December 28, 2005 by s.z.

Shorter Kathleen Parker: "Bloggers are just nasty, uncivilized barbarians who write puff pieces about member of their own clique in order to enhance their egos, and who tear down outsiders by saying mean things about them.  They abuse the power of free speach -- a power they haven't earned.  These spoiled brats get to say whatever they want, and never get fired when they screw up.  So, they're totally unlike me and my fellow journalists at Townhall." 3:31:06 AM

The Townhallers v. Whomever Here the current roster of Ultimate Wingnut Challenge contestants: 1.  Town Hall Columnists VBen Shapiro Dr. Mike Adams Doug Giles  2.  The Low-Rent Pundits Pastor J. Grant Swank Debbie Schlussel Kaye Grogan 3.  Media Wingnuts Ann Coulter Michelle Malkin  4.  Lifestyle Wingnuts Peggy Noonan 5.  Blog Stars John Hindrocket, Powerline 6.  Respected Conservative Thinkers Midge Decter  Everybody has had a chance to play in the last week, except for the Townhallers.  And now there's nobody for them to play against without subjecting another team to double jeopardy.  So, I'm going to have them vie against the two current contestants who got the most negative votes this week, because the rules say that we can do this kind of thing to wingnuts who just aren't cutting it.  But in the interest of fairness, I will protect the identities of these two contestants so that you will give them a fair shake, despite their lameness. Now, let's get ready to rumble! 1.  Townhaller Dr. Mike S. Adams comes through with a great piece called "Citizen of the Year Finalist: Of Mice and Minutemen." Summary: Townhall is honoring "the people most responsible for advancing the causes of freedom, limited government, prosperity and traditional values."  In furtherance of that project, Dr. Mike tells us a story about how his high school friend Bubba got knifed up by an illegal immigrant just because Bubba got in the middle of a knife fight.  Dr. Mike then has a conversation with a made-up liberal who is eavesdropping on Dr. Mike's thoughts, and the piece ends by recommending the Minutemen for Citizen of the Year. Highlights: Although it was July, it was a school night for me. I was in summer school for flunking English again. The year was 1982. Bubba wasn’t your typical Bubba from Texas. He was a surfer and all the girls said he was a good-looking fellow. He must have been. Every one of his girlfriends was a knockout. Yes, the measure of a man is the attractiveness of his girlfriends. Anyway, Bubba tries to break up a fight, and gets knifed.  Dr. Mike's other friends rush Bubba to the hospital, and/or beat the crap out of the Mexican kid who attacked Bubba, but Dr. Mike apparently doesn't make any contribution to the night's events.  That's what happens when you flunk English! The nurse says that Bubba will be okay.  And that's when Dr. Mike learns the shocking truth: that Mexican wasn't an American!  But thank heavens that this incident occurred, because it gave Dr. Mike the perfect snappy response to the Democrat who butted into Dr. Mike's conversation with his imaginary friends. The conversation was taking place in the lobby of a hotel in Asheville, North Carolina. A fellow delegate to the North Carolina Republican convention praised the Minuteman Project. That’s when we were interrupted by a Democrat sitting (and eavesdropping) at the next table. The conversation went something like this: Democrat: I’m sorry to interrupt, but could you just tell me one bad thing a so-called illegal alien has done to justify your opposition to opening our borders to them? Could you just name one thing? Adams: (recounts the 1982 stabbing incident). Democrat: (rolls his eyes and shrugs his shoulders). Adams: Wait a second. I just described to you a horrific act of violence committed against an innocent 18 year old – one that almost cost him his life – and all you can do is shrug your shoulders? Do you mean to say you don’t care? What if the act of violence was rape? What if the victim was your daughter? Would you care then? This reminds me of a mayoral debate hosted by the great conservative talk radio host Birch Barlow -- he asked a similar question of our six-term mayor, the illiterate, tax-cheating, wife-swapping, pot-smoking, spendocrat Diamond Joe Quimby. Barlow: Mayor Quimby, you're well-known, sir, for your lenient stance on crime.  But suppose for a second that your house was ransacked by thugs, your family tied up in the basement with socks in their mouths -- you try to open the door but there's too much BLOOD on the knob ... Quimby: What is your question? Barlow: My question is about the budget, sir.  But back to Dr. Mike: In case you didn’t notice, the most important aspect of that argument was not verbal; it was non-verbal. The rolling of the eyes and the shrugging of the shoulders provided an on-the-spot, concise summary of Democratic foreign policy toward Mexico. That said it all. They just don’t care. And that's why the Minutemen are one of Townhall's finalists for "Citizen of the Year" -- and why Dr. Mike is one of World O'Crap's semi-finalists for "Ultimate Wingnut of the Year." 2.  We will now hear from Mystery Wingnut #1, who will tell us about "California and the Legacy of the Sixties."  (While this piece is from 1999, I don't think it's any more dated now than it was back then.) Summary: Our wingnut visited San Francisco in approximately 1977, and got the munchies while she was there.  This helped her to realize the reason we had a hippie problem back in the 1960's (and 70's) was that young people were seduced by all the pleasantness in California, and soon abandoned all sense of responsibility and began to use drugs, and eat cookies and such.  This "California problem" is emblematic of the main problem our society currently faces: women's liberation and homosexual liberation. Highlights: Back around 1977 or so (I have reached that point in life when "around" is about the best I can do with dates so let us just say in 1977), I happened to be spending a week in the Bay Area  [...]  Well, after a day or two, I began to feel a gnawing discomfort, a sensation that took me some time to give a name to. Then I suddenly realized what this discomfort actually was: namely, I was simply walking around hungry from morning to night, a very unusual condition for me. I found myself almost involuntarily buying and scarfing down one after another of those gigantic cookies that were, and are, a leading indicator of the 60s generation. [...] The real difficulty for us is what I have called the California problem, and the truth is, the 60¹s provided only its earliest and gaudiest--but hardly its most serious--manifestation. [...] The real symptoms--I should say "symptom" because in fact they are both evidence of the same condition--the real symptom of the disorder that the wonders of California most put me in mind of and that we haven¹t come close to imagining a cure for is the two major liberation movements: first women¹s liberation and then homosexual liberation (sometimes called "gay" but is anything but). The reason these movements resemble the seductions of California--though unlike student radicalism and the counterculture, neither movement came into existence here--the reason they resemble the seductions of California is that both movements, women¹s lib and gay lib, grow out of the longing for a life unbounded by the old limitedness: women not bound by the limits of their own natures and homosexuals freed from the ultimate limit of having been born of woman.  So, beware California and its seductive big cookies or you may turn into a gay women's libber! 3.   Next up is Pastor Doug Giles, writing about "The Church and Contextualization Frustration." Summary:  Pastor Doug has been called to minister to America's youth (or as he used to say in his bio, "Doug Giles is a no-nonsense, God-fearing student of society with a special ability to jerk the slack out of slacking young people").  Basically, today's youngsters are heathens, and the only way to reach them is to learn about their culture.  And that's why Pastor Doug spends several hours a day reading Maxim, watching MTV, and hanging out at the food court with his friends instead of comforting the bereaved or helping the poor.  He does it for the children. I believe the culpability flow chart regarding this generation’s indifference and ignorance lies partly on the shoulders of the youth and to a degree upon the churches that refuse to contextualize the gospel message.  Certain ill-bred sectors of evangelicalism blame the youth for their obstinacy and the devil for his constancy—but never condemn itself for its belligerency towards contextualization. I have to say that I've never condemned myself for my belligerency towards contextualization (if I am indeed belligerent toward it).  I guess I'm going to hell for that. In order to reach out to young adults effectively, we’ve got to seek first to understand them instead of attempting to make ourselves understood by them. Therefore, brailing their culture is a must.  [...] This means keeping up with what’s going on in the young people’s world, paying attention to what’s on TV, in the theatres, on their iPOD’s and in their CD players.  Therefore, as we watch an estimated 50 hours a week of TV, between the giggles, our eleventh bag of Lay’s and our fifth Foster’s, we should pause to listen and maybe even scratch down some casual observations made while viewing an episode of SouthPark, a Green Day video or Napoleon Dynamite. Because if you can preach the gospel using "South Park" references, the kids will respect you.  And you will own them. Bonus: the Giles metaphor of the day.  "The society that we’re living in here in the U.S. is undergoing more changes than a PMSing Emily Rose." 4.  And now, Mystery Wingnut #2 will rap with NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez about Pope John Paul. Summary: Pope John Paul was so dreamy!  Along with the other members of the Super Friends (Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Aquaman), he saved Western civilization.  And he will be soon be recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church, since not only was he great, but his life was miraculously saved by angelic dolphins.   Highlights: Lopez: What's the deal with Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and the subject of your book and seamstresses? Mystery Wingnut: It's a small fact of history I discovered through talking to Nancy Reagan about Ronnie, talking to Mrs. Thatcher about her childhood, and reading about John Paul. It is that all of their mothers took in seamstress work at home when they were children, to supplement their families' incomes. I realized: These three great collaborators in the bringing together of Europe all grew up watching their mothers take different pieces of cloth and sewing them together into a whole — a new thing that coheres and is something different. I thought: That may be a coincidence, but it may be more. Childhood is the forge in which we're formed. I think in it we learn things that are unforgettable that we don't even know we're learning, or not forgetting. Yup, Ronnie, the Pope, and Maggie all fought communism because they saw their mothers mend clothes when they were children.  God works in mysterious ways. Lopez: Do you know much about JPII's behind-the-scenes interaction with President Reagan? Mystery Wingnut: I know they kept each other informed, signaled to each other. They were unalike but had similarities. [...] Reagan was not mystical in a sacramental sense, but he had some woo-woo in him — a sense that a higher power was at work and operative and intervening in his life and history. John Paul thought the hand of the Blessed Mother deflected the bullet that was to kill him away from arteries and nerve clusters. Reagan felt God and his angels saved his life when he was shot. What extraordinary men. Indeed.  One might say that they both had a lot of woo-woo in them. 5.  And lastly, here's VBen Shapiro, who will read us his book report on "2005: The big picture." Summary: Although Scooter Libby, Jack Abramoff, Randy Cunningham, Karl Rove, and possibly even George Bush have been revealed as law breakers this year, if we look at the big picture, we'll see that retail spending was up this "holiday season," the outsourcing of jobs to India has led to rising productivity, and nobody really misses New Orleans.  And more importantly, we'll realize that things are going great in Iraq, so there's no need for young Ben to enlist. Highlights: Amid all of the end-of-the-year hoopla surrounding wartime executive power, the upcoming debate on Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito and the controversy about renewing the Patriot Act, it's easy to lose perspective. This has been a year of complicated political situations, from Valerie Plame to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, from Jack Abramoff to Randy "Duke" Cunningham, from New Orleans to Iraq. With wall-to-wall media coverage blanketing us in details ranging from the fascinating to the dreary, perhaps we've lost the forest for the trees. Because amidst all the political turmoil, something grand happened this year: America's situation in the world improved by leaps and bounds. So, the fact that many Republicans are corrupt has actually made your life better, you might say. And that's why we should all stop focusing on all the negative stuff about civil liberties violations, and bribery and corruption, and think instead about our great advances in terrorist mining. At the end of 2004, Americans voted on which candidate would better handle the War on Terror. President Bush won. So far, so good. Since Sept. 11, law enforcement has broken up terrorist cells in New York, Oregon, California, Florida, Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, North Carolina and Ohio, thanks to instruments like the Patriot Act. Terrorists caught overseas were mined for information -- information that has been extremely useful, as in the case of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, a top al-Qaeda mastermind. Don't ask how terrorists are mined -- it might involve negative stuff, like waterboarding and "renditions" to countries where out-and-out torture is practiced.  No, just keep looking at that shiny, green forest full of Iraqi purple fingers, and you'll feel a lot safer. And those are our contestants for this round.  Vote off two of them.  Yes, there was some strong wingnuttery this time (except on VBen's part), but we need to get rid of a couple of them.  Okay, more that a couple of them, but just vote to remove two of them this time.  (The polls will close tonight, Dec. 28, at midnight, so that tomorrow we might have our elimination round). Vote now, or be square ... or something. 1:51:13 AM

Charlie Cabbagemallet and the Bulldog Not only another new NBC sit-com, but also the two "Ultimate Wingnut Challenge" contestants who will be walking the gankplank of shame and failure today. And as we say good-bye to Charles Krauthammer and JimJeff GannonGukert, let's remember the good times. First, here's Chuck, using quotes to fight the War on Christmas (last year, before it was cool). "Holiday celebrations where Christmas music is being sung make people feel different, and because it is such a majority, it makes the minority feel uncomfortable.''   -- Mark Brownstein, parent, Maplewood, N.J., supporting the school board's banning of religious music from holiday concerts.         "You want my advice? Go back to Bulgaria.''  -- Humphrey Bogart, in "Casablanca.'' While this may sound kind of harsh, Charles was probably just inspired by Bill O'Reilly's advice to a Jewish caller: "If you are really offended, you gotta go to Israel then."  (But don't be calling Charles an "Uncle Jake," since that's Dennis Prager's nickname!)    And here's Jeff's mission statement, an inspiring message we will always treasure: Ex-USMC Jock: Available for hourly, overnight, weekend or longer travel - OUT ONLY! Personal Trainer: Safe-Sane-Strenuous-Satisfying workouts, Sports training, and competition, especially wrestling.... Big SPORTS Fan: Will go to the game with you, then take you home and.... "AGGRESIVE, VERBAL, DOMINANT TOP" I DON'T LEAVE MARKS....ONLY IMPRESSIONS No wonder Jeff was so good at asking Ari and Scottie those probing questions like, "And doesn't that, combined with  the now-proven al Qaeda link between Iraq -- between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist organization -- unequivocally make the case for going to war in Iraq?" and "President George Bush has been described as a 'steely-eyed rocketman,' and a 'man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius' -- but wouldn't you say that he's more of a steely-eyed genius cowboy?"     So, good-bye, Jim and Charlie.  Don't forget to not write. Anyway, while Jeff and Charles have been kicked off Wingnut Island, I doubt that we've seen the last of them ... except for Jeff, whose 15 minutes ended a long time ago. 12:32:32 AM