Right Wing Nut House

Mr. Kos has hit the nail on the head with his post this morning that takes Republicans to task for our blind, unswerving, automatonic support for Karl Rove and The Evil One.

Reading his diatribe this morning, I almost wanted to weep. He has captured what I and most Republicans are. He has unmasked our conspiracy. He has described us to a tee:

But to modern-day Republicans and their apologists, they can do no wrong. No Republican’s action is worthy of scorn or censure. They are perfect. Flawless. Immune to error. Godlike.

Yep…that’s me all over. Although, my waistline could use a little work…But other than that, yep I’m immune and flawless. And “Godlike”…I like the sound of that. Come to think of it, I feel a little Godlike this morning. And because I feel Godlike, I proclaim Kos an apostate and a defiler of young boys who should be struck down and laid low by my omnipotent powers! Begone, I say!

How someone could be reduced to that level is beyond me. Republicans have now sent notice that they place allegiance to party and power above their allegiance to the United States of America. To them, the elephant flies above the Stars and Stripes

Well…he’s got the right idea but I sure hope he was speaking figuratively. After all, considering how big an elephant is, I think it would have a helluva time balancing on top of a flagpole above the stars and stripes. Maybe he means a pygmy elephant. And as far as flying, well I saw an elephant flying once but that was down in Tijuana back in the 70’s when my friends and I dropped a little blotter and drank tequila for three days straight.

It is quite instructive and shocking, even with this administration, that the outing of a CIA agent, her front company, and god knows how many other agents and operations, is met with a collective shrug from wingnut circles. While a blow job gave them the vapors, a genuine breach of national security gives them no pause, gives them no reason to abandon “the architect”. Political power trumps everything — even the safety of our nation.

Actually, this sounds pretty serious. Good thing its not true. Especially the part where liberals care one whit about “outing a front company” or other agents and operations from an agency that they’ve spent the last 50 years trying to destroy. Maybe if they hadn’t cheered when Philip Agee outed those agents back in the 1970’s and made him a hero their protestations would have a ring of truth. And I have to say that a blow job has never given me vapors although in my current Godlike state, I’d like to give it a shot.

The Democratic majorities were undone in large part to the endemic corruption that afflicted the long-entrenched Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. It’s the curse of any party that rules for too long, the insidious creep of hubris, corruption, and sense of entitlement which we, as a species, can’t seem to avoid.

The GOP is now facing those very same pressures, and exposing that corruption and hubris in spectacular fashion to the American public. A party that believes it holds a “permanent majority” is under no pressure to behave ethically and work for the common good above all else. Their missteps have been big. Their crimes increasingly brazen.

Just one question…When talking about “insidious creep” is he talking about me? Or himself? Other than that, yes I have a sense of entitlement. We Republicans wish to rule the world and would like nothing better if you liberals just all went away to some re-education camp where you could be indoctrinated with Christianity and love of Bush. The one at Gitmo is almost ready although the camp at Abu Ghraib is gonna need some more work.

And our permanent majority will become a reality when the smoking bodies of our political opponents lie crushed and unrecognizable on the battlements of democracy.

Yes…I feel Godlike this morning. It’s great to wake up and see that once again, you political opponents have made absolute fools of themselves.

Already diagnosed with PMS (”Persistent Moonbat State), New York Times columnist Paul Krugman’s health problems took a turn for the worse today when, after the publication of his latest column on Karl Rove, it was discovered that the liberal ideologue suffered from an excess of bile production in the liver.

Doctors weren’t sure if the condition was life threatening but have determined that Krugman’s judgment, rationality, and memory have all been affected. One physician familiar with the case failed to see any of those symptoms saying that the columnist’s rantings and ravings were “par for the course” and asked “how can a disease affect qualities in a patient not present in the first place?”

There were several parts of Mr. Krugman’s column that physicians pointed to as evidence of the bile condition. For instance:

What Mr. Rove understood, long before the rest of us, is that we’re not living in the America of the past, where even partisans sometimes changed their views when faced with the facts. Instead, we’re living in a country in which there is no longer such a thing as nonpolitical truth. In particular, there are now few, if any, limits to what conservative politicians can get away with: the faithful will follow the twists and turns of the party line with a loyalty that would have pleased the Comintern.

“Note the use of nonsense language such as the term ‘nonpolitical truth’ which has no meaning in any context save the brain damaged Mr. Krugman’s imagination,” said Dr. Sixpak Chopura, brother of the famed self-help guru. “I mean, let’s get real. Ask yourself is there such a thing as ‘nonpolitical truth? What does that mean?” Dr. Sixpak asked.

The good Doctor also pointed out that the Comintern, which Mr. Krugman uses as a metaphor for monolithic agreement on political positions by Republicans was in fact a strife ridden, factionalized international congress of communist organizations who couldn’t agree on the time of day much less what communism was. He mentioned that any second grader who knew how to use a computer search engine could have figured that out in 30 seconds.

Dr. Sixpak fears that Mr. Krugman’s condition may be much farther along than first feared. He points to this passage in the column that proves Krugman may be hallucinating:

Every time I read a lament for the post-9/11 era of national unity, I wonder what people are talking about. On the issues I was watching, the Republicans’ exploitation of the atrocity began while ground zero was still smoldering.

Dr. Sixpak points out that not only does Krugman fail to offer any evidence for this assertion, but that the facts contradict his charge of Republican politicization of 9/11. A search of liberal websites in the days and weeks following 9/11 fail to turn up any evidence of such politicization and instead, show a respect for the President’s restraint on the subject. This pretty much puts the lie to the statement that “ground zero was still smoldering” when the Republicans politicized the attack.

Further evidence of Mr. Krugman’s flight from reality can be found in this passage, the Doctor said:

A less insightful political strategist might have hesitated right after 9/11 before using it to cast the Democrats as weak on national security. After all, there were no facts to support that accusation.

Again, the Doctor points out the lack of evidence offered by Mr. Krugman to support such a baseless charge. In addition, he notes that there are plenty of “facts” to support the charge that the Democratic party is weak on national security including near monolithic opposition to every major weapons system in use by the Pentagon today, a 50 year campaign to undermine and weaken the CIA, a moral relativism with regards to terrorists and the states that support them, and opposition to strategic missile defense.

And that’s just for starters.

Finally, the Doctor points us to Mr. Krugman’s peroration as an example of the bile in his liver working its way through his bloodstream and affecting his brain:

But what we’re getting, instead, is yet another impressive demonstration that these days, truth is political. One after another, prominent Republicans and conservative pundits have declared their allegiance to the party line. They haven’t just gone along with the diversionary tactics, like the irrelevant questions about whether Mr. Rove used Valerie Wilson’s name in identifying her (Robert Novak later identified her by her maiden name, Valerie Plame), or the false, easily refuted claim that Mr. Wilson lied about who sent him to Niger. They’re now a chorus, praising Mr. Rove as a patriotic whistle-blower.

Ultimately, this isn’t just about Mr. Rove. It’s also about Mr. Bush, who has always known that his trusted political adviser - a disciple of the late Lee Atwater, whose smear tactics helped President Bush’s father win the 1988 election - is a thug, and obviously made no attempt to find out if he was the leaker.

Most of all, it’s about what has happened to America. How did our political system get to this point?

Where is this chorus, the Doctor asks, of conservative pundits praising Mr. Rove for being a whistleblower? Outside of the Wall Street Journal and a few dozen conservative blogs who linked to the article, there are precious few “pundits” saying that Rove is a hero. There are, in fact, many saying that Mr. Rove should go and almost a universal condemnation of the act of “outing” Wilson’s wife. (Note: Wilson himself in an interview yesterday said his wife was not a covert agent at the time her name was mentioned in the press).

“As for Mr. Krugman’s final question “How did our political system get to this point?” Perhaps we should be asking Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, Raymond Donovan, and the dozen or so conservatives who were mercilessly smeared, tarred and feathered by Democratic Party campaigns in the 1980’s and 90’s before Mr. Rove was anywhere near the White House,” Doctor Sixpak said.

Doctor Sixpak said that Krugman needs a long rest, as far away from writing about politics as possible, in order to achieve a full recovery. “It’s apparent that excess bile production in Mr. Krugman’s liver will continue as long as he writes,” Dr. Dixpak said.

Here’s hoping Krugman takes the Doctor’s advice and perhaps join his colleague Frank Rich in writing restaurant reviews rather than political columns.

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin has a great round-up of links highlighting the latest in this so-far unamed scandal. On that note, the liberals are going to have to hurry. The way this thing is shaking out, the whole thing may blow over in another week or so.

Lorie Byrd has another superb round-up with some interesting thoughts:

If the source in this story is correct, Karl Rove has been done a great injustice. He has been smeared beyond belief. The “journalists” that have been pummelling Scott McClellan might have been better off directing their questions to some of their colleagues. I want to know who all these journalists were that cared so little for national security that they were throwing around the name of Valerie Plame.

Maybe Chuck Schumer should not be worried about Karl Rove’s security clearance, but instead should be working to revoke the press passes of these journalists who were endangering national security. While he is at it, they should also be denounced for trying to ruin Plame’s life and career, as they obviously had the express motive of getting retribution against Joe Wilson. What other motive could there be? Democrats and those in the media (Chris Matthews for one) have told us that was the obvious motive for speaking Plame’s name. (While I am on the subject of security clearances, did it not seem the least bit brazen and hypocritical to anyone else that Schumer and others were calling for Rove’s, rather than Senator Patrick “Leaky” Leahy’s?)

Indeed.

Bill Ardolino:

This critique from a man whose catalogue of contorted economic posits in service of partisan political goals resembles an unexpurgated copy of the Kama Sutra.

I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard economics “resembling” anything sex related. Or maybe economists have some kind of secret life we know nothing about?

In an update to an otherwise excellent post on the scandal, Joe Gandleman jumps the shark by agreeing with much of Krugman’s ridiculous rant:

MOST TROUBLING: Now that we indeed ARE at “this point,” how possible or unlikely is it that we can now UNGET to “this point”? Can we break out of this troubling era where people will change their political standards and values as they articulated them when it came to the opposition to allow their side leeway to do whatever they need to do to gain and stay in power?

And if there are no absolutes (just rip and read the talking points sent out by the RNC on the old talk show or incorporate them into your commentary to defend your side), what does it portend for the future?

Joe is making the same mistake Krugman makes; overgeneralization.

Did it ever occur to Mr. Gandleman that those “talking points” were themselves gleaned from commentary on the scandale from a wide variety of sources? I SAW EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE TALKING POINTS DISCUSSED SOMEWHERE ON THE INTERNET BEFORE KEN MEHLMAN EVEN SAT DOWN TO THINK ABOUT WHAT THEY WERE GOING TO BE.

To say that there’s a unanimity of thought about how to defend Rove denies the obvious point: THE REASON THEY’RE USED EXTENSIVELY BY THE RIGHT IS BECAUSE THEY ARE GOOD POINTS AND MAKE SENSE. To say that we on the right are a bunch of automatons following some script laid out by the White House or the RNC makes Mr. Gandleman as loony as Krugman and the moonbats who are saying that Rove committed treason or that this cotton candy scandal is somehow comparable to Watergate.

I would strongly urge anyone on the left to lay back on this for a few more days. If not, and it’s shown in a couple of days or weeks that Rove was never the target of this investigation, you are going to look like bigger fools than you already are.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A purge! A purge! Oh, really?

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

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

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

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

Who decides which conspiracy theories are acceptable?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin:

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

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

Like draining the Everglades.

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

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

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

That would place Kos in familiar territory.

For most of us who live in the real world, the terrorist attacks in London today were a sad reminder that the Islamist jackals who seek to destroy us may be weakened but are still capable of carrying out sophisticated assaults on our civilization.

Then there are the rest of us:

After all they have been setting us up for this since September 11, 2001, with the PR machine going into overdrive since Blair jumped into Bush’s lap the summer prior to the invasion of Iraq. And who are they going to pin it on? Our favourite CIA asset, Osama bin Laden…

That’s right. The “black helicopter” nuts and 9/11 denial crowd are already weighing in. I find it fascinating to dissect this stuff only because it reveals a mindset that has totally lost touch with the real world, preferring instead to exist on a planet where evil forces are at work and a cabal of conniving, manipulative men are puppet masters, pulling the strings and making us dance in order to fulfill this conspiracy’s long sought goal of…what? Well, that depends on which nutcase you’re talking to. For some, world domination isn’t enough. Nothing short of control of the entire human population of the planet will satisfy the lust for power of these evil manipulators.

Of course, not everyone can see this conspiracy. No, you don’t need those special glasses like you’d need to see a 3-D movie. And no, this isn’t some kind of religious revelation where a bolt of lightening hits you and you’re suddenly made aware of this sinister danger.

The way to enlightenment is knowledge. You have to be able to divine the signs, read between the lines of news reports - reports from a media totally controlled by these men - and recognize the evidence that’s sitting right in front of you. Evidence that only a select few have been granted the ability to see.

The rest of us, of course, are just sheep. We’re asleep. We’re dumb brutes who are unwittingly giving this conspiracy money and power to further their goals.

Here’s a taste of what passes for “evidence” from these folks:

Comment: Firstly, as evidence of how the mainstream press is in no way “free” or “impartial” but rather infiltrated by extremist right-wing thinkers and government lackeys, the above mentioned so-called “terrorism expert”, employed by Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News, is ex-British parliamentarian and Professor of Marketing at London City University, Eirc Moonman, who just also happens to be President of the Zionist Federation of London.

Surely everyone would agree that the opinion of the President of the Federation of Zionists on Arab terrorism is anything but objective, yet we note that Sky News did NOT inform their viewers of Moonman’s extremist Pro-Israel background, stating only that he is a “terrorism expert” and even then neglecting to provide any credentials that might support his claim to terrorism expertise

First of all, the idea that Sky News “employs” a terrorism expert is absurd. The producers of the piece have a Rolodex full of “terrorism experts” who they can call and get a quote fr0m any time they want. And not revealing the Professors religion or political beliefs is irrelevant. I would challenge the writer of this piece to point to any statement made by the “expert” that wouldn’t have been echoed almost verbatim by any other terrorism expert. That’s the reason he’s an expert. He’s a spokesmen for a point of view generally accepted by those who have made their life’s work a study of the issue of terrorism.

Having to explain something that simple is tiring. Let’s amuse ourselves a little:

Another most interesting aspect to today’s London bombings is that right next door to the scene of one of the attacks on the London Metro, the Great Eastern Hotel was hosting a conference on the Israeli economy, attended by Israeli finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one of the most extreme right-wing “Zionist” members of Sharon’s Likud party and a staunch opponent of next month’s Gaza pullout plan. Most bizarrely of all, one initial report claimed that the Israeli embassy had received advance warning of the attacks from British police, a claim that Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom later denied, while another report had British police denying that they had received advance warning of the attacks from the Israeli embassy, which then THEY denied! What seems clear is that one or other or even both DID know of the attacks in advance and now both are attempting to cover up that fact.

This leads to the inevitable Israeli connection to the bombings. I’m sure you recognize the stench of anti-semitism emanating from this site. If not, don’t worry. They get much more graphic and nauseating later in this piece.

As for the charge of Israeli complicity, the original wire service report that I covered here very early this morning did indeed say that British authorities had contacted the Israeli’s prior to the blast. In fact, this was an error. The Israeli’s aren’t denying they were contacted as the author of the piece says. The Israeli’s said, later confirmed and corrected by AP, that Scotland Yard called the Israeli’s after the first bomb went off.

No one is denying anything. The AP simply got the story wrong. Gee…I didn’t know it was possible for AP or any MSM outlet to be wrong about anything, did you?

I predict that this AP story will live on forever. I base this prediction on something very similar that happened during the Kennedy assassination also involving AP.

The legendary UPI reporter Merriman Smith was beating the tar out of AP during the first crucial minutes of the assassination story. In the days before satellites, the wire services were king. And the way you got on top was being first with the story. It was a job where seconds counted and Smith had the drop on the AP from the get go.

Since AP couldn’t catch up, the editors were pressing their correspondent in Dallas Jack Bell for more information. They were desperate. After Bell left Parkland hospital following Kennedy’s death, he collared every policeman within his grasp begging for news. At around 3:15, he cornered a Dallas policeman who told him a secret service agent had been killed in the motorcade. Without getting any confirmation, Bell sent it over the wire. Within minutes, NBC had reported it as fact. Of course, there was no dead secret service agent. NBC had to retract and to this day, the conspiracy nuts point to this story as proof there was more than one assassin.

Finally, we come to the nub of their thought processes. It’s a form of contrarianism where white is black, up is down, and the surest sign that the cabal is at work is how obvious the answer to any question is:

Contrary to the headlines on mainstream news sources and claims by the British government, the attacks today in London bear all the hallmarks of yet another false flag operation carried out by the intelligence apparatus of the UK, the US or Israel (or a combination of all three). Perhaps now is a good time to talk about the fact that, on many, many occasions in the past, US, British and Israeli intelligence agencies have employed “false flag” operations to further their political and military goals. Indeed, the idea of attacking oneself or the population of one’s own country and then blaming it on your enemies is as “old as the hills” and is a core element of covert intelligence agency tactics.

Take, for example, the Madrid train bombing of March 11th 2004. 191 people were murdered, supposedly by al-Qaeda, yet all of the victims were simple, working class people, many of whom had protested against the Iraq invasion and the then Spanish government’s decision to send troops to Iraq. So why would al-qaeda, an organisation that claims to represent the interests of the Islamic people, want to attack innocent people who to some extent share their opposition to pro-American European governments?

That last question would be laughable if placed in another context. It’s the same rant made by Michael Moore the day after 9/11 when he said:

If someone did 9/11 to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes’ destination of California - these were places that voted AGAINST Bush!

The ignorance is breathtaking. The whole point of terrorism is random violence with a great big emphasis on random. So in answer to the author’s question, al Qaeda is not crazy or stupid. The psychological effects of random death are incalculable. Unlike Michael Moore and the author of this piece, the rest of us know that we live in a democracy. If you make the people - ordinary blue collar, average people - uncomfortable enough your chances of affecting the policy of that government increases with the level of violence.

Notice also the “false flag” charge which is not only impossible to prove but gives the reader the impression the author knows something about the subject of intelligence. What the author doesn’t explain is where his proof for these prior “false flag” operations is and, more importantly, how these activities are at the “core” of intelligence agencies.

The fact is that the “core” of intelligence agencies today is analysis. More than 95% of our intelligence budget goes to analyzing information that pours in from an endless variety of sources, most of them overt like newspapers and books. And while there has been a massive effort to increase our human intelligence gathering capabilities since 9/11, the fact is our efforts have met with limited success.

But what about the other 5% of the budget spent on “black ops?” Here’s a story illustrative of how unlikely a conspiracy like 9/11 could be kept secret.

In 1982, the navy began one of the most secretive operations in the history of the United States. We sent a sub into Soviet territorial waters to tap into an undersea cable that connected the Soviet far east fleet with Moscow. The sub was on station for months at a time. If they had been discovered they would have been sunk.

Bob Woodward of the Washington Post had the story less than a month after the operation started. Thankfully, Mr. Woodward and the Post editors resisted the temptation to go with the story. Otherwise, that sub would have been lost.

The point? It’s virtually impossible to keep a secret in Washington. Think of some of the conspiracies that have been revealed in the last 50 years. Watergate was outed less than 2 years after the plumbers started their work. Poor Ollie North had his arms for the contras conspiracy exposed in less than a year. The fact is that if it’s juicy enough, the secret eventually gets out.

And that’s the problem with the conspiracy mongers. The kind of false flag operation envisioned by the writer involving three governments(!) would necessarily need dozens of people to set the operation up and then, more importantly, leave a false trail that only the enlightened ones who can read the signs will be able to follow back to the original perpetrators.

Up is down. Black is white. Don’t believe your eyes and make sure your tin foil hat is screwed on tight.

John Cole has similar thoughts.

UPDATE

Ladies and Gentlemen! Direct from Armadillo Headquarters, please welcome The Amboy Dukes (and Jeff Goldstein).

update 16: Predictably, Justin Raimondo is already seeing Joooos in the Shepherd’s Pie. Now, I’m not one to tell the Zionists how to run their international cabal, but if it were me who was in charge of running the world, I’d sacrifice up a few Hebes at each of these bombings, just to keep Justin Raimondo and his tireless investigators off my ass. Hell, I might even throw in a Likudnik from time to time, just to really confound the Truth Seekers.

Um…I think he put one too many “o’s” in Joooos.

Comedy is the trickiest of art forms. In order to execute it well, the performer needs perfect timing, good material, a feeling for your audience, and most importantly, the ability to make the absurd seem reasonable. Tripping on a banana peel done incorrectly brings gasps of concern from the audience. Is he hurt? Did he break something? Therefore, it’s imperative that when you slip on the banana peel, you do it in such a way as to make the audience aware that you didn’t really fall down because you skidded across the floor after stepping on the banana peel, you only made it seem like you did. The audience becomes part of your little conspiracy and laughs at you when you fall on your rump.

Bear this in mind when you read what the Democratic National Committee came up with to explain why John Kerry lost the election in Ohio. It’s a perfect illustration of bad comedy. In fact, if I were to rate the show they put on yesterday in the unvieling of this 200 page report on voting “difficulties” in Ohio, I’d have to give a thumbs down.

Not only did the performer, a Mr. Howard Dean, not have any sense of timing, he had no sense of the absurd whatsoever. In fact, Mr. Dean did not even realize he was involved in a comedy skit. However, since his audience didn’t either, I guess that makes them even.

One thing I will say is that as comedies go, the material was excellent. For pure enjoyment, it doesn’t get any better than this. In dealing with those electronic voting machines that Mr. Deans theater group pushed on the public following the 2000 election debacle, the report states:

It’s entirely possible that a DRE voter could vote for one candidate, which would be displayed on screen, while an entirely different candidate could be recorded internally as having received that vote. If such an error occurred, neither the voter nor any election official would be able to undo the damage after the fact. If such an error occurred systematically, it could swing the outcome of an election. And, if the faulty software was deliberately placed in the machine, it could even be programmed to modify itself to eliminate any traces of its having been present. If such fraud were occurring, it would not be visible to poll workers or election observers.

As with any other voting system, DRE votes must ultimately be centrally tabulated. This information may be communicated over a modem or carried by hand in a computer memory card. As with traditional ballot boxes, such data may be subject to tampering while in transit. However, while ballot boxes are large objects that can be easily observed and tracked, computer memory cards are small and sleight-of-hand can allow for quick substitutions. Likewise, telephone lines are not terribly secure against attackers who can climb telephone poles.

While appropriate cryptographic techniques can mitigate against all of these risks, many DRE vendors either use no cryptography at all or do it improperly, leaving the data effectively unprotected while in transit

Please note the subtext of the piece. Comedy can also be simple imagery as with the strange man on the telephone pole stealing vote tabulations or the “sleight of hand” required to pull the old “switcheroo” with computer memory cards. This is a cheap gag that can be traced back to the days of vaudeville. It’s also noteworthy that mixing comedy and magic never works. For that faux pas alone, Mr. Dean and his troupe should be shunned.

Mr. Dean’s troupe also had problem with insulting their audience. Clearly, if you’re going to put on a show, you can’t treat your audience like a bunch of buffoons. Mr. Dean comitted this unpardonable sin when he revealed how truly clueless his audience is:

Six (6) percent of voters who went to the polls reported feelings of intimidation. This group includes voters who heard that police would be at the polls to arrest people who had outstanding child support or car payments, and voters who said they felt intimidated on Election Day.

Voter Intimidation
• Isolated instances of overt intimidation at polling locations
• Scattered reports of fliers threatening arrest of people with outstanding parking tickets or with child support owing

Clearly, anyone who thinks they’ll be arrested for outstanding parking tickets if they show up to vote do not belong in any kind of a discerning audience. And yet, Mr. Dean makes it a point to take them seriously, a cardinal sin in putting on comedy. One must always keep in mind that there should be at least some kind of minimum sophistication for this kind of cerebral comedy. Bugs Bunny is funny to five year olds. Lenny Bruce was not. Similarly, people who feel intimidated when asked to show their ID at a polling station fall into the Bugs Bunny category of sophistication and therefore, need not have any attention paid to them. And yet Mr. Dean spends a great deal of time trying to make it appear as if the Bugs Bunny crowd deserved his consideration.

In summary, despite excellent comedic material to work with, Mr. Dean failed to arouse any laughter in his audience. Perhaps if the performance had been done in a decent theater rather than DNC headquarters, the results would have been different.

UPDATE

Matt Margolis:

When Christine Gregoire “won” the gubernatorial race in Washington state by a mere 129 votes, Democrats called it a done deal… despite mountains of evidence of irregularities…

Yet, President Bush won the state of Ohio by 119,000 votes, and Democrats still cannot accept it.

Yup.

GOP Bloggers:

So the real story is that people may have had a hard time voting… not because of some evil Republican scheme, but because they were impatient, untrained or confused… and even still George W. Bush legitimately received more votes in Ohio and won the election regardless of the findings.

Thanks for the news flash.

The liberal website Crooks and Liars, in a childish effort to tweak the Young Republicans, tried to place an ad in the group’s convention program calling on members to volunteer for the military and go to Iraq. The ad is part of the latest stupidity from the left called “The Yellow Elephant Campaign.” It was refused by the Young Republicans because in their opinion, it was “too negative.”

I disagree with the action taken by the Young Republicans not to put this ad in their Las Vegas Convention program. If the ad as it appears on Daily Kos is the same ad submitted by the moonbats, the only thing I’d change would be the word “infantry” to “military.” Of course, the moonbats would have to agree to drop their childish logo of a yellow elephant. But if the liberals are serious about helping recruit for the military, I see no reason why they shouldn’t be willing to make the appeal as non-partisan as possible.

We’re familiar with the “chickenhawk” tune that the lickspittle left has been singing these past couple of years. The “Yellow Elephant Campaign” is another manifestation of it. Of course, the moonbats never give an answer to the flip side of that question: If they’re so dead set against this war and have the courage of their convictions, why aren’t they in jail? A true, patriotic anti-war American would involve himself in the honorable practice of civil disobedience and, as both Ghandi and Martin Luther King taught us, (and Thoreau considered to be equally important to the act itself) go to jail for their beliefs. After all, how much worse can jail be than combat?

The act of civil disobedience is extraordinarily powerful. It drove the British out of India and started African Americans down the road to equality here in this country. The fact that so many on the left are unwilling to go to jail for their beliefs only proves that they aren’t the only ones who can be accused of political hypocrisy.

My own experience at the end of the Viet Nam war was typical of my generation. In January, 1972 the last draft lottery was conducted by the Selective Service. Since all deferments had been taken off the boards, if you were healthy you were going in. There was a group of us that met during school hours informally to talk about what we’d do if we got a low number (the lower the number, the more likely you were to be inducted).

Looking back on these conversations I’m amazed at how brainwashed we were. Of course, we read nothing except anti-war literature, immersing ourselves in the latest rants from activists like the Berrigan Brothers and Tom Hayden. And the attitude of the media toward the war has been well documented. We even had the brother of one of our little group come in and tell us how evil the war was and if you didn’t want to kill Vietnamese babies, you shouldn’t go into the military.

We even thought that communism seemed like a pretty cool idea! Almost to a man we decided that if our number was called, we’d go to Canada. For myself, I’d decided I wasn’t going to fight a war just so that Coca-Cola could open new markets, that being the one of the favorite themes of the anti-war left in those days.

I realize now that we were wrong. Even though my attitude toward the war changed later, at the time I made the decision to go to Canada I realize that this was the cowardly way out. There were thousands of young men who didn’t go to Canada, refused military service, and ended up in jail for their beliefs. While I now disagree strongly with their choice, you can’t help but admire that kind of dedication to one’s personal beliefs. I’m glad they ended up being pardoned by President Carter, one of the few truly decent things he did.

I also find myself questioning whether or not I would have had the guts to join the military and go to Viet Nam if I was a supporter of the war. It would have involved a tremendous personal sacrifice, not to mention going against the wishes of my parents. It would have meant putting my life on hold and radically altering my plans for the future.

Would I have done it? I’m somewhat ashamed to say probably not. The urgency to go fight a war that was winding down just wasn’t there. And given the general selfishness that permeated the times, I doubt whether I would have had the guts to buck my parents, my friends, and most of my generation and join up.

Are things different today? What advice would I give a young person who believes strongly in our mission in Iraq and the middle east?

If asked, I would encourage that young person to think very carefully about any commitment to the military. The sacrifices involved not only entail personal danger. There are other sacrifices necessary including family, career, and financial considerations. Then there’s the time factor. It appears that even after one’s active duty stint is completed, one’s availability in the reserves for duty should also enter into the decision making process.

Not everyone who’s 18 and supports the war should volunteer for service. But I think they should seriously consider it. You do a disservice to yourself not to.

So there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the left encouraging people to enlist. Of course, that’s not their intent. Their intent is to play political games and, like a bunch of 5 year old little girls, be able to point their finger at Republicans and accuse them of hypocrisy.

Perhaps they should remember the old Chinese proverb about living in glass houses.

UPDATE

Mad Dog Vinnie from Vince Aut Morire is filling in admirably for Beth at MVRWC and takes a …um…shall we say a little different tack with the Kossaks on the chickenhawk response:

Hey, Kos, since you hate this war so much, why don’t you do something about it? It doesn’t matter how old you are, why aren’t you strapping on a belt full of Semtex? Why don’t you drive a car into a crowded restaurant in Baghdad? Chicken?

Why won’t you encourage your sons and daughters to join Islamic Jihad, or the Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades? You’re on their side, you know. I’ll bet Zarqawi and Bin Laden would love the help, real help, not the hiding behind the computer help you provide. Die for your cause, Kos.

Vince, you’ve got to learn to say what you mean. All this pussyfooting around will only confuse the Kossaks. Please be a little more specific.

This post is also available at Blogger News Network.

I didn’t think it was possible but, when talking about the Democratic left, I should know by now that nothing is beyond their fertile, feverish, and febrile imagination.

In the past few days, I’ve chronicled the left defending the indefensible as they sought to downplay Senator Durbin’s words. “He never said it!” was their response to my home state Senator’s remarks on the Senate floor comparing American soldiers with the most murderous thugs in history.

Once it became apparent that they couldn’t hide from the fact that the Senator actually made these slanderous comments, their refrain became “You’re misunderstanding what he’s saying!” Well, of course we were. How were we to know that when Senator Sniveler made his comments that we should have asked him what he really meant. The only problem there is that Senator Blabbermouth’s own statement on the matter didn’t apologize for anything or to anybody; unless you call apologizing for his remarks being “misused” by terrorist news organs like al Jazeera making amends.

Now we have a new refrain from Kos and his diseased minions who inhabit the fever swamps and nuthouses (small “n” please) in the land of Shang-Ri-La where fake but accurate minutes from a meeting at 10 Downing Street have become grounds for impeachment. This new tune the Kossaks are singing recognizes that Durbin did indeed use his backstabbing historical analogy. But their excuse is priceless.

Durbin was right because we’re “not different enough” from Nazis.

That’s right. By using the double-secret, super-duper, all American, all original moonbat yardstick for behavior on the part of our troops, the left has now been able to pronounce judgement on the actions of American interrogators at Guantanamo. “Enough” difference just doesn’t exist between the guy who gassed 6 million Jews and us.

Perhaps they could enlighten the rest of us as to how much more difference there would need to be before there would be “enough.” But that would spoil their fun now, wouldn’t it? After all, the only way you can defend Senator “Turban” Durbin’s remarks is not by raising the bar, not by lowering the bar, but by making the bar magically disappear and telling people “Oh, it’s still there, it’s just that I’m the only one who knows where it is.”

This new defense is couched in a condemnation of the Jihadist nutballs who tortured the 4 Iraqi soldiers I wrote about here:

Inhuman. Destestable.

And no justification whatsoever for use of torture by the United States. Period.

We are better than that. We must be better than that.

The question should not be ‘are we like these despicable torturers?’ The question must be why are we not different enough from these inhuman monsters?

This is just too good.

Notice how they free themselves up to make any historical comparison they want to now because whatever analogy they come up with only they know how much “enough” difference constitutes the accuracy of the similarity.

It’s effin’ brilliant!

As something of a polemicist, I’ve really got to hand it to the lefties on this one. This kind of tactic is sure to be picked up and run with by all the moonbats over the next few days. There literally can be no response made to this argument. After all, how can you respond logically to something so moronic? How can you counter an argument whose basis lies in the netherworld of the interlocutor’s imagination?

The only thing to do is laugh at them. With their “Downing Street Minutes” Tea Party being made into a national joke and now this idiotic way to defend their outrageous rhetorical flights of fancy regarding Hitler, Stalin, and any other murderous thug in history, the left is rapidly deteriorating into the punchline of a very bad joke.

I should really watch C-Span more often.

Last night during debate on the Energy Bill, my home state Senator Dick Durbin proved that Illinois isn’t only known as the Land of Lincoln. We’re also the Motherland of Moonbats.

Durbin, whose colorlessness as a Senator is something of a running joke here, trained his less than titanic intellect and monotonous speaking skills on the United States Armed Forces, taking them to task for torturing the poor terrorists who have had the horrible misfortune of falling into our boodthirsty hands: (HT: Little Green Footballs)

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime—Pol Pot or others—that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

Good God, Dick! WTF did we do? Did we boil them in oil? Did we put them on the rack and stretch their innocent bodies? Did we…did we…did we piss on the Koran?

When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here—I almost hesitate to put them in the RECORD, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:

On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. ….. On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

Before we get to Drudging Dick’s rant against our methods, did any one else find his statement “I almost hesitate to put them in the RECORD, and yet they have to be added to this debate.” the kind of melodramatic baloney a prosectutor would use in a murder case? I mean, it’s the kind of language that a lawyer would have used back in Lincoln’s day for God’s sake! Especially since what was “added to the RECORD” was so mild that we might call into question Senator Cornpone’s judgement and common sense. One thing we won’t question, however, is our lovable Senator’s flair for the dramatic.

Acting like a 12 year old drama queen is the Senator’s specialty. When one consider’s what this terrorist had to endure - extreme heat, extreme cold, loud rap music - perhaps Senator Moonbat should take a walk down Lawrence Avenue in Chicago in the middle of the Summer (or Winter). Every year, several hundred Chicagoan’s die as a result of no air conditioning during the Summer or heat during the Winter. And the overbearing presence of loud rap music is part of the “color” of some of those neighborhoods. And yet, we strangely have never heard the Senator get up on the floor of the Senate and lambast his good buddy Mayor Daley for allowing such things to occurr.

It would seem the Senator has more sympathy for people who want to blow us to kingdom come than he has for his own constituents.

Par for the course with this moonbat. One might also wonder what our treatment of terrorists at Guantanamo had to do with the Energy Bill and why my home state Senator felt it necessary to add this fascinating yet irrelevant information to the debate. How dare I ask such a loaded question! After all, any time is a good time to compare the military to Nazis, the KGB, or Pol Pot.

UPDATES (GALORE!)

Dick Durbin hasn’t gotten this much attention from anybody in years. Here are some samples from the Shadow Media:

The Senator made Michelle Malkin’s “Republicans are Hitler” roundup today.

The Peoria Pundit:

Durbin lacks perspective, and it’s a tragic flaw. right now, we are at war with terrorists and insurgents. These people will no doubt try to use Durbin’s rhetoric to recruit more suicide bombers and other fighters. These is such a thing as lending aid and comfort to the enemy during war time, and Durbin comes close to that line and may in fact have crossed it. Durbin and others can claim that it’s not his fault if Osama bin Laden used Durbin’s words to rally the troops. Obviously it is: Durbin’s words carry authority. There are repercussions when someone in his position accuses his very own nation of engaging in genocide.

I’d say that’s spot on.

Conservative Eyes:

I think this is one of the grossest and sickest statements to be made yet. This is beyond hyperbole and rhetoric. I really do not have to explain how brutal and murderous the three organizations Durbin compared our soldiers to. Everyone who reads this blog would know how many deaths they are accountable for.

This strikes at the heart of the “I support the troops, but not the war” mentality of a lot of Democrats. One would hope that Durbin does not speak for a majority of Democrats, but he speaks for many. It really shows his motives and how much affection he has for our troops. Whenever I hear Durbin say that he “Supports the Troops,” I know it will be a bald face lie. How could you support someone who you think are no better than genocidal maniacs?

There have been so many posts from military people about this kind of sophistry on the part of Democrats. “I support the trooops not the war” is baloney, according to them. In order to really support the troops, you must support their mission.

Sorry Dick, it won’t wash.

Clarity and Resolve:

It’s this sort of absurd, pernicious, and grossly disproportionate anti-America leftist rhetoric (under a thin veneer of earnest patriotism for the nonexistent American dystopia of their febrile dreams) that emboldens our enemies, puts our lives and the lives of our soldiers in danger, and alienates the left further from the mainstream. It’s this type of insensate, over-the-rainbow disregard for the reality that America is now faced with—a reality that we did not ask for—that made a lot of people like myself vote Republican for the first time ever this past November.

Amen.

Swanky Conservative:

It’s worth noting that according to Estrada, Sen. Durbin spun out of control while debate was being held on an energy bill… I would ask the honorable Senator what is so damn wrong with treating people who were captured on the field of battle to an air-conditioned room? Or, alternately, to an air temperature of 100 degrees? Ever been to Del Rio, Texas in June? It’s 120-plus! And people live there! You wanna come down here and start pontificating about abuses?

Good point.

And what fisking of a moonbat would be complete without a word from John Hawkins:

May I also add that since we have a United States Senator acting as if making some Al-Qaeda terrorist chilly is the equivalent of torturing the guy to death, that it may lead to our interrogators backing off instead of prodding these terrorists for info. How would you like to find out after some horrific terrorist attack that a terrorist at Gitmo knew what was going to happen, but didn’t say anything because we didn’t push him hard enough? Americans could die by the thousands as a direct result of an incident like that, as a direct result of the sort of comments made by soft-on-terrorism hacks like Dick Durbin.

Don’t worry John…Durbin and his ilk would find some way to blame the Republicans even for that.

Why not tell us what you really think, Paul?

Dick Durbin is ignorant of history, a complete jackass and owes everyone in uniform an apology — then he should resign.

Hit ‘em again, Captain:

In any case, Durbin owes the administration and the American servicemen in Gitmo and elsewhere an apology. Durbin’s idiotic equating of the conditions he described from the e-mail he supposedly received to the genocide of the Jews, Cambodians, and gulag victims cheapens the horrors of those atrocities, and he owes the survivors an apology as well. His hysterical rants have damaged the war effort by providing propaganda for the Islamists with no rational basis whatsoever — and for that, he owes everyone an apology.

Jeez…with so many people asking for an apology from the guy, you’d think the idiot would take the hint and at least concede he may have misspoke. Not our Dicky boy. In fact, like a Missouri Mule, the Senator has dug in his heels and failed to budge: (Via Drudge)

News of the Democrat’s comparison created a buzz around the Internet today, fueled by sound bites of yesterday’s Senate floor speech on radio talk shows. By this afternoon, Illinois Republican Party Chairman Andy McKenna asked Durbin to apologize.

Durbin says the Bush administration should apologize for abandoning the Geneva Conventions.

Wha? Who? WTF? Would someone please tell me why Democrats are so enamoured of these international “apologies?” Do they really believe that having the government say “so sorry, please” actually makes a difference to anyone anywhere? And the idea of apologizing to the world for classifying people who didn’t fall under the Geneva Convention in the first place as “enemy combatants” is loony. What would we apologize for? That an 80 year old treaty couldn’t envision a day where extra-territorial terrorists would be incarcerated for the protection of civilized people everywhere? Are we responsible for the failure of the the signers of the Geneva Protocols to gaze into a crystal ball and write something that would cover this unique, first time in world history situation?

I agree with Paul at Wizbang…this jerk should apologize to the entire country and then resign. The only problem is, in order for him to do that, he would need to possess a modicum of decency and an empathy for others. Since it’s obvious that this embarassment to my state does not possess those qualities or others that would force him to recognize the shame he’s brought our state and his office, one can only hope that the voters of Illinois see fit to retire this galoot when his term is up in 2008.

Okay…just one more update, I promise….

Rusty Shackleford has a brother in Iraq and took Senator Snark’s comments personally:

Right. My brother, just like Adolf Eichmann, once gave me a super-atomic wedgie.

The only thing more morally inept then comparing what is happening at Guantanamo to the tens of millions of people killed in the gulags, is to not back down once you’ve been called on it.

“Morally inept”…Ab.So.Lute.Ly. Perfect.

This is sure to receive a lot of play at the Democratic Underground Forums over the next few days:

A former Bush team member during his first administration is now voicing serious doubts about the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9-11. Former chief economist for the Department of Labor during President George W. Bush’s first term Morgan Reynolds comments that the official story about the collapse of the WTC is “bogus” and that it is more likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the Twin Towers and adjacent Building No. 7.

“If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9/11, then the case for an ‘inside job’ and a government attack on America would be compelling.” Reynolds commented from his Texas A&M office, “It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7. If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either. The government’s collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms.

There’s only one, teensy tiny problem with this economist’s engineering analysis; it’s contradicted by the most knowledgeable experts in the world:

The authors attribute each tower’s collapse to three separate but related “loading events.” The first event was a Boeing aircraft hitting the building, cutting through the exterior structure and creating a fireball that immediately consumed some of the estimated 10,000 gallons (38 kiloliters) of jet fuel. The highrises’ structural systems were sufficiently redundant, however, that this major damage by itself did not cause the collapse. According to the report, “most of the load supported by the failed columns is believed to have transferred to adjacent perimeter columns through Vierendeel behavior of the exterior wall frame.”

The second event was the continuing fire, fed both by the remaining jet fuel and the office contents of furniture and paper. This fire heated and weakened the structural systems, adding stress to the damaged structure. Meanwhile, the sprinklers were not operating as designed. “Even if these systems had not been compromised by the impacts,” says the report, “they would likely have been ineffective… the initial flash fires of jet fuel would have opened so many sprinkler heads that the systems would have quickly depressurized and been unable to effectively deliver water to the large area of fire involvement.”

The third event was a progressive collapse: “As the large mass of the collapsing floors above accelerated and impacted on the floors below, it caused an immediate progressive series of floor failures, punching each in turn onto the floor below, accelerating as the sequence progressed. Freestanding exterior walls… buckled at the bolted column splice connections and also collapsed.”

The report was compiled primarily by the American Society for Civil Engineers, world renowned experts in the field of structural failure. In order to believe anything other than the official report, one would have to posit a conspiracy theory featuring a cast of thousands.

The report was also vetted by experts before it was released. In other words, other scientists and engineers who checked the work of the report’s authors would also have to be involved in a cover-up.

What truly makes this bizarre is that an investigation carried out under the auspices of an independent trade association (ASCE) and verified by the most respected scientists and engineers in the field is being questioned by an economist! Far be it from me to pooh-pooh someone’s abilities in a field that they didn’t have any formal schooling. But the people who investigated the causes for the collapse of the twin towers didn’t just have degrees in civil engineering. Many of them had more than 20 years of experience investigating structural failures around the world. That kind of expertise trumps anything someone like moonbat Reynolds could ever hope to come up with on his own from simply reading books on the subject.

The MSM is ignoring this story, as they should (although UPI evidently had it on their wires). I became aware of the story via Drudge. I say “For Shame” to Drudge for giving this story any play at all.

I would love to see a follow-up story on this moonbat Morgan Reynolds. It would be interesting to hear him try to rebut some of the smartest people on the planet and a report that’s been accepted by scientists all over the world.

UPDATE

Surprisingly, it’s been the right side of the sphere that has picked up on this story. So far, even the DU moonbats and Klueless Kossaks are ignoring it.

Little Green Footballs:

None of the chuckleheads who propose theories like this ever seem to consider that professional demolition on such a scale would have been a gigantic task, would have taken a lot of time to set up, and would have been very visible to the tens of thousands of people who worked in the Trade Center every single day.

Not if they were invisible, Charles. You forget the Rovian Cloak of Invisibility. And don’t forget the Cone of Silence.

Yippee-Ki-Yay:

Don’t ask an engineer, ask an economist.

Precisely. And if I want to know what the inflation rate is going to be next year, I’ll ask my barber.

Stones Cry Out:

Wait! All of this academia lunacy can be explained rather simply. George Soros and MoveOn are putting lead in the water at major universities! Makes perfect sense!

Maybe not lead. More likely a delicious cocktail of Psylicibin soup with a delicate seasoning containing a dash of LSD and a pinch of mescaline.

The World Wide Rant has the moonbat’s email address. Do ya think he’s going to get some weird mail?

We don’t need a follow-up interview with the moonbat. Here’s a piece on paleo-conservative Lew Rockwell’s site by the nutty professor: (HT: The Corner Via Memorandum)

Knowing the personnel of the Commission, its abysmal Report is no surprise. It did its best for the White House, not the nation. Michael C. Ruppert is one of the more radical 9/11 researcher-critics around. Let’s follow his logic for a bit. He says, put aside the acrimonious debate over the physical evidence about what really caused the twin towers, WTC building 7, and the west wall of the Pentagon to collapse; put aside obstructionism by FBI headquarters, the mysterious U.S. military lay down on 9/11, the nonchalant behavior of Bush and the Secret Service on 9/11, the exploded airliner over Pennsylvania, Saudi flights out of the country, the skullduggery of the Pakistani secret service and the Israeli Mossad and a thousand other gaps in the official theory.

Instead, focus on the suspects. If it can be demonstrated via incriminating, irrefutable evidence that the suspects had means, motive and opportunity, then we’re on our way to criminals convicted in the court of truth. Ruppert says that the pivotal evidence that opens up the case and exposes the government conspirators is the secretive yet undisputed air war games that were going on the morning of 9/11. These games, conducted to protect against hijacked airliners as well as a Russian attack, included Vigilant Guardian, Northern Guardian, Vigilant Warrior, and Tripod II. All were reported on by major press organizations relying on quotes from participating military personnel, as well as NORAD press releases.

Now prepare yourself a jolt: “Ruppert’s new book will name Vice President Richard Cheney as the prime suspect in the mass murders of 9/11 and will establish that, not only was he a planner in the attacks, but also that on the day of the attacks he was running a completely separate Command, Control and Communications system which was superseding any orders being issued by the FAA, the Pentagon, or the White House Situation Room.”

Can this be right? Preposterous? Traitorous? Is Ruppert just another wild-eyed crackpot? I don’t know, but at least he’s not “mobbed up.” That’s more than the Commissioners can say. By its incredible behavior before, during and after 9/11, the government brought this spreading disbelief on itself.

And Kevin at Wizbang sums up the professor’s idiocy regarding “the full range of facts” very nicely:

Only if “the full range of facts” excludes those pesky airplanes that billions of people world-wide witnessed on video tape flying into both towers of the World Trade Center…

“A victory for Bernie Sanders is a win for Democrats.”

“I think Tom DeLay ought to go back to Houston, where he can serve his jail sentence down there.”

Mr. Dean last month did an impression of Mr. Limbaugh for a gathering of Democrats in Minnesota that included the sound of someone snorting cocaine. Mr. Limbaugh became addicted to the painkiller OxyContin while dealing with years of chronic back pain, but entered a rehabilitation center last year and says he is now drug-free.

“I think our values are more consistent with Montana values than Republican values are.”

While discussing the hardship of working all day and then standing in line for eight hours to vote, Dean had said, “Well, Republicans, I guess, can do that because a lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives.”

“I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for.”

“You think the Republican National Committee could get this many people of color in a single room? Only if they had the hotel staff in here.”

Republicans “are mean. They are not nice people.”

Anklebiting Pundits, who first recommended Dean for Chairman of the DNC on November 10, 2004, believes him a “gift from God.”

Powerline calls him the “Gift that Keeps on Giving.”

One would think that a few more months of Howard Dean’s Traveling Train Wreck and some Democrats will start calling him a Karl Rove plant. Not that Democrats have a corner on stupidity. The Republicans have had bad chairmen in the past. Every time I saw Haley Barbour on national T.V. I wanted to turn the channel. All that was missing from his mug was the big cigar sticking out between clenched teeth so much he reminded me of the quintessential pol.

Thankfully, the Republicans wised up and have had two chairmen in a row who can win elections and raise money - a success by any yardstick. One of them, former chairman Ed Gillespie has been amused of late with Mr. Dean’s rants saying “Watching a Howard Dean speech is a little like people who go to a NASCAR race to see a crash.”

Except NASCAR racing is much more colorful and the cars are smarter than Dean is.

And current chairman Ken Mehlman has been much to busy stealing Democratic lawmakers and voters right from under the nose that Dean looks down Republicans at to pay much attention to his counterpart’s foibles. That said, I imagine ole’ Ken is chuckling quite a bit lately.

But the question I had and a question I’m sure others not closely connected with the (alternate) Reality Based Community has is what does the party think of its ranting moonbat chairman?

Dean wowed the faithful in ‘04 with his Web-based fund-raising magic. But major business donors still count, and in his new role as party honcho, the feisty doctor seems to be struggling to connect. After achieving money parity with the GOP in 2004, Democrats have fallen far behind. According to the Federal Election Commission, the DNC raised $14.1 million in the first quarter of 2005, vs. the Republican National Committee’s $32.3 million. Dean drew about 20,000 new donors, while his rivals picked up 68,200. The bottom line: Republicans have $26.2 million in the bank vs. $7.2 million for the Dems.

Recent evidence of big-donor discomfort: A DNC event scheduled for May 25 at Manhattan’s cavernous Jacob K. Javits Convention Center was scaled back to a smaller venue at the Essex House hotel. Bridget Siegel, the DNC’s New York finance chair, says the event was moved because the new room “just worked better.”

So it appears Dr. D’s act wears pretty thin when it comes to Democratic party moneybags who usually contribute to the party. This doesn’t stop gazillionares like Soros et. al. from filling the coffers of Moveon and Americans Coming Together (ACT). In fact, they, along with the rest of the base believes Howie is just the man to lead the Democrats to victory.

Witness the response at Moonbat Central, the Democratic Underground, to their beloved Chairman’s most recent remarks about Republicans being “pretty much a white, Christian party.”:

For me, when I hear the reference that Chairman Dean has made about the republican image it’s the KKK I see. D ; )

Yep. Kross-burning KKKristians. Same rhetoric, slightly different clothing.

Good for him! I’d just add, the GOP is the party of cold, inhuman corporations who know how to exploit White Xtians and WX wannabe’s.

I love Howard - and these remarks. Go Howard!

Dean speaks the truth. It’s time the public hears it, even if it is painful.

Screw this “attracting moderates” bullshit already, he is speaking the truth even though it hurts.

But that’s not true- many of them are closeted homosexuals

And so on…

You don’t have to be Mr. Wizard to predict that if Howie the Hero can’t keep his mouth from running too far away from reality the Republicans are going to have a field day highlighting these little bon mots not to mention burying the Democrats when it comes to raising money.

Poor, clueless, and embarrassed. Doesn’t sound like an election winning strategy to me.

UPDATE

Jeff Goldstein is a very funny fellow:

Asked to comment on Dean’s characterization of Republicans as a white Christian monolith, Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) expressed disappointment with the former Vermont Governor: “He says that like being white and Christian is a bad thing,” the Senator told a small gathering of reporters. Byrd was then quickly ushered away by several aides after he pressed a quarter into the palm of freshman Senator Barack Obama and demanded the Illinois Democrat “be a good boy and go fetch Mister Bobby a nice cold sodee-pop.”