Recently, the wingnutosphere went on one of its periodic jihads attacking Rhode Island law professor Erik Loomis for having tweeted the following after Sandy Hook:

I was heartbroken in the first 20 mass murders. Now I want Wayne LaPierre’s head on a stick.

Among the first to pounce, labeling it "eliminationist rhetoric," was the well-noted smear artist Glenn Reynolds, who also has a penchant for indulging in the fantasy that left-wing political violence is a bigger problem than right-wing violence.

Well, as someone who has written and published a book on the subject matter -- The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right -- let me put simply something I have said many times in many different and windier ways over the years: Glenn Reynolds is completely full of crap.

As I explain in the book, the term describes not just ordinary violent rhetoric, but rather involves the "positing of elimination as the solution to political disagreement. Rather than engaging in a dialogue over political and cultural issues, one side simply dehumanizes its opponents and suggests, and at times demands, their excision."

Eliminationism, I explain, is

a politics and a culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas in favor of the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through suppression, exile, and ejection, or extermination.

Rhetorically, eliminationism takes on certain distinctive shapes. It always depicts its opposition as beyond the pale, the embodiment of evil itself, unfit for participation in their vision of society, and thus worthy of elimination. It often further depicts its designated Enemy as vermin (especially rats and cockroaches) or diseases, and disease-like cancers on the body politic. A close corollary—but not as nakedly eliminationist—are claims that opponents are traitors or criminals and that they pose a threat to our national security.

Eliminationism is often voiced as crude "jokes," a sense of humor inevitably predicated on venomous hatred. And such rhetoric—we know as surely as we know that night follows day—eventually begets action, with inevitably tragic results.

Two key factors distinguish eliminationist rhetoric from other political hyperbole:

It is focused on an enemy within, people who constitute entire blocs of the citizen populace.

It advocates the excision and extermination of those entire blocs by violent or civil means.

Loomis's remark is a rather generic political expression -- and not even a particularly violent one, considering its long provenance in the annals of ordinary rhetoric -- directed at a single person, not a whole class of them. By definition, it simply isn't eliminationist. At worst, it is simply generic violent rhetoric of the "off with their heads" variety.

Of course, Reynolds has responded petulantly:

But hey, if you want to argue that “head on a stick” isn’t any sort of eliminationist rhetoric, well, duly noted.

Right. Just as it is duly noted that Glenn Reynolds is a right-wing jackass.

Just as when he labeled MEChA "fascist hatemongers", Reynolds seems not to understand that when one is called out on a viciously false smear, an apology is usually forthcoming. But of course, no such thing will occur here. Same as it ever was.

[Mitt Romney invokes Reverend Jeremiah Wright during interview with Sean Hannity]

Ah, I smell the odor of desperation in the morning. When the Fox polls are showing Obama pulling ahead of Romney, it is required that Mitt Romney's billionaire boys step up with a proposal for a smear, and so they have. Disturbed that the President is well-liked, this particular proposal is to mount a coordinated media campaign to make him a little less likable.

I should hasten to add that since this story originally broke in the New York Times, the Obama campaign has denounced the plan and accused Mitt Romney of failing to lead to a higher ground, Romney has responded by repudiating it outright after the Obama campaign called him out on it, and the originator, Joe Ricketts (founder of TD Ameritrade and Chicago Cubs owner), has now rejected it while claiming he is just an independent who is tired of government spending.

Such are the days in the life of a national campaign. Repudiated or not, the 54-page proposal is an instructive look at how these billionaire idiots hatch their plan, get PR flacks to put together a proposal, and agree to write a ginormous check for the whole shebang.

The trial balloon went up earlier this year, when Mitt Romney invoked Jeremiah Wright in an interview with Sean Hannity, who loves to mention Wright's name whenever he can, preferably in concert with Bill Ayers'. It gives Hannity a tingle up his leg every single time, and Mitt obliged (audio at the top).

The Campaign

It begins with an image:

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John Stossel devoted his show this past weekend to an attempt to defend his report on "freeloaders" -- which not only was riddled throughout with false "facts," outright falsehoods, gross distortions, and misleading sound bytes, it was nakedly racist in its depiction of minorities who are the beneficiaries of government largesse as cheaters and chiselers.

So who did he invite on to help make this case? Why, Andrew Breitbart -- liar, prevaricator, and misleader extraordinaire -- of course. Breitbart, you see, was Stossel's chief source for the segment on black farmers who are supposedly ripping off the government in the Pigford case -- the non-story that Breitbart has been assiduously, obsessively pursuing as a way of trying to cover his tracks for his grotesque performance in the Shirley Sherrod matter.

He also invited on Al Pires, one of the lead attorneys for those same farmers, to serve as their pinata for the segment. Except it turned out that this pinata had his own big stick -- and went right after Breitbart for the fact that his reportage on the Pigford case has been a wanton exercise in legal (and agricultural ignorance:

PIRES: I don't know who Mr. Breitbart is. He's obviously not a farmer and he's not a journalist -- none of that's even remotely true.

...

Who are you? Making fun of people who have the guts to take cases against the government. You don’t know anything about farming and litigation. You’re some gadfly from Hollywood. I looked you up. You’re some guy who didn’t have a job for ten years.

...

Yeah, I know who you are. You’re some gadfly from Hollywood. You’re the son of a rich family, you never worked for a living in your life. You go around making fun of poor people, you go making fun of Indians and Blacks and Hispanics and women and I’m not putting up with it. I feel bad for you. You’re a sad, sad person. Why don’t you go get a job?

I especially got a kick out of Stossel trying to pretend that no, really, Breitbart is a journalist! Sorry, dude -- you actually have to practice journalism -- which entails a balanced search of facts and truth -- and not thesis-driven propaganda to earn that title.

Mind you, Pires could have been far more effective if he had just started listing the times Breitbart and Co. have been caught deceptively editing videos and lying about their subjects. But that's OK. Sometimes it's satisfying to just see guys like Breitbart get slapped down on every imaginable basis -- and with this particular lying liar, even personal rips like these are fully deserved. Especially when the entire segment is devoted to an ad-hominem smear of their victim as a rich conniver. Can't blame him for tossing the same game back in their faces.

(Above video is from a post called: A Tea Party History?)

I saw this and I cringed because Jane Mayer isn't a politco type person who is running for office or is in charge of investigations like some AG. Writing explosive articles against the Koch Brothers is something the Tea Party Kings can't abide:

Last August, Jane Mayer wrote a long investigative article in The New Yorker about the Koch brothers, the conservative billionaires who bankroll a host of right-wing causes. Since then, she's apparently become the victim of a disturbing, organized smear campaign.

Mayer, who's reported extensively on America's use of torture during the "War on Terror" and co-authored books on Clarence Thomas and Ronald Reagan, is certainly no stranger to peals of right-wing outrage. But her work on the reclusive Koch brothers (whose official objections to the story are laid out in this letter) seems to have raised it to a new level. Sources tell us that rumors have been circulating for some time now that a private investigator was hired to dig up dirt on Mayer in the wake of the Koch brothers story. (Dirty business, but that sort of thing does happen.)

Nothing's been confirmed so far. But the circumstantial evidence does seem indicate that someone out there is planting (weak) negative stories about Mayer with any news outlet who might take them. There have been at least three efforts so far:...read on

Jane, we got your back.

[H/t Heather]

Lou Dobbs and Co. (in this case, "reporter" -- and we use the term very loosely indeed -- Drew Griffin) have earned a new title: Masters of the Well-Beaten Mummified Horse Corpse:

In March, a House subcommittee looking into lessons learned from the 2008 election, heard from a Republican lawyer from Pennsylvania, accusing ACORN of a multitude of violations. In response, Democratic Congressman John Conyers, a fierce partisan who defended ACORN during the presidential campaign, surprised fellow members when he called the accusations a pretty serious matter. Conyers asked New York Democrat Jerrold Nadler to conduct a subcommittee hearing on ACORN. Here is what happened next.

REP. JERROLD NADLER (D), NEW YORK: Let me just say that I would certainly consider a hearing on ACORN, if I ever hear any credible allegations.

REP. JOHN CONYERS (D), MICHIGAN: Whoa. Wait a minute. This is a member of the bar here that got a successful partial injunction against ACORN.

NADLER: The chairman makes a good point and we will certainly consider it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GRIFFIN: Lou, they didn't apparently consider it very long. Congressman Nadler's office tells us there will be no hearing on ACORN. When we asked why, we were told Congressman Conyers changed his mind. When we looked for a statement there, this is what we got from Congressman Conyers' office.

"Based on my review of the information regarding the complaints against ACORN, I have concluded that a hearing on this matter appears unwarranted at this time." That's just about a month after he called the whole affair "pretty serious." Lou?

DOBBS: Obviously Congressman Conyers is not the only fierce partisan on that committee -- a stunning reversal and no further explanation.

GRIFFIN: Nope, we actually asked for an interview. We asked for an explanation of this very statement which says really nothing at all, what kind of evidence they reviewed that changed his mind. This is all we got in return, Lou.

DOBBS: Drew, thank you very much and ACORN is -- well I think we would have to say an interesting and unique organization that deserves a lot more attention, if not investigation on the part of all of us.

What Dobbs and Griffin seem to have trouble wrapping their little heads around is the reality that there's no there there.

Even in cases like the Nevada prosecution, the problem appear to be an issue regarding individual miscreancy more than organizational corruption. And how serious is the problem, exactly?

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