Conservatives: You Can Break the Law If It Accomplishes Our Goals (Part 1):
Last night, the Rude Pundit tuned into Fox "news" host Bill O'Reilly's nightly round of self-fellatio, The O'Reilly Factor, and there was Representative Barney Frank, talking to O'Reilly about the banning of federal funding for ACORN programs. (ACORN, as you know, is the vilest, most evilest organization on the face of the earth ever to register voters, deadlier than al-Qaeda and more pimpalicious than Lil Wayne.) They got around to discussing the merry pimp and prostitute-disguised pranksters who secretly filmed and audiotaped ACORN employees. Seems that by doing so in Baltimore without consent or warrant, they violated state law. Frank, who supported halting ACORN funding, also supported an investigation into the other broken laws, even if he passed on commenting ACORN's civil suit against the filmmakers. O'Reilly, as is the way of a man concentrating on sucking his own dick, wouldn't let Frank make his point, and he constantly interrupted Frank to try to get the congressman to call the conservative activists "heroes" or some such shit.

Like O'Reilly, other conservatives have said that whatever "crime" might have been committed, it's nothing compared to what the tapes revealed (although it's unclear that any actual crime was being committed by ACORN's employees). This isn't about ACORN, though, which has more to do with how an organization might have lost its way. It's about how "conservative" used to stand for, you know, "conservative," which one might think means "people who break laws ought to answer for that." But apparently, it now stands for "the ends justify the means."

Take another example: the alleged "scandal" over whether or not Obama administration officials are using the National Endowment of the Arts to get artists to create things that promote the goals of the White House. (Read the transcript - only conspiracy-minded nutzoids and Obama haters could see it as anything but using art for public engagement, not for a specific point of view.) Problem is, again, that the jerk-off doing the recording of the conference call never got anyone's consent to do so, and that included a number of private individuals. See, that violates laws in several states involved in the call. Again, conservatives don't give a fuck that laws may have been broken. That's merely the disposable peel for the sweet pulp underneath that they can devour.

The problem, as Frank repeatedly tried to tell a condescendingly smirking O'Reilly, is that, whatever you think about the results of the law-breaking, laws were broken. And some may admire the man who kills the neighbor who molested the man's kids, the dude's still a murderer. You either enforce the laws of the land, change them, or just say, "Fuck it," and let's go back to street justice.

Let's remember that when civil rights protesters violated the law, they expected to be arrested and jailed. Their goal, though, was to end unfair laws. That ain't the case here. For O'Reilly, it's pick and choose. One imagines that if Andrea Mackris had released recordings of her boss's falafel-sporting harassment, he'd've countersued her "big boobs" off. But apparently, for many on the right, laws on things like privacy exist merely as impediments, a wall of bullshit, when they have an agenda to accomplish.

Tomorrow: Yes, this is also about CIA interrogators.