Air Oblivious, Divorce, and Rabid Dogs

Sometimes when you're surfing through the blogosphere you come across a post that looks interesting enough to follow the links contained therein. And sometimes those links lead to other links and eventually to an entirely different story than the one discussed in the original post.

That happened to me this morning.

The gateway was Cap'n Ed's comment on the latest Radio Equalizer post on the Air Ameriscam scandal:

In the last few days, Air America staffers have felt they could divert attention away from the scandal, by playing up their supposed role in the Crawford/Cindy Sheehan ruckus.

Host Randi Rhodes, previously investigated for alleged Presidential threats made on her show, is said to be leading the charge. Rhodes has her own strategy: boost her personal standing with the company, through an offer to help deflect attention.

Minor consideration requested: one of the private jets owned by AAR executives.

It would be astonishing if Err Amerika didn't try to glom onto the "Sobstock," quite apart from their own ongoing woes. But the Cap'n couldn't help noticing something Marie Antoinettesque about Randi Rhodes' request:

Perhaps I missed something, but Air America and Piquant Media ha[ve] a debt of almost a million dollars that originated from misappropriated government grants intended to support poor kids and Alzheimer's patients in the Bronx. Piquant Media promised to pay the money back - but without interest and only over two years. They defied the Department of Investigation's recommendations and put their first payment in an escrow account they themselves control, which amounts to paying the money from one AAR account to another AAR account.

In the meantime, while Gloria Wise awaits the reimbursement due them, the radio netlet spends money on private corporate jets?

Those people really do have no clue, do they?

Noticing the link to Michelle Malkin's site, I discovered another, mildly related piece of news, and links to reactions to MM's link to it that left me shaking my head too much to scratch it:

The husband of Cindy Sheehan, the mother camped outside President Bush's Texas ranch to protest the death of a son in the Iraq war, has filed for divorce, according to court documents.

Patrick Sheehan filed the divorce petition Friday in Solano County court, northeast of San Francisco. His lawyer did not immediately return a call seeking comment Monday.

Michelle originally passed this on here.

Personally, I don't have a problem with her reporting that Cindy Sheehan's hubby is dumping her, seeing as how Cindy made such a point of declaring his solidarity behind her despicable cause. Nor do I object to her quoting the predictions of Angry in the Great White North as to the PR tack that Cindy and her rabid backers will take from here (and which sound spot-on to my magic eight-ball).

Conversely, I don't think I would have linked to a site that posted a copy of Patrick Sheehan's divorce petition (though I was gonna link to it out of habit, didncha?), which includes all manner of unrelated personal info, including asset detail of the marital estate.

MM's initial post drew the usual verbal violence from her left-wing crazoid critics - but also from an ostensibly sane, responsible site to which I have linked in the not-too-distant past:

[T]his kind of bile coming from Michelle Malkin is fucking out of line, and spare me the ‘like it or not, this is news’ crap. It is goddamned disgraceful. Knock it off, take down that post, and then apologize. Cindy Sheehan’s marital status, her relationship with her husband- none of that is your damned business. Even if you think it ‘proves’ a point. If it proves anything, it proves that losing a son in war fucks up families. Thanks for the deep insight.

No fucking shame. I don’t give a shit what even the nastiest folks on the left say about Malkin anymore. She brings this shit on herself, with vicious bullshit like this. No wonder she rushes to defend Karl Rove at every opportunity.

This is a good illustration of why a blogger should never post in the first leap of the red haze of anger (yes, yes, I know, "Physician, heal thyself."). There is no "bile" or "vicious bullshit" anywhere in her post; it is, "like it or not," a straight-forward reporting of a news item to which she provides the relevant connection, with an irrelevant postscript that should have been omitted. Had the respondent, John Cole, taken ten large breaths and maybe a long walk besides before putting fingers to keyboard, I'd wager his objection would have read not too differently from my own.

Unfortunately, he did not wait, and, quite apart from the gratuitous profanity, he sets himself up as MM's personal muzzle, gives carte blanche to the racist hatemongers of the Left to do their worst, and seems to almost lunge over to Cindy's side, so overpoweringly does his knee jerk.

I wouldn't go so far as to order Cole to take down his obscene tirade - that kind of empty chest-thumping just makes its practitioners look like really really small thugs - but I would say the only apology owed anybody in this exchange is his apology to Mrs. Malkin.

Failing that, I guess he can always try to bum a ride to Crawford from Randi Rhodes. All the better to get a few minutes with the soon to be former Mrs. Sheehan (who bears a striking resemblance to Prince Charles) and ask her whether it was the loss of their son or her own extremist agitating that "fucked up" their family.

"Enquiring" minds want to know....