Mock stars

By Mustang Bobby

Right wingers are outraged that President Obama is making fun of them. They're also demanding that the president, Nancy Pelosi, and the cable networks apologize for making fun of all those people who attended the Tea Parties on April 15. They really got their feelings hurt when all those mean and snarky commentators pointed out the slang definition of teabagging, and they want all those catty gay-rights supporters to stop making fun of Carrie Prejean, the beauty queen who is speaking out in favor of opposite marriage. They're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more.

Too often today, liberals are using below-the-belt tactics against conservatives and paying no price whatsoever. Meanwhile, those on the right like to pat themselves on the back for being above it all. This is like a boxer priding himself on never taking off his gloves while his opponent nearly beats him to death with his bare firsts [sic]. But in the end, there's not much to be said for lovable losers. Conservatives should realize that fair play isn't going to pay any dividends.

While we conservatives don't have to stoop quite as low as the left has, we do need to start giving them a taste of their own medicine, if only to make them think twice about the way they're treating our side.

Mind you, this is from the people who promoted a CD with such hits as "Barack the Magic Negro," and one blogger at Red State who referred to retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter as a "goat f*cking child molester."

The larger issue here isn't just the fact that the right wing has this delusional idea that they've been playing nice while the liberals have been vicious; it's that they really hate it when they're made fun of. It means that they aren't being taken seriously, and that, more than anything else, is what really gets to them. They think they're making all these serious accusations about the state of the union -- how the president and the Democrats are leading us to rack and ruin with socialism, fascism, queers getting married, embryonic stem cells getting abortions on demand, and Texas and Georgia being driven to the brink of secession because the federal government had the tyrannical notion that states should be held accountable for the stimulus funds -- and they end up being the butt of jokes. They stamp their feet and demand that people stop laughing at them. How dare they!? Sorry, but when you set yourself up with all these straight lines, you're inviting mockery; it would be impolite to refuse.

Maureen Dowd notes that they've also mastered the fine art of unintentional irony.

How quaint.

The Republicans are concerned about checks and balances.

The specter of Specter helping the president have his way with Congress has actually made conservatives remember why they respected the Constitution in the first place. Senator Mitch McConnell, the leader of the shrinking Republican minority, fretted that there was a “threat to the country” and wondered if people would want the majority to rule “without a check or a balance.”

Senator John Thune worried that Democrats would run “roughshod” and argued that Americans wanted checks and balances. Senator Judd Gregg mourned that “there’s no checks and balances on this massive expansion on the size of government.”

Bill Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, tried to put the best face on it, noting, “This will make it easier for G.O.P. candidates in 2010 to ask to be elected to help restore some checks and balances in Washington.”

This is quite touching, given that the start of the 21st century will be remembered as the harrowing era when an arrogant Republican administration did its best to undermine checks and balances. (Maybe when your reign begins with Bush v. Gore, a Supreme heist that kissed off checks and balances, you feel no need to follow the founding fathers’ lead.)

There's little use pointing out this gob-smacking irony to them; they either get it and know they're messing with reality, or they don't get it and are in an alternate universe. Either way, why should we take them seriously? All that does is validate their points. I much prefer laughing at them; they make it so easy, and it pisses them off even more.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)