Six degrees of suppuration

By Capt. Fogg

No, that's not a typo. Although it's fascinating to see how easy it is arbitrarily to relate one person to another and one person's principles to another person's totally unrelated opinions, it's disgusting to witness the misuse of that effect to slime, smear, slander and misrepresent without scruple.

The Gateway Pundit, for instance, a website that sas of this morning still blares the lurid and inflammatory but absolutely fake story about an Obama supporter beating and robbing a McCain supporter, is insisting on a very important "link" between Barack Obama, "Jew-hater" Rashid Khalidi, and "terrorist" Bill Ayers. A film clip exists, they say. The existence of a film clip is "confirmed," says the blog, a clip that shows Obama engaged in Jew-bashing at a dinner in Khalidi's honor in 2003.

It must be true, right? Obama must hate Jews if someone at that dinner read a poem criticizing Israel. Indeed, all the Israeli Jews must hate themselves if they oppose their government's policies -- and, of course, all Jews are Israelis, right?

Well, forgive me if I automatically discount the kind of blog post that is designed to be bantered back and forth between people trying hard to maintain a belief, the kind of post that insists a major newspaper is sitting on a scoop of monstrous proportions because they're "liberal."

"Khalidi and the Obamas were great friends in Chicago and often shared meals together." The quote oozes like pus from a chancre. "By the way, Khalidi was also best friends with Bill Ayers," continues the writer, suppurating like a bedsore.

It's tempting to correct the flawed grammar and very tempting to note that the entire diatribe hinges upon the crapulous credibility of the writer, but I really don't care about who Obama knows, about whom may have said what at some dinner he attended, and I'm certainly not going to inflate this pastiche of fragments to the level of "confirmation" of anything but the desperate need to demonize the Democrat in order to disguise the failure of the Republican. It's the kind of need that prompts a writer to make a jeweled elephant out of a fake police report made by a mentally deranged young woman, painting it up like a cheap whore, decked out with gems of outrage, smug condemnations of the perfidy of Democrats in general and stepping in its own excrement.

That the people who write for this blog really care about whether someone hates Jews is remarkable, but then, of course, Obama, by associating with Jew haters, partying with Jew haters, eating dinner with Jew haters, is also part of a great conspiracy against the U.S. and everything this country holds dear -- why should I disbelieve? It's all "confirmed"!

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)