Beautiful Horizons

Downfall Still Rules

Another fine example here:

 

Bigots in the GOP

Wow. How does this woman explain John Boehner:

REP. O’BRIEN: My son who’s a Kansas resident, born here, raised here, didn’t qualify for any financial aid. Yet this girl was going to get financial aid. My son was kinda upset about it because he works and pays for his own schooling and his books and everything and he didn’t think that was fair. We didn’t ask the girl what nationality she was, we didn’t think that was proper. But we could tell by looking at her that she was not originally from this country. [...]

REP. GATEWOOD: Can you expand on how you could tell that they were illegal?

REP. O’BRIEN: Well she wasn’t black, she wasn’t Asian, and she had the olive complexion.

Not much to add to that.

Like Flies to Feces

The right seems to atttract the loony:

 

Riding That Crazy Train to Oblivion

The opponents of the community center two blocks from the World Trade Center site continue to proudly display their unbridled ignorance and pathological hate. Their latest victim? Justin Bieber:

Some opponents of the so-called "Ground Zero mosque" have launched a boycott of Justin Bieber over the Canadian teen pop sensation's support of the construction of a Muslim community center not far from the site of the 9/11 attacks.

The only problem is, Bieber has apparently never endorsed the center known as Park 51, or even discussed it publicly.

Bieber's face was featured on a Facebook page devoted to a boycott of companies that have supported Park 51. (The page has now replaced Bieber's face with that of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who actually did endorse the project.)

"Justin took an adult position and spoke out in support of the mosque in tigar beat [sic] magazine," a page administrator wrote. "He one of the most influential teen sensations ... If he is going to play like the big boys he better expect some back lash..."

This not from The Onion. Honest.

In a Nutshell, Perhaps Literally

Hat tip to my high school buddy, Pierce McDowell:

 

The Value of Context

The right has its collective knickers in all sorts of twists over, not merely the firing of Juan Williams, but what they perceive to be a double standard in the fact that Nina Totenberg was not fired for making a harsh statement about Jesse Helms.

The way the right is portraying it is as if Totenberg made the comment completely out of context seemingly motivated solely by her loathing of Jesse Helms. In fact, the comment was motivated  by Helms comments made in 1995 in his opposition to continued funding for the Ryan White Act. Here's what happened:

Senator Jesse Helms, the North Carolina Republican who has vigorously fought homosexual rights, wants to reduce the amount of Federal money spent on AIDS sufferers, because, he says, it is their "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct" that is responsible for their disease.

Moreover, he argues, AIDS is only the ninth-leading cause of death in America but accounts for more Federal financing than diseases that kill more people (an assertion not supported by Public Health Service figures).

"We've got to have some common sense, " Mr. Helms maintained in an interview, "about a disease transmitted by people deliberately engaging in unnatural acts."

I suppose Ryan White's blood transfusion, which gave him the disease that cost him his life and caused him to suffer being ostracized was an unnatural act, but the hemophilia that necessitated the transfusion wasn't.

Nevertheless it was a contemptible comment by Helms. For a self-proclaimed Christian, Helms's statement was devoid of compassion. Totenberg, in her anger made the following comment:

"I think he ought to be worried about what's going on in the good Lord's mind, because if there's retributive justice, he'll get AIDS from a transfusion or one of his grandchildren will get it."

Over the top? Perhaps, but delivered in an obviously sarcastic tone, with an undercurent of disgust; a disgust I shared, by the way.

But the comment by Totenberg didn't run the risk of costing people their lives, whereas Helms statements did by denying the continuation of funding that had bipartisan support, including Christopher Dodd, Strom Thurmond and Orrin Hatch as co-sponsors.

Moreover, Totenberg's comments spoke specifically to the morally reprehensible statement of one man, whereas Williams spoke of his own ethnically based prejudices; prejudices, which were frankly idiotic. Let us not forget that one of the reasons for the success of the 9/11 hijackers was the fact that they went to great pains to blend in. I'm sure that Juam Williams would be hard-pressed to recount an instance of someone wearing "Muslim garb" at a strip club . . .

While I'm not defending Totenberg, I certainly understand her anger at Helms. I cannot understand Williams fear, however. If one wants to commit a terrorist act and get away with it, one would think that common sense would dictate that you don't call attention to oneself. Apparently Juan Williams lacks common sense. While perhaps not a firable offense, the comparison between his situation and Nina Totenberg's is groundless in my humble opinion.

Wow

We will probably never see the caboose of the right-wing crazy train.

Hat tip to my buddy, Michael Bérubé.

A Tale of Two Men

This pretty much says it all.

Hat tip to Michael Froomkin.

More of This, Please

The truth will set you free:

Hat tip to John Cole.

For Sarah . . .

. . . Apparently it's all about the Benjamins.

Hat tip to Kevin Drum.