My Wednesday column begins like so:
The other day, an elected member of the U.S Congress, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) was discussing the anti-choice bill that careened through the lower chamber and said this: “Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful… They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?”
Yes, Congressman Burgess said male fetuses masturbate. The only thing more bizarre than actually saying this in public is the fact that he looked at a blurry, pixelated sonogram, observed a fetus doing something with its arm and then took the super-colossal leap to the conclusion that the fetus was masturbating. Put another way, someone who connects fetuses and masturbation so easily has, you know, issues. Perhaps the authorities should check his crawlspace for a filthy clown suit.
Now, to my knowledge there really isn’t a liberal equivalent to what Burgess said, at least coming from a Democratic member of Congress. But what’s become glaringly obvious over the last couple of weeks is that a popular, highly visible faction of the far-left has grown increasingly divorced from reality and reason. Not Burgess crazy, but disturbingly unhinged, kneejerk and highly susceptible to groupthink. And this schism has been exacerbated by the NSA story, leaving two very distinct left-wing factions. On one side, pragmatic liberals with a skeptical eye on these events, and a well-known clique of utopians who refuse to acknowledge the realities of politics.
There’s a tea party emerging on the left, slowly and without the actual tea party’s major party support, but a lefty tea party nonetheless. It’s already underway — minus the tea bags. (Instead of tea bags, the left has long acronyms and puppet-effigies.) [READ ON]