Sadly, No!

Above: Ralph Peters. Can someone get this man a box of Cocoa Puffs?
He really needs something to go cuckoo for besides war.

If you haven’t read Ralph Peters’ latest column, then you really must. It’s a twelve-star tour de force wingnut masterwork where he argues that the Bush administration is losing the Iraq war because… (wait for it)… they’re being too nice to the terrorists! No, really:

Whether the issue is domestic law and order or fighting foreign wars, the great fallacy of the left is the belief that protecting the “human rightsâ€? of killers is more important than the elementary human right of the vast majority – the innocent – to live unmolested by murderers and fanatics.

Whether the cry is “Free Mumia!â€? or “Close Guantanamo!â€? or “Bring the Troops Home Now!â€? the consistent purpose is to rescue killers from justice – no matter the cost to law-abiding citizens here or to the millions of Iraqis who truly desire peace.

This situation was bad enough when save-the-cop-killers/pity-the-terrorists ideology only infected the left. But political correctness has so insinuated itself into our collective thinking that even the chest-thumping Bush administration refused to take on Iraq’s fanatical killers – with the result that Iraq is now frankly ungovernable.

And who gets the blame for this, I wonder?

Responsibility begins, of course, with the Iraqis, who have chosen old hatreds over new possibilities.

Of course! It’s the Iraqis’ fault for not enjoying having their country invaded and occupied! What a buncha backward fruits!

Read the rest of this entry »

Riehl World View, October 25, 2006, on the topic of gay marriage in New Jersey:

NJ And You

Perfectly liberal. The problem isn’t even the result, it’s how they get there. Apparently now the Courts get to instruct the legislature what laws to write and when to write them.

[U]nfortunately, NJ is such a wasteland of Liberalism, I doubt they’ll even challenge the ruling. As long as the lame ass politicians here get to keep their hand in the till, they’ll run along and do precisely what the court dictates. Why should they care about separation of powers so long as the corrupt cash keeps flowing their way?

Riehl World View, October 18, 2006, on the occasion of the conservative John Cole calling Dan Riehl a homophobe:

Balloon Juice Explodes

Really, though. I don’t know how you can read that and not see the overt homophobia and the sickness that is Riehl’s mindset. I am sure Dobson and Rove love it.

Really?

Robert Leroy Riehl Born: 05 Jan 1948 Died: 21 Jun 2004

That was an older brother of mine, John. He’s dead and, yes, he was Gay. You want to know how he died? He died alone, probably of aids for all I know and probably in a San Francisco flop house living on the government’s dime. I say probably because it was the last address I ever had for him from letters exchanged, not having seen the boy/man since I was about 15.

And you know why he died alone?

Yes, sort of. Yes, I think we do.

Not because he was Gay. He died that way because of small minded assholes who think that being Gay in America is a crime. And who is perpetuating that stereotype and trying to benefit from it, today, Cole? Me? Because I can mock someone whether they are straight or gay, because the orientation has no bearing on how I treat someone, one way or the other?

It may be true that Mr. Riehl would leave any of his relatives to die alone, probably in a flophouse, probably of AIDS for all he knows. We have only his own word to go by.

But next comes a routine that we know to expect from Mr. Riehl, and from Republicans everywhere as well as skunks. When challenged, emit a noxious spray:

Don’t you try and lecture me you superficial, sanctimonious twit. You know absolutely nothing about me. I am not doing a disservice to homosexuals because I make no distinction in how I treat people, Gay or straight. “I” couldn’t care less. I joke about them both, one and the same. And if an individual feels he wants to live out his life in private because the world today has not shifted enough generation-ally so as to relegate their sexual preference to some meaningless and fictitious norm … I have no problem with that. Can you say that for your friends who have no greater ambition but to win some passing political victory, you hypocritical jackass?

That filth like Rogers are allowed, by you and your friends, to dress up their humanity-loathing, faux activism in moral outrage aimed at the Right disgusts me. If I ever meet the scumbag, he’ll be lucky if I don’t bitch slap the clown.

I guess there’s nothing much to add to that — except Sheila, take a bow.

She said it was all make-believe, but I thought she said “maple leaves.”

Shorter Michael Medved: The Bush administration may very well do the bidding of a shadowy cabal of politically correct elitists hell-bent on world domination, but there are plenty of reasons to overlook that – including Harriet Miers, Sandra Day O’Connor and Nancy Pelosi.

Shorter Tony Blankley: If you’re not planning to use your vote, may I?

Shorter Paul Greenberg: Not only is Paul Krugman a gloomy columnist, he’s also a lousy writer.

Shorter John Stossel: Every time I fill out some lengthy form at the doctor’s office, I realize the uninsured are the luckiest duckies of all.

Shorter Linda Chavez: Sure, congressional Republicans have created one disaster after another – but the Democrats say they’d do things differently!

Shorter Paul Weyrich: If Curt Weldon really has done something wrong, he should be held accountable – after the election.

Shorter Brent Bozell III: If only CNN were as willing to air propaganda for Americans as they are for the terrorists.

Shorter Ben Shapiro: The Democrats have no platform, except for a bunch of crazy stuff they say they’d do if they’re elected.

Shorter Austin Bay: To confront our terrorist enemies, Congress and the president must be on the same page. Literally.

Shorter Terence Jeffrey: Only a more solidly Republican majority can effectively balance the president’s frequently misguided policies.

Shorter Michelle Malkin: The New York Times ombudsman says he now disagrees with publishing details about a controversial bank monitoring program, yet no Democrats have apologized for their vitriolic rage toward responsible media critics such as myself.

Shorter Walter Williams: There really is no problem in the world that can’t be solved in economics 101.

Shorter Jacob Sullum: As a libertarian, I’m-a split those aces.

Shorter Kathleen Parker: Muslims must cast out the hate-filled extremists from their midst, just as white Southerners have done.

Shorter Jeff Emanuel: Georgia’s Republican governor should, like, tout his family values and stuff.

Shorter William F. Buckley: This Hallowe’en, I shall raise goosepimples on my transluscent flesh with the realization that a Democratic victory would place Nancy Pelosi two heartbeats from the presidency.

Shorter Maggie Gallagher: Gays have unwisely invested their efforts in civil union legislation, which, I’ve warned, leads them away from their goal of undermining traditional marriage.

Shorter Roger Schlesinger: I am continuously amazed that other people find my job so fascinating.

Shorter Janice Crouse, PhD: Our democracy is threatened by the publication of so much information intended to influence the election.

Shorter Jerry Newberry: Nothing swells your heart with pride quite like a freshly painted school.

(This is just super-good.)

The Go-Betweens – ‘Cattle and Cane’ (3:59)

Richard Cohen actually makes a pretty good point here about Barack Obama and the for-it-before-we-were-against-it Dems:

But mostly I want Obama to run because he would come into the race with no baggage on Iraq. Not from him would we hear excuses about how he was misled by the Bush administration into thinking there were weapons of mass destruction there. Obama not only was against the war when he ran for the Senate but he can claim — as could the 21 Democratic senators who voted against the war resolution — that it was possible to accept the “facts” at the time and still see that the war was unnecessary, if not downright stupid. It just makes me wince every time I hear John Kerry or John Edwards or Joe Biden or Chris Dodd or Hillary Clinton say they were misled, fooled, lied to or some other version of seduced and abandoned — otherwise they would have voted the right way. This is disingenuous.

I think this is exactly right.* I find it very difficult to believe that smart people like Kerry and Edwards could be “fooled” or “misled” by the stupidest president in American history. The sad truth is they were scared of being called weak on terror like their commiecrat allies Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold. And since America is a country where it is considered weak to oppose any war, no matter how unjustified or ill-conceived, they threw their consciences under the bus for the sake of political ambition.

But like R-Co sez, Obama doesn’t have that problem. Plus, he’s charismatic, he gives a hell of a speech, and he’s super-wicked smaht. Run, Barrack, run! Stop the Hillary Machine!

Above: Obama would hopefully have opposed war with the Mole People as well…

*Of course, it’s equally cringe-worth when R-Co and his fellow liberal hawks employ the incompetence dodge and say that the war would have gone great if Bush hadn’t fucked it up.

This is pretty much your last chance to donate to Democratic candidates and make a difference in the midterm elections, peeps. We’re two weeks away from taking back Congress, but the GOP could still scrounge up just enough votes to retain power. We. Cannot. Let. Up. So give. Give, give, give.

Now, onto business: this week’s Sadlidate is Claire McKaskill, who is running an extremely tight Senate race against incumbent Republicrook Jim “No” Talent. This is one of those races where just a little bit of your money could help Claire go over the top, and tip the Senate in favor of the Democrats. I mean it, peeps: it’s a big one.

How awesome is Claire McCaskill? So awesome that she even has a staunch Republican like Alex P. Keaton on her side:

Also, Claire used to be a prosecutor in Jackson County- which means she don’t take shit from no one. She wants to fire Rumsfeld. She’s against staying the course in Iraq, and she’s anti-torture. She’s big on stem cell research. And she really knows how to lay the fricking smack down:

Oh, and did I mention that her opponent Jim Talent has voted with George W. Bush 94% of the time??? Uh, yeah. If that doesn’t motivate you to give her money, I don’t know what will. It’s time to kick these clowns out of office. They must go. Help ’em on their way.

Amidst a litany of encouraging numbers for Democrats (e.g., “a solid majority of Americans want the Democrats to take over Capitol Hill”) are a few even more encouraging, and arguably more newsworthy indicators:

[S]hould the Democrats retake one or both houses of Congress, the American public supports their proposed “First 100 Hours� agenda. An overwhelming majority says allowing the government to negotiate lower drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies should be a top priority for a Democratic Congress (74 percent, including 70 percent of Republicans); 68 percent want increasing the minimum wage to be a top priority, including 53 percent of Republicans; 62 percent want investigating impropriety by members of Congress to be a top priority; and 58 percent want investigating government contracts in Iraq to be a top priority. Fifty-two percent say investigating why we went to war in Iraq should be a top priority (25 percent say it should a lower priority and 19 percent say it shouldn’t be done.)

Oops, looks like another bit of conventional wisdom might be consigned to the circular file. These poll numbers strongly suggest that Americans who vote Democrat next month won’t be doing so merely to punish their beloved, if haughty, Republican incumbents; they’re voting Democrat because that’s the party whose stated positions more closely line up with their own beliefs, values, political leanings, perception of reality, etc.

Or, in other words: If we win, it’s okay to act like Democrats. No, scratch that; it’s pretty much imperative.

(BTW, had anyone else heard of this so-called “First 100 Hours” agenda? I like to think of myself as at least moderately well-informed, and so does this guy, but this seems like something I might have stumbled across before now. You know, on account of the election and all.)

Who’s stupider, Dan Riehl or Confederate Yankee?

Brown and Yellow: Great on Heidi Klum, Not So Good On Voting

Yeah, I Google-baited the snot out of that one. What of it?

Anyway, it seems that a

Heh heh. Ew. ‘Brown’ and ‘yellow.’ Wonder what kind of late-night Google searchers that will attract.

It looks like Confederate Yankee is already ahead by a few points, but let’s keep going:

Johns Hopkins/Lancet Study Demolished

Via Bryan at Hot Air, the politically-timed Johns Hopkins/Lancet study stating that more than 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the Iraq War has had its very suspect methodology thoroughly crushed:

Sadly, No.

And dingdingding, we have a winner.

[UPDATE: It’s even worse than that.]

Y’know, wingnuttery is sort of like an Everlasting Gobstopper where the flavor actually gets worse the more you chew it. It starts out tasting like boiled cabbage, then rotten cod, then human body odor, then rhinoceros feces, then… well, you get the idea. The point is, just when you think you’ve found the absolute stupidest and most ignorant winger, there is always one more waiting just a notch below the totem poll. Today’s example of this is Dan Riehl, who pulls off the amazing feat of being more delusional and ridiculous than Jonah Goldberg (via TBogg):

Jonah Goldberg has apparently concluded that the war in Iraq was a worthy mistake. […]

Jonah Goldberg has lost his faith, not in God, but in what freedom can bring to a free Iraq and ultimately a more free Middle East. Nothing else is going to eventually lance the festering boil which is radical Islam.

Yes, I know it’s hard. I know more people will die. And I know it’s easy for me to say because I’m not one of them. But I also know how easy it is to lose faith when you set out upon a noble cause.

I hope for Jonah’s sake he finds comfort while he meditates in the belly of the whale. And I hope one day he is regurgitated on the shores of a more free, more Democratic Iraq.

Most importantly, I’m grateful that the effort is being led and fought by, whatever else their flaws and mistakes, men and women with a truer faith in freedom than the likes of Jonah Goldberg. Evidently the political conversion that is absolutely required for genuine peace in the Middle East didn’t come easy or fast enough for him.

You remember the first time you saw Old Yeller? You know, the movie about the lovable mut who contracts rabies while fighting a wolf, and eventually has to be shot? And do you remember how you cried and refused to believe that Old Yeller was really dead? “But mom,” you whined. “The dad didn’t really shoot Old Yeller, did he? And even if he did shoot him a bit, getting shot the face wouldn’t kill him, would it?”

Well, Dan is a lot like you were back then. But instead of clinging to the notion that poor Old Yeller might still be alive, he’s desperately clinging to his bizarre ideological conviction that the Iraqis enjoy having their country invaded and occupied. And while you eventually came accept that Yeller had indeed kicked the bucket, I get the feeling that Dan won’t ever realize what a goddamn disaster the Iraq war has been. Sad, really.

Above: Old Yeller. No, Dan, he won’t be home for dinner tonight.

If it ain’t one thing it’s a motherfuckin’ other:

At a rain-soaked rally, Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell told about 200 supporters Thursday that he does not question Democrat Ted Strickland’s sexuality but does fault him for not “standing up” as a congressman for sexually abused children.

“I don’t care what his sexual preference is,” Blackwell said at Blue Ash’s Veterans Memorial Park, where about 50 protesters ringed the pro-Blackwell crowd, booing and shouting throughout his speech. “It has nothing to do with his ability to lead the state” […]

Blackwell’s campaign distributed harsh comments by [Cincinnati talk radio host Bill] Cunningham related to Strickland’s sexuality and about a former Strickland campaign aide arrested in 1994 for public indecency. The Blackwell campaign reprinted a transcript from Wednesday night’s [Hannity & Colmes] and sent it to Ohio reporters.

During the TV broadcast, Cunningham … questioned the Democratic congressman’s sexuality. At one point during the Fox News interview, Cunningham said, “After the (1998) election, Ted Strickland flies off to the shores of Naples, Italy, in order to enjoy a little fun with this 26-year-old boy toy.”

Can you say “last throes”? I thought so.

WLW-AM host Bill Cunningham: “I got your blogger ethics panel right here, bee-yotch.”