Today In Wholesale Thievery: Charlie Sykes

"I walks into a very classy restaurant, and I orders pheasant under glass. I had eaten most o' da glass and was just about gettin' down t' da pheasant when I noticed a sign that says Watch Your Hat and Coat. Well, I watched my hat and coat, and what happened? Somebody stole m' pheasant."

-- "The Sick Boy and the Sitter", The Dick Van Dyke Show

Here is something you should know about a man named Charlie Sykes, who is now a Respected MSNB Contributor and semi-regular New York Times columnist.

For many, many years Mr. Sykes made a very fine living as Wisconsin's own, locally-sourced, shit-house-to-table version of Rush Limbaugh.  In other words, Mr. Sykes made his daily bread, and his monthly mortgage, and his boat payments and paid for his kids' college by gleefully slandering people like you and me...

,..while we labored in the wilderness living off tip jars and part-time gigs, struggling against overwhelming odds to warn people that the world Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Newt Gingrich and Ann Coulter and Charlie Sykes was shaping would be a complete, existential catastrophe for this country.

Not merely because their policies were horrendous -- because Team Evil doesn't really have anything that any same person could call a "policy" at all -- but because they were methodically and deliberately working around the clock to turn their already-deeply-ignorant and often racist Fox News/Hate Radio Conservative audiences into completely brainwashed, completely re-programmable meatbags whose opinions could be flipped on and off like a light-switch depending on the whims of people like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Newt Gingrich and Ann Coulter and Charlie Sykes.

You and I could see that future Orwellian dystopia coming from a distance of several decades and spent our precious time and meager, borrowed and patched-together resources to try to stand athwart the coming disaster and yell "Stop" at anyone who would listen.

We were, of course, hopelessly outspent by Team Evil on every front, and we were, of course, dismissed utterly and out-of-hand by Team Evil's compliant and well-heeled Both Siderist co-conspirators in the mainstream media.

We were also, of course, right,  Completely right about the Right all along.  Over and over again. And the worst hell on Earth for a Conservative is to be shown up and humiliated by us dirty Libtards, because, as Thomas More noted over four-and-a-half centuries ago, "The devil...the prowde spirite...cannot endure to be mocked."

Every day of these people's lives, their own leaders, their own words and Reality itself humiliates them by slapping yesterday's lies out of their mouths right in front of God and everybody.  And because they have been rendered incapable of admitting error or self-reflection, every day for your basic American wingnut is like chugging salt water: the exercise only leave them ever more frantic for even Bigger and Better lies to slake their thirst and hide their shame.

This is why the Right's hatred of us grows exponentially more berserk, more unhinged.  This is also why they have reached a point where they will eagerly follow anyone who will look them in the eye and tell them the gigantic lies the want the hear.

And, for the record, it's also why Both Siderism is the worst crime against truth of all: because "Both Sides Do It" is always the the universal, inexhaustible "Get Out of Accountability Free" card every wingnut has been trained to play when he or she does not have the next Fox-approved lie or excuse readily at-hand.

And now that the hellscape we warned them about for decades has finally arrived?

Well,, that just so happens to circle us right back to Mr. Charlie Sykes who, like so many of his Conservative media confederates that were finally cast out of the Conservative freak-show they created, have found an equally rewarding second career just plain ripping off the very Liberals who Mr. Charlie Sykes spent his first career mocking and demonizing.

Think I'm kidding?

I am not kidding.

Mr. Sykes in today's New York Times:

...

Here is how it works: Rather than defend President Trump’s specific actions, his conservative champions change the subject to (1) the biased “fake news” media, (2) over-the-top liberals, (3) hypocrites on the left, (4) anyone else victimizing Mr. Trump or his supporters and (5) whataboutism, as in “What about Obama?” “What about Clinton?”

For the anti-anti-Trump pundit, whatever the allegation against Mr. Trump, whatever his blunders or foibles, the other side is always worse.

But the real heart of anti-anti-Trumpism is the delight in the frustration and anger of his opponents. Mr. Trump’s base is unlikely to hold him either to promises or tangible achievements, because conservative politics is now less about ideas or accomplishments than it is about making the right enemies cry out in anguish.

I had blogged my way through most o' the lies the Right had thrown at us since 1974 and was just about gettin' down t' da present when I noticed a sign that says Watch Your Tone, driftglass. 

Well, I watched my tone, and what happened? 

Charlie Sykes stole m' present.