Why is it a surprise??

via The Left Coaster : "Kevin Drum has expressed puzzlement at why liberals on TV almost always appear overmatched by their conservative counterparts [via TDH]. I'm not sure why this is perplexing to Kevin. The reasons are blindingly obvious....read on"

The game is rigged. There are very good Talking head type liberals that will not be given the shot to go on TV. Randi Rhodes and Mike Malloy are two that would torch most conservatives and they know it. As much as Bill Maher has pissed people off lately, he reduced Sean Hannity to a blithering idiot rather quickly. Ok so maybe Sean can do that all by himself.

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Lawrence O'Donnell filled in for Chris Matthews on Hardball Wednesday, and somehow managed to avoid savaging clueless town hall protester, Katy Abram. Abram went on a moronic tirade at Senator Arlen Specter's town hall meeting on Tuesday, telling him she was afraid that America was turning into Russia and that he had awakened a sleeping giant.

This wasn't like shooting fish in a barrel, it was like shooting the broad side of a barn with a bazooka -- at point blank range. O'Donnell toys with Abram, and you can tell he just wants to cut loose. Granted, Abram isn't a professional pundit, but when questioned it became clear that she is the poster child for the entire undereducated, under-informed mob that make up the right wing town hall protesters.

When asked about taxes, Katy admits that she has no idea how much money she and her husband make. When asked about Socialist programs like medicare and social security, she had this to say:

...You know, yeah, I mean, there are programs in place that the founders did not want to have here. I know there are people out there that can't afford health insurance, that can't afford a lot of different things, and, you know, with the founders, they thought and hoped that the goodness of the people would allow the people to take care of those who are doing without. And I know that may seem naive in today's, you know, world...

Okay...umm...so she's against a public option that would allow the goodness of the people help those who are doing without? There are many more displays of stunning ignorance in this segment, feel free to document them in the comments.

Using audio clips from Glenn Beck's frothing on-air meltdown, Trevor Cushman from Half Day Today put together this clever tune called "Glenn Beck Radio Freakout Twilight Vampire Metal Re-mix."

A little comic relief is good now and then, and there's no bigger clown on the planet than Mr. Beck himself. And hey...vampires.

Open thread below...

Pharyngula:

Did someone declare this National Flaming Racist Idiot week, and I just didn't notice until now? You have got to read Michael Medved's latest foray into pseudoscience: he has declared American superiority to be genetic, encoded in our good old American DNA. Because our ancestors were immigrants, who were risk-takers, who were selected for their energy and aggressiveness. Oh, except for those who are descended from slaves.

The idea of a distinctive, unifying, risk-taking American DNA might also help to explain our most persistent and painful racial divide - between the progeny of every immigrant nationality that chose to come here, and the one significant group that exercised no choice in making their journey to the U.S. Nothing in the horrific ordeal of African slaves, seized from their homes against their will, reflected a genetic predisposition to risk-taking, or any sort of self-selection based on personality traits.

But, he hastens to add, modern African-American genetics have been leavened with the genes of recent, self-selected immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa, so their unfortunate stay-at-home genes have a "less decisive influence".

Okay, I realize that being a conservative pundit means never having to say anything factual, but how can anyone be so unafraid to show his utterly bigoted ignorance? Does any brave soul want to listen to his program and get a list of sponsors so we can ask them if this is the kind of idiocy that they want their businesses associated with?

The Reality-Based Community: If Ann Coulter had liveblogged the Gettysburg Address

his vorpal sword: Barack Obama as Nat Turner.

Jesus' General: "Disarm the Negroes"

Wonk Room: Right-wing bloggers are insisting that McCain was wrong to admit he was wrong!

Martini Revolution: George Bush, American Idiot

Hightower Lowdown: Free market hypocrites and incompetent, anti-government ideologues

John put up a couple of posts yesterday pointing to William Kristol's delusional OpEd, Why Bush Will Be A Winner at the Washington Post yesterday. Kristol writes at the beginning of his article:

I suppose I'll merely expose myself to harmless ridicule if I make the following assertion: George W. Bush's presidency will probably be a successful one.

Somehow, I don't think Mr. Kristol knew just how much harmless ridicule was headed his way, but The Post should have. As I write this there are some 124 PAGES of comments and after reading nearly 40 of them I could only find one or two individual posts that were supportive of him.

"Why is the Post printing anything by that idiot Kristol? Who's paying the Post to print this drivel?

"Criminy, kids hide your model sets Uncle Billy's been huffing airplane glue again."

"This piece was supposed to go in The Onion but missed their deadline."

"The 27% is slipping away from Bush and the GOP. Fortunately for Kristol, these are the goobers who buy the penis extension pills and baldness remedies advertised on Limbaugh's show. The point being that it doesn't take a lot to schnooker them.You really need to drug-test your contributors before printing delusional fantasies such as this."

"What bothers me most about Kristol's idiodic posting is that I encoutered it in th Washington Post. What are the standards? What would be too stupid to print in the Post?"

*Update: There are now 200 pages of comments and still, no love for Baghdad Bill...

If you haven't heard by now, XM shock-jocks Opie and Anthony are in full apology-mode over crude sexual comments (WARNING: disgusting language) guest “Homeless Charlie" made about Condoleeza Rice and Laura Bush. This kind of trash should be universally deplored, but when other idiot shockjocks like Mancow Muller -- who describes himself as a "conservative, Bible-thumping radical who curses" -- claim that Opie and Anthony are "liberal guys" and that's why they're "getting a free pass" from the media, I'd be remiss if I didn't call him out on it. Here's a contrast of what he said and what O&A themselves said about their political leanings in an interview on "Hannity & Colmes" last year.

Download | play Download | play (h/t Logan for the vid)

Mancow: "These are liberal guys. Can you imagine - these are liberal guys, can you imagine if-if Rush or Hannity or you, Bill got on and talked about raping Hillary? You'd be out of the country by now, but these guys are getting a free pass because the media hates - hates -uh this First Lady and hates Condoleeza Rice."

In that H&C clip, Opie and Anthony had just gotten their show back after a two year hiatus from terrestrial radio where they were fired for running a contest in which they encouraged listeners to have sex in public places. One of those places was St. Patrick's Cathedral in NYC, and the uproar that ensued resulted in their canning.

The funniest part has to be when Hannity asks them when their next outrageous controversy will happen and when he will have to defend them. Well, here you go, Sean. Will you stay true to your word? Something tells me no.

When Nonny sent this in (you can send story tips to the sitemonitor account, and if we use it, we'll give you a hat tip), I had to laugh at the ridiculousness of it. Talk about being unclear on the concept. He tried to insult Muslims for what he admits is a misconception on his part with something that doesn't insult them. Watch, this guy is destined to be appointed by Bush as a Protocol Specialist for the State Department.

CNN.com : (h/t NonnyMouse)

A man unhappy with an Islamic association's plans to build a mosque next to his property has staged pig races as a protest during afternoon prayers.

Craig Baker, 46, sold merchandise and grilled sausages Friday for about 100 people who showed up in heavy rain. He insisted he wasn't trying to offend anyone with the pigs, which are forbidden from the Muslim diet.

"I am just defending my rights and my property," Baker said. "They totally disrespected me and my family."

Muslims don't hate pigs, they just don't eat them, said engineer Kamel Fotouh, president of the 500-member Katy Islamic Association in this Houston suburb.

"I don't care if he races, roasts or slaughters pigs," said Yousef Allam, a spokesman for the group.

The dispute began when the association asked Baker to remove his cattle from its newly bought land. The association plans to build a mosque, community center, athletic facilities and a school.

Baker agreed to move his cattle but thought the Muslims also wanted him off the land his family has lived on for more than 100 years.

Earlier this month, Baker conceded that the Muslims probably aren't after his land, but he said he had to go through with the pig races because "I would be like a total idiot if I didn't. I'd be the laughingstock now because I've gone too far."

Too late, buddy.

MSNBC:

Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, an unabashed apostle of Reagan era conservatism and the first woman U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has died.

The death of the 80-year-old Kirkpatrick, who began her public life as a Hubert Humphrey Democrat, was announced Friday at the senior staff meeting of the U.S. mission to the United Nations and on the Web site of the American Enterprise Institute, where she had been a senior fellow.

In all honesty, my best memory of Jeane Kirkpatrick has nothing to do with her but with an imagined exchange between her and her "lover", Al Franken, in the introduction of Franken's book Rush Limbaugh is a Big, Fat Idiot (scroll about 2/3 down the page to read the exchange).