Welcome, Dana Loesch Readers

Hello, I see that Dana Loesch is very upset about the fact that my previous story was picked up by the Post-Dispatch's blog and is now claiming that this site is attacking the father of a marine. Contrary to what Loesch claims, I am very grateful for the service of McArthur's son and all members of the U.S. military. They are, no doubt, far more brave than I will ever be. Similarly, I can understand that it must be incredibly hard to be a parent of a soldier who is overseas, and I would not want to be in McArthur's position.

Nevertheless, none of the above makes it OK to use a racial slur. Yes, I understand that he said "raghead terrorist," but that does not make it OK either. A murderer is someone who by definition is a bad person, but that does not mean it's OK to say [racial slur] murderer. In fact, doing so draws attention away from the real problem and towards the cultural or racial identity of the person being insulted. So I don't think I did anything wrong by pointing out that McArthur used a racial slur in his comments to rile up the tea party crowd.

As long as you're here, it's probably worth pointing out a few other things as well. Loesch will no doubt try to imply that this site is used to personally attack her. This is not true. We don't know Loesch personally nor would knowing her be relevant to the purpose of this blog. Loesch and other members of the tea party are very forward about their political views, and this site is directed at critiquing those views. In fact, as I think would be clear to anyone who reads the material here, it makes a pretty convincing case that the leaders of the tea party movement are systematically misinforming the people who rely on them for information.

For example, did you know that Loesch completely invented a story about the government funneling activists to ACORN? She claimed that the government was directing traffic to volunteer for ACORN, but a quick search revealed that many of the "ACORN" sites were in fact anti-ACORN rants. Not only that, but the same site directed people to Tea Parties. But despite the fact that this was obviously not a government conspiracy, Loesch just said her piece, ignored all evidence to the contrary, and moved on to her next story.

Or, did you know that Loesch claimed that a HCAN rally was astroturf because she had a video that showed that they were holding Obama signs. The only problem, she used video that was from an OFA rally several weeks earlier. Even Sean Hannity apologizes for using video from the wrong day, but Loesch just changes the subject and moves on.

Or, not from this site, but what about two weeks ago when Loesch claimed that "union thugs" had attacked a tea party patriot. However, once the evidence came out that in fact charges had been filed against the tea party activist, she simply deleted her post with no explanation, and no "oops, I guess it was the other way around."

In other words, if you were directed here by Loesch, you are very likely being systematically mislead on a daily basis. You might not believe me now, but I hope someday you will. Maybe after healthcare reform passes and it turns out that people's lives are substantialy better, you might start to question folks like Loesch and Hennessy who use fear and propaganda for their political purposes.

In fact, I don't have time to get into it now, but Loesch's recent post today is also misleading.

So I realize her regular audience is going to be inclined to dislike me, but I think what I'm doing is a service to the community. I really wish I didn't have to spend to much time debunking false and misleading claims, but I just can't bear to leave them alone either.