Putting the wankersphere under a microscope.

It's not the Jack Abramoff-Deborah Howell-WaPo sleaziness that interests me so much as the contorted dishonesty of the Right to lie about it. Following a link from The Poor Man, I ended up here, where a sad but typical representation of the wankersphere is wetting themselves over ... well, you can read it for yourself.

Savour choice phrases in the comments section like "anus-breathed trolls" and "lying shitwads" from commenters who have no actual response to the story itself.

Against my better judgment, I added a couple comments there which most sentient readers can see ask a simple, direct and unambiguous question -- does anyone have evidence that Jack Abramoff explicitly and specifically directed any of his clients' funds to Democrats?

I'm curious as to whether any of those earlier commenters will take up the challenge of actually responding to the substance of someone's position, and answer my question just the way I asked it.

Call it an experiment. I'm prepared to be pleasantly surprised but, as they say, I'm not holding my breath.

THE FALLOUT: Well, that was pretty much a waste of time. If you have a strong stomach, wander over there and see how frantically the majority of commenters absolutely refuse to answer a couple specific questions. Apparently, being a wanker means never having to admit you were wrong.

No, wait ... let me rephrase that. Being a wanker means that any admission of being wrong always begins with, "Well ... OK, technically, you were right, but ..."

THE AMUSING IRRELEVANCE OF IT ALL: If you want to scroll to near the bottom of the comments section of that article, you'll find one Mr. "JackStraw" who demonstrates exactly what's wrong with the Right when it comes to trying to have an intellectual conversation, when he writes:

The distinction you are trying to make, one the left is all in outrage about, has nothing to do with that issue and you know it. The quote in ace's original post said as much. Howell said she should have phrased her statement better.

That's how it works in Wankerville. You're never technically wrong, you should have just "phrased it better" ("better" meaning truthfully or accurately, apparently).

It's like Saddam and WMDs. I mean, technically, Saddam didn't actually have any WMDs, per se, as it were. But he really, really, really wanted some, so I guess you could have just phrased it better. Yeah, that would have helped.