Rall is beyond contempt. He has accused our troops of being murderers for Halliburton, mocked soldiers as sexual deviants, and derided the late Pat Tillman as an “idiot” and “sap”. Now, all in one cartoon, he shows his naked contempt for the very traits of the American soldier that helped give birth to this country and secured it for 231 years: willingness to sacrifice, faith, courage, respect for the commander-in-chief, and determination to complete their mission.

Before you dismiss this anti-military hatred as marginal, I remind you that Ted Rall is not the far Left fringe:

In 1996, he was one of three Finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. He was one of the New York Times’ most reprinted cartoonists in 1997, 1999 and 2001. He also did color strips for both Time Magazine and Fortune Magazine from 1998 to 2001. He was awarded the 1998 Deadline Club Award by the Society of Professional Journalists for his cartoons. Rall received first place in both the 1995 and 2000 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards for Cartoons. The award, founded in 1968, recognizes distinguished work on behalf of disadvantaged Americans.

Does anyone on his side of the ideological aisle have the decency to question his patriotism?

Left-wing radical laywer Lynne Stewart will be sentenced this morning for her role in fomenting jihad for her client, convicted jihadist and NYC bomb plotter Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. The Associated Press casts her as a compassionate grandma who just cares too much about her downtrodden clients. The New York Times sympathizes here:

There was little sympathy for Ms. Stewart among mainstream lawyers during the trial. But more than 400 letters she submitted to Judge Koeltl about her sentence include many from law professors and criminal defense lawyers who said that her actions never caused actual harm and warned of a chilling effect on lawyers who defend terrorists if she receives a long sentence. Her lawyers cite her long service as a government-appointed lawyer for rebels, mobsters and murderers.

Jo Ann Harris, a former assistant attorney general who authorized the 1994 indictment of Mr. Abdel Rahman, wrote that the terrorism counts against Ms. Stewart were “unwarranted overkill.”

Ms. Stewart’s failing, she wrote, was that she “didn’t have a clue that the stick she was poking in the government’s eye was going to have consequences beyond her imagination.”

The author Gore Vidal wrote to ask the judge to “side with our Bill of Rights” by not imprisoning Ms. Stewart.

Ms. Stewart said that while her radical leftist views have not changed, she will continue to fight within the system. “I really think that my patriotism — if you’ll excuse the expression — and my love of this profession demand that I have to stay and fight.”

Gag. Stewart deserves the max for conspiring to spread violent messages to Rahman’s followers–actions which resulted in the death of some 100 tourists at Egyptian resorts. Also found in her law offices: a draft fatwa from Rahman calling on jihadists to kill Americans and their children until his release is won.

Need more of a reminder of what this traitorous lawyer has done? Watch here.

Stay tuned for the result of the sentencing hearing.

***

Previous:

Raise your voice against jihad lawyer Lynne Stewart
Ted Rall, meet Lynne Stewart
Guilty in NYC

You’ve read the story of the day, all day, on Drudge: Ann Coulter is antagonizing the Left with her comments about the liberal 9/11 widows known as “The Jersey Girls.” Hillary Clinton is going ape. TV producers of all partisan stripes are ecstatic. So are Ann’s publicists and publisher.

Unfortunately, lost in all the hype and hyperbole on both sides is the central point about the absolute moral authority the MSM confers on victims they agree with–while victims whose politics they do not share can’t get the time of day. Ann told Sean Hannity today she hopes her comments will demolish the “liberal infallibility” the MSM confers on its faves. (Video here.) Ironically, IMO, the facade has already eroded considerably–thanks to new media, talk radio, Fox News, etc. Case in point here.

In any case, when was the last time anyone paid attention to the Jersey Girls?

Dorothy Rabinowitz had the definitive piece on the 9/11 widows two years ago. Worth reading the whole thing. Here’s an excerpt:

“I watched my husband murdered live on TV. . . . At any point in time the casualties could have been lessened, and it seems to me there wasn’t even an attempt made.”

–Monica Gabrielle

“Three thousand people were murdered on George Bush’s watch.”

– Kristin Breitweiser

No one by now needs briefings on the identities of the commentators quoted above. The core group of widows led by the foursome known as “The Jersey Girls,” credited with bringing the 9/11 Commission into being, are by now world famous. Their already established status in the media, as a small but heroically determined band of sisters speaking truth to power, reached ever greater heights last week, when National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice made her appearance at a commission session–an event that would not have taken place, it was understood, without the pressure from the widows. Television interviewers everywhere scrambled to land these guests–a far cry from the time, last June, when group leader Kristin Breitweiser spoke of her disappointment in the press, complaining to one journalist, “I’ve been scheduled to go on ‘Meet the Press’ and ‘Hardball’ so many times, and I’m always canceled.”

No one is canceling her these days. The night of Ms. Rice’s appearance, the Jersey Girls appeared on “Hardball,” to charge that the national security adviser had failed to do her job, that the government failed to provide a timely military response, that the president had spent time reading to schoolchildren after learning of the attack, that intelligence agencies had failed to connect the dots. Others who had lost family to the terrorists’ assault commanded little to no interest from TV interviewers. Debra Burlingame–lifelong Democrat, sister of Charles F. “Chic” Burlingame III, captain of American Airlines flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, did manage to land an interview after Ms. Rice’s appearance. When she had finished airing her views critical of the accusatory tone and tactics of the Jersey Girls, her interviewer, ABC congressional reporter Linda Douglass marveled, “This is the first time I’ve heard this point of view.”

That shouldn’t have been surprising. The hearing room that day had seen a substantial group of 9/11 families, similarly irate over the Jersey Girls and their accusations–families that made their feelings evident in their burst of loud applause when Ms. Rice scored a telling zinger under questioning. But these were not the 9/11 voices TV and newspaper editors were interested in. They had chosen to tell a different story–that of four intrepid New Jersey housewives who had, as one news report had it, brought an administration “to its knees”–and that was, as far as they were concerned, the only story.

A fair number of the Americans not working in the media may, on the other hand, by now be experiencing Jersey Girls Fatigue–or taking a hard look at the pronouncements of the widows. Statements like that of Monica Gabrielle, for example (not one of the Jersey Girls, though an activist of similar persuasion), who declared that she could discern no attempt to lessen the casualties on Sept. 11. What can one make of such a description of the day that saw firefighters by the hundreds lose their lives in valiant attempts to bring people to safety from the burning floors of the World Trade Center–that saw deeds like that of Morgan Stanley’s security chief, Rick Rescorla, who escorted 2,700 employees safely out of the South Tower, before he finally lost his own life?

But the best known and most quoted pronouncement of all had come in the form of a question put by the leader of the Jersey Girls. “We simply wanted to know,” Ms. Breitweiser said, by way of explaining the group’s position, “why our husbands were killed. Why they went to work one day and didn’t come back.”

The answer, seared into the nation’s heart, is that, like some 3,000 others who perished that day, those husbands didn’t come home because a cadre of Islamist fanatics wanted to kill as many of the hated American infidels in their tall towers and places of government as they could, and they did so. Clearly, this must be a truth also known to those widows who asked the question–though in no way one would notice.

Who, listening to them, would not be struck by the fact that all their fury and accusation is aimed not at the killers who snuffed out their husbands’ and so many other lives, but at the American president, his administration, and an ever wider assortment of targets including the Air Force, the Port Authority, the City of New York? In the public pronouncements of the Jersey Girls we find, indeed, hardly a jot of accusatory rage at the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks. We have, on the other hand, more than a few declarations like that of Ms. Breitweiser, announcing that “President Bush and his workers . . . were the individuals that failed my husband and the 3,000 people that day.”

The venerable status accorded this group of widows comes as no surprise given our times, an age quick to confer both celebrity and authority on those who have suffered. As the experience of the Jersey Girls shows, that authority isn’t necessarily limited to matters moral or spiritual. All that the widows have had to say–including wisdom mind-numbingly obvious, or obviously false and irrelevant–on the failures of this or that government agency, on derelictions of duty they charged to the president, the vice president, the national security adviser, Norad and the rest, has been received by most of the media and members of Congress with utmost wonder and admiration. They had become prosecutors and investigators, unearthing clues and connections related to 9/11, with, we’re regularly informed, unrivalled dedication and skill.

The day of Ms. Rice’s appearance before the Commission, a radiant Gail Sheehy, author of “Hillary’s Choice,” beamed gratitude as she congratulated the host of “Hardball” for bringing the women on as guests. She had been following the New Jersey moms for two years, Ms. Sheehy said, and they were always leaks ahead–of everyone. She wanted to note, too, “how the moms kept making that point that it was her [Ms. Rice's] job” to inform the president. Another indicator of their expertise.

Ms. Sheehy was hardly alone in her faith in the widows and their special skills. Their every shred of opinion about the hearings last week was actively solicited–as will be true, no doubt, this week. Asked what question she would put to Ms. Rice, if she could, one Jersey Girl answered, after some thought, that it would be, What did she know and when did she know it? The answer wasn’t the first to suggest that the nation now confronted a new investigation of government malfeasance, and coverups on the order of Watergate, and that we’d been brought to this cleansing by the work of four New Jersey widows. One NBC journalist ended his summation of Ms. Rice’s testimony with an urgent coda: The issue of real significance that day, he explained, would be how the families of the 9/11 victims reacted to her testimony. There would have been no doubt, in the mind of anyone listening, which families he meant.

Really? How can that be?–is the only reasonable response to that claim, which would not have been made in a saner time. How could it be that the most important issue emerging from an inquiry into undeniable intelligence failures, at a time of utmost national peril, was the way the victims’ families reacted to the hearings?

Reader Dan F. of NYC e-mails:

I’m a lifelong resident of NYC and my wife narrowly escaped with her life after the first attack on the WTC in 1993. No one I knew personally was killed on 9/11, but like most New Yorkers the attack hurt and angered me deeply – and still does. “The widows’” act (all four of them) was getting tired long ago and Ann Coulter or that creep Ted Rall weren’t the first to point it out. Dorothy Rabinowitz of the WSJ may have that distinction and said as much in 2004. Of course, she is more subtle than Coulter or Rall, but boiled down to its essence, Rabinowitz made Coulter’s case two years ago. So you out-of-towners in Tenn., CA, and Minn. can curb your indignation…

***

Discussion:

Hot Air
Ed Morrissey
The Anchoress
Instapundit
More at Memeorandum
Chuck Simmins
Ace of Spades

***

Previous:

Ragheads and Sambos and Gooks

10. Commentator Bill Press’s condemnation of bloggers as people “with no credentials, no sources, no rules, no editors and no accountability.” Press’s idea of good journalism can be found here and some of his shady financial backers can be found over at the Radio Equalizer.

9. NYTimes editorial writer Adam Cohen’s whine that bloggers post personal attacks without calling their targets first. Cohen himself would never do something so unprofessional. Yeah, right.

8. WSJ editorial writer Bret Stephens’, uh, meltdown over bloggers who shined the light on former CNN exec Eason Jordan’s unsubstantiated claim that American troops deliberately murdered journalists in Iraq.

7. New Republic editor Michael Crowley’s clueless diatribe arguing that conservative bloggers march in lockstep with the GOP leadership to “to provide maximum benefit for their issues and candidates.” Two months earlier, conservative bloggers helped bring down George W. Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers for the U.S. Supreme Court.

6. Far-left cartoonist/columnist Ted Rall’s sneering, elitist attack on Ed Morrissey, whom Rall regards as unqualified to engage in journalism. A few weeks later, Morrissey published documents that led to the collapse of the Canadian government.

5. The late LATimes media critic David Shaw’s critique of blogs, including his now-famous claim that Times articles are vetted by at “least four experienced Times editors,” who check for “accuracy, fairness, grammar, taste and libel.” We all know how well that works.

4. Forbes magazine’s front-cover hit piece on blogs, which suggested that Eason Jordan and Dan Rather were unfairly “hounded” out of their jobs by Powerline and other conservative blogs. An excerpt:

“Web logs are the prized platform of an online lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel and invective….[Blogs] are the ultimate vehicle for brand-bashing, personal attacks, political extremism and smear campaigns….”

3. Columbia Journalism Review editor Steve Lovelady’s description of bloggers who helped bring down Eason Jordan as “salivating morons who make up the lynch mob.”

2. Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker’s description of bloggers as “creepy” wired squatters who are “untempered by restraint and accountability” and “insidious enemies of decency, humanity and civility – the angry offspring of narcissism’s quickie marriage to instant gratification.” MSM outlets, by contrast, “are filled with carpal-tunneled wretches, overworked and underpaid, who suffer near-pathological allegiance to getting it right.” You know, those poor, truth-telling, underpaid ink-stained wretches like Jayson Blair, Mitch Albom, Stephen Glass, Eric Slater, Janet Cooke, Barbara Stewart, Patricia Smith, Mike Barnicle, and Jack Kelley.

1. Former CBS News producer Mary Mapes’ attack on conservative bloggers as “far right,” “hard-core, politically angry, hyper-conservative sites loaded with vitriol about Dan Rather and CBS” who anonymously slime “anyone and everyone who raised questions about the president.”

Judging from the thoroughly unhinged tone of the old media, I’d say bloggers had a fabulous year.

Cheers!

Hat tip: Mike Talley at Wunderkraut

Question: Is there a newspaper cartoonist working in the MSM today who doesn’t have Bush Derangement Syndrome?

***
Previous:

Pat Oliphant: China’s favorite political cartoonist

Captain’s Quarters: Oliphant Rolls Into Ted Rall Territory (smearing the Swift Boat Vets)

American Digest: The Most Offensive Racist Cartoon Published In Major US Daily in 40 Years (smearing Condi Rice)

Conservative Dialysis takes aim at Rall’s odious moral equivalence.

But we mustn’t question the Left’s patriotism, right?

Black Democratic leaders in Maryland say that racially tinged attacks against Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele in his bid for the U.S. Senate are fair because he is a conservative Republican.

Such attacks against the first black man to win a statewide election in Maryland include pelting him with Oreo cookies during a campaign appearance, calling him an “Uncle Tom” and depicting him as a black-faced minstrel on a liberal Web log.

Operatives for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) also obtained a copy of his credit report — the only Republican candidate so targeted.

But black Democrats say there is nothing wrong with “pointing out the obvious.”

This is how low the Left’s political discourse has sunk: I’m a banana and a coconut and a whore and worse. Michael Steele is an Uncle Tom and a Sambo. Here’s the despicable photo that left-wing bigot blogger Steve Gilliard (proving that blacks can be vicious racists, too) published and only removed after conservative bloggers blew the whistle:

So, defacing Steele’s photo and assaulting him with Oreo cookies are peaceful exercises of free speech. Demonizing Condi is a harmless prank. Calling her a “House Nigga” is acceptable humor.

No minority who embraces liberal ideas is ever attacked for being a “race traitor” or a “sellout.” These ad hominem attacks are leveled only by the Left, and only against minority conservatives. For the unhinged Left, race-baiting has become an expedient substitute for substantive argument.

Ain’t tolerance grand?

***
Previous on Michael Steele:

Michael Steele and the Sambo smear
Whitewashing Chuckaquiddick
Chuckaquiddick: Look who’s paying the tab
NY Times “looks into” Chuckaquiddick
Chuckaquiddick: Where’s the MSM?
The NYTimes ombudsman is totally worthless
Democrat dumpster diving
A despicable Democrat dirty trick

Sen. Charles Schumer still owes Lt. Gov. Steele an apology.

Newbusters notes how the Washington Post buried the Sambo smear story.
Robert George, who blew the whistle on the smear, continues to follow the story.

***
Previous minority conservative smears:

The buck-naked bigotry of Ted Rall
Jeff Danziger: Do you draw with your hood on or off?
Danziger’s lost cartoon
Liberal racism and Condi Rice
Maglalangadingdong this
Minority conservatives and the sellout smear

***
Ed Morrissey:

One of the excuses used by these Democrats is that Steele refused to object when Governor Mike Ehrlich met with supporters at a club that has no black members in its history. The Elkridge Club held a fundraiser attended by Ehrlich and widely decried by the Democrats as an indication of GOP pandering to racist whites in the south. They failed to mention, however, that several Democrats have made their own use of the Elkridge Club, including the brother and chief political advisor to their gubernatorial candidate to replace Ehrlich.

That shows the leadership of the Democrats as they truly are — a hate-based faith system that takes any means necessary to win elections. Cheating, violence, smears, and now racism are all acceptable as long as Republicans are the targets. If the Republicans happen to be members of minority communities, so much the better.

After all, it’s not discrimination when you hate someone more because of the color of their skin or their ethnic background, is it?

Not if you’re a leftist Democrat, it isn’t.

Sensible Mom points to another example of liberal racism masquerading as respectable political debate from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which does a more cowardly Sambo smear on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas:

“Another minus is that the nomination lessens the court’s diversity. O’Connor herself had expressed the desire that her successor be a woman. O’Connor seems to have grown wiser about diversity as a result of her Supreme Court experience. She came to see the virtues of having a court that looks like America – doubtless a big reason she softened her opposition to affirmative action in recent years.

In losing a woman, the court with Alito would feature seven white men, one white woman and a black man, who deserves an asterisk because he arguably does not represent the views of mainstream black America.”

Paul J. Cella at RedState:

Observe the partisanship compounded by insularity. Note that there is no argument upon which to ground a defense of the attacks; there is only a tendentious assertion. The whole great bulk of American political debate — which usually resolves in the end to a confrontation between Liberalism and Conservatism — is brazenly subsumed into this assertion. It is not necessary to even argue that Liberalism is better for blacks. It is not necessary to even consider the claims of Conservatism when they are made by a black man.

There is not much more that can be said here. We should denounce this cruel vitriol in no uncertain terms. We should wish Mr. Steele well, admire his perseverance, and hope that his example might inspire more like him: that this dreary, depressing episode might one day be a thing of the past, like so many of the other episodes where race threatened to break America.

Jeff Goldstein, one of the blogosphere’s most trenchant commentators on poisonous identity politics, writes:

Lisa Gladden notes that racial jabs are to be expected in national politics, because “party trumps race” —in this case the argument being that (superficial) blackness being equal, the deciding factor in black identity politics is now political affiliation. Therefore, it follows that a move away from the Democratic party is tantamount to a move away from black authenticity, a willful act that opens to attack those “race traitors” who have surrendered the protections that proceed from adherence to the dictates of the group’s identity. Which is to say, racial jabs are okay when they are aimed at those who’ve surrendered the protections offered by the group, because those who’ve left the group no longer meet the requirements for protected blackness.

Perversely, then, we have progressives sanctioning the kind of racial attacks they would normally decry on the grounds that those who choose the wrong party affiliation have surrendered the protection of their race. And what makes this so troubling is that it redefines the idea of “offense” as something that is to be decided upon by identity groups—and so is yet another way in which identity politics robs the individual of autonomy.

Ace of Spades, another of my favorite go-to blogs, weighs in on “Authenticity, Extremism, and Racism.” Read the whole thing.

Dave at Garfield Ridge muses about racism and cookies.

The right points to critics like Michael Moore, yours truly, and Ward Churchill, the Colorado professor who points out the gaping chasm between America’s high-falooting rhetoric and its historical record. But these bête noires are guilty only of the all-American actions of criticism and dissent, not to mention speaking uncomfortable truths to liars and deniers. As far as we know, no one on what passes for the “left” (which would be the center-right anywhere else) has betrayed the United States in the GWOT. No anti-Bush progressive has made common cause with Al Qaeda, Hamas, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan or any other officially designated “terrorist” group…

Umm…

Lynne Stewart Convicted on Aiding and Abetting Terrorism Charges

Sheik’s U.S. Lawyer Convicted Of Aiding Terrorist Activity

Via Democracy Now, Feb. 11, 2005:

Civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart was convicted on all five counts of conspiring to aid terrorists and lying to the government Thursday in a case that reverberated with defense lawyers around the country.

Stewart was convicted of smuggling out messages from her jailed client – Shiekh Omar Abdel Rahman also known as the blind sheikh who is serving a life sentence on terror-related charges. Most notably Stewart was convicted of helping Rahman contact followers in Egypt with messages that could have ended a cease-fire there and ignited violence. She faces up to 35 years in prison.

Stewart’s co-defendants Ahmed Sattar, a postal worker who acted as a paralegal for Abdel-Rahman, and Mohammed Yousry, an Arabic translator, were also convicted of all charges against them.

The verdict was a major victory for the Justice Department and one of the country’s most closely-watched cases since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Lynne Stewart’s just desserts

So either Lynne Stewart doesn’t qualify as a leftist, or Ted Rall is a bloviating ignoramus. Again.

***

Related:

Iowahawk has the best parody of the Left’s “Stop questioning my patriotism” meme. Ever.

Lorie Byrd and Jayson at Polipundit respond to the rest of Rall’s rant.

***

Previous:

Captain Ed vs. Ted Rall: No contest
The buck-naked bigotry of Ted Rall

The cold-blooded murders of Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow’s mother and husband have rightly focused the MSM’s attention on right-wing, white supremacist Internet sites. A sample:

Traffic Heavy On Hate Sites After Lefkow Murders
Extremists applaud murder of judge’s relatives
Killings spotlight supremacist group
Hate groups multiply online

The bile on these sites is truly despicable, and it’s an angle that deserves in-depth investigation. But interestingly, the willingness and readiness of the MSM to aggressively scrutinize these right-wing hate sites stands in stark contrast to the way reporters have covered (or rather, not covered) Islamist hate-mongerers on the Internet in relation to the largely forgotten and chillingly cold-blooded Armanious murders in New Jersey.

The N.Y. Sun and a few others have pursued Islamist web threats against Christians, but the story has mostly developed online and in the blogosphere (most notably, on Robert Spencer’s cutting-edge Jihad Watch).

Right-wing hate groups deserve to be exposed and scorned, no question about it. The MSM gravitates naturally to these stories because they support the media establishment’s pre-existing prejudices: Right=Hate.

But it’s worth reminding the MSM that right-wing extremists don’t have a monopoly on hate–as even unhinged liberal Ted “Can’t Wait Until Ronald Reagan is Crispy Brown in Hell” Rall conceded last week when he confidently issued a challenge to conservatives to provide examples of left-wing, violent, uncivil, hate rhetoric.

Nor, more importantly, is the right the sole residence of racists, anti-Semites, religious bigots, or domestic terrorists.

In highlighting hate on the Internet, the MSM shouldn’t neglect the virulently racist and/or anti-Christian Internet fever swamps multiplying on the left side of the Web as well.

Finally, the MSM has a penchant for being too reckless in invoking “hate” to describe groups whose policy positions it disagrees with–for example, pro-immigration enforcement groups such as NumbersUSA or FAIR or the Minuteman Project–while refusing to label left-wing racists and advocates of terrorism and lawlessness for what they are: Hatemongers of the highest order.

It’s a blind spot that needs erasing.

Update: Speaking of Ted Rall, hate, and bile on the Internet, check out his February 28 cartoon. Especially the last frame. Can you imagine the public uproar if any conservative cartoonist carried by a major syndicate had even remotely suggested that President Clinton take “personal responsibility” for his various scandals by committing suicide?!

Keep stepping in it, Ted. It’s the only (mildly) funny thing you do.

Update: Chris Muir, a truly talented cartoonist, weighs in.

Update II: Frank J. asks bloggers, “Who the hell do you think you are?” and other haughty MSM questions. His own answers are here.

And Jim Treacher has a Ted Rall stupidity retrospective here.

After spending 10 days in London with friends who were outspoken about their disdain for President Bush’s policies, Berns Rothchild came home wishing she had a way to show the world she didn’t vote for him.

“I sort of felt ashamed, and didn’t really want to be associated with being an American,” said Rothchild, who lives in New York City and voted for John Kerry.

Well, maybe she should have stayed in London. Near fellow embarrassed American Gywnnie Paltrow.

[Rothchild's] mother had a suggestion: bracelets, inspired by the Lance Armstrong Foundation’s popular “LIVESTRONG” bands, that would signal opposition to Bush.

Thousands of miles away, two women in Idaho had the same idea. So did a woman in Kansas. The result? At least three separate bracelet ventures targeting left-leaning citizens who want to wear their political affiliation on their wrists – and at least one competitor bearing the opposite message.

The article doesn’t mention the website address, but it looks like the “Count Me Red” bracelets will be sold here.

Ace of Spades pokes fun at the phenomenon here. He’s got a point, barbed as always. But I give all of the bracelet makers credit for their entrepreneurial spirit. There’s a demand for political paraphernalia and they’re meeting it in creative ways.

I prefer the pipe-cleaner bracelet my four-year-old daughter made me to any of the political wristwear, but will confess to owning and wearing the following red-in-spirit apparel around blue-ish Montgomery County, Md.:

To the grocery store: Security Mom t-shirt designed by Sekimori

At the ice skating rink: Right to Keep and Bear Arms hooded sweatshirt via RightWingStuff

Out to dinner at the local Chinese buffet: Lifetime member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy trucker hat via RightWingStuff

Around the house: Ted Rall Thinks I’m a House Nigga t-shirt via the Banana Republican (explanation here)

Don’t have one of these yet, but it would make a cute Valentine’s Day gift, don’t you think?

Update: PhotoShopping fun…Hold The Mayo takes a closer look at those blue bracelets.

The great Rush Limbaugh has picked up on this thread, with links to new anti-Rice cartoons. Winfield Myers, who blogs at The Democracy Project, adds more here.

As Dr. Rice’s star rises, expect even uglier attacks. There’s nothing the Left hates more than a “person of color” who is a person of substance and stature and intellect and independence first.

From Durango, Colo.:

A part-time college instructor has apologized for kicking a student because he was wearing a Republican shirt.

Fort Lewis College student Mark O’Donnell said he was showing people his College Republicans sweat shirt, which said “Work for us now … or work for us later,” when Maria Spero kicked him in the leg at an off-campus restaurant.

Spero then said “she should have kicked me harder and higher,” said O’Donnell. “To physically take that out on someone because you disagree with them, that is completely wrong.”

Police Sgt. Mitch Higgins said Saturday that O’Donnell wanted to press charges and a misdemeanor summons would be issued.

Spero, a visiting instructor of modern languages, apologized to O’Donnell in a letter dated Oct. 29.

“I acted entirely inappropriately by kicking you, giving vent to a thoughtless knee-jerk political reaction that should never have happened,” she wrote. “Before the incident, I did not know you and that you are a Fort Lewis student.”

So, it’s okay to kick non-students?

Spero’s teaching schedule is here.

And from Sarasota, Fl.:

Lawyer: Man accused of Harris threat didn’t know she was there . The crazed driver who aimed his Cadillac at Rep. Katherine Harris told police he was just exercising his “political expression.” Now, his lawyer claims: “our client did not know that she was even there.”

Previous editions of Liberals are So Lovely:

Part I
Part II
Part III

And don’t forget these hateful moments:

Democrats Gone Wild
The Buck-Naked Bigotry of Ted Rall
Jeff Danziger, Part I & II
More Despicable Democrat Bigotry

Be careful out there.

Update: Regarding Maria Spero, a reader quips…

Is this the first documented, 100% *literal*, example of a “knee-jerk liberal reaction?”

Update II: Spero has resigned. Here’s the Ft. Lewis college news release.

In case you feel like giving him and his syndicate a piece of your mind, here is Danziger’s contact information:

Danziger Cartoons are syndicated by the New York Times Syndicate. Call 917-306-3616 or email to jeff@danzigercartoons.com
for all publication and permissions.

(Hat tip: Jay Nordlinger)