Right-wing nutjob rhetoric: What doesn't even get noticed any more

Via Atrios, a post on David Neiwert's indispensible blog Oricinus, pointing in turn to a transcript noted by No More Mr. Nice Blog:

Hillary wants to be on the VP ticket so that she dispels the notion that the Clintons are sabotaging the campaign and so that she can also go out there and really be the star. She'd be the star because she'll be the one bringing excitement to it. And, by the way, she'll get all kinds of criticism and the Republicans will launch all they've got at her, and she'll endure that. They know that they're pretty confident Kerry is going to lose and if Kerry wins there's always Fort Marcy Park. So they're rolling the dice on this.

Fort Marcy Park is, of course, where Vince Foster was found after he killed himself. Er, sorry, "killed himself", in the lunatic world of the right wing.

Of course, statements this outrageous and completely out-of-right-field must come from some fringe nutter with an audience of, like, five people on the web, right?

Well, no. But you knew that.

These people are dangerous.

A concrete example of why I post poll results

A week or so back, dhole mildly took me to task for treating a political opinion poll as if it were actually part of the electoral process as opposed to entrail-reading pointing obliquely towards an eventual outcome. I responded, as I have a couple of times, that I think that it's vitally important to remind people that, despite the tone of coverage, Bush's election in 2004 is far from certain.

Today I actually saw a concrete example of this.

From the Daily Kos:

If the latest SUSA poll is to be believed, Arkansas is very much in play.

SurveyUSA (PDF). 4/14-15. MoE 4.2%. No trend lines.

Bush 47
Kerry 45
Other 5

The internals show Bush with harder support. He leads 49-44 amongst those "certain" to vote. But amongst those that are "probable", Kerry wins 48-38.

Emphasis added. Probable voters are more likely to turn out if they think their candidate can win. So it's important to keep reminding people that Kerry can win, because the more that people believe he can win, the more likely he is to win.