Sunday, April 26, 2015

IT CAN'T MISS.

From: Central Committee
To: The Brethren
Re: Bruce Jenner - Next Steps

Now that Bruce Jenner has come out as both a woman and a Republican, we find ourselves at a crossroads. Some of us are apparently sticking with the traditional conservative approach toward LGBT issues. In fact we’ve heard from a few of you who disapprove of our use of the term “LGBT,” suggesting we revert instead to the schoolyard phrases favored by our movement's founders. But the Central Committee thinks these comrades are missing a big opportunity.

We direct your attention to John Nolte of Breitbart.com. John is no friend to gay and trans people, as shown by his columns such as “GAY MARRIAGE IS THE MEDIA'S VEHICLE, DESTINATION IS TO DESTROY THE CHURCH” and “BULLYING GLAAD GOES ON ANOTHER CENSORSHIP RAMPAGE,” and his Homer Simpsonesque jokes about homosexuals. Yet when Jenner came out, John grasped the nettle. First he announced that liberals are the real bigots. This is SOP, though we give John credit for claiming that “the last person to use the word ‘fag’ in my presence was a liberal celebrity, and the look on my face made vocalizing my disapproval unnecessary.” Imagine, John hanging out with liberal celebrities, let alone intimidating them with his facial expressions! We applaud his nerve.

But John pushed things further in a way I’m not sure many of us fully appreciate. Please note this line from his column:
Unlike the elite media, conservatives and Christians are the true liberals.
And this one:
Like sex outside of marriage or lying, homosexuality is a sin, being gay is not. 
Now, to an outsider this will sound like gibberish, or perhaps even typos; but if you’ve been attending our workshops, you will recall our maxim, “You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few logical chains.”

Let’s be honest: Gay rights has been a disaster for our movement; we’re losing share on it every day, and for various reasons (cough deep south cough) we can’t back down on policy. But John’s assertions may flip the board for us if we follow up properly.

First, if we can get voters to accept, even on a subconscious level, John's proposition that conservatives are the real liberals and that being gay is not the same thing as being homosexual, we may shake up the current paradigm to the point that voters don’t know what to believe.

And that’s when we’ll activate our follow-plan — one we caution must remain top secret until after the roll-out, and for which we are currently seeking volunteers.

The theme we’ll be promoting is this: Conservatives are not only the real liberals — they’re also the real gays.

You will notice the people identified as “gay” at present are mostly college-educated and high-earning, and favor hair and clothing styles most citizens cannot afford either financially or socially. They also have a strong interest in the arts. It should be clear that these so-called gay people are actually just liberal elitists, pretending to be gay because they think it makes them look like victims, which is the highest aspiration of the liberal (see also their tiresome identification with black people and women).

Many of these “gays” even go to the extreme measure of having sex with members of their own gender, often on a regular basis, which only shows how desperately they pursue the mantle of victimhood.

Conversely, real gays (that is, conservatives) don’t need to make a show of their status by having gay sex. They are good Christian people, married or attracted to members of the opposite gender, who oppose gay marriage and the liberal fascist attempt to force other Christians to make cakes for them — and just happen to be gay.

Volunteers for this project will be expected to come out as gay. You may let it be known, in a casual way, that you’re not that kind of gay, but you must be disciplined enough not to make a big deal of it. If your status is challenged, simply say: Who are you to define me, to tell me how to define myself? Show sympathy for their blinkered vision, and pray (good and loud, and where people can hear you) for your oppressors to learn toleration.

Keep your temper as liberals sputter and make themselves unattractive over this; soon enough, when the idea has taken hold, you will be able to post photographs of your opposite-sex partners with captions like “I love my gay husband” so no one gets the wrong idea. After a while, when gay marriage bans and RFRAs have been instituted with the support of us gays — and our straight allies — people will come to wonder what all the fuss was about back in the dark, dead days of discrimination. Then we will truly be able to say that we have overcome.

197 comments:

  1. John Wesley Hardin10:01 PM

    Conservatives are the jews gays of liberal fascism homophobia. Somebody notify Jonah's intern.

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  2. sundaystyle10:03 PM

    Brilliant. Don't be surprised if Rod Dreher steals this idea for his next book.

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  3. Buffalo Rude10:05 PM

    Bravo, Roy! Bravo!

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  4. “the last person to use the word ‘fag’ in my presence was a liberal
    celebrity, and the look on my face made vocalizing my disapproval
    unnecessary.”


    Nolte, you knob, that was Ewan MacGregor, and he was asking for a cigarette!

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  5. mortimer200010:18 PM

    Sillyjism:
    Liberals are the real bigots.
    Conservatives and Christians are the true liberals.
    Ergo: Conservatives, being liberals, are bigots.

    Hey, the conclusion is correct no matter how they get there.

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  6. mortimer200010:19 PM

    Ditto.

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  7. M. Krebs10:23 PM

    Holy fuck. I think we just entered a worm hole or something.

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  8. montag210:33 PM

    Like sex outside of marriage aggressive war or lying about aggressive war, homosexuality torture is a sin, being gay a proto-fascist cheering for war and torture is not.

    Now, that seems to adhere a bit more to conservative essentials.

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  9. Atticus Dogsbody10:33 PM

    And they can go around lifting their shirts and say "Hey, you judgmental bigot liberals, I'm just taking it off."

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  10. montag210:35 PM

    Oh, I think they're more into shirt-tucking.

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  11. “the last person to use the word ‘fag’ in my presence was a liberal celebrity, and the look on my face made vocalizing my disapproval unnecessary.”

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  12. Megalon10:48 PM

    At first glance, it may seem homosexuals and homophobes are not the same thing. His interns do not deny this. Indeed, it is central to his point!

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  13. AGoodQuestion10:50 PM

    That was some liberal dinner party! A liberal celebrity said "fag" and boy did I let him have it! Wait until you hear what my cab Lyft driver had to say about it!

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  14. M. Krebs10:54 PM

    Shouldn't they be all hot and bothered about Obama' RACIST REMARKS at the White House Correspondent's Dinner? It's like I hardly know them anymore.

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  15. AGoodQuestion10:54 PM

    Aha! And as a liberal he should be against Big Tobacco, the lightsaber-swinging hypocrite.

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  16. Megalon10:57 PM

    You have wonder why liberals even go to dinner parties anymore. You'd think they'd have learned their lesson by now.

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  17. M. Krebs11:00 PM

    What? You mean this guy has a light saber now?https://youtu.be/b2B7w4Z3uOI

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  18. M. Krebs11:02 PM

    (Fuck you and your commercials, Google.)

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  19. montag211:16 PM

    And, bringing whole new meaning to "eating their own."

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  20. Ellis_Weiner11:24 PM

    Nolte: "Another Republican presidential hopeful, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, made all kinds of headlines
    when he said something that would not surprise anyone who has spent any
    amount of time with a conservative Christian — that he would attend a
    same sex wedding. Out here in the real world this is a dog-bites-man
    story. Nevertheless, our media considered it as newsworthy as the
    sinking of the Titanic."

    The hyperbolic sarcasm of the last sentence reminds me of Gilda Radner as Lisa Loopner, sneering, "That was so funny I forgot to laugh." (If you hit his link, the first headline you get is "Rubio: No Constitutional right to gay marriage.")

    LIsa, at least, is a parody version of a clumsy teenager. I know it's retrograde and cruel to use the term "re-tard," but when you cite the coverage of the sinking of the Titanic as being comparable to the by-the-numbers coverage of Marco Rubio saying he'd attend a gay wedding, and look up in hopeful expectation of applause and agreement, that's the word that comes to mind. Nolte thinks he's being dashing and telling and astute. The rest of us shake our heads at the sheer "retarded" ineptitude of it all.

    I know: Forget it, Jake. It's Breitbart.

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  21. John Wesley Hardin11:28 PM

    Well, the promise of a free meal will get them socialist moochers every time, haw haw!

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  22. sharculese11:47 PM

    And by let 'him have it' I mean didn't say anything, but he sure could tell that I was thinking about letting him have it. That was an A+ trip to frown town.

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  23. sharculese11:51 PM

    I cannot applaud anyone being prosecuted under that bullshit law, no matter how delicious the irony.

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  24. sharculese11:53 PM

    If there's one thing that Rod will never ever ever do it's have a kind word to say about gay people.You know that dumb joke that's like 'how can you call me homophobic? I'm not scared of them?"


    Rod can't make that joke. Because he's scared of them.

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  25. AGoodQuestion12:01 AM

    Out of curiosity, which of his jokes has been tagged as RACIST?

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  26. sharculese12:12 AM

    Here's the thing, John Nolte. You probably really do believe your being kind and magnanimous in holding out this fig leaf of tolerance. But um, well, fuck you, because LGBTQ people deserve more than your passive-aggressive "I respect and accept that you are a perversion of everything good in the world" nonsense.


    I give not one fraction of a fuck whether Marco Rubio would attend a same-sex wedding, I want to know what he's going to do same-sex relationships as a lawmaker.

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  27. You are a far more moral person than Pastor Ssempa.

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  28. DocAmazing12:27 AM

    All of 'em, Katie.

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  29. DocAmazing12:32 AM

    Obviously, the Word from On High got out; Ace of Spades had a long Twitter pud-tug about conservatives being the real liberals a day or two ago.

    Humpty Dumpty is looking more precise in his definitions by the day.

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  30. Things are going to take a turn for the grotesque when Marco Rubio rolls out his sassy gay "bestie".

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  31. Looks like the Conservative Hive-Ass has pooped out another talking point.

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  32. coozledad1:18 AM

    I just go for the face.

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  33. smut clyde3:14 AM

    That is a worship word, Yang worship. You will not speak it.

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  34. Socialist Cubone3:26 AM

    the last person to use the word ‘fag’ in my presence was a liberal celebrity, and the look on my face made vocalizing my disapproval unnecessary


    This is the weirdest humble brag about meeting Alec Baldwin I've ever heard.

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  35. sundaystyle6:30 AM

    Oh, agreed; I was being snide. As we know, the subject of Rod's next book involves him grabbing some bottled water, a bible, and running for the hills while shrieking about teh gheys. Instead of calling it "My Psychotic Break" he's dressing it up with the title "The Benedict Option." The boy needs serious professional intervention.

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  36. Your friends serve face at their dinner parties?

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  37. And by let 'him have it' I mean didn't say anything, but he sure could tell that I was thinking about letting him have it. That was an A+ trip to frown town.

    I mean, he could really feel my look.

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  38. Millennia from today, this will be taught in all basic logic classes.

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  39. I look forward to conservatives trying to spread the "We're the real liberals!!!11!" meme. I encourage them to do so. Indeed, I will donate money provided the $ go specifically to conservatives coming out to proclaim they're liberals.

    Because, after 40 years of screeching eliminationist rhetoric about how liberals are un-American and need to be wiped out, conservatives would have to face their own extremely heavily armed followers--most of whom lack the reasoning capacity to understand such what's going on and will decided to shoot first before allowing any information in that might confuse/enlighten them.

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  40. For a true conservative, being caught lying is a plus. It's not just IOKIYAR, it's not just expected--it's considered a necessary part of any successful political career.

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  41. coozledad8:08 AM

    I'm thinking more of John Nolte's face of disapproval.
    I think I know the face he pulled. It's the "He said a bad word" face. Pre-ironic tetany. Like Wolf Blitzer's at the correspondent's dinner.

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  42. smut clyde8:10 AM

    Head-cheese.

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  43. satch8:18 AM

    "Yet can anyone seriously imagine Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity threatening to “sock” a “queer” in the “goddamned face”?"


    Well, I don't know about Hannity... maybe the next time one of his gay guests calls him a crypto fascist will be the day. And my sources tell me that O'Reilly is saving up the socking-a-queer-in-the-goddamn-face trope for his next opus: "Killing Gore Vidal".

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  44. satch8:20 AM

    Don't we hate what we fear? Or fear becoming...

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  45. redoubtagain8:24 AM

    the last person to use the word ‘fag’ in my presence was a liberal celebrity, and the look on my face made vocalizing my disapproval unnecessary.”
    Well, he insists on screwing his face up like that before farting, so. . .

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  46. coozledad8:27 AM

    The image the terms "Bill O'Reilly", "Sock" and "Sean Hannity" conjures might be not be queer. They're threatening, though.

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  47. satch8:28 AM

    Martin Ssempsa, huh? Now, I'm not advocating this, mind you, I'm just saying that if anyone deserved to be socked in the goddamn face...

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  48. redoubtagain8:28 AM

    Especially if you add "wetsuits" and "dildoes"

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  49. coozledad8:32 AM

    It just occurred to me that a man's life could have been saved if he'd had basic scuba training and used an oxygen tank in his harness.


    It all comes down to dying of being a cheap bastard.

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  50. redoubtagain8:33 AM

    Obligatory.

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  51. Big Bird doesn't fly but he sure looks fabulously fly in that feather boa.

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  52. Ted the slacker8:46 AM

    Yes, indeed.

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  53. coozledad8:49 AM

    Being gay is not a sin, but doing those THINGS!...

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  54. Helmut Monotreme8:54 AM

    I can't wait until one-upmanship sets in. Candidate after candidate will reveal their close personal friendships with token members of groups increasingly alarming to their base.

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  55. Bethany Spencer8:56 AM

    The last person to say the word "fag" in my presence was a giitter-covered Kaiju with a stutter. It was really loud cuz he was 350 feet tall. Hurt my ears, and I was none to pleased about the homophobia either.


    And if you're thinking my story sounds unlikely, I'll tell you it's roughly as likely as Nolte's.

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  56. Bethany Spencer8:58 AM

    You can be gay you just can't be gay. Makes perfect sense to me.

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  57. Helmut Monotreme8:58 AM

    What professional has ever been able to cure a bad case of "moral scold"?

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  58. Bethany Spencer8:59 AM

    I don't think Lindsay Graham is that sassy.

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  59. Helmut Monotreme9:01 AM

    The only part of being called a crypto fascist Hannity would object to is the 'crypto'.

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  60. satch9:05 AM

    "It's not a lie if you believe it."

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  61. glennisw9:06 AM

    I am wondering what a hairstyle "most citizens cannot afford either financially or socially" looks like.

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  62. satch9:16 AM

    "Are you Republican?" Sawyer asked. "Yeah," [Jenner] said with a smile. "Is that a bad thing? I believe in the Constitution."


    Totally off topic, but has anyone else noticed how, since Obama's election (twice), suddenly everyone and their wingnut brother is a "constitutional scholar" ?

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  63. tigrismus9:20 AM

    Jesus, I believe in the Constitution, too. Hell, I've SEEN the damn thing, I KNOW it's real.

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  64. "conservatives and Christians are the true liberals.". But liberals are godless communist homosexuals. So that means... Uh oh.

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  65. satch9:26 AM

    "A liberal celebrity said "fag" and boy did I let him have it! Wait until you hear what my cab Lyft driver had to say about it!"


    Damn right... that was right before Nolte walked up to the band leader and, with a steely gaze, demanded: "Play "It's Raining Men"! PLAY IT!!11!"

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  66. What?!?!? You don't believe that 1.) an outspoken conservative ass gets invited to liberal dinner parties, and 2.) that he ALWAYS manages to slam-dunk his liberal friends, making them look like such fools that they retroactively vote for Bush?

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  67. . . . reveal their close personal friendships with token members of groups increasingly alarming to their base.

    "I was once in a conference center, and there was a guy there in an adjoining ball room who I later found was gay. This shows you how tolerant and liberal I am that my gaydar didn't light up and send me screaming into the street."

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  68. Oh, they believe in the Constitution. But just like God, the Constitution they believe in is their very own personal version. Their translation has the First Amendment stating that Congress has established America as a Christian nation. The Second Amendment is set in 64-point bold type.

    All the rest of the amendments have been discarded as apocrypha.

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  69. Maybe he's trying to tell the old joke about being a lesbian trapped in a man's body, but he's too afraid that people will call him a bigot because he's, you know, a bigot.

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  70. coozledad9:51 AM

    The social deficit one has to be Rand Paul's, but you know that sumbitch couldn't have cost more than thirty dollars.

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  71. Halloween_Jack9:52 AM

    Well, that's not belief, then. You have to believe in the Constitution as an abstract force for all that you believe is good and right, something that will never let you down, never run around and desert you, never make you cry, never say goodbye, never tell a lie and hurt you. (Thomas Jefferson and Rick Astley, both gingers: coincidence?)

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  72. Halloween_Jack9:54 AM

    Thirty bucks? Look, Mr. Fancy Pants, if you ask nicely the carpet store will give you a few remnants for free.

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  73. Halloween_Jack9:57 AM

    Wasn't that the kaiju they called Denial? Haven't thought about him since he ran off with the jaeger out of SF, Rainbow Fister.

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  74. Not to mention they believe that the Constitution, like the Ten Commandments, is a gift from God, not the work of rational human beings who understood history and tried their best not to doom us to repeat it. It's a good thing these morons of today weren't in charge back then or we'd still be kissing the ass of British royalty.

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  75. Halloween_Jack10:01 AM

    I didn't get one; I'd love to know what Big Brother thought was a suitable ad to precede Sick Boy trying to kick it with an opiate suppository.

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  76. Superheroes!

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  77. Kissing the ass of British royalty? Alone among the Commonwealth nations, we would be desperately trying to prove that we love Queen Elizabeth more than any of those other countries. We'd also be pushing to disband Parliament so that the Queen could rule as well as reign.

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  78. They do have their priorities.

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  79. Not TO his face, I can't.

    Behind his back, yes.

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  80. And the House of Lords; they could keep the House of Lords because God knows I'm going to be one myself one of these days.

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  81. BigHank5310:10 AM

    I guess taxidermists work cheap in your town.

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  82. BigHank5310:12 AM

    Keep making that joke--I totally wanna see someone cosplay Rainbow Fister.

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  83. BigHank5310:15 AM

    James Watt tried that diversity gambit back in '83, and it didn't work out so well.

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  84. Magatha10:21 AM

    Well, hell. Now I have to rethink the Tooth Fairy. But that's my own fault. I got nothing but a humongous bill for all four wisdom teeth. Not under my pillow, though. Got nothing under my pillow. There oughta be a law.

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  85. "History's yard waste" (Charles Pierce)

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  86. that's actually a really salient point--kudos. i wonder if this that stupid stupid stupid statement is a way to gild the lily.

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  87. They're still obsessing on Clinton's $200 on-the-tarmac job from a hundred fucking years ago. When they can convince me that Ted Cruz takes his mug over to the local "Shear Madness" or "The Mane Event"--where every cut is still only ten dollars!--I'll believe they have something to be upset about.


    And "socially unaffordable"? Well, for what it's worth, when somebody with a cut like Cruz's walks up to me, I immediately take at least one step backward and put a hand on my wallet.

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  88. My old high school friend plays in a band called Loose Shoes. They might thought about A Warm Place to Shit but rejected it.

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  89. You will notice the people identified as “gay” at present are mostly
    college-educated and high-earning, and favor hair and clothing styles
    most citizens cannot afford either financially or socially. They also
    have a strong interest in the arts. It should be clear that these
    so-called gay people are actually just liberal elitists, pretending to
    be gay because they think it makes them look like victims, which is the
    highest aspiration of the liberal (see also their tiresome
    identification with black people and women).



    Except of course for the Log Cabin Repugs, who're willing to shill for people who hate them so their taxes stay low and they don't have to pay death taxes, not that they'll ever be able to specify THAT PERSON as a survivor because it would make Baby Jeebus cry.

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  90. suddenly every wingnut and their brother is a "constitutional scholar"


    Like the President actually is?

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  91. I think there is: "For teeth that come out via surgery, you get nuttin'. Are you saying that three days' worth of Vicodin ain't enough?"

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  92. Dentistry is theft!

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  93. Or you can always take spores from the Trump Fungus.

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  94. Man walks down the street with something like that on his head, you know he ain't afraid of nothing!

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  95. You ain't going to play the Senior Prom with a name like THAT!

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  96. I recently had a molar come loose and have to be pulled. I didn't even get to keep the damn thing, much less try and use it to negotiate a payoff. My own tooth was a biohazard!

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  97. M. Rubio = post-tard?

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  98. Well, for what it's worth, I'd go to a GOP feed, if I got to offend them in the bargain. Two for the price of none!

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  99. Downpup E10:55 AM

    My brain hurts.
    Hmm. Didn't know I had one.

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  100. That's Jonah's line.

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  101. I can't wait until one-upmanship sets in."Have you all met Maria Naihoum, my gay trans Mexican Muslim undocumented immigrant cowhand friend? She's a communist."


    "Waitaminute... She's a cowgirl?!?"

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  102. Rubio = post-tardle?
    ...

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  103. Where have I heard that before? Funniest line of the day. If it's yours, take a bow.

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  104. redoubtagain11:06 AM

    The Second Amendment is set in .50 caliber type.
    Fixed

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  105. Okay, I haven't gotten into the weeds of Nolte's performance, or the Jenner interview. Is it at all possible that Jenner was trolling? Because I don't know if ve's been keeping up with current events, but multiple Republican-controlled legislatures have all but legalized hunting LGBTQ people for sport. So it's either a brilliant attempt to explode a bunch of heads, or a goddamned stupid selfish pile of moral shitbaggery. See also: gay hoteliers cozying up to Ted "Concentration Camps for Deviants" Cruz.

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  106. LookWhosInTheFreezer11:09 AM

    I'm guessing it was more like this, with Nolte as Merchant:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpXQkXt3Sxc

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  107. Helmut Monotreme11:13 AM

    Here's hoping that pander-palooza gets to the point where republican hopefuls first have to win the straw poll at the gathering of the Juggalos or some anime/furry/any-other-wacky-thing-the-kids-are-doing-these-days convention.

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  108. susanoftexas11:15 AM

    I shall name this "opferfreude," the joy of victimization.

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  109. Magatha11:25 AM

    Is it surgery if they don't knock you out? I was well-numbed, but totally conscious. Good lord, the noise: crunching, rending, ick. Remember that 1971 TV movie "Duel"? Spoiler alert: when that huge semi goes over the cliff and the mechanical beast screams as it meets its destiny? That was kind of how my wisdom teeth sounded. And no Vicodin. It wasn't on the market yet. Remember I am old. I probably got Darvon or Tylenol with codeine.


    But truthfully: I got over it a long long time ago. And the good news is that y'all caused me to remember that I have two bits of gold from crowns that were replaced, and that I can sell them. Thank you, Tooth Fairy! And you guys. This is a happy day for me.

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  110. Angry nerds are not to be trifled with.

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  111. Advocating for war is not a sin, fighting and killing in one is. That's why they can't enlist.

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  112. Marion in Savannah11:32 AM

    Could we finally be approaching The Wingnut Singularity?

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  113. This is exactly it. They are like children who learned that you shouldn't say a certain word and then are enthralled and titillated to find that adults certainly do use the word, from time to time, in context or in reported speech. Plus, see also too "black people say the N word" as the ur psychic wound of the modern day neoconfederate.

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  114. Am I the first to point out that the "sinking of the titanic" is a really, really, really, old reference at this point. I mean for fuck's sake the cheesy movie reference which is all that most people can remember is itself about 25 years old. Plus it seems a bit of a tell that he thinks the right comparison is to something huge and seemingly indistructible sinking itself on an obvious and avoidable obstacle thanks to the ineptitude of the captain. I mean, as Giles would say, the subtext is rapidly becoming the...er...text.


    I suppose it would have been too much on the nose for him to compare Cruz to the Hindenburg? Flaming gasbag, etc...

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  115. You are so right--SteveM at NoMoreMrNiceBlog reports that Jeb! is touting being served a meal by a drag queen--like as if he was Gandhi accepting water from an untouchable. This should go over like a lead balloon in Iowa but, of course, its not aimed at Iowa.

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  116. You've never seen him in his drag persona: John McCain.

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  117. I would just appreciate fewer worms.

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  118. The joke is just a degree of difficulty too far:

    Presenter: At the age of fifteen Doug and Dinsdale started attending the Ernest Pythagoras Primary School in Clerkenwell. When the Piranhas left school they were called up but were found by an Army Board to be too unstable even for National Service. Denied the opportunity to use their talents in the service of their country, they began to operate what they called 'The Operation'... They would select a victim and then threaten to beat him up if he paid the so-called protection money. Four months later they started another operation which the called 'The Other Operation'. In this racket they selected another victim and threatened not to beat him up if he didn't pay them. One month later they hit upon 'The Other Other Operation'. In this the victim was threatened that if he didn't pay them, they would beat him up. This for the Piranha brothers was the turning point.

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  119. Nobody ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the american people. He's probably just that fucking dumb.

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  120. Deserves its own post on your own blog, Susan. You are definitely on to something and I want to know more.

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  121. Staying off the internet and possibly drinking a purgative is the only anti-helmitic I know for that kind of worm.

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  122. susanoftexas11:58 AM

    Alice Miller said "Fantasies always serve to conceal or minimize unbearable childhood reality for the sake of the child's survival; therefore, the so-called invented trauma is a less harmful version of the real, repressed one."
    This invented trauma is thrilling to them. It gives them what they need; a feeling of specialness, a target for amorphous fears and anger, a purpose, a sense of unity.
    I'm going to start with Rod Dreher because like McArdle he is as clear as glass. If it didn't sound kind of gay he would probably be calling himself Joan of Arc right now.

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  123. Not a bad thing - but you can kiss any chance you have of getting back on the Wheaties box.

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  124. BigHank5312:05 PM

    My lovely spouse got to keep the tooth she just had yanked. The last one that came out of my head was shrapnel by the time they finished. It was a bad afternoon, and the infection I came down with was a real drag, too. If it wasn't for antibiotics I'd be as dead Alan Keyes' electoral hopes.

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  125. Magatha12:09 PM

    Holy crap, that's harrowing. Not the Alan Keyes part.

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  126. BigHank5312:11 PM

    Now, I was thinking more about how the Forest Service deals with "nuisance bears"--shooting them in the ass with a tranquilizer dart and relocating them to a more suitable habitat. Unfortunately the only place I can think of that might suit Rod would be Uganda's National Resistance Movement (sponsors of the anti-gay legislation inspired by American evangelicals) but something tells me he might not fit in...

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  127. "OMG THIS COUNTRY IS FULL OF... FULL OF... YOU-KNOW-WHATS!"

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  128. Chris Anderson12:17 PM

    Re: W.F. Buckley's appearances with Gore Vidal and Noam Chomsky, in which he threatened to punch them: in doing so, Buckley raised many questions. Did he think himself a tough guy, or capable of passing as one? Maybe he thought that conservatives could see him as admirably thuggish, in spite of his rarefied, even effete persona; reason being that conservatives equate liberal views with weakness, and conservative ones with toughness. Ergo, Buckley was tough, eh? And he knew his audience well enough to know that when you're faced with the likes of Vidal or Chomsky (neither of whom was intimidated by Buckley's schtick alone) you're supposed to be an all-American prick.


    It's funny that Buckley raised the issue of his military service in his spat with Vidal. Both men served, neither seems to have seen combat. I wonder if Buckley knew that (Vidal seems to have known something about Buckley's service), and whether he counted on viewers making favorable assumptions. If Buckley is so smart, he must have believed -- as Vidal surely did -- that U.S. military service does nothing to disprove one's predeliction for "pro- or crypto-fascism." The exchange, then, shows Buckley's sweaty-palmed, hackish, sloppy core, behind a veneer of erudite anti-cool.


    Quickly, onward to Chomsky: Noam has certainly spent a huge chunk of his life in front of sympathetic or even sycophantic audiences. Nevertheless, he is a fundamentally brave person, albeit a pacifistic one. He'd talk to anyone, anywhere, about anything, and do it the right way and in good faith (even when wrong-headed). By contrast, Buckley was just a rhetor, a stylist without substance, a real elitist snob and yet secretly uncomfortable with himself in a way Chomsky is not ... Vidal was unlike Chomsky, but again, he was blindingly, obviously stronger than Buckley, and more truly self-assured: Vidal's panache was no act.

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  129. If it didn't sound kind of gay he would probably be calling himself Joan of Arc right now.

    Not only does he covet the martyrdom, he also really wants the wardrobe.

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  130. . . . a stylist without substance, . . .

    Except for the racism--that was very substantive indeed.

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  131. Chris Anderson12:24 PM

    I think he was genuinely racist and homophobic. He felt safe making substance-free arguments on these topics. Chomsky and Vidal had "balls" when it mattered, when few people would stand with them. Buckley wished he could say that. He was a punk.

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  132. susanoftexas12:36 PM

    Everything he did was about preserving his unearned position of superiority. He had a mediocre mind and did everything in his power to hide it.

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  133. Well, as Comrade Vladimir I. Lenin said:

    "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."

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  134. Gromet12:58 PM

    This is about the best sketch of Buckley I've ever seen. Good comparisons. Thank you. I will subscribe to your newsletter.

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  135. Sorry about hijacking a thread again, but I am not happy and I wish to rant.

    Our mortgage company (OCWEN, never fucking deal with them if you can avoid it) still has their warm wet nose buried in their own buttcrack, examining a property title to our old house that's been cleaner than Ted Cruz's winky for the last two months. We tried to go through a foundation for assistance to booksellers (Mom & I used to own a bookstore) and got back a patronizing email saying they were just to help present bookstores and have we gone to Monroe County DHS (FUCK ME AGNES) or United Way yet? The same damn people we've contacted over the last two months who've told us to go away, they can't help, and get rid of the pets and go to a shelter.

    I am on the verge of, well, it's kind of hard to punch people over the phone, but I'm working on it. And I'm fucking tired of living in a car. I want a goddamn house.

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  136. Gromet1:03 PM

    Rod d'Arc. Nope, nothing gay about that... nothing gay, or porny, or at all disturbing at in any way.

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  137. He's going to be a guy masquerading as a woman masquerading as a guy?

    Wheels within wheels, indeed.

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  138. Chris Anderson1:34 PM

    Thank you so much, but take a look at this (Roy's link contains a link to it, and I like it):

    http://lasvegascitylife.com/sections/ae/books/sock-face-look-back-gore-vidal%E2%80%99s-famous-feud.html

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  139. PersonaAuGratin1:52 PM

    One of Jenner's "real" (i.e., non-Kardashian-related) jobs is owning some executive aviation services company. Back in 2010 I happened to hear him as a special-guest caller on a sportstalk radio show. Despite the show's practice of keeping political commentary to a minimum, when asked about his businesses Bruce went on a rant about how Obama's policies had destroyed the private jet industry. I found this amusing since there had been a press release on that or the previous day by Gulfstream (big private jet manufacturer) announcing they were hiring 1,000 people and spending $500 million to meet increasing demand.

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  140. ". . . go for the face" sounds like ferret justice to me. (Apologies to ferret lovers.)

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  141. Jaime Oria2:06 PM

    Aimai - I think you mean "flaming Nazi gasbag" while the Hindenburg was merely a dirigible airship...

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  142. LookWhosInTheFreezer2:08 PM

    Needs more falafel.

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  143. Jayson Alan Grigsby2:09 PM

    Also a touch of "Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers...that smell BAD" and "I. LOVE. You. But I hate you."

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  144. Jayson Alan Grigsby2:11 PM

    Even Reds Get the Blues.

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  145. DocAmazing2:12 PM

    I bring Tupperware along to save face.

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  146. Thank god you are young enough to remember the whole joke. I'm not old enough to remember the Hindenburg, but am old enough to start using etc... in place of the conclusion to my own jokes.

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  147. Or a form of forced saving.

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  148. Upvoting because its all I can do to show my sympathy. Wish you could turn it in for some more fun drugs.

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  149. Of course he hated Vidal because they came from the same class and so he knew Vidal could see right through him.

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  150. Jayson Alan Grigsby2:26 PM

    Temporarily embarrassed, etc.

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  151. It doesn't go here but reading about Buckley, Vidal, and Chomsky reminds me of my grandfather who was capable of a kind of rhetorical power that few people have these days. My father just forwarded this to me http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-04-23/reading-i-f-stone-on-earth-day-why-we-still-won-t-get-anywhere-unless-we-connect-the-dots It is a blog post by Naomi Klein that reprints one of Izzy's finest moments: ruining everyone's first ever Earth Day with some sad, cold, hard, facts:

    .F. Stone, “Con Games,” speech delivered at Sylvan Theater, Washington, D.C., April 22, 1970

    In the ancient world, the Caesars did it with bread and circuses. And tonight, I’m afraid, is the first time that our Caesars have learned to do it with rock and roll, and idealism, and noninflammatory social issues. In some ways, I’m sorry to say, we here tonight are being conned. This has many of the aspects of a beautiful snow job. The country is slipping into a wider war in southeast Asia, and we’re talking about litterbugs. The secretary of defense, on Monday, made a speech to the Associated Press sabotaging the SALT talks, presenting a completely false picture of the world balance of power, ending what little hope we had of progress in those talks, preparing the way for a bigger, more expensive arms race at the expensive of mankind, and we’re talking as if we needed more wastebaskets.

    The divisions of white and black in this country are getting to the point where they threaten our future, and we’re talking about pollution. And it’s not that pollution is not an important subject, but if the Nixon administration feels so deeply about it, why don’t they do something substantial about it?

    The whole thing is like that with a detailed denunciation of the way Earthday, however important, distracted people from fighting the war and militarism.

    Here's another great bit:

    You know, there is no use talking about Earth Day unless we are prepared to make these fundamental changes. Everybody’s talking about Earth Day, and it comes out of the mouths of so many hypocrites it turns your stomach. What kind of an Earth Day can we celebrate in a country that is spending so much of its money to destroy the Earth? How can we talk of reverence for life when we’re spending so much of our energy, our genius, our money, and our youth on building up new means of destroying life?

    What’s the use of talking about the pollution of air and water when we live under a precarious balance of terror which can, in an hour’s time, make the entire Northern Hemisphere of our planet unlivable? There’s no use talking about Earth Day until we begin to think like Earthmen. Not as Americans and Russians, not as blacks and whites, not as Jews and Arabs, but as fellow travelers on a tiny planet in an infinite universe. All that we can muster of kindness, of compassion, of patience, of thoughtfulness, is necessary if this tiny planet of ours is not to go down to destruction.

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  152. I'm just so sorry this is happening to you both. Its horrible.

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  153. Jayson Alan Grigsby2:29 PM

    Well, despite being older than me, he apparently uses the "for all intensive purposes" construction, so there's that.

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  154. Chris Anderson2:30 PM

    Wishing you better times soon. I'm in no position to help, unfortunately.

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  155. If you watch the video of Buckley and Vidal, he casually, but carefully forms a fist in case Buckley tries to use violence. Whatever his other faults, Vidal was not a coward.

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  156. How can you tell if it's fresh face? Do you go by looks?

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  157. billcinsd3:24 PM

    I've played that video game

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  158. smut clyde3:33 PM

    DOCUMENTARY PROOF -- our etchers captured the scene.

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  159. smut clyde3:38 PM

    Did Buckley threaten Chomsky? I only remember him whining that Chomsky was bullying him, by using facts and cogent arguments and other unfair rhetorical tricks of that nature.

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  160. coozledad4:05 PM

    And all they'd get are rockers. No mods.

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  161. Chris Anderson4:08 PM

    Chomsky said "I sometimes lose my temper, not today," and Buckley replies "Yeah because you know that I'd punch you" (paraphrasing from memory).

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  162. It was a post-coital smoke, and Nolte had to drop the guy's cock to go fetch one.

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  163. billcinsd4:43 PM

    if the die-er had enough money that would be eccentric miser

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  164. J Neo Marvin5:00 PM

    Out of the closet, still a dumbass.

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  165. TGuerrant5:12 PM

    e.g., Nolte phenotype exhibited by a member of a nearly extinct species of human in the genus Homo in anticipation of major flatus expulsion.

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  166. TGuerrant5:14 PM

    We are forever impoverished by the lack of a Vine of that historic moment.

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  167. TGuerrant5:26 PM

    They've gone from Big Tent to Wide Stance.

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  168. M. Krebs5:39 PM

    Interesting vine he's got growing out of his ass there to cover his junk.

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  169. M. Krebs5:40 PM

    "Yet can anyone seriously imagine Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity threatening to “sock” a “queer” in the “goddamned face”?"

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  170. postmodulator5:45 PM

    Holy shit, you're Izzy Stone's granddaughter? I had no idea.

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  171. TGuerrant5:49 PM

    In case anyone needs further enticement to sample the Las Vegas CityLife link:

    “You were not in the infantry,” Vidal adds, helpfully, an assertion
    confirmed by Buckley biographer Sam Tanenhaus, who reports that Wild
    Bill “served in the U.S. Army but did not make it overseas. He did,
    however, oversee a sexual hygiene operation on a base in Texas.”

    and

    To the self-assurance of the manor-born and the entitlement of the
    prep-schooled, Buckley adds an invigorating jigger of weirdness, a
    snaggletoothed leer that hints at a redeeming depravity behind all that
    high-church, God and Man at Yale conservatism.

    and

    Noting Buckley’s passing, Vidal happily disregarded the prohibition on speaking ill of the dead....

    and... it's nonstop. Mark Dery? Has Roy led us to his work before? Something rings a bell. He's writing a biography of Edward Gorey and he tweets.

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  172. TGuerrant5:55 PM

    Now they've got your DNA, Bill. When Terry McAuliffe goes the way of Vince Foster during HRC's first term, guess what's going to turn up at the crime scene?

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  173. TGuerrant6:22 PM

    Shirts? My brother and I usually used yesterday's socks, though I grant you, some nights, two wasn't enough for either of us. The teenage years are such a busy time.

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  174. ColBatGuano6:23 PM

    We like to invite outspoken conservatives to our liberal dinner parties just to see their reaction when we parrot their applause lines.

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  175. TGuerrant6:24 PM

    Ah, for the good old days, when there was no racism because we had a Republican in the White House.

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  176. ColBatGuano6:25 PM

    I am waiting for the Republican primary debate where the candidates try to out do each other for who is the most liberal. The sound of a million fundie skulls exploding might be pretty loud.

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  177. Yes, but its an increasingly distant honor. Still, whenever I re-read some of his work I'm struck by how timely it is, and how much I miss being able to talk politics with him.

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  178. satch6:47 PM

    "Threatening", maybe... but I can't imagine them actually doing it to anyone who wasn't restrained by a couple of staff.

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  179. smut clyde6:50 PM

    a biography of Edward Gorey

    WANT.

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  180. Its such a weird thing because in grownupland losing your temper and punching someone are both kind of lower class things to do. The upper classes are supposed to be all cool and stiff upper lip. Of course Buckley is pretending to a kind of earlier, martial, honor code in which a proper man vindicates his touchy honor by horsewhipping or caning his low class opponent as la Charles Sumner caning. Very, very, not New England.

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  181. Silenus! I will not tolerate your insolence!

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  182. I am put in mind of Jackie Mason's joke about Frank Sinatra saving his live ... by saying "That's enough, boys."

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  183. I can't wait for the Law and Order retelling. "Defendant is released on twenty-five million dollars bail, payable to the Clinton Foundation." Curses!

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  184. Jaime Oria8:48 PM

    Insert awed, bug-eyed emoticon right the fuck here

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  185. That almost goes without saying, given when he came out as gay. "America's biographer" was an American hero.

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  186. His audience is so close to death they probably think his subjects are a kind of hommage.

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  187. davdoodles12:49 AM

    "Now that Bruce Jenner has come out as both a woman and a Republican"
    I believe Michelle Bachman already owns all the shit in that outhouse.
    .

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  188. DocAmazing1:49 AM

    Dock strap.

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  189. PersonaAuGratin3:08 AM

    I read Judy Stone's movie reviews for a couple of decades before I ever found out (probably when she retired from the Chron) that she was I.F. Stone's sister. In fact, I was probably reading her before I even learned who Izzy was. Quite a talented family of letters!

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  190. DerBrunoStroszek4:06 AM

    "Rest assured, I didn't say anything, but my momentarily furrowed brow said more than words ever could!"

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  191. Yes, Judy is a pip. My great aunt and still alive at 90 or so. She was the baby of the family.

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  192. Conidering Rods relationship to fantasy i imagine he spends a lot of time weiting out sample names. Maybe not rod d'arc but things like "mr rod transubstantiation" " mr rod numinous" or " mr rod triune mystery."

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  193. With his racism and his sniffy upper-class pretenses, it looks as though Buckley was born about a thousand miles too far north and about a hundred years too late. Meaning that he missed his calling as a plantation-owning slave master.

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  194. And since then, the "destroyed" industry has booked record orders. Indeed, the Gulfstream 650 has been in such demand that people bought delivery positions on the production line (i.e., ordered a jet) and then sold those positions for millions of dollars more.

    But, t'was ever thus. Clinton "destroyed" the economy by leading us through the greatest peace-time economic expansion in American history. I remember Republicans at the time claiming that falling unemployment and rising salaries were terrible things that had to be stopped. I also remember Alan Greenspan doing everything he could to derail the prosperity because unemployment was too low. And I remember business "leaders" on the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal bemoaning the fact that as their profits and salaries doubled, tripled, quadrupled, quintupled, their tax bill got marginally bigger--something that threatened the entire international order.

    Of course, once Bush was elected, all of those problems were cured with massive tax cuts for the rich and a subsequent collapse of the economy.

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  195. That's why you should only eat seedless grapes.

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  196. Ah! But it was captured!:

    https://youtu.be/Xk-J4aHH9Sk

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