Not Quite So Graceful

Two days ago, conservative blogger (and lukewarm Obama supporter) Ann Althouse speculated about whether liberals would be able to handle it if Sen. Obama did not become President. Taking her cue from a rather condescending article by William Kristol, she mocks the enthusiasm of young Obama supporters, saying they should all learn from her example of not being able to choose a winning candidate. Unfortunately, McCain supporters haven't been as stoic as she hoped.

Let's start with the fanatics at Little Green Footballs. Although the moderator, conscious of scrutiny by liberal watchdogs, attempts to keep a moderate tone when informing his readers of the election of the man he calls Barack Hussein Obama, the hoipoloi aren't taking it. The comments section, which borders eight hundred entries, is crowded with proclamations that they would not consider Obama a true president, repetitive obscenity, predictions of economic and international disaster, and claims that President-elect Obama is a Marxist / Communist. And those are the comments that did not have to be deleted. Even if one considers the notice that comments do not necessarily reflect the views of Little Green Footballs, the reaction does not reflect well on the site's creators.

Similar dissatisfaction is evident on Michelle Malkin's website and blog. She claims the real winner of the election is "Peggy the Moocher," an African-American woman on a YouTube clip who hopes that President Obama will pay for her gas and mortgage. The comments section features a comment about "forty acres and a mule." Hmm, I wonder if racism is a factor here.

Rush Limbaugh is also rather unhappy, rejecting any chance of "unity" with President Obama. Althouse, addressing this statement, tries to pass it off as an attempt to "define the conservative position." However, it should be pretty obvious by this point that conservatives are not quite living up to Althouse and Kristol's expectations.

Unitarian Universalists of America, Fight Back!

I was deeply disturbed and angered by a recent post on the Alternet liberal website in relation to the recent shooting rampage at a Knoxville, TN Unitarian Universalist Church. The article describes the experience of Jenna Kerns, a writer who published an opinion piece in Newsday linking fanatical right-wing commentators such as Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity to the shooting. (The shooter, Jim D. Adkisson, owned copies of books by Hannity, O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Michael Savage, and was motivated by a hatred of the Unitarians' liberal views.)

How did the right-wingers respond? Did they engage in an examination of conscience and rethink their hateful rhetoric? No. Did they launch a minor league smear campaign against Ms. Kerns, with the help of right wing censor L. Brent Bozell? Yes.

It's time for UUs to take matters into their own hands. If someone shot up an evangelical church and was found to have books by liberal commentators such as Keith Olberman and Richard Dawkins, you can bet they would do everything in their power to drive those commentators off the airwaves and off the bookshelves. Maybe it's time we learned a lesson from our evangelical brethren.

Every UU church should have a sign up in front condemning these commentators and holding them directly responsible for the attack. (I'm thinking wanted posters with "Incitement to Murder" written on them.) Advertisers on their shows should be informed that they will be subject to a boycott for as long as they continue to support this hate speech.

It's time to fight back.