Ultimate Wingnut Challenge: the Korner Kids
Okay, it's the weekend, and we're all tired from coming up with reasons why disclosing the CIA affiliation of covert CIA officers is okay when Karl Rove does it.
Reason #1: Because Plame made out with her husband before marriage. And, even worse, she goes by her maiden name.
Reason #2: Because Karl did it to keep Plame from inventing a time machine, going back to 1911, and preventing Ronald Reagan from ever being born.
Reason #3: Because when Joe Wilson was the ambassador to Iraq, he met with Saddam Hussein. Saddam had links to al Qaeda, in that some of his people met with some of their people. Therefore, Joe Wilson has links to al Qaeda! So, Rove had to out Wilson's wife to prevent her from causing another 9/11!
Reason #4: Because Karl Rove learned Plame's identity from Novak, who learned it from Judy Miller, who learned it from Matt Cooper, who learned it from Karl Rove. Scooter Libby is in there somewhere too. And as the law says, if it's a circle jerk, then Rove is free to smirk.
Reason #5: Because the Agent Protection Act says "knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent," but Karl didn't know that Ms. Plame's name would identify her, because he thought that, as a covert agent, she went by a cool Bond Girl name, like "Pussy Galore" or "Holly Goodhead" or "Vixen Oralsex."
And so on.
Anyway, since we're all tired, today might be a good time to schedule the first elimination round of the lacklustre NRO Korner Kids team -- this way, it doesn't really matter whether you vote or not, since it's not like Jonah Goldberg is going to be able to take Ann Coulter in hand-to-hand combat.
The Challenge for these columnists is: make a brave, wingnutty claim about something, and make an interesting (but stupid) comparison of some sort ... And do it while sitting in the comfy chair!!! (Okay, this isn't that hard of a challenge, but half of our team only got their jobs because of their parents, and the other half seem to be suffering from conditions listed in the DSM IV.)
So, give a tolerant, Special Olympics welcome to our first contestant, Captain Jonah "By the power of Grayskull, I have the POWER" Goldberg. His entry is called "Britain's Muslims must turn on terrorists in their midst."
First, his simile: the Islamofacists are like killer bees.
In their caricatured asininity, Young and Galloway are extreme examples of a more widespread mindset that assumes that America (along with its British and other allies) is the problem. And if we would just stop bothering the beehive, the bees would just stop stinging us.
This is nonsense. Everything we've learned about the jihadis in recent years points to the fact that they are more like killer bees than conventional ones. They spread. They're aggressive. And the seek to replace the traditional population wherever they appear.
Now, for his bravely wingnutty claim: that while there could be as many as 16,000 British "jihadis," there might be more. Or less. Nobody really knows.
Oh, his secondary wingnutty claim is that the enemy's greatest asset is wishful thinking on our part ... and surprise. And fear. The enemy's three greatest assets are wishful thinking on our part, fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency. And an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.
The official number of British Muslims is 1.6 million, though most observers say it's closer to 2 million or so. The "official" guess at how many of these Muslims are jihadis is 16,000, based on the assumption that no more than 1 percent could be extremists.
This, of course, could be wishful thinking. And wishful thinking is the enemy's greatest asset.
Very good, Jonah. Here's a bag of Doritos.
Our second contestant, John "What is in their minds when homosexuality is mentioned? Buggery, that's what" Derbyshire. His entry is entitled "Hollywood Does Debt." It's about how the old Ethel Merman musical Call Me Madam can teach us a thing or two about foreign aid. (And more specifically, that this movie should have taught Bob Geldof and his crowd to stop trying to help starving Africans.)
First, the bravely wingnutty claim: We need to show tough love to Africa and just let its people starve, because helping poor nations just enables them, and keeps them in a co-dependent relationship with us. Or something.
Also, that we can learn valuable moral lessons about foreign aid from Call Me Madam.
Now, of course you are not going to get deep historico-economic analysis from a Broadway musical. Call Me Madam does, though, tackle the moral aspect of foreign aid in a surprisingly direct way.
[...]
[Prime Minister] Constantine, however, is at odds with his own government here. He doesn’t believe in the loan. “I am convinced,” he says, “that the people of Lichtenburg can and should help themselves without foreign aid.”
[...]
Constantine patiently explains his views to them:
If my country is on the verge of bankruptcy it is because very drastic reforms are needed. Now, with [sic] outside help, these reforms would be impossible. You must not lend my country one penny!
[...]
Here we are 52 years later, with loans to struggling nations again in the news, and showbiz yet again chiming in with an opinion, though this time in favor of debt relief and more aid to Africa. Well, I offer a suggestion to the managers and producers of TV stations in that continent. Instead of broadcasting artistic atrocities like Live 8, try showing Call Me Madam to the folk down there. Who knows — you might inspire some patriot of the Cosmo Constantine stripe to step forward and lift you up out of the moral pit of dependency, corruption, and guilt-mongering that you have dug yourselves into.
Yeah, watching a nice Hollywood musical could take their minds off their hunger and diseases and stuff.
Now, for the interesting but stupid metaphor.
Now, will someone please tell me where I can get a rub down with a velvet glove?
I think that's a metaphor. At least, I hope it is.
Our next contestant is John Podhoretz Normanson, who will be discussing "Second Term Disease."
Here's his brave claim:
When he won re-election in November, George W. Bush was determined to avoid the crippling anomie that had beset almost every two-term president that had preceded him.
Yes, JPod is claiming that George knows what "anomie" means. Wow!.
And here's his interesting comparison (he gets extra points because it concerns Bill Clinton):
Democrats are feeling their oats, confident enough that the president is on the losing side of history that they can say just about anything about him they please — like Hillary Clinton comparing him to Mad magazine's Alfred E. Neuman, which is pretty funny coming from a woman whose own husband might properly be compared to Hustler magazine mascot Larry Flynt.
See, Bill is like Larry Flynt because they both publish porn magazines. No, wait -- he means they both were paralyzed after getting shot. Or maybe he's saying that they both made fun of Jerry Falwell, and claim to have proof that George Bush arranged an abortion for his pregnant girlfriend in the 1970s. In any case, Bill is comparable to Larry.
Okay, let's give JPod a chance to voice a more credible brave but wingnutty claim -- this one comes from the Corner:
So we learn, at last, from the New York Times, that Robert Novak called Karl Rove and said he heard Joseph Wilson's wife, who was NOT a clandestine agent at the time, worked for the CIA. To which Rove replied -- of the women who was NOT a clandestine agent at the time and who he almost surely had no reason to know had at some point in the previous years BEEN a clandestine agent -- "I heard that too."
This surely qualifies as one of the "hey, big whoop" stories of all time. And I am not saying this because I am some partisan gunslinger.
So, JPod's brave claim is that the author of Bush Country: How Dubya Became a Great President While Driving Liberals Insane is capable of commenting fairly and impartially on something involving Bush's brain.
Oh, and I also think it's brave (but wingnutty) of him to say that it's perfectly fine for a senior White House official to out a covert CIA officer if he only violated the Espionage Act or 1917, and not the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982.
Good work, JPod. Fight Jonah for that bag of Doritos.
As you may recall, the official Korner team was so bland that we had to draft old Pat Buchanan to try to liven things up. So, here's former Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan with "Why are they killing us?"
First, the brave claim: that President Bush is wrong when he says that the terrorists hate us because of our freedoms.
The 9-11 terrorists were over here because we were over there. They are not trying to convert us. They are killing us to drive us out of their countries.
Before the U.S. invasion, says [Robert Pape, author of "Dying to Win: The Logic of Suicide Terrorism], "Iraq never had a suicide attack in its history. Since our invasion, suicide terrorism has been escalating rapidly, with 20 attacks in 2003, 48 in 2004 and over 50 in just the first five months of 2005.
Every year since the U.S. invasion, suicide terrorism has doubled. ... Far from making us safer against terrorism, the operation in Iraq has stimulated suicide terrorists and has given suicide terrorism a new lease on life."
Pape is saying that President Bush has got it backward: The Iraq war is not eradicating terrorism, it is creating terrorists.
Wow, that is a pretty brave claim, but sadly, it doesn't seem all that wingnutty. Do you remember why you're here, Pat? You're supposed to say something like, "Rail as they will about 'discrimination,' women are simply not endowed by nature with the same measures of single-minded ambition and the will to succeed in the fiercely competitive world of Western capitalism."
Or maybe something like, "Though Hitler was indeed racist and anti-Semitic to the core, a man who without compunction could commit murder and genocide, he was also an individual of great courage, a soldier's soldier in the Great War, a political organizer of the first rank, a leader steeped in the history of Europe, who possessed oratorical powers that could awe even those who despised him."
Maybe you can do better with your interesting (but stupid) analogy -- better submit two of them, since you're not doing too well right now.
What Pape is saying is that the neocons' "World War IV" - our invading Islamic countries to overthrow regimes and convert them into democracies - is suicidal, like stomping on an anthill so as not to be bitten by ants. It is the presence of U.S. troops in Islamic lands that is the progenitor of suicide terrorism.
Bush's cure for terrorism is a cause of the epidemic. The doctor is spreading the disease.
Um, Pat -- sorry, but you're sounding like the sanest member of the group, and that's not what we look for in an Ultimate Wingnut. But we'll let the voters decide, I guess.
Now, for our outsider challenge ... um, do we have an outsider who wants to join the Korner Kids team? Anybody? Aw, somebody step up to the plate and try to take JPod's place on the team -- it will be fun. And Jonah has Doritos!
:: complete silence except for the chirping os a cricket:: ::a tumbleweed blows by::
Okay, we finally have a challenger who wants to take the place of one of the Korner Kids on Wingnut Island. His name is Jack Engelhard, and he's the author of the novel Indecent Proposal. Apparently he's fallen on hard time since then, since he writes columns for ChronWatch. But here he is with "Meanwhile, Judith Miller Sits in Jail (The Wrong Reporter Gets Arrested)".
Here are his wingnutty claim AND his simile:
So they handcuffed her, and there she is, behind bars. She's Judy, as I like to call her, since I’ve been reading her for some two decades.
[...]
Meanwhile, Judith Miller sits in jail; in my view, she is like the sacrificial goat sent into the wilderness to pay for the sins of her peers. She is doing our penance.
Judy Miller died for our sins. Wow. Just wow.
Anyway, Jack goes on to ask us some questions, the answer to all of which are, "Because what they did isn't illegal."
Why is she in jail and why not Dan Rather who through manipulation allegedly tried to fix the election against George W. Bush? And Mary Mapes, Dan Rather’s producer over there at CBS, the lady who allegedly fed him all that deceitful info, why isn’t she in the slammer?
Reading Judy for twenty years has damaged Jack's brain.
And as for why Judy is in jail, I'm gonna bring back Pat Buchanan to punch out explain it to Jack. Here, Jack, read this portion of Pat's "On jailing journalists."
Going to jail for one' s convictions and to honor one' s word to a confidant is a commendable personal act. And, as that is the path Judith Miller and the New York Times have chosen to take, their decision can be respected. But, having taken that path, they cannot evade the consequences of their contempt of court. And they ought to stop whining about it.
The law is the law.
As for the press' claim to an absolute right to protect sources, even in criminal cases where the Supreme Court has ruled against them, it is preposterous.
Um, I think Pat just totally removed himself from competition, but he says it was worth it because he's always hated the movie version of Indecent Proposal, and so he really enjoyed punching out correcting Jack.
But now it's time to vote. Pick the TWO people whom, in your opinion, failed at our challenge to come up with a brave, wingnutty claim and an interesting but stupid comparsion. Or, just kick off the two of them whom you think Ben Shapiro might LIKE to wrestle with Spartan style, or the two who two of them who you could see yourself NOT killing if you were ever trapped in an elevator with them for 20 minutes -- with a team this mediocre, nobody is going to question your methodology.
So, which two columinsts do YOU want to be removed from Wingnut Island: Jonah Goldberg, John Derbyshire, John Podhoretz, Pat Buchanan, or Jack Engelhard? It's up to YOU!
6:14:02 AM 
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