TROLLHOUSE COOKIES. I don't know how much more can be said about McCain's ridiculous Obama and the White Sluts ad at this point. But I was delighted to see Ross Douthat's coverage of it. No, not for anything Douthat wrote -- as expected, the advocate of a new, cleansing Republican populism does a "GOP Racism? Where?" Vaudeville act for two posts.

What pleased me was that the two posts are infested with what bloggers of a McArdlesque turn of mind would call trolls -- that is, they give Douthat a hard time not only about his posts, but also about his blog, his Party, etc. And very enjoyably too: "This blog is starting to feel like a petulant resignation letter," "This is the ultimate Ross Douthat post. Bitchy, hand-wringing, and pointless," "Maybe we should be congratulating Ross for being so post-racist that he is completely unable to detect it," etc.

But my very special compliments go to whoever put up the priceless fake Steve Sailer comment:

It's a fact that African-American penises are larger, in inverse correlation to IQ.

I have measured hundreds myself, and feel that this ad is bringing up a serious question.

If we have an African American president, then clearly white women are going to start having interracial sex. And we have no idea where this will lead.

But, we will have a lot of blond women surprised, and sore.

Nobody wants to hear this, but it is fact.

As some of us have known for years, many of the great geniuses of the internet labor in obscurity. We must celebrate them as we mourn the Unknown Soldier, with such insufficient but well-meant monuments as this.

(If you aren't familiar with Sailer's ideas on race, this will give you some idea.)

UPDATE. No sign of stopping. One commenter suggests Douthat is trying to follow Yglesias' lead and attract offers from more overtly partisan operations. I have thought for a long time that the Atlantic should just clear the decks and replace all their bloggers with genuine, diagnosed aphasics and autistics. The current policy of employing Asperger's sufferers just doesn't go far enough.