But what I think you are certain to see from January 20 forward is a remarkable growth in the understanding Democrats and the media exhibit for how tough the war on terror is.
Andrew McCarthy, who spent the entire fall writing unhinged screeds about Ayers and Obama’s birth certificate, doing his best Col. Jessep imitation at the Corner. Should this guy be discussing the intelligence and understanding of anyone?
Is today a banner day for wingnuttiness, or was I just lulled into a false sense of serenity over the holidays, and now the stupid is churning around at full speed once again?
bago
Hangovers are a bitch.
The Moar You Know
I think we’re about to see an explosion of wingnuttiness like we have never seen before; the GOP has had its ass handed to it in a way we’ve never seen in our lifetimes. They are out for blood, anybody’s blood (witness Operation Leper) and, of course, the crowning, unacceptable insult is that they lost to a black man. Who will be sworn in within the next two and a half weeks.
At this point, the best I can hope for is no violence.
Karen
I think they’re out in full force & you’ve not seen them in awhile, so it’s hitting hard. Have some tea.
The Grand Panjandrum
You’re in remarkably good spirits for someone who didn’t even make the Top 20 Most Annoying Liberals. Like Cernig you should make this a New Year resolution to do better and get on the 09 list. Makes us proud Johnny! Make us proud! (OK I know you’re not a liberal but dammit you are a Democrat and to those folks the two are synonymous.)
And as far as wingnuttiness goes we couldn’t probably derive some mathematical equation in which the closer we get to the swearing in of Barack HUSSEIN Obama the wingnut factor increases.
Let Y equal total wingnuttiness and t equal the time remaining until Obama’s sworn in and we now have
Y = 1/t,
Obviously as we approach the moment of swearing and t becomes infinitely small and Y zooms off to infinity McCarthy’s head should explode, no?
demkat620
And the Villagers are none too happy with the idea of Panetta at the CIA. Fuck ’em all.
Bring it on. I am sick of Dems on the Hill with no balls and the GOP who just wants to watch it all burn.
Fuck ’em all sideways with a chainsaw.
cleek
they’re all back from two weeks of sitting in their own little echo chambers and now all the white-hot outrage is gushing out.
when an optical amplifier is placed inside a resonant optical cavity, one obtains a laser.
when a wingnut is placed inside a resonant reactionary cavity, one obtains emission of amplified polarized wingnut radiation.
it’s a laser beam of idiocy.
MattF
I think the more rational conservatives have taken note of Obama’s popularity and political skills and are laying low for at least the time being. The, uh, not-so-rational… are undeterred, as they ever were…
Xecky Gilchrist
@The Moar You Know: At this point, the best I can hope for is no violence.
Yup. There will be a rapid buildup of wingnut ranting culminating on inauguration day, when they’ll probably be completely incoherent.
Not Peak Wingnut, but certainly a local maximum.
woody
I think, depending on what you think he might be saying here, he might be right. I DO expect to begin hearing almost immediately how difficult the war on terror really is, accompanied by temporizing on the subject of withdrawal from Iraq, and the vicissitudes of combatting Osama in Afghanistan, and shortly the deployment of more troops and equipment.
Who does not?
Xecky Gilchrist
@woody: But what I think you are certain to see from January 20 forward is a remarkable growth in the understanding Democrats and the media exhibit for how tough the war on terror is.
Maybe – although I don’t think anyone has actually said it’s easy, just that it’s unnecessary / illegal / whatever. Oh, and the media – I can’t figure out what they’re saying about it, because little they say makes any sense. It’s like trying to get information out of a mosquito’s buzz.
cleek
woody’s right.
but McCarthy, because of his past record, can only assumed to be correct by accident
freelancer
Shorter Andy:
lovethebomb
I am trying to think of the brain physics involved in turning so violently 180 degrees against every rhetorical and lingustic argument for unfettered exectuive authority and how "deficits don’t matter," into a fiscal purism and belief in congressional checks and balance. I do think the grey matter must undergo some kind of sub atomic quark re-allignment. This perhaps might account for the current foment of madness. Hard to say if homeostasis will ever be achieved. When the truth is found to be lies and the red queen is talking backward and logic falls sloppy dead; remember : feed your head.
Joshua Norton
Hang around lawyers for a while. It will all become crystal clear.
Tsulagi
It’s hard out there now for a wingnut so they’re going with their strength. Bringing the stupid.
Speaking of which, Coleman should get serious and pull the trigger on calling the RedState Strike Force to save his Senate seat. The feared RSSF, the new wingnut nuclear option.
These guys crack me up.
blogenfreude
JC – does this "banner day" change your Peak Wingnut theory?
Laura W
@Karen:
Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer.
It’s the new Ketel One Citroen.
chris mohr
They’re dreaming that 2008 is 1992 deja vu all over again, and lying in wait to try to completely frustrate any attempts by the democrats-in-power to accomplish anything consructtive, and them positiion themselves to begin a roaring comeback in 2010 on the backs of an American electorate fed up at the feckless incompetence and inability of the democrats to get anything done.
Hopefully, under the current crisis conditions, the GOP won’t get away with this game at all, especially for as long as they’ll need to in order to have a chance of making this tactic work, MOST ESPECIALLY since a watershed difference from 1992 is that the American electorate just specifically finally caught onto the stupendous incompetence and damage done by the GOP and threw the bums out.
HOWEVER, I can’t shake being a bit worried by something PT Barnum once said: "no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."
jake 4 that 1
You think this is bad, wait until January 20th. The fReichtards are still hoping for a last minute reprieve from someone, anyone.
R. Porrofatto
For wingnuts, the stupid occasionally recedes into dormant stupid spores in response to adverse conditions. After a brief period of time, these stupid spores grow into a still more virulent organism of stupid, and thereby infect the discourse.
Litlebritdifrnt
I am pretty much alot like John, was a republicrat for a while, I even thought "if you are not doing anything wrong what have you got to worry about" for a while. Working for a lawyer who would absolutely live and die by the constitution tends to have an affect on your thinking however. The endless hours sitting in the car listening to him tell me how "those bastards" are shredding the constitution and it tends to rub off. We have been involved in several constitutional law cases (our most notable is here
http://www.newsobserver.com/662/story/462833.html – we represented the ACLU) It is not bad going for a small country lawyer and his paralegal. However, I think we have not yet reached wingnut peak, simply because if you read blogs like YTD (Patrick is doing an absolutely excellent job of documenting the ever increasing madness that is the Cult of the COLB) these people are simply heading off the cliff of madness, for example, a new lawsuit has just been filed. This is just a snippet:
"1. The main reason that Plaintiffs are filing this lawsuit is simply that it goes against Plaintiffs religious beliefs to allow any non-white, especially a nigger, to be in any position of authority over any White man, no matter how degraded. Exodus 18:21-26, Deuteronomy 1:13, Leviticus 25:42-48 say that any rulers over Israel were to be of Israel and not of racial aliens or even outsiders. Since Dual-Seedline Christian Identity dogma, the ruling doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ Christian/Aryan Nations of Missouri (Missouri Secretary of State Corporation # N00773365) holds that non-whites are the sixth-day beasts of the field, without souls, and are not even to be allowed to live among White Christian Israelites of the Servant Nation of YHWH, much less rule over them, then this lawsuit against lead Defendant Barack Hussein Obama is a religious duty that we dare not shirk.
We could, like other White Nationalist organizations, simply hope and pray for an assassin and enjoy the inevitable race riots which we seek. And we simply as White Men will NEVER obey any nigger president, but rather use this as an excuse for revolt. Unlike the Republican eunuchoid whiggers overheard whining about how "Obama is going to take away our guns," it is not as if we will ever let such a thing come to pass. Plaintiffs as National Socialists have no problem with socialism for the benefit of White people only. We don’t think that taking from rich whigger and jew regime criminals running ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government)/Babylon to give to White People is anything but a good idea. However, We do not agree that White People are to provide in any way for non-whites or thieving whigger (‘white’ nigger) regime criminals and certainly not jews, the literal spawn of Satan whom We are commanded in Genesis 3:15 to hate. Rather such non-whites are to be expelled with extreme prejudice from Israel. "
I think that wingnuttia will decend into the abyss come January 20, 2009 and nothing short of the secret service rounding them all up and placing them somewhere for their own safety will help. (with complete right to counsel, defense, and of course a full hearing of the facts I have learned that from my boss at least). The person who filed the above lawsuit has just been RELEASED from a mental hospital. Be afraid, be very afraid, the wingnut logic has not yet reached its peak and I think we will all be surprised at the lengths at which they are willing to go. Sad but true.
SGEW
Um. Can I call Godwin on actual Nazi propaganda?
Or is "Godwin" going the route of "Irony"?
Dan
Mr. Cole, welcome to your new side. The wingnuts, as wingnutty as they may have seemed for the last eight years, were even wingnuttier in the eight years before that, and I expect them to be even more wingnuttier, possibly even to define what it means to be wingnuttiest, in the next four/eight years.
Mojotron
you’ll soon see how hard it is to hold people imprisoned on shaky legal grounds without producing evidence!
Steve V
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Great result in that lawsuit. It boggles my mind that such laws are still on the books, and of course that there are people out there willing to try to enforce and/or defend such a law.
Joshua Norton
No. Amongst other reasons that Godwin doesn’t apply to actual conversations about Nazis, "calling" Godwin invalidates Godwin. See Quirk’s Exception:Intentional invocation of this so-called "Nazi Clause" is ineffectual.
Besides, Godwin’s Law has jumped the shark. However, "jumped the shark" is the new Godwin’s Law.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Steve V:
We felt good about it:) You have to live in a state that still has laws on the books that outlaws that kind of stuff to realise that you know, there is something wrong, and you need to do something about it.
futzinfarb
I’m surprised that no-one has yet answered Monsieur Cole’s final question. Well here it is: "You can’t handle the truth!"
4jkb4ia
Pitt #1 in both AP and ESPN/USA Today!
4jkb4ia
I don’t want to hear that the conference season has barely even started yet.
4jkb4ia
I would assume that Andrew McCarthy is willing to be co-opted more than that this is really peak wingnut. Peak wingnut would take months and months of embracing wingnut marginalization by the Obama admin.
joe from Lowell
I think we should take our cues on intel and defense policy from people who fell hook, line, and sinker for the WMD scam.
Johnny Pez
@lovethebomb:
It’s very simple. They’re full of shit, and always have been.
Johnny Pez
@SGEW:
I believe Mr. Pantload repealed Godwin’s Law when he published Liberal Fascism.
Xecky Gilchrist
@chris mohr: I can’t shake being a bit worried by something PT Barnum once said: "no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."
I think it was actually H.L. Mencken that said that, but Barnum certainly lived by it.
I consider Barnum and Machiavelli to be the strongest influences on modern rightard politics, apart from Conan the Barbarian.