Last Word on <i>Overdoing</i>

Byron gets the last word on our conversation on Overdoing the Outrage. Check out his remarks on the Feedback page.

Democrat Book-Banners

It seems that free speech is cherished by liberals only when it allows them to say what they wish to say. When the opinions expressed are of a sort they find unpalatable then calls for censorship go out across the land:

Two New Jersey Democrats are pushing to have Ann Coulter's new book "Godless: The Church of Liberalism," banned from all bookstores in their state because she criticized four 9/11 widows known as "the Jersey Girls."

In a joint press release issued Friday, New Jersey Assemblywomen Joan Quigley and Linda Stender say they want New Jersey retailers to "ban the sale of [Coulter's] book throughout the state."

"Ann Coulter's criticism of 9-11 widows, whose only desire since the attacks have been to repair their shattered lives and protect other families from the horrors they have experienced, is motivated purely by petty greed and hate," the two Democrats complained.

"Coulter's vicious characterizations and remarks are motivated by greed and her desire to sell books . . . She is a leech trying to turn a profit off perverting the suffering of others."

Quigley and Stender conclude:

"No one in New Jersey should buy this book and allow Ann Coulter to profit from her hate-mongering. We are asking New Jersey retailers statewide to stand with us and express their outrage by refusing to carry or sell copies of Coulter's book. Her hate-filled attacks on our 9-11 widows has no place on New Jersey bookshelves."

It used to be liberals who would insist, in self-righteous accents, that though they may despise what their opponents say, they'd "fight to the death" for their right to say it. That was back when liberals were campaigning to use profanity and pornography on our television shows, movies, and music, and the hazard of actually having to risk one's life was vanishingly remote.

Now that Muslims are actually killing people who utter offensive things about their religion and now that some conservatives are expressing unpleasant sentiments about liberal heroines, we haven't heard that slogan much. The sunshine soldiers who claimed to be prepared to stake their lives in defense of free speech seem to have melted away into the country-side and given way to liberal appeasers and book-banners.

Left-Wing Self-Parody

How has the left responded to the killing of Abu Zarqawi? By diving into the deep pools of self-delusion. Ben Johnson has the rundown at FrontPage.com. It's too long to copy in its entirety, but here are a few of myriad examples he gives of what passes for insight on the dyspeptic left:

Kurt Nimmo - whose article appeared in The Final Call, the newspaper of the Nation of Islam - wrote Zarqawi's death was "simply another dimension of a rather transparent psychological operations campaign run out of the Pentagon." That is, the CIA put one over on the American people. "Al-Zarqawi is little more than hype, a neocon propaganda program...in fact, it is difficult to prove 'al-Qaeda' itself actually exists." In his view, America also "engineered" the Iraqi "civil war."

Ron Jacobs also endorses the belief that Washington created Zarqawi:

"There is a likelihood that the forces of sectarian hatred have already done so much...that those hopes for a united nation without foreign occupation have been destroyed forever. Some folks even suggest that this was part of Washington's plan all along."

Jonathan Cutler, who is - surprise! - an Associate Professor of Sociology and American Studies at Wesleyan University, dubbed Zarqawi the "ideological 'mirror image' of Washington's Neocons/Right Zionists." The good doctor blogs these perfidious Jews - err, "neocons" - may have lied about Zarqawi's death altogether:

"Right Zionists will not shed a tear for Zarqawi, but they may miss him when he is gone. If he is gone. For Right Zionists, Zarqawi is really an indespensible enemy."

TalkLeft floats the opposite conspiracy theory: perhaps Zarqawi had been long dead by Thursday:

"His face looks very intact for someone who was killed by two 500 pound bombs...Because this Administration has so little credibility and a history of distracting us with terror news when it is hurting politically, like now, I can't help but wonder if al-Zarqawi wasn't killed some time ago and they just decided to announce it today and tell us he was killed in yesterday's raid."

Air America host Randi Rhodes - whose program previously joked about assassinating President Bush - upbraided the troops for their inhumanity. Even al-Qaeda, she noted, asked Zarqawi to stop killing fellow Muslims. "Then you have to say to yourself, my God: Al-Qaeda is telling Zarqawi to cut the crap with the killing of the Iraqis, and yet we haven't cut the crap with the killing of the Iraqis." Her Air America colleague and rumored Ohio Democratic candidate Jerry Springer agreed, "We killed a hell of a lot more people just by the decision to go to Iraq than ever died at the hands of Zarqawi."

And on it goes. America is thoroughly evil, ergo anything America does is evil, therefore even killing Zarqawi must be shrouded in evil.

These people are a parody of themselves. There are more examples at the link.

Sucker Punching the Military

The MSM, ever-determined to focus on the cloud inside every silver lining and always ready to give our military a good swift kick in the solar plexus, has been reporting a story about a witness who claims to have seen American troops beat Abu Zarqawi to death.

Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters tells us why he thinks the story is a fraud.

Anyone with any sense at all would have had serious questions about this story - questions which should have precluded its seeing the light of day. Nevertheless, the good folks at AP and elsewhere just can't help yielding to the impulse to give our troops a good sucker punch when the opportunity presents itself.

Meanwhile, Clarice Feldman at The American Thinker discusses reasons for thinking that the Marines may be the victim of a hoax at Haditha.

Allah Pundit at Hot Air is a little skeptical of, but nevertheless impressed by, Feldman's argument.

Both evidently would agree, however, that John Murtha's verdict that the marines were guilty of a deliberate atrocity was premature, unjust, pompous, and stupid.