Finally someone speaks up for rightwing bloggers.

Elderly Teabagger Snark

When former Alaska governor Sarah Palin mentioned John McCain, Steve Richardson, 72, of Denver shouted, "John who?"

Richardson, who attended last year's 9/12 rally, said, "I just think McCain was a better airman than a politician."

Good one, Granddad!

el-Brent Bozell:

The pressure will only build for more and dirtier musical obscenity, just as almost every aspiring stand-up comedian finds it necessary to pepper his and her act with lots of curse words. Comedians can't just be funny as singers can't just sing.

What could be dirtier? Justin Bieber singing "Brent Bozell is a Syphilitic Cunt"?

I Are The Lord, Thou God

Not only is Beck's God not omniscient, It's illiterate:

Beck, who predicted that at least 100,000 people would show up, opened his comments with a joke: "I have just gotten word from the media that there is over 1,000 people here today."

Moron.

The B. Team

B. "Arthur" Blatt, your Freudian slip is showing:

In leading the War on Terror, W was the real enemies of gay people, those who threaten the lives of our fellows rather than those who attempt to block the state from granting us certain privileges.

Such as when W. threatened the lives of our fellows by blocking the state from granting patriotic men and women the right to serve in the military?

Read the post before Blatt does, changes it, and then denies changing it.

Of course, after he "corrects" it, it will still state that "those who attempt who attempt to block the state from granting us certain privileges" are not "the real enemies of gay people."

Wow. Ken Mehlman's gaydar is even worse than Arianna Huffington's.

A cynic might associate Mehlman's belated self-knowledge with a recent lack of Republican gigs.

I suspect he's more concerned about his secret Muslim identity: "Mehlman recently moved to Chelsea, a gay mecca in New York City."

In From The Back Door

For a Breitbart site it's a relatively small inaccuracy, but rather telling. Over at Big Girl's Blouse, Kristinne Taylor and Andrea Shea King "report" on a protest of an August 21 Jerry Brown fundraiser in Venice:

Also observing the scene was Andrew Breitbart, who was wearing inline skates, as well as prominent blogger Mickey Kaus of Slate, who heard the disturbance from his house across the street. He came out and observed, but did not join the protest.

Sadly, no. Kaus is no longer employed by Slate; the site has even removed Kausfiles from its blogroll.

You'd have thought Kaus' pal, Breitbart, would have corrected the error as soon as he got back from the roller disco and started scanning his sites for mentions of his own name.

Taylor and King may even be mistaken about the Kaus sighting, as Kaus hasn't blogged about the incident at his own moribund website. Surely Kaus' mad reporting skillz would have kicked in if such a momentous event happened so close to home that he wouldn't have to change into a clean sweatsuit to cover it.

Without Kaus' unique take on the event, readers are left with only this word picture from Taylor and King to memorialize the goings on:

Jerry Brown sneaked into the house from the back door while Melanie Morgan threw her body onto the sidewalk shouting, “Code Pink supports terrorists!” When not laying on the sidewalk, Morgan stood outside the back gate, “yelling through a screen at [Evans] while she sipped her white wine as Brown’s security guard watched from inside his SUV with the engine running for two hours.”

I feel sorry for the sidewalk.

(No link to Big Girl's Blouse.)

Fair Trade

Jimena Navarette for Mickey Kaus, Mark Krikorian, Kate O'Beirne and Peter Brimelow.

And Fonthip Watcharatrakul for the entire right-wing blogosphere.

Get A Room, Dan and Don

Just gonna stand there and hear me cry.

Don, that's pathetic even for someone like you. Please document when and where I have been asking you for links? If I hadn't seen your post, I'd have forgotten you existed. Man, that's pretty pathetic, dude. If you were mashed up in some broadly CC'd email I responded to who knows when, I never saw your name. And I know I don't approach you for links. So I guess your paper is cool with having poseurs and bald-faced liars on its paid staff? Shame on you, man. Produce the emails you are apparently referring to. Or, consider yourself called out as a pathetic liar.

That's all right, because I love the way you lie.

I thought better of it and removed it. Why stir things? This happened in minutes. Now Dan Riehl wants to raise a stink. Let him. The fact is he blew up at me in an email last November and then had the gall to send me some stuff to link. If he denies it, so be it. Readers know who he is by what he posts.

Bonus co-dependent comedy from Don: "As reader know, I am an editorial writer and columnist for the Charleston Daily Mail."

More Lies From Reason

How do you know when a libertarian is lying to you? When she uses symbols, orally or in writing, to communicate an idea.

Over at Libertarian Fonzie's diner, Tim Cavanaugh jocksniffs that a Los Angeles Times reporter is kicking sand in the eyes of an elderly bodybuilder:

So it's not Shane Goldmacher's opinion, just straight news, that the lame-duck governor of California is sending a "gubernatorial ransom note" and "holding the state hostage" in his budget negotiations, thus repeating a "shameful chapter in California's history" and alienating cooperative Democrats with his "ultimatums." It is furthermore objectively true that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is doing this not just from an honest desire to fix Sacramento's chronic budgeting problems but out of personal pique, that he is trying to retrofit a "fiscal system that has bedeviled California -- and him -- for years."

So what does the article actually say:

Some have likened his wish list to a gubernatorial ransom note, being used to polish his tarnished fiscal legacy.

"This is a governor that holds the state hostage," said Assemblywoman Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa). "How irresponsible is that?"

The effects of the budget impasse are cascading across California.

State worker furloughs resumed Friday, forcing Department of Motor Vehicles branches to reschedule more than 15,600 appointments so they could close that day and again next Friday. An emergency fund to pay health clinics that serve the poor has run dry; the final payments go out Monday.

And state Controller John Chiang has warned that IOUs could be as little as two weeks away, repeating last year's "shameful chapter of California history."

Schwarzenegger says his final budget is a last chance to fix the state.

"I have two choices as governor, especially since this is my last year," Schwarzenegger told a group of Bay Area business leaders this month. "Do I want to go and just make everyone happy and … go along with them, or do I want to go and, you know, wage this battle?"

Two of the five quotes that Cavanaugh characterizes as the reporter's opinion are actually quotes from Arnie's critics, and they are clearly labelled as such. A third is the reporter's accurate characterization of the opponents' position. The fourth is an accurate characterization of Arnie's position, and the fifth isn't critical of Arnie. Arnie himself is quoted at least four times in the piece, and another Republican is quoted as well. Nothing in the article suggests Arnie's mindset or motives for his actions (except to quote Arnie's claim that his motivations were not personal). Cavanaugh identifies nothing in the article which is false.

With dishonesty like this, Cavanaugh could take his droolbucket over to NewsBusters and make a decent living. I can't imagine that Reason could make a competitive counteroffer, no matter how popular racist pornographic DVDs are.

Now This Is Ironic

Moldo: Even More Ignorant Than Usual

The elderly op-ed embarassment has gone from pushing igornant opinions to displaying more prominently her ignorance of the facts.

Let me be perfectly clear, Mr. Perfectly Unclear President: You cannot take such a stand on a matter of first principle and then take it back the next morning when, lo and behold, Harry Reid goes craven and the Republicans attack. What is so frightening about Fox News?

Leaving aside the issue of whether Obama took back his original statement (the answer is no), Moldo fucks up the timeline like it's Leon Wieseltier's septum:

August 16, 2010

President Obama's staunchest ally in the Senate broke with the president today over the controversial Islamic center planned for a site near Ground Zero, and said he is opposed to its construction.

The office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada issued a statement saying, "The First Amendment protects freedom of religion. Senator Reid respects that, but thinks that the mosque should be built some place else."

Reid's comments came just days after Obama told a White House gathering that Muslims had a right to build the mosque, and Republicans vowed to make the president's stand an issue in the November elections.

...

The president's statement on Friday that Muslims have a right to build an Islamic center two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center attack immediately prompted outraged reactions. The next day, Obama appeared to soften his stance by saying that he questioned the wisdom of the building the center so close to Ground Zero.

Moldo surely is no stranger to the concept of the lost weekend, but voluntary incapacity doesn't entitle one to her own facts. The New York Times badly needs to rehabilitate its opinion pages, even if they have to hire Dr. Drew Pinsky as an editor.

Later in her column, Moldo refers to Mayor Mike as a Republican. Perhaps her blackout began in 2007.

...except for Marty Peretz. Him, they couldn't give away.

Crazy Cat Lady Video

Campbell's Thick and Chunky

Ross Douchehat says:

The interplay of fertility, reproductive impulses and gender differences in heterosexual relationships is, for want of a better word, “thick.”

Heterosexual relationships are like Chunky Reese Witherspoon's ass. So thick you can eat them with a fork.

The "better" word that Douchehat wants to use is phallocentric -- as in this marriage is only big enough for one cock, and I'm the Dick.

But, really, who gives a fuck what Douchehat thinks? His wife surely didn't buy Ross's definition of thick -- given all the evidence to the contrary -- and neither will anyone else.

My beef here is with Ezra Klein's characterization of Douchehat:

And Ross Douthat, as humane and thoughtful a supporter of traditional marriage as you'll find....

If, by humble and thoughtful, you mean pompous and illogical.... The idea that Douthat's opposition to marriage equality is "support of traditional marriage" is laughable. The point is so obvious that it hardly needs repeating -- thoughtful supporters of heterosexual marriage can, and by definition do, support the rights of gay men and lesbians.

I'm agnostic on marriage, but I'm a holy roller on discrimination.

P.S. Yes, World-O-Crap was there first.

Zero At The Bonehead

Meegan McArdle does battle with the strawpersons inside her otherwise vacant skull:

I am hoping that at least one person will attempt to explain why we should support the mosque near Ground Zero, but not the gay bar next to the mosque near Ground Zero.

This from someone who desecrates "Ground Zero" by putting it on her resume. Sorry, Meegan, but no one wants to play in your delusional hollow head.

Marty Peretz is right. The Ground Zero mosque controversy is not about freedom of religion. Peretz is not arguing that Muslims should not be allowed to build a mosque in New York City, only that they not be allowed to build a mosque in locations where the structure might cause anger or grief to Christians or Jews. Certainly that is not too much to ask. Peretz recognizes the need to protect Muslims from the “dark places” of distraught Christians and Jews. Ideally, Muslims could live in special areas of our cities where they could freely assemble and worship together, thus avoiding any First Amendment concerns. These places could be identified by high ceremonial walls, with towering wide gates symbolizing the openness of Western culture. Of course, Muslims would remain free to visit any parts of the city they choose, within reason. And to avoid misunderstanding and conflict, the Muslims can keep the Christians and Jews locked out of their enclaves during Ramadan, and themselves safely locked inside during Christmas and Passover.

What do you have against compromise?

Mickey Kaus, blogger without visible means of support, comments on the Obama marriage and Democratic Party campaign tactics.

If anyone's qualified to give advice about successful marriages and political campaigns, that person is more qualified than Kaus.

Kausfiles Buries The Lede

From M.K. Ultrahack's Twitter feed:

@NickBaumann I hope to get paid soon, but right now I'm between sites. Nobody's paying what they used to pay, that's for sure. Cheers

6:31 PM Aug 3rd via web in reply to NickBaumann

We wish Mr. Kaus all the best. Maybe a nice union job. Or he could show those overpaid, pampered public school teachers how it's done. A bidding war between The Atlantic and Human Events. Andrew Breitbart's Big Forehead. Roger L. Simon's care attendant. A fence. I'm just spitballing here....

The Long Con

The Alaskan Travelers continue to play the tabloids like a delusional masseuse:

In an emotional phone interview with PEOPLE, Palin spoke through tears about feeling heartbroken, humiliated and trapped – while Johnston acted cool. "There's been no remorse," she says, adding that she's seen him only once in the past three weeks.

"The final straw was him flying to Hollywood for what he told me was to see some hunting show but come to find out it was that music video mocking my family," she says. "He's just obsessed with the limelight and I got played."

"That music video"? How many are there? I just hope that they gave the starring roles to Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver.

In response to this shocking development, the Queen of the Grifters flips off Phyllis Schlafly while humping Ronnie Reagan's shoe:

"I wish for Bristol to be able to move forward in life with her same forgiving, gracious, optimistic spirit, but from henceforth she'll know to trust but verify. Bristol is strong, she is independent, and she knows what is right for her son."

"From henceforth." You can't make this up.

Singe Along With Mitch

Mitch Miller, American patriot, passes at age 99.

Years later, in 1993, when David Koresh and members of his Branch Davidian cult were holed up in their compound in Waco, Tex., F.B.I. agents tried to flush them out by blasting “Sing Along With Mitch” Christmas carols.

It's heartwarming to think that the last thing the Libertarian Messiah heard before he died in the gasoline fire he set was a medley of "Tavern in the Town/Show Me the Way to Go Home." Or perhaps "Bell Bottom Trousers/Be Kind to Your Web-Footed Friends."

Shorter Wan Juilliams

Martin Luther King Holiday Causes Unnecessary Pain and Suffering to Klansmen