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If you were looking for an example of how right's wingnutosphere manages to spin the most innocuous wisps of nothing into massive earth-shaking scandals of cosmic import, look no further than the outbreak of right-wing hives that erupted last week over these words from the estimable political-philosophy professor Brian Leiter:

Meanwhile, the Republican criminals in Wisconsin forced through their attack on workers' rights, leading to an uproar in Madison. ... At some point these acts of brazen viciousness are going to lead to a renewed philosophical interest in the question of when acts of political violence are morally justified, an issue that has, oddly, not been widely addressed in political philosophy since Locke.

Within a week's time, these words had morphed into an example of left-wingers advocating violence in places like Wisconsin!, one of the favorite memes o' the week at Fox. Megyn Kelly devoted an entire segment to wondering about the meaning of Leiter's words:

KELLY: Well, some on the left now suggesting that crackdowns on unions like we saw in Wisconsin will lead to renewed interest in whether violence would be morally justified.

Of course, Kelly couldn't manage to find a Faux Democrat who could actually read what Leiter wrote in context and laugh the whole discussion off the screen, since such a creature does not exist. This left Kelly free to then compare Leiter's quip to a nutty rant from Louis Farrakhan. Fair 'n' balanced!

The person who pretty much kicked off the whole charade last week was the Ole Perfesser, Glenn Reynolds, who wanked:

This whole “new civility” business just isn’t working out as promised. On the other hand, it is working out pretty much as expected. . . .

It seemed that everyone on the right, rather than read what Leiter's words actually said, wanted to read what they thought his hidden meaning was -- namely, that violence might become philosophically justified, a la Eugene Volkh: "My sense from Prof. Leiter’s post, though, is that he is hinting at more than just a philosophical inquiry".

Ann Althouse, as is her wont, made the leap and went there:

How quickly the lefty mind turns toward violence! ... Here, I'll help you get your fancy-schmancy, high-tone philosophy seminar started: Acts of political violence are justified to get what you want.

...

Leiter is…inclined to approve of the impulse toward violence on the left and willing to mobilize the discipline of philosophy to generate rhetoric to support its political goals. It’s quite disgusting.

Indeed, there was great handwringing on the right that Leiter was actually inciting violence. James Taranto cites reader John Benjamin:

Frankly, Leiter borders on incitement. Not to see that comments such as his enhance the possibility of actual violence in the future is unacceptable. There is a profound degree of antipathy in political circles today and one would be denying reality if one expressed surprise at an act of political violence today. Shock and horror, yes, but surprise, no and it's due precisely to the allowing of intellectual lunatics such as Leiter the light of day on campus or anywhere inside civilization.

Even Taranto -- who nonetheless read Leiter's remarks as intimating an approval of violence -- wouldn't go quite that far. But nonetheless it became a fait accompli that Brian Leiter was urging the left to engage in violence.

Which is not just patent nonsense but patently dishonest nonsense: The clear meaning of Leiter's remarks is that this kind of political-miscreancy-without-accountability ultimately gets people to thinking about violence, and some of them concoct philosophical justifications for it -- which really is almost unquestionably true, regardless of which side of the political aisle you sit upon. He says absolutely nothing to indicate approval or disapproval; he merely remarks on this point.

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Call Bill O'Reilly -- he seems to want to be Top Civility Cop these days. There's a case -- wait wait wait, I mean an "isolated incident" -- for him up in Massachusetts he needs to get right on top of:

Arlington Man Loses Gun License Due To Blog About Tucson Shooting

A blog threatening members of Congress in the wake of the Tucson, Arizona shooting has prompted Arlington police to temporarily suspend the firearms license of an Arlington man.

It was the headline “1 down and 534 to go” that caught the attention. “One” refers to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head in the rampage, while 534 refers to the other members of the U.S. House and Senate.

Police are investigating the “suitability” of 39-year-old Travis Corcoran to have a firearms license

Whaddya think, audience? Is this guy a Pinhead or a Patriot?

Well, given a chance to apologize or elaborate or just somehow indicate a tiny molecule of decency, our teabagging "libertarian" hero answered thus:

“I dislike Representatives and Senators, and I think that each and every one of them is doing grave harm to the United States, and to the freedoms of the citizens of the US.”

I'm sure Bill will be all over this. Or will Fox just pretend this story out of existence, as it always does when right-wingers inflict threats and violence against liberals and the government? Hmmmmmm. Tough one.

Now watch while the Tea Partiers and gun rights nutcases turn Corcoran into a free-speech martyr. Because urging your audience to kill members of Congress and other threats and incitements to violence constitutes protected speech to these loons.

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If you wanted a prime example of the kind of blinkered, circular dumbassery that passes for right-wing thinking on global climate change -- or for that matter, any kind of science issue -- check out the discussion that emerged this weekend over this absurd contribution from economist Stefan Karlsson in the Christian Science Monitor:

What has always troubled me the most with the view that we needs to stop "climate change" in the form of "global warming" is the idea that it would be bad if the Earth became warmer.

Sure, that could be negative in some areas for some reasons, but it would also be beneficial in other areas for other reasons. Suppose for example that Antarctica, or at least parts of it, would become habitable due to a warmer climate, wouldn't that be a good thing that could possibly outweigh possible problems elsewhere

... Note that some "climate change" theories argue that "global warming" could lead to colder weather in for example northern Europe. But even assuming that this is really true, it begs the question of why colder weather is bad there but good everywhere else. And this cold weather will largelly undo the initial warming effect, leaving us with little to worry about, assuming "global warming" is bad.

Fairly typical of an economist to only consider the surface economic effects of global climate change with nary a word about the far more significant biological impacts that are heading our way like a big runaway train careering down the tracks.

Sure enough, the usual half-thinkers of the wingnutosphere were happy to promote this nonsense, including Glenn Reynolds and Ann Althouse, who remarked: "The reason is that when [IF!] global warming sets in, there will be winners and losers, and those who predict that they will win understand the value of circumspection and restraint." (Even more absurd is the outright denialism that dominated the comments to this post.)

Actually, the reason to be concerned is that EVERYONE loses -- every species on the planet will suffer, including human beings. Even wealthy, conceited, arrogant conservative human beings.

But this is fairly typical right-wing cant when it comes to climate change -- believing that the only impacts of global phenomena are to be found in the obvious manifestations they can see. Remember how, last winter, everyone on Fox was trying to argue that the heavy East Coast snowstorms somehow disproved that global warming was occurring?

So let's leave aside the reality that rising ocean levels will seriously impact the globe's coastal populations, particularly those in the Third World. Leave aside the certainty that many of the world's forests (and thus their oxygen-producing capacities) are going to be burning up and dying because of climate change. And leave aside the likelihood that the world's storms -- hurricanes, tornadoes, rainstorms and snowstorms -- likely will be increasing significantly in intensity, killing many more human beings than they already do.

Let's consider instead simply a small spectrum of the impact global warming will have on the world's oceans -- our coral reefs. Because the evidence is nearly indisputable that, because of climate change, the world's coral reefs are rapidly dying.

This isn't even being seriously contested by anyone, and we've known it for awhile. In 2006, there was this National Geographic report, based on a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describing how global warming is devastating the world's coral reefs. It has been borne out by numerous studies, including one published in Science in 2007.

No one is even attempting to claim that this effect is not happening. Indeed, the concern has only been intensifying in more recent years. See, for instance, the maps showing the loss of calclifiers in the oceans, which inevitably is leading to a significant loss of biodiversity within the world's oceanic ecosystems.

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We all know that the wingnutosphere, particularly Andrew Breitbart, has been searching for evidence of liberal racism and anti-white bigotry on the part of President Obama and various liberal organizations for some time now. So far, the best they've come up with is Shirley Sherrod.

So here's how desperate they've become:

And Even STILL I Am Not Allowed To Make A Racial Slur About Our President? After THIS? AYFKM!?!?!?

I almost don’t have words…almost:

He said Republicans had driven the economy into a ditch and then stood by and criticized while Democrats pulled it out. Now that progress has been made, he said, “we can’t have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.”

In the new post-racial America, brought to us by Barack “don’t call me black or white, just call me American” Obama, we have been told our differences are behind us now…just because he exists and… just because he is black. Yet, day by day and speech by speech, this President has done more damage to race relations than any combination of Presidents since Lyndon Johnson…and he, at least, tried to make things better with a sincere heart.

Were anyone else to have been caught on tape making these sorts of remarks, they’d have already been fired and given a 2 million dollar job contract with the competition. Oh wait.

The lack of outrage should surprise no one here. We were told to vote for him… not because he was black but… because he brought with him hope and change and the promise of a color blind society. He has delivered on none of these, instead making race relations worse today than they were before he was elected.

Excuse me, but ... WTF? Is this the first time this clown has heard Obama telling this story? Hell, he said nearly the exact same thing last week in Seattle, which is where we got the above video. And as we pointed out then, Obama has been telling this routine since at least May 14.

Suddenly now he has his noise out of joint? And over ... what, exactly? Somehow, the innate racism of Obama's remark eludes me. Is there some deeper racial connotation to sitting in the back seat we don't know about?

Besides, it's pretty clear that he's saying that Republicans have to sit in the back seat, isn't it? Or is Poff implying that the Republican Party equals white people? So just exactly who's being racist here?

BTW, I especially like Obama's closing bit here:

Obama: Have you ever noticed that when you want the car to go forward, you put it in 'D'. When you want it to go backward, you put it in 'R'.

Maybe that's racist too. We're sure Poff can explain to us how that is -- and how it now gives him permission to use racial slurs.

Indeed, given his headline, he sure seems as though he's just been bursting with withheld racial slurs against Obama. Dude, by all means, let it out. Better we know what you really think.

Though most of us can pretty much figure that out anyway.

What can you do if established media refuses to print your hate- and nonsense-filled talking points verbatim? Start your own newspaper, of course! You can print it in tabloid size, forgo subscriptions, and publish propaganda screeds verbatim off the ad revenue alone.

The Courier Journal, Volume 126, Number 44 arrived free in the mailbox of nearly 70,000 people in the greater Shoals area a couple of Wednesdays ago. It is often the only reading material the area's poorest citizens have.

Filled with ads, the Courier-Journal has grown its audience by nearly one-sixth in the last eighteen months. Headlining this week's edition is "Marriage Matters":

SHOALS--One of our greatest challenges as a nation is preserving the integrity and unity of the home. Many individuals have good intentions, but they lack the determination and skills necessary to keep a family intact.

So far, so good! What wrong with keeping families together? But by mid-first paragraph, you are already getting the spiel:

Using God-centeredness as the foundation, the Marriage Matters conference provides information for maintaining good marriages.

The front page article is basically an ad for faith-based counseling. It is like the "free pregnancy test" advertised inside, wherein young, terrified women get to watch a video about fetal development and are counseled to make "the right choice" before getting their test results.

Crosspoint Church of Christ, which offers the "Marriage Matters" program, has no connection to northeastern "Church of Christ" denominations. In fact, the southeastern Church of Christ has been connected to anti-alcohol politics, blue laws, and the so-called "Constitution Party" for a very long time.

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The bloodbath continues in America's heartland and now word is coming in that the People's Liberation Army, the highly trained killers on the payroll of the Communist Chinese government, have crossed into the United States by tunneling through the center of the Earth and have taken over at least two ranches in the Springview, Nebraska area. I am receiving word that the owners of the ranches have evacuated without being harmed.

Founder of the San Diego Minutemen Jeff Schwilk tipped me off to this story and passes along the following information on the location. Schwilk, you may remember, was the incredibly reliable source who tipped us off the this story about our Mexlamofascist overlords starting the reconquista of the Southwestern United States. Anyway, here is what he is telling us:

I can personally vouch that this info came in late last night from a reliable police source inside the Springview PD. There is currently a standoff between the unknown size ChiCom forces and the Nebraska National Guard and local law enforcement. The Chinese have apparently been planning this tunnel for decades and now their vile plan has come to fruition. Upon entering the Heartland, the PLA began immediately setting up restaurants to convert upstanding Real Americans to their heathenistic commie ideology. Reports indicate that dozens of corn-fed Heartlanders are now gorging themselves on General Gao's chicken and delicious spring rolls! The source tells us he considers this an "act of war" and that the military is needed in the Heartland immediately!

WE MUST ALERT THE MANY PATRIOTIC BLOGGERS WHO HAVE BEEN DOING A BANG-UP JOB COVERING THE TOTALLY ACCURATE RECONQUISTA STORY THAT WE ARE NOW BEING INVADED ON TWO FRONTS!!!

Sensing the weakness of our Chicago thug president, America's enemies have decided that now is the time to finally bring our country to her knees! But with the help of True Patriots, we can repel these foreign invaders! All Patriot Bloggers must report with their firearms to Nebraska immediately to defend the Heartland! Or else they can, you know, just do their patriotic duty by providing us with frequent updates while drinking Mountain Dew from the safety of their own homes. Both courses of action are equally brave! TO ARMS, MY KEYBOARDING BRETHREN!!!!

UPDATE: After making a call to the Springview PD, I have since learned that the Chinese have not invaded and that the incident in question was merely the grand opening of a new Panda Express at the local shopping mall. All the same, this does nothing to refute the accuracy of my original report.

The universe is turned inside out at Bloggingheads, beginning with Ann Althouse's declaration that Glenn Reynolds is the "greatest blogger of all time," after which the implosion becomes cataclysmic.

If you want to spare yourself the brain damage, here's the transcript:

Reynolds: I really do worry about Obama. I am concerned that he is going to be hit on by a whole bunch of interest groups who are going to demand a lot, and that he's going to have a hard time saying no. Paradoxically for him, I think, having the Republicans maintain enough seats to keep a filibuster is probably a good thing, I think it will probably give him a chance to resist some of these demands from his constituencies.

But I'm a little concerned. If he had run the kind of campaign that the early part of his campaign symbolized and that his really very nice acceptance speech last night symbolized, I would have felt better about him. There was a lot of sort of thuggish behavior toward critics and stuff, and the fundraising stuff, that I didn't like, and that kind of gave me a bad feeling about him. And we'll just have to see if that translates into an Obama administration now, or not. ...

Althouse: Well you know, I got the feeling -- this idea of standing up to the Democratic Congress was really important to me, but I didn't feel like McCain would do that. I felt like McCain had always been about reaching across the aisle and wanting the Democrats to love him. And I actually felt that, you know, once the national security interests became secondary, because I think we essentially won the war -- and I voted against Kerry in '04 because I thought he was going to lose the war for us, and that was the overwhelming issue then -- so once that wasn't the main issue, and it's about standing up to the Democratic Congress on all these various economic questions, and immigration issues and things like that, I felt that Obama would actually be the stronger man, that he would be able to be his own man, he wouldn't need to make overtures to the Democrats to get them to love him, that he would need to stand for something, and that his inclination is to stand for, uh, representing the interests of the country perhaps in a way he would define with his more coherent style of thinking. Whereas McCain just struck me as completely erratic on all kinds of issues other than national security. And his admission early on that he didn't know anything about economics -- I'm still actually more angry about that than anything else anybody said, practically.

The Stupid, It Burns.

As Blue Texan observes:

What neither of these idiots seem to understand:

US voters want the Republican Party, which took a beating in this week's general elections, to embrace progressiveness and work with Democratic president-elect Barack Obama to get America back on track, a poll showed Friday.

"By nearly three to one, voters think the Republicans should support Obama's policies," Robert Borosage, co-director of CAF told reporters.

Even among Republicans, nearly half -- 45 percent -- thought their party should work with the new Democratic Party president elect and help him bring about change.

The wingnuts have been proudly displaying Dan Rather's scalp on their trophy wall ever since they chased him out of CBS with the "Memogate" nonsense. But this particular scalp may be about to turn out not to be so dead after all.

Last year Rather filed a lawsuit against CBS that mostly drew derisive snorts from both the wingnuts and the Village Idiots, but which in fact promises to be very interesting indeed if the trial takes place. As things stand now, it's set to go to trial in February.

But already some noteworthy items are seeping out.

Felix Gillette at the New York Observer got a look at some of the documents and found a list of names that CBS executives had compiled for its "independent panel" to examine the claims against Rather.

The list includes Mr. Boccardi's name as well such seemingly reasonable potential candidates as David Gergen, Gene Roberts (former managing editor of The New York Times) and Dick Wald (former president of NBC News).

Then things get a little bit more conservative. Under the category "others" are the names of potential candidates such as… Matt Drudge, Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh.

Herein, CBS’s full list of "others":

* William Buckley

* Robert Novak

* Kate O’Beirne

* Nicholas Von Hoffman

* Tucker Carlson

* Pat Buchanan

* George Will

* Lou Dobbs

* Matt Drudge

* Robert Barkley

* Robert Kagan

* Fred Barnes

* William Kristol

* John Podhoretz

* David Brooks

* William Safire

* Bernard Goldberg

* Ann Coulter

* Andrew Sullivan

* Christopher Hitchens

* PJ O’Rourke

* Christopher Caldwell

* Elliot Abrams

* Charles Krauthammer

* William Bennett

* Rush Limbaugh

At the very bottom of the list, someone wrote in one more name. "Roger Ailes."

What, Torquemada wasn't available?

Eli has more.

(please have a barf bag ready: via Clif)

What's this, you say? War-supporting bloggers in the Oval Office? It's not like Bush needs to give them tips since the Pentagon already feeds them propaganda. I guess it's a good old fashioned pat on the back for a job well done. Here's some of the hilarity that ensued:

My question focused on how national political reconciliation will affect progress in the Anbar Province and Fallujah specifically, and the President’s answer honestly surprised me in its length, level of detail and grasp of events on the ground.

He's surprised that the President has information about his immoral war! What's that WC Fields line about suckers? I like the new term they are using: New Media. A nice way for Bush fool the MSM. Sadly, No! takes a look at one of these Mil-Bloggers vlog report on the NY Times. Uncle Jimbo is so excited that Malkin mentioned his name on FOX! TREX has some new material to work with for sure...

Will Bill O'Reilly tell us that the GOP has been hijacked by the right wing talk radio and the wingnutosphere who proudly helped torpedo the immigration bill?