Those dangerous super soakers and wingnut propagandist.

I know that folks think that I go out and look for stuff to use in order to pick on my wingnut friends, but I really don't. Sometimes this stuff just comes to me. All I have to do is pick up the paper and read.

"In the politically-charged and likely protest-filled streets of Tampa, Fla., during the Republican National Convention in August, water guns will be strictly prohibited. Concealed handguns, on the other hand, will be perfectly legal.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott said this week that banning handguns from downtown Tampa during the convention, as the city's Mayor Bob Buckhorn requested, "would surely violate the Second Amendment."

"It is unclear how disarming law-abiding citizens would better protect them from the dangers and threats posed by those who would flout the law," Scott said in a letter to Buckhorn Tuesday, emphasizing the words "law-abiding." "It is at just such times that the constitutional right of self defense is most precious and must be protected from government overreach."

Buckhorn said today that he was "disappointed" by Scott's decision, but that the city will "plan and train accordingly."

Tampa officials are expecting thousands of protesters to descend on the Florida metropolis for the GOP convention. While no handguns will be allowed inside the convention, which is being protected by the Secret Service, concealed carry license-holders will be able to carry their weapons in the streets surrounding the convention.

They will not, however, be able to have "super soaker" water guns, sticks, poles, portable shields or glass bottles.

Buckhorn said last month that the state law, which prohibits the city from temporarily banning handguns, makes the city "look silly" because officials can prohibit water guns but not real ones.." [Source]

I guess that to my wingnuts friends, a little water can be a dangerous thing.

Finally, you can thank a wingnut blogger named Matt Drudge for the non- stories you will be hearing about O over the next few months leading up to the 2012 elections. (Dude looks like he should be registered as a sex offender. Don't sue me Matt. You will lose.) In case you were wondering, Mr. Drudge is a hack for the Romney campaign and he feeds FOX NEWS and the rest of the GOP their talking points every day. The sad thing is that Mr. Drudge has a knack for making a mountain out of a molehill. And, in some cases, creating the illusion of a mountain where there really is none.

This latest story is a perfect example:

"Above is a screen-shot of DrudgeReport.com earlier today, *see insert* linking to a story about President Obama’s past. Pretty exciting stuff: “Obama Admits Fabricating Girlfriend in Memoir.”

Those who jumped on that link reached a Politico story with this headline: “Obama: ‘New York girlfriend’ was composite.” That piece was a work of aggregation, based on the new Vanity Fair book excerpt of David Maraniss’s “Barack Obama: The Story.”

The excerpt plumbs Obama’s romance with Genevieve Cook, a woman he’d met at a party in 1983. Maraniss goes deep into the relationship, with some able assistance from Cook’s journal entries. One of them reads:

Today, for the first time, Barack sat on the edge of the bed — dressed — blue jeans and luscious ladies on his chest [a comfy T-shirt depicting buxom women], the end of the front section of the Sunday Times in his hand, looking out the window, and the quality of light reflected from his eyes, windows of the soul, heart, and mind, was so clear, so unmasked, his eyes narrower than he usually holds them looking out the window, usually too aware of me.

Though Obama references this relationship in his memoir “Dreams From My Father,” he doesn’t name Cook. Maraniss addresses this omission in the Vanity Fair excerpt:

Decades later, during an interview in the Oval Office, Obama acknowledged that, while Genevieve was his New York girlfriend, the description in his memoir was a “compression” of girlfriends, including one who followed Genevieve when he lived in Chicago.

Politico hopped on the matter, with media reporter Dylan Byers writing, in part: “But Obama has now told biographer David Maraniss that the ‘New York girlfriend’ was actually a composite character, based off of multiple girlfriends he had both in New York City and in Chicago.”

Keep reading.

"Okay, but way back Obama told the whole world that characters in that book were composites. From the introduction to “Dreams From My Father”: “For the sake of compression, some of the characters that appear are composites of people I’ve known, and some events appear out of precise chronology. With the exception of my family and a handful of public figures, the names of most characters have been changed for the sake of privacy.”

In other words, there’s nothing at all surprising about this composite thing.
Byers defends the value of his post: “The news that the ‘New York girlfriend’ is a composite character is new. Though Obama acknowledges the use of composite characters in his introduction, he does not specify which characters he is referring to. It thus seemed like a relevant item.” An update and correction to the post clarify that it initially overplayed the story by leaving out a critical detail:

UPDATE: In the reissue of “Dreams from My Father,” Obama writes in the introduction that “some of the characters that appear are composites of people I’ve known.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this blog post stated that Obama had acknowledged using composite characters in the reissue. In fact, Obama acknowledged the use of composite characters in the first edition of the book...

Obama’s shortcut of constructing composites was a lame and lazy way to put together a memoir. But if you signal to the reader that it’s the route you’re taking, it’s no lie. If recent history is any guide, however, we’ll be hearing the echo from this Politico-to-Drudge handoff for years to come." [Source]

You forgot one Mr. Wemple: "Politico-to- Drudge"-to Fox News.

Now that's more like it.