FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: TOO GRIM TO BE FUNNY & VICE VERSA EDITION.

Ry Cooder doesn't get enough love.

If the actions of this administration weren’t so harmful to actual human beings, I could enjoy them as living satires of human folly. Kansas demanding trans people turn over their drivers’ licenses? (Now driving while trans is even more dangerous than driving while black -- and if you’re tempted to say, “well, they’re not going to kill trans drivers,” maybe check the eliminationist rhetoric conservatives have mainstreamed.) And forbidding U.S. military officers to attend Ivy League schools because they might be taught “social justice activism”? (Because once exposed to woke education -- which to a ruff tuff creampuff like Hegseth is synonymous with indoctrination, because in his conception of society no one would ever become a teacher except to bend the young to their will -- even the most tough-minded serviceman helplessly succumbs and turns hippie.)

At least we can enjoy the Ellisons’ acquisition, via the Paramount Skydance takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery,  of CNN. True, the rightwing scheme of taking over and vandalizing media entities like CBS News as vengeance for years of perceived “liberal media” persecution is disgusting, but look on the bright side: Those entities were shit anyway. Every time I come across CNN in a waiting room or rest home, it’s bawling some LCD bullshit as if trying to get the attention of hyperactive monkeys. True, whatever capacity these institutions had for investigative journalism will be wrecked, but let’s face it, their will to make good use of those resources was already fading with their ratings anyway; the real talent is all in independent media now, and the opportunity to put some muscle behind it and make a real difference is there waiting for some smart, civic-minded rich guy to pick it up -- now, if only there were more (or any) smart, civic-minded rich guys out there.

This week’s ROY EDROSO BREAKS IT DOWN freebie (yes, just one, this particular indie journo enterprise needs paid subscribers, and can’t be giving it away like a soft-hearted country gal in the big city) is a post-mortem not so much on Tuesday’s State of the Union as on the very idea of paying attention to Tubby’s cheeseball spectacles in the first place. I mean, the guy who’s planning to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary with a wrestling match is not going to show us anything except how low the country has sunk, and we know, brother, we know. 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: ANTIFA VS. PRO-FA EDITION.

Just nice.

According to Tubby and his mob, if you’re anti-fascist you’re a terrorist. Having declared antifa (obligatory mouse type: not a real organization) a “domestic terrorist” organization, he’s now also calling it a “foreign terrorist” organization -- which, even if it were a real organization, and domestic-terroristic, wouldn’t make any sense. Tubby apparently thinks “foreign” makes it sound worse -- maybe next week he’ll sign an Executive Order declaring it a Satanic terrorist organization. 

I draw your attention, folks, to how few news outlets, in reporting this lunacy, actually tell their readers and viewers that there is no formal organization called antifa, that the word just means anti-fascist, and Tubby (along with the Prestige Press) is indulging a particularly bizarre fantasy (and a dangerous one for decent people because, if they can make up a terrorist group that must be wiped out and say it’s composed of people who oppose their policies, well, sky’s the limit as far as the next dictatorial phase goes). 

One good thing about totalitarian nightmares, though -- it’s fuel for my muse. So here’s the first of this week’s free-to-nonsubscribers ROY EDROSO BREAKS IT DOWN episode, in which decompensating Tubby freestyles on the theme.

The other freebie is about Bari Weiss of conservative gripesite The Free Press taking over CBS News. This is very obviously a rightwing fever dream come true, as may be seen by the celebrations among Trumpkins like Caitlin Flanagan. Though everyone actually in the business knows Weiss was dropped like a depth charge by Larry Ellison to destroy what's left of the prestigious news organization, Flanagan tells us in “Don’t Bet Against Bari Weiss”:

That she will somehow denigrate the storied CBS News… is a complete misreading of her and her vision, which is to bring the traditional methods of American journalism back to the news, and also to build a culture of ideas.

And what does Flanagan mean by that?

This is exactly what she’s done at The Free Press, which covers a variety of stories, the most popular of which -- Uri Berliner’s explanation of NPR’s decline, for example --are those that hold powerful institutions to account.

It seems by "the traditional methods of American journalism" and "a culture of ideas" Flanagan means the same bitching about Liberal Media Bias that conservatives like Weiss have been doling out in lieu of journalism for decades -- except, thanks to the billionaires’ takeover of American journalism, there's almost nothing even resembling a liberal media left for her to oppose, especially now that CBS News has been mummified and locked away in Bari’s mansion like Homer in "A Rose For Emily."

Anyway, ROY EDROSO BREAKS IT DOWN has one for you on Weiss getting to know her staff. Oh, and I shouldn’t leave Trump’s failure to win the Nobel Peace Prize unmentioned. Some folks think he should be pleased that the awardee -- who seems like kind of a nightmare herself -- thanked Trump in her moment of victory. But you know what the old narcissist is like. I’m sure he’s taking it like a disappointed, jealous Oscar nominee hearing his name mentioned in the winner’s speech -- not as a gracious gesture, but as a way to rub it in that he lost. Take some comfort from the fact that, powerful as they may be, they can never be truly happy. 

SUNDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: SAW THE NAZIS GETTIN' SLOPPY EDITION.

I follow Robert Christgau because how can I not,
but also because he catches me up on acts like this.

On the one hand, the outrages never cease; on the other hand, it’s a great age for grim amusements! For example,  for 10 days after the catastrophic Texas floods that FEMA (and the local authorities) fucked up, FEMA figurehead David Richardson was entirely AWOL, but this weekend they finally dug him up (literally, from the looks of him) and put him in front of a map, a Texas flag, and some other doughy white dudes to glower and posture, as discovered by the mighty Marisa Kabas: 

Like Woody Allen almost said, 80% of success is showing up – ten days late!  Look at the fucker:

I assume they found him passed out in a nearby motel room strewn with crack pipes and empty tequila bottles and THANX FOR THE WALLET BITCH! scrawled in lipstick on the mirror. (The shower was broken so the federal “rescue team” took him to the pool and dunked him before transporting him to his photo op.) 

This is the whole MAGA approach: Destroy institutions/kill people with your incompetence and maliciousness, then (like Kristi Noem) swagger onto the scene in some outlandish costume to announce the success of the operation. 

We knew from the start their goal was to wreck enough government services that people might forget a competent government ever existed and that their tax dollars once did anything but pay off Tubby and his goons. But, boy, they’ve been sloppy about it – and maybe that’s a built-in problem for them, because the vicious arrogance that makes them want to do it in the first place is also what makes them so lazy about pretending they’re doing anything else. Showing up and doing your job? That’s for losers. Real leaders strut for the cameras and then peace out. 

I like to think the slight backtracking these bastards have done – like Tom “Evil Stubby Kaye” Homan pretending he gives a shit about due process and ICE’s prey, and Noem claiming Tubby no longer wants to get rid of FEMA – is a sign, not of progress, but of panic. They’ll find their footing again soon and try some new outrages, but at least there’s a bit of a window now to slip some mines in their path.

Like the Epstein files! That’s another example of Trump’s gang believing they can be totally careless about their racket – in this case, ginning up a scandal for years and then saying whoops, never happened --  and not get blowback. I see their current plan is to stonewall and make the MAGA faithful eat it, which is great, because every minute they stick at it more voters finally get wise to them. Of course that won’t matter if we don’t have elections anymore, but as Vaclav Havel said: Act as if. 

Freebies from Roy Edroso Breaks It Down: First, Elon Musk runs his newly Free Speechified Grok past some prominent Jewish conservatives – hilarity ensues! And: An essay about a curious trend among the “liberal media” (what I call the Prestige Press) to side with the old, reactionary, time-serving and unpopular Democrats against the young, popular, progressive Democrats, and why that may be a bigger problem than Trump. 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: SO FAT DON CAN READ IT WITHOUT HIS GLASSES EDITION.

If you hate us, you just don't know what you're sayin'.

A lot of people are gloomy this Independence Day, so right out of the gate here's today's Roy Edroso Breaks It Down essay on why you could be (not should be, no pressure!) less gloomy. Briefly, America and its birthday are yours and mine, not the assholes'. 

Not that the recent catastrophes aren't daunting. The budget bill is insane, as are the lies they're telling to razzle-dazzle the rubes -- like that "nearly 90% of Social Security beneficiaries will no longer pay federal income taxes on their benefits" (that's bullshit) and that there are no Medicaid cuts (also bullshit). And the expansion of ICE is clearly meant to elevate it from a Sturmabteilung to a Gestapo. I'm a little surprised that, when Tubby and his mob push their creepy "Alligator Alcatraz" propaganda with pictures of alligators wearing ICE hats, no one seems to notice that an alligator would as happily eat a MAGA chucklefuck as it would an immigrant. 

And the Prestige Press won't do shit for us. You see how the New York Times used oppo from a racist chud to try and make something of Zohran Mamdani putting African-American on a form when he's literally from Africa? These fuckers get more obvious about who and what they support all the time, and "liberal media" they ain't. 

Yeah, we got a hill to climb, no question. But then so did the Continental Army. Act as if ye had faith, etc. 

Also from REBID, here's something else that might brighten your outlook (or not! No judgment!): A look back at the "reality-based" community thing and why that might point to a way out. And, just for fun, Bolt Upright and Received Opinion ask, "concentration camps — in or out?"

SUNDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: NEW FRONTIERS IN SANEWASHING EDITION.

Another one from the neo-soul coffee shop.

I keep filing these weekly dispatches late, due to my absurdly crowded work schedule; if you come across any of those liberal billionaires people keep asking to fund a Countervailing Noise Machine of the Left, tell them to send some o’ them sweet Sorosbucks my way -- my signal-to-noise ratio may be a little high for pure-propaganda purposes but just think of the cachet: “Yes, we fund Edroso. Doesn’t take much; poor fellow never had chance to develop a taste for luxury.” “What! Edroso’s still alive? I heard he perished from cirrhosis and a surfeit of bile.” “Good for you, keeping the old clown afloat. You know we ought to establish some sort of assisted-living for these bloggers – it reflects poorly on our Cause whenever one of them dies in a snowdrift.” 

Reciprocating this imaginary generosity, I bring you some freebies from Roy Edroso Breaks It Down, my famous five-day-a-week Substack (subscriptions for which, by the way, are absurdly cheap and make great if puzzling “thinking of you” gifts). Here are two Scenes We’d Like To See: one, Jeff Bezos in Caligula mode, lamenting that his billions have not brought him fulfillment and seeking to fill the void with the corpse of democracy; and two, last week’s Tubby sketch, sort of “The Emperor’s New Depends.” If these don’t épater la bourgeoisie I daresay they can’t be épatered. 

If the satires seem a little nervier than usual, it’s because I look at the news, a filthy habit I can’t seem to shake. (Though I have fucked off from Twitter and will soon fuck off from Facebook as well – these days, the “long march through the institutions” is made mainly to sever connections with the most toxic ones, media-wise. Thankfully there are alternatives.) Many people have pointed out that Tubby’s stated plans of foreign conquest are nuts, and that the Prestige Press is sanewashing them in a manner that would be inexplicable if you hadn’t seen (and hasn’t everyone seen it, by now?) that they’re sucking up for access and protection, and (this is the worst part) out of belated recognition that fascism suits their business model better than truth-telling. The shittier ones are just full-on jingo cheering, while the polite ones are doing “analysis” like NPR’s “Is Trump's rhetoric on Greenland, Canada and Panama Canal a 'Madman Strategy'?”  which I expect to see followed by “Trump Biting Head Off Rat Sends a Signal: Experts.” 

Still more disgusting is Trump’s claim that California didn’t handle their UNPRECEDENTED CLIMATE-RELATED FIRE EMERGENCY correctly and promise to make it worse when he’s in power. I trust I don’t have to explain that this has nothing to do with any desire to help the people of that state and everything to do with his dark disinformation campaign to enrich himself by destroying the country; as I’ve been saying for years (and see Laura Jedeed for a newer, related angle), demonizing a state that actually generates economic growth and uses it to provide services to its people is necessary to the MAGA goal of making shitty, parsimonious Alabama-style governance the only kind his minions will ever know. I will also add that Steve Bannon bitching about Elon Musk is just fash fan-magazine bullshit and should not be taken seriously as anything but a further example of how stupid things have gotten. 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: A-HOLES AND PSEUDO-NICE GUYS EDITION.

Anybody else remember the rumor that the “pusher” was Soupy Sales?

Gather ‘round, kiddies, the man with the goodies is here!  And by that of course I mean Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebies for y’all. 

The first one is another in a series about conservatives’ ever-decreasing emphasis on policy and ever-increasing emphasis on being assholes. The hook in this instance is the people who spread the vicious rumor that Burning Man had become an Ebola superspreader event, and how, when you checked these jerkoffs’ feeds, they usually were also into classic rightwing disinfo – COVID denialism, the “stolen” 2020 election, cities “burned to the ground” by BLM, etc. Because panic and loathing and unreasoning rage are what they have instead of policies that anyone would want.

If you’ve been paying attention at all, this should be self-evident, but a National Review writer named Zach Kessel seems to have missed it; he writes about the recent rightwing rage-gasm over Julia Mazur (if you don’t know, lucky you; she posted about being happy though childless, the expected ensued) as if it only recently occurred to him that this sort of thing was going on among his fellow conservatives: 

There’s plenty that could be said about the experience of a single, childless woman in her late 20s. I obviously have very little practice being one, so I’ll address something else: the sheer nastiness in [merkin-faced clown Matt] Walsh’s post. His attack on a woman who’s simply trying to appreciate what she has in life is emblematic of a broader problem on the right: the conflation of “conservative” with “jerk.” Walsh is by no means the only offender, with many other right-wing influencers solely focusing on “owning the libs.” The “owning” often stoops to bullying. 

Reading this is like reading about the Fulcrum and Lever at this point. It would be weird to read about “right-wing influencers” who were not bullies. Kessel: 

This is a real problem for conservatism. Over the past decade or so, many elements of what once constituted the movement have crumbled, especially within much of the right-wing media ecosystem. Small government? That’s old-fashioned. Clear, universal ideas of morality? So archaic. A globally engaged United States? That’s “not where the voters are,” and even if it was, America isn’t necessarily the good guy.

They still make you? Where has this guy been? Again, these concepts just weren’t pulling – everyone knows by now “small government,” for example, means tax breaks for the wealthy and the rest of us get shit – so now the con is all fascist funhouse garbage. Why does he think Trump and his less talented twins DeSantis and Ramaswamy command about 80% of Republican presidential race support, while the serious and pseudo-nice-guy candidates scramble for scraps?

Can this guy ever get it? Doubtful:

One only needs to look to national politics to see the impact the Right’s approach could be having on voters. Young women have only become more liberal in recent years, and it’s not far-fetched to say the “trolling” streak in some corners of the Right is a turnoff.

“Trolling” – guy, might the aggressively anti-abortion politics shared by both the asshole conservatives and the pseudo-nice-guy conservatives have “young women” convinced all conservatives/Republicans consider them rightless broodsows? Maybe, by being assholes, these guys are not distracting from their beliefs – they’re affirming them.

Anyway: Here’s a less-grim freebie from Labor Day, about how increasingly screwed Americans might just be ready to go for bread and roses again. Solidarity! 

UPDATE. Speaking of those abortion policies that Zach Kessel doesn't think affect young women's feelings toward conservatism, LOL -- from his own magazine: 

After suffering a string of electoral losses on the issue of abortion, Republican lawmakers are considering moving away from the term “pro-life” to describe their position on the issue...

“Many voters think [‘pro-life’] means you’re for no exceptions in favor of abortion ever, ever, and ‘pro-choice’ now can mean any number of things,” said [Republican Senator Josh] Hawley. “So the conversation was mostly oriented around how voters think of those labels, that they’ve shifted. So if you’re going to talk about the issue, you need to be specific"...

I know we said it was murder, ladies, and it is -- you're all murderers! But we're allowing some murders as a political calculation. There! Don't you feel better about the Republican Party?

A HYPE IS NOT A "HOME."

Ross Douthat is a menace on so many levels – to our politics, to English prose and reason, and so on – that one would think if the Times allowed him to bring in a couple of ringers to help they would vitiate his awfulness. No such luck!  Bad as his columns are, their partisan/theocratic intent is at least more or less unconcealed. But in this “roundtable” collaboration with a couple of other nudniks he tries to portray himself as the friend of the “Politically Homeless” -- in fact the thing was titled “Politically Homeless is Not Politically Hopeless” before it got switched it to “The Midterms Look Very Different if You’re Not a Democrat or a Republican” – as if it weren’t just a Republican recruiting tactic dressed up as high-mindedness.  

Maybe someone at the Times realized some readers would notice that “Politically Homeless” is a red flag signifying that rank bothsider fuckery is coming – the sort indulged by Andrew Yang’s ridiculous Forward Party, and by stray dummies who think “the left wants to censor us because they reject creativity” (??) and thus are no better an electoral choice than people who literally compare them to literal Satan. This is bothsiderism with an extra helping of woebegone and winsome: People who apparently can’t deal with the stresses and hard choices of everyday life -- try to imagine them picking an internet service provider or a wedding dress – and, faced with shitty democrats versus stark raving fascists, choose not to vote for the side less likely to kill them, and instead complain that neither side is serving them so they’ll just sit and cry about it. 

But at least those guys seem sincerely childish. Even without the warning label, you can smell the wingnut shtick Douthat and his collaborators – Reason’s Stephanie Slade, and Tablet’s Liel Leibovitz – have concocted a mile away. Leibovitz:

I came to this country, like so many other immigrants, because I care deeply about two things — freedom of religion and individual liberties. And both parties are messing up when it comes to these two fundamental pillars of American life, from cheering on law enforcement spying on Muslim Americans in the wake of 9/11 to cheering on social media networks for curbing free speech.

On the one hand, Republicans using the actual government to spy on Muslim-Americans (and, under Trump, to keep Muslims out of the U.S. entirely – though maybe Leibovitz doesn’t mind that); on the other, Democrats not doing whatever the fuck they’re supposed to do when Twitter (not a branch of the U.S. government) enforces its Terms of Service on users. It’s bothsides bingo because they’re both “cheering”!

Though Liebowitz is supposed to represent the “left,” he gives no positive defense or endorsement for any liberal or left principle – he just makes the same scared noises about Trump as any Republican milquetoast might. Also he says he’s going to vote for GOP New York governor candidate Lee Zeldin, who’s a literal 2020 election denier – but that, too, is cool with Liebowitz, who actually finds it a reason for a “very big dose of – dare I say it? -- hope”:

Voters are gravitating toward candidates who are telling them coherent stories that make sense. To the political classes, these stories sometimes sound conspiratorial or crazy or way removed from the Beltway reality. But to normal Americans, they resonate.

I guess Big Lie bullshit is OK because it's resonant, and shows independence from the reality-based beliefs of the Beltway elite.

As for Slade, she’s a libertarian, and (as I long ago observed) that means a conservative with social anxieties so, sure enough, while she professes an “almost unimaginable abhorrence… toward some of the Republicans who would have to win in order for the G.O.P. to retake the Senate,” she nonetheless favors them to win the House because

… the sheer economic insanity of the Biden years — amounting to approving more than $4 trillion of new borrowing, to say nothing of the unconstitutional eviction moratorium and student loan forgiveness — is mind-boggling to me, so almost anything that could put the brakes on some of this stuff seems worth trying.

So, she’s mad that the Democrats gave people trillions in COVID financial aid, and hopes to return to power the other party that gave them trillions in COVID financial aid. (Douthat says this makes her sound “like a swing voter”; I’d give him points if I thought he actually knew what that meant.)

The whole thing’s preposterous, but craziest thing is this from Liebowitz:

…I look at the Democratic Party and see a lot of energy I love — particularly the old Bernie Sanders spirit, before it was consumed by the apparatus. I look at the Republican Party and see people like Ted Cruz, who are very good at kicking up against some of the party’s worst ideas. There’s hope here and energy, just not if you keep on seeing this game as red versus blue.

Douthat professes interest in this “Bernie-Cruz” coalition. I would pay a few dollars to see this roundtable reconvened so that the participants could explain what that coalition would be like. Democratic Socilaism without the Democracy and Socialism, but Owning the Libs? Hey, maybe that’s Tulsi Gabbard’s plan! 

Long story short, you should always be suspicious of crypto-non-partisan come-ons, and when it's peddled by post office wall fixtures like Douthat definitely hold onto your wallet.

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: 9/16/22.

Preach.

•  Here’s today’s free issue of Roy Edroso Breaks It Down, on the conservatives’ latest New Low – BTW these New Lows seem to be coming faster, don’t they; like the contractions of the birth of fascism – namely, dumping even more immigrants in blue states, only this time sending some of them to Martha’s Vineyard.

As mentioned in my previous and more thorough examination of this trollery, conservatives have been enjoying Greg Abbott’s months-long shipments of immigrants to blue cities because they think the hardships they cause prove that a.) immigrants are disease carriers that no one wants and b) liberals don’t want them either so they’re hypocrites and the Real Racists™. 

But even conservatives know that the blue cities to which they've been sending immigrants are already full of black, brown, and indeed every other kind of people, among whom we white neighbors live quite comfortably. Which is probably why they pulled the Martha’s Vineyard stunt – it’s easier to portray those non-urban toffs as the limousine-liberal-racists of their imagination. 

This is a version of the old conservative gag about how If You Love [People We Despise] So Much Why Don’t You Let Your Daughter Marry One. You may think they stopped doing this one in the civil rights era, but rightwing internet sleazebags have been doing it as Babylon-Bee-level "satire” for years -- only now they usually focus on Latinos; here's an example from 2018, “Seize Ivy League Dorms and Give Them to Immigrant Families.” You can go read it, but I’ll make it less painful for you by supplying my own contemporaneous, better-written description:

Zmirak's big joke thereafter is an image of Messicans nestled in a "glorious Gothic dining hall, with sixty-foot carved ceilings and iron candelabras," being served their food by the silly SJW students. Liberals made to serve the brownskins they pretend to love so much -- it's a classic conservative humiliation fantasy straight out of Birth of a Nation. To add cream to the jest, Ole Perfesser Glenn Reynolds pimps that shit to his own coprophages and, in their rush to assault their strawmen, they suggest things like "Just dump them all in Brooklyn" -- because that's where the hipsters live, see, and since they're all limp-wristed sissies they've probably never seen an immigrant, especially in the trendier nabes like Crown Heights and Bed-Stuy.

All that’s new about the routine now is that they've got their politicians doing it with them and – as has been the pattern for decades – they’ve gotten even more vicious and stupid about the whole thing, and the contempt in which decent people hold them is still more justified. 

•  BTW I just got out of a week-long Twitter jail sentence for this, inspired by Sullivan weeping over the Queen:

This Twitter claimed violated their "hateful conduct policy” – which anyone with a middle school education would recognize as an absurd misreading of my comment, unless Andrew Sullivan has become a protected class (beyond the prestige media world where he clearly is one, I mean).

I do not mention this to invite sympathy – no cancelculture crybaby bullshit for me! These morons can do what they like with their own property – but to remind you that Twitter constantly pitches people off for stupid reasons while turning a blind eye to actual hate speech.

I really don’t think it’s political in the sense that Twitter is picking one side or another; I think their poor decisions are partly due to shit algorithms, but mostly just ass-covering gestures – gestures toward ass-covering, I should say, because the owners of the multi-billion-dollar company know they’ll only get in trouble if their decision follow any kind of a pattern, even (maybe especially) if the pattern is simply logical. For example, if they got rid of all the genuine hate speech on their platform, they’d be hauled before Congress to explain their hostility toward conservatives. But if they keep on throwing people off for jokes they don’t understand, along with occasional real offenses, they will have shown themselves to have “done something,” and no one can accuse them of bias.

One day I expect they’ll toss me forever, perhaps for some equally innocuous comment, so if I go quiet there you should look for me, not in instructions behind a rock that has no earthly business in a Maine hayfield, but here at alicublog (or, better still, at REBID – subscribe, cheap!).

Also, as a treat, here's one more free issue that may be of use to those of you who will spend the weekend standing in line to see Lizzy in a box. 

REST IN PISS.

To tide us over while we're waiting for Kissinger's fast train to Hell, we have the passing of Ken Starr, a first-class piece of shit: Grand Inquisitor of the Clinton Investigation (who then defended Trump from his own, more richly deserved impeachment!), enabler of widespread sexual abuse at Baylor, Jeffrey Epstein mouthpiece, and more. 

Funnier still are the conservatives sticking up for Starr. For example, the also-loathsome Andrew C. McCarthy at National Review:

...he had the patriotic devotion to take on the most thankless task in modern American history: independent counsel in the investigation of President Clinton.

You see this a lot in conservative salutes to Starr: His actions described as "thankless," meaning "all decent people were disgusted by them."

For that, the media-Democrat complex spared no effort to destroy him . . . personally.

That is, they noticed his malfeasances (like Baylor and Epstein, which go unmentioned by McCarthy) and reported them accurately, which is the worst thing you can do to a Republican . 

The best, though, is Quinn Hillyer at the Washington Examiner, under the already-answered-by-my-tshirt headline "Ken Starr, not a villain, did his duty with good intentions":

Former federal judge and independent counsel Kenneth Starr, who died today, was an eminently decent man and dedicated public servant who did not come close to deserving the calumny he received from most of the establishment media.

This is not to say that Starr’s judgment, especially when involving political ramifications, was always the best. But it is to say that he did his duty thoroughly and, importantly, fairly and without malice.

Yeah, he ran those people over, but he was on his way to church! 

...As it happened, both as a staffer on Capitol Hill and as an editorial writer in Little Rock, I became deeply involved in investigating the scandals of the Clinton era, trying to separate wheat from chaff. One bit of chaff (among many) was the persistent rumor that Clinton friend Vince Foster’s suicide had been staged. Some conservatives absolutely would not accept the suicide story and insisted that Foster was murdered.

Starr, with his then-young staffer Brett Kavanaugh playing a lead role, meticulously put that conspiracy theory to rest. And Starr’s team had Kavanaugh walk me through the report they presented, noting key clues that, while public, were ones the media missed. The effect was to exonerate the Clintons further on that score, even as Hillary did lead a cover-up of some materials in Foster’s possession when he died. If Starr had been “out to get” the Clintons, he and Kavanaugh would not have been so intent on noting even more of the exculpatory materials about the Clintons than the media had gleaned.

To recap: The liberal media and the Clintons themselves were to blame for the rumor that Hillary killed Vince Foster, but Ken Starr saved them. And look at the thanks he got! 

The highlight:

As it was, Starr went on to a productive career in academia, again sometimes showing better judgment than at other times.

I wonder if they honestly don't know how funny this is. Nahh, they can't be that dumb.

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.

I don't think Hoagy could write a bad song if he tried --
and he may have here.

Yes, only one free story from Roy Edroso Breaks It Down this week – and I remind you, Satan-to-Jesus-in-the-desert style, that all this – i.e. five days a week of deathless prose on contemporary topics – will be yours if you send me seven measly dollars a month. Considering he was only offering Jesus a bunch of hot sand, I'd say you'd be getting the better deal.

The current freebie is a version of that Rich Lowry essay defending FBI-threatening Trumpkins, stripped of its bullshit veneer. Lowry and that whole Republicans with Good Taste crew have certainly disgraced themselves in the Trump era – more than usual, I mean! – but, two impeachments and a coup later, their continued fluffing of Tubby should make it plain even to the dimmest professional centrist milquetoasts that the whole movement is rotten and irredeemable. 

Based on the continued ineducability of Damon Linker et alia, I guess it can never be made plain enough for some people. But at least some of us are trying. And now there’s the White House Twitter account mainstreaming the “This You?” attacks on Republicans who blubber about student loan forgiveness but turn out to be PPP pigs. I think it’s awesome that Biden’s people are smacking these wretched hypocrites around, for the usual petty reasons but also because it does the great public service of acknowledging that the civility with which liberals are always expected to treat conservatives is not only never reciprocated but also continually exploited.

I mean, these people worship Donald Trump, for fuck’s sake. All the hardcore rightwing ragebait emails I get are filled with stories like “DeSantis BLASTS Fauci to Kingdom Come: WATCH” and other equally combative rants. And Republicans candidates are pretty much expected to show themselves shooting or leading airstrikes against their unseen liberal enemies. 

American politics is a free-fire zone – except it’s only free going one way, toward the left. And yet, as the many citations of Murc’s Law have shown, when liberals even so much as point out how crazy these people are acting, they draw a red card from the prestige media.

Well, fuck that shit. The civility train left the station a loooooong time ago. I’m only disappointed that Biden called them “semi-fascist.” Uh uh, Dark Brandon, they’re full fash, and letting people know and giving the evidence is simply good citizenship.

UPDATE. I try not to be too "cry harder" about this, but really how can you resist when it's Timothy P. Carney at the Washington Examiner:

Did you know that if you ever took any form of federal aid, you’re never allowed to criticize any other form of government aid?

? No, I did not know that. What -- 

That’s the only reasonable interpretation of the snarky tweet campaign spearheaded by the White House on Friday, comparing the forgiveness of student debt to the forgiveness of the Paycheck Protection Program...

What they clearly believe is that giving money to anyone — in any circumstance — buys the White House the right to say “shut your mouth” any time that person criticizes a government program.

The White House "snarky tweet campaign" was just this: they ran Republicans' rages against the loan forgiveness next to the amounts of said Republicans' (often quite substantial!) forgiven PPP loans. That's it. The simplest kind of mockery. And this has reduced Carney to a full-body sputter of persecution mania:

In that light, you can better understand the unending desire to expand government. The more thoroughly you get everyone on the dole, even if you do it by first cutting off their access to nongovernment money, the more you get to boss everyone around.

We'll subsidize your electric car, but then, you have to shut up. We'll subsidize your crops, but then, you can never criticize us. We'll subsidize your home purchase, but then, you have to agree with us on everything.

The italicized section is very like what Carney italicized-fantasized was being said to him during the 2015 RFRA controversies: "Bake me a cake, photograph my wedding, pay for my abortion and my contraception." Guy's got an M.O.! 

Finally:

The only sensible response is to get government out of every part of our life we can so that we preserve the standing to criticize the government. I don’t generally support that take, but that’s what’s required by Biden’s behavior.

You liberals have forced me to pretend to be a libertarian, again! Yeesh, what a whining little bitch. Makes you want to creep under his window at night and stage-whisper BAKE ME A CAAAAAAAKE.

UPDATE 2. Ugh, it's a real pity party on the right today:

But we should blame ourselves: We should have been telling them to fuck off long since. Now they're spoiled. 

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.

You never lose with Dr. John.

Rejoice, my non-paying customers, there are two free editions of Roy Edroso Breaks It Down for you this week. One is sort of an invitation to offer your own explanations for the ever-perplexing phenomenon of Cancelculture Crybabies. I can understand why rightwingers push this bullshit -- they want to portray themselves as attractive victims of Orwellian Woke Repression, even when the "victims" in question have their boot-in-the-ass coming or have actually "deplatformed" themselves. I can even understand why squishy liberal simps would push it -- it makes them feel like they're being "even-handed," which to them is more important than sticking up for what's right or even for themselves. But I'm confused by normal people who feel sorry for these obvious frauds -- though I did offer my own ideas. 

Also, slightly related: Here's a rundown of stories for a proposed New York Times magazine devoted to bothsiderism -- which would be a great way to isolate the virus from the rest of the paper. 

Long week and I'm tired, but I do want to mention an idea that's advanced this week by two old-fashioned conservative hacks, Rich Lowry ("Liberals Should Welcome Ron DeSantis’ Rise") and Jim Geraghty ("Whom Does the Mainstream Media Want the GOP to Nominate in 2024?"). The basic idea is: You liberals say Trump is extraordinarily bad because he tried to murder Congress and steal the election, so why don't you help Ron DeSantis beat Trump for the 2024 presidential nomination by saying nice things about him? Lowry:

The DeSantis-hating opponents of Trump are effectively saying, “Sure, Donald Trump led an insurrection and represents an ongoing threat to American democracy, but hey, that other guy refused to let schools impose mask mandates on kids — he’s much worse.”

Progressives have to decide two things. One is if they really want Trump gone, or if they want him as a foil for the duration.

If it is the former, they should welcome DeSantis as a potential vehicle for ending what they believe is the ongoing state of political emergency represented by Trump. If it is the latter, DeSantis could spoil everything.

I don't have to point out the disingenuousness here -- as I've said a thousand times, since Trump these guys have not had to even pretend to advance serious arguments, and neither they nor they audiences are even able to recognize anymore when they're not -- but I will note that "refused to let schools impose mask mandates on kids" is typical of Lowry's sunny interpretation of every element of DeSantis' government-by-rightwing-rampage. Even the governor's Don't Say Gay law and other LGBTQ persecutions  Lowry spiffs up as "prevent[ing] kids from being taught about sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools in grades K-3," as if he were protecting them from nude queer rubdowns instead of forcing both teachers and students to deny the very existence (and, by inference, right thereof) of gay people.  Plus DeSantis is "a sharp political player" and "a voracious consumer of information" -- no Trumpian boor, he! 

One might get the impression that Lowry and Geraghty were never-Trumpers instead of total Trump suck-ups. But face it; in the coming days, all actually prominent conservatives (I mean besides the public lunatics who grift money and attention on YouTube and TruthSocial) will be playing at never-Trumper (well, really, per my glossary, Just The Tip Trumper); they see Trump's flaws and know that DeSantis, though he apes the thuggish delivery of the Former Guy in order to sway the mouth-breathers, will support all the fascism modern American conservatism has come to stand for and, even better, (probably) avoid sabotaging his own/their cause out of petulance and stupidity. So their argument boils down to "Look, we both get something out of this -- DeSantis won't try to overturn the will of the people (unless he thinks he has a clear shot at it, and with the way our judges are working it he just might), which you should enjoy, and he definitely will make America more like Hungary but with more racism, which we'll enjoy. If you won't take that deal, you're the Real Obstructionists™!" Expect David French to lay a bouquet any day now.

TODAY IN CAREER ADVANCEMENT.

Today’s issue of Roy Edroso Breaks It Down, released to the general public, is inspired by the latest hilarious symptom of prestige media’s accelerating degeneracy: Jonah Goldberg hired by CNN. 

Longtime readers will know that I have followed The Man They Call Pantload with interest since 2003, or five short years after his mom and a sploogey blue dress bought him a media career, from his early Bad Boy/Moral Scold act through the publication his magnum opus Liberal Fascism or I Know You Are But What Am I, during years of terrible, terrible columns at National Review, occasionally with fart jokes and catchphrases, and into his half-assed apostasy as he realized his South Park Republican shtick had been rendered useless even among conservatives by the mouthbreathing mobs of Trumperdom. 

Over this period I have come to consider Goldberg not merely a bad writer and worse thinker, but also one of my great literary creations -- an overfed momma’s boy who, thrust (still dribbling Cheetos) onto the public stage, tries to charm his audience with horseplay and, failing that, claps a mortarboard on his head and proceeds to launch ludicrous syllogisms, fretfully farting as they range out of control.  Seeing him rise to CNN, I feel a little as I imagine Jaroslav Hašek would have felt seeing his Good Soldier Schweik elected to the Austrian parliament. 

When Goldberg noisily left Fox News I figured he'd join the New York Times' stable of rightwing gasbags; it would be easy to pretend people who know how to read can abide him. Putting his sputtering ass on TV seems like a mistake -- like when 60 Minutes created a pundit bank of P.J. O'Rourke, Molly Ivins, and Stanley Crouch, and viewers begged them to desist.  Well, it's their money! 

JONAH GOLDBERG: SECOND TIME AS FARTS.

I guess it’s time to remind people about the Doughy Pantload, aka the Flatulator. From an otherwise estimable Greg Sargent column about Stephen Hayes and Jonah Goldberg quitting whatever it was they were getting paid for by Fox News over Tucker Carlson’s pro-insurrection TV special:

Some liberals have scoffed that Hayes and Goldberg are unreliable allies who should have recognized Fox’s toxicity long ago and have taken other unforgivable positions over the years. But liberals should want the existence of a center-right that is fundamentally for the baseline of respecting democratic outcomes and institutions, for reasons I’ve outlined elsewhere, even if we disagree with them about everything else.

In the story linked from his “for reasons I’ve outlined elsewhere," Sargent acknowledges that people like Hayes and Goldberg aren’t exactly democracy’s best friends, but they are more likely to defend it in a pinch than are the true Trumpkins:

On CNN, [Trump apostate Miles] Taylor said: “The one place we are united with Democrats right now is in defending our democracy.” Unfortunately, when it comes to center-right voices willing to say this, right now we don’t have the option of being particularly choosy.

But we only have their say-so on that -- what’s the proof they’ll “defend democracy”? Taylor was revealed to be the author of the hilarious 2018 “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration” op-ed in the New York Times, in which he claimed to be one of “many Trump appointees [who] have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.” But what’d he actually do, besides wait until just before the 2020 election to out himself? 

Taylor's anonymous op-ed suggests he and his buddies just tried to keep the mentally unstable Trump from fucking up Republican policy too much. Even the many “oh yeah, Trump was nuts but I couldn’t tell you at the time because I needed it for my upcoming book” reports out there don’t show Taylor or anyone like him stopping Trump from declaring martial law or anything. (I will add that I take the stories about Pence resisting Trump because of James Madison, rather than because he was ascared he’d get in trouble, with a megagrain of salt.) 

As I wrote when the op-ed came out:

…it's taken me more than a year to acknowledge that Max Boot, for example, is sincere about opposing [Trump]. Boot remains a war-mongering monster, of course, but he's not pretending to be anything else -- he even admits that he can't approve of Trump's saber-rattling, not because Boot has turned pacifist, but because he thinks Trump lacks the belly (figuratively speaking) to follow through with the civilizational slaughter Boot's approval would require.

So when Boot says he's hoping the Democrats take over to teach Republicans a lesson, I believe he means it, because he's not trying to snow me about why he wants it. Thus, if he and his comrades of convenience get rid of Trump and eventually install President Mattis, I won't be stuck with my thumb up my ass blubbering "B-b-b-but I thought we was pals" as America blows up half the Middle East and Boot orgasms voluptuously.

More likely Taylor et alia were just looking for a more comfortable niche in the rightwing universe with some staying power for after Trump sharts himself to death. Taylor is currently working something called the Renew America Movement, pitched by -- red alert! -- the Niskanen Center. These guys are less likely to save democracy than to save their own asses.

Now Sargent and others think Hayes and Goldberg are part of some post-Resistance. Hayes ran the Weekly Standard, the wingnut mag that went anti-Trump, thus driving away its rich rightwing funders -- at which, LOL, on many levels, not least because Megan McArdle thought the demise of this sinecure meant there was a “civil war shattering the [conservative] movement,” notwithstanding “some of the movement’s stalwarts did turn into Trump boosters, if only half-hearted ones.” Har de har har. Pick up a copy of National Review sometime and tell me how anti-Trump they are. 

As to Goldberg: Since his emergence as his mom’s backup in the Lewinsky affair, he’s been a public nuisance -- my alicublog archives return hundreds of entries on his awfulness, despite my getting bored with him over the past couple of years. The most recent phase of Goldberg’s failsonry is his quasi-demi-hemi-anti-Trumpism, by which he heretofore hoped to straddle Trumpworld and NeverTrumpworld -- here, for example, he sputters that he’s not technically a “Never Trump” conservative, but more of a “Trump skeptic.” Whatever you call his aposta-half-assy, he has mainly expressed it by sneaking snide remarks in between pats of the Former Guy’s back:

Goldberg actually lists several columns where he's been "criticizing Trump." Let's take one at random -- "The False Prophecy of the Presidential Pivot” -- and look at the lede:

It was just last week that Donald Trump had the finest moment of his short presidency — his address to a joint session of Congress. Even many of his harshest critics praised his speech or reluctantly conceded that it was “presidential.”

Really lets him have it, huh? Actually Goldberg does get to criticizing eventually, but it's mainly criticism of Trump's intemperate Tweeting…

The great irony here is, Goldberg’s intellectual cred is largely based on his book Liberal Fascism -- a book about, unsurprisingly, how liberalism is fascism. (Goldberg, sneaky little shit that he is, claimed the book wasn’t about that when hawking it in the prestige media, and mostly got away with it, though not with Jon Stewart.) Now Goldberg finds himself chased out of the top tier of conservatism by the actual fascists in his own movement. Don’t worry about him, though -- he still has his phony-baloney job at The Dispatch as well as his Asness Chair (snerk) at AEI. And eventually you’re see him again in some place of unaccountable prominence, admitting that while the Proud Boys sometimes go too far, they’re a welcome change from the protestors they’ve put in the hospital. FarrRRt. 

NO, MR. MAGA, I EXPECT YOU TO DIE.

I mean:

Nolte: Howard Stern Proves Democrats Want Unvaccinated Trump Voters Dead

Do you want to know why I think Howard Stern is going full-monster with his mockery of three fellow human beings who died of the coronavirus? Because leftists like Stern and CNNLOL and Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and Anthony Fauci are deliberately looking to manipulate Trump supporters into not getting vaccinated…

Not even kidding: John Nolte of Breitbart’s “argument” here is that liberals have been using reverse psychology -- a concept you may recall from old sitcoms and cartoons! -- to keep conservatives from getting vaccinated, thus killing them. 

How does that work? Nolte lays it out:

1.) Liberals are, in his words, “pieces of shit” and “scumbags,” so conservatives hate them;

2.) Liberals, using their status as pieces of shit and scumbags, have “bullied or ridiculed or mocked or pushed” conservatives to get vaccinated, knowing this will cause them to have the “perfectly human response” of refusing to get vaccinated.

There’s so much wrong with this: For one thing, this only sounds like a “perfectly human response” if you’re five years old. For another, before anyone made fun of conservatives for refusing to get vaccinated, they had to start dying in massive numbers but still continue to tell pollsters that they wouldn’t get vaccinated, and had to march in multiple protests and their red-state governors had to issue orders against vaccine mandates, and they had to resort to horse paste and other folk remedies out of fear that the vaccine would load them up with microchips or liberalism or whatever. 

Nolte also suggests that the liberal media was hiding the fact that nearly nobody who gets vaccinated dies of COVID-19. But that fact has been well-publicized by, among others, CNN -- excuse me, “CNNLOL.”

I’ve heard some people say, well, whatever it takes to get these guys vaccinated is good. But this won’t get them to vaccinate. These people booed Donald Trump when he told them to get vaccinated. You think John Nolte is going to turn them around?

I don’t think Nolte expects it either -- and neither do the nuts like DeSantis and Greg Abbott who are keeping their states petri dishes for the virus. In fact I’m sure they expect hundreds of thousands more to die, and their plan then is to blame liberals for their own death-waves (DeSantis has already started), because at this stage in the decadence of conservatism that’s how they do everything -- like when they run up massive debts giving the rich tax cuts, and then scream when Democrats do deficit spending to recover the rest of the country from the damage of the pandemic. 

So if you think at Nolte’s column is an attempt at double reverse psychology -- getting conservatives who are staying unvaccinated to own the libs to instead get vaccinated to own the libs -- consider how they do everything else, and see the truth: It's not about saving lives, it's about saving face.  

BLAST FROM THE PAST.

The man we call Ole Perfesser 'round these here parts (Glenn Reynolds, for those blessedly unaware of our old routines) is still in the blog game. I don't look in on him much anymore -- but I don't mean that as some back-handed way of saying he's irrelevant. On the contrary: He remains very relevant to modern conservatism, which makes sense as he is one of the people who made it what it is today, as was evident in the last post of his that I mentioned here, just before the 2020 election, in which he wrote:  

What is going on in media now is not normal. It is, in fact, a species of coup. Should Biden win, many will regard his victory as essentially illegitimate because of this, and they will have a good argument.

This is the sort of thing that can, and did, encourage insurrection. And that's why I don't usually read him -- his sentiments, considered unique and bracing back in the day, are now carried by a thousand MAGA grift sites that your senile relatives devour (as seen in the "Hardcore" series at Roy Edroso Breaks It Down, a project from an old blog guy to which you definitely should subscribe). 

Anyway the Perfesser is in the New York Post today, telling his followers that he saw some snooty liberals making snotty comments about the unvaccinated, and that proves snooty snotty liberals, aka the "laptop-class 'meritocrats,'" are not trying to get conservatives to wear masks and take vaccines because they actually want to halt the spread of COVID-19 and its variants that are raging through red strongholds, but as a way of actin' like they're somethin' better'n them and "garnering high-fives from people who agree and, ultimately, creating an ideological veneer for unquestioned elite rule." So why should you comply? Better to reign in a disease-ridden hellhole America than serve in Wokeistan! No, really, read his closing:

It’s also easy for politicians to capitalize on. They thrive on division, and on passions that distract people from what they’re actually doing. But if you’re making the country worse to feel good about yourself, maybe you’re not such a good person after all. And if you’re falling for politicians’ tricks, maybe you’re not as smart as you think.

So if you're considering wearing a mask in the grocery store just because some liberal told you to, Perfesser Reynolds is here to tell you it's just another "politicians' trick." And to think you almost fell for it! 

(And don't even ask about Godlstein.)

UPDATE. Elsewhere in the Perfesser's home state:

The message is getting around! 

ACTING OUT.

Jim Geraghty is a pretty down-the-middle rightwing propagandist, the unflashy kind of guy that will never get a Fox News or Sinclair spotlight but has done the devil’s work reliably enough to hold his position for decades. But sometimes someone like Geraghty, even more than obvious nutcakes like Rod Dreher and high-profile marquee grifters like Peggy Noonan, will, in the course of his normally tedious work of justifying whatever absurd and inhumane theme the conservative movement has latched onto at any given moment, get creative – perhaps out of boredom, or because he knows he’s good at his job and wants to show off by going the extra mile. Those episodes can be especially revealing. 

The MacGuffin in this case is the evergreen rightwing sentiment that the Media Is Always To Blame – indeed the title of Geraghty's latest is “The Media’s Warped Incentive Program.” There is something to the premise, borrowed from a strenuously bothsidery Jamie Kirchick piece at Tablet (which, among other weird stretches, blames Al Sharpton’s 2004 Democratic Presidential run for Trump, notwithstanding that Democrats failed to give Sharpton a single primary win), that the media rewards freakish figures like Trump “as if he were the ‘heel’ in a professional wrestling match” because it inflates their readerships (which, I would note, have dwindled in the Biden era, which suggests that Kirchick’s claim to a liberal equivalency in hysteria is itself inflated).

Geraghty gobbles this up, and goes further: another problem with the political media circus, he says, is it distracts from the menace of ordinary, successful government operations. “The work of government is often boring,” he says, not to mention Byzantine – “the Federal Register churns out pages of new regulations in incomprehensible bureaucratese every day.” And people are missing it because it isn’t sexy:

Boring does not attract attention or scrutiny. Appropriations bills are long and stuffed with all kinds of dubious expenditures because very few people read them. The vast majority of presidential executive orders are ignored by the public, as are almost all of the reports from the Office of Management and Budget, the Congressional Research service, the Defense Department, U.S. State Department, and the various federal inspectors general. Our government generates nearly endless documentation and yet so little accountability.

The more boring something seems to be, the more likely it is that someone is trying to sneak something past you without you noticing.

First, journalists actually do report on the doings of these departments, which are not for the most part opaque (though some have to be aggressively FOIA’d) – here’s a Bloomberg Law story from today, “Visa Backlog at State Department Hinders Biden’s Immigration Goals.” And in fact trade publications, some of which I've done work for, read and analyze federal regs all the time. 

Second, what’s stopping Geraghty and National Review? I realize rightwing media outlets always exempt themselves from their constant media complaints, but obviously these guys have the same wherewithal as any other news org. Yet National Review is much more prone to run stories like (from the current front page) “Wisconsin’s Governor Puts the Public-School Monopoly before Families” and “The Absurdly Misleading Attacks on Anti-CRT Rules" than to investigate federal agencies (unless of course those agencies are helping black people and operatives do the legwork for them).

But the real howler comes next: After warming up the crowd with some obligatory false equivalence between “Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert” and “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Squad,” Gergahty gets to Jim Walsh, the Washington Republican state rep who went around wearing a yellow Star of David as a protest against vaccine mandates. (“Walsh wrote in [a Facebook] comments section that, ‘[I]t's an echo from history. In the current context, we're all Jews.’”) This is similar to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s COVID-laws-are-The-Holocaust shtick, and like Greene, Walsh has apologized. (One expects the apology has become part of the shtick, to be taken by the punters as something the Deep State forced them to do.)

Here’s what Geraghty thinks about Walsh’s stunt:

We can scoff at Walsh, and we should. But keep in mind, if Walsh had just done his job and stood up for his beliefs in an impassioned and articulate manner and didn’t make ludicrously insane Holocaust comparisons, you and I would never have heard of him. Doing his job the way he’s supposed to do it doesn’t get him any attention. Competence and common sense are rewarded with obscurity and yawns. The social-media and mass-media worlds have created all of the incentives to act like a maniac. This doesn’t make Walsh right. But it does help explain why it seems like you’re always hearing about insane obscure lawmakers.

In other words, Walsh had a "common sense" point – sensible public health measures are fascist – but he was forced to act like a nut, not because he is a nut, but because no one would pay attention to him unless he acted like a nut. And it’s all the media’s fault. 

Now that it looks like we’re getting that House January 6 commission, I look forward to Geraghty’s “An attempted murder of Mike Pence is the voice of the unheard” column. 

THE SIMS 2021: FAUCI AND THE LAB LEAK EDITION.

So -- your hero totally fucked up a pandemic, telling people to take unauthorized treatments and maybe try "disinfectant," and massively lost reelection, and his successor is dishing out the vaccine at a good clip and scoring higher approval ratings than Tubby could ever dream of. 

What do you do? Relitigate on your own terms, pasting a story together from shards of news and your own bitter resentments. 

The COVID "lab leak" theory's a good bet -- it dovetails with the China Menace theme of contemporary conservatism, and there's a great new Vanity Fair article suggesting that authorities were not as thorough in exploring the possibility that COVID-19 spring from a Chinese lab rather than bats as they should have been (in part, reporter Katerhine Eban suggests, because Trump's "crackpots or political hacks hoping to wield COVID-19 as a cudgel against China" made the truth harder to pursue).

The Biden Administration is investigating, but if you're rightwing you know that's just part of the liberal cover-up. So, as Bannon bade, you flood the zone with shit. Jim Geraghty at National Review is on the case, declaring the Vanity Fair story is "evidence that the seemingly hyperbolic conspiracy theories" -- that is, the kind Eban mentioned as an impediment to the search for truth in her article --  "are true." They investigate, we instigate!

Thence follows a round of "You Liberals are the Real [Fill In The Blank]" -- in this case, your vaunted Democratic "follow-the-science" approach is all a lie, and our unconfirmed suspicions prove it! William McGurn at the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Biden has made many such statements (“we are letting science speak again”), but they have little to do with science. They are meant as continued digs at Mr. Trump. All are offered with a confidence, apparently fully justified, that a largely pliant press will run with them, no hard questions asked, unless you count asking the president about the flavor of his ice cream.

Ha ha, you reporters are all propagandists -- whom we're now quoting to prove the Chinese shot us with bug-bombs. (The Liberal Media gets a magic pass from customary conservative contempt the second it intersects with their talking points.)

R ightwing shitposters pick up the message -- the story means the Lab Leak (which I remind you is being investigated, not settled) is proven, and any explanation other than that is a fraud, just like climate change.  Thus your average Republican gets the message: China attacked Trump and America with the Wuhan Flu Bioweapon and the lying MSM (which, as is always the case, has actually provided such evidence as exists) refused to tell us until it was too late.

Also, what about that Fauci, who refused to kiss Tubby's ass and now works for Biden? Thousands of pages of Fauci's COVID-era emails have been published, and contain "at least one alert from a genomic researcher" suggesting “'some of the features look (potentially) engineered,'" says the New York Post, which the Murdoch paper says is "all the more reason for US to get to bottom of COVID origins":

For a year, we’ve been told to “trust the science” — but Fauci, our leading scientist, made declarations that certain theories were “debunked” when they weren’t. Why did he back up Daszak’s self-serving dismissal of the lab theory with no real evidence — when, in fact, he was getting e-mail evidence to the contrary? 

These revelations don’t ease the growing concern that US taxpayer cash might have helped unleash this plague.

Growing unease? Who gives a shit? Like most sane people, I'm much more uneasy about the slow rate of COVID vaccinations in red states (though the tendency of Republican governments to keep their subjects poor and unable to travel may mitigate their effect on the rest of us somewhat). But in wingnut world, a nod's as good as a wink, and the few mentions of possible virus weaponization among the emails to Fauci are now being portrayed as his active cover-up of the Wuhan Flu Bioweapon, inspiring some Q-flavored lunacy in a rash of #FauciLiedPeopleDied Twitter posts, including some calling for the good doctor to be executed. 

And so the alt-reality in which conservatives live is further developed: The election was stolen by Black Lives Matter and Antifa rioters – with the help of the Red Chinese and Anthony Fauci -- so Biden could queer Mr. Potato Head and cancelculture all white people. Not my idea of paradise -- more like my idea of a madhouse, to be honest -- but apparently a third of the nation finds it cozy, and therein dwell dreaming of revenge, perhaps with another march up Capitol Hill. 

ROD DREHER'S ORBÁN RENEWAL, A MONTH IN.

As I have mentioned, Rod Dreher is in Budapest, ostensibly as a visiting fellow at the rightwing Danube Institute but, it would seem from his own accounts, to be turned and lathed by Viktor Orbán's agents for the international fascist movement. Among his many self-embarrassments that I have recorded has been his defense of the Red Chinese vs. the terminally "woke" West ("There’s an argument to be made that a country would be better off with ChiCom College than with the University of Baizuo [the Chinese term of derision for 'white leftists']"). Kinda makes sense -- the American conservative movement and the GOP have been turning hard against democracy; Rod's handlers are just getting him out in front. 

Well, after a month in Viktor's Orbit, Dreher has made great progress, emitting such fash aphorisms as "You cannot have a society in which people feel free to live however they like, and expect that society to thrive," and, as ever, raging against black and gay and trans people. He even turned over an entire blog post -- defending the new Chinese college Orbán brought in to replace the liberal arts college he drove out of the country -- to a more exprienced Orbánist operative to write, in prose even more clunkily propagandistic than his own, which must have really been tough for the logorrheic Dreher to sit for. Still, if he's going to play for the team, he's gotta learn when to warm the bench. 

One of the more bizarre tropes of Dreher's residency has been his obsession with a statue -- a replica of the Statue of Liberty back home in the corrupt West, painted in rainbow colors with "Black Lives Matter" on her plaque. He's mentioned it no fewer than five times - starting with this:

I spoke to a Hungarian man about that recently, and he said, “This is why I stand by Orbán, even though I don’t like some things he’s doing. We can see that our Left is trying to bring the same things here. Did you know that there was a Black Lives Matter statue here in Budapest? The far right tore it down, but it was there for a day, and had Lady Liberty in a rainbow flag. What is that doing in Budapest? We don’t have any black people here, but the Left is trying to import American issues.”

Of course. It’s a globalist left-wing ideology: gender fluidity, racial consciousness, soft totalitarianism. And it’s all being pushed by elites in the media and in institutions...

Then again ("Another Hungarian today brought up in conversation the recent construction of a Black Lives Matter/LGBT Statue of Liberty") and again ("the fact, though, that the left-wing Budapest city government erected a Black Lives Matter/LGBT Statue of Liberty as a protest against the Orbán government is not a good sign") and again ("Did you know that there was a Black Lives Matter statue here in Budapest?") and again ("as I wrote last week, the anti-Orbán Left recently erected a mock-up of the Statue of Liberty").   

You have to wonder why the thing eats at him so much. Maybe it's like Giuliani when he was Mayor and the "Sensations" show at the Brooklyn Museum drove him to sputtering rage back in 1999 -- only, unlike Giuliani, Dreher has no complaisant press (well, besides his high-profile buddies like David Brooks and so far they haven't gone for this one) to amplify his crusade stateside, so he signals madly like a castaway at a distant ship. Or maybe the Orbán agents who keep coming up to him and saying shit like "pardon me, stranger, I'm just a poor shopkeeper who wants everybody to live in peace but the decadent West must be purified by cleansing fire" see some percentage in working him up to mentioning it every week.

BTW, here's an article with some background on that statue from German media outlet Deutsche Welle (h/t @David_Jorgonson at Twitter). Highlights:

As a non-partisan mayor [of Budapest district Ferencváros] supported by the opposition, [Krisztina] Baranyi says she's used to being condemned by the pro-government media. But now she is being insulted on all channels and threatened with rape and acid attacks, she told DW. "All we wanted was to give young Hungarian artists a chance to show their art in public," the district mayor said.

Yeah, that tracks. Also:

Commentators on Hungarian television contributed to fueling the controversy. One of them compared the artwork to erecting a statue for Adolf Hitler. Origo, the largest government-related online news site, described the sculpture as the beginning of "incitement and hatred against whites and Christians" in Hungary. Zsolt Bayer, a notorious right-wing media figure and co-founder of Orban's Fidesz party, even threatened to destroy it.

There was also criticism of the sculpture from the government itself. Minister at the Prime Minister's Office, Gergely Gulyas, called the Black Lives Matter movement "fundamentally racist" because it does not see white people as equals. "So it's not the ones who oppose a statue to BLM that are racist but the ones erecting it," Gulyas declared in December. [emphasis added] 

You're The Real Racists™, aka Routine 9! I don't know why the boys in the bund bothered with Dreher -- it looks like he and they were already reading from the same playbook.