Sean Hannity Blows Goats...I Have Proof...

Every once in a while, for no real good reason at all, I like to suggest that Sean Hannity enjoys sex with farm animals. It's this thing I do...

Obviously, I am joking. (Well, maybe it's not that obvious. With his small beady eyes and greasy hair, Sean Hannity does look like your garden-variety goat-baller.) But within my joke is a kernel of truth, no matter how small, rigid and unpopped. I'm trying, in my own satirical fashion, to suggest that Republicans constantly make baseless accusations against liberals, and it's a trap to get caught actually debating these issues.

Now, T. Rex has posted an incredibly succinct, absolutely essential must-read post on this very topic on Firedoglake. Go there right now and read it (and offer your condolences to head blogger and sometime Crushed by Inertia commenter Jane Hamsher, who lost her mother this week).

Imagine if Hannity were to go on TV tomorrow and, for a half hour, deny fondling hooved beasts for sexual pleasure. He'd look like a maniac. No one really believes that he got caught molesting goats. It's clear he's never been caught. The point is, if he responds to me, then I have the opportunity to set the terms of the discussion. We're talking about whether or not Sean Hannity achieves orgasmic release with the aid of animals.

This is exactly how Republicans make Democrats look all the time. They use this one trick over and over and over again. "Why do you hate the troops?" "How do you respond to attacks that you weren't really a hero in Vietnam?" "Does Michael Moore really hate America?" "Are you, in fact, anti-religion?"

The better way to handle this sort of nonsense isn't to calmly and intelligently respond. That's what I used to think. In high school, I would have told you that a good debater with a solid command of the facts who was on the side of truth and righteousness would wine very time. But that's not really true. Whoever arrives at the subject first wins every time because they force the other side into a defensive position, so long as they're willing to lie and paint the other side as evil and ignorant.

This is where, in my opinion, the Democrats always screw up. They're constantly going for coalitions, for further study to gain an understanding of problems, for investigations, for bi-partisan compromise solutions. That's not how you win any more. Maybe it was, once upon a time. But now, the secret is to stake out an eliminationist position early on.

Gay marriage?

ABSOLUTELY NO gay marriage! Anyone who wants to let gay guys marry wants to undermine the institution of marriage.

A timetable for withdrawl from Iraq?

ABSOLUTELY NO timetable. Anyone who wants to use a timetable wants to let the terrorists win! What, you like terrorists or something?

It doesn't make sense to try and debate on these terms, because they are insane terms. That's how you end up spending years arguing over whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction when there clearly aren't any weapons of mass destruction!

It makes more sense to just go on the attack. Here's TRex:

NEVER defend.

NEVER explain.

ATTACK! ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTAAAAACK!!!!

We have a reputation as a bunch of weak-kneed cowards because we keep trying to answer the charges against us and failing, because the charges simply aren’t true. You can’t defend yourself against baseless accusations. "Why don’t liberals support the troops?" is a question like, "When did you stop beating your wife?" Unanswerable, because it issues from a set of false precepts, and any attempt to answer it is going to be like, as my brother says, "boxing a turd". And that’s the number one lesson that we can take from the right wingers. They don’t waste their time answering our charges. Don’t dignify their charges with an answer. It’s time to seize the narrative, by force. Stop trying to justify yourself to those people. Treat them with contempt and disgust. Flick their accusations aside and then go for the jugular.

"Reverend Dobson, you’re afraid of homosexuals because of your own secret homosexual tendencies, aren’t you?"

"Ms Malkin, would it be fair to say that you hate immigrants because you yourself are an ‘anchor baby’ of immigrant parents?"

"Mr. Hinderaker, this discussion of the DHS is interesting, but what I really want to know is why your kids aren’t fighting in Iraq and supporting the troops in a meaningful way?"

Yes. Exactly. My only problem with TRex's approach is that all of these questions are based on truth. Ms. Malkin is a virulent critic of immigrants who was parented by immigrants. Mr. Dobson obsessively hates gay people in a very vocal and public way, which is almost always a mask for latent homosexuality.

I'd say the real way to fight back is to do what these loud-mouthed blowhards do, and just make up mean stuff. Who cares if it's discredited? Everything Sean Hannity has said for the past five years has been discredited. It doesn't matter. Truth has been replaced by truthiness.

Hopefully, if each side just continually lobs these sort of grenades at one another, the entire ludicrous farce will implode on itself and someone on television might start making sense again. I don't hold out a lot of hope for this ever happening, but then I'm not really an optimist.