Sunday Morning Comin' Down

Sunday was apparently the day that Bill Kristol was scheduled to having the lining of his poison sacs revulcanized, so Sundance Stephanopoulos was forced to do without his Butch, and had to make do with Rich Lowry: the Network Seat-filler's own Wingnut Joe Besser:

It was both educational and entertaining to see Mr. Lowry wax poetic on the Bad Old Days of Jim Crow --

The discussion included a congresscritter named Adam Kinzinger, defenestrated Obama official Van Jones, and Rich (Sparkle Pants) Lowry, who was there representing National Review's historic alliance with discriminatory statutes of every kind. This did not end well for him, as Jones parked him deep in the rightfield stands.

JONES: A couple of things, first of all this idea that you can blame religion for bigotry, I heard that growing up. I had White adults tell me god separated the races after the flood, after Noah's ark, god said said therefore it's a religious obligation for us to maintain segregation. You can't -- look, if you want to be a bigot on your own time, that's fine. But if you want to extend that to your LLC, to your business that you own and hold out for public, you can't point to god to excuse your bigotry.

The Clinton Guy is nothing if not fair, however.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Rich, you get the last word on this.

LOWRY: Yeah, it's different than the situation in the Jim Crow south where you had state sanctioned system of discrimination that was flatly unconstitutional. (Ed. Note: Not that your magazine ever agreed or anything.) And there was a governmental interest in ensuring that African Americans could travel in the south, which you couldn't do -- if no hotel and no restaurant would serve you (Ed. Note: this is a valid argument, if you've forgotten that "separate but equal" was ever an actual policy. And, not that your magazine ever cared or anything)...You're dealing with the occasional baker or florist who has a genuine conscientious objection. And if they do, you can find another baker or florist.

Or, you can point out that we've had public accommodations laws on the books for 50 years now, not that National Review ever liked them much...

-- given how frequently Mr. Lowry has had to chase away white supremacists who had been cleverly concealing themselves on the pages of his magazine:

Following the uproar over John Derbyshire’sracist rant that led to his firing last week, National Review ended its relationship with another racist writer today. Robert Weissberg, who was a contributing writer to the magazine for years, was fired for his ties to the white nationalist group American Renaissance.

“Unbeknowst to us, occasional Phi Beta Cons contributor Robert Weissberg (whose book was published a few years ago by Transaction) participated in an American Renaissance conference where he delivered a noxious talk about the future of white nationalism,” National Review editor Rich Lowry said in a post today. Though National Review may not have known, Weissberg’s involvement with the group is clearly stated on his Wikipedia page. And the fact that National Review’s vetting process is so weak that they routinely published two openly racist authors for years raises serious questions about who else they may be publishing and what ideas those writers may share.

Meanwhile, over on "Meet the Press", David Gregory and Chuck Todd 

were vewy, vewy excited that "Democrats want the culture wars to be back":

DAVID GREGORY:

So we're conflating a big political season that's beginning, Chuck, with this international backdrop. But I do want to talk about the politics of the moment in this midterm year. When you have this Arizona controversy sparking, as I asked Senator Rubio about, this balance between religious freedom and civil liberties, specifically gay rights that are advancing around the country. Are the culture wars back in the midterms?

CHUCK TODD:

Well, Democrats want the culture wars to be back, okay? Let's remember what these campaigns are about. Democrats believe Terry McAuliffe won because he was able to split women off, particularly on issues of contraception and abortion in the state of Virginia. That if you look at some of the Democrats that survived in 2010, Michael Bennett, who's now running the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, he will continue he won on the culture wars.

Yes, we're having a conversation. And so the Democrats want, if the culture wars are back, Democrats want them to be...

Because in the Beltway lexicon, it only counts as a "war" when the people who have been getting punched around all along start punching back.

Finally, Roger Ailes' on-camera shill got all sad and butthurt that the Obama Administration didn't give them a cookie, 'cause you gave ev'rbody else a cookie! (h/t Heather at Crooks and Liars):