One of the more interesting aspects of CPAC is that the John Birch Society had a booth there and was one of the sponsors of the event. Why is this notable? Because William F. Buckley had basically thrown them out of mainstream conservatism more than 40 years ago for their crazy conspiracy theories. This is, after all, an organization that claimed that Eisenhower was a communist infiltrator.

But now they’re being welcomed back into the conservative movement, which seems indicative to me of the fact that the mainstream right is sliding much further to the right. Conservative rhetoric has long been designed to appeal to the stupid and the ignorant, but now they’re deliberately going after the certifiably crazy as well. Thus they had the JBC sponsoring the event and had Beck as a keynote speaker.
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JD Hayworth is a former Republican congressman from Arizona who is now challenging John McCain for his Senate seat. And he’s also a birther, despite his lame protests that he’s not. And he’s got a fanciful argument for it:

Former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, who on Monday officially entered Arizona’s Republican race against Sen. John McCain, defended his recent call for President Barack Obama to produce his birth certificate, suggesting his questions stem not from conspiracy theories that Obama was really born in Kenya but from concerns about identity theft.

During a Monday evening interview on CNN (watch it here), Hayworth pointed to the case of fugitive Vietnam War protester Howard Mechanic, who in 2000 sought a seat on the Scottsdale City Council using the alias “Gary Tredway.” After he was exposed, Mechanic eventually received a pardon from President Bill Clinton.

“All I’m saying is, for every race across the country, especially with identity theft in the news, it would be great that people can confirm who they say they are,” Hayworth said.

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Joseph Farah is taking sophistry to a whole new level by threatening to sue Newsweek for defamation over the following statement about his involvement in the birther nonsense:

Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

It’s not clear where he must have been born instead: some say Indonesia; some say Kenya (initial suggestions that Hawaiian natives weren’t citizens when he was born in Honolulu in 1961 were quickly dismissed). The point, so-called birthers say, is that he wasn’t born in the good old US of A, hence isn’t a natural-born citizen and therefore cannot legally be president.

Proponents: Chief birther and Beverly Hills dentist and attorney Orly Taitz, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah, Rep. Nathan Deal (R-Ga.), former presidential and Senate candidate Alan Keyes, assorted tea partiers.

Kernel of Truth? It’s fully debunked. Forged Kenyan birth certificates have been exposed, and – despite protestations to the contrary – Obama’s birth certificate has been certified by the state of Hawaii, and images have been shown on national television. And that’s leaving aside plenty of circumstantial proof, like birth announcements in both major Hawaiian papers from August 1961.

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And it comes from my own organization! The Washington Independent and my colleague Mike Lillis had this headline:

A Week to Test the GOP’s Commitment to Bipartisanship

And then we’ll have a week to test Tiger Woods’ commitment to monogamy. And a week to test Glenn Beck’s commitment to rationality. And a week to test NBC’s commitment to Conan O’Brien.

This is a seriously weird one from Glenn Beck:

BECK: He chose to use his name, Barack, for a reason. To identify, not with America — you don’t take the name Barack to identify with America. You take the name Barack to identify with what? Your heritage? The heritage, maybe, of your father in Kenya, who is a radical?

He’s really not this fucking insane, is he? He’s just manipulating his really, really stupid followers, right?

From Glenn Beck:

BECK: I also believe this is dividing the nation…to where the nation sees him react so rapidly on Haiti and yet he couldn’t react rapidly on Afghanistan. He couldn’t react rapidly on Ft. Hood. He couldn’t react rapidly on our own airplanes with an underwear bomber…it doesn’t make sense. […] Three different events and Haiti is the only one. I think personally that it deepens he divide to see him react this rapidly to Haiti.

Does he really believe this shit? Or he peddling what he knows to be wrong? Frankly, it doesn’t matter. It’s bullshit either way.

Sarah Palin has mastered one of the key skills for a politician — the ability to look directly in the camera and deliver a totally bullshit answer with total confidence. The credulous interpret that ability as certainty when it’s really just an acting skill. Here’s a perfect example from her interview with Glenn Beck when he asked her which founding father was her favorite. She gives the same answer she gave Couric on newspapers – “all of them” – which prompted even Beck to call bullshit on her.

At that point she just tries to fudge an answer and she does so with confidence. It’s obvious that she wouldn’t know Jefferson from Patrick Henry. She repeats probably the only story she remembers about the founding fathers, Washington rejecting an offer of kingship. But she does it with total confidence. It’s a real skill that serves politicians well.
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Here’s another “who do you root for here” moments: Alan Keyes goes after Glenn Beck for making fun of the birthers (of which Keyes is one). I think I’ll just hope for a double count out.

Marc Randazza has now become my favorite lawyer in the world. He’s following up his brilliant representation of Isaac Eiland-Hall in Glenn Beck’s unsuccessful attempt to get his website domain taken away by taking on Liberty Counsel’s complaints to the FCC about Adam Lambert’s performance on the American Music Awards.

Personally, I find any Adam Lambert performance to be offensive – not because he’s gay but because his music sucks. But I don’t think the FCC should be involved. The fevered moralists at the badly misnamed Liberty Counsel don’t agree and they filed a complaint with the FCC over it. Randazza filed a brief with the FCC that is absolutely hilarious. it includes gems like this:
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One of the more amusing memes being pushed by the right wing at the moment is the use of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals to explain everything Obama or anyone else they disagree with does at any given moment. I’ve seen this referenced a dozen times over the last few weeks, using some vague statement by Alinsky that applies to practically anyone involved in politics in order to imply that, since Alinsky was a “Marxist” then so is anyone else seen practicing those highly unspecified rules.

Here’s a perfect example from Aaron Klein, one of the Worldnutdaily’s wingnut writers, on a website defending Glenn Beck:
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Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA):

“Now folks will say that’s not true, but I’ve got facts on my side and you’ve got Glenn Beck on your side.”

Great line. Video below the fold.
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Gawker has a rather provocative article arguing that what is good for Fox News is bad for the Republican party, and vice versa. I think they make a pretty strong case.

Fox News posted an astonishing 50% jump in profit last quarter amid a disastrous advertising recession, and it’s basically the only thing making money in Rupert Murdoch’s empire. Why? Because the GOP has cratered.

The article includes this graph:
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