After reading this piece from Hannity's new pal, Erick Erickson, I'm really at a loss for words:

Peter, under pressure and fear, denied Christ not just once, but three times. Peter, though, feared death. The strain on Peter was great. The rest of us, though, typically fear the opinions of others.

There are those who like it when we feel guilty for associating with someone. More troubling, in the conservative movement and in the greater right-of-center coalition, there are many, many fellow traveler who would rather spend their time throwing their own under the bus than fighting the left....

....The incidents of late with Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Dick Cheney, and others is why I raise this. Putting it bluntly, were these guys on the left, their fellow leftists would at best be cheering them on and at worst silently nodding along. There wouldn’t be any on that side rushing to the nearest microphone to condemn them.... Peter denied Christ three times. Our goal should be to not deny Christ and also to not deny the valuable members of our own movement. Embracing them does not mean we embrace every word and every deed. But it should likewise mean we don’t race to the nearest microphone to condemn our own when they do something [indiscreet]. The people we should shun are the ones who are quick to throw the rest of us out for daring to stand up for our friends.

When guys like Erick resort to Biblical analogies in this way, it always raises the question in my mind: Who will be the Judas who betrays Jesus -- and in essence the entire conservative movement?

I'm sure they'll come up with someone. They're good at that.

Blue Texan at FDL has more.

The conservative movement is in shambles and this doozy comes from online conservative blogger Eric Erickson of Red State. Do we need any more proof that they are all certifiable? What's up with conservatives and their tweets? The men in white suits should be called in very quickly because he needs a serious 30-day observation period. Don't forget to bring a straitjacket with you.

pourmecoffee’s posterous finds this tweet for the ages:

Eric Erickson (@ewerickson), Editor-in-Chief of RedState didn't just toss off that gem. He wrote it, then deleted it, then re-wrote and re-sent it adding the proper hashtags ("LMRM" = Let Me Repeat Myself, "TCOT" = Top Conservatives on Twitter, "RS" = RedState). Made sure he got it just right. See for yourself.

This is the leader of the right's most prominent online community, not some carefree flame-throwing commenter or diarist. RedState is not an official GOP site, but it's a center of the conservative movement with a stated desire to take over leadership of the party. I'm not interested in flame wars. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. As a matter of strategy, however, I just can't understand why someone in a leadership position would act so publicly self-destructive. This stuff turns states blue. Put simply, a serious leader looking to amass political power does not publicly call a sitting Supreme Court Justice a "goat f**king child molester." A seemingly obvious point.

I'm surprised he took the time to think it over at all, but then he actually posted it.

Eric Erickson: The nation loses the only goat f*&king child molester to ever serve on the Supreme Court in David Souter's retirement.

Conservatives are a leaderless broken bunch of sad sacks and messages like this are really the norm for them. Howard Kurtz attacked anonymous commenters for writing vitriolic statements on websites, but he rarely goes after the creators or main writers that run the sites. Erik is someone who has been selling himself as The Great Savior of the conservative movement so I wonder how this will impact his efforts on that front as he tries to line up right-wing politicians and anyone willing to comment on the upcoming Supreme Court nomination. Actually, I think he'll get a medal from CPAC over this one.

It would appear that director Kevin Smith's new horror movie hits the nail on the head: Red State:

A horror film in which a group of misfits encounter fundamentalism gone to the extreme in Middle America.