Romney's Positive Message that Obama is Evil

The Republicans accusing the Dems of "negativity" is hypocritical. Jimmy Kimmel is spot-on in this skit:

Romney And Obama Camps Trade Barbs

Ouch! Thanks to a speech in Chillicothe, Ohio, yesterday and a statement from the Obama camp, Mitt Romney has a new hashtag on Twitter: #unhinged.

But that's okay, because Romney came roaring back at Obama today on CBS This Morning.


(Obama's) campaign and his surrogates have made wild and reckless accusations that disgrace the office of the Presidency. Another outrageous charge came a few hours ago in Virginia. And the White House sinks a little bit lower.
This is what an angry and desperate Presidency looks like.
President Obama knows better, promised better and America deserves better.
. . . So, Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago and let us get about rebuilding and reuniting America. …
~ Mitt Romney in Chillicothe Ohio yesterday, via Business Insider




Governor Romney's comments tonight seemed unhinged, and particularly strange coming at a time when he's pouring tens of millions of dollars into negative ads that are demonstrably false.
~ Obama Campaign Retort from Ben LaBolt

Romney on CBS This Morning:



Mitt Romney: CBS This Morning Interview 8-15-12

The President's campaign is all about division, attack, and hatred. My campaign is about getting America back to work and creating greater unity in this country, which of course has always been the source of America's vitality and strength.
...I think "unhinged" would be what we have seen from the President's campaign.
... I think if you look at the ads that have been described and the divisiveness based upon income, age, ethnicity and so forth, it's designed to bring a sense of enmity, and jealousy, and anger. And this in my view is not what the American people want to see.
...The President seems to be running just to hang on to power. I think he'll do anything in his power to try and get reelected. I want to get this country going again. That’s what brought me to the race and hopefully we can have a debate about issues and our differences on issues and contrast in that area. But these personal attacks, I think, are demeaning to the office of the White House and the comments yesterday by the Vice President, I think, just diminish the White House that much more…. I think the comments of this nature sink the White House just a little lower. The American people expect something better from the President than these kind of divisive comments.

Limbaugh vs. Fluke ~ Guess Who is Winning?

Rush the big, fat pimp-brained wonder sounds jealous these days that Ms. Fluke is touring with a popular president, while he and his wayward followers are pushed to the side of the lunatic fringe.

That's the power of women, my friend. And Democrats.

How's that advertising thing going, Rush? Lost any radio stations lately? Yep:
Limbaugh Loses AM Station in Philadelphia

Limbaugh also wants to take credit for bringing "attention" to Fluke - yeah, right. Although it's a testament that she keeps her cool and keeps moving "forward" in spite of the bullying. When I listen to her, I think that Sandra Fluke might actually be President herself someday, while all Rush will be is a dusty footnote, an ugly big-headed statue pushed into the basement of the Missouri statehouse, and a symbol of hatred who drove the Republican Party straight into the ground.

Who wins? Ms. Fluke, of course.

Obama's out there today, he's at a fundraiser, and guess who is introducing him? Well-known contraception expert Sandra Fluke.
. . . When I say the name Sandra Fluke, what's the first thing that pops into your mind? The first thing that comes up is my name! ... I should be getting a finder's fee.
Rush Limbaugh 8-8-2012

I really think it's an interesting request to take credit for the voice of a woman you tried to silence. I don't think that's going to work out well.
. . . The women of America are speaking out about these policies not because of anything that Mr. Limbaugh has done but because they really care about access to the health care that they need, and they care about all of us having that health care.
~ Sandra Fluke on MSNBC's The Ed Show

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Yoohoo, Sununu ~ Shut Up!

I honestly don't know where ex-Governor of New Hampshire John Sununu has been all these years, but I wish he would go back there and stay off the television talk shows.

The Romney campaign dragged him out of a vault and labeled him a "surrogate." What could go wrong, right? LOL ~ Well, he seems to have caught the same strain of infectious stupidity that the rest of the surrogates are carrying.

"I wish this President would learn how to be an American."

(That's rich - Sununu's father was Palestinian, and his mother was from El Salvador. John was born in Cuba, while Obama was born in Hawaii. Who probably knows more about being an American than someone who is . . . American? Mitt Romney was born in Mexico - your point?)

"This guy (President Obama) doesn't understand how to create jobs. So it's no surprise on why he failed so miserably the past four years in terms of job creation. He has no idea how the American system functions. And we shouldn't be surprised about that, because he spent his early years in Hawaii smoking something, spent the next set of years in Indonesia, and frankly when he came to the U.S. he worked as a community organizer which is a socialized structure and then got into politics in Chicago. There has been no experience in his life in which he's earned a private sector paycheck that meant anything."

Ah, then came the non-apology apology to Wolf Blitzer on CNN:

SUNUNU: Well, I said the - first of all, I was responding to the president's really terrible remarks in Virginia over the weekend, where he told the businesspeople of America they shouldn't take credit for building their businesses. That clearly is insulting to them and - and, in my opinion, expresses a lack of understanding of how jobs are created.

I was making the point that in America, entrepreneurs deserve credit and there is an American formula for creating jobs. And I used that phrase three or four times in that call.

And - and I wanted to come back to that same theme in that riff that you just played there. And instead of saying that he's got to learn the American formula for creating jobs, I - I did say those words that are there. And, frankly, I made a mistake. I shouldn't have used those words. And I apologize for using those words.

But I don't apologize for the idea that this president has demonstrated that he does not understand how jobs are created in America. He thinks that jobs are created by giving grants to your cronies, to your bundlers and your contributors, like he did with Solyndra. Like he did with Vista (ph), like he did with the wind projects that took jobs out of this country. The common denominator is that they all had owners and investors that were bundlers and contributors to his campaign.

That's what he means, perhaps, when he says government creates jobs, American taxpayer dollars going to cronies.

BLITZER: So when you - . . . are you apologizing directly to the president?

SUNUNU: Yes, I'm apologizing for using those words. I shouldn't have used them.

Joe Walsh Goes Too Far Again

As I wrote earlier, loud-mouth lout Joe Walsh of Illinois insulted his opponent, Tammy Duckworth, a paraplegic veteran, by saying she was "not a hero."

And he still thinks he can deflect this back on her by being defensive and rude on TV, as he was with Ashleigh Banfield in the video below. I really, really hope this guy loses big. Please, Illinois voters - vote the bum out!

Chief Justice John Roberts Took a Brave Stand Knowing Conservatives Would Vilify Him

Whatever the political leanings of Chief Justice John Roberts, his choice to vote with the Liberal side of the Supreme Court in the ACA ruling was an honorable and brave thing to do. He rose above the fray and followed the rule of law, not the ramblings of some right-wing talking points. I don't agree with all his decisions - Citizens United is an abomination - but in this particular case, he did the right thing.

The fact is, John Roberts has a whole host of new fans and admirers because he helped save Obama's Health Care plan for America. And we won't forget.

My favorite tweet from yesterday, and possibly from all time, was this:

John Roberts is the Severus Snape of SCOTUS.

— Michael Foss (@Fossphate) June 28, 2012

I have no idea if the person who tweeted that was a liberal or a conservative, or whether he agreed with the verdict rendered. They might love Justice Roberts or hate his guts. In a literary sense it works either way because Professor Severus Snape was an ambiguous character up until the end of the Harry Potter series when we saw his true nature. Both sides saw Snape as a traitor, yet he was actually just walking a dangerous line and trying to do the morally right thing under tough circumstances. And at the end of the story, he was the "bravest man" Harry Potter ever knew.

Sometimes that happens in real life. For me, after this ruling, Chief Justice Roberts is a hero like that.
Am I being corny? Perhaps, but listen to Chris Matthews waxing poetic about Roberts yesterday:

Roberts Rules! Let's Play Hardball.
. . . Let me start with one of the great days in this country's history. Today the Supreme Court led by the Chief Justice himself decided that Barack Obama's Health Care Act squares with the American Constitution. All the drum-beating, all the horrors floated up by the right-wing fever swamps are, after today, simply the hate-vapors of the perennial rejectionists to progress, the "rear guard" funded by the Koch Brothers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Today's Hero ~ Chief Justice John Roberts, who walked to the forefront of history and said yes to progress and and no to the role prescribed for him by the Right. He would not be that man, he would not let the court named for him carry historic blame for denying health care to tens of millions of Americans. He would not be the ramrod for yet another right-leaning partison-appearing Supreme Court ruling that would have been the third strike over the plate following Bush v. Gore and Citizens United. So let's start tonight by looking at this bold, defiant, grand decision by Chief Justice Roberts . . .

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Earlier this week we read Justice Scalia's bizarre dissent on the Arizona Immigration case, in which he went into absolutely Pureblood Death Eater mode while comparing illegal Hispanics in Arizona to freed slaves before the Civil War and those with "contagious diseases." It's easy to see Roberts as the reverse - someone who decided to put the Law ahead of prejudices or his own personal opinions. And indeed, he ruled the opposite of Scalia in that case, as well as the ACA case.

Supreme Court expert and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Linda Greenhouse, wrote about Roberts role in the Immigration decision for the New York Times:, implying that Roberts willingness to go along with the majority might have driven Scalia nuts, LOL:

The first thing that jumped out at me was the name of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Justice Kennedy’s opinion, along with the expected names of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor. The chief justice was, apparently, in complete agreement with the majority as evidenced by his silence – the dog that didn’t bark, you might say. He felt no need to write separately to express even a shade of difference from the majority or a hint of sympathy with the dissenting views of his usual allies. Beyond Justice Scalia’s transparent dislike for the president, perhaps it was the chief justice’s apostasy that drove him around the bend.

Yes, horrors that the Chief Justice wouldn't succumb to all the dog whistles in Justice Scalia's dissent. Maybe Roberts just isn't a racist?

About the Health Care Ruling, Greenhouse analyzed Roberts' role which is officially "Chief Justice of the United States."

. . . the title that he actually goes by, chief justice of the United States, seemed a good fit. He spoke for the country.
His decision to call the mandate a tax and to provide a clearly reluctant fifth vote for upholding it as within the Congressional taxing power was a deeply pragmatic call that saved the Affordable Care Act. Certainly by no coincidence, it also saved the Supreme Court from the stench of extreme partisanship that has hung over the health care litigation from the moment more than two years ago that Republican state officials raced one another to the federal courts to try to erase what they had been unable to block.
. . . But it is Chief Justice Roberts’s extraordinary role that is most intriguing. He has just completed his seventh term as chief justice, and at 57 could well serve another quarter-century or longer. Clearly he is playing a long game.
. . . John Roberts doesn’t like the Affordable Care Act. He went to great lengths in his opinion to show his total agreement with the plaintiffs’ core argument: that the requirement to buy health insurance was an unprecedented effort by Congress to force people into a market they had chosen not to enter, to create commerce where none existed. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissenting opinion pierced gaping holes in the chief justice’s analysis. But he stuck to his position, coming within an inch of invoking what Justice Ginsburg ironically labeled “the broccoli horrible” and warning that “under the government’s theory, Congress could address the diet problem by ordering everyone to buy vegetables.”
Since there were four justices who also saw the mandate that way, as Justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Anthony M. Kennedy explained in an unusually structured opinion that all four signed as co-authors, the mandate might have died right there. But then the chief justice abruptly pivoted and declared that because the penalty for not buying insurance functioned as a tax, it could be upheld as a tax and the mandate was therefore constitutional.

Roberts' law professor, Laurence Tribe, whom you may recall had predicted that ACA would be upheld, praised him on Thursday in the Boston Globe:

“I think this term was the turning point in the legacy of John Roberts,” Harvard law professor Laurence H. Tribe said in an ­e-mail to the Globe. “He now has a chance to be a truly great chief justice. Of course, he ­dissented in some of the liberal-leaning decisions of the current largely conservative court, but when push came to shove he was where he needed to be.”
Tribe, who taught Roberts and President Obama at ­Harvard Law School, said ­Roberts’s decision to become the swing vote in a 5-4 decision “saved the day — and perhaps the court.”

In the same article, Joel B. Grossman of Johns Hopkins University said:

“It’s kind of an act of leadership rather than an act of ideology . . . I can’t imagine his sympathies were with expanding congressional power, but I think he recognized that there might even be a crisis if he cut this law off at the knees.”
. . . “He is going to be chief for a long time and one thing you don’t want is to lose control of the court,” he said. “This fits the model of wanting to keep the court together and perhaps even to approve something he personally found distasteful.”

Roberts must have known that the conservatives would see him as a sell-out, shun him socially, and immediately launch ad hominem attacks as bad or worse as those aimed at the President. And in fact, it started in less than 24 hours.

Ben Shapiro, Editor of Breitbart.com launched a series of damning tweets:

This is the greatest destruction of individual liberty since Dred Scott. This is the end of America as we know it. No exaggeration.

— benshapiro (@benshapiro) June 28, 2012

Chief Justice Roberts was the worst part of the Bush legacy.

— benshapiro (@benshapiro) June 28, 2012

It's not like I didn't call this back in 2005 re: Roberts. Flashback: President Bush's Roberts Pick Disappoints: breitbart.com/Big-Government…

— benshapiro (@benshapiro) June 28, 2012

I hate pansy Republicans who think that just because SCOTUS rules something, they're right. Try Roe v. Wade. Or Plessy. Or Dred Scott.

— benshapiro (@benshapiro) June 28, 2012

How dumb is the Roberts opinion? It actually quotes Franklin's "death and taxes" quip as evidence for a legal point.

— benshapiro (@benshapiro) June 28, 2012

For his next magic trick, John Roberts will turn Obamacare into a butterfly, so President Obama won't have to worry about tax questions.

— benshapiro (@benshapiro) June 28, 2012

Wow. Call a "wahhhhbulance" for him!

Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky took a different route, issuing a Press Release that dissed the entire decision as moot somehow, as if Justice Roberts had no authority to render a verdict. In fact, he carefully doesn't mention Roberts at all, which is telling, and refers to the majority opinion as "couple people" who "declare something." Yeah, the Supreme Court doesn't matter unless they rule your way.

Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be 'constitutional' does not make it so. The whole thing remains unconstitutional. While the court may have erroneously come to the conclusion that the law is allowable, it certainly does nothing to make this mandate or government takeover of our health care right.

Which caused the Village Voice to retort:

Actually, Rand, that's exactly what makes it so.
. . . Paul may want to review the 1803 case of Marbury V. Madison, which formed the basis for judicial review. In other words, it's what gave the Court its teeth -- it clearly defined the Court's role in the separation of powers in the federal government, making it the "supreme expositor of the Constitution."
This means that what the Court says goes -- regardless of whether a freshman Senator from Kentucky disagrees with it.

Rand Paul had so much criticism over his silly remark that he was still trying to explain in an interview the next day:
Interview From Marketplace Health Care:

Hobson: Well thanks for being here. I want to start by asking you about some comments that you made yesterday that have gotten a lot of attention. You said: "Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be constitutional, does not make it so. The whole thing remains unconstitutional." Do you stand by that statement?
Paul: You know, I still agree with Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy and Alito that the Constitution doesn't justify the law.
Hobson: You're agreeing with the dissenters -- but that was not the ruling that the Supreme Court came down with.
Paul: Right, but that's all I'm saying, if if you ask Justice Scalia if he thinks the law is Constitutional, he'll still tell you "no." So I'm entitled to have my opinion as to what is constitutional and what is not. No one's talking about whether the ruling has validity or not, I'm just saying that I agree with the dissenters that don't believe the law is constitutional

Okey dokey.

Next . . . the apoplectic and hyperbolic (and repetitive) Rush Limbaugh slamming Roberts as some kind of Evil Taxman out to destroy the world:

What we have been told by the Chief Justice of the Court and four liberals on the court - Obamacare's just a massive tax increase.
. . . the Chief Justice was just hell-bound, hell-bent to find a way to make this law applicable, so you know what? As a tax increase it works because there's no limit on the federal government's ability to tax....
. . . John Roberts said (mocking voice) "It's not our job to forbid this, it's not our job to protect people from outcomes, it's not our job to determine what is right or wrong or any of it. We can't forbid this if it's what the elected representatives and the people want." . . . But what if we were deceived?
. . . What happened today was that we were bludgeoned with a tax that requires us to do what the government mandates. We must do what they say. . . . It is a 'stealth tax' and that's what it was all along. A massive behavior modification program.
. . . Chief Justice says (mocking voice) 'I can't forbid this. It's not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices. I gotta find a way - Congress wants this - I gotta find a way to make it happen. Okay - we'll call it a tax!'

The lowest blow so far has come from extremist radio host Michael Savage who implied that Robert's epilepsy gave him impaired judgment.

Let’s talk about Roberts. I’m going to tell you something that you’re not going to hear anywhere else, that you must pay attention to. It’s well known that Roberts, unfortunately for him, has suffered from epileptic seizures. Therefore he has been on medication. Therefore neurologists will tell you that medication used for seizure disorders, such as epilepsy, can introduce mental slowing, forgetfulness and other cognitive problems. And if you look at Roberts’ writings you can see the cognitive dissociation in what he is saying.

Oh Lord - "cognitive problems"? Really? Does this also explain Mitt Romney's lack of memory about everything he has ever said?

That statement is nasty two ways - not only is it egregious to bring up the private health matters of a Supreme Court Justice, it's insulting to anyone with epilepsy to imply that they can't make correct decisions. But isn't this just par for the course in Republican circles ~ bad health equals bad judgment equals "no insurance for you"? Don't the Republicans always imply that people with bad health or even children with pre-existing conditions from birth are somehow tainted and undeserving? Unless you're Ann Romney with high-functioning Multiple Sclerosis, or Dick Cheney with a defective heart, or Rick Santorum's poor little daughter, or Rush Limbaugh going blind from drug abuse. Oh yeah - that is irrelevant because they all have plenty of money for the best health care. It's only the poor and unemployed who don't deserve it.

All the more reason we need universal health care so people can get help without regard to their previous conditions or political affiliations. Death Eaters just aren't good at taking care of people. So thank you, Justice Roberts.

Matthews vs. Steele: From One Sycophant to Another

Chris Matthews pushed ex-Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele into a corner with a very simple question: What is the difference between Romney's economic plan and that of George W. Bush?

And Steele refused to answer the question, and instead resorted to an ad hominem attack that Matthews is a "sycophant to Obama." That's hilarious coming from Steele, who is the biggest kiss-up in the Republican Party. LOL

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Bigoted Is as Bigoted Does

I always warn people that I have strong opinions that many people may not want to hear. I'm as partisan as I can be, and unapologetic for that. And sometimes we just don't like public figures, and sometimes they say things that make us crazy.

But honestly, to me it matters not whether someone is from the left or the right - a bigot is a bigot, and an extremist is never going to win people over. Take a look at Rick Santorum if you don't believe me - oh wait, he's gone. Yes, he influenced an election and appealed to the 25% of extremists in this country, but most of us are not that person, no matter what party we are. Eventually he had to leave the stage. Paul Ryan was just attacked by the Catholic Church for being uncharitable and misinterpreting the Bible, and yet he believes he is the most devout and worthy member of that august institution.



On the Democratic side, we have our share of  religious opinions, and while Atheists want to be considered the  most opened-minded and enlightened people for rejecting organized religion, they can also be zealots. Try this - read the comments under any news story about religion and you will find a comment by some pompous jerk mocking people for belief in the "flying spaghetti monster" or the "imaginary being in the sky." Why is that enlightened? You are just attacking people for their beliefs, which is what some (not all) evangelical zealots do.



If you want people to listen to your point of view, just do something simple - be polite, think about your audience, think about the taste level. Just think. That's what President Obama does and he doesn't make many of these stupid mistakes. Don't use hate as a weapon all the time - it's doesn't work.

Please go read a List of Logical Fallacies and some of you might see what you've been wrong that gets you into trouble on the Internets.

Ad hominem (‘personal attack’; ‘poisoning the well’): L. "to the man;"
Def- attacking a person’s habits, personality, or reputation;
Ex- "His argument must be false because people say he’s a liar."

Bulverism: (named for C.S. Lewis’s imaginary character: Ezekiel Bulver) Def- attacking a person’s identity (race/gender/religion);
Ex- "You only think that because you’re a (man/woman; Black/White;
Catholic/Baptist; Democrat/Republican; Christian/Atheist; etc.)"

Straw Man (‘misrepresentation’):
Def- misrepresenting the opponent's argument; exaggerating or oversimplifying
Ex- "Einstein's theory must be false! It makes everything relative--even truth!"

3. Either/or (‘false dilemma’):
Def- limiting the possible answers to only two; oversimplification;
Ex- "If you think that, you must be either stupid or half-asleep."

We see all of those and more in political debate. The Mitt Romney Etch-A-Sketch joke is an ad hominem, but the twist is that Romney's own manager stated that erasing past statements was part of an election strategy. So the joke became a delicious irony that  tickled the humor of the public. However, when Ted Nugent and Rush Limbaugh attack President Obama or Sandra Fluke in vile language and spread lies about them, it's just not funny. Lies are not always jokes - sometimes they are just slurs, insults, and crazy-speech.

On many political forums, people make "sweeping generalities" - or what I call "throw out the baby with the bathwater" statements about other parts of the country they know little or nothing about. If Rick Perry in Texas makes some stupid remark about "wantin' to secede" because mean old Obama is forcing him to take medicaid funding (horrors) then some idiot will automatically write "Why do we need Texas anyway? Let them secede or merge with Mexico" as if every person in Texas is a Rick Perry clone. People don't realize how those statements bother Democrats who live in those states and fight for every vote. Rick Perry doesn't speak for the vast majority of Texans, and even the most right-leaning Texan would probably like to keep his United States Citizenship, don't you think? In most cases, the red states are split 50/50 so that conservatives win by very small margins, even in presidential races. Things are not cut and dried the way they seem on political forum or TV shows.



Let's recall it wasn't that long ago that the Dixie Chicks were lambasted and shunned for having the gall to say that not everyone from Texas was identical to George Bush. Obviously a false equivalency doesn't exist among "all the people down in Texas." Or in Tennessee where I live, or in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, or even South Carolina. The South has a diversity beyond a red-state status, just as the more liberal "blue states" actually have their share of card-carrying NRA members, evangelicals, tea partiers, and apocalypse-any-minute survivalists. There is no "one type" of person from any state, and to dismiss people based on geography is a rampant type of bigotry on the internet. Democrats are just as guilty of this as Republicans who think everyone in Massachusetts or New York is pro-abortion and loves President Obama.



Some people think that everyone south of the Mason Dixon line is automatically (a) a Christian or (b) a bigot. And the converse is true - there are those who say everyone north of Kentucky is automatically enlightened and immensely free of bigotry or prejudice of any kind. To anyone who believes that, I must ask if they've followed the careers of Michelle Bachman in Minnesota or Scott Walker in Wisconsin? 'Cause they are up there, you know - in a northerly direction. Sarah Palin was way up northerty-north in Alaska - where she saw Russia from her porch. Her husband belonged to a secessionist group, but that doesn't convince me that everyone in Alaska should be cut loose from the country due to Todd's extremism. Californians sometimes call themselves "Left Coasters" which is a cute tag-line, but that big blue state also gave us Ronald and Nancy Reagan, as well as Arnold Schwarzenegger. The United States is like that, even if we love to broad-brush the conversation.

Both sides of the political debate use Bulverism, Straw Man, and False dilemma every day because we are a divided society and people have become so extreme that real discourse is almost not possible. "You're either with me or agin' me, dadgummit!" And the internet makes it easy to throw down the gauntlet and "take a stand" as if your life depends on it, or as if our society will crumble if they don't. I think that's how the Civil War started, but never mind . . . That doesn't mean that either side is "right" in all cases. Many right-wingers will say that "all" Democrats are communists and baby killers, for instance, when most Democrats are actually just pro-choice, not pro-abortion. Many on the left will say that Christians are either Evangelicals or Tea Party members - ignoring the many Christians who work daily to re-elect President Obama.

It doesn't matter who is spewing this nonsense - it's not logical. Everyone starts to sound like Archie Bunker. A glance at any discussion about the Trayvon Martin case proves there is plenty of bigotry to go around on all sides. It's shocking.

I've always been both a Democrat and a Christian. That doesn't mean I believe that the Bible is correct about everything, but that also doesn't mean that Jesus was wrong about everything. I find the teachings of Jesus quite soothing after a day of reading insults to women, talk of cutting children out of food programs, and hate-filled screeds about shooting the President or anyone who gets in the way of gun rights. I don't think Jesus would have a chance of even getting on the radio in these days and times, and if he did the Left would say he was too "mild-mannered" and too bipartisan, while the Right would slam him for persecuting the money-lenders and saying that rich people aren't bound for glory.



Please go read some famous quotes from smart people in the past if you want your words to resonate:

"We must make a personal attack when there is no argumentative basis for our speech”
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

"A bigot delights in public ridicule, for he begins to think he is a martyr." ~ Sydney Smith

Bigot: One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.”
~ Ambrose Bierce

And to those I would add the old proverb: "Two wrongs don't make a right."



To me it's just as bad for Monica Crowley on Fox to attack Sandra Fluke with some homophobic slur as it is for anti-bullying gay activist Dan Savage to attack Christian teenagers as "pansy-aZZes" for walking out on his captive-audience diatribe against the Bible. I recently wasted a couple of days gathering their statements and public reaction on my other blog, Snark Amendment because I think it's good to archive this stuff, which is ephemeral and tends to get erased when no one is looking.

And these are just great examples of two-sides to the same coin (to be proverbial again).



Monica Crowley Becomes a Bigoted Internet Meme

Irony Lost on Dan Savage as He Bullies Christians (Now with Nearly Non-Apology Apology

I love the irony and the jokes, and of course twas ever thus that freedom of speech also means freedom to make a fool of yourself by acting like a mean little girl as the bitter Crowley did, or stepping in your own bulls****, to quote the ever-eloquent Savage (who seems to know only one unimaginative noun).

A blogger writing in near obscurity -- like me -- who expects that few people will ever read this post, can have a fixed point of view and maybe only offend someone about once a month, but when you have a large audience hanging on your every word, then you have to engage brain much more before putting mouth in gear. And also remember that the internet is forever. That is something Mitt Romney keeps forgetting as he rewrites his old opinions on everything from Student Loans to Osama Bin Laden. We remember this stuff, we really do. And we will call you out on it!