“To switch metaphors abruptly, I cover what you might call the waterfront ”

You might also call it the lagoon next to the treatment plant.

Your column is excellent and I want to forward it to many, some of whom believe all they hear from the wingnuts.
*sigh*
But they will immediately pounce on your statement that many of the conservative columnists in the top tier don’t really believe what they write.
I think you’ll need to expand on that assertion if you want to have credibility.
Please?
What makes you think they don’t really believe what they’re espousing?

What makes you think they don’t really believe what they’re espousing?

They believe in a basic, encompassing conservative narrative, but the specifics are ever-shifting and situational. There’s no intellectual consistency.

Think of the way lawyers will construct an argument. It’s not that they believe or disbelieve their client’s side of the story; it’s that their job is to construct the best case possible, given certain legal and ethical guidelines.

In other words, it simply doesn’t matter whether a statement is ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’ What matters is whether it’s fairly stated — i.e., whether David Brooks, for instance, is expressing an opinion that David Brooks could plausibly have.

I like it, Gavin!

Mary O’, the key to David Brooks is the profound dishonesty of his arguments. Glenn Greenwald has some fine posts on this topic, too. Brooks might believe in the cause he’s promoting (basically, the rich should get richer, and everyone else can just suck on it), but the actual arguments amount to lying.

Compare it to the tobacco companies just a few decades ago, trying to convince everyone that the link between smoking and cancer was unproven.

Great column. Loved this sentence: “And as you move down the scale from the best-connected and highest-paid ones, through the medium players like the Charles Krauthammers and Peggy Noonans, past the Thomas Sowells and Cal Thomases, ever downward toward the pickle-barrel solons at the National Review Online and the Weekly Standard — indeed, down through the bottom of the barrel and into the pickle-soaked dirt beneath — the intelligence and cunning falls away in stages, and you’re able to see the same conservative arguments-of-the-week made ineptly, by bozos who know very well what they’re supposed to be for or against but don’t have a clue how to make it seem reasonable to sane Americans.”

Great article. Seems to me the levies broke on that writer’s block of yours.

Excellent article Gavin. If it didn’t sully the great Quixote you could mix metaphors even more to have the hammering and sawing coming from the creation of ever more threatening windmills that they would then encourage others to charge.

Having experienced Noonan, one may never again picture Harvey Mansfield with his pants on.

You bastard!

Excellent column, Gavin.

Outstanding, rational, clear, and hard-hitting article. It puts over 2 years of conservative blogging and internet news in its proper perspective.

And yet, being the natural comic that you are, you couldn’t resist this line:

You imagined her collapsing on the floorboards that night in a warm puddle of spilled Stoli, muttering against the cruel Muslim moon as a Sarah McLachlan CD skipped in the player.

HA!

Modern conservatism seems to me built on a series of code words, newspeak phrases and an agenda that while not completely hidden, shouldn’t be taken a face value. And I agree with Gavin that most if not all of the A grade conservative pundits aren’t true believers. They have an agenda, they try and make the best case possible. Their goal is to win elections by making wingnut prescriptions for social ills seem reasonable. I think that some are just plain cynical and will say anything to be a winner. Most probably truly believe that their vision for the country will make it a better place, but seem truly terrified of truthfully promoting their agenda, probably because they think it won’t sell well.

Great article Gavin.

First-rate, Gavin.

I would just note that if the bozos at the bottom “don’t have a clue how to make it seem reasonable to sane Americans,” they’re not aware of that fact. On the contrary, like all lunatics, they think their opinions and observations are objectively correct and obvious. “What do you mean, ‘what snakes’? THE ONES COMING OUT OF THE FAX MACHINE.”

This reinforces their central emotional conceit, which is (as you nailed nicely) one of courage. The don’t need to be educated, or speak Farsi, or to have read the Koran. You don’t need brains when you have guts.

Only they are brave enough to see through the liberal lies and to swat away the naive delusions of the romantic dreamers. (This allows them to dismiss or ignore the hundreds of people who obviously DO know more than they do, who publish articles in real journals and books from real publishers, who actually have been to Iraq, or in military, or own a passport, or etc.)

Add to that the self-righteousness (and the pseudo-selflessness) of their brand of “patriot,” and the last thing that ever occurs to them is that sensible, intelligent people think they’re full of shit, and that maybe they should adjust their message.

They’re not trying to persuade. They’re playing let’s-pretend and getting to feel all heroic and stuff.

Oh, very nice. I shall be returning to that article and promulgating it.

However, that picture up there makes Billy Idol cry.
And you can’t do that to Billy Idol.

Good column. Now I can rationalize how much time I spend here at S, N! by telling myself that I am just monitoring the “indicator species.” And the mockery thereof.

This is a great column! Excellent Work!

I think the point that these top-tier columnists are essentially intellectual whores is not made nearly enough. Sadly enough, they might be able to do something constructive if they weren’t so concerned with being destructive.

The column really is tremendous. The only point with which I quibble is calling Stu Bykofsky a wingnut. He really isn’t. He’s just a nut. The column of his you cited wasn’t meant to advance the conservative agenda. Its purpose, like the purpose of everything Bykofsky does, was to draw attention to Bykofsky. It succeeded.

Nice piece. Congrats on the wide exposure. Keep swinging.

What’s interesting is the way that, as the positions and goals espoused by the hard right get further from actual reality, as they lose political clout and face the prospect of further declines in power, the voices from the pickle-soaked dirt (hah!) get more shrill, and call ever more explicitly for greater atrocities, the mainstream voices feel like they have permission to move a corresonding measure in that same direction.

Make no mistake. There is a population of right wing nutjobs who, faced as they are with a crushing defeat next November, would happily embrace the most extreme measures, from martial law to civil war, rather than allow the most hated and demonized enemy to take the reins of power out of their scaly hands.

It is likely they don’t have the organizational skills, funding or foot soldiers (they all seem to want to be generals) to actually realize their secret fever dreams, but the words are clearly less “coded” and more specific today. Ant that is worrisome…

mikey

“Such performances, of course, demand a certain indifference to the notion of truth…and a cavalier attitude toward looking like an idiot…”

In other words, denial.

Yeah, denial is about the most powerful human coping mechnism, as well as the most maladaptive. It’s only useful for a limited time, and there’s a powerful downside.

But it’s addictive as hell, like emotional crystal meth. You keep needing bigger and bigger doses to get the same effect, and you always end up in a place where it doesn’t work as well as it once did. I’m expecting some serious head explosions before the decade’s out.

Nice stuff, Gavin. You’ve given us a concise overview of teh wingnut world, a great companion piece to HTML Mencken’s wingnut-by-wingnut analyses.

What’s next? A Sadly,No! weekend seminar (“Know Your Wingnuts”) at the Waltham Holiday Inn?

I’d pay to see that.

Power.

It has become increasingly clear to me that all modern conservatives really stand for is their own wealth and their own power and influence – whether earned or otherwise – most often the latter. The conservative noise machine, that makes up the establishment merely constructs an ever-evolving series of slogans and buzz-words intended to aid them in accumulating as much money and power and possible. Democracy, liberty, the people, and the constitution are just quaint impediments to their ambitions, but they can’t really say that (although Gavin is correct – the below-the-pickel-barrel types DO say that).

Only sociopaths can operate in such a manner. They don’t care if they lie, cheat, and steal, as long as the “virtue” that they have defined for themselves is obtained.

Gavin: You made a similar argument in your “Principia Wingnuttia” at Firedoglake, using a slightly different example set of less refined, more honest right-wing commentators. Any particular reason or reasons for this?

Pretty much because I thought I botched the FDL piece, honestly.

What I really want to do is write about the growing militarism among American wingnuts — Malkin’s ‘John Doe’ thing, the GoE, the (literally brown-shirted) Vets for Freedom, etc.

What I really want to do is write about the growing militarism among American wingnuts — Malkin’s ‘John Doe’ thing, the GoE, the (literally brown-shirted) Vets for Freedom, etc.

Militarism is where you find it. Think of Hugh Hewitt bravely soldiering away on the front lines.

That was a really nice piece, Gavin. There needs to be more sunlight shone on the soft underbelly of the conservative movement – the kind of work Rick Perlstein and Dave Neiwert do so much of. The beauty is that we don’t need to resort to lame Code Pink Photoshops to make fun of THEIR extremists.

There’s some Borgesian complexity in the messages that come from the top though. I have no problem believing that they want to destroy Social Security and anything else that takes their God-given money to help people, but it’s hard to imagine that any of them actually give a shit about abortion or guns or gays, respectively being something they’re grateful for in a pinch, something that proles panic about while the rich folks are golfing, and something they often are.

The Republican elephant poops out various messages to which the flies will accrue, but the point is where the elephant is actually headed and not if the shit is tasty.

Good article, but I don’t believe you closed it out with the force necessary to show that the bottom-feeding right-wing is influencing the upper crust to a point where the irrational thoughts are filtered on their way to the surface and pop with an ability to sound rational.

Good stuff. Writer’s block can be a booger and I’m glad you were able to shake some of it loose. I myself am either suffering from a four-year case of it or I’m just not gonna write anything ever again, so it’s always nice to see someone knock it out.

Some of the comments were interesting, and I find it particularly amusing that whenever the right-wing kook brigade is brought up, someone always says “Well, there’s them just as bad on the left”. Yet they never name names. Oh, once in a while they’ll toss out Michael Moore, even though he’s never called for acts of terrorism against news companies he dislikes, or we’ll get told how much we worship a relative non-entity like Ward Churchhill.

Now, apparently the 9/11 conspiracy theorists are all ours, though the accuser always neglects to mention none of those dingbats get near the major media face time as a Debbie Snackcakes or the Malkin Beast. Coast To Coast AM isn’t quite the same thing, and your average conspiracy fruitcake has more in common with the libertarian side than with us dirty fucking hippies, really.

Anyhow, good stuff and I hope they paid off without too much fuss. One part of freelancing I don’t miss a’tall right there, let me tell ya.

They believe in a basic, encompassing conservative narrative, but the specifics are ever-shifting and situational. There’s no intellectual consistency.

Yep. As The Glenzilla points out today, for example, the same assholes who have spent years trying to scare people with the non-existent threat of Teh Homo Menace are currently trying to club liberals over the head for not wanting to nuke Iran for mistreating gay people. Typical.

Even though we certainly know by now that the Brookses of the world are arguing in bad faith, we still react to each bit of sophistry like they actually believe it, and try to shame them for intellectual dishonesty and hypocrisy. We argue with them the way we argue with each other. We know that we would feel ashamed if we were caught making a dishonest argument of convenience and persist in acting like they are the same way, despite ample evidence. They should feel ashamed, but they don’t, and never will.

I don’t know what the answer is but what we’re doing ain’t workin’ and its time we tried something else.

You have grasped the wingnut Tao.

I hope to see more of this.

What I really want to do is write about the growing militarism among American wingnuts

Don’t forget to mention teh president’s recent little pat on the back to the support-the-troops-ies. Some high-level validation. Bad news for the I’d-rather-not-kill-em-all-thanks crowd.

nice work, gavin!

The Republican elephant poops out various messages to which the flies will accrue, but the point is where the elephant is actually headed and not if the shit is tasty.

“Good thing we didn’t step in it.”

RBub, I’m stealing that … it’s “meta”, it’s got animals (everyone loves animals), and it’s got poop … it’s fucking brilliant.

Ubu, Boobie–

“They should feel ashamed, but they don’t, and never will.

I don’t know what the answer is but what we’re doing ain’t workin’ and its time we tried something else.”

On the one hand, you’re not only right, but you’re importantly right. On the other, ARE we writing to shame them into fessing up or going straight? What does “workin'” refer to? I’m literally not facetious here.

I don’t fantasize about David Brooks reading something and being forced, by the rightness of the writing, to admit that we’re right and he’s been a dick. All I ask is that everyone else read it and agree, “Jesus, is that David Brooks a dick.”

In other words, I’m not sure we here or anywhere else are writing to change the opposition. Only to discredit, embarrass, and refute it. No?

And shouldn’t that warning on that (great) photo of La Schlussel read:

Warning. May have been processed on machines used to manufacture Schlussel.

What? I’m gilding the lily? Yeah, you’re right. Never mind.

Beautiful wordsmithing in action, loved the article!

Well done, Gavin! I’d pretty much given up on AlterNet, but if you will be contributing articles over there, I will give them another chance.

You made me laugh several times, albeit through the tears I was crying for what’s become of our country.

I would definitely sign up for a S,N ‘Know Your Winguts’ seminar.

Especially if there were party hats involved.

Well done.

Is it just me, or is Debbie Schlussel starting to morph into the “Antonia” character from Mad TV?

I just have to cite this:

when Mark Noonan of Blogs For Bush gives his version of the same argument, literally advocating a return to a 13th-century model of government with George Bush as king, the Unitary Executive Theory is, in effect, prancing around on the front lawn in its underwear, with jammy hands and a Kool-Aid moustache.

Oh my.

I do think that Binkyboy makes an important point: the wingnut id can’t be suppressed, and it’s those points where it crosses over — edge cases like Malkin, or Bush meeting the Seagulls — that stop being funny and start being disturbing.

I’ve got a bunch to say on this topic, and Gavin’s writing is frequently so stellar that it provokes wonderful thought, commentary, and discussion, but for right now I’ll content myself with just this particular observation….

I love how a blog that calls itself “Gates of Vienna” thinks that the global war against Muslamonazis has been going on since the Crusades.

You know – the Crusades. Where Europeans invaded Muslim lands, slaughtered Muslims indiscriminately, and cannibalized their babies.

The aforesaid Crusades were apparently in response to the event from which the blog takes its name – the Turkish assault on Vienna, in which the screaming Muslamonazi hordes almost took the city of Vienna.

It appears as though the Crusaders were using a time machine. Or taking the Bush doctrine of preemptive warfare to new heights – attacking the enemy six centuries before he attacks you.

Or maybe they’re just screamingly insane.

Ooh, ooh, Jillian! I know the answer to that one! It’s “C,” right? The screamingly insane one? I love multiple-choice history exams.

MrWonderful sez: In other words, I’m not sure we here or anywhere else are writing to change the opposition. Only to discredit, embarrass, and refute it. No?

Maybe no. Depends on whom we’re defining as the opposition. If it’s David Brooks, you’re absolutely right: he ain’t gonna change because why should he? He’s got a good gig. But I do think that pointing out the level of intellectual (and ethical and moral and just plain human) dishonesty in such pundits’ arguments just might sway the non-pundit members of the opposition. And in fact, I’ve seen it work with quite a few former supporters of Our Leader, Right or Wrong . . .

Great article, Gavin, and nice to see you at AlterNet. Just one thing: God wants you to ignore the commenters over there, okay? Not the crazy kill-em-all-and-let-Me-sort-em-out God, but the real benevolent deal, who worries greatly for your sanity and productivity.

Look, seriously. Most of those people are batshit insane and riding various spavined hobby horses in a billion different directions. I know feedback is tempting, but really, avoid them. They are the LaBrea Tar Pits of commenting, and I don’t say that just because their nested comment format is time-consuming crap.

Jillian, I read once, don’t have any idea if it’s true or not, that the Crusaders took some city, can’t remember which, and put every single living human being there to the sword, in some places ankle deep in blood. If I’m recalling correctly, the order was given by a papal regent who first used the phrase (albeit in latin) “kill ’em all and let god sort ’em out”. Is any of that true? The story’s always stuck in my head.

Did they really eat brown babies?

Any record of the recipes?

mikey

Re: Gavin at 20:08

Oh, I thought the Firedoglake post was very effective. It certainly helped me make a mental map of the right-wing commentator hierarchy.

Grogan, Swank, and Jon’ are fun, and I know many here would would like to see more on them, but these Falange-type rhizomes are much more pernicous.

Just by chance, a few days ago I reread the passage on pedantry in Hofstadter’s “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” I continue to be impressed by the prescience he shows in that essay.

pernicious

Jillian, I read once, don’t have any idea if it’s true or not, that the Crusaders took some city, can’t remember which, and put every single living human being there to the sword, in some places ankle deep in blood. If I’m recalling correctly, the order was given by a papal regent who first used the phrase (albeit in latin) “kill ‘em all and let god sort ‘em out”. Is any of that true? The story’s always stuck in my head.

That was about non-Catholics in France in the Albigensian crusade. In France. Go Christians! The phrase as I’ve seen it most is “god will know his own” which works well these days for terrorists.

Bubba’s got it with the origins of that line…..it was during a crusade against Christians!

The cannibalism happened at Ma’arra.

Of course, pointing this out makes me a dhimmicrat.

We can hate them for the siege of Vienna, but they can’t hate us for spitting their babies and eating them.

It’s one thing, for instance, when Harvey Mansfield of the Harvard Department of Government appears in the Wall Street Journal editorial section trying to float the notion of a president’s inherent dictatorial powers during wartime. But when Mark Noonan of Blogs For Bush gives his version of the same argument, literally advocating a return to a 13th-century model of government with George Bush as king, the Unitary Executive Theory is, in effect, prancing around on the front lawn in its underwear, with jammy hands and a Kool-Aid moustache. Having experienced Noonan, one may never again picture Harvey Mansfield with his pants on.

Put my ass on the floor!

Nice Op-Ed!!

I’m worried by Butinsky’s call for another 9-11 attack to “pull America together.”

I presume, by “9-11,” he means either 1) a large-scale attack at American symbols and the crowds of people they draw; or 2) such an attack carried out by hijacking airplanes. Since the seminal image of 9-11 is the burning Towers and the airplanes, I’m thinking he’s leaning towards the second scenario.

I’m particularly worried about his inclusion of Mount Rushmore on the list. The four preznits themselves are made of granite; a hurtling airplane would probably break the sculpture and rain fiery debris on the sightseers there, but it wouldn’t set the mountain on fire.

A car bomb would be much more effective in the crowded parking garages, but that wouldn’t be a 9-11 attack, that would be more on the order of a “1994 WTC bomb” attack, which didn’t accomplish much.

Anyway, since the main premise of such an attack is a hijacked airplane, then you cannot simultaneously believe that airport security has become an order of magnitude more thorough and that there is an increased risk of hijacking.

Unless you’re a wingnut, of course.

So all this leads me to conclude that Buttinsky, if that is his real name, is just trying to draw attention to himself, as someone upthread said. I think it worked.

That means the really worrisome part is that someone might take him seriously and start looking at making that car bomb.

Wow. An army does, truly, travel on it’s stomach…

mikey

excellent article Gavin!

and for what it’s worth, I really liked your FDL piece too.

cheers!

For those of you who are visual learners, you can see the transmission working as a completed circuit here.

Your article coupled with Perlstein’s made my day.

And as you move down the scale from the best-connected and highest-paid ones…ever downward toward the pickle-barrel solons at the National Review Online and the Weekly Standard — indeed, down through the bottom of the barrel and into the pickle-soaked dirt beneath — the intelligence and cunning falls away in stages, and you’re able to see the same conservative arguments-of-the-week made ineptly, by bozos who know very well what they’re supposed to be for or against but don’t have a clue how to make it seem reasonable to sane Americans.

Like the Young Republicans at the Rick Santorum rally who tried to support 2005’s Strengthening Social Security plan by chanting “Hey-Hey, Ho-Ho, Social Security has got to go,” it’s easy to track the disinformation shell-game by watching these people, because they’re essentially honest…

How true this is! (When I first started reading blogs like SN and TBogg, among others, I often wondered why you’d bother with bottom of the barrel wingnuts. I certainly understand now.)

Schlussel’s caps-lock rants in that old thread of hers are a hoot. She must have had laryngitis by the end of that day.

CDs don’t skip. I know mine never has.

I deeply believe that this invalidates your every argument.

Otherwise, a fine piece of typing.

indeed, down through the bottom of the barrel and into the pickle-soaked dirt beneath

&

in effect, prancing around on the front lawn in its underwear, with jammy hands and a Kool-Aid moustache.

absolutely superb

Gavin,

Superb article! I copied it and sent it on its way (with proper credit links to both Altnet and Sadly No!) to many adults not swayed at all by the fear-mongering calls from the right. Yes, I know. It could be a form of preaching to the choir…in some eyes. I prefer to think of it as yet one more piece of validation, adding more pieces to the jigsaw that is now undoubtedly forming a horrific picture of where we are as a nation.

With each additional proclamation, such as your fine article, we allow more and more free thinking adults the room they may need to publicly acknowledge that our Emperor has no clothes. Screw the “base” who are fundamentally (emphasis on the mentally) flawed. Reasonable adults appreciate that their own thoughts are being validated by great work such as this article.

Writer’s block notwithstanding, a great piece of work. Welcome back to the keyboard club, dude!

Matt T. said,
Writer’s block can be a booger and I’m glad you were able to shake some of it loose. I myself am either suffering from a four-year case of it or I’m just not gonna write anything ever again, so it’s always nice to see someone knock it out.

If you’re the Matt T. I think you are, then I hope you get over it soon, because I am looking forward to some more of your articles: you write stuff that bites.

Gentlewoman: what’s wrong with Alternet? I know the commenters can be pig-headed and pig-ignorant sometimes, but they’ve got some good writers (full disclosure: one of ’em is a friend of mine).

Mr. Wonderful: yes, we are hoping to get readers to realise what tosspots the right wing writers are. The right wing writers themselves are probably too far gone to help, and would never say “I was wrong and you were right” even with their testicles in a vise.

And I’ll add my voice to the chorus, Gavin. Nice writing style, intelligent commentary, and good points: you’ve got it all, you devil you.

Also for mikey: there’s a fair amount of historical record regarding the appalling conduct of the Christians during (and before and after, for that matter) the Crusades, and the generally more moral conduct of the Muslims.

The ‘ankle deep in blood’ part probably comes from the Crusaders’ attack on Jerusalem. When they finally got inside the city walls after a long siege, they slaughtered almost all the inhabitants, Jews and Muslims alike. The wikipedia page is fairly informative, including sad little details such as the fact that the ‘wading in blood’ phrase was used to describe the massacre that happened to those Muslims who’d taken refuge in the Al Aqsa mosque. As yesterday, so today.

The ‘kill them all, God will know his own” quote comes, as Righteous Bubba has already said, from the Albigensian crusade. Ironic that this crusade was against people who considered themselves Christian, and involved torture and burning people as well as the usual wholesale slaughter. Also ironic that the Catharist/Albigensian ‘heresy’ was probably much closer to Christianity, as expressed in the New Testament, than the corrupt and wealthy Catholic church.

If you’re interested in references, the wikipedia article on Catharism is brief and informative. If you want something longer, Terry Jones wrote a jolly book about the Crusades for the BBC: it’s worth reading some of the comments on that book/DVD series, for the evidence of bias and ignorance that they display.

Two fascinating eras of human history that are less well-known than they should be, demonstrating as they do the predilection of supposedly Christian empires to conduct wholesale barbarity.

Exellent article Gavin. I think I will send it around. Liked your metaphor about the crappy trojan rabbits & gorillas. The Schlussel bit was fab as well. Thanks for posting it!

Qetesh–

“The right wing writers themselves are probably too far gone to help, and would never say “I was wrong and you were right” even with their testicles in a vise.”

I know, I know. But damn it, we’ve got to try. Wait, I’ll get the vise.

Smiling Mortician–

You’re right to make the distinction between their writers and their rank and file. God knows what their writers really think (if anything) at this point. But the possibility of changing the minds of their writers’ readers is one reason to include the facts along w/ the snark on sites like this one. Which y’all do.

Writer’s block my ass, Gavin — that Alternet piece is magnificent! Kudos.

Gentlewoman: what’s wrong with Alternet? I know the commenters can be pig-headed and pig-ignorant sometimes

Qetesh, it was indeed mostly the commenters (and the awful nested comments format) that irritated me at Alternet.

Also, Earl Ofari Hutchinson pisses me right the fuck off. I hope he is not your friend over there! Please don’t hate me! One of his columns (can’t remember which one, there were many annoying ones) was the final straw that had me asking, ‘WTF am I doing reading this crap?’ That’s when I went away.

I noticed when I was over there reading Gavin’s article that they seem to have acquired some columnists more worthy of my extremely (not) valuable time, so I plan to start reading there again.

PS Ganesh Bengal Cat managed to survive 1300 miles of potential felicide at the hands of his not-terribly-fond-of-cats uncle on Teh Great Trek Northeast In An SUV (Soon to be A Major Motion Picture!). He says ‘Mrow, mrow!’ I take this to mean that he still wubs you. Unless Mehitabel or Kishka the Demon Maine Coon show up. He still wubs the bad girlz teh mostest. 😉