The Frozen Dunes

The conspiracy, unmask'd.

The larger point is that the very existence of so many of these radical political partnerships (and that is what they are, significant political partnerships, not mere "marginal relationships," as Smith would have it) reveals a systematic pattern–a pattern that shows Obama to be a man of the left–so far left that he long had one foot out of (but also one foot in) the conventional Democratic mainstream. It’s true that the McCain campaign has not effectively made this point. Yet my Corner colleague Andy McCarthy has eloquently complained about that. The most important point is what Obama’s many radical political partnerships reveal about his overall perspective, and how his radicalism ties in to, and helps explain, even his more conventional-seeming Democratic liberalism. I have written extensively about all of this.

This class of stuff, you'll note, comes from people who argue that a 3% increase in the income tax rate for people making over $250K is "Marxism" and anyone who says otherwise is a Red. This is what makes the "Bill Ayers" stuff so bizarre. By Corner standards, Marxism starts at, well, Ben Bernanke. Stanley Kurtz thinks "conventional-seeming Democratic liberalism" IS "radical politics."

These are people who say, in public, that the MSM's (or Ben Smith's) refusal to grill Barack Obama on why he is hiding his desire to impose the dictatorship of the proletariat is prima facie evidence of Bias. Shazam!

The joke, of course, is that over the past three decades the "MSM" have proven amazingly sensitive to tripe like this and have bent over backwards to accomodate the concerns of those purveying such  whines. And then they wonder why they're not taken seriously....

The Corner is a porn site for the resentfully ill-educated.

Comments

[AmIDreaming]

"The Corner is a porn site for the resentfully ill-educated."

And 'Conservatism' is merely a euphemism for 'Contrarian.'

[aimai]

"resntfully ill educated" nails it. K lo had an apposite post the other day: she posted excitedly about a new poll showing mccain very close to beating Obama. Then she posted a long email from a slightly smarter reader who pointed out that she had misread the poll entirely. And then she capped it off by breezily suggesting that although she'd been completely wrong and been forced to take back her point in the paragraph right above still, you never know! and we should all still be full of hope that McCain will win on the basis of this poll.

aimai

[theperilouspea]

'Conservatism' is merely a euphemism for 'Contrarian.'
If contrarian means , in this case a 'Low Brow' affection for "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" yup , yup , yup .
I believe despite my carela or cundeamor sweetness , my poll revealing a 100% increase in interest with carefully placed references to porn is satisfactorily validated by merely by uttering it .
I say it therefore it , "Dooby dooby Doo"

[Tyro]

There's this concept among the conservatives that it doesn't actually matter what a politician does or what he supports. What matters is what they believe the politician to be like "deep inside." Thus, W's support for torture and arbitrary detentions isn't reflective of a character problem, because "deep inside" he's a "good person." Meanwhile, everyone at The Corner looks at Obama's rather cautious, earnest "good-government" pragmatic slightly-left-of-center voting record and concludes he's "a Marxist left wing radical" because, well, somehow, deep inside, he must be, despite his long track record of what he actually does.

This will eventually evolve into bitterness and anger on their part during Obama's presidency in which he is accused of deceiving and lying to the American people by trying to hide his radicalism with a cloak of moderate policies.

K lo had an apposite post the other day...

E lit ist. Used three syl la ble word and said Editor should know how to read.

[low-tech cyclist]

Heck, The Corner is porn for the rest of us, too. They've been almost unimaginably unhinged lately, trafficking in the sort of conspiracy theories that you'd expect to find among Lyndon LaRouche acolytes, or parodied in the Illuminatus! trilogy.

Realizing that these are the folks that supposedly provide intellectual heft to the conservative movement makes me laugh my ass off.

[DrDick]

Kurtz is just trying to make Jonah and K-Lo feel bright.

[Jemand von Niemand]

Kurtz, Smith, McCarthy and Goldberg are wannabe-Buckleys and Krauthammers, Brooks and Kristols. They want to spew regularly at the Wingnut public vomitoriums like The Corner, and grow up to be a feted pundit in the Wingnut Welfare circuit -- to be invited on The News Hour; lunches in Stamford; and find a comfortable sinicure at Cato or AEI. They might even be a guest at the Bohemian Grove.

And, Tyro's right: Whatever they write or promote doesn't have to be true. It has to feel true, and express the essence of the Wingnut world -- which is closer to the worldview of white power survivalist types, than the Founding Fathers.

As nasty a piece of work as Buckley was, he at least claimed some philosophic undepinnings in defense of his class. He could claim to have read Plato, Locke, Proudhoun or Heidegger as an undergraduate. The Boyz at The Corner seem to pull their ideas for story lines straight out of their descending colons. Only the partially-educated could be so adamant in defense of their own ignorance.

Ultimately, the joke's on them. For people like Buckley, or Bush (either of them), the Kurtzes, Smiths, McCarthys, Goldbergs, Owens, ad nauseum can bleat and cry about deep, radical-liberal conspiracies that threatens to make Americans impoverished communists all they like. They can run hard after the brass ring of 'success' in the Wingnut world -- but they'll never be accepted as true members of the club, the inner circle of ownership and privilege... because they weren't born to it. At the end of the day, they're nothing but the hired help -- and that's something they've never understood.

[Mr. Merle]

Only two traffic-generating links? Y'all be slippin'!

[Davis]

The attempts to portray Obama as a radical Marxist have failed because it was idiotic.

[aimai]

Well, I think the original point is really well taken. The right wing has been screaming "teddy kennedy is a marxist" so long that lots of people think that marxists are fat, cherubic, grandpa like figures, kinda like santa without the beard. I mean, really, they've cried wolf so many times that ayres doesn't even register--when you've already compared the guy to hitler you've ratcheted the hysteria up to 11.

Great post today by eric martin over at obsidian wings pointing out that Obama is thought to combine *both* neville chamberlin and hitler into one person.

aimai

[Jay_B.]

You've heard the whines about the liberal media.

You've mainlined the whines against the activist judges.

You've even prepared yourself for the "overwhelming majority of American voters are racist" whine after the Obama win.

Now, get ready for the "Alaskan juries are basically the right arm of the Gestapo.

I gotta give this to the GOP, when it decides to marginalize itself, it doesn't offer up weak tea like Tom Daschele and Tom Foley. It decides to go the way of a principled Vietnamese Monk — if the monk was unaware that setting yourself on fire would hurt and kill you.

[aimai]

Well, jay b, but it wasn't an alaskan jury it was an evil dc jury that probably included some angry black people.

aimai

[Jemand von Niemand]

The Right has ratcheted up the level of rhetoric against (well, almost everybody) to stratospheric levels over the past fourteen years. I've always thought that would inevitably lead to actual violence, or some form of overt putsch.

Now, I'm not so sure. The realization among the electorate (and very reluctantly, parts of the MSM) appears to be that the Wingnut Brand has been lies, and poison; that its cheerleaders over the past eight years have been very wrong -- and that people are noticing that to continue pushing the Brand is like punching holes in the bottom of a lifeboat on the Titanic.

I still wouldn't turn my back on them -- but rather than act as a lead-in to a more literal civil war, all the crazy Wingnut spieling and twisting is being seen as laughable self-parody -- like the drunk who pisses themselves at a party and has no idea, the Right is becoming a nuisance and a focus of derision.

[Joey Maloney]

Jemand von Niemand, you misspelled "fetid".

[Jemand von Niemand]

Heh. Indeedy.

[zhak]

I know this is sort-of OT, but I found myself wondering why Tom Brokaw didn't just read verbatim from the troopergate report when he was interviewing McCain for a whole HOUR.

Bah.

[Batocchio]

The Corner is a porn site for the resentfully ill-educated.

That should be their site banner.