"I believe an individual has the right to use force as a means of protecting themselves, their families, and their homes from aggressors."

So says Wisconsin recall candidate Kim Simac, as quoted in a Capital Times editorial titled "Unlike Simac, Holperin respects the whole Constitution." (Jim Holperin is the Democratic incumbent, representing the Northwoods, where a recall election will take place tomorrow.)

The quote is sound, and I'll bet a lot of people of the Northwoods love it, but the Cap Times is using it to leverage a whole theory that Simac only cares about the Second Amendment.

The pathetic Madison newspaper — does anyone in the Northwoods read it? — begins by joking that Simac is "apparently a graduate of the Sharron Angle School of Constitutional Scholarship" and reminds us that Angle — the Nevadan who tried to unseat Harry Reid in 2010 — once referred to using “Second Amendment solutions” to deal with the excesses of government.  Note, Simac didn't say "Second Amendment solutions." Her quote is about defending life and property from "aggressors," which would make most people think of criminals — attackers and home invaders. If "aggressors" makes you think of the government... you might want to think about joining the Tea Party yourself.

The Cap Times touts Holperin's "record of taking the whole Constitution seriously."

He has championed the right to speak, to assemble and to petition for the redress of grievances. 

Is there any evidence that Simac doesn't respect First Amendment rights? Of course, Holperin has a record: He's been the Northwoods senator for decades. But what has Simac ever done to deserve this smear?

He has worked to protect the right to privacy.

Now, that's a specific aspect of constitutional law that conservatives and liberals disagree on. But it has nothing to do with "the Sharron Angle School of Constitutional Scholarship" and whether one loves some clauses of the Constitution and ignores others. It has to do with how expansively one ought to interpret the Due Process Clause and whether one supports finding constitutional rights when there is no explicit constitutional text. That's a difficult area of constitutional law that is a perennial issue in American political debate. It has nothing to do with Sharron Angle, enthusiasm for gun rights, and the failure to respect the entire Constitution.

The Capital Times — I've said it before — is a rag. It should be ashamed of itself. As we say in Wisconsin: "Shame. Shame. Shame. Shame. Shame."

"Still waiting for any of the brilliant liberals to explain the difference between Leiter's 'philosophical musings' and Sharron Angle's discussion of Second Amendment remedies."

"My prediction: a circular argument which boils down to 'He's a philosopher, so anything he says is philosophical. We know he's a philosopher, because he says philosophical things. And she's not a philosopher, because we say so.' The art world uses this 'argument,' so why shouldn't the philosophers?"

Says Martin L. Shoemaker in the comments to that post about Brian Leiter. That much-gasped-at Sharron Angle quote crossed my mind as I was writing it.

"How many other demented people are out there? It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target."

"Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled—senseless hatred leading to murder, lunatic fringe anarchism, subscribed to by John Boehner, mainstream rebels with vengeance for all, even nine-year-old girls."

One of the survivors of the Tucson massacre, Eric Fuller, says that is what he wrote down after staying up "most of the night" in the hospital, trying to calm himself down and organize his thoughts, and writing out (from memory) the text of the Declaration of Independence.

ADDED: Patterico notes:

But you never hear them ask the obvious follow up question: do you still feel this way?  And if you look at the rest of the report, created today, it is obvious that these people are completely dishonest.  They have deliberately skewed every other piece of evidence to indict the right wing, leaving out every piece of evidence that might exonerate their targets.  Why should we think they presented this man’s entire statement?

Angle and Reid.

"Angle is winning the all-important independent voters by double digits, 55 percent to 38 percent, as Nevadans not aligned with either major political party swing her way as they settle on a choice."

I was in a fisking mood over the weekend.

I had to go after:

1. Robert Gibbs defending Obama's stance on Don't Ask Don't Tell.

2. Maureen Dowd attempting to portray Sharron Angle as a "mean girl."

3. Bill Maher trashing white men who love women like Sarah Palin.

4. Bill Maher portraying Christine O'Donnell as an irritating screwball.

5. Emily Bazelon tarring Christian fundamentalists with homophobia.

Maureen Dowd on the Sharron Angle/Harry Reid debate.

I smell a whiff of anti-feminism in this focus on laundry and food:

The senator began the debate with a gentle reminiscence about his mother, who took in wash from the brothels in scruffy Searchlight, Nev.

Angle could have told the poignant story of her German immigrant great-grandmother who died trying to save laundry hanging on the clothesline in a South Dakota prairie fire, which Angle wrote about in her self-published book, “Prairie Fire.” But instead the former teacher and assemblywoman began hurling cafeteria insults. “I live in a middle-class neighborhood in Reno, Nevada,” she said. “Senator Reid lives in the Ritz-Carlton in Washington, D.C.”

I thought "Prairie Fire" was William Ayers's "forgotten communist manifesto." Lefties are poetic — "A single spark can start a prairie fire" — but apparently Sharron Angle wrote a book about an actual prairie fire. Literal. Righties are so concrete. Dumb as a block.

But, so... Dowd's point is that Sharron Angle is a high-school "mean girl." Hey, I wonder if she read my October 8th piece answering Slate's question "Who gets to be a feminist?" I wrote:

So what am I supposed to care about here? You don't get any special rights or privileges for being a feminist, so what difference does it make? "Who gets to be a feminist?" Is it some high-school clique with mean girls deciding who gets in? Are there guardians at the entrance? The entrance of what? Nothing hinges on it. One woman says, "I am a feminist" and another says, "No, you're not." This is political polemic of a very dull sort.

I see the liberal women as having the exclusionary "mean girl" attitude, but Dowd is trying to pin that stereotype on Angle. How does Angle's failure —  in a political debate — to rhapsodize about an ancestor exclude anyone? I can see that Reid might wish things had stayed sweet and gentle, but how is a political debate a time for hugs? If women are to be in politics, we need to rise above the socialization toward niceness and not hurting anyone's feelings.

And how is it "hurling cafeteria insults" to question Reid about how he got so rich when he's spent nearly his whole career in politics? It certainly wasn't saying my neighborhood is better than yours — which might be mean-girlish. He lives in the Ritz-Carlton in Washington!

Dowd is hot to flip everything around. If you want to talk about mean girls, she's the mean girl! But look at how she portrays herself:

... I was getting jittery....

As the politicians droned on and my Irish skin turned toasty brown, I worried that Governor Brewer might make a citizen’s arrest and I would have to run for my life across the desert. She has, after all, declared open season on anyone with a suspicious skin tone in her state....

After the debate was over, Angle scurried away and so did I — in a different direction. I was feeling jittery again. If she saw me, she might take away my health insurance and spray-paint my locker.

Dowd is my age — nearly 60. Isn't there something really awful about presenting your emotional life in adolescent terms when you are that old? Especially when you're cozily situated on the op-ed page of the New York Times. Here's Dowd's description of Sharron Angle:

Even sober and smiling beneath her girlish bangs, the 61-year-old Angle had the slightly threatening air of the inebriated lady in a country club bar...

Now, click over to Dowd's column and see how she looks: sober and smiling beneath her girlish side-swept bangs, the 58-year-old Dowd has a slightly threatening air. Which is just fine! Don't get me wrong. A columnist should feel threatening. But she's not a timorous girl. Or maybe she is when she gets out in the world, out of her comfort zone. If so, that's not fine. And it's not Sharron Angle's flaw.

Asked to name a Supreme Court Justice he admires, Harry Reid says Antonin Scalia.

At the big debate tonight:

"He is a masterful, masterful mind. He does good things."

"Our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason, and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government."

"In fact, Thomas Jefferson said it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years. I hope that’s not where we’re going, but you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies."

What do you think of that statement by Sharron Angle?
	It's a solid, straightforward statement of traditional American values.
	It's an troubling statement that suggests the candidate is violent or unstable.
	It's political rhetoric that works on some people but is unwise because it will be used against her.
	It's clever bait that invites her opponents to flaunt their antagonism to guns.
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