Number of days until Markos “Screw Them” Moulitsas Zuniga unveils his top secret plan to destroy the Democratic Leadership Council:

“I shall call him … ‘Mini-Me.’”

(Photoshop courtesy of Allah.)

UPDATE at 8/24/05 6:18:39 pm:

Iowahawk’s army of zombified Big Daddy Ed Roth clones has discovered the second draft of Markos’ declaration of war, buried in the dumpster behind his house under a dog-eared, coffee-stained copy of Manufacturing Dissent:

The calm before the bitchslap
by kos

Ahh, the DLC’s handywork:

Ed Kilgore, policy maven at the centrist Democratic Leadership Council (which recently accused war critics of “anti-American bias”), urged caution: “At this sensitive moment in Iraq, voters should know that Democrats offer a full suite of Iraq solution services tailored to your needs. Calls for troop withdrawal and fragging do not represent the full range of our party. It doesn’t make any political sense.”Let’s ignore for the moment the ridiculous notion that a troop withdrawal doesn’t make any politican, or strategical, or economicial, sense.

Let’s really ignore the fact that there’s a higher moral issue at stake in Iraq than politics, like people’s lives. And let’s extra-double extremely ignore the fact that savvy young progressives go for the taste Kos®-brand: the Flava of Generation Xtreme™.

Instead, let’s focus on that “anti-American” DLC quote. That didn’t come from Kilgore. Rather, it was his boss Will Marshall’s handiwork.

By dwelling obsessively on U.S. misdeeds while ignoring the far more heinous crimes of what is quite possibly the most barbaric insurgency in modern times, anti-war critics risk damaging Democratic brand equity among midmarket 35-54 demographic segments.

Patriotism is the ultimate values issue. Democrats need not be embarrassed by it. It has high Q scores in focus group tests, and enhances promotion effectiveness and vote ROI. And they ought not to let Republicans monopolize key flag-branded product placement during peak drivetime radio and early-evening cable TV dayparts. If Democrats expect to grow market share, they need to be choosier about their product line, and distance themselves from the pacifist and anti-American boutique brands. And they need to have faith in their fellow citizens: independent syndicated market research shows that folksy, “All-American” brand positioning is an effective strategy for moving electoral product, especially in the key South and Midwest sales regions.

My draft version of this post included a whole refutation of Marshall’s aargument. Believe me, it was a devistating intellectual tour de forse, a bloody, bare knuckled evizeration of his sh*tty stupid crap aaargumentions. If only you could have seen my incredimble smack-dowwn. Unfortunately, I threw out my only printed copy and foregot to hit the save key. But please, don’t worry about chasing down my neighborhood resycle truck to retrieve this devistatingly awesome refutationing of Marshall, because really, it’s all irrelevant. Plus, I spilled Fruitey Pebbles on it and the ink bled pretty bad.