In the land of progressive inteh-LEK-chew-als, it’s the Tea Party folks who are crude rubes. Dressing up in colonial costumes is corn pone and low brow. Conservatives and Fox News viewers are uncouth and uneducated.

But we’re not the ones snickering like Beavis and Butthead at photos of politicians eating corn dogs at state fairs.

No, that’s left to left-wing Berkeley sophisticates like prog blogger king Markos Moulitsas, who apparently collects GOP corn dog-eating images for his amusement and the titillation of his readers:

It goes on. And on. And on, with the de riguer gay rumor-mongering tossed in:

In complaining about “TMI (too much information) in Ames,” Kos confesses that “really, I’d shoot myself if I came across a photo of Newt Gingrich performing fellatio on a corn dog.”

Really, we have a feeling he’d drool rather gleefully as he added said image to his little blog photo album.

This all follows on the heels of London Telegraph editor Toby Harnden snarking about Bachmann chomping the “foot-long hot dog” with “gusto.”

Because, you know, re-printing candid photos of people with corn dogs is apparently so much more cultivated and distingué than actually digesting them. Heaven forfend.

Gotta love the “adult conversation” of our oh-so-tolerant left-wing betters making America proud…

***

From a Twitter follower: Democrats make fun of people eating corn dogs and defend people who tweet their weiners.

Go figure.

From the bottom-of-the-barrel-scraping blogger whose reaction to the lynching of four American civilian contractors in Fallujah in 2004 was this…

…comes today’s nominee for the progressive Left’s most ghoulish Tucson massacre Tweet of the week. He cheered the ruthless murders of American war veterans serving their country as civilian contractors in Iraq, and now he’s cheering the political lynching of Sarah Palin over a 9/11 Truther/pot-head/nihilist madman’s deadly shooting rampage…

Got bile?

***

When even Barbara Walters and The Spew start having second thoughts about Palin Derangement Syndrome, the progs have lost.

***

Trending on Twitter tonight: #blamepalin — Conservatives fight back against the smears by mocking the Left’s tasteless blame game. A small taste:

Background from Cynthia Yockey.

Hillbuzz responds here:

There have been many times in the last two years when we’ve been attacked by the Left, and we’ve thought about just giving all of this up and going back to who we were before 2008. Writing for this site takes a lot out of us, physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially, you name it. Our quality of life suffers, because we have to skip fun things we’d like to do because we have essays to write and strategy to get out to you. We do this because we don’t see anyone else doing it, and if we weren’t at this, the Left would win a small victory…since their goal is, clearly, to shut down all opposition and harass anyone who opposes them into submission.

You know you are getting to these Kossacks and Moveon.org-anisms when they come after you.

That means you are on to something, and they are afraid, so they throw everything they have at you to scare you into shutting up and running away.

After two years of this abuse heaped on us, it barely registers anymore. Not even when they cross a line and start attacking us personally, in our personal lives, the way some of them did yesterday. What may have scared us a few years ago instead just makes us get on a phone to a lawyer to begin procedures against these would-be bullies.

It is absolutely no fun standing up to Alinksy Methods and radical tactics. It is hard, hard work. You will be maligned for standing your ground. You will be personally attacked by these nuts if you are successful and they see you as some sort of threat. Somewhere, perhaps even originated at the White House itself, hit lists are made for distribution to the current president’s armies of trolls, orcs, and goblins, telling them whom to harass each week.

Michelle Malkin gets this. Glenn Beck gets it. Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Erik Erikson, Dennis Miller, and anyone else challenging the Left gets it.

We are in the very strange position now, as moderate Democrats, to be on the receiving end of this garbage ourselves, joining other PUMAs out there who’ve been targeted by the nutroots for refusing to be silenced as we watch Liberals on the far left destroy what used to be the Democrat Party.

They are furious at us for helping Scott Brown win on Tuesday. They are enraged we decided to do whatever we could to draw support to his campaign, and to mitigate any attacks the Left could make against Brown.

They are angry we’re goading Republicans to have a battle plan for January 20th, since the Left wants conservatives, moderates, and the entire GOP to drink themselves stupid celebrating on January 19th, so that the Left can find a way to keep Brown from being seated in the days after that — when Republicans normally go into hibernation and stop paying any attention to what’s going on.

We are not going to let that happen.

Courage.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

Hat tip: Instapundit.

Transcript:

Dem. Rep. Steve Cohen (TN) – I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the parties have differences. But if you want change, you want the Democratic Party. Barack Obama was a community organizer like Jesus, who our minister prayed about. Pontius Pilate was a governor. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I mentioned Kos’s Jesus/Pontius Pilate meme last week. They won’t let it go.

Bob Owens’ rejoinder deserves reprinting:

Charles Manson organized a community of his own, one that Bernadine Dorhn was certainly impressed with. You remember Bernie Dorhn, don’t you? She and her husband Bill Ayers had helped form yet another community, one called the Weather Underground. Years later, when they were done with their declared war against the United States, they helped community organizer and friend Barack Obama organize his first political fundraiser in their home.

If liberals want to play games about the meaning and definition of the words community organizer, then by all means, lets play.

It will be a lot more fun for us than them.

Indeed.

***

The Four Stages of Conservative Female Abuse
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2008

There’s something about outspoken conservative women that drives the Left mad. It’s a peculiar pathology I’ve reported on for more than 15 years, both as a witness and a target. Thus, the onset of Palin Derangement Syndrome in the media, Democrat circles, and the cesspools of the blogosphere came as no surprise. They just can’t help themselves.

Liberals hold a special animus for constituencies they deem traitors. Minorities who identify as social and economic conservatives have left the plantation and sold out their people. Women who put an “R” by their name have abandoned their ovaries and betrayed their gender. As Republican officeholders and conservative public figures who are women have grown in number and visibility, the progression of Conservative Female Abuse has worsened. The astonishing vitriol and virulent hatred directed at GOP Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is the most severe manifestation to date.

The first stage of Conservative Female Abuse by the Left is infantilization. Right-wing women can’t possibly believe what they believe about the sanctity of life, self-defense, free markets, or foreign policy. They must be submissive little dolls of the White Male Hierarchy. Or, as a far Left (is there any other kind of Left in San Francisco?) San Francisco Chronicle columnist wrote of First Lady Laura Bush, they must be put in their place as “docile doormats” with no brains of their own. True to form, no sooner had John McCain announced Gov. Palin as his veep pick than jeers of “Palin = neocon puppet” sprouted across the Internet.

The second stage of CFA is sexualization. A conservative woman is not merely a sellout. She is an intellectual prostitute. Unable or unwilling to argue with them on the merits, detractors resort to mocking the physical appearance of their ideological opponents in skirts and denigrating them with vulgar epithets. MSNBC hosts insulted former GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson’s accomplished wife and mother of two, Jeri Thompson, as working the stripper pole. Newspaper cartoonists Ted Rall, Pat Oliphant, and Jeff Danziger caricatured Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a mammy, thick-lipped parrot, and Bush “House Nigga” armed with “hair straightener.” New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd derided former GOP Florida secretary of state Katherine Harris for applying “her makeup with a trowel.”

True to form, Dowd was first out of the box to snicker at Gov. Palin’s beauty pageant past, ridicule her “beehive and sexy shoes,” and compare her path to the vice presidential nomination as a “hokey chick flick.” Joe Biden backhandedly praised her as “good looking.” And left-wing bloggers worked overtime on lurid photoshops of Palin as a bikini model and porn star. At the Democratic Underground, a highly trafficked liberal website raising money for Barack Obama, members held a contest to come up with nicknames and posters to slime GOP Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — and then to “spread [them] all over the ‘net.” Among the “nicer” entries: “Cruella,” “Gidget,” “Governor Jesus Camp,” “VPILF,” “Fertilla the Huntress,” “Iditabroad,” and “KILLER PYSCHO FUNDIE BITCH FROM HELL!!”

The third stage of CFA is demonization. When the Left tires of hurling whore insults, it turns conservative women in the public eye into nefarious creatures. Bill Maher called Laura Bush “Hitler’s dog.” George Carlin attacked Barbara Bush as “the Silver douchebag.” A Huffington Post website member wrote of Nancy Reagan: “Like her evil husband, she has lived far too long. Here’s hoping the hag suffers for several weeks, then croaks in the tub.” Another added: “I feel no pity for the bitch who took delight in watching thousands die of a horrible disease and watching the poor having to eat out of dumpsters because of her husband’s political beliefs.”

True to form, rumors of Palin being a crypto-Nazi surfaced on the Internet and the fringe media. And liberal critics used her gun-rights record to smear her as bloodthirsty.

And the final stage of CFA is dehumanization. Conservative women aren’t real women according to the liberal feminist establishment’s definition. Remember when Gloria Steinem called Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison a “female impersonator?” Or when curdled NOW leader Patricia Ireland instructed Democrats to vote only for “authentic” female political candidates? Or when Al Gore’s fashion consultant Naomi Wolf described the foreign-policy analysis of Jeane Kirkpatrick as being “uninflected by the experiences of the female body?”

Echoing the bottom-feeders in the liberal blogosphere, mainstream journalists and Obama water-carriers now question Palin’s commitment to motherhood and even challenged her pre-natal care decisions in an effort to destroy her. Forget about questioning their patriotism. I question their sanity.

Reader Monica M. sent me a link to the Democratic Underground’s latest thread for commenters to come up with nicknames and posters to slime GOP Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — and then to “spread [them] all over the ‘net.” There are now nearly 100 filthy, hate-filled responses and counting. Among the “nicer” entries: “Cruella,” “Gidget,” “Governor Jesus Camp,” “VPILF,” “Fertilla the Huntress,” “Iditabroad,” and “KILLER PYSCHO FUNDIE BITCH FROM HELL!!”

The link should have come with a blood pressure warning. These people make Palin-bashing prenatal care expert Alan Colmes look like a saint.

Peer with me further into the liberal sinkhole again and behold P.D.S. in full bloom. Note that this site is raising money for Barack Obama and that an ad for their fundraiser appears at the top of the thread. Is Obama going to accept their cash? Know your enemy:

itsjustme
Tue Sep-02-08 10:40 AM
Original message
To further define Sarah Palin, we need a unified nickname.

Words are important. Symbols are important, and we need to all get together on a cute nickname for Sarah. I’m not so clever with nicknames, but people that are please place your suggestions here. After I have enough I’ll post a poll.

Someone called her “Caribou Barbie” which I thought was pretty good. But I honestly feel we need a poll to vote for the best suggestion, and we can then all use it. Perhaps it could spread all over the ‘net.

The Photoshop entries getting thumbs up from DU commenters:

And the sickest attack of them all — mocking Palin for being a nursing mom:

And more:

These people are off their meds.

***

Memo to Daily Kos: You can try to erase the truth, but caches, screenshots, and blog posts are forever. The stain is permanent.

McCain P.O.W. mockery? Check.

Hack-edited video? Check.

Rampant sexism? Check.

Festering conspiracy theories? Check.

They can’t control themselves. Back off?

They just can’t.

Every major Democrat presidential candidate has attended the Yearly Kos convention. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid keynoted the nutroots’ annual gathering two years ago. Dick Durbin appeared via satellite with the official Senate seal in the background. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sat down with the Kossacks and their ilk for a chat at Netroots Nation this year. Hillary pandered to the Kos crowd last summer. So did Barack Obama.

Ever since John McCain announced his VP pick, the Daily Kos — the self-declared “New Center” of American politics — has been an out-of-control incubator of deranged conspiracy theories and attacks on GOP Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s family. Will a single Kos Democrat stand up publicly and specifically denounce the madness on the left side of the Internet? Or do they agree with the Kos smear merchants that monitoring Palin family pregnancies and jeering about 17-year-old Bristol’s situtation — as Kos himself does here in this post now featured on the front page of the site — is “fair game?

***

Via Allah, here’s Obama’s statement, which acknowledges his own teen mother:

Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama Monday afternoon issued a strong statement to “back off” reports of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy, telling reporters families — and especially children — are off limits in this presidential campaign.

Mr. Obama, campaigning here, also noted that his own mother was 18 when she gave birth to him.

“People’s families are off limits,” he said. “People’s children are especially off limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin’s performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. ”

“I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories,” he added. “That shouldn’t be a topic in our politics.”

He vehemently pushed back against an unnamed McCain aide suggesting his campaign had any ties to the blogs that were spreading rumors before the news broke, saying he was “offended” by that and if any of his staff was involved in spreading the issue, “they’d be fired.”

The Kossacks aren’t listening:

First of all, who says that Bristol Palin really is pregnant right now? She could suddenly have a miscarriage down the road and poof baby gone.

Secondly, Bristol could have had a baby back in April, and be pregnant again.

***

Who believes this press release is true (3+ / 0-)

Recommended by:
dksbook, OleHippieChick, MinnesotaMom

just because the campaign says so does not explain why she missed 5 months of school prior i do not BELIEVE anything they say

by need pr on Mon Sep 01, 2008 at 10:56:49 AM PDT

*
Maybe she had morning sickness. n/t (0+ / 0-)

by concernedamerican on Mon Sep 01, 2008 at 10:57:43 AM PDT

*
Of course she’s lying. What politicians tells the (0+ / 0-)

truth about sex?

The press thinks being fair and balanced means if a comment is made about the pleasant smell of roses, not forgetting to talk up the smell of shit.

by Dungeon Dwelling Dragon on Mon Sep 01, 2008 at 11:04:03 AM PDT

*
Complete Horsesh*t (1+ / 0-)

Recommended by:
GirlZero

Me, either. The timing here is absolutely stunning. You’d have to be out of your mind or senile (like McSurge) to buy any of this tripe.

by Ninbus on Mon Sep 01, 2008 at 11:04:20 AM PDT

Commenter Will Amos: “Barry need to go on Kos himself with a post and tell them to knock it off. A press release isn[']t enough. It goes to his judgment.”

We noted the nutroots’ deepening Palin Derangement Syndrome over the weekend, topped by a diarist at the Daily Kos who’s been spreading disgusting, bottom-of-the-barrel rumors — picked up by the excitable and shameless Andrew Sullivan — about Gov. Sarah Palin’s youngest child and attacking one of Palin’s daughters as the mother of Trig.

The Free Republic fights back with photos of a very pregnant Gov. Palin in late February. I linked to an April blog post from an airline passenger who met the pregnant governor on a flight from Fairbanks. It is unbelievably surreal that this dirtbag Kossack rumor has to be debunked.

Even another Kos diarist is now trying to undo the damage. Accompanied by the photo the Freepers found, the diarist headlined a post this morning: “Sarah Palin Baby Story Ender.” The diarist insists: “Unless someone has counter evidence, we can drop this crap now.”

The diarist is arguing with his/her fellow tinfoilers about whether Palin is wearing a “fake pregnancy suit” and commenters are still insisting that Palin’s daughter was showing and the governor was not. And in an update, the diarist — no doubt feeling pressure from the paranoid zealots in the cesspool — is polling readers on whether the post should be deleted. Nearly 30 percent of readers think the post attempting to debunk the rumor should be deleted.

Truly, truly unhinged.

You really can’t cure stupid.

***

From the comments in the alternate universe known as the Daily Kos:

Daughter showing – Mom not showing (10+ / 0-)

Recommended by: BrooklynJohnny, Aspe4, RFK Lives, sparko, JoieDe, skyounkin, OMwordTHRUdaFOG, edsbrooklyn, eroded47095, Courtneys Mom

It’s not hard to find photos of the family where the daughter seems to be showing and Mom does not seem to be showing. The photos are not necessarily from 2008, but from the ages of the kids, they can’t be from very long ago.

There are several different pictures taken on different days of the whole family. The ones I saw were part of the video on three YouTube videos, by three separate people.

At the very least, there is something strange going on here.

Another Democrat against McCain

by NWSteve on Sun Aug 31, 2008 at 09:43:56 PM PDT

“Strange,” indeed. These people are insane.

The padding conspiracy lives:

Unless she was wearing padding (3+ / 0-)

Recommended by: rhfactor, Sandy on Signal, SadieB

a la Bree Hodge from Desperate Housewives.

…
by mariva on Mon Sep 01, 2008 at 12:43:27 AM PDT

Refusing to back down:

DING DING DING (0+ / 0-)

None of us have any clue whether there’s any truth to this rumor. This diary doesn’t come close to answering the question.

It’s one picture taken on an uncertain date, and the poster initially got it wrong as to who took the picture. There are other pictures posted here by others that raise serious suspicions. I’d like to compare the dates of those photos w/ the date of this photo, and I’d like even more to see additional photos taken in the interim.

Team McCain made an impulsive last-minute decision b/c they saw their #s cratering during the DNC. I have little doubt that the decision will come to haunt them. Whether this story is what haunts them most of all remains to be seen.

Some men see things as they are and ask why. I see things that never were and ask why not?

by RFK Lives on Mon Sep 01, 2008 at 06:08:16 AM PDT

—

She disappeared for the last two trimesters (18+ / 0-)

Recommended by:
SlackerInc, Lois, BrooklynJohnny, Hell Upside Down, peglyn, Aspe4, zannie, eaglecries, Do Tell, MrJersey, Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle, LizzyPop, the disinfector, pvmuse, NotablyZen, BetMyCitizenship, eXtina, Courtneys Mom

Had an accident turning into a prenatal clinic in February, and looked visibly pregnant when last seen in December 2007. The date of that photo mysteriously backdated to a year previous–just today. Nothing strange or whacky here. Yup.

by sparko on Sun Aug 31, 2008 at 10:05:34 PM PDT

Basically a loon at Kos believes that Sarah Palin’s fifth child was actually born to Palin’s high school daughter and the Governor’s just covering for her.

It’s just one lone nut blogging at Kos, you might point out. Barely even worth a post. And that’s what I thought until I looked at the results of the poll at the bottom:

These people will believe anything.

But wait–let’s assume for a second that this goofy idea is true. Let’s say for a second that Governor Palin decided to adopt her daughter’s unplanned special-needs child and present him to the world as her own…

That would make her kind of a saint, wouldn’t it?

And wouldn’t it be an interesting contrast to the Democratic candidate, who was willing to abort his hypothetical grandchildren to remove the “burden” of an unplanned pregnancy?

“Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old,” he said. “I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t want them punished with an STD at age 16, so it doesn’t make sense to not give them information.”

Noted.

Keep digging, Kossacks. The more you find, or think you find, the better Palin looks.

Oh, speaking of which, here’s one Republican that didn’t approve the Palin pick. But I think he just wanted it for himself…so he could “tell all the bigots to shut up“.
_____________________________

UPDATE, 6:50 PM: A much-missed blogger emeritus, Dave at Garfield Ridge, tips me that the “it’s really her grandson” meme has slipped into the mainstream: well-respected movie critic Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere is touting this little blurt of Kossack venom.

But Wells wants you to know that he runs a high-class operation. He told us so when he… banned all the conservatives from his site yesterday:

And dammit, I haven’t built this site into a respectable Hollywood column over the last four years to provide a forum for thuggish Barack Obama bashers and Sarah Palin back-rubbers.

Whew. I’m glad Wells decided to take the high road.

_________________________

{Post by See-Dubya. Opinions, time, and equipment are mine alone.}

Take me now, Lord. My life as a blogger is complete.

One of the rapier wits at Daily Kos took to his or her knees:

So let’s all help Michelle’s request along and say a little prayer to the Lord. Unfortunately, these prayers to the Lord don’t always work effectively, even amongst the top televangelists such as Oral Roberts back in the 1980′s…

…But I have HOPE for Michelle’s plea.

Michelle didn’t actually write that, but whatever. Once you’re done asking your Creator for Michelle’s destruction, sweetheart, do me a favor and mention Mohsen Namvar. He could use a hand right now.

P.S. I was wondering how the Left would react to Kim Jong Il’s endorsement of their guy. This dude thinks it’s “the sanest thing that Kim Jong Il has done recently”. I agree; it’s quite rational from Kim’s point of view.

____
{Post by SEE-DUBYA. H/T to OneFreeKorea, who has a link to the Kos diary if you must see for yourself.}

Terrible news. Please keep the families of Ronald J. Withrow of Roaring Springs, Tex., and John Roy Young of Kansas City, Mo., in your thoughts and prayers tonight:

The bodies of two American contractors kidnapped in Iraq more than a year ago have been found, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said Monday, days after the severed finger of one of them was sent to American military authorities.

The F.B.I. said that the remains of Ronald J. Withrow of Roaring Springs, Tex., and John Roy Young of Kansas City, Mo., had been found, and that relatives of the victims had been notified. The bureau did not say when and where the bodies were found, or anything about their condition.

Mr. Withrow was one of five kidnapping victims — Mr. Young not among them — whose fingers were sent recently to the military in Iraq. DNA analysis confirmed that the fingers were from the missing men.

Mr. Withrow was working in Iraq for the information technology company JPI Worldwide when he disappeared Jan. 5, 2007. Mr. Young worked for the Crescent Security Group under contract to Italy. He was seized in an ambush on Nov. 16, 2006.

Please also remember the other civilian contractors still missing who were seized with Young and whose fingers were also sent to military officials:

Paul Reuben of Minneapolis
Jonathon Cote of Getzville, N.Y.
Joshua Munns of Redding, Calif.
Bert Nussbaumer of Vienna, Austria.

I pray we find the animals who did this.

***

Ronald Withrow’s mother wrote in her diary: “I know God has taken you home. I’m just someone that’s taken care of you. It’s hard to believe that you are gone. My baby take care. Wait for me at the gates of heaven.”

The Kansas City Star has a brief article about John Roy Young here.

The Cote family has a blog here. Jon Cote’s father, Francis, writes:

Colleagues, Friends and Family,

As some of you know, there have been some recent updates regarding Jonathon and the other hostages.

Approximately one month ago the U.S. Military-Government received DNA and prints. The FBI confirmed this information on Frebruary16, 2008 with us. On March 13, 2008 the FBI provided additional information that the DNA was from 5 severed fingers which one belonging to Jon, one to Josh Munns, one to Paul Reuben and one to Bert Nussbaumer, (Austrian) all co-workers of Jon. The fifth did not belong to John Young, the other Crescent Security employee hostage but instead belongs to Ronald Withrow, an American kidnapped two months after the others. We’re hoping that this act was “their” sick way of showing “proof of life”. We don’t know. We know of no ransom demands.

In the afternoon on Friday, March 21, 2008 the FBI visited us to inform us that the US Military-Government has recovered 2 bodies in the Basra area, the area where the hostages are believed to be held. Their identity was unknown at that time. The bodies were flown to the US Air Base in Dover, Delaware where they performed identification and autopsies. Late Sunday night March 23, 2008, we received confirmation from the FBI that the 2 bodies belong to John Young and Ronald Withrow. The parents and family have been notified. Our hearts go out to the families that have lost their loved one and have contacted them to express our condolence. Other families are now uncomfortably awaiting word on any new development.

We have no idea how long it will be before we hear something but we’ll let you know as soon as we do.

Remember to check this web site www.freecote.com. The site now contains most of the media articles and stories going back to the date of the kidnapping, November 16, 2006.

We’re sorry to spoil your Easter with this news but we really feel the need to ask for extra prayers. Please be so kind this holiday to remember to pray for Jon’s safety and the safety of the other hostages. We could also use prayer too to help keep us strong. At least WE have our FAITH to keep us strong and hoping for the best.

Happy Easter!

He is Risen, He is Risen indeed!

***

More than 1,000 civilian contractors have died in Iraq as of last June, according to this site.

Don’t bother checking the Daily Kos for reaction.

We already know: “Screw them.”

And I’m sure the Huffington Post is working up an exploitative photo mosaic as we speak…

Last week, I noted Markos Moulitsas’s call for Democrats to engage in election mischief and throw their votes to Mitt Romney. Now, a Kossack has produced a video advocating the shenanigans.

The producer of the video is one Andy Cobbon. Here’s his message accompanying the video:

Democrats of Michigan, on January 15th you have a unique and wonderful opportunity to screw over the Republican Party.

For more on why voting for Romney in your primary–however counterintuitive it may be to vote for that flip-flopping, say-anything-to-get-elected, neocon-of-convenience hack–isn’t such a crazy idea, check out:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/200…

Lest there be any confusion, showing Romney’s old stances as a less-than-diehard conservative in Massachusetts is intended to emphasize his ubercynical ability to shape-shift into desirable forms, not to suggest he’s a somehow tolerable closet moderate who is simply pretending to be a detestable right wing nut. I don’t mean to suggest he should be given the benefit of any doubt in that direction–that’s by no means the reason Michigan Dems should cast their vote for him January 15th.

In the rough and real world of politics, Progressives can’t afford for voting to be an emotional act of personal expression. It has to be pragmatic, strategic, and effective. So, just this weird once…go Romney. Though it burns my fingers when I type it.

What effect will the Kos factor have on the election? On the one hand, Kos has a lousy record when it comes to electoral influence. On the other hand, word about this call to mischief is spreading fast. Another Kossack gloats:

Michigan, do you want this primary season to be over?

Or do you want this primary season to be… hilarious?

Reader Katharine e-mails me: “My mom lives in Detroit, she’s been getting linked to this video on various pages all morning…Is this legal? Are there penalties for screwing with an election, particularly to make it more ‘hilarious?’”

***

Romney says he’s staying in through Feb. 5 no matter what happens in Michigan:

Mitt Romney yesterday dismissed any suggestion he would leave the race if he did not win Michigan.

“We’re going all the way through Feb. 5 – no ifs, ands, or buts about it,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “This is a race that is not going to be decided by a few states. It’s a race that I’m taking to the nation.”

Romney is eager for a Michigan win after second-place finishes in the Iowa Republican caucus and the New Hampshire primary.

Campaigning in Michigan yesterday, he focused on his roots in the state and promised to do more to lift up the economically hard-hit state than John McCain.

Romney and McCain, the New Hampshire winner, are statistically tied in Michigan, according to a Detroit News poll released yesterday, but Romney led McCain by 5 percentage points in a similar survey by the Detroit Free Press.

In 1972, Republican voters in Michigan decided to make a little mischief, crossing over to vote in the open Democratic primary and voting for segregationist Democrat George Wallace, seriously embarrassing the state’s Democrats. In fact, a third of the voters (PDF) in the Democratic primary were Republican crossover votes. In 1988, Republican voters again crossed over, helping Jesse Jackson win the Democratic primary, helping rack up big margins for Jackson in Republican precincts. (Michigan Republicans can clearly be counted on to practice the worst of racial politics.) In 1998, Republicans helped Jack Kevorkian’s lawyer — quack Geoffrey Feiger — win his Democratic primary, thus guaranteeing their hold on the governor’s mansion that year.

With a history of meddling in our primaries, why don’t we try and return the favor. Next Tuesday, January 15th, Michigan will hold its primary. Michigan Democrats should vote for Mitt Romney, because if Mitt wins, Democrats win.

Bob Owens points out that Kos gets his history wrong:

…Kos purposefully leave out the nasty truth: even without a single Republican vote, segregationist Wallace would have still won handily in 1972 Michigan, by more than 111,000 votes.

Michigan’s apparently segregationist Democratic mainstream gave him at least 538,953 votes (I subtracted 1/3 of Wallace’ total, as if all Republicans added to Wallace’s vote total to arrive at that figure, even though 1/3 of the Republican cross-overs actually voted for McGovern. This figure is heavily biased in favor of his flawed argument, and he still loses), 111,259 more than also-ran George McGovern’s 425,694 according to Kos’ own source.

Kos can rightly claim that Republicans crossed over in 1972. He just can’t credibly claim they affected the outcome.

Moreover, Kos’s rationale for dispatching his followers to vote for Romney is idiotic. He writes:

…on the GOP side, this primary will be fiercely contested. John McCain is currently enjoying the afterglow of media love since his New Hamsphire victory, while Iowa winner Mike Huckabee is poised to do well in South Carolina.

Meanwhile, poor Mitt Romney, who’s suffered back-to-back losses in the last week, desperately needs to win Michigan in order to keep his campaign afloat. Bottom line, if Romney loses Michigan, he’s out. If he wins, he stays in.

And we want Romney in, because the more Republican candidates we have fighting it out, trashing each other with negative ads and spending tons of money, the better it is for us. We want Mitt to stay in the race, and to do that, we need him to win in Michigan.

If Romney wins Michigan, he’ll have the money and organization to stick it on ’til Super Tuesday–something Huckabee’s shoestring campaign might not be able to do unless the Arkansas governor has a strong showing.

Interestingly, the commenters at Kos have mixed feelings about their leader’s call to mischief. A sample:

More details:

Facing divisions among Senate Democrats, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has postponed debate on reauthorizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act until January.

Although Reid won a cloture vote earlier in the day allowing the FISA debate to begin, he still faced heavy pressure from his own Caucus on amendments that could be offered to the base bill, which was a version of the legislation approved by the Intelligence Committee. Facing these concerns, Reid decided to delay final action on the legislation until the Senate returns for the second session of the 110th Congress, which means no work on the FISA bill until at least mid-January.

“I’ve spoken to a number of senators [involved in the FISA debate], and everyone feels it would be to the best interests of the Senate that we take a look at this when we can come back at the first of the year and resume this,” Reid said on the floor Thursday night.

Update: More lefty piling on. Dirty Harry manages to unite the left and right against him.

***
Mwrrrrooowr. Nutroots King Kos has turned on Harry Reid–yes, the same Harry Reid who brought down the house at the Kos convention last year.

See the blue-on-blue break up here and here. Spits Kos:

In short, “holds” bottle up legislation if Republicans place them. Not so much if Democrats do.

And here I thought Reid was the Democratic majority leader. I’m done with him.

Dodd for majority leader!