The Conservative Reaction

The mainstream media applauded Obama's election into office. They went a bit heavy on the first black president thing, but that's understandable I guess. Still, it's a bad idea to see this guy purely in terms of race, as if his candidacy was nothing more than an attempt at a historic moment.

Normal Republicans seem to be taking this okay. A little disappointed perhaps, but not crushed by the news. That's good to know.

But how are the Real Conservatives of Real America taking it? For laughs I checked a few of the wingnut blogs and forums.

Bill O'Reilly seems to think that Obama is "indebted" to the "far left" now and will either spend money like crazy, ruining the economy, or cheese off his overlords. WTF. Bill is such an incisive political analyst, it's hard to imagine how such a brilliant guy is wasting away at such an overtly partisan smear machine like Fox News.

Michelle Malkin comes in with a 300esque "now we stand and fight!" post, explicitly denouncing any introspection on whether or not any conservative beliefs themselves may be faulty. Pure zombie mentality. I love it.

Bob Novak has a bizarre piece up that says that despite the clear victory, Obama doesn't have a mandate. O RLY.

The Spectator seems to think that America just sold away its freedom:

"Millions of Americans remain lion-hearted, decent, rational and sturdy. They find themselves today abandoned, horrified, deeply apprehensive for the future of their country and the free world. No longer the land of the free and the home of the brave; they must now look elsewhere."

Some nutbar school board member in Texas says that "Barack Obama is plotting with terrorists to attack the U.S." Wow. Just wow.
(hat tip to PZ)

Meanwhile, the Rapture Ready folks predictably seem to think this is a sign that the end is nigh and the USA is doomed, which is pretty much par for the course.

And last but not least, there are some people with serious mental problems in addition to a whatever political insanity they subscribe to, engaging the readers in nothing more than childish tantrums:

"Congratulations, moonbats. You finally have your revenge for being forced to look at all those flags after 9/11. This is a day of celebration for everyone hostile to America and the principles of individual liberty for which it stands. Enjoy it while you can."

Awwww, how cute.

Well, looks like same old same old from the conservatives. No riots today, just endless whining and distortion.




*UPDATES*

Ed Brayton has a bunch of good ones in the article and the comments. Check it out.

HJHOP does too. The conservative constitution sleuthing in particular had me in stitches.

The Weekly Standard has an absolutely hilarious piece up, accurately titled "We Blew It" (but omitting the key part: "And We Suck"). Thankfully, us leftists aren't to blame for the horrific disaster of the McCain-Moose ticket losing. Because we're all insane and therefore not responsible for our actions. Oh, and you leftists out there with kids are doing it wrong: "Nobody with kids is a liberal, except maybe one pothead in Marin County." ROFL.

The LA Times has a nice collection of Limbaugh and Hannity fail.

Five Public Opinions has Bill Muehlenberg's take on the election (he's the Australian version of O'Reilly I guess).

"As an example of the media bias, the coverage of the election yesterday was quite a spectacle. Both Australian and American media commentators were absolutely gushing in sycophantic praise, adoration and worship for the new Messiah-King. It really smacked of frenzied idolatry."

(translated: a lot of people liked the fact that Obama won but I don't. Bah humbug.) I love how being happy that your guy won on election night is somehow transformed into "frenzied idolatry". What a buffoon.

Rep Paul Broun of Georgia says that Obama is creating a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship. The stupid, it burns!

Some nutbag in a news site's comments section. Not as notable as the rest, but makes up for it with pure comedy gold: "We have experienced a coup today. And Communism won."

Change is Here!

Obama wins the election



McCain concedes



But judging from the boos, the Republican faithful aren't going to take this gracefully at all (cue "fallen nation" in need of God's merciful wrath). It wasn't too long ago that the Party had them frothing at the mouth with all sorts of crazy, and it's not like you can just cut that off now that the election is over.



How this plays out tomorrow is going to be interesting.

Are the Republicans throwing the election?

By now, most of us know how this election is going to play out. Even the nefarious Karl Rove predicts that Obama is going to win this with 338 electoral votes. (I'm predicting a more modest victory in the 310-320 range) So a lot of media focus has been on how the Republicans are going to handle this (answer: not well).

Canadian Cynic seems to think the Republicans are intentionally trying to lose this time around:

If I am wrong and this is the very best effort of the vaunted Republican machine, then I stand in awe of the nearly complete failure of their proven apparatus to gather and horde power, to massage and control the media and the message. Yes Obama is good and yes the Democratic party has done a good job but the Republicans just aren't this inept, disorganized and disinterested. The only thing that makes sense to me is that this is a fix.

I don't think that's the case. I think they genuinely tried, but failed in crucial areas. They definitely massaged the message when they could, but a lot of it what happened was simply out of their control.

• They didn't expect Obama to win the primary. For a while, Clinton was the odds on favorite. Obama had a tough uphill battle, and managed to pull it off. If Clinton had won the nomination instead of Obama, this election would likely be a heckuva lot closer.
  

• McCain was their best candidate. In the Republican primaries, McCain had the dubious distinction of being the most qualified and least insane guy there. He was up against Archangel Brownback, that 9/11 Guy (I think he's called Giuliani when he's not in a dress), Person-of-Faith Mitt Romney, Pastor Huckabee, etc. And even though he's distrusted in some quarters, he was able to convince enough people to get the nod. After all, in 2000 he did put up a decent fight against Bush.
  

• Their smear campaign against Obama didn't work. And they didn't have much to go on to begin with - Obama himself is pretty clean so they resorted to guilt by association and pulled out the crazy pastor to impugn his character and then when Obama explicitly rejected his pastor's craziness, they howled that mean ol' Obama "threw him under a bus". Then, they tried blatant appeals of racial bigotry, which definitely backfired on them. Finally, and we're really grasping for straws here, there was Joe the Plumber, followed by Tito the Builder. The Republican hate machine tried, they really did, but they weren't able to demonize Obama in a convincing way to most Americans. And in general, I think the American public is getting more and more resistant to these kinds of ploys. You can't just say 9/11 and expect people to soil themselves anymore.
  

• Any Republican candidate is going to have a tough time defending Bush policies. Let's face it, Bush isn't a popular guy right now. A lot of Americans really are fed up with these disastrous policies and want something to change. But any Republican candidate they pick is going to have to explain his votes for Bush policies while simultaneously trying to market himself as someone who's going to change things. McCain answered that challenge brilliantly: He's a Maverick Reformer who's going to bring change. What kind of change, I haven't the foggiest.
  

• McCain really screwed up in choosing Palin. What a trainwreck. It's obvious that this was a calculated move to win over former Hillary Clinton supporters, and it certainly helped him with the religious right. But her utter inexperience and numerous gaffes (not knowing what a Veep does, fruit fly research, questionable understanding of the 1st Amendment) alienated independents, galvanized democrats, and probably led to some of the conservative disillusionment with McCain. McCain clearly didn't expect his pick to backfire as much as it has.
  

The Republicans didn't throw this fight, they lost it. They lost it because they had a really hard fight starting out, they weren't able to control the message, and because the McCain camp shot themselves in the foot on several occasions. It may be tempting to look at this with an air of overconfidence and mock their impotence, but considering how close this election has been after 8 years of such vile and loathsome rule, it's a testament to their power that it has been this close. But 4 years from now, they'll be back to try again, and next time, they just might win.

Dick Cheney endorses McCain

If that's not the kiss of death, I don't know what is.

We Don't Need Religion

Pat Condell's latest: Godless and Free



The religions of the world need us. They need our money, our work, our time, our devotion, and most of all, they need us to spread them to more followers in the same manner that the common cold needs to be passed on from host to host. They depend on us for their continuing survival.

And guess what? We don't need them.

We don't need hocus-pocus creation stories or fantastic cosmologies. We don't need vastly inferior and occasionally deranged moralities imposed on us. We don't need to feel ashamed for being human. We don't need barbarous, often violent tribalism. We don't need to hide from knowledge or new ways of life. We don't need to construct elaborate fantasies to console ourselves from grief or frighten us into obedience. We don't need a latticework of impossible beliefs in order to find meaning in life.

We don't need religion.