Dreams of electronic sheep

Only these sheep are as bare-toothed angry as they are ill-informed and illogical:

Without exception, however, every reader objecting to my criticism of talk-radio ethics mentioned Soros. It was like being scolded by parrots. Most called Soros a commie -- highly unlikely for a billionaire financier and philanthropist -- although I know very little about his views.

It's called the straw man fallacy: refuting arguments nobody's made.

Then there's the argumentum ad populum, another favorite of talk-radio fans: somebody with a big audience must be correct. Furthermore -- motive again -- I must be jealous of their success.

That's pretty much like saying Rush Limbaugh's jealous of President Obama. You buy that?

Look, these guys are playing you for suckers. They're reading scripts written to trick you into believing that the bigger Scrooge McDuck's bullion pile is, the better it is for you. Take away the call screeners and the mute buttons, and most of them wouldn't last two weeks. Talk radio is the political equivalent of wrestling.

Anyone still in denial?

The vast right-wing conspiracy is having a meeting.  The likes of us are not invited.

These people believe in the divine right of wealth.  As far as they're concerned, the Magna Carta should have been enough.  It secured the interests of the aristocracy against the king.  They have no interest in democracy, no belief in any kind of democracy that's not dollar-denominated (or euro-denominated or renminbi-denominated), so they're perfectly happy to demagogue any issue or competitor they need to demagogue to keep their power.

Yet the wingnuts demonize George Soros.  Because they've drunk the kool-aid till they're red in the face.

McCNN - Fox with a human face

In the be careful what I ask for department, CNN is back to amateur colonoscopy of John McCain. The headlines today:

• "McCain courts women voters" - How? He went on "The View"! By the way, did you know that women are an important voting bloc?
• "Poll: McCain even with Obama, Clinton" - The actual results are a regression from recent McCain leads, but CNN helpfully compares them to a poll from February instead of something more recent.
• "McCain outlines plan for economy", teased by the even more brown-nosing tag "McCain offers plan to help homeowners" - The New York Times lets Alzheimer's Americans in on the fact that McCain is flip-flopping from his previous ardent ideological do-nothing approach. B-bu-but it has an acronym vaguely reminiscent of the Great Lakes, so it must be da bomb.
  
• "McCain fundraises off upcoming attacks" - Ooh, the bogeyman George Soros makes wingnuts wet their pants and send money to McCain. Or he might at some undefined time in the future.
• "Bloomberg: McCain got me elected" - What's next, Bloomberg, his own VP? Seriously, who gives a rat's ass about Michael Bloomberg?

Really, CNN must like the taste of McCain's backside to kiss it so thoroughly.

Without DeLay

If George Soros wants to help, he should hire people to follow Tom DeLay around and collect really juicy oppo. That little martinet belongs in jail, can't you just tell by looking!

Originally a comment on Demagogue.