Right Wing Lunatics Can Say ANYTHING They Want and Not Be Shunned

This post in Washington Monthly is exactly on the mark: right wing idiots can spout any drivel, any filth, any obscenity and still be welcomed with open arms by the Republican Party. As Steve Benen notes (commenting on the despicable Ann Coulter and her vicious attack on 9/11 widows):

In the broader context, I've always been curious what it takes for a conservative to reach genuine pariah status in the political world. Last fall, Bill O'Reilly suggested that it'd be fine with him if al Queda attacked a major American city. There were no apparent adverse consequences. In 2001, just 48 hours after 9/11, Jerry Falwell said liberal Americans were to blame for the attacks and said the nation "deserved" to be hit by terrorists. Five years later, he's hanging out with John McCain as if he were a credible figure in Republican politics, which he unfortunately is. It's easy to pull equally disturbing comments from Limbaugh, Robertson, Dobson, etc. Not one lost his status as a leading conservative voice.

That's about right. Conservatives can say or do anything they want and not get called on it, either by their party or most of the mainstream media. By the way, in the discussion that followed this post, I loved these comments:

Well, he could shoot an old man in the face...no, wait.

Oh, yeah, he could be exposed as a gay prostitute...no, that's not it either...

Perhaps if he harmed national security by revealing the name of an undercover CIA agent for partisan political gain....no, not really....

Hmm, he could be revealed to be a gigantic crook who's been enriching himself for years by stealing the taxpayer dollars of hard-working Americans...huh, no, that doesn't work either, does it....

What if he sold sold weapons to the Iranian mullahs and then lied about it to Congress...or sold weapons to Saddam Hussein and looked the other way while he massacred the Kurds....or held hands with the repressive Saudi monarchs....or brazenly broke the law by spying on Americans in their homes....

Man, this is a harder question than it looks....

Maybe he could go AWOL from his military service and then lie about it....no, that's not it...
Perhaps he could lose $8 million dollars gambling while pretending to be an expert on ethics and virtue....no, huh?

What if he moved his mistress into his mayoral mansion, openly cheated on his wife with her, and had his mistress march alongside him in official New York City parades....that's not gonna do it either, hey?

Well, what if he served his wife with divorce papers while she was lying in a cancer ward...not good enough, you say....OK, what if that same guy had cheated on his second wife with an office aide who was 25 years younger than him....still not?

What if he was a notorious Southern racist who had a secret black child from a 15 year servant girl he'd raped....ok, fine, no....

Perhaps if he was a drunk driver with multiple arrests?..what about an Oxycontin addict...?...what if he sexually harassed his female employees and was overhead on tape detailing his lurid fantasies about falafel and loofahs....?

OK, wait, I'm sure I can think of something....

Heh heh heh.