Until recently, Virginia Senator George Allen was a shoo-in for easy reelection in November. All this changed at an August 11 campaign event, in which he mouthed off to tracker/stalker S.R. Sidarth. Allen said a few really dumb things in that exchange, and reports conflict as to which one sparked the greatest outrage. No one’s really sure which statement sparked the most outrage, but possible contenders include:

• “Hey Darky, welcome to Jesusland.”
• “Yo, Fairfax-boy. Welcome to real America, and the parts of Virginia where we say y’all and write ya’ll.
• “Dude, you are soooo a newcomer. Welcome to the state that you’ve live in all your life, but which I only moved to as an adult!”
• “¡Oye, vato! You the delivery man for Paco’s Taco’s, ¿sí? I’ll have the machaca.”

The smart money says that last quote was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Aside from the fact that Sidarth is of Indian rather than Mexican descent, and that he works for opponent James Webb’s campaign rather than for Paco’s Tacos, Allen didn’t even pronounce machaca correctly. He mumbled the rest, so most observers, including Sidarth himself, heard little more than “blah blah blah … mi caca,” which is Spanish for “my crap.” This is a problem becuase, believe it or not, Senators really do have rules of decorum, one of which prohibits them from talking crap. Of course they do it all the time, but generaly in a semi-discreet way. To openly advertise mi caca is as unseemly as inadvertently farting in other people’s presence at a formal event, and then asking everyone present if they enjoyed a good whiff of mi pedo rather than playing it off like nothing happened. To be sure, the no-crap rule of the Senate does have an unwritten exception for lobbyists, major donors and advocates of major political causes, the gentleman’s understanding being that anyone who hopes to re-elected must talk crap for these guys every once in a while. Depending on how close a Senator is to his donor or lobbyist, such accepted crap is known alternatively as su caca or tu caca, both of which are generally accepted as a necessary evil. Talk crap if you must to keep a major donor happy, but talking crap for yourself? That’s just tawdry.

Anyway, between his regional, national and ethnic insults and his newfound ability to get in touch with his inner feces, Allen now appears appears to be in trouble in the polls. While earlier polls had Allen trouncing Webb by an ungodly margin, more recent polls show him beating Webb by a margin almost narrow enough to leave Webb’s personal dignity intact. To avoid such a horrible event from materializing in November, Allen is looking to hire a right-wing Virginia blogger, with a probable assist from Chad Dotson, to do for him what all the ‘bats have long been doing for Webb.

I think Senator Allen should hire me. We’re both California transplants, and we both have long histories of really, really, really pissing off our opponents and even alienating some of our potential allies. Enlisting me in his campaign won’t win Allen any actual votes, of course, and might even lose a few, but so what? As long as the polls stay anywhere in the ballpark of where they are now, Allen will still win. He doesn’t need more votes, he just needs to make his supporters feel better and his opponents feel worse. I can do both. A nuclear fisking or two from the Xrlqmeister, and Webb and his minions will be reduced to tears and in need of therapy in no time flat. By Election Day, their self-esteem will be so horribly battered they won’t even have the nerve to spin their 52-48 loss as a “moral victory.” They’ll be far more humiliated that way than they would by the 60-40 trouncing they likely would have gotten if Mr. Allen had not made the embarassing statements in the first place, let alone by the 55-45 loss which is the best any blogger could accomplish for him now. I won’t win him any votes, but I will make him feel better when I fisk his more vocal opponents to a pulp. With or without my help or that of any other blogger, Allen will win unless he does something else that’s just as dumb as mi caca between now and November. If he does do something that dumb, all the blogging in the world won’t save him. So why waste campaign dollars, ones and zeroes to convert a decent victory into a landslide, when you can have a fisk-for-all instead?

Someone let Mona out of her cage, and now she’s calling to purge the libertarian movement of any self-described libertarians who commit the cardinal sin of disagreeing with her on such key issues as domestic policy, foreign policy, national security, which team to root for in this year’s World Series, or … what-EVER. She produces a long list of heretics, including me,^* based on all manner of perceived slights, most (though not all) of which have nothing to do with libertarian principles one way or the other. That doesn’t matter, though; the important thing is that Mona considers herself a libertarian, and Mona disagrees with them, therefore, they must not be libertarian.

In the classical passive-aggressive style, Mona then calls for their shunning and ostracization of all non-Mona libertarians, even while pretending merely to ask an innocent question:

But in the meantime I propose to discuss two questions in light of what I’ve set forth above:

1. Should any of these be ostracized and shunned from the libertarian ranks? and
2. On the basis of what litmus test(s)?

If you’re like me, you might read the above “questions” (or very thinly-disguised statements) and wonder if Mona is in some kind of competition with this chick over who can get higher on herself (moron her here, here, here, here, here, here and here), or maybe against this chick over who can be the more sanctimonious, self-righteous twit in the name of an ideology ostensibly based on tolerance. But you’d be wrong to think that. Terribly wrong. Lest anyone mistake her call for purges as a sign of intolerance, Mona quickly assures us that she only wants to ostracize people tolerantly:

Careful now. We are a tolerant people, we libertarians. Let us only protect the integrity in, and utility of, having a coherent definition for the libertarian descriptor, in all its pristine glory.

Ah yes, we’re not trying to ostracize you just to be mean, we’re just trying to cleanse our quaint little movement of any impurities. And oh, by the way, the “impurity” is you. So when we ship you off to tolerance camp, please don’t take it like anything personal, even though it is.

But. No icepicks or bullets in the head, please.

No threats on anyone’s toddlers, either. Thank goodness for small favors.

^*My unpardonable sin, in case you’re curious, lies either in (1) agreeing with Mona that Glenn Greenwald was wrong to dishonestly attack Jeff Jacoby for criticizing the word chickenhawk according to its commonly accepted definition (and one Greenwald himself has used in the past), or (2) disagreeing with Mona when she reflexively defended RyanGlenn for attacking another guy named Glenn on a matter Mona later admitted she knew nothing about.

UPDATE (8/17): Bwahahahahahahahahaha! That makes two Instalanches in one day. Thanks Glenn! To the other Glenn: jealous, much?

UPDATE x2 (8/18): Meanwhile, some Randroid preemptively purges me from Objectivism for insulting their dear leader, the Objector-in-Chief. In response, I declare today “intentionally misprounounce Ayn Rand’s first name day.” If you don’t know how to mispronounce her first name, not to worry, you’re probably doing so already.

UPDATE x3 (8/18): Lance offers a first-class fisking of Mona’s bologna.

UPDATE x4 (8/18): More dissembling here.

Patterico links to Seixon’s account of digital brownshirts at “Truth Out” (falsehood in?). Paul at Wizbang takes “why the silence” to an all-time low, accusing Ace of “desperation” for continuing to discuss a topic that is sooooo five minutes ago, and speculating that since Patterico hasn’t blogged about it for six or seven minutes, he must have switched over to Paul’s side, too. Dale from Q&O says “ha ha, made you flame.” Ace compares Bill O’Reilly to Hitler, while two of my favorite economists partake in an old-fashion flame war. Worst of all, Glenn Greenwald is blogging about … well, whatever the hell it is he’s blogging about.

I condemn everything.

UPDATE: While we’re at it, between Jimmy Carter, Yessir Imarat and this boob, I condemn the Nobel Commission for having a peace prize.

UPDATE x2: Apparently, the “fragging” analogy was more apropos than I thought. Yeesh! Meanwhile, Confederate Yankee persists with the tired “why the silence” meme.

Others wiser than I have often said, Never wrestle with a douche, it wastes your time, annoys the douche, and leaves you feeling disturbingly “fresh.” Being less wise than them, by definition, I’m going to go against my better judgment and take on the Biggest Douche in the Blogosphere one last time before I MoveOn. Why, you might ask? One reason, and one reason only: far too many on the left side of the blogosphere actually seem to admire the guy, and quote him as though he were a credible source. His widely quoted attack on right wing bloggers for attacking that psycho Deb Frisch is as good a post as any to establish that he is not.

I should warn you upfront that this post is going to be an extremely tedious read. If, after reading Patterico’s rebuttal you are already convinced that Glenn is a douche, then it may not be worth your while reading this post to examine just how many different angles of douchitude he has exhibited in the post. If, on the other hand, you’re like Greenwald’s fawn, Q&O commenter Mona, who insists that apart from one itsy bitsy boo-boo about Patterico, Greenwald’s crap is ice cream, then it behooves you to read it. Mona writes:

My view is that Greenwald’s post is correct, but contains one example that is not. And that is my view whether folks here announce him decimated, or folks there crown him Pope.

Did I say “apart from one itsy bitsy boo-boo?” Actually, later in that same thread she attempted to wish even that error away, arguing that a 2 1/2 year old link by a then-obscure blogger makes Greenwald’s identified boner fake but accurate:

But a commenter at Greenwald’s just posted some items from your blog that cause me to question whether I was a tad quick in assuming you’d been wronged. You are familiar with Misha; you welcomed him to your own place, and described his blog as great.

Yeah, and the same frickin’ post also describes yours truly as “a luminary,” so take that for whatever it’s worth. Mona continues:

You did that while referencing — with no criticism and a hearty welcome — Misha’s eliminationist rhetoric about judges stated in your own comments section.

Apparently, subtlety is lost on Mona, who took Patterico’s reference to “the always controversial Emperor Misha I” as … what, exactly? A backhanded compliment? Memo to Mona: when people respond to your brilliant insights by rolling their eyes and saying “O……kay,” that doesn’t really mean they are “okay” with what you just said. It means they are being polite. Patterico the power-blogger probably wouldn’t be that polite nowadays, but as a then-obscure blogger who was barely cutting his teeth, he was a bit of a wimp toward other, already established bloggers like Misha. So what? Even if he hadn’t distanced himself from Misha’s goofy rhetoric at all, WTF has any of that to do with his more recent criticism of Frisch’s psychotic ramblings?

Adding a final dose of irony, Mona topped off her rant with this:

In light of the foregoing, I’m not so sure you are in a good position to be leveling charges of “dishonesty” at Greenwald.

O-kay. Er… I mean … that’s the word, coming from the always controversial Mona.

Of course, if Mona were just one random commenter, pointing out that Greenwald’ post is garbage from top to bottom might not be a worthwhile endeavor. Unfortunately, she’s far from his only sycophant. TGirsch, a normally sensible if left-wing blogger quoted him on this very blog, as a supposed rebuttal to a post of mine that said nothing about Frisch’s politics at all, apart from my use of the category “Liberal Morons” to file it. Even Jon Henke, no moonbat he, offers this pig a healthy dose of lipstick. So all in all, Greenwald gets a hell of a lot more traction than your average douche does, even after his most obvious error - attacking Patterico for not criticizing the likes of Ann Coulter - had been exposed. Thus, it’s worth wading through his entire post just to see how much of his ramblings hold up. Short answer: not much. Longer answer: some right-wingers support the death penalty, at least one right-winger has Misha on his blogroll but failed to condemn his hyperbolic rhetoric within the permissible 10 hour timeframe, and most (but not all) of Greenwald’s links actually point to other web sites.

Proceed at your own risk.
(more…)

Tim Lambert rewrites history once again, offering yet another John Lott sock-puppet theory. This time he offers an account that might well have convinced me, had it been the original story. It’s a little late now, though. Check it out anyway; at least his blog looks better than it used to.

At the recommendation state attorney Bernie McCabe, Florida Governor Jeb Bush has ended the probe into Terri Schiavo’s collapse, concluding there is no evidence it was caused by a criminal act on the part of Michael Schiavo or anyone else. McCabe added that he thought the most likely explanation of Terri’s collapse was an eating disorder, while conveniently neglecting to mention (or, perhaps, while inconveniently having the Ass. Press leave that part of his quote out of the story) that Jon Thogmartin’s autopsy didn’t exactly bear that theory out, either. In the end, there is no evidence - and, in all likelihood, never will be - that Terri Schiavo’s death was caused by an act of violence, by an eating disorder, or by anything else. Given that, I guess there’s no real evidence she died at all. I think everyone on either side of the Schiavo controversy who has accused her of being dead owes her a big fat apology, but those crazy pro-Schiavo/anti-Schiavo/pro-Schiavo-but-I-mean-the-other-Schiavo activists will never do that, so maybe it’s time to let the Schiavo matter drop once and for all.

It’s not, however, time to drop the underlying issue: the law in Florida (and God knows how many other states) says that if you are incapacitated, you can be starved to death without an advance written directive as long as one judge who has never even met you becomes “clearly convinced” you would have wanted it that way. That’s insane. The law should be changed yesterday, or in the regular session, when no high-profile case is on anybody’s radar, and legislators are free to debate the niceties of a model law to their hearts’ content. Those are the conditions where good laws can be written, even if they seldom are. Unfortunately, that’s not what’s going to happen. Instead, politicians on both sides of the aisle are going to drop the issue like a hot potato, and do nothing until the next Terri Schiavo comes around.

I think Joe Gandelman and Glenn Reynoldsare reading way too much into a recent poll on Bush and the economy. For one thing, there aren’t any major elections on the horizon, so who cares what a poll says, particularly when that same poll reveals that 40% of the population falsely believed we were in a recession at some point between June 2004 and March 2005 (the higher June 2005 figure is probably wrong too but it’s too early to tell), and 20% believe we’ve been in a state of perpetual recession since at least June 2004, and probably ever since George W. Bush stole the election in 2001. For another, to the extent the poll means anything at all, it means what it says, namely that a lot of Americans are pessimistic about “the economy, stupid.” The only question in the survey that strayed from the economy, local, national or otherwise, was this one:

Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush handled the Terri Schiavo case, judicial filibusters, various environmental issues, public broadcasting and Karl Rove’s recent insult of MoveOn.org?

Sorry, I goofed, that question wasn’t in the survey after all. Rather, the only question dealing with anything other than the economy was this one:

Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?

On that question, Bush’s “approve” number dropped one whole percentage point, well within the polls 2.6% margin of error, while his “disapprove” number increased by 3%, which is barely outside it. Does this mean, as Gandelman says and Reynolds implies, that between 0.4% and 4.6% of the population is hopping mad at Bush over the Schiavo case, the nuclear option, public broadcasting and/or Karl Rove? Possible, but unlikely. Note that all the other questions on the poll were about the economy, not any of the cultural issues Gandelman and Reynolds are trying to make the poll about. If anything, the numbers suggest that the cultural issues have actually benefited Bush slightly, as this drop on his overall approval rating was significantly less pronounced than his drop on the narrower issue of how he had “handled” the economy over the same period (approval down by 5%, disapproval up by 6%). This may come as good news to liberal-moderates like Gandelman, but it should provide no comfort whatsoever to libertarians like Reynolds, unless he thinks Bush’s 5-6% drop came from Randroids who think Bush doesn’t champion the free market enough.

I know I wasn’t going to blog about Terri Schiavo anymore, but that was because I naively assumed there wasn’t going to be any new news about her or Michael Schiavo. Silly me, I should have known better than that. Apparently, for St. Michael, it’s not enough just to get one’s way; one must seize every opportunity to rub more salt in everyone’s wounds whenever possible, even on her grave:

Isn’t that lovely? Everything, even Terri Schiavo’s grave, is about St. Michael. When his time comes, as inevitably it must for all (and no, strawtards, I’m not recommending that any of you go out and do anything to accelerate that process) I’ve got a headstone lined up for him, too. Just replace the name “John” with “Michael” and we’re good to go:

This story first ran at 10:47 PM EDT, a full two hours ago. Why the silence on the part of so many Michael Schiavo apologists?

UPDATE: I’ve razzed him on this issue in the past, but Joe Gandelman deserves credit where credit’s due. While other Schiavo apologists say nothing, defend the indefensible, or even twist the story around to make the Schindlers into the “disgusting, self-righteous ghouls” in this chapter of l’affaire Schiavo, Joe has the decency to buck his party line, calling a spade a spade and a cheap parting shot a cheap parting shot. Good for him.

UPDATE x2: Welcome, Patterico readers! And an especially hearty welcome to Richard “Cabeza” Bennett readers, assuming there are any. No, Sr. Cabeza, you don’t count.

UPDATE x3: Dean Esmay asks how much more like O.J. Michael Schiavo could possibly act.

Touché.

OK, maybe I have three more after-last words: what they said.