Let's blame Mikey!

There's a point beyond which tricky, captious arguments cease to be sophistry and become - well to put it bluntly - insane. People with the intent to deceive or people with their logical ability impaired by passion or pathology might attempt to confuse cause and effect; they might add 2 and 2 and get 2.2, but when you hear of somebody adding up Euler's number and a 1929 Studebaker exhaust valve and arriving at any conclusion at all, you know you're not merely dealing with someone with the IQ of a Conch Fritter, but with a barking nut job.

I don't mean any disrespect to anyone suffering from a chemical imbalance or congenital defect, I'm talking about convinced, born again Republican attack dogs. No connection is too tenuous, no argument too contrived when it comes to mauling someone like Michael Moore. After all, Moore has been critical of the Bush administration and its slavish devotion to the profit margins of its base. Actually the vast majority of America is fed up with Bush and Bandar and Cheney and Halliburton, and the health care for profit industry and the insurance industry and more, but the irrational Right is either unaware of it or too sure of the Pavlovian conditioning they've trained into us over all these years to be concerned. They say Moore, or Fonda or Clinton and we bark until we foam at the mouth. It doesn't matter that his facts are right, it's wrong for anyone to criticize a Republican government. That's all the logic you need. That's all the logic you'll get.

The National Review Online and the usual cast of foil hatted pinheads have made a connection. They've pushed the button and you're supposed to respond. You see, since there were medical professionals associated with the recent British bombing attempts and since Michael wrote about doctors and hospitals in the United States, there must be a connection and because there's a connection, he must be the cause. It's a kind of logic that only those who take orders from dogs, hear voices from Neptune and buy Ann Coulter's books can see, but it's no more absurd than most of their basic arguments. To "conservative" writers, bloggers and bloviators, it's Moore's fault some Muslim doctor was involved in driving a flaming Jeep into the Glasgow airport. I can only hope that these people are writing for themselves and that America will tire of the hatefest and begin to see who the real enemy is. I hope I'm not as delusional in hoping so as they are.