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The shirts had Psalm 109:8 which says:

Let his days be few; and let another take his office.

The right keeps rooting against America.

And I’m sure this brand of rhetoric has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.

Losing NY-23 candidate Doug Hoffman became the latest in an increasingly long line of conservative politicians to blame his problems on ACORN yesterday despite the complete lack of evidence the organization played any role in his defeat.

Pretty soon they’ll tell us ACORN was on the grassy knoll.

Conservatives are all about making quick, half assed conclusions about stuff, however. Particularly in the arena of national security, which they feel is a club they can use to hit Democrats with. And of course, there’s Stephen Hayes and his idiot connections.

Here is what Hayes wrote in 2004:

Until this material is declassified, there will be gaps in our knowledge. Indeed, even after the full record is made public, some uncertainties will no doubt remain.

The connection between Saddam and al Qaeda isn’t one of them.

Of course, we know that this is – to put it charitably – b.s.

Weekly Standard staff writer and author of the book The Connection: How al Qaeda’s Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America (released on June 1 by Rupert Murdoch’s publishing house HarperCollins), Stephen F. Hayes has appeared in recent months on numerous cable and Sunday talk shows to support his contention that there was indeed a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Despite vigorous critiques that have undermined the credibility of Hayes’s contention, conservative pundits have embraced Hayes and his book in order to, in the words of Center for Strategic and International Studies fellow Daniel A. Benjamin, “shore up the rickety argument that Baathist Iraq had posed a real national security threat to the United States.”

Everything old is new again, and just as dumb the second time around.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and an assortment of national business groups opposed to President Obama’s health-care reform effort are collecting money to finance an economic study that could be used to portray the legislation as a job killer and threat to the nation’s economy, according to an e-mail solicitation from a top Chamber official.

The e-mail, written by the Chamber’s senior health policy manager and obtained by The Washington Post, proposes spending $50,000 to hire a ‘respected economist’ to study the impact of health-care legislation, which is expected to come to the Senate floor this week, would have on jobs and the economy.

Step two, according to the e-mail, appears to assume the outcome of the economic review: ‘The economist will then circulate a sign-on letter to hundreds of other economists saying that the bill will kill jobs and hurt the economy. We will then be able to use this open letter to produce advertisements, and as a powerful lobbying and grass-roots document.’

(via)

A post over at the Seminal is taking “liberal elitism” to task for not taking the Tea Party people seriously, and that that will lead to the election of Sarah Palin and other such ilk.

To quote our vice president, malarkey.

While I have long argued that there is too much elitism on the left for my tastes, there’s a wide gulf between holding your nose in the air for no good reason and dumbing yourself down in order to appeal to the lowest common idiotic denominator. Suck is the case with the Tea Party group and their leaders like Palin.

Far from the liberals in the ’70s who were clearly not responsive enough to the middle class, leading to the rise of Nixon and resentment politics, today’s left has gone to great lengths to be a big tent. So much so that some of our biggest fault lines are internal and don’t involve the Republicans at all. But far from the pre-Clinton great society types, todays liberals understand that without blue collar people on our side we don’t advance as a movement.

The problem is that the vast majority of the issues brought up by the tea party types and Palin are idiotic. These aren’t people with the traditional lower-middle class concerns of Americans (which is my family background) but instead these are people who largely believe the conspiracy du jour, whether that involves secret armies, the president’s “true” nationality, or Nancy Pelosi’s “death panels” that are set up to pull the plug on Grandma.

While the concerns of many white, middle-class people are worthy causes and should be addressed by liberals (and are), it is not elitism to treat this roving band of conspiracy nuts for the cretins they are or associate with. This would be akin to President Johnson in 1964 undertaking a federal committee to study the mind control powers of fluoridated water. That would be asinine.

Liberals have in the past allowed the ivory tower set to exert too much control over the Democratic party. That resulted in a narrow focus and deserved electoral losses. But the idea that the tea party movement represents any sort of rational discourse deserving of recognition and outreach is absurd. These are, by and large, the same band of stupid people we have always had in this country, whether they were in favor of submission to the British empire, secession from the union, alliance with Hitler, or decrying the president a “half breed Muslim terrorist”, we owe them no recognition or inclusion in the important discussion about the direction of American society.

But she’s very reluctant.

Eh, at least she’s pretty.

It’s as if Phyllis Schlafly, Bay Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingrham and Michelle Malkin were un-persons.

Yes, yes they are. Hateful, crazy, intellectually dishonest un-persons.

One of Andrew Sullivan’s readers tries to make the case that the conservative movement was sane in 1994 when they took over, even more hilariously they claim Rush Limbaugh’s critiques of the Clinton administration were “pointed”. Are you kidding me? As Sullivan points out, that was the fevered swamp of nuttiness. Limbaugh led the charge into every nothingburger investigation of the Clintons, and push the same bull he pushes today – the only different is his attacks are more racist nowadays.

The larger point is that the modern conservative movement has a long lineage of nuttiness. The same people today bleating about a government takeover of healthcare are the same ones who wanted to impeach Justice Earl Warren, supported the use of tactical nukes, and were convinced fluoridated water was a mind control plot.

Too often liberals lament that today’s conservatives don’t somehow have the seriousness of Goldwater, but Goldwater was nuts and we were lucky he never got anywhere near the presidency. Modern conservatism has no basis in facts or reality, and never has.

[W]e were often critical of President George W. Bush.

John Hinderaker, 2005:

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

Whatever, playah.

Also, anti-semetic.

Idiots.

Dede Scozzafava’s decision to endorse the Democrat and not the far-right Conservative party candidate in NY-23 will probably not help Bill Owens, who was a long shot to win a +30 Republican seat. But it tells you what you need to know about the current Republican party.

They are purging those who do not march in lockstep with their core identity, and while in some instances there is is the need for some idealogical cohesion (witness the ongoing ill-feelings between moderate and progressive Dems like myself versus the conservative Democrats), the Republicans don’t have the elasticity the Dems currently do. As I said numerous times before electoral success in 2006 and 2008, first you get the majority then you go for a more cohesive idealogical movement. The Democrats have the kind of wiggle room right now where if we lost some of those conservative Dems in the House, it would probably produce a net improvement in the legislation the body produces — and the leadership would remain the same.

The Republicans and the conservative movement, led by such bright bulbs as Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh, are whittling down a base that already is the minority of Americans. In a time where American parties should be expanding the GOP is contracting. They show no interest in moderation, racial inclusivity, or movement on gender issues.

In the past I and other progressives supported candidates that in normal circumstances would make us roll our eyes. Why? For a change, the left was playing the long game. Every Stephanie Herseth or Heath Shuler you elected was one step closer to a Speaker Pelosi. Every Bob Casey was a step towards Leader Reid (and while the outcome of that fight is less than ideal, Reid is still preferable to the Mitch McConnells of the world).

Like every one of their “policy” positions, conservatives are supporting the quick fix. Sure, purging the party feels good to them, but a the end of the day they just push more away.

Which can only mean one thing: Sarah Palin 2012.

Please?