YOUR MORAL BETTERS SPEAK!

John Fund:

‘Why Are Liberals So Rude to the Right?’

...All too often the difference between left and right in what should be “polite circles” is quite sharply drawn. Conservatives think liberals have bad ideas and liberals think conservative are bad people. “It’s cool to be rude if you’re a liberal,” Leften Right concludes. Just ask Al Franken, a supposed comedian who became a U.S. senator after a career of ad hominem attacks on his adversaries. He received no pushback for entitling one of his books “Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot.” Rush at least apologized for his nasty crack about pro-choice activist Sandra Fluke being a “slut.”...

Meanwhile over at Instapundit:

Your civility lessons do not impress me, douchebags.

NO VOICE COLUMN THIS WEEK...

...I'm actually treating the holiday as a holiday, just to see if it makes me more American or at least better rested.

Meanwhile if you want something to larf at, here's John Boot at PJ Lifestyle:

Into Nonsense: 4 Ways The New Star Trek Shills for Surrender in the War on Terror

Wait'll Jim Lileks hears about this!

Let’s get to the issue none of the liberal writers will touch: What does this movie tell us about Hollywood and the War on Terror?

It looks like the wingnut equivalent of @slatepitches -- but Boot's not kidding:

On a mission to hunt down the murderous Harrison (Cumberbatch), Spock (Zachary Quinto) tells the hotheaded Kirk (Chris Pine) that assassinating the terrorist — whose lethal acts Kirk and others have eyewitnessed — would be obviously wrong. Director J.J. Abrams and his team of hack screenwriters (Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof) are striking a stance on the demise of Osama Bin Laden so extreme that no one to the right of Michael Moore would dare utter it. But because the message is concealed in a noisy blockbuster, the filmmakers are hoping they can get away with it.

That's how Hollyweird always Shills for Surrender -- like in The Searchers, where half-breed Jeffrey Hunter brainwashes John Wayne into sparing Comanche bitch Natalie Wood.  And they thought Vistavision would hide their treason!

Have a good Memorial Day, and spare a thought for the fallen -- FDR approved.

GIVE ME LIBERTY A TAX DEDUCTION OR GIVE ME DEATH FUCK IT, I'M OUTTA HERE.

The brethren are really pushing the idea that they deserve a do-over on the 2012 election because IRS. Superhack John Fund calls the IRS investigations of Tea Party groups "The Real Voter Suppression of 2012":

But it now turns out there may have suppression of the vote after all. “It looks like a lot of tea-party groups were less active or never got off the ground because of the IRS actions,” Wisconsin governor Scott Walker told me. “Sure seems like people were discouraged by it....

At least two donors told me...

At least!

...they didn’t contribute to True the Vote, a group formed to combat voter fraud, because after three years of waiting the group still didn’t have its status granted at the time of the 2012 election. (While many of the targeted tea-party groups were seeking to become 501(c)(4)s, donations to which are not tax-deductible, True the Vote sought to become a 501(c)(3).)

I desperately wanted to save America from the ravishments of the Kenyan Pretender, but I was afraid I wouldn't get a tax deduction on my substantial intended donation to yahoos in colonial lederhosen, so I figured let him go ahead and ravish her.

It won’t be easy to discover whether the “voter suppression” engaged in by the IRS was malicious and political.

Boy, and here I thought I was going to have to supply my own bullshit-quotes.

But we have to make every effort to find out before the American people start losing confidence in the integrity of our elections.

I'm beginning to think the strategy now is really just to create a saving-remnant narrative to help wingnuts keep the faith over the next few years, because no normal person is gonna believe that the 2012 Presidential election --which was not close and largely turned on the votes of black people unlikely to be sympathetic to the tax deduction concerns of rich conservatives -- actually hung on whether tricornered crackpots had enough money to pretend they were a grassroots movement.

UPDATE. Commenter D. Johnston:

Wait, 501(c)(3)? By what standard could these goobers claim that that status? According to IRS standards, an organization has to be dedicated exclusively to (if I may quote) "Religious, Educational, Charitable, Scientific, Literary, Testing for Public Safety, to Foster National or International Amateur Sports Competition, or Prevention of Cruelty to Children or Animals." What were they claiming, that they were "educating" the public on how the black guy in office is a Marxist? Preventing the cruelty of an adequate standard of health care to children?

I can see a "religious" angle, in the sense that these guys proceed on faith unsupported by reason.

GOODBYE TIN-FOIL HAT.

I mentioned the other day that some of the brethren think Obama used mind control like some kind of supervillain to get his minions to persecute the Tea Party. Today James Taranto takes this to a whole new level.

First he recounts some recent secret-message fantasies by various press dopes. For example, Kimberley Strassel says Obama "publicly call[ed] out by name political opponents whom he'd like to see harassed." I guess "harrassed" was part of the telepathic rather than the verbal component of the President's public statements, as I don't recall hearing them or seeing them in the transcript -- or maybe Obama's magic powers rendered all but bureaucrats blind and deaf to them.

Then Taranto explains:

Jaded political observers listened to Candidate Obama and heard (depending on their leanings) either a viciously desperate politician or a feisty fighter. Agents of the government heard President Obama, their ultimate boss, urging them to turn their attention toward evildoers. 

As we've repeatedly argued, if that is the extent of Obama's involvement in the scandal, it is much more worrisome than if the persecution of dissidents was carried out under his direct orders. It would mean that the government itself--the permanent institutions of the state, not just the administration currently in office--has turned against the citizenry and the Constitution.

So, if Obama directly told IRS officials to intimidate the TP people, it wouldn't be as bad as if he used mind-rays to make it happen on the zombie hordes. Of course if they had evidence of direct non-magic intervention by Obama, I'm sure they would be happy to have it to put in a bill of impeachment. But they don't, so they have to impeach Washington, if only figuratively, as Obama's magic co-conspirators.

It doesn't say much for their cause that even as the hearings proceed, they're devoting this much effort to the Harry Potter version.

RISEN V. ROSEN.

With all the talk about reporter James Rosen's persecution, particularly in rightblogger world, you might find yourself mixing the name up with that of reporter James Risen, also persecuted -- in fact his persecution stretches from the Bush through the Obama Administrations. You may be wondering why, while some liberal outfits have been trumpeting Risen's case, conservatives haven't been doing the same. The reason is simple: If they did, someone might look up what they were writing about Risen back in the day.

Here are some examples from National Review:

If you’re one of those who think that everyone in the Bush administration reflexively lies about everything, then James Risen is a patriot who has exposed the worst abuse of presidential power since Watergate. If you’re more inclined to give the President the benefit of the doubt when it comes to covert operations designed to prevent terrorist attacks, then James Risen’s reporting did an untold amount of damage to what was for all we know an effective way to monitor communications between terrorists abroad and their cells in the United States.

From the sound and fury of the last few days from politicians and pundits, you would think this is a development as scandalous as Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy’s authorization to wiretap Martin Luther King Jr. But the legality of the acts can be demonstrated with a look through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). For example, check out section 1802, “Electronic Surveillance Authorization Without Court Order.” It is most instructive. There you will learn that “Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year” (emphasis mine)...

James Risen has been part of several intelligence breaches that have hurt the security of the United States. He was the New York Times reporter who broke the story on the NSA’s eavesdropping program and its ability to track terrorist finances. Risen is now involved in the trial of ex-CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling... The Department of Justice is appealing an earlier ruling that Risen would not be forced to testify in depth regarding his sources; hopefully, the appeal will be successful...

That last one, by Stephen Spruill and headlined "The New York Times and Espionage (Again)," is from 2011.

If you want some extra fun, go read Andrew C. McCarthy from 2005: "So sure, let's talk until we're blue in the face about the abstruse legalities of warrantless wiretapping... But the exhaustion of these questions, in the self-conscious pomp of serious discussion, mustn't obscure what is really going on here. This, plain and simple, is a political game of 'Gotcha!' Played with our national security — played with the lives of the innocent..."

I don't like the White House spying on reporters, either, and I've known for quite some time that on civil liberties this White House is no good. But I am also aware that these guys are as full of shit on freedom of the press as they are on everything else, and during the current festival of fake outrage that strikes me as a useful piece of intelligence to keep in mind.

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP...

...in which I advise the brethren to stop pushing the AP, IRS, and Benghazi "scandals" and start working on the stories that'll really get impeachment fever spreading!

UPDATE. I have to say, I'm enjoying the new preemptive rightblogger explanation for when they fail to find a signed note from Obama that says "Audit my enemies": that the President manipulated his staff into crime by "referent power," aka mind control. Maybe they should demand X-rays to see if he's human.

GET THE RAINCOAT OUT OF YOUR LAP, IT'S NOT THAT KIND OF SHOW.

Emily Esfahani Smith, whose ridiculous writing at Acculturated on how everything was better when people were repressed has been treated here, has been writing for The Atlantic too, which makes a pathetic sort of sense. Her latest contains a theater review:

The scene represents a normal sexual encounter between two students. There's moaning. There's orgasming. And yet, it falls flat. While the play wants to promote the idea that this kind of sex is hot and fun, in this scene, it is boring and banal. Erotic sex ideally involves mystery and an electric connection—longing—between two people. But the exhibitionism of Speak About It kills this mystery and longing—it leaves little to the imagination.

Speak About It, by the way, is a "variety of skits and monologues dealing with sexual consent, assault and misconduct, and bystander intervention" developed by students at Bowdoin and now used at other colleges. So it's basically a sexual hygiene play, and while it sounds it's no match for the one in Love and Death, I doubt electric connections and mystery were intended as part of the offering.

The rest is gabble about Allan Bloom, "the hookup culture," and oh Jesus kill me now Lena Dunham, who apparently still haunts these people's dreams.

The economy sucks but apparently there are a lot of jobs for rightwing scolds who tell readers they don't really know how to have sex and then offer them The Closing of the American Mind instead of the butterfly flick.

THEY SEE ME TROLLIN', THEY HATIN'.

By the way, that guy at the American Enterprise Institute is still doing his "Greatest Conservative Rap Songs of All Time" thing. Second installment is "Keep Ya Head Up," because Tupac "attacks contemporary feminist beliefs, decries single-parent families, and calls on men, particularly those in his own African-American community, to step up and take responsibility." Also, "he expresses his hope that a return to traditional values will mean that 'things are gonna get easier' and 'things’ll get brighter.'" Ooh-ooh chile, that's some good rightwing rap. Third installment is "Role Model," because Eminem calls Hillary Clinton a bitch.

I don't know whether AEI's in on the joke or not, but if he's actually getting paid for this, that's so banksta.

UPDATE. Commenter mortimer informs me that the guy has done a new one. I agree with mortimer that the passage he quotes can't be improved upon:

Near the end of the song, all this culminates in a warning to wannabe revolutionaries everywhere: “Dr. Dre be the name / Still running the game.” And this extends, of course, to those who believe that a Marxist utopia can be established through democratically endorsed redistribution of wealth. As Dr. Young explains in “Forgot About Dre,” a song from his next album: “If it was up to me / You motherf****** would stop coming up to me / With your hands out lookin’ up to me / Like you want something free.”

But the best is the guy's exegesis on the Brazilian "Rap das Armas." Looking for joints repping "principled defense of Second Amendment rights," he can't get with popular American numbers like "Cop Killer," as they show a "thirst for wanton machismo," so he picks up this foreign one, which he says "finds its ultimate justification in self-defense against totalitarian government" as it "describes a neighborhood ready to resist." As always, gun nuts find the prospect of fighting the totalitarian police appealing unless black Americans are doing it, in which case it's just pathology.

I feel a Poe's Law warrant coming on.

UPDATE 2. The rightwing rap craze continues! Meet Florida GOP Rep. Trey Radel:

The first [song that represents my views on Washington] that I would have to refer to would be 'Fight the Power,' by Public Enemy. This is a song that... if you really get down to it, reflects the conservative message of having a heavy handed federal government... Chuck D of Public Enemy and I may disagree on certain philosophies of government, but I think at the end of the day— and this is where I take my love of hip hop music— where there have been issues and problems with either heavy handed law enforcement... or heavy handed government itself.

Amanda teases him mercilessly. At least Radel's bullshit makes some kind of real-world sense, though: He's a politician trying to put himself over as a Regular Bro, and acquaintance with one of the 10 or 12 hiphop records all white people know is a definite bro signifier. And his bro-babble shows in its most common and primitive state the childish impulse to claim all the things you like in life -- cool tunes, great movies, choc-a-mut ice creams -- for some stupid ideology.

The Zhdanovism is depressing, though at present I think these guys have as much hope of colonizing rap as Jonah Goldberg has of winning a decathlon.

THE CONSERVATIVE CRACK-UP, CONT.

At National Review Kevin Williamson commends himself on grabbing and throwing a woman's phone during a theater performance because she insisted on looking at messages or something. Williamson was ejected for his tantrum.

While I am torn on the merits (I am against unseemly behavior at the theater, which seems to apply to both parties here), I note that Williamson has said before that he believes in bringing back the stocks for "crimes that undercut shared community life and encourage the further atomization of our society." From his new post I would imagine that he sees the woman's behavior as such a crime and his own behavior as blameless, atomization-wise. And I'm sure his attack is nothing compared to the punishment fantasies his imagination summoned after the incident ("two parties of women of a certain age, the sad sort with too much makeup and too-high heels..." Yeah, he's given it some thought).

I note also that Williamson fantasizes general applause for his actions:

In a civilized world, I would have received a commendation of some sort. To the theater-going public of New York — nay, the the world – I say: “You’re welcome."

Radicals always think The People are with them, despite all evidence.

BTW Williamson is also the guy who said Gabby Giffords' emotional but non-assaultive response to the Congressional gun vote was a "childish display."

WHERE THEY'RE COMING FROM.

It's a springtime for scandal in D.C., and most of the brethren are luxuriating in it. But there's a weird nervousness to their energy, and I think I see where it's coming from. DaTechGuy:

As a criminal investigation begins we’ve seen some the “I” word, Impeachment thrown about.

Now a lot of that is on twitter, but that’s no big deal, a lot of words are thrown about on twitter, but some of it has been thrown around in the press.

The funny thing is a lot of the people doing so are of the left,

This is not an accident, the left understand that talk of impeachment now would be a disaster, not to the president, but to those building the case against him.

He then tells us a story from Tip O'Neill's autobiography about how, back in Nixontime, Rep. Robert Drinan's early impeachment bill was briefly an impediment to the later successful impeachment drive, and comments:

I’ll wager not too may members of the Tea Party have read O’Neill’s book, nor GOP members of congress but I’ll wager plenty of people on the left have. They understand that if the GOP moves early, before democrats are on board, it becomes a party issue so they are going to do their best to force our hand before the facts are in evidence.

I don't know what's crazier -- that he thinks The Left is trying to protect Obama by talking about impeaching him (are Rep. Jason Chaffetz and all the other wingnuts talking about it double agents, then?), or that he thinks we all read Tip O'Neill's autobiography. (I guess nobody told him we only read Alinsky and porn.)

Over at National Review, the excitable Charles C.W. Cooke has an article celebrating the traditional conservative distrust of government, but goes a great deal further than the usual arghblargh. He calls the Founders' writings on the subject "codified paranoia" and seems to mean it positively ("and America is better off for it"); in fact, his article is called "In Praise of Paranoia." He affects to believe the recent IRS fuckup is "government tyranny" and says, "the IRS has done America a considerable favor... Next time an authoritarian [!!] explains how, say, a national gun registry will be just swell — and labels its naysayers as neurotic — his opponents will have a new and useful shorthand: 'IRS scandal.'" (For this analogy with the Tea Party scam to be perfect, actually, the people trying to get guns would have be intending to murder someone with them, and the tyranny would be that some of them would be delayed by the government in doing so.)

Later, chatting about his essay with friends, Cooke adds:

Odd as it might sound, having a sizeable portion of the population reflexively take the view that the government would hurt them if it could is, I think, a good thing. There are no black helicopters and there may never be any black helicopters. But isn’t it positive that people are worried about them?

Cooke has said some pretty crazy things on this head before, but now reveals himself quite literally committed to irrationality. I don't think he's the only one. For years they've cherished this dream, and now something shimmering in the distance convinces them that it's come true. They've been waiting for Amok Time so long that they can't even hold back enough to make it look good.

ANNALS OF THE CULTURE WAR, TV PARTY EDITION.

William F. Gavin at National Review on Mad Men:

...the show has degenerated into absurdity, loss of focus, and meandering plot lines. The main character has become eccentric, distant, increasingly mean-spirited, and disoriented. 

Gee, come to think of it, this sounds just like the Obama administration, doesn’t it?

At dinner tonight, Gavin told friends, "This soup is thin and bitter -- like Obama!" Leaving the restaurant, he buttoned his jacket and remarked, "The night's gotten cold, like Obama's relationship with the press. Or maybe like the corpses of the babies slaughtered by Planned Parenthood." But no one was left to hear him.

Elsewhere in the same venue, Greg Pollowitz:

Somebody Should Get Fired Over SNL's Benghazi Skit

It’s gotten to the point where I’m amazed when SNL is actually funny or relevant as political satire, but Saturday’s cold open wasn’t just a dud as a joke, but completely offensive to the four Americans who lost their lives in Benghazi.

I imagine Pollowitz drunk at some bar, yelling "This jukebox is full of lies!" Like I often say: Do they even know any normal people?

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP...

...about the Benghazi hearings and the inevitable rightblogger judgement that Obama and Hillary Clinton are guilty of murder and/or treason. Imagine how pissed they'll be if Obama isn't impeached! Actually we already have some idea.

CULTURE WAR: A NEW LOW.

Some guy at the American Enterprise Institute has started a "Greatest Conservative Rap Songs of All Time" list.  His first choice, a Justin Bieber joint, is intolerably stupid but, as always, the whole Zhdanovite idea is the stupidest thing, as shown by his mission statement:

The songs I discuss express support not just for pro-family social values, but also for small government and peace through strength.

If this list doesn't include "Mind of a Lunatic" I call bullshit.

UPDATE. I got another nominee:



What? Admittedly his flow's a little sticky. But hell, you might say conservatives invented rap.

AS USUAL, UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT OF CONSENT.

Shorter Charles C.W. Cooke: If Michelle Knight had voluntarily aborted, she'd be just as guilty as Ariel Castro.

UPDATE. I'm not even kidding:

Yet abortion is legal in Ohio, as everywhere else in the United States. This means that if you kill an unborn child in Ohio with the mother’s permission, it’s okay; if you do it without her permission, it’s murder. The unborn child, therefore, is only a life if the mother says it is a life. That makes no logical sense at all.

She's just a bourgeois rentier, is what, and Charles C.W. Cooke wants to nationalize her uterus. I have to hand it to him, though; if you'd told me someone would be insane enough to find an anti-abortion angle in the Cleveland horror story, I'd have predicted it would be Kathryn J. Lopez. Cooke's a real up-and-comer at National Review, and will no doubt loyally join K-Lo and Goldberg in the bunker when the suckers finally wise up and submit their publication to market forces.

THANK YOU, MARK SANFORD.

I already knew Mark Sanford's reelection was hilarious, but though I'm sure Elizabeth Colbert Busch is a nice person and would have represented South Carolina... well, would have been a better Congressional rep than Sanford, I warmed a little to the victor after reading this outburst at National Review by one Hilary Towers, "a psychologist and mother of five":

It is time for conservatives to publicly recognize the widespread phenomenon of spousal abandonment, and the system of “family law” that supports it, for what they both are — a national scandal. 

Among other things, this election result is a searing reminder that we have, as a nation, lost touch with what “redemption” really means — with the true power of God’s grace, which is the power to transform behavior. And behavior, after all, is a reflection of the heart. How much longer can conservative stewards of family values turn a blind eye to the very narcissistic lifestyle choices of our leaders that we are fighting so hard to weaken (and ultimately transform) in society at large?

To put it in some context, those sections of National Review's The Corner not currently given over to Benghazi broodings are mostly devoted to Kathryn J. Lopez's wailings over abortion, and those of affiliated God-botherers like Wesley J. Smith, the title of whose offering "Hollywood Biggies Love Late Term Abortionists" tells you pretty much what you need to know about the tone of the place these days.

In other words, conservatives are still stuck in their post-electoral tantrum, and in this chaos the moral scolds of the movement, who were remarkably easy to silence and shunt to the side when any prospect of victory was visible, have been left free to seize the mic and ululate. Their connection with the world the rest of us inhabit has always been tenuous, but now that they have no reason to compromise with reality they have gone practically Dominionist. So if for nothing else, I owe Sanford some thanks for inspiring the anguish I expect Towers' ravings represents among the fundies. This will make it that much harder for them to pretend to be sane whenever they appear before normal Americans.

Sanford's victory also hasn't done any favors to the logical processes of Jonah Goldberg, who spent the writing period between his third and fourth breakfasts trying to split the difference:

Let me say upfront: I would rather we lived in a society where adultery had a higher social cost. That’s not to say people shouldn’t be forgiving or that there should be no such thing as second chances. But ideally, I’d like it if things were less loosey-goosey. Cheat on your wife, and maybe you don’t get to run for public office anymore.

This prose version of flop sweat goes on for quite some time before Goldberg gets to the nub:

What was on the ballot [in South Carolina] was a choice between a woman who tried to dodge the fact she was a liberal running to advance the liberal agenda of the Democratic party and a conservative whose marriage fell apart because he fell in love with somebody else. I’m not condoning Sanford’s behavior — at all — but...

But there can be no crime bigger than liberalism, and if you people who think "values" is more than a slogan we use to con suckers would just get with the program, Goldberg could stop trying to reach you and devote his pie-hole to greater helpings of pie, as God and Lucianne intended.

[Sanford's] formidable wife didn’t run to the stage to gaze admiringly and forgivingly at her disgraced husband to lessen the political damage. She kicked him to the curb and moved on with her life. Every marriage is different and we can’t peer inside any but our own, but I admired Jenny Sanford’s response.

Of course, one could argue that Huma, Hillary, and Silda were more “pro-marriage” in that they stayed by their husbands. And that just gets us back to how the culture has changed. It’s a fascinating thing.

"Fascinating thing" is Goldberg code for "holy shit, I just obliterated my own point fart, fart..."

Speaking very broadly as there are exceptions all over the place, it seems like liberal political couples work harder to save their marriage after a sex scandal. Again, that’s just an impression. I haven’t tabulated all the cases.

"FaaarrrrRRRRRRrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrt..."

Or do they place less stock in the value of fidelity (it’s just sex, who cares?). It seems to me there are a lot of ways to dissect that. For now, suffice it to say the times have changed.

"...[spectacular, 4th-of-July cannonade of farts and sharts] Not to worry, I'm a legacy pledge nobody expects this to make sense fart, farrrrRRRRRRtt AND IN CONCLUSION JFK was disgusting and Colbert Busch loved JFK, I bet, please don't nobody check fart fart fart, AND IN DOUBLE SECRET fart CONCLUSION..."

It’s absolutely true that conservatives need to wrestle with the question of what we should expect from our politicians. But I’m not sure liberals have anything worth listening to on the subject.

Let's put it this way: That's not an egg he just laid. I hate to replay my greatest hits, but this is the stupidest thing ever written, and will remain so until Goldberg writes something else.

RAY HARRYHAUSEN, 1920-2013.

Fuck CGI.

NEXT TIME: THE GREEN GOBLIN IS SOLYNDRA!

PJ Media kulturkampfer John Boot has made these pages before, denouncing Bruce Springsteen for advocating "violent revolution, class-and-politics-based bloodshed, and the murder of bankers and perhaps other capitalists," and explicating "5 Core Conservative Values in the New Jackie Robinson Biopic 42." Now he gives us 850 words on the latest Hollywood threat to our way of life. Weatherman thriller The Company You Keep?  No:

Iron Man 3 Treats Islamist Terror Like a Joke

Not even kidding.

Iron Man, though, is a smart franchise and initially, despite its comic-book soul, took an admirably unsympathetic view to Islamist terror...

But then the kulaks got to them!

Yet Iron Man 3 is a huge step backward that openly mocks the War on Terror via the villain the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley).

Shane Black could have made the villain Allah Ishkabibble, an Al Qaeda kingpin working with Hillary Clinton on Benghazi, but he chose treason.

Spoiler alert: Read no farther if you don’t want a central plot twist ruined. But what happens in the second half of the movie is critical to understanding the spinelessness of Hollywood and its revolting willingness to reduce the War on Terror to a cheap laugh.

BuzzFeed oughta hire this guy. I will omit the spoiler, though you might find this bit spoilt in its own way:

Millions of fans too young to remember 9/11 will line up to see Iron Man 3, but it’s not just to them that Hollywood’s leading filmmakers have a duty. Reducing the alarmingly durable threat of Islamist fundamentalism to potty humor is an insult not just to Daniel Pearl’s family but to the millions of Americans who continue to wage the War on Terror. It’s as if, a decade after Hitler, a movie portrayed a Hitler-like villain as a harmless oaf who was no threat to anyone.

Nobody tell him about Achmed The Dead Terrorist. Glimmer-of-self-awareness bonus: Boot asks himself --

Am I asking too much of a comic book movie?

Doesn't last long, though. With this bunch it never does.

UPDATE. Responding to Boot's peculiar notion that it's counterproductive to make fun of the enemy in wartime, commenters point out that Hitler was a figure of fun in Der Fuehrer's Face, Plane Daffy, You Natzy Spy, To Be or Not To Be, All Through the Night, The Great Dictator, "Hitler Has Only Got One Ball," et alia. Of course it's possible Boot is familiar with all these entertainments, but unable to grasp the concept of "fun."

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP...

...about Jason Collins being gay and rightbloggers being unable to appreciate it. Sad for them, really. I mean, in a hilarious way.

I couldn't really work it in, but I also got a kick out of the whole Niall Ferguson thing, especially when Jonah Goldberg came waddling in to explain why Keynes' homosexuality was, too, valid grounds for discounting his economics:

So Keynes believed that Puritan values inclined people to embrace an economic theory (capitalism), but the Ferguson episode teaches us that it is now beyond outrageous to suggest that Keynes’s rejection of Puritan values inclined him to embrace a slightly different economic theory (Keynesianism)? Got it.

If you wonder where Goldberg gets the idea that gayness is synonymous with "rejection of Puritan values," go look at his recent farts on the subject; gays used to be society-wreckers who "wanted to smash the bourgeois prisons of monogamy, capitalistic enterprise and patriotic values and bask in the warm sun of bohemian 'free love,'" Goldberg has written, but in the 21st Century "the sweeping embrace of bourgeois lifestyles by the gay community has been stunning." Thus in Goldberg's mind Keynes was like some guy at the Anvil doing amyl and fucking a boatload of guys. And how can you take someone like that seriously?

And Goldberg thinks that Ferguson's apology is the result of a Soviet show-trial instead of a genuine reaction to shame -- which makes sense, since shame is something Goldberg's work and signature on same prove he's incapable of feeling.

NEXT WEEK: THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE -- IF ONLY THE GOVERNMENT HADN'T INTERVENED.

If you love conservatives telling you that works of art they like are conservative, you'll love Nick Gillespie, chief advance man for that conservative niche brand called libertarianism, giving the treatment to The Great Gatsby:

Ultimately, Gatsby is the great American novel of the ways in which free markets (even, and perhaps especially, black markets) overturn established order and recreate the world through what Joseph Schumpeter called “creative destruction.”

We're livin' in that orgastic future that year by year recedes before us, baby, and lovin' it! Gillespie also seems to think Meyer Wolfsheim is the hero of the book, and that The Sound and the Fury is "dated."

Sometimes all you need to become a philistine is a philosophy.

AND HOW COULD I EVER REFUSE/I FEEL LIKE I WIN WHEN I LOSE.

The latest Obama ragegasm from Peggy Noonan is as horrible as you'd expect, but one section deserves special mention, concerning "two things that have weakened the Obama presidency and haven't been noted":

In the days after the 2012 election the Democrats bragged about their technological genius and how it turned the election. They told the world about what they'd done—the data mining, the social networking, that allowed them to zero in on Mrs. Humperdink in Ward 5 and get her to the polls. It was quite impressive and changed national politics forever. But I suspect their bragging hurt their president. In 2008 Mr. Obama won by 9.5 million votes. Four years later, with all the whizbang and money, he won by less than five million. When people talk about 2012 they don't say the president won because the American people endorsed his wonderful leadership, they say he won because his team outcomputerized the laggard Republicans. 

This has left him and his people looking more like cold technocrats who know how to campaign than leaders who know how to govern. And it has diminished claims of a popular mandate. The president's position would be stronger now if more people believed he had one.

They try all sorts of things to deny that they got beat in an election by a sitting President with a 7.8% unemployment rate, but this is the first time I've seen one of them try and tell me that Joe Blow of Middletown has been retroactively demoralized by the cold technocracy of the 2012 Democratic campaign. Wait till someone tells him about Karl Rove!

Noonan's other weakening point -- about how Obama thinks he can't make deals with Republicans just because they keep saying they don't want to make them but he should know better -- is merely the sort of bald-faced denial of reality that we've learned to expect from her. But the one about how Obama doesn't have a mandate because he's too good at politics is something special; it's so self-refuting it's almost a Zen riddle.