ThinkingMeat

This is pretty much what I’ve been saying for some time, but Simon at Bloggasm has taken the time to quantify the phenomenon. Right-wing blogs by and large avoid discussing Obama in terms of policy, and hammer instead on trivia:

Approximately 77% of posts dealing with Barack Obama in four major conservative blogs focused on non-policy issues. The blogs I surveyed include michellemalkin.com, powerlineblog.com, redstate.com, and littlegreenfootballs.com.

The four blogs published a total of 311 posts in April prominently featuring Obama. Of those, 71 posts (23%) focused on policy issues. The remaining 240 posts (77%) focused on non-policy issues.

Policy issues the blogs covered include Obama’s views on Iraq, the economic slowdown, the housing crisis, the gas tax, immigration, and the war on terror.

Non-policy issues the blogs covered include Rev.Jeremiah Wright, Weathermen founder Bill Ayers, “bitter” comments about rural voters, his decision to wear a flag pin, and his alleged elitism.

The wingnuts don’t talk about policy because (A) they can’t — they don’t have the necessary chops to understand or even find Obama’s policy statements, and (B) they do not understand why doing so is important. They have so thoroughly bought into the politics of personal destruction that the right has employed lo these many years that the very idea of discussing policy is foreign to them.

(hat tip: shakesville)

Wheeee! When an ignorant liar like Ogre decides to make a fool of himself, he goes whole hog!

From a recent post:

And the Democrat Party motto:

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” — H. L. Mencken

Three words, imbecile: WMDs in Iraq. That particular hobgoblin was constructed and deployed by a Republican administration — and over 4000 Americans, as well as countless Iraqis, have died as a result.

Stay stupid, jackwad.

In the midst of an acrimonious election season, it is important to step back and put all the shouting in perspective… to be fully aware of what we are, and what we are not.
 

Here’s a crystal-clear illustration of a widespread problem with the far-right wingnuts: fuzzy thinking. Citing a recent article in the New York Times,
Raven screeches:

Hillary? An ordinary average working class American? Hmm. I want her to come to work with me. And do what I do for, oh, say, 16 hours. At the hourly rate I earn. We’ll see how long she claims to be of my class… there is nothing she can do to improve my working conditions either. After all, nursing is nursing and it is what it IS.

How dare she even make such claims? What a lying sack of shit.

Now, go read that NYT article.

Read it carefully.

Is there any evidence in that article that Hillary Clinton has made any claim that she is “an ordinary average working class American”?

Nope. Not one scintilla.

Clinton is trying to resonate with ordinary average working class Americans, certainly. I daresay there hasn’t been a politician who has stood for election on the national stage in the past fifty years who hasn’t done that. There’s nothing unusual or deceptive about that.

But what evidence is there that Clinton actually made the claim that Raven accuses her of having made?

[ insert sound effect: crickets ]

That’s fuzzy thinking. That’s Raven.

Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit (better known round these parts as Jimmycrap Hoftwad) wants his readers to support military moms. Gee willikers, that’s a cause I can sure get behind. But what, exactly, does Jimmycrap wants?

Does he exhort his readers to contact their Congresscritters and urge that they open hearings into why soldiers are being electrocuted in Iraq? Some military moms might enjoy that kind of support — you know, the kind that works to get their kids home safely.

Does he insist that the US military stop covering up the rape and murder of female soldiers? I can imagine there might be more than a few military moms who’d really appreciate that sort of support.

Does he demand that his legion of loyal syncophants mount a letter-writing campaign to ‘straight talker’ John McCain, telling McCain reverse his stance and support a renewed and expanded GI bill? Golly, I bet a lot of military moms would be grateful for McCain’s support for educating their children.

Um, no. Jimmycrap thinks that supporting military moms means getting all excited about some silly-ass TV contest.

Yeah. Way to show some support for those military moms, Jimmycrap. Whoopee.

Via Steve Young, comic Rick Overton paints a very sharp picture of the right’s Wright meme:

“The Right Wing Smear Machine is loud and shiny, like an American hot rod. Made to be noticed, and coveted by morons. Designed by bitter, morally weak people FOR bitter, morally weak people. It gives them infantile and easy targets to deflect their own shortcomings onto. Why should we believe one single word from an entity that is wrong about everything else? Only a dull witted coward would think that Howard Dean’s scream is why he should not be President. The same applies to the treatment they give any high profile threat. The other kind of assassination, by a thousand paper cuts. There’s a reason they call a think-tank the ‘Skunk-works’. These are not humans in that room, regardless of how clever they are. The corporate media is an enemy to the human species. A cancer to man. They take the lowest form of us and lower them even more, making them into something not unlike the Orcs in LORD OF THE RINGS. A biped that cannot be reasoned with. Incapable of being taught, they can only be trained like a dog. An attack dog. But fox (No CAPS for them, they have lost the right to it) and the others are part of the machine that crushes good. It eats honesty and shits out vicious lies in it’s place. It hates love and loves hate. It is our TV and radio. It is funded by killers. They believe the worst news first. I pity them for the day when they see what they have helped to make so. I can almost forgive a conservative for buying this garbage, but for a Democrat, a Liberal, a Progressive to buy the corporate line is to me, inexcusable. I have nothing but contempt for their betrayal. One side is not supposed to know, but the other is. Of the two groups, only one is the traitor – the morally lazy ‘Progressive.’ The other is the Enemy Combatant, in full uniform. Bottom line – Some people want Hillary, simply to put McCain in office. Others want her because they’re female as well (Hey, I’m bald, but I don’t want McCain in office). These are adolescent reasons for putting someone at the wheel of a nation. It says that we file our lax standards for our leadership under the convenient heading of ‘Pragmatism.’ I hate this process and what the Cancervatives have done to it with the Digressive’s help – (A classic bully and weakling scenario). We are social abuse victims, raped by our symbolic parents. The memory of it is slowly coming back to us. Too slowly for my taste.”

Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the winning plaintiff in the landmark case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, is being tried before a military commission in Guantanamo Bay. Ben Wizner describes a recent exchange between Hamdan and Judge Allred:

Hamdan had once again stated that he intended to leave the court and to instruct his attorneys not to proceed in his absence. The judge pleaded with Hamdan to reconsider:

“Mr. Hamdan, I think you should have great faith in American law, because you have already been to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said to the President of the United States, ‘You cannot do that to Mr. Hamdan.’ Your name is printed in our law books. You won against the United States.”

The judge was correct, of course — it is indeed extraordinary that our system allows an imprisoned Yemeni with a fourth-grade education to take on the president and Secretary of Defense — and prevail. But, Hamdan wanted to know, to what end? Years later, he was back at square one. “We went to the Supreme Court and the Court made a decision. Then the government went to Congress and they changed the law. Why? Just for my case?” Hamdan had earlier made the same point more colorfully: “If you ask me what is the color of this paper, I say white. You say black. I say white. You say black. I say, okay, it’s black — and you say white. This is the American government.”

Hamdan is correct. The US government is conducting these trials with the intent of getting convictions in any way possible, because acquittals would be embarrassing. The concept that American justice should above all fair seems to have eluded the Bush administration and its lackeys.

This country may never be able to shed the burden of shame that has been laid upon it in the last seven years.

(hat tip: Firedoglake)

Five years ago today, George W. Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, dressed up like a fighter pilot, and proclaimed “Mission Accomplished”. Juan Cole compares Bush’s fantasy with the cold realities...

Here are some memorable phrases from Bush’s mendacious speech half a decade ago:

’ . . . major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. . .

And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country. . .

In this battle, we have fought for the cause of liberty and for the peace of the world. . .

Because of you our nation is more secure. . . [Note that he is trying to attribute to the poor enlisted men his policies.] . . .

In the images of fallen statues we have witnessed the arrival of a new era. . . [The statue was pulled down by the US military and the whole thing was staged before a tiny Iraqi crowd, the small size of which media close-ups disguised.] . . .

In defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Allied forces destroyed entire cities, while enemy leaders who started the conflict were safe until the final days. Military power was used to end a regime by breaking a nation. Today we have the greater power to free a nation by breaking a dangerous and aggressive regime. With new tactics and precision weapons, we can achieve military objectives without directing violence against civilians. . . [The US has probably directly killed about 200,000 Iraqis and destroyed the city of Fallujah as well as damaging and repeatedly bombing others. Bush’s fascist attempt to reconfigure warfare as a humanitarian gesture is the biggest lie of all] . . .

Men and women in every culture need liberty like they need food and water and air. [Foreign military occupation is not generally considered ‘liberty’ by most people.] . . .

We’ve begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons, and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated. [The sites were being investigated before the war, and nothing was being found, so Bush pulled out the inspectors and went to war. Nothing ever was found.] . . .

Our coalition will stay until our work is done and then we will leave and we will leave behind a free Iraq. [When will that be exactly?] . . .

In the battle of Afghanistan, we destroyed the Taliban . . . [ Maybe not so much; this ‘mission accomplished’ passage has not been sufficiently criticized] . . .

The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We have removed an ally of Al Qaida and cut off a source of terrorist funding. [There was no operational connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda. None. And the US occupation of Iraq gave al-Qaeda a new lease on life ] . . .

We are committed to freedom in Afghanistan, Iraq and in a peaceful Palestine. . . [90% of the world fell down laughing at that point in the speech; only gullible, self-righteous Americans could even think about taking this snow job seriously] . . .

‘

The “mission accomplished” banner was the least of it.

That charming fount of reason and civility, “Emperor” Misha, is again demanding that someone be murdered for the heinous crime of offending his delicate sensibilities.

To which I say: Put up or shut up, you puling gutless wannabe.

If you are indeed convinced that unrestrained homicidal violence is The Solution To All That Ails Us, then you should be out there killing people right now. Go on. Go out and start being a role model for all those brave, murdering culture warriors you want to set loose on society. Kill, and keep killing.

You won’t, of course, and for one simple reason: You’re a coward, Misha. Loudmouth bullies who make an endless string of hysterical threats do so because that is all they can do. Such threats are the product of fear and insecurity, not bravery.

So Misha exhorts other to do what he lacks the stones to do himself. Such is the way of the feckless wimp. Misha is an endless source of entertainment for those who recognize him for what he is, but little else.

Thanks for the laugh, melvin.

Kit Lange (nee Jarrell), noted genocide advocate, is outraged — OUTRAGED!!!!!, I tell you — about the latest ad from the Democratic National Committee, which takes John McCain to task for his willingness to keep US soldiers in Iraq for 100 years…

The fact that Dems would even THINK of using the deaths of two American soldiers to further their defeatist political agenda makes me want to put THEM by a palm tree with an IED.

Of course it does. Kit is a murder worshipper — disagree with her, express an opinion she dislikes, think the wrong thoughts, and the first and only response that comes to her mind is murder.

The thing is, they’re gleeful about it.

Kit demonstrates her amazing telepathic abilities. Of course no one is ‘gleeful’ that soldiers are dying in Iraq. That’s why keeping them for 100 years is such an asinine idea.

They’re unapologetic. Do they not get that those soldiers are someone’s husband and father and brother and son?

Why should anyone apologize for pointing out the fact that husbands and fathers and brothers and sons are dying in Iraq — and would continue to do so for a century, under the policies of John McCain?

What kind of ghouls are these people?

I have a better question: What kind of ghoul calmly asserts that he is “fine” with sending Americans to die in an occupied country for 100 years?

UPDATE 05/01/08 10:58 AM EDT: Citing the faux furor over the alleged source of the video footage, The Carpetbagger Report asks:

The RNC is worried about footage from a Michael Moore movie, after the RNC used footage from al Qaeda?

Whose side are they on?