Ah, that Scent

Is it the stench of desperation or madness that wafts to us over the intertubes? Something rotten is at the house of Bill Buckley. Over to Roy Edroso:

END TIMES. These are dark, dark days at The Corner, where they now insist that "consorting" with Bill Ayers "alone disqualifies Obama from being president." Mark Levin cries:

How can anyone who actually follows this stuff, who reads Freddoso, Kurtz, and scores of other reliable sources of information, conclude that Obama is not some wild-eyed radical?

This is rather like saying, "How can someone who lives in a urinal not smell like piss?"

Levin was responding to an exasperated query by David Frum, who hasn't been dazzled by Palin Fever, and wrote:

Does anybody really seriously believe that Barack Obama is a secret left-wing radical? And if not, then what is this fuss and fury supposed to show?

As Hilzoy demonstrates, Levin has plenty of company in seriously believing this crap. She remarks, "The crowd at The Corner seems to have gone well and truly insane." (Like others commenters, I would only take issue with "seems" and "have gone.")

Conservatives often spread crap, but in some cases they know it's crap, in others they don't, and in many they simply don't care. I'm not convinced a lying scumbag is better than a delusional scumbag, but good luck rebuilding that party, Republicans, if this is the way you're going.

Then there's the latest ravings of Michelle Malkin, whose response to being calling an angry, mean loon is to... act like an angry mean loon, of course. Thers dissects Malkin, and then points out:

I'm not sure how more blunt I can be. The McCain/Palin campaign has in the past weeks begun talking the language of the Right Blogosphere, and this has caused their candidates to plummet in the polls and to make even their nominal allies blanch in terror at the sheer lunacy on display.

Ah, but they're hard on the scent of a big story the MSM just will not cover!

Somehow, the ravings of Jonah Goldberg, Mark Levin, Andy McCarthy, Michelle Malkin and the gang call to mind a short piece by Charles Baudelaire:

The Dog and the Scent-Bottle

COME HERE, my dear, good, beautiful doggie, and smell this excellent perfume which comes from the best perfumer of Paris.

And the dog, wagging his tail, which, I believe, is that poor creature's way of laughing and smiling, came up and put his curious nose on the uncorked bottle. Then, suddenly, he backed away in terror, barking at me reproachfully.

"Ah miserable dog, if I had offered you a package of excrement you would have sniffed at it with delight and perhaps gobbled it up. In this you resemble the public, which should never be offered delicate perfumes that infuriate them, but only carefully selected garbage."

(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)