A pseudo-intellectual progressive type who would be so retarded and or misinformed or so duped by all the hype as to turn our country over to a JUNIOR senator from Illinois who has spent the better part of his term as Senator pimping himself to the American public when he should be proving himself on a senatorial level, retards would include: Hollywood, minorities, college age, first time voters, the cause oriented, Hamas, The Black Panther Party, Nation of Islam.

Moonbat (1) (n) Irrational and Mentally unstable persons of a decidedly liberal political affiliation;
(2) (n) Someone on the extreme edge of whatever their -ism happens to be.

Derogatory term for a liberal activist, implying that s/he is a lunatic. The opposite of wingnut.

An unthinking or insane leftist -- in other words, most modern leftists.

Moonbat can also be used as an adjective, e.g. a moonbat professor. According to the Wikipedia entry for moonbat, the word was coined in 2002 by the Editor of Samizdata, Perry de Havilland, and was a variation on the name of radical British activist and columnist George Monbiot.

Originally, the term "moonbat" was intended to be more politically neutral, and described wackos on the left and the right, but it quickly acquired its current usage of being applied almost exclusively to those on the left.

The term also references the moon much in the same way that "lunatic" refers to the insanity-causing powers of the full moon (luna = moon). Bloggers occasionally analyze the behavior patterns of various moonbat "species" as if they were actual animals, and even give them satirical Linnaean taxonomical names, such as "moonbattus berkeleyensis".

The entry in the Samizdata glossary indicates that Perry originally coined the full phrase "barking moonbat"; apparently "moonbat" is just a subsequent shortened version of "barking moonbat," rather than being a pre-existing term that was lengthened to barking moonbat.

Evocative of the lunatic fringe, the phrase began existence as a disparaging slur against the "Far Left;" however, due increasing polarization within United States, and an ever-shifting culture war, the term has come to denote virtually anyone with a "liberal agenda," or an aversion to McCarthyism. It is also used within a condescending framework in reference to young, perhaps inexperienced, political dissenters.

While no doubt extremists do exist, the casual disregard for alternative viewpoints, and the implied disdain for Constitutional dissent which simmers beneath its surface, is far more disturbing to the average political theorist than any Leftist dogma, extremist or otherwise, yet to surface.

"Bat", of course, refers to members of the order chiroptera (with some contending that the "megachiroptera" of South America should be classified as primates), strange and wonderful animals which are beneficial to humanity. Intelligent, well-educated liberals recognize bats as an asset, and seek to encourage them through environmental protection, including the building of bathouses on the outsides of their homes. The ignorant and superstitious hate and fear bats, and can think of no worse insult than to compare people they also hate and fear (out of ignorance) to bats.

"Moon" refers to Earth's primary natural sattelite, which humans visited for a brief period thanks to a massive liberal spending program. The scientific and technological benefits of the Apollo Project were immense, and would have been far greater if the program had not been killed by a right-wing administration that wanted to spend that money on a futile foreign war. Thus, the Moon is, like bats, symbolic of liberalism and all the benefits it brings to a culture, and naturally will be an object of hatred and fear to the Right.

Combine the two and you get "Moonbat"; environmental good sense, scientific curiosity, prosperity for all and the triumph of knowledge over traditional superstition. In short, all the things that enemies of civilization like Osama bin Laden and Pat Robertson hate most.

term used by those on the extreme political right wing (known as "wingnuts") to describe anyone who disagrees with their bizarre, fascistic world view. Used, despite the fact that it makes absolutely no sense, because they could not come up with a word or phrase as appropriately descriptive as "wingnut."

n. A word used by hard-line conservatives to refer to liberals. A fairly silly portmanteau of the words "moon" and "bat," it might be meant to indicate "batting at the moon" as an analogy to attempting to achieve unachievable or unrealistic goals. In general, however, use of this word marks the user himself as the insane, or at the very least, silly, one.