New Rules! New Rules!

Andrew Sullivan, apparently deciding that it is now acceptable to attack people for breaking promises they never actually made, says:

"Howard Dean has now formally reneged on his December 15 pledge to premise U.S. foreign policy on U.N. permission."

Finally! You have no idea how long I've been waiting to break these out:

President Bush Breaks Pledge To Resign If WMDs Not Found

Donald Rumsfeld Still Has Not Fired Paul Wolfowitz, As Promised

Condi Rice Backs Away From Promise To Teach The President How To Pronounce "Nuclear"

Bush Has Yet To Fulfill Promise To See Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling Jailed

Goddamn, writing about politics sure is a lot easier when you can just make shit up.

It's Too Bad My Mother Isn't A Professional Bitch

Because then I could be paid to write columns for conservative publications that completely ignore abstract concepts like "honesty," "integrity," and "history books," just like Jonah Goldberg.

There is much Sullivan-esque nonsense in this column about Howard Dean, but Jonah -- ever the compassionate conservative -- has saved me the trouble of extensively quoting it by including this bit that displays the whole thing in microcosm:

"[Dean] says such amazingly crazy things, he's just so much more entertaining than the ever-cautious Gephardt. For example, Dean recently said that he didn't want to "prejudge" Osama bin Laden's guilt or innocence since he'd have to face a "jury trial."
Can you imagine FDR declaring he didn't want to "pre-judge" Hitler?"

I was going to point out that there's a reason why they were called the Nuremburg Trials, but then I realized that this was probably just an extended riff on Jonah's recurring daydream - the one in which he discovers a time machine and goes back to personally shoot Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels, only to be scorned upon his return by liberals who will never know the service he has performed for humanity. Then he hits the game-winning home run in game seven of the World Series.

That's right, Jonah, I said it. Yo mama.

How Many Lies/Distortions/Misrepresentations/Outright Fucking Slanders Does It take To Get To The Soft-Headed Center Of An Andrew Sullivan Post?

Ha ha. No, seriously. I stopped counting when I got to 15. This is just freakin' ridiculous. I'll get to it later today when I have time, but let's just say, I'm with Roy - Sullivan's so full of shit, I don't even believe he's gay anymore.

Blogs Are Vastly Superior To Traditional Media

Reynolds just can't help himself. As an update to a post on the successful landing of the Spirit rover on Mars, he snarks "Er, good news except for worshippers of Michael Moore, anyway", and links to a post by what appears to be a German blogger.

Yet more proof that anything good for America is bad for liberals.

Except...um...wait a minute. That blog Glenn links to...it seems rather...suspicious:

"I mean, this just isn't fair. It doesn't make sense. Europe's supposed to be so smart, and the Americans are - as Michael Moore told us so convincingly - "ignorant people ... who don't even have a passport"! And: "Just a handful can speak a language other than English".

Michael, where are you? We need help! MICHAEL??"

At this point, those of us used to such antics recognize deliberate stupidity, and so we scan the site's blogroll, and see that it is dominated by Rightwing blogs. Odd, that. I would think that a Michael Moore fan would link to a few liberal sites.

The joke, of course, is on anyone who takes InstaPundit seriously. The site he links is run by a Righty, one who believes in the feeble-minded idea that a valid way of discrediting the Left is to state without evidence that liberals are upset by anything good that happens to the United States.

If pressed, I'm sure that Reynolds would say that linking to a troll as proof of liberal perfidy was his idea of a joke, but that's a weak excuse that should be laughed at by anyone with a brain and a few grains of integrity. In the context of a "straight" news post, linking to someone pretending to be a liberal in order to make liberals look stupid is inexcusable. Most people won't click through the link, simply assuming that it proves what Reynolds says it does. Of those that do click through, many will read that post and that post only, and, again, will assume that it is genuine.

Which means only the small percentage of people who actually bother to look at the rest of the site realize that no, liberals are not, in fact, angered by the successful landing of the Spirit rover.

This is a classic form of deniable disinformation - it leaves the majority of people under the impression that a complete fabrication is in fact the truth, while leaving just enough wiggle room to be able to claim innocence when confronted with it.

It is very difficult to see Reynolds as anything but despicable for engaging in this sort of thing.

For the record, this is not new territory for Reynolds, and it is the reason I have absolutely no problem calling him a lying bastard, even in polite company.

Pardon Our Dust

I'm trying to get something interesting to work here on VVH, and I'm not sure how well Blogger will cooperate...if weird things happen to VVH over the next hour or so, that's why.

Update: Nevermind. I was attempting to use the one AudioBlog post Blogger gives you as a free trial to record a new VVH FAQ. Unfortunately, the free trial only gives you one minute of recording time, rather than the full four minutes of a regular audio post. Needless to say, one minute is not sufficient for my purposes. It's unfortunate, because while audioblogging itself has always struck me as rather dumb, I like the idea of people being able to listen to my FAQ, which ideally would serve as a half-assed introduction to the site. I think it would have added a nice personal touch to the site, made it a bit more human, in the same way that posting a photograph does - although, now that I mention it, the damn photograph usually doesn't work either.

Oh well.

January 2003 In Review

~ Because I'd have to be an idiot to review such a shitty year all at once ~

Highlights of this month, last year:

Happy New Year! Goodbye 2002, Hello 2003!

• I wake up, hear a noise in the bathroom, and find Patrick Duffy in the shower. "Who is the President of the United States!" I demand, shaking him violently.
  "Al Gore. Why?"
  It was all a dream! Huzzah!
  I wake up, again, this time in a puddle of my own vomit. I see a newspaper on the floor displaying a picture that looks more or less like this. I start looking for more whisky.
  
  
• 8:52 PM EST 1/1/03: Glenn Reynolds tells his first lie of the year: "Abortion and cloning. Two reasons why I'm not a Republican." Ha ha ha. And I don't want to feed Matt Drudge his own stupid hat.
  
  
• President Bush suggests that someone literally drill a hole through the middle of the Federal Budget, give him a jar of vaseline, and hold all his calls for a few hours. Low-level staffer suggests $600 billion in tax cuts, arguing that the practical effect will be the same, and will reduce the chances of an embarrassing photograph. Bush agrees, begins raising stink about corporate dividends being "taxed twice." I say something that rhymes with "shuck gorge tush" everytime I pay sales tax. Donald Rumsfeld asks to "borrow" Federal Budget.
  
  
• National Institute of Health announces intention to build facility for retired research chimpanzees. NIH officials swear that there will be no more escapes, all concerned having learned their lesson the last time.
  
  
• Steve Case resigns from AOL/TimeWarner, laughs at America, lights a cigar by focusing the sun's rays with a diamond the size of an egg, goes off to have sex on top of a pile of money.
  
  
• Arianna Huffington starts a campaign against SUVs, which has the unanticipated effect of turning SUVs into a symbol of freedom and patriotism for idiot Right-wingers. Figuring it's worth a shot, I write to Arianna suggesting she run ads denouncing the practice of sticking pencils in your own eye.
  
  
• Joe Lieberman announces his candidacy for President of the United States. Those in attendence can hear the faint sound of people in 2004 laughing at him.
  
  
• Stemming the negro tide that threatens to engulf Ann Arbor becomes a White House priority. White kids with mediocre ACT scores rejoice.
  
  
• PROOF OF SADDAM'S WMD!!! Ha ha! Just kidding.
  
  
• France threatens to veto military action in Iraq, subjecting me to a year of idiot bullshit about French plans to a) control the EU b) control Earth c) steal our women d) nuke us or e) all of the above.
  
  
• Media throws spotlight on mislabelling of boxes made in China as "made in USA", ignores mislabelling of idiot as "President."
  
  
• The Department of Homeland Security, a massive government bureaucracy encompassing hundreds of federal agencies, officially comes into being; pro-Bush libertarians are unsure whether they should orgasm or kill themselves. Being a nice guy, I suggest they do both.
  
  
• Through the US Forest Service, the Bush Administration tries out a tactic used to greater effect later in the year: Cut down the trees to protect the forests. I suggest a similar method of protecting Andrew Sullivan.
  
  
• Nelson Mandella says unkind things about President Bush, allowing Bush's supporters to say all manner of nasty things about Mandella that they previously were unable to say because he's, you know, a fucking hero. If Nelson Mandella knew anything about tyrannical oppression, he would support the liberation of Iraq.
  
  
• President Bush delivers State of the Union Address. Doesn't trip on way up to podium, therefore speech is deemed a success by people who should know better.
  

And that was just January. Happy New Year!