Introducing Title E-IX

Perhaps, dear reader, you know all about Title IX, the glorious feminist-inspired diktat that forces American colleges and universities to give equal funds and attention to women’s sports as to men’s sports. This grand Ms. magazine success story is pretty much the reason you’ll never see a men’s fencing team ever again, since college administrators chuck them—along with numerous other male sports teams—in order to keep things even between the sexes.

Depriving collegiate males the opportunity to play on athletic teams: Gosh, that is a great feminist accomplishment. Maybe it even ranks up there with feminist fawning over chronic philanderer and sex-offender Bill Clinton. You go, girl. (Excuse us: Grrrl.)

If you ask us, Title IX is a quintessential example of contemporary American feminism. It begins with a reasonable-sounding premise—to eradicate gender discrimination in collegiate athletics—and then massively ruins things by failing to take any semblance of reality into account.

Only the most muddleheaded feminist, after all, would believe that there is equal interest in sports amongst members of both sexes. Naturally, far more men aim to participate in athletics than women—and this will remain the case no matter what Gloria Steinem dreams about.

Thus forcing universities to field an equal amount of women’s as men’s teams was obviously going to lead to doom for men’s track and field and other under-the-radar male sports. For everyone but Andrea Dworkin, this is a no-brainer. (In fairness to Dworkin, though, she’s deceased.)

We mention Title IX, dear reader, for a very specific reason. Since it has been such an unvarnished success in the land of collegiate athletics, why not expand its reach? Like you, we can’t think of a reason either.

And here’s what we have in mind. Our Democratic friends in Congress are surely scratching their heads over the defeat of a proposed reintroduction of the so-called Fairness Doctrine.

The Fairness Doctrine, in short, is unfair. (A well-named doctrine, that.) It would have compelled radio stations that broadcast right-wing talk shows to fund “The Alexander Cockburn Blames the Jews Hour” by way of ideological compensation. It would do for the private sector what PBS refuses to do for the tax-payer-funded public sector.

Even though the Fairness Doctrine is no more, why not propose a veritable E-Fairness Doctrine? And that, dear reader, is what Title E-IX is all about.

You see, it has come to our attention that there are more male than female “webloggers” out here on Al Gore’s World-Wide Web. This, we think, demonstrates the horrid sexism of the Internet—a sexism that is destroying the hopes and dreams of little girls everywhere.

With Title E-IX, however, this grave injustice will be solved: It’ll simply mandate the shutdown of sundry male-authored “weblogs” until we reach complete gender parity. Finally the insidious discrimination will be behind us.

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Binge Idiocy

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” like to keep abreast of the inanities of academic life. Ward Churchill; the notorious Group of 88; the pea-brained Houston Baker—these are just a few delights that greet the ivory tower watchdog.

Given our veritable advanced degree in tenured radical sightings, we’re seldom amazed by professorial obtuseness. We’re well aware, for instance, that the rigors of academia force the non-tenured to hope never to have an unpublished, un-refereed thought. Accordingly, more than a few examples of academic idiocy make their way to the neighborhood bookstore. (If your neighborhood bookstore carries Radical Third-World Quarterly.)

Every once in a great while, however, a study so jaw-droppingly dumb rears its head that even we chuckle with morbid delight. And such was surely the case when we spied a story from the UPI news service detailing some of the results of research undertaken at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

The report is so delicious that we think it merits reprinting in full:

COLUMBIA, Mo., June 27 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers recommend early Friday classes -- before 10 a.m. -- to help reduce excessive drinking by college students on Thursday nights.

Lead author Phillip K. Wood, of the University of Missouri-Columbia, surveyed 3,341 volunteer undergraduates at a large Midwestern public university and found significant relationships between the presence and timing of Friday classes and Thursday drinking.

"About half of the students with late or no Friday classes consumed at least one drink on Thursday, but only one-third of students did so if they had Friday classes which met at 10 a.m. or earlier," Wood said in a statement.

Approximately two-thirds of students who consumed some alcohol Thursday consumed a "binge amount" if they had late or no Friday classes, according to the study published in the July issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

Wood said he was surprised that many faculty don't teach on Fridays, and instead use the day for consultation or other research; however, he suggests early undergraduates might be best served if mandatory core classes were only available early on Friday.

Boy, the folks at the University of Missouri-Columbia really have their thinking caps on, don’t they? Students who don’t have Friday classes tend to drink more on Thursday nights than those who do. Who would have seen that coming?

Couldn’t anyone inform Herr Doktor Wood that early-morning classes on Friday might not prove to be such a panacea? You see, lots of students with early classes—mirabile dictu—will simply skip class.

Now, maybe they wouldn’t engage in such deleterious pursuits at academic powerhouses such as the University of Missouri-Columbia. From what little we can tell, to get into that stellar school, one requires…a pen. (No small feat, that.) Hence it never entered Professor Wood’s mind that Women’s Studies 101 at 8:45am may not fix things after all.

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Behold, a Grunting Buffoon

As you might imagine from the title of this humble “weblog,” we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” are a bunch of cool, cool cats. Very little, you see, gets under our skin. Call us the possessors of preternaturally sunny dispositions. In short, we seldom get irked.

Even so, every once in a great while, we find our blood pressure boiling. As we say, this happens to be an uncommonly rare occurrence. You know: Only when, say, Phil Collins comes out with a new album or, say, Rosie O’Donnell opens her mouth. That is to say, seldom.

Yesterday, however, one of those mesmerizingly rare times was upon us. Or, we should say, it was upon one of our junior editors—let’s just call him “Chip.” For “Chip” was huffing and puffing his way to physical fitness at the local gymnasium, and he happened upon one of the most irksome fellows in the early history of the 21st century.

Mind you, dear reader, the gymnasium is chock-a-block with life’s little irritants. For starters, one routinely runs into women preening like peacocks and wearing far too little. To make matters worse, one also routinely runs into men preening like peacocks and wearing far too little.

And let’s not even discuss the morons who force you to watch “Sex and the City” whilst you both sweat on the elliptical machines. Nothing quite says “uncomfortable” like taking in vivid sexual banter on the boob tube when you’re next to a sweaty stranger wearing a jog bra.

But these minor drawbacks pale in comparison with the galactic bother that “Chip” experienced. That’s because “Chip’s” entire gymnasium visit was ruined by an obnoxious, grunting buffoon.

You know the sort of chap of whom we speak, dear reader. Bedecked in clown pants and a cut-off T-shirt, this ninny seemed to want everyone in the Western hemisphere to know that he was working out.

A very accommodating person might guess that this guy had his i-Pod on stun, and thus couldn’t tell that he was a-grunting and a-groaning louder than Mussolini at his death. If you weren’t looking directly at this animal, you’d have thought that a man was being drawn and quartered in the gym.

And was he clanking down his weights with reckless abandon? You bet he was! In fact, “Chip” had the sneaking suspicion that this chucklehead would soon tear a hole in the concrete floor.

Quite frankly, dear reader, we wonder what this ignoramus was thinking. “I’m going to the gym; I better not forget to grunt like a WWE wrestler and toss my weights around like I’m Ike Turner and those dumbbells are my bitches.”

Yeah, that seems to be his thought process. Except for the semi-colon, of course: A guy this obtuse doesn’t think with semi-colons.

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Introducing “The Ideologically-Correct Book for Enlightened and Empowered Children of Nation-Reading Parents”

Like all sentient beings, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” eagerly take in Katha Pollitt’s whiny feminist tracts in The Nation whenever we can lay our hands on them. For sheer muddleheaded obtuseness, we think Ms. Pollitt is up with the best of them. Male or female, she’d be happy to know.

With great relish—and a little dab of mustard—we read Ms. Pollitt’s latest stultum opus, “Anything Boys Can Do….” Hardcore radical that she is, Ms. Pollitt has used this column to inveigh against an obvious threat to civilization: The Dangerous Book for Boys.

If you’re one of the three people on God’s green earth who has yet to hear about this tome, allow us to inform you that it’s a harmless throwback to children’s books of old, instructing its young male pledges on the delights of skipping rocks, learning grammar, and enjoying a synopsis of the Battle of Zama.

Now, it is one of the little pleasures of Ms. Pollitt’s pea-sized intellect that the astute amongst you can already imagine her objections to The Dangerous Book for Boys. In fact, you could likely guess at Ms. Pollitt’s bones-to-pick merely from hearing the work’s title. Of such stuff are feminist “intellectuals” made.

And, yes, you guessed it: Ms. Pollitt greatly dislikes the fact that this book is aimed at boys—and boys alone. What, no girls? Excuse us: No age-challenged women? To our feminist friends, women-only redoubts are a crucial desideratum. Hence we must endure the sight of women’s gyms, women’s book clubs, and—worst of all—Smith College.

But boys-only? That’s strictly taboo for our rabid feminists.

Add to this gender issue the book’s slight whiff of Rudyard-Kipling-esque bravado, and you get a good idea why subscribers to The Nation are highly unlikely to buy a copy of The Dangerous Book for Boys.

Yet this led us to wonder: Don’t Nation readers deserve an activities workbook for their tots? Sure, it’d have to be far more gender neutral—and you can just forget about all that battles and chivalry nonsense. Still, we think that such a book could sell like hotcakes.

And that’s why we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” are prepared to produce The Ideologically-Correct Book for Enlightened and Empowered Children of Nation-Reading Parents. We think it’d really take the wind out of the sails of that Dangerous Book for Boys hokum.

Why, just take a gander at some of our book’s delightful chapters:

-“How To Protest Income Inequality without Exacerbating Global Warming”

-“Travel to Hymie-Town with Jessie Jackson”

Does anyone else smell bestseller?

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A Change in Management?

As regular reader(s) of this humble “weblog” well know, not much changes around the comfy purlieus of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly.” We’ve had only one aesthetic tune-up during the course of our more than three-year history. And we’ve never so much as featured one picture on the “website”—that being beyond our admittedly limited technical capacities.

The content of this “weblog” hasn’t changed one iota either. Devoted reader(s) of this humble Internet outfit can always delight in our semi-humorous takes on semi-important semi-news stories or life’s little semi-irritants. In short, you can expect the same stuff on this “website”; we’re like the Internet version of death and taxes. (Provided, of course, you’re not an illegal immigrant; illegal immigrants don’t pay taxes and they never die.)

It is with some trepidation, therefore, that we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” announce potentially big changes to come for this “weblogging” outfit. Yes, we know, we know: That’s a hard sentence to take in. Perhaps we’ll establish some sort of psychological telephone-line for our reader(s), to help them cope with the possible changes.

You see, dear reader, Rupert Murdoch and his evil News Corp. are attempting to buy “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly.” As was recently not featured in the news, the Australian tycoon put up a hefty bid for this humble “weblog.” And this was surprising, insofar as “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” utterly lacking any advertisements, isn’t exactly a cash cow.

Clearly, the evil Mr. Murdoch wants to get his talons on “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” for the prestige factor. Once he owns The Times of London, The New York Post, and “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” he pretty much has the trifecta of media classiness. In truth, then, we are but a likely pawn of this megalomaniac’s desire to run the world.

We must mention, however, that this is not a done deal. Right now, our buddies in the mainstream media are preparing scabrous reports about Mr. Murdoch’s shenanigans, which are clearly aimed at soiling his attempt at a “weblog” takeover. In addition, we hear that Al Franken may put up an alternate bit, thereby saving the crack young staff from slaving for the only non-Jew who runs the universe.

But what if it doesn’t work? Well, then you can bet our “weblog” will contain nothing but fawning praise for Rupert Murdoch, Australia, and Fox News. It won’t be pretty.

What’s more, we bet that Mr. Murdoch will also attempt to get his hands on Naked Villainy and the Llamabutchers, to add to his fancy Internet fiefdom. Clearly, the future of Al Gore’s World-Wide Web is at stake.

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See Spot Run

Well, it’s now official: Everyone is running for president. Mike Bloomberg; Fred Thompson; Ralph Nader; Al Gore; Newt Gingrich; Shirley from “What’s Happening”; Jared from Subway—they’re all taking the plunge and campaigning for the highest office.

Or so it seems. We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” realize full well that we are very early into the 2008 presidential election, but we’re already growing tired of it. There are too many candidates as it is, and more keep signing up.

We mean, come on: Pretty soon Martin Luther will announce his candidacy. And he’s been dead for half a millennium. On top of that, he’s German.

(In addition, would the American public vote for a Lutheran for president? And did Martin Luther have per-marital sexual relations? What, moreover, is his view on polygamy? Perhaps Newsweek will run a cover story devoted to these vexing questions.)

Enough already. Pretty much the only folks interested in amassing more presidential candidates are Chris Matthews and Tim Russert. After all, any time they corner someone into appearing on their television programs, they immediately ask them if they’re going to run for commander-in-chief.

In fact, the constant barrage of “Are you going to run?” queries from the chat shows almost makes us wish that everyone were running for president. That way, they couldn’t irk us all with that stupid question.

Quite frankly, if everyone were a candidate for president it would suit our Democratic pals just fine, since it would mean that their beloved illegal immigrants (excuse us, Harry Reid: Undocumented patriots) could be elected to the top job.

Perhaps what most bothers us about the upcoming everyone-but-the-kitchen-sink election is that so much of it is obviously media driven. Although Chris Dodd and Joe Biden have far more legislative experience than Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the latter are deemed “frontrunners” and the former “long-shots,” in part because the media don’t take Senators Dodd’s and Biden’s runs seriously.

And the Republicans? They don’t take any of them very seriously.

John McCain’s stance on the Iraq War has forfeited his erstwhile shining reputation amongst the journalists. No longer is he the safe bet for what our dispassionate mainstream media types most love in the primaries—the farthest left of the Republicans.

Instead, they are chomping at the bit for a Chuck Hagel run—even though most Republicans (ourselves included) would prefer to see a G.W.F. Hegel run.

Finally, we’d have a Republican candidate who understands the dialectic. No intellectual lightweight, he. But we’re not sure if he’s a particularly articulate English-speaker. In addition, maybe he’s a little too close to Bush to win the public’s favor. And didn’t Karl Marx quite fancy him?

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The Poetry of al Qaeda

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” consider ourselves rather well versed (if you will) in the realm of bad poetry. As hosts of our famous annual Horrible College-Student Poetry Competitions, we’re pretty much experts in the land of atrocious balladry.

It was with great delight, then, that we spied a story in the June 20 number of The Wall Street Journal called “The Prison Poets of Guantanamo Find a Publisher.” Penned by one Yochi J. Dreazen, the piece amounts to free publicity for what could be one of the most horrendous examples of collected versification in recent memory.

As the article relates, a defense lawyer love-struck with the odious terrorists in Gitmo called Marc Falkoff has collected their poems and had them translated into English. The result is the University of Iowa’s forthcoming collection Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak.

From what we can tell from the meager excerpts provided in the article, the poems are clumsy and artless. That’s no surprise. As the report informs us: “According to Mr. Falkoff, most of the poetry he is aware of was written by prisoners who had not written poetry before being arrested.”

Gee, then it must be just wonderful. Yet the quality—or its obvious lack—is clearly not the point.

Rather, these poems—presuming they aren’t filled with secret messages to al Qaeda leaders—are merely aimed at convincing bien pensant fools of their political prejudices. They’ll allow the NPR crowd to pretend that, say, Jumah al Dossari, a Gitmo detainee and newfound poetaster, is just a poor fellow mistreated by the evil American government—instead of a fiery Islamist with connections to the Lakawanna Six.

It all reminds us of a humorous Firesign Theater bit about a famous writer visiting a condemned man in prison. The author says to the inmate: “Oh, you poor brute of a killer without a conscience.”

This, clearly, is the message the useful idiot Marc Falkoff hopes to instill in the audience for his odious edited collection. After all, as a lawyer, Mr. Falkoff personally represents 17 Gitmo prisoners, and, according to the Journal piece, describes them in the book’s inscription as “my friends inside the wire.”

Oh, puh-lease. What a bunch of drivel. Naturally, you won’t be surprised to learn that the University of Iowa Press “website” advertises for the book with the obligatory Audre Lorde reference and the obligatory fawning blurb from Adrienne Rich, the arch-feminist-cum-pseudo-poetess.

Well, maybe it’s too late to get it in the collection, but we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have a poem for Marc Falkoff. Unlike the loveable scamps at Gitmo, we are not his “friends inside the wire,” or even his pals at all. But surely we write as well as his ever-suffering terrorists in Cuba.

We call our poem “Marc Falkoff: A Twin Evil.” Without further ado, here it is:

Marc Falkoff: A Twin Evil by the Crack Young Staff

Marc Falkoff, you are many things.
A dupe.
A fool.
A lover of violent anti-American, anti-Semitic Islamist fascists.

You will love this poem too.

Really moving, is it not? We hope that the University of Iowa Press, in its double assault on Western civilization, will see fit to publish it in some new terror-supporting collection of wretched doggerel.

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Breaking Our Oath

This humble “weblog”—humble as it is—prides itself on offering commentary on more remote subjects. Whilst everyone on Al Gore’s World-Wide Web is busy blathering on about, say, Alex Rodriguez’s new medically enhanced girlfriend, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” spread the word about Stephen Harper, the charming Prime Minister of an utterly insignificant country to our north. (Hint: It’s not Greenland.) Which do you think will prove more popular?

To be honest, dear reader, our penchant for pontificating on such out-of-the-way topics is likely a contributing factor to this humble “weblog’s” humble status. Surprising as you may find it, as it turns out more people care deeply about A-Rod’s stripper than the Canadian Prime Minister (or, as we call him, the leader of the country to the north of the leader of the free world). Who would have thunk it?

It is with the sincerest regret, then, that we announce the subject for today’s discussion: The recent jailing and media fracas surrounding heiress Paris Hilton. Yeah, we know, we know: Upon typing those words, a little bit of us died inside.

Now, before we get under way, allow us to inform you what we won’t mention. Unlike, say, Sean “Boilerplate Conservative” Hannity, we won’t blast the American populace for caring more about Paris Hilton than illegal immigration—and then lead in to a story on Paris Hilton. If we’re troubling ourselves mentioning Paris Hilton’s woes, it seems a bit churlish to reprimand people for caring about them.

And, to be downright honest, Ms. Hilton’s recent travails have been mightily entertaining. Sure, not as entertaining as Ms. Hilton chirping a rousing chorus of “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.” But pretty entertaining nevertheless.

For one, the (Ir)Rev. Al Sharpton has decided to poke his “good hair” into the mess. Naturally, this is simply delicious: If Sharpton earnestly believes that Paris Hilton’s sentencing has deeply important ramifications for blacks in America, we think he’s even dumber than we previously supposed. And, believe, us, we formerly thought he was plenty dumb.

Further, we recently heard about Ms. Hilton’s confiding in Barbara Walters about the ways in which a few days in the clink have changed her life. Paris, like Mike Tyson, appears to have found religion. We wonder if this will end with a face tattoo and the assault of Robin Givens. (One can only hope.)

Ah, yes: Paris Hilton has found religion. Good for her. Maybe she can spread it to Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins? Those guys are getting a little bit irritating with their whole “proselytizing for atheism” shtick.

Call us a bunch of softies, but we think that people have given Ms. Hilton something of a bad rap. For crying out loud, she was forced to be a jerk on “The Simple Life,” or that flabby show would never have worked. A dutiful Paris Hilton fastidiously cleaning up cow droppings wasn’t likely to draw in viewers. (We haven’t the vaguest reason why.)

So, to Ms. Hilton, we say “You go, girl.” If this whole Christianity thing doesn’t pan out, you can always make another porn tape.

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News Flash: Angry, Violent Muslims

We know, we know: You, dear reader, are highly likely to be deeply alarmed by the title of this humble “post.” After all, Muslims are amongst the most laid-back and pacifistic people on the face of the earth. And thus the fact that various Islamists are seething of late must come as quite a shock.

If you hadn’t heard by now, the latest shock was the knighthood Britain bestowed upon Sir Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, amongst other books. The Satanic Verses, you see, supposedly mocks the Muslim prophet and thus the same Danish-cartoons Islamic rent-a-mobs are out in force. “Death to those who call us violent!” Blah, blah, blah.

To make matters worse, as The Wall Street Journal reported, Pakistan’s religious affairs minister claimed that Rushdie’s knighthood was so abhorrent that it justified suicide bombings. Pakistan, mind you, is the country run by a devious thug who claims to be a US ally in the War on Terror. You’d think that his supposedly friendly government would care more about catching Osama bin Laden and less about killing Salman Rushdie.

But wait: Another thing just occurred to us. (Wow, that’s two things in one day—a new record.)

Thanks to addlebrained anti-Semite-cum-incompetent CIA failure Michael Scheuer, we have long since learned that Islamist terrorism is entirely the fault of two things: American foreign policy and the pesky existence of Israel. If we just remove our troops from the Middle East (thereby allowing al Qaeda a clear shot at taking control of the world’s most important oil-supplying countries) and allow the Arabs to commit a second Holocaust in Israel, all would be great with the world.

And, of course, charming humanitarian that he is, Mr. Scheuer is quite prepared to make those sacrifices.

Yet—mirabile dictu—this whole Salman Rushdie brouhaha seems to work against Mr. Scheuer’s carefully reasoned argument. We mean, come on: Al Qaeda isn’t angry about Salman Rushdie! The terrorists hate American foreign policy and Israel—that’s it!

So what gives?

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” earnestly wonder how many crazy Islamist examples of violent overreaction must occur for our lefty pals to face up to reality. As much as our fringe lefties—and paleo-righties, such as Michael Scheuer—want to blame America and Israel for everything, they’re just plain wrong.

The Islamists want to destroy Western civilization, root and branch. They’re mad about Israel; America; the fall of the Ottoman Empire; the existence of America; the existence of any non-Muslims; Jews; Christians; their societies’ manifest failures; Western civilization; the Crusades; the successful European ceasing of Islamic imperialism; &c. You name it, it pisses them off.

Naturally, radical Muslims routinely refer to Christians and Jews with all sorts of slurs. And yet you don’t see us justifying suicide bombing in response.

As frustrating as all this is, we must admit that it’s a bit humorous too: It’s always fun to see the new way in which a left-wing nutter will blame America and Israel for sins of which they are obviously not guilty. It’s sort of like mental Twister, only a lot funnier.

Let the next round begin.

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Obtuse, Thy Name Is Guardian

Well, well, well: Those peaceable Palestinians have gone ahead and inaugurated a civil war. Who would have seen this coming? Certainly not us, given the inestimably high regard accorded to pacifism amongst the Palestinian community. Clearly the Hamas version of Mickey Mouse wouldn’t favor such uncouth intramural violence.

And surely we’re not the only ones who are aghast to discover that the lovely chaps in Hamas are capable of such skullduggery. The Hamasters also appear to have confused our friends in the mainstream media, who are currently grasping at ways to blame Israel and America for the conflagration. Maybe Seymour Hersh could give us some way to shift the responsibility, they must be thinking.

“The international community cut off funds,” say our Palestinian shills. “Obviously they’re responsible for this escalation of violence.”

We suppose that these anti-Israel zealots believe that handing over lots of money to a group of terrorists hell bent on genocide would be a far better thing to do. Sure, there would be no problems if that happened. At least we can’t think of any complications.

Those even mildly familiar with the ranks of Palestinian apologists will be unsurprised to learn that The Guardian demonstrated its typical obtuseness in reaction to the current civil war. The Guardian, for those of you blissfully unaware of it, is London’s answer to Al Ahram. It’s the kind of rag that gives plenty of column space to the loveable scamps in Hamas, to let them dribble their odious propaganda for the UK’s bien pensant morons.

Its first editorial sally into the latest Palestinian perfidy is called “A Pyrrhic Victory,” and can be found amongst its Sunday leaders. (Perhaps this means that it’s officially a staff editorial from The Observer, the Sunday version of The Guardian. But no matter: They’re both owned and run by the same folks.)

The caption underneath this leader says it all:

Hamas: Without unity between Hamas and Fatah, there is no chance of ending the occupation and achieving an independent Palestinian state.

To which we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” respond: Well, gee. Do you really think it bursts the dreams of Hamas to learn that they have less of a chance at “achieving an independent Palestinian state”? If you think this, you are officially an idiot.

As everyone living in reality recognizes, Hamas—like Fatah under Yasir “She’s My Baby” Arafat—doesn’t want an independent Palestinian state. It wants all of Israel. It wants genocide. That’s what the Oslo peace process demonstrated. And that’s what the Hamas charter demonstrates.

But the boobs at The Guardian simply can’t help but believe that Hamas wants exactly what they want. For some reason, this delusion is sufficiently strong that no new event will compel them to change their minds. It’s as if they really believed that the powers-that-be in Hamas didn’t realize that their bloody coup in Gaza would make gaining an “independent Palestinian state” less likely.

Well, gee: You don’t say.

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You (Heart) Self-Esteem

The other day, dear reader, was magical: The sun was shining, a light breeze was blowing, and there was no sign of Billy Joel anywhere in sight. In fact, there was no soft rock within earshot. It was, as we have previously mentioned, magical.

One of the junior editors here at “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly”—let’s just call him “Chip”—was enjoying this blissful day by taking a charming post-prandial walk round the neighborhood. And, on his way back to “Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Headquarters, he spied the darndest thing.

What was it? Well, we’re glad you asked. A gal of college age was walking past “Chip,” bedecked in those ugly bug-eye sunglasses the Paris Hilton set fancy. She was heavy-set and a bit plain looking.

Not, to be sure, the oddest sight. But here’s the kicker: Said girl was bedecked in a T-shirt emblazoned with the following logo: “I (heart) FRAT BOYS.” Yup, you read that right: This coquettish lass was positively advertising her esteem for fraternity fellahs.

Now, “Chip” thought, given this girl’s weight and countenance, the more interesting question is whether frat boys (heart) this girl. Further, “Chip” wondered how many Milwaukee’s Bests these Lambda Sigma Delta boys would need to be bowled over by the nugatory charms of this marginal damsel.

But never mind that. Rather, imagine what’s going on—or isn’t going on—in this sorry girl’s head. She’s blithely informing the world—in broad daylight, no less—that she loves the loathsome, inebriated acquaintance rapists who attend her university. Not terribly classy, is it?

In fact, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” are happy to suggest a few different T-shirt slogans, which this poor lass can wear with a little more pride. How about these winners…

“I AM NOT VERY ATTRACTIVE, BUT I MAKE UP FOR THAT BY BEING VERY, VERY EASY”

“SELF-ESTEEM ELUDES ME”

Now there are some wholesome slogans for a little college hussy.

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Old Europe’s Old Prostitute

Okay, so Tom Lantos, a Democratic Congressman from California, went on Nancy Pelosi’s dubious foreign policy trip to Syria. (“The road to perfidy and fecklessness goes through Damascus.”) That, we need hardly mention, was stupid. But, hey, we all make mistakes.

And Rep. Lantos has more than made up for this silly blunder in a recent speech at the dedication of a monument honoring the victims of Communism. The Associated (with Terrorists) Press reports:

A leading Democratic lawmaker lashed out at the former leaders of Germany and France, calling former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder a “political prostitute.”…

“I am so glad that the era of Jacques Chirac and Chancellor Schroeder in Germany is now gone," Lantos said to applause.

He said when the United States asked Schroeder to support its decision to go to war in Iraq "he told us where to go."

"I referred to him as a political prostitute, now that he's taking big checks from [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. But the sex workers in my district objected, so I will no longer use that phrase," Lantos said….

Lantos said Chirac "should go down to the Normandy beaches. He should see those endless rows of white marble crosses and stars of David representing young Americans who gave their lives for the freedom of France."

If that doesn’t make you greatly esteem Rep. Lantos, dear reader, you’re probably in a coma.

Now, we must say that we’ve always taken something of a shine to Rep. Lantos. A Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor, Lantos has always been supremely good on Israel. But, in taking aim at the defrocked former leaders of Old Europe, he’s surely outdone himself.

Not that everyone enjoyed Rep. Lantos’ candor. Again according to the AP:

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, once Schroeder's chief of staff, said Lantos' comments overstepped "the limits of political decency."

Well, boo hoo, Herr Steinmeier. Forgive us if we’re wrong, but we don’t seem to recall the German establishment getting all up in arms when Hugo Chavez took to the podium at the United Nations to call President Bush “the devil himself.” Was the German ambassador to the UN chuckling at these remarks? We don’t remember his truculent reaction to Mr. Chavez’s overstepping of “the limits of political decency.”

Perhaps this is the case because bien pensants in Old Europe have swum in anti-Bush rhetoric for years now. And at least Bush isn’t aiding Vladimir Putin’s totalitarian takeover of Russia. Would that we could say the same thing for haughty former Chancellor Schroeder.

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Stephen Harper, Rock Star

It’s a horrible admission to make, but we simply have to face the music and be honest: We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” don’t often think of Canada. Now, don’t get us wrong, dear reader. We don’t harbor any disdain for Canadians—or at least not for the non-French-Canadians. Well, or at least not for the non-French, non-America-bashing Canadians. You get our drift.

Still, ensconced in the comfier purlieus of these here United States of America, we seldom reflect on our neighbors to our north, unless, perchance, they rename one of their provinces some vaguely unpronounceable Native American word. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

But we have had plenty of reason to reflect on Canada of late. And, no, not because it allowed us some respite from the constant drone of Paris Hilton the Convict related hubbub. And, we must add, not because some new Rick Moranis vehicle has hit the theaters.

No, dear reader, we have pondered our little Maple Leafs to the north for another reason entirely. As someone called Matt Drudge “posted” on his Internet “website,” Conservative Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has refused to call Bono, the tonsorially-challenged rock star who moonlights as the self-obsessed personification of a panacea for world hunger.

According to a dubious outfit named Reuters, Bono aimed to speak with the Prime Minister in order to browbeat him into carting off donkey loads of cash for corrupt governments in Africa, to ensure that few starving Africans eat anything, but lots and lots of brutal dictators get their hands on AK-47s. And, as it turns out, Prime Minister Harper would have none of it.

To which we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” can only respond: Bravo, bravo, bravo, Prime Minister Harper! We knew there was a reason we esteemed you more than your predecessor. Like us, you recognize that nothing irks a good man quite like a maddeningly rich rock star forcing other people to fork over their money—in between bouts of shagging supermodels, no doubt.

The end of the Reuters report, however, sends Prime Minister Harper crashing back down to earth. Did he agree to a colloquy with Elton John? Does he speak regularly with Billy Joel?

Nope. It’s even worse:

For the record, though, Harper said he liked the music of Bono’s band, U2.

Boy, and they say that the Canucks care more about culture than we troglodytic Americans.

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Who CAIRs?

Well, it’s already wending its way round Al Gore’s World-Wide Web. The Washington Times has recently reported that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has experienced an incredible decline of members.

As Audrey Hudson reports:

According to tax documents obtained by The Times, the number of reported [CAIR] members spiraled down from more than 29,000 in 2000 to less [sic] than 1,700 in 2006, a loss of membership that caused the Muslim rights group’s annual income from dues to drop from $732,765 in 2000, when yearly dues cost $25, to $58,750 last year, when the group charged $35.

Thus does The Washington Times, a paper with circulation figures even lower than the number of card-carrying CAIR members, attempt to hammer in the last nail in the coffin for the odious terror-supporters at the Council on American-Islamic Relations. And, let’s be honest, the folks at Rev. Moon’s paper do a pretty good job on CAIR—which, given its paltry membership, has no claim to being deemed the quasi-official voice of American Muslims.

Still, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have the sneaking suspicion that the lazy hacks who make up the American journalistic establishment will continue to call up CAIR whenever it wants a pseudo-official Muslim-American response to any given issue. CAIR could have three members—which, come to think of it, is distinctly possible in the year 2014—and our mindless reporters will still run to them for responses.

Further, we assert that CAIR’s obvious low standing in the American Muslim community won’t harm the disgracefully anti-Semitic organization’s goals one jot. After all, CAIR is an Islamist front group with known links to terrorist organizations. It pulls in all sorts of dirty money from Saudi Arabia and other financiers of global jihad.

Last we checked, those terror-loving OPECers had more than a bit of cash to spare. Thus CAIR doesn’t exactly require a bake sale to remain in the black.

Okay, okay—so the odious CAIR, like Gloria Gaynor, will survive. Despite its terror ties and dubious actions, it will remain on CNN’s Rolodex, just as do Al Sharpton and other disgraced race-baiters. Yet we can’t help but see some positives from the Times’ recent revelation.

We mean, come on: Only 1,700 American Muslims are members of CAIR! Isn’t that slightly inspiring? Especially after the brouhaha regarding that recent Pew poll, which demonstrated that nine out of every eight American Muslims wholeheartedly support suicide bombing?

We earnestly wish that this report would signal the death knell for the frightening radicals who run CAIR. But we won’t hold our collective breath.

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Selective Outrage

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” receive a brand-spakin’ new copy of The Wall Street Journal at our official headquarters six times a week. Frankly, dear reader, we’d prefer to check out the Gray Lady, but since it began charging somewhere in the neighborhood of $583 per month for a subscription (in an obvious concession to the poor people it cares so much about), we headed over to the Journal instead.

Naturally, having given up our New York Times subscription, we’re missing a few things. And, no, we don’t mean Maureen Dowd’s ineluctably foolish drivel. Rather, we’re referring to the larger smattering of stories that pertain to non-economic issues.

Still, the Journal, as a national paper aimed both at the news and financial worlds, keeps us abreast of the major stories each day. And, it must be said, the writers for the Journal are of generally high quality, and make the Paper of Record seem like dross by comparison. Perhaps this partly makes up for the Journal’s rather monochromatic editorial page.

We mention all of this for an important reason: It is through the eyes of The Wall Street Journal that we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” first see the big stories of the day. Among other charms, this allows us to take in each day’s body count from Iraq, which the reporters never fail to mention. Further, this keeps us up with the casualty count in Israel and Palestine, which is dutifully mentioned in each issue.

And yet, oddly, the powers-that-be at the Journal show far less concern about the ongoing Lebanese military operations at the Nahr al Bared refugee camp in Tripoli, Lebanon. As you may well know, the Lebanese army has engaged in a prolonged campaign to root out an al Qaeda-inspired terrorist group in this Palestinian refugee camp, and have taken to methods far less discriminating than those used by the Israeli army in similar circumstances.

Last we heard, the casualty count in this Palestinian refugee camp was rather high—which is unsurprising, given the comparative disregard for civilian casualties shown by the Lebanese forces. And yet readers of the Journal would hardly know about this crisis, since it’s reported on it only a few times, and fails to keep a running tab of deaths. How curious that spats in which Israel is engaged receives so much more attention!

But this is nothing in comparison with the duplicity of the anti-Israel “weblogs.” Take a gander at a vehemently anti-Israel “website,” and nine times out of ten you won’t see much at all about the ongoing conflict in Lebanon. When Israel engages in a careful surgical strike, they trump up nonsense about non-existent Jenin “massacres.” When Lebanon proves far less fastidious in its use of military force, they clam up.

This is merely typical of Islamist apologists. They incessantly bleat about American and Israeli killings of Muslims, but care not a jot about the far more common instances of Muslims killing Muslims.

In short, they care more about scoring propaganda points than in human life.

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Ask Dr. Death

By now, dear reader, you undoubtedly know that Dr. Jack Kevorkian—a.k.a. “Dr. Death”—has been released from prison. Dr. Kevorkian, of course, became infamous for his work on behalf of and spirited defense of euthanasia. Before heading to the slammer, Dr. Kevorkian lent his hand in a large number of so-called assisted suicides.

To be honest, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have always found Dr. Kevorkian a mite troubling. We mean, come on: If he cares so much about euthanasia, why doesn’t he seem concerned about, say, youth in Africa? (Boy, that was a lame joke—and it doesn’t even translate well on the computer screen.)

Perhaps you also realize that Dr. Kevorkian has announced that he will no longer take part in the assisted suicide racket. Go figure: maybe he couldn’t make any money in it, because all his clients insisted that they reimburse him after the procedure.

By the by, this leads us to the topic of today’s humble “post”: What will Jack Kevorkian do for the remainder of his (living) years on earth? He could, we suppose, push some sort of diet pill, since he appears to have the kind of figure we’ve only seen on Nichole Ritchie and a corpse. But, to be honest, he’s probably not sufficiently telegenic to serve as a spokesmodel.

And this brings us to our brilliant idea: Dr. Kevorkian, having hung up his assisted suicide cap, should start his own nationally syndicated advice column. He could be the next Abbey—or, failing that, the next Basilica. (Wow, that was an even lamer gag.)

Just think of it. On the back page of your local paper, jammed up against the dull “This Week in History” section, you’d read “Ask Dr. Death.” Really draws you in, doesn’t it? What’s more, it would allow Dr. Kevorkian the opportunity to help people—without giving them cyanide. We all win.

In order to offer you the full effect of our clever idea, we’ve decided to present a sample version of the “Ask Dr. Death” column. In this little preview, we’ll produce Dr. Kevorkian’s answers for him, since—try as we might—we couldn’t get in touch with him directly.

Further, we couldn’t think of any good queries for Dr. Kevorkian, so we purloined some from the “Your Problems Solved” section of the June 2 number of The Spectator. As the Speccie is a British rag, we hope you’ll pardon the limey-tinged questions. And the bad teeth, for that matter.

Okay, without any further ado, here goes:

ASK DR. DEATH—with Dr. Jack Kevorkian

Q: I have a boyfriend, of whom I am very fond, for some time now. There is, however, one slight problem. On special occasions when he comes to visit my family, he always dons his best pair of shoes of which he is extremely proud. Unfortunately these are not of the gentlemanly variety. They are of a particularly common style and colour and would perhaps better appeal to a Sicilian waiter out on a Sunday jaunt. I thought this would be a matter of little impediment but my boyfriend only has to enter the room for the eyes of all my family to become incurably transfixed on his shoes. What should I do?

A: You must kill your boyfriend.

Q: Around these parts one regularly runs into a particular dinner-party know-it-all. He speaks about the topics of the day with an air of terrific authority and no one challenges him, but quite apart from him boring people’s pants off I sense he is actually quite uninformed, and once or twice have found out too late that some pronouncement of his was quite wrong. Help, Dr. Death! He is due to come to dinner soon and I’d like to arm myself with some solid facts about, say, green issues—dismissing the greenhouse effect is one of his favorite hobby horses.

A: You are obliged to murder this dinner-party know-it-all. In addition, I recommend that you do in the rest of the party attendees. Or at least maim them.

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Of Arrests and Anti-Semitism: The Eric Alterman Story

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” are nothing if not nice. That’s why, in fact, we named our “weblog” as we did: We feel it well fits our pleasant—nay, chirpy—demeanors.

Even so, we must admit that a handful of folks prove consistently capable of getting our dander up. It’s embarrassing, but true: A few people just rub us the wrong way, and there seems little we can do about it. Short of killing them, perhaps. Well, short of maiming them, we suppose.

To be honest, these irksome lads and lasses make for an uninspiring list of irritants: Michael Moore; Hugo Chavez; Billy Joel; et al. We mean, come on: Add Paris Hilton to the list and you’ve pretty much mentioned every humanoid God-fearing Americans disdain.

We would be remiss, however, if we failed to add one name that isn’t as well known to our grand Tallying of the Obnoxious. We refer, dear reader, to Eric Alterman, the incessantly enraged media critic for The Nation.

Longtime readers of this humble “weblog” know that we’ve taken aim at the odious Mr. Alterman in the past. And for good reason: Not only is he an unreflective dunce who shills for any militantly left-wing idiocy, he’s also clearly an obstreperous jerk. Anyone who’s seen Mr. Alterman on Book TV can attest that, despite his quixotic “progressive” politics, he’s no happy, peaceful lefty. On the contrary: He comes across as a deeply unhappy man.

Accordingly, we were unsurprised to learn that Mr. Alterman was arrested at the recent Democratic debate in New Hampshire; apparently, he was trespassing and acting like a—mirabile dictu—complete ass. Although, as company policy, we do not engage in bouts of Schadenfreude, we must say that Mr. Alterman’s misfortunes have tested our limits.

Overall, Mr. Alterman’s un-sunny disposition makes his obtuse commentary in The Nation even harder to stomach than would otherwise be the case. And, given that The Nation has long been—to alter their slogan ever so slightly—a source of conventional un-wisdom, that’s really saying something.

But you needn’t take our collective word for it. Why, you could get an idea of Mr. Alterman’s outrageous hackery from “Potemkin Paper?”—a recent hit job appearing in The Nation. In said piece, Mr. Alterman ridicules The New York Sun, the fledgling conservative daily. According to Mr. Alterman, the paper—horror of horrors!—doesn’t have many readers, and merely exists to influence public debate and Washington politicos.

Oh, dear Lord! How blasphemous! We suppose the Sun’s situation is wholly different from, say, The Nation, which has squillons of readers and whose staff has no interest in changing the hearts and minds of the powerful.

Amongst other purported sins, Mr. Alterman flogs the staff of the Sun for inveighing against the blatant anti-Semitic agitation of faculty members at Columbia University—a noble cause that Mr. Alterman counts among the Sun’s “wild charges.”

But never mind this typical lack of regard for intellectual diversity and educational fairness. Just take a gander at the peroration of Mr. Alterman’s dubious screed. Here’s a charming sentence for you:

But I don't want to harp on the Jewish-media-moguls-supporting-Israel angle, which hews a little too close to traditional anti-Semitic stereotypes for my taste.

Yeah: You read that right. Mr. Alterman doesn’t want to “harp on the Jewish-media-moguls-supporting-Israel angle,” because it’s a tad “too close to traditional anti-Semitic stereotypes” for his taste. Just a little.

This leads us to wonder: Exactly how close must one hew to “traditional anti-Semitic stereotypes” to gain the approval of Mr. Alterman? How much “traditional anti-Semitism” accords with his “taste”?

It is a horrid reminder of how unhealthy the political Left in this country has become that ravings such as Mr. Alterman’s are given the label “progressive.”

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Self-Contradictory Cant

Perhaps, dear reader, you have heard of John Pilger, an Aussie left-wing writer and documentary filmmaker. To be honest, we’d only vaguely heard of Mr. Pilger, though we must admit we correctly recalled that he somehow got the impression that David Spade’s haircut in Joe Dirt was attractive.

Based in London, Mr. Pilger is essentially Europe’s answer to Michael Moore. He is, then, a stuffed shirt who produces detestable propaganda for bien pensant morons. In addition, much like Mr. Moore, Mr. Pilger has a huge crush on Hugo Chavez. Naturally, Mr. Pilger doesn’t believe that his esteem for Dear Old Hugo damages his supposed regard for human rights.

We mention Mr. Pilger because we recently spied an article he wrote for the May 28 number of the New Statesman, the UK’s premier left-wing weekly. His article made up half of what this issue of the NS advertised as “Gaza: The Jailed State.” As such, we fully expected to be treated to a cornucopia of anti-Israel cant.

And treated we were. In fact, from this sorry article alone, we got a great sense why Auberon Waugh—son of the great Evelyn Waugh—coined the verb “to pilger,” which, according to Wikipedia, means “to present information in a sensationalist manner to reach a foregone conclusion.”

Mr. Pilger’s rancid piece is given the laughable title “Children of the Dust.” Apparently, this buffoon thinks that he’s Stephen King.

As you might imagine, the article contains the sort of palaver you’d expect from an overheated apologist for Palestinian terrorism. As far as Mr. Pilger’s concerned, Hamas yearns for peace, yet evil Israel refuses to play their peaceful game. This is such nonsense, that one wonders whether Mr. Pilger is obtuse or sinister. (From our vantage point, he appears to be both.)

What’s most pathetic about his sordid piece of agitprop, however, is the fact that it’s not even effective propaganda. Instead, it’s self-contradictory garbage.

On the one hand, we get this ridiculous assessment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

There is no war. There is resistance among the poorest, most vulnerable people on earth to an enduring, illegal occupation imposed by the world’s fourth largest military power, whose weapons of mass destruction range from cluster bombs to thermonuclear devices, bankrolled by the superpower.

Leave aside for the moment the insipid characterization of the Palestinians as “the poorest, most vulnerable people on earth.” How little about the world does Mr. Pilger know to offer such an unintentionally humorous description?

Now, let’s take a look at another choice bit from the selfsame article:

A censorship by omission runs deep in western journalism on Israel, especially in the US. Hamas is dismissed as a “terrorist group sworn to Israel’s destruction” and one that “refuses to recognise Israel and wants to fight not talk.” This theme suppresses the truth: that Israel is bent on Palestine’s destruction.

Forget the fact that this passage amounts to a giant non sequitur: Even if Israel did pine for Palestine’s destruction—which is absurd—this would in no way “suppress” any “truth” about Hamas’ genocidal intent.

But never mind that. Notice how pathetically self-contradictory these two passages are. In the first, the fourth most powerful army—swimming in US dollars—fights against “the poorest, most vulnerable people on earth.” In the second, “Israel is bent on Palestine’s destruction.”

Um, come on, Mr. Pilger. Get your propaganda straight. Israel has had close to 60 years to destroy Palestine. And, by your reckoning, it has an amazing advantage: An army of well-funded Terminators against a flock of Bambis.

So what gives? Why can’t this brutal fighting force destroy these baby seals in 60 years? You’d think it would be awfully easy, wouldn’t you?

It’s sad when propaganda this inept finds its way into print.

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Reading Comprehension with Francis Fukuyama

You remember Francis Fukuyama—the public intellectual whose pre-9/11 breakout work, The End of History, argued that a liberal democratic Valhalla was nigh, and who has since been busy fudging his thesis, since, as it turns out, a liberal democratic Valhalla is not nigh. Even though Mr. Fukuyama’s work was little but Hegelian nonsense, it landed him a comfy job at Johns Hopkins University. Not bad for someone whose chief claim to fame is being wrong.

More recently, Mr. Fukuyama composed a work called America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy. In said tome, Mr. Fukuyama marks his definitive break from neoconservatism and highlights his more wishy-washy and nebulous approach to Islamist terrorism.

As you may well know, dear reader, Mr. Fukuyama’s book landed him in a bit of hot water, because in it he claimed that he attended a speech by Charles Krauthammer to the American Enterprise Institute in which Mr. Krauthammer lavishly praised the success of the war in Iraq. As it turns out, Mr. Krauthammer did no such thing—and an on-line copy of his remarks makes this crystal clear.

We mention all this, dear reader, because we have recently been plowing our way through America at the Crossroads. And though we find it an interesting book—which offers a nice retort to conspiracy theorists opposed to neoconservatism—it seems to contain another example of Mr. Fukuyama’s curious misreading of Mr. Krauthammer’s work.

Below we have quoted a passage from Mr. Krauthammer’s article “In Defense of Democratic Realism,” which Mr. Fukuyama quotes on pages 70 and 71 of his book. To this we have affixed Mr. Fukuyama’s comments on said passage, which we think you’ll find more than a mite troublesome.

First, here’s the Krauthammer passage:

Disdaining the appeal of radical Islam is the conceit also of secularists. Radical Islam is not just as fanatical and unappeasable in its anti-Americanism, anti-Westernism and anti-modernism as anything we have ever known. It has the distinct advantage of being grounded in a venerable religion of over one billion adherents that not only provides a ready supply of recruits—trained and readied in mosques and madrassas far more effective, autonomous and ubiquitous than any Hitler Youth or Komsomol camps—but is able to draw on a long and deep tradition of zeal, messianic expectation and a cult of martyrdom. Hitler and Stalin had to invent these out of whole cloth. Mussolini’s version was a parody. Islamic radicalism flies under a flag with far more historical depth and enduring appeal than the ersatz religions of the swastika and hammer-and-sickle that proved so historically thin and insubstantial.

Okay, here are Mr. Fukuyama’s remarks on this passage, which we have interspersed with our own running commentary:

Krauthammer, in other words, argues that the political threat comes from a version of the religion Islam, that is thoroughly unappeasable and anti-Western, and that is deeply and broadly rooted among the world’s more than one billion Muslims.

Already Fukuyama is dead wrong. Mr. Krauthammer did not argue that radical Islamism is “deeply and broadly rooted among the world’s more than one billion Muslims.” Rather, he asserted that radical Islamism is grounded in the Muslim faith, and this provides it with numerous potential adherents. The notion that all Muslims are radical Islamists is Mr. Fukuyama’s unfair gloss.

Each of these assertions is debatable and together vastly overstate the threat that the United States faces in the post-September 11 world. We are not fighting the religion Islam or its adherents but a radical ideology that appeals to a distinct minority of Muslims.

Nothing Mr. Krauthammer argued gainsays the idea that the US is “not fighting the religion Islam or its adherents but a radical ideology that appeals to a distinct minority of Muslims.” Mr. Fukuyama is now setting Mr. Krauthammer up as a straw man, refuting words Mr. Krauthammer never said.

That ideology owes a great deal to Western ideas in addition to Islam, and it appeals to the same alienated individuals who in earlier generations would have gravitated to communism or fascism.

Again, Mr. Fukuyama offers an argument supposedly antithetical to Mr. Krauthammer’s remarks—but it actually agrees with the spirit of what Mr. Krauthammer wrote. After all, Mr. Krauthammer never asserted that radical Islamism has no Western intellectual influences, since that would be a foolish argument.

Rather, Mr. Krauthammer stressed the Muslim roots of radical Islamism, and argued that these roots—which are not necessarily the only roots—make it more attractive to followers than communism and fascism. The notion that these ideologies have the same sort of appeal—as Mr. Fukuyama notes—only strengthens Mr. Krauthammer’s argument.

This sort of unfair parsing would be troublesome from the pen of an undergraduate essayist. From a distinguished professor, they are loathsome.

If this is the sort of fluff Francis Fukuyama offers, we think the neoconservatives should applaud his departure from their ranks. Who needs such flabby arguments?

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A Lovely, Lovely Letter

Regular reader(s) of this humble “weblog” well know that we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have oft excoriated the authors of dimwitted letters to the editor of various high-profile newspapers. There’s something delightful about ripping on a sanctimonious missive, and we consider it one of the great joys of our humble e-outfit to demolish a really lame epistle. (For those unaware of this portion of our e-oeuvre, here’s a charming example.)

Given our penchant for ridiculing letters to the editor, it will come as no surprise to you that we regularly troll around the “websites” of sundry newspapers, in search of frighteningly obtuse missives. As you might well imagine, dear reader, The New York Times proves to be a locus classicus of horrid letters: The Gray Lady appears to bring out the pertinacious self-puffery in us all. Or, at least, in tofu-swilling, Volvo-driving, NPR-listening popinjays.

But surely another prime location for jejune letters to the editor can be found on the comment page of The Guardian, a left-wing UK rag seemingly dedicated to enabling a Muslim jihad against the West. (So far, so good, fellahs.) The typical Guardian reader likes Noam Chomsky only slightly more than Tariq Ramadan—and esteems them both only slightly less than his BMW. The newspaper is, then, a veritable Twit Central.

Imagine our collective surprise, then, upon finding a genuinely brilliant missive in this disreputable British rag. Before we reproduce it below, allow us to set the scene.

As you may know, numerous British academics have again sullied their reputation by supporting an official boycott against Israeli scholars. In so doing, our professorial pals have demonstrated their grand regard for collective punishment—harming all Israelis for the perceived sins of their government, whether the Israelis in question support their government’s actions or not.

Naturally, our limey academic buddies aren’t concerned about the manifold injustices of other governments: Iran; Syria; North Korea; Cuba; Sudan; China; Russia; &c. Or, at least, they haven’t established any myopic boycott against the citizens of these countries. Only Israelis have received their official scorn. How curious.

Naturally, these pious professors disesteem what they see as the collective punishment of Muslims. They detest, for example, racial profiling at airports, since it forces a feeling of collective guilt on the part of Muslims.

Ah, but they’re not so careful in regard to the Jews, now are they? And the professors’ knavery has compelled one Gunter Lawson of London to write the following delicious letter to the editor:

The government is supposed to want university lecturers to spy on students and report those exhibiting signs of political extremism. It seems they may have got this the wrong way round.

What can you say? Brilliant! Simply brilliant!

Congratulations, Mr. Lawson, for restoring our faith in readers of The Guardian. At least a few of them aren’t incorrigible nincompoops.

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Contractual Obligation “Post”

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” don’t exactly run the most esteemed “weblog” on Al Gore’s World-Wide Web. Or even, we hasten to add, the second-most esteemed.

This may be the result of our fearsome reliance on a one-post-per-diem format. In addition, our well nigh “governmental” attitude to holidays could also influence our charming lack of e-popularity.

By this we mean that we enjoy taking a break from our “posting” schedule on holidays. Any holidays. Ash Wednesday; Sukkot; Ramadan; Arbor Day—you name it, we, like Britney Spears with her underwear, take it off. Heck, we’d even skip out from our e-job on Joseph Stalin Day, if it meant a few hours of rest and relaxation.

(Have our friends in the Ivy League failed to promote an official Joseph Stalin Day? Why not? It could replace that wretched Columbus Day—where Alger Hiss Day hasn’t already done so.)

It is with some consternation, then, that we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” recognized something: We “posted” on Memorial Day. We know, we know: How the heck did that happen?

Quite frankly, dear reader, we’re not that sure. We always figured that our friends on the political Left—ardent patriots that they are—forgot about Memorial Day. After all, it valorizes the human tools of Western imperialism. Or so we’re told.

But fear not: We aim to make up for our horrific lapse.

How so? Well, we’re glad we made you ask. By offering a half-assed “post” on a day we normally offer our typical e-genius.

If you haven’t already guessed, dear reader, that day is today. Enjoy.

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