ON BEDWETTING

It's fun to laugh at right-wingers and accuse them of losing bladder control every time there's a story that suggests a new terrorist attack, especially when one story after another proves to be a false alarm -- but I'm not sure what we're really seeing on the right is fear. At least it's not just fear.

So what else is involved?

Well, think about it: What been getting up right-wingers' noses lately almost more than the Islamofascistoswarthoterrorist threat itself?

If you've been paying attention to the righties this summer, you know the answer: They hate it when a Muslim appears on the scene of carnage in a Muslim neighborhood and draws attention to the fact that there's been carnage -- and they're particularly incensed when there's somewhat of a discrepancy between what's reported and what actually happened. They've spent much of the summer picking away at every photo and video of bombed-out buildings in Lebanon, looking for evidence that every one of them includes exaggeration of the harm done.

Gosh, they couldn't possibly be so angry about exaggeration of threats because they themselves have a tendency to exaggerate a threat, could they? Why, that would be sort of like projection, wouldn't it? Right-wingers couldn't possibly be susceptible to that, could they?

Yep, that's what they're doing -- something very, very similar to what they say has been done in Lebanon. The righties say phony Lebanese corpses are being waved at cameras -- while what the righties wave at their readers is every airliner false alarm and lone-nut incident they can shoehorn into their Vast Islamofascist Conspiracy.

It's not exactly the same, but it's close enough -- grab your audience by the lapels and max out the appeal to anger. Would the righties be so obsessed with this in the Middle East if they weren't trying to make this kind of emotional appeal themselves?