Fresh Loaf

ERICK ERICKSON: Hitching his sled to Palin's snowmobile

Peach Pundit and Red State poobah Erick Erickson has caused an e-hubbub with a post on Red State titled Operation Leper.

In it, Erickson declares war on McCain campaign staffers who criticize McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin:

We intend to constantly remind the base about these people, monitor who they are working for, and, when 2012 rolls around, see which candidates hire them. Naturally then, you’ll see us go to war against those candidates.

It is our expressed intention to make these few people political lepers.

Since Tuesday’s loss to Obama, several McCain staffers have been doing their darnedest to toss Palin under the wheels of the Straight Talk Express.

The most damning revelation (assuming its true) came yesterday, when Fox reported that Palin thought Africa was a country.

The New Republic’s Christopher Orr suggests Erickson’s militant defense of Palin will drive conservatives away from the G.O.P.:

The tent grows smaller by the day.

Andrew Sullivan, a conservative critic of Palin and her wing of the Republican Party, mocks Erickson:

Let’s have a beer soon, Erick, shall we?

I know Erick and am, frankly, surprised by the carelessness of his attack.

If you turn wayward McCain staffers into lepers, Erick, you’re only gonna make them more popular with the party’s evangelical, WWJD-types.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Bryan Terry, Sr. filed suit in Fulton County Superior Court, demanding Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel investigate claims that Sen. Barack Obama was neither born in the U.S., nor is he U.S. citizen, therefore he is constitutionally ineligible to serve as President.

“Failing to officially and publically [sic] vet the status of the citizenship claims of Mr. Obama will cast a pall of doubt on the election process and taint the election results themselves.”

-Atlanta resident Bryan T. Terry, Sr., in a memorandum to Fulton County Superior Court.

“. . . there is no basis for this court to issue an injunction or a mandamus or other relief against the Secretary of State. Plaintiffs’ claims are, there, HEREBY DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE.”

-An October 24, 2008 order by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter in response to Terry’s claim.

“Way to waste your freaking time and my email storage space.”

-Conservative Georgia blogger Erick Erickson, in an October 27 post on Peach Pundit mocking Terry and others who are trying to get him to publicly support their claims.

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The Atlanta blogger who got in hot water this morning for taking money from politicians is accusing his accusers of doing much the same thing.

“This just another case of the pot calling the kettle black,” Georgia Politics Unfiltered’s Andre Walker said in an e-mail about Atlanta Progressive News.

APN reported early this morning that Walker received payments from U.S. Rep. David Scott’s campaign (apparently for designing a website) and also ran favorable coverage of Scott. Decaturguy blogged last year that Walker had set up a website for Vernon Jones and also covered Jones’ Senate campaign.

But Walker sent campaign disclosure reports to CL showing that APN received a total of $575 for ads from politicians whom the website endorsed: Angela Moore for Georgia secretary of state in 2006, Able Mable Thomas for the fifth congressional district this year, and Donzella James, who ran against Scott in the 13th congressional district this year. (more…)

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(Nutjob photo by Joeff Davis)

Macon City Council member, RedState.com editor and Peach Pundit Poobah Erick Erickson is collecting cyberscorn for comments he made at the recent CPAC conservative political convention.

Erickson suggested the success of progressive bloggers relative to their conservative counterparts is because progressives have more free time. Conservatives “have families because we don’t abort our kids, and we have jobs because we believe in capitalism,” he said.

Contributors at AtlantaIndignationCouncil.com Blog for Democracy followed DailyKos‘ lead and pounced on Erickson:

“He seriously thinks progressives don’t have families OR jobs?”

“Right wing nutjobs are icky.”

“People like him often need to be knocked off their high horses, but so often aren’t.”

I spoke to Erickson this afternoon and he confirmed something that should have been perfectly obvious to anyone who’s ever read Peach Pundit or spoken to him in person.

He was being sarcastic.

“I was joking,” he said. “I was laughing when I said it. Other people were laughing.”

The only person who didn’t realize he was joking, he said, was the person who posted the comments without noting it was a joke.

I wonder how many minutes will pass before the Indignation Council jumps on me for defending a “right wing nutjob.” My guess is 60-90. At most.

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Erick Erickson beats Chuck Norris.

Not in a martial arts death match, perhaps, but on the Telegraph newspaper’s list of the 100 most influential conservatives in the U.S.

The Red State and Peach Pundit blogger is 69 on the list.

Chuck Norris is 71.

Erickson’s outranking of Norris is especially impressive when you consider that, when Norris does a push-up, he isn’t lifting himself up. He’s pushing the Earth down.

Erickson was one of the featured bloggers in CL’s “Bright lights in the blogosphere” story in May.

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