Inside Blogotics

That’s better

In this space last week, we noted the vulgarity-laden grave-dancing at the Daily Kos upon the death of former Sen. Jesse Helms.

So a tip of the hat to two of the most popular liberal sites for their actions in Saturday’s death of Tony Snow, a former White House press secretary and editorial page editor for The Washington Times.

John Cole at Balloon Juice wrote, “Fifty-three is just way too damned young, especially for a man with a family. Terrible. And, I should note, despite what you thought of Snow, he was the only competent Press Secretary of this administration.” He also warned his commenters in his initial post, “You know the drill, if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”

Mr. Cole then stood by that order, harshly rebuking the couple of posters who violated it among the 170 who had commented by Sunday evening.

Meanwhile, the Huffington Post put up a wire-service obituary and a piece that basically repeated without comment President Bush’s statement and two video clips, from CNN and even the evil Fox News Channel.

The obituary had its comments closed after six hours and 78 comments, nearly all of which were condolences to the Snow family or words to the effect of “I didn’t agree with him, but that doesn’t matter on this day.”

Not one lap

What else might Sen. Barack Obama secretly and bitterly cling to?

Tom Bowles of the Sports Illustrated Web site reported last week that “for the first time in history, a major presidential candidate may sponsor a race car in NASCAR’s premier series. According to sources, Barack Obama’s campaign is in talks to become the primary sponsor of BAM Racing’s No. 49 Sprint Cup car for the Pocono race on August 3.”

Conservative blogs quickly started laughing at this as a ridiculous and transparent effort to make up for his remarks about working-class and small-town white voters being bitter and clinging in desperation to guns, religion and nativism.

Sister Toldjah remembered that a few months back, Mr. Obama couldn’t name a favorite NASCAR driver. “He said in a March interview with the Charlotte Observer - when asked who his favorite driver was - that he hadn’t been able to catch that many races this year. Uh huh,” she wrote.

Michelle Malkin gave Mr. Obama a warning. “Watch out for those NASCAR cooties!” she wrote, referring to a story broken by The Washington Times about House staffers being required to get shots for travel to stock-car races in Alabama and North Carolina.

One NASCAR fan predicted the reaction to an Obama car, telling The Times: “He stands against everything NASCAR stands for … They will put him in the wall on the first turn.”

Mr. Bush, tear …

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