If they chase their tails any harder, they’ll disappear up their own arseholes
Over the past few days, professional rabid wingnut blabbermouth Dana “Drop Trou” Loesch has been working herself into even more of a frenzy than usual. This time, it’s over allegations that somebody at the DOJ referred an enquiry from credibility-starved hack-hive startup The Washington Beacon to a “site accused of antisemitism.”
The Beacon‘s edited by Bill Kristol’s underemployed son-in-law Matthew Continetti, the alleged “journalist” whose back copy includes The Persecution of Sarah Palin: How the Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star. It’s quite possible that the DOJ has better things to do than help feed the Beacon‘s hysteria mill by responding to its request for a comment about a book with the transparently impartial title Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover Up, but Loesch needs the page hits and something to do with her days now the boss is six feet under and evidently staying there. Her subliterate headline reads:
SOURCE: DOJ REFERS REPORTER TO SITE ACCUSED OF ANTISEMITISM OVER FAST AND FURIOUS
The site in question? Why, Media Matters, of course, which carried a detailed debunking of the book.
Loesch and her crew have been trying desperately to link the words “antisemitism”—a favorite of the Breitbartlets, an antidote to “raaaaacism,” if you will—and “Media Matters” in the same way that Jim Hoft loves to pair “thugs” with “union” or “OWS.”
Loesch has mustered her cavalry, including arch-racebaiter Ben “You burn down one mosque and they call you an Islamophobe” Shapiro, to the attack:
Subsequently, Loesch enlists the help of “P.J. Salvatore,” the inhouse sockpuppet charged with defending her honor when she hasn’t got the guts or hutzpah to put her own name to her whining:
The “misrepresentation”—and yet again hilarious accusations of “selective editing”—in this case concerned Loesch’s remarks that Martin Bashir, being a furriner and all, should go back to jolly old England and keep his nose out of American politics. Loesch doesn’t seem to feel this advice should apply to her colleague, South African-born Joel Pollak, but then you may be gaining the impression that consistency isn’t really part of her makeup.
And now, dick-obsessed Lee Stranahan steps into the breach:
VAST LEFT WING CONSPIRACY: DOJ REFERS REPORTER TO MEDIA MATTERS, SOURCE CLAIMS
They’re going to wear out those pearls and that fainting couch.
The “charges” referred to in these articles, when they’re explained at all, are usually self-referential links to the customary “fair and balanced” coverage emanating from Breitbart.com itself, but boil down to allegations involving Media Matters’ staff’s opposition to the overweening influence of AIPAC etc. on American politics, and the predictable reactions thereto from some quarters.
Of course, you point these failings out at your peril. As Charles Johnson has discovered, Loesch’s ace-in-the-hole argumentative tactic when she’s got nothing else (which is pretty much all the time) is to come out with casual allegations of pedophilia, as blogger MSWallack witnessed:
Following Johnson’s post about Loesch’s comments, she expressed her anger toward Johnson on Twitter and called him a pervert. One of her far-right colleagues took up the call and tossed off a somewhat offensive tweet about Johnson. Loesch then followed with this:
I wouldn’t be shocked if he has to live so many miles from schools as per the law.
In other words, Loesch was suggesting that Johnson was a sex offender and thus had to live away from schools. Her colleague then wrote:
I hear sirens going off if he so much as rides his bicycle 2 close. Did U know it has a cool horn. Beep Beep - Uncle Charlie’s hre!
To which Loesch responded:
‘Step inside my van for some candy!’
Funnily enough, this issue wasn’t something Loesch chose to discuss when she interviewed self-confessed pedophile Ted Nugent from his new gig under Mitt’s bus the other day. Neither is it something that’s prevented Sarah Palin—herself pretty damn quick to throw around the “pedo” charge when it’s suited her purposes—from palling around with Nugent in the company of at least one of her children at various functions in the past few years.
Ironically, Nugent can now add another proud feather to his hat, having just been convicted of illegally shooting a mama grizzly in Alaska. Maybe Snooki should be more concerned about keeping an eye on her pals than worrying about being scoped by a Bush I-appointed member of her security detail way back when she was considered important enough to warrant one.
Sheesh. It’s only April and I could just keep adding the crazy instances of dual standards and hypocrisy and ginned-up outrages from various winger outlets to this post till it filled the page. These people are going to work themselves into early graves if they’re not careful.
If I feel the need to apologize to y’all for not blogging more frequently at the moment, it’s because so much of what I’m reading around the blogosphere, and not a few MSM outlets, is on a par with this nonsense—I’ve focused on the Breitbartlets because they’re such a fine exemplar of the genre—currently interspersed with pooch jokes, it’s hard to type with your eyes rolled hard to the back of your head, and quite often I just click out and go do something a bit more useful with my time rather than offer you folks a presumptious view from afar on events much closer to your homes.
I’d be concerned that these nutters’ sheer doggedness might yield meaningful results in terms of the election, but anyone who staggers into these articles will be faced with some truly terrible writing and some of the vilest comment threads around (if by some freak chance the commenting system’s working), so they’re mainly preaching to a dwindling choir. And besides—I’m hiding this after the fold so that the likes of Loesch don’t get to see it—I’m persuaded by Jonathan Bernstein at The Plum Line that these news cycle one-hit wonders and whipped-up furors matter less in the grand scheme of things than people might imagine:
Political scientists have had a long argument about whether anything in campaigns matters to general election results. That argument has mostly been won by those who have demonstrated that campaigns can have some effect in November. But still: Whole campaigns, including everything from door-to-door electioneering to millions of dollars of TV ads to all those rallies with the bunting and the speeches and the music — all of that probably moves the needle a few percentage points.
That’s very important, no doubt, in a close race! But it also places everything in context. If debates rarely affect the results at all; if vice-presidents rarely affect the results beyond perhaps a small boost in their home state; if perceptions of the candidates’ personality may not matter at all; then what are the chances that a silly flap about what some talking head said in April will have any effect whatsoever? The first rule: Basically ignore the back-and-forth.
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Here’s what’s important in determining who will win: Polling does become meaningful, but only later this summer. And here’s how campaign events can make a difference: Look more for broad themes than single-day flaps. We have pretty good evidence that perceptions of ideology can affect vote choice, so it’s worth paying attention to anything that might really move the way voters think about that.Most important of all: External events. It’s the events far from the campaign trail that will influence swing voters the most. Chief among them is economic news, but other major events, such as foreign policy crises and natural disasters, especially if they make a real difference in people’s lives, can change votes. These are the real things to watch.
As a furriner myself observing and marginally participating in your political process from a considerable distance, I’m reliant on you Rumproasters to let me know what’s going on on the ground where you are, how your media and social Gestalt stacks up, how it actually feels for you. Just so you know: when I call an open thread and ask what’s eating you folks, I mean it, and that’s why I ask.
Posted by YAFB on 04/22/12 at 08:40 AM • Permalink
Categories: Politics • Bedwetters • Election '12 • Nutters • Teabaggery • Our Stupid Media • Poliblogs • Skull Hampers •
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