…in the media over Van Jones. As someone notes in comments over there, imagine if George Bush had appointed a Klansman who spouted conspiracy theories about the Clintons and called Democrats anal orifices, and put him in charge of thirty billion dollars worth of federal activity, with no confirmation hearings.

[Late afternoon update]

Mickey thinks that the bus is revving its engine. It makes sense for him to be gone on a Friday before a holiday weekend. That will help bury the news.

[Update a few minutes later]

Does Barack Obama understand the odiousness of Trutherism? I’m not sure that he does, or that Democrats do in general. After all, Howard Dean called it “an interesting theory.” And it wasn’t that long ago (and may still be true today) that a majority of Democrats either believed that George Bush knew about the attacks ahead of time, or aren’t sure. Why would he think that a belief that is mainstream in his own party was particularly odious? In fact, I’m sure, given the “progressive” bubble in which he’s spent his entire life, he’s a little perplexed what the big deal is about Van Jones. None of this is news to him, any more than Reverend Wright’s views were. The only thing that shocks him is that anyone else would object.

[Late evening update]

Mark Steyn has some useful thoughts on Truther chique:

Is Van Jones a real Truther or a faux Truther? The White House position is that he’s the latter – hey, he just glanced at it, saw it was some routine impeach-Bush-for-killing-thousands-of-his-fellow-Americans thing, and signed it without reading it; we’ve all been there, right?

Van Jones Trutherism, like Van Jones Communism and Van Jones Eco-Racism Theory, is a kind of decadence: If you really believed 9/11 was an inside job, you’d be in fear of your life. Instead, for a cutting-edge poseur like Jones, it’s a marketing niche, one that gives you a certain cachet with the right kind of people – like, apparently, Barack Obama.

Indeed.

This should tip an election. If it doesn’t it’s a good indication of what’s wrong with this nation.

Phyllis Chesler isn’t very impressed with Naomi Wolf’s shallow defense of Muslim oppression of women.

[Wednesday afternoon update]

Naomi isn’t very happy, and demands an apology, which she isn’t going to get.

[Bumped]

[Thursday afternoon update]

It’s round three. Someone needs to take the shovel away from Naomi before she gets to China.

[Bumped again]

[Update a couple minutes later]

Don’t miss the link to the Jamie Glazov piece:

Reminiscent of creepy and pathetic tales that fellow travelers told (about what they had “learned”) upon their returns from Stalinist Russia and Maoist China, Wolf comes back to share the news. Many Muslim feminists, she implores, apparently told her that they wish that we Westerners would focus on examples of women’s rights in their societies rather than on “what they wear.”

Sorry Naomi Wolf, the mere fact that someone told you something does not erase the reality of how tyrannical structures employ dress codes to wield various forms of oppression. If Jews were, for instance, once again forced, in any given society, to suddenly start wearing particular articles of clothing to identify and distinguish themselves from other people, should those of us who are concerned suddenly become unconcerned merely because a Jewish person in that society told you to tell us not to worry about it?

Not that you know or care anything about history, but there is a reason why despotisms and apartheid structures create dress codes. The enforcement of such codes plays a crucial role in keeping the structures of tyranny and the enslavement of a people in check (e.g., Maoist unisex clothing had a ruthless purpose). Ms. Wolf, do you really fail to grasp the fact that dress codes in the Islamic world, such as the niqab and the burqa, play a crucial role in keeping the chains of gender apartheid in place, and that this is precisely why the guardians keep them in place?

No Ms. Wolf, I won’t stop worrying about what Muslim women are forced to wear. I care about the Muslim women who have had acid thrown in their faces, or who have been raped or killed or set aflame, because of the dress code they chose not to follow. I know you don’t care about them, because they eluded you somehow during your political pilgrimage and you have yet to utter one of their names and tell us, with heartfelt concern, what happened to them and why.

As I said, someone needs to get her to quit digging.

Van Jones is (or at least was) a Truther. How unshocking.

Thoughts from Daniel Henninger:

the lumpen electorate works, and the lumpen bureaucratariat spends. They get away with it because they have perfected the illusion that no human hand causes these commitments. The payroll tax just happens. Entitlements are “off-budget,” presumably in the hands of God. This is government without the responsibility of governance.

Unable to identify who or what has put them in hock to the horizon, national electorates are attempting accountability by voting whole parties out of power. Rasmussen recently found that 57% of voters would throw out Congress en masse if they could. Gerrymandered districts ensure that they can’t.

Problem is, the lumpen bureaucratariat can’t stop spending and borrowing and won’t incentivize growth. Amid the phenomenal spending on the financial mess here, they tried to pass a cap-and-trade bill whose centerpiece was an auction of carbon credits to flow trillions of dollars toward the bureaucracies. Mr. Obama’s people seem weirdly oblivious to the scale of their outlays, programs and dreams.

Something has to give.

[Update a few minutes later]

Will Obamacare be to Obama what Spain was to Napoleon?