Tim Blair

How is 17 better than 19?

My mistake. Will be fixed.

I think Steyn is right, Dean will have a strong second place showing. The question is whether Clark (who won in Dixvile Notch) will be third or whether it will be Edwards.

Dean has Al Franken who will tackle any opposition.

Wow. Didn't know NH had hamlets. I'm familiar with Dixville, not with Hart's. Surprised they are called hamlets.

Learn something new every day.

I predict: Kerry - Edwards - Dean. Don't know the percentages.

I predict an assault and battery charge against Frankin.

I'm sure if Bruce Willis or some other likely Republican celebrity had bodyslammed an Howard Dean supporter, Indymedia would have a meltdown.

So THAT'S how I can go ahead and kick Franken's ass! I'll just go to a speech that he's attending, start shouting the speaker, and when he tries his Karate Kid Crane Crap (how's that for alliteration!), I'll be waiting...

BTW, how much of a wuss do you have to be to get tackled by Stewart Smalley...

Franken sounds proud of his fascist move. Mr. Toughguy tackled the protester from behind. What a jerk. He is about to get badly lampooned on-line.

I dunno Mahatma.

Choking on my words here, but I'm very close to offering kudos to Al Franken.

These LaRouche people are stone nuts, and are perfectly content to shut out free speech, and completely step on people with their gibberish. No sympathy here.

LL's are on street corners all over DC spouting their nonsense. No one stops them. They seem not content with that, so they have to interrupt and interfer with others doing same. I'd be happy to offer the same body slam were I in Franken's place.

'Course, I might do the same to Franken at some appropriate point. ;-)

I'm torn. I mean, it *was* a Larouche supporter he tackled, after all. A bus stop or farmer's market somewhere will now be free from evil pamphlets while this fellow recuperates.

Dave Barry's latest:

NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY PREDICTION: I predict that, once again, I will finish within two percentage points of Dennis Kucinich and the Rev. Al Sharpton

Leukemia is cancer.

Rabidfox,

With all due respect, no way on the Franken assault charge. Your average LaRouchite has more self respect than that. It would be like Liza Minelli's husband admitting she whopped his ass. Pathetic.

I'm sure you'll want to read my predictions for the New Hampshire primary based on my previous success with Iowa where I managed to spell the candidates names correctly.

" Franken said he's not backing Dean but merely wanted to protect the right of people to speak freely." Tackling a protester is protecting free speech! Freedom is slavery! War is peace! There's something very Orwellian about Bush critics. (Insert highly inappropriate Nazi comparison here.)

How about an Al Franken/Howard Dean cage match? DNC Smackdown! 2 liberals go in, 1 comes out.

It seems to me that if Mr. Franken attended a rally for George W, Bush, he'd be the guy doing the shouting, and then as he was being escorted out, he'd be screaming about HIS free speech rights being violated.

Regarding Andrew X's earlier comment regarding the nuttiness of LaRouche supporters - Andrew Cline (of NR) had this to say (in the context of a story on Kucinich supporters:

"In case you think these people sound a little, well, nuts, consider that not far off were the Lyndon LaRouche supporters. One of them handed me a booklet with a picture of Dick Cheney on the cover. "You know who that is on the cover?" asked her friend, poking her head out of the back window of a rented black GMC Yukon. "It's Lucifer." She wasn't kidding."

Could anybody give me a quick primer on what brand of craziness these guys are? Is it your 'guns and god' type, the 'government is after me in black helicopters' strain, or something else again? Cheers

>Could anybody give me a quick primer on what brand of craziness these guys are? Is it your 'guns and god' type, the 'government is after me in black helicopters' strain, or something else again? Cheers

It is really hard to say. LaRouche is usually considered a fascist, but his politics combine the typical conspiracy wackiness of the far right with the political and economic beliefs of the far left (he once was more clearly a communist).

He believes that Queen Elizabeth is a drug dealer and that the Bush family is her US affiliate.

I used to live in Arlington, VA (from 1994-2000) not far from his home. Every now and then LaRouchites would show up and cover our cars with flyers proclaiming the latest conspiracy.

Before that, I interned for my Assemblyman in New York. We would get periodic mailings from LaRouche. My assemblyman thought it funny (although I found LaRouche dangerous) and when my internship was over, gave me a book LaRouche send to us (it probably still is at my parent's home).

His political "movement" is more of a cult. He got into trouble about 10 years ago for defrauding old people. He always seems to have enough money for his campaigns.

Paul, it is something else again. I don't know much about LaRouche, but one of his main ideas is that the British monarchy rules the world in an Illuminati-esque/Stonecuttery fashion. And the monarchy is involved in a lot of drug deals. Or something, don't ask me to explain it.

Andrew X. wrote:
Choking on my words here, but I'm very close to offering kudos to Al Franken.

These LaRouche people are stone nuts, and are perfectly content to shut out free speech, and completely step on people with their gibberish. No sympathy here.

I reply:
Certainly.

And Franken has gathered most of his micro-celebrity by denouncing Rush Limbaugh as a mean-spirited wanker addicted to personal smears in a book wittily titled 'Rush Limbaugh is A Big Fat Idiot'. He accuses right-wing pundits of being retarded pathological liars in another book that makes Ann Coulter (who I cordially loathe) look like the poster girl for rhetorical restraint and careful copy editing. Oh, and Bush is a pathological liar who would wipe his arse with the Bill of Rights if he was smart enough to find it.

With a track record like that, I don't think you need a medium to predict his reaction if Bo Derek walked up to a ranting Dean-iac at a Bush rally, committed common assault and acted as if she was a shoe-in for a lifetime membership in the ACLU.

About as pathetic as the micro celebs who go on CNN, or take out full-page ads in the NYTimes, to bitch about how their dissent is being "crushed by kkkorporate media" while other people expressing their views to the contrary is the dawn of the Fourth Reich.

It is really hard to say. LaRouche is usually considered a fascist, but his politics combine the typical conspiracy wackiness of the far right with the political and economic beliefs of the far left (he once was more clearly a communist).

He believes that Queen Elizabeth is a drug dealer and that the Bush family is her US affiliate.

That about covers it, yeah. I'm seconding the "Larouchies are nuttier than the average squirrel" sentiment.

"With a track record like that, I don't think you need a medium to predict his reaction if Bo Derek walked up to a ranting Dean-iac at a Bush rally, committed common assault and acted as if she was a shoe-in for a lifetime membership in the ACLU."

That would be hot.

Thanks for the info. It sounds like a bad prequel to 'The Da Vinci Code' or similar. Still, if i had a choice to buy my smack off Jimmy 'shakes' Wilson who lives in the council flats up the road, or Her Majesty, the Queen of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland and Australia Elizabeth II, i would be grabbing the dime bags from Lizzie everytime.
Does Bush have some sort of franchise arrangement, or is it more of a independent contractor arrangement?

Craig,

I might be wrong but I think in the book, "Rush Limbaugh is...", Franken admits to shouting down someone (Vice President Spiro Agnew?) as a Minneapolis high school student attending a speech at the University of Minnesota in the 1960's.

What's the Left's favorite word? Oh yeah: Hypocrite.

By the way, The LaRouchies humiliated the Democratic Party in Illinois in the 1980's by actually landing two Democratic nominations on a statewide ballot. Even the Dem bigwigs encouraged folks to hold their noses and vote Republican or third party. It was pretty funny.

I'm sure if Bruce Willis or some other likely Republican celebrity had bodyslammed an Howard Dean supporter, Indymedia would have a meltdown.

If Mike Moore is ever bodyslammed, we will have earthquakes here in Melbourne