Stupid, stupid conservatives.

I was raised on the supposed stupidity of liberals and the glory of the conservative movement, born in the 70’s and a child of the 80’s. But as I age so does the conviction that, although there might have been some truth to that reality (while Clinton didn’t help, the sex-capades-impeachment was a early warning signal of the neo-con-absurdity to come), it certainly isn’t the case anymore. In fairness to conservatives whom I respect (family members included), this is mostly in regards to the rise and proliferation of the conservative media.

Cases in point:

Fox front man Bill O'Reilly was beside himself over the handshake, indignantly claiming that former President Richard Nixon never met with Chinese leader Mao Zedong. Perhaps O'Reilly would benefit from a refresher in Political History 101, because it's a well-established fact that Nixon met with Mao in 1972, a point Keith Olbermann drove home in naming O'Reilly "Worst Person" on Thursday for his historically challenged comment.

Conservative leader and radio host Rush Limbaugh asserted, "If you look at what we are calling torture, you have to laugh," said that "if somebody can be water-tortured six times a day, then it isn't torture," and claimed that "appeasers" have "water[ed] down" definition of torture like "NOW gang" did with definition of domestic violence.

County Fair, the official Media Matters blog, last week called out the conservative Washington Times for its bizarre, fact-free editorial that claimed President Obama's job approval ratings were "in the basement" and that he was historically unpopular. True Alice-in-Wonderland stuff since recent polling data suggest the exact opposite about the president's popularity. Well, it took a whole week, but the Times finally walked back that nonsense retracting the entire editorial noting, "We hereby retract our April 28 editorial 'Barack's in the basement' because we misapplied several polling comparisons of various presidents after their first 100 days in office." That's being generous when you consider the entire piece was completely made up.

[W]hen Gov. John Baldacci (D) signed a marriage equality law, Maine became the fifth state to allow legal same-sex marriage. On the Christian Broadcasting Network today, Pat Robertson responded by claiming that the “ultimate conclusion” of legalizing same-sex marriage would be the legalization of polygamy, bestiality, child molestation and pedophilia. “You mark my words, this is just the beginning in a long downward slide in relation to all the things that we consider to be abhorrent,” said Robertson.

Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Rush Limbaugh Show guest host Mark Steyn criticized the president as an elitist because he ordered a burger with "spicy mustard" or "Dijon mustard." Hannity claimed that Obama ordered a "fancy burger" with a "very special condiment," while Steyn asserted Obama is trying "to enlighten us" through his order. Ingraham asked of Obama: "What kind of man orders a cheeseburger without ketchup but Dijon mustard? ... The guy orders a cheeseburger without ketchup? What is that?" In their discussions of Obama's burger order, Hannity, Ingraham, and Steyn all referenced a Grey Poupon commercial featuring actors portraying wealthy British men expressing desire for the mustard.

David Feherty, in an essay for a Dallas magazine wrote, "From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East, I can tell you this, though: despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Osama bin Laden, there's a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death."

As Olbermann has explained, the point would not be to watch Hannity suffer. Rather, it would be to prove to him — and perhaps his viewers — that waterboarding is in fact “cruel, inhuman” torture — that it is what an adviser on terrorism to the departments of Homeland Security, Special Operations, and Intelligence called “slow-motion suffocation.”

Indeed, the 2005 torture memo written by Steven Bradbury required the CIA to have a tracheotomy kit on hand to revive a detainee who had effectively drowned:

[A] detainee could suffer spasms of the larynx that would prevent him from breathing even when the application of water is stopped and the detainee is returned to an upright position. In the event of such spasms, a qualified physician would immediately intervene to address the problem, and, if necessary, the intervening physician would perform a tracheotomy. …we are informed that the necessary emergency medical equipment is always present - although not visible to the detainee — during any application of the waterboard.

A footnote to the memo warns, “for reasons of physical fatigue or psychological resignation, the subject may simply give up, allowing excessive filling of the airways,” and “aggressive medical intervention” may be required to restore breathing. And yet Hannity continues to insist, “It’s not drowning.”

Indeed, the fact that conservatives and the Task Force in particular feel the need to lie about the history and traditions surrounding the NDP [National Day of Prayer—ew!] suggests that they are less concerned with promoting prayer in America than they are with taking every possible opportunity to “slam Obama” for political gain.

I wish it were true that Obama was in some way—any way—anti-religious, but unfortunately that’s just not the case. In fact, as I suggested about Bobby Jindal’s necessary conversion to an Anglo-religion, so too did Obama need the sanctification and protection of J.C. to win the White House. Half black? Sure. Absentee father? Well, OK. Muslim absentee father? Ummm… Community organizer. What’s that? But (god forbid) had Obama ever waiver in his devotion to some imaginary Father and his ghost-Son—not to be confused with “Ghost-Dad,” the ridiculously horrible Bill Cosby movie—he could have forgotten about the presidency.

Why? Because the equally ridiculously horrible reality in this country, indeed most the world, is that, even as religion slowly ebbs from humanity and even the transgendered get civil rights, atheism remains a pox in our houses.

Gunmen, and Coptics, and Musilms--oh my!

Gunmen killed 44 people at a wedding party in south-east Turkey. Some claimed the assailants were from a militia that had helped Turkish troops fight Kurdish separatists.

Kill Bill re-dux? Uneasily reminiscent of the Quentin Tarantino movie in which an entire wedding party, pastor and his wife included, is gunned down during the rehearsal. The only survivor, ironically, was the intended target, the very pregnant Uma Thurman—so much for virginal white.

She had made the mistake of trying to go straight, leaving behind her assassin’s career, as well as boss and lover, Bill. He caught up with Uma just as she was about to ceremonially cut the last tie. Of course, as one is never completely done with one’s messy past, she reverts (had she really ever changed?) to her former profession, hunting down former colleagues who took part in the slaughter, attempting to Kill her way back to Bill.

Speaking of irony:

Antasari Azhar, the head of Indonesia’s anti-corruption agency, was arrested as a suspect in the murder of a prominent businessman killed in a drive-by shooting in March.

Ironical? Or maybe this was part of his job; like Geitner busting a cap in the CEO of AIG’s ass. (Update: apparently, as he wined on 60 Minutes the other night, said CEO says he’s not to blame. Perhaps not as much as he’s been getting, anyway. Boo-hoo, biotch.

Egypt’s government ordered all the country’s 250,000 pigs slaughtered in response to the outbreak of swine flu, even though the disease has not yet reached Egypt and international health officials say eating properly cooked pork is safe. That upset the country’s 6m-plus Coptic Christians, who own most of the pigs.

So, Egypt, how does it feel to be the only country in the world to react to the possible pandemic with an utterly useless and arcane measure? How could this be, we ask, our collective head shaken in disbelief? Egypt is a relatively, progressive and modern country, for the area anyway, we say.

Well, let’s look at that. It’s a precarious thing to be a purportedly secular government in one of the most militantly Islamic parts of the world. Like Jordan, and a few other secular police-states in the region, Egypt’s modern history has been that of the military/strong-man-rule’s need quell or pacify populist rage in the form of Islamic fundamentalism. To the extent that the government will concede to Islamic leader’s social agenda, such as sharia law, and foreign policy issues, like Israel, the less brute force is needed to retain control of the country. Indeed, the first time an Egyptian made a deal for peace with Israel, he was shot down for his trouble.

Of course, much of this rage is not only utilized but fomented by the government. In what can be an exercise in head-spin, the interests and counter-interests of the regime, as it pertains to the vocal Muslim population, is integral to understanding the politics of not only Egypt and much of the region. 

A perceived threat to Islam, when co-opted by the government, becomes an enemy of the state, and thus an existential threat to the country. By linking the fate of the regime with that of a given religion, repression is accepted by the public as a necessary form of social control. (Excepting for historical revolutionary anomalies, like the reformation or America, this is why religion is necessarily conservative.) This boot on your face (see Orwell) is only there to protect from the other guy down the road (or from another country) who wouldn’t be half as nice about it.

In fairness to the dictators of the Middle East, this relationship is neither endemic to their part of the world, nor is it anything new. To varying degrees, this political use of religion is as old as history itself. It could be argued, as I am inclined to, that religion and politics evolved congruently out of the same desire for power.

Did the witch doctor truly believe the neighboring tribe evil spirits, or did he simply understand the necessary motivation for his warriors to treat their counter-parts inhumanly in what was really a competition for resources? Did the different Popes really think the Crusades a solution for the safe pilgrimage to the Holy Land for Europeans, or were spices, silk and empire on their mind?

We can only imagine what fragmented sentences spun round the heads of the previous administration in this country.

Indeed, the fact that conservatives and the Task Force in particular feel the need to lie about the history and traditions surrounding the NDP suggests that they are less concerned with promoting prayer in America than they are with taking every possible opportunity to “slam Obama” for political gain.

I wish it were true that Obama was in some way—any way—anti-religious, but unfortunately that’s just not the case. In fact, as I suggested about Bobby Jindal’s necessary conversion to an Anglo-religion, so too did Obama need the sanctification and protection of J.C. to win the White House. Half black? Sure. Absentee father? Well, OK. Muslim absentee father? Ummm… Community organizer. What’s that? But (god forbid) had Obama ever waiver in his devotion to some imaginary Father and his ghost-Son—not to be confused with “Ghost-Dad,” the ridiculously horrible Bill Cosby movie—he could have forgotten about the presidency.

Why? Because the equally ridiculously horrible reality in this country, indeed most the world, is that, even as religion slowly ebbs from humanity and even the transgendered get civil rights, atheism remains a pox in our houses.