Sorry to disappoint:

Inspired by Digby, this blog did the Dirty Word Tally and came up with only 33 entries. Formula: (in Google)

site:uggabugga.blogspot.com "shit" OR "piss" OR "fuck" OR "cunt" OR "cocksucker" OR "motherfucker" or "tits"

And almost all the hits were from comments or cited quotes from elsewhere (e.g. when Yglesias said "Fuck you" to Glenn Reynolds in a dispute).

This out of about 2,000 posts, so the density is low, cleaner than TPM and Hugh Hewitt. But really, it's all silly. Blogs are read for their content and the reader will decide if the blog is worth visiting based on the quality of the work. We're all adults, aren't we? (Don't answer that, you smart-alecks.)

Trying to make a point with irrelevant metrics, which is what newsbuckit did, is yet another example of the right trying to take your eye off the ball. Kos is accused of 146,000 uses of foul language. What do you expect? Some of those posts, including comments, can reach half a meg in size (HTML, which is a lot of text).

As long as we're discussing the "meaning" of comments, let's not forget that bastion of the center, Yahoo. Until they disabled comments earlier this year, every news story had a comment thread. And to pass the time, I would look at lots of the comments. Some were funny. Some had foul language (usually in the "fvck" format). And many, many contained explicit calls for violence. Kill Bush. Kill Cheney. None of this "too bad the bomb in Pakistan failed". But outright, get the rifle and shoot-at-the-president kind of stuff.

So, if "the left" can be accused of wanting to off Bush, it is fair to say that "the center", as represented by the Yahoo readership, is even more out for blood. The left is actually more pacific than the center. So O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Hannity, et al, should denounce, well, the country as a whole. That's the ticket. America hates America. America is deranged.

Which, when you think about it, is really where so many of these right-wingers are at. They have managed for a long time to claim representation for the center, mostly with moral posturing. But in reality, they are a fringe, and that fact is becoming more and more obvious (although hasn't penetrated the skulls of Broder and the beltway). You can fool a lot of people for a long time, but eventually the scam wears out. That started about a year ago.

CODA: When was the high-point for the right? I'd say it was when Limbaugh was invited to be a commentator for the NFL in 2003. In September of that year, Limbaugh got tossed for his remarks about Philly quarterback McNabb. So, if you want to find a high-water mark for the right's polemicists, September 2003 is probably your best choice. (And for liberals, that time period was very depressing t live through, if you recall.)


posted by Quiddity at 3/04/2007 07:09:00 PM