The Strawman Archetype
By Oh, sure, it’s been done on American blogs too. But “decent” uber-wanker Nick Cohen gives us the full Republican-ressentiment script. Claim: “On the other, liberal journalists turned [Palin’s] family into an object of sexual disgust: inbred rednecks who had stumbled out of Deliverance.” Omitted: a single name or concrete example. Presumed reason: some Guy With a Sign and/or Random Blog Commenter Somewhere aside the charge is invented.
We’ll be seeing plenty more of that. Republicans are very good at creating such scripts from thin air, and they have a lot of useful idiots to work with.