December 16, 2009

The rightie tighties have their knickers in a wad because Jane Hamsher decided to point out that Joe Lieberman's wife not only made large sums annually on the payroll of insurance companies -- which creates a clear conflict of interest for Lieberman in taking a lead role in killing health-care reform -- but also in fact collects money from the Susan G. Komen Foundation as a "global ambassador" for women's health. Jane organized a campaign to have her removed.

Factually and logically, Jane's right that it's silly for outfits like Komen to be underwriting someone who has so badly damaged the ability of millions of women to obtain health-care insurance. But facts and logic have nothing to do with the world of right-wing nutcases.

Particularly those at Fox, who have been avidly denouncing Hamsher's campaign as "outrageous" and using it to paint Lieberman as a martyr of "the far left." Bill O'Reilly, among others, devoted a large chunk of last night's O'Reilly Factor, including his Talking Points Memo, to denouncing the campaign as "sickening" and "disgraceful."

The Giant Turnip of Wingnuttia, aka Glenn Beck, was particularly vicious. He devoted a whole segment to calling Hamsher out, holding up a reproduction of her infamous Lieberman "blackface" Photoshop from 2006 and repeatedly referring to it.

Having once worked for Jane, I can attest to the fact that she sincerely regrets having run that shot, and not just because it's constantly used to slap her down. But really, this is the kind of argumentation we've come to expect from Beck, a la his attacks on Van Jones and Anita Dunn: Latch onto a single rhetorical mistake, then play it over and over as though that's what the person is about.

Well, hey, that particular game is a two-way street. The only problem with Beck is that, as our Fearmonger in Chief, he gives us almost a daily example of complete asshattery that should in fact permanently discredit him. To wit:

Where to start?

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