The Appearance of Pyrrhus was Self-Defeating

by Smitty

Dan Riehl points to Bill Kristol wondering aloud if the healthcare debate will prove a Pyrrhic victory for the Dems.

Again, Dan: if the Federal government's legitimacy in tampering with individuals remains unchallenged, then the Progressives are correct to view this conservative grousing as so much sound and fury.

In summary, in the broader sweep of history, the US Constitution itself shall have proven a Pyrrhic victory if we don't vanquish the Progressive vampire sucking the vitality out of our politics.

Federalism Amendment

Dan Riehl interviewed by American Glob

by Smitty

American Glob made a quantum leap up the blogological food chain from the first interview, netting no-nonsense New Jersey-ite Dan Riehl for the next round.

Rather than try to find some juicy tidbit of the interview to excerpt, let me share a Twitter exchange that somehow didn't make the editorial cut. The moment is 01Nov09, in the afternoon, and Dede Scozzafava has withdrawn from the Republican ticket in NY-23 (which Stacy covered with such depth and insight that a bowl game reprise is surely in order--mind the tip jar) and endorsed the Democratic candidate:

Now, it's a fine point, but making jokes about peoples' names is bad form, in my opinion. Regardless of the sheer idiocy of an opponent, allow them the dignity of keeping their name intact, say I. Blast stupid ideas to ethereal atoms, but don't hammer names, physical characteristics, race, color, creed, sexual orientation, and so forth. Dan brushes aside my tender sensibilities in a most revelatory way as he re-tweets my chiding:

In reply, I play the "Too Much Information" card:

Aside: the Twitter photo is the lead screamer for Rammstein, from their "Amerika" video. For some reason, dudes on the moon jamming in space suits is hysterically funny.

Is Andrew Sullivan an anti-Semite?

I certainly don't think so, and consider it terribly unfortunate that Sullivan has exposed himself to this damaging accusation through his reflexive enthusiasm for all things Obama -- just as he once was denounced as a "neocon" because of his reflexive enthusiasm for all things Bush.

Sullivan got over his unrequited Dubya man-crush, and maybe his current see-no-evil attitude toward Israel's enemies will fade if Sullivan discovers that his new presidential idol also has feet of clay. So while I have called Sullivan a menace to society and advocated his deportation, he's probably not a Holocaust denier or a peddler of blood libel.

My friend Dan Riehl called attention to this accusation against Sullivan, by way of firing a shot at Conor Friedersdorf. I've fired my share of shots at Conor, but I certainly would never accuse him of Jew-hating. The extremely toxic nature of the "anti-Semite" label is such that I am extremely hesitant to apply it.

Consider the case of Taki Theodoracopulos, for example. Taki has been called an anti-Semite so often that some people accept the accusation at face value. But when National Review published David Frum's "Unpatriotic Conservatives" -- one of many ill-advised editorial decisions in the erratic career of Rich Lowry -- Taki responded in memorable fashion:

If this bum Frum thinks he's the only one who cannot see a belt without hitting below it, he's got another thing coming. . . . He is a cheap Canadian careerist who jumped on the neocon bandwagon and is now using anti-Semitism as a stick to beat us with. Mind you, to be called "unpatriotic" and an "anti-Semite" by this shameless publicity hound has to be a compliment.

Because Taki is independently wealthy, he has no need to fear that his career will be damaged by these accusations, and so he seldom even bothers to notice the charges and only rarely responds to them. This has, unfortunately, resulted in Taki's name being used -- as my own name has sometimes been used -- as a sort of Rosetta Stone that allows liberal mind-readers to decrypt the otherwise Secret Code Of Hate that allegedly unites the Right.

This business of liberals trying to tell conservatives who is "acceptable" has bothered me for years, and I don't like it any better when conservatives play the same game. Despite Frum's misguided centrist tendencies, for example, I have risked my populist street-cred by continuing to be his friend (unlike David Brooks, who is the Living Embodiment Of All Things Unholy.) If I can be Frum's friend, shall I allow him to say that Taki is "unacceptable"?

My own indirect connection with Taki has horrified some of my friends, though the explanation is innocent enough. A couple years ago, I was invited to speak about media bias in a panel discussion of the Duke lacrosse rape hoax, where Duke graduate student Richard Spencer was one of my fellow panelists. Spencer subsequently became editor of Taki's Magazine.

When I got an itch to write about "Melissa Beech," who boasted in a Daily Beast column about being a rich man's mistress, it seemed a good time to accept Spencer's longstanding invitation to publish at Taki's (whose proprietor is reputed to have had many mistresses). That first article led to my writing a series a columns about love, sex and marriage at Taki's, a series I hope to continue now that election season is over.

Did I fear the accusation that, by publishing at Taki's Magazine, I was thereby endorsing the alleged anti-Semitism of Taki or some of his magazine's other contributors? Of course not. My philo-Semitic bona fides are so impregnable that I rather suspect Taki and Spencer have caught more grief than I have: "How dare you publish that Jew-loving Zionist fanatic?"

My Zionist fanaticism -- Netanyahu is a pacifist squish by comparison -- once led me to advance a bit of strategic military advice for the IDF, a war-game scenario contingent upon the hypothetical event of my becoming the first Gentile prime minister of Israel.

You might suppose that a thought-experiment so farfetched would be immune to misinterpretation -- as fools often misinterpret hypotheticals -- as wishful thinking, but you would be wrong. Andrew Sullivan gave me a Malkin Award nomination (my third such honor, though I may have lost count) and Sully has subsequently accused me of advocating genocide of the Palestinians.

"Peace Through Genocide" might be profitably marketed as the title of a comic novel by Chris Buckley, or as one of those ironic T-shirt slogans beloved by clever university students, but it clearly has shortcomings as a serious policy proposal.

It should therefore be unnecessary for me to deny that I am advocate of Palestinian genocide but, alas, there is the problem of the irony-impaired Andrew Sullivan, who has spent 15 months fomenting bizarre speculations about Sarah Palin's uterus. To be accused of genocidal hatred by such a notorious fool is an accusation that requires no denial.

Having been slimed by Sully for the indulgence of a far-fetched hypothetical, let me take another wild risk:

If Conor Friedersdorf were a wealthy Greek shipping magnate, so that he could speak his mind without fear of career repercussion, what would he say about Jews?

Nothing bad, I hope, and so I gladly stipulate that Conor Friedersdorf is no more a Jew-hater than Taki.

Or Pat Buchanan. Or Joe Sobran. Or Paul Gottfried. IYKWIMAITYD. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink.

UPDATE: Ann Altstein Altberg Althouse calls Sully a liar. Sarah Palin's Uterus agrees. Yehuda reveals that Palin's uterus is . . . the Mossad!

Reaganite Republican suspects the Learned Elders of Sullivanism have fomented this blog-war.

Is Dan Riehl sufficiently cynical?

by Smitty

While I wouldn't go so far as to think ACORN flat-out stole the 2008 election (conspiracies scale poorly) I'm wondering if we should maybe chip in for a new tinfoil hat for Dan. His analysis in McCain/Palin: What Really Went Wrong? seems to think the McCain campaign was as clean and un-rigged as the stock market.

McCain was "Dead Man Walking" in 2007. Then he "magically" came back from the abyss in 2008, just as Michigan and Florida were magically removed from the Democratic primary equation,
and both John Sydney and Hillary step aside for the charismatic Chicagoan.

Other than Joe the Plumber, Sarah Palin was the only real shot of adrenalin for McCain. I'm speculating his coma was either:

• The result of being left on the bus overnight one too many times, or
• Sarah was his Jeremiah Denton moment, only truly un-scripted piece, where he could lay the foundation for a resurgence he was incapable of leading.

Dan posts:

The people who know the most about McCain/Palin 2008 aren't the people willing to go on record for the media. While the top political players have their respective careers, for better or worse - for most on the campaign, to talk now would be a career ender. So all we are getting is two of the most polarized views from the top. In my experience, that never is where the real story rests. But it's all that we've got. Make of it what you will, I'd suggest not too much.

Are the people within the beltway really so removed from the economic realities? Do they really think there is a career left to save amidst the economic disaster and ideological drift currently afoot? I've met some of these people, and they don't seem quite that stupid. At some point, doing the Right Thing becomes as much a matter of simple pragmatism as an appeal to Altruism.

Maybe Sarah's book tour will and increasing popularity will be a driver. At some inflection point, the career wonks will realize that, if they can't ingratiate themselves with the potential newcomer, they'd better grab their book deal.

A pile of cheap, tawdry, dirt laundry awaits.

If I were Sarah Palin . . .

. . . I'd look good in Manolo pumps, but let's not go there. (These hypotheticals always get me in trouble.)

Seriously, however, if I were Sarah Palin, I'd seek out the advice of Dick Armey. When I was up in New York to cover the Doug Hoffman campaign, I asked Armey -- off-the-record, by my own choice -- what he thought about Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's GOP primary challenge to Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Most conservatives have backed Perry, but Armey is supporting Hutchison. Why? Given that it was off-the-record, I'd be breaking the "never burn a source" rule to go into detail, but surely Armey won't mind my sharing this basic summary: Armey admires Hutchison's professionalism as a public servant.

To an outsider, the Hutchison-vs.-Perry matchup appears to be about ideology, and conservatives support Perry because he is perceived as the more "hard core" of the two candidates. To Armey, however, Hutchison is preferred because of her competence and dedication to the arts of statesmanship.

Remember that this is the same Dick Armey whose FreedomWorks organization has backed the Tea Party movement, the same Dick Armey who gave a key endorsement of Doug Hoffman. So it cannot be said that Armey is a snob who disdains populism and "outsider" candidates. Yet in the Texas governor's race, Armey admires certain qualities in Hutchison, qualities in which (we may infer) he finds Perry deficient.

Now, let's look at what Armey recently said about you, Gov. Palin. He praised you as a "self-made woman" but then went on to offer this advice:

"So she's kind having to dig herself out of a hole if she wants to regain standing for consideration for a future nomination. And by all accounts, it doesn't appear she's doing a very effective job of digging herself out of that hole. . . .
"I think she's probably a person of greater ability than what she's given credit to. She probably has more sense than what she's given credit for. But I do think there's this whole perception-is-reality thing right now, and she's got a terribly, terribly rough row to hoe if she's ever going to regain some standing and make her competitive."

And then he said something extremely interesting:

Armey also disputed the notion that Palin stands ready to tap into the energy of the vast crowds that have come out at the kinds of "tea party" protests FreedomWorks and others have helped pull together."You don't tap into that energy unless you join it. You've got to be there, you've got to show up. And you can't remain removed and aloof and send in a memorandum or post something on your blog, and have these folks belief that you're really part of the movement," Armey said.
"You have to really go out and walk and work among them. And I've seen very few people who are willing to do that. The fact is, these folks are saying, 'You know, the problem with all you big-shot politicians is you sit on your pedestals and make your pronouncements. Why don't you join us? Get on the street. And go to work for something. Roll up your sleeves and be involved with us.' "
"And they don't have a lot of time for someone who stands removed and says, 'Right on.' They're not looking for a cheerleader; they're looking for a captain of the team," Armey said.

So, if I were Governor Palin, besides looking good in those Manolo pumps, I'd make a point of seeking out Armey's advice and following it. As a matter of fact, if I were Palin, I'd try to enlist Armey as my political sensei. (With one caveat: Armey's kind of a squish on immigration; don't let him talk you into the Cato/WSJ libertarian open-borders nonsense; "agree to disagree agreeably" on that.)

Note especially, governor, what Armey says about "rolling up your sleeves" and getting involved in the Tea Party movement. When your book tour is finished, you ought to do that. You'll make enough money on paid speaking gigs that you can afford to do a dozen or more gratis appearances at Tea Parties in 2010.

Think back to your days playing basketball, 'Cuda: Pick your shots, and make every shot count.

Don't just book the big-city major events on the Tea Party circuit. Every once in while, you should make a late RSVP to a small-town rally -- let's say, in Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina, nudge, nudge -- so that three to five days before the event, the local newspaper headline reads: "PALIN TO SPEAK HERE SATURDAY." And then call in to the local talk-radio show and do a 15-minute interview with the friendly conservative host. (There is a tremendous synergy between Tea Parties and local talk radio.)

Also, governor, you should always pay attention to whatever Dan Riehl says. Dan's a straight-shooter and, whether you agree with his opinion or not, you can be sure he's not b.s.-ing you. Note his comment about your Reaganesque use of Facebook:

Reagan didn't fight with the media. The usual descriptor for what he did is, he went over the media's head directly to the American people. Is Sarah Palin really doing anything different, except for having Facebook, blogs and a great many other New Media resources today to which Reagan didn't have access? Just imagine how even more effective his communication strategy would have been if he had?
Because of media advances made in the last several years, Sarah Palin doesn't have to go over the media's head. She can go right through them.

Exactly. If you were to link and quote Dan's blog in some future Facebook posting, I'm sure he'd be grateful. That's what we call "Rule 2." You've already got Rule 5 down cold.

Well said, Dan Riehl

by Smitty

On the topic of altering the course of the NY-23 election:

it should only fuel our spirits and inspire us to further growth and activism as we move on toward 2010. This is our time. And we should aim to bring Obama's grand time in the White House with a rubber stamp of a Democrat Congress to an end after 2010.

That may be the one thing he has genuinely earned during his entire short national political career.

These mid-term elections, and the Tea Party Express, have everything to do with building the steam for the 2010 elections.

We can only expect things to worsen for the next year, economically, morally, politically. Every time you think we've surely bottomed out, something weirder happens. The Bush Administration, like the Cold War, seems an oasis of predictability in retrospect.

NY23: Dan Riehl on GOP bungling -- did NRCC staff put the fix in for Dede? UPDATE: Mike Long's Reaction

UPDATE 1:50 p.m.: Mike Long, chairman of the New York Conservative Party, said he had not seen Dan Riehl's report, but in a brief telephone interview said he would not be surprised by Tom Reynold's involvement in the Scozzafava pick.

Long said he had been told that at least one NRCC staffer was present at the meeting where Scozzafava was picked by NYGOP. As for the general bungling by which the ACORN-endorsed liberal was selected as the nominee, Chairman Long said of New York Republicans: "It they stood up for principles, [the Conservative Party] would have been out of business a long time ago."

PREVIOUSLY: Dan says he's got the lowdown on who screwed the pooch in this key New York congressional election. He quotes Michael Patrick Leahey's excellent account of the role played by New York Republicans, including Assemblywoman Janet Duprey. However, Dan kept digging and says it goes further up the ladder:

Duprey certainly deserves plenty of blame according to my sources, [but] the more important claim is not that the NRCC delegated the decision to local Republicans like Duprey, as Newt [Gingrich] would insist, instead they deferred to an old line power broker, former NRCC Chair and former NY Representative Tom Reynolds. They insist NRCC Executive Director, Guy Harrison, or his aides, were on the ground to sheppard [Dede] Scozzafava through the allegedly open process from selection to finish, regardless of polls, or how local Republicans felt. The NRCC in the person of Reynolds thought they knew better than that and them. . . .

Read the whole thing. It took three ballots for Scozzafava to secure the nomination, and I'd heard rumors of favor-swapping and arm-twisting. The suggestion that NRCC staff -- the hired help, as it were -- were involved in putting the fix in for Dede will enrage people, although it shouldn't really be surprising.

UPDATE: Dan Riehl has received a denial from the NRCC, Daniel Patrick Leahey is following up at TCOT, and I've linked it over at the American Spectator. Meanwhile, RNC Chairman Michael Steele is still backing Scozzafava.

UPDATE II: Not directly related, but Dana Loesch at Dump Dede gives a link to my American Spectator column, "Do You Believe in Miracles?"

Transparency is the secret of Rule 2 -- bloggers openly and shamelessly linking each other, unlike the opaque behind-the-scene wheeling and dealing of GOP Establishment operatives.

UPDATE III: And speaking of shamelessness, I'm once again soliciting contributions to the Shoe Leather Fund for my next trip up to cover NY23. Thanks to Bill Quick, Nathan in Missouri, Jeff in Walla Walla, Wash., Bryce in Oregon, Richard in Lancaster, Michael in Santa Clarita, Mr. and Mrs. Belvedere (?) and Brett in New South Wales, Australia (!) who've already kicked in today.

Every contribution -- $2, $5, $10, $20, $50 -- to help fund my on-the-road reporting is deeply appreciated. Jimmie Bise has said I rattle the tip jar until my teeth hurt, but there's no shame in my game. It's not charity, it's fee-for service. This is Old School in the New Media. We're eliminating the middleman, you see, creating a direct nexus with the readers. You foot the bill, I hit the road.

Isn't capitalism a beautiful thing?

UPDATE 3 p.m. ET: Political Byline dubs it "NY23Gate."

Not really, Dan

by Smitty

Dan Riehl, in response to a Tim Pawlenty quote on Hot Air:

If the post-World War II period was dedicated to fighting Communism, aren't we now even more fully engaged in fighting socialism, Euro or not, here in the United States?

Socialism is merely the symptom and sales pitch. The Jacksonian Party lays out the disease: aristocracy. This is built on three pillars:

1. 02Feb1913 Amendment 16, the Federal Government has eminent domain over your wallet.
2. 08May1913 Amendment 17, your State has no voice
3. 23Dec1913 The Cosmic Credit Card (which should be cut up)

As a bonus, you can blame McCulloch v. Maryland, where the "Necessary and Proper Clause" was sort of used to shoot the 10th Amendment in the face.

We can all sit around and decry Socialism on theoretical grounds. However, arguing about Socialism seems a bit like quibbling over whether to be in the left of right lane on I-10 as we go tearassin' West on I-10:

The mere presence of Foolish, Dumb-ass Requirements for federal entitlements, which even Ronald Reagan lacked the clout to reform (and I don't think anyone's accusing the Gipper of being Socialist) renders all of these discussions moot. It's not about whether the American experiment goes flying off the left coast into the Pacific. Rather, the question is when.

It may be that "we can't handle the truth." You've got clowns like Gingrich collecting their 30 pieces of silver for the soul of Conservativism. There are some really good signs right of the political middle. The internet has improved communication. Beck, Breitbart, bloggers.

But Socialism remains a bugaboo. You're already neck deep in it. Forget about controlling the flood. Let's talk about the agony involved in draining the swamp. Draining the swamp means restoring Federalism, load-shedding the three bullet points mentioned earlier, and fighting the economic war that dwarfs the global war on terror for seriousness. Large debt for a long time is sin. Call it such and let us repent.

Repentance means offering strong support to leaders who make decisions that are

• in keeping with the spirit and letter of the Constitution
• have the appeal of a bad hangover on an alcoholic

Because that is exactly what I'm talking here: cold turkey. We all know we need it, and we all know it will suck.

Sure, if you want to call that "fighting Socialism", go ahead. I call it "facing reality".

NY23 UPDATE: Why is Sarah MIA?

Sarah Palin could make a huge difference in the NY23 special election, and everybody knows it. I hinted at this earlier today -- "Lipstick, baby!" -- and as I like to remind my readers from time to time, there are no accidents.

Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman is in the fight of his life against the GOP establishment's hand-picked RINO, in a crucial election that Hoffman's media coordinator Rob Ryan says is "a referendum on the future of the Republican Party."

One point to make clear: No official in the Hoffman campaign has said a word to me about Sarah Palin. But some of Hoffman's supporters are heartbroken that Sarah -- whom I dubbed the "Sweetheart of the Heartland" last year -- hasn't joined the fight against Dede Scozzafava, whom Michelle Malkin has described as "ACORN-Friendly, Big Labor-Backing, Tax-and-Spend Radical in GOP Clothing." Allow me to address myself directly to Mrs. Palin:

Doug Hoffman is your kind of candidate, his supporters are your supporters, and the people at the RNC and the NRCC who are siding with Scozzafava . . . well, ask around, ma'am. Your enemies are Doug Hoffman's enemies.

A smart reporter doesn't burn his sources, so I'll exercise some professional discipline here, and let my friend Josh Painter at Texas for Palin speak:

In New York's 23rd District, for example, Sarah can set herself apart from Newt Gingrich by giving her support to Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, as have Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee. Gingrich, rather inexplicably, has joined the RNC and NRCC in endorsing liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava. . . . It is in individual contests like these where Sarah Palin can go against the GOP establishment and still keep those friends she has and needs inside the Beltway.

Sorry, Josh, I'll disagree here: Forget about everybody "inside the Beltway," Mrs. Palin, and think about the people in NY23 -- decent, honest people who are working their hearts out and praying as hard as they can. The battlefield is there, the battle is underway, and every minute counts. (I'll also dare to disagree with my friend Dan Riehl, but it's merely a disagreement. Nobody smart ever picks a fight with Dan.)

Big money is flooding into NY23, and Doug Hoffman needs every penny he can get. Trust me when I say that there are people working overtime for Hoffman who haven't gotten paid yet and don't know when or if they'll get paid. (Mitt Romney won't give Hoffman a dime, so scratch Mitt from your 2012 list.)

Money isn't everything in politics, however. It wouldn't cost Palin a penny to support Hoffman. All she has to do is issue a 200-word press statement -- or record a 30-second video and put it on YouTube -- and she could make all the difference in the world in NY23.

We are 17 days from Nov. 3. Every minute counts, and let me quote one more source:

"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness."
-- Ronald Reagan, Oct. 27, 1964

This is a time for choosing, Mrs. Palin. A battle rages in upstate New York. Doug Hoffman needs help. And people are praying.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Prayers are answered. No blogger could be more grateful than I. But sometimes, when it's been weeks without a 'Lanche, I start worrying . . .

The BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA Heard 'Round the World!

Allahpundit kept his powder dry for weeks, held his fire until the right moment, and then this evening -- discussing the less-than-stellar re-launch of GOP.com -- he finally touched the fire to the wick:

Oh, and apologies to LGF on behalf of our "wingnut blog" for failing to cover this sooner. Granted, there were not one but two items about it sitting in Headlines for hours, but when a site that gave up blogging about Iran and the New York City terror plot to focus on the urgent threat from creationism tells you you’re falling down on the job, you listen.

OK, so all the people who have been ragging on Allah in the Hot Air comment threads now owe him a huge apology. Whatever wrong Allah has done in the past, you've got to wipe the slate clean after that one.

For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them . . . and they shall not escape.
-- I Thessalonians 5:3 KJV

Thus does the Hindenberg-at-Lakehurst implosion of LGF occur, as Darleen Click finds Mad King Charles using the fake-but-accurate standard against Rush Limbaugh.

Remember how long Pamela Geller had to wait for her vindication, and never doubt for a minute that those who sow the wind shall reap the whirlwhind.

THE FLEMISH MENACE!

UPDATE: Dan Riehl joins the Bwaaahahahahaha Chorus:

I know Charles Johnson has denied ever performing oral sex on a lizard. But . . .

And you just knew the AOSHQ Morons were going to have a field day.

Sometimes you have to wonder . . .

. . . about the Sullivanesque lack of self-awareness over at Little Green Footballs, where Charles Johnson reacts to Dan Rieh's post and my link to Dan by declaring that I'm "right on board with the 'ghey child predator' murder theories," provoking classic LGF comments like these:

5 Sharmuta
Sat, Oct 3, 2009 5:12:55pm
Riehl needs professional help. This is beyond depraved.

6 Cathypop
Sat, Oct 3, 2009 5:14:46pm
How dare this POS do this to an innocent man.
Pay-back is hell and I hope Riehl enjoys hell. . . .

9 Guanxi88
Sat, Oct 3, 2009 5:18:32pm
I said before - this fellow, and guys like him, will do anything in their desperation to remove the blood they see on their hands. Anything.

14 Killgore Trout
Sat, Oct 3, 2009 5:19:43pm
re: #7 Conservative Moonbat
I'm guessing that story might not be true. I think it's just an effort to discredit him.

At which point, the overwhelming irony caused my eyes to roll completely out of my head. Readers who've followed the story of the Little Green Meltdown can only laugh at the thought of Killgore Trout pretending to be appalled by "an effort to discredit" someone.

Dan Riehl is a friend I've worked with often, and disagreed with from time to time. I linked his original "child predator" post last weekend, but of course, I linked Sully's "Southern populist terrorism" post, too. If I only linked things I agreed with 100%, I'd mostly be linking myself. Blogospheric onanism is not a productive commercial traffic-enhancement strategy.

Remember that Dan's done a lot of true-crime blogging (he made a big splash with the Natalie Holloway case) so he's not a rookie in this regard. His flame-baiting with Pandagon might have been unnecessarily provocative, but I don't tell Dan Riehl what to do. (In case you haven't figured it out yet, nobody tells Dan Riehl what to do.)

There is no evidence of any child predation by Bill Sparkman, but Dan's interest in that angle caused him to spot a Tampa Tribune story crammed with gaydar-tingling hints that "Fe Fe" -- the nickname Sparkman picked up in his native Florida -- was gay. And so I linked Dan's post and the Tampa story and said:

[T]he speculation that Sparkman was gay has been bouncing around all over the 'sphere for days. Dan e-mailed to mention this to me, and I replied that many people in Clay and Laurel counties suspected that, at the very least, Sparkman had homosexual tendencies. NTTAWWT.
As I told Dan, the problem is that we have no idea whether Sparkman's sexuality (whatever it was, and all I know is what people in Kentucky told me) had anything to do with his disappearance and death. It might be relevant or not.

Because a good reporter doesn't burn his sources, I'm not going to get any further into what I heard in Kentucky or who I heard it from. But if the Associated Press or some Kentucky media outlet decides to jump on that angle, I've done enough background preparation that I'm not going to be scooped too bad or for very long.

What fascinates me is the intense desire to control the "narrative frame" of this story in terms of political symbolism. Left-wingers like MyDD's David Empsall pushed so hard to turn Sparkman's death into "Lynching in Lower Glennbeckistan" -- some kind of feral right-wing madness unleashed by Michelle Bachmann, Eric Cantor, talk radio and Fox News -- that I was inspired to drive more than 500 miles to Clay County and spend three days checking it out.

As a result of that trip, I can report that what might be called the consensus view of well-informed area residents is that some local drug operator -- a pot grower, a meth cooker or a dealer -- was most likely to have killed Sparkman.

At the hotel in London, Ky., where I stayed (after checking out of the Best Western in Manchester because I couldn't get the Wi-Fi connection to work), there were two marked Kentucky State Police patrol cars in the parking lot, as well as an unmarked SUV with government tags and all kinds of radio aerials.

The night clerk at the hotel was himself a former law-enforcement official, retired on medical disability, who explained to me that these KSP officers weren't in town for the murder investigation. Rather, they were participating in the annual crackdown on the local marijuana harvest. (See this 2007 USA Today article for background.) KSP brings in officers from other parts of the state, so that local officers don't have to bust their friends, relatives and neighbors.

Meanwhile, in August, a big undercover investigation ("Operation Borrowed Time") headed up by Clay County Sheriff Clay Johnson and Manchester Police Chief Jeff Culver resulted in more than 50 drug arrests in Clay County.

Which is to say, Sparkman turned up dead at a time when illegal drug operations in Clay County were coming under some very heavy law-enforcement pressure. It's very easy to understand why a dope grower or meth cooker might have been paranoid about somebody with a federal ID asking a bunch of questions. And if that somebody was Bill Sparkman, the motive for his death isn't a big mystery.

Where do the rumors about Sparkman's sexuality fit into this story? I don't know that they do. If it's a 75% chance that Sparkman was killed just because he "knocked on the wrong door," as one Kentucky source put it, then his sexuality is irrelevant.

I'm trying to get to the facts here, and don't have a lot of patience with idiots wasting my time by pointing fingers at Dan Riehl (or Michelle Malkin or Glenn Beck) and screaming hysterically about "blood on their hands." For myself, you can go ask Kelsee Brown what a horrible homophobic hatemonger I am.

Whoever killed Bill Sparkman -- and I agree with Sparkman's son Josh that suicide and accident can be practically ruled out -- the killer or killers are still on the loose. Until they're brought to justice, this politicized finger-pointing is just a waste of time.

UPDATE: In regard to the shortage of people willing to do actual reporting, Patrick at Alexandria writes:

The harvest is vast, but the laborers are few.

Exactly. While I was checking out the story in Kentucky last week, I had an interesting conversation with Andrew Marcus of Founding Bloggers who asked me, Where are all these laid-off journalists who've lost their jobs in the Great Newspaper Meltdown of the past few years?

There is clearly an opportunity for entrepreneurial online journalism by resourceful reporters who can find a way to operate indepedently on a shoestring budget. And yet it's hard to see where any of the people laid off from the big metropolitan papers have actually taken advantage of this opportunity.

UPDATE II: You've got to laugh at the mind-numbing idiocy of "Cato the Elder," a damned fool who doesn't even get my Cousin Brian's jest about "the new black," a pop culture reference which means that something is the latest vogue, e.g., "taupe is the new black."

The Fool Cato construes Brian's remark as a "whine," when in fact it was a shrug of indifference, a dry acknowledgement of contemporary reality. The Fool Cato is so inextricably wedded to the liberal victimhood narrative -- where every problem ever suffered by anyone who isn't white can be understood only as a result of white racism -- that he can't even realize what's happening when his game is busted by an Atlanta bar bouncer.

Here you see how The Vision of the Anointed blinds people to reality. It's "The Irrelevance of Evidence," as Sowell called it. Envisioning the world categorically, with prefabricated explanations for every phenomenon, the anointed loudly proclaim their open-mindedness and tolerance while fanatically pursuing vendettas of narrow-minded zealotry.

When the anointed encounter anomalous phenomena that don't fit their rigid mental molds, they become frustrated. When you try to explain that they might have stumbled onto evidence that their categories and prefab explanations are invalid, this provokes a vengeful rage. And that's when you realize that you're not actually arguing about whatever it was that provoked the argument.

Their own infallibilty -- the awe-inspiring authority of their opinions -- is the actual subject of their argument. The anointed worldview is an incomprehensible mish-mash of self-contradiction and error, which is why the liberal furiously denounces as guilty of bad faith (mala fides) anyone who persistently criticizes the validity of the worldview.

No person of good faith could fail to agree with liberalism, you see. Therefore, when you disagree with the liberal, you are not merely mistaken, but evil.

The Fool Cato doesn't need to know anything about my Cousin Brian in order to conclude that Brian is inferior. And Brian's inferiority -- his status as some hick on whom Cato is qualified to pronounce judgment -- is the entire point of what Cato calls a "Socratic" rant.

Grab a cup of hemlock, Socrates. Cheers!

Can't all conservatives at least agree that Glenn Beck is not the enemy?

Lots of strong reaction to yesterday's dust-up. Yes, I know Dan Riehl is quoting Wehner, and yes, I know Mark Levin slammed Beck. That's OK with me.

Unlike a certain deranged blogger who sees enemies everywhere, I am not interested in running a personality cult where everyone who disagrees with me is a "fascist." The fact that Think Progress wants to see a Levin vs. Beck smackdown should be all the proof any conservative needs that such a fight is a bad idea.

I like Glenn Beck -- which isn't the same as saying I always agree with Glenn Beck --and anyone who has been following this blog long enough knows how much I despise Crazy Cousin John:

I long worried that all the moonshine runners, snuff-dippers and bar brawlers in the Alabama branch of our family tree might feel I had failed to uphold our ancestral honor by working in the disgraceful racket that "journalism" has now become. Yet the two-faced, backstabbing, open-borders, bailout-endorsing crapweasel, Crazy Cousin John, has brought such odium upon our name that no one even pays attention to me.

By his disgraceful defeat and unprincipled politics, John McCain has disgraced not only himself, but has imputed an ineradicable stain to his innocent kindred. (The first time I was introduced to Ann Coulter, her greeting was, "A most unfortunate name.") And let's not even bring his idiot daughter into this, OK? If the blonde-joke punchline can't stop at three margaritas, that's certainly not my fault.

When Beck gets criticized for slamming Maverick as a "weird progressive like Theodore Roosevelt was," it's hard for honest men to disagree. My right-hand manque Smitty is a sworn antagonist of all things "progressive" and my basic attitude about the 2008 election is: Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Bob Barr.

Since I'm quoting myself again, let me repeat this: Short, old, bald and grumpy is not a winning combination in politics. The fact that John McCain thought he'd be a better Republican presidential candidate than Mitt Romney -- tall, handsome, hirsute, cheerful -- tells you everything you need to know about Maverick's poor judgment in terms of basic electoral politics.

Think about this: Why have you never seen me on TV? Because I suck on TV. I've done a few appearances, hated it because I'm not good at it, and don't want to do any more. I'm a natural on radio, however, and have appeared as a guest on scores of talk radio shows. So that's me: Never gonna be "TV-famous," doomed to perpetual obscurity.

A man's got to know his limitations. Crazy Cousin John never could accept the simple fact that everyone with the slightest media acumen could see: He lacked the fundamental telegenic quality necessary to be a winning presidential candidate in our era. He also lacks sturdy principles and emotional equipose, but from the standpoint of pure 50-percent-plus-one politics, those were secondary considerations compared to the clueless-old-coot vibe he emits on TV.

OK, so now we come to Beck's praise of Ron Paul. Aleister at American Glob writes:

Ron Paul is not wrong about everything. Many people who don't count themselves "Ron Paul supporters" agree with Paul on a great many things, particularly liberty and the out of control spending in Washington.

Look, I covered the 9/12 March On D.C. I talked to scores of attendees raaaaacists. If the policy of the march organizers had been No Beck Fans Allowed, you could certainly subtract 40%-50% from whatever you think the attendance was. And considering the degree to which the march was organized by free-marketeers, a No Ron Paul Supporters Allowed policy would have subtracted at least 40 staffers from the event.

Quoting myself once more: You can't build a successful movement by a process of subtraction. The urge-to-purge approach to coalition politics simply doesn't work, which is why winners avoid it. If we're going to purge anyone, we ought to purge the neurasthenic geeks whose predictable response to anything popular and successful is to attack it.

People who want to talk about the "New Majority" or "The Next Right" or "Republican renewal" need to get used to the idea that the conservative coalition of the future will be a loud, rowdy and unruly bunch, composed of diverse people with disparate beliefs.

"One of the basic principles of military strategy is to reinforce success. If you see a man who fights and wins, give him reinforcements, and bid others to emulate his success."

We need fighters, and I suspect Beck will fight 'til ev'ry foe is vanquished. Bob Belvedere gets it. Phyllis Chesler gets it. We defend truth and liberty against lies and tyranny. Every eye is upon us and we are surrounded by enemies as numerous as the grains of sand on the shore. Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer.

WOLVERINES!

UPDATE: Need more evidence? Andrew Sullivan:

Of course, disdain from the dogmatic right will only help Beck. As it should. He should wear the scorn of Levin like a badge of honor.

If an endorsement from Sully doesn't convince Mark Levin to make peace with Glenn Beck (or, at least, with Beck's fans), what ever could?

BTW, I've met Mark Levin, who is the size of a linebacker and is one of the last conservative pundits I would ever want to have angry at me. If the Levin-Beck feud were a prize fight, my money would be on Levin by a first-round knockout.

Meanwhile, Ran at Si Vis Pacem has related thoughts, and I have a new Twitter friend, 26-year-old Cubachi -- "Conservative, Catholic, Palinista, Cuban w/Chinese roots, and Geeky, while looking good!" -- who is proud to be a "Ted Nugent Republican." Works for me.

UPDATE II: Welcome, Instapundit readers! (Gee, Professor, you had me worried for a few days there, y'know?) New readers, please be sure to visit JihadWatch, Atlas Shrugs, Baldilocks, Blogmocracy, and Little Miss Attila.

A 10-day 'Lanche drought is scary enough, but never anger a Large-Breasted Lesbian . . . shudder.

'Racial thuggery' or 'social justice'?

Michelle Malkin reports, Al Sharpton will decide:

This is absolutely horrifying for any parent to watch. STLToday.com reports that police say the black-on-white student beating was completely unprovoked and racially motivated. Watch as many students cheer the attack — and the bus driver is nowhere to be seen . . .

Dan Riehl finds this "disturbing":

I can't say as I'm not concerned that America might not end up more racially divided than we've been in 30 years.

There's video. See for yourself. Myself, I'm still disturbed by something that happened Saturday: How the heck did Alabama give up two touchdowns to Florida International University? 'Bama coaches have been burned in effigy for less . . .

Let the Andrew Sullivan Double-Entendre Sweeptstakes Begin!

Dan Riehl offers the first entry:

Obama's Immigration Department now has Andrew by the proverbial ballz. Okay, he might actually like that. But ....

Yeah, when Sully gets busted for dope and faces deportation, there's a lot of comedic raw material to work with:

I understand the inmates at Leavenworth are drawing straws to determine who will be Sully's cellmate. Condolences to the unfortunate loser who draws the short straw. Doing 20 to life is bad enough without having to listen to Sully go on and on about Sarah Palin's uterus.

Or how about this?

When the policeman busted Sully, his defense was: "It's all a misunderstanding, officer! I thought that guy asked me if I wanted to smoke his joint . . ."

Or . . .

When they booked Sully for drug possession, he didn't complain about the cuffs. He did complain that he didn't get the dog-collar and blindfold, too.

Come on, everybody, give us your most vicious anti-Sully snark! And remember to join the Concerned Patriotic Americans Committee to Deport Andrew Sullivan.

UPDATE: Professor Glenn Reynolds:

It’s probably also fair to point out that Andrew would no doubt make a big deal out of any special treatment afforded to a member of the Palin family under similar circumstances. . . .

True, but not snarky enough. The basic idea here is to laugh Sully all the way to Heathrow, to heighten his laughingstock status to the point that even Levi "Ricky Hollywood" Johnston can take him seriously.

And really, who has ever deserved derision more than Dr. Andrew M. Sullivan, M.D., OB-GYN, Chief Resident of Republican Obstetric Research at the Atlantic Monthly Memorial Hospital?

UPDATE II: Some people don't get it. The idea here is to turn Sully into a running gag on the late-night standup routines, a punchline for Jon Stewart. Instead, we get thoughtful analysis from a serious historian like Ron Radosh:

The question, then is simple: Why did Andrew Sullivan get special treatment from the U.S. Attorney? . . .
Andrew Sullivan has moved from the stance of a fierce conservative to that of a liberal supporter of the Obama administration. . . .
Now, more than ever, it appears that the United States Attorney is repaying a debt to Sullivan for his support to the administration. Why else would he be singled out for exclusive treatment? And doesn’t it also mean that Sullivan now will be more careful than ever to continue giving the administration his approval, at least until after he becomes a citizen? A debt paid leads to a debt owed. . . .

Read the whole thing, but I've got to warn you, it's very thoughtful and serious. And if you wanted thoughtful and serious, why are you hanging out here on a Friday afternoon?

We're bloggers. Being serious and thoughtful is easy. Being funny takes hard work, and our job is to treat Sully as the butt of a joke.

The pale, hairy, middle-aged butt of a joke . . .

The Tanenhaus Republicans and the Architecture of Intellectual Prestige

Should you wish to develop a critique of the conservative movement, yet are incapable of genuinely original thought, try to avoid borrowing your second-hand ideas from an avowed enemy of conservatism like Sam Tanenhaus of the New York Times. (Y'all reckon his Buckley bio will get a good review?)

The brilliant Dan Riehl observes Rachel Maddow's MSNBC guest host Ana Marie Cox (speaking of "sworn enemies") interviewing Tanenhaus "discussing how WND is the equivalent of the Birchers today? Detailing how the Birchers were shut down." Dan continues:

Going on about the lack of intellectuals in conservatism today? Questioning where the Republican leadership is?
Damn! Almost seems to me I heard precisely all that just recently.
Then going on to pull in NRO, claiming that NRO (wink wink) only pretended to reject, while bringing forth new evidence, in the Birther conspiracy? Calling today's conservative "mouthpieces" pseudo-intellectuals? Do they mean Talk Radio? I'd bet they do.
No point in reading The Next Right anymore, perhaps. I can just wait to catch the latest young conservative wisdom on MSNBC. . . .

Ouch. Here's the MSNBC video, so the reader may appreciate the extent to which the liberal Tanenhaus has influenced this species of "conservatism":

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

What astonishes me is that these Young Turks, who conceive of themselves as infinitely superior to their elders in terms of intellectual sophistication, fail to recognize that they are being played as suckers in a very familiar sort of hustle. I explained this four months ago in "The Republicans Who Really Matter":

The Republicans Who Really Matter can be relied on to reinforce liberal stereotypes of the GOP, and to pen op-ed columns offering "helpful" advice to the Republican Party which, if followed, would lead to certain electoral disaster. . . .
No Republican pundit is ever going to become influential by buddying up to Wayne LaPierre or right-to-lifers; make favorable mention of environmentalism, however, and MSNBC producers will flood your inbox with e-mail invitations to a 10-minute guest segment on "Hardball."
One reliable method for advancing to the pinnacle as a Republican commentator is to argue that the party is badly divided, and to blame this fragmentation on some constituency universally loathed by liberals. . . .

The inarguable fact that liberals dominate the publishing industry, academia and other such institutions of intellect means that liberalism and its advocates possess a prestige that no out-and-out conservative can ever enjoy.

The Monopolization of Prestige
Neither Joseph Farah nor Dan Riehl will ever be published by the New York Times, will they? If Michelle Malkin, Mark Levin or Ann Coulter wrote biographies of William F. Buckley Jr., would their books be praised in a feature NYT book review? Would they be excerpted by The New Republic?

Of course not. Liberals would never lend the prestige of their institutions to such avowed enemies of liberalism. And anyone who desires to research the career of Buckley may easily discover the vehemence with which he was once denounced by liberals -- up until such time as liberals discerned that they might use him as a weapon to attack other conservative targets.

To be the sort of conservative intellectual acceptable to liberals, one must never make a criticism of liberalism that is genuinely effective, an argument that undermines the prestige of liberal ideas and liberal heroes. Why? Because once an intelligent person comes to suspect that liberalism does not deserve its prestigious reputation -- well, the emperor has no clothes, you see? Therefore, Pinch Sulzberger hires a neurasthenic weakling like David Brooks, and not a vigorous, forthright and courageous advocate of conservative ideas.

At some level, the shrewd and ambitious young Republican-leaning writer perceives all this. He understands that he can gain an especial distinction by courting the praise of liberals, in quite the same way a junior varsity cheerleader can become "popular" by dating the defensive line of the varsity football team. And the analogy is all the more apt in that the JV cheerleader who seeks the easiest way to "popularity" so often condemns as ill-motivated hypocrites those more virtuous girls who eschew her ways.

'Boring' or Burkean?
When, in a symposium on Tanenhaus, Austin Bramwell declares that conservatism is "intellectually boring," he is in one sense quite correct. The basic principles of American conservatism -- the defense of constitutionally limited government, opposition to the welfare state, sympathy for tradition, foreign policy based on strength, sovereignty and national interest -- are so well-known that they offer no attraction to those who crave novelty in political thought.

The upstart who desires to gain a reputation as an "innovative" thinker is welcome to seek employment outside conservative politics, if he is not content to find new ways to celebrate old verities or new arguments with which to eviscerate liberals.

Instead, what we see over and over -- see Brooks' disastrously influential "National Greatness" as a textbook example -- is an enthusiastic race to get ahead of the Zeitgeist, to become the Promethean author of a new Welltanschauung, to establish one's place as the founder of Some Other Conservatism.

Wise men are not deceived by these pretentious intellectual hustlers. When a self-described conservative begins slinging around words like "creativity" and "progress" in political discourse, it is not generally taken as evidence of doughty resolve. Rather, it is wise to suspect such a person of being what the Brits would call a trimmer.

The Cruelty of Ambition
Conservatism is a philosophy of opposition. Excuse me for repeating myself, but some of our Young Turks do not seem to be paying attention to the lessons.

They invite chastisement, lest they become still more impudent (if such a thing were possible). I call them "Young Turks," but they rather remind me of certain Young Hegelians of yore, unwisely eager to hasten the historical synthesis. Their conceited trust in their own superiority is dangerous, perhaps more to them than to the hoary elders of the "movement" whom they seek to supplant, and I suspect there would be far less tolerance of dissent if these ambitious youngsters were mounted in the saddle and empowered to wield the whip.

We need no Nietzschean ubermensch nor Platonic archons to rule over us, to enlighten our supposed benightedness and soothe us with their tendentious myths about Olympian idols. This dishonest campaign to employ the aid of Tanenhaus to enlist the departed Buckley as a ghostly advocate of Pragmatism deserves to be rejected with extreme prejudice. And any Young Turks who desire to keep pursuing this approach will do so at peril to their own ambitions.

Whatever the Zeitgeist amongst the intelligentsia, the balance of power within the conservative movement does not favor "Pragmatism," which means that would-be leaders of Some Other Conservatism will suffer from a shortage of followers, and will find themselves isolated and ignored.

Even while I was writing this little essay, the brilliant Dan Riehl was busy discovering what sort of advice Sam Tanenhaus offered to his own party in 2003. The liberal Democrat urged Democrats to embrace their own radicals, while the same liberal Democrat's arguments are now being used to urge Republicans to purge Joseph Farah and WND.

"Maximize the contradictions," as Abby Hoffman said.

Novak vs. Frum, Levin vs. Frum, and Casualties of Rhetorical Combat

Today's news about the death of Robert Novak brought to mind my first meeting with Novak in 2002, and subsequent events:

It was Novak's criticism of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, and especially his agreement with Buchanan on that subject, that earned him inclusion in David Frum's notorious 2003 catalog of "Unpatriotic Conservatives."
Since then, Frum has gone on to attack others, including Mark Levin. . . . As a result of the Bush policy -- and the rhetoric that attended the political defense of that policy -- every consideration of the U.S. position in the Middle East became a crude referendum on anti-Semitism, so that all dissenters were suspected of being closet Jew-haters in "unpatriotic" allegiance with terrorists.
This Manichean rhetorical escalation was both unfortunate and unjust, even if some of the dissenters (including Buchanan) had unwisely given their critics ammunition with which to arm accusations of mala fides. When discussions of policy become clouded by such damaging insinuations, when disagreement is cited as evidence of moral inferiority -- can anyone but a child molester be worse than an anti-Semite? -- then honest discussion becomes impossible. . . .
Today, of course, Novak can no longer be harmed by accusations that he, born at Jew, was guilty of aiding and abetting anti-Semites. Whatever his faults and errors, Bob Novak now awaits the judgment of a higher authority than David Frum. Let us pray that Frum will now pause to consider that he, too, shall one day be judged by the same authority.

You can read the whole thing at The American Spectator, and I am grateful to be linked in Ed Driscoll's own Novak tribute, as well as by DaTechguy, Mark Goluskin and Craig Henry.

Last night, I got a message from a veteran conservative communications professional, a friend who on Friday had tried to contact me about Frum's attack on Levin. Over the weekend, my attention had been consumed by other news, and so I had not responded to an earlier e-mail.

In the meantime, however, Dan Riehl had blogged about it, and someone called my attention to Frum's appearance on the Moyers show, and my response to that was actually mentioned on Monday night's show by Levin.

Nothing is more harmful to the legacy of Ronald Reagan than when a conservative, engaged in good-faith discussions of politics and policy, is publicly accused of dangerous malice, immorality or irresponsibility by another who purports similarly to revere the worthy cause to which Reagan dedicated his life.

Frum's attack on Levin was such an occasion, as was his "Unpatriotic Conservatives" article that attacked Novak and others. If a colleague in the conservative cause has erred in judgment, he should certainly expect criticism. Yet Frum has so clearly crossed a line -- and crossed it more than once -- that I wish he would entertain the hypothetical possibility that he has himself made errors of judgment.

Our nation is now in circumstances too desperate for good men to be silent while sincere conservatives like Mark Levin (who did honorable service under Ed Meese in the Reagan administration) are repeatedly and unfairly maligned by others who profess also to be conservatives.

(Cross-posted at the Hot Air Green Room.)

THE GRYPHEN FILES: Dan RiehlGets Personal With Anti-Palin Blogger

I'm just crazy. Dan Riehl is from New Jersey. There is a difference:

You do remember Arnetha right, Jessi. Griffin, right? Your brother Joe's wife, based upon the records I've seen. You'd think a caring guy like you would have spent more time worrying about his own family, instead of the Palin family -- besides indulging young Heather in all the sex talk you bragged about, I mean. Kyle and his felonies, a sister-in-law graduated from kiting checks in Alaska to pumping out teen killers back in the hood. Sure sounds to me like Jesse has enough problems with own family instead of obsessing so much over what another one does. But, eh, maybe it was racism that allowed him to forget Arnetha so easily, so as to not mention her on his blog.

Read the whole thing, if you think you can handle it. Before you accuse Dan Riehl of unnecessary cruelty, remember:

• Who Jesse Griffin is; and
• What Jesse Griffin did.

Well, off to Pittsburgh. Pity the vicious moonbat who ever doubts Dan Riehl's research abilities.

"GRYPHEN": TIMELINE OF THE INVESTIGATION

Look for updates at RIEHL WORLD VIEW.

Dan Riehl Has Questions for Jesse Griffin

"Answer the questions, creep. That's all I have to say to, or about him today. Why hasn't he done it? All I can imagine is, he can't. . . . If someone calls you a complete fraud with plenty of evidence to back up the claim and all you can do is chirp like a cricket during a heavy rain, well, I guess that makes you a fraud."
-- Dan Riehl to Jesse Griffin

When this confrontation over "Gryphen" and his "Immoral Minority" blog began, Jesse Griffin actually sent Dan Riehl e-mails. But when Dan started asking well-informed questions, Griffin stopped e-mailing and, eventually, told his readers to ignore Riehl World View and other critical blogs.

Why? The facts have always been on Dan's side, and Griffin doesn't want to confront the facts. When I spoke to Dan this afternoon, he told me he felt like taking things easy for a day or so, and that's cool.

Thanks to all the folks who have hit the tip jar. Today I got not only a tip, but a tip from an old buddy down Atlanta way. A guy I went to high school with was the one who suggested I pick up on the Paglia-Pelosi item, which had the happy benefit of reminding me to check in with my friend Cynthia Yockey.

My wife gets annoyed by my reliance on the tip jar. I've always been proud to say "I Write For Money" (i.e., I am a professional writer) but the transparency of the tip-jar solicitation method . . . well, isn't that begging? Nah. I'm just eliminating the middle man, creating a direct market nexus between the reader and the writer. . . .

I'll be back to add more in a few minutes, but one of my 16-year-old sons just called to say he's off work, so I've got to go pick him up. In the meantime, I'd like to dedicate a song to a generous tip-jar hitting lady in California. Alison, this one's for you!

UPDATE 1:45 a.m.: When I got back from picking up my son, I saw that Allah had linked Sarah Palin's response to Obama at Hot Air Headlines, so I posted the whole thing. To serve unbidden, unrecompensed and without thanks is the conservative's fate in this evil age.

THE GRYPHEN FILES: Dan Goes HuntingDuring Open Season on PDS Moonbats

Some of the commenters seem to share my wife's opinion of the Griffin/"Gryphen" story: "Why are you doing this? What's so important about this guy?"

Just asking questions. OK, I've tried to explain before, but since people keep asking, I'll try again.

On the afternoon of Saturday, Aug. 1, I was minding my own business, working on a paid feature story that had nothing to do with Sarah Palin. At about the 500-word mark, I decided to take a break and, as is my habit, check Memeorandum:

Todd and Sarah Palin to divorce

Holy mother of crap! How had I missed this story? Why hadn't anybody called me? You've got no idea what a furious mood I was in when I picked up my cell phone, hit a speed-dial number, and left an angry voice-mail demanding to know why I hadn't gotten a tip about this.

Because it wasn't true.

OK, fine. Demolish the Bozo who ruined my Saturday and get back to work. And sources say Sarah Palin thought this line was ROTFLMAO funny:

I sent an e-mail containing the admonishment that now, no matter what happens, the Palins can never get divorced, as this would undermine my credibility.

LOL, but serious as a heart attack: I don't care if Todd Palin hikes the Appalachian Trail to Argentina or Sarah Palin flies to Vegas and spends Labor Day weekend with the Chippendales dancers. As long as the Palins don't get a divorce, the continuation of their marriage proves that Jesse Griffin is a liar, Dennis Zaki is a floppy-shoed clown, and I'm solid gold, baby. (Please, Todd and Sarah, work it out for the sake of the kids. And me.)

On the other hand, as my "smelly Libertarian" friend Tom Knapp points out, the threat of a libel suit against Griffin is probably just a threat because "discovery is a bitch."

Griffin and His Precioussss
Right. And the same is true of Jesse Griffin's threats toward Dan Riehl. If only Griffin had grabbed a nice hot cup of STFU and contented himself with this Mutually Assured Destruction stalemate in the libel-law Cold War, maybe I could have spent the past 10 days chasing leads on IG-Gate. But noooooooo . . .

Jesse Griffin kept pushing and pushing and pushing. That's the most important fact of this whole story: From the very beginning, Jesse Griffin could have put down his precioussss and walked away, and there would have been no purpose in mining all those public records.

Griffin has proven himself a habitual liar, and an unusually stupid liar, at that. He's like a cartographically-impaired soldier who, having accidentally called in fire on his own position, crawls out of the smoldering crater, picks up the radio and tells the artillery commander: "You've got the range! Now hit 'em with all you've got!"

Griffin relentlessly pursued this self-destructive course of action despite repeated clues that Dan Riehl had a huge supply of ammunition and was prepared to fire it with brutal accuracy.

Just how clueless is Griffin? As recently as Monday, he claimed that a celebrity interview with Levi Johnston -- a/k/a "Ricky Hollywood" -- was the overdue vindication of his bogus Aug. 1 rumor.

Levi Johnston vs. Dan Riehl. As the man says, "Heh."

Speaking of "Heh," let me add here that I've noticed Professor Glenn Reynolds doesn't like this story. Griffin is just a clueless PDS-afflicted liar, but the author of An Army of Davids can't be happy to see even a fraudulently dangerous blogger being destroyed in this fashion. Honestly, I don't like it either, but what can I do?

Two Kinds of Crazy
We're talking about Dan Riehl. He's from New Jersey. When Dan digs in, he really digs in:

That fits with what a college girlfriend once said of me - I'm a bulldog and never let go of something until done once I latch on.

Dan doesn't really need my help, but when he calls me -- "Hey, Stace. What is this, Tuesday already? Been up since Sunday, man. I must've smoked a carton of Marlboros in the past 24 hours . . ." -- and starts telling me what he's dug up, the ghosts of certain departed Old School editors tell me to get on the assignment. If somebody asked me to start up a news operation tomorrow and told me the operation was budgeted for exactly one research staffer, Dan would get that job.

Woodward and Bernstein? Nah. Working with Dan is more like Lethal Weapon. I like hanging out with crazy people, because I get so tired of always being the token crazy guy in the room. Invite another crazy guy to the party, and I can relax and watch.

Fortunately, Dan is the opposite kind of crazy from me. If I'm ADD -- skittish, imaginative, all over the place -- Dan's OCD: Laser-focused, toiling endlessly to nail down whatever he's working on. He gets mad at my tendency to be distracted, I get annoyed by his stubborn refusal to admit that sometimes my crazy gut-hunches are pure genius. Dan has gut hunches of his own, but he's all about facts, and he sure as heck isn't going to trust somebody else's gut hunches.

Which is to say that, on a story like this "Gryphen" thing, Dan had me at "hello." Whoever the anonymous Internet dude was who CC'd Dan on that "Gryphen"/Griffin ID, they got my attention. And the minute Dan called and started telling me what the public records showed on Griffin, my gut hunch said it was going to be a big story.

The world of blogs and journalism is big enough for me to take the risk that Byron York might beat me on the next IG-Gate scoop. I got the last break on the ITC IG investigation, Congress is on recess and . . .

Hey, wait a minute. "Waste, fraud and abuse"? Clinica Sierra Vista gets $4.3 million in stimulus cash? Wonder what might happen if our buddy SIGTARP decides to poke around that one? Just asking questions . . .

Anyway, I figure Team Obama's going to throw Griffin under the bus, and if SIGTARP investigators start asking questions, he'll have the right to remain silent. (A nice hot cup of STFU, long overdue.)

So even if everybody in the blogosphere thinks Dan and I are crazy for chasing this story, my gut hunch tells me it's a long way from over. Watching Dan go after Griffin is like a Nintendo Wii game, Rambo vs. Elmer Fudd: Open Season On Moonbats.

So pop some popcorn. Conservatives4Palin just posted the Breitbart TV interview with Dan. Heckuva show.

Don't forget to hit the tip jar, folks. The geniuses at VRWC-HQ apparently can't afford my cell-phone bill or car payment, but if enough blog readers hit my tip jar, maybe I can buy a ticket to Anchorage and apply some shoe leather to this story. Crazier things have happened.

Watch for updates at RIEHL WORLD VIEW.

UPDATE: EXCLUSIVE! ALL RUMORS ARE TRUE, IF YOUR STANDARDS ARE LOW ENOUGH!

THE GRYPHEN FILES: Did Anti-Palin Blogger Get Paid For No-Show Job?

That is the question raised by Dan Riehl's newest discoveries about anti-Palin blogger Jesse Griffin, a/k/a "Gryphen," whose false "exclusive" report Aug. 1 began this investigation:

A business enterprise, Clinica Sierra Vista, Inc. (CSV), linked to [Catherine New and Eligio White] recently collected over $4 million of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) dollars as part of an overall effort in support of community-based health care centers being touted by Barack and Michelle Obama. . . .
Former Alaska resident Catherine New is married to the head of CSV, Eligio G. White. New is also linked to the Puffin Heights Montessori School identified as Griffin's employer. . . .

It's a 2,400-word blockbuster, so read the whole thing and remember: Dan is just asking questions, the way Griffin/"Gryphen" has been doing for months.

UPDATE: Several of Dan's commenters seem unable to connect the dots in his very long article. It helps if you will print out the article and go over it with pen in hand, as I did. In Dan's comment field, I posted this summary for the benefit of anyone who didn't get the picture:

1. Jesse Griffin's "employer of record" is Puffin Heights Montessori school.
2. Employees of that school told Dan that they have never seen Griffin at the school.
3. Former Alaska resident Catherine New was once listed as "primary contact" for the Puffin Heights school.
4. The Puffin Heights school was apparently bankrupted by IRS tax judgments and reorganized circa 2002, with "Yolanda Baber" listed as head of the LLC.
5. Joseph Culligan has been unable to verify the existence of a "Yolanda Baber" in Anchorage.
6. Meanwhile, Catherine New and her husband, Eligio White, have prospered in the health-care industry and are "progressive" activists whose business recently received $4.3 million of stimulus money.

We could speculate about what all this means, but if this Puffin Heights Montessori was indeed paying Griffin for a "no-show job," the big question is: Why?

'GRYPHEN': TIMELINE of the INVESTIGATION

UPDATE II: People who aren't familiar with what Dan Riehl does may need to understand that (a) an amazing amount of data is available as public records; (b) there are research methods that don't involve Google; and (c) most people don't even know how to use Google very effectively.

While not at liberty to discuss Dan's methods, I can now tell you that he told me about this Montessori thing more than a week ago (late Aug. 2 or early Aug. 3) but at that time we had no idea what it meant.

Given the value of Griffin's home (more than $300,000) and his salary from his part-time public-school job at Trailside Elementary in Anchorage, it was obvious that the financial picture didn't add up. The way Puffin Heights Montessori was listed on the public records, it wasn't clear whether Griffin was working there simultaneously with the Trailside job, or if it was a previous employer.

Meanwhile, on his own "Immoral Minority" blog, Griffin was saying different things and it was hard to know what was true or not, as Griffin appears to be a compulsive liar. At one point, Griffin said that the Anchorage public-school gig -- which he resigned Aug. 4 -- was not his main employer.

Means, Motive, Opportunity
Griffin's money situation had intrigued me from the beginning. Why? Because in his big Aug. 1 "exclusive," he'd referenced a National Enquirer story, talked about one of his "best sources," and mentioned vaguely that Alaska newspapers were working on some kind of related Palin scandal story.

Hmmmm. Everybody in journalism knows that the National Enquirer is willing to pay for information. Had Griffin parlayed his status as an anti-Palin blogger into some sort of freelance work for the Enquirer? I mentioned that possibility to Dan Riehl -- just wild speculation on my part -- but Dan was so busy going over the public records that he laughed off that suggestion.

Still -- and hey, we're just asking questions -- who is Jesse's "best source"? Why was Jesse willing to risk a libel suit by passing along that source's gossip? And what is the source's motive for dishing dirt? This is where Dennis Zaki's confirmation by "multiple sources" raises more questions.

Zaki specified that one of his sources was a "former Palin staffer"; days later, Zaki reported that a former Palin staff was trying to sell a tell-all book. (Remember that it was Zaki who stupidly outed Griffin as an Alaska kindergarten teacher; if he has now idiotically put the finger on his "former Palin staffer" source, it just goes to show what a subnormal geek Dennis Zaki is.)

All of this goes to the "motive" part of the classic formula of "means, motive and opportunity" when detectives are trying to solve a crime. Some of my commenters have speculated that Levi Johnston -- the hockey goon/baby daddy who gave an interview to Radar Online today, dishing dirt on the Palins -- may be one of Jesse's sources.

A moron feeding tips to a liar? Hey, if I was threatened with a libel suit and "one of my best sources" was none other than Levi "Ricky Hollywood" Johnston, I'd retract in a New York heartbeat. (And if I was somebody who cared about Levi Johnston, I'd tell him to stay away from Alaska henceforth.)

Celebrities and Sell-By Dates
If you know anything about what Hollywood is like nowadays, every two-bit D-lister in L.A. will tell you his agent's trying to get him a reality-TV gig. Probably 90% of reality-show "development" deals go nowhere, so Levi Johnston's 15 minutes of fame are likely to end without him ever cashing any big checks. Ditto the ex-Palin staffer who is hustling a tell-all about Sarah.

Meanwhile, here is Jesse Griffin, one of the left-wing Alaska blogospheric myrmidons who've spent the past 11 months trashing Palin online for the amusement of PDS-affected "progressives" worldwide. Now that Palin's resigned as governor and the spotlight has shifted, the blog-o-bucks are harder to get for the Alaskasphere, and everybody -- ex-staffers, "Ricky Hollywood," Griffin, his blog buddies -- is trying to cash in before the sell-by date expires on this dirt-dishing bonanza.

Just a guess, but Griffin's evident belief that the Anchorage Daily News was about to publish its own "Palin scandal" story probably tells us something about who Griffin's sources are. And speaking of "just asking questions," if I was the editor of the Daily News, I'd be asking my reporters if any of them were hustling book deals or talking shop with "friends" outside the newsroom.

Unfamiliar with the methods of actual journalists, Griffin recklessly posted that idiotic "exclusive" Palin divorce rumor, without realizing how easily and completely it would be debunked. Nor did Griffin suspect that, by claiming to have such an "exclusive," he would attract the attention of a veteran journalist who didn't appreciate having his Saturday ruined by that bogus scoop.

And I guarantee you that when "Gryphen" hit the orange "publish post" button on his phony "exclusive," he didn't even know such a person as Dan Riehl existed. Say hello to the law of unintended consequences, Jesse.

Have a nice day! :D

P.S.: Thanks to all the readers who hit the tip jar today, and please keep hitting it. Depending on how this "Gryphen" story plays out, I may someday be able to sell a freelance article about it, but it would take weeks or months before I'd see a paycheck. The cell-phone company, the Internet service provider and especially the finance company on my car loan need to be paid sooner than that. So please hit the tip jar!

UPDATE III (11 a.m. 8/12): Edited to delete a minor error.

UPDATE IV (1:20 p.m. 8/12): EXCLUSIVE! ALL RUMORS ARE TRUE, IF YOUR STANDARDS ARE LOW ENOUGH!