Well, this is it — this is what panic looks like.

Chances are by now you’ve seen the video clip that Matt Drudge, Tucker Carlson and Sean “I Can Put You Into a Used Car Regardless of Your Credit History” Hannity breathlessly hyped all day yesterday. Let’s put it this way: If you didn’t see it at any point over the last maybe 18 hours you almost surely saw it four years ago when it first surfaced and was instantly turned into a flashpoint for a conservative movement utterly wetting its collective pants over the prospect of a multi-cultural black guy becoming President of the United States.

The reality is that the video behind this “bombshell” — this almost admirably epic nationwide troll — amounts to nothing at all. Not a damn thing. It’s a clip from 2007 which appears to prove that Barack Obama is, in fact, black. The original sin then, as far as the right is concerned, seems to be that Obama knows he’s black and actually has the temerity to occasionally behave in a way that others might discover that thing about him he’s required to keep a lid on by order of resentful white assholes everywhere.

It borders on tragic that four years into this man’s presidency — a presidency the right has sought over and over again to delegitimize in any and every way possible — this is all they’ve got, not an honest appraisal of his administration’s policies and what they have and haven’t done for the country but a desperate relitigating of the tired claim that Obama was never vetted properly, that he’s got something to hide, that Americans were duped back in 2008, that there are just too many questions surrounding his “otherness” for him to be where he is right now, much less to be allowed to remain there for another four years.

But really, who gives a crap about the tape itself? It’s so fucking embarrassing as a hyped news item that there’s no way that even a hack like Tucker Carlson can’t be smiling through his pain this morning. For years a segment of the conservative punditocracy — going all the way back to William F. Buckley’s bizarre screeds against the verbal cadence of Jesse Jackson — has sought to play the language police, basically pondering aloud why blacks and other minorities just can’t talk like regular people and accusing them of willfully and divisively pandering to their various communities and encouraging racial discord whenever they speak in a way that makes whites uncomfortable.

No, the tape itself is meaningless. It’s what it represents that’s worth talking about. Because what it represents is utter desperation. A political party and campaign in the gruesome throes of a death spiral. While I still believe that an incredibly strong performance by Romney at tonight’s debate can at least change the narrative, there’s simply no denying that right now the Republicans are losing — they can feel the White House slipping away and they know it. They also know just what an Obama victory means for the demands of the dwindling demographic they’ve unwisely decided to hang their future on. And so they’re having a full-on panic attack — insanely grasping for anything they can find that they might be able to hit the president with in the last month that could change the course of the race and the course of history. The thing is, they’re going to have to do much better than a pathetic attempt to rehash a four-year-old story that wasn’t really a very big controversy to begin with, one that failed to gain enough traction the first time around.

And believe me, they’re going to try. They’re willing to try anything, which means that it’s going to get even crazier and uglier as the clock ticks down to election day. This isn’t even the beginning of the madness.

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WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 15: Neil Munro of the Daily Caller interrupts U.S. President Barack Obama with questions as he delivered remarks about the Department of Homeland Security's recent announcement about deportation of illegal immigrants in the Rose Garden at the White House June 15, 2012 in Washington, DC. With the DREAM Act unable to gain traction in Congress, Obama announced that his administration would stop deporting some young people who came to U.S. as children of illegal immigrants. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

By Bob Cesca: Far-right conservatives have always been prone to spastic outbursts and confrontational behavior. Generally speaking, they play by the “shoot first, ask questions later” rule. It’s the nature of reactionaries.

They react from their gut, and so this character flaw manifests itself in a variety of ways. Unnecessary wars, racist remarks, “stand your ground” gun laws and, of course, the total unhinging of the American right that’s taken place since an African American liberal won the 2008 election. Since the proto-tea-party rallies outside of Sarah Palin campaign events during which white reactionaries shouted gibberish about Barack Obama’s religious affiliation, his birth certificate, his “terrorist pals,” and his apparent support for communism while also brandishing effigies and disgusting Curious George props, far-right conservatives have engaged in an ongoing competition to see just how over-the-top they can get with their screechings. Machine gun signs, witch doctor and Hitler themed posters and Southern Strategy dog whistles have followed throughout the president’s first term.

One of the most memorable incidents occurred during the President Obama’s healthcare reform address to a joint session of Congress when Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) shouted “you lie!” at the president and stunned the chamber with his obnoxious and disrespectful behavior. But of course he was only really pandering to the loud, unhinged tone of the tea party Republicans who had been shouting and flailing at the president for a couple of years by that time.

Ultimately, Joe Wilson’s outburst was lionized by anti-Obama conservatives.

So it’s no surprise that Daily Caller reporter Neil Munro upped the ante on Friday by interrupting the president’s prepared remarks about immigration — not with two words, but with an on-going rant. He just stood up and just started shouting at the president right in the middle of the speech. Daily Called editor-in-chief (a title far exceeding the man holding the position) Tucker Carlson commended Munro’s completely unprofessional and disrespectful display by saying, “We’re proud of Neil Munro.”

Munro defended himself by scolding the president for never taking questions after his remarks. So he decided to projectile vomit his unserious questions at the president right in the middle of the speech. I seriously believe this plan of attack makes Munro the official recipient of the Shittiest Correspondent Ever award. (While I’m here, I also want to know how the perpetually mendacious Daily Caller shoehorned itself into the White House press corp.)

Clearly it’s acceptable conservative behavior to shout things at the president during formal gatherings. Simply put, it’s because many conservatives don’t believe President Obama is a legitimate president even though he won the 2008 election with a 53 percent majority. But, you know, he’s black and not a real American so… illegitimate! Heckle away!

Conversely, you know what’s absolutely unacceptable to conservatives?

Saying “vagina” on the floor of the Michigan state house.

The day before Munro’s Tourette’s outburst, Rep. Lisa Brown ended her very persuasive floor speech in opposition to an utterly paleoconservative piece of anti-choice legislation which, among other things, bans all abortions after 20 weeks, including when the mother’s life is in danger, by saying, “I’m flattered that you are all so interested in my vagina, but No means No!”

Oh holy hell! Vagina!

For using the proper and correct medical term for a female sex organ in the context of a speech in opposition to laws that regulate a woman’s usage of that sex organ, the “small government, anti-regulation” Republicans, led by House Speaker Jase Bolger, punished Brown by barring her from speaking during additional debates over totally unrelated legislation.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

The word “vagina” = bad. Shouting crazy nonsense at the president (and all the rest of their tasteless, disrespectful, racist crapola) = good.

What does this tell us? The modern conservatives are batshit crazy. They’re out of their gourds. They’re the crew from Nurse Wratched’s psych ward on a good day. We’ve known this for a while, but it’s getting especially thick now. The real question is this: who is going to make this case to independent, moderate voters who are considering a vote for these mental patients in the Fall? Beginning right now, a serious case has to be made that the Republicans, currently under the spell of the far-right tea party faction, are unfit for office and can only be allowed to return when they’re prepared to engage on, at the very least, a rational level.

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In a press release about the study, University of Arkansas psychologist Dr. Scott Eidelman said, “People endorse conservative ideology more when they have to give a first or fast response.” According to The Huffington Post, part of the study involved quizzing various bar patrons about political topics, and, predictably, the higher the blood alcohol, the more conservative the response to the topic. In other words, impaired and uninhibited snap reactions were conservative. Less impaired and more restrained reactions were liberal.

The end result of conservatism?

I know what you’re thinking: we don’t need a psychological experiment to tell us this. Conservatives are reactionaries. Doy. But they’ll deny it up and down.

One of the most-often overheard maxims of a conservative thinker is “shoot first, ask questions later.” That applies to everything. It’s simply easier to eject a response from the gut than it is to consider all of the facts surrounding an issue or social attitude. A black kid wearing a hoodie is a criminal. A gay couple is a threat because they’re don’t look like a straight couple. All Muslims are terrorists. A study conducted by a university has a far-left liberal bias.

That last one is, of course, a conservative paradox: their snap reaction is to deny that conservatives give snap reactions to complex topics. Wrap your head around that one for a few minutes. If you were to present the results of this study at face value, conservatives would absolutely object and immediately dismiss the results. But if you were to ask them about the “shoot first, ask questions later” maxim you’d probably get an affirmative response.

Many conservatives are suspicious of well-educated people. They’re suspicious of measured thought and, as was the case with President Obama’s deliberations over Afghanistan several years ago, they consider it to be weak and effete. Meanwhile, conservatives would prefer that we indiscriminately destroy our enemies and convert them all to Christianity or whatever nonsense they blurt out.

Conservatives don’t particularly care about nuance and much prefer leaders who are instantly decisive irrespective of what the reaction might be — as long as there’s a reaction. Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran. Torture all evildoers. Cut taxes. Poor people are freeloaders.

A writer for Tucker Carlson’s The Daily Caller declared yesterday that his “white guilt” was at an end because his bike was stolen. “The odds were very high that a black person had taken my bike,” he wrote. And therefore he was done making an effort to overcome his racial biases. Low-effort kneejerk racist thinking.

Now, granted, sometimes the thoughtful response leaves us with no other choice but to lash out — to take the offensive with swift and powerful action. There’s a thoughtful way to condemn a violent action or to oppose political enemies. But conservatives haven’t quite figured out how to do that, because, naturally, that would require thoughtful effort.

And so the Republican Party, being dragged along by its tea party tail, is becoming increasingly all about snap positions — positions that fit onto a bumper sticker and, more importantly, sound ballsy, but which, upon careful examination, make no fucking sense at all. It takes zero effort to read a slogan printed on a bumper sticker, but it takes a little time to examine a chart or to read a position paper. Consequently, low-effort thinking is being reinforced and rewarded.

Over the weekend, President Obama said, “We are going to have a big and important debate in this country, and I cannot wait. This is going to be a big debate and it’s going to be a fun debate. It’s always good to have the truth on your side.” That’s fantastic, if all things were equal. But the Republicans have spent a considerable amount of effort obfuscating the truth with easy-to-read kneejerk ideas. While the president tells us (figuratively) that diet and exercise will help us live longer, the Republicans tell us to drink more shitty Brawndo because it’s got what plants crave.

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Tucker Carlson will now be the right-wing benefactor doling out money to keep Ginni Thomas’ pockets full.

Things like this amaze me that conservatism is a serious movement in America that has had power at some point.

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Conservative journalism strikes again, this time sneaking around for an attack on New Yorker write Jane Mayer, whose story on the Kochs funding of the right angered many cons.

For several weeks, the Daily Caller, a conservative Web site — co-founded by Tucker Carlson and Neil Patel, a former aide to former vice president Dick Cheney — have had a reporter poking around what they thought would be a scandalous story about Mayer.

The allegations were serious — that Mayer borrowed or plagiarized from a liberal blogger and other mainstream publications for an Aug. 30 smackdown in The New Yorker on the conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. In the end, even the Daily Caller found the allegations to be unfounded, and to its credit, abandoned the story.

Just the latest adventure for Tucker Carlson’s Toilet Paper Site.

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