Fantasy vs. Reality

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Fantasy. (Michael Graham's statements, that is.)

Reality.

(via Ryan @ LA)

Malkin Math: Truth = Fiction

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Someone help me understand what's so controversial about this.

How dare you praise the Constitution and the protections it affords?

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When I heard Judge Coughenour's sentencing decision and come-to-Jesus speech today, my first thought was to be moved. My second was "I bet Michelle eviscerates him."

Yup.

This isn't about a "light" sentence. This is about the right's desperate, pathological need for police-state tactics.

Ressam will get credit for the 5 years he has already been in custody; he may be out and free to do al Qaeda's bidding again in as little as 14 years.

Wait...al Qaeda's still going to be around in 14 years? Not exactly overconfident about the potential for success in the War on Terror, are we, Michelle?

"Especially if you look a bit foreign"

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Michelle's irony detector once again fails her.

Whoops Hiatus

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I could have sworn I posted at least once over the weekend, but I guess not. That was an unplanned silence, I promise.

Malkin's new column could also be called "Stingers: Ronald Reagan's Proud Legacy."

But let's not get bogged down in examining how America's foreign policy is related to the situation we find ourselves in today. That would be silly.

I'm guessing Michelle doesn't watch Deadwood

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Malkin is upset by something Doris Kearns Goodwin said. Of course, Goodwin was just quoting Barry Goldwater, so maybe she should have titled the post "The Potty Mouthed Father of Modern Conservatism."

Friday Random Ten: I'm So Sick of my Own Collection I'm Willing to Completely Miss the Point of the Friday Random TenEdition

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1,000,000 Bonus Points and a seat at the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event* if you can figure out which radio station this list is culled from.

1. Letter to Memphis - Pixies
2. History Repeats - We Are Scientists
3. Everybody Here Wants You - Jeff Buckley
4. We're Already There - Mazarin
5. I Am the Contact Kid - Mixel Pixel
6. Waiting Room - Fugazi
7. Rapture - Pedro the Lion
8. Back Together - The Redwalls
9. Tightly Wound - The Capes
10. Get Up On Down - Dead Meadow




* Not really.

Everything that came before

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Malkin links to a post purporting to counter the "Blame Iraq crowd." It's simply a listing, with pictures, of major terrorist events, all of which came before the Iraq invasion. Ergo, this recent spate of violence in London is not related to any policies of the US or UK.

Tell us some more how terrorists are only responding to regime change in Iraq, and how if only we would obey the “insurgents” there and leave Iraq, all of this would end. Tell us that some more, Mr. Galloway, tell us that some more, ladies and gentlemen of the press. Tell us all about it you tired, phoney, so-called intellectuals and sophisticates. Tell us how terror that has existed for decades is all the fault of George W. Bush and his poodles Tony Blair and John Howard.

Allright, let's go over this again.

Individual acts of terror are the fault of the terrorists. Period.

But the worldwide social dynamic which creates terrorists is much more complex. To deny that American foreign policy since World War II plays a large if not overwhelming role in that social dynamic is ludicrous and completely counterproductive. This 1991 article by the Cato institute gives just a glimpse into the nature of that foreign policy and its results. I'll even quote something unflattering about Jimmy Carter, just to make it seem fair.

When Iranian revolutionaries entered the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979 and seized 52 Americans, President Jimmy Carter dismissed reminders of America's long intervention in Iran as "ancient history." Carter's point was not merely that previous U.S. policy could not excuse the hostage taking. His adjective also implied that there was nothing of value to be learned from that history. In his view, dredging up old matters was more than unhelpful; it was also dangerous, presumably because it could only serve the interests of America's adversaries. Thus, to raise historical issues was at least unpatriotic and maybe worse.

Now, as for "terrorism" being "all the fault" of George W. Bush: No, of course not - not put into stark terms like that. However, George W. Bush is the 1)current, 2)foremost, 3)most aggressive, 4)most enthusiastic, 5)most unrepentant, and 6)lyingest practicioner of destructive American foreign policy in the Middle East.

No, Bush and the War in Iraq didn't bring terrorism as a concept into being. And yes, there are other factors besides American foreign policy at play.

But to understand "everything that came before" is to understand that Bush is hard at work doing his part to ensure that there will be a long list of "everything that came after." The idea that he really thinks he's onto something is the saddest part of all.

Leave London Alone, You Bastards

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Malkin reports that two arrests have been made.

She also comments on something which relates to what I thought when I first heard the details:

"Amateurs?" Maybe. "Dupes?" Doesn't look like it.

This just smells like a copycat, which doesn't lessen the event, but would explain its quick turnaround as well as smaller scale.

Order of the day

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Conflate.

I am certain that the same woman who once defended the right of armed rebellion against the US government will be perfectly contented when the FBI starts keeping tabs on the local chapter of "Guns for Grannies." After all, they're at the same end of the political spectrum as Timothy McVeigh.

She's usually so good about things like this

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If this were really about doing opposition research, it'd be putrid. What it is, really, is a sendup of the right's tendency to think that suggesting someone might be gay is actually an "accusation."

See, folks, we on the left tend to not think of "gay" as an insult, in and of itself. It's more a statement of being. A lot of times, it's just fun to say it just to watch you scurry to "defend" the "accused."

That said, Jack Roberts is four, so why would the left as an institution possibly bring something like that up?

Ohhhh. Right. It was just one or two commenters on DailyKos. I'm surprised Michelle didn't notice and make a disclaimer to that effect.

VIPILF?

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THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO EWWW

The thought of 48-year-old Katie Couric in low-rise jeans and a metallic silver thong.

Hmm. God help me, but my reaction to that is far from "ewww."

Perhaps I've said far too much.

You get apathetic! You get apathetic right now!

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Malkin's quest to eradicate all political opinion from every member of the public and private sectors continues, this time focusing on law librarians.

Not to mention the belittling of all professions besides her own. "Stack books?" Oh yeah, that's what law librarians do.

The Malkin Calculus

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Spouting a crackpot theory or two about an Administration - which lies about everything, all the time, practically begging for paranoia - is more irresponsible than suggesting that we should prepare to wage religious war on Islam.

She doesn't defend Tancredo, to her credit, but her sense of scale is still lacking. As Hugh Hewitt noted, of all people, Tancredo just threatened 1.1 billion people and gave bulletin board material to Jihadi recruiters. Teddy Kennedy calling the Iraq war a "fraud" - a word which, by the way, applies to a huge cross-section of the Bush administration - doesn't even come close.

Culture of life? Or more funny life-jacket jokes?

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By linking to this joker, Malkin shows that she's not so much mourning Mary Jo Kopechne as she is mocking her.

Because of that, I feel comfortable quoting Snopes:

The accident is difficult to understand it that it took place on a clear night on dry pavement at a crossroads described as "the middle of nowhere," where the view was unobstructed and the stop sign that faced Laura Welch was clearly visible. (The intersection was a two-way, not a four-way, stop.) Yet looking to only weather and road conditions to explain what happened is to miss the obvious: there were two teen girls in the car, girls who were on their way to a party and thus who likely would have been bubbling over with chatter about who would be there. Laura Welch, the driver, had turned 17 only two days earlier. She and her passenger were still of an age when they could all too easily shut out everything going on around them, even the approach of another car and the recognition of a stop sign...

Then there are the circumstances of the crash. It was 8 pm on a November night in Texas on roads far removed from any town, so it was dark. With no stop sign facing him, the doomed young man would have had no reason to slow his vehicle even if he had seen another car approaching the intersection. He therefore would have been travelling at least 50 mph. Laura Welch ran the stop sign facing her, so there is reason to assume she too was going approximately 50 mph, the speed she would have been doing if she'd had the right of way.

Friday Random Ten - Three Posts in One Hour!!! Edition

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Also via Roxanne...

1. Your Skull is Red - Team Sleep: Kind of wanky, but Chino from the Deftones gets bonus points for being Chino from the Deftones. 6/10
2. Airbag - Radiohead: Less wanky, but Thom Yorke gets negative bonus points for getting even wankier later. 6/10
3. Happy - Fischerspooner: It's no "We Need a War", but it'll do. 7/10
4. I Predict a Riot - Kaiser Chiefs: I predict a sophomore slump. 3/10
5. Dreams - TV on the Radio: A cool soundscape. 6/10
6. It's Over - the Fire Theft: Better than Sunny Day Real Estate? I think so. 7/10
7. The History of the World, Pt.1 - the Damned: The Damned haven't aged as well as many of the acts of the era. 5/10
8. Another Velvet Nightmare - Frank Black: The album comes out on TUESDAY! 10/10, bitches!
9. Butterflies & Hurricanes - Muse "Change/everything you are/and everything you were/your number has been called..." All this and a piano cadenza. How did we get so lucky? 9/10
10. The Scarlet Thing in You - Peter Murphy: Red-themed bookends. I'm not sure I want to know what the title refers to, though. 4/10

Update: With the new Frank Black album coming out Tuesday, you can file this under an embarrassment of riches. Huge!

For the good of the nation

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Roxanne kickstarts the languishing (nonexistent?) "Draft Michelle" movement.

Grand Jury Testimony != Identity of a Covert Operative

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Ryan posts about this [Malkin] post at the Liberal Avenger (where I've written a grand total of one guest post so far...falling behind, falling behind).

Who knew the Malkins were so fond of moral equivalency?

Ok, now we'll wait for the NY Times editorial expressing outrage, outrage over the leaker who supplied confidential info about the grand jury testimony to the Times, AP, and Washington Post. And we're sure the NY Times will demand a special prosecutor be appointed to investigate the leak.

Waiting. Waiting...

I'm guessing she'll be waiting as long as we will to see the Malkins expressing outrage, outrage over the many thousands of civilian deaths caused by American bombing.

They don't come to where you work and write predictable, straw-man screeds

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Malkin the heckler goes after the NEA. I wonder if she's the first conservative ever to target teachers.

How to be a friend of America - in one word or less

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Discriminate.

"No French or Germans served" is exactly the kind of sign we Americans like to see.

South Park Republican

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I think I've narrowed down the Malkins' master strategy.

1) Conflate anarchists with moonbats and treat the fringe like the mainstream.

2) ???

3) Profit.

Solidarity

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In an attempt to show how tough Britons are (and believe me, having lived among them, they are), Michelle links to a series of photoshops expressing the them "We Are Not Afraid." Good for them.

I wish right-wingers would take this one to heart.

Holding two thoughts in your head at one time == treason

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Unhinged, unhinged, unhinged:

The G8 protesters did hold a vigil for the London victims, but couldn't bring themselves to keep their moonbat politics out of it. Check out their memorial banners:

"Vigil for London victims and those of war + poverty"

"In the name of peace for victims of violence everywhere, we're thinking of you, London +Iraq etc etc"

Et cetera, et cetera?

That's right, et cetera et cetera. See, Michelle, for some the "culture of life" doesn't end at a national border. And these particular protestors are very, very serious about war, poverty, and Iraq. So much so that their caring about the London victims doesn't preclude their continuing to care about the "Bob Geldof agenda."

We knew these selfish obstructionists to winning the war against radical Islam had no brains ("F**k G8!").

We now know they have no shame.

No shame, eh? Well, okay. I guess I'll admit that using these attacks as a magnifying glass to call attention to one's own personal political agenda may be a little bit crass.

Tragedy in London

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Out of respect, I'm not going to cover Malkin's coverage of today's bombing, because she's been respectful, for the most part. I would like to ask - again - our friends at DU and DailyKos to try to be a little more careful about giving the righties ammunition. On a day like today, it's not completely inappropriate to reflect on the root causes of terrorism, but it seems inappropriate to do it out of a place that falls short of respect for the dead and the grieving families.

Addendum: I should make clear, though, that Malkin's as-usual seizing of a few DU and Kos postings as an implied indictment of the unhinged left is no more appropriate or valid than if I were to take a comment from LGF and indict all right-wingers with it.

#13 Sean II 7/7/2005 06:13AM PDT

Can we eradicate Islam now, please?

Just to take one example.

Addendum 2: Well, I wasn't going to cover Malkin's coverage but it seems to me she's quoted Mark Steyn one too many times.

Mark Steyn asks:

After the initial shock of stumbling over the truth, what will Britain do? Go back to the Bob Geldof agenda or avenge her dead?

Reading that quote makes me want to sputter comically.

1) America discovered terrorism existed on September 11. Britons have been the targets of terror attacks on their soil since before I was born. So how, exactly, have they just now stumbled over the truth?

2) The Bob Geldof agenda? Would that be the agenda of making sure a quarter of the world isn't fucking starving to death? I know conservatives can't do two things at once, but give me a break.

3) Somehow I don't think that by "avenging her dead" Steyn is looking to bring the perpetrators to justice and ferret out the terror network (WHERE'S OSAMA?) responsible. I'm going to go out on a limb and surmise that he's referring to creating a whole lot more dead who will, in turn, be avenged.

And so on.

Not a member of the reality-based community

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Only Michelle Malkin would try to convince us that when Dick Durbin says

It’s an orchestrated right-wing attack that brings the mainstream media in. If they make enough noise. Here’s how they do it: go into a press conference in Washington and the guy stands in the back from Fox and just screams the same question over and over and over again to the point where the other reporters are, my God.

he's stating anything but clearly observable facts.

And?

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Nice try, Michelle, but I think the cat's pretty much out of the bag on this one.

(Hat Tip: LA.

Catastrophe without end

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Okay, not really, but I have been without an ISP since Friday because my cutrate one closed down without telling me. Well, they tried to tell me, but as I never opened my ISP inbox even once, and never visited their website, it was a complete surprise to me.

I'll get back into this at some point, but as I've been completely incommunicado since Friday, I'm just a bit behind on everything.