Someone on the extreme edge of the political left who has long abandoned fact & logic in the pursuit of spewing their scocialist crapaganda. (ie Al Franken, Michael Moore, and Janeane Garafalo, to name but a few.) Ann Coulter is the absolute antithesis of a moonbat.

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.

A term for the uber right wing and religious wingnuts who think that their freedom is being oppresed because they can't run America as a theocracy.

"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."

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.

Mentally unstable persons of a decidedly conservative political affiliation.