Matthew Yglesias has a sperm problem

Or, at least, he's worried he might have a sperm problem, after reading environmentalist scare stuff about declining fertility. Let's think about this.

Yglesias = 0 children.

Me = 6 children.

Why is this a "problem"? I'm just sayin' . . .

Texas, Florida Conservative Grassroots Fight GOP Elite Over Crist Endorsement

The grassroots revolt went viral yesterday, the Florida GOP Chairman was forced to back down from his Senate endorsement for Charlie Crist, and now the fire spreads to NRSC Chairman John Cornyn's Texas:

Key Republicans in Texas are alarmed by Sen. John Cornyn's decision, as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, to endorse Florida Gov. Charlie Crist in a contested Senate race 15 months before the GOP primary.
"If they're going to do it in Florida, what's to stop them from doing it everywhere?" a Texas Republican source told me late Wednesday. "It's absurd that the NRSC is doing this. It's an insult to the base."

Read the whole thing. Meanwhile, for your amusement, I had a little personal score to settle:

When a Georgia boy with a degree from Jacksonville (Ala.) State University comes to Washington as a journalist, he becomes accustomed to a steady diet of insults from the snobs of the Beltway media elite.
Some insults rankle worse than others, however. So it was impossible to resist the impulse to rub that insult back into an arrogant Ivy Leaguer’s face: "Of course, conservative bloggers never do reporting because, as liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias says, 'What the right lacks are people with the skill to do the job'' And since Yglesias went to Harvard, he knows everything."

Read that whole thing, too. 'Cause I'm the King of Rock 'n' Roll. Thankyuhvurrrmuch.

BTW, I just realized I've been working continuously since 7 a.m. Wednesday morning. After 24 hours, I figure I could use three or four hours sleep, don't you?

UPDATE 12:50 p.m. ET: Now a Memeorandum thread, as Erick Erickson reacts to Greer's walkback, saying the Florida chairman ""is glossing over the fact that he tried to use party rules to get Rubio knocked off the ballot. He is also ignoring the fact that he made clear at the RNC meeting that the Republican Party of Florida would be supporting only Crist in the Senate race and only McCollum in the gubernatorial race."

UPDATE 1 p.m.: John Hawkins analyzes why GOP leaders are so freaking clueless:

[T]he leadership of the Republican Party keeps saying we need to get back to our principles and talks about how important it is to attract more young voters and Hispanic Americans. Then, we get a viable young conservative Hispanic candidate like Marco Rubio running for the Senate in Florida and they arrogantly try to shove him aside to make way for a better-connected, moderate pol who's more acceptable to the GOP establishment.
Our party leadership goes on "listening tours" where they don't talk about hot-button issues, say the base needs to get over Reagan, and don't seem do any real listening.
We get "moderate" Republicans who provide the crucial votes for the Democrats on every key issue. . . .
What it all comes down to is that the Republican establishment is out of touch, doesn't respect the people who put them in office, and has no principle they wouldn’t compromise for little more than a few kind words from the media.

Read the whole thing.

As Tony Fontaine said to Scarlett . . .

"My God, Scarlett O'Hara!" said Tony peevishly. "When I start out to cut somebody up, you don't think I'll be satisfied with scratching him with the blunt side of my knife, do you? No, by God, I cut him to ribbons."
-- Gone With The Wind

Dear Matthew Yglesias:
You have lately accosted my friends in a most unjust manner. That you linked me in the course of attacking Glenn Beck is of no import. I've never met Mr. Beck and owe him nothing, and you were at least tolerably civil toward me, which is more than I could reasonably expect, given the current norms of political discourse.

What troubled me, sir, was your description of my friend William Jacobson as "humorless" because he objected to your use of the term "breeders" to describe traditionalists.

Thank you, however, for the intimate revelation that you are a "hetero-American." This is a startling admission to hear from a Harvard graduate. Apparently, the regime of compulsory homosexuality at Cambridge still hasn't reached its Stalinist stage, and some few furtive Trotskyite heretics are still permitted in the Yard. (This is no place to discuss the Pol Pots of Penn or the Castros of Cornell.)

Neverthless, you should know that last night I prepared to eviscerate you today. Like an experienced butcher, however, I began by properly whetting my blade. And then I checked my SiteMeter, which was your salvation.

For I discovered that I had been linked by Conservative Grapevine, which also had a link to a column by Matt Lewis: "Top 10 Most Annoying Republicans." Given the nature of my morning's work, this beckoned my attention, where I was stunned to discover Mr. Lewis citing a most unexpected authority:

"To the best of my knowledge we're talking about a young woman who's never accomplished anything or held a job."
-- Matthew Yglesias, April 20, 2008

Let all the congregation say, "Amen!" Therefore, I hope my good friend Professor Jacobson will forgive me if I not only sheath my knife, but extend to you a congratulatory handshake. No man who detests Meghan McCain can be all bad, and if you'll go at her another time or two -- which sources say is more than even the most devoted hetero-American fellows can generally manage -- perhaps I'll even buy you a beer sometime soon.

By grace are men saved, and not by their own merit. Pray you never lack a guardian angel like Matt Lewis.

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers. Is the professor . . . overcompensating? Kind of like Cynthia Yockey with the big wiener? Also: The mighty Paco-lanche!

JournoList: 'People with the skill'

Nice to know that Matthew Yglesia, who has argued that "what the right lacks are people with the skill to do the job" of news reporting, has nothing better to do than to respond to a JournoList thread like this:

From: Matthew Yglesias Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:00:31 -0400 Local: Tues, Mar 24 2009 2:00 pm Subject: Re: [JournoList] BREAKING: Marty Peretz is a Crazy-Ass Racist . . .

The subject of discussion there is a Marty Peretz item from The New Republic about narco-terrorism and governmental dysfunction in Mexico. Ergo, unless you avert your eyes to the rapidly deteriorating situation in Mexico and pretend that Ciudad Juarez is like Disney World (except happier), you are a "Crazy-Ass Racist" like the venerable liberal publisher of TNR. The other major "revelation" about JournoList is described by Jeff Goldstein:

Think "Woodward and Bernstein bring down Nixon,” only replace "Woodward and Bernstein bring down Nixon" with “A bunch of guys who were beaten up daily in junior high show why they almost certainly had it coming."

(Hat-tip: Jimmie Bise Jr. at Sundries Shack.) Indeed, a "plague of neurasthenia." At almost the exact same hour that Yglesias was on JournoList discussing the "news" about Marty "I Hate Beaners" Peretz, a real journalist, Dave Weigel, was breaking a scoop. ("Scoops" -- what a concept!)

More reporting conservatives don't do

Tonight at George Washington University, David Horowitz made news:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- There is a "100% chance that there will be . . . an attack on U.S. soil," conservative author David Horowitz said Thursday.
Horowitz made the prediction while speaking to a George Washington University student group, after being asked about the possibility of U.S.-Iranian conflict. In the event of such a terror attack against the American homeland, Horowitz predicted, there will be widespread public outrage against U.S. liberals. . . .

Having spent more than two decades in the news business, I was outraged in January when Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard said conservative bloggers don't do reporting. I'd love to do more, but the stuck-up know-it-alls at the Weekly Standard never asked, and they don't ever link me off their blog, so . . . OK, /rage.

But then Matthew Yglesias jumped in with his "nyah nyahs," prompting Malkin to demonstrate, au contraire, that conservative bloggers do report. And I know doggone well that they could do a lot more reporting, if anyone with any influence in the conservative movement had a freaking clue about the news business. But they don't, and so I'm out here shaking the tip jar at 11 at night, while some other people on fat salaries are at home in bed.

F--- them.

Dan Collins has further thoughts on the subject. I'm too tired and angry to write about it now.

UPDATE: Linked by Pundit & Pundette.

The wrong analogy

Matthew Yglesias on the Bob Barr candidacy:

In theory, at least, there's room for a sort of John Anderson figure and you could see Barr playing that role.

Eh? Anderson was a bland technocratic geek, a moderate Republican who appealed to voters who were sick of Carter but feared Reagan's Radical Right reputation.

Barr has impeccable conservative credentials. He served in the CIA when the agency was run by the elder Bush, and served as a U.S. attorney in the Reagan administration.

Barr's publicly-stated reason for leaving the GOP was the Bush administration's internal-security measures. Barr's Fourth Amendment critique of the USA-PATRIOT Act has been echoed by such stalwarts of the Right as Phyllis Schlafly and the John Birch Society.

What a Barr presidential candidacy represents -- and he has said this in nearly so many words -- is a conservative dissent against the drift of the Republican Party toward statism. Barr is trying to resurrect the "Spirit of '94," the anti-Beltway agenda on which he and the rest of the "Contract With America" Republicans were first elected to Congress.

The anti-statist flavor of Barr's conservatism is what made him simpatico with the Libertarian Party, although it remains to be seen whether the LP's convention delegates will be simpatico toward Barr as their presidential candidate. Some LP members are purists to the point of fanaticism and will oppose Barr on ideological grounds; some longtime LP members are likely to resent Barr as a newcomer.

But whatever Barr is, he's not John Anderson.