The Unhinged

It's just this sort of incident that allows conservatives to continually cast themselves in the role of "victim", question the integrity of media outlets that aren't Fox"News", and provide specious claims that it's actually The Left that is to blame for moments like this:



A look at Duke's Facebook page - which has been taken down, naturally - reveals this about the man.

Duke's "Favorite Quotes" section contains a number of links to political websites—mostly pretty out-there 9/11-truther-here-comes-the-new-world-order stuff, but also the mainstream liberal Media Matters and, of course, a Wikileaks mirror. (Expect these sites to be the ball in the exciting "Clay Duke Was a Dangerous Liberal" vs. "Clay Duke Was a Nutcase Conservative" game we'll all get to watch over the next few days.) His "Religious Views" are "Humanism" and his "Political Views" are "Freedom Fighter."

And Glenn Beck is already launched into this game, albeit with a half-hearted caveat that Media Matters really wasn't responsible for the shooting.

Considering that Duke's Facebook page is gone, we really don't know what he had to say about Media Matters, but Beck certainly continues to paint a dark and venomous picture of who runs MM. Look for Beck's writers to fold this story into a new chalkboard meme in the coming days.

Other conservatives are even framing this from the angle that Media Matters and liberals/progressives aren't even going to be remotely curious as to why Duke read, watched, and listened to the information sources he listed on his page. Naturally, the "truther" aspects of Duke's digital footprint get no mention from conservatives. Typical.

But looking at Duke's "suicide note", you get a clear picture that this man was pretty screwed up, and is more on par with an Alex Jones fan than a liberal or progressive.

My Testament: Some people (the government sponsored media) will say I was evil, a monster (V)… no… I was just born poor in a country where the Wealthy manipulate, use, abuse, and economically enslave 95% of the population. Rich Republicans, Rich Democrats… same-same… rich… they take turns fleecing us… our few dollars… pyramiding the wealth for themselves. The 95%… the us, in US of A, are the neo slaves of the Global South. Our Masters, the Wealthy, do, as they like to us…

As far as the "V" symbol, this will likely become part of the Beckian analysis of this story, though it just appears to be yet another example of how plain-old batshit crazy this guy was.

Loud Noises!!!

A brief summary of why the recent Gawker "exclusive" about an alleged "one night stand" would-be Senate-hopeful Christine "I dabbled" O'Donnell had with a man works more for the modern conservative movement than anyone else.

For starters, it allows people like Michelle Malkin to shriek and cry about how women are treated - even though this is a tabloid publication we are talking about here - all the while knowing that she exploited a child and his family in an equally disgusting fashion. She even went so far as to highlight who Gawker's advertisers were; apparently in the hopes that a boycott would ensue - you know, just like that one that conservative laugh about when the boycott is pointed at their own Glenn Beck.

While the alleged incident is related through an anonymous source, one has to question the timing of this story. While I won't go full "truther" on this, it isn't outside the realm of possibility - considering our current socio-political climate - to at least postulate that this is a calculated move by conservatives in order to aide the O'Donnell campaign. It's likely, if my hypothesis is correct, not going to be enough to edge O'Donnell's poll numbers up enough to get her elected to the US Senate, but it is enough to ensure more conservative enthusiasm in the days and years to come. In other words, look for this to come up again, and again, and again, in relation to conservative women attempting to make political gains.

Personally, I don't pay attention to what Gawker says specifically because they are a tabloid site that traffics in sensational material just like this. Is this story about O'Donnell true? Who's to say. Regardless of the story's merit, the modern conservative movement has already seized on this opportunity to decry not only Gawker, but anyone that would even pose relevant questions to Christine O'Donnell.

Sourcing The Enemy

Michelle Malkin, in all her purse-lipped fury, now asks if liberal/progressive bloggers were scammed by Mancow.

Last week, liberal blogs went ga-ga over radio talk show host Mancow’s waterboarding stunt.

...Time for B.S. detector tune-ups, people. Next time, libs, don’t be so eager to hype a veteran radio entertainer crying “torture.”

You’re the ones who end up all wet.

Malkin's source for her jubulant little dance of joy? Turns out that it's Gawker, the website that she loves to loathe.

Gawker references three people involved to somehow "prove" that this was "fake"

-The first is a Chicago-based publicist named Linda Shafran whose clients include the Jerry Springer and Steve Wilkos shows, in addition to Erich "Mancow" Muller. In describing Shafran our tipster added:

"Linda Shafran is Springer's current publicist until the show starts shooting in CT. Since Springer is her primary source of income, she's now trying to help promote Mancow nationally as a shock jock alternative to Howard Stern."

-The second person involved in this is a man named David Kupcinet. He runs a Chicago-based foundation for veterans called Kup's Purple Heart Foundation. He is the grandson of Irv Kupcinet, a somewhat legendary Chicago gossip columnist who wrote a column for the Chicago Sun Times for over 60 years. At the behest of a friend, Linda Shafran contacted Kupcinet on Thursday hoping that his relationships with Chicago-area veterans and military personnel could help her find a replacement waterboarder.

-The third person involved here, to a much lesser degree, is another Chicago-based publicist named Kathy Posner. According to our tipster, Posner is Jerry Springer's former flack and a friend of both Linda Shafran and Erich "Mancow" Muller. According to one of the emails we were forwarded, it was Posner who suggested that Shafran contact David Kupcinet to find a replacement waterboarder.

Gawker goes on to claim that the person that performed the water-boarding didn't really know what they were doing and was actually in on the hoax.

The only trouble with this, is that the bulk of the information is quotes that would have to be verified. And, considering the source, it would appear that these people would be willing to lie simply to protect themselves from admitting that "Mancow" was honestly freaking out about being water-boarded.

To a point, this all comes down to an arguement in semantics. Certainly, we aren't to believe that this is the "only way" that water-boarding is done. Anyone that has seen videos online of it being done to people can "simulate" it as well. The "marine" that performed it on "Mancow" himwself claims to have learned it that way. Even if it was done incorrectly, it could hurt a person, much in the same way that it can be dangerous to do any number of things "incorrectly".

More to the point - that Malkin is laughing because she thinks she's gone one-up on people - is that I think Malkin is full of it. She's so eager to prove that she is right that she is willing to reference a website that she has lambasted many times as a "smear machine".

From my point of view, I think that "Mancow" got so caught up in the moment, thinking it would be a "hoax", that when he got scared and his buddies ( like Sean Hannity ) called him out on it, he decided to still run with it like it was a gag.