Etymology From moon + bat. Originally the name of the XP-67 experimental aircraft, developed by McDonnell Aircraft in 1941. Used in the 1940s by the science-fiction writer Robert Heinlein, then used in the term “barking moonbat” coined in 1999 by Perry de Havilland of “The Libertarian Samizdata”, a right-libertarian weblog. This originally referred to both left-wing and right-wing crazy people. Sometimes wrongly claimed to be a corruption of Monbiot (from George Monbiot, British environmentalist and Guardian columnist).
So, what do moonbat professors do when they're not attacking military recruiters, the Bush administration, cameramen, and College Republicans?2005, Michele Malkin, Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild, Washington, DC: Regnery, →ISBN, page 108:
As nervous Bush supporters watched the president's approval rating slide, they unleashed their wrath on Sheehan, labeling the mourning mom a “crazy,” “anti-Semite,” “left-wing moonbat,” “crackpot” whose behavior bordered on “treasonous” and who was nothing more than a “hysterical noncombatant.”2006 May 11, Eric Boehlert, Lapdogs: How the Press Lay Down for the Bush White House, New York: Free Press, →ISBN, page 216:
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Your job is to separate the media from the moonbats before some industrious cub reporter starts looking into our land deal.2009 October 13, Steve Eubanks, Downforce, New York: Harper, →ISBN, page 255:
moonbat
adj
Etymology From moon + bat. Originally the name of the XP-67 experimental aircraft, developed by McDonnell Aircraft in 1941. Used in the 1940s by the science-fiction writer Robert Heinlein, then used in the term “barking moonbat” coined in 1999 by Perry de Havilland of “The Libertarian Samizdata”, a right-libertarian weblog. This originally referred to both left-wing and right-wing crazy people. Sometimes wrongly claimed to be a corruption of Monbiot (from George Monbiot, British environmentalist and Guardian columnist).
20204: The Bulwark Trump, who said last month at the Republican National Convention that he would never again retell the story of the attempt on his life “because it’s too painful to tell,” told that story with relish. He expounded at length on his usual moonbat fables about how countries around the world are emptying their prisons and mental institutions to send their convicts and lunatics to the United States.