Dum Pendebat Filius

We’re smelling a distinct odor of desperation and flop-sweat from Wingnut Nation as Campaign 2008 enters its final weeks. Sen. McCain (John Sidney III) and Gov. Sarah W. Palin have gotten straight-out nasty, bending over backwards to try and depict Sen. Obama as a terrorist-lover, a scary Outsider, and a traitor. They seem to feel their only remaining hope is to be as negative as possible and hope they can get voters to be scared of Obama Hussein X.

There’s even been activity in the comments section of old posts on this blog, as AM-radio talkshow wingnuts keep trying to resurrect the Barack Obama = Secret Muslim With Arab Blood meme.

I thought I’d heard it all, readers. Then I saw that one enterprising wingnut columnist has decided to go simian on us, flinging some crazy poop between the bars of his cage. (Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäben gäbe,/ Und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt, perhaps.) His claim? Lefty Weatherman Terrorist Bill Ayers ghost-wrote Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father.

Who says wingnuts are anti-intellectual? Jack Cashill can “deconstruct a text” like he was Jacques Derrida. Peep this, yo:

Bill Ayers and Barack Obama have a good deal in common. Indeed, their respective memoirs, Fugitive Days and Dreams From My Father, read like they could have been written by the same person — and, in fact, they may very well have been.

All the cited quotes that follow come from these two books. On the subject of content I will refer to the author of Dreams as “Obama.” On the subject of style, I will refer to him as the [sic] “Dreams’ author.”

Dreams melds two styles: one, a long-winded accounting of conversations and events, polished just well enough to pass muster; the second, a fierce, succinct and tightly coiled analysis of the events that have been related.

Fugitive Days is fierce, succinct and tightly coiled throughout. It lacks the sometimes tedious fluff of Dreams and is the better book.

“Fierce, succinct, and tightly coiled.” Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the prosecution rests its case.

(via Sadly, No!)