How many of you have read Harrison Bergeron?

It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn’t think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn’t think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his
intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his
ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a
government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would
send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair
advantage of their brains.

That is sort of what it is like trying to work while following the top conservatives on twitter (#tcot). Every twenty seconds or so, tweetdeck will chirp, and up comes something so stupid that it just jars you, and by the time you have recovered, lo and behold, another top conservative will want to share their deep thoughts.

This came across my feed thirty seconds ago:

Hrmm. I wonder if anyone else has had this unique insight? I wonder what Google News says…

I seriously need to remove some people from my twitter feed.

Mr. Wrong About Everything, Bill Kristol, signs his political death certificate:

The new Rasmussen poll for the 2010 Arizona GOP Primary—John McCain 45%, J. D. Hayworth 43%—will generate a fair amount of buzz. But August is a long way away, and I assume that when McCain gets back to Arizona and campaigns, he’ll pull it out.

I hear McCain will be greeted with flowers and the primary will pay for itself.

Mein GOTT twitter is frustrating:

Yeah, the problem here is Obama has not reached out enough.

Some of these guys never learn anything, ever. John McCain has never been a maverick. He has never been a major player in legislation- his only signature bill is McCain/Feingold, and that is due in large part out of guilt and an effort to rehabilitate himself (Keating Five, anyone?). He flips and flops depending on what is best for him, personally, at that very moment, and some talking head somewhere will excuse his lack of consistency as “John McCain being a maverick” or “John McCain being John McCain” or some other nonsense. For chrissakes, he put Palin in a position where she could have been a heartbeat away from the Presidency. That alone should tell you that John McCain is in it for himself, and himself only. That is all he cares about.

So put two and two together, guys. John McCain is looking at a very tough primary against Hayworth and Simcox, a Minuteman, and he senses he needs to run to the right to shore up his flank. The Obama White House didn’t “lose” John McCain, John McCain is just doing what he always does- looking out for himself.

In fact, you can almost bet that the next couple of months leading up to his primary, McCain will step up his criticisms of Obama, will become louder and more vocal and more strident, and will move to the right of his past stated positions and his alleged “core beliefs.” And you know what else you can bet on?

Some beltway bobblehead looking at McCain’s behavior and wondering- “Gee, what did the Obama administration do to piss off John McCain?”

Apparently losing is so much fun that Hoffman wants to lose the same election twice.

Also, ACORN!

You know, going back to the Beauchamp story, you have to remember just how crazy this time period was for everyone. The wingnut narrative was in danger, and they just had to destroy Beauchamp for basically telling what everyone who has ever spent a day in uniform knows- all our troops are not angels, and some bad shit sometimes goes down. We had folks screaming for his own troops to “take care of him,” people wanting him court-martialed, and so on, and they went to extreme lengths to have the young man destroyed- while he was in theatre avoiding bullets and serving his country.

Just to remember how crazy the wingnut reaction was to the possibility that not all our troops are angels (and thereby threatening the war narrative and taking away the media as an excuse for everything going wrong in the war), you have appreciate this classic post at the Power Line, where reader Stuart Koehl “proved” that a track vehicle could not run over a dog by eyeballing a 1/32 scale model of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. As Tbogg noted in one of the all time classic blog posts, “The role of the dog was played by a 3-inch My Little Pony named Princess Sparkle Snowflake Rainbow. Next up: Warren Commission report disproved using a Hot Wheels Terrordactyl Track.”

As to Stuart Koehl, what happened to him? Well rest assured, “expertise” like that is highly valued in wingnut circles, and he was rewarded with a guest appearance at none other than the Weekly Standard just a few months later:

There is a lot about Obama’s story that makes no sense. Let us start with the opening line:

“You know, I’ve heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon—supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq.”

Well, captains command companies, not rifle platoons. A rifle platoon is normally commanded by a 2nd lieutenant, sometimes (if short handed) by a senior sergeant. So for starters, Obama betrays a woeful ignorance of military organization and the chain of command. Then he remarks that the platoon was under-strength because 15 of its men had been “sent to Iraq.” Sorry, the Army doesn’t work that way. Platoons are organic units, consisting of three rifle squads, a heavy weapons squad, and a headquarters section. You can’t break it up. It is the smallest building block in the infantry that can conduct fire-and-movement tactics.

You remember how this worked out, don’t you? Jake Tapper, in one of his best moments from last year, ended the wingnut screeches once and for all:

I called the Obama campaign this morning to chat about this story, and was put in touch with the Army captain in question.

He told me his story, which I found quite credible, though for obvious reasons he asked that I not mention his name or certain identifying information.

Short answer: He backs up Obama’s story.

The longer answer is worth telling, though.

The Army captain, a West Point graduate, did a tour in a hot area of eastern Afghanistan from the Summer of 2003 through Spring 2004.

Prior to deployment the Captain—then a Lieutenant—took command of a rifle platoon at Fort Drum. When he took command, the platoon had 39 members, but—in ones and twos—15 members of the platoon were re-assigned to other units. He knows of 10 of those 15 for sure who went to Iraq, and he suspects the other five did as well.

The platoon was sent to Afghanistan with 24 men.

“We should have deployed with 39,” he told me, “we should have gotten replacements. But we didn’t. And that was pretty consistent across the battalion.”

He adds that maybe a half-dozen of the 15 were replaced by the Fall of 2003, months after they arrived in Afghanistan, but never all 15.

Jake then goes on to verify every claim Obama made.

So when you think back to this time period, remember what we were dealing with and the quality of “evidence” that the usual suspects on the right latched on to to defend their own personal fantasies. The second anecdote in this post is extremely relevant, as these jackasses have now spent the last few months accusing Obama of “dithering” in regards to Afghanistan.

Just wrong about everything, which is, of course, why David Gregory will have McCain on again soon.

I’m sure there will be lots of wailing and beating of the breasts about the National Debt, which just topped 12 trillion (and make no mistake, that is a disaster), from the usual suspects on the right. Since the last eight years didn’t happen, and they are free to pretend that Obama spent all 12 trillion in the last nine months propping up ACORN and SEIU “union thugs” (have you noticed right-wingers can’t use the word union without adding “thug?” Unless of course, they are talking about civil unions, and then they always have to tack on “oh, hell no.”), I’m sure the commentary will be quite interesting at the Corner and elsewhere in wingnuttia.

I would love to hear how the Republican plan for slashing the deficit and tackling the debt will work. I’m interested in how capital gains tax cuts, making the Bush cuts permanent, ending the “death tax,” continuing the prescription drug plan while ignoring the rising costs of health care, permanent war in the middle east and privatizing social security are going to bring our books back into the black.

I’m all ears, guys.

Top stories at memeorandum:

1.) Sarah Palin’s numbers and whether she could run for President.

2.) We’ve moved from whether or not it was treasonous for Obama to bow before the Emperor to an in-depth discussion of whether Obama used the appropriate technique. No matter what, Allahpundit assures us that Obama was in the wrong.

3.) John Yoo telling us that trying terrorists is an intelligence coup for the terrorist.

Same shit, different day.

One of the things I don’t understand about the reaction to trying KSM and others is why people on the right are reacting the way they are. After 9/11, the general attitude was one of defiance- “we’re gonna rebuild the World Trade Center bigger than it was before.” I remember people suggesting we should build the new WTC in the shape of a middle finger to show the terrorists we won’t take it:

And who can forget Michelle Malkin’s ridiculous I am John Doe Manifesto? That was just a couple years ago. What happened to the right wing swagger? When did they turn into such a bunch of scared wimps? When did they go from standing there in the rubble with George Bush and his megaphone to hiding under Dick Cheney’s desk cowering in fear?

Personally, I can’t think of anything more defiant than taking KSM, frog-marching him through Manhattan, giving him a fair trial, and then sending him to prison forever or executing him. That is how you show the terrorists that we aren’t going to be fazed.

For goodness sakes, right wingers. Man up for a change. I honestly think I liked the belligerent cowboy right-wingers better than the diaper-clad bed-wetters we have now.

It really is killing these guys that Obama isn’t just immediately plowing tons of troops and billions of dollars into something without any idea what we are trying to accomplish:

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney delivered a scathing criticism of President Obama’s Afghanistan strategy Friday night, accusing the president of delivering rhetoric and not action in the war-torn country.

Quoting from a speech Obama delivered in March, Romney agreed with the president “that ‘we are in Afghanistan to confront a common enemy that threatens the United States, our friends and allies.”’ Romney continued on seconding the president: “I believe ‘that to succeed, we and our friends and allies must reverse the Taliban’s gains, and promote a more capable and accountable Afghan government.’”

But Romney went on to criticize Obama for not holding enough meetings with top generals, and inadequately preparing for the elections in Afghanistan.

Obama has met with his generals and national security team eight times in the past few weeks to understand the situation. Mitt Romney’s access to information has been limited to reading Sarah Palin’s facebook scribblings.

Why does anyone take these people seriously?

Here is a fun game for you while you watch the show. Go to the wingnut blogs, do a search for the word “dithering,” and count how many uses came before Dick Cheney’s speech and how many came after. I’ll be shocked if any of them ever used it before Darth Cheney gave them their talking points (22 October), but now it is the only word they know.

Automatons.

Another day, another freakout:

That is Laura Bush’s former speechwriter, the man who freaked out about poor people owning cellphones, wasting the LA Times’ resources leading this wingnut fail parade.

I honestly have no idea what the “transnational left” is, but anything that pisses off NRO birther and all around insane person Andy McCarthy is alright by me.

So, while I was out eating nachos and watching the football game, Ann Althouse has figured out Sarah Palin is a moron (what are the odds on “libertarian” Glenn Reynolds linking that Althouse post?) and the AP has figured out she is a liar:

I’m tempted to go back out for another drink to give the rest of the media the opportunity to figure out the Republicans are nuts, but I don’t want to push my luck, so I’ll roll with this gambit tomorrow night.

Up next, Matt Welch discovers he’s pimping an unworkable political ideology.

I hate what the gays are doing to our traditional values:

There are 30 nude photos and eight sex tapes of former Miss California Carrie Prejean, RadarOnline.com has learned exclusively.

***

Now a RadarOnline.com investigation has uncovered that there are SEVEN more “biggest mistakes” of her life – all of them solo performances, just like the one sex tape that the religious beauty queen has admitted to. And there are 30 photos of Carrie, most topless, some showing everything, and most taken by Carrie using her reflection in a mirror.

On the bright side for the wingnuts, at least it wasn’t Joe the Plumber filming himself.