Tim Blair, Little Green Footballs, a coup, nutters and splitters

It must be Friday, because I've only just caught up with Tim Blair waging yet another mini-blog war, this time with Little Green Footballs.

Blair has the habit of furtive little asides, and snide remarks of a cutting kind, and played a game of 'Then' and 'Now', by linking to Little Green Footballs to demonstrate that the tone had shifted to - gasp - liberal. (here).

At issue was the notion that Thomas Friedman might be right in suggesting that the right was going dangerously fruitloop in America.

Well I don't know where Little Green Footballs got so strange and weird an idea from. I found John L. Perry's ideas for saving America from Obama curiously uplifting:

Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.

Military intervention is what Obama’s exponentially accelerating agenda for “fundamental change” toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama’s radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.

Unthinkable? Then think up an alternative, non-violent solution to the Obama problem. Just don’t shrug and say, “We can always worry about that later.”

In the 2008 election, that was the wistful, self-indulgent, indifferent reliance on abnegation of personal responsibility that has sunk the nation into this morass.

It - and a lot more that would pass for treason in the good old Stalinist days - was written by Perry for Newsmax, with Perry described as a prize-winning newspaper editor and writer, who served on White House staffs of two US presidents.

Of course if you go looking for the column these days, all you get is this:

In a blog posting to Newsmax, John Perry wrote about a coup scenario involving the U.S. military. He clearly stated that he was not advocating such a scenario but simply describing one.

After several reader complaints, Newsmax wanted to ensure that this article was not misinterpreted. It was removed after a short period after being posted.

Newsmax strongly believes in the principles of Constitutional government and would never advocate or insinuate any suggestion of an activity that would undermine our democracy or democratic institutions.

Mr. Perry served as a political appointee in the Carter administration in HUD and FEMA. He has no official relationship with Newsmax other than as an unpaid blogger.

Cut off at the knees, by a right wing site that's so loopy you'd swear they were training for an aeronautical aerobatics championship.

But was it any better than Michael Steele calling Friedman a nut job? We use those kinds of familiar terms on loon pond, but then here we're not posing as the alternative government of the United States.

Strangely enough Little Green Footballs struck back with their own thoughts on Blair, under the header Tim Blair Goes Cherry-Picking.

Of course cherry picking can be a dangerous thing, what with the acid in the cherry and the pips and all. If you look back into Blair's murky past, you can find him boasting about how as a royalist he saved Australia from becoming a republic - thereby putting the country only a heart beat away from long being reigned over by bonnie Prince Charlie, as raging a global warming fiend as can be found on the planet (and why is Blair so strangely silent on the matter of the raving loon royal?)

It's all great fun, feeding the chooks this kind of confected chance for a little spleen venting. It's surely a living, but is it a life? Why am I reminded of the Jesuits, and their hair-splitting ways? It seems Little Green Footballs has stepped out of the tent, and might even be gone for awhile, while the hard core faithful remain inside the tent crooning their scepticism about anything and everything to themselves.

Hang on, I've got it. Blair and his gang are just like those old fashioned Trots and Stalinists. Why is it that the hard right and the hard left end up looking and behaving exactly like each other, and over life's journey, often end up switching sides, so long as they can stay firm, upright, unbending and inflexible, and in a righteous way? Is there something in the psychological make-up that requires certainty over doubt and inquiry?

As usual, we must turn to the gospel of Python for insight and enlightenment:

Reg: Listen. If you really wanted to join the P.F.J., you'd have to really hate the Romans.

Brian: I do!

Reg: Oh, yeah? How much?

Brian: A lot!

Reg: Right. You're in. Listen. The only people we hate more than the Romans are the fucking Judean People's Front.

P.F.J.: Yeah...

Judith: Splitters.

P.F.J.: Splitters...

Francis: And the Judean Popular People's Front.

P.F.J.: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Splitters. Splitters...

Loretta: And the People's Front of Judea.

P.F.J.: Yeah. Splitters. Splitters...

Reg: What?

Loretta: The People's Front of Judea. Splitters.

Reg: We're the People's Front of Judea!

Loretta: Oh. I thought we were the Popular Front.

Reg: People's Front! C-huh.

Francis: Whatever happened to the Popular Front, Reg?

Reg: He's over there.

P.F.J.: Splitter!

(Below: spot Tim Blair in the photo).