In Which I Attack Scott Pullins

I mentioned moving blogging up a couple days because of a couple things that caught my attention. Thing One was discovering a bunch of referrals from an article in something called WorldNet Daily. I had probably run across them before, but frankly wingnut news sites tend to blend together.

Anyway, I get special mention and a link in WND because I attacked --ATTACKED, DO YOU HEAR??!!?!? -- Scott Pullins some time ago. The occasion for the Attack was Pullins' taking up the banner in the “Is Ted Gay?” whisper campaign. WND gives the campaign credulous treatment and paints Pullins as the hero of the saga.

Everything about this is excellent. First off, I can't get enough of Pullins saying "I personally don't care if Strickland is gay or not, but . . . we gotta find out if he's gay!!!!" Again with the immunity to irony. Hilarious every time. Last time he busted out with that it was four days after my vacation blackout and I decided that was too far outside the news cycle even for me. So thanks to Scott for giving me another chance to blog it.

Second, I love the Pullins as brave culture warrior story line. In Wingnuttonia simple gay-baiting is not enough; there must also be an element of martyrdom at the hands of the all-powerful gay lobby. So not only is Pullins lauded for his "courageous" pursuit of this issue, but readers are breathlessly informed that "For pursuing this story, Pullins has been soundly attacked by Ohio's liberal bloggers." I especially love the thought of Pullins being interviewed for the piece, tears welling as he recounts the pain of our encounter.

Finally, the author of the piece butchered the money quote in my post. Here’s what he says:

A blogger self-identified as "Pho" from Akron described Pullins as an "arch-conservative blogger and all-around douchebag," but he finally reconsidered, admitting "I don't really know that Pullins is a douchebag."

No. In the course of my post I move from to neutral on the Pullins-as-douchebag question to deciding he definitely is. So WND guy is not only a rightwing hack, he's a rightwing hack who screws up the point he's trying to make.

Somewhere Steve Colbert has gotta be scratching his head. His parodies of conservative blowhards shrilly hand-wringing about ephemera have not yet deterred real life conservative blowhards from shrilly hand-wringing about ephemera.

Meanwhile, Scott Pullins and WND, I doff my organic cotton twill cap to you. You couldn't have concocted a better way to welcome a liberal blogger back into the fold.