Drawl out your fatwah, cracker!

This week, the liberal buzz machine worked as effectively as the right-wing libel machine.

A couple days ago, Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Venezuela President Hugo Chavez. Media Matters picked up on the story when a site visitor e-mailed a report. Raw Story (seriously, required reading -- it cross-pollinates Daily Kos and The Drudge Report) linked to the Media Matters summary. I saw it and shrugged. I have outrage fatigue. If, during an evening of channelsurfing, I came across a Fox show that featured Dick Cheney and Ted Nugent raping transgender Venezuelan peasants, I would sigh wearily, open a Peach Snapple, and stare out my window at the bar across the street. My pulse would stay the same.

Thankfully, other people are still able to muster some indignation. As of this afternoon, a story that 48 hours ago was the exclusive province of liberal blogs featured prominently on the web pages for both CNN and The New York Times. It was the lead story on CNN's homepage since early this afternoon. The Times headline reads, "Robertson Is Pilloried For Assassination Call."

As Montell Jordan once said: This is how we do it. Media Matters is hit-and-miss in its critiques, but always a great resource. Without it, I don't think this story would be afloat. And by "this story," I mean that a major political-religious figure has called a fatwah on the elected leader of a sovereign nation.

If a major Islamic religious leader uttered such a statement about the head of state of a Western power, Scott McClellan would rightfully denounce the fucker as a t-word. (I will not use the t-word because it has lost meaning, except as a synonym for meanie.) Pat Robertson, a major political ally of the president, made an utterance typically associated with a t-word.

Besides being monkeyfuck insane and morally reprehensible, it's bad politics.

Now, because of a progressive buzz machine, an already-neutered president will have to choose between alienating his base and speaking critically of Robertson, or looking like a hypocrite before the world on his trademark issue. Any thoughts on what he'll choose?

*Photo ganked from Media Matters.