Andy Sully, submitted without comment:

Just to note that the new owner of The New Republic and its current editor are both openly gay men and that's so routine it barely merits a mention. Two decades ago, it was a very different world.

Andy Sully, submitted with a great deal of laughter:

Having Chris Hughes new media experience is a huge plus for the magazine - and, I hope, will sustain its continued excellence into a new century.

Roger's Screening Room: Game Change

Mickey Kaus' Version of Honesty

A bitter hack writes:

I would go so far as to say that Breitbart had an instinctive honesty -- pretty much the opposite of what Frum charges. I don't know the ins and outs of the Shirley Sherrod mess, in which Breitbart posted a video the end of which had been lopped off before he saw it. But I guarantee you Breitbart posted it because he felt it truthfully made a legit point (and he wasn’t aware what the rest of it would show).

It's telling that Kaus' proof of Dimbart's honesty is something Kaus admits he doesn't know much about. Yet Kaus is willing to "guarantee" Breitbart acted in good faith because ... well, Kaus doesn't say why ... so, using Breitbart/Kaus journalistic standards, we can speculate that Breitbart never stole Kaus' blow when he left it sitting on the nightstand.

It's even more telling that Kaus claims that Breitbart was honest because Breitbart felt he was making "a legit point," even though Breitbart knew he didn't have all the facts and did nothing to enlighten himself.

Those who, unlike Kaus, are interested in the truth about the "Shirley Sherrod mess" should read Ta-Nehisi Coates, who did bother to examine the facts of the matter.

Kaus also names "Wienergate" as Breitbart's "greatest triumph," and cites Breitbart's ass-covering when he thought he'd been fucked over by an anonymous source as an act of honesty. I guess when your biggest accomplishment in life is recalling a story about Arnold Schwarzenegger from your old copy of Oui magazine, you can't help but worship someone who was the recipient of a congressman's dick photos.

Many of our most important public figures have gained their influence and power by inciting and exploiting the ugliest of passions—by manipulating fears and prejudices—by serving up falsehoods as reported truth. In time these figures will one by one die. What are we to say of this cohort, this group, this generation? That their mothers loved them? That their families are bereaved? That their fans admired them and their employees treated generously by them? Public figures are inescapably judged by their public actions. When those public actions are poisonous, the obituary cannot be pleasant reading.

And It All Comes Tumbling Down

As usual, TBogg says it best.

The real fun will be watching the parasites destroy each other trying to seize control of the empire. It will be the Game of Thrones played out in Toto Ltd.'s largest factory.

Koch Fight

Billionaires Charles and David Koch have filed a lawsuit against the Cato Institute, which Charles Koch founded in 1974, in a fight for control of the influential conservative think tank.

The complaint centers on the the handling of the shares of William A Niskanen, a former chairman of the Cato Institute, following his death October 26, 2011, The lawsuit also name Cato's president Edward Crane and a board member, according to court documents obtained by The Washington Post.

The Cato Institute, which was originally founded as The Charles Koch Foundation, was formed as a corporation with shareholders. It was re-named The Cato Institute in 1976.

Let the frivolous litigation begin! I suspect both sides will seek a change of venue to Montana.

In Memoriam

"Any man's death diminishes me" (1624-2012)

Rest in Peace.

She Pees Freely

Over at Big Depends, Dana "Golden Showers" Loush is dripping with excitement because a White House press release detailing Vice President Biden's itinerary misspelled Rhode Island. The pee-brained piss merchant has besodden herself with the idea that Dan Quayle has been vindicated at long last. (And Loush's mentally challenged fan boys are lapping up her latest urinary tract.) The idea that Joe Biden doesn't write White House press releases will occur to her, if at all, sometime during the second Obama Administration.

No link to the incontinent wingnut.

Pictionary McArdle, Girl Detective

Meeegan McArdle has pulled her magnifying glass and bubble pipe out of the toy chest, and is ready to assume the mantle of the World's Greatest Consulting Defective. As Sherlock Holmes didn't say, "Once you elminate the impossible, there is no explanation for Megan McArdle's continued employment."

McArdle has volunteered her services for the Case of the Astroturfer's Fake Astroturf. The details aren't important -- to anyone -- so let's cut to the drawing room, where McArdle has assembled the 20 million most likely suspects:

For me, this leaves the most fascinating question of all: who wrote it? We have a few clues:

(Don't flatter yourself.)

1) They are on the west coast

(Given the nonexistence of e-mail and other means to transmit documents electronically.)

2) They own or have access to an Epson scanner--though God knows, this could be at a Kinkos.

(And they time traveled from 2007, when last there was a Kinko's.)

3) They probably themselves have a somewhat run-on writing style

(....somewhat themselves.)

4) I'm guessing they use the word "high-profile" a fair amount.

(I also suspect they know that "high" and "profile" are two words.)

5) They are bizarrely obsessed with global warming coverage at Forbes, which suggests to me that there is a good chance that they write or comment on the website, or that they have tangled with writers at Forbes (probably Taylor) either in public or private.

(Or maybe "they" were bizarrely obsessed with Forbes' Egg magazine, and its measurement of the amount of piss on the floors of Manhattan nightclub restrooms.)

6) The last paragraph is the biggest departure from the source documents, and is therefore likely to be closest to the author's own style.

(While Meeegan's departure from the plural, "they," to refer to a singular "the author" is closest to her own illiterate style.)

7) I have a strong suspicion that they refrained from commenting on the document dump. That's what I'd do, anyway. A commenter or email correspondent who suddenly disappeared when they normally would have been reveling in this sort of story is a good candidate.

("Or I'd use reverse-reverse psychology, knowing that they would think that I'd think that they wouldn't comment on it....but that's what they'd want me to think, I think. Detecting is hard!)

8) They seem to have it in for Andy Revkin at the New York Times. There's nothing in the other documents to indicate that Heartland thinks Revkin is amenable to being . . . turned? I'm not sure what the right word is (as usual, but the implication in the strategy memo that Heartland believes it could somehow develop a relationship with Revkin seems aimed at discrediting Revkin's work.

(Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....)

Okay, Nancy Drew, thanks for playing Clue Jr.! I think I hear your mother calling.

The Triumph of Hope Over Experience

An intrepid peckerwood reports from CPAC, where the spotted youth have hope for change:

Being the good, intrepid blogger, I ran across the street to a CVS to buy a notepad

Interruption: Wouldn't a good, intrepid blogger have some sort of electronic device with which to record his precious thoughts?

having left mine in my office back in Macon, GA. There in line were a half dozen young men, each with CPAC credentials around their necks and each buying condoms.

(Pretending that this actually happened) And Oly isn't buying their excuse that they were going to waterbomb Occupy D.C.

That is part of life on the college circuit. Young men, regardless of political persuasion or ideology, are intent on having sex, being boys, getting drunk — doing what young men in college often do. All to [sic] often there are also a few young ladies willing to shame their parents if their parents only knew.

True, there is nothing more shameful than giving a handjob to a YAFer. But if they rinse their hands thoroughly, there's no reason the parents should know.

Here comes Swen's summation:

I am not even sure that there is a solution to the problem. But we should not think it is anything but a problem. It is not every young man, but there are many. They risk dragging the whole affair down to some bawdy, rowdy distraction. They risk embarrassing themselves and the conservative movement. They risk the perception premised on their own actions that conservative men of a certain age think that good manners and decorum around women of the same age is unneeded or unwanted.

This is not to say CPAC cannot and should not be fun. This is not to say that CPAC cannot and should not be a party. But it is to say that I hope the college groups bussing in students next year, the out of college set there to network, and CPAC itself encourage behavior we all too often don’t talk about anymore in our society — the behavior of gentlemen. Eat, drink, smoke, be merry, but be chivalrous too.

They're buying the condoms, Thor. How much more chivalry can you expect from these wingnut wankers?

There really is, regardless of your age, no need to play the cad at CPAC to score points with conservative ladies.

Points? You don't buy rubbers hoping to score points.

Conservatives should, first and foremost, want to conserve the basics and good behavior should remain a basic characteristic of the conservative movement. As conservatives, we believe in self-government. With that belief comes the duty of personal responsibility. We should accept that duty as the opportunity to do what is right, not as license to behave like fools.

In summary, join Erick Erickson's Junior Anti-Sex League today. If Erick's not getting any, neither are you.