—–

I admit it, this post is nothing more than shameless comment bait. I’ve never even heard of this guy. At first I thought he might be Elvis Costello’s unloved son or the Southwest regional secretary of the Harold Lloyd fan club. To be honest with you, I don’t even understand the title of this post. I stole it from TV. What I’m thinking, though, is that this is some new form of Air America, liberal radio online in front of a stark white wall because that always looks good. Anyway, on with the nonsense:

I think [Andrew Breitbart] wanted to be, you know, like one of those Hollywood Lefties. And I think what must’ve happened is that he got rejected by them and that’s why everything he builds, like he built like this Big Hollywood site to mock Hollywood. You know, like, who gives a shit about it? I mean, who gives a crap about Hollywood enough to set up that whole thing. But I think it’s all for him very, very personal, and I think he feels rejected by these people and this is his way of saying, ‘Like, if you’re not going to let me into the club that I think is cool, then I’m going to start my own club saying how much you guys are not cool!’

Another example of how Leftists cannot fathom the fact that some of us honestly and sincerely hold them in contempt and have no desire to be liked by them. It is impossible for these people to process that someone somewhere will never even consider tipping the bouncer so he’ll lift the velvet rope and allow them entry into Club Narcissism. 

Part of me legitimately admires people incapable of self-awareness. Like ignorance (which I do know something about), it has to be liberating to be incapable of seeing yourself the way others do — which in this case explains a whole lot more than those glasses.

Update: Sam’s not really wearing a sweater vest, is he?

In this episode, “NewsBusted” covers: President Obama, Scott Brown, McCain-Feingold, Air America, ObamaCare, Keith Olbermann, Martha Coakley, President Bush, Massachusetts, Obama’s Approval Rating, and John Edwards.

“At this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased.” – NY Times columnist Paul Krugman.

Paul Krugman

Really sucks to be a conservative these days. I feel like I’m walking around with a big bulls-eye on my back. I know many of the Left, especially Keith Olbermann, Frank Rich, Paul Krugman, the New York Times editorial staff and all the pundits at HuffPo and KOS would find that statement hilariously ironic, given the recent shooting deaths of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas and security guard Steven T. Johns at the Holocaust Museum. Then again, they’re not the ones being branded en masse as co-conspirators in those murders. Conservatives are.

As a bonus, the recent arrest of Jason Bush, a national executive director of the Minuteman anti-illegal immigration group, for brutal murders committed during a home invasion, is also fueling the fire of portraying Righties as inherently violent extremists-in-waiting. Yet Cambodians and other ethnic gangs pull violent home invasions against the vulnerable in their enclaves, which have included brutal murders, on a regular basis. No one’s calling them a threat to the Republic, or branding all Cambodians as inherently violent. They are, in fact, its greatest victims.

Curiously absent in the above blanket indictments of conservatives were the facts that the Holocaust Museum shooter, James von Brunn, was a radical anti-Semite and anti-conservative with a long history of attacking the Right, even going so far as attempting to kidnap President Reagan’s entire Federal Reserve Board back in the 1980s. He was also an ardent proponent of the ‘9/11 was an inside job’ tinfoil conspiracy theory. In that respect, he has a lot more in common with Dylan Avery and Rosie O’Donnell than Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck.

Also curiously absent was the recent shooting death of Pvt. William Long and wounding of another soldier outside a Little Rock recruiting center by an anti-military Islamic convert. Again, that kind of hatred and violence toward the military has far more in common with Code Pink than FOX News. It was not radical conservatives who poured concrete on military rail lines in Olympia, Washington, nothing less than an act of sabotage during wartime. Nor was it a right wing extremist who set off a bomb in front of a Times Square Army recruiting office.

Yet I do not hold all the aforementioned esteemed MSM mouthpieces, or the Left as a whole, responsible for those violent and destructive acts. Nor do I hold the entire American Left responsible for FBI Most Wanted Terrorist Daniel Andreas San Diego’s bombings in San Francisco. Or the violent acts of other eco-terrorists, like the firebombings of scientists’ homes while they and their families were still inside, or the burning down of research labs, car dealerships and housing developments which have caused hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage. Or the highly destructive acts of the ‘elves’ of the Earth Liberation Front.

I also do not hold all left-leaning gay rights advocates responsible for the white powder mailings to Mormon churches by gay radicals. I do not hold the Left responsible for any those singular acts of violent left-wing extremist groups and individuals because of one simple fact: they all didn’t do it.

Fact is, America has always been a land overflowing with nutjobs of all stripes. Sales of the Anarchist Cookbook rival Betty Crocker’s. Some lone psychos have done incredible damage in all sorts of brutal and heinous ways. Lee Harvey Oswald. James Earl Ray. Timothy McVeigh. Theodore Kaczynski, aka the Unabomer. David Koresh. Andrew Cunanin. Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph. John Mohammed and Lee Boyd Malvo. Michael McDermott. Daniel Andreas San Diego. And that’s not even counting serial killers like Ted Bundy, John Wanye Gacy and Henry Lee Lucas.

American law enforcement has their hands full. Always have. Sometimes they are successful in stopping extremists from attacking, as was the case with the Fort Dix Six and Bronx synagogue bombing plotters, who also planned to shoot down military aircraft with Stinger missiles. In other not-so-fortunate circumstances law enforcement was left to deal with the violent aftermath, as was the case recently with the aforementioned Tiller, Holocaust Museum and Little Rock shootings.

There is, however, a distinct difference in America today regarding these lone nutjob killers that have plagued us throughout our history. They are now being politicized by the Left in much the same way Hitler manipulated the Reichstag Fire: to brand the entire mainstream conservative movement in the country as extremist threats to the Republic, requiring strong government intervention.

In other words, today we are all extremists.

Just ask Paul Krugman. Or Frank Rich. Or rest of the New York Times editorial staff in their ‘Hate Crimes and Extremist Politics’ oped. Want to see some real hate speech? Check out the comments sections of those Times posts. Those comments, as well as many other recent posts on left-wing blogs, reveal a stunning turnaround on the Left regarding political profiling, censorship, tapping phones and blanket monitoring of the Internet. I guess it all depends who’s being targeted. How quickly things change when it’s the Left running the show.

But all this is really nothing new. President Bill Clinton implied that Rush Limbaugh shared some culpability in the Oklahoma City bombings way back in 1995. Yet the degree to which the Mainstream Media and the Left is attacking the Right over these recent murders goes way beyond just implying. Those bloody corpses are being tossed right on the doorsteps of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and any other conservative pundit they can think of, as well as blanket condemnation and guilt by association of all their millions of listeners.

Noticeably absent also from this discussion of political extremism was the KILL BUSH death cult on the Left that screamed for the President’s blood and brutal murder for years. Or that most Lefties falsely accused President Bush of staging the worst terror attack in American history against his own citizens. I believe the subsequent bombings by Al Qaeda of London, Madrid, Bali, Iraq, Jordan, or any of the other 13,000-plus Islamist acts of terror since 9/11, put that subject to rest with all but the most dedicated conspiracy theorists. That is clearly Al Qaeda’s modus operandi, as it was way back in 1993 during the first attack on the WTC when Bill Clinton was President.

Also no mention of the Left’s David Dukes, the black supremacist, hate-mongering Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and the bloodstained, racebaiting and mayhem-inciting Rev. Al Sharpton. Or the Left’s unrepentant Timothy McVeighs, domestic terrorists William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, now Leftie icons. You want to talk hateful, extremist, violence-inciting behavior and speech from the other side of the political spectrum? I guess not, huh, Paul? Rich? Keith? HuffPo? KOS?

See how it works? One eye open, one eye closed. Guess which eye is conveniently sewn shut.

Nothing new there, either. For decades the radical Left has engaged in, equivocated or looked the other way on egregious political behavior while at the same time painting all conservatives as extremists by, ironically, adopting extremist positions themselves. This political demonization of the conservative opposition has been flourishing on the Left under the Obama administration. Worse, that demonization has even been given credence and official sanction by such top government officials as David Axelrod and Janet Napolitano.

Now, as much as the Left howled about the Bushitler regime during the past eight years, when did Bush, Karl Rove or anyone else declare all Lefties a clear and present danger to the Republic, even when assassinating the President became a cultural fad in Leftie plays, books, movies, merchandising and art exhibits, egged on even by Air America’s Randy Rhodes simulation of President Bush’s assassination on the air?

Never mind how much the Left is freaking out now over James von Brunn. Can you imagine if the far right made a popular subculture out of assassinating President Obama to the degree Lefties did under President Bush? Or if Glenn Beck simulated the President’s assassination on the air, like Randy Rhodes did at Air America? They’d all be screaming for martial law and internment camps!

I can’t help but wonder. Now that the Left controls the media and all branches of government, do they see their golden opportunity to shut down the hated Right once and for all in this country? Perhaps only now we are finding out the Left’s true definition of unity: singularity of political thought and opinion, and the silencing of all the annoying competing ideologies. What should be vigorous and thoughtful political debate on important issues that concern us all is fast becoming an ideological pogrom. Dissenting views are no longer opposing opinions. They are now thoughtcrime.

This is not right wing extremist paranoia. The track record speaks for itself.

Example. I don’t dislike President Obama because he’s a Socialist raiding the Treasury and nationalizing private industry faster than Hugo Chavez. Or for firing an Inspector-General without notifying Congress, in violation in a law he himself signed off on. Or that his Justice Department under Eric Holder just gave the baton-wielding “you will soon be ruled by the black man, cracker” Black Panther ‘poll monitor’ thugs a total pass, despite a default conviction and the assessment by Mr. Bartle Bull, a former Robert Kennedy campaign manager and prominent election observer of the Civil Rights era calling it “the worst voter intimidation I’ve ever seen.”

And he monitored elections in the South during the Jim Crow era. How bad is that?

No, I don’t dislike the President for any of that. I hate him just because he’s black. In fact, if you’re a conservative these days, you have no valid reason to oppose anything other than mindless right wing hate and bigotry. You have no valid reason to protest President Obama’s spending us into financial oblivion. You are a redneck racist teabagger, and most likely a rabble-rousing neo-Nazi or white supremacist, according to a memo passed around by liberal Democrats in Congress.

You have no valid moral, social or religious reasons to oppose gay marriage. You’re a Nazi and a homophobe. Or Nouveau Jim Crow KKK crackers, as the Boston Phoenix termed those opposing gay marriage. You have no valid reason to oppose Sonia Sotomayer. If you do, you’re a sexist and a racist, and you’d best tread carefully around her. Never mind anything she’s ever said or done, like upholding the blatantly discriminatory Ricci decision now before the US Supreme Court.

Never mind all that. She’s a wise Latina woman, and better than a white man. Watch your step!

You have no valid reason to oppose the millions of illegals flooding our country without procedure or proper criminal, medical or psychological screenings, as was done on Ellis Island, or support securing our borders as every other nation on earth does. You are a vile racist nationalist, just like that Minuteman killer Jason Bush. If you question the populist science of Global Warming that over 31,000 scientists dispute, or oppose any of the draconian taxes and regulations we are about to get slammed with via the Waxman-Markey bill, you are a heretic on the order of a Holocaust denier.

Never mind all the record low temperatures worldwide, or the discrediting of data presented by GW gurus Hansen and Gore as either defective or outright fraudulent. Or the political power and financial riches ‘green’ proponents like Al Gore and GE’s Jeffrey Immelt stand to gain that would dwarf Big Oil profits. I’m not saying that we should pollute the earth until we all choke from it, as GW True Believers will no doubt accuse me of. I’m just saying. Rational debate of the subject on the Left is nonexistent. As it is with most every political subject under the sun.

Is it really any surprise Michael Savage was banned from Britain for what is essentially thoughtcrime, given that government’s extreme left-wing bent? How soon before he is banned here, along with every other conservative pundit on the radio? But this is the mindset of today’s Left. If you do not agree with their extreme positions on the issues, you are branded as the worst kind of extremist yourself, publicly and repeatedly. Just as we conservatives are being painted right now with the same bloody brush of killers who committed acts 99.99999% of us would never dream of. That is not reasoned debate. It is ideologically driven hate and tyranny of thought.

That mindset makes no distinction between violence of speech, i.e. heated political rhetoric, which is Constitutionally protected, and violence of action and criminal speech, i.e. incitement to violence, which is not. It is that twisted perspective that made the assassinations of President Bush and VP Dick Cheney humorous and chic, yet responds to even the mildest criticism of President Obama by Rush Limbaugh with unbridled rage, petitions in Congress and demands to shut Rush up by hook or by crook, be it the Orwellian Fairness Doctrine or in the name of diversity.

Lefties commit the most egregious of slanders, yet take violent offense at every slight real or imagined. The Left even codifies that double standard by turning the language on its head in Orwellian fashion to make political evils appealing. Tolerance becomes a pretty name for exclusion, diversity a lofty term for bigotry. Censorship in the form of restrictive speech codes on college campuses around the country are enacted in the name of free speech.

But it doesn’t stop at the language. Abuse of authority and political power has become SOP on the Left. Cynthia Dixon was fired from her job as a college human resources director for her contrary Christian opinion on homosexuality, voiced in a local paper’s editorial page in response to a lefty lesbian faculty member’s pro-gay oped in the same.

The lesbian faculty member’s job, however, was never in danger, even after spewing incredibly vile vitriol at Dixon, with included the obligatory ‘racist bigot homophobe!’ Ironically, Cynthia Dixon is African-American. Where’s the EEOC when you need them? Unfortunately. Ms. Dixon is the wrong shade of black, i.e. Christian conservative. For more information on that subject, ref Michael Steele and Clarence Thomas. See, they’re not REAL minorities. They’re all Uncle Toms, don’t you know.

I’m sorry, who are the racists here again?

Harvard president Larry Summers was run out of his job on a rail for repeating a research-supported but politically incorrect scientific opinion on how men’s and women’s brains may work differently. So much for Veritas. But science is not a factor to the Left. Politics and ideology is all. State-employed climatologists were fired in Washington and Oregon for not toeing the Global Warming line. Lord Christopher Monckton, who holds an opposing view to Al Gore’s on Global Warming, was shut out of Congressional hearings the day after he flew over from England to testify.

See, to the egalitarian Left, all opinions are equal. It’s just that some are more equal than others.

The Left’s championing of women’s rights is also a sham. They routinely and publicly degrade women who don’t fit their ideological template. They publish and fall all over themselves laughing at a ‘Top Ten Conservative Women I’d Like To Hate-Fuck’ rape list and slander Sarah Palin without end, even joking about her being gang-raped. Carrie Prejean is derided as a fascist bitch and a cunt for voicing the same opinion on marriage as President Obama and most American citizens.

You see the pattern that’s emerging here? When has anyone on the Left been fired for expressing pro-gay views?  When has Al Gore ever been shut out of speaking, as Lord Monckton was by liberal Democrats in Congress? Or attacked physically, as routinely happens to Ann Coulter and other conservative speakers on college campuses like clockwork?

If you want to talk extremism, left-wing extremists in America have been guilty of some very serious crimes in the last decade, as highlighted above. Again, you won’t find any of those crimes in the New York Times extremist hit list. No, let’s forget about all that left-wing extremist mayhem and hold talk radio and FOX News responsible for the acts of politically twisted or mentally disturbed individuals, as they seek to hold all mainstream conservatives responsible today for every violent act committed by lone psychos.

You want to blame Bill O’Reilly for Dr. Tiller’s death? What if President Bush had been assassinated by some lone leftie nutjob while he was President? Who would have been responsible? The assassin? Or everyone on the Left who encouraged Bush’s assassination with relish and glee? What about the white powder mailings to the Mormon Church by radical gay activists? Should we start FBI surveillance on the Prop H8 crowd because of the extremist acts of a few?

Should we clamp down on all American Muslims because of the violence domestic jihadis plotted or carried out, as with Little Rock, Fort Dix and the recent attempted bombing of a New York synagogue? Why is all the focus on the right side of the political spectrum, and all of the evils of the extreme Left being totally whitewashed or ignored today? Don’t answer, it’s a rhetorical question.

I have to tell you, people. I’m really starting to fear for this country. Left-wing demagogues like Frank Rich, Paul Krugman, Keith Olbermann, the New York Times editorial board, and all the others in the so-called mainstream media, branding all conservatives with the same bloody brushes as lone wolf psychos that have long been a problem in this country and always will be, not to mention all the shutting down of political discourse by inspiring fear, hatred and intimidation against the minority party, are doing a lot more damage to the fabric of this society, and American democracy itself, than a James von Brunn ever could with a .22 rifle.

I’ve got a radical right wing extremist idea. Why don’t we leave the nutjobs to law enforcement, and try to engage in the honored American tradition of healthy and vigorous political discourse without enacting new Nuremburg decrees or shredding the Constitution? Isn’t championing freedom of speech and expression and human rights what the Left is all about? So they say?

It is long past time for the Left to live up that credo. Because if the firings, shutting off of debate, censorship bills now in Congress, and the relentless demonization of the political opposition continues relentlessly and without end, as it has for so many years now, I’m just liable to think the dividing line between mainstream liberalism and the hate-filled totalitarian left-wing crowd has been virtually erased. You got all that, Paul? Frank? Pinchy? Keith? Janet? David? KOS? HuffPo?

GROW UP! I’m sick of dealing with a bunch of full-grown screaming control-freak toddlers! The Right isn’t going anywhere. In fact, our stars are ascending. FOX News and conservative blogs are putting the MSM out of business. And there’s a huge amount of discontent across the political spectrum over liberal Democrat policies since the Left took power.

The 2010 elections are starting to look a lot like 1994’s. And tell the truth, guys. Doesn’t that scare the hell out of you all a lot more than one or two lone shooters? And don’t just call me a right wing extremist. Let’s talk about the issues. I’m a reasonable guy. Don’t even own a gun. But just because I support the Second Amendment doesn’t make me a gun nut. I support it because it’s a Constitutional right. See how easy rational debate works? You all ought to try it sometime.

Last word. I opposed President Obama’s candidacy from the start. I disliked his polices, and I especially disliked his associations with real bomb-throwing extremists like Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn and racial hatemongers like Rev. Wright. I spoke out on blogs like this for a year against candidate Obama, and everything he and liberal Democrats stood for.

Yet shortly after Obama was elected President in November, I noticed a security vulnerability that fell within my area of expertise and called the Secret Service right away. Fortunately, they knew all about it. See, despite my extreme distaste for President Obama’s policies and associations, the American people spoke loud and clear last November. Barack Obama is now President of the United States.

As such, he represents a hallowed tradition of political stability and continuity of a government and most benevolent political system that I hold sacred, and is the envy of much of the world. I defended that system for six years in uniform, and would defend it again if need be. How ironic I must vigorously defend it today against those who profess to be its greatest champions.

There’s a right wing extremist for you, Lefties. Oh, and by the way, I and other conservatives like David Horowitz have spoken out loudly against the extremists in our ranks. Where was the condemnation of unrepentant domestic terrorist William Ayers on the day after 9/11, when he said in the New York Times that he hadn’t done enough? Why is he revered instead of reviled? Don’t answer, it’s a rhetorical question. But it does make me wonder who the real extremists are here.

After all, you don’t see the right glorifying politically-motivated mass murderers. Hmm. Curious.

Most heartening is that unlike some on our side, the Governor seems to get it. If this unfortunate episode proves anything, it’s that Sarah Palin understands that a Republican is up against more than just their Democrat opponent and the mainstream media; pop culture is also waging ideological war on all things conservative and traditional. This is a reality we ignore at our own peril, and this week Governor Palin (and Carrie Prejean, for that matter) fought back and won wielding truth, good humor and dignity.  

Matt Lauer deserves credit for behaving himself. Tough but fair made a Haley’s Comet-like appearance at NBC this morning. But I am curious about the consequences Lauer expects Letterman to face. Other than in Hell, what could Lauer possibly mean? Letterman just savaged Sarah Palin’s family. If there’s a faster, safer, easier way to enhance your mass media/pop culture resume, I’m unaware of it.

Lauer certainly can’t be naïve enough to be talking about Letterman’s ratings. When it comes to the culture war, ratings, box office – you know, that pesky bottom line stuff – means absolutely nothing in Pop Culture-dom. Air America lives, MSNBC gleefully keeps digging and Iraq War movies are still scheduled to hit theatres. This isn’t business, this is hardball politics.

Letterman knows his legacy as an entertainer vanished years ago, and so all he’s got left is what’s in his elitist Manhattan bubble. Ratings-shmatings, this “warped, frustrated old man” now lives only for big smiles from the Julia Roberts’ crowd and, as they pass on the street, a bow from Brian Williams. No doubt those needs are being fulfilled just fine even as the little man inside Letterman wonders when things went so horribly wrong.

But bravo, Governor. The Lettermans of the world are nothing to be afraid of. In fact, they’re less than nothing. Pop Culture is wholly owned by bullies. The American people understand this and are not impressed by them, but they’re also not impressed with politicians who don’t fight back, either.

Sarah Palin and Carrie Prejean. I like our chances.

Given my love of true reporting and Woodward and Bernstein-like investigative journalism, which is really nowhere to be found in this Messianic Media Age of Obama, it was a very depressing piece to write. But after the recent flyover of New York City by Air Force One and F-16 fighter jets, which sent half of the Big Apple fleeing for their lives, it occurred to me.

How would the Left report the news if Obama were a Republican, i.e. an Uncle Tom, as many on the Left call now-GOP Chairman Michael Steele? Eureka! That’s it! See, it’s one thing for me to point out the obvious, as I did in my media slam yesterday. But what if we walked GOP President Obama’s media coverage through the mirror darkly, as was SOP for President Bush?

NOW we’re gonna have some fun!

Let’s start with MSNBC’s ‘Countdown’ with Keith Olbermann, on Republican President Obama’s electoral landslide victory in November, and his 96% sweeping of the black vote.

KO: “It would seem the sinister and morally bankrupt Republican ploy of taking the White House with a totally inexperienced and faux minority candidate has been the most resounding political success for the GOP since the Reichstag Fire. Could African-Americans not act more self-destructively than in their rush to the polls to elect this Republican wolf in Martin Luther King clothing?

“Do they want to go back to slavery? For this abomination and slap in the face of freedom-loving Americans everywhere, and which has condemned this nation to yet another four endless years of war and jingoistic right wing fascism, I hereby declare every African-American voter who pulled the lever for this Republican Omar Bashir as the Worst Person in the World.”

Next up? Susan Roesgen of CNN, wandering through the crowd at a Democratic Chicago Tea Party.

SR, pointing to a protester wearing an Obama as Hitler/Satan mask: “Over here, we have a President Obama look-alike.” SR turns to a man in top hat holding a child. “What is your issue with the President, sir?” MAN: “It’s bad enough President Bush put us on the verge of bankruptcy. It appears the ObamaHitler is intent on finishing the job.”

SR: “Do you really believe President Obama when he tells us the City of Chicago will be getting fifty billion in new aid?” A protester wearing a KILL OBAMA tee shirt interjects: “No way! This is all for his and Darth Biden’s warmongering lobbyist friends in Halliburton and Blackwater! We’ll never see a dime of that money! KILL OBAMA! KILL BIDEN!”

Death chants rise in unison from the crowd. SR turns to the camera, smiling. “There you have it.”

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, on Iranian hostage Roxana Saberi.

WB: “It has now been nearly three months since Roxana Saberi was arrested in Iran, allegedly for buying a bottle of wine, and with no concrete action to free her by this administration. Even worse, since Ms. Saberi’s kangaroo court conviction on trumped-up charges of espionage, which is as common for reporters in Iran as citations for jaywalking are here, she has gone on a hunger strike, and her condition is worsening by the day.

“I cannot help but be reminded of murdered Iranian-Canadian journalist Ziba Kazemi, who was beaten, flogged, raped, her fingernails pulled and her skull fractured in Evin prison, ironically for the crime of taking pictures of protesters outside Evin. How many more journalists have to come out of Iran in body bags before this President will act?”

Markos Moulitsas of Daily KOS, on Air Force One’s low flyover of New York City with F-16 escort.

KOS: “The scariest thing for me out of this whole episode is how easily the ObamaHitler managed to arrange a Boeing 747 to fly low over New York City with nobody knowing, and I mean nobody! Is it really much of stretch to believe now that the BusHitler couldn’t have arranged the same thing on 9/11 with remotely-controlled commercial airliners?

“I can’t help but wonder. Was this a test run? And why this time? To accelerate the rush to war with Iran? The only questions that remain for me are these: When? And which American city does the ObamaHitler and his Halliburton buddies plan to turn into a bombed-out crater next, in order to get another round of war profiteering off to a Grand Old Start? Call me a tinfoil hat paranoid NOW! I dare you! I double-dare you!

“The ObamaHitler. Brand new color. Same old warmongering right wing fascism. Screw ‘em!”

Al Franken, America’s most popular radio talk show host, on President Obama’s political targeting of him from the White House itself.

AF: “It would seem President Obama and his fawning Reichminister, Rahm Emmanuel, don’t like my rousing nationwide success in calling them out for who they really are. This attempt to target me personally, a private citizen, from the White House, with all its authority and power, puts on display for all to see that the BusHitler’s self-groomed replacement’s ambitions exceeds even that of Darth Rove and his fascist leash-holder.

“Not only did that Hitler-like persecution of me personally not work, it has backfired badly. My nationwide listener numbers on Air America are skyrocketing. I suppose it’s time now to implement the so-called Fairness Doctrine, which President Obama’s Reichstag-like stooges in Congress are pushing at this very moment.

“I find it particularly disturbing that Republican House Speaker John Boner, spearheading this shredding of the Constitution, finds no fault with FIX News, Goon Beck, Shill O’Reilly or Bum Rush Limbaugh, all of whom ragged us as ballsuckers during our Tea Parties and implied we would become violent, but finds plenty wrong with NPR, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC and especially my Air America. Talk about Brownshirts calling the kettle black!

“See you in the Gulag, Keith! The Countdown is on!”

Michael Moore, on the controversial DHS Left Wing Extremism Report and DHS Fusion Centers.

MM: “After reading this incredibly vague and exceptionally broad DHS report on Left Wing Extremism, can anyone really say this isn’t an attempt by the Obama Administration and the Republicans to silence dissent in this country once and for all? Individuals who protest the war, support abortion, favor tougher gun laws, the rights of undocumented immigrants, even those who oppose the federal government itself, are called out as potential terrorists!

“My next anti-war film could land me in jail! I’m sorry, who are the extremists here again?

“Even the DHS Civil Liberties Division objected to the broad language of the report, which Obama’s Himmler-like DHS Secretary Janet Nazipolitano seemed to be in a hurry to rush out the door, and just in time for our nationwide protests. Coincidence? I think not. It is quite clear to me what this report says: “You are either with us, or you’re a terrorist.”

“No surprise there. And how ironic, considering the right wing extremists in the Hitlerite Obama regime are the real terrorists. Today’s Grand Old Party is not the party of Lincoln. It is the party of Hitler and Mussolini. Given the present occupier of the Oval Office, perhaps Idi Amin would be a better analogy.”

“By the way, you may want to look into DHS Oberfuhrer Nazipolitano’s so-called fusion centers. There are seventy of them around the country now. One fusion center in Virginia declared all of the state’s universities ‘nodes for radicalization.’ Another in Texas warned about the terrorist threat from the ‘International Far Left.’ And Nazipolitano calls them ‘the wave of the future.’ This nationwide politically-motivated DHS network is called ‘The National Fusion Center Coordination Group.’

“Anyone else thinking Einsatzgruppen besides me? That’s what Hitler called his Special Action Groups. Who’s going to head those up? Obama’s radical right wing extremist preacher Jeremiah Wright? Or his Timothy McVeigh-like pal Bill Ayers, who knows a few things about throwing bombs and killing innocents? You DO see where all this is going, don’t you, people? Should be as plain as the Swastika flag flying over the ObamaHitler White House!”

OBAMA ASSASSINATION CHIC

The Guardian/UK’s Charlie Brooker, just prior to President Obama’s GOP landslide.

“On November 4, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Obama loses. And Sod’s law dictates he’ll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. James Earl Ray – where are you now that we need you?”

Protest sign: “Obama. The only dope worth shooting.”

Air America’s Randy Rhodes on the air, likening President Obama to Freddie Corleone.

“Do they let black people into the Mafia? No? Well, I think they ought to make an exception for President Obama. At least long enough to take him out on a boat like Freddie Corleone and phuw!” (GUNSHOT)

Democratic Underground, on the current Swine Flu pandemic.

“Like Bush intentionally withholding aid from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in order to foment misery and violence, the ObamaHitler seems content to sit back and let this flu pandemic rage unabated. DHS Secretary Nazipolitano, who is such an idiot she doesn’t even know border law, has yet to close that same border in order to stem the flow of possibly infected Mexican nationals, even though clusters have now appeared as far north of the border as Queens, NY.

“Is this criminal negligence and malfeasance also intentional? Like Obama’s Republican lackeys in Congress rejecting nine hundred million in new flu pandemic funding? Who stands to suffer the most? I have no doubt the rich, and all of the ObamaHitler’s good buddies in Washington, will get the best treatment they possibly can. Just as they did lining up for Cipro during the BusHitler’s black bag job anthrax attack on the mail system, which Der Fuhrer staged in order to invade Iraq.

“But what of inner city minorities, who stand to suffer and die the most should this pandemic explode beyond control? Makes me wonder if they knew ahead of their flu pandemic funding vote that this would happen. Or worse, even started the epidemic themselves by injecting illegal aliens being deported to Mexico. Why else would Army samples go missing?

“If true, not only does this make our new Republican ‘multicultural’ Fuhrer in Washington a mass murderer, it makes him the greatest race traitor of all time. He would be guilty of nothing less than genocide. Just like his mentor, idol and BFF Omar Bashir in Sudan. Welcome to the American Darfur, courtesy of the ObamaHitler. Feeling better now?”

The moral of the story? Despite how rough of a ride it has been at times for President Obama, Democrat, he can thank God and his lucky stars he is not a Republican.

Now ask youself. Why is that?

Air America’s newest ace is none other than former TV huckster Montel Williams.  He follows Jerry Springer who followed none other than…..Al Franken.  Now, there is some name value in all three, but the first two failed in radio.  Franken was an absolute disaster.  As I wrote in my upcoming book “Censorship: The Threat to Silence Talk Radio,” Franken didn’t know he had to have something between the ears to do a three-hour radio talk show each day.  And, that’s what so many of these non-radio personalities don’t get.  Doing a three-hour radio talk show takes hours of prep time.  Most hosts spend about three hours of prep time for each hour of on-air time.  These guys just walked into the studio and thought it would happen automatically.  Listeners would flock to them….they were superstars…NOT!  There are no teleprompters in radio!

I once watched Franken accept an award in New York before a gathering of radio executives a few years ago and I almost puked.  We were ready for a 5-10 minute acceptance speech, but what we got was a 30-40 minute rant against Bush.  Nothing but whining.  And this was at a cocktail party gathering.  We all walked out.

Those liberals who have made it in talk radio don’t have an association with Air America.  Some stations have a liberal lean and work in markets like San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle.  Stephanie Miller, Ed Schultz and Thom Hartmann have gained success independent of Air America.  But ratings nationwide are next to nothing for Air America stations.

There are many reasons why Air America has so far failed to gain traction with listeners.  One is because most of the media is already liberal and it’s questionable whether there’s more room for more liberalism in the media today.  Look at NPR as one example: it’s ratings are at an all-time high, so why many liberals are calling for a return of “fairness” regulations is beyond any normal logic.  But we’re not talking about logical people.

When Air America first began, it was comprised of a bunch of non-professional whiners.  They put ideology ahead of entertainment value.  None were a match for Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Mark Levin, Lars Larson, and any number of radio professionals who were entertaining as well as informative.  Air America was not entertaining–it was “acid reflux” in our speakers.  They had nothing positive to say about anything.  Meantime, conservative talkers have always been more positive, happy, and genuine and this resonates with America.  It’s at the core value of what conservatives believe.  Traditionally, we are an optimistic group of people and believe in the goodness of the individual.  Air America sounded the complete opposite and so American ears turned away.

Air America also fails to resonate in the heartland.  Most decent people still believe in an old fashioned handshake as their bond.  There was no handshake coming from Air America.  There was from Rush and always will be.  Air America is also having trouble generating revenue because entrepreneurs and hard-working business people who tend to buy radio advertising believe in spending their money conservatively – and with conservatives. They support their core values with their core dollars.  Air America doesn’t have as many sources of revenue due to socioeconomic values in America.  As an example, conservative radio in Portland, Oregon does four times as much revenue as the liberal station, according to my long time sales sources in the market.  The reason is as mentioned above.

When the Fairness Doctrine was lifted in 1987, conservatives could come out and voice an opinion on the radio without fear of government retribution.  There was so much pent up demand that it took off like wildfire.  There just isn’t that same pent up demand for liberal talk because it is everywhere to begin with.  It’s the law of supply and demand.  And, of course liberals don’t understand that.

So, back to Montel Williams.  Good luck.

Ok, so we’re late to the party.  What are you going to do, set up a perimeter?  This is the show I love, then love to hate, then actually hate, then come back to to see how much Kiefer’s drinking has wrinkled his face, because I also like to drink.  Every year, it seems that Jack Bauer, the most bad-ass little man since Wolverine had his chest waxed and grew 8 inches into Hugh Grant, makes choices that put those he loves just slightly ahead of national security. Everyone else who does this pays for it dearly, often with the perp walk….but not Jack…  SO FAR this season, Jack was compelled to come back from lovely Africa to face a Senate hearing about his…methods of interrogation.  CTU is no more (which is good, as it was the single most penetrable security organization in the United States), but when the FBI comes calling for Jack’s help, it isn’t long before the old gang gets back together.

First we find Tony Almeda, whom we like to call Schlumpy, for his round-shouldered sensitivity.  He’s rockin’ a goatee, still has amazing hair, and is apparently one of the bad guys…EXCEPT HE ISN’T ANYMORE!  Schlumpy is back with the angels, in the form of modern dance versions of Old Man Buchanan and The Scowl (Chloe).  The three of them are trying to save the world from super-secret evil that has infiltrated the U.S. Government, all paid for with African diamonds, which really helps in a recession.  It’s a hard job for 3 people…but now they have a 4th, and his name, is Jack Bauer.

Oh, and there’s another very thin love interest for Jack.  And the president is a woman.  And her husband is kind of pathetic.  And their son was killed for looking into the conspiracy.  And his (former) fiancee is HOT and technically available.  And the whole show centers around the most handsome African actor in the history of the world (we need a name for him) trying to get back his country from evil rebels…and a singular device.  This device glows in a lovely blue, and can apparently do magic and is essentially more powerful than the entire United Stated military.

Sweet.  Let’s roll people…live blogging – keep refreshing the page and jump in the comments and make fun!

******

Quick update before we start – The hot fiancee is very dead, and currently NOT available.

9:09pm - The First Gentleman laid down the law, and now he just needs to lay down a little while.

9:12pm – Two Senegalese leaders trying to out-presence each other…very nice.

9:13pm - When did Tony shave?

9:15pm – Chloe has really nice hair this year, but has Old Man Buchanan even noticed?

9:17pm - Get ready for the Ohio Simpleton Players…

9:18pm – Garafalo certainly picked up some techspertise at Air America.

9:23pm – Ok, first political potshot…Madame Presiden’ts White House sems to be reacting more quickly than a certain perfect person’s is to the Kentucky ice storm…

9:24pm - Hey, TONY’S GOATEE IS BACK!

9:25pm – Oh yeah, Captain Ohio is going down with the ship.

9:28pm - Is it possible, does Garofalo scowl more than Chloe?

9:29pm – Oooh, some African militant is scared of Jack Bauer…

9:30pm - CIP, CIP, CIP!

9:32pm – Promos for American Idol during 24 are the most I ever see of that supposed cultural juggernaut.

9:35pm – I’m not a doctor, but bleeding out of the ears looks bad.

9:36pm – The CIP guy has not fallen into Stockholm Syndrome just yet.

9:37pm – Oops, poor CIP guy.

9:39pm – Crazy director guy from Entourage is the best actor at the FBI.

9:40pm – He. Had. A. Name! and it was John Bruhner.

9:48pm – Hey, Madame President seems a little compromised right now…bring back Powers Booth!

9:49pm - ALL female presidents have their husbands kidnapped, doesn’t everybody know that?

9:56pm – Perfect, let’s get Ethan in on this.

9:58pm - Oh, F#%k you, Jack. Schlumpy does not need to turn himself in. You weren’t going to until your hand was forced. Wait, is Jack kind of like an Obama appointee?

10:02pm – I’m going to go ahead and call that a lame episode. Maybe it was because I had to peck at these keys, but mostly, i think it was really lame.

10:04pm – Best part of the episode was the preview of next week. “You can trust me.” Good luck with that.

10:08pm – Well, that wraps up the first week of this experiment… easier than actually writing a thoughtful post, but I was hamstrung by the need to hold back my wit, lest I outshine and upset Iowahawk, who some people think is very funny. See you in the comments.

Some conservative commentators are demonstratively wishing President Obama well. My heart admires their good intentions, but as I watched Obama’s inauguration on TV, my mind couldn’t help but ponder the possible consequences thereof. As someone coming from another country (ex-USSR) I don’t participate in racial debates nor do I want to. Being post-racial is fine by me. So let’s accept Obama’s post-racial premise, leave the issue of melanin content aside, and judge the man solely by the content of his agenda. And the more I look at Obama’s agenda the more I realize that wishing him well is like wishing luck to Don Quixote in wrecking the windmill that feeds me and my family.

It’s not a matter of taste. The spectacle of a bombastic crackpot in medieval armor poking his lance at random objects is disquieting if you own and operate an industrial facility. It sends thrills up your legs if you share the noble hidalgo’s conviction that the perfectly functional, cereal-grinding, income-generating windmills are the embodiment of evil, spreading death and destruction. As far as popular entertainment goes, I’ve seen worse. But when Don Quixote organizes a community to fight windmills and receives massive support, anyone with a job should be worried. When he becomes president with a popular mandate to wreck windmills at taxpayers’ expense, using the government apparatus, hope becomes all but absent.

Being light on details, Obama’s inaugural speech briefly remunerated his views – which we already knew from his previous comments, associations, voting record, and cabinet appointments. Here is a partial list of the windmills he pledges to fight:

Windmill #1: Greed is bad for the economy.
Greed is a known “progressive” code word for the freedom to keep what you earn – the sort of freedom that made the United States the economic wonder of the world. To be fair, during the presidential debates McCain also attacked greed in rather quixotic terms, although next to Obama he sounded more like the simple-minded Sancho Panza.

Windmill #2: Lack of government control is bad for the economy.
The ones out of control here were the Democrat politicians who created corrupt government-sponsored companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, later defending them to the death against Republican calls for stricter oversight. At the same time they overburdened the banking industry with Utopian requirements to give mortgages to people who couldn’t pay them back – a quixotic move that sparked the current economic meltdown.

Windmill #3: Partisan discord must give way to “unity of purpose.”
A debate between political parties is healthy for a democracy. The trouble is, the debate itself became toxic when Obama’s own party was hijacked by leftist radicals whose idea of unity is the suppression of dissent. If we unite with them for that purpose, it will be the end of American democracy. Observe examples of political unity in Cuba, North Korea, and Hollywood. One-party rule was stipulated in the Article 6 of the Soviet Constitution that singled out the Communist Party as the leading and inspiring force of the Soviet people. We know how that ended.

Windmill #4: Wealth creation must give way to wealth redistribution.
“Without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control – and … a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.”
In real life, free market favors everybody who participates in it. Excessive regulations give unfair advantages to large corporations that can swallow the extra cost while their smaller competitors will choke on it. This stifles competition, reduces economic opportunity, lowers the quality of life, and spreads misery. In the end the elites remain prosperous while everybody else is worse off. Quixotic policies always result in the exact opposite of the original intentions. The only winner here is the growing government bureaucracy.

Windmill #5: Discipline the government bureaucracy.
“And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account – to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day.”
It’s what Leonid Brezhnev also said when he figured Khrushchev’s liberal reforms had unleashed government corruption that had been previously held in check by Stalin’s rule of terror. Let’s face it – terror is the only way to run a state-owned economy effectively; that’s why Stalin kept his apparatchiks trembling with fear and waking up at night in cold sweat. Without the show trials and executions, to manage an army of sticky-fingered bureaucrats became a gigantic windmill that the country had been fighting for a few decades before it collapsed from exhaustion. The moral here is that, short of the gulag, nothing can control the corrupting powers of an exponentially-growing government bureaucracy. Attempts to fight it will only result in a quagmire. The obvious answer is to stop feeding this monster, by removing the unessential regulating functions; the government will deflate to a manageable size and will become people-friendly again.

Windmill #6: Finance government construction projects by taxing private industries.
Talk about “meeting the demands of a new age.” Throw away your computer and grab a shovel – the future is here! Putting government in competition with the private sector helps neither, but corrupts both. FDR tried this on a massive scale; his well-meaning programs turned a recession into a depression, prolonged the suffering, and delayed the recovery by a decade. The subsequent lionization of FDR for this man-made disaster could only occur in a mindset where good intentions mean everything, and the results mean nothing – a classic example of quixotism.

Windmill #7: Ward off the specter of Global Warming.
“We will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet.”
Nice try bundling terrorism with Global Warming, but no cigar. While the industrial impact on climate cycles remain a questionable hypothesis, its ideological underpinnings are getting more and more visible. Not two weeks ago Obama created the position of global warming czar and gave it to known socialist radical Carol M. Browner, whose solution to any world problem is the curbing of capitalism and shrinking the economy. Swapping Karl Marx’s “specter of communism” with a more convenient “specter of a warming planet” may have changed the lyrics, but the song remains the same.

In this light, Obama’s promise to “restore science to its rightful place” is merely a code phrase for the politicization of science. In the USSR, where scientific consensus was created by government mandate, politicization of science resulted in a colossal waste of national resources on absurd agricultural hoaxes, while state-appointed “scientists” denounced the emerging cybernetics as a “bourgeois hoax.” Every single one of these people acted out of good intentions.

Windmill #8: Global poverty exists because the US taxpayers aren’t throwing enough money at it.
“We can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect.”
If global poverty still exists after trillions of dollars in foreign aid over the decades, shouldn’t we already start looking for the root of the problem elsewhere? Say, not in the lack of donations, but perhaps in the despotic quasi-Marxist regimes that cause poor nations to stay poor? A bizarre quixotic-despotic symbiosis has emerged, for example, in Africa, where well-meaning Western activists and politicians are promoting socialist reforms and nationalization of resources – while local despots, who otherwise couldn’t care less about Marxism, find this system very useful in maintaining power and keeping populations in economic serfdom.

As long as everything is owned and governed by the state, the head of such a state automatically becomes an absolute monarch, owning and governing the entire land and its people. Such governing typically consists of stealing foreign aid, pilfering the country, looting the neighbors, and fighting off coup after coup, led by an endless swarm of similarly inclined wannabe despots, who want their share of foreign aid, gold, diamonds, or whatever else the educated Western geologists happen to find in that God-forsaken, state-owned land. No such despot will ever step down voluntarily, because that would make him like everybody else in his country – dirt-poor and vulnerable to abuse from the new despot.

Perhaps, in order to eliminate bloody civil wars in Africa and elsewhere, Obama could throw a few billion of our dollars at a posh retirement facility for tinpot dictators that would help them soften the blow and deal with psychological stresses, thus facilitating a peaceful transition of power from one crook to another. A better solution, of course, would be to introduce those countries to capitalism with its freedoms, incentives, property rights, and the rule of law – but apparently this is too ignoble a prospect for a soaring quixotic mind to consider.

* * *

These are the facts that Americans, of all people, should be able to recognize as obvious. How did it happen that the usually realistically-minded Americans not only elected a man who is withdrawn from reality, but overwhelmingly wish him to succeed in carrying out his fallacies?

The answer is probably in the changing nature of our age and its heroes. How it is changing and why is being increasingly determined by those who set the tone in the American popular culture.

Obama’s popularity indicates that a new archetypal American hero has emerged – a sentimental, selfless idealist, preoccupied with perceived crises and injustices – real or imaginary – and is determined to fight the cynics for the people’s right to have good intentions – consequences be damned.

In his speeches, Obama often derides cynics, positioning himself as the ultimate anti-cynic, which is also how Don Quixote is viewed in today’s popular culture – the same popular culture that for several decades has been a plaything in the hands of liberal trendsetters in Hollywood, TV, and mass media.

Apparently even celebrities, who spend their days pushing the limits of egotism and degeneracy, have moments of clarity and feel an occasional need to redeem their meaningless existence. But to pause and rethink their lives, grasp the reality, and get out of the rut may be too much to ask from people whose idea of happiness is to snort cocaine off oneanother’s buttocks. Instead, they engage in what they perceive as the opposite of cynical depravity. So they start pushing the limits of selfless idealism. That’s when they donate to radical groups and politicians, make movies about Che Guevara, and act as spokespeople for ultra-liberal causes.

Never mind that what they see as the opposite of degeneracy is just a mirror reflection of the same old rut. Reality has never been their strong suit. Nevertheless, their quixotic efforts have already shaped a culture of scatterbrained idealism that trumps reality. Last November, millions of consumers of this culture gasped and decided that it would be very cool to elect, not the real man, but a cultivated archetypal image of a well-meaning, starry-eyed dreamer, who they hope will somehow help them avoid taking responsibility for their own lives.

Compare a modern liberal to Don Quixote, and he will take it as a compliment. In my years of living in America, I have met a number of people who proudly claimed they were fighting windmills – a generic code phrase meaning “actively working to undermine American cultural, social, military, and economic institutions.” Destroying property and sabotaging business operations made them feel good, as each imagined himself a noble hidalgo, fighting the powerful and defending the oppressed masses.

One might conclude that in their feverish Marxist brains, the story of Don Quixote was about a glorious rebellion against imperialist powers by a romantic freedom fighter with no life (his female comrade thought he was a Trotskyite), and so he took on the revolutionary road to utopia, struggling for social and economic justice, liberating the oppressed, and destroying means of production privately owned by capitalist exploiters.

They didn’t believe me when I said that Cervantes named his protagonist after the horse’s ass, using Catalán slang for it, that “mancha” in his full name also meant “stain” (as on one’s honor), his horse’s name Rocinante meant a “reversal,” and the novel itself was actually a satirical farce about a mentally disturbed retrograde, whose fight was against societal progress and the human nature itself.

It’s only fitting that people who are withdrawn from the reality end up misjudging the history of thought and societies. Another seminal book that the quixotic left has completely misconstrued is 1984, but that is a whole different story.

Let me put it in terms that a Marxist can understand: the original Don Quixote makes fun of a fossilized remnant of the feudal era, who is confused by rapid social changes and the emancipation of the working man. He is sickened by the idea that a lowly commoner who works for a living has suddenly grown more important than he – a blueblood who has neglected his estate, squandered his fortune, and spends his days in bed reading chivalric novels. So he escapes into a fantasy world of romanticized chivalry, courting a woman who thinks he is a crackpot, and destroying property of a hard-working miller because it makes him feel good to imagine that he is defending humanity from evil.

In this sense, Don Quixote is an ultimate liberal elitist who despises the bourgeois class that feeds him, feels nostalgic about the idealized past when benevolent kings bestowed favors upon the destitute subjects, and treats other people as mere objects of his exaggerated emotions, in complete disregard of their true nature.

To continue in Marxist terms, the story is an allegory of the painful reaction the discarded nobility had to the breakup of feudalism, and the rising overall prosperity brought in by the new class of capitalist entrepreneurs who were happy, well-fed, and held their head high, despite their obvious lack of grooming and heredity. These insolent former peasants ridiculed the idea of having a benevolent lord protector to care about their needs – which was what our anachronistic “knight-errant” was offering.

As if disrespecting the bluebloods was not enough, the new bourgeois class defaced the landscape with clusters of ugly, prosaic windmills that squeaked and creaked, increasing the number of well-fed, freewheeling plebeians, and decreasing their collective dependency on the charity of the powerful – or, for that matter, on anything else larger than themselves.

In today’s industrialized, world old windmills may be seen as sentimental relics of a bygone, bucolic era. But in the early 1600s they were as much part of an industrial landscape as power plants and oil rigs are today. Think of Big Oil as today’s equivalent of Big Windmills.

Thus, Don Quixote’s attack on a windmill was an emblematic act of resentment by a feudal diehard against the symbol of the newly-emerged capitalist system – a much more progressive, efficient, and successful socio-economic order that ushered in prosperity, equality, and individual liberty.

In a parallel development, observe Sen. Edward Kennedy’s fight against power-generating windmills that threatened to ruin a bucolic view from his patrician Camelot mansion. You get the idea.

* * *

All things considered, wasn’t the entire socialist movement, from the very start, a fearful, allergic reaction to capitalism and industrialization? Wasn’t the longing for a powerful welfare state born from nostalgia for the idealized safety net of feudalism, with its certainty of social roles and obligations? Didn’t the notion of a benevolent government official, caring about the helpless masses, originate from the romanticized myth of a noble lord caring about his loyal peasants – without the anxieties associated with freedom to make individual life choices? And wasn’t it darkly ironic that apologists of such a backward, regressive idea chose to call themselves “progressives”?

What motivated and united the quixotic “progressive” elites was their impulsive, irrational loathing of the perceived materialism of the markets and the coarse, ill-mannered bourgeoisie, which had become the designated windmills of the new era. Free markets broke up the rigid social structure and fostered upward mobility, discarding the certainty that aristocrats would keep their wealth without having to work for it – and that they would not be out-shined by the dreaded “nouveau riche,” which was the aristocratic slur for the “previously poor.” Anyone’s chances to succeed in life now depended on their abilities, rather than pedigree.

As life was becoming increasingly “unromantic,” more commoners were enjoying higher living standards, hygiene, education, and improved life expectancy. Industrial innovation steadily reduced the share of stupefying hard manual labor and increased the share of clean, professional, high-paying jobs, further shrinking the dependency of the commoners on the elites. Mass production brought down the prices, allowing every yokel to own things and travel places that used to be an exclusive privilege of nobility. And what did these oafs do to deserve it – except making, delivering, and marketing food, clothes, houses, tools, medicine, and the ugly prosaic machinery?

It was probably somewhere in the midst of such mental entanglements that a longing for a romantic anti-industrial hero first produced the “revised and improved” interpretation of Don Quixote – no longer a horse’s ass, but a selfless idealist fighting the windmills of greed and materialism, impervious to the mocking and jeering of the unrefined cynics.

The key word here is “cynics.” To understand the whole quixotic phenomenon, one must realize that the cynics in this case are the people who build, own, and operate windmills – and who don’t want to see them leveled by some well-meaning loon. It is these people – not the elites – who make life possible. And if you talk to them outside of the contrived quixotic dichotomy, they don’t sound like cynics at all.

“Cynics” is also the key word in Obama’s code language, which stems from the same quixotic paradigm. Once you decipher the key word, other code elements begin to fall into place. Let’s see…

“Change” signifies a backward movement to the idealized Utopian times that never really existed. More specifically, it can mean anything Obama’s team does – from staffing the government with old Clinton drones to exhuming and reviving the corpse of the “Fairness Doctrine” – a mothball-smelling liberal zombie programmed to kill radio stations that broadcast dissenting voices

“Hope” means a conscious effort to fire up a quixotic vision of a government-appointed knight in shining armor, galloping to your rescue – and to spread this illusion to the scale of a massive hallucination.

“Crisis” denotes a fortunate turn of events when the frightened masses are more likely to elect a quixotic leader. Nothing bolsters collectivism like a stampede.

“Unity” means that everybody must play this game without exception. Which reminds me of the old Soviet make-believe game of building the communist society long after people had stopped believing in it, but continued to pretend out of habit, convenience, fear, or career prospects.

And so on.

If we pretend to play Obama’s game for a moment, we may start seeing America as a downright mean country – without hope, in bad need of change, and overtaken by crisis that we can overcome if we only have unity.

In contrast, if we listen to the “cynics,” we may learn that America is a land of optimistic can-do people, who disposed of the abusive nobility, created a government of, by, and for the people, and achieved unparalleled historic successes by taking a rational, freedom-loving, and self-reliant worldview to the farthest frontiers – in the process benefiting not only themselves, but also the rest of the world.

But such low-brow American “cynicism” couldn’t completely vanquish the noble spirit of “social awareness” and “economic justice” – also known as collectivist feudal co-dependency, disapproval of individual judgment, fear of risk-taking, reliance on the charity of the powerful, and the romanticized utopian view of the collectivist past. This spirit had lived latent for many decades, fueled by socialist movements overseas, and fortified by the influx of immigrants infected by collectivist ideologies that, in the Old World, later metastasized into Fascism and Bolshevism.

But no matter what we call things, and what code words we use to disguise them, no matter how we try to change, alter, condition, accommodate, convert, modify, modulate, redo, restyle, reshape, transfigure, transmute, warp, invert, reverse, swap, transpose, or bend the public perception of reality, in the end we will still be living in the same old reality, governed by the same, unchanging, objective laws. And according to these unchanging laws, any quixotic intentions to curb the industries and rein in the materialistic capitalist class will, with absolute certainty, result in degradation and reversal of the real progress that the human race has achieved in the last few hundred years.

When the romantic concepts of “renewed spirituality” and “communal living” come in direct contact with the unchanging laws of human nature, they inevitably result in punishing the achievers, removing incentives, reducing productivity, shrinking industries, shortening life expectancy, decreasing skilled high-paying jobs, and increasing the share of stupefying hard manual labor. You wanted Obama to succeed? Here’s your shovel-ready project.

The code word for this in Obama’s Pig Latin is “progress.” In case you were looking for the definition of cynicism, this is it.

When Obama talks about taking America into the 21st century, he insults everyone in this country who has worked hard to take it there, before they first heard his name. However, now that we’ve partially cracked the code, we can make an educated guess that the time where Obama intends to take us, is actually not ahead but behind us – the early 20th century, the era of first socialist revolutions and the Great Depression. But it might as well be 1605 when Don Quixote was first published.

Occasionally, Obama lifts his visor and speaks to the masses in plain language. The New York Times slavishly reports: “In his commencement speech last month at Wesleyan University, Barack Obama … sounded an impassioned call to public service, and warned that the pursuit of narrow self-interest – ‘the big house and the nice suits and the other things that our money culture says you should buy … betrays a poverty of ambition.’” He continued, “Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.”

This is purely quixotic claptrap. Come to think of it, in today’s world, Don Quixote might as well take up “progressive” activism and become a “community organizer.” Or he could be an unfunny comedian with his own talk show on Air America Radio, campaigning for one of Minnesota’s seats in the US Senate.

While the ascension of Don Quixote as a new American idol is a grotesque comedy of errors by itself, the political effort to take advantage of this cultural trend was hardly a coincidence.

Every utopian revolution ends up in corruption. The more altruistic the heroes are, the faster the plutocrats move in. If Obama really is the dreamy idealist from his own campaign poster – allergic to dirty politics, with his head fixed permanently above the clouds – then, naturally, the real power will be quickly divided among his crafty puppeteers. But let’s give the newly sworn-in President credit – it takes an extremely shrewd politician to sense the cultural current, catch the wave, and ride it all the way to the White House the way he did.

Whether Obama is a starry-eyed dreamer, or a manipulative pragmatist preying on public fears, will be revealed soon enough. Whatever the case may be, his inauguration marks the beginning of a new age in America and the world. Some may call it the belated dawning of the Age of Aquarius. I call it the Age of Don Quixote.

After the requisite Obama orgasm, the voice, belonging to show host Richard Greene, explained that this show was the West Coast launch of something called Hollywood Clout, a forum for Hollywood celebrities to use their influence on the radio to “celebrate the New America” (translation: to peddle the predicable, de rigueur political agenda of mainstream Hollywood). Finally! Where has this Richard Greene, this visionary pioneer, been all this time?! At last, refuge for displaced, left-leaning celebs to speak their mind! Free at last. Free at last… and so forth.  The inaugural celebrity of the inaugural West Coast show was announced as Daphne Zuniga, former Melrose Place tart and occasional Gavin Newsom plaything.  I switched to sports talk.

This was Air America, or whatever carrion remains these days following the October 2006 bankruptcy filing of the leftist radio network.  Like most people who were ever aware of Air America in the first place—and there weren’t many—I long ago forgot about its existence.   Evidently it’s back… or it never left… or whatever.  Following reorganization, downsizing and a change of ownership, from the ashes of Air America Radio has risen the glorious house fly of Air America Media. Now it’s Media, not Radio… Get it?

This second generation Air America has been moping around national airwaves for nearly two years, serving up programming piecemeal to its mish-mash of lowly, ratings-deprived affiliates (including Phil Hendrie’s new LA home, KTLK AM 1150).   I gathered from my brief, unintended exposure that the network’s new, image-defining buzzword is progressive.  This is not a network of bitter, enraged liberals prattling on about stolen elections and missing WMDs.  This is a network of empowered, high-minded progressives prattling on about stolen elections and missing WMDs. Same pig, different lipstick.

On this night, Richard Greene wasn’t just progressive, he was giddy—giddier than even Keith Olbermann when he first heard Tim Russert was dead.  For this was more than simply the launch of  Hollywood Clout West, this was the beginning of a week-long pre-party leading up to the Inauguration of The Great Man, and the concurrent tacit validation of the network’s existence.  The operating theory, as I gleaned from Mr. Greene, seems to be that Obama will be the defibrillator the sinking network has long sought, and Air America will ride his Apollonian coattails into relevance.   With Obama finally in office, Air America can reposition itself as a community of love for Obama, instead of bile for George Bush, then reap the succulent fruit of the Obama tree.  Sounds good on paper, why not? This isn’t your father’s Air America.  This is Air America 2.0.

This brings me to the most interesting aspect of Air America (yes, there is one):  its catastrophic failure. As far as I’m aware, an adequate, satisfying postmortem on the first incarnation of Air America has yet to be produced. How did this liberal wet dream become such a nightmare? Democrats are the ruling class of Hollywood and the mainstream media. What was so tricky about radio that they couldn’t figure out?  They entered the market with a daunting war chest and a comprehensive national marketing campaign in the form of gushing, buttery media coverage, but still flamed out. Why couldn’t they simply apply all of the lessons learned over the years from selling bad movies, bad TV and bad acting into selling bad radio? Selling is selling, right? Ultimately, the product should be irrelevant. Certainly it must be more difficult to convince the moving-going public that Ben Affleck isn’t a talentless hack but a viable leading man worthy of a $14 ticket than it is to convince a radio audience that Janeane Garofalo can make you hate George Bush even more, and at no charge.

So what happened? One leading theory blames Air America’s ill-conceived top-down marketing strategy. Instead of doing the whole populist, grass-roots thing and building an audience from the ground up, Air America used its bloated coffers to ram its way into the big, coveted markets and simply assumed people would listen. A fortune was spent on market entry, but then the product—completely untested—couldn’t deliver. Air America bought the best hooker in town but forgot all about the Viagra.

Here the situation gets murky. What made the product so useless? Perhaps there never was a place for new liberal talk radio to begin with because that function was already served by NPR and complemented by the mainstream media? Maybe the Bush-bad-Bush-dumb-Bush-kill mantra 24/7 became tedious too quickly? Maybe heavy-handed urban elitism doesn’t appeal to Middle America, liberal or otherwise? Perhaps the problem was the talent chosen to deliver the message? “Uninteresting, un-engaging, whiny, shrill and didactic with little to no prior radio experience” were probably not the best job requirements in retrospect.  Could the problem have been with the audience? Surely liberal listeners are too full of sunshine, rainbows and hope to sully themselves with the vitriol inherent to partisan talk radio the way conservative listeners do? Or, maybe the problem was a more practical one – a message consistently chastising corporations and the institutions of capitalism might have frightened off major advertisers, hampering the network’s long-term sustainability?

Fortunately for Air America, it may never have to figure out precisely what went wrong. The marriage of the new President to the new Congress could spawn a return to the Fairness Doctrine, sparing Air America the indignity of having to produce a desirable, market-worthy product. After all, what’s our government for if not bailing out incompetence and propping up failed business ventures at taxpayer expense?

For now, Air America will be drunk on Obama and enjoy a spiritual renaissance.  Whether or not this translates into a palpably different product remains to be seen.  Likewise, there is no real evidence to suggest that a shift from the “Bush lied, babies died” model to an Obama worship paradigm will prove economically effective.  Despite their profound efforts to parrot conservative talk radio, liberals never understood what actually made it work.  My guess is they still don’t understand.  That knowledge-gap, new administration or not, will keep Air America a wretched, un-listenable mess relegated to the squalid fringe of AM radio.

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