McMadness in the Hot Air

I have gone on record against gratuitous profanity, but Bob Cesca has turned swearing into an art form. He’s the funniest writer on the Huffington Post, so I was stoked when he started his Awesome Blog. Cesca trawled Hot Air after Romney bowed out of the race and pulled up some freaked out members of the conservative movement. That inspired me to revisit the thread for a little trawling of my own. I went 200 into it and marveled at all of the wacky names the HotArians had for their target, like McShame, McInsane, McAmnesty, McVain, and McTraitor. They also had ha ha names for Huckabee (Chucklebee, Huckaboob, Huckelberry, and Hucktard). Many commenters argued that we need a Republican in office to achieve victory in Iraq. For instance, taylork wrote: “I’m not about to let Barack or Hillary walk to the office and snatch victory from Iraq just when we’re on the verge of winning.” On the verge, dude! I’ve listed my other favorites below. Snark’s in red.

dkebedevilment Today is a sad day for America.

orlandocajun It is indeed a sad day for America.

nraendowment This is so depressing.

WORK949 This is indeed a dark day.

gayle It is over. Hand over our country to the enemies.

suzieviews I refuse to vote for any of the 3 Liberals.

On-my-soap-box There is nothing to show McCain will be tough on the GWOT.

kam McCain is a rat, but he will fight the bastards who inflicted 9/11 on us. No democrat will.

Bruce He will reach across the aisle and dismantle our military. He will reach across the aisle and fight capitalism. McCAIN IS A TRAITOR FOLKS.

Rohan That’s all folks. Looks like it may be time to pull a “John Galt”. (Hint - Atlas Shrugged) Gee, thanks for the hint!

katieanne It always takes something horrible happening to make people realize just how utterly inept and stupid Democrats are. She writes this, and yet 9/11 happened on GW Bush’s watch.

CS Hitlery or Obama will absolutely destroy the military. It will be in worse shape than Jimmy Carter left it. But will it be in worse shape than GW Bush has left it?

shimauma2 Funny Barry, when you used HRC for hillary, I initially mistook it for “HER ROYAL CRAPPINESS” (as “crappiness” is a less lewd word than the original “c” word I envisioned) As far as hand-wringing goes, I have two kids, on teen and one preteen, and they’re going to be forced to grow up real freaking fast in the next four years. It’s delightful that a father of three can joke so openly about what a cunt Hillary is. Yeah, I cracked your code. You’re as subtle as Rohan.

But not everyone was upset about Romney dropping. I’ll give the last word to:

NBF I too am glad this the liberal RomnestyCare is out of the race so I don’t have to keep hearing how he is somehow conservative despite his abysmal record and liberal rhetoric.

-- temperance

A Lot of TSA Employees are Thieves

That’s the overwhelming conclusion I’ve reached after reading the first 200 comments on the TSA’s “Gripes and Grins” blog thread. Was that the TSA’s intention in starting a blog? Creating a one-stop spot to destroy their public credibility? Then again, they failed to anticipate the initial public response.

The comments were lighthearted during the blog’s first few hours when only industry folk knew about it. “But then the tone changed” Al Kamen reported, “with hundreds of comments submitted, things started to get ugly, reflecting the traveling public’s fury over rules on shoes and liquids, delays, abusive screeners, and so on.” The commenters attacked and I quickly set sail to see the feeding frenzy.

The blog moderators screen out “destructive” comments, so I can only imagine what the thread would look like animal style. Commenters complained about TSA employees at nearly every airport, but Philadelphia and Miami caught the largest number of gripes. Many commenters recalled detail-rich stories about about TSA employees stealing things from their bags. It gave me a whole new thing to be paranoid about.

Here are six comments that drew my interest.

You guys are incredibly ineffective. My PEPPER SPRAY gets through on my key chain each and every single time but I've lost several hundred dollars worth of skincare items over the years since this government mandate began. realitycheck

When I travel with my son I put his middle name on the ticket instead of his first name. Someone with the same name is listed on the FBI watch list. I am a bit concerned what will happen when he turns 16 and has a picture ID. The first time we had a problem he was 4 years old and was stripped down to nothing but shorts, and socks. The guy started to ask him to remove his socks when a supervisor came up and told him to stop. I believe it was an abuse of power. . . . It is very frustrating to know that a child can be treated so badly when he is obviously not a 30 something year old man. Anonymous

Liquid gels and areosols [sic] going thru the checkpoint must be 3.4 oz. and in a quart sized plastic bag. We dont make the rule we inforce [sic] them. Why would you need more than that on a plane anyway ? Each passenger is allowed one bag. As far as the shoes rule goes Thank Richard Reid for that one. Does anyone remeber [sic] what he tried to do to innocent Americans? Anonymous

As a professional repair tech, I travel often to work on multi million dollar machines. I carry my own tools, some purchased, some custom made for me. I am not allowed to take them as carry on so they must be checked. I have yet to arrive at my destination with the full kit of tools with which I departed. The TSA Thieves open my bags and help themselves. I have filed several reports with various agencies and have yet to hear from any of them. Nice to know the government is doing what it can to keep the thieves off the streets and fully employed. Anonymous

I am a photographer who travels pretty much constantly, mostly on international flights. . . I really try to keep my gear close and protected, but since I am ALWAYS selected for random intense screening, there is that time period where I am trying my best to comply with the body search, and my bags are separated from me and out of my sight. I have learned not to report the thefts, even right after they happen. That has lead to my missing my flight, being intimidated and threatened, and of course I did not get my camera back. Ok- I have learned that losing a few things is part of doing business with the TSA. The same thing has happened to me in Africa and some parts of the middle east (Only there, if you leave a carton of marlboros in your bag, they take the cigarettes and leave the cameras alone.) Anonymous

Recently, I was with a group of military personnel serving in Iraq and Afghanistan traveling from Kuwait to Atlanta for our 2-week R&R period. I appreciate the Atlanta TSA personnel thanking us for our service when we first stepped foot on American soil. That was a fine example of Southern hospitality! However, I found it a little baffling that we had to take off our combat boots, dogtags, belts, etc. to go through a metal detector. My questions are three-fold: 1) Why would we need to go through security when we just got off a plane that departed from an airport in Kuwait with very strict security measures and customs procedures. 2) In no cases to my knowledge have terrorists been wearing US-issued military uniforms with valid military IDs, why not just let us bypass security, and 3) Having us get undressed in such a fashion while in uniform in front of other civilian passengers was a little embarrassing, and it undermines the professional demeanor that we would like to ensure the American public understands we uphold. Thanks for your time! LT Nixon

The third point was more of an argument than a question, but a good one nonetheless.

-- temperance

Good Move, Red State

Did I actually type that? Seriously, if I’m going to highlight racist comments on conservative blogs, I should give credit when conservative blogs take affirmative steps to squash racism. In his post “And Now a Word for our Commenters” Leon H. Wolf insists that he’s going to ban commenters who refer to John McCain as “Juan McCain” or something similarly offensive. He wrote, “Allow me to clue anyone who thinks these names are funny or clever in to something: racism isn’t clever or funny. If you think you’ve really zinged someone by calling them by a Latino name, that's a pretty reliable (nearly infallible, in fact) indicator that you don't like Latino people.” Well said. Right Again added in the comments “redstate is stronger for having this prohibition. Racism, sexism, and bigotry have no place in rational discussion. Commenter’s arguments are also strengthened if they can avoid the cutesy names.”

Commenters responded in various ways:

restating the reasoning behind the racist insult: “calling him 'Juan McCain' is not an insult because being hispanic is not desirable, it is because he is identifying with the best interest of illegal immigrants (who are overwhelmingly Latin) over the interests of Americans.” QueenofCups

the commenter has used the phrase, but isn’t a racist. Therefore, it’s not a racist phrase: “I have referred to John McCain that way and I am DEFINITELY NOT a racist.” Sussababy

racism always requires racist intent: “For an act to be racist requires that it be motivated by underlying racism.” mcg [On one level it’s a tautology (racism requires underlying racism) and on another level it’s just plain false.]

racism is like art, it’s all subjective: “The problem is ‘racism’ is often like art in that, absent an agreed upon definition, we are each in a position to ‘know it when we see it.’” CJNine

racism isn’t racism: “a dislike for Latino people isn’t racism” cbranstetter

concern that cracking down on some insults will cramp their style in other ways: “...and does this rule apply for anti-French stereotypes as well? Is ‘cheese eating surrender monkeys’ a racial slur now?” Vryheid

socialism socialism socialism: “The socialist/Clinton technique: you are wrong and no matter what is said, you won't be right. . . . Are we ready to go down the slippery slope of trying not to offend people or at the very least make them uncomfortable?” billevans

I belong to the targeted group and I’m not offended, therefore it’s not offensive: “Not that it matters, but I am proud to be hispanic. I take no offense at jokes about my race - in fact I happen to think racist jokes are often hilarious . . . . In my book, it's no different from someone making a lawyer joke at a party - if that doesn't hurt my feelings, why should a joke about ‘wetbacks?’” Toneman

Leon entered the comment thread to bat away some of these arguments and responses. “Look, I don’t really care whether ‘you believe’ that insulting someone by calling them a Latino name isn't racist against Latinos, or that you can't understand how that applies to the very definition you cut-and-pasted there, I have yet to hear an explanation from anyone of how it is *not* racist. And no, ‘You only think its racist because Liberals have trained you to feel that way!!11!!’ is not an explanation.” Plenty of commenters praised the policy, and the desperate defenses of racism from some of the comments underscored how far we have to go.