Of scarves and fidelity

So, I’ve got a beef with the right wing and the left wing today, thanks to recent posts at The Field Negro and Raving Black Lunatic that have hipped me to some crazy stories in the news…well, online rants that have made the news, anyway.

First, we have right-wing pundit Michelle Malkin, who in her blog post Of Donuts and Dumb Celebrities tries to make the case that a scarf worn by Rachael Ray in a Dunkin Donuts commercial somehow legitimates and supports terrorism because is supposedly so obviously a keffiyeh. Given that it’s still pretty rare to find a die-hard conservative who is an atheist, I’ll work under the assumption that she’s Christian. And in putting forth this rant (which actually convinced Dunkin Donuts to pull the ad), she epitomizes one of the things that pisses me off about narrow-minded right-wing Christians, which is that they think you can reduce terror-loving religious extremists to something like a scarf. They are so frickin paranoid that we’re going to be overrun by swarthy Jesus-hating footsoldiers that they are concerned someone will see Rachael Ray in something keffiyeh-like and sympathize with terrorists.

Way to oversimplify religious extremism while completely ignoring your own.

But hey, I have a left-leaning Democrat in my sights too. Let it never be said I never have anything bad to say about the folks who are a bit closer to my political views. In this case, Sylvia Welsh, in a blog post titled The Shrinkage Factor, actually suggests that Barack Obama’s seemingly unassailable fidelity to his wife is some sign that perhaps he’s not tough enough to be president. That’s right, she actually tries to weave together a blog post that can somehow posit that by being faithful to his wife he’s too much of a nice guy (granted she makes a lot of other points in this blog as well, few of which make any damn sense). And in this we see the hypocrisy of someone whom I’m certain would be quick to decry a conservative Christian for cheating on his wife while espousing family values, but can also be among those who expect Obama to repudiate his pastor of 20 years and also knock him for not cheating on his wife. What Bizarro World suburb does this woman live in?

*Sigh* God save me from the idiots on the right of me and the idiots on the left of me…please.

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