The Crowbar

  Hard left bloggers Matthew Yglesias and Spencer Ackerman are in agreement. If you quote a Civil War General known as “one of the first men to grasp the doctrines of “mobile warfare” that became prevalent in the 20th century” in an editorial about military defense spending you: 1) support and “love the KKK” and 2) are experiencing “paranoia.”   Uh, boy. These assertions stem from an article by Thomas Donnelly and Gary Schmitt in the WSJ taking issue with the ill advised cuts in defense spending (like killing off the F-22) that are coming in order to pay for Obama’s massive domestic agenda. Their sin? They quoted Confedarate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. The exerpt in question:

More often it rewards those who arrive on the battlefield “the fustest with the mostest,” as Civil War Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest once put it. If Mr. Gates has his way, U.S. forces will find it increasingly hard to meet the Forrest standard.

The idea being pushed by Yglesias and Ackerman is that Gen. Forrest is a “founder” of the KKK and, since Donnelly and Schmitt quoted him, it means they approve of the KKK and racism in general. What they neglect to tell you is:

Although Forrest has been associated with the Ku Klux Klan movement, he officially denied participation and no evidence of a formal link exists. Delegates at an 1867 KKK convention in Nashville named him the organization’s honorary Grand Wizard, or leader-in-chief without him being present.

So not only are Yglesias and Ackerman are pushing the nonsense that quoting someone means you approve of their beliefs, General Forrest himself denied he was part of the KKK in the first place; and there is no evidence to prove otherwise. I got all this from Wikipedia in less than ten seconds. It makes me wonder what Yglesias and Ackerman are doing with their time.

NewsBuster’s Noel Shepherd appeared on Glenn Beck  to talk about leftist bloggers classlessly blaming Beck for the recent Pittsburg cop killings: Video. More from Noel Shepherd here and here.

GayPatriot posts about bad comment behavior in his site from the left and the right.

No matter how many times I plea for commenters to cut it with the name-calling, I find it has only a momentary effect.  When our critics do it, it helps confirm our point that all too many on the left would rather insult conservatives than consider our ideas.  When our supporters do it, well, they compromise their defenses of our arguments.

Our biggest battle in this age is the restoration of civility, which we are slowly losing. That’s what my blog is about.

Even though Eminem isn’t a blogger (oh, but he IS!), I wanted to devote a post to his sick behavior. Breitbart video here. H/T Big Hollywood. Lyric in question:

Give me my Ventolin inhaler and two Xenadrine and I’ll invite Sarah Palin out to dinner then nail her.

Would Eminem have said the same about Michele Obama, or any attractive woman who is a liberal political figure? Imagine the liberal outrage then. You’ll likely hear nary a peep from the MSM on this one.