This isn't a Godwin violation. It's just stupid. Add it to Patrick Ruffini's criticisms of Barack Obama's event posters being written in the language of the nation in which they appeared and you're dealing with some genuinely astonishing concentrations of obtuseness; the sort of natural reserves that could wean us off of fossil fuels, or reshape the debate around evolution. Earlier today, I was IM'ing with an embarrassed right-leaning friend his personal pain "watching the right lose an IQ point a day." We tried to figure out what the correct descriptor for this sort of thing should be. Brick Tamland Conservatism, we decided. It works better than you'd think. Recall Tamland's first appearance in Anchorman, where he says, "people seem to like me because I am polite, and rarely late." That's surprisingly similar to recent arguments coming from the right, which amount to, "we are not so popular that it makes others uncomfortable, and you have seen us many times in the past." Vote McCain!
