THE PERSECUTION AND ASSASSINATION OF COMMON SENSE AS PERFORMED BY THE INMATES OF THE ASYLUM AT LEXINGTON AVENUE UNDER THE DIRECTION OF KATHRYN J. LOPEZ. I'm so glad The Corner is so crazy so early this morning. I am too tired to develop any Overarching Themes or Perspective, and would much rather poke fun at retards.

Someone seems to have dosed Jonah Goldberg's morning bowl of Reeses Pieces. He goes on a long tirade about "potshots at conservative Christians" in that much-debated work of art, "Studio 60: Live on the Sunset Strip." A reader tells Goldberg, "I'm always alert to the ritual denigration of Christians on prime-time TV, but I just wasn't seeing it here." "I didn't quite say there was ritual denigration," clarifies Jonah, "There was ritual Christian-baiting." These are the closely-reasoned doctrinal disputes that have earned The Corner a much-deserved reputation.

(As a bonus, Goldberg argues at length that "The West Wing" was trying to make liberals look good. Did you folks know about this? You learn something new every day.)

Derbyshire explains an earlier crack about Wal-Mart and Brave New World: "...the main idea was, that any society ought to offer useful and productive lives to its epsilons -- i.e. to citizens over on the left-hand side of the Bell Curve." Derb finds Wal-Mart, "with its simplified, stripped-down training programs that concentrate on a few easily-mastered skills and disciplines," a step in the right direction. I hope Wal-Mart finds a way to work this into its recruitment materials: "DRONES WANTED! You get to wear black, like Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones."

Andy McCarthy growls at NBC for planning to telecast a Madonna concert. Why, because it will pre-empt "Deal or No Deal"? No, because Madonna will climb onto a crucifix during the show, and though neither she nor her cross, unfortunately, will be submerged in urine, Madonna playing with religious symbols is as reliable a way to enrage people of McCarthy's religious sensibilities as laughing homosexuals or the works of Charles Darwin.

"No word yet on any riotings, torchings, shootings, bombings, beheadings or other executions," McCarthy says, "But you know, with these rascals, it's just a matter of time." See, that's a joke, because it's Islamic militants who do all the violence, while Christians -- at least, in the current stage of their history -- merely wish they could. Clever, isn't it? I wouldn't be surprised if we saw it elsewhere.

Better still is McCarthy's final, bitter jest:

Also, no word yet on whether NBC has considered airing "Submission," a film about the mistreatment of Islamic women. It hasn't been shown yet. You see, it's Dutch director, Theo van Gogh, was brutally murdered in 2004 by a not-so-moderate you-know-what named Mohammed Bouyeri, who pinned the corpse with a note calling for "jihad." (I hasten to add, of course, that, according to Muslim activists now providing sensitivity training to our federal agents, jihad is the peaceful "internal struggle against sin," not, God forbid, "holy war.")

"No word yet..." Was McCarthy in the pitch meeting? How did that go, I wonder? ("Actually, we're running While You Were Sleeping that night." "Screw you, liberals! I'll take it to Fox! They wont let America down!")

Meanwhile, some Cornerites are a little disturbed to see how uncomfortable George Allen was to be accused of Judaism. K-Lo opens the back door and lets in a bunch of Allen fans to beat drums for Mr. Macaca. Goldberg, admitting (as well he might) that he doesn't know what he's talking about, weighs in:

When in the zone and allowed to riff uninterrupted, Allen can sound very Reaganesque. But when backed into a corner or tripped-up, he becomes decidedly unReaganesque both in his sometimes gormless retorts and his slightly nasty and/or defensive streak. Reagan, even when he was twisting the knife, always reassured audiences that he was a nice guy who (mis)took his opponents for nice guys too. Every now and then, one gets a glimpse of Allen and one sees something other than a chipper Gipper.

So I guess what he's saying is, George Allen reminds him of Ronald Reagan, except when he doesn't. It seems, also, that "Reagan" is a synonym for something we liberals aren't clued into: "good," maybe, or "insane." (I also wonder: if Reagan "(mis)took his opponents for nice guys," why was he trying to stab them?)

Charming. Well, back to work.

POST NON COITUM, ANIMAL NUTS. The morning after Valentine's Day at The Corner, we see what their orgy of antisex hath wrought. K-Pro tenderly cuckoo-calls, "MY VALENTINE'S DAY REGRET is that I don't know anyone who attended a Boston Legal Viewing Party," provoking a too-wit too-woo from a reader:

This is some sort of joke, right? Is this like the sad people who think Emilio Estavez's dad is president? Or are these "viewing parties" common in the big coastal blue cities? The closest thing we have to viewing parties in these parts are frantic telephone calls to make sure our friends and family are watching Brit Hume's ritual Sunday morning disembowelment of Juan Williams.

I thought the viewing party was mildly silly (y'all know what I think about "Boston Legal"), but if someone woke me up on Sunday morning to admire Hume's giant head, I'd seriously reconsider my alliances.

Later K-Pro worries about "Willie Nelson's gay cowboy song." (Her headline is genuinely witty, which shows how rattled she must have been at that point.)

The others are looking at softcore porn -- some favor Michelle Malkin, but an unclothed, flour-encrusted Scarlett Johannson captivates Stephen Spruiell. K-Pro counters huffily, "Am I the only one in here who thinks Red Eye star Rachel McAdams is cool for saying 'no' to the cover shoot?" and adds -- rather superfluously, we hard-to-get players judge -- "As an aside, Cillian Murphy is a dead ringer for Media Blogger Stephen Spruiell," and then (de trop, Mme. K-Pro!), pulls in by the sleeve a reader who has found McAdams' tits somewhere (one is reminded of Nathanael West: "[Doyle] tried, rather diffidently, to leer").

Spruiell's response cannot have emboldened K-Pro: "I do think it's a good thing McAdams declined to appear on the VF cover with Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightly. That would have prevented me from getting any work done today." Here we draw a courteous curtain on K-Pro, though we are put in mind of Tracy Turnblad, rebuffed in an early reel of Hairspray.


Andy McCarthy expresses an interest in bars now that women are drinking more.

I don't know what happened to Goldberg last night, but he's going on about credit card readers in soda machines and trying to tie Dick Cheney to Rock 'n' Roll High School. Well, at least he's got that dog.

Cheney is on many minds; Derbyshire seems to think his man-shooting a good thing: "It was not likely, as in the movie, an excess of competitive zeal. And if it was, who on our side would mind? We want our politicians to be full of competitive zeal."

Elsewhere at NRO, eminence grease William F. Buckley suggests that Hamas be "castrated."

The rest of us were happy with candy, flowers, and consensual sex.

STILL ONE OF OURS. The Ole Perfesser does his bit for comity, using the recent Coulter affair as a stick to beat "lefties," whom he terms angry, theatrical, prejudiced against white people ("The lefties seem mostly upset about her use of the term 'raghead,' which is racist and offensive, but more or less akin to the term 'cracker,' which doesn't seem to bother a lot of lefties"), and tending to spit on outstretched hands, none of which, it is obvious, belongs to the Perfesser.

Ditto Michelle Malkin. After allowing as how "Ann says many deliberately provocative things," Malkin laces into "smug," "in denial" liberals, and insists "we don't need your prodding."

This approach seems to work for other subjects, too. Dick Cheney shooting a guy is either "a wash or a slight bump up for the administration," says Andy McCarthy at The Corner. "Why? Because the media and the most partisan Democrats can always be relied on to turn opportunity into damage... transparently partisan hyperbole... compare Clinton and Cheney... Dem bomb-throwers etc."

Also at The Corner, Jonah Goldberg brags that conservatives are quite capable of criticizing their own. As well they might be, because at the end of the day even when conservatives err they are still innocent of liberalism, and that is really all that matters.

MORNING MISCELLANY. Here are two variations on Mallard Fillmore to brighten your day. (Next we get Rex Morgan, M.D.!) It is depressing that the rightwing duck gets so much love while my favorites, the Strindbergian Lockhorns, labor in obscurity. Maybe it's time for my monograph.

"E" for effort to Pandagon's Jesse for explaining why he has to use so many cuss words (What the fuck are you talking about? Sorry, couldn't help myself), but he had to know this would induce jackass bombentary and troll incursions. Still, that has beauties of its own:

You're an example of the left wing blogosphere (and journalism) at its worst. Lies, lies and more lies. And if that doesn't work, just throw in some profanity, and you think it makes you sound intellectual.

Yeah, see, that's how we do, all dressed up at our white-and-cheese liberal-intellectual Manhattan parties: "I say Meryl, have you read that new fucking Cormac McCarthy novel? Goddamn, that nihilistic motherfucker can write like your pussy gets tight. More brie?"

[Jesse] Taylor is the blogospheric embodiement of Jenny's angry boyfriend in Forrest Gump.

No, no, buddy, you're thinking of that hippie crook in that "Mannix" episode. Or maybe Andy Robinson in Dirty Harry. Or one of those pear-shaped libruls in Mallard Fillmore -- oh, look, closure! Buh bye!

HOW TO TELL KERRY'S AHEAD, PART 2. Along with the usual fake letters, etc,.
we are seeing more clinical psychosis at National Review Online:

I just took my two-year-old on a drive down the Post Road in Connecticut to see the cows at Stew Leonard's. At a red light, we pulled alongside a mini-van festooned with Lefty bumper stickers. One right under the other appeared the following three: "Jesus was a LIBERAL"; "Commit Random Acts of KINDNESS": and "My Choice: ABORT BUSH". I know trial lawyers are supposed to figure they can reason with anyone, but I admit to being stumped here. Edward, however, soon squeeled: "Light green, Daddy GOOO!" He's got the right idea: Don't bother!

Yes, Andy McCarthy was driving in Connecticut and saw a bumper sticker that encouraged him to commit random acts of kindness, and it so harshed his mellow (or, more properly, harshed his harsh) that he needed to project inconceivably subtle linguistic gifts upon his toddler (assuming he is actually a toddler, and not mentally retarded) to extricate his blown mind from the situation.

I'm not saying they're cute, exactly, but they are sorta funny when their circuits are smoking.