Last week Japan was hit by earthquake, tsunami,
and volcano. As the country tries to come back from
this series of disasters, donations are pouring in from world citizens.
Rightbloggers are doing their part, too. They're using the catastrophe
as a teachable moment to explain that Obama sucks, global warming
doesn't exist, and what America needs now is more nuclear power plants.
We wish to state up front that we didn't find rightbloggers doing
the kind of karmic-payback-for-Pearl-Harbor nonsense reported here. That's not counting Republican Faith Chat ("IT'S NOT AS THOUGH GOD
HASN'T WARNED THE JAPS!"), The Good Kentuckian ("Well, maybe THAT is the real
reason Jesus punished Japan: Jesus hates socialism and big
government!"), and other sites that we're telling ourselves must be
parodies.
Last week it seemed no one could get enough of Charlie Sheen. Though
he'd previously made the papers with his drug problems, domestic
violence incidents, and hit TV series, Sheen attained internet meme
status when, after his ravings derailed his show, he responded with spectacularly
outsized references to himself as "an F-18" with "flaming fists" and
"tiger blood" who was in all things #winning.
This led to humorous Charlie Sheen random quote
generators and flow charts as well as outraged remarks, some of
which were pretty astute, and some of which were silly.
You know rightbloggers had to get a piece of this action. In their hands
Sheen became a metaphor for liberalism, homeless policy, union
violence, and America's moral decline in the gay marriage era.
Last weekend rallies were held in all 50 states in support of
the teachers' union in Wisconsin. And at the Wisconsin state capitol, at
least 70,000
people came out on Saturday to protest Governor Walker's attempt to
break the union.
Sounds like a big deal, right? Hundreds of thousands of people turned
out on behalf of teachers in one state who were holding out for
collective bargaining rights, despite opposition from Republicans and
from bigtime "liberal" columnists who also consider
schoolteachers grossly overcompensated.
Yet rightbloggers dismissed these demos as paltry, insignificant, and a
failure.
To understand why they think so, we need to review the history of the
Tea Party, which has sometimes summoned big crowds itself.
The effort by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and the Republican-led state legislature to deprive the state's teachers of collective bargaining rights
was catnip to rightbloggers last week. This is because it involves two
of their traditional objects of hatred: Unions and public education.
You know things are serious when the intensely rightwing Andrew Breitbart's Big Government and the Washington Times actually use the famous communist President Franklin Roosevelt as a stick to beat the teachers' union. (Real Clear Politics even added, "FDR's Ghost Is Smiling on Wisconsin's Governor," perhaps in admiration of his nerve.)
The 2011 Conservative Political Action Cnference (CPAC), held last week, was in some respects like the previous year's: For example, everyone loved that the place was full of young people, until the kids gave libertarian Ron Paul their straw poll vote.
There were some changes, though. Perhaps hoping to convince people in
preparation for a 2012 Obama challenge they weren't all uptight white
guys, CPAC threw a little multiculturalism into its mix, with gays and
Muslims gaining a sliver of representation.
You can guess what followed -- some of the brethren accused CPAC of selling them out to the gay/Muslim enemy.
Hordes of citizens stand up to their nation's hated leader. But
observers worry that when the revolution finally comes, religious
fundamentalists hostile to democracy will seize power.
We're not talking about the Tea Party this time -- we're talking about
the ongoing, massive demonstrations against Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak.
Rightbloggers were torn about this one. While many at first enjoyed the
people-power street scenes as a celebration of freedom, their enthusiasm
waned as they realized that Muslims were involved.
"Red China" had been effectively closed to U.S. trade for years when President Nixon began softening things up in the 70s.
Subsequent Presidents from both parties have followed Nixon's lead, and
now, along with state visits like the one Chinese Leader Hu Jintao made
last week to the White House, we get nearly everything from China, from
t-shirts to iPhones.
We've also racked up an impressive trade deficit with our valued partner. And China holds $895.6 billion in U.S. Treasury debt, along with millions of jobs that might have gone to Americans. Hooray for free trade!
But never mind all that -- for rightbloggers the history of
Sino-American relations began with Hu's visit, when President Obama sold
America down the river by letting the Chinese invade the White House
and sing their America-hating songs.
If you've quit paying attention to the Tucson shooting case, first of
all, congratulations. Here is what you've missed: The
nearly-assassinated Democratic Congresswoman is getting better, and the
public discussion of her shooting is getting worse.
There's just too much nonsense being circulated to cover here, so we'll
focus on a relatively narrow but instructive development: How
rightbloggers have promoted to their primary object of hatred -- above
even the despised Obama, at least for the moment -- mild-mannered
economist Paul Krugman.
After Saturday's shootings in Arizona
-- which left Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords badly wounded
and six people dead -- rightbloggers were swift to condemn ... any
possible criticism of themselves.
You can understand their defensiveness. Back during the 2010 campaign,
Sarah Palin had endorsed tea party challengers to Giffords and others
with little gun-sight images and the cry, "Don't Retreat -- Reload!" Giffords had noticed ("When people do that, they've got to realize there are consequences to that action..."); so did the local sheriff.
Oops. You might expect rightbloggers to be pouring oil on troubled
waters right now, eschewing violence, promoting civility, etc.
What a horrible year it's been. There's been something to annoy everyone, and everyone took full advantage: The health-care bill, the Tea Party, the BP spill, the Ground Zero Mosque, the Glenn Beck and Jon Stewart rallies, the Republican comeback, the enhanced TSA patdowns, WikiLeaks -- and every big thing that happened, it seemed, led to an even bigger bitchfest.
Thank God for the rightbloggers who helped get us through all this.
Whatever the issue, however intense the debate, some conservative cowboy
could be counted on to bring The Crazy, and bestow upon a grateful
nation the healing gift of laughter.
We've sifted through our archives and found our 10 Best Rightblogger Rants of 2010. Read on! Collect the set! Suggest your own!
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