I know it is considered impolite and inappropriate to pathologize wingnuttery. But I mean this as a serious question: are these people genetically immune to the strictures of logic? Is pointing out their hypocrisy the analog of describing colors to the congenitally blind? The only difference between the article Glenn eviscerates and a laugher from The Onion is location, location, location. I don't think the WaPo is trying to be funny here, so something else must explain this phenomenon.

I have seen some interesting nurture-based explanations for the inability of conservatives to tolerate ambiguity. But this kind of self-parody seems to reflect an even deeeper issue.

Perhaps someday gene therapy will address the problem. Logic seems far too blunt an instrument.

The MSM has the emergent fact, but as usual ignores the context that Glenn so ably provides.

Another important bit of context here: I agree with the commenters above who characterize what happened here as a possible false flag op. That puts a very different spin on Sy Hersh's recent revelation about how Dick Cheney recently considered dressing up Navy Seals as Iranians, putting them on fake Iranian speedboats, and shooting at them in order to provoke Iran to start a war.

From ThinkProgress:

HERSH: There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up.

Might cost some lives. And it was rejected because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. That’s the kind of — that’s the level of stuff we’re talking about. Provocation. But that was rejected.

If these people are responsible for sending out those anthrax letters, then we know they have no qualms about Americans killing Americans, or about false flag operations.

Link in the sig.

If you continue so aggressively with your interviews, how will you find anyone to interview?

There are a few "gets" Glenn will never. But do you know how many times Bill Kristol has had his head handed to him by Jon Stewart? And yet he, and Jonah Goldberg, and a long list of conservative stooges line up for more humiliation.

Do they know how stupid they look? Do they each think they will succeed where others have failed? Maybe, maybe not. But for these raging egoists, there is simply no such thing as bad air time.

The only thing that will really determine Glenn's ability to get players is his "ratings." If his show becomes popular, the lambs will line up to be slaughtered.

Glenn, I applauded and contributed to your money bomb efforts against Hoyer et al. But this theme -- the dysfunctional media -- is where I think we should be focusing our fire. I know you have spent a lot of effort here before, and you have embarrassed the hell out of some truly awful reporters. But the coverage of the presidential race so far is awfully light on evidence that anything has changed.

Obama has bitterly disappointed me on issues like FISA, as he has you. But I also agree with you that the prospect of a McCain win is too frightening to contemplate. And the press has been playing perfectly into the hands of the McCain spin machine. And so I am thinking that the most meaningful thing we can all do between now and November is to try to shame Abramowitz and the rest of the hacktocracy into doing their damned jobs.

1. Are Huckleberry and Holy Joe aware that Georgia isn't actually (yet) part of NATO? (Given their obliviousness to other obvious facts, I'm not sure it would matter, but still.)

2. It just struck me that this cold war nostalgia is essentially a desire to retreat into the womb of the 1950s by those who, one way or another, were formed by that decade. And these are the same folks who most loathe the 60s and the DFHs who were formed (in their view) by that decade.

I'm sure McCain gets all warm and fuzzy inside if someone yells "duck and cover!"

This nonsense is reason enough to elect someone who grew up after most of those decades had passed.

I was too young to understand what happened in Chicago in 1968. But I don't think anyone over the age of 18 back then was unaware of it, because the press covered the protests in great detail. That coverage was likely far from unbiased, but what has struck me in this episode is that, for all of our (justified) bitching about the appallingly bad reporting that forms the basis for so much blogospheric ire, it is even worse when they willfully ignore stuff like this.

And that is the real difference between then and now. To the ink-stained wretches, abusing DFHs is no longer even news. The Villagers simply cannot be bothered with such trivia as hypocrisy and fascism -- not when there are Clintons to ridicule and mavericks to flatter.

Completely agree -- Chicago was different -- and will continue to be, because the police state has gotten much more sophisticated in its management of dissent and dissenters.

For several years now, government sanctioned protesters have been herded into government sanctioned protest areas, where they can be officially ignored by government sanctioned pundits. (Unless, of course, they are PUMAs.) What Glenn is chronicling is the next logical step in the process -- preemptive arrest of enough protesters for Conspiracy to Commit Free Speech to chill even the idea of dissent.

Glenn, you are indeed a beacon. I can't help wondering if you are also at risk as a flashlight on a foggy night.