Comrades, the revolution is at hand!

Oh noes! Obama really IS a socialist! If you don't believe me, just read this transcript of a top secret radio interview that some brave right-wing blogger googled up at the risk of his life and livelihood, risking the wrath of the "Obama thugocracy":

Barack Obama, in 2001:

You know, if you look at the victories and failures of the civil-rights movement, and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at a lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it, I’d be okay, but the Supreme Court never entered into the issues of redistribution of wealth , and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.

And uh, to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution — at least as it’s been interpreted, and Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: [It] says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.

And that hasn’t shifted, and one of the, I think, the tragedies of the civil-rights movement was because the civil-rights movement became so court-focused, uh, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change. And in some ways we still suffer from that.

Wow, that's pretty open and shut. Case closed, Obama is clearly a crazy socialist nutjob. Because only crazy socialist nutjobs use the verb "to redistribute". At least according to this wise man from NRO, who is pretty sure now that Obama's finished:

I do not blame Barack Obama for believing in wealth distribution. That’s his right as an American. I do blame him for lying about what he believes. But his entire life has been applying for the next job at the expense of the current one. He’s at the end of the line now.

I do, however, blame the press for allowing an individual citizen to do the work that they employ standing armies of so-called professionals for. I know they are capable of this kind of investigative journalism: It only took them a day or two to damage Sarah Palin with wild accusations about her baby’s paternity

I'm guessing he means Daily Kos and the National Enquirer?

and less time than that to destroy a man who happened to be playing ball when the Messiah decided to roll up looking for a few more votes on the way to the inevitable coronation.

Who, Joe the Liar Plumber? The man who hates the media spotlight so much that he's even thinking of running for Congress?

We no longer have an independent, fair, investigative press. That is abundantly clear to everyone — even the press. It is just another of the facts that they refuse to report, because it does not suit them.

Remember this, America: The press did not break this story. A single citizen, on the Internet did.

There is a special hell for you “journalists” out there, a hell made specifically for you narcissists and elitists who think you have the right to determine which information is passed on to the electorate and which is not. That hell — your own personal hell — is a fiery lake of irrelevance, blinding clouds of obscurity, and burning, everlasting scorn. You’ve earned it. [..]

This discovery will hurt Obama much more than Joe the Plumber.

It very well may, but 0 squared is still 0.

Sheesh, I may need to use the "stupidity" label on all my posts from now until election day.

(h/t Red Tory)

Good advice

From Atrios:

Be prepared for the final onslaught of the really stupid, when the media feels
the need to balance reality with whatever horseshit that McCain/Drudge are
spewing that day.

I recommend a locked windowless room with a vat of
vodka.

Actually, I thought we were already in the final onslaught of the really stupid. It's hard to see how it can get much worse. Oh, wait....



I'm literally speechless. Every single one of her questions is predicated on a fundamentally dishonest premise. She even quotes Karl Marx and asks Biden to explain how Obama is not a Marxist! It's like a right-wing blogger's wet dream; to them, this is a "real reporter asking real questions".

Here was one of the questions:

WEST: You may recognize this famous quote, “from each according to his
abilities, to each according to his needs.” That’s from Karl Marx. How is Sen.
Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?

BIDEN: Are you joking? Is this a joke? … Or is that a real question?
(LAUGHTER).

My God, if this is representative of the Florida news media, no wonder the state is a tossup.

ThinkProgress has a roundup of some of the reaction. The consensus seems to be that it was an utterly embarrassing and unprofessional display on the part of Mrs. West. I think she just wants a job at Fox News, as does AL:

The right wing blogs are all worked into a lather over an interview Joe Biden did recently with WFTV, a local television station in Orlando. They seem to think Biden somehow embarrassed himself or got rattled during the interview. The fact that they think that is further evidence of the rapidly widening gulf between the reality most of us inhabit and the alternate universe where most right wing bloggers now reside.

In the interview, Biden never loses his composure, despite being bombarded with questions that were so ridiculously loaded and counterfactual that Sean Hannity would have been embarrassed to ask them. [..]

For those of you who can't see the video, here are the six questions asked by Barbara West, the WFTV anchor. I'm not cherry picking here; these are the only questions she asked:

1) Aren’t you embarrassed by the blatant attempts to register phony voters by ACORN, an organization that Barack Obama has been tied to in the past?

2) But in the past Senator Obama was a community organizer for ACORN, he was an attorney for ACORN, and certainly in the Senate he was a benefactor for ACORN?

3) Senator Obama now famously told Joe the Plumber he wanted to spread his wealth around. A Gallup poll showed 84% of Americans prefer that government focus on improving economic conditions and creating more jobs in the U.S. as opposed to taking steps to spread wealth. Isn’t Senator Obama’s comment a potentially crushing political blunder?

4) You may recognize this famous quote: “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” That’s from Karl Marx. How is Senator Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?

5) Now you recently said “Mark my works, it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama.” But what worries many people is your caveat asking them to stand with him because it is not going to be apparent initially that he’s right. Are you forewarning Americans that nothing will be done and that America’s days as the world’s leading power are over?

6) Getting back to the spreading the wealth question, what do you say to the people who are concerned that Barack Obama will want to turn America into a socialist country like Sweden?

That's it. That was the entire interview. The woman was like a cartoonish caricature of a wingnut, and her questions were straight out of a Steven Colbert interview. I kept waiting for her to ask Biden when Obama stopped being a member of al Qaeda. At one point, toward the middle of the interview, Biden actually had to stop and ask the anchor--in all seriousness--if she was joking. I don't blame him. The questions were so off the wall that he had to have been wondering whether this was some sort of Daily Show-esque mock interview.

Yeah, final onslaught of the stupid indeed.

Just to reiterate, the Right wing blogs were very impressed with this lady. Think about that for a second. And then read these posts by Daniel Larison.

Off the deep end

BREAKING HARD AND FAST- White Woman McCain Volunteer Not Robbed, Attacked, Mutilated, and Assaulted By Swarthy Member of Obama Thugocracy!!!

First off, Matt Drudge is a shithead. Second, hee.

I quite like this post from Kevin Drum. It fills me with warm feelings:

Let’s summarize the past couple of days: (a) Politico reports that La Palin has
spent $150,000 on campaign outfits, (b) John McCain’s brother calls 911 to
complain about a traffic jam and then curses at the operator for telling him to
get off the line, (c) the New York Times reports that Palin also spent $30,000
or so on hair and makeup over a period of two weeks, and (d) a white woman who
claimed she was attacked by a black Obama supporter admits that the whole thing
was a hoax.

Tim F. from Balloon Juice adds :

He was also endorsed by al Qaeda. Plus, some of McCain’s own advisors are abandoning the campaign and endorsing Obama. Then there is the possibility that McCain is hanging out in Pennsylvania because the Obama campaign played him out of competing in competitive states. By the way, wasn’t the second investigation into Palin’s abuse of power due to issue a report one of these days?

This right wing meltdown is really quite amusing to watch. Take Andy McCarthy ; the guy's like a walking punchline, so crazed and incoherent have his postings become! And the supposed home of "serious conservative intellectuals", National Review Online, actually employs him! That's right, instead of spreading his nuttiness from his mother's basement while doing his best not to drool on the keyboard, a "respectable" publication has this man in their employ! They also employ nutjob morons like Jonah "Liberal Fascism" Goldberg and Mark Steyn (an unfortunate Canadian), so "intellectual" is not the word I would use to describe what goes on at K-Lo's House of Crazy, but still! You gotta have some standards.

Steyn notwithstanding, there is really no equivalent to this kind of nuttiness here in Canada, at least not nuttiness that has a voice in the national dialog. Sure, some of the conservative blogs are a bit out to lunch, but even those are a pale imitation of what passes for daily fare at Redstate.

I can has fan?

From time to time, I like to see where my readership is coming from, and how they're finding my blog, all that fun stuff. So it was with great surprise (and more than a little delight) that I discovered this link.

Yes, I have a fan!

It seems this blogger, who goes by the alias of NosferatusCoffin (must be some kind of weird pedophile vampire groupie), describes himself as "The anvil that falls on liberal's (sic) heads", and whom I suspect is a lot like this guy in real life, thinks my blog was inspired by his blog, http://www.asmallcornerofsanity.com/.

Some comments from the thread, which I shall respond to in turn:

First, from Nosferatus Superstar himself:

This guy looks to be some Daily K(rhymes with punt) worshipping Canuck who I am sure was inspired by my blog's site title.

I suppose I should be flattered....NOT!

Nope. You shouldn't be. In fact, I had never even heard of your shitty little nutjob blog. Second, I don't worship Daily Kos, only Michael Moore, Ward Churchill, Noam Chomsky, Malcom X, Che Guevera, and Karl Marx.

Next, "Covertness", who I'm sure is very, verrry sneaky in real life....

A canuk who spends all his time bitching about the US.

No, I bitch about anything that is worth bitching about. It isn't my fault if so much bitch-worthy stuff comes from the US of A.

Another pearl of wisdom from our favorite vampire groupie:

Indeed. I suppose we should be grateful that he is already in Moose Land. Now, to just herd all Leftists there, for good.

God knows there is plenty of empty space up there. Especially in the Yukon Territory.

Actually, I have never seen a live moose in my entire life and I live in Nova Scotia. It says so right up there in the top right corner. Can't you morans read?

...I guess I shouldn't mock the illiterate. They have value to society too; someone's gotta clean those dirty public toilets! But they probably shouldn't try to write blogs for a living...

Next, an actual admin (or "Lady Templar") by the name of Talismen (what is it with these people and their fantasy names?) said the following:

You should file suit against his ass.
His canadian-whisky-drunken ass.

Yeah, good luck with that, you sister-fucking toothless rednecks. Hey, you want to hurl baseless epithets at me, it's only fair to respond in kind!

Just remember fellas, we Canadians are EVERYWHERE. Especially where you least expect us. And we have a plan....

Proud moments in VP history

I may ridicule Sarah Palin quite often, but let's remember, this guy actually was the VP for four years:

I award you no points

This clip is getting posted quite a bit around the Intertubes.



Man, do I ever feel like that guy right now.

And then there's just stupidity

Yesterday, I gave a brief overview of the incredibly disfunctional US political media. Today, it's Larry Kudlow, who has a show on CNBC, and is one of the foremost conservative voices on economics in the media. Yesterday, he wondered:

Are the Denver Dems downing the stock market today? The Dow is off 230 points,
starting right from the get-go.

It is conventional wisdom on the Right that the Democrats are bad for the economy, so they are a frequent target when stock market declines happen to coincide with events like the Democratic convention. Never mind that the stock market has been incredibly volatile of late, and that investors are very nervous about things like the price of oil, consumer confidence, inflation, all that jazz.

No, it's the Democrats' fault, because they're going to RAISE TAXES. And SOCIALIZE HEALTH CARE. And REDISTRIBUTE INCOME TO THE POOR. And we all know those things are bad for the stock market and the economy.

Steve Benen has some crucial context:

on the day George W. Bush was sworn into office in January 2001, the Dow Jones
stood at 10,732.46. As I'm typing, it stands at 11,427.44. Under Reagan, the Dow
went up 148%. Under Clinton, it grew 187%. After nearly eight years, Bush is
barely breaking even. Blaming an Obama/Biden campaign rally isn't exactly a
compelling explanation.

Yeah, up is down, black is white. God, isn't it November yet?

Weekend morality lesson

I think that little devil child will think twice the next time he tries that.

Late night comedy

In fairness to all the Miss Teen South Carolinas out there, this French guy is pretty damn stupid too:



I do think the audience was just fucking with him. Otherwise, that's really scary.