Tuesday June 28, 2005

HOW ROVE CAN YOU GO? Lately, the temperature in the conservative fever-ward has been climbing like a Neopolitan busboy at Monte Carlo with a stolen dinner jacket.

OpinionJournal has picked up Karl Rove's "Traitors among us!" tone, complaining that Americans are turning against the war because of their tireless attendance upon the words of Edward Kennedy and Chuck Hagel. OpinionJournal is where the Crazy Jesus Lady stores her scrawls and shopping bags, and even on good days hosts some pretty deranged commentary, but lines like "Where the terrorists are gaining ground is in Washington, D.C." really represent a new low.

Of course, the New York Post has never had any guardrails whatsoever, but even Murdoch's Money-Pitbull is straining its already well-stretched leash. The Post decreed on Sunday that the Supreme Court's Kelo decision was all the work of "liberals." I thought Ward Churchill was the Face of Liberalism – when did Anthony Kennedy get the job? In January the Post ran Ryan Sager's complaint that liberals all hate Wal-Mart; maybe now that the Post has decided that liberals actually want to give people's homes to private developers – the sort of thing Wal-Mart thrives on -- perhaps the paper will print a retraction.

Or maybe they'll just go a little crazier. On Monday the Post declared two museums proposed for the World Trade Center to be a threat to our way of life:

What if, some years from now, a latter-day Andres Serrano turns up at the Drawing Center's new home at Ground Zero, with an American flag submerged in a tub of urine — calling it, say, "Piss Flag"? Or with an image of the Twin Towers covered in cow manure?

Could such outrageous "art" be banned from the site?

If that sounds ridiculous, just think back a few years — to Serrano's "Piss Christ." Or to the Brooklyn Museum's 1999 exhibit, "Sensation" — featuring the Virgin Mary covered in elephant dung…

Let's face it: New Yorkers are known for abusing the First Amendment… Once the IFC and Drawing Center are up and running, there'll be no stopping them.

If either of the institutions has planned an installation that shows Michael Moore pointing at the burning Twin Towers and laughing, the Post has not shared this scoop with its readers. Apparently the whole tsimmis is based on the revelation that one of the IFC guys worked for George Soros, and that the WTC exhibit might include information about other atrocities that could not be so easily exploited by Republicans as 9-11.

Free Republic concurs in its usual guttural roar: "The liberal parasites of New York are not capable of recognition of bravery, of sacrife....the liberal trash of your state is only concerned WITH SELF, encouraged on by their witch of a so-called Senator…" etc.

But we expect it from them. It's the mainstreaming of such froth that's noteworthy. What's up? Well, the Leader is expected to defend his Iraq policy on TV tonight – flanked by soldiers, we hear. Some of the President's cheerleaders are calling on him to better explain his policies; others want more inspiring rah-rah.

But, given the advance work done by his press functionaries, I expect the message will involve less explainin' and more traitor-baitin'. What else does he have left, really?

UPDATE: Kevin Drum has noticed an uptick in the crazy meter, too, though he (probably wisely) refrains from drawing conclusions.
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