Sadly, No!

ABOVE: Cheap piece of shit (right) and Ben’s car (left)

Have you been wondering where Ben Shapiro has been? In a traffic jam on I-5, that’s where. And being the industrious wingnut that he is (and perhaps because he now has lots of time on his hands*), Ben isn’t going to let the opportunity of a traffic jam go to waste. Not, of course, when a traffic jam is just further proof that all liberals suck.

Then we saw it. A sign. A large orange sign reading: Freeway Closed Ahead, 11 p.m.-4 a.m. It was too late to get off the freeway; it was too late to turn around. There were no turnoffs, no exits, no restrooms. We were stuck an hour from Los Angeles, bumper-to-bumper, moving less than 1 mph. Literally. During the next three hours, we moved a grand total of 1.6 miles. … Three hours is a very long time to sit in traffic, particularly when your radio is broken.

As a newly-minted associate at a large national law firm like Goodwin Proctor, you’d think that Ben could afford a car with a radio that works. Or maybe not.*

I assume there were liberals in the traffic jam; after all, this is California, where liberals dominate both the halls of government and the voting rolls. And I wondered what those liberals thought of the government’s handling of road repair.

Oh, I don’t know, Ben, they probably thought “Those damn liberals in Sacramento can’t do anything right.” Or maybe not, since the head of the California Department of Transportation is a Republican.

I wondered whether they were glad that the state of California allocates more than $13.8 billion to the California Department of Transportation each year, paying 22,000 full-time employees — and that not one of those employees had the common sense to post signs notifying drivers to take another route.

No, those liberals probably wondered why they forgot to check the Caltrans website, which lists all current road construction sites, including the one that snared the Intertubes-challenged Shapiro.

I wondered why the liberals in the crowd hadn’t considered that if the government can’t handle paving roads, it certainly shouldn’t handle the health care system.

You see the difference is that while liberals have to actually do road construction to pave roads, thereby inevitably causing some traffic delays, conservatives are able to pave roads solely using the power of prayer, which not only doesn’t cause any delays but also costs less..

I wondered why liberals believe that the people best qualified to handle the education, Social Security and welfare systems are the same folks who left the office at 4:59 p.m. last Friday thinking that they had done a good job with construction on the I-5. … Private industry has a stake in efficiency and customer service. The public sector has no such stake.

Poor Ben apparently thinks that state employees are paving the roads themselves. It should come as no surprise that California, like every other state, contracts road construction to private industry. Oops.

May all liberals sit through such traffic before they vote big-government Democrats back into office.

In Ben’s next column, Ben will explain why the long lines he encounters every Monday night at the grocery store are also caused by big-government Democrats, whose socialist policies have made all grocery stores in California worse than any supermercado in Havana.

*We’re not sure why, but all references to Ben have been scrubbed from the Goodwin Proctor website. Even his contact page is gone. I’m not terribly worried about Ben’s future because, of course, there’s always wingnut welfare.

So sez some.

ABOVE: Amanda “Bo Peep” Carpenter

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Crack investigative reporter Amanda “Bo Peep” Carpenter has discovered further proof, she breathlessly informs the readers at Clown Hall, that Obama is a gay communist Muslim who will, once elected, impose sharia law on the nation, create a co-presidency with Osama Bin Laden, nationalize Frito-Lay and other snack food companies, allow gay polygamous marriage and give Florida to Castro.

That proof, according to Amanda, is a graphic on the INVESCO Field admission credentials to Obama’s acceptance speech which allegedly depicts an upside-down American flag.

Shame, shame, shame — she says, adjusting her cap and wagging her crook at us — on Obama, who surely knows that an upside-down flag is an international distress symbol. Obama has clearly done this on purpose, and as a secret signal to let his cult members discern his true intentions.

Let’s take a look at the horrifying credential ourselves:

You’d think that given all the time that Amanda and the other flag-draped wingnuts have spent kneeling before the flag and asking God to smite the gays and save the blastocysts they would have actually taken a look at the fucking thing. Because if a flag is being flown upside down, you’ll have the two bottom points of the stars pointing up and the one top point pointing down. And is that what we see here?

Sadly, no. The stripes above the union, given the orientation of the stars, could only be the stripes of another flag. It’s a shame that Amanda wasn’t right, though, because I was kinda looking forward to the gay polygamous marriage business.

… for the price of one:

Time On My Hands

• Would it kill these schmucks to show up before the soup gets cold already?

Talking Back to a Black Man

• Would it kill these schvartzers to stop stirring the soup with their schvantzes already?

The Marxist Brother

• Would it kill this soup-schtupping schvartze schmendrik to stop schlepping around to schmooze all the schlimazels like we’re a bunch of schnooks with schmootz-covered schmeckels already?

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

“I have THIS many houses!”

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John P.O.W. McCain’s failure to remember the number of houses he owns has caused an emergency alert to go out to the wingnutosphere. As a result, some of our favorite bloggers have pulled themselves away from Faux News and their microwaved Hot Pockets long enough to rush to their keyboards to defend the mental acuity and the total non-eliteness of McCain. The results have been, well, hilarious.

From Michelle Malkin, we have the “Cone of Stupidity” defense:

We’re trapped in the Obama campaign’s Cone of Stupidity and we can’t get out. The latest Obama ad razzes McCain for not remembering how many houses he has. (But at least he knows how many states there are.)

I guess what Michelle means here is that McCain simply mispoke and, just as Obama said “57” when he meant to say “47,” McCain said “I don’t know” when he meant to say “seven” or “a whole buttload.”

From John “Butt Missile” Hinderaker, we have the Tie defense:

[I]f a reporter asked me how many ties I own, there’s no way I could answer. Just like McCain, I’d tell him he has to ask my wife.

This analogy might make some sense if houses cost $50 each and you could hang 50 of them in your closet.

From Jonah “The Doughy Pantload” Goldldberg, we have the Kerry defense:

If owning so many houses (or being married to an heiress) is a problem, I do hope someone asks Barack why he was so enthusiastic about John Kerry in 2004.

A terrific argument, of course, if Kerry were currently running for President.

Kim “Waterboarding Is Fun!” Priestap brings us the Kenyan slum defense:

[Obama is] insinuating that owning a number of houses – in realty [sic], the McCains own a variety of investment properties, which accounts for John McCain’s not being able to give precise number – is somehow a character flaw. I couldn’t disagree more. I would argue this is a character flaw: allowing your brother to whither away in a hut in Nairobi, Kenya, while you’re living the good life in America.

In other words, who cares if McCain has more houses than he can remember, Obama doesn’t have enough!

Susan “Wake Up America” Duclos weighs in with the “We Have More Glass Houses” defense:

One would think the Democrats would have learned by now that when one lives in a glass house, those stones they throw can demolish their own house when they boomerang back at them, faster than those stones will demolish ANY of McCain’s multiple houses.

Sometimes a mixed metaphor is a wingnut’s best friend.

Above: Assrocket, Zeppo, and Gummo

One thing about the Powerline guys: When startled by a piece of unexpected news, they can tend to get flustered and punchy, and will often run with their first idea. Here’s John Hinderaker bringing us some fun:

No More Mister Nice Guy

The latest campaign kerfuffle is Obama’s effort to make hay out of John McCain’s inability to tell a reporter how many houses he owns. McCain mumbled something about condos and said the reporter should talk to his wife. Predictably, Obama is trying to spin this exchange as showing that McCain is “out of touch.”

I can relate, though. For example, if a reporter asked me how many ties I own, there’s no way I could answer. Just like McCain, I’d tell him he has to ask my wife. Likewise if someone wants to know how many Wii games my kids have.

Not to mention how many kids he has, or ears. Who indeed can keep track of their ties, houses, or ears when they don’t know how many wives to ask?

But then you can start to see the sly gears turning in ol’ John’s head:

The truth is that McCain isn’t out of touch with “ordinary people” because he’s rich, he’s out of touch with his own domestic arrangements because he cares little about material things, and for many years has devoted his extraordinary energies not to enjoying his wife’s money, but to serving the American people. Given the number of nights he’s spent in hotels or on military bases over the last few years, it’s no wonder he hasn’t seen much of his wife’s condos.

Just Wow. The concepts ‘Hinderaker,’ ‘hotel,’ and ‘McCain’ will forever suggest this definitive anecdote, but all things considered, Hinderaker is turning in an exceptional performance today with the making-stuff-up and the farting in the face of reality, and the other services for which he is so justly distinguished among conservative bloggers.

Of course, all bets are off for tomorrow’s news cycle, what with the threatening letters and suspicious white powder, and so forth.

Wingnut shriek of vituperative outrage in 3… 2… 1…

Now this is the sort of thing I’ve been waiting to see!

Obama Himself Unleashes Broad Populist Attack On McCain

By Greg Sargent – August 21, 2008, 12:58PM

John McCain’s number-of-houses gaffe may well be remembered as an important turning point in the campaign. It’s a moment Dems have been waiting for that is serving as a catalyst for a much more intense and unified populist attack on McCain coming from many corners, particularly Barack Obama himself.

On the trail today, Obama unleashed a fusillade of populist criticism of McCain, weaving together a number of different recent gaffes or quotes from McCain or his surrogates:

Among the various points hit on by Obama: McCain’s claim awhile back that we’ve made great economic progress; McCain’s (possibly tongue-in-cheek) claim that $5 million is the threshold for richness; Phil Gramm’s claim that we’ve become a “nation of whiners”; and of course the houses gaffe.

Separately, the Obama campaign is apparently planning to deploy surrogates in at least 16 states to press the “houses” attack.

The Reasonable Intellectual in me understands how silly it is to attack someone running for president for owning too many houses — Christ, both of these guys are from the Rich Guy club, as is every candidate who has a legit shot at winning the White House.

But the Spite-Filled Hater in me can’t get enough of this shit. For while the policy-based case against John McCain is fairly obvious to me — i.e., he wants to start a ton of wars for no reason — this doesn’t seem to resonate much with the public. But making fun of the guy for not knowing how many houses he owns? People eat this stuff up, and I’m glad the Obama camp is hitting him hard with it. You don’t fight st00p1d with nuance, peeps — if Obama has finally learned this lesson, then he’s simply going to ride roughshod over St. BBQ come November.

UPDATE: It gets better:

McCains Bought Second Beach Condo At Around Time McCain Said Struggling Homeowners Needed To Skip Vacations

By Greg Sargent – August 21, 2008, 2:37PM

Here’s a fun little find that is likely to give Dems more ammo to blast away at John McCain’s number-of-houses gaffe.

It turns out that a few months ago, a McCain family corporation closed on a second multi-million-dollar beach condo in the same building in exclusive Coronado, California — at around the same time that John McCain offered his somewhat tone-deaf observation that struggling homeowners were “working at second jobs” and “skipping a vacation” in order to make mortgage payments on time.

Cindy McCain discussed the timing of the second condo purchase in a June interview with Vogue magazine (not online) that’s newly relevant in light of the explosive controversy over John McCain’s inability to recall how many homes the McCains own.

And in another fun fact that could pour fuel on this controversy, Cindy told her interviewer that the reason they needed a second beach condo in the Coronado building was that the first was too crowded because her kids were staying there and as a result she “couldn’t get in the place.”

Cindy continued: “So I bought another one.”

The ad writes itself: “John McCain wants you to sacrifice your vacation while he’s purchasing a second beach condo.”

God, what a thing of beauty, peeps.

Debbie Schlussel (left) and Insane Clown (left)

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I certainly figured that the Olympic gold medal won by Henry Cejudo, an American citizen whose parents are undocumented aliens from Mexico, would have created a groundswell of outrage among certain of the looney-tunier quarters of the blogosphere. Michelle Malkin, the sworn nemesis of all “anchor babies,” I imagined, would be feverishly posting demands that the U.S. renounce the gold medal won by this alleged U.S. citizen. Similarly I imagined that Derbyshire and other Cornerdomites would go one step farther and demand that Mexico be disqualified from the Olympics for having illegally snuck a Mexican onto the U.S. team. Strangely, though, there was not a peep about any of this from any of the usual suspects. Apparently, “anchor babies” aren’t U.S. citizens when they are attending elementary school but are more American than St. Ronald Reagan and his blessed helpmeet Nancy when they’re busy winning gold medals.

Of course, it wasn’t long before Debbie Schlüßelstücke was on the Cejudo case like jack cheese on nachos, offering a classic wingnut “heads we win, tails you lose” take on the affair: the U.S. keeps the medal and it deports Cejudo’s mother. And you thought compassionate conservatism was dead.

Is it just me . . . or are you also bothered by the mainstream liberal media’s heavy coverage of Henry Cejudo’s Olympic gold medal win in wrestling? Usually, no-one cares who won the gold medal in wrestling. … But Cejudo is different. Why? Not because he won the 55-kilogram men’s freestyle event in Beijing. But because his parents are illegal aliens from Mexico

Yeah, that’s the only reason the medal was reported. It was absolutely irrelevant that the young and photogenic Cejudo, who burst into tears when he won, was one of only six U.S. citizens ever awarded gold in this event and the youngest American to ever win Olympic Gold in wrestling.

Kudos to him that he won an Olympic gold medal. … But [his mother] took jobs from and lowered wages for American citizens. And she was breaking the law by being here.

You have to wonder how many jobs his mother took so that she single-handedly lowered wages for U.S. citizens.

And was Cejudo’s Olympic gold medal worth anything to American taxpayers versus the cost of services his parents likely took from American tax-funded coffers?

Of course, not only did she take so many jobs as to lower wage rates but she was on the public dole too.

Most illegal aliens and their birthright citizenship-endowed kids–anchor babies–are not Olympic gold medalists or Harvard-bound valedictorians.

Of course, most U.S. citizens (including Frau Schlüßelstücke von Michigan herself) aren’t Olympic gold medalists or Harvard-bound valedictorians either, so her point is here, shall we say, just a little murky.

The result of Debbie’s free-style frothing, of course, worked her commenters up into torch-and-pitchfork frenzy, calling explicitly for what Debbie was implicitly urging: pack up Cejudo’s family and put ’em on a one-way bus ride to Tijuana:

So Cejudo’s parents are illegal aliens, and now this illegal family has gotten a lot of publicity. Why don’t any of these media hacks call for the immediate deportation and/or imprisonment of these illegal aliens in his family. If we follow the law, especially with these now-prominent people, the law would be applied to these criminals immediately.

Commenter “samurai” thinks even that’s not enough:

Deporting doesn’t work. You must send them to a horrible detention center such as could be done on, oh maybe Devils Island, it held Pappilon for a while. Anchor babies would go with them.

Is this the part where we cue up the song “Proud To Be an American”?

Shorter Confederate Yankee:

Above: Walking crank file

Down The Memory Hole at ABC News

• ABC News, already hemorrhaging credibility by ignoring my demands for trifling retractions, is now engaging in partisan censorship of the most biased kind — i.e., deleting my off-topic ravings from their blog comments.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

Above: Chiropractic doctor, not the real kind

Dear NBC Olympics Anchors: A Little Patriotism Wouldn’t Kill You

• Olympics — write something about liberal media (disloyal, not backing America 100%). Kobe Bryant Bob Costas hate hate. Cris Collinsworth hate hate. Liberal media praises America’s athletes –NICE TRY BUT NO CIGGAR!! Bryant speaks other languages so Obama criticizing America re: languages = debunked. Russian girl also speaks Russian? Check this. Communism hate hate. Ha ha! USA should win every event but not cheatingly. Boop boop boop gettin bored. America #1 FILL IN DETAILS LATER.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™