The Huffington Post Smells Like My Newborn's Shit

I think I'm a reasonable guy. I mean I engage in a lot of hyperbole for the shock value, but at heart I'm really not a right wing nut. Most people would say I'm right of center but that I don't totally subscribe to that political philosophy. All in all I can read an opposing opinion editorial without getting upset. I may even change my opinion from time to time.

But reading the Huffington Post makes me itch. I mean, it gives me hives. I swell up so bad I need my epi-pen. That is probably the reaction the bloggers on that site are going for, which is fine I suppose. But I can only take so much phony made-up bullshit before I get angry about it.

I guess I have to finally admit that I can't, for the life of me, understand what drives the people who write on that website. I don't get them. I don't understand how they can see things the way they see them. I come from a socialist country, I was educated in New York and Boston. I'm not a yahoo from the backcountry. I was trained to read and think critically on a subject before rendering an opinion. But these guys have me at an absolute loss for explanation.

Take the recent post by Cindy Sheehan, who by the way has been given a megaphone courtesy the Huffington Post. Notice that there wasn't an offer of free publicity when Cindy supported the effort to bring peace to the Middle East and security to America. Now that she opposes those efforts and has struck a Vietnam-esque protester pose, complete with meaningless candlelight vigils and random hippies, the Post is gaga to have her espouse her anti-establishment, politically regressionist nonsense.

Here's the post in question:

Memo to Drudge, et al: It's Not About Me, It's About the War

Even after my repeated attempts to keep the focus of my protest on the war, the Drudge Report and others continue to try to make the issue about me. But I am not the issue. The issue is a disastrous war that's killing our sons and daughters and making our country less secure. They attack me because they can no longer defend this war.

I've come to Crawford to bring to the president's doorstep the harsh realities of a war he's been trying so hard to avoid. But no matter what they say or how many shotguns they fire or how many crosses they destroy, they're not going to stop me from speaking out about a war that needlessly killed my son.

Sigh.Somebody please explain to me what pipe she's been smoking out of.

There are OPINIONS and then there are FACTS. OPINIONS are technically meaningless, but powerfully effective at swaying emotion even when they are FACTUALLY incorrect. That is the biggest problem I see with unfettered media. Imagine how different the world would be if only FACTS were relayed via print, television and internet.

It is Cindy's OPINION that Drudge is writing about her to distract from the war and that he ought to be writing about the war. The FACT is that Drudge is the same as she is. A media whore who splashes the latest scraps of rumor as if it were reality.

OPINION: She's deluded herself into thinking that her protest is about the war and not about her entire universe of political opinion. She's spoken out about how the Jews are in the wrong, how Bush is all about big business and oil, etc etc. Her blather is so predictable it reads like a Micheal Moore script. That is what she's all about, that is why she's protesting, that is why she's out there claiming it isn't about that but about her poor lost son whom she hasn't said boo about in a year and a half. The FACT is that she's an opportunist and all of her media relations are geared toward this.

OPINION: The war is disasterous. FACT: By every metric available, the battle of Iraq was and is a total victory. I wonder how she would have termed the American Revolution during the winter of 1779? Total failure. Complete defeat. Disasterous war. Washington is only out for his land-owning buddies.

OPINION: People attack her because they can't defend the war. FACT: There are far more factually accurate ways to defend the war on terror and the efforts over the next few generations to defeat extremisim then there are reasons to attack her. Many of those defenses are ignored or dismissed by Sheehan and her ilk. Although her son surely didn't dismiss them.

OPINION: Only her, Cindy Sheehan, the Joan d'Arc of the restless left wingers, can bring the harsh realities of war to the President's attention. And by God she'll camp out on his doorstep until he sees the destruction he has personally wrought, or until the cameras go home. FACT: The President knows more about war in general and this war in particular than Cindy will ever know. He has dealt with more emotions on this topic than Cindy will in a lifetime. The man has the burden of America's next few generations on his shoulders. He has committed America to a multi-generational effort that could take 100 years and claim tens of thousands of American lives. He's seen the suffering up close, he's been in the midst of it since 9/11. So, really, she should shut the hell up.

OPINION: George Bush and his war has killed her son needlessly. FACT: Bush didn't send her son. He volunteered to serve his nation and defend his fellow citizens (and those of us who aren't citizens but benefit anyway). He could have gone into the workforce, he could have gone surfing for the rest of his life or taken up hemp-making in some place in the Andes. But he chose his own life and no one, except him, is responsible for his decisions. To lay the blame for his choice at anyone else's feet is the lashing out of an emotional, politically motivated hack.


I'm going to start a category on idiotic things I read on Huffington that make me absolutely crazy. Not crazy because I'm driven mad at the inherent truth that I cannot contend with. No. Crazy because the people writing fail to stop, think, honestly consider both sides of the equation and then render an opinion. They simply make things up, build straw men to knock them down, mock that which they cannot defeat electorally and otherwise demean those that they feel themselves superior to.

I'm fed up and I just can't take it anymore. Now I'm off to change my newborn's diaper. Surely a more satisfying task than reading Huffington Post. At least his shit comes out his ass instead of his mouth.



I am NOT a crazed, deluded bitch! I am the Governor of California!
Arianna Huffington, the Iraqi Information Minister