Great Moments in Conservative Humor

Seriously, Senator Jim DeMint...you've got to be f-ing kidding me.

"McCain, who is proponent of campaign finance reform that weakened party organizations and basically put George Soros in the driver's seat," DeMint said. "His proposal for amnesty for illegals. His support of global warming, cap-and-trade programs that will put another burden on our economy. And of course, his embrace of the bailout right before the election was probably the nail in our coffin this last election. And he has been an opponent of drilling in ANWR, at a time when energy is so important. It really didn't fit the label, but he was our package."

So John McCain lost because he wasn't an insane enough conservative? He didn't talk about fucking drilling enough? Drilling had its own goddamn chant during the McCain campaign. You can't possibly talk about something any more than when you're chanting about it. That's the whole definition of a "chant." You just say the same thing over and over again.

I mean, has Jim DeMint been holed up in Dick Cheney's Top Secret Underground Lair and Social Club for the past 2 years? It's pretty tough to make the case that Americans were voting on George Soros and amnesty for illegal immigrants (a point which McCain had essentially conceded before the election even started). There are ample exit polls that show people were worried about the economy and the Iraq War. I didn't see a whole lot of checked boxes for "I liked his warmongering policy, but I disagreed with his 'don't shoot Mexicans on sight' policy. Oh, and fuck George Soros."

But, you know, maybe I missed those polls. Or South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint just doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. One of those.

Quite Possibly the Most Wrong Thing I Have Ever Heard

John Hinderaker has crafted perhaps the silliest blog post of all time. Seriously. It would be almost impossible to top this.

But first, some back story. John Hinderaker blogs, along with two other guys, at Power Line, one of the most respected and influential right-wing blogs. They were 2004's Time Blog of the Year.

John once wrote this of George W. Bush:

A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile. Hyperbolic? Well, maybe.

That used to have my vote for the craziest thing ever blogged. I remember when NBC had that "blog" online that was supposed to belong to Creed from "The Office," and that made way more sense than this Power Line post.

Anyway, Hinderaker has topped himself. I give you...The Importance of Being Careful:

[George W.] Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn't raise his standards, he will exceed Bush's total before he is inaugurated.

The mind...boggles.

This is so wrong, it's the exact polar opposite of true. Sadly No!, similarly baffled by Hinderaker's astoundingly incorrect conclusion, has offered, as rebuttal, voluminous video evidence of George W. Bush's gaffes, inanities, blunders, malapropisms and general buffoonery. It demonstrates beyond any doubt both Bush's contempt for his audience and for the English language.

But it's not even necessary to go that far. No one expects George W. Bush to speak with care and precision, or indeed, to speak in complete sentences, without food in his mouth. His incoherence was a national joke 7 years ago. Now, we're all numb to it. When he's on TV, speaking to America about important issues of the day, not even small children take him seriously any more. And Americans are easy to fool. They think fucking Shia LaBeouf has gravitas.

Vociferously advocating the proposition that George W. Bush is eloquent, indeed that he should be offering eloquence lessons to Barack Obama, a man rhetorically gifted enough to become the first black president, against a Clinton, 4 years after first entering the national spotlight, is laughably ridiculous. I feel like, up until now, Power Line has all been a prank, and this is the moment Hinderaker's chosen to give the game away.

Wait a minute...you guys...you're not even really conservative, are you! What a bunch of rapscallions.

Oh...you're...you're serious.

Power Line makes me want to start an angry blog that stridently and vehemently argues for completely nonsensical propositions. Just for fun.