In the dismal aftermath of the Sandy Hook shootings (and while death hangs in the air isn’t it fun to read what wingnuts think?), look who has put their heads together and come up with “Newtown Answers.” Nobody. But some folks less than sane and more than arrogant updated their website, so we’re left with the National Review.

By way of an “NRO Symposium” — traditionally a shipboard shrimp eating contest suspended mid-way to pry Pantload’s half-eaten hand from his gob — the Review staff claims it has solved American spree-killing. So this will be all wrong. I’ve gotten as far as the first ‘Answer,’ and here it is from Charlotte Allen:

There was not a single adult male on the school premises when the shooting occurred. In this school of 450 students, a sizeable number of whom were undoubtedly 11- and 12-year-old boys (it was a K–6 school), all the personnel — the teachers, the principal, the assistant principal, the school psychologist, the “reading specialist” — were female. There didn’t even seem to be a male janitor to heave his bucket at Adam Lanza’s knees. Women and small children are sitting ducks for mass-murderers . . in general, a feminized setting is a setting in which helpless passivity is the norm.

There go two problems. Women and children. You can’t count on them to offer better than kindness, caring and love when faced with a mass murderer. Let’s remember that Adam Lanza is on his way because killers are always on their way as this is America [someone might wanna take a look at this place --ed.]. You can get some chimpanzee chaperones, or you can fight back:

There are things you can do. Run is one of them, because most shooters can’t hit a moving target. The other, if you are in a confined space, is throw things at the killer, or try a tackle.

Throw a crayon at Adam. Or a kite if it’s handy. Then after taking 49 headshots, tell yourself “Oooh Mr. Adam. What a tackle I’ll give you.” And then you give him everything you’ve got.

Assrocket wonders about the Sandy Hook mass shooting. He probably shouldn’t do that but, you know, dogs and their balls. So John thinks and he posts a post about how exactly He’s Been Thinking.

A logical starting point is to ask why mass murderers like Adam Lanza do it. Most of them don’t intend to survive; their murders are a form of suicide culminating in their own deaths. The impulse to suicide is understandable, but what is the point of murdering ten or twenty school children or mall shoppers first?

I don’t know. Your turn.

I think the answer, for most such murderers anyway, is that they want to go out in a blaze of notoriety. Typically people who have made little impression on the world in life, they want to become famous in death.

Not sure about that, but I’ll play along. So . .

. . one practical response to the school/theater/mall murderers presents itself: we could ban all news coverage of mass shooting incidents. If newspapers, magazines, web sites and above all television and radio stations were prohibited from making any reference to mass shooting crimes, then the goal that these criminals seek–fame; in effect, immortality–would not be achieved. It is reasonable to expect that mass shootings would decline as a result.

Here you have the conservative mind laid bare. We should eviscerate the First Amendment to protect the Second. A perfect gem of insane. It’s wonderful that anybody at all can wield a .50 caliber cannon, but everybody must shut up after it’s used to aerate an Arby’s. Under penalty of law mind you. This is so patriotic it’s practically an Apple Pi. You loose the Smith and Wesson butthurts anywhere near the Constitution, this is what you get.

Hark! Is that Charlton Heston?

I say the Second Amendment is, in order of importance, the first amendment. It is America’s First Freedom, the one right that protects all of the others. Among freedom of speech, of the press, of religion, of assembly, of redress of grievances, it is the first among equals. It alone offers the absolute capacity to live without fear. The right to keep and bear arms is the one right that allows “rights” to exist at all.

Now we have to blow John’s brains out. Try to take away my First Amendment, huh?

Nuzzleglance Pocketorbs, son of Alley Oop, doesn’t much care for government programs whereby you pay for retirement, then you get old and get your money back.

Our Enemy, the Payroll Tax
By ROSS DOUTHAT | New York Times

. . Payroll taxes are a relic of New Deal Machiavellianism: by taking a bite of every worker’s paycheck and promising postretirement returns, Franklin Roosevelt effectively disguised Social Security as a pay-as-you-go system, even though the program actually redistributes from rich to poor and young to old. That disguise has helped keep Social Security sacrosanct — hailed by Democrats because it protects the poor and backed by Republicans as a reward for steady work.

By “taking a bite of every worker’s paycheck and promising postretirement returns,” everyone is assured a minimal income in old age. Don’t know how this confuses.

For the Douthats, the human bulldozers mechanized under the philosophical tents of conservatism, they find it annoyingly hard to push the poor back into the Victorian dregs as long as the feds have provided a retirement program, and financed it with the poors’ own money. So this post provides no wonder.

Ross would love to see direct-pay Social Security savaged because its finances would get bounced into the nebulous world of appropriation foofery and budgets renoberation. After that, t’would be game on.

Slate’s Daniel Engber with Both Sides Do It, science clown edition:

Beware, for thou that judgest doest the same things: Members of both parties have had to squiggle through elections by appealing to a hazy sense of geo-history. In fact, the Antichrist himself—Barack Obama—has had a tendency to get a little soft with science.

First — remember this? Marco Rubio, eyes fixed on our presidency, couldn’t come up with any guess as to the age of his home, the Earth. What is he, Pope Ptolemy? He’s running for office for Pete’s sake.

I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I’m not a scientist. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer a question like that.

He’s not a scientist. He’s not a theologian. He’s not the body of a falcon with the head of a ferocious lion. How the heck should he know? Marco only pawn . . in game of life. Now Rubio’s doppelganger makes an entrance:

Q: Senator [Obama], if one of your daughters asked you—and maybe they already have—“Daddy, did god really create the world in 6 days?,” what would you say?

A: What I’ve said to them is that I believe that God created the universe and that the six days in the Bible may not be six days as we understand it … it may not be 24-hour days, and that’s what I believe. I know there’s always a debate between those who read the Bible literally and those who don’t, and I think it’s a legitimate debate within the Christian community of which I’m a part. My belief is that the story that the Bible tells about God creating this magnificent Earth on which we live—that is essentially true, that is fundamentally true. Now, whether it happened exactly as we might understand it reading the text of the Bible: That, I don’t presume to know.

Yes, of course, it’s obvious. Both sides did not do it. But let’s let Engber embarrass himself, we’re trying here to have some fun:

Both senators refuse to give an honest answer to the question. Neither deigns to mention that the Earth is 4.54 billion years old . .

Why in the world would Obama say that? He was asked how long it took to “create the world.” The best answer to that ain’t 4.54 billion years, buddy. The best answer is jillionths of jillionths of a second. Our tiny Earth’s creation only occurred as a consequence of the Big Bang, billions of years after the fact.

Additionally, the manner in which the world (or the Earth) was created and the point in time when it was created are two different things. It may take Ford Motor Company six days to put together a Taurus, but that doesn’t tell you when someone drove it off the assembly line. Obama, unlike Rubio, is clearly talking about how the world was created, not what date.

Engber has got some nerve to lecture people on science and facts when he can’t even comprehend what he’s reading. The President’s response is a politically deft but passable answer. No one knows yet — certainly science doesn’t — what happened before the Big Bang. It is possible the creation of the universe was finalized in a cataclysmic explosion at twelve midnight, on the sixth day. You may take annoyance at the loitering of a present-universe metaphor, but you can’t factually dismiss it.

Science operates by the application of logic not by the appearance of sophistication. Engber falls prey to his own laziness, but tee-hee Both Sides Do It.

Marco Rubio displays the growing courage it takes to be a presidential candidate. Kudos to him, he just wowed a million or so illiterates of the usual stripe. Erick Erickson is moved to declare how awesome he is because Jesus always wins. You book muggles may not judge us or any of our Bible facts.

Marco Rubio is getting beaten up by the press for not decisively and convincingly saying he thinks the world is billions of years old . . This issue has become the new litmus test in the media for conservative politicians. Believing what was believed to be literally true for a few thousand years is now nutty.

Nothing beats ‘old.’ Science shares a great deal with antiquing that way. Which makes me wonder which of those gems, having been “literally true for a few thousand years,” Erick still holds dear. We’re talking facts far pre-dating Jesus’ birth here.

We might cast an eye toward the Egyptians? Does Apophis still daily harasses the ascension of Ra in his solar boats Mandjet and Mesektet, Erick? You couldn’t possibly think the sun is a godless blob, how absurd. That’s an argument so new it needs a fresh diaper and a scolding. Dear Jesus, I pray: A computer in ‘sleeper’ mode is not undergoing an eclipse. Do not throw rocks at it. Do let Erick know.

After any stinging Republican loss, conservatives always — always – respond to the defeat by saying the same old thing. The candidate wasn’t conservative enough. In 2012, Depression-era pundit Richard Viguerie got there first:

“The battle to take over the Republican Party begins today and the failed Republican leadership should resign,” said Richard Viguerie, a top activist and chairman of ConservativeHQ.com.

He said the lesson on Romney’s loss to President Obama on Tuesday is that the GOP must “never again” nominate a “a big government established conservative for president.”

This year, the hoary old chestnut is funnier than ever.

“Tea Partiers will take over the Republican party in the next four years,” Viguerie said.

In the meantime, conservatives will work to ensure that congressional Republicans do not compromise their principles in fiscal talks with Obama, he said.

The Tea Party just got eviscerated. Front-men Allen West, Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock and Joe Walsh got defenestrated from the government. The most famous teabagger perhaps in the country, Michele Bachmann, had to spend something like $20 million for the thousand votes that kept her seat. It was likely the most expensive congressional campaign in history. How’s that for grassroots? What’s up with populist appeal? Snake venom should be so well-loved.

Sometimes conventional wisdom happens to be wise. White men no longer can cast enough votes. Women went for Obama by at least 10 points. Hispanics are the fastest growing population in America, and they broke something like +44(!) for the incumbent. If the wingnuts still want to ignore ‘demographics,’ that’s fine. Let them declare again that conservative philosophy alone is sufficiently magic to win elections for centuries to come. Let Edmund Burke re-visit the Earth and shatter the dreams of Democrats for as long as he likes. Until then, I’m happy to see this:

. . any “conservative” pundit or website that is talking about the need to appeal to Latinos (or any other ethnic or identity group) in a way that effectively surrenders first principles for a chance at taking power — deeming this move “realistic” or pragmatic, while sneering at the “purists” who simply Don’t Know How Things In DC Work — is not, in fact, conservative; is not, in fact, a constitutionalist; and is not, in fact, part of your “team.”

. . they can keep their damned brand. Because as I noted yesterday, their brand couldn’t turn out enough voters to defeat a disastrous President running on myths and lies. So what good is it?

Jeff’s point: The Romneyites did very badly with Latinos and then lost so what good are Latinos? Makes plenty sense. Comments, anyone?

sdferr says November 8, 2012 at 10:03 am

“We need to pander to Hispanics. Why?”

Ah, but not “Why?” — rather, How? To which end I jest.

Teach the Spics to read Attic Greek and Latin, as well as English, German, French and . . . . . . . . . presto-change-o: Classical Liberals!

I look forward to the next four years.

There was once a conservative American Christian so driven by Muslim hate that he made the most Islam-insulting propaganda piece anyone had ever seen. And that’s why the President stinks. Did you know? Ann Coulter knows:

With the economy in the toilet and the Islamic world on fire, when Obama appears in person it’s even worse than if he were sleeping.

The Muslims are burning. It is very tragic. Why hasn’t the President put out the fire? You would think he’d care. A real president would care. Lonely Conservative:

As the World Burns Obama Fiddles

Violent Islamists are literally setting the world on fire, and what is President Obama doing? He met with Olympians and will go to a fundraiser later.

He could stop the conflagration. Will he? No, the jerk. Michelle Malkin:

White House schedule for World on Fire Friday: Where’s POTUS?

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama welcome the 2012 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic teams to the White House Friday, the daily schedule said.

It’s really the entire world, aflame. Britain, Brazil, the Bahamas. After the terrorist firebugs turned Belgium into a coal pit, Barack should have done something. Anything. Did he? Nope.

With The World On Fire Why Is Obama Putting So Much Focus On Big Bird

Mitt Romney, speaking to a crowd of about 1,200 on a farm here in Van Meter, Iowa, criticized President Obama’s recent focus on Big Bird on the campaign trail.

Angel at pushbacknow.com worries about the Muslims. Meanwhile Obama agitates for Big Bird. Now you know who’s really American. Now you know who gives a damn. That fire wouldn’t stand a chance in Angel’s world. And now that we’ve gotten that straight, it’s time for free speech.

Everybody Burn The Koran

The FBI use the authority of their offices to intimidate Pastor Jones into calling off his Koran bonfire.

That is an assault on Free Speech by our own Federal Government.

Says Infidel Bloggers Alliance. Torch their holy book, fight for free speech. You Muslims can’t tell us what to do. We’re Freedom. Fuck off, bomb throwers.

If We Can’t Burn the Koran, Then Islam Isn’t Worth Spit

. . The choice is clear: We either accept their verdict that Islam is a second-class religion or we proceed undeterred with our Western treatment of Islam. Personally, I’m not comfortable handling Islam with kid-gloves, treating it with the same tact and delicacy that we otherwise reserve for the mentally retarded. So my message to anyone with a match and a Koran is simple: “Burn, baby! Burn!.”

Mormon Mentality: Fire = Free Speech. Nothing could be more American. We’ll turn your book to cinders if it pisses you off, and when it pisses you off it’s your own fault. Where’s the president, incidentally?

The Power of the Koran!

I hope [Terry Jones] burns the Koran every day from here on out. As a matter of fact if he’ll burn them, I’ll donate a few to him if he runs short of fire material. Why? Why would I support burning books? Someone who believes so much in freedom, someone who hates communism and socialism would succumb to book burning as righteous. Nope that’s not my reason. I support the pastors right to burn whatever he wants. But especially when it drives muslims crazy…Makes my day.

That’s ‘American and Proud.’ Sure it inflames the Muslims, which is good. We’re burning their favorite things! He supports protest, which is something Obama wouldn’t even allow. That guy would like to shut everybody up, when he isn’t doing a thing about the Muslim holocaust/inferno. It’s obscene. A&P is like iowntheworld:

Let’s Read and Then Burn the Koran

Must see TV! THIS WOMAN HAS BALLS OF STEEL AND IS AN AMERICAN HERO. MAKE SURE TO WATCH THE LAST MINUTE OF THIS CLIP.

Fire is heroic, as is Ann Barnhardt. Bless her balls of steel and bowl of ashes. You can’t stop us, Obama, we burn with freedom. Incidentally, why haven’t you stopped us? Talk about a spineless phony.

There’s an answer to this problem, of course: Mitt Romney. He’ll extinguish the Middle East, with missiles. He’ll be the Red Adair of American foreign policy. Fire in the hole.

And now for some breezy Saturday night pop psychology. From the expansive mind of Stephen Rittenberg, MD, I give you: “Big Bird, Liberalism, and Perversion.”

We begin with the good doctor telling us he has been observing wimps and fairies for fifty years. Now he has noticed something about liberals. Something . . shall we say familiar? We shall.

The screaming and caterwauling, the marches announced to defend the puppet, reveal some important truths about contemporary liberalism and its adherents. Gov. Romney in one witty comment suggested that it is time to grow up, to relinquish the utopian fantasy of a blissful androgynous childhood free of conflict. In one comment, he leveled a blast at the feminized metrosexual culture of contemporary liberalism . .

Liberals long for what Big Bird represents: that utopian childish dream world where differences of gender, talent, fortune, looks, race, color, intelligence, etc. do not exist.

Naw. Not wishing for oblivion, Doc. I can get that with beer (see you soon, my love). Just preferring that children be entertained by Sesame Street rather than the kiddie cocaine dealers at Disney or Pokemon Conglomeration Inc. You sure sound smart, though.

I have written previously in American Thinker about perversion as a mode of thinking, not just a form of sexual behavior. Perversion (see the Marquis de Sade) seeks to abolish all differences — of gender, of generations, of species. The incest taboo is overturned, species differences are abolished, and the distinction between animate and inanimate is dismissed as all things are reduced to fecal sameness. Sade anticipated the dreams of postmodern wordsmith intellectuals.

I buffet your cotton-candy taint with my handcrafted syllables. Tanqueray. Trinitron. Tidykatz. Travelocity. Sshhh, you be quiet. We are one. Beer, please.

Joe Biden is an example to illustrate Heywood Hale Broun’s definition of a liberal: “A man who leaves the room when the fight begins.” He was fortunate that Ryan chose to remain calm in the face of provocation. What really undergirds the delight over Biden’s rude tantrum and his bizarre affect is rage at the fact that Romney proved himself to be a mature man while his opponent revealed himself to be a child, a weak and immature person — in short, a wimp.

Ryan woulda kicked Joe’s ass — fucken-a! Also, the President’s a faggot. This is what happens to you when you’re nihilist, perverse and immature — the intellectuals over at American Thinker slap your balls around.

One of the remarkable aspects of the presidential campaign is that we have been able to see a candidate who represents the postmodern blurring of gender — a metrosexual man who is, in the current cant phrase, “in touch” with his feminine side. Who would have guessed we’d have a president who tosses a baseball like a girl?

You think George Patton threw like a girl? No sir, he threw like a man. Like an animal, man. George threw a baseball like a pissed off Tyrannosaurus. You couldn’t even catch it, you could only get dominated by it. It would fuck you silly and then rip your purse apart looking for cab fare. George’s baseball was something of a bastard.

Let us not underestimate the skill with which the president is able to represent his postmodern, androgynous, egalitarian vision. He goes on The View and schmoozes with Oprah, just like the gossipy woman next door. He prides himself on identifying with angry women and children. You would not be surprised to hear him share his deep feeling for what women go through physically . .

You would not be surprised to find him skipping out on homeroom to meet that hippie, Todd Meacham, under the bleachers. Or trading candy for kisses at the spirit rally. Or hiking up his skirt whenever the jocks walked by. How Becky Adalardo gets away with it we don’t know, but we ain’t complaining.

The last time I read the august opinions of Dilbert toon artist Scott Adams, I understood him to be a hectoring misogynist given to self-admiration. He was pretty much a twin of your local Lamborghini-renting B-movie producer any time over the last fifty years. Here was his advice to Us Men with regards to women:

You don’t argue with a four-year old about why he shouldn’t eat candy for dinner. You don’t punch a mentally handicapped guy even if he punches you first.

So he is a powerful but charitable sort. He once donned a sockpuppet to tell the internet he had a “certified genius I.Q., and that’s hard to hide.” He got caught, so he was right. Maybe he is a douche. But what a shame it would be not to know the personal particulars of the wide-ranging leviathan, Scott Adams.

Yesterday, Three Panel Godzilla himself wrote a sort of Rube Goldberg contraption. Then he posted it on the internet. It’s an ethical/political hypothetical so byzantine you’d likely get halfway through then call the Coast Guard to get you out. Buddha help you should you try to tackle Scott’s quandry without being blessed with, say, Bobby Fischer’s eyes.

Here it is below. But know this. My blog is a standard model, meaning you’ll be on your own. You won’t find a dictionary or GPS or fire extinguisher anywhere within your grasp. So good luck.

The next question is for supporters of President Obama. Let’s say your political views map closely to the President’s positions. He’s your guy. But suppose you found out he once killed an American citizen in the United States to help his reelection. And assume, as with the CEO example, that the facts of the killing are undisputed and the President found a legal means to avoid prosecution. In that hypothetical case, would you still vote for President Obama? Or would you say it is a firing offense for a President to kill a citizen to advance his career?

Put him in jail. Darn I jumped the gun, sshhh.

I predict that every one of you favored firing the hypothetical CEO for killing a guy to get ahead. My second prediction is that every Republican reader of this blog favored firing President Obama in the hypothetical and imaginary case of him murdering a citizen to get elected. My third prediction is that supporters of President Obama will quibble with the hypothetical example, or my comparison to the CEO, or say President Obama is still a better option than Romney. In other words, for most supporters of President Obama, I don’t think there is such a thing as a “firing offense.”

Prediction 1: You’re wrong. There are lunatics that think a guy like that, especially if he’s gotten away with homicide, is awesome. He gets the keys to Goldman Sachs, and they want a thousand shares. Prediction 2: You’re right. But that has nothing to do with the crime. They’d shoot the President if he so much as walked into town without the Secret Service. Prediction 3: You’re wrong. I can’t explain this one to you because you’re too damn intelligent.

For the record, President Obama did not technically kill anyone to get elected. That was just a hypothetical example. But he is putting an American citizen in jail for 10 years to life for operating medical marijuana dispensaries in California where it is legal under state law. And I assume the President – who has a well-documented history of extensive marijuana use in his youth – is clamping down on California dispensaries for political reasons, i.e. to get reelected. What other reason could there be?

Maybe he’s trying to fire up his base: abolitionists and World War II veterans. The President’s oath to protect the Constitution could be relevant as well. Anyway, Scott the fretted cartoon Zeus decides he must vote for Mitt Romney, as he is the answer. By all means: Let’s us first welcome Mitt to the White House. And let’s us then watch his DEA crank up the Fourth Amendment violations. I don’t know, really, would a Republican do that? Ramrod your doors to search for your stash? Scott is Einstein of the Funnies.

Some people are slobbering bigots. The dykes and fags you bastard people:

If we redefine marriage to include same-gender couples, we’re saying there is no important difference between the partnership of two men, and the union of one man and one woman. In other words, women are disposable. They can be excluded from marriage and replaced with men. This is gender discrimination. This eliminates femininity and motherhood from the basic family unit. This is anti-gender.

Yer raging ass pirate should get the hots for Barbara Bel Geddes, but will he? NO. The division. The hate. The literal fucking apartheid. Hey Peter! (huh?) Segregation is society’s rayon poncho. Get hip! Put your penis in the vagina for Elton’s sake! Yes back and forth back and forth you are getting the hang of it geez stop crying.

Gender segregation is analogous to racial segregation

Another benefit to calling it gender-segregated marriage is that it puts gay rights advocates on the defense. What liberal wants to be known as an activist for gender segregation?

What the! How’d you do that?

Next time they bring up Rosa Parks’ name, ask how much she’d like to get kicked off the bus not because she’s black but because she’s a woman. Think Rosa would prefer gender discrimination to racial discrimination?

I’ll sit here until I can fuck Truman Capote. Ammaaaziiiinnnggg grraaaaace…

ADD: Close your eyes. No, wait: imagine the face of the woman who wrote this.

Big surprise.

Roger Simon:

For over forty years now, the Watergate scandal — the June 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters and the subsequent cover-up by the Nixon administration — has been the sine qua non of American political malfeasance. It has been followed by myriad other “gates” affecting both parties but has never been superseded.

Until now. Benghazi or Benghazigate, as some call it, is worse. Far worse. Incomparably worse.

This idea is being passed around like a virus between the snotty kindergartners on the right. Mike Huckabee, Marsha Blackburn and Sean Hannity are all suggesting President Obama be impeached.

I’m having a hard time getting it. The argument escapes me. President Reagan can fail to protect 241 military personnel in Beirut, and shit happens. Got it. President Bush can fail to protect 3000 civilians on American soil, and that’s a tragedy. Check. But when President Obama fails to protect 4 people in Benghazi, he must be removed from office.

The high crimes and misdemeanors come from where?

. . the terrorist murder (not an electorally irrelevant burglary) of government officials, their reckless endangerment, the undermining of the Bill of Rights and free speech by our own administration in response to Islamist threats, and, ultimately, the complicity of that same administration, consciously or unconsciously, in the downfall of Western civilization.

I see no reason to graffiti a question mark over the facts. The President is conspiring with the Eastern hemisphere to take the Western one down. After that, you should know the end begins in Benghazi. With any luck.

This would not be George Will’s best column. No I don’t know of an example of his decency, column-wise. I’m just stating what must surely be fact. It’s really rotten. This is as two-faced as a WaPo editorial gets, and the sneer is poorly hidden.

As George is the grand purveyor of the perfumed pooh-pooh, perhaps it’s to be expected. He has a long history of picking up with thumb and forefinger whatever you tossed onto his plate, moderately speaking, and fairly vomiting. How this is appalling and shabby and insulting. He does not near his nose with trash. Though it fascinates him that you would be so enamored of this blackened banana peel your mongrel dog has been using for bathroom tissue. Is it true? Are you still fond of this Obama? Oh Dear.

Obama’s administration is in shambles, yet he is prospering politically. This may not, however, entirely be evidence of the irrationality of the electorate. Something more benign may be at work.

Now would be time to pull out the black ballplayer references. Let’s start with Frank and Jackie Robinson, shall we? UGH. No I didn’t see this coming. I didn’t think he had the nerve, frankly. Nobody should have this kind of nerve, excepting daytime art thieves. Frank Robinson was the first black manager hired by Major League Baseball, and he was also the first fired.

The fact that the Indians felt free to fire Robinson — who went on to have a distinguished career managing four other teams — showed that BLAH BLAH . .

Someone else around here is a first black person, I wonder who.

That Obama is African American may be important, but in a way quite unlike that darkly suggested by, for example, MSNBC’s excitable boys and girls who, with their (at most) one-track minds and exquisitely sensitive olfactory receptors, sniff racism in any criticism of their pin-up.

I don’t see anything sinister, honestly. I see George Will with his baseball-love can’t transcend the existence of American racism. Nor can he erase the four years of vicious bigotry hurled at this president. By wincing at its mention, he of course reminds us of its existence. This makes him not elitist in a way to be bigoted, only to be entirely dismissive. That’s why George is tempted to crush the ants of MSNBC. And to remind us of the excitable girls with one-track minds and sensitive snoots ogling Frank Robinson. Which is not to diminish Frank, and so Frank’s diminished. George can be angry with the people who call out racists in public life, but it only makes him a divining rod for racism. What a smartypants.

Instead, the nation, which is generally reluctant to declare a president a failure — thereby admitting that it made a mistake in choosing him — seems especially reluctant to give up on the first African American president. If so, the 2012 election speaks well of the nation’s heart, if not its head.

The More You Know. Cue glockenspiel.