Finally! A group of right wingers is calling for a telephone campaign against Glenn Beck!

I’ve been waiting for this to happen …

Oh, wait. They’re angry at Beck for not pushing the birth certificate issue.

I should have known. Never mind.

(Hat tip: Mich-again.)

There’s a great version of this cynically on-target song on The Randy Newman Songbook, Vol. 1. (Here it is at the iTunes Store.)

Cain slew Abel, Seth knew not why
If the children of Israel were supposed to multiply
Then why must any of the children die?
So he asked the Lord
And the Lord said:

“Man means nothing, he means less to me
than the lowliest cactus flower
or the humblest yucca tree
he chases round this desert
cause he thinks that’s where I’ll be
that’s why I love mankind

I recoil in horror from the foulness of thee
from the squalor and the filth and the misery
How we laugh up here in heaven at the prayers you offer me
That’s why I love mankind”

The Christians and the Jews were having a jamboree
The Buddhists and the Hindus joined on satellite TV
They picked their four greatest priests
And they began to speak
They said “Lord the plague is on the world
Lord no man is free
The temples that we built to you
Have tumbled into the sea
Lord, if you won’t take care of us
Won’t you please please let us be?”

And the Lord said
And the Lord said

“I burn down your cities — how blind you must be
I take from you your children and you say how blessed are we
You all must be crazy to put your faith in me
That’s why I love mankind
You really need me
That’s why I love mankind”

Because I’ve lived this nightmare too many times: How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell.

Of all the incredibly idiotic outrages over which the right wing blogosphere has hyperventilated (and there were hundreds last year) this has to be the flat out dumbest one yet. From Ed Morrissey, who specializes in outrageous outrages: Hot Air » Blog Archive » Picture of the Day.

And it’s not just Morrissey; Glenn Reynolds is also engaging in political analysis via Flickr. And Ann Althouse, too!

The trifecta of silly wingnut nontroversies.

UPDATE at 1/3/10 9:20:11 pm:

Since turnabout is fair play, you too can Analyze Glenn Reynolds’ Body Language!

Way out west there was this fella I wanna tell ya about. Goes by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least that was the handle his loving parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. See, this Lebowski, he called himself “The Dude”. Now, “Dude” - there’s a name no man would self-apply where I come from. But then there was a lot about the Dude that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that’s why I found the place so darned interestin’. See, they call Los Angeles the “City Of Angels”; but I didn’t find it to be that, exactly. But I’ll allow it as there are some nice folks there. ‘Course I ain’t never been to London, and I ain’t never seen France. And I ain’t never seen no queen in her damned undies, so the feller says. But I’ll tell you what - after seeing Los Angeles, and this here story I’m about to unfold, well, I guess I seen somethin’ every bit as stupefyin’ as you’d seen in any of them other places. And in English, too. So I can die with a smile on my face, without feelin’ like the good Lord gypped me.

— The Stranger, “The Big Lebowski”

Umar Farouq Abdulmutallab was not the first Al Qaeda terrorist to use a PETN bomb hidden in his underwear; the terrorist who tried (and failed) to assassinate Saudi prince Mohammed bin Nayef in August used the same method.

Still no retraction at Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government blog for their completely false claim that the CEO of ACORN visited the White House on September 5th: White House Visitors Log: ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis In Obama Residence Week Before Sting Videos Launched - Big Government.

And no correction at Fox Nation either: ACORN CEO Visited White House Week Before Scandal Broke | The FOX Nation.

Five days and counting since the story was debunked, and they’re just leaving the false claim out there. Disgraceful.

Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) says this picture of Barack Obama as a shoeshine boy isn’t racist — because Rush Limbaugh was a shoeshine boy.

UPDATE: Or is it racist? Rush Limbaugh actually was a shoeshine boy. Yeah the racial stereotype is a bit shaky — when I was a kid I knew older brothers of friends who did that; even in Birmingham, Alabama they were white. By the time I was a teenager, of course, shoeshines were on the way out.

The idea that you can remove the racial context from this picture by saying, “Well, white people have been shoeshine boys too!” is such a transparently empty rhetorical trick, I’m surprised that Reynolds would try to use it.

And I’ll just point out that Limbaugh himself seems to have no doubt that calling someone a “shoeshine boy” is a deliberate slur; in May of last year Limbaugh used that very smear against Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa: Limbaugh calls LA’s Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa a ‘Shoe Shine Boy’.

UPDATE at 1/3/10 4:42:56 pm:

Reynolds has updated his post, and says I “slagged” him. But he doesn’t even bother to respond to the points I made. If it was just “slagging,” it should be easy for Reynolds to refute my post, right? (No, I’m not holding my breath.)

Here’s what he wrote:

Boy, bend over backwards to avoid accusing a Democrat of racism and what do you get? Slagged by Charles Johnson.

On that point, here’s a right wing blog that posted this image in September, 2008: Political Rants: Obama Gives a Mean Shoe Shine.

This ugly Photoshopped image has been making its way around the right wing blogs and mailing lists for a long time, and trying to claim that it originated anywhere else is just foolish.

UPDATE at 1/7/10 3:27:18 pm:

Reynolds updated his post again to say he does think the picture is racist, despite the appearance that he was excusing it (and I wasn’t the only one to think so). According to Glenn Reynolds, he was reacting against “cheap and bogus charges of racism.”

Which seems like an odd thing to bring up in the face of such obvious, blatant racism.