The reaction to the Larry Craig story provides one of the most vivid illustrations yet of how the right-wing movement works. Last October, just weeks before the midterm election, gay activist Mike Rogers reported that the married, GOP “family values” Senator repeatedly had sex with anonymous men in public bathrooms. His report was based on “extensive research,” including interviews with several men whom Craig solicited for bathroom sex.
[...]
A virtually unanimous chorus on the Right furiously insisted that nothing could be more irrelevant than whether the married family values Senator had sex with men in bathrooms (acts that are simultaneously criminal and adulterous). The same political movement that impeached Bill Clinton and which has made a living exploiting issues of private morality for political gain insisted that Rogers had reached a new and despicable low in politics even by reporting this.

Whoops! My bad — they were shocked about the Craig story last year. And their surprise stemmed from the fact that there was a story about Craig, not that he may have acted inappropriately. Glenn Greenwald (as usual) has the whole sordid affair: the Republican slur machine mobilizing in Craig’s defense and lashing out at Rogers, only to pull a complete 180 when news of Craig’s arrest came to light. Greenwald observes:

But now, with the election safely over, a fundamentally different view — one might say the exact opposite view — has arisen among this same political faction (and, in some cases, though not all, even among the same individuals) over the Craig bathroom sex story, one which confirmed the truth of Rogers’ October report. Michelle Malkin yesterday called Craig a “weasel,” accused him of not caring about the “dignity of his office,” and demanded that he resign. Various other right-wing blogs — noting that a GOP governor will appoint his replacement — also are calling for Craig to resign.

Shocking indeed!

That’s the problem, as always – the peasants are revolting. Now that blogs have given them a publishing voice, why the national discourse is destroyed. When Judith Miller corrupted the New York Times in order to print lies about WMD’s and lead us into war, there was nothing to get upset about there, because she didn’t say fuck. Everyone’s aflutter at the swear words and some clumsy jokes in two relatively unknown women’s websites — they’re being called “mentally ill” by the right wing bloggers — while Dick Cheney subverts the Constitution, billions of dollars go missing in Iraq, habeus corpus is gutted, illegal wiretaps slide into place — oh, yes, you can disagree with thse things, but don’t dare raise your voice. Why, it brings on the vapors.

There are “reasons” to be upset, and then there are reasons to be upset. Kung Fu Monkey has it right:

If we’re uncivil, it’s because we’re angry. Because being polite, and reasonable, and taking it in the fucking neck for the last six years got us nowhere. People swear, my MOM swears, this is how real people talk — it ain’t quite as pretty as how the professionally trained pundits and journalists and politicians speak, but I’m still not quite sure how my saying “fuckwit” is worse than outing a CIA agent or cutting VA funds during a war or stop-lossing National Guardsmen.

That two women bloggers used obscenities and challenged the political message voiced by a religious hierarchy pales in comparison to the myriad abuses perpetrated on the American people during the past six years. Forgive us if we’re not happy about the situation.

Amanda is a friend, so, perhaps I have a vested interest in the situation. Either way, I’m happy to see a major political candidate reaching out to the bloggers who, day-by-day, carry the torch for progress. To argue that the Netroots, as they’re called, did not have an impact on the 2006 election is ludicrous, and the 2008 election will drive home that fact. It’s time to ante up candidates. Don’t back down because people who won’t vote for you anyway think your staffers have offended other people who won’t vote for you anyway.

So, good for you Edwards: you made the right choice.

It is only those who are losing a debate who have a desire to suppress it. And it is only those who are acting illegally who are desperate to avoid judicial scrutiny of their behavior. In 2002, attempts to equate scrutiny and criticism of the Bush movement with pro-Terrorism and anti-Americanism was a potent and effective tool of intimidation. But now, it just seems desperate, the last gasps of a political movement which is dying and which knows it is, and whose only hope is to forcibly coerce acceptance of their views — and foreclose examination of them — by insisting that open debates are themselves improper and therefore must cease at once.
(emphasis mine)

Part of a discussion on whether debate in Congress emboldens our enemies and/or hurts the morale of our troops.

Did you hear that O’Reilly invented the slur “San Francisco values”? Yeah, he also thinks he invented sliced bread and fire.

But let’s talk about “San Francisco values”, you know — tolerance, entrepreneurship, and creativity.

Since O’Reilly boycotts everything he hates, I look forward to his boycott of all Bay Area-origin products. Same with every conservative who bashes San Francisco and the Bay Area. So no iPods or anything Apple. No HP computers. No Google. No Yahoo. No eBay. Those conservative bloggers using Blogspot, MovableType, or TypePad? Sorry. Those products are Bay Area-based.

Also no Adobe or Macromedia products. No computers, either, since most run on AMD or Intel. No tax preparation using Intuit products. Cancel your Netflix subscription. Cancel your TiVo subscription. Remove your Network Associates or Symantec virus protection software from your computer. Unplug your Netgear wifi router.

Don’t wear Levis (or any kind of jeans), Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, or buy your kids Gymboree. Avoid LeapFrog learning toys. Boycott Pixar movies. Boycott any movie using George Lucas’ ILM special effects shop. Stay away from Treos and other Palm devices. Don’t let Charles Schwab manage your portfolio. Don’t bank at Wells Fargo.

Yeah, those “San Francisco values” sure are dragging the region down. Making it weak as it falls behind the rest of the country — the parts that don’t share “San Francisco values” — economically and socially.

Or, maybe — just maybe — it’s made the region a magnet for the world’s smartest, most innovative, most entrepreneurial individuals and an incubator of the world’s most dramatic technological advances.

For example, Richard Clarke, a former counterterrorism official for both Bushes and President Bill Clinton, has issued a statement indicating a key scene in the movie was pulled from thin air. The action is set in the Clinton years, but Clarke sets the record straight (via Think Progress):

1. Contrary to the movie, no US military or CIA personnel were on the ground in Afghanistan and saw bin Laden.
2. Contrary to the movie, the head of the Northern Alliance, Masood, was no where near the alleged bin Laden camp and did not see UBL.
3. Contrary to the movie, the CIA Director actually said that he could not recommend a strike on the camp because the information was single sourced and we would have no way to know if bin Laden was in the target area by the time a cruise missile hit it.

And while the “docudrama” lays the blame for 9/11 at the door of Clinton, ABC is refusing to provide an advanced copy of film to Clinton’s office or former officials from his time in office, like Sec. of State Madeleine Albright and National Security Adviser Samuel Berger.

Think Progress and has a useful tool for contacting ABC – let the network know how you feel about this “docudrama.” And check this page for all the latest on the film.

“The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack.

Donald S. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.

Mr. Rumsfeld’s remarkable comments to the Veterans of Foreign Wars yesterday demand the deep analysis – and the sober contemplation – of every
American.

For they do not merely serve to impugn the morality or
intelligence – indeed, the loyalty — of the majority of Americans who
oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land;

Worse, still, they credit those same transient occupants – our
employees — with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither
common sense, nor this administration’s track record at home or abroad,
suggests they deserve.

Dissent and disagreement with government is the life’s blood of
human freedom; And not merely because it is the first roadblock against the
kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as “his” troops still
fight, this very evening, in Iraq.

It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile… it
is right — and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.

In 1919, the U.S. Bureau of Education commissioned a Spanish translation of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which the evil liberal assimilationists at the Library of Congress have the temerity to display — in its entirety — on the Library of Congress web site. Where is the outrage over that? Worse, we have The National Anthem Project, chaired by none other than Laura Bush, which offers a mariachi arrangement of the anthem. Dio mio, shouldn’t they be calling for Laura’s head on a stick for this?

UPDATE: Condi joins the assimilationist conspiracy! A Spanish version of the national anthem is also posted on the State Department’s site. Does George know?

Of course, the post was ripe with sarcasm on this issue, because, as usual, the right wing of the Republican Party is taking a stand on shaky ground:

Deep murmurs of approval arose from the crowd yesterday when Bush weighed in on the matter:

I think the National Anthem ought to be sung in English. And I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English, and they ought to learn to sing the National Anthem in English.

The profound irony of this nonsense is that, according to a recent Harris Poll, two-thirds of the clamoring crowd don’t even know the English words to the first verse of “The Star-Spangled Banner” (much less the other verses) and thus have been shouting huzzahs to Bush for suggesting that perhaps they shouldn’t even be citizens. Or maybe this rule about learning to sing the anthem in English doesn’t apply to, you know, white people.

The hypocrisy is beyond funny in the immigration debate. I’ve heard several people recently reduce the debate to the word “illegal,” while the Wednesday Morning Quarterback made a similar case yesterday:

OK, Jerry…so if you are one of those people in this country who supports actually securing the nation’s border as well as requiring all people in this country to FOLLOW THE LAW whether you are Nordic, Asian, or Hispanic, than according to you, those people are “AGAINST the more than 11 million illegal immigrants in the United states”.

The WMQB, like millions of Americans, believe that laws are laws…we either follow them and enforce them or we are nothing.

But to reduce the discussion over the legality and the enforcement of our current laws to defining people LIKE US as being “AGAINST” 11 million people is absolutely shameful…

Meanwhile, we can reduce the discussion about immigration in this country to their “illegal” status? What of the discussion regarding the employers who hire illegal immigrants? Don’t we enforce laws about the hiring of illegal immigrants? What happens to the agriculture industry, not to mention construction and hospitality, when all those illegal immigrants go home or are incarcerated? The WMQB is right: this is not a simple discussion. It should not be treated that way.

The bill also puts a bunch of obstacles in between women and getting to actually see an ob-gyn at all. It’s also got language to make coverage of cervical cancer testing optional, probably in no small part because we all know that cervical cancer is one of those god-given punishments for being a whore. I suppose that even if they catch the cervical cancer early, it’s still likely that the patient will lose her ability to have kids so really, there’s no reason to keep the shell alive if the womby goodness in the middle doesn’t work anymore.

I usually default to Amanda on all discussions “woman,” because I can never match her wit or eloquence in describing the issues her gender faces today. The complete assault being conducted on women by social conservatives is astounding, and I could never keep up with it the way she (and other women bloggers) do.

The best I can do is hope to send a few of you over their way for some sage words. So, what are you waiting for? Click the links!

He’s won several Koufax awards for blogging (if you don’t know, the Koufax awards are given to the best of lefty bloggers) for his series “The Rise of Pseudo-Fascism” and “Rush, Newspeak and Fascism.” He’s also published several books — his latest, “Strawberry Days” concerns the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. He mentioned that internment in a recent post, highlighting the way FDR failed to live up to his own words:

Yet Roosevelt himself, as we’ve seen, was prone to believing many of the same fear-driven stereotypes of Japanese immigrants promulgated by the haters. That bigotry translated, during a time of great national trauma — when fear of the Japanese was being whipped into outright hysteria — into his own failure to distinguish between Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans in signing Executive Order 9066, which in the end became a great blot on his record as president.

It was also a clear failure on FDR’s part to live up to his own admonishment. Obviously, refusing to succumb to “fear itself” is easier said than done.

Yet I have often thought that, in today’s post-9/11 environment, progressives would do well to arm themselves with FDR’s old slogan. What better rebuke to the Bush administration — and the conservative movement that, as Tom Tomorrow’s cartoon beautifully illustrates, is nowadays positively driven by fearmongering?

After a steady diet of:

“9/11!” “9/11!” “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” “Bin Laden! Bin Laden!” “Boogadah boogadah!”

I can think of no better reply than this:

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

David is an incredible writer, and offers the best coverage of right-wing shenanigans (the evil kind) that I have ever seen. So, definitely read his blog, and give him some money as well.