In case the news doesn’t depress you enough, here are some tales guaranteed to take the curl out of your hair. I did pretty well: I’d heard of at least 20 of these, but they haven’t appeared anywhere enough in the mass media. And I’m quite sure Fox News hasn’t carried one of them.

And lives up to his/her handle each and every day:

When O’Reilly declared that “overwhelmingly, America is Christian. And the holiday is a federal holiday honoring the philosopher Jesus,” all the Rude Pundit could wonder is where the fuck’s Plato’s holiday? Or Kierkegaard’s? Or perhaps John Locke’s, considering his influence on, say, the actual creation of the country? And on Christmas, when people are heading to work at Wal-Mart and Denny’s and all the other places that stay open so that Bill O’Reilly can have a merry Christmas, we’ll all be thankful that even more overwhelmingly, in this America, cash, not Christ, is king. Is that insulting enough to O’Reilly’s “majority”?

A couple of posters reacted to my last entry chiding me for calling Bush voters stupid. (I don’t think I ever have, but I’ve certainly quoted from those who have.) I responded in the comments section, and then I went on my daily tour of newspapers. I came across this darling little editorial in the LA Times by Frank Pastore, Christian talk-radio host:

Christian Conservatives Must Not Compromise

Voters reject liberalism, an evil ideology.

Christians, in politics as in evangelism, are not against people or the world. But we are against false ideas that hold good people captive. On Tuesday, this nation rejected liberalism, primarily because liberalism has been taken captive by the left. Since 1968, the left has taken millions captive, and we must help those Democrats who truly want to be free to actually break free of this evil ideology.

In the weeks and months to come, we will hear the voices of well-meaning people beseeching the victor to compromise with the vanquished. This would be a mistake. Conservatives must not compromise with the left. Good people holding false ideas are won over only if we defeat what is false with the truth.

The left must be defeated in the realm of ideas, just as it was on Tuesday at the ballot box. The left hates the ballot box and loves its courtrooms, which is why it hopes to continue to advance its agenda through the courts. This must end.

The left bewitches with its potions and elixirs, served daily in its strongholds of academe, Hollywood and old media. It vomits upon the morals, values and traditions we hold sacred: God, family and country. As we learned Tuesday, it is clear the left holds the majority of Americans, the majority of us, in contempt.

Simply, a majority of Americans have rejected John Kerry and John Edwards and the left because they are wrong. They are wrong because there are not two Americas. We are one nation under a God they reject. We remain indivisible despite their attempts to divide Americans through their relentless warfare against class, ethnic and religious unity.

We still believe that liberty and justice is for all. In 1946, there were those on the left who believed the Germans and the Japanese were incapable of democracy and liberty. Today, many doubt democracy can be birthed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Like their forebears, they too will be proved wrong.

The nation has now resoundingly rejected the left and its agenda. We do not want to become European. We do not want to become socialist. We do not want to become secular. We are exceptional. We are unique. And we are the greatest force for good in the world, despite what the left, the terrorists or the United Nations may claim. It is for these reasons that we remain the last great hope in the world for freedom.

We continue to be that shining city set on a hill. And we fully accept the responsibility; we are proud to be the envy of the world.

Okay: conservatives get called stupid (though not in any editorials I’ve found, strangely), and liberals get called evil.

As soon as mainstream conservatives start repudiating this kind of bullshit, I’ll be a little more willing to talk.

Update: Jane Smiley calls conservatives ignorant in Slate. So there’s one.