Unhinged, indeed.

Upon hearing of rumors that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton may accept the title of Madame Secretary, Michelle wonders,

Where do you think she should take her first diplomatic trip?

I vote Tuzla!

It is fresh in the active political junky’s mind that Candidate Hillary Clinton, came under figurative sniper-fire over remarks over claims of literal sniper-fire. She eventually recanted.

That the actual threat of violence was nonexistent is beyond the point; Michelle is taking the connotation of violence towards then-First Lady and applying it directly to a sitting Senator, glibly implying, “Maybe she’ll actually get shot this time.”

Unacceptable, and beyond the border encompassing the Unhinged.

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? -Matthew 7:16, KJV

Michelle’s jihad du jour is against John McCain’s inability to go after his own staff for trashing Sarah Palin. Michelle is so angry she called Johnny Mac by the horrifyingly uncivil nickname “McLame.”

From the man whose best-sellers include “Why Courage Matters” and “Character Is Destiny” comes this underwhelming reaction to the cowardly smearing of Sarah Palin by his own unnamed staffers: “These things happen.”

Not: “Shame on the leakers. I denounce and renounce them.”

Not: “I’m going to get to the bottom of this and make sure those blabbermouths never work in a major campaign again.”

Just: “These things happen.”

Yup. Business as usual from The Maverick’s not-so-maverick campaign:

(A la Pundit also provided a video of Michelle’s appearance on Cavuto, in which Michelle mewls.)

A first point: Michelle is taking this whole episode far too personally. This would be like getting pissed at Ben Affleck for saying J-Lo was the reason Gigli sucked so bad. Michelle never liked McCain and detested having to support his candidacy. But she did it anyway. And against her better judgment.

Not that she should have latched onto Gov. Palin so readily; she is the Executive of the #1 welfare state in the Union after all. And that gets into the thick of it. Senator McCain is going to back to the United States Senate and probably taking a good portion of his staff with him. Sarah Palin is going back to that great, snowy, welfare state of Alaska (i.e., paradise for hillbillies in Washington-speak).

The Senator likely knows who is smearing Palin, post-Epic Fail.

The Senator is convinced that the rumors are true.

Nothing Michelle can do will make Sen. McCain give a shit. No amount of questioning his character. It doesn’t matter how frequently she labels hidden enemies as suffering from “Palin Derangement Syndrome.”

MM = Irrelevant.

Michelle and Jesse have compiled a seemingly nonrandom gallery of dark complexioned Muslim individuals who were determined by authorities to have been lone gunmen (except, of course, in the case of the beltway snipers).

Here in Indiana we were recently struck by a case of an interstate sniper who took the life of one motorist and injured several others. Turns out that he’s white and has a Hebrew name. Compound these with the fact that after having admitted to the crime, he is maintaining his innocence. Makes you wonder why he didn’t make the list. Must be because it’s a “random” sampling.

buffalonews.com:

“[Zachariah Blanton] said he in fact did do the shootings, however, only with the intention of relieving pressure,” John Kelly, an Indiana State Police crime scene technician, testified at a hearing Tuesday.

The teen apparently had been arguing with relatives over gutting a deer during a hunting trip about 20 miles south of Seymour, Jackson County Prosecutor Stephen Pierson said.

Perhaps “random” is just the new cover-your-racist-ass adjective for getting around chronic confirmation bias.

Update: (8/1, early evening) Neiwert has a great takedown of the post alluded to above. Great read.

Michelle has made many veiled statements concerning her disapproval of legal abortion. (Note that her less-than-explicit opinion on the issue suggests that she has had an abortion at some point in her life. Likely at the behest of Jesse.) Because she is an anti-choicer, she supports the bombing of abortion clinics, right?

Unfortunately, the AP won’t call a recent threat and attempted bombing of Mississippi’s only abortion clinic a terrorist act. But that’s only because they’re on the side of the terrorists. Right?

Here’s Michelle from this morning (sans links):

Which side are they on? The New York Times settles the question definitively with a hysterical, unreality-based lead editorial today recycling the BDS attacks on the War on Terror — but even more so with this disgusting pictorial tribute to Iraqi terrorists killing American soldiers, spotted by the vigilant Charles Johnson at LGF.

A fair-minded rewrite:

The New York Times is on the side of the terrorists, because the paper published an editorial critical of American foreign policy that I won’t bother arguing against; and to a greater extent, because a picture of a Mahdi army sniper aiming on U.S. troops was taken by a Portuguese photographer under the employ of the Times back before that militia was on our side.

I still get a little put back when I read something that labels anyone who wants the American military out of their country as a “terrorist”. That every insurgent in Iraq wants to kill every American. I’ve long felt that the only thing that would move me to walk down to the recruitment office would be threat of invasion. Did I type “invasion”? I meant “liberation”.

Update (7/17, early evening): The Liberal Avenger echoes my sentiments here by arguing that Malkin’s loyalty to American freedoms is in danger of becoming collateral damage in her attacks against legitimate photojournalism.

Michelle’s big anti-NYT protest in DC came and went yesterday drawing as many as sixteen protesters (including Bryan Preston and Michelle). Glenn Greenwald has a report with links to photos of the embarrassing event.

A couple days ago, Gordo, one of the best new bloggers out there, deconstructed Michelle’s intentional misunderstanding as to why Amnesty International did not release a statement specifically addressing the torture and brutal killings of two Army soldiers earlier this week. The points made extend to the general criticism directed at us anti-war commentators that we don’t condemn the acts of our enemies readily. The bottom line: “I can’t vote to replace bin-Laden as the leader of al-Qaeda.” Please take the time to read the whole thing.

And now with the developments of a broken terror cell in Miami, Florida and the revelation that the CIA is conducting unregulated tracking of financial transactions, Malkin further reveals her will to “lose” that fictional Global War on Terror. Successful counterterrorism measures begin and end with “actionable intelligence”, which (in a case like this) is idiot speak for “cell infiltration”. And that is what the Miami case appears to be.
(more…)

Just a few points on the “Hadji Girl” fiasco:

1. By defending the song, Malkin is perfecting the methods necessary to lose the propaganda war. Scholars will one day memorize her blog posts as a result.
2. Recently, Michelle implied that U.S. soldiers shouldn’t necessarily be responsible for the death of children whose bodies absorb their missiles and bullets. And for no other reason than that terrorists are known for using children as human shields.

   The narrator of this song uses an Iraqi child as a human shield.

3. Michelle is unhinged. Regnery must be proud.

Here’s an ethnically tinged, violent song (that is somehow not odious) about a gang of Jewish skinheads. Why wasn’t this one of the Top 50 Conservative Rock Songs?

Does anyone else find it odd that, these days, Malkin and her peeps seem more likely to trust The Guardian’s reporting over that of The Times?

Today’s obsessively updated post revolves around the proposition that nefarious motives led to the posting of an incorrect photo on a Haditha massacre article. There is no indication that the photo appeared in the print edition of The Times.

I think it’s a great catch on the part of the bloggers involved, but mistakes do happen, especially on websites that are updated so frequently. If only the online editors would just issue an apology, we could get back to “waiting for the official report.”

(more…)

In yet another bit of sterling Internet journalism gone totally awry, Michelle has linked to a Guardian article titled:

Gore: Bush is ‘renegade rightwing extremist’

But here’s the actual quote:

“If you have a renegade band of rightwing extremists who get hold of power, the whole thing goes to the right.”

In other words,

Gore: Bush Administration is ‘a renegade band of rightwing extremists’

Sure. A case, even a snarky one like Michelle’s, could be made to counter the Dubya-as-Steve-Sailer claim, but it goes without saying that the administration has behaved like a renegade cabal, e.g. excessive use of signing statements, waging unprovoked wars, domestic spying, which all happen to be inline with extreme rightwing values. Hmmm.

At least Gore doesn’t need to get a novelist’s take on environmental science to feel like an expert.

Malkin and her Border Skirmish Lobby strike again:

As bad as things are for grass-roots conservatives following President Bush’s “Read my lips: No new amnesty” speech, at least we’re not in the absurd rhetorical position of confused moonbats.

Bryan at Sanctuary, a photoshop wizard for Hot Air, perfectly depicts the quandary of the “Bring our troops home now” crowd. Bryan writes:

‘”Support the Troops - Bring them Home Now!” has been such a farcical call and bumper sticker for the Left for so long, what’s gonna happen when the NatGuards are deployed here at home?’

Logicians all. Because nothing says “home” to a member of the Wisconsin National Guard like the Arizona desert.

Under the wingnuts’ logic - utterly flawed and tortured-to-the-point-of-laughability logic - we’re in an “absurd rhetorical position.”

Where, exactly, does that leave them?

From and after the passage of this act it shall not be lawful to employ any part of the Army of the United States, as a posse comitatus, or otherwise, for the purpose of executing the laws, except in such cases and under such circumstances as such employment of said force may be expressly authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress; and no money appropriated by this act shall be used to pay any of the expenses incurred in the employment of any troops in violation of this section And any person willfully violating the provisions of this section shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished by fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars or imprisonment not exceeding two years or by both such fine and imprisonment.

Latest comment on HotAir, in response to Bush’s speech tonight:

What would our Founding Fathers done with Bush? I seriously believe they would have hung him.

Whew. That’s some high-level wingnuttery.

In other news, and the reason posting will be light for at most a day or two, remember this?

Well, having passed the test, I just this day received the fruits of passing in the mail, if I may be circumspect. Woo, I say, woo-hoo.

First, Bush said:

Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so. It’s important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

and Malkin believed him.

Then he said

The activities I authorized are reviewed approximately every 45 days. Each review is based on a fresh intelligence assessment of terrorist threats to the continuity of our government and the threat of catastrophic damage to our homeland. During each assessment, previous activities under the authorization are reviewed. The review includes approval by our nation’s top legal officials, including the Attorney General and the Counsel to the President. I have reauthorized this program more than 30 times since the September the 11th attacks, and I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al Qaeda and related groups.

and Malkin believed him.

Alberto Gonzales said

The operators out at NSA tell me that we don’t have the speed and the agility that we need, in all circumstances, to deal with this new kind of enemy. You have to remember that FISA was passed by the Congress in 1978. There have been tremendous advances in technology —

Q But it’s been kind of retroactively, hasn’t it?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: — since then. Pardon me?

Q It’s been done retroactively before, hasn’t it?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: What do you mean, “retroactively”?

Q You just go ahead and then you apply for the FISA clearance, because it’s damn near automatic.

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: If we — but there are standards that have to be met, obviously, and you’re right, there is a procedure where we — an emergency procedure that allows us to make a decision to authorize — to utilize FISA, and then we go to the court and get confirmation of that authority.

But, again, FISA is very important in the war on terror, but it doesn’t provide the speed and the agility that we need in all circumstances to deal with this new kind of threat.

and Malkin believed him.

Now we’re told:

The government is collecting “external” data on domestic phone calls but is not intercepting “internals,” a term for the actual content of the communication, according to a U.S. intelligence official familiar with the program. This kind of data collection from phone companies is not uncommon; it’s been done before, though never on this large a scale, the official said. The data are used for “social network analysis,” the official said, meaning to study how terrorist networks contact each other and how they are tied together.

And apparently, not to believe this is tinfoil hattery.

Does one have to have the pattern recognition region of the brain removed to become a right-winger?

How not to interpret proposed law:

…Bill O’Reilly claimed that, under a California state bill that would require textbooks to recognize the accomplishments of historical lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender [LGBT] figures, “if you are a teacher … you’re not going to be able to say bad things about [convicted murderer] Jeffrey Dahmer,” because Dahmer was “a gay cannibal.” Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin agreed that O’Reilly’s evaluation of the proposed legislation’s impact was “right,” adding that it “is a very radical, very extreme, dangerous bill” that “is pure political propaganda.” O’Reilly called the bill “a form of fascism … [i]n the sense that you have to say good things about this group.”

In fact, the proposal “would add the role and contributions of LGBT people” to the list of “traditionally underrepresented groups,” whose historical contributions, under current law, are required to be included in California “textbooks and other school instructional materials.”

Now, now, Michelle. Bill will never learn to stop making shit up if you keep enabling him.

Your love that dare not speak its name is so edible to me…

Hat tip: eb.

In today’s Vent, Malkin is upset about the marketing of “United Flight 93″, which is getting rave reviews from wingers - but Malkin has some reservations.

Head over to the official discussion site for United 93, which is sponsored by Universal Studios. You will be disturbed. In a section called (whining) “Why Do They Hate America?” There’s not a single mention of Osama bin Laden. Instead, you get a Catholic-bashing history lesson about the Crusades, an obligatory sentence blaming the founding of Israel for jihad, and an effort to cast Muslims as perpetual victims of Western oppressors. No mention of the fact that Islamic imperialism began some 450 years before the start of the Crusades.

Anyway, why is the Flight 93 movie site invoking this biased history lesson? (”Dhimmitude” graphic appears onscreen) Do the movie promoters mean to endorse al Qaeda’s terrorist leaders? Because the rationalizations look and sound sickeningly familiar…

Universal Studios has some explaining to do.

How about LA and I give it a shot?

This sounded suspiciously like Malkin’s M.O. of using messages which appear on a discussion board to represent Official Liberal Positions, so I headed over to united93movie.com (Ed.: Corrected. Sorry about that, boys’ soccer team from Oklahoma), which is listed on IMDB as the official site for the movie. Nothing - not even on the message boards - which would qualify as what Malkin is worried about. (There is a section for alternative theories of 9/11, which is unhinged enough for five episodes of Vent, but nothing like what Malkin was referring to.)

LA, meanwhile, followed the link on HotAir (a daring move, I know) to find u93.org, also apparently sponsored by Universal Studios and which contained the link to “Why Do They Hate America” as described by Malkin. He also passed along this:

u93.org is a Christian site. I don’t think it’s official:

United 93 raises some of the most compelling questions of our day including:

* Why do some Muslim groups hate the West?
* What can we do about it?
* How do we effectively discuss these things in our communities?
* What do Muslims really believe?
* What does Jesus say?

These kinds of questions are not easily answered. Since 9/11 affected all of us, United 93 gives another opportunity to work out the love of God and love of neighbor within our communities. This website gives you several resources, tools, and active steps to take when looking at these issues.

It certainly seemed offical, what with the prominent Universal Studios copyright and all. WHOIS shed some more light. The IP is owned by Motive Entertainment, with a registrant named Paul Lauer. From Motive’s website:

Lauer is…one of the most well connected entrepreneurs in the Faith and Family Market, having most recently designed and executed the highly-successful marketing campaign for Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” for Icon Productions.

Lauer has gone on to manage grass roots outreach campaigns for the Tom Hanks/Robert Zemeckis film, “The Polar Express,” as well as the record breaking Walden Media/Disney epic series, “The Chronicles of Narnia.” In addition, Lauer has assisted with the marketing and distribution of numerous independent film projects.

In 2002, having experienced first-hand the challenges of bringing independent faith-based and family-friendly films to market, Lauer conceived Motive Entertainment as the missing link to solve this “distribution dilemma”.

So u93.org - the film site which offends Malkin so deeply, which is practicing dhimmitude and selling out the West - is…a site specifically set up to market to Christians. The rest of the site contains sermon outlines, materials for group discussions, and articles with titles like “Faith Matters, but…What do you do when G_d disappears?”

Fear not, though. Malkin’s hordes have already begun to descend on the discussion boards. Things won’t stay on the level of Christian Love for very long.

AssParrot is serious.

Not very surprisingly, the “organized campaign” which is forcing Malkin to “remove one of [her] children from school and move [her] family” was instigated by just one person.

Now, I said that one printing, one threat, was too many, and I absolutely meant it. However, that also goes for the persecution complex on display here.

Go read it.