So, your first choice for President didn't win the nomination.  You are mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore!

I can't say that I blame you; I wish you well as you go out there to work with your new Republican friends in your quest to punish the party and the "good old boy" network that deprived your candidate what was so rightfully hers.  

But it is a different world over there and a guide to help you adjust to your new political and social surroundings might be in order.  So, help is on the way!

I'm not one for celebrity gossip, but every once in a while there is a column that you just have to read.  It seems Anne Coulter, once the favorite of the racist/religious section of the republican party, had her credit card declined at a local Publix in Palm Beach.

more below the fold

In the span of just six weeks, conservative angst over the comparatively feeble state of the right-wing blogosphere has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous.  After first trumpeting the supposed decline in traffic at liberal blogs, conservative heads nodded in agreement as Red State's Erick Erickson blamed abortion and capitalism for the abysmal state of the right's online presence.

But for all of its hand-wringing, the right-wing blogosphere may be on the verge of a boom.  After all, as they'll hopefully learn this November, nothing could be better for grassroots expansion online than a crushing defeat at the polls casting the Republican Party and its right-wing water carriers out of power and into opposition.

Yesterday, failed Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney endorsed his former rival John McCain.  During the Boston press conference, Romney also called for his GOP delegates to support McCain at the Republican National Convention this summer.

While the announcement comes as no surprise, it is a remarkably swift reversal for Romney, who just days ago pilloried McCain for everything from immigration policy and taxes to insufficient fealty to the ghost of Ronald Reagan.

But on one topic, Mitt Romney and John McCain surely agree: each promised to get biblical on Osama Bin Laden.

News Item:  Romney edges McCain in conservative straw poll

The January 17, 2001 edition of The Onion carried this headline:

Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'

In George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 The Party had three memorable slogans:

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength

Yesterday George W. Bush gave a speech to CPAC. Join me as we explore why when Bush speaks, Orwell turns (over in his grave) and The Onion sniggers (at seeing their faux headlines become reality).

Cheney spoke yesterday at CPAC, the conference for people for whom reality is just an illusion foisted upon them by a cold and liberal universe. (The universe, you see, is full of dark matter called Librons, which in addition to keeping the universe from flying apart like Ann Coulter in front of a television camera, have the unfortunate side effect of inverting perceptions of reality for all but the most trained Randian observers. Oh, and Scientologists.) I'm supposed to say, at this point, something like "you can't make this up", but of course you can make this stuff up. It's easy to make it up. That's the whole point.

Some highlights...

As conservatives, we believe in a government that takes up a smaller share of the national income, that treats tax dollars with respect and restraint. And we believe in a government that keeps to its limits under the Constitution, never expanding beyond the consent of the governed.

And then, he farted candy and rainbows. And all the little woodland creatures came out from under the floorboards to help sew him a magnificent new dress for the ball.

The United States is a country that takes human rights seriously. We do not torture -- it's against our laws and against our values. We're proud of our country and what it stands for. [...]

America is a fair and a decent country. (Applause.) President Bush has made it clear, both publicly and privately, that our duty to uphold the laws and standards of this nation admit no exceptions in wartime. As he put it, "We are in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is, live by them.

And at that point, the Constitution Fairy sprinkled her magic Constitution dust over the land, and all the tapes of the CIA torturing prisoners magically erased themselves, and the waterboarded detainees became un-waterboarded, and the vast program of illegal domestic espionage -- so critical to our national security that President George Constitution Bush has threatened to veto all FISA legislation, for all time, unless everyone involved gets retroactive amnesty for their illegal acts -- suddenly became Constitutional.

To prevail in the long run, we have to remove the conditions that inspire such blind, prideful hatred that drove 19 men to get into airplanes and come kill us. And so the President made the decision: We wouldn't just remove the Taliban and Saddam Hussein and let other dictators rise in their place.

Because one of the lesser known Articles of the Constitution is that no mention of 9/11 by an administration official may take place without a possibly hallucinatory-drug-induced conflation of it and Saddam Hussein. And Shrek. Shrek was also there.

I like it. Reality as practiced by a man who can't tell the difference between a grown man standing next to him and a tiny, barely-flight-capable bird. It's not so much a CPAC speech as it is "NAMBLA for the mind." It's a comic book speech, delivered by a comic book man to a comic book audience. Cheney doesn't believe in merely denying reality, he believes in pinning it down, attaching electrodes to it, then just clubbing it to death for fun.

The thing is, it'd be easy to ascribe behavior like this to mental illness, presuming he really believes any of the things he says. But it's not clear he does. In all likelihood, he knows fully well how ridiculous it all sounds, but in an audience hand-picked for their willingness to accept any premise, no matter how ridiculous, in order to feel good about their own bigotries, nobody will ever call him out on it.

It's interesting, because once again one would think it would be a key component of rational public discourse for people to, indeed, call him out on his happy, camouflage-colored delusions. But it's somehow off-limits, in the press, to point out when a public official is an unmitigated, reality-sodomizing liar. Haircuts and pantsuits: fair game. Pointing out that "a smaller share of the national income" means "a larger share", that "restrained" spending means "more" spending, that "keeping to the limits of the Constitution" means breaking those limits, that "no torture" means "torture", and that "9/11" means anything else he wants it to mean at any moment in time: pointing those things out are uncouth activities to be delegated to people like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Keith Olbermann, and a handful of crazy, uncivilized blogs.

And we're reduced to just making fun of it, because really -- what else are you going to do? How do you refute something that's self-refuting?

Go figure.

Tom DeLay and Paul Weyrich are, says the New York Times, the latest members of the conservative brain trust to declare they don't like John McCain and won't vote for him. Given that he's the presumptive nominee, I'm left wondering who they will vote for. Last week, Ann Coulter said she'd rather vote for Hillary Clinton, which may just be the weirdest endorsement this season (Down With Tyranny). But why?

After the jump -- Coulter may have the explanation.

I was going to write a serious diary about the state of our judiciary today ... but quite frankly, reading today's diaries made me feel a little like Marvin the Robot in Hitchhiker's Guide.  Corporate mercenaries, stagflation, the official endorsement of torture -- I can't compete with those headlines.  But it's Friday, and even if I can no longer afford that venti soy chai at Starbucks, I can at least kick back and enjoy a little Sam Adams (the Winter Lager is highly recommended) and Schadenfreude.

The permafrost is practically bubbling with methane in the Right-Wing Universe.  The sudden departure of Mitt Romney has triggered an unprecedented meltdown in the Rushlooney Wing of the Republican Party.  They're not even stopping to savor their vintage cab sav before they eat their own.

The Ice Queen (Annthrax Coulter) has been cast adrift by CPAC: she wasn't even invited.  Seems Don Juan McCon was in attendance, and he's allergic to sulfur.  I don't have enough Sam in the house to live-blog her, but she has to speak OUTSIDE the conference (if you have your psychiatric insurance paid up, Townhall).

The CPAC meetings in DC have been showing up on television: on Fox News (which I watch as an equivalent to Comedy Central - as Craig Ferguson has said, it's a channel where they make things up), on MSNBC, on CNN, and even on C-SPAN. They have given us much to consider:

OK, you pinko commie liberals. You know you’re just dying to know what’s really going on at the Conservative Political Action Conference this weekend. And that phony itinerary they post on their website is about as genuine as a George Bush campaign promise of "compassionate conservatism."  So here, from the home office of the Club for Malignant Tumor Growth, is the real CPAC Agenda:

9:00 AM - Kippers with the Gippers: Breakfast and Welcoming Remarks by Ronald Reagan Impersonators

10:00 AM - Workshop: How to Make a Citizen’s Arrest of the Undocumented Workers Who’ve Just Finished Serving You Breakfast

Talk about Daniel in the Lion's den! His positions on many issues are unpalatable, but such courage would be an admirable trait in our own leaders. What I saw:

The Bush Republican Bubble has to be popped, stopped, crushed.

"When the last chapter is written,’’ Cheney predicted, "it will be said that our nation became more prosperous and more secure because George Bush was the president of the United States.’’

And the crowd applauded the C in CPAC.

The most prosperous? Secure? In that bubble maybe, but not out here.

Or concession speech.  Sorry, my German friends, but I use the German because as I listened to this (and his opener Laura Ingram) I was thinking what a wonderful speech Herr Goebbels had written.
As I was watching this I was simply appalled by the words coming out of his mouth.  Granted he was in front of the red-meat CPAC, but the intolerance that comes out of these people is just unbelievable. If it wasn't so scary, I would almost think it parody.

Read on please, and remember what kind of uncaring monsters we are fighting.

There are actually quite a few of us inflating Redstate's hit rate, and this diary might contribute to that. But, dang it, the schadenfreude is just too exquisite. I bring to you below the fold, a totally biased extraction of some of the juiciest comments today from Erick's Three quarters of a loaf better than nothing ... thread. Here's an appetizer in the intro:

My problem with McCain, is that I just don't believe him. I fear he'll stab the conservatives in the back at his first opportunity. The opportunity to get good press coverage will be too much for him. (muxedo76)

John McCain is desperately trying to stem the attacks from conservatives.

McCain, who was the only major Republican presidential hopeful who failed to speak to last year's Conservative Political Action Conference, will address this year's gathering today in Washington with a clear agenda: Mending fences with his increasingly vituperative conservative critics.

The hatred of John McCain is so palpable that organizers at CPAC felt they had to get the word out that the conference audience shouldn't boo him.

During registration last night at the Omni Shoreham a registrant was asking to upgrade his CPAC package and then proceeded to ask what time GOP front-runner John McCain was going to speak today. “Oh good,” he said to the response — answer: 3 p.m. today — “I hope they boo him out of the room.”

“No, no no no no” came the reply from the person registering him. “We’ve been instructed to tell participants not to boo McCain.”

“Are you kidding me?” the shocked CPAC-goer asked.

“Well, we want to seem above Democrats and we don’t want the booing to be the story,” the CPAC person declared.

Mission accomplished:

Boos rose from the audience at the mention of McCain’s name – and shocked calls of “no!” as (Romney) made his announcement...

As his supporters filed out of the ballroom where Romney made the announcement, many carrying his campaign signs and merchandise, a moderator mentioned McCain’s upcoming CPAC speech – drawing an immediate and sustained chorus of boos from the crowd.

When McCain finally spoke late this afternoon, he was booed right on cue:

McCAIN: Surely, I have held other positions that have not met with widespread agreement from conservatives. I won’t pretend otherwise, nor would you permit me to forget it. On — on the issue of illegal immigration, a position which –

CROWD: Boo! Boo!

Anyway, CPAC organizers forgot to get the word out to the conference speakers, it appears. In her speech introducing Mitt Romney today, Laura Ingraham made a series of thinly veiled attacks on McCain. Is it too much to ask that a presidential candidate be a conservative, she said, adding: It's not enough to say that you were a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution; what have you been doing for conservatives lately?

Ingraham was practically frothing at the mouth after McCain's Super Tuesday wins.

Laura Ingraham also expressed disdain over McCain's victories on her show.

"McCain has so radicalized key conservatives that some have vowed to turn themselves into suicide voters next November by pulling the lever for Hillary Clinton," she said.

The real darling of CPAC, Ann Coulter, has not been invited to speak to the conference this year. Given Coulter's hostility toward McCain, organizers might have feared that she'd announce another one of her fatwah's from on high.

There have been enough Republican fatwah's for one week. James Dobson's email on Super Tuesday to his Focus on the Family flock was brutal:

"I am deeply disappointed the Republican Party seems poised to select a nominee who did not support a Constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage, voted for embryonic stem-cell research to kill nascent human beings, opposed tax cuts that ended the marriage penalty, has little regard for freedom of speech, organized the Gang of 14 to preserve filibusters in judicial hearings, and has a legendary temper and often uses foul and obscene language.

"I am convinced Sen. McCain is not a conservative, and in fact, has gone out of his way to stick his thumb in the eyes of those who are. He has sounded at times more like a member of the other party. McCain actually considered leaving the GOP caucus in 2001, and approached John Kerry about being Kerry’s running mate in 2004.  McCain also said publicly that Hillary Clinton would make a good president. Given these and many other concerns, a spoonful of sugar does NOT make the medicine go down.  I cannot, and will not, vote for Sen. John McCain, as a matter of conscience.

Pat Toomey and Richard Viguerie have also made high profile attacks on McCain. Cleta Mitchell, chairman of the American Conservative Union Foundation, had this to say at CPAC today:

"He's 70,000 years old, he's not going to change," she said.

Right now she is not supporting any of the Republican candidates in the field. If not satisfied by Nov. 7, she said, she may well sit the election out.

How bad has the Republican civil war become? Bad enough that McCain is going begging to the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Or to be more precise, McCain's surrogates are doing his begging. It looks like the candidate can't even talk to the talk-show pashas directly.

The campaign, as described by Republican sources, has two pillars: outreach to talk-radio hosts and other conservative critics and a succession of high-profile endorsements in the coming days...

Its targets include the most influential talk-radio voice, Rush Limbaugh, who has been contacted in recent days by a McCain emissary, according to Republican sources.

The McCain campaign is also wooing Sean Hannity. At least two top McCain supporters, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), made the pitch to Hannity...

McCain, though not making the pitch directly to his radio tormentors, has been working the cell phone during spare moments on the trail, keying on high-profile conservative figures...

In most cases, a prominent conservative figure such as former senator and presidential candidate Phil Gramm (R-Texas) is making the initial entreaty, chatting with influential local and national commentators and noting that the Arizona senator himself would like to talk with them.

Another problem for McCain, however, is that those Republicans who have had a lot of contact with him aren't supportive either:

While things are looking brighter in public for McCain, his problems in private Republican councils remain dire.

Gramm last week told members attending a retreat of the House Republican Study Committee — influential among congressional conservatives — that McCain is far more their ally than their opponent.

But one lawmaker in attendance, who recounted the scene on condition of anonymity, said that when “someone asked for a show of hands of those other than his Arizona colleagues who are backing McCain, of the 20 or so in the room, only one did.”

McCain has a lot of problems with his own party, but this one is not going to get any better during a general election campaign: The more you get to know McCain, the less you like him.

Hi guys, haven't posted in a loooong time.  I have been reading but not posting.  I am also at work right now and must be brief.  

I am not sure if in my absence I have gone a little batty, but there is something very odd about Romney's campaign "suspension" today...

From the CNN Politcal Ticker: