James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic, usually presents an image of himself as a "reasonable" liberal. However yesterday he revealed his inner moonbat with an article title worthy of a thread name in the sanity challenged Democratic Underground: "5 Signs the United States is Undergoing a Coup." After a few hours of reflection, Fallows realized he allowed too much of his moonbat side to be displayed to the public so he altered the title with this explanation:
Midnight update: This item went up three hours ago with a more blunt-instrument headline than it should ever have had: "5 Signs the United States is Undergoing a Coup." I used the word "coup" in a particular way in the longer item this was drawn from. Using it in the headline implies things I don't mean.
Actually, James, reading your article shows you do mean it. Namely that the United States Supreme court has somehow brought about a "coup."
First, a presidential election is decided by five people, who don't even try to explain their choice in normal legal terms.
Then the beneficiary of that decision appoints the next two members of the court, who present themselves for consideration as restrained, humble figures who care only about law rather than ideology.
Once on the bench, for life, those two actively second-guess and re-do existing law, to advance the interests of the party that appointed them.
Meanwhile their party's representatives in the Senate abuse procedural rules to an extent never previously seen to block legislation -- and appointments, especially to the courts.
And, when a major piece of legislation gets through, the party's majority on the Supreme Court prepares to negate it -- even though the details of the plan were originally Republican proposals and even though the party's presidential nominee endorsed these concepts only a few years ago.
Fallows offbase whining would be slightly more believable if he had criticized Obama's constitutional abuses such as his belated invocation of executive privilege in the Fast & Furious scandal or his bypassing of Congress with his unilateral decision to grant amnesty to millions of illegals. However, Fallows is completely in error by recycling that stale shibboleth frequently recited by liberals that the Supreme Court somehow "decided" the 2000 election. Here is a fact pill that Fallows might want to swallow to counter his current moonbat condition although at this point it might be terminal. It comes in the form of a NewsBusters reminder by Brent Baker:
...a reminder that both recounts conducted by major media outlets in 2001 determined George W. Bush would have won anyway.
...The lead of an April 4, 2001 USA Today story headlined, “Newspapers' recount shows Bush prevailed,” by reporter Dennis Cauchon:
George W. Bush would have won a hand count of Florida's disputed ballots if the standard advocated by Al Gore had been used, the first full study of the ballots reveals. Bush would have won by 1,665 votes -- more than triple his official 537-vote margin -- if every dimple, hanging chad and mark on the ballots had been counted as votes, a USA TODAY/Miami Herald/Knight Ridder study shows. The study is the first comprehensive review of the 61,195 "undervote" ballots that were at the center of Florida's disputed presidential election....
The New York Times led its November 12, 2001 front page article, “Study of Disputed Florida Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast the Deciding Vote,” by reporters Ford Fessenden and John M. Broder:
A comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots from last year's presidential election reveals that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward.
Contrary to what many partisans of former Vice President Al Gore have charged, the United States Supreme Court did not award an election to Mr. Bush that otherwise would have been won by Mr. Gore. A close examination of the ballots found that Mr. Bush would have retained a slender margin over Mr. Gore if the Florida court's order to recount more than 43,000 ballots had not been reversed by the United States Supreme Court.
So will this fact pill be enough to cure Fallows of his moonbat affliction? Probably not but Fallows shouldn't feel alone. Your humble correspondent is predicting that many of Fallows' fellow liberals will go or have already gone full moonbat this year. In fact, you could call 2012 the Year of the Moonbat.
UPDATE: Did I write that the original title of Fallow's article was worth of a thread name at the Democratic Underground? Well it IS a thread by that same name at DU. Moonbat James, meet your fellow moonbats.
