy of rightwing “nutjobbers:”

Why do I curse? One, because it’s my site. In my work for Jerry, in my work for eVote way back when, in any non-Pandagon work I do in the future, if the person writing my checks asks me not to curse, then I will not. But this is my site, which I pay for, on which I write what I want. More importantly, if you track my cursing, you’ll notice I often go several points without uttering anything stronger than “crap”. I have rules for this s**t, you know.

Now Taylor and I wouldn’t agree on what time the sun rises much less anything politically. And I find his hysterical rants against imagined conservative sins to be laughably shallow and desperately juvenile, full of the typical paranoia and hyper-exaggeration that passes for “analysis” on lefty blogs these days.

But when it comes to the scatological use of language, Taylor has few equals. My own past efforts in this regard degenerated into incoherence which is why I don’t try to use cursing to express myself anymore. I just don’t have the knack.

But in many ways, Taylor and I are two sides of the same mirror. He and I share a passion for politics as well as the driving necessity to use language in order to move, to provoke, to chastise (as opposed to simply criticize), to enlighten, and to poke fun at the opposition. For Taylor, the judicious use of obscenity is a calculated effort to shock his readers’ sensibilities and force them to confront language he sees as either imprecise or downright misleading:

For some reason, “You’re a f**king racist idiot” is a more offensive statement than “black people have less native intelligence than other races, and embrace poverty accordingly”. Even worse is the “the major goddamn drain on the budget is the tax cuts, as the federal budget has shown every f**king year since 2002″, which simply blows “the tax cuts have increased revenue, because that’s the power of fiscal conservatism” out of the water. A lie, an insult, a grossly racist imputation is afforded legitimacy because it’s said nicely.

Obviously, I believe Taylor is exaggerating the intent and dissembling the facts of the two statements he chose to highlight. But for his purposes, the obscenities served him well. Which brings me to my final point; does such language contribute positively to political discourse? Does it matter?

The short answer to both questions is no. It’s his blog and he can swear if he wants to. And as for political discourse, I’m sure Mr. Taylor would agree that neither he nor I are interested converting anyone. Polemicists are mostly about expressing their own opinion in as controversial and disputatious manner as possible and may the devil take moderation.

Even many conservative friends have taken me to task for being unyielding in this regard. “Can’t we all just get along” is a fine sentiment but hardly germane to politics as it is practiced today. Yes there are times when I bow to reason and logic to agree with Democrats and the left. But on The Really Big Issues of war and peace, the destruction of our culture versus the preservation of many of our values, and the best way to promote freedom and democracy at home and abroad, I stand as a man of the right and damn those who oppose me.