Where Angels Fear to Tread

I chided Pete the other day for tuning into Sean Hannity, but I suppose we all do stupid things, partly in an effort to try to understand what the thinking is on the political right. We do have to live in the same country as them (at least until they all move to South Carolina and secede), and if some portion of them can be brought back into the reality-based community, things would be better for all of us. So, from time to time, I also delve into their world, usually by going through the Daou Report on Salon.com, and checking out a few of the right-wing blogs. I think I'm hoping that someday I'll come across something indicating that they know what's going on, that reason and rationality are somehow breaking through their thick skulls, but, alas, not yet.

Today the biggest topics are (shockingly enough) the nomination of Alito, Harry Reid's shutting of the doors on the Senate, and Scooter's Follies.

Here's what I've run across this morning, and I think this is a fairly representative summary of a large percentage of what I've read: "All of this righteous indignation by the Moonbats about the Libby indictment spells big trouble for them. While they focus on inside the beltway minutia, the average American is completely tuned out, despite the best attempts by the MSM. This indictment is simply not important to Joe Six Pack. In the real world gas prices have dropped back down, Thanksgiving is coming up and people are thinking about Christmas shopping. Consumer confidence and consumer spending are up. In the real world, their President has just nominated a sterling judge with impecable credentials to protect the constitutional rights of Americans against activist judges legislating from the bench. In the real world their President has just presented a plan to protect the American people from the threat of a Bird Flu Pandemic. In the meantime, the donks in Congress threatening a filibuster and are trying to protect their trial lawyer friends at the expense of the safety of the American public. So keep it up moonbats, you look loonier and loonier every day."

I won't reply directly to that wingnut, since he won't listen anyway (I read the rest of the thread. It hurt a lot.) However, there are number of things this person is confused about. Here's five.

1) The average American doesn't care about Valerie Plame, sure. A comment I saw once said, very wisely I think, "The administration says the American people want tax cuts. Well, duh. The American people also want drive-through nickel beer night. The American people want to lose weight by eating ice cream. The American people love the Home Shopping Network because it's commercial-free." But they do care when their president lies to them and people die. The SCLM (so-called liberal media) has not made the effort to expose the lies clearly, but with Scooter's trial, etc, they'll have no choice. Then people will care.

2) Gas prices are down - so low I can hardly see them. Here in Champaign, they're at a miniscule $2.19, although last weekend up in the city they were still near $3. After Exxon and Shell made record profits by gouging us with gas prices the last few months (as if they had no control over how much they hurt consumers), I'll be damned if I think $2.19 a gallon is somehow good. That's like saying "Well, it hurt a lot when you were jabbing 2 red-hot pokers up my nose, but now that there's only one, it's not so bad."

3) Consumer confidence is up? HA! That's a flat-out lie. "The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index, which had plummeted in September, declined again in October. The Index now stands at 85.0 (1985=100), down from 87.5 in September. The Present Situation Index declined to 108.2 from 110.4. The Expectations Index decreased to 69.5 from 72.3 last month." In case that's too tough to read, here's a picture.

4) In other places here, Pete and I have both commented on the role of the judiciary. I'll just reduce my remarks here to: impeccable has 2 c's.

5) I haven't paid much attention to Chimpy's Bird-Flu "Plan" yet, but as soon as he comes up with a way to actually protect anyone from terrorists, which he's supposedly been working on for 4+ years, I'll start listening. In the meantime, go read this from this week's Onion.

So, as you travel 'round this great big world, remember that somewhere around 40% of adult Americans are willing to say that Chimpy McFlightsuit has done a good job as President. Also remember that, as of today, it's illegal to hit them with your car.