TUMBLR FASCISM*. At National Review:

Translation: Your popular internet meme is Hitler. The tyranny of liberal stewardesses, on the other hand, is trenchant political commentary.

* I know, Foster is alluding to Goldberg's other magnum opus, The Tyranny of Cliches, but no one on God's green earth has read that besides me and one very drunk press agent, and since unlike National Review I have to appeal to a wide audience, I went instead with its more notorious predecessor in ignominy.  T of C stinks, BTW. The theme boils down to 1.) The Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire, haw, fart, and 2.) Libruls suck.

ANNALS OF THE CULTURE WAR, CONT. Breitbart.com has published a press release under the arresting title "DELGADO'S 'HIP TO BE SQUARE' STAKES CONSERVATISM'S CLAIM TO BE COOL." This, says I to myself, I gotta see, so I did:

The press and liberal Hollywood can't stop telling us that President Barack Obama is eternally cool.

A.J. Delgado begs to differ.

The Big Hollywood contributor's new e-book, "Hip to Be Square: Why It's Cool to Be a Conservative," lays out 60 reasons why it's "right to be Right" -- each reason consisting of its own chapter.

If you're not convinced already by this show of confidence, get a load of Delgado's scholarship:

The author draws upon a wide variety of pop culture icons, celebrities, films and television shows to state her case, including:
A chapter on lifelong Republican Johnny Ramone.
An analysis of three "South Park" episodes blasting the Left (on the extremes of the anti-smoking crowd; the smugness of environmentalists and liberal Hollywood; and the hypocrisy of green activists)
"The Lord of the Rings" and its conservative message
"Team America: World Police"

Also, "Johnny Rotten, Siouxsie Sioux, and Bob Dylan defending Israel," and "the Beatles on leftist revolutions." Did you know the moptops came out against Chairman Mao? Talk about courting controversy!

The punchline:

"Square" is the culmination of six years of Delgado's research...

Thanks to Amazon's Look Inside feature, I also got some insight into Delgado's motivation.

Throughout college, law school, and living in New York, I was taught -- both directly and indirectly -- that it was shameful and wrong to be a conservative. Friends, colleagues, even career opportunities fell by the wayside.

Maybe they fell by the wayside because you wouldn't stop telling them how Yoda was modeled on Friedrich Hayek and speculating on the most conservative Bubble Yum flavor.

UPDATE. Ms. Delgado has graced our comments with "LOL" and other proofs of her preciosity. Sample zinger: "Thanks for proving my point about the general nasty tone of liberals these days." Anytime, kid!

NO SEX PLEASE, WE'RE WINGNUTS. Culture scold Lisa Schiffren at National Review is still going on about "the generally smutty, unpleasantly manipulative political ad featuring Lena Dunham," which apparently had way more hot action in it than I noticed:

In addition to the smarmy, smutty tone, the ad was an ugly, desperate attempt to manipulate young women... it was a new cultural low. Lower, even than attempting to bribe women with free contraception — or cell phones.

Obamaphones -- the one thing worse than sex! No wait, she's still bitching about sex:

...it forced normal parents, trying as hard as we can to instill reasonable morality, virtue, and common sense into our teenagers, to confront the ugliness of the hook-up culture which they have to work pretty hard to avoid. Who wants to be reminded that teenage girls now come of age in a culture in which it is common to strategize about how and where to have sex...

I missed the part where Dunham talked about how she was going to suck Obama's cock. Is that in the director's cut?

The punch line: Schiffren's promoting a GOP ad that shows two women talking, and the one who represents a disappointed Obama supporter says things like "I supported him for four years," "I miss the way he used to make me feel," etc. No political issues are mentioned at all.

In other words, it's as fanciful (to be polite) as the Dunham ad, and it personalizes politics even more than the Dunham ad. But you can say this for it: They never allude to sex, which apparently makes it dignified.

I should be grateful, having seen what they're like when they do.

UPDATE. Ha, zuzu in comments: "Virgin in the front, martyr in the rear."

AIR RAGE. Ed Driscoll at Instapundit points to this YouTube audio from The Dennis Miller Show. Made a transcript:

CALLER: I've been a flight attendant for just about 30 years, and for years, I like to call them the 15 hour hostage crisis on these long hauls that I fly, you're together 16 hours, and for years, you know, I think all light attendants assume everyone is Democrat, and I've just listened or I just stay busy, and they're angry, angry, but as I've gotten older, it's kind of when Bush was in, I gave 'em the international stop sign, I said, "Love Rumsfeld, voting' for Romney." And talk about squelching any conversation for the rest of the 15 hours. Seriously, And over the years I've realized that the flight attendants tend to overwhelming be kind of snarky angry Democrats. However, my husband is a pilot, and they tend to almost all be Republican.
MILLER: Oh that's interesting, that's interesting.
CALLER: And I used to attribute it to them being ex-military, but we're getting more and more civilian pilots through the hearts. But I felt like I kinda had to hang with them sometimes.
MILLER: I can imagine when you first cranked up a Rumsfeld-Romney comment in front of the rest of the stews, the oxygen masks must have dropped down 'cause it decompressed.
CALLER: This one flight attendant called Rumsfeld the spawn of Satan, and I said, "Love Rummy!" I go, "Love him!"
MILLER: You should have said, oh by the way, the guy in 3A wants a Rum and Coke, doll!
CALLER: I wasn't that fast on my feet! But now I'll just go, "Love Romney."
MILLER: It's comin' around, Janet.
CALLER: You see that gal, it's like, now, Nana Jan, she is saying' it loud and sayin' it proud, and then they just, that's it.
MILLER: Listen, you gotta be your own dame. You know that. Seeing a lot more signs in yards, Janet. It's good anecdotal stuff for Romney. I didn't see any last time. People were afraid to get their house bricked. But I see a lot of signs. I think something's tectonically turned out there. Thanks for the call, Janet.

Soooo the new rightwing thing is flight attendants are prejudiced against Republicans but we're gonna show them because we have the pilots and yard signs.

I realize this is the 24-hour rah-rah stage of the campaign season but Jesus Christ, that's sad. And the worst part: Flight attendants don't take tips, so Dr. Mrs. Ole Perfesser and the Go Galt crew have no way to show them their disapproval.

Up next: Those damn tailors are all Obamabots, I can tell by the way they crease my trousers. But all the haberdashers are voting for Romney!

UPDATE. I should add that Miller having this on his show isn't the weird part -- air time is hard to fill, and as the rightwing talk radio form is as mysterious to me as Kabuki this just might be how they roll. What's weird is the preservation and circulation of the conversation by rightbloggers, as if there's something meaningful or uplifting in it. I'm not sure I get it. Do they actually take perverse comfort in declaring yet another area in American life (like the arts, academia, scientific research, etc.) Democrat-infested? Or do they just like the punchline that pilots are Republicans (except maybe Chesley Sulllenberger)? Maybe because pilots give flight attendants orders, they think this makes them superior...

Ugh, I have to stop thinking about it. Put on my tombstone that I got my abnormal psychology degree from the school of hard knocks.

CONCERN TROLLING. "EXODUS: INNER CITY BLACKS FLEEING BARACK OBAMA AND THE DEMOCRAT-LIBERAL AGENDA," runs the headline at Breitbart.com. The author, Rebel Pundit, quotes five black people, none of whom say they'll vote for Mitt Romney. Mostly they say stuff like this:

A resident of the Austin community, Jean Ray, says after 40 years of Democratic party control over the black community, the policies "are hurting,” and if there were Republicans willing to do the right job in her community, she would vote for them.

Well, Romney's still got a week to make the sale. Maybe he can come to Chicago and tell Ray he was only kidding about that NAACP speech.

At National Review, Rich Lowry tells us women would vote Republican if they only knew what the Votes for Women crew knew, which is that "the Lilly Ledbetter Act merely tilts the playing field against employers and toward trial lawyers by allowing lawsuits years after alleged acts of pay discrimination." If Romney offers nothing to address their unequal treatment, at least he doesn't pander to them:

The likes of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton argued that women were just as capable of rational deliberation as men. The conceit of the Obama campaign is that, to the contrary, they are quite susceptible to a few powerful dog whistles and unable to see beyond their gender.

If this doesn't convince you, you can read some of National Review's anti-birth-control classics.  That'll show you who the real feminists are!

Meanwhile at Instapundit, Ole Perfesser Glenn Reynolds makes a particularly pathetic post-Sandy case for abolishing FEMA:

Also, the heroic first responders you saw last night were mostly NYPD and NYFD, and their counterparts in New Jersey, etc. With the exception of the Coast Guard, nearly all the rescuing was being done by state and municipal employees, not by FEMA. The Democrats’ FEMA-worship is an insult to the people who are shouldering the greater part of the load, and the danger. 

These city-employed FDNY/NYPD responders are of course unionized, like the schoolteachers of Wisconsin whom these guys like to spit on -- which goes for the cops, too, when they think no one is watching: e.g., "Another reason why police unions shouldn’t be allowed, as if we needed one after their politicization in the Wisconsin fracas."

I don't know who's going to win next Tuesday, but long, bitter experience has shown me this: Conservatives are never content, even in victory, because they are always aware that somebody (including, in some cases, the voices in their heads) still disagrees with them. So as the reckoning comes, if they're not crying FRAUD AT POLLS! they'll be insisting whatever fraction of a percent they got over with proves not just that they won, but also that everyone loves them. In either case it's sad that their proven affinity groups (e.g., Klansmen, the mentally disabled) are never enough for them; they're always beating off over people they know would desire them if only they could admit to themselves how beautiful they are. Consider the present gibberish their preemptive stroke.

DEFINING LIBERTARIANISM DOWN. At Reason, Nick Gillespie tells us not to sweat abortion rights -- it's not really a big libertarian issue:

Over at the Washington Examiner, Tim Carney writes that when it comes to abortion, President Barack Obama - and not Mitt Romney - is the true extremist... 

Carney notes that even many liberal legal theorists (he quotes once-perennial potential SCOTUS nominee Laurence Tribe) argue that Roe v. Wade is bad law... 

Kathleen Parker had a great column in yesterday's Wash Post, where she noted that whatever else you can say about abortion and contraceptives, these are not front-burner elections but rather "the same old culture war" issues that are used to ply dedicated partisans and to spray fog over more central concerns. Interestingly (and accurately), she notes that it was Obama who injected these themes into the campaign by shoving contraceptives down the throats of folks (cough) via his health-care reform...

So never mind what Republicans say they'll do about abortion -- there's no way they'll ever accomplish anything except at the state level, where it can't harm you.  Meantime there are real threats to your liberty that you should be worrying about -- for example, the jack-booted thugs at the FDA.

This is obviously good news for Mitt Romney, etc. Best part is, it barely touches Reason's reader base, as 90% of them don't have to worry about abortion because they have girlfriends in Canada.

UPDATE. Brad Smith on "Why this libertarian is voting Romney, with enthusiasm":

Libertarians often like to say that there is no difference between the two major parties. But in my lifetime... there have been two Presidents who have substantially reduced income tax rates: Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, both Republicans.

And Romney will complete their work of finishing off the American economy. It's win-win!

I have never believed in a “libertarian position” on abortion... A libertarian can come down on either side. I am pro-life, and therefore give a huge advantage to Romney.

Also he wants Romney to do the Supreme Court nominations because Tony Scalia and Clarence Thomas are getting old. Oh, and:

Romney may not be a libertarian, yet Romney not infrequently launches wonderful verbal defenses of hard core libertarian views. I can scarcely imagine another major party presidential candidate who would take on leftist hecklers about the rights of individuals organized using the corporate form; or defend the value of being able to fire people for incompetence...

This makes perfect sense if "libertarian" is just a synonym for "asshole." And at this point, who knows?

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP, about the Lena Dunham ad. It seems such a slight topic, yet how much rightblogger lunacy I found therein! This election must not be about much of anything.

As a bonus for you Late-Night Real People, here's the Photo of the Day, which I found at Legal Insurrection, where they're trying to make people think the Obama campaign dumped a bunch of nails in the parking lot of a Tea Party rally in Wisconsin. (Jim Hoft, not being too bright, just flat out says, "A truck affixed with Obama stickers drove through the parking lot outside of a tea party rally in Racine, Wisconsin on Saturday and dumped nails." Mongo only pawn in game of life!) The LI description is lovely:

A man caught the license plates of a van covered with Obama stickers leaving the scene, but police reportedly refused to take the information because there was no evidence of the van actually being connected to the incident. 

The Tea Party attendees picked up as many of the nails as they could, although many of their tires had been punctured, and left the pile for all to see.

But the photo is magnificent:

The foam cup plainly says "evidence" yet the police refused to act! Clearly ObamaHitler has corrupted all authority.

Oh, go read the Dunham thing, it's a pisser, too.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO WINGNUTS. The lights were off at the National Review offices, and Jason Lee Steorts was having a long dark night of the soulless rightwing apparatchik. Just as he was digging the sharp spear of his Bic pen cap into his thigh to chase unbidden thoughts of Katy Perry in a ballot dress, Steorts was suddenly seized with an epiphany and, in a fevered ecstasy (or an ecstatic fever, whichever is less sexual), composed this:

Do these guys even know any normal people?

THEY'LL DO IT EVERY TIME. I enjoyed Tbogg's roundup of conservatives enraged at Lena Dunham's ad (and was surprised to see that, even after eight weeks of strangling a sex doll with Elizabeth Warren's picture taped to its head, Professor Jacobson had enough jam left to contribute). But it was missing a crucial element -- the element of overt Ooga Booga -- which RedState has been kind enough to provide:

There seems to be no low to which President Obama will sink in his desperate attempt to win reelection. One has to wonder, is there any point at which the main stream media and the public get some self-respect and toss out this loser? First he asked for your wedding gifts, then your yard sales and now he has asked for your daughters.

One pictures the brethren holed up in a shack under assault by the forces of Barack Obama, ready to dash out the brains of Lillian Gish ere she be breached.

AND THAT'S WHERE YOU SLIPPED UP! At Legal Insurrection, Anne Sorock tells us the liberals are all prejumadissed against Mormons. This is because there are half a dozen less than respectful articles about Mormons at Salon (including this ex-Mormon's reminiscence -- no fair telling, apostate!), an "anonymous man" said Romney's "promise to obey the Mormon 'Law of Consecration' disqualifies him for the White House," and Lawrence O’Donnell made fun of Joseph Smith's completely ridiculous founding myth.

Best part:

And of course, the left-dominated world of pop culture has embraced the bigotry. From the “Book of Mormon” musical to numerous Obama supporters’ ridiculing art, the mass of collective intolerance is overwhelming.

Yes, you read that right -- Sorock thinks Trey Parker and Matt Stone are liberals, and the "ridiculing art" of somebody you never heard of is the proof of "collective intolerance" that ices the case.

But there's one thing missing -- where's the standard issue rightwing complaint in cases like these about filthy liberals not having the guts to make fun of Islam? Didn't 20 years of fist-shaking since "Piss Christ" drill that one hard enough into their heads that it would come second nature?

Well, that's only common when they're defending the One True Religion or its adjuncts. Could it be that Sorock considers Mormonism too exotic to be similarly defended? Bigot! (Hey, I can play that game as good as they can! Too bad it doesn't give me the same pleasure. Well, we can't all have been raised in Skinner boxes.)

NICE PANTS NERD. The election's tight, so the racket is to yell "we're winning" in a loud voice till the votes are counted. (And if you have a little lung power left over, bitch about the liberal media.) We that have free souls, it touches us not, and we take our pleasures where we can. I'm enjoying the brethren's reaction to Obama's Rolling Stone interview -- especially the Ayn Rand bit:

[Obama:] Ayn Rand is one of those things that a lot of us, when we were 17 or 18 and feeling misunderstood, we'd pick up. Then, as we get older, we realize that a world in which we're only thinking about ourselves and not thinking about anybody else, in which we're considering the entire project of developing ourselves as more important than our relationships to other people and making sure that everybody else has opportunity – that that's a pretty narrow vision. It's not one that, I think, describes what's best in America. Unfortunately, it does seem as if sometimes that vision of a "you're on your own" society has consumed a big chunk of the Republican Party.

Yeah, you can guess. Let's start with Katrina Trinko, National Review's current delegate from the Youth of Today:

Sure, there’s a few libertarians who would love to abolish the safety net and slash government programs. But that’s not the party platform, or what Romney is setting out to do. Not to mention that plenty of conservatives would rather establish a safety net more concentrated, not in individuals’, but in other types of community: church, clubs, extended family.

You know, like in the Middle Ages.

What if Obama had faced Ron Paul or Rick Santorum? If this is your rhetoric against Mitt Romney, what the heck do you have left for those who hold positions even further right?

AKA the "hey, you should see the nutjobs we wanted to nominate" argument.

One last question: isn’t this an extraordinarily lame cover outfit/pose for the cover? 

For perspective, this appears on the same page as Kathryn J. Lopez telling Lena Dunham Republicans aren't "super uncool," she's super uncool, infinity. Man. They all still dream of being backup posers in a heavy-rotation video starring Alex P. Keaton and Der Ahnold, don't they?

Of course at libertarian stroke book Reason Brian Doherty is furious adjusting his spectacles:

Obama Thinks Ayn Rand is For Teens (For Predictably Childish Reasons)

Correction --  furious adjusting his spectacles with one hand, furiously retucking his shirt with the other.

There is nothing "narrow" about Rand's vision except in that it created moral boundaries in which most of the functions of Obama's government would be seen as illegitimate, because they use threats and violence against non-aggressors to achieve social goals.

New to America, are you, Brian?

Nathaniel Branden, Rand's ideological lieutenant in the 1960s, sums up well the problem with most people trying to blithely critique Rand as Obama does. It can be found quoted on page 542 of my book Radicals for Capitalism...

Page 542! So that's why I never saw anyone reading it on the beach this summer.

Hilarious as this is, it's not a patch on what the non-heavily-Koch-funded libertarians are dishing.  The Objective Standard argues with Obama's interpretation:

Rand utterly rejected the notion that one should live an isolated life. She recognized that a crucial way we “develop ourselves” and pursue our rational self-interest is by building strong relationships with other people, whether in business, friendship, romance, or any other kind of life-serving relationship. Rand wrote hundreds of pages about the virtues and benefits of collaborating with others to mutual advantage.

Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, don't it? It's like the Garden of Eden, except that Adam, having rationally decided that the weakling Eve is just slowing him down, kills her, wears her skin for warmth, and then demands that God produce another, worthier partner for him because this is what the genius of the marketplace demands, whereupon God decides the whole thing was a horrible mistake and obliterates the universe. Ah, what might have been.

But listen, it's not all deep analysis. Look at what I found at Objectivism for Intellectuals:

Just because they stim instead of laughing doesn't mean they don't have a sense of humor.

THE BIG TENT. Sure, Richard Mourdock's gibberish about rape babies as the will of God is so far out that conservatives won't back him up. Right?

Well, there's always Charles C.W. Cooke, National Review...

For speaking lazily and giving his opponents another cudgel with which to hit the quite genuine opponents of abortion on demand, Richard Mourdock should feel regretful this morning. But he has nothing else for which to apologize.

And The Anchoress...

It’s actually a very broad-minded question, and an invitation to talk and think about things larger than ourselves and our prideful ideas. Which is why it must be derided as a stupid, ignorant and previously-unheard-of piece of woman-hating misogyny. The narrowness of ideology and political correctness will not allow deviation from the bumperstickers. Even a couple of my more-progressive friends [!? - Ed.] are emailing appalled notes that so many in the press are so willing to immediately spin or squelch what does not fit the narrative.

And NRSC Chairman John Cornyn:

In fact, rather than condemning him for his position, as some in his party have when it's comes to Republicans, I commend Congressman Donnelly for his support of life.

And Freedom Outpost:

Nothing in Mourdock’s statement is shocking to those of us who believe what the Bible teaches. That does not diminish the emotional aspect of rape, but quite often we find out that we make the wrong decisions when they are based on emotion and as a result people lose liberty or they lose life.

DrewM at Ace of Spades takes what we might call the moderate Republican position if moderate Republicans still existed:

I strongly disagree with Mourdock's position but what's there for him to apologize for? He believes what he believes.

Etc., along with the usual liberal-media's-the-real-problem guff, e.g. "Desperate Left tries to Akin-ize Richard Mourdock."

I recall, in the dim, distant past, how as Democrats put forward ever mushier neo- and pseudo-liberal national candidates, Republicans would bring up the remaining more-liberal Democrats and go, oh yeah, what about Al Sharpton (or the recently departed George McGovern, whom we now learn was really a libertarian). For a while the Republicans had to play a little, too, disowning outliers like David Duke and (eventually) Strom Thurmond. Now, though, there's plenty of room for a Mourdock in the Grand Old Party. It's become a big tent, after all.

SUNK YOUR BATTLESHIP. The game is not really Battleship. The game is to reduce diplomatic actions and inactions that look bad to, well, diplomatic actions and inactions, which can be taken in stride if you trust the President knows what he's doing, and to make Romney look out of his depth by quoting and challenging him, and making him say "centrifuges" over and over. And, halfway through, the game is going well for Obama.

The economy sucks so who knows what it's worth.

UPDATE. The reactions at National Review suggest my analysis is correct. John O'Sullivan:

Romney is winning. Why? He is making his case on foreign policy to the American people, while Obama is trying to establish his own sense of superiority. As a result Romney, looks presidential and Obama looks quarrelsome and touchy — even when, as sometimes, Obama has the better case.

First of all, "Romney is winning" because Graham works for National Review where that's the only acceptable answer; second, the "sense of superiority" to which he refers is established by Obama observably knowing very well what he's talking about, which is not a bad thing. Mona Charen asks, "Is it just me or is Obama once again taking up way more time?" Given the results, I can see why she'd think so. Jonah Goldberg assures us that Romney wasn't as hard on Detroit as Obama said he was and conservatives wish he was. And Michael Graham is spinning so hard he doesn't realize he's made himself dizzy: After claiming there's "lots of chatter in my Twitter feed that Mitt is debating like a guy who’s winning and President Obama’s debating like a guy who’s losing" -- well, that I can believe; also that Graham's Twitter feed consists mainly of guys with names like @LiburlsSuk and @TeaPartyHotTub -- he adds, "[Obama's] got to understand that, at best, he’s 'winning' an uninspired, low-impact debate. (And I actually think he’s losing.)" This is the kind of reasoning 10-year-olds apply in their rooms after they've been sent there without supper.

UPDATE 2. Oh Jesus:

Actually, we probably don’t have fewer bayonets now than in 1916. Back then, the army was about 108,000 men strong, and the National Guard boasted about 90,000 men. There are no reliable numbers on the number of bayonets issued...

Similarly, the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire. [retucks shirt]

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP about last week's town-hall debate and the furious spin that ensued. Yeah, it was days ago, but you know, it's for the record. And Saturday Night Live covered it yesterday.

And ugh, another debate tomorrow. Clio's a terrible boss.

UPDATE. Wrong link for a few minutes there -- fixed now. Thanks for tipping me off.

COME ON PEOPLE NOW, SMILE ON YOUR BANKER. Got your crying towels out? Good:

Most people think of bigotry only in terms of race, religion, ethnicity and sexual orientation. But at its core, bigotry simply is intolerance – which all too often leads to singling people out for attack based upon their group identity... 

As the spending-driven debt crisis grows in America and among the 50 states, we would not accept such vilification toward the poor and elderly who consume taxpayer resources. We certainly would not accept such vilification toward the working class or minorities. So why do we tolerate the vilification of those most successful in America?

Oh no he di'n't? Oh yes John Tillman of Forbes di'd!

According to the IRS, the top 1 percent of earners take home 17 percent of the nation’s total taxable income. Yet they pay 37 percent of the nation’s taxes. They are paying a disproportionate share of the burden of government and yet the Occupy protestors, public employee unions and even President Obama demonize them.

One is tempted to ask: If everyone who isn't an Occupy protestor, unionized public employee, or President Obama loves you rich fucks, why you cryin'? Because you've run out of other inventive ways to use your dollar bills besides wiping your ass and lighting your cigars with them, and now you want to see how they work as Kleenex?

Tillman goes on to tell us that he did his part back in the 80s, when people used to tell him racist jokes:

...I made a conscious decision to no longer accept such prejudice in my life. Whenever someone would begin a joke that was clearly heading toward a racially focused end, I would stop them and say, "Please, I’m not interested in hearing that joke." It was very uncomfortable at first. But I did it because this was a small thing that could help create a better culture.

Despite the severe discomfort this caused him, Tillman asked somebody not to tell him racist jokes. Now you people owe him! Quit laughing at Mr. Burns!

And yet, here we are today with a new form of bigotry that is openly encouraged by people who should know better. 

So I suggest we start saying, “I’m not interested in hearing that. Please, no bigotry toward those who are successful in pursuing the American Dream.”

Of course, some folks already do that -- the rich themselves, that is. If they think a waiter failed to treat them with the respect to which they are entitled, they express their opposition to his bigotry by stiffing him. If one of their employees has a bad attitude -- say, she doesn't react enthusiastically when they tell her who to vote for -- they fire her; that'll teach her to look down on them! And if citizens commit the hate crime of resisting their austerity measures, they send in the cops -- just like Eisenhower did in Little Rock!

Because to people like Tillman, every slight they suffer is the equivalent of the great injustices of history. If you can't see that, you're just a wealthist monster.

I advise Tillman to keep his eyes on the prize. Look for small victories. Maybe one day, with the support of some righteous paupers, a one-percenter will break the money line, and get a job at 7-11 or Denny's. That may turn things around, and over time more and more of them will be able to enjoy the same living conditions, job security, and health care as the rest of us. I certainly look forward to it. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

UPDATE. The purple mountainous majesty of our comments section today is graced by a long historical pastiche from Fats Durston:

There are those who are asking the devotees of elite rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as Richie Rich is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of people’s envy. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel in our private conveyances, cannot gain five-star lodging in the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as a millionaire in Mississippi cannot vote a thousand times as much as commoners and a billionaire in New York believes he has nothing for which to spend his millions buying congressmen...

Impetuous, Homeric.

DERP OF A SALESMAN.. Rod fucking Dreher on "The American Advantage":

The other day I was sitting at lunch listening to some French and American expat friends talking about the business climate here in France. It was fascinating to hear. They talked about how rigid the situation is, how difficult it is to start a business in France, and how hard it is to get a job if you don’t have the right connections. They spoke about how so much depends on going to the right schools, and cultivating the right social connections within a tightly-circumscribed elite.

At one point I said, “Didn’t y’all have a revolution to do away with this kind of thing?” Everybody laughed, but the point was made.

The next day, a European friend who lived and worked in America some years back said, “You really do have such an advantage in America. In France, it’s awful. When we moved back to Paris from Asia in the 1990s, I thought it would be easy to get a job. I speak five languages... It took me a year and a half to find something.”

This afternoon I spent some time with an American-born friend who is now a French citizen, and is married to a Frenchman. She’s been here for 20 years. She and her husband moved back to Paris last year after some years abroad, in which he worked for a French multinational, and she told me that she’s having a hell of a time getting a job. Why? Same thing: if you’re not in the network, you are out of luck.

Not like the good old USA, where jobs are just hanging from the trees, eh? Dreher actually seems to think so:

Being here in France, and having this kind of conversation over and over with discouraged French people, has given Francophile me a new appreciation for what we have in America, despite our problems (especially our discouraging political class), and why ours is still a land of opportunity like no other. I wrote a piece about it for the November issue of TAC. I hope you’ll subscribe to the magazine to read it. You’ll also get terrific pieces like Glenn Arbery’s recent reported essay on a traditional farmer in upstate New York, and what he learned about community when his barn burned down...

Wait a second, I'm starting to smell tote-bags.

Journalism like you see in TAC’s pages, and on this blog, costs money. We’re not asking you to be charitable; we really have confidence that the reporting, analysis, and commentary we produce here every day is well worth your financial support. Please consider how much this magazine and this website means to you, especially as a voice of alternative conservatism, and consider taking advantage of our great new Election Special offer to subscribers...

And if you already are a subscriber, and want to help us even more on the mission to stand up to the welfare/warfare state, you can always make a tax-deductible donation.

To recap: After telling us that, because Freedom, the American economy is so much more robust than that of the European country he's always running off to and mooning over, Dreher tries to sell us a magazine and then begs for change.

Is there a level of self-awareness below nil?

NUMBER TWO. I expect mostly what people will remember about this "debate" is Romney trying some shit on Benghazi and making an ass of himself*. Soon wingnuts will be accusing Crowley, the fat guy with the question, and maybe Alger Hiss and Romney himself of a set-up.

And they'll remember that because the rest of this thing has been a festival of pandering and platitudes. Romney lies, of course (Mitt Romney, small businessman! Good Christ), but that's like saying the cock crows and the sun sets. Obama should have just spent the session fact-checking him, but the President seems to think the winning strategy is to blather about the middle class and families and the free enterprise system etc. until they drag him off the stage. Sigh. I miss Harold Ickes.

* John Podhoretz disputed this with a link to Fox News, which was my second favorite moment of the debate. Be sure and read the ensuing shirt-tucking Twitter conversation.

MEANWHILE BACK IN THE JUNGLE... 

Etc. Drudge's been working the old Ooga Booga, so there's a spate of these now from excitey-whiteys like the ever-reliable Angry White Dude ("Enter black thugs in America. After being stoked up by black leaders like Louis Farrakhan, 50+ years of political correctness and cradle to grave welfare, they are emboldened to make threats of riots and violence...").

The punchline: Just a ways down this list is a Mediate account of an Ann Coulter interview, in which she tells Sean Hannity, "White liberals are always threatening black riots whenever they’re about to lose an election."

The great thing about having psychopaths for a base is that the words don't have to make sense so long as you put a dog whistle in there someplace.

HELP A BROTHER OUT. Wordsmith and occasional alicublog commenter Leonard Pierce on Facebook:

This has absolutely been the most fucked-up year of my life; I lost my house, I hit the skids of poverty like a plane making an upside-down landing, I came unnervingly close to going to prison, and now I ended up in the ER.

If you want to hear the hilariously sad details you must become a Facebook friend of Leonard's (you can always read his excellent everyday material here). He might be more inclined to friend you if you sent something to his PayPal at leonard.pierce@gmail.com, but I can't make any promises.

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP, about last week's Vice Presidential debate and Joe Biden's unconscionable lack of deference toward Paul Ryan. (I must say, James Taranto's Ann Althouse gag is pretty good. Who knew he had a sense of humor?)