Russ Smith, Internet Genius

This headline bids fair for a place as Rule 6:

Robert Stacy McCain is very concerned about Andrew Sullivan's circumcised [noun]

Brilliantly combining Rules 2, 4 and 5, with a bit of homophobia thrown in for good measure. NTTAWWT.

Here I labor diligently to ensure that I get more "Established Men" ads in the rotation and -- by turning Rule 2 against me -- the evil mastermind of Splice Today obligates me to use the name "Andrew Sullivan," which automatically triggers the "meet gay singles" ad rotation. (I've reverse-engineered the algorithm.) Heaven knows what the algorithm will produce if I throw in Conor Friedersdorf, but I must consider the trade-off between traffic and click-through.

At any rate, there is nothing on earth that concerns me less than Sully's [noun]. Yet ever since Hannah Rosin brought it up, it seems to be all anyone wants to talk about.

Can we talk about Christina Hendricks, maybe? We now return you to your regularly scheduled VodkaPundit.

Finally, I decided to write aboutsomething other than my penis . . .

While I hate to disappoint my loyal readers, who enjoy nothing so much as a TMI discussion of the Speedo Monster, the Alabama Hammer, otherwise known affectionately as "Ralph," there comes a point at which this subject begins to bore even me.

However, if my fellow bloggers and journalists don't stop yakking about their packages -- this means you, too, David Harsanyi! -- it will be time to pass the torch to a new generation, as they say, and I'll allow my teenage son to start guest-blogging on the topic, "Some Traits Are Hereditary (Including Arrogance)." Don't say you haven't been warned.

Meanwhile, we move on, to discuss a subject of endless fascination, why July 19, 1969 was the defining moment in the career of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Chappaquiddick).

Read the whole thing, because you wouldn't want to read more about something else, would you?

UPDATE: It's as if Little Miss Atilla were daring me to whip it out. And, quite frankly, I'm beginning to wonder if Cynthia Yockey hates the penis as much as a lesbian should. A reminder, ladies, I do have a digital camera. IYKWIMAITYD.

UPDATE II: Continuing to distract from the tragic finale of tragic finale of OediPOTUS Wrecks -- Smitty's magnum opus of Hope-us -- now some damned Wisconsonian jumps into the foreskin forensics, as does Fisherville Mike. And trust me, there is nothing on earth about which I want to think less than Ed Morrissey's equipment. Still, you've got to love Ed's oblique shot at Sully:

Let me try to explain this in small words for people who like to give “awards” for hysteria but still demand to see Sarah Palin’s gynecological records. . . .

Brilliant, Ed. Not as brilliant as OediPOTUS Wrecks, but nonetheless brilliant.

David Harsanyi, cut that out!

Despite my efforts to end The World's Most Idiotic Debate, I hesitate to accuse my fellow foreskinless journalist David Harsanyi of overcompensating by contributing 610 words:

Growing up in the Jewish faith, I witnessed my fair share of 7-day-olds taken from their parents to face scalpel, prayer and barbaric snip. Why seven days? Undoubtedly, the number of Jewish boys converting to Methodism grows exponentially each day the foreskin remains attached. . . .

(Nyukyukyuk. He's got a million of 'em folks! He just flew in from Denver and, boy, are his arms tired!)

Newborn circumcision rates are at 65 percent, but have dropped for decades since just after World War II, when they were at more than 80 percent. This might be partially attributable to immigration of non-circumcising populations. There are also various movements afoot that question both the health benefits and the morality of slicing a newborn.
I do not possess any ironclad opinion on the topic of circumcision -- and, perhaps, not so coincidentally, I also do not have a son. Many of you, I will assume, are foreskin-neutral. . . .

(Entirely so. Unlike Andrew Sullivan, I am not obsessed with other men's penises.)

Here's the problem: Why is the CDC launching campaigns to "universally" promote a medical procedure? If you're an adult (and nuts), or a parent, no one stands in your way of having a bris. Today, 79 percent of men are already circumcised, and even if 100 percent the effect on the collective health of the nation would be negligible. If this is the standard, where does it stop?
And what would a proactive CDC mean when government operated health care insurance? No, I don't believe Washington would deploy a phalanx of grinning, twisted doctors to perform coerced circumcisions. But when the CDC dispenses medical advice of the "universal" brand, it's difficult to accept that a government-run public insurance outfit wouldn't heed advice and act accordingly. . .

Read the whole thing -- or maybe it's not the whole thing. Perhaps Harsanyi's column was originally longer, before his editors at the Denver Post performed a bris.

Male Journalistic Mutilation!

(Hat-tip: The Jawa Report, avoiding the TMI factor.)

UPDATE: OMG, now a Memeorandum thread. I'm warning you people . . .

The World's Most Idiotic Debate

Because I knew Andrew Sullivan to be a foreskin fetishist (NTTAWWT), I intended only to have some mocking fun with his guest-blogger Hannah Rosin, who so heedlessly violated a Daily Dish taboo by expressing indifference to the procedure that Sully calls "Male Genital Mutilation."

That Sully is himself "cut," and yet expresses such a vehement preference for the "uncut" variety -- circumcision self-hatred, we might call it -- suggests to me merely that Sully has devoted too much of his life to other men's penises. NTTAWWT.

Because I am currently on deadline for an American Spectator article having nothing to do with the Great Prepuce Debate, I don't have time to engage in a full-bore reaction to Mara Gay's claim that Ms. Rosin has provoked "a very intimate kind of outcry from male commentators" -- myself among them.

Being quite happily married for 20 years, after having previously spent more than a decade as an equally happy and reasonably popular bachelor, I protest any suggestion that I really give a damn about anyone else's penis but my own. While quite satisfied with my own equipment, I think it unseemly that I should boast of its merits, or to cast aspersions on the equipment of others.

What obtrudes here -- and it obtrudes from only one direction in the present discourse -- is the Foreskin Lobby's repeated assertion that the circumcised penis is "mutilated" or in some other way inferior to the unmodified phallus.

This is an attack requiring a response, you see, and while loath to engage in such a time-wasting and uncivilized discussion, I've just about had enough of these hateful insinuations.

A Gentile myself, yet having been circumcised as an infant (as were my brothers), we might speculate that this decision was made on the basis of medical advice related to convenience of hygiene and health. Or one might speculate that my farm-born father, having the rather common experience of men who underwent this procedure as adults after being drafted into the Army in World War II, thought it wise to spare his sons such trauma. Or one might even speculate that it was my mother who most influenced this decision.

All that is speculation of a fruitless sort, and given the extreme unlikelihood that Andrew Sullivan shall ever sire his own sons, his relentless advocacy -- which amounts to a personal insult to my penis -- is in extraordinarily bad taste. Given the well-known nature of his interest in penises, it well behooves Sully to stop attempting to influence the decisions of parents in regard to their own sons.

While it might be too much to assume the ethnicity or religious affiliation of someone named "Hannah Rosin," let us stipulate the likelihood that she is Jewish. If this is true, then it is very much to be expected that Ms. Rosin would defend the historic custom -- indeed, the divine covenant -- which requires that every male heir of the patrimony of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob be circumcised.

So, are those who derogate the foreskinless phallus as "mutilated" expressing some sort of religious bigotry? I hesitate to suggest such a thing, but sincerely wish that these barbaric aficionados of heathen penises would cease inciting unseemly debates over a subject so offensive to so many.

Grab a cup of STFU, you foreskin-fascinated freaks! By your folly you are in danger of inciting wrath such as befell the residents Shalem, when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite offended Levi and Simeon by shamefully mistreating their sister, Jacob and Leah's daughter Dinah.

Somehow, that old story seems relevant. Look it up, heathen -- and beware!

UPDATE: Sigh. No sooner do I attempt to return to my work -- dammit, I'm on deadline here, people! -- than Memeorandum calls my attention to this, this, this and (unkindest uncut of all) Cassandra at Villainous Company, with my own Porsche Manque in the comments!

Smitty, how are we supposed to accomplish our goal of world domination, when we're working at cross-purposes?

Hanna Rosin has guest-blogged her last

She dares defend circumcision while guest blogging at the site of the world's foremost foreskin fetishist, Andrew Sullivan.

"Male genital mutilation!" scream the connoisseurs of uncut, preservationists of the precious prepuce.

Get over it, people. Only porn freaks and gay men -- having ample opportunity to comparison shop, as it were -- obsess so fanatically over the difference. As I was taught in commercial design classes 30 years ago, form follows function, and familiarity with the fact of foreskinless functionality (i.e., I've fathered six kids) indicate my circumcised state is entirely adequate to the rigors of the task.

The advantages in terms of hygiene are well-known, and tend to be especially appreciated by mothers who have a difficult enough time getting boys to bath, much less to wash their winkies with health-conscious care. And it is certainly my impression -- based on comments whenever the subject is raised -- that women generally prefer what we might call the kosher pickle.

Those who prefer the sword-and-scabbard setup are perfectly entitled to their preference, without casting aspersions upon those of us who've forsaken the sheath and keep the blade ready. "Mutilation," indeed!

UPDATE 8/28: For those who can't get enough of this topic, The World's Most Idiotic Debate continues.