Hangin’ with the haters

I like to stay informed. I check Drudge Report and Huffington Post; tend to find agreement with columnists like David Sirota and E.J. Dionne; and respectfully disagree with Peggy Noonan’s columns (she can write!) David Brooks can usually get my blood boiling, and that goes double for Bill Kristol. I Tivo Morning Joe, Hardball and Countdown during the week and Meet the Press on Sundays. See – I like opinion.

But some of the things I read are less about information and analysis and more a sort of anthropological study. See – some people’s opinion says a whole lot less about the merit of their argument and a whole lot more about the question of their humanity. And every now and then, it’s darkly entertaining to check out the loonies. We’re talking beyond John McCain, beyond George W. Bush, beyond Dick Cheney, even beyond Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. This is more like taking a trip into Coulter Country. Ya know, the kind of people even the most level-headed, non-partisan American would consider fascistic.

Headed over to Free Republic.

Top posting right now? “The Lardassification of America.” Seems a teenager died of obesity, and the fact that her grieving mother said that there were no affordable weight loss clinics sorta set off the nuts. How dare they blame an external force for an individual problem! About the girl’s memorial service, one joked: “Featured at the party were all of her favorite fried foods.” They sure are funny.

On Saturday, the Freepers found out about Ted Kennedy’s illness (when news seemed grim, and rumors were circulating that Kennedy had died). Apparently, the first posting of the news had to be removed by the moderator due to inappropriate content. The next posting made it through, but just about every other comment on the post had to be removed for similar reasons. I can only imagine what those comments said, since the ones that made it through included “Mary Jo…” and the sentiment that he has been kept “on the public dole for too long,” and has “been kept very comfortable at the taxpayers’ expense.” A very warm group of people. Too bad they had to delete the other comments.

On Obama, there’s a nice new post titled: “Barack Obama, Muslim Apostate?” At least they added the question mark. Comments under this posting include at least one reference to Obama as the Manchurian candidate, one patriotic hero who stated that “only in America. Land of the idiots” could said Muslim apostate be in the running for President, and serious comments (like, by a majority of respondents) that state that Obama is in fact a Muslim, and is likely a sleeper Al Qaida agent. No kidding. Too bad Hillary didn’t have this information before the math turned against her.

They don’t much like their own side either: McCain is creatively dubbed “McLame” and they seem to be pretty split about whether they will even vote for such a “stupid” candidate – especially one who buys into “globull warming.” Huckabee is “Schmuckabee” or “Elmer Gantry” (a McCain/Huckabee ticket would be the “RINO turd” ticket); Romney fares a bit better by their standards in that a slight majority seem to support adding him to the ticket, but he still earns the label “Myth Romney” and is called “a lifelong liberal.” Many seem to want “FDT for President!” Took me a while to figure out that that meant “Fred Dalton Thompson.” When a rumor was floated in a post that McCain may add Thompson to the ticket, that was considered “too much to hope for.” I’m thinking they’re right on that one.

While Thompson might’ve won the wacko seal of approval, the board seems pretty mixed in its assessment of their President: while Bush gets a good deal of defense, a solid minority believe that his Presidency has been “a complete disaster.” He’s just been too liberal, ya know?

Alright, I move on from the Freepers to check out the writings (rantings?) of one of their idols – Ann Coulter. Ah, her column this week is about the Mississippi Congressional race and the election of Travis Childers. While most observers – you know, the sane kind – noted that Childers is a conservative Democrat, Coulter isn’t buying: “I guess you can call yourself a ‘conservative Democrat’ if you refrain from being sworn into Congress with your hand on a Quran.” Childers is, however, a “goober” and part of Rahm Emmanuel’s plan to round up “yokels from the local square dance” to run for office.

I imagine reading these kinds of columns and postings is similar to being the FBI agent at the Klan rally. And yeah, at first its a bit frightening that there are actually people who feel this way. But, when ya take a step back… it’s actually quite a uniting act. Seriously… read these sites for an hour or so, then go back to watching some “mainstream” conservative on TV. They don’t seem quite so scary, do they?