The Rifleman’s Stalking the sick and the Lame . . .

The above video features NRA executive Veep Wayne LaPierre from 2011 expounding a conspiracy theory about how the Obama administration plans to implement gun control in his second administration: "get re-elected, and with no other re-elections to worry about, get busy dismantling and destroying our firearms freedom." This sort of thinking is totally nuts but it explains the rightwing obsession with the Fast and Furious operation that was supposedly part of a nefarious Obama plan to—in David Limbaugh's words—"manufacture 'evidence' for tightening gun control legislation."
I reviewed the Steve Sailer book, America's Half-Blood Prince (cobbled together from VDare columns) for Chronicles and debunked a similar argument:

 Sailer suggests that Obama will save his true self for a second term. “In Obama, ambition and caution are yoked. Becoming president is not his ultimate objective. Becoming a two-term president is. . . . Nixon’s first administration was one of the most liberal in American history. There were hints at the beginning of his second term, before Watergate . . .that Nixon, . . . intended to move toward his innate conservatism. That analogy suggests that a second Obama administration might more truly reflect the real Obama.” This is dubious. If Obama has studied recent history he will have noticed that recent second presidential terms have been become mired in scandal.
Sailer is correct that Obama wants a second term—every president does; but if he wants accomplish anything, he needs to act while he has the votes in Congress and the support of the public.

Since the Democrats lost control of the House in the last election, even routine measures such as increasing the debt limit have become near impossible. The whole notion that Barack Obama plans to use a second term—currently somewhat in doubt—to enact some secret radical agenda known only to Wayne LaPierre and other delusional cretins is absurd.

Occam's Bullshit Detector

The simplest, and most likely explanation for this poll result (via Memeorandum) is that it is bogus:

President Barack Obama is rapidly losing support among African-American voters in North Carolina, a new poll out today from the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling shows.
The poll finds that Mitt Romney would get 20 percent of the African-American vote if the election were held today, compared with 76 percent for Obama.

If I'm confident of anything in the coming election, it is that black people are going to vote overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. Of course, that won't stop people from reading into this outlier pole what they want to see. Maggie Gallagher thinks that it is about gay marriage. Glenn Reynolds who spent most of 2008(you know, when the economy collapsed) proclaiming "dude, where's my recession,"  thinks that it is about the economy. I think that it's bullshit.

"Copperhead Paddy"

From Chapter iv of The Copperhead:

I fairly yearned to ask him what this
something was, and what was the matter
with his face, but it did not seem quite the
right thing to do, and presently he began
mumbling, as much to himself as to me, a
long and broken discourse, from which I
picked out that he had mingled with a group
of lusty young farmers in the market-place,
asking for the latest intelligence, and that
while they were conversing in a wholly
amiable manner, one of them had suddenly
knocked him down and kicked him, and that
thereafter they had pursued him with curses
and loud threats half-way to the tavern.
This and much more he proclaimed between
mouthfuls, speaking with great rapidity and
in so much more marked a brogue than usual,
that I understood only a fraction of what he
said.

He professed entire innocence of offence
in the affair, and either could not or would
not tell what it was he had said to invite
the blow. I dare say he did in truth richly
provoke the violence he encountered, but at
the time I regarded him as a martyr, and
swelled with indignation every time I looked
at his nose.

I remained angry, indeed, long after he
himself had altogether recovered his equanim-
ity and whimsical good spirits. He waited
outside on the seat while X went in to pay
for the baiting of the horses, and it was as
well that he did, I fancy, because there were
half a dozen brawny farm-hands and villagers
standing about the bar, who were laughing
in a stormy way over the episode of the
" Copperhead Paddy " in the market.

"Negro Sovereignty in the Republic"

From the first chapter of The Copperhead:

Gradually the old blood-feud with the Brit-
isher became obscured by fresher antagonisms,
and there sprouted up a crop of new sons of
Belial who deserved to be hated more even
than had Hamilton and Marshall. With me
the two stages of indignation glided into
one another so impreceptibly that I can now
hardly distinguish between them. What I do
recall is that the farmer came in time to neg-
lect the hereditary enemy, England, and to
seem to have quite forgotten our own historic

foes to liberty, so enraged was he over the
modem Abolitionists. He told me about them
as we paced up the seed rows together in the
spring, as we drove homeward on the hay-load
in the cool of the summer evening, as we
shovelled out a path for the women to the
pumps in the farm-yard through December
snows. It took me a long time to even ap-
proximately grasp the wickedness of these
new men, who desired to establish negro
sovereignty in the Republic, and to compel
each white girl to marry a black man.

The fact that I had never seen any negro
" close to," and had indeed only caught pass-
ing glimpses of one or more of the colored
race on the streets of our nearest big town,
added, no doubt, to the mystified alarm with
which I contemplated these monstrous pro-
posals.

Copperhead the Movie: Week One . . .

Closed Window

Perhaps it is time to stop the insanity:

Tensions have risen between Washington and Kabul, as President Hamid Karzai criticized the U.S. for failing to consult with him on an air raid on an Afghan village killed 18 civilians including 9 children.

I would guess that the window of opportunity to accomplish anything in Afghanistan closed sometime in 2002, yet we are still there. Does every occupation have to turn into a quagmire?

Le-gal Dim-bulb-i-tude

Law professor, half-wit; William Jacobson is mad at people who publicly supported Barack Obama in 2008, and Amber Lee Ettinger in particular, she of the famed Obama Girl video: From what I gather, Jacobson began blogging because he couldn't understand how anyone could oppose the political party that dragged the country into two foreign quagmire and brought about the worst financial collapse since the Great Drepression.

Citing an article stating that Ettinger won't be endorsing anybody this election cycle, Jacobson excretes, "no, you are not excused, fool" even though she didn't ask to be. What an idiot.

Masters of War On Coal

Longer Glenn Reynolds: I was against coal pollution until Obama was, now I am against him: "WAR ON COAL: New ad targets Lamar Alexander. Not sure what he’s thinking here." The link is to this ad:
Reynolds adds, "Maybe there’s something I’m missing here, but it seems to me that Alexander should be emulating Bob Corker." That link is to a clip from Fox News and features Sen. Corker saying nothing about coal or mercury pollution but instead engaging in generic vitriol against Obama.

In case the real issue to Reynolds isn't clear enough, here he is again from a few days ago: "NOW WHY WOULD HE DO THAT? Lamar Alexander Siding With Obama On Coal?" Perhaps he breathes and eats.

People Who Don't Like Me . . .

 While searching my name in recent weeks, I discovered that my blogging at The American Conservative has frequently annoyed people.
One Charles Patrick Adkins, for example, who took umbrage at my use of the term "rightwinger" in this post. Adkins ranted and raved about me:

Now, I have not the least clue who Clark Stooksbury is, nor do I quite honestly give two flips really; but this quoted above, is why I distance myself from the Paleoconservative right. Because they are in bed with the liberal left. I mean, seriously? “Right-Wingers??!”  that term being used on “The American Conservative?!?” Does anyone else see a problem with that, besides me?!?!

He produced some non sequitors:

I guess one can expect this from a magazine that is quite known for its Anti-Israel and Anti-Jewish Bias.

He begged:

I have been blogging full time since 2006. First as a "skeptical left of center" and then as a right-libertarian. Needless to say, in the last 7 years my politics has changed greatly. I have been out of work all that time. Yes, I do live with my parents. I have to. I am all they have. I am an only child and they are in their mid-60's. . .

Another critic with a blog called His Vorpal Sword mentions my post titled Hanoi Jane Approximately without the benefit of a link and tarred me with a Scarlet "M" for misogyny. I discovered on his about page that the blogger, Hart Williams is a very distinguished,  "published author, novelist, literary critic and screenwriter. . ." He again notes on the about page " imdb lists him as a screenwriter" and indeed it does. It turns out that Mr. Williams is the distinguished writer of such classics as Gandi and The English Patient. Oops, I meant that he wrote Hard to Swallow and Caught from Behind 3, among other classics. I haven't seen any of his pictures, but it was the misogyny watchdog's job to find ways to get Little Oral Annie on her knees and I'm sure he put a lot of thought into it.

Another mortal enemy resides at the blog The Other McCain. Stacy McCain wrote, in a comment on this post, "don’t get me started on Stooksbury, a guy who got his nose out of joint over my panning of Crunchy Cons, identified me as an enemy on that basis, and never got over it." I think he may have it backwards. It was McCain who was worked up over my criticism of Donkey Cons, which he co-wrote, in Chronicles. I dislike (and that's putting it nicely) McCain's politics, but I always assumed that we had a friendlier rivalry—I even semi-seriously suggested that him as a ghost for Sara Palin and McCain offered what appeared to be sincere thanks.

The Trail of Crocodile Tears . . .

They must be terrified of Elizabeth Warren. After weeks of obsessing over her claim to be 1/32 Cherokee, The Boston Herald has opened up the latest front against her:

Elizabeth Warren, who has railed against predatory banks and heartless foreclosures, took part in about a dozen Oklahoma real estate deals that netted her and her family hefty profits through maneuvers such as “flipping” properties, records show.

The article lists several instances of Warren buying and reselling property or loaning money to relatives without alleging any wrongdoing or providing much in the way of context. Since she just won the Democratic nomination with 96% of the vote and is within the margin of error (via Steve M.) against Scott Brown, the attacks don't seem to be working.

For some reason, the Herald's idiocy is worthy of a Memeorandum thread.