Dude, I got quoted in Slate

(Additional ranting here.)

How cool is that? Even if Michael Weiss's analysis is utterly wrong:

The conservative blogosphere is devouring itself over the increasingly likely prospect of a John McCain nomination. Party-line righties dislike the Arizona senator for his heretical views on immigration, campaign-finance laws and banning torture, while more moderate conservatives see his prescience about the surge, and his hawkishness in general, as true selling points.

Michael, I'm tempted to quote Mary McCarthy's famous remark about Lilian Hellman, but will refrain. A few brief points:

• If I am a "party-line righty," my only question is: Where's the party? I'm having a party at CPAC next week, and though the VIP guest list is exclusive, the guests are quite ideologically diverse (although uniformly fabulous).
• The conservative blogosphere is not, repeat not, "devouring itself." I have dear, close friends who are pro-McCain and others who are Pro McCain (in the sense that they're political professionals on the McCain campaign payroll). "Coalition politics" is an interesting concept, worth any amount of time you wish to invest in studying it.
• I do not "dislike" Crazy Cousin John, and the issue-by-issue stuff is only part of the problem. The senator is politically unreliable and temperamentally unsuited for the presidency. He cannot be elected president in any imaginable scenario, and in the event of an unimaginable scenario resulting in his election, would be a bad president. But that doesn't mean I "dislike" him. Hell, he could say the same things about me, and none of my friends would argue.
• Crazy Cousin John's nomination is not an "increasingly likely prospect."

This is what I don't like about MSM pundits, and I can't stand it when bloggers try to imitate MSM pundits by doing the same thing.

It's a form of journalistic malpractice called Broderism, a/k/a, Voice Of God Syndrome. It's why Americans hate the media, and if bloggers fall into the trap of Broderism, Americans will hate bloggers, too.

To quote my favorite conservative intellectual, Ace of Spades, "Stop telling me what to think!"

Now, Michael, I've gone way out on a career limb in my six-day campaign to prevent this allegedly "increasingly likely" disaster you're talking about. It's now 2 a.m. on Day Three, and your dishonest little game of using the loaded phrase "increasingly likely" is not helping matters at all.

(Introduction to Principles of Logic: Just because Bill Kristol believes an outcome is likely does not, per se, make that outcome likely.)

You got me, Michael? The senator is not the only crazy son of a bitch in the McCain family. I'm an obscure journalist with a crappy blogspot site, doing what little I can to help save the Republican Party from the worst mistake since ... well, I ain't got time for analogies right now.

Either get on this train, or get on the Crazy Cousin John bandwagon, but -- damn you, sir! -- don't try to play that "neutral objective" bullshit on me. Just because I'm not famous doesn't mean I'm stupid.

"Increasingly likely," my ass!

P.S.: Thanks for the link, Michael. God bless you. I'm sure you're a nice person, but us McCains are known to become abusively argumentative under duress. A deeply ingrained hereditary trait, which makes us great warriors, but lousy politicians.