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Apparently, Rip-Van-Winkle-like, Bill O'Reilly and Karl Rove simply slept through the 1990s, when Republicans couldn't stop obsessing about the Mighty Clenis and its powers of seduction.

Yesterday on The O'Reilly Factor, they both were mewling piteously about the mean liberals who are having a bit of a heyday with Mark Sanford's Appalachian Trail Adventures:

O'Reilly: Some in the Muslim world believe in stoning people. Apparently, some in the USA believe in stoning as well -- stoning with words.

Because, of course, Bill O'Reilly never attacks people with his words. You Pinhead!

What really got Rove's goat was Paul Begala, having the audacity to point out that he, like a lot of us, have had enough of the GOP's Holier-Than-Thou schtick, which they use with great regularity to beat liberals about the head and neck for their supposed "licentiousness".

Rove: I guess what it comes down to is when you get to socially liberal ideas like abortion, and like gay marriage, the left will seize on any opportunity that they think they have in order to condemn those who are pro-life and pro-traditional marriage. And it's just -- you know, there are people who are maybe moderate in their views on economics, or maybe nationalist on their views on international affairs, but when it comes down to social questions, they're liberal, and it's an instinct, and they cause a lot of people -- you know, like Paul Begala.

O'Reilly: I was just going to say that. Is that unbelievable?

Rove: Unbelievable. I don't recall -- you know, who exactly is accusing him of being a poor father or a poor Christian or not a patriot. But this sort of artificial victimhood -- and again, the purpose of it is, is to say to people --

O'Reilly: But wasn't Begala the guy, that it was just about sex, he and Carville were running around -- that's all they said for two years!

Don't you just love it when the guy who perfected right-wing victimhood as a phony schtick indulges it right there onscreen -- and then accuses the left of it!

And O'Reilly misses his own point: Begala was obviously complaining about Republicans' propensity to condemn all liberals as "immoral" based on a single person's failings (see, e.g., the right-wing claim after Sanford that "liberals are more to licentiousness"). Which is now the position he and Rove are trying to claim -- while accusing Begala of the opposite.

But the real capper was this:

Rove: What we saw last night was the coarseness and ugliness in American politics, carried forward by people who claim not to be political actors, but commentators and observers. And they gave the lie to their so-called neutrality or objectiveness last night.

Quoth the cohort of Lee Atwater and the man who "makes [Charles] Colson look like a novice".

The right's projection strategy is reaching absurd heights these days. But it at least makes for some amusing TV.

I guess he passed his first International incident by the rescue in Somalia.

U.S. Navy snipers opened fire and killed three pirates holding an American captain at gunpoint, delivering the skipper unharmed and ending a five-day high-seas hostage drama on Easter Sunday.

Capt. Richard Phillips was in "imminent danger" of being killed before snipers shot the pirates in an operation authorized by President Barack Obama, Vice Adm. Bill Gortney said.

He said the pirates were armed with AK-47s and small-caliber pistols and were pointing the rifles at the captain when the commander of the nearby USS Bainbridge gave the order to open fire. Gortney, the commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, said the White House had given "very clear guidance and authority" to take action if Phillips' life was in danger...read on

Here's a memo to the media. With a leaderless party, conservatives should never be taken seriously when they criticize the president. . Case in point via FOX Noise: Somali Pirates Hand Obama Foreign Policy Emergency With No Easy Solution

Who would have guessed that one of President Obama's biggest foreign tests in his first 100 days would come from a ragtag band of pirates and a high-seas hostage drama?

Other foreign threats, such as the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran, may pose greater concern for national security, but the problem of Somali pirates is proving just as difficult to address.

A ship is attacked by pirates and that's supposedly going to define President Obama's foreign policy chops.

memeorandum was ablaze with blog posts about this story.

The Limbaugh National Committee says: Rush claims the Somali pirate saga shows how both Obama and Clinton are "inept" in handling "3 a.m. phone call"

He then followed it up with this one: Hour 2: Rush's theory on why piracy is rebounding: "[E]nemies of America are friends of the Democrat Party"

The ridiculousness of him is astounding.

Howie Klein writes: Navy Seals Rescue American Hostage And Kill Somali Pirates

Even though a good friend is in Somalia now making a documentary on pirates-- and even though we have discussed the Somali pirates here in the past (yes, before they were so trendy)-- we've left the recent Somali pirate talk to the right wing blow-hards while we tried keeping the focus on the far more dangerous and predatory Wall Street pirates.

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I wonder why the Bush Regime never did anything about cleaning up the Somali pirates' nests along the Horn of Africa. By virtually ignoring the problem, they let it fester and grow. It was satisfying to see that President Obama moved in swiftly and surely-- and that he authorized the three AK-47 armed pirates who may have been attempting to kill Captain Phillips be shot.

I imagine the ditto-heads would have liked to see the entire area nuked to show the world how mighty and tough we are, but instead we just took care of the incident and rescued our mates. If it had been Bush or McCain this would have been treated like the story it was. A terrible tale of piracy on the high seas.

One group that seems to have become far more motivated by the prospect of someone halfway sane in the White House are nuclear nonproliferation advocates. There have been various op-eds and conferences moving towards the idea that the US and the world should be looking at nuclear reduction with a view towrads actual elimination of late, but now there's an international group with heavyweight backing which appears set to be a major pressure for change after so many years of Bush bellicosity.

Former world leaders and arms-control negotiators joined entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson and the queen of Jordan Tuesday to launch a project aimed at eliminating the world's nuclear weapons over the next 25 years.

The group wants to reach the impossible-sounding goal by reviving nuclear disarmament efforts that have lagged since the end of the Cold War. It is proposing deep cuts in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, a worldwide verification and enforcement system and phased reduction leading to elimination of all stockpiles.

"We have to set an example," Branson said.

The group, called Global Zero, wants to start with U.S.-Russian negotiations to cut back nuclear stockpiles. Then a second phase would bring in countries such as China, Britain and France. Finally, it hopes to attract other countries such as Iran — which the West fears is seeking nuclear arms. Tehran insists its nuclear program is aimed at generating electricity.

Delegations from the group will go to Moscow for talks with Russian officials Wednesday and to Washington on Thursday.

Global Zero's website is here.

The list of signatories is impressive. For British political heavyweights it includes both a former Conservative Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, and a Defense Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, as well as former Labour Foreign Secretarys Margaret Beckett and David Owen. In the US, figures such as William F. Burns, Joseph Cirincione, Chuck Hagel, Robert McFarlane, Gen. Anthony Zinni and Zbigniew Brzezinkski have signed on. Michael Gorbachev, former UN Envoy to Iraq and Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi, former Russian FM Igor Ivanov and Russian Council for Foreign and Defense Policy head Sergei Karaganov, Japanese former FM Yoriko Kawaguchi and former Pakistani FM Shaharyar Khan are among the leaders from the rest of the world involved.

With Branson's money behind such an impressive list, this group offers a very bright hope for nuclear disarmament. I've already added my name to the list of supporters.