The best part

By Carl

Believe it or not, the tragic and frightening economic news of the past week has had one very positive side effect: It's shut the right wing echo chamber down.

To wit, so mired in confusion and calumny, as well as self-doubt, has the right-wing blogosphere become that they are resorting to the tactics employed against Dan Rather: trying to make shit up in a large enough pile that someone has to pay attention!

For example, comes this story from the Confederate Yankee:

We have fresh information regarding poorly-researched claims made in the media (including CNN, US News & World Report, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, the Associated Press, and literally dozens of other "professional media") that Sarah Palin presided over a Wasilla, AK city government that charged rape victims for the forensic medical examinations designed to collected physical evidence of sexual assaults. With very little variation from one media source to the next, media accounts attempted to portray Palin as a callous monster out to re-abuse victims.

The best evidence available indicates these are entirely false claims.

Shocking! If true... but my old friend Bob conveniently ignores something he himself posted a bit further down the page:

On March 6, 2000, Del Smith, the Deputy Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Public Safety, testified in support of HB 270 (the bill outlawing the billing of rape kits)

Errrrrrrrrrrrr, huh? Why is a law "outlawing" something that never happens being discussed? Ahhhhhhhh, here's why!

Testifying in front of the same committee, Lauree Hugonin, Director, Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (ANDVSA) noted that "billings have not come from police agencies but have come from hospitals." Trisha Gentle, Executive Director, Council on Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault noted that police departments were willing to pay for the exams, but that it was an internal decision on the part of the hospital as to who pays the hospital bill.

So rape victims in Wasilla WERE being billed for rape kits by the hospitals, probably because the mayor said, "We ain't paying for them." Palin's administration callously looked the other way.

Simple logic, Bobby. Use it or lose it. Oh... sorry... too late!

Another example of the right wing merry-go-round that is the blogosphere. You may have heard about these videos that were posted on YouTube, since taken down, by "eswinner."

"Dr." Rusty Shackleford (PhD in Obtuseness) got his skirts aflutter because it turns out that Ethan Winner has notverycloseatall ties to Joe Biden!!!!

I wonder where Rustbucket was during the 2004 Swift Boat Veterans campaign against John Kerry, which was basically run from inside the Oval Office? Think he was as outraged over that?

I'm guessing not. If you want a good laugh, do read Rusty's piece. A better essay on self-deluded paranoia you'll not read in an Abnormal Psychology text.

Finally, we have a piece by, no, not a blogger, but an honest to goodness... how was it Cornfed Wanker put it? Oh, right... "professional media" type: George Will.

The abject horror in Will's column today over McCain's recently, um, queenly behavior is matched only by his emotional confusion over the election: should he vote for the scary black man or the candidate channeling Alice In Wonderland?

Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?

*sniffsniff* Can you smell it? It smells like plastic melting... must be the right wing.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)