Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love

Good friends, I have seen the light. A recent letter to the Pilot, headlined "Stop Hate-Filled Writing" takes me to task for some of the mean things I've said about poor Sarah Palin and William Kristol.

After reading the letter, I have to say, it moved me. It moved me, friends. It moved me, heart and soul. Body and mind. Liver and spleen. Islets of Langerhans and Medulla Oblongata. *

I have done had me an epiphany.

I intend now to turn from hate and embrace love, like my friends on the right. I want to be filled with the joy of freedom and tolerance for my fellow man. Just like these commentators on the conservative site FreeRepublic who bow their heads in remembrance and show their love for the late Walter Cronkite:

Where do traitors go when they die?

Should have been shot for treason years ago he could have covered it till the order to fire was givin POS

Great, this gives the Communist News Network(s) an excuse to not cover what is most important to the american people, the economy and the Kenyan in the WH. Say hello to Pol Pot Howard and all the communist leaders of Vietnam you gave aid and comfort to.

Conservatives. They spread the love.

*thanks to musician David Bromberg for that one.

Remember When?

Remember when pundits were tut-tutting and saying that Howard Dean wasn't viable as a Presidential candidate because he came off as too "angry"? Remember when the constant refrain from the wingnut blogosphere was "Oooooh! These leftists are soooooo ANGRY!" (Or, in the alternative, "leftists are soooooo full of HATE!")

I don't ever want to hear anyone ever again talking about "angry" or "hateful" leftists after hearing this:

Argh.

Despite tough questioning, Sotomayor remains unruffled: McClatchy

So far, Sotomayor has stayed completely in control even as the Judiciary Committee's 19 members alternately tried to shake and support her. Nowhere has her self-command been more evident than in her refusal — despite repeated efforts by Republicans and Democrats alike — to offer hints about her thinking on the nation's most politically sensitive disputes.

On abortion, Second Amendment rights, voting rights and more, Sotomayor consistently has steered clear of hinting how she might rule. In part, she refuses to pre-judge a specific case she might see again...

Sotomayor's ruling with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold New York state's ban on the joined-sticks weapon called nunchaku, likewise, drew question after question about whether she thinks the Second Amendment applies to states. She frustrated them all, insisting the state issue might yet come before the high court.

This is one of the things that drives me nuts about the whole confirmation process. She doesn't comment on issues that might come before the court because she can't. The Rules of Judicial Conduct are quite explicit on this point. She can't talk about it, AND EVERYONE BLOODY WELL KNOWS IT. So there's no point in asking the questions on these issues other than grandstanding.

This whole damn  "Advise and Consent" process has been turned by both sides into one long political commercial. I'd love to see rules in place that say that all questions must be that: questions. No endless "opening statements", no long rambling preludes, get to your point in 150 words or less or STFU.

I know 'll never see that. Because the worst offenders are the people who make the rules.

Argh.

The Good Americans at FreeRepublic

Racial slurs directed at Obama children:

"A typical street whore." "A bunch of ghetto thugs." "Ghetto street trash." "Wonder when she will get her first abortion."

These are a small selection of some of the racially-charged comments posted to the conservative 'Free Republic' blog Thursday, aimed at U.S. President Barack Obama's 11-year-old daughter Malia after she was photographed wearing a t-shirt with a peace sign on the front.

The thread was accompanied by a photo of Michelle Obama speaking to Malia that featured the caption, "To entertain her daughter, Michelle Obama loves to make monkey sounds."

Though this may sound like the sort of thing one might read on an Aryan Nation or white power website, they actually appeared on what is commonly considered one of the prime online locations for U.S. Conservative grassroots political discussion and organizing - and for a short time, the comments seemed to have the okay of site administrators.

Moderators of the blog left the comments - and commenters - in place until a complaint was lodged by a writer doing research on the conservative movement, almost a full day later.

"Could you imagine what world leaders must be thinking seeing this kind of street trash and that we paid for this kind of street ghetto trash to go over there?" wrote one commenter.

"They make me sick .... The whole family... mammy, pappy, the free loadin' mammy-in-law, the misguided chillin', and especially 'lil cuz... This is not the America I want representin' my peeps," wrote another.

But it's okay, don't you see? It's okay to call an 11 year old girl "ghetto trash" and "street whore" because David Letterman made a lame joke about 18 year old Bristol Palin.

But, of course, it's still not acceptable to say what Letterman said, which was still the WORST THING EVER SAID ABOUT ANYONE EVER (and a perfectly good reason for Palin to resign).

Likewise, it's okay to publish racist comments about "monkey sounds" because Sonia Sotomayor admits that being Latina had an effect on her life. But it's still not okay for Sotomayor to say that because that makes her THE WORST BIGOT EVER.

Wingnut logic.

Palindrones: Looping Between the Anger and the Denial Stages

Latest Newspaper Column:

Gov. Sarah Palin's resignation "press conference" on July 3 was a bizarre speech, even for Caribou Barbie.
Oh, I knew to expect the fractured syntax, which is pretty much a given every time Palin takes the stage. The woman makes George W. Bush sound like Cicero.
Nor should the whiny assertions of victimhood come as any surprise. Chunks of self-pity, slathered in resentment sauce, are a familiar dish to those who've ever perused the menu at the Wingnut Cafe.
What is unusual is to hear a right-winger actually admit that she can't stand the heat, so she's fleeing the kitchen.
I'm just happy we don't have someone as chief executive or VP who'll walk off the job in a huff if some obscure blogger or late-night talk show host makes a tasteless joke about a member of their family, especially after some of the "witticisms" directed at Obama's wife and daughters.
One far-right blogger wondered which Obama daughter would the first, and I quote, "to get knocked up and have an abortion in the White House," while a rabidly pro-Clinton (later rabidly pro-McCain) site featured Michelle's picture altered to look like a character from "Planet of the Apes."
And yet, somehow, Obama's still doing the job people elected him to do. By contrast, if Palin were president, al-Qaeda wouldn't need bombs or bullets to decapitate the government; they'd only need a bootlegged copy of Photoshop.
Palin's hard-core supporters, of course, cackled with glee, as they do at pretty much anything St. Sarah does. "Look! She's running away! We've really got the liberals where we want 'em now!" One might think this sort of slavish devotion would be odd behavior for people who like to sneer at any Obama supporter as if they were some kind of cultist, but consistency of thought has never been a hallmark of the American Right.
For true, Baghdad Bob-level denial, however, your go-to guy is always William Kristol.
In last week's Washington Post, Smilin' Bill takes an entire column to trot out one of the tiredest and most dimwitted of wingnut cliches in his paean to the Resigning Woman. That being: If you think Sarah Palin is a fool, or at least that she's done a very foolish thing, then you must be terrified of her.
According to Kristol, his "friends in the mainstream media and the Republican establishment tend not only to dislike and disdain Palin, they also want to bury her chances now as a presidential possibility. What are they so scared of?"
Ow! The stupid! It buuuurns!
But wait, there's more. Kristol claims that the "panic" among these unnamed parties "suggests real worry that if she does, she might pull off an upset. Why else the vehement assertions that she's clearly made a terrible mistake? Why else the categorical insistence that her political career is finished? Aren't they all protesting too much?"
Gee, I don't know, Bill. Maybe people are asserting vehemently that your GOP fantasy pinup girl has clearly made a terrible mistake because she's clearly made a terrible mistake? Maybe there's a categorical insistence that her political career is finished because people really believe her political career is finished?
You've got to admit, abruptly walking out on the job Alaskans elected her to less than a year after almost singlehandedly crashing and burning a presidential campaign isn't exactly an obvious springboard to bigger and better things.
I'd say that Kristol's crazy-like-a-fox take on Palin's failin' is overthinking, but I don't think there's a way to put the word "thinking" and "Kristol" in the same sentence without collapsing with hysterical laughter.
(Nope, I couldn't do it.)
Here's a news flash, Mr. K: people don't laugh at Sarah Palin because they're afraid. They laugh at her because she's absurd. Tina Fey didn't concoct her dead-on impersonation of the Wasilla Hillbilly because she's scared of her; she did it because with her winks, fake folksiness, aggressive ignorance, and outrageous, bat-crazy assertions about her foreign policy experience, Palin is the most easily mocked politician in America right now.
But I hope Kristol's right about one thing: I hope Sarah Palin does run for president in 2012, using the same divisive, hateful, "I'm a real American and you're terrorist-loving scum" tactics that proved oh-so-effective last time. She seems incapable of learning from the past, so I'd enjoy seeing her repeat it.