The Democrats’ Iraq-9/11 Connection

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly”—like all other followers of American politics—know that Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks on the United States. And we realize this, we should add, because it’s a statement that is constantly dripping from the mouths of our lefty pals.

With glee, these folks incessantly inform us that nine out of every eight Republican voters believed that Saddam Hussein masterminded the World Trade Center bombing. According to our liberal friends, the maniacal Bush administration duped the American public into believing there was a direct and strong Saddam-9/11 connection.

Quite frankly, dear reader, we’ve always found this particular left-wing talking point a bit curious. After all, don’t our lefty buddies believe that George W. Bush’s cardinal flaw is stupidity and a lack of nuance? If so, how do they explain President Bush’s seemingly paradoxical ability to fool the public via carefully-wrought misleading statements? It just doesn’t make sense.

But here’s another thing that doesn’t make sense: Some of the very people who harp and harpie about the clear absence of any Iraq-9/11 link now appear to believe it. Our proof? The current liberal love affair with fringe Republican presidential candidate-cum-libertarian nutter Ron Paul.

In the June 4 number of The New Republic, senior editor Michael Crowley contributed a largely laudatory discussion of Congressman Paul entitled “The Crank: The Surprising Relevance of Ron Paul.” Needless to say, with a title like that, it’s a highly dubious piece of hackery.

For example, Mr. Crowley puts stock—albeit somewhat hesitantly—in Ron Paul’s numbers in Internet polls:

Paul won several instant polls after the [May 15 Republican presidential] debate, including one at the conservative Newsmax.com and a Fox News text-message poll. Incredibly, Paul’s name began beating out “Paris Hilton” as the number-one query on the popular blog-searching website Technorati. (Granted, it’s possible that Paul’s fervent supporters are manipulating such online metrics.)

It’s “possible” that rabid Paul supporters have manipulated these metrics? Well, we suppose so, if by “possible” you mean “completely clear.” We mean, come on: The guy currently polls off-line a bit lower than Adolf Hitler and Kenneth Lay.

But here’s the interesting part. Toward the start of the piece, Mr. Crowley disparages Rudy Giuliani’s retort to Ron Paul’s foreign policy idiocy in the debate; he characterizes Giuliani as “ever-macho” (not a compliment at the TNR office, we’d wager).

Ah, yes: That pathetic testosterone-filled Giuliani—how dare he excoriate Ron Paul!

But wait: What did Ron Paul say to earn Mayor Giuliani’s ire? Mr. Crowley helpfully quotes him: “They [Islamic terrorists] attack us because we’ve been over there. We’ve been bombing Iraq for ten years.”

It’s more than a bit pathetic that a responsible organ of left-wing opinion finds anything to esteem in Ron Paul’s odious comments. Notice that Congressman Paul did not argue that American foreign policy was amongst the factors contributing to Islamist violence. Nope, he’s much more specific: To him, the former bombing of Iraq is to blame, and therefore the US must engage in a completely isolationist foreign policy.

This is mono-causal madness: If you read the statements and writings of Osama bin Laden, you’ll note that they concern themselves with far more than contemporary American foreign policy. They cast their terrorism as part of a jihad to convert the world to Islam, and a little tussle with Saddam wasn’t likely to alter their view of “crusaders” and “Zionist pigs” very much.

But note Congressman Paul’s and, implicitly, Michael Crowley’s support for an Iraq-9/11 connection: Al Qaeda attacked the US on 9/11 because it was fed up with American treatment of Saddam’s regime. Well, well, well: There is a Saddam-9/11 connection after all.

Hold on a second: Don’t our lefty friends love to argue that—despite some evidence to the contrary—al Qaeda and Saddam had nothing in common, no bonds that would make them work together? Yet it seems that Osama bin Laden was so bothered by American treatment of Saddam that he decided to attack on 9/11.

It’s a dark day when TNR is buying into such nonsense.

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An Attention Whore Whose Moral Authority Is Absolute

Understandably, sundry Americans wonder what we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” think about Cindy Sheehan’s recent decision to pack up her slew of T-shirts emblazoned with radical messages and give up her cause. Given our enviable metaphorical perch on the metaphorical tree of e-punditry, our opinion on America’s erstwhile “Peace Mom” likely has particular resonance.

And, to be honest, dear reader, we’re pretty emotional about the whole matter. In fact, we found her parting column, “Good Riddance Attention Whore,” so difficult that we couldn’t even make our way through it all. That wasn’t, moreover, merely due to Ms. Sheehan’s dubious grasp of grammar—her title, for instance, should have read “Good Riddance, Attention Whore.” Does this woman not recognize that her authority to use commas is absolute? Apparently not.

Although we may be forced to endure jeers from our fellow “webloggers,” we don’t mind saying that we’ve enjoyed the Cindy Sheehan Anti-War Circus. First, Ms. Sheehan surely possesses the most humorously inapt voice in the history of protest movements. Quite frankly, she sounds like a dilapidated California sorority girl—nay, more like the female Muppet in Animal’s band. “Fer sure.” You don’t get too much more ridiculous than that.

Further, we savored Ms. Sheehan’s dramatic plummet from grace. Remember when the knuckle-dragging Maureen Dowd declared that “Peace Mom’s” “moral authority” was “absolute”? Gosh, that seems like hundreds of years ago.

And no wonder. The mainstream media originally positioned Ms. Sheehan as a reasonable grieving mother forced into the reasonable role of reasonable anti-war activist. That certainly fell apart, didn’t it?

One can only endure so many hugs for Hugo Chavez and denunciations of the evils of Zionism before one is ready to label Ms. Sheehan a raving radical. Hence Ms. Sheehan’s tumble into comparative obscurity: The mainstreamers could no longer portray her as anything other than a fringe figure—a radical nutter.

So, Cindy Sheehan, we hope you recognize that we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” aren’t taking this opportunity to hurl taunts and epithets your way. We merely wish you had retained your platform, so more folks could hear the sort of raving anti-Western madness that the big media attempted to label mainstream.

You needn’t be upset about the way you were criticized. In food co-ops and faculty lounges across the country, you’ll always be deemed a hero. Oh, and in Syria too.

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Bias in Boston

The other day, one of the senior editors here at “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly”—let’s just call him “Chip”—was busy perusing The Boston Globe, Beantown’s answer to the lefty bias of the Gray Lady. Whilst flipping through the broadsheet, “Chip” happened upon a curious exemplum of liberal media tomfoolery.

A front-page (below-the-fold) story in the May 27 number of the Globe is called “GOP Rivals Embrace Unproven Iraq-9/11 Tie.” Penned by a slipshod journalist called Peter S. Canellos, this piece is little more than a dubious hit-job on the Republican candidates for president.

Essentially, the article quotes the Republican frontrunners discussing the War on Terrorism, and then offers responses by liberal foreign policy analysts that ridicule the Republicans’ positions. The title given to the piece on its continuing page—“GOP Rivals Reinforce Misleading View of Iraq Role in 9/11”—aptly demonstrates that it is an attack masquerading as news.

Take, for example, the opening paragraphs of the sordid article. They read as follows:

In defending the Iraq war, leading Republican presidential contenders are increasingly echoing words and phrases used by President Bush in the run-up to the war that reinforce the misleading impression that Iraq was responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, [sic] attacks.

In the May 15 Republican debate in South Carolina, Senator John McCain of Arizona suggested that Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden would “follow us home”—a comment some viewers may have taken to mean that bin Laden was in Iraq, which he is not.

Oh, for crying out loud. What complete hogwash.

How dumb does Peter S. Canellos believe that the American people are? Does he earnestly think that readers of The Boston Globe didn’t recognize that Osama bin Laden is not, in fact, in Iraq?

Obviously, Senator McCain did not mean that Osama bin Laden would personally take the next Air Saudi Arabia flight to New York City (first class, we presume). He was speaking more generally: If we retreat from Iraq, terrorist organizations ideologically linked to al Qaeda are likely to target the US itself. Peter S. Canellos would know this is true if he ever troubled himself to read the words of the terrorists themselves—who routinely discuss their desire to wreck havoc in America, Israel, and, more generally, the West.

Instead, Canellos merely quotes—wait for it—Michael Scheuer, the anti-Semitic former CIA analyst with an odious crush on Osama bin Laden. Curiously, Canellos never gets around to mentioning that Mr. Scheuer has argued that the Holocaust museum in Washington, DC plays a role in the nefarious Jewish Lobby’s attempt to hijack American foreign policy. That might cast some doubt on his ability to offer reasonable commentary on the Iraq War.

Rather, Canellos pretends as if he understands nothing about Islamist terrorist groups. He treats bin Laden like the official CEO of al Qaeda—anything not explicitly approved by him is not the handiwork of his organization. Obviously, these terrorist organizations are far more amorphous associations. But Canellos can’t admit this, because it would sully his pathetic attempts at smearing the Republicans.

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” can’t wait until the Globe publishes a piece called “Democrat Rivals Embrace Defeat in Iraq,” which highlights the views of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton—and then offers conservative foreign policy experts’ ripostes to their assertions.
Well, maybe we ought not to hold our collective breath.

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The Idiocies of a Professional "Saxist"

Like countless masochists across the world, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” greatly esteem taking in the insipid commentary featured on the Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington’s e-tribute to self-aggrandizement. With so many witless rants to be found therein, the ole’ Huffy Po must surely rank as one of the most impressive examples of unintentional comedy on Al Gore’s World-Wide Web.

As such, we were unsurprised to note the shocking vapidity of “The Falwell Bombers: Liberty University Student Caught Carrying Explosives” by someone called John Amato. According to his profile on the Huff Po, Mr. Amato “is a professional sax and flautist.”

Uh, he’s a professional sax? He’s a saxophone? Alto sax? Or does his “online” bio really claim that he’s a professional saxist and flautist? If so, perhaps he’s going to make the ladies angry.

But never mind about that niggling solipsism. Before you even turn to Mr. Amato’s “post,” its title already gives away its manifest ridiculousness: “The Falwell Bombers: Liberty University Student Caught Carrying Explosives.” Um, Mr. Amato, you just referred to “Falwell Bombers” in the plural, though the remaining bit of your title demonstrates that you’re discussing the handy-work of one lone nutter. Are you really that stupid?

Well, to be fair, Mr. Amato seems most interested in tarring and feathering the late Rev. Falwell’s entire movement on the basis of the actions of one lunatic. Hence his problem with the mix-up betwixt the use of the singular and the plural.

Of course, that’s the sort of thing leftists scream about when directed at Muslims—how dare you paint with such a broad brush as the result of a few terrorist attacks? Just because, say, large numbers of American Muslims see anti-Western terrorist attacks as justified, you shouldn’t make any conclusions about the Muslim community as a whole. But, it appears, our liberal friend is not so careful when it comes to generalizing about the Christian Right.

Hence Mr. Amato’s idiotic column includes the following lowlight:

Usually law enforcement just hauls off protesters or clubs them senseless, but now Liberty University has a new system of dealing with it. Blow em all to hell!

Notice that Mr. Amato blithely attributes the machinations of one deranged fool to the administration of Liberty University. He’s not one for fine distinctions, apparently. Or, come to think of it, any distinctions.

This is much like saying that Virginia Tech demonstrated a new way to ward off snobby, rich college kids—blow ‘em all to hell.

Naturally, such a sentiment would appeal to a moral imbecile. And Mr. Amato, in addition to being an old-fashioned imbecile, appears to be an example of the moral variety as well.

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Look to the Left

Every once in a great while, dear reader, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” enjoy composing a “post” that will flaunt our unimpeachable integrity. You know: The sort of rumination that goes a long way toward proving we’re not the Halliburton-owned shills for the evil right-wing that one finds all throughout Al Gore’s World-Wide Web.

After all, when we ripped Ann Coulter and Michael Savage to shreds, we earned the kudos of no less an e-eminence than Andrew Sullivan, who kindly noted our inherent reasonableness. Naturally, it isn’t exactly difficult to excoriate these two knuckle-dragging whack-jobs. Pretty much anyone with a pulse can determine that they’re little more than self-promoting twits. (And Michael Savage has a really nice pair of gams.)

Still, we must admit that it’s nice to take a break from all the conservative caterwauling from time to time—or else we’ll start to sound like an illogical, mal-educated undergraduate who can’t figure out why his arguments in opposition to intellectual diversity are so obtuse. Hypothetically, of course.

So, without further ado, dear reader, we present to you a short list of liberal politicians and intellectuals who have earned our respect. With so many left-wing twits twittering about—Jack Murtha, Nancy Pelosi, Eric Alterman, Keith Olbermann, Katrina vanden Heuvel, et al.—it seems reasonable to offer a few words of mild praise for lefties whose views make us think.

Here, then, is an obviously partial list of smart, interesting liberals:

Martin Peretz: Okay, so Mr. Peretz, the editor-in-chief of The New Republic is well known as the most conservative staff member at TNR. He’s also an unflinching friend of Israel, which makes him a beacon of sense and morality. But what particularly impresses us about Mr. Peretz is his genuine dislike of flabby arguments. He detests knee-jerk leftism, which makes his critiques of the political Right disciplined and honest.

Michael Walzer: As editor of the democratic socialist quarterly Dissent, Mr. Walzer might strike some as a little too lefty for our tastes. In fact, however, he’s a very smart man who’s doing his best to revive what he would call a “decent Left.” In a desert of obtuse left-wing magazines (Z, The Nation, The American Prospect, &c.), Dissent is a veritable oasis.

Juan Williams: Yes, yes, yes—we don’t always agree with Mr. Williams. He’s wrong on Iraq, for instance, and, more generally, he’s bad on foreign policy. But he’s a rare bird in the world of cable news: A thoughtful, reasonable left-wing pundit. Further, Mr. Williams appears to have genuine concern for the plight of his fellow black Americans, and thus doesn’t merely rehash the same lefty bromides about race in the US.

Ben Nelson: A good moderate Democratic senator from Nebraska. Other than the fact that he’s from Nebraska, what’s not to love? We’d take thousands of Ben Nelsons over one Chuck Hagel.

E.J. Dionne: If you ask us, Mr. Dionne is the most thought-provoking of liberal op-ed folk. Sure, he’s often wrong—sometimes miserably so. But his pieces seldom degenerate into fatuity; he actually argues, instead of hectoring. Would that Maureen Dowd could learn a lesson or two from him!

Joe Lieberman: Gee, do we really have to explain this one? We may be the only ones, but we can feel the Joe-mentum, baby.

So, dear reader, there you have it: Proof positive that we’re not running some sort of Internet equivalent of Pravda. Man, it feels good to be so full of integrity, doesn’t it?

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Keeping Up With the Times

As even casual readers of this humble “weblog” will recognize, “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” has a different format from that found at most other “weblogging” outfits. Whilst our fellow e-scribes are content to compose one-word “posts” (which usually read “Heh”), we favor a more garrulous, long-winded, wordy, talkative, and prolix approach.

That is to say, dear reader, we write one essay each day and “post” it for our adoring fan(s). As such, we don’t exactly take great advantage of the immediacy of Al Gore’s World-Wide Web. Other “weblogs” are offering up-to-date information on all and sundry; we’re offering one “post” on such fashionable topics as the reasons why the long-forgotten remake of “What’s Happening” wasn’t as solid as the original series.

Accordingly, we often fail to offer commentary on many crucial topics of the day. Illegal immigration; the healthcare crisis; Britney Spears’ latest shenanigans—these are just a few important topics on which we’ve failed to opine. Well, except for Britney Spears’ latest shenanigans, of course; we couldn’t pass that up, now could we?

In today’s humble “post,” then, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have taken it upon ourselves to remedy this e-situation. Or, at least, to ameliorate it somewhat.

For, in this humble installment of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” we’re going to offer a series of quick hits on topical issues, so you get some sense of where we stand on the deeply important matters of the day that we routinely ignore in order to write about posterior penmanship. Without further ado, then, here goes:

“The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Official Quick Hits

Jimmy Carter: You may have heard that ex-President Carter recently ripped into the Bush administration. This would have been newsworthy if he hadn’t done this exact thing approximately 456,212 times in the past year. In response, we need only note that Jimmy Carter wasn’t actually himself a wonderful president. Take that zinger, Jimmy.

Al Sharpton: Still a race-baiting buffoon. (Wow: Some things never change.)

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Inching Towards Edwards

Now, it’ll come as no surprise to our regular reader(s) to hear that we’re not big fans of erstwhile North Carolina Senator John Edwards. Although we esteem our fair share of Democrats, Mr. Edwards just isn’t one of them. In fact, we fondly recall Mr. Edwards’ 2004 vice-presidential debate with Dick Cheney, who handily wiped the floor with Mr. Edwards on foreign policy matters.

And, we should add, Mr. Edwards has become only more offensive since then. As a senator, Mr. Edwards voted in favor of the Iraq War. Now, of course, he can’t wait to pull the troops out and watch the horrific slaughter begin. That, we suppose, is what our friends on the Left call humanitarianism.

Given Mr. Edwards’ political record and his irksome aw-shucks demeanor, we always believed that we wouldn’t vote for him if all hell froze over. (All of it, not just the exurbs.) In fact, we thought that we’d vote for Hillary Clinton 3,000 times before plumping for Mr. Edwards. (Which, given the Clinton machine, is a real possibility.)

But recent events have compelled us to rethink our opinion. We aren’t exactly sold on an Edwards presidency yet, but we’re leaning ever so slightly in that direction.

“What,” you ask, “is the crack young staff smoking?” “How could they up and recommend people vote for that Ken doll in an expensive suit?”

Well, dear reader, the answer is quite simple: We think Mr. Edwards would make the most deliciously humorous president of the United States. Or, at least, the most humorous amongst the reasonable contenders: The unhinged Ron Paul would sure be a gas, but his support seems limited to 18-year-old Fountainhead enthusiasts.

Among the top- and second-tier candidates, however, Mr. Edwards is the best shot at laughs we have. We mean, come on: An anti-poverty crusader who spends hundreds of dollars on each haircut? An anti-poverty crusader who makes millions working in hedge funds? An anti-poverty crusader who charges ridiculous amounts to speak on campuses nationwide… about poverty?

As they used to say in those old beer commercials, it just doesn’t get any better than this. This is the stuff of Al Gore’s wastefully heated pool. This is the stuff of Jim Bakker’s mistress. This is pure, undiluted hypocrisy.

And we love it.

So, if Mr. Edwards can promise us that he’ll blithely slurp down caviar whilst nattering on about “the two Americas,” we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” promise to plump for him.

Heck, his election would also treat us to four years of Andrew Sullivan’s schoolboy crush on Mr. Edwards and his expensive flowing locks. Do you really want to miss out on that?

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When “Essentially” Means “Not at All”

Okay, okay, okay—we admit it: In the past fortnight or so, we’ve ridiculed the British left-wing weekly The New Statesman ad nauseam. We’ve criticized them so often, in fact, that we’ve even taken to using lame Britishisms such as “fortnight.”

And, quite frankly, our excoriations of The New Statesman, no matter how apt, give you a good sense of why this humble “weblog” has remained so, well, humble. Whilst other “webloggers” are off discussing far more pressing matters, we’re still nattering on about a UK magazine that no one even reads in the States.

It is with a heavy heart, then, that we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” again take issue with an issue of The New Statesman. To be sure, we didn’t want to hector the folks at the NS again, but we simply had to do so. We think you’ll see what we mean.

In the 14 May number of the ole’ NS, one can find “Europe’s Wrong Call,” a short lament by Caroline Lucas, a Green Party Member of the European Parliament for southeast England. In case that unsavory description of Ms. Lucas didn’t sufficiently encourage your disdain, you can check out a picture of her on her “website.”

For us, her visage offers an important unanswered question: Is her haircut worse than her politics? As you’ll see, we think that’s a tough query to answer.

For Ms. Lucas never appears to have met a Palestinian terrorist she doesn’t esteem. And she just can’t figure out why the EU would give the cold shoulder to the loveable scamps in Hamas. Those delightful sods; they wouldn’t harm a flea.

And thus her article in the NS brays about European complicity in turning “the occupied territories” into a basket case. First, we suppose we ought to mention, pace the well-coiffed Ms. Lucas, that Israel only occupies one territory—the West Bank—since it has handed over the Gaza Strip to those peaceable Palestinians. But, hey: “Occupied territories” sounds far more upsetting, doesn’t it? And why let a little thing like the truth get in the way?

Naturally, Ms. Lucas’ opinions on Israel/Palestine are beneath contempt. She believes that the Palestinians, having voted for genocidal maniacs, should be handed lots of European moneys with which to enact their genocide. This view, it seems, gets one labeled a promoter of peace.

But perhaps the following sentence is the most jaw-droppingly obtuse in her short column:

The EU continues to withhold direct aid from the Palestinian Authority (PA), as it has done for more than 12 months, even though a new government of national unity has been formed which essentially meets the demands of the international community for renunciation of violence, respect for previous political agreements, and recognition of the state of Israel.

“Essentially meets the demands,” eh? We hate to say it, but it’s true: Caroline Lucas is so stupid that she doesn’t even know the definition of the word “essentially.” She appears to think it means “not in any real way.”

To prove our point, let’s just go through a little scorecard. We’ll recount Ms. Lucas’ listing of international demands, and we’ll mark off whether the Hamas-dominated government in Palestine supports them.

Renunciation of violence: Um, gee, the Palestinians have been too busy shelling Israeli cities with rockets to trouble themselves to renounce violence. And given that Hamas’ charter forthrightly declares its aim of forcing the Jews into the sea, it’s hard to imagine that being taken care of non-violently.

Respect for previous political agreements: Sure, the Palestinians mouthed a few pieties about this, but they don’t really recognize any previous agreements. After all, their elected government officially aims at a Jewish genocide in Israel. It’s not clear how this could be compatible with supporting any political agreements with the dreaded “Zionist entity,” unless it’s politically valuable to do so, to get one’s hands on lots of European lucre.

Recognition of the state of Israel: Are you stark raving insane? Hamas will not recognize Israel. It aims to eradicate it.

Well, there you have it: Caroline Lucas is a complete twit. If her haircut weren’t so laughable, we’d say that it’s clear her politics are more noxious than her tonsorial style. But, gee: That’s one bad haircut.

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A Witless Scheme for Attention, or Watch Out, Ann Coulter

It’s sad but it’s true. No one pays attention to this humble “weblog.” Sure, sure, sure: That was a bit of an overstatement. After all, John Podhoretz, scion of neoconservative royalty, once heartily praised our efforts. And Britt Hume troubled himself to fix our grammar.

Still, truth be told, “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” isn’t a major attraction on Al Gore’s World-Wide Web, like Glenn Reynolds’ “website” or tasteful midget pornography. We, unlike Lindsey Lohan, are simply not built for every man.

Accordingly, despite our quasi-best efforts, we often struggle to gain readers’ attention. For some reason or other, it appears as if scabrous excoriations of so-called rock-n-roll music don’t bring in boatfuls of browsers. Nor, incidentally, does the phrase “scabrous excoriations.” (Well, you learn something new every day, don’t you?)

This, as you might imagine, dear reader, has mightily depressed us. Sure, our humble “website” has a few big days each year, with “links” from the likes of Andrew Sullivan, K.C. Johnson, James Taranto, Stefan Beck, et al. Even so, we, like J.J. and his nuclear family in the old sit-com “Good Times,” often struggle hard just to survive. (Thankfully, we’ve yet to run into any “easy-credit rip-offs.” Well, other than the ones from Nigeria we receive in the e-mailbox each day.)

It’s high time, then, that we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” put an end to our e-treading of water. Like Peter Gabriel, we need to make it Big Time.

But how to do it? A tough question, that.

Not, we dare say, for the Official “Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Ideas and Schemes Department. The lads and lasses who make up the Ideas and Schemes Department are nothing short of geniuses. It was on their advice, for example, that Barack Obama complained about the millions of Americans killed during the recent tornado in Kansas. And that remark sure worked well for him.

Well, in our case, the Ideas and Schemes Department recommends we write a book so outrageously and offensively over-the-top that the cable news chat shows feel compelled to weigh in on our shenanigans. You know, a screed with a title such as Women, Minorities, and Other Problems.

Sure, such a tome will certainly eliminate what little intellectual respectability a “website” with the name “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” could muster. But that would be a slim price to pay if it made us rich and famous.

Naturally, this is what Ann Coulter was thinking. Who else would write a monograph charging the entire Democratic Party with treason? For some odd reason, this works: Moronic pundits criticize her ad nauseam, as if her vapidities weren’t beneath contempt. And then, of course, she winds up rolling in the dough.

So, perhaps, dear reader, you can forget about our carefully wrought “posts.” They never got us anywhere. Instead, we’re heading to the gym: It’s about time we started working on turning ourselves into leggy blondes. See you on “Scarborough Country.”

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Oh, You Sexy Fascist

Regular reader(s) of this humble “weblog” undoubtedly know that we’ve been getting lots of mileage recently out of The New Statesman, the British answer to The Nation, albeit not printed on bathroom tissue. And, to be sure, we have poked fun at this lefty rag quite a lot in the past few weeks.

But there’s a reason for this. As far as we can tell, The New Statesman is simply the gift that keeps on giving. In that regard, it bears a lot in common with herpes. A lot.

So, dear reader, you’ll forgive us if we—once again—take issue with an issue of the ole’ NS. As you shall see anon, we’ve got every reason to kick up a minor fuss about a minor idiocy contained within its pages.

On the back page of the May 7 number of The New Statesman, one will find a column titled “Julian’s Week,” which is written by a bloke called Julian Clary. This column—alas—comes complete with a picture of Mr. Clary, whose sequins and makeup officially render him gayer than a maypole.

We’re not kidding, dear reader: This Clary fellow makes Sigfried and Roy seem like Mean Joe Green. He is to homosexuals what Hitler is to evil Nazis. Not, we dare say, that there is anything wrong with that.

As befits Mr. Clary’s intentionally outlandish look, his column offers a gay take on current affairs. It is not, we should stress, a particularly informed or charming take, but it’s a take nonetheless.

Here, dear reader, is the passage from Mr. Clary’s column that attracted our particular attention:

I have never knowingly been sexually aroused by a Tory. Even in my youth, when I wasn’t exactly picky, I would assess each shadowy figure on Hampstead Heath for tell-tale signs of his political proclivities before I delved further. Bowler hats and brollies were a turn-off. If you wore a flat cap or a Che Guevara T-shirt, on the other hand, I might well be your plaything for 20 minutes, at least.

This bit surely speaks to Mr. Clary’s great ignorance of Che Guevara—an ignorance unfortunately shared by manifold leftists. How many morons clad in Che shirts know virtually nothing about him? Apparently, this particular dimwit doesn’t realize that Che Guevara, among his other delightful deeds, helped Fidel Castro set up a Cuban police state.

And this is a police state, we must add, that punishes homosexuals—qua homosexuals—with imprisonment. In comparison with that, isn’t a bowler hat dead sexy? Disgraceful oppression of homosexuals vs. brollies—isn’t the choice obvious?

As supporters of gay rights, we find Mr. Clary’s shocking vapidity disgraceful. What moral Jew would applaud Yassir Arafat? What moral black would applaud “Bull” Connor? What moral homosexual would applaud Che Guevara?

Let’s hope Mr. Clary is merely an idiot, not a cretin.

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Being True to Your School—Whilst Saying Untruths

Regular readers of this humble “weblog” undoubtedly recognize that we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” moonlight as official Sunday essayists for the major league “weblog” Wizbang. In this capacity, last week we penned a “post” titled “Every College Kid Left Behind,” which mildly took issue with the sentiments of the president of Hillsdale College.

Toward the start of this piece, we mentioned that we did not fully understand the appeal of Hillsdale College, an unabashedly conservative liberal arts school. After all, we suggested, conservatives have justly prattled on about the lack of intellectual diversity at universities nationwide; why would they send their children to a school that well nigh trumpets its lack of liberals?

This offhand comment—though hardly crucial to our argument—received a spirited response from someone called Daniel Christianson, a sophomore at Hillsdale College (who also “posted” it on his “website”). Naturally, Mr. Christianson wanted to take issue with our view, since it reflected a mite poorly on his school.

Unfortunately for Mr. Christianson, his retort doesn’t gainsay our suspicions. Since his response is a tad longwinded, we have affixed some important bits below:

As a student at Hillsdale College, I would like to take a moment to address the "appeal" of Hillsdale that you find so difficult to understand.

First, the supposed lack of "intellectual diversity" on campus is a farce. While the campus is solidly conservative, there is a strong libertarian element, many anti-war Catholics (following the direction of the pope), and even a very active (though small) College Democrats Club.

Second, intellectual diversity means more than just democrat-republican or conservative-liberal. Those philosophies have more fundamental principles which we debate all the time. I can tell you that I personally have stayed up till three in the morning arguing whether absolute truth is ascertainable with several of my friends, not only because it's college and I'm a dork, but because we understood the implications involved. If someone is looking for intellectual, rigorous debate, there certainly is enough of that here at Hillsdale….

Fourth, every conservative living in the world today is so bombarded by the liberal establishment that there is virtually no risk that he will not be "exposed" to what pass for liberal "ideas." Nearly every TV show, every movie, every popular song blasted into our ears from every radio, expresses a message contrary to our values and to our beliefs. This is especially true for students at public schools. My high school violated my rights so flagrantly that law firms offered to represent me free of charge. It is nice to be at a school where I don't have to defend my principles every living moment of every day, where I don't have to wonder whether the "B" on my research paper was deserved or whether it was given because of my beliefs, where I don't have to numb my ears to a constant hum of profanities, and where my parents don't ask me to avoid the crowded hallways for fear that someone will stab me with an aids-infected needle as a form retribution.

Well, let’s drop the bizarre bit about “AIDS-infected needles” and get to the nitty-gritty, shall we? Poor Mr. Christianson doesn’t recognize that his retort offers the major arguments left-wingers could use to justify a lack of intellectual diversity at colleges throughout the country.

After all, just as intellectual diversity exists amongst conservatives of various stripes, so it does amongst left-wingers. A tenured radical, taking a page out of Mr. Christianson’s book, could very well assert that there is plenty of intellectual diversity at his monolithically left-wing school: Marxists and neo-Marxists; Trotskyists and Maoists; radical feminists and third-wave feminists; liberal internationalists and pacifists; &c.

But the existence of these various left-leaning groups doesn’t mean that a given school is a beacon of intellectual diversity, since major strands of thought are blithely left out. The same, we’d wager, is true of Hillsdale, no matter how many objectivists run around its hallways.

In fact, in his response, Mr. Christianson presents a view of the Left as a monolithic bloc. This is foolish—and demonstrates our point perfectly: As someone sheltered from leftist thought, Mr. Christianson does not understand the Left, he merely offers a caricature of it. That doesn’t speak too highly of his Hillsdale education.

We should not forget, moreover, his second major argument, that left-wing ideas dominate the culture, and thus it is fine to attend a college that won’t expose students to them. This too is nonsense—and, again, the very nonsense tenured radicals can spout to defend their schools’ lack of intellectual diversity.

After all, this is all a matter of perspective. To a neo-Marxist, American culture is so dominated by right-wing ideas and pro-capitalist ideology that it is fine and dandy to offer students four years of Marxoid indoctrination. As far as a dedicated Leftist is concerned, efforts at limiting the curriculum to left-wing pieties can be defended as merely attempts to expose students to different thinking.

This, naturally, is palaver—and so is Mr. Christianson’s argument.

Now, we aren’t anti-Hillsdale absolutists. We’re sure the school has its benefits. Just because a school is dominated by conservatives doesn’t mean that it doesn’t discuss other views fairly. Also, it’s important to know that you won’t receive a poor grade merely because you disagree with a professor. And we’d bet that most Hillsdale students take ideas seriously—a crucial prerequisite to obtaining a good liberal arts foundation.

But, despite Mr. Christianson’s efforts, our hesitations about Hillsdale still stand.

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Caviar Anti-Capitalists

A few weeks ago, one of the interns here at “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly”—let’s just call him “Chip”—officially subscribed to The New Statesman, the United Kingdom’s answer to The Nation. Sadly, in order for this weekly rag to appear at our doorstep, “Chip” had to let a few other subscriptions lapse. Here’s to hoping that the next issues of 13th Moon are stinkers.

Anyway, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have greatly enjoyed perusing The New Statesman each week. For a magazine with ridiculous politics, we must admit it’s a fun read.

And, on occasion, when taking in The New Statesman, one spies the typical fatuousness of the modern left-wing rag. Take, for instance, the 7 May number of the magazine. Emblazoned with the title “Blair: The Reckoning—1997-2007” on its cover, this issue offers a number of hard-left articles describing Tony Blair’s supposedly ruinous stint as Prime Minister.

To a number of the pundits opining in the magazine, among the horrors of the Blair government was the increased economic inequality Britain has experienced under its leader’s stewardship. This sentiment, naturally, fits the magazine’s overall economic outlook, which tends to be in synch with Denmark and Cuba.

Oh, the evils of capitalism! Alas, the rancid “American model” is destroying the world! If only there were a way to make the wealthy poorer!

Given the eat-the-rich sentiments contained in the issue, we were mildly surprised to find a sports column by one Hunter Davies entitled “Worth Its Weight.” You see, dear reader, in this little piece, Mr. Davies gushes about United: The Manchester United, a limited-edition book that costs 3,000 pounds (over $6,000 American). Yeah, you read that right: 3,000 pounds.

Here’s part of Mr. Davies’ fawning review:

I spent two hours turning the pages, not reading the words, just taking in the images and layout—and I did agree in the end that it was an excellent piece of publishing. The archive stuff was beautifully presented, the new stuff expertly shot.

Well, gee. Isn’t that just peachy.

We’ve only got one question: If the staff of The New Statesman firmly believe that economic inequality is a dire problem in the contemporary UK, why are they bothering to wax ecstatic about a ridiculously expensive book on a soccer team? Why are they informing their sanctimoniously left-wing readership that this extravagant tome on a nugatory subject is “Worth Its Weight”?

Wouldn’t this money be better spent on some sort of feckless government program? Wouldn’t it do better work in the pockets of a charity vouched for by George Galloway? Wouldn’t it go farther if donated to the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly”?

Yeah, we think so too.

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The Rodney King of the Internet

Numerous journalists have noted—often with a touch of glee, we think—that intellectual discourse on Al Gore’s World-Wide Web tends to be of an appallingly low level. Just take a gander at one of your favorite “weblogs,” and you’re likely to find reader comments that would make a fruit fly seem a master of English prose by comparison.

Misspellings; garbled syntax; solecisms—these are the stuff of typical reader comments on “weblogs” throughout the “weblogosphere.” (And, sadly, the telltale signs of undergraduate essays too.)

Yet this is not, to be sure, the only thing that rankles about Al Gore’s Internet. Rather, the dedicated e-stroller must assuredly notice the intemperate language to be found all around the World-Wide Web. (Boy, don’t we sound like the 21st century’s answer to Tipper Gore?)

You know what we’re talking about, dear reader. Political “weblogs” of all different ideological bents routinely chastise their opponents as dolts, nincompoops, idiots, and worse. Commenters regularly lambaste those with whom they disagree, and rarely eschew four-letter words in doing so. And, on occasion, these sentiments become truly scary: Deranged lunatics might call for the murder of elected officials, for example. Others might even suggest that Rosie O’Donnell is sane.

Now, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have been around the e-block long enough to recognize what a rough-and-tumble world the Internet can be. Sadly, we’ve been the recipients of our fair share of e-venom. And, truth be told, we’ve excoriated a more-than-insignificant number of feckless neophytes and intemperate detractors.

Accordingly, we feel it within our purview to suggest that this e-vituperation must come to a halt. Quite frankly, it’s making “webloggers” look ridiculous, and giving ammunition to the popinjays in the mainstream media. If “webloggers” were a bit more restrained in their rhetoric, they’d likely feel less like the media equivalent of Rodney Dangerfield.

Now, we haven’t mentioned this solely to reap the benefits of a little sanctimonious preening (although, admittedly, that is an added bonus). On the contrary: We aim to do our part to raise the level of e-discourse.

To this end, below we’ve affixed a few pleasant comments about folks you might figure we’d disesteem. Allow it to serve as an example: If we can say nice things about some unsavory characters, you surely could do your part to make the Internet a less intemperate place as well.

Okay, without further ado, here goes:

Keith Olbermann: He is a vaguely effective propagandist who seems very well groomed. If more than three people watched his show each night, he might wind up becoming the sort of political and cultural force that Phil Donohue was on MSNBC.

Candy Crowley: Ms. Crowely does an excellent job reminding us why the endless stream of pretty, blonde-haired television news women aren’t that annoying after all.

Maureen Dowd: Without fear of ridicule, we can safely say that Ms. Dowd is a luminous example to young women everywhere. After all, if she can eke out a great career with her obscenely modest talent and acumen, women can do anything.

Wolf Blitzer: He’s not Anderson Cooper.

Rev. Al Sharpton: Rev. Al appears to be a very knowledgeable user of hair-care products. Oh, and he’s also a dynamite racial huckster.

Isn’t that nice, dear reader? You can almost hear the Internet getting nicer.

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The Fourth Annual Horrible College-Student Poetry Competition: And the Winner Is…

Oh, dear reader, today is the big day. For in this humble installment of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” we shall announce the official winners of the prestigious Fourth Annual Horrible College-Student Poetry Competition (details of which you can read here). This competition is, if we must say so ourselves, among the most heralded bad poetry contests in North America, and winning it outright will likely change your life—for the better, of course.

Now, before we get to the winning poems, we must stress what a difficult time our Official Contest Judge, Anonymous, had in ranking the entries. This year our humble contest received an ungodly number of submissions—even more than in years past. Accordingly, there is a darn good chance that contestants will not find their poems reproduced and praised below.

For this, of course, we’re deeply sorry—especially given the impressively high quality (that is to say, low quality) of the submissions. We wish, dear reader, that you could all win. But, logistically speaking, that simply wouldn’t be possible.

Okay, okay, okay, you say: Enough of the hand-wringing. Bring on the horrible college-student-esque verse. Your wish is our command.

Fourth Runner-Up

Our fourth runner-up is the spirited “weblogger” Phoenix, whose entry, you’ll agree, is delightfully atrocious.

Landry List of Filthy Dirty Super-bad Evil Warmongering Neo-Con Conspiracies by Phoenix

Corsets, PMS, Bloat
High Heels, hoop skirts, no vote

Pantyhose are evil too
Blame it all on the Jew

Very nice, is it not? We particularly esteemed the lines “White penis power/Denies the victims of the clock tower/Like Cho.” That is some dandy tin-eared balladry.

Third Runner-Up

Our third-runner up is good ole’ Gordo, better known as the Internet’s famous Cranky Neocon. We think you’ll agree that his entry has a certain, as the French say, “I don’t know what.”

From The Shadows by Gordon

From the Shadows
You oppress
Darkness cast from behind the Mountain of your Billion$$
Burning Stell, Injecting AIDS, Buying Lo and $elling Hi.

Take us From the Shadows.

Darn good, no? We especially esteemed the line “I can only stand aloof, weeping,” as it strongly implies that the undergraduate author doesn’t know the definition of the word aloof.

Second Runner-Up

If our fourth and third runners-up are that good, you can only guess how strong (that is, weak) are the bigger winners. Second runner-up status has been granted to Cathy Mossholder, a longtime reader from Setauket, NY.

GO TO WAR by Cathy Mossholder

Shall my darling,
My dear dog Peachy
Go to war
For the machine?

Shall she romp
And play no more
Another lost soul
For nothing?

Yeah, that was really touching. Is there anything as insultingly trivializing as envisioning one’s dog being drafted? If you ask us, signs point to No.

First Runner-Up

It was a real dogfight (no pun intended) for first place. As you’ll see, we received two really dynamite (that is, horrible) poems, and Anonymous had a bear of a time picking between them. Here, dear reader, is the first-runner up entry, which nearly took home the bacon. It’s by Alex Preston, another longtime “Hatemonger’s Quarterly” fan.

(un-titled) by a womyn

years of rape will not stop me
cutting, bleeding, crying
i will rise to your challenge, to your quest
to defeat
me

yes,
that you can be sure of

Man, that was good! Or, perhaps we should say, Grrrl, that was good! Mr. Preston’s entry positively screams “I just took one women’s studies class and it has changed my life.” The lame line-breaks, the horrid misspellings, the vapid feminist clichés—this poem has it all!

The Winner

As you might very well imagine, if Mr. Stroman’s submission is of that caliber, the winner must have entered a simply heavenly poem. And such was the case. To devoted fans of our annual Horrible College-Student Poetry Competitions, our winner will be well known: Michael E. Lopez, Esq., the winner of all of the previous years’ contests.

What makes Mr. Lopez’s entries so compelling? We’ll let you judge that for yourself, dear reader. But we think that Mr. Lopez never fails to get the tone just right. He doesn’t hit you over the head with vapid sentiments and obtuse pontifications. Rather, he writes poems that seem realistic—as if they came directly from a college poetry magazine.

we are the one by Michael E. Lopez

it only takes a single voice
and we are the one who stand against the lies
against the powerful

and i shall be the first
to take my stand against the dark
with this poem.

Oh, that’s simply delicious! How spot-on can you get? The poem’s so perfectly attuned to the self-satisfied undergraduate psyche that we wondered whether we wrote this thing as college sophomores. And the pseudo-clever ending? It just doesn’t get any better than that.

Accordingly, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” are pleased as punch to crown Michael E. Lopez as the victor of our Fourth Annual Horrible College-Student Poetry Competition.

Can Mr. Lopez make it five in a row? We’ll have to find out next year.

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Schadenfreude: Post-College Edition

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” are nothing if not marketers. In previous “posts” on our humble “weblog,” we’ve touted all sorts of potential products, from an Academic Superstars Calendar to a brilliant Academic Dictionary.

Come to think of it, our brilliant marketing ideas oft seem to have some sort of academic theme. And no wonder: What sells better than painfully obscure prose from fusty old pedants? We can’t think of anything either. Other than boobs, of course.

Accordingly, dear reader, our latest idea also stems from the world of higher education. If we may say so ourselves—and, as of press time, it appears as if we must—this product is a veritable goldmine. It’s genius, pure and simple.

But before we let you in on the idea, allow us to set the scene.

Imagine you’re a miserable academic (pardon the redundancy) who works on such important topics as greengrocers in the medieval world or Hungarian breast-feeding. As you have yet to score tenure, you work plenty of hours on all sorts of professorial tasks: organizing lectures; grading papers; researching for unreadable articles; sitting on useless and thankless committees; &c.

As you might well have guessed, you’re not too keen on some of your students—most of them, actually. Despite the purportedly rigorous standards of your purportedly competitive home institution, the average undergraduate at your college is about as motivated as a corpse. And a lazy corpse at that.

Too busy working on making their livers resemble brown bananas, these students simply can’t trouble themselves to do the sorts of things one expects of average undergrads. You know, like attend class, stay awake, make a dent on your homework, study, and not rape anyone.

Ah, but these kids sure can complain. They spend about five minutes composing their five-page papers the night before they’re due, and thus they read like the work of an illiterate immigrant. But this doesn’t stop them from bitching about their ineluctably lousy grade. If these lowlifes spent half as much time on their work as they did on their kvetching, they might actually earn decent scores. But, of course, they don’t care that much.

And this, dear reader, is where our fantastic potential product comes in. We call it the Professor’s Revenge Service, and we’re sure it’ll be bigger in academic circles than Foucault was in the 1980s.

So, what’s the Professor’s Revenge Service, and how does it work? Well, if a particular student drives you bonkers, all you must do is call up the Professor’s Revenge Service and pay our flat-rate fee. We at the service do all the rest.

That is to say, we agree to videotape your horrid student on his first post-graduation day at his first post-graduation job. We’ll send you a high-quality DVD of your former student in action at his new miserable occupation. You’ll take great pleasure as you watch him, in the inimitable words of Tom Lehrer, slide down the razor blade of life.

“Oh, so you never paid attention in class, eh, and couldn’t trouble yourself to stay awake?” you’ll chortle. “Well, how do you like it now, you jackass? Enjoy your crappy 9-5 job at the eraser factory, you mal-educated ignoramus.”

Just think of all the joys the Professor’s Revenge Service could offer. You can almost smell the Schadenfreude. If you ask us, our service is the greatest academic invention since the footnote.

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Tony Hendra: Deranged Lunatic

Like roughly three of our fellow Americans, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” found ourselves wondering: What does Tony Hendra think about Nicholas Sarkozy’s victory in the recent French elections? Mr. Hendra—for those of you blissfully unaware of him—is a writer whose columns for the Huffington Post make the other contributors seem perfectly sane.

We know what you are thinking, dear reader: This Tony Hendra fellow must be one deranged lunatic. And that, we must say, he is. He’s sufficiently nutty that he makes Arianna Huffington seem like a charming, clever, and intelligent woman with a gorgeous, mellifluous voice.

In fact, Mr. Hendra even appears too unhinged for the loyal readers of Huffy Po. In response to his noxious drivel, readers regularly scorn him for his overwrought rhetoric and pathetic simplifications. And, we must say, his response to the Sarkozy triumph is no different.

Mr. Hendra’s discussion of this topic, delicately titled “Blair Out! Sarkozy In! The Changing of the Poodles,” offers darn near every cliché the far Left has to offer. First and foremost, Mr. Hendra must label the victorious M. Sarkozy a—wait for it—racist.

Ah, yes: How dare M. Sarkozy attempt to tackle the dire problem with Muslim immigrants that his country faces! Rather, one should merely ignore the problem, and wait until Sharia law is declared in France, right?

Further, Mr. Hendra must pretend that M. Sarkozy has no mind of his own, but is merely doing the bidding of the evil regime in America. As he puts it, “Sarko” has “neo-fascist owners in Washington.”

But wait a minute: Mr. Hendra’s impeccable logic appears to have hit a snag. If M. Sarkozy is a genuine racist, his political goals must partly be his own. Yet Mr. Hendra claims that Sarkozy is merely a puppet of the Bush junta. If that’s the case, then he shouldn’t have the opportunity to offer the public his own sentiments; he must do the “neo-fascists’” bidding.

So, is he a genuine racist of a puppet? What gives?

In reality, Mr. Hendra seems to have written his pathetic article in order to demonstrate to the Huffington Post faithful that he ought to be committed. Well, that and to show off his sixth-grade French.

After all, anyone who labels the Bush administration “neo-fascist” is someone who has just proved to you that you needn’t pay him any mind. We don’t even get “proto-fascist.” Nope, not even that overheated claptrap suits the enraged Mr. Hendra.

Yet this all leads us to a more substantive point. We thought our pals on the Left liked to talk about the ways in which the United States must appease world leaders. Enough of this neoconservative grandstanding, they say. We need to show deference to others.

Well, here’s good ole’ Tony Hendra bashing the elected leaders of the UK and France, merely because they broadly support the United States in the War on Terrorism. And he’s not above denigrating these world leaders as “poodles” for their concern for Islamofascism. Gee: What great regard for the world you show, Mr. Hendra.

Let’s be honest, dear reader: Tony Hendra is beneath contempt. His views, we hope, are no more indicative of the mindset of modern liberals than Ann Coulter’s are of the minset of modern conservatives. In short, he’s a vapid fool—and one who looks like his dentures just fell out, truth be told. And this leaves only one question: Why in the Lord’s name has Arianna Huffington hired this buffoon to dribble arrant nonsense on her “website”?

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The “Great” Republican Defection

As has been much bandied about in the news, media mogul Rupert Murdoch recently made an attempt to buy The Wall Street Journal. Quite naturally, this has sent many lefties into paroxysms of rage. The conservative Mr. Murdoch, they think, will force the news reporters at the Journal to follow the ideological line of the paper’s right-wing editorial page.

In the minds of many left-wingers, Murdoch’s bid was just a small part of this devious “neoconservative’s” attempt to take control of the entire world’s media. If we’re not careful, Bill Kristol will be the world’s only reporter. Or so thinks Eric Alterman, we’d imagine.

Quite frankly, dear reader, we consider this largely nonsense. We suppose we’re not delighted that the Journal’s ownership may change hands. After all, we believe that its news coverage is the best written in the country, and so we’re nervous about any potential changes.

But we hardly think that Murdoch ownership will turn the news department at The Wall Street Journal into an unofficial propaganda unit for Dick Cheney. If one takes a look at Murdoch’s most prestigious newspaper in England—the Times of London—you won’t find it chock-a-block with rip-roaring conservatism. And the same is true of Murdoch’s British tabloid The Sun, which has regularly plumped for New Labor in past elections.

Perhaps a recent article in the Murdoch-owned Times of London offers the best example of the sort of anti-conservative argument that its purportedly deeply conservative proprietor can miraculously stomach. Someone named Sarah Baxter, a Times reporter in Washington, penned a piece called “Republicans Defect to the Obama Camp.”

Frankly, it should be read by all as a dramatic example of the poor use of anecdotal evidence to build a shoddy argument. To the cranially-challenged Ms. Baxter, Republicans are flocking to presidential aspirant Barack Obama in droves. Obama Mania is lighting up the Republican Party, and American conservatives are swept away by Obama’s genius.

Ms. Baxter’s evidence? Well, she has cobbled together the names of four former Bush supporters who have taken a shine to Obama. Actually, make that three: Ms. Baxter notes that Robert Kagan enjoyed one of Obama’s recent speeches, yet she never claims that Kagan is part of the Obama camp. In fact, given that Kagan is an informal policy advisor to John McCain, it’s unlikely that he’s going to wind up a diehard Obama supporter.

Okay, so that leaves us with three Republicans who thus far fancy Barack Obama. That is to say, if Ms. Baxter found two fewer pro-Obama Republicans she would have to change the title of her article to read “Republican Defects to the Obama Camp.” Wow: Talk about a landslide-in-the-making.

Obama, after all, must be the first presidential contender to win votes from those of other American political parties. You’d be hard pressed to find three Democrats who voted for Reagan, or as many Republicans who voted for Clinton. That’s just setting the bar too high.

Naturally, Ms. Baxter’s piece is a pathetic example of wishful thinking and ably demonstrates a journalist’s typical sloppy use of evidence. If this kind of anti-Republican fluff doesn’t trouble Mr. Murdoch, we don’t think you’ll have to worry that he’ll turn The Wall Street Journal into the Republican Party’s Pravda.

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The Omnipresent Taboo

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” are voracious readers of magazines. Ebony; Black Hair Care; Vibe; Oprah—these are just a handful of the periodicals we peruse regularly. What can we say? After all, we’re intellectuals.

Amongst our heaping pile of foreign rags one can invariably find The New Statesman. For those of you unaware of this British publication, we think its best described as a kind of United Kingdom version of The Nation, only better written, more charming, and not printed on toilet paper.

Naturally, as a European left-wing magazine, The New Statesman offers all sorts of ridiculous political views. If we remember correctly, we’ve even taken aim at some of these noxious positions in the past. On Israel, in fact, the publication is particularly odious—on par, in fact, with the worst anti-Semitic nonsense one finds on the Continent.

Yet The New Statesman isn’t entirely horrid: Any rag that boasts Roger Scruton as its wine critic can’t be too bad in our book. Accordingly, each week we find ourselves scanning the pages of the latest issue, intermittently smiling and retching.

Ah, and there is so much to induce retching. Take, for example, “The Unmentionable Causes of Violence,” an article in the April 30 number of the rag. Penned by one Andrew Stephen, whose insipid columns on the United States ineluctably feature his unflattering mug shot, the piece is a locus classicus of dimwitted anti-Americanism.

Here, dear reader, is a short snippet from this moronic piece:

I was sitting around a lunch table with a group of [American] television executives a couple of days after the shootings [at Virginia Tech], and the talk centred entirely around whether NBC was right to air Cho’s rants. Nobody brought up the unmentionable subject of the availability of guns, and I chickened out from doing so. The US media (and practically every leading Democrat) have skipped and danced and weaved around the subject, ending up transfixed like rabbits in headlights.

After reading this tidbit, you are likely asking yourself: Has Andrew Stephen ever actually been to America? Does he know even the first thing about the ole’ US of A? Has he ever had any exposure to the mainstream media in this country?

In fact, his bizarrely obtuse article makes one wonder: Does Andrew Stephen even have an Internet connection? We mean, come on: How many milliseconds passed after the Virginia Tech massacre before the mainstream media in the US brought up the matter of gun control? The bodies had yet to be collected before anchors at CNN were portentously braying about the issue.

If, as Andrew Stephen opines, the discussion of gun control is taboo in the United States, it’s amongst the most heavily discussed taboo discussion in American politics. In fact, Andrew Stephen’s article is so dumb that we even wondered whether its author is a real person. (“Andrew Stephen”—sounds like a joke name, doesn’t it?)

Naturally, Mr. Stephen spends much of the rest of his article maligning the horrible gun culture of the United States. And this made us wonder: Why is it that our buddies on the Left chalk up any offensive characteristic of Muslim civilization—say, full face veils and Sharia law—as respectable expressions of a laudable culture, and refuse to offer these sorts of defenses for America’s quirks?

Frontier mythology, after all, is a key part of American identity. Why isn’t this—and its obvious links to anti-gun-control sentiment—seen as a respectable part of our culture? Why don’t we deserve some of the tolerance the Andrew Stephens of the world would blithely shower on Islamic fascists?

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Those Lazy Children

It will come as absolutely no surprise to longtime reader(s) of this humble “weblog” to discover that we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” disesteem bumper stickers. In fact, next to Hezbollah and posterior penmanship, we think that bumper stickers are amongst the great evils of the modern world.

Most of the time, however, the bumper stickers we spy are merely vapid and predictable. “Peace Is Possible”; “Hate Is Not a Family Value”; “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted Democrat”—these are amongst the vehicular eyesores we must read each day. It almost makes one pine for “Keep Your Rosaries Off My Ovaries”; heck, at least that one has a nice bit of internal rhyme.

A few days ago, however, one of the senior editors here at “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly”—let’s just call him “Chip”—happened upon a particularly curious bumper sticker. It read as follows:

Kids Can’t Vote. But You Can.

That’s it. That’s the whole message. “Kids Can’t Vote. But You Can.” Finis.

A bit odd, is it not? And, quite frankly, potentially very bigoted in regard to youths worldwide. After all, it isn’t very nice to advertise the shortcomings of any group, be they Hispanics, or Koreans, or rich white male lacrosse players at a prestigious southern University. But apparently to the genius behind this bumper sticker, it’s just fine and dandy to pick on kids.

We mean, come on: Why not rub it in a bit more? What else can’t kids do? How about a follow-up sticker reading “Kids Can’t Drink Copious Amounts of Alcohol. But You Can”? It really has a ring to it. That’ll show those tots.

And why pick on kids so much? After all, lots of other things can’t vote: Frogs, tollbooths, and, if leftists have their say, Arabs. Why single out the young ones?

Naturally, dear reader, the moron boasting this bumper sticker on his (her?) car wasn’t thinking about these matters. Rather, we have the sneaking suspicion that he had a far more self-righteous idea in mind.

It doesn’t take too much in the way of smarts to recognize that this is just another example of the tired left-wing bumper sticker, albeit one with much of its sanctimony unstated. If its sentiment were presented in full, we have the hunch it would read like this:

In the United States, Kids Can’t Vote. But You Can. Thus You Should Vote for Democrats, Because Evil Republicans Are Trying To Ruin the World.

Gosh: Just look at how many layers of moral preening must be filed in by the reader! And how pathetic: In part this bumper sticker rankles because it offers the common Whitney Houston Platitude: “I Believe that Children Are the Future.”

Well, duh. Chronologically speaking, you’re obviously right, Whitney. That’s why we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” believe that, since children are the future, Whitney’s decision to have children with Bobby Brown isn’t exactly ensuring a bright future.

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The Well-Named Justin Blank

As longtime readers of this humble “weblog” well know, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” are nothing if not petty. It is, we suppose, amongst our most endearing qualities—right beside argumentative and foolish.

Further, as humble proprietors of a humble “weblog” destined to “post” every weekday, we are constantly on the lookout for new topics of discussion. Accordingly, no subject is too lowly, no theme too jejune to warrant our collective attention.

And this, we guess, turns out to be bad news for a mal-educated ignoramus named Justin Blank. You see, dear reader, Mr. Blank, a recent graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, runs a pathetically intermittent “weblog” called Wintry Smile. As it turns out, a few years ago Mr. Blank dedicated one of the “posts” on his “weblog” to “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly.”

More specifically, Mr. Blank took aim at our humble e-outfit when contemplating our nomination for the Best Humor Blog category in the 2005 Weblog Awards. For your edification, dear reader, we have affixed said “post” below:

Achewood and Fafblog are going up against the Dilbert Blog and The Hate Mongers Quarterly on The Weblog Awards for Best Humor/Comics Weblog. I was going to write about how this is a clear example of market failure, since Girls are Pretty just isn't included and the Dilbert Blog isn't really that funny. Also, the Hatemonger's Quarterly is some of the shittiest shit ever shat onto the net. Believe me on this one. You don't want to spend the time confirming my opinion.

I know I'm biased, so let's factor that into the equation, by moving my opinions of both Fafblog and the Hatemonger's Quarterly towards the center. The result is that Fafblog is still one of the top 250 things to happen to humanity, while the Hatemonger's Quarterly has become a despicable mediocrity. Even when they take on targets where I can roughly sympathize with an old conservative curmudgeon, such as the "Student Environmental Action Coalition’s Activist Training Camp," they just sort of muddle around being unfunny. One of their favorite posts for the year involves making fun of an English professor for ending a sentence with a preposition.

On second thought, this isn't really a market failure, since Achewood and Fafblog are both solidly in the middle of the pack, Dilbert isn't in first, and the Hatemonger's Quarterly is dead last.

A bit longwinded, and, alas, grammatically-challenged. Still, we think you get a sense of Mr. Blank’s esteem for our humble efforts: To him, our “weblog” is “some of the shittiest shit ever shat onto the net.” Our “website” is so horrid, in fact, that it appears as if Mr. Blank can’t be bothered to spell it correctly—or even consistently. Ah, yes: It must be very bad indeed.

But wait: If our humble animadversions are so poor, perhaps we can learn a thing or two from Justin Blank, a former distinguished copyeditor of a UNC political rag called The Hill. Also, as you can tell from his Friendster page, Justin’s a very, very attractive chap. Maybe, in addition to gleaning some style and tonsorial tips from him, we can take in some pointers about writing properly from this delightful tyro.

To this end, we have appended another “weblog” “post” from Wintry Smile, this one also stemming from a few years ago, and also characteristic of Mr. Blank’s mellifluous prose:

Proposition: In the scene in American Beauty in which the plastic bag is featured, we are supposed to largely agree with the boy about the beauty of the plastic bag, or at least sympathize insofar as we feel him to have a certain depth.

"we are meant" can be either cashed out in terms of authorial intent or any other theoretical apparatus you find appropriate.

Thoughts?

Ah, yes: Here’s some real wonderful writing. Mangled grammar; horrid syntax; a split infinitive—boy, we wish we could “shit” this “shit onto the net” as well as Justin Blank. And to think, no one bothered to chime in with a response to this garbled nonsense.

Sadly, such writing is indicative of the mindless effusions of Justin Blank. And, if you ask us, they demonstrate that this boob should be summarily stripped of his BA. Anyone who writes this badly should be forced to take up yak farming in Peru.

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88 Beacons of Enlightenment

Perhaps, dear reader, you have heard of the Duke lacrosse rape scandal. If not, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have the sneaking suspicion that you were born either yesterday or today. Actually, make that definitely today: If you were born yesterday you should have heard about it by now.

Given the great media attention paid to the case, you are likely aware of the infamous so-called Group of 88. These much maligned Duke professors put forth a shoddy advertisement presuming the guilt of the three Duke lacrosse players, and encouraging the deeply intellectual protesters at Duke to continue their deeply intellectual protests by waving deeply intellectual flyers reading “Castrate.”

Well, there’s mud on their 88 faces. As it turns out, the Evil Rich White Males on the Duke lacrosse team didn’t commit a rape. Go figure. Apparently, DNA evidence (read: Rich white male science) was amongst the manifold things that exonerated the boys. How awful: Some radical professors have a point to make about the evils of Amerika, and a little thing like innocence gets in the way.

Accordingly, our charming Group of 88, who can usually be found nattering on about the horror of presuming the guilt of Gitmo detainees, blithely presumed the guilt of their own students. This is the sort of thing that Alannis Morissette, if she were a bit brighter, would label ironic.

In the Group of 88’s defense, however, we need to point out that the lacrosse players are Rich White Males, and therefore evil and immediately suspect. Q.E.D. So perhaps you can forgive our delightful faculty members for getting the nooses ready. We mean, come on: Osama bin Laden deserves the presumption of innocence, but we ought not extend it to Reade Seligmann.

From our vantage point, dear reader, we are having a hard time determining who looks worse in the Duke non-rape scandal aftermath. The witless and mean-spirited Nancy Grace; the unhinged Mau-Mau artist Houston Baker Jr.; the pusillanimous and devious Dick Brodhead; the slimy and incoherent Grant Farred; the obnoxious and smarmy William Chafe—my God, when was the last time you saw such an impressive lineup of exquisitely guilty folks? Nuremberg?

And we haven’t even mentioned Mike Nifong yet. Nor, we might add, the false accuser, whose name we won’t mention in order to protect her identity, but which rhymes with “Dystal Gail Mangum.”

To make matters even more delicious, The Chronicle, Duke University’s student newspaper, has offered sundry opportunities to the Gang of 88 to engage in self-satisfying hand-wringing. Accordingly, our tenured professors have presented the general reading public with an impressive congeries of completely unsatisfying arguments.

Our advertisement didn’t presume guilt, they say. Oh, sure: These are folks almost pathologically attuned to perceived grievances against various minority groups, and yet they can’t tell when they’ve blatantly wronged Rich White Males. If we weren’t so sure that this was a bald-faced lie that the Group of 88 obviously doesn’t believe, we’d be upset. But, frankly, dear reader, we can only laugh at such fatuity.

And now, as The Chronicle recently reported, the 88 Delightful Pedants can’t stop waxing horrific about the horrible treatment they received at the hands of Al Gore’s minions—i.e., the “webloggers.” Oh, dear Lord: It’s getting to the point where one can no longer unfairly malign defendants in court cases by presuming their guilt and not catch a little flak.

Is this where are country is heading? If so, we might just head over to Cuba—a country whose current government many in the Group of 88 presumably esteems.

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A Witness to Bad Poetry

Let’s say, dear reader, that you are itching to send us an entry to our Fourth Annual Horrible College-Student Poetry Competition (details of which you can read here). But let us further say that, despite your understandable desire to whip up an acceptably horrible bit of doggerel, you haven’t the faintest idea how to begin. What, you wonder, are the telltale signs of wretched, sophomoric verse?

A good question, that. And we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have taken it upon ourselves to inspire you to reach your “bad poetry potential,” if you will. As non-poetasters ourselves, we feel as if we can only teach by others’ examples.

To this end, dear reader, we have tracked down a suitably tin-eared poem, so that you can learn by studying its myriad defects. We think you’ll thank us for it.

And where, you may ask, did we find a fitting exemplum of atrocious balladry? Why, at one of the most natural of outfits: A “website” called Poets Against War. As you might very well expect, this sort of e-outfit offers the perfect sort of pseudo-poetic drivel soaked in sanctimony. From our hasty perusal of its contents, we could tell that much of their stuff simply screams “Bad College Verse.”

Examine, for instance, a mercifully short ditty by one Faycal Zouaoui. As the Poets For Capitulation “website” makes clear, Mr. Zouaoui is actually 28 years old. Accordingly, he’s no longer a college student—unless he’s a very, very poor study. Even so, we feel as if his verse is in some ways charmingly university-esque.

But you needn’t take our collective word for it:

A witness within

That lifer-world is so insane
How did it to rest in Peace?
In a guilty brain
Within a man
On the run

That’s a real piece of garbage, isn’t it? Note, for instance, that the first two lines are uncommonly ghastly and make very, very little sense. “How did it to rest in Peace”? Did this guy learn English a few days ago? Can you craft an uglier line?

In fact, we think that this little piece of poetic palaver is so terrible on a functional level that it lacks the all-knowing snootiness one associates with pertinacious undergrads. Where’s the “I Know that War Is Never the Answer Because I Took Sociology 101” tone? Where’s the “Women Studies Taught Me That the Military Is Fascistic” hectoring? Come on, Mr. Zouaoui: We think you’re coasting.

And thus we exhort you to do better. Send us your unspeakably bad pseudo-college poem by May 5, 5:00 pm EST. Perhaps your verse will answer that question of the ages: “How did it to rest in Peace?”

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Faux Liberal Nostalgia

Remember, dear reader, when our lefty pals considered Ronald Reagan the very embodiment of the anti-Christ? We sure do. Back in his presidential days, poor Ronald Reagan found himself on the receiving end of endless amounts of withering liberal scorn.

“That idiot will bring us to nuclear war!” “That moron’s an actor; he doesn’t know what the heck he’s doing!” “That fool will starve us all!” These were just a handful of—comparatively respectful—taunts that President Reagan had to endure.

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” mention this, dear reader, because these days you might have forgotten that anyone disesteemed the charming Ronald Reagan. After a solid decade of arguing that President Reagan was a mixture of Mao, Stalin, and a retarded sixth-grader all in one, our lefty pals suddenly look back upon his years in office with what appears to be genuine nostalgia.

It’s curious, is it not? Sure, they might have reason for feeling a bit of latter-day respect for Reagan. After all, whilst our liberal buddies were mindlessly plumping for a nuclear freeze (read: Utter capitulation to Communism), President Reagan went about ending the Cold War and freeing millions. Further, Reagan’s formerly controversial economic policies have been—to a greater or lesser extent—adapted by governments worldwide.

But our friends on the Left haven’t let Reagan’s triumphs determine their belated embrace of him. No, no, no: They simply use him as a counterpoise for their new Presidential Enemy Number One—Chimpy McHitler himself, George W. Bush.

You know the old saw: At least Ronald Reagan had some good points, argue our lefty buddies. Sure, he didn’t fund dental dam research as much as you might want, but, heck, he was right about the Soviets. It turns out that they were somewhat, uh, bad. In fact, Reagan makes Bush look like a fascist. Blah, blah, blah.

Thus does the Left’s former neo-Hitler give way to the new neo-Hitler. And never, of course, will the lefties admit that they were wrong in their former estimation of Ronald Reagan. Nope: They just press on with their most recent example of vilification.

There will come a day, dear reader, when liberals reflect on the dreaded George W. Bush and say something such as: “Well, he was incompetent, and the Iraq War was a disaster. But, gee: At least Bush had principles. In comparison with the contemporary Republican Party, he seems like a breath of fresh air.”

Oh, it seems far off in the distance now—and it is. But mark our words: It’ll come.

Yet don’t bother to wait for our lefty pals to apologize for their brutal excoriation of the current Commander-in-Chief. They’ll be too busy with their latest straw man to make amends.

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