I think perhaps the biggest danger facing America today is a new, tubthumping stupidity. Stupidity kills more Americans each year than terrorism, lightning, and bad gravy combined.

Via diarist skralyx and others, when we weren't looking the right wing panic brigades found a new target. Scarves. Dangerous, possibly terrorist-sympathizing... scarves.

Does Dunkin’ Donuts really think its customers could mistake Rachael Ray for a terrorist sympathizer? The Canton-based company has abruptly canceled an ad in which the domestic diva wears a scarf that looks like a keffiyeh, a traditional headdress worn by Arab men.

Some observers, including ultra-conservative Fox News commentator Michelle Malkin, were so incensed by the ad that there was even talk of a Dunkin’ Donuts boycott.

So Dunkin' Donuts pulled the ad, for fear that some Americans would be sent into the streets in a pants-wetting panic that someone in a donut ad might be wearing a black and white scarf that looks sortof like something a Palestinian jihadist would be wearing. You know, if it wasn't a scarf but was a headdress. And if it had a different pattern. And if you were mind-rapingly insane to begin with.

Now, what's important to grasp here is that the scarf in question (see link) is rather clearly just a scarf. It is admittedly black and white, which apparently would be symbolic in the Palestinian world, except I'm not sure if something frilly and paisley can ever really count as being as menacing as we are supposed to believe. And there's clearly no pro-terrorist vibe being intended by Dunkin Freaking Donuts -- Ray is holding a latte, which I'm pretty sure is like kryptonite to jihadists. I don't know, I'm not up on all the comic-book-style interpretations of what we should and shouldn't be afraid of these days.

No, the issue was that there was a scarf that looked sortof like something Islamic. That's it. That was enough to dampen pants and blister typing fingers across the great and paranoid conservative nation. Maybe it was a scandalous example of unintended cultural tolerance? Maybe it was a secret message to terrorists that they could count on Dunkin' Donuts to cater their next meeting? Or, maybe, it was just a goddamn scarf.

So this is what we've (well, I say "we", but I mean a small subset of American patriots who, having absolutely no intention of doing anything meaningful for their country that involves getting out of their chairs, spend their days looking for secret terrorist messages in television commercials) been reduced to. We're examining the fashion statements of donut ads and parsing them for hints of surreptitious Islamic culture. We're locked into a mortal combat against those that casually accessorize without remembering that we are at war; we're mere weeks away from probing the hidden alliances of the doilies on our grandmothers' coffee tables.

We are a nation that sees images of Jesus on toast. Admit it; there was absolutely no possibility that we would not eventually devolve to this point.

The most fearsome message of The Fashion Menace is that it has shown, once again, just how absurdly simple it would be for Osama bin Laden to bring America to its knees. It would be trivial; it requires only a rudimentary knowledge of American culture and social weaknesses.

To bring America to its knees, all Bin Laden must do is make his next video while drinking from a can of Coca Cola. The nation would erupt in chaos; Coca Cola sales would vanish into nothingness. In his next video, he could casually munch potato chips; the entire snack industry would collapse. One after another, he could film himself driving an American car; he could insert himself into a Girls Gone Wild video; he could appear next to a caveman, or a gecko, or Captain Crunch; he could enroll in DeVry University. On the day he refinanced his home at new historically low rates, the United States housing market would collapse irretrievably. One by one, he could decimate the entire economic fabric of America merely by association. Not one person in fifty would be willing to buck social trends and still buy Coca Cola if Bin Laden was seen drinking it; our consumer-based economy would be destroyed.

Why stop at scarves, after all? If Islamic militants wished to truly damage America, they should make pants a symbol of their jihad. All of conservative America would immediately go patriotically pantsless, and the collective loss of American appetites would render the entire nation weak and anemic and ripe for takeover.

And heaven help us all if the terrorists ever converted to Christianity. It would be the ultimate battle plan -- from then on, no American would know what to think. No, we should be grateful that as of the moment, they have only commandeered neckwear and Any Possible Thing On The Planet Shaped Even Vaguely Like A Crescent. So long as the battle is confined primarily to abstract shapes and donut ads, we should be fine.

There can be no doubt, now. The election results in MS-01 and other places are clear: the Republicans are in a world of trouble -- even in their own strongholds.

This can only mean that the usual avenues of Republican victory -- finding some imagined threat to the flag and apple pie, and goading all sufficiently gullible GOP believers into a state of panic over it -- are becoming stale. This is remarkable, as the list of threats to America grows with every election cycle: if current trends continue, by the year 2080 the GOP will have launched advertisements blaming the problems of America on every individual American citizen, by name.

Going down the current list of scapegoats to blame for destroying the fabric of America, it is truly surprising how ineffective the Republican message has been:

Muslims: Republicans sought to stoke fear of Muslims here and abroad by conflating them all with terrorists. This did not work: unlike the President of the United States, a passel of hard-right evangelical leaders, and the entire conservative foreign policy apparatus, most Americans were able to tell the difference between the two groups.

Immigrants: If terrorists are bad, and Muslims are bad because they might be terrorists, what other people might be bad? That's right -- other brown people. After years of blaming immigrants for taking American jobs (which is preposterous -- if anything, given the number of American factories relocating overseas in order to find whatever world locations have the cheapest labor, most lax environmental standards, and most lenient governments, it is those nasty foreigners who are not immigrating that are taking our jobs), the Republicans discovered a new reason to hate the same immigrants they always hated: because terrorists might sneak in too. But only on the southern border, not the Canadian border, because everybody knows terrorists hate pine trees.

Flag burners: This one was left on a mere simmer, in recent years. It turns out that there are so many actual problems to deal with, the public just isn't that into solving imaginary ones. And after watching news coverage from the Middle East these past decades, burning a flag is just over. Retro, even.

Homosexuals: While still fashionable in some circles to fear homosexuals and the devastation they might wreak upon the American landscape, this particular fear has been dampened by decades of homosexuals not actually posing a threat. At the same time, recent years have shown both clergymen and congressmen to be far more of a sexual threat to Americans, thus leading most of the public to realize that if they had to live next to a gay couple or a Republican congressman, they'd be nuts not to chose the gay couple.

Polar Bears: You thought global warming was a problem? No! The problem is the damn polar bears, who trick humans into having sympathy for them for, you know, that whole no-longer-having-a-habitat mess. This gambit, too, failed, because while both Republicans and polar bears are heartless killing machines, the bears are still easier to love.

So none of that's working? That's a damn shame, if you're a Republican. If the usual scapegoating isn't working, there's not much else the modern Republican machine has left. For decades now, it has been the practice in every election to offer up random demographic groups or other suddenly discovered terrors in order to deflect public attention from actual issues or actual policy failures. If they don't have that... well, you can already see the panic in Republican eyes.

Fear not, Republicans, I shall help! Here are my own suggestions for things that have not yet been scapegoated, but probably should be. I am sure you will be able to organize a sufficiently fear-based, sanctimoniously outraged national campaign around any of them.

Puppies: Puppies are cute, and as anyone who has ever spent time in the dating scene can tell you, cuteness is a frequent characteristic of things that later turn out to be batshit scary. I have lived at various points in my life around puppies, and they are suspicious as hell. I know of almost nothing else that can intentionally crap all over the living room rug and still be welcome in the house: all across the nation, puppies get away with this on a regular basis. Puppies are also terrible conversationalists, and are probably non-Christian.

The Reaper: We have all heard the admonition: don't fear the reaper. This is hippie-promoted nonsense; the reaper is damn scary, and any decent American should be terrified of him. For starters, he carries a giant sickle around with him. For seconders, he kills you. Even if you're willing to forgive the obsession with farm equipment, or the oddness of wearing an oversized black robe year-round, the "killing you" part should be sufficient reason to be terrified. The Republican Party should launch a campaign to make sure all Americans properly fear the reaper, and at the very least should promise to put him at the top of the terrorist watch list. Remember, guns don't kill people; the reaper does, after you've been riddled with bullets and your bloodcurdling screams have summoned him so that he can cut your soul out of your body with a large blade intended for harvesting grain.

The Metric System: We thought we had won the war against the metric system: we were wrong. My own grade-school daughter came home one day and proudly announced her height not only in inches, but in centimeters: yes, though American adults successfully fought off the menace of universally consistent units of measure decades ago, schools are still teaching this elitist "alternative theory" of measurement to our children. I am quite certain that the Republican Party could get quite a lot of mileage -- or kilometerage, as unpatriotic Europhiles might say -- in promising to protect our children from this dangerous mathematical bilingualism. Our English system of measurement is much better than a European system of measurement, in spite of the morass of inexplicable unit conversion ratios. We are quite happy with the morass, thank you very much: our willingness to not be bound by mere powers of ten shows our resolve in the face of terror.

Mothers Who Let Their Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys: If Republicans are willing to vote against mothers on Mother's Day as mere procedural lark, they should be willing to take on a more substantial menace. Mothers who encourage cowboyism as a career choice do a disservice to their children, as there is very little need for cowboys in today's service-based economy. While Democrats would seek cowboy retraining, Republicans should be able to pin the problem squarely at the source -- poor family values. Every child who dreams of becoming a cowboy is another child who will not dream about becoming something of better use to society, like an investment banker, or energy trader, or closeted homosexual Congressman.

Actual Goats: Have you ever met an actual, real-life goat? There is a reason the term "scapegoat" still remains relevant today: whenever something on a farm is not as is should be, the odds are nine in ten that the blasted goat was responsible. A rope chewed in half? The goat. A tree stripped of bark? The goat. Canvas chewed, leather straps eaten down to the buckles, hoofprint-shaped dents all over the hood of the car? The goat. Did someone sneak onto your computer one evening and purchase a full-sized ocean kayak, which was then delivered to your door a week later, every member of your family denying that they were the one who placed the order? Blame the goat. Goats can stand a towering one hundred centimeters high at the shoulder. Their hooves and tongues are not just prehensile, but posthensile and extrahensile: for any moment in time when you are not looking directly at them, they have opposable thumbs. At least twelve of them. Stop blaming scapegoats for America's problems, and take a cue from rural Americans nationwide: blame the actual goats.

Flag-Burning Polar Bears: The old scapegoats not working, and no new ones are doing the trick? Well, get creative. Combine old, well-loved scapegoats to make new, updated ones. Perhaps polar bears are burning our flags. Perhaps illegal immigrants are sneaking across the border in order to turn our children gay. Perhaps Muslims want to raise your taxes to pay for polar bear abortions -- how would America feel then?

There is nothing more Republican than the ability to take any problem, botch the solution spectacularly, and blame the resulting mess on some group that has little to nothing to do with it. Recognizing that all Republican failures are not actual failures, but cruel sabotage by normal everyday Americans, or by sneaky ethnic people, or clever but evil animals, or devious environmental or biological processes: now that is one of the highest forms of patriotism.

Thank you, CNN, for continuing to elevate the discourse in this great land, and proving that, while you may not be the most trusted name in news, you can certainly take any element of news and turn it into a journalistic car crash worthy of attention all on its own.  Ann Coulter converses with CNN's Glenn Beck...

BECK: You know what? You know what? As uncomfortable as you -- as uncomfortable as you are with Hillary Clinton or I am with John McCain, you are with John McCain, it is not somebody who says, "Hey, I'm going to sit with leaders of Iran and Syria and Cuba and Venezuela who hate us. And by the way, my record on judging people is I didn't think this hatemonger was a hatemonger for 20 years."

COULTER: Right, right. And calls -- and obviously hates the United States. This is part of the traitor wing of the Democratic Party. And I guess the question is: Is Obama a Manchurian candidate to normal Americans who love their country -- and he secretly agrees with the Weathermen and the Reverend Wright faction? Or is he being the Manchurian candidate to the traitor wing of the Democratic Party? And he, I guess, has to take the position now that, "No, I was just trying to hoodwink the traitor wing."

Ah, yes, a "Manchurian candidate" to the "traitor wing" of the Democrats. Because really, there's absolutely nothing you can't vomit up onto the screen that would fall below whatever standards of integrity CNN once claimed to have. Nutjob right wing radio host with extended history of saying vile, unconscionable things? Hell, let's make him one of our most promoted talking heads! But wait -- that might not be as insulting to the American public as we could be, so let's let him invite people like Ann Coulter on to talk with him and assert that both a party's presidential candidate and an entire segment of the population might be traitors.

That's certainly worth the broadcast might of a supposed news network, is it not? Mind you, I'm not entirely sure when suggesting the mere possibility of diplomatic talks became an act of high treason, given that selling weapons to people that hate us sure doesn't count, and violating the Constitution on a daily basis doesn't count, and lying to the American people frequently and directly doesn't count, but what the hell do I know -- I'm not CNN. Maybe they should book me, and I can explain in great detail how Glenn Beck got syphilis from his frequent trysts with Kim Jong Il, and as long as I have either a flag or a cross pinned to me I should be able to get away with pretty much anything, yes?

Of course, CNN is not the only provider of supposed "political" figures behaving badly. Rush Limbaugh's wistful hopes for violence at the Democratic National Convention are already been much-noted, though to absolutely no effect...

We need the American left -- and this is another great thing about Operation Chaos; nothing to do with my ego. We need as many ignorant Americans to wake up and find out exactly who the modern-day Democrat Party is as dominated by the far left in this country.  We need that to be seen.  Now, I am not inspiring or inciting riots.  I'm dreaming.  (singing to the tune of White Christmas) "I'm dreaming of riots in Denver."

"Operation Chaos" is Rush's name for his continued urging of callers to create "chaos" in the Democratic party by pretending to be Democrats and doing things to hurt the Democrats, so every single thinking human in America, even Rush's own dim-as-a-candle-in-an-oxygen-deprived-room callers who called to chastise him, took his remarks to be inspiring or suggesting riots.

Rush is, of course, known for such speech, so it barely makes news. But he counts even the Vice President of the United States among his frequent guests, and not one of them has been asked to denounce the corpulent, hoping-for-violence blowhard. Why should they?

And let us examine the fine specimen of Republican surrogacy, Chuck Norris, whose religiously motivated, godfearing promotion of the candidacy of Republican Mike Huckabee was the subject of much attention. In his latest commentary, Norris has an explicitly conservative "solution" to illegal immigration:

If these solutions don't stop the tides of illegal flow in and out of our borders, a friend of mine has a Texas-tough alternative and answer to replace the government's virtual fence failure. In fact, he says, we don't need a security fence at all. All we need to do is to post signs and position manned trucks at key points, just like our government does at Area 51, the top secret militaryairfield in remote central Nevada, around which there are no fences or walls. There is never a breach or unwanted border crossing there, at least that we hear about! And why? Because the boundary sign reads and is never questioned, "Warning: Use of deadly force authorized."

Now, there once was a time when using your political column to suggest the government execution of ethnic types found on the wrong patch of land was considered acceptable behavior -- oh, who am I kidding, it has always been acceptable behavior, whether in Germany or here -- but surely, one can marvel at the tight embrace of the Republican Party with those that promote such notions. Even if they are washed-up TV action stars who leaven their calls for final solution with appropriate Christian rhetoric. I realize that, since Huckabee is out of the race, we need not concern ourselves with his own surrogates -- in the vast wasteland of American journalism, thousands and thousands of reporters and pundits strong, we only have time to focus on one surrogate at a time, and the rest will have to be ignored -- so I can only presume all other Republicans have already denounced their very visible supporter.

Nothing's quite as impressive as having a nationwide multiweek media pants-crapping over some guy's ex-minister saying mean things, then demonstrating vividly to the world that hoping for violence, accusing the other party of treason, or suggesting organized ethnic murder are all firmly in the realm of reasonable Republican discourse. So firmly in the realm of reasonable discourse, in fact, that they hardly bear remarking upon... except by those devious liberals with their possibly treasonous ability to hold multiple things in their minds at one time.

From a Monday CNN press release:

Former White House press secretary Tony Snow will join CNN as a conservative commentator beginning today, it was announced by Jon Klein, president of CNN/U.S. A well-known and respected observer of politics with a longstanding news background, Snow will contribute to CNN as the network continues to broadcast winning political coverage.

Snow most recently served as press secretary to President George W. Bush from April 2006 to September 2007. For 10 years beginning in 1996, he appeared on Fox News Channel, hosting Fox News Sunday, Weekend Live with Tony Snow and other programs. From 2003 to 2006, The Tony Snow Show aired on Fox News Radio.  Before joining Fox, Snow served as a substitute "From the Right" co-host for CNN's Crossfire.

"In the White House, Tony brought a remarkably human touch to the discussion of public policy, which he will continue to do as part of the Best Political Team on Television," Klein said. "He will contribute a unique breadth of political and journalistic expertise to what is already the most provocative and wide-ranging political analysis on the air."

"I'm delighted to be able to join CNN during the most exciting and unpredictable political year in memory," Snow said. "The big challenge in 2008 is to develop deep, creative and aggressive analysis of both political parties, their candidates and campaigns. I'm eager to get started, since this race is sure to shape American politics for years to come."

Top reasons CNN courted Tony Snow to be a "conservative commentator:"

• Conservative commentator Robert Novak now refuses to appear on network unless served human blood, but the orphanage is on to us.
• Lost conservative Pat Buchanan to MSNBC in poorly planned racist exchange program: screwed when MSNBC couldn't find anyone as racist as Pat Buchanan to send back.
• Conservative commentator Lou Dobbs almost done building anti-immigrant wall around CNN headquarters, but needs tall guy to help string barbed wire.
• McCain's campaign trail flip-flops and misstatements proving increasingly hard for media to ignore; calling in a White House expert to show us how it's done.
• "Human touch" needed to help make conservative commenter Glenn Beck look sane.
• Network falling out of cultural balance and needed another white guy: "Snow" sounds about as white as you can get.
• George W. Bush years soon over; asked White House for keepsake to remember him by. We were thinking signed portrait, got back press secretary.
• Along with Jack Cafferty and Larry King, Snow is human component of ancient mythical power source. Once we sign Brit Hume, Vortex of Eternity will open and we will obtain the Amulet of Supreme Whiteyness, allowing us to rule the world, plus discounts at Applebee's.
• Someone needed to balance out flaming liberal firebrand Wolf Blitzer during 2008 campaign season.
• Because shut up, that's why.

Seriously, though, I'm sure he'll be a perfect person to add, quote, "creative and aggressive" analysis of "both political parties" during this election year. The happiest man in America right now? Jon Stewart.

Lecture: All I am Saying is Give War a Chance

Wednesday, December 12, 2007 - 7:30 pm
Student Union Ballroom,  UMass Amherst Campus
Free Admission

Join the UMass Republican Club for yet another lively and edifying political discussion on the costs, necessities, consequences, and benefits of war. A question and answer session will be administered after the initial lecture.

Jonah Goldberg, 38, is a rising star in the conservative intellectual movement as the editor-at-large for National Review Online and a contributing editor for National Review. [...]

It must truly be courageous to be a war pundit. I mean, it must be, because history seems to always judge people who start wars as truly the top tier of humanity, and to attempt to enter that lofty pavilion and play that ancient sport of kings requires an admirably stiff spine. There is a reason we once called them warlords, after all: the title speaks to a certain self-acquired godhood, the ability to selflessly determine who shall live and who shall die in service to the common good.

And so I'm disappointed that, being on the entire opposite side of the country (you know, the left side, the side that used to have condors) I won't be able to attend what should prove to be a truly ripping celebration of vicariously lived bloodshed. As the virtual flyer states, Jonah Goldberg is a rising star of the conservative "intellectual movement". Having finally rid themselves of anti-intellectual, monosyllabic grunters like William F. Buckley and George Will, the newly transformed intellectual conservative movement, with shining lights like Goldberg, Cliff May, Coulter et al, is all about remaindered book sales and Simpsons references. Having someone of the caliber of Jonah Goldberg speak out in defense of the necessities of preemptive war -- now that will be an event that will be spoken of for generations.

I was there, participants will say to their radioactive, three-armed grandchildren, when Jonah Goldberg was there to defend the cause of war. He had a voice like thunder, and and mind like a sturdy wicker basket, and socks as navy blue as the color that bears that name. It was a momentous day, rife with visionary ideals, but with insufficient snacks.

Since we cannot be there (well, I suppose a few of us could be, provided no loyalty oaths are required at the door), let us imagine the contents of the "lively and edifying" lecture. I am sure whatever we come up with will be just as inspirational and edifying as Jonah Goldberg could possibly be; presuming he talks like he writes, participants are in no danger of being over-edified. So let us analyze "the costs, necessities, consequences, and benefits of war" for ourselves, for all those that cannot attend what will no doubt be a noble and stirring ode to bloodshed.