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unique visitors since July 27, 2005 |
After the Daily Kos threw the great weight of the moonbat hordes behind a political candidate by appearing in his inexplicable campaign ad, AllahPundit remixed it.
If every Democratic commercial were like that, I admit I'd be sorely tempted to vote for them. What can I say? The theme song is far catchier than any of their current talking points.
Witness how the howling mad moonbats are reveling (link is to anti-AMERICAblog's comments) in a wholly unscientific Web poll showing a significant majority — 64 percent at this writing — answering in the affirmative to the following:
Do you agree with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's severe criticism of U.S President George W. Bush?
This is Hugo Chavez, people. Not Hugo Boss or Hugo Weaving or even the late Victor Hugo.
Hugo Chavez, who hates not just George Bush but this country.
Hugo Chavez, best buddy and protege of the most retrograde and despicable dictator in the Western Hemisphere.
Hugo Chavez, who might just make the current price of gas look like a Costco-style bargain.
Hugo Chavez, who apparently wants to sell our own warplanes to the most fanatical regimes on Earth, regimes that constantly threaten their neighbors with complete annihilation and lie about their production of nuclear weaponry.
So are you one of those 64 percent? If so, then congratulations: You have crossed the line from run-of-the-mill, blinkered Bush-hatred to borderline treason.
Sometimes the enemy of your enemy should just be ... your enemy.
DNC Chairman Howard Dean sauntered into the friendly confines of "The Daily Show" last night. The audience dutifully applauded references to President Bush's low standing in the polls, as well as Dean's predictions of Democratic takeover of the House and/or Senate.
But then host Jon Stewart had the temerity to ask just exactly how the Democrats were going to manage not to blow the opportunity before them.
Dean's plan: Let's put, say, four people in every state who will knock on as many as 5 to 6 million doors over the next few years.
"So the Dems are now as powerful as the Jehovah's Witnesses," Stewart said.
No, no, no! See, this is where the plan gets brilliant. If they're not home, then you hang this nifty little door-hanger on the doorknob!
But Stewart was having none of it. When he pressed Dean for an actual message, it was essentially, "We'll be less grafty than the other guy."
Then Dean actually angled the Democrats to the left of President Bush's centrist immigration policy.
Stewart neatly summed things up for Dean: "You are so not taking back the House and the Senate."
(Incidentally, no reference whatsoever was made to Dean's recent, humongous gaffes regarding gays.)
[Watch video – 7:38, WMV format, high bandwidth]
[Watch video – 7:38, WMV format, low bandwidth]
In other "Daily Show" news, Stewart took a cold, hard look at the reports of NSA-related phone shenanigans.
Hot on the heels of Administration denials of surveillance of domestic phone calls came a USA Today story last week stating that the National Security Agency has indeed kept a massive database regarding billions of domestic phone calls.
The government explanation has been that the database analyzes only call patterns, and not the content of all the calls themselves, to spot potential terrorists.
As Stewart points out, it's probably cold comfort to those of us whose call patterns are suspicious for any number of other reasons.
[Watch video – 6:22, WMV format, high bandwidth]
[Watch video – 6:22, WMV format, low bandwidth]
I'm sure there are more such reports to be found in California alone, but a casual perusal of blogs this afternoon helps underscore the dogged determination of some gay liberals to alienate the rest of us who might otherwise support them on issues that concern us all.
BoiFromTroy writes about a trip to his local gay bookstore, during which he had hoped to find a copy of gay American Mary Cheney's new tome. But the shop was good enough to carry plenty of copies of straight American, and frothy socialist, Noam Chomsky's new book.
Perhaps these are wise business decisions for someone with a West Hollywood clientele. But why, then, call yourself a "gay" bookstore? Answer: Because a disturbing number of gay Americans naïvely consider ultra-leftist politics part and parcel of the homosexual experience. For millions of the rest of us, this just doesn't compute.
In a somewhat related story, Queerty reports that the California State Senate has passed a bill "that would require textbooks in public schools to instruct students on contributions by gays and lesbians in the state's development."
Normally I would decry the balkanization of education by officious politicians. But the bill already reads like a laundry list of aggrieved groups — "men and women, Black Americans, American Indians, Mexicans, Asians, Pacific Islanders, and other ethnic groups, and people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender" — so gays might as well join the hit parade. (It's similar to my thoughts on hate-crimes laws: They're stupid and pointless, but as long as we have them, gays should be protected by them.)
But why can't they just teach students about Californians' contributions to the state, regardless of whatever preferred group to which they belong?
Rarely do I find myself in agreement with Richard Cohen – that is, when I'm not so put off by his usual solipsism and general Leftishness that I will actually read him.
But today, in his column on Stephen Colbert's turn at the White House Correspondents Association dinner, he "speaks truth to power" about one of the Left's favorite bromides de jour:
Why are you wasting my time with Colbert, I hear you ask. Because he is representative of what too often passes for political courage, not to mention wit, in this country. His defenders -- and they are all over the blogosphere -- will tell you he spoke truth to power. This is a tired phrase, as we all know, but when it was fresh and meaningful it suggested repercussions, consequences -- maybe even death in some countries. When you spoke truth to power you took the distinct chance that power would smite you, toss you into a dungeon or -- if you're at work -- take away your office.
But in this country, anyone can insult the president of the United States. Colbert just did it, and he will not suffer any consequence at all. He knew that going in. He also knew that Bush would have to sit there and pretend to laugh at Colbert's lame and insulting jokes. Bush himself plays off his reputation as a dunce and his penchant for mangling English. Self-mockery can be funny. Mockery that is insulting is not. The sort of stuff that would get you punched in a bar can be said on a dais with impunity. This is why Colbert was more than rude. He was a bully.
[snip]
He had a chance to tell the president and much of important (and self-important) Washington things it would have been good for them to hear. But he was, like much of the blogosphere itself, telling like-minded people what they already know and alienating all the others. In this sense, he was a man for our times.
He also wasn't funny.
And if another person cites that Jefferson-quote-that-Jefferson-never-said, "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism," I will throttle them.
[h/t OpinionJournal]
There's quite a bit of political frothing over Stephen Colbert's appearance at the White House Correspondent Dinner over the weekend. The usual suspects are leaping and hooting in the trees with roughly a thousand threads saluting the courage Colbert in taking on the President. I'll simply note that when a political party's hero of the year is a comedian, that's probably a sign of nothing good.
As for the actual performance, it's good in parts, awkward and stilted in others. The Helen Thomas Terminator 2 bit goes on far too long and has been trimmed. I'm a big fan of Colbert's right-wing pundit character, often featuring him in Malcovision, but he wears thin under the strain of twenty unbroken minutes. Though he seems very much out of his element, there are a few worthwhile moments and jokes interspersed throughout.
[Watch video – 20:35, WMV format, high bandwidth]
[Watch video – 20:35, WMV format, low bandwidth]
Helpful blogger Jordy sends along a little money-grubbing missive from the most inept politician in recent history (with the possible exception of John Kerry), Al Gore.
You remember him, right? The guy who took the strongest economy ever and was still unable to ride it to the White House? (As a pre-emptive measure, I recommend that any comments about "stolen elections" save me the trouble by appending the standard line "This commenter is an idiot" yourselves.)
Even though Gore is politically clueless, I will assume that he at least had sense enough to send this only the howlingest of the moonbat base. Because if he thinks that his message holds even the slightest appeal for a moderate/libertarian American like me, he missed the target by several furlongs.
Al. Sweetie. Baby. Repeat after me: Bush hatred in not an agenda. Rove-mongering is not an agenda. A little line buried at the bottom about stem cells and "global warming" is not an agenda. And until your party develops an actual agenda, something more compelling than livid, spittle-flecked rage, you will remain deservedly in the minority. But I'm rooting for you, Al, because I believe that genuine electoral alternatives are critical to the democratic process. You're just not providing one right now.
Letter after the jump ...
If you'll pardon the mixed metaphor (and the "French"), I fucking hate the masturbatory navel-gazing most bloggers seem to enjoy – except for the strong need I felt to thank readers when we hit 1 million. But I probably need to share this with you:
After nine months of blogging at this URL, I have banned my first troll, a commenter going by the name of "studiotodd."
I think blogs with "policies" – whether regarding commenting or blogrolling or whatever – are exceedingly lame, so I haven't really put my thoughts on those subjects into writing. Previously, I had banned only spammers, and one gentleman who felt it appropriate to make generalized death threats against gays. And I was proud of fostering free-flowing debate, even if it has tended to be (yes) more right-leaning than the typical gay blog.
But congratulations, studiotodd, you got my goat! You have put a the first ding in the Escalade that was my proud policy of free expression.
My "policy" is pretty simple: I'm an easy-going guy, but I too have limits. I have paid thousands of dollars to keep this site running.
So if you work extra-hard to antagonize me, Robbie or our readers, and you have the misfortune of crossing me during one of my less charitable moods, you too may share what studiotodd calls his "badge of honor." (Forget that moonbats like BlogActive, AmericaBlog and others make frequent and ostentatious displays of banning trolls for the slightest infractions.)
All points of view are still welcome here. But you will sorely test my patience if you start painting too broad a stroke with terms like "racist," "Jews for Hitler," or the like. This won't be a forum for just anything that anyone wants it to be. My blog, my rules.
Six employees at a seafood restaurant in Houston were fired this week after skipping work to take part in a pro-immigration march. In Detroit, 21 immigrants lost their jobs as meat cutters after attending a similar protest last month.
And they were all replaced by undocumented workers.
The right was never this angry:
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As we bang the drum about Cynthia McKinney or any of our other various pet interests, a hearty, partisan few have surfaced asking: "Where is The Malcontent on President Bush's scandalous leaking of details from the National Intelligence Estimate"?
Let me explain a couple of things:
I don't know what school of PR Cynthia McKinney's lawyers and handlers went to, but one of the first things I ever learned about damage control was, "If you're in a hole, then put down the damn shovel."
In the latest stop on her you-a culpa tour, the Georgia congresswoman was on HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher," denying that she had asserted that her altercation with a Capitol policeman was a function of racism, and then disingenuously expounding in the same breath on the racist nature of society.
Using the royal "we," McKinney argued essentially that her liberal credentials put her personal behavior off-limits to scrutiny, even when such behavior is potentially criminal. To his credit, Bill Maher tried to call her on her bullshit – in his own timid, left-leaning way.
[Watch video – 8:26, WMV format, high bandwidth]
[Watch video – 8:26, WMV format, low bandwidth]
First Gavin Newsom thumbed his nose at California's gay-marriage ban, now he says he will flout any federal immigration law he disagrees with.
Whether you agree or disagree with either of those laws (or potential laws) is irrelevant, but Newsom is a fart-smelling nitwit – albeit a very attractive one. (I also blame his entirely incorrect tactics on gay marriage for much of the political blowback that eventually followed, far more than I blame Massachusetts judges.)
"I'm going to put your ass in jail. I'm a police officer."
Angry queer still implying that "gay" is the worst possible thing one can be.
Gathering all the clips from late last week and the weekend, today it's a Malcovision threefer.
First up is Stephen Colbert gushing over his favorite American Idol contestant, the limits of offense, the curious timing of Republican gay marriage politics, and the crushing disappointment of the Village People as career role models.
[Watch video – 4:16, WMV format, high bandwidth]
[Watch video – 4:16, WMV format, low bandwidth]
Saturday saw the premiere of comedian Robert Wuhl's "Assume the Position" on HBO, a take off on college lectures with Wuhl playing university professor. The series intends to highlight the myths of American History through the prism of popular culture, centuries old media spin, and live demonstrations. In this first episode, Wuhl explores the practical complications of the colonial quicky, a history of queer anthems, the first gay bar, and America's first transvestite governor. You'll never listen to Yankee Doodle the same way again.
[Watch video – 7:15, WMV format, high bandwidth]
[Watch video – 7:15, WMV format, low bandwidth]
Last, but certainly not least, is Wednesday's episode of South Park. After the citizens of town scramble to buy hybrid cars in a flurry of smug satisfaction, the meteorological effects of "smug" on the atmosphere threaten to engulf the region in a catastrophic storm. What follows is a prolonged mocking of self-righteous San Franciscans, Hollywood, environmentalists, and loud-mouthed progressives who cannot drive a car without taking a long whiff of their own . . . moral superiority. Come for the moonbat bashing. Stay for a Cartman forced to enter San Francisco - a place wrought from his nightmares.
[Watch video – 7:37, WMV format, high bandwidth]
[Watch video – 7:37, WMV format, low bandwidth]
As I write this, Cynthia McKinney and her fellow race hustlers are pleading the notoriously anti-Semitic congresswoman's case in her cop-smacking incident at a news conference before a hallelujah chorus at Howard University. The case being, naturally, that the cop she physically assaulted was racist (and a far cry from her much more conciliatory "official" statement).
I'll leave my personal feelings about the congresswoman aside for the moment, or the cast of characters backing her up that included the America-hating Harry Belafonte, but I was struck by at least one thing:
Two rationales were provided for McKinney's behavior. First, that the Capitol Police should be better trained to know who the Members of Congress are because it has a bearing on their safety. (I'd add that a 10-year political veteran of D.C. like myself also can no longer recognize her after she ditched her trademark braids for a radically different 'do.) I have also personally witnessed something similar happen to a white senator.
And second, Team McKinney is alleging that the police officer knew who she was and was harassing her merely because of her race.
Now, if you're going to mount a defense in advance of what is reportedly her potential arrest, shouldn't you at least be sure that the two reasons you give aren't directly contradictory?
From today's Hotline Last Call (sub. only): "In a case of mistaken identity, Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) apparently punched a Capitol police officer. No response yet from her office."
Sen. John McCain is working against Republicans and with lefty Sen. Ted Kennedy to push through the Democrats' preferred position on immigration. What a liberal sell-out!
What's that, you say? The blogs in the know today have ditched the McCain-as-maverick storyline and are labeling him as "Bush redux"? [See here, here, here, here, and here, for starters.] The senator's most recent "offense" was his decision to speak at Liberty University, leading one to surmise that a liberal's favorite debate is one without an opponent.
So I guess I'm swimming up-meme today. The blogging lefties are painting John McCain as a fire-breathing wingnut in a coordinated effort that is as laughable as it is hyperbolic.
Look, I carry no brief for John McCain. I don't like the guy, and I can't foresee any circumstance under which I'd vote for him. But if we're to believe that they're just now realizing that "every liberal's favorite Republican" is a Republican, then I have some ocean-front property to sell you in Arizona.
Captain's Quarters this morning already wrote the post that I wish I had written first:
The trouble with McCain the Maverick is that he never existed. McCain has spent his entire political career as McCain the Center of the Universe, mostly adopting positions that get him as much air time as possible. It comes as no surprise that he now wants to suck up to the Bush contingent in the GOP [...]
I don't know what the lefties are so worried about. The John McCain who wants to nationalize health care, restrict gun rights, raise taxes, and curtail political speech will undoubtedly return soon enough. All he needs is a light breeze.
UPDATE: I should have added this guy to my list of people who are shocked – shocked, I say! – that McCain is a Republican. And as a rhetorical aside: Exactly how many "conservatives" take their cues from DailyKos, anyway?
UPDATE 2: Add 365gay.com to the Coalition of the Obtuse.
Sullivan grovels to get back into the good graces of ... Paul Krugman?!
And this man is still a spokesman for conservatives ... how?
