FOX

They suck canal water.

I didn't vote for the two-bit, B-Movie actor either time...

I remember once commenting on Salon that I read sites that were both ideologically left and right, and that, on the whole, the left sites were nastier. I was attacked for this, for everyone surely knows that progressives are nicer. I think what we've seen here proves my point better than any argument I could have made.

errantacademic is completely correct! Leftist Progressives are far nastier than the right. These libtard sheep Obama slaves want Marxism in this country. Idiots.*

*All words used by rightists in these pages.

errantacademic, you're pretending, I assume, to have ignored my last post?

Now let me guess: errantacademic will ignore this post, and others will write in to repeat what I and the other leftists have said, substituting "left" for "right." Then, at 3:00 precisely, someone will write in to say: "Salon sucks! I'm outta here!"

Say hello to Richard Mellon Scaife for me.

I guess my irony didn't make it into print; maybe I should have put quotes around it! I think if you read my other posts you'll discover that I'm an unlikely patron of Rush Limbaugh, but I know a good act when I see it! If the zeitgeist turned and Rupert Murdoch tought he could make 25 cents selling pictures of "Uncle Joe" Stalin, he'd go for it! But the Salonistas act like their backs are against the wall and someone's about to pull the trigger! Sheesh! It's only politics! Go read Hegel's "Phenomenology" or something!

No, I gathered that, no problem, although I did think that you were seriously using the word "libtard" to insult leftists, as many do. But someone did seem to advance in all seriousness the idea that leftists were taking the discourse into abuse and negative disrespect, in the same thread where seemingly unironic rightists other than you have called liberals "libtards," "idiots," "Marxists," "sheep," and any number of other epithets. More than one rightist somehow "accidentally" missed all these posts, but stated falsely that leftists were primarily responsible for abusive discourse. I am pretty confident that I have shown this to be false, but I can of course provide a thousand examples, fairly easily.

It seemed like a transparent attempt to avoid addressing the good points that some leftists here have made, by repeating the charge of "abusive discourse" that leftists first leveled here, and simply substituting the word "left" for "right," thinking that this would convince any leftists here that they were the abusive side, and that rightists haven't led the charge into hurling epithets. It still seems like such a transparent attempt.

If Al Franken had any doubts - and I see no reason why he should have had, but nevertheless if he had any doubts at all about his own mental stability - nothing could confirm his unquestioned mental health with greater authority than Rush Limbaugh's irrational but predictable announcement that Franken is a "lunatic."

Limbaugh and his KKK/rightwing bigots have the audacity to call

Al Franken stupid, unlike those idiot racist, Franken graduated

from "HARVARD" with a math degree, unlike their hero "Palin" who graduated from somewhere with a mediocore journalisum degree,Franken reads newspapers and, knows the constitution, he also would do extremely well if interviewed by Katie Couric"! Rush and his whackos see the country changing racially/cultural, so they are foaming at the mouth like a pack of rabid dogs! FOX news is not news at all, it's Fox's Racist Haters...

oops, and as I momentarily forgot, the whole point of this entire thread is to discuss the many epithets that the right wing has hurled at Al Franken! How could I forget:

"evil"

"maniacal"

"lunatic"

Mwoo-hoo-hahaha!

So it becomes clear that this negative language is a sensitive subject for the right. When it's mentioned, even with copious examples, their answer is: "I know you are but what am I?"

"evil," "maniacal," and "lunatic," the words that began this thread, and about which the article in question was concerned, were epithets the right reached for to smear a candidate of whom they disapproved. They're inaccurate epithets, as well.

Sorry, guys! You did something that looks silly. Face it or don't, but you'll be like the person who screws up socially, in a spectacular way, and who tries to cover it up. The folks at the party are still staring at him, and they may let his explanation slide ("it was the other guy who f---ed up!"), but in our minds, we're still thinking, "God that was awkward." And we'll still avoid the faux pas guy, come the next party (that is, 2012).

Rightists complain, for example, when we call Sarah Palin "unintelligent," or take some other adversarial position against them. But unfortunately, it's not a smear if you can point to plenty of evidence, and the other side has no evidence for their own position. Reaching for gutter invective to tar someone as "evil" and "maniacal" would work, if there were any evidence at all that Al Franken had been diagnosed as such. You have none, so this is what makes it a negative, rightist smear. Nice try. If you do find any evidence of severe mental illness on Al Franken's part, I'm all ears. Rush Limbaugh: Prescription Drug Addict and Amateur Psychologist. Now that's a Saturday Night Live skit.

Great column, Joe, as usual!

http://hubpages.com/hub/A_Big_Fat_Mistake_by_Rush_Limbaugh_in_Attacking_Michael_Fox#comment3470

Hurrah for Franken! He is an intelligent politician with genuine compassion. Unlike some actor/politicians (Arnold) he did not seek office for personal glory.

Boo to Orbitboy. As his internet handle suggests, he is out there. I have been diagnosed with textbook Borderline Personality Disorder, and have nothing in common with ranting, hypocritical conservatives. Have you even read the DMSR IV textbook, Orbitboy? Can you back up your comparison of talking-head conservatives to those diagnosed with BDP? You missed the target trying to pin a lable on them. How about plain crazy?

Big fat Franken should be so lucky as to be as smart and sincere as Rush Limbaugh - I resent you using Fox and Us and Rush as your whipping boys. We are all good people and if that is all you can do is call them names, perhaps you should get a new job.