Townhall Review
A brief look at today's Townhall columns, and thus, a glimpse of the current wingnut thinking. (The really short version of the message for today is: the media is liberal; judges are evil; and Tom DeLay is the tribe's food provider, so you'd better not abandon him, you nutless Republicans.)
But here are the specifics:
NBC: Still pining for Carter by Brent Bozell
NBC only mentioned the fact that Jimmy Carter didn't get to go to the Pope's funeral in order to make George Bush look bad. Say, if NBC loves Carter so much, why doesn't it marry him?
Katie Couric began the show by fussing: "the question some people are asking is 'Where's President Carter in all this?' Are the Bushes and the Carters the modern-day version of the Hatfields and the McCoys?""Some people," my eye. Remember this family-feud line the next time you hear someone say talk radio wildly overstates things, while the news media are much more restrained in tone. Does Katie mean to suggest that next, the Bushes and the Carters will start tying each other to fence posts and unloading their rifles?
Yes, Brent, that's exactly what Katie meant. And she also meant that the Bushes and the Carters engage in moonshining, and that hostilities between the families were triggered when Jimmy "ruined" a Bush daughter (presumably Jenna).
Everybody keeps sending Stossel nasty email, and it's all Media Matters' fault. John now hates David Brock (and David isn't even one of Stossel's wife's exes).
I've been getting lots of e-mail about my column on the environmental crisis of the moment, global warming."John, we already have Geraldo to make an ass of himself -- that job is already taken. You (and your ilk) are adding to global warming by spewing this hot air from your pucker brush." Then came: "Boy when you sell out, you really sell out don't you ... What a sh-t bag you've turned into."
Hey, just because Stoseel is a sell-out and a sh-t bag, there's no need to make fun of his pucker brush.
If young Ben were the Prime Minister of Israel, he wouldn't compromise with the Arabs by pulling settlers out of the Gaza Strip, because that just encourages terrorism. The Federalist Papers said so -- and so do Ben's new friends ...
Moshe Feiglin of Manhigut Yehudit, a bloc within Likud that provides Sharon's main political opposition, was audibly angered by both Sharon's "civil war" statement and his obvious power grab. He told me on Tuesday that he is no longer interested "in listening to Sharon.
Oooh, Moshe Feiglin is kind of a dangerous guy for Benny to be palling around with (Ben has mentioned him previously, but we thought that this was just a boyish crush that Benny would grow out of).
See, Feiglin has extreme nationalist views, and wants to turn Israel into a religious state. He was convicted of incitement to riot and sentenced to prison in 1997. Since then, he has tried to turn the Likud party into the "Israeli religious right" party. Here's part of what Canadian Jewish News wrote about him recently:
Moshe Feiglin and Shmuel Sackett, the co-founders of a radical renegade faction in the ruling Likud party, think the future belongs to them.
Last week, in a joint appearance at Shaarei Tefillah Congregation, they confidently predicted that their Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) group will eventually win control of Likud, take over Israel and convert it into a “Jewish state.”
And here's part of an NY Sun opinion piece by Hillel Halkin:
The infiltration of the Likud by the Feiglinites, however, is an unwelcome development. Although there are may be obvious parallels between it and, say, the new activism of fundamentalist Christians in the Republican Party in America (and who, really, would want to see a separate Evangelical Party in America?), there is one fundamental difference. America's politically activist Christians are focused on a domestic agenda; they may think they are performing G-d's will by pushing this agenda, but they understand that they have to push it by rational means and they do not, apart from small groups of End-of-Dayers, believe they are actors in a divine eschatological drama.
Not so the Feiglinites. Many of them are true messianists who are convinced that the retention of the entire land of Israel is part of G-d's plan for the Jewish people and the world, and that there is no need to think rationally about how such a plan can be realistically implemented because G-d will take care of all problems in due time. All Israel has to do is hold on to every inch of sacred ground and make no concessions to the Palestinians; the rest will be arranged by the will of Heaven.
Not surprisingly, the American religious right loves Feiglin. Here's part of what Watchmen's Warnings (part of "Capitol Hill Prayer Alert") had to say about him:
He is not a Christian and we are not endorsing his religious and/or political beliefs. Yet he has much to say of value. His dedication to the Jewish Scriptures, and his desire to see them impact Israeli culture and government are worthy of respect. We need to pray for this man - that he will come to know Jesus Christ as Messiah.
Ben, who has made common cause with the religious right, presumably agrees.
Anyway, while Ben is just the type to find Feiglin's cause appealing, we hope his devotion to it is as heartfelt as his devotion to the War in Iraq, meaning that he will stay safely at Harvard while other people do the actual fighting.
Everybody is mean to Charles and Camilla just because they're ugly -- and so is Cal.
Charles and Camilla behaved badly to their former spouses and were poor examples to their children. But who among us can cast the first stone? This isn't really about them anyway. If it were, we could all throw stones, or pies, and enjoy ourselves.It is about us and that is why so many of us loathe their image. They remind us of our own ugliness.
What does it mean when you don't pay that much attention to celebrities, no matter what they look like? (I hope it means that I can throw pies at somebody.)
Oh, and in the wedding photo of Camilla that I saw, I thought she looked pretty good for a smoker in her 50s. Way better than the "attractive" Ann Coulter, for example. So, can I throw a pie at Ann? No, wait, that's now considered terrorism (and punishable by death) -- I guess it will have to be stones.
The press shows its bias by Linda Chavez
Poor Linda never got her Wall Street Journal talking points ...
Now contrast the media coverage of l'affaire DeLay with, say, the admission by former Clinton National Security Adviser Samuel "Sandy" Berger that he stole and destroyed classified documents that might have shed light on the Clinton administration's failure to take seriously the threat posed by al Qaeda. No wonder conservatives are a little paranoid about media bias.[...]Could it be that maybe, just maybe, the hand-written notes in the margins of some documents might have made Berger or Bill Clinton look bad? You can bet if the documents had something to do with a trip by Tom DeLay, there would be 100 reporters assigned to find out.
Um, Linda, the other wingnuts said to tell you that you're making them look bad, and so you're kicked out of the club.
Airport security is stupid, because it inconveniences people who aren't even terrorists!
Asking the question whether every passenger is a security threat is similar to a munitions manufacturer asking whether every hand grenade is good. A munitions manufacturer wouldn't pull the pin on every hand grenade to see if it was a dud. He'd devise a test, otherwise he'd bear huge costs by assuming each hand grenade had the equal probability of being a dud. Similarly, the TSA should devise a test to determine which passenger poses the higher probability of being a security threat. A good start might be to establish passenger characteristics of previous terrorist attacks.
Yes, searching little old ladies, blondes, and kids is like exploding them to see if they are good. We should implement racial profiling of hand grenades in order to end this carnage.
You all owe Ken Tom DeLay big time, so let there be no more talk about throwing him to the wolves just because he's corrupt! After all, every junket he took, every PAC fund he misused, and every wife he paid from your donations, he did for you.
And he has done what every able leader of men has been doing since the dawn of man -- he has gone hunting and brought home the meat to nourish the whole tribe. Yes. Money: The lawful collecting of which is the essential condition to politically function. If a political party doesn't have money, it doesn't have a chance.[...]A party that would voluntarily cut off its own testicles and FedEx them to their opponent as a trophy is not likely to manifest any regenerative powers. That's the thing about losing those organs.
Yeah, Tom fed you and the whole tribe -- he fed you MONEY! And if you now force him to resign, it's like cutting off your own balls and mailing them to the Democrats. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, you wimps!
*Okay, I don't know where the "Ken DeLay" came from -- maybe my childhood dislike of Ken, Barbie's useless boyfriend. Maybe it was that rumor about Tom and Ken Mehlman having a gay affair. I really couldn't say.
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance's "Day of Silence" isn't about stopping gay kids from being bullied, it's about insulting the bullies' traditional views of morality.
Attempting to “re-educate” students concerning homosexuality may confuse and stigmatize traditional teachers, parents and kids, but it will do little if anything to prevent bullies from finding kids who appear weak and vulnerable. Do we really think that the reason bullies attack kids with large ears or smart kids or obese kids is because bullies believe the wrong things about ear size, intelligence or obesity? I believe GLSEN’s approach is misguided and insulting to those who have traditional views of sexuality.
In other words, if we get the bullies to quit picking on the gay kids, then they'll just pick on the fat, nerdy, funny-looking kids. YOUR kids! So, let them bully the gay kids -- who, after all, deserve it for not having not having traditional views of sexuality.
(Warren Throckmorton, PhD is Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of College Counseling at Grove City College, and one of the nation's foremost experts on why it's okay to bash gays.)
Next we should starve the courts by Phyllis Schlafly
Judges killed Terri Schiavo, and so they must be punished!
Congress should withdraw jurisdiction from the federal courts over the Pledge of Allegiance, the Ten Commandments, and the Defense of Marriage Act. [...]Congress should withdraw jurisdiction over court challenges to the Boy Scouts of America [...]Congress should repeal the 1976 law that permits activist judges to grant lavish attorney's fees to the ACLU [...]Any judge who allows an adulterer with a live-in girlfriend to terminate the life of his wife should be impeached.
Hey, we should just get rid of all the judges and let Congress take their place. It's what Terri would have wanted. Or maybe we can starve them -- literally. She would have liked that too.
2:24:46 AM
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