Little Debbie Schlussel - Just Another Candy-Ass Republican

I do my best to stay out of blog-wars in which individual bloggers go at each other because I once got involved in one that truly did nothing but lower me to the level of the right-winger attacking me and, more importantly, because I truly believe that my readers are just not interested in that nonsense.

I primarily cover the United States Senate and that keeps me busy enough without getting down in the gutter with every conservative blogger who decides on a given day to heave some slime at me or one of my Liberal/Progressive/Democratic colleagues.

But I'm going to comment on this one because it is truly an example of how, after taking a couple of years to get up a good head of steam, our side of the blog world is truly bigger, stronger, faster and smarter than the hacks on the Republican side -- and the people who had become accustomed to being schoolyard bullies are now in consistent hysterics because they find themselves getting the crap beat out of them on a regular basis.

The picture at upper left -- used with the express, written permission of my friend Taylor Marsh -- depicts Debbie Schlussel, a conservative blogger who writes about such burning issues as the food at hockey games, New York Giants star Michael Strahan's marital woes and outing Oscar-winning actress Hilary Swank for allegedly being a high-school drop out.

Yep, Debbie fits right in with the Algonquin Roundtable that is the wingnut blogosphere.

But a few weeks ago, she dipped into the Republican slime bucket and tossed a big blob of it in Barack Obama's direction, trying to scare her troglodytic readers to death by making a big deal out of Obama's middle name, which is "Hussein."

Taylor Marsh is from the new school of Democratic operatives and writers -- those of us who make clear that it's a new day in political discourse, we don’t reach across the damn aisle and any attacks from Republicans will open an enormous can of Progressive whoop-ass on them.

And that's what Taylor did -- here's an excerpt:

But the taking out after Barack Obama for his middle name is the most heinous attack I've seen against a Democratic candidate since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was attacked for his alleged sexual prowess with women not his wife.

I guess since we have continued to hold Republican racists' feet to the fire the right-wing wacko machine has to find another tactic by which to attack the rising young Democratic star. The line being forwarded by the likes of Ed Rogers and other Republicans, if only by cowardly inference, is that Senator Obama may call himself a Christian, but he's actually a Muslim out to do the U.S.A. harm through his masquerade of faith.

So what does Little Debbie Schlussel do in response? She threatens to sue Taylor for, of all things, using a widely-distributed picture of Debbie on TaylorMarsh.com and other sites to go along with her story on Schlussel's smear of Obama.

No, I'm not kidding.

In all the times the picture of my middle-aged mug (accompanying this page) has been ripped off and ridiculed by the other side, I've never even considered going to my lawyer. I guess that's because it would make me feel like such a complete weenie. I also believe that those of us who write things that may upset others -- like I am in this very post -- ought not whine when somebody takes a slap back at us.

But Little Debbie Schlussel is like so many on the right-wing side of the blog world. They're real tough when attacking someone else and launching any manner of lying, racist or McCarthyite attack but they suddenly turn into sniveling little weasels when anyone hits back.

I guess she fits right in with every other candy-ass Republican in this country right now. Congressional Republicans are whining because the Democratic Majority may treat them much like, well, they treated the Democrats all those years. Likewise, many conservatives got into blogging at a time when they thought they could kick sand in every liberal's face and get away with it -- and they're finding that's not really the case now.

Little Debbie took a cheap shot a Barack Obama, Taylor Marsh counter-punched with devastating effectiveness and Debbie responded by covering her head and fleeing the ring as a wimpering mess.

Boo Frickin' Hoo.

But Schlussel's side of the digital fence better get ready for more because we only get worse from here.

If they're going to threaten lawsuits every time we fight back and hand their asses to them, they might want to line up a lot of lawyers willing to take losing cases from a bunch of crybabies.