Crazy vs politically motivated

At this point it seems pretty clear that Loughner was simply crazy, not motivated by partisan politics. And, nearly a week after the shooting, the right is just getting warmed up in their lectures to liberals about thinking that they are violent. Case in point, Michelle's latest article, in which she brings up a bunch of incidents in which liberals assumed right wing nefariousness which turned out to be simply crazy people. She brings up things like the windows smashed that turned out to have been a left winger who did it or the census worker with Fed written on him who turned out to have been a suicide.

Actually let's stop there. Census worker found in the cemetary, with the word "Fed" on his chest, and Michelle Malkin chastises us for not thinking that was somehow related to an anti-Government feeling?

She does kind of shoot herself in the foot by bringing up this one, though.

In April 2009, a disgruntled, unemployed loser shot and killed three Pittsburgh police officers in a horrifying bloodbath. The gunman, Richard Poplawski, was a dropout from the Marines who threw a food tray at a drill sergeant and had beaten his girlfriend. Was this deranged shooter who pulled the trigger to blame? Nope. Despite evidence that Poplawski's homicidal, racist tendencies manifested themselves years before Obama took office, lefty publications asserted that the real culprit of the spree was the "heated, apocalyptic rhetoric of the anti-Obama forces" (according to mainstream liberal Atlantic Monthly pundit Andrew Sullivan), along with Fox News and Glenn Beck (according to mainstream liberal journalist Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly online).

No see that guy actually was a right winger who was obsessed with the Government taking away his guns (and in lieu of what he did with them, perhaps he should have had his Guns taken away from him). But I will concede he was crazy (and I'll be returning to this).

But of course that's Malkin's only mistep. She doesn't bring up the other times that violence or threatened violence was directly related back to the right wing. Such as Byron Williams, Beck devotee, who planned to assassinate leaders of both the Tides Foundation and the ACLU (but was stopped thank goodness). Or the assassination of George Tiller while he was at church. Or the various bricks through the windows that weren't thrown by liberal transvestites. Or the brother of a congressman who had his gas line cut (this was an honest mistake; a tea party activist got the wrong address).

But let's go back to crazy Richard Poplowski. Of course he's crazy. And anybody who takes gun in hand to attack imaginary enemies is crazy. I mean, you'd have to be crazy to act that way. That does sort of let our buddies on the right permenantly off the hook, though. As much as they point a world in which evil liberals work to destroy America, only a crazy person would act on that world view.

A Time for Christianity

This is hard to believe. Erick Erickson has written that the conversation around this tragedy is focusing on the wrong aspects.

Through it all though, well meaning people on both sides of the ideological and partisan divide are not talking about the one thing that should be talked about — a saving faith in Jesus Christ.

Yep. He also points out that Loughner was both of the left and a loon. But the key point is that if you don't pray you might end up insane like Loughner.

I'm not opposed to people turning to faith in times like these; it's a natural response. Nor do I think such responses need to be private. But, and this is a big but, this is far beyond that. And just plain out nasty. Not the least of which because Rep Giffords is jewish.

Got this from Media Matters.

You may already be living under Shariah Law

At least the Imam behind the Cordoba Project seems to think so. He said that the American political system is "Shariah compliant," according to Media Matters.

The reason why Muslims are fleeing many of their societies to countries like Australia, western Europe, United States and Canada is because the societal mandates of an Islamic society and Islamic State is in fact the kind of structure of society that we see in Western societies - the ability of people to participate in issues of governance, issues of the economic wellbeing and economic pie are fundamental to Islamic principles of governance.

Interesting thought. But of course, those who see Islam as something to be feared and opposed, will naturally be uncomfortable at the idea that our Society is compatable with Islam.

I do strongly suggest checking out that link; puts the lie to some of the fearmongering about this guy.

At a town hall meeting with French and German citizens in Strasbourg, France, President Barack Obama proved he hadn't just been posturing on the campaign trail when he castigated then-President George W. Bush for his "unilateralist" foreign policies. It's now clear that Obama wanted not only the American electorate to understand his disdain for his predecessor and the country he led but also the rest of the world to know it.

He told his European audience: "It's always harder to forge true partnerships and sturdy alliances than to act alone. … In America, there's a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world. Instead of … seeking to partner with you … there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive."

David Limbaugh, "Somewhere Under the Rainbow"

Wonder why Limbaugh had to put in quite so many ellipses in that little quote. Could it be that he is taking Obama a little out of context? Media Matters, responding to a similar take by Sean Hannity, seems to think so.

Ann Coulter and the Culture of Victim Hood

For those who missed this; Ann Coulter was banned for life from appearing on NBC. Heard this last night during an interview between her and Sean Hannity. Oh and she appeared on NBC's Today Show this morning.

Yeah - they don't make lifetime bans the way they used to.

Ann Coulter's new book is on how Liberals claim to be victims but are really nasty and mean to conservatives instead. And she's proved it by whining repeatedly at how picked on she is.

For more on this story check out Media Matters.

Persistant Rumors

Frank J. Gaffney Jr.'s latest article is pretty despicable.

Democratic presidential candidate Barak Obama’s appearance before a large evangelical congregation in Orange County over the weekend underscored an evident imperative of his campaign: Emphasize his Christian faith and put to rest insistent rumors that he secretly adheres to the Islamic creed of his father and youth.

The effort to minimize any grounds for fearing Obama has an abiding, if covert, attachment to Islam has prompted him to risk offending Muslims in order to avoid off-message controversies and photo ops.

I wonder why those insistent rumors persist? I mean what could be keeping them alive? Could it be Gaffney and his colleagues (such as James Corsi) repeating them ad naseum?

Yeah I guess that could explain it. And of course Gaffney's article is designed to create in your mind the impression that Obama is probably a covert Muslim.

Ask the Real Questions

I'm kind of torn on this article from Media Matters from America on the last Presidential Debate between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. On the one hand, I totally agree that the debate was awful. On the other hand, I'm not sure I agree with their diagnosis of what should have been asked.

Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos didn't ask Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton whether they would continue the Bush administration's torture policies, or their views on wiretapping Americans without a warrant or on the validity of Dick Cheney's assertions that he is a separate branch of government.

And yet -- after yet another presidential debate came and went without a moderator asking a single question about some of the most serious issues of our time, issues that go to the heart of who we are as a nation -- some in the media defended ABC's focus on political controversies by asserting that substantive issues have already been hashed and rehashed.

Those are key Constitutional questions. But I don't know that a debate on those issues would be very revealing. Rather I'd rather see McCain get asked those questions; he'd tied himself pretty closely to a rule breaking and constitution ignoring administration. How does he feel about rule breaking and constitution ignoring?

On the other hand asking Clinton and Obama those questions just gives them an opportunity to condemn the Bush White House - which they both have done in the past. It doesn't really go to the differences between these candidates.

McCain Stepped In It Again

For those who don't know, yesterday John McCain was introduced by Bill Cunningham, a conservative talk radio host. Cunningham, who has called Barack Obama "Barack Muhammad Hussein Obama," shortened it down to his actual name, which is Barack Hussein Obama. Of course calling Obama Barack Hussein Obama isn't exactly great either, as the reason for doing it is to plant the idea that Obama is a Muslim, a foreigner or both.

Anyway McCain, having heard of these remarks, chose to speak out against them, calling his two opponents honorable people and all. So good on McCain.

At this point it's probably wise to point out that despite my several positive stories about McCain, the fact is he has whole heartedly supported and promoted the Bush War Madness, and as such we will not be voting for him and we advise you not to vote for him either. But in the spirit of fair play we will pass on positive stories about him.

So Cunningham got out of line, and McCain distanced himself from his comments. Or, as Rush Limbaugh puts it, McCain threw Bill Cunningham under the straight talk express. I don't have a link for this yet, but yeah, Rush was pretty upset at the idea that McCain would attack a fellow Republican rather than a liberal (like Obama). He also personalized the issue (as Rush is wont to do) by saying it was McCain trying to make it up to the media for having courted people like him.

The whole thing is mordantly amusing; McCain can't help angrying up Rush, so he may as well try to pull the wool over liberals and moderates, I guess.

Answering Questions / Fox News

I didn't know about this story, or I would have blogged on it then, but about a month ago, when there were seemingly three times the candidates we have now, the Boston Globe asked all of the candidates questions on executive power and it's uses. They covered such subjects as signing statements, whether or not the President can be constrained by treaties or by acts of congress, and when should the President go to congress for approval of military actions. Well worth reading.

In other news, Fox New's big news is that they are old news. They are losing market share to CNN, presumably because of their decision to limit their appeal to Republicans / Conservatives.

Piling on Rush

Part of me is bored with this Rush "phony soldiers" Story, which is a shame because it really is a perfect example of everything that is wrong with Limbaugh Conservatism. Fortunately, as a seasoned bloggist (coming up on his fifth anniversary of blogging) I can feign interest.

Sort of.

Anyway this is easy enough. One of the more humorous claims by Limbaugh is that this sort of smear is unheard of on the right; only the left would have the indecency to question his love of the troops. Joonah Goldberg went him one better, saying "I've never heard actually a conservative basically flat-out deny the patriotism of the opposition." It's a pity for Goldberg that a website such as Media Matters exists, one that has archives and keeps track of what people actually say. Needless to say, they can provide plenty of examples of Rush Limbaugh questioning the patriotism of Liberals and Democrats.

"I want to respectfully disagree with the president on the last part of what he said. I am going to challenge the patriotism of people who disagree with him because the people that disagree with him want to lose."

So maybe Jonah Goldberg should rethink his comments.

Cal Thomas attacks Media Matters for America

Let me say at the outset, I like Media Matters for America. They are such a great antidote to Conservative Media "analysis." Conservative Media Analysis, even at a "think tank" like Brent Bozell's Media Research Center, usually boils down to an assertion that everybody knows the media is liberally biased.

Media Matters, on the other hand, takes the novel approach of actually looking at the Media and doing boring research. Like, say, counting the number of columnists in 96% of America's newspapers, and determining that Conservatives get more representation than Liberals. Which, coincidentally enough, our buddies at Media Matters have done. They even provided a report on it.

Cal Thomas disagrees with their findings and says so, in his latest article. For one thing they missed a lot of the papers he is in, apparently. It's hard to imagine how the contention that Conservatives are over represented is disproved by noting that they under counted conservatives, but there you go. Media Matters requested clarification, but Thomas was too smart for that.

Media Matters asked for my client list to prove my claim. Nice try. Liberals would love to have such a list so they can conduct letter-writing campaigns to remove conservatives, in the name of tolerance, of course. While some columnists have been "rumored" to inflate their numbers (imagine that!), mine are accurate and have been since I started writing this column.

Apparently you are just required to trust Cal Thomas. He knows how many newspapers carry his column, and he doesn't want sneaky liberals figuring it out. It's not like that information might be available elsewhere.

Say, in the newspaper.

The rest of Thomas's article is the standard conservative way of proving liberal bias. Simply assert it and assume your audience is too stupid, biased or lazy to challenge your assertion.

My Fictitious Interview with Glen Beck

MMAC - Mr. Beck, may we have five minutes here where we're just politically incorrect and I play the cards face up on the table?

Beck - Go there.

MMAC - OK. No offense, and I know Conservatives. I like Conservatives. I really don't believe that Conservativism is a philosophy of idiocy. I -- you know, I think it's being hijacked, quite frankly.

With that being said, you are a Conservative, You are implying to a Muslim Congressmen that he has to defend himself, to prove to America that he's not working with our enemies. And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, "Sir, prove to me that you are not a bigoted moron."

And I know your not a bigot. I'm not accusing you of being a bigot, but that's the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way.

Inspired by a story at Media Matters for America, which repeats Mr. Beck's own statements.

Speaking uncritically

One of the Republican Arguments right now (referenced below) is that the people of America didn't vote for Liberalism last Tuesday. Rather they elected a bunch of conservative Democrats, because they still love conservatively but have mixed feelings about Republicans right now. And the lesson they hope their leaders learn is to be more Conservative.

Well Salon's War Room, referencing a Media Matters for America Post, has argued persuasively that this narrative might be less than accurate.

Never mind the fact that the Democrats' victory will result in leadership posts for some of the most liberal members of the party; when actually broken down quantitatively, the number of liberal and conservative freshmen Democrats elected on Tuesday puts the lie to this running theme.

Media Matters for America, the liberal press watchdog, has already documented the political proclivities of 27 of the new Democrats in Congress; MMA restricted its analysis to those who defeated incumbent Republicans or took over open seats previously held by Republicans. It found: "All 27 candidates support raising the minimum wage. All 27 candidates advocate changing course in Iraq. All 27 candidates oppose efforts to privatize Social Security. Only two of the 27 candidates do not support embryonic stem cell research. Only five of the 27 candidates describe themselves as 'pro-life.'"

So that's nice to know. But of course Republicans will merely claim that these freshmen Democrats were simply fooling the people when they claimed to be conservatives and hold on to most of their storyline.

Media Bias

There's a great new report on Media Bias that has just been released. What's even greater is Media Matters for America's debunking of the new report.

Apparently they decided to see how many times reporters referenced political organizations and think tanks. If they referenced Conservative Think Tanks they were skewing conservative and if they referenced Liberal Think Tanks they were skewing liberal. Easy enough, although it begs the question of what to do if they quote an organization and an individual with different view points. Obviously they heap the organization on the scale, ignore the individual, and judge the story biased.

The best part, however, is how they determine the liberalness or conservativeness of an organization. If a Conservative or Liberal senator quotes an organization approvingly, well, that organization must be more to his way of thinking. So if Bill Frist quotes the ACLU, well, the score of that organization moves a little to the right. But wait, don't senators often try to quote from organizations on the other side of the fence so as to appear more non-partisan and "cool?" I mean everybody knows that Dick Cheney is buds with the NRA (although not a good example of gun safety apparently), but when Harry Reid quotes them approvingly, that looks good.

At any rate, according to this methodology, the ACLU falls, just barely, on the Conservative side of the fence. That probably tells you all you need to know about this methodology.

But for our friends, the conservatives, they'll probably buy off on any survey that tells them what they want to hear.

Anyway it's a good and thorough debunking, covering a lot more than I just referenced - go check it out.

To Defeat Republicans Simply Become Republicans

Many on the right are convinced that in order to succeed, Democrats need to become Republicans. This is typified by the repeated exhortations to take Lieberman seriously. Poor sap.

But here's the pinnacle or nadir of that kind of thinking; Democrats need to applaud programs they oppose so as to look good to the American people. This theory was advanced by Tucker Carlson and Chris Matthews in the run up to the State of the Union (Yes, here at Make Me a Commentator!!! we boldly comment on week-old stories), and recorded by Media Matters for America.

MATTHEWS: Will there be moments -- I want to get back to substance, but I love the visual because I think it is a television event now. It's a studio audience, basically. Will there be a moment where the Democrats sit on their hands dramatically and the Republicans stand up and roar?

CARLSON: There always is, absolutely. I think people are always surprised by -- and every year, not just this year -- but they are always surprised by how partisan it is. I don't even think most people at home know that the parties sit in different places. I mean, I think it is shocking to people who don't follow Congress that one side, you know, won't respond at all to the president, and the other side goes crazy.

MATTHEWS: Do they look bad when they don't?

CARLSON: I think they do. I mean, I'm not shocked by it; I've lived here a long time. But yeah, I don't think the public likes that.

MATTHEWS: Suppose the president says, "I'm gonna make my tax cuts permanent," and the Democrats sit on their hands. That's good for the Republicans, right?

CARLSON: Yeah, probably so.

So there you have it. The American people are morons and when they see Democrats not clapping the President their little minds tell them "Democrats bad. They should clap President Bush. Not clap. That bad!"

Fear and Loathing

Bill O'Rielly recently threatened those who called into his show and expressed views he disagrees with.

CALLER: . . . I got one point about the media. If you want true, no-spin facts about this case, you can't do better than mediamatters.com.

O'REILLY: Ah! All right. Anyway, we get another nut on the air. That's the worst part of doing this. Ninety percent of the callers are good, and then you get nuts. Now, we should go to their house. We should all go because I can get their addresses when they call in. We can trace them back, and we should all go over and surprise them.

So what exactly would you do at peoples homes Mr. O'Rielly. You and your fans, you come to my home, what are you going to do? Beat the shit out of me (which would be quite a task as I am full of it)? What exactly are you planning, Mr. O'Rielly?

Mr. O'Rielly has it in for Media Matters for America as we all know. Media Matters commentary isn't the best around, but what they are quite good at is documenting what the right says. If you go the website you can listen to O'Rielly threatening those who call in as plain as day.

And of course that's what really gets under their skins.