'Bye, all. I'll be back when you stop letting jerks push your buttons.

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Wednesday June 17, 2009 · 6:05 PM PDT

2009/06/17 · 18:05

I've stuck through the Pie Wars, the Kos-is-a-sexist-pig Wars, the MSOC Wars, and even the 2008 Primary Wars (though I did stay away for a few months until people on all sides got their brains back).

But I think I may have hit my limit today. Seeing Kos fall for the button-pushing garbage of a known crapmeister -- and dragging other folks with him -- may have been too much.

Nothing more to say, not until people start thinking and stop screaming.

[UPDATE: Came back to edit this to make it a little more clear what's bugging me. More below.]

Aravosis' whole framing of the DoJ's response to the Smelt brief is, to put it mildly, questionable. Even Alex Blaze, who has criticized the brief even as he acknowledges DoJ's legal duty to file it, has stated this. Yet Markos and so many other people have fallen for this framing.

Now Aravosis has gone and provided a fresh turd dropping: He claims that the rights Obama granted today already existed:

I just asked OPM Director John Berry, on a White House media conference call, whether in fact federal agencies already have the right to give these benefits to gay employees. The answer, "yes." So what's new about tonight? Obama is going to "tell" the agencies to give the benefits - as if any agency in the Obama administration would dare tell a gay employee no to a request for time off to attend their partner's funeral?

But as Alex Blaze, who was also on that call, shows, Aravosis had to twist John Berry's words pretty mightily around to get that particular frame:

Third, John Aravosis asked him what's actually changing with these guidelines. Federal employment is already supposed to be based on merit, not on factors unrelated to job performance. Aravosis mentioned a woman who worked for the federal government who got leave to take care of her same-sex partner.

Berry responded that previously such benefits to gay employees was "subject to whim of the supervisor." They were optional, and now they'll be mandatory.

So in Aravosis-speak, optional and mandatory are apparently the same thing!

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