THE BARREL HAS NO BOTTOM. It's come to this: the geniuses at National Review are parsing the hell out of Obama's statements that allude to the perfectly plain-to-the-non-brain-damaged fact that a black Democratic Presidential candidate is unusual and may excite negative feelings among certain honkies [cue 'Dueling Banjos'].

Peter Kirsanow marvels that Obama "suggests that certain Americans are intrinsically racist, and those Americans aren't just confined to political opponents." Kirsanow is one of the very, very few people of color I have heard from who is offended by the very notion that white racism exists, which explains why Bush appointed him to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

As for the house honkies, they seem especially enraged by Obama's crack that he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills" -- again, to the mentally complete, an uncontroversial statement. Jay Nordlinger clears his throat, retucks his shirt, says "Um, there's actually only one president on the dollar bill," then retires to the locker room for his wedgie. Yeah, adds Jason Lee Steorts, and what about when Obama said, "Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face"? "Nobody thinks... Well, no; lots of people think Bush and McCain have some 'real' answers to some challenges, and lots of people think Barack Obama's answers to the same challenges are mistaken. There are millions of such people, in fact." Then he retires to the locker room, etc.

After a barrage of this crap, Obama surrenders to custom and sends a spokesperson to tell people it's not about race, and Amy Holmes becomes excited and analogical:

This reminds me of that game one plays with children where you cover your face with your hands and tease, "You can't see me! You can't see me!" They will giggle and shriek, "Yes, I can! You're right there!" Children love this game and will play for hours. Apparently, the Obama campaign believes we will, too.

Sometimes a metaphor is not immediately obvious because it is especially crafty, but much more often it is not obvious because it sucks as a metaphor. Besides, don't kids do rainbow parties instead of this shit anymore?

At this point "The Dollar Bill Statement" has become a full-blown scandal at National Review, and soon we may expect them to predict serious electoral repercussions. "Not content with mere insinuations of racism," says Kirsanow, "the Obama campaign publically signals their belief that we're galactically stupid." Wonder where they got that idea?

People say this campaign is especially exciting, and I have to agree. It's only July and already I fail to see how these people can get any more ridiculous. But I know they'll find a way!

UPDATE. Some Haloscan weirdness; comments appear to have been deleted; feel free to resubmit. I took advantage of the confusion to delete an italic tag and fix a typo.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nobody wants to hear this, but it is fact.

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

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

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

SOCIAL NOTES. Tbogg points out two girls passing notes at The Corner:

Observation [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

The last time I've seen as many smiling people as I saw at Tiffany's earlier this afternoon, I was at St. Peter's in Rome in the spring...

Kathryn's Observation [Lisa Schiffren]

Smiles at St. Peter's are about the hope for transcendence. Smiles at Tiffany are about the hopes that come with earthly love -- and the very material proof of its magnitude and sparkle that Tiffany purports to sell. The floor where they sell engagement rings ought to be a happy place.

All gack! aside, I really, really hope this is Corner code for "K-Lo's got a beau." I have a soft spot for this awful woman; she seems to be the product of great suffering, not just its cause. Nobody could actually be as stupid as her writing suggests, so I assume that trauma or disorder has something to do with her often-incomprehensible output. My basic theories are these:

1.) Unhealthy sexual obsessions, exacerbated by the twin, soul-crushing burdens of loneliness and Catholicism, fatally distract her;
2.) A neurotic need to please some distant father-figure overrides her basic editorial skills and drives her to humiliate herself by writing cringe-inducing propaganda and then, in a paroxysm of self-abasement, publishing it under her real name;
3.) All that and a brain tumor.

She deserves a little happiness. Also, given her professed values, if she marries we may presume she'll quit her job. Win-win!

WHO'S POLITICALLY CORRECT NOW, MOTHERFUCKERS?* You'd think that if anyone called Hillary a bitch, wingnuts would piss themselves cheering. But black people, especially those who've been mentioned favorably by Obama, don't get that Golfcourse Pass.

Ludacris spits some hilariously tasteless lyrics ("Paint the White House black and I'm sure that's got 'em terrified/McCain don't belong in any chair unless he's paralyzed"), and conservatives go into a PC snit. The dumber ones seem to think Ludacris works for the Obama campaign; the dumbest ones, having recently sought deep political significance in a cartoon, seek it now in a rap song:

Exit question: How does this stack up with the New Yorker cover? Both were created with an eye to defending Obama, both can be used by his political opponents against him (at least, in the New Yorker's case, among dullards unable to grasp satire) [!!! -- ed.]. I'm guessing that whereas the magazine was squarely blamed for Covergate, Ludacris will plead authenticity and be duly absolved.

The guy also says the song is "political dynamite"; does he think Ludacris is on Obama's VP shortlist? Perhaps he assumes that all Americans are just like himself, and cannot tell one black man from another.

As our current, insane politics requires, Obama has distanced himself from the remarks of Mr. Cris; his measured, sensible way of doing so draws a lovely why-I-never sputterfest from uber-ofay Philip Klein at the American Spectator:

The need to add the qualifier, "While Ludacris is a talented individual" is absolutely outrageous. Most Americans won't see talent in these lyrics -- they'll see them for what they are -- blatantly racist and sexist garbage. This is a major bungle by the Obama campaign.

Yeah, Obama should have come out for warning labels on iTunes. That would have helped him cement that crucial "old guy who still says coloreds" vote.

I'm shocked the head wingnuts don't have flying squads running around the internet, taking this stuff down before normal people wind up staring dumbfounded at it. They must have those voting machines rigged nice and tight.

*UPDATE. Alternate title just came to me: WHY YOU ALL IN MY EAR/TALKIN' A WHOLE BUNCHA SHIT THAT I AIN'T TRYIN' TO HEAR?

LATE ENTRY. The Voice posted my usual Monday column on a Wednesday this week. (Why? Because they're in the Village, man, where time is just a concept.) Have fun anyway, it's about the Obama World Tour and the dopes who are all "Oooooh, Obama's your messiah, you looooove him," and making the peace sign and going "Peeeeace man, peeeeeace." And then (as long as we're fantasizing, why not?) crapping themselves and rolling around on the floor.

Ahem, what I mean to say is, I find their reasoning a trifle disingenuous. This news is not so fresh, though I see conservatives are still trying to get some mileage out of the troops Obama unvisited in Europe. National Review's Charlotte Hays dismisses the Washington Post's "McCain's Charge Against Obama Lacks Evidence" story: of course treasonous Obama would treasonously deny he treasonably dissed the troops for treasonous treason, and "Obama's inconsistent reasons for not going are as lacking in supporting evidence as McCain's assertion," Hays reasons. I wish that trick really worked, if only for my own sake: I could go around demanding people prove they don't owe me two grand, and never have to work again.

HOW DID RED DAWN EVER GET MADE? How odd to see Orson Bean, one of my favorite talk-show guests in boyhood, quoted extensively by his son-in-law Andrew Breitbart in the Washington Times:

"Aside from the inconvenience of having a career ruined, being blacklisted in the '50s was kind of cool," Orson recalled over watered-down dark rum pina coladas poolside at Club Med.

"You were doing 'the right thing.' Hot, left-wing girls admired you. You hadn't 'named names.' The New York Times was on your side. And you knew it would pass. Things always do in America..."

On the other hand, these liberals today:

"These days, the left doesn't just disagree with right-wingers - they hate them. People actually shudder when I tell them I'm a Republican. I should have to carry a bell and yell, 'unclean'"...

So the blacklist was okay, because Orson Bean got trim and the support of the Times in exchange for employment opportunities, but today liberals shudder at him, which is worse. What was Dalton Trumbo bitching about?

It's a curious point of view, which even Breitbart seems to realize, because he refers to Orson as "once again on the wrong side of the censors," presumably to make the point that shudders mean censorship. I suppose he really means self-censorship: "'Repugnant' Reaganites and 'reptilian' Bushies planning to work on the 'Ocean's 14' set have mastered a code of conduct: silence." Yeah, look at Bruce Willis, who "doesn't talk openly about politics anymore" -- after he stumped for Bush the Elder in 1992, Willis was shunted off to obscure projects like Pulp Fiction, Nobody's Fool, and Die Hard: With a Vengeance. Bruce did hard time, man, so we can forgive him for taking the easy way out now. He just couldn't take the shudders. Could you?

It might be easier for guys like Breitbart if there were Senate Committee hearings and publications (Red State Channels?) that made their martyrdom more overt. On the other hand, like most Hollywood types, they have vivid imaginations, and can cook up a witch-hunt out of a few dirty looks.

KEEP IT SIMPLE, DOUCHEBAG. National Review's Victor Davis Hanson is not content with being both a columnist and a -- wait, what do you call a guy who knows a lot about ancient history and is constantly reminding you of it? Oh yeah, a douchebag. Well, now Hanson wants to be a neologist, too. Speaking on the speeches of politicians whose eco-enthusiasms annoy him, Hanson writes:

It is scary when Speaker Pelosi claims "I'm trying to save the planet; I'm trying to save the planet," or Al Gore barks about his utopian plan to shut down all generators of electricity except wind and solar within 10 years -- or else: "The future of human civilization is at stake." Or Obama claims that at the "moment" of his nomination over Hillary (?) "The rise of the oceans began to slow." Call this ecobonics, geo-narcissism, or hokey science -- or a variant strain of Bush Derangement Syndrome -- but it is creepy nonetheless.

"Ecobonics"? Why the conflation of ecology and ebonics? What do black people have to do with environmentalists? Oh right: conservatives hate them, too.

It would appear... wait, I'm having difficulty maintaining my arch tone and devising a glittering jest on this subject. So let's leave it at this: what a fucking douchebag.

MONDAY WITH ROD DREHER. 8:52 AM: My Lord Jesus wouldn't approve, but between you and me and the blogosphere, Africans are hopeless.
3:56 PM: TV gives your kid autism! So don't give them any, much.
4:15 PM: I don't mind living with black people so long as they belong to the same cult as me. I have children, y'know.
6:41PM: Why should black people get breaks? Let 'em earn it like I did.
8:43 PM: It's ridiculous to say conservatives want to kill people. I just want them fired for blasphemy. Totally different.
10:06 PM: Some poor saps at my job are going to get fired. Break out the good champers!

THE LAND OF MAKE-BELIEVE. You've probably heard the one about the deranged stars-and-bars enthusiast who went hunting liberals and homosexuals, but was identified first and foremost by rightbloggers as a Christian-hater because he went to a Unitarian Church to find liberals and homosexuals, reasonably assuming there would be several of each in attendance there. "While many in the political blogosphere will no doubt focus on the fact that Adkisson said he hated liberals and gays," fumes another Confederacy celebrant, "the fact of the matter is that the didn't target a gay club or local progressive political groups, he specifically targeted a church." Similarly, if he went hunting homosexuals in a gay bar, it would be because he really hated mixed drinks.

Here's more close analysis from Clayton Cramer: "You know, most rational people who hate liberalism aren't taking food stamps (a liberal program) or whining about age discrimination (a liberal concern)... There are some occupations that are stereotypically gay, but mechanical engineering isn't one of them." Go ahead and read the whole thing -- context doesn't spoil it much.

You may wonder: why would anyone spin a crazed-gunman story to make it look more like his own propaganda? You have to remember that all these people have left anymore are their folk-tales and myths. A world in which hippies don't spit on soldiers, Obama isn't a Muslim, and all hate crimes don't proceed from P.Z. Myers' atheism lab would not be a world they recognized or could live in.

I mean, get this:

A few years ago in LA, I was driving home from work when a group of gay pride protesters were marching down one of the main roads just south of Sunset Blvd. The group attempted to block an intersection just as I was entering it. They ran in front of my car when they saw that I was almost past them. When I stopped, a couple of them ducked down behind my car out of my view. They were hoping that I would put my car in reverse so they would get bumped and become "justified" in focusing their rage against me and my vehicle.

They were the aggressors but they had a well choreographed plan to spin the situation around where they could claim that I (or any other driver) had recklessly driven into them thus triggering a violent confrontation. Such a manufactured hate crime would have justified the protest group's claim that hateful people aggressively target them with violence for no reason at all.

One of the protesters in the front of my car had a brick in his hand and slammed it against the hood. He slammed it down again as he walked towards my open driver's side window...

The author then coolly dispatches this gay street gang with his sidearm. Now, anyone who has actually attended a Gay Pride parade knows that such an American-International Pictures scene as the author describes is as likely to occur at the Country Bear Jamboree as at Pride. But most down-home conservatives don't know what those marches are like -- they only know that they hate faggots, and that whenever their enemies get together in groups of ten or more -- be they blacks, beatniks, Arabs, or whatever -- the result is inevitably mindless violence that can only be stopped by exercise of Second Amendment rights by one of their own kind. So if all those cheerful pictures in the lying MSM of nice homosexuals were starting to shake your faith, here's what happened to me or a close friend just the other day...

It'll soon get to the point where they'll dispute all accounts of traffic accidents that result from an improper right turn, on the grounds that there is no such thing.

SNAP. Kathryn J. Lopez' aforementioned streak continues:

The New Yorker's version of putting a bumper sticker on the car: I wore a McCain cap to the office this morning. The weird looks, I think, had more to do with the poor fashion accessorizing than the candidate.

I prefer to think they were staring because she had her dress on inside-out, and was handing out rosemary, pansies, and fennel. (She would give them some violets, but they withered all when Mitt Romney died.)

Lopez also files the laziest Obama-in-Europe article so far, which takes some doing. It consists almost entirely of anti-Obama mad libs such as "Chris Matthews and his tingling leg," "The speech at the Berlin Victory Column... with its Leni Riefenstahl-like rally posters translated into German," "The surge worked," and "throw him under the bus." The few original bits, though, are choice. For example:

The junior Illinois senator has been telling us for months now: “We are the hope of the future. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” If I believed that about myself, I’d be pretty audacious. Not to mention messianic.

Yet she lists herself as an "editor" without apparent shame. With apologies to Herman Mankiewicz, imagine the whole world governed by Lopez's self-esteem.

TOO GOOD TO CHECK. The top rightwing blogs usually treat the Associated Press as a nest of lieberal traitors ("I personally just find it amazing that major media outlets continue to wonder why most of America refuses to read their trash-masquerading-as-news anymore"). But now AP reports that the U.S. is winning in Iraq, and these bloggers have grown credulous, because it gives them a chance to give the speeches they've been rehearsing in their bathroom mirrors for years.

I would consider it a fair trade, if I hadn't read further down in the AP story:

Iraqi authorities have grown dependent on the U.S. military after more than five years of war. While they are aiming for full sovereignty with no foreign troops on their soil, they do not want to rush. In a similar sense, the Americans fear that after losing more than 4,100 troops, the sacrifice could be squandered.

U.S. commanders say a substantial American military presence will be needed beyond 2009...

In other words, same shit, different headline, call it defeat, "mission accomplished," or whatever you like. It has endured through several news cycles, with one side or the other going blar-har-har at any given time, and will likely endure through many more without a change more serious than a news hook.

IMITATION OF CHRIST. P.Z. Myers' communion-wafer stunt has received ample commentary from CrunchyCon Rod Dreher. Before the event, Dreher used his traditional approach to sacrilegious artists: "Just try doing the same thing to what Muslims regard as sacred. Let's see what you're made of."

Later Dreher hoped for blowback, telling readers that an obnoxious atheist had helped make him a Christian and that he hoped "Myers' infamy will be redeemed at least partially by it shocking the conscience of agnostics, and encouraging them to read more about the Christian faith..."

After Myers had desecrated the host, Dreher played the forgiveness card, trying, with veins bulging in his neck, to follow the passive-aggressive example of Christ:

I was thinking last night what the proper Christian response is. If you think about it, P.Z. Myers has done far more to damage himself than anything any of us might do. With his Satanic pride and diabolical act, he has put himself in serious danger of hell -- and that's far worse than any worldly sanction we might (justly) [?? -- ed.] see applied to him...

But what would he do if the response to his hideous blasphemy is ... love? What would he do if Catholics and other Christians, and even sympathetic members of other faiths, turned up en masse on his campus simply to pray quietly for him? What kind of witness would that be to the wider culture? How might that make straight the path to salvation for P.Z. Myers, and many who now admire him? Wouldn't that be blessing those who persecute you, as Christ commands us to do?...

Let's provide a counterwitness for what faithful Christianity is capable of. God may work a miracle in that man's life yet (consider the example of Saul). Let's not get in the way of the work of redemption in this lost man's life. As much as we can, let's answer hate with love...

Yesterday Dreher showed what he means by Christian love: discussing ways to get P.Z. Myers fired.

I'm not a fan of Myers' approach -- not because it is counter-productive, but because it is unproductive. It appears designed to expose the hypocrisy of his opponents, but that is on full display at all times, and has been for centuries. Pointing it out -- even as spectacularly as he has drawn Dreher to do for him -- doesn't seem to make much of a difference.

RIGHTBLOGGERS FOCUS ON THE ISSUES. A few days ago The Ole Perfesser heard about Obama's 3-pointer and said, big deal, I know a guy could do it backwards. Now a German gossip mag (top story at this writing: "The Breast of Hollywood") has posted some gush on Obama's workout ("wow, he didn’t even sweat!"), and Macsmind huffs, "By the way, ten reps on each arm with 35 pound dumbbells and ten sit ups wouldn’t make me sweat either fraulein."

No word yet on Obama's dick size, but when that breaks the coverage will be well worth following.

THE GHOST DANCE CONTINUES. I have noted, time and again, here and elsewhere, the weird habit among American right-wingers of insisting that pop culture artifacts they enjoy are "conservative." Doesn't matter whether the movies, rock songs, TV shows etc. that they adopt are overtly political or not -- if a piece of pop dross pleases them, then they are sure that it stands for low taxes or war in Iraq or some damn thing.

So I was pleased that someone some folks besides myself and Brad noticed this breathtakingly insane Wall Street Journal article by Andrew Klavan, which seeks to demonstrate that the latest popular comic-book movie is not merely a series of explosions, CGI effects, and lurid performances, but first and foremost a ringing defense of the Bush Administration -- even though it was made by the sort of Hollyweird players Klavan normally can't stop denouncing as evil cultural polluters (perhaps, in this case, the forces of decency threatened their families).

The brighter bulbs have found plenty of ripe comedy in the situation, so I will only add this: I recall another time in this country when politically engaged dumbasses became convinced that cultural portents such as Bonnie & Clyde, songs with drug imagery, and nude Broadway musicals all proved that the revolution was at hand. Junk culture is not a very good predictive mechanism, particularly when applied by folks who know most of their fellow citizens are sick to death of them and turn to the posters on their bedroom walls for validation.

EVERYBODY'S GOT A DREAM. Jim Lileks, having recently given us what his fellow analists call a "fisking" to a Garrison Keillor column that was three times length of the column, does something similar with Obama's Berlin speech. Lileks informs us that "'World citizen' is used as a badge of empathy that carries no responsibilities... it dilutes actual national citizenship, which naturally takes second place to World Citizenship." Also, Obama said the 9/11 viictims were from all over the world, but "most weren’t from all over the world. Most were Americans. Which makes sense, since the attack was explicitly aimed at America, not The Globe." In the unedited version, Lileks tells us that the Hudson River isn't really a river but a tidal estuary, America is a republic rather than a democracy, and the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire.

This is the sort of tendentious crap in which Lileks has become a specialist. Something about Obama really brings it out in him, though. When he gets to the global warming part he actually writes, "Obama may have heard of the Dust Bowl..." Heh, just maybe! I really expected him to reproduce some Dust Bowl matchbooks to demonstrate his superior authority.

It goes on like this forever, and the point, such as it is, is that Obama's appeal to idealism is laughable to hard-bitten cynics like Jim Lileks. Of course that's just me being tendentious, as Lileks and his comrades have their own Shining City of the Hill, but theirs is built on endless wars, tax breaks for the wealthy, and hatred of homosexuals: it's a vastly more butch kind of idealism, which they believe, with reason, makes it easier to sell.

So they compare Obama's speech to "We Are The World" as a pointed mockery, because that global event took place during the Age of Reagan, and takes them back to a happier time when the fruitier sort of idealism was a mere sideshow, an indulgence to distract feather-haired fools while the grown-ups shoveled money from the National Treasury to their friends in the private sector. They have another old guy running for office now, and if he doesn't sprinkle fairy dust as effectively as the original, this can be blamed on the media's refusal to cover him: voters must take on faith that McCain will restore the natural order of the 1980s. Outside the land of dreams, this doesn't look like such a hot idea, but as long as we stick to symbology, it might just work.

THE FIRST TIME AS TRAGEDY, THE SECOND TIME AS FARTS. Obama's talking about moving troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. Sensing an opening, General Ralph "Blood 'n' Guts" Peters storms the breach with a squad of Howlin' Paradoxes:

Now their presidential candidate has announced that he won't bring all those troops home, but will simply transfer combat forces from Iraq to Afghanistan -- expanding that war. (He's discussed possibly invading Pakistan, too.)

And the left's quiet as a graveyard at midnight.

Where are the outraged protests from MoveOn or the DailyKos? I thought the extreme left felt sorry for our service members in harm's way and wanted to reunite them with their families.

Having nothing to say against Obama's prescription ("Yes, we could use more combat forces in Afghanistan") -- nothing coherent anyway ("I'm not quite ready to invade Pakistan without weighing the consequences and costs") -- the General instead directs his fire against a squadron of straw pacifists. Like a true action hero, the General likes to wisecrack while he rips through the enemy:

If the next president yanks our troops out of Iraq, all the progress disintegrates, Iran moves in and we have to re-invade to clean up the mess, will you enlist and do your part?

I know, I know: Educated people like you are too smart and too important to serve in uniform. The military's for dummies, for losers. Serious players stay home and blog and bitch over double espressos.

Along with their effete choice of beverage (real men drink instant, boiled over a flaming skull), the imaginary peaceniks are also assailed for "sitting in your basement blogging in your underwear at 3 a.m." Speaking of which, Ace O'Spades gets the General's back, and also gets credit for additional dialogue:

I'm not a big fan of the chickenhawk argument, but the left has long made it. And I asked similar questions a hundred times in the past: Fine, you're against the Iraq War. But you claim to be in favor of the Afghanistan War and even, on occasion, in favor of the Great Overmountain Invasion of Pakistan. So, um, Chickenhawk? How's blogging from Kabul?

Then he pours his Pibb Xtra over the crotch of his Stupid Hippie doll, and laughs the laughter of the righteous over the Hippie's weak bladder.

Inside jokes like these are fun for us dorks, but McCain's mainstream operatives are not likely to pick them up, figuring that John Q. Citizen won't know what the hell they're talking about. So if they want to ride their meme to glory, the General, O'Spades, and their comrades might try a public education campaign, alerting America to the perfidious people who blog for war from basements. As examples, they can take some of their old posts and change the names; for strats and tacts, they can emulate the left in 2004. It probably won't even work as well as it did last time, but let us encourage them to try.

NEW FRONTIERS. I'll say it again: Obama is black and therefore can still lose against these idiots. But it's nonetheless fun to see them digging so deep into their worn-out bag of used-up tricks. For example: Someone reminds the Ole Perfesser of Obama's celebrated 3-point shot. The feat was cheered by soldiers, which must have extra-deranged the Perfesser and led him to emit this:

Anyway, that's not so cool as Kass makes it sound. My high-school friend Steve Proffitt once made a more than full-court shot -- from the opposite end of the Maryville College gym, as he walked out the door -- over his shoulder, all the way to the far goal, nothing but net. He was so cool, he didn't even see it as he continued out the door without looking back. Now that's cool. And if he were running for President, I'd vote for him...

...unless he were running as a Democrat, in which case the Perfesser would say that's wasn't such a big deal, he knew this one guy who sank a basket from an airplane, or some shit.

They're actually attacking Obama's basketball game. To me this suggests desperation verging on madness. But maybe I'm misreading it. Seen another way, they might just be expanding their media options. Obviously no subject is too stupid for them, and they are also forming crucial new alliances with other alternative press outlets, as suggested by this Rod Dreher outreach ("The [National] Enquirer is actually a more solid investigative outfit than many people think"). With both the Enquirer and Ed Anger behind them, how can they fail? And meanwhile their operatives are still hard at work on Obama-Hitler comparisons that should prove convincing, especially after the Party has disseminated copies of Black Gestapo in key districts.

I used to think we owed the Founding Fathers an apology, but I'm beginning to think they owe us one.

PRUDES VS. NUDES. James Poulos tackles the important subject of nude yoga. He seizes upon a practitioner's claim that nudists are "celebrating our bodies":

We can strip off -- what a victory! It's all so dreadfully banal. Nudism is the new checkers. Only checkers has a set of rules and a point to it more complex and well-developed than celebration. That's sort of what a game is for -- withholding celebration until some quantum of meaning has been obtained out of participation in an order. Celebration as we take it is like stipulating that we've all just already played a game and everyone won. Celebration as we take it hinges on the idea that celebration shouldn't result from meaning but should result in it. That's bizarre enough on its own terms, and much more 'harmful' culturally speaking than playing a game where the winners of a game of team checkers get to get naked.

The post is titled "Self-Parody Watch," which I suppose is what makes Poulos a Post-Modern Conservative, and provokes several thoughts:

• If ever a story cried out for investigative reporting, this one does. Is Poulos on firm ground when he says "At least naked yoga isn't an orgy"? You know how hippies are; they may start by innocently celebrating their bodies, but this inevitably degenerates into a Siobhan McKenna Group Grope. At least I hope so. Are there any photojournalists who can look into this?
• Maybe I only speak for myself, but I have "celebrated" birthdays, the only quantum of meaning for which was obtained by the earth, which did the hard work of circling the sun since my last birthday. All I did was get born and stick around. Should we rethink birthday parties? I know people enjoy cake and presents, but perhaps it's not worth the moral hazard.
• I appreciate Poulos' right to "amused contempt," which is also my stock in trade, but anything Isis Phoenix says that justifies getting her kit off automatically trumps anything Poulous or I could say about anything. I don't have the philosophical training to explain it well, but I think it has something to do with Natural Law.

SHORTER ANN ALTHOUSE. So you think McCain was scurrilous, eh? Well I think you're scurrilous! How do you like that! Now I'm going to take your nose and stick it in your butt, like in that Jim Carrey movie I saw. Ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Obama is a traitor.

UPDATE. Inspired by Althouse, commenters suggest new terms for fake moderates of the living concern troll type. "Cryangulators," "Sinn Feign," and "Right-Wing Assholes" are among the winning entries.

BUCKLEY WAKE UP -- THEY HAVE GONE MAD. Just lookin' around the internet, seein' what the wingnuts are up to...


In the immortal words of Curly, "Ngggnnyahh!" Seems the Obama European Tour has brought out the best in Dr. Melissa Clouthier, who defensively explains:

This is about artistic tone. The profile view. The serious expression. The shading. When I saw the Obama flier picture, my mind immediately called up this Hitler image and I was struck by how similar they are in feel the color choice differences aside. Unnerving really.

In comments Clouthier is compelled to explain even more:

I did not say Barack Obama and Hitler are anything alike, just that the imagery is startlingly alike. It would be one thing for a flier in America in English called to mind that imagery, but when Obama is going to the very place Hitler spoke at and chose as the capital of the world under German supremacy, it’s alarming.

The only possible conclusion: Obama is trying to make himself look like Hitler to win votes.

But don't worry, not all conservatives are obsessing over Barack Hussein Hitler -- or even angrily comparing him, as Victor Davis Hanson does, to those other famous Nazis, James Dean and the Beatles, in defense of the new rightwing talking point that Obama is too popular. Some are hard at work firming up that John Edwards sex scandal story ("This story seems extremely strong. Given that it was the National Enquirer... most media outlets wouldn't touch it, but it is good to learn what appears to be the real story"). Others are following the Pope and lamenting that his healing presence came too late to save Jamie Lynn Spears and her bastard.

Meanwhile, a local government gives tax breaks to a local group that's bringing a whole lot of out-of-town business to the city, and conservatives won't defend it! But how can that be? Haw, haw, haw. You caught on, didn't you? I'm not as hard to see through as I think.

Thus do they fill their days in between Ghost Dances.

UPDATE. Just in from the rightwing semiotic squad: The Anchoress finds the flag on Obama's plane too small, and the preponderance of his campaign logo cause for grave concern: "It's starting to really make me uncomfortable. Obama is clearly trying to send a signal that he is a 'citizen of the world' type before he is an American." What -- like Diogenes? Or, even more sinister, Arthur Ashe?

Do these people even know how crazy they look to folks who don't spend all day looking for signs, symbols and portents in every goddamned little thing?