Deja vu, Only Different

I was all set to write about the feeble efforts of ponderous dimbulb Donald Douglas to fit Obama's Ghana speech into the standard Apology Tour meme

(how does he get apology from "We must start from the simple premise that Africa’s future is up to Africans.…It is easy to point fingers and to pin the blame for these problems on others. But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants"? By highlighting Obama's visit to a slave trading outpost, of course)

when this caught my eye:

If it looks familiar, that may be because you remember this. Or this. Or this. Or--hell, those books were a whole industry.

The Republicans aren't just out of ideas; they're out of strategies. This is all they know how to do. We're going to see dozens of these books about Obama, and they'll be effective in firing up the 28 percenters, and a bunch of them will make it to the NYT bestseller list (most of them with a dagger, but maybe one or two without), and they'll certainly continue to push their memes into the mainstream.

But it's different this time. Back then, there was only one Gene Lyons; now, there's a small counter-industry of people documenting the abuses and correcting the record.

That doesn't mean they won't win; it just means that this time we're ready for them.

Bonus image from American Power:


There's wingnut, and there's wingnut squared. This is wingnut cubed (at least):Palin! Guns! Military intervention! Bravely posturing for Peeance and Freeance! 'Solidarity' with people we can't even begin to understand!

And, of course, it illustrates that (as usual) Steve is right.