American libertarianism often has a surface sheen of coolness; even the conservatives had their “South Park Republicans” (racists, but like a toke now and then). But the British variant, no matter how many props you import from the states, remains ineffably naff.
(via Justin.)
Remember the police violence at the Countryside Alliance demo and all those formerly rabid Tories who said they’d never trust authority again? Glenn Greenwald has a great post up about the US version of the phenomenon, at Salon:
The ultimate reaping of what one sows: right-wing edition
(updated below – Update II)
Right-wing polemicists today are shrieking in self-pitying protest over a new report from the Department of Homeland Security sent to local police forces which warns of growing “right-wing extremist activity.” The report (.pdf) identifies attributes of these right-wing extremists, warning that a growing domestic threat of violence and terrorism “may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration” and “groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.”
Conservatives have responded to this disclosure as though they’re on the train to FEMA camps.
The Right’s leading political philosopher and intellectual historian, Jonah Goldberg, invokes fellow right-wing giant Ronald Reagan and says: “Here we go Again,” protesting that “this seems so nakedly ideological.” Michelle Malkin, who spent the last eight years cheering on every domestic surveillance and police state program she could find, announces that it’s “Confirmed: The Obama DHS hit job on conservatives is real!” Lead-War-on-Terror-cheerleader Glenn Reynolds warns that DHS — as a result of this report (but not, apparently, anything that happened over the last eight years) — now considers the Constitution to be a “subversive manifesto.” Super Tough Guy Civilization-Warrior Mark Steyn has already concocted an elaborate, detailed martyr fantasy in which his house is surrounded by Obama-dispatched, bomb-wielding federal agents. Malkin’s Hot Air stomps its feet about all “the smears listed in the new DHS warning about ‘right-wing extremism.'”
[…]
I don’t recall Glenn Reynolds or Mark Steyn complaining that the FBI, for virtually the entire Bush administration, was systematically abusing its new National Security Letters authorities under the Patriot Act to collect extremely invasive information, in secret, about Americans who had done nothing wrong.
I see the whiny ass titty baby contingent of the flying buttmonkey brigade are still around, and still whining.
[* “…been arrested“]
Why does Ray Collins, General Secretary of the Labour Party, own, on behalf of the Labour Party, the domain names
davidcameronseconomicpolicy.com
and
davidcameronseconomicpolicy.co.uk?
For negative campaigning, duh. As I’ve said before, New Labour’s studied Karl Rove’s methods very closely. But not quite closely enough.
Like pushpolling and fake leaflets a classic Rovian ploy is to buy up all your opponents’ potential domain names and park them, with page of misleading information – or just plain lies, it doesn’t matter, by the time they get it taken down the campaign’ll be over – about your opponent put up as a placeholder. A lie’s halfway around the world before the truth’s got its boots on, has always been the Rovian motto.
He may have studied Rove’s methods and he may be equally porcine, but Charlie Whelan‘s no Rove and he missed something vital that Rove never did.
Deniability.
Rove knew to hide GOP dirty domain-name tricks behind interlocking puzzles of holding companies and consultants – his hands were never actually seento be dirty. Unlike Labour, which registered smear domains in plain sight for any idiot blogger to do a lookup on, and put its name and address at the bottom of the pages too.
No doubt No 10 spins such stupidity as ‘transparency’.
The Republicans also had an army of flying butt monkeys, insane wingnut commenters, who spammed and trolled opposition blogs and launched DOS attacks against anyone posing a threat online. Again deniability; all were independent commenters, see, no connection to any party, no sir. What email lists and talking points?
Labour doesn’t have anything approaching an army of even pedestrian buttmonkeys; at most it has a few spotty, ambitious youths with Blackberries and a handful of loyal, ageing party apparatchiks with lots of time on their hands trolling the Guardian’s comment section. Labour MPs do look as though they eat plenty of Cheetos though, and most do appear to live in Mom’s basement or at least claim a second home allowance for it.
They failed at blogs and Labour’s efforts at online dirty tricks are an epic fail too. If you want to see quite how epic take a look at their spin doctor scripted, Cameron/Osborne ‘livechat’. They’re just incompetent at everything, even at being evil.
The Rude Pundit on Sarah Palin:
Why can’t we be fucking finished with Sarah Palin? There is nothing interesting, thoughtful, original, or unique about this idiot, this power hungry mouthpiece for things she can’t comprehend, this fuckdoll fantasy for right wing dudes hoping for restoration by jacking off into plastic Palin’s orifices of pleasure, this dullard, this conscienceless void, Forrest Gump without the skills, this willful tabula rasa who whores herself out to let the highest bidder scrawl her beliefs on her blank brain. She is like an especially ambitious dung beetle trying to push a turd up and over a hill; even if she gets it where she wants it, in the end, she’s still just been rolling shit.
From news in the NY Post that Bristol Palin and erstwhile fiance Levi Johnson, the father of her illegitimate son Tripp, have split (because she described his criminally-accused family as ‘white trash’) comes this comment epitomising the female wingnut’s gymnastic ability to backflip midthought and blame their own gobsmacking hypocrisy on liberals:
LimoBarbie Mar 12, 2009 8:10:18 AM fault
I wouldn’t let my baby go to the house of a drug dealer either–I don’t blame Bristol a bit for that. White trash is a compliment compared to “accused felon drug dealer” and I’m surprised they didn’t split up when she was originally arrested–which probably was the case. The governor of Alaska cannot associate with drug dealers–she’s a Republican. Only the Obamasiah can get away with associating with known felons like Ayres and Rezko–the communist biased media would crucify a Republican for the behavior they ignore in the Obamasiah.
Ooh, a Tsukahara with a twist! 0 for style, but full marks for execution.
If anyone I almost feel sorry for Johnson. He never hid who he is, apart from his missing qualifications for the apprenticeship he was given so that Sarah Palin wouldn’t be shamed by having a high school dropout son-in-law; and he did describe himself as a redneck, after all.
But I don’t feel sorry a bit. Condoms are cheap.