His new article on the ramifications of the Terry Schiavo calamity and the Republicans’ self-immolation should be read by all. Insightful, succinct and devastating.
Update: His piece over at his blog is just as good; he is under assault, and I’m glad he’s experiencing first-hand the fury the rightwinders hurl at anyone who dares criticize or even question their positions. You can go from being their best friend to most despised enemy in a heartbeat. Just ask Jeb Bush. Maybe this will open the professor’s eyes.
Just for the record, I still can’t stand Instapuppy, but when he’s right he’s right.
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By Tom - Daai Tou Laam
I doubt it will open his eyes. Nor do I feel any sense of pity or irony. His disin-Glenn-uous hide has been passing the blame off for the groundlings biting his heels (and Donald Sensing’s) on the liberals for the last few weeks.
Did you see the link to John Cole’s blog (no relation to Juan Cole)? There was a conservative, who realised belatedly that when you make your bed with a bunch of whackos in order to gain power, you really have no one but yourself to blame when the whackos starting acting like the nutjobs they’ve always been and split the party.
Especially when the nutjobs run all the way to the top with our “creating our own reality” Furious George.
March 31, 2005 @ 6:12 pm | Comment
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By Michael
It’s nice the way every single paragraph Instapuppy writes criticising wackos manages to work in a reference to “just like liberals/leftists/moonbats” etc.
March 31, 2005 @ 7:13 pm | Comment
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By richard
Your conclusions are right Tom, and yes, I saw Cole’s much-blogged-about post. But I think Glenn is in a mild state of shcok right now at all sheer volume of hate mail he is receiving and the hateful vitriol therein, including viscious references to the “InstaWife” wishing she ends up in Terry’s state. These are the very people who’ve looked to Glenn in the past as an ally, at least on most issues (not social issues, just Iraq, terror, general defense of Bush and sliming John Kerry).
Reynolds and Maguire and Michael Totten and Deans May and the other moderate libertarian types who have so stridently defended Bush and the Iraq war and the war on terrah — this has got to be haunting them. They are smart guys, but not smart enough to realize who they were getting into bed with. Now they know, and it’ll be interesting to see the lingering effects on Bush’s moderate supporters. Right now, they’re all having second thoughts.
March 31, 2005 @ 7:18 pm | Comment
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By Sam_S
Yup. The Republicans have “self-destruct” in their genes, I think. There’s quite a bit of a “reform the Republicans” thing going around now. Some buyer’s remorse talk, and yet again, a longing for a credible third party.
March 31, 2005 @ 10:52 pm | Comment
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By pete
Instapundit deserves some of what he is getting from the the idiots, the unwashed and the scurrilous he encouraged with his blatently dishonest opinions and support for a crooked, lying and mendacious Administration. Now he is whinning because he can’t stand the heat from the people he and the Administration have encouraged to crawl out of the woodwork, the woodpile and their holes. Maybe people who live in ivory towers should not go around with slimeballs, crooks and Hitler-like lieutenants.
April 1, 2005 @ 2:33 am | Comment
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By Tom - Daai Tou Laam
We’ve all made some dumb choices about persons to get in to bed with, but there is no chance in hell that you can get in to bed with Operation Rescue and Bo Gritz and abortion clinic bombers (domestic terrorists) and just claim that you were too stupid to realise that you’d end up smelling like their shit.
When the InstaParrot can stand up like a man and just admit “I was wrong” without whining or disin-Glenn-uous splitting of hairs and but but buts and a hint of the word liberal, I’ll cut him some slack. Until then, let me look around for an unused anchor that I’ll be happy to toss him.
April 1, 2005 @ 3:51 am | Comment
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By richard
I very rarely find myself in the position of defending Glenn Reynolds, but here goes:
He has always taken a liberal stance on social issues such as gay marriage and never, to my knowledge embraced the religious fanatacism of many Bush supporters. Maybe he wasn’t vocal enough in condemning it, but he never endorsed it. He wasn’t “wrong” in the Terry Shiavo case — he never sided with the administration. He was, however, cowardly; he took the stand at first that he had nothing to say about the matter, when, as a libertarian and a law professor, we all know that in his heart he was sickened by the Delay’s unconstitutional and depraved attempts to meddle illegally in personal issues under state jurisdiction. I suspect he didn’t want to upset his base of readers. But then, he did write outspokenly on the issue yesterday, so there has to be some credit.
The role he played in destroying John Kerry and making many sins of the Bush adminstration look okay was inexcusable, and I’ll always bear a grudge against him. He links to LGF and Anti-idiotarian Rottweiler and some of the more hate-drenched sites on the Net. But he at least shows an ability to think for himself, and his intelligence is beyond dispute. He is no Ann Coulter or Charles Johnson. That said, I’m not inviting him over to dinner anytime soon.
April 1, 2005 @ 6:08 am | Comment
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By richard
It’s nice the way every single paragraph Instapuppy writes criticising
wackos manages to work in a reference to “just like
liberals/leftists/moonbats”
You’re absolutely right. Even as he’s bashing the GOP, he keeps weaving in little phrases to stress (or at least sneakily imply) that the Dems are no better.
April 1, 2005 @ 6:12 am | Comment
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By Tom - Daai Tou Laam
But he at least shows an ability to think for himself, and his intelligence is beyond dispute. He is no Ann Coulter or Charles Johnson.
richard
Let me kindly disagree on this point. The InstaParrot has always been about Party victory first. Ideology comes second, though it’s always being rationalised and processed through the disin-Glenn-uousness to boost “The Party”. Common sense is always absent. Completely AWOL.
Perhaps he’s “slicker” than Coulter or Squeaky, but he’s still the one that linked to Ma-ding-a-ling’s apologism for US internment camps and said it was worthy of consideration. I REFUSE to seriously consider anyone a Libertarian that accepts the removal of civil liberties of Americans based upon race. Sorry. That dog don’t hunt no more.
Furthermore I read his condemnation of the process that allowed the Massachusetts courts to allow gay marriage based upon the Massachusetts state constitution’s equal protection clauses. So even with gay marriage, he’s not been a devout proponent of either gay marriage OR of the Federalist tri-partite system of government laid out by the Constitution of the United States and the 50 states and the lingering colonies/territories where the Stars and Stripes proudly fly. Political expediency in favour of one party rule by “his side” is no benefit to democracy or the glory of the United States of America.
April 1, 2005 @ 6:34 pm | Comment
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By richard
Points taken. As you know, I’m one of his most outspoken critics usually. You’re certainly right about his party loyalty being his No. 1 priority. I still won’t put him in the same class with the Coulters and the LGFers, becuase he at least showed enough integrity to put his ass on the line, at least in the Terri Schiavo story.
April 1, 2005 @ 6:46 pm | Comment