Ok… I’m not going to further quibble about these things… but you did mention a couple of things that I should remark on …

1) Born-Alive Act… I don’t think he was “just” doing anything. I also don’t believe that he honestly thought his vote would make it easier for born alive infants to be dumpstered… and it probably didn’t… but he voted wrong for some reason that I’m not qualified to guess at. Put another way – if he had a situation where he really had to make a choice between a program that would dumpster born-alive infants and one that would require them to be treated as live births and understood his choices clearly, he would vote for the latter instead of the former. His actual vote was closer to the former than the latter and I think that results from a failure to pay due diligence on his part. Which is plenty bad enough, but if I thought his real intention was reflected in his vote, I wouldn’t have supported him.

2) I don’t think all the ‘baggers are crazy, or even necessarily confused by the crazy. Just a whole lot of them – especially the ones that Fox News encouraged along.

3) I’m still somewhat concerned about the systematic attempts to undermine the system of secular government we see from the James Dobson crowd – even if it wasn’t realistic to think that they would manage a coup under Bush, and even if Bush wasn’t as helpful to them as we and they both thought he was at the time.

4) If Fox and other networks had put the ANSWER people on their nightly panels, gave their chief a prime time TV slot, and if more than half of Democrats took every pearl that dropped from the ANSWER TV host’s lips as gospel… I think then we’d be closer. As you say, they were marginalized and popped up on YouTube.

5) I am a pro-choice person and when I see the ultra-sound I think “baby”. I refer to her has baby, grandbaby, granddaughter, grandchild, Shayla, and I picture her bouncing on my knee. I’m also cognizant of the fact that by the most important criteria for deciding whether Mom should be forced to carry her to term if she doesn’t feel that is the right thing to do, she isn’t an example of an entity with “personhood”. So, if Mom (or nature – or God, if you’re so inclined) did decide to terminate, it would break my heart to a degree that you can’t imagine… but I wouldn’t have any say in it, and if I had my way no one else but Mom would. Not even nature.

And thank you for the congratulations! I can’t wait!

even if you found every example from the last 8 years of liberal craziness, it wouldn’t stack up to the last 8 months’ tsunami.

The liberal craziness over the war alone dwarfs everything thrown at Obama. But, we see things through different prisms (I could just as easily say that someone saying that Obama is pushing us towards socialism is more true than crazy). I remember my old days on the political forum, where I met Jay G., and was having a “yeah, both sides are usually just as bad” discussion with a liberal and I’d agreed about some unbelievable righty rhetoric (I think it was the usual suspects, Fallwell or Robertson or Buchanan, the easy pickings) and said something like “it’s just like when Gephardt & Daschle was saying that the Republicans were wanting kids to go hungry” and the response was “yeah, but….they were!” We look at the same thing and see different outcomes. I look at Obama’s vote in the IL legislature and see “there is no debate, the guy voted against the Born Alive Act” while you see “he simply followed the protocols set forth under Roe vs. Wade” (or, something similar).

desegregation brought out the crazy in a major way.

Maybe this is why we’re at odds on the foundation: what are you meaning by ‘crazy’? Do you mean “people so outraged that they’re acting in a manner that is outside their norm” or “kuckoo for cocoa puffs off the rails”? People fighting in the streets (In deep blue area, by the way) over segregation is certainly a case were they weren’t acting with cooler heads prevailing. But, that’s not how I’m approaching “crazy”, because people with cooler heads prevailing wouldn’t paint their faces and go to soccer matches and cool heads and clear thinking wouldn’t cause people to set aside their weekends to live and die over the performance of their favored college football team. I’m using “crazy” as illustrated by people who think Obama is a muslim born in Kenya, people who think Bush allowed 9/11 to happen so we could get the oil (still haven’t, btw), who think Clinton had Vince Foster killed. Or, stuff that can’t be argued logically to have occurred. One can have a debate over whether or not the GOP really wants to do away with Medicare or whether or not Barack Obama wants socialized health care and not be crazy, IMO. I seem to recall a certain (ahem) site (ahem) that was claiming early on in the Bush years (ahem) that we were headed for (ahem) a theocracy. The authors weren’t crazy, they just saw something that made them uneasy & it was coming from an administration that they didn’t trust.

At least I don’t think the authors were crazy.

And if you mean “crazy” to mean that people became so partisan that they began to literally ‘hate’ the other side, I can tell you when the modern incarnation began. First, I say “modern incarnation” because back during our early days as a nation, the political rhetoric was off the wall. I mean, Hamilton took part in a duel, for goodness sakes! But, the beginning of today’s acrimony started with Ted Kennedy’s speech on the senate floor as he tried to, literally, ruin the reputation of Robert Bork. Since then, it’s been Katie Bar the Door, for the most part.

But it’s like, in response to a pretty tepid hardly-hopey marginally-changey shift from the previous administration

Foreign policy wise, very little change.
Domestically? Well, firing a CEO of a company, giving majority ownership of a company to the union, implementing, to date, 33 czars over newly created departments that are outside of congressional oversight but with billion-dollar-budgets, pushing through stimulus packages that no one had time to read (and later was found to be filled with mainly pork that wouldn’t even go into place until years in the future), trying to pass trillion dolllar healthcare packages while claiming cost savings while your own CBO says “hey, this is going to add trillions in debt”….not tepid. Hence, the uneasiness from a lot of citizens and the dropping polls. It’s not Glenn Beck, it’s Barack, Nancy & Harry. Welcome to leadership, where you get the blame when things don’t run smoothly.

Maybe I’ve been completely blind this past 8 years… but I just don’t think you’re seeing what I’m seeing here.

I don’t.
I don’t expect us to see things the same.
You guys see the tea parties as “teabaggers” who are really rednecks upset with a black president & who think he’s some sort of Nazi because CNN & MSNBC carry the clips of anyone carrying a sign that besmirches the president. I saw the large anti-war protests that were sponsored, every one of them, by ANSWER as a bunch of socialists (that’s what ANSWER is, after all) carrying Bush as Hitler posters – because I saw the clips on Youtube & conservative web sites while the MSM never showed ONE Bush-Hitler poster or ONE ANSWER sponsor banner as they were too busy portraying the crowds as grass-roots folks just against our “illegal unethical and unnecessary war on a sovereign nation” (trademark pending).

If we saw the same things, buddy, it would stand to reason that we’d probably come to the same conclusions. Bear with me, I’m not being ‘cheap’, but making a non-ideological point about human nature: An ardent pro-lifer would look at that beautiful snapshot of your grandchild and see a baby. An ardent pro-choicer does not see a baby as it has not been born, yet. Both good people, both intelligent, both being fair in their beliefs & arguments, but they see things differently. Which is why we so often debate over the seemingly inane: we see it from different angles & it’s tough to get us to “see” it from the opposing point of view.

BTW, I see a miracle (which is what procreation really is…..aint’ it amazin’?) and I’m happy as can be for ya. My condolences to the father for having to endure “What to expected while you’re expecting” and her discussions about her swollen ankles, though.

It’s not just an ongoing back & forth. I know there have been historical instances like this… desegregation brought out the crazy in a major way. So did Vietnam, and in it’s own smaller way Watergate. But what we’re seeing here isn’t just leafleting about the Clinton’s murdering Vince Foster. I guess it’s all about pushing that “Overton Window” to avoid any healthcare reform or something… But it’s like, in response to a pretty tepid hardly-hopey marginally-changey shift from the previous administration, entire demographics have developed some kind of political-paranoid tourette’s.

Maybe I’ve been completely blind this past 8 years… but I just don’t think you’re seeing what I’m seeing here.

Yeah… I never went out in the street one day & saw a bunch of zombies chanting “George Bush hates [black] People” after Kanye did his bit.

A. Again, anecdotal. I’ve never seen a hot teacher having sex with a 14 year old student, but they do seem to be in existence.
B. Do you really think that I can’t find umpteen links to sites that you read (dailykos, balloon-juice, atrios) with instances of folks calling Bush racist? THIS WEEK there have been instances of cable news hosts charging that people were outraged at the appointment of Van Jones because he’s a black guy, instead of all that communist/911truther stuff. The only things more frequent on the internet than charges of Republicans being racist are pr0n and spam.

How many Democratic Governors, Senators, ex-VP candidates, etc.. did you ever hear talking about “war for oil”

“George W. Bush is preventing entire nations from bidding on contracts in Iraq so his campaign contributors can continue to overcharge the American taxpayers.” – Your Guy, Howard Dean
Guess who said that he would end “war-profiteering” if he were elected president? VP nominee, John Edwards.
Bush was “more concerned about the success of Halliburton than having a success strategy in Iraq” – Gen. Wesley Clark

Those were the typical political-speak sneaky instances, much like John Edwards claiming that a vote for Kerry/Edwards would mean that people like Christopher Reeve would be able to walk (meaning a vote for Bush/Cheney would keep people in wheelchairs), but during presidential debates, Moselely-Braun, Kucinich & Sharpton charged the war for oil thing. Yes, two of those three are definitely the fringe, but Sharpton is treated with kid gloves by you guys on the left (years of shakedowns have shown you guys how things should be) and he is NOT treated as the fringe by the Democratic party’s power structure, so he can’t be written off in “oh, that’s just Cynthia McKinney” sort of way. Your guys have to kiss the ring of Al Sharpton and the party does not distance itself from Sharpton (while you press that elected Republicans should immediately distance themselves from any radio or television host says something that you find offensive).

Oh, and I can still post that picture of Michael Moore sitting next to Jimmy Carter in the presidential box seat during the ’04 convention. You won’t find pictures of Michael Savage sitting next to Bush 41 at the GOP convention. The righty “nut cases” aren’t treated as rock stars and they aren’t given virtual hand jobs by the MSM, as Michael Moore is. Dems will boycott Glenn Beck because he said that Obama is a racist but elected Democrats will continue to appear on and agree with Bill Maher during shows where he says that Republicans are racist. The left claims that the nutcases, who sit in presidential boxes at conventions, aren’t influential, but guys with talk shows…..hugely influential. You know, if the goalposts were just in the same time zone, it’d be nice.

Now, back to the outrageous talk: add in that Sen. Durbin has charged that we’ve re-opened the gulags and Rep. Murtha has charged soldiers who were found to be innocent to be “murderers” and you have plenty of instances of elected politicians charging our military with being not just torturers in the “waterboarding is torture” mold, but in the “we’re just as bad as the Nazis and we intentionally murdered people” line of reasoning. Michelle Malkin had a best-selling book with plenty of examples, called “Deranged”, so finding instances of Democrats making some ridiculous charge is, at this time, much easier than the converse because Republicans were in power for a long peroid of time & very recently. However, give Dems 6 straight years of total power & you’ll be able to find many more instances of righty hyperbole, even though there is plenty to behold right now, but that is pretty much cancelled out by the attacks simply on Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin from Democrats….sorry, but the online left is pretty nasty. And, yeah, I know the old “but you can’t find Obama saying X” word-for-word while his subordinates are doing-just-that trick. “Plausible deniability” means something other than a reference to Watergate, after all.

I will note, again, that in a few years – especially if the dems don’t get killed in ’10 – you’ll be able to find much more by way of righty hyperbole. It would be stupid to say that there isn’t a lot of guff out there. That’s the nature of the beast. But, the charge that the “crazy” right is a monolith that must be dealt with is an entity that is the dolphin next to the “last 7 years of history” blue whale that I recall, and recall well. Once more, two words: Sarah Palin

I know that most of the political internet is simply a vehicle for people to endorse their own political preferences by way of besmirching the opposition’s intentions (one can get all sorts of info at dailykos, but making one’s self feel superior to the stupid a-holes on the other side is all there is at places like balloon juice, and apparently there is still a large audience for nothing more than calling the other side nasty names from the comfort & security of a keyboard) but, really, the online left claiming outrage at the sight of over-the-top political hyperbole is a bit much.

The point is that the crazy doesn’t seem to be hurting the GOP, as much as I wish it would

War for oil, Theocracy, The draft is coming back if Bush is re-elected, Bush was AWOL, Bush knew about 9/11….I could type for days. One person’s “crazy” is another person’s “talking points”. And by talking points, I mean “the crazy thing started being thrown around about two weeks ago as a means to discredit people on the right who are being successful in branding Democrats/Obama”. The person President Obama chose for green jobs czar is crazy.

He may not have a vote in the Senate, but he deeply influences the thinking of large numbers of people who vote for the senators.

I’ll see your Glenn Beck and raise you Jon Stewart, Kanye West, George Clooney, Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Eddie Vedder, Michael Moore, Oliver Stone, Bruce Springsteen, Rolling Stone Magazine, and Spike Lee. And then I’ll give you double or nothing odds on the number of mainstream news media sources that have besmirched Glenn Beck (one person) for his political spoutings verses all those people I listed.

I’m not sure anyone on the left wants to argue that the right has undue political influence in the pop culture.