Today’s Frank Rich column on Don Imus where he cites “born-again blogger Tom Delay” who calls for the firing of Rosie O’Donnell because of her “hateful” views of conservative Christians and President Bush puts RedState’s designation of Salon as a “hate site” into a little different perspective, at least for me.

From Delay’s viewpoint (and apparently the editors of RedState too), criticizing Bush and conservative Christians is now officially designated “hate speech” and they intend to use this characterization of it to limit it, or prohibit it if they can.

It is certainly true that “conservative Christians” and Bush have been roundly criticized in the pages of Salon by several different writers. This new attempt to brand this as “hate speech” serves to reinforce the “conservative Christian” meme that they are “victims” in our society for supporting Bush and God.

While RedState’s new “formal rule” brought us a laugh, and as we shake our heads over the loss of our ability to satirize them, I think this may be the start of a much larger and rather crude attempt on the part of “movement conservatives” to exempt themselves from criticism by playing their new “hate speech” card.

They are truly getting desperate and, sadly, many of them actually believe this sort of nonsense. If they can get the “base” to believe that there is a war against Christmas, then they could certainly work up a campaign painting themselves as victims of a “hate crime” and they’ve announced their first target: Rosie O’Donnell.

If they get her, they’ll soon be coming after Salon. RedState’s formal rule may not be an aberration, but the start of a whole new “conservative” campaign.

Think Progress is an advocacy site.

And they will be a much more effective advocacy site it they don’t distort the truth.

The problem with the way Norah asked the question is that the first sentence she sounds like she’s quoting Tony Snow saying “that you guys want the truth.” But the next sentence, the way she asked it, it sounds like it’s Norah O’Donnell (rather than Tony Snow) saying “you’re going to get the truth from Karl Rove.”

It comes off that way, because Norah says it with such conviction (as if there’s no doubt in her mind that this is true) rather than just what Tony Snow is saying. If you just read the transcript you miss that, and I can see how someone at Think Progress would title the post that way.

It’s certainly fair for Norah to quote GOP talking points for Leahy to respond to (and he could have done a better job), but she never quotes Democratic talking points for the GOP to respond to with that kind of tone or conviction. Therein lies the problem, and why (I think) that Think Progress called her on this particular interview.

Overall I think Think Progress does a great job, and if we repeatedly find instances of them distorting what someone says for advocacy purposes they will certainly lose credibility, and their advocacy for a better media will suffer.

Just to elaborate on Armagednoutahere’s first point, listen to Leahy’s tone when he responds to Norah with “Oh, really?” – he is not responding to a quote from Tony Snow, he is responding to Norah personally - in short, he too took those words as Norah’s not Tony Snow’s.

If Think Progress is guilty of interpreting it that way, so is the very person she was speaking to – Sen. Leahy.

Gen. John Sheehan has described why the surge ultimately won’t work and why any benefits of it will be temporary at best – it’s because the surge is a short-term operation which we cannot continue indefinitely, and it’s not tied to any long term effort, because that would require a serious dialogue with Syria and Iran which the neo-cons have already ruled out as what “girly men” do.

That’s why he turned down the job. There’s no possibility of ultimate success as long as the neo-cons are limiting what needs to be done to assure that - a serious dialogue with other countries in the region.

Additionally, as Krugman pointed out, all Republican candidates are trapped into this position because their base is “living in the past” with these views which are no more than macho posturing and platitudes. The public has already moved on, and it’s only the serious Beltway pundits and the base of the Republican Party who don’t yet realize that.

The American public has been told that we’re “turning the corner” in Iraq since 2003, and they’ve now realized that when you keep constantly “turning corners” and you keep seeing the same things that you’re going in circles.

In the Vietnam era, we kept hearing about the “light and the end of the tunnel” and the public soon realized what nonsense that was too.

Nixon may have been delusional enough to talk to portraits in the White House, but even he finally recognized that the public had turned against the war. Bush hasn’t done that yet, and he keeps talking like the public supports this war and this “surge” – they don’t. Bush, Cheney, the neo-cons and part of the Beltway media cannot grasp this simple fact – because they don’t want to. They dwell in delusions draped in denial.

Their only real strategy is to blame the Democratic Party for “surrendering” to the terrorists. They have no real plan, only their “fear and smear” propaganda that’s no longer working for them. The only thing that’s “turned the corner” is their credibility, and it has disappeared from sight.