Palin as litmus test?

Or perhaps Rorshach test would be the more accurate term. Pro-Palin blogger Joseph Sheppard argues that Sarah Palin's conservative admirers should, as a general policy, ignore anti-Palin bloggers.

Such a policy is wise where it is possible, and preferable to eternal flame-wars. And I say this not merely about the pro-Palin/anti-Palin feud, but as a general principle: If something irritates you, try to avoid it.

Take, as an example, Neil Young. His voice is lousy and he's a mediocre songwriter. As a guitarist, he's not bad, but not good enough to compensate for his deficits, especially as a singer, where he rivals Gordon Lightfoot for the Most Annoying Canadian Vocalist Lifetime Achievment Award. Therefore, whenever Neil Young comes on the radio, I change the station.

But there are occasions when I find myself trapped in a situation -- e.g., old buddies invite me to a dive bar with a jukebox -- where the avoidance strategy is impracticable, and the results can be tragic. Some idiot will drop a dollar in the jukebox and play "Ohio," and I find myself fighting the urge to begin loudly praising the National Guard and shouting imprecations against "hippie peacenik scum."

Is it just politics? No. Jackson Browne is somewhere left of Lenin, but he's a fine singer-songwriter. "Doctor My Eyes" and "The Load Out" are deservedly classics. Green Day are outright Marxists, but "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" is nevertheless a catchy tune. R.E.M. are also generally a left-wing outfit, yet they make marvelous music.

No, Neil Young sucks. And if you disagree, we'll just have to avoid talking about it, because you'll only aggravate me. Same thing with Ann Coulter being a Deadhead, or Smitty's inexplicable affection for '80s metal. De gustibus non est disputandum.

Sarah Palin is a potential contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. That fact should not be turning conservative friends into bitter enemies more than two years ahead of the 2012 Iowa caucus.

If you're a Palin fan and the very mention of Rick Moran makes the veins in your neck stand out, stop reading Rick Moran. If you're Andrew Sullivan and the very mention of Sarah Palin makes you start ranting like a madman . . . Well, I don't know. Smoke some dope or something.

Stop obsessing. Chill.

At any rate, Joseph Sheppard has made a useful suggestion. And don't get me started on Neil Young.

Demonization, Inc.

My boast as a greedy capitalist is that "I Write For Money." It's rather odd that some people evidently get paid to write about me, in publications that wouldn't pay me a dime to write about myself.

If I'm such a damned fascinating subject, offer me 40 cents a word and I'll cheerfully deliver 1,000 words within 24 hours. (Leaving me plenty of time to goof off. Tuesday's 900-word column for The American Spectator was written in less than four hours.)

Nevertheless, publishers eschew this eliminate-the-middle-man efficiency, which brings us back to the subject of Barrett Brown, spokesman for the Godless Coalition. Yesterday I noted that Brown was promising to add a chapter about me to his forthcoming book, which I jokingly suggested he rename People That Barrett Brown Doesn't Like (Mainly Jews).

Today I received a courteous e-mail from Brown explaining that the context of his proposed chapter on me "involves the article you composed in 2002 regarding Jonathan Farley, as well as the activities in which you were otherwise engaged at the time in which you wrote that particular piece." To which I replied:

Thank you for the courtesy, sir. My first response was, "Jonathan Farley? Who is Jonathan Farley?" Then I looked it up and recognized him as the Vanderbilt University professor with the Che Guevara poster who waged a campaign to rename Confederate Memorial Hall, a controversy I reported about.
Shall I surmise the "otherwise engaged" as indicative of your belief that my reporting was not entirely objective? If I succeed in my fundraising drive to go to Pasadena to cover the BCS championship, do you suppose that I'll get the score wrong or misspell the players' names?
You are yourself an ax-grinder with a cause, Mr. Barrett. If your publisher wishes to provide you with the opportunity to advance that cause at my expense, that would be an interesting transaction, although I doubt it will prove very lucrative for either of you.
-- RSM

Honest commerce ought not be the grounds for personal animosity, and I try to be empathetic toward those who are paid to demonize me.

The SPLC's Heidi Beirich has practically made a career of writing about what a terrible person I am, yet I've promised her that we'll get together and sing karaoke next time I visit Montgomery to see my kin. Dr. Beirich has my sympathy because, evidently unable to obtain any respectable employment, she is compelled by misfortune to work for that treacherous bastard Morris Dees.

Here's the thing: Dees runs a tax-exempt non-profit, which was started with a mailing list of 1972 McGovern campaign contributors. He has amassed a $150 million endowment by convincing elderly liberals that, unless they send a check to the SPLC today, the brownshirts will be goose-stepping down Main Street tomorrow. It's a dishonest racket, and Dees gets away with such a scam only because his victims donors are convinced that by sending him money, they're engaging in an act of humanitarian charity.

If Brown and his publisher think they're going to make a profit by horning in on the SPLC's fearmongering racket, let them ask Max Blumenthal's publisher how much profit they've made from his book Republican Gomorrah. I just noticed a review of Blumenthal's book by . . . wait for it . . . Frank Schaeffer:

Blumenthal first came to my attention when he was doing his in-depth reporting on Sarah Palin. He was a guest on a TV program I was on too. There was something accomplished and in depth about the quality of his reporting on religion that I hadn't seen from other progressive sources. I've been following his work since. . . .
No one else has ever investigated this subject with as much insight into the psychological sickness that is the basis of the Religious right's power to delude other people who are also needy and unstable.
In another time and place the despicable (and sometimes tragic figures) Blumenthal describes would be the leaders of, or the participants in, local lynch mobs, or the followers of the Ku Klux Klan. But today figures such as James Dobson, Pat Robertson, (the late) Jerry Falwell, Newt Gingrich, and Sarah Palin have led a resentment-driven second American revolution, not just against Democrats and progressives but against the United States of America itself. . . .

The market for this kind of Theocratic Hate Menace stuff is already glutted, yet it seems that publishers can't get enough of it. People are standing in line to buy Sarah Palin's bestseller, while the effort to cash in on anti-Palin sentiment yields . . . what? MSNBC?

Barrett Brown's book briefly summarized: Stuff people have written or said on TV that pisses me off.

Good luck with selling that. It's still a free country and people have the right to waste their money however they see fit. Hitting my tip jar to send me to Pasadena wouldn't be a total waste -- I guarantee the reporting will be more interesting than anything Max Blumenthal has ever written -- but still I've got those Empty Tip-Jar Blues.

Texas: Palin/Perry vs. Armey/Hutchison?

A rumor about Sarah Palin's plans -- whether she will personally campaign in Texas for Gov. Rick Perry, whom she endorsed in February -- caused me to get my "Eastern panties in a wad," to quote one American Spectator blog commenter.

Erick Erickson, a Perry supporter, is sanguine, whereas I'm concerned about Palin becoming involved in a feud with supporters of Perry's challenger, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. As explained at the American Spectator:

Hutchison is strongly supported by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, a Texan whose FreedomWorks organization has been directly involved with the Tea Party movement. Armey actively campaigned for Hoffman in the NY23, and a Palin endorsement of Perry would in effect divide an emerging conservative alliance.

During the NY23 campaign, I asked Armey off-the-record about the Perry-Hutchison race, and since it was I who stipulated that it was off the record, I'm not going to characterize his response. At any rate, one of Perry's supporters added this comment at the Spectator blog:

KBH is a huge RINO like Scozzafava who recently earned "Porker of the Month" from Citizens Against Government Waste and was named a "Republican Big Spender" by the Club for Growth. Hutchison is pro-choice. She voted FOR global warming legislation earlier this year. She skipped two ACORN votes. She skipped the partial birth abortion ban vote in 2003. She voted for Hilda Solis and Obama's National Service plan.

That commenter linked to anti-KBH site Washington Kay. Maybe I'm placing too much weight on Armey being pro-KBH. At any rate, I think Palin could be much more helpful if, as also rumored, she campaigns for Marco Rubio in Florida, as I Twittered to Eric Erickson:

@ewerickson If Palin would just make a 2- or 3-day swing for Rubio soon (i.e., between Christmas and Jan. 1) that would make HUGE difference

BTW, it was my Twitter friend Cubachi who clarified that Palin had already endorsed Perry. In the newspaper business, there was always the copy desk to catch my stupid screw-ups. In the blogosphere, that's the job of commenters. Thanks.

Crafted of the Finest Righteousness

by Smitty (h/t That's Right)

Conan O'Brien.
Shatner comes out for a dramatic reading from Going Rogue.
Sarah emerges for counter-battery fire from Up Till Now: The Autobiography.
Shatner's facial expression is that of a man being publicly owned, and savoring every minute of it.

Andy and the Amazing Astonishing Tale

In his most recent attack on Sarah Palin, Sully recycles one of his favorite themes:

On the return flight from Dallas to Alaska, which she says she boarded despite having contractions at eight months . . . the flight attendants on the plane at the time, according to a contemporaneous account in the ADN, had no idea she was even pregnant, let alone in labor of some kind. The questions about this astonishing story are not a function of conspiracy theories and never were. They require no elaborate theory of whose child Trig may actually be. They are simply basic questions anyone would ask of a person who had recounted such an amazing tale. And yet not a single journalist has done so.

How many times has Sully made these claims? And how many times have other journalists said they looked into it and found nothing worthy of further investigation?

Sully calls Palin's account of her labor "astonishing" and "amazing." Palin's book has sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and the majority of those buyers were women. Do any of them find anything suspicious about Palin's version of giving birth to her fifth child?

Some of Palin's critics have found fault with her for traveling to Dallas when she was so near her due date, and have criticized her decision to fly back to Alaska when labor began, rather than to seek treatment in Dallas. Yet there are many other women who react to that story differently: For obvious reasons, any woman would prefer to be treated by her own OB-GYN, rather than seek treatment in an emergency room in a distant city. Palin's urge to return to Alaska for her childbirth doesn't seem remotely "astonishing" or "amazing" to them.

That Andrew Sullivan lacks understanding and empathy toward women is old news. And his lack of understanding and empathy toward reporters is also a familiar theme of Sullivan's career. A commenter on a previous post brought up the fact that, in 2003, Sullivan was chief among those demanding that Rick Bragg should be fired. At the time, Craig Henry wrote:

Can someone please explain why Andrew Sullivan is getting a free pass as he rages against Howell Raines and Rick Bragg? He is sitting in judgment and passing harsh sentences. Yet he never mentions that as editor of the New Republic he was conned by both Ruth Shalit (plagiarism) and Stephen Glass (mean spirited fabulist).

Bingo. Why would anyone trust Sullivan's judgement of what constitutes sound reporting? As far as I'm aware, the man has never worked as a news reporter, never so much as covered a school-board meeting or a barn fire.

Now, however, Sully insists that any reporter who isn't demanding access to Sarah Palin's obstetric records is, in effect, part of a conspiracy to suppress The Awful Truth -- whatever that is. Sullivan tends to be a bit nebulous about the shadowy secrets he alleges to be hidden in those files locked away in the offices of Palin's OB-GYN.

While Sully continues playing Javert, let me step into the role of Sherlock Holmes in this mystery, and call attention to the curious incident of the dog that did not bark: Katrina Vanden Heuvel.

The editor of the Nation rushed into print, under the purposefully deceptive title "Going Rouge" a collection of hit-pieces on Palin. Yet despite her obvious political anthipathy to Palin, Katrina Vanden Heuvel has not joined Andrew Sullivan's Trig Truther wild-goose chase, nor do I think she will.

Marxist subversive though she is, Katrina Vanden Heuvel is also a woman and a mother and, as she made clear in her Nov. 24 item "Last Column About Sarah Palin --Ever," she doesn't like the unsubtle misogyny displayed by some of Palin's other enemies.

That column also made oblique reference to "assorted pushers of quackery and psychobabble." C'mon, Katrina: Name names.

No irony could possibly be more delicious than if Katrina Vanden Heuvel were to throw Sully and his Trig Truther posse under the Left's bus.

Sullivan claims to be a conservative, if only as a pretext for denouncing conservatives as deviating from the True Faith practiced by dope-smoking gay Catholics. Why shouldn't the Nation take Sully at his word and denounce him as they would any other conservative?

A: 'I think it’s a fair question'

by Smitty

Now if the question has the form: "Is it possible that the Climate Research Unit is playing games with the research?" then you're cool.

However, if the question is along the lines of: "What if other people make Barack Obama's birth certificate an issue?" then Rick Moran thinks you may be among the "simpletons and paranoid conspiracy freaks".

Re-read the quoted section of the interview, Rick, emphasis mine:

Would you make the birth certificate an issue if you ran?

I think the public, rightfully, is still making it an issue. I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t know if I would have to bother to make it an issue ’cause I think there are enough members of the electorate who still want answers.

Do you think it’s a fair question to be looking at?

I think it’s a fair question, just like I think past associations and past voting record — all of that is fair game. You know, I’ve got to tell you, too: I think our campaign, the McCain/Palin campaign didn’t do a good enough job in that area. We didn’t call out Obama and some of his associates on their records and what their beliefs were and perhaps what their future plans were. And I don’t think that that was fair to voters to not have done our jobs as candidates and as a campaign to bring to light a lot of the things that now we’re seeing made manifest in the administration.

For the record, (and I can't say whether Stacy would agree), the galactic coordinates where Barack Obama first drew breath have got to be the least important Constitutional threat at the moment. There are 12 trillion+ more sinister dangers (i.e., the national debt), than the question of whether Barack was born on Mars or in Hawaii. Even if you could conclusively prove otherwise, you'd require all three branches of the Federal government to admit they utterly tubed it when they installed BHO. So really, this isn't an issue likely to bear fruit, and therefore isn't worthy of attention.

Sarah gave it no attention. Can't you see that she's leaving it to "a small subset of the entire electorate cares?" She hasn't said anything more than "it's all fair game"

They are missing the point. Sarah Palin has said that these questions are legitimate, that voters have a right to know, and that "a lot" of citizens are concerned about it.

She didn't say what any rational person on the right or left believes: that questions about the president's birth have been settled by the state of Hawaii, that only a very small group of citizens are even concerned about the issue, and that an equally small number of people were even aware of the ridiculous controversy over Trig's origins.

Why, Rick, should she listen to you, me, or any other purportedly "rational person on the right"?

If anything, Sarah's biggest crime would seem to be cribbing from BHO's own playbook: leaving minions to do the rough work like pursue a birth certificate controversy, or a $400 haircut.

Maybe I'm in your "cotton candy conservative" category:

There is much wrong with many inside the beltway conservatives. I agree that they should be castigated for their hypocrisy; running as pious conservatives back home while playing fast and loose with conservative principles in DC. Such cynicism should be punished severely and I have no qualms about taking them to the woodshed for their sins.

But the world looks a little more complex to the "elites" than it does to most conservatives. In fact, many on the right reject complexity entirely, seeing it as just another excuse for a lack of adherence to principles among establishment conservatives, and others like Friedersdorf. It is their lack of fervency that is suspect, not necessarily any deviation from principle that riles the critics. That, and a slightly different interpretation of what "conservatism" is all about, convicts establishment righties of the crime of "not being conservative enough," and thus a target of the true believers.

So, Rick, if we can agree that every challenge, at a certain point in time, has some level of complexity, maybe we can agree that obfuscating is worse than oversimplifying. You can always add bureaucrats. Unlike a Danish whore, however, prostitutes of the organization chart nature won't go down or go away easily. They will, however, cook the books any way necessary to fulfill that great line from Civ IV: "The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of an expanding bureaucracy."

Chatting with Stacy today, I threw out the idea that the Democrats are the Harlem Globetrotters, and the Republicans are the Washington Generals. The pressing question of American politics is not whether we like the Globetrotters over the Generals, but rather whether we think this last century of exhibition basketball, with its debt, deficits, incumbency, and socialism, is the preferred governmental sporting model. Lefties and moderates take turns cheering for the Globetrotters and Generals, since the Progressives sold us this exhibition basketball shinola.

Has Sarah Palin offered a substantial alternative to exhibition basketball? No. She started her national phase as a VP nominee for a Progressive, moderate squish of a presidential ticket. Since then, she's given us a ghosted book, of which I haven't read enough to comment. Posts responding to yours about Sarah are by no means a gushing endorsement.

Returning to Palin Mainstreams the Birthers:

The problem is, unless the GOP — and that includes Rush Limbaugh and the other cotton candy conservatives who wield a lot of influence — stand up and denounce her in no uncertain terms, birtherism will have gone completely mainstream in the Republican Party. If that happens, you might want to forget about any significant gains at the polls for the GOP in 2010.

By her stupidity, she is now going to force every GOP candidate for the House and Senate to come out and declare whether they are birther nuts or not. Even if they’re not, being forced to answer in the first place makes the party look even kookier than it has to this point in time. You can bet Democratic opponents of Republican candidates will be asking whether they agree with Palin or not — and they will do it every chance they get. The press will gleefully repeat the question, no matter how many times the GOP candidate answers it.

What a sad, tragic, maddening turn of events.

Short: No.
Medium: You're headed for Sullivan territory.
Long: Your bogus presumption of mainstreaming has led to an unhinged conclusion about the direction of the debate.

My suspicion is that you're deriving great traffic from extrapolating far-fetched conclusions from simple statements. I admire your capitalism, sir. Also, do you think Mitt Romney a viable 2012 Republican candidate? I figure that you must, given his suave executive demeanor.

In the meantime, Dr. Smith prescribes moderate exercise for all the tension coming through your posts. Also, a healthy diet.

UPDATE: Dan Riehl has a more reasonable response than Rick Moran's.

UPDATE II (RSM): As Smitty mentioned in his American Glob interview, the risk of a blog partnership is that you sometimes work at cross-purposes. Just the other night, as I recall, I warned Smitty not to give into his temptation to whack the Rick Moran tar-baby. And while he was working on this post, I was working on a post -- which I may yet decide to publish -- whacking a better target: Andrew Sullivan. But never mind that right now.

In my opinion, Sarah Palin gave the wrong answer to Rusty Humphrey's question. I don't know if I've been interviewed on Rusty's show before -- I did a lot of talk radio while promoting Donkey Cons in 2006 -- and certainly have no more desire to attack him than I do to attack Palin.

However, Rusty's question was as misguided as Palin's answer. As I've said before, there is simply no political payoff to Birtherism. If and when conservative score political victories in 2010 or 2012, it won't be because somebody's found a "smoking gun" about the circumstances of Obama's birth. Instead of asking questions about a birth certificate, conservatives need to be asking questions that don't lead into a cul-de-sac of fruitless speculation.

We might say something similar about Smitty and Rick Moran going at one another. Rick's problem, I've surmised, is that he is cued into certain liberal media outlets and has internalized their spin on these kinds of stories. It's a GIGO situation.

I've been on Rick's blog radio show several times and hung out with him at CPAC, and he's always friendly. However, he and I perceive different political realities.

Why? I don't watch much TV, almost never watch the Big Three network news, don't even get CNN on my cable selection, and am always on guard against bias in any news I read. I know nothing about Rick's own news diet, but from the stuff he writes I'm sometimes tempted to think he's listening to NPR, watching Anderson Cooper and reading New Republic. NTTAWWT.

Smitty's problem, on the other hand, is that he's got Rick's blog in his RSS feed, so he sees at least the headline of every post Rick writes and madcap hijinks ensue.

Through long years of writing and editing other writers, I've learned that what you read influences what you write. For example, academic historians are bad writers because most of what they read is the work of other academic historians. And a lot of women journalists write in a lightweight style because they spend too many leisure hours reading novels and women's magazines.

Well, we bloggers have a bad tendency to read too many blogs. We get into the habit of looking for excuses to grab our flamethrowers and incinerate anybody who disagrees with us.

Never mind that this leaves a lot of charred corpses lying around. It also leads to bad writing and pointless arguments that are only interesting to the two guys wielding the flamethrowers.

Smitty is a very nimble writer, so his stuff is interesting to read even in this kind of situation. And I've won a few fans at gladitorial exhibitions of this sort. But . . . eh, I don't know. I've sort of resigned myself to letting Rick Moran be Rick Moran. Is that wrong?

Is Kathleen Parker's evil underrated?

In a wee-hours Twitter rant this morning, after discussing whether the University of Alabama's No. 2 poll ranking was fair (it's OK, and the ranking will take care of itself if the Tide upsets the No. 1 Gators next Saturday), I shared my 2009 Evil Top 10 rankings:

Evil rankings are indisputable: 1. Satan. 2. Auburn.
-- rsmccain

No. 3 is a tie between Charles Johnson and Osama bin Laden
-- rsmccain

Which makes Fidel Castro No. 5, David Brooks No. 6, Kim Jong Il, No. 7, Charles Manson No. 8
-- rsmccain

10th Place (tie): Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kathleen Parker
-- rsmccain

Naturally, this brought protests: What about Maureen Dowd?

Too bad. This year, Maureen Dowd got knocked off the Top 10 Evil list!
-- rsmccain

No, Kathleen Parker clearly managed to out-evil Dowd this year. Decisions of the judges are final.
-- rsmccain

Today, however, as if she had anticipated her emergence into the Evil Top 10, Kathleen Parker's column appeared on Memeorandum with the headline, "Ten 'principles' could keep thinkers away from the GOP." For some bizarre reason, the column itself has a different headline: "The GOP's Suicide pact," and begins:

Some people can't stand prosperity, my father used to say. Today, he might be talking about Republicans, who, in the midst of declining support for President Obama's hope-and-change agenda, are considering a "purity" pledge to weed out undesirables from their ever-shrinking party.
Just when independents and moderates were considering revisiting the GOP tent. . . .

All of which is in reaction to a proposed resolution -- note the emphasis -- that circulated via e-mail last week among Republican National Committee members. The fact that it was first reported by MSNBC tells you where Kathleen Parker gets her news nowadays, and look how the pro-Obama cable network framed the issue:

This comes on the heels of a rift in the party that was exposed in the once-obscure special election in Upstate New York's 23rd Congressional District, in which national conservative leaders, including Sarah Palin, clashed with national establishment Republicans. The so-called GOP civil war threatens to derail moderate Republican candidacies in heated 2010 Republican primaries already underway. Florida's Senate race is perhaps the best and most prominent example.

For the past year, the mere mention of "Sarah Palin" has been enough to inspire Sully-esque ranting by Kathleen Parker, and she does not disappoint:

The list apparently evolved in response to the Republican loss in the recent congressional race in Upstate New York, when liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava withdrew from the race under pressure from conservatives and endorsed Democrat Bill Owens, who won. Republicans had held that seat for more than a century.
James Bopp Jr., chief sponsor of the resolution and a committee member from Indiana, has said that "the problem is that many conservatives have lost trust in the conservative credentials of the Republican Party."
Actually, no, the problem is that many conservatives have lost faith in the ability of Republican leaders to think. The resolutions aren't so much statements of principle as dogmatic responses to complex issues that may, occasionally, require more than a Sharpie check in a little square.

And the pièce de résistance of Parkeresque evil:

The old elite corps of the conservative movement, men such as William F. Buckley and Russell Kirk, undoubtedly would find this attitude both dangerous and bizarre. When did thinking go out of style? . . .
As Kirk wrote in his own "Ten Conservative Principles," conservatism "possesses no Holy Writ and no Das Kapital to provide dogmata . . . conservatism is the negation of ideology: it is a state of mind, a type of character, a way of looking at the civil social order."

You can be sure that when some latter-day elitist like Kathleen Parker cites Kirk and Buckley, the citation will always be used against conservatives. The elitist versions of Kirk and Buckley are revisionist mannequins, shorn of any unfashionable populism so as to obscure the fact that the conservatism of yore -- when Buckley defended Joe McCarthy and helped inspire the conservative insurgency that made AuH2O the Republican nominee in 1964 -- was thoroughly disdained by the soi-dissant elite of that time.

By the way, it is a myth that Republicans had held the 23rd District seat for more than a century. But Parker's elitist prejudice and her second-hand misperception of the Hoffman campaign derive from the same source: A willingness to accept at face value the spin delivered by the MSM, a gullibility that derives from a belief that conservative media are somehow inferior to their liberal counterparts.

And even though she doesn't mention Sarah Palin in this column, we know who was the target of Parker's ire. It was the hockey mom from Wasilla whose endorsement generated a one-day $116,000 haul for the Hoffman campaign. This is why Parker and other Palin-haters have so vehemently insisted that Hoffman is some sort of far-right extremist.

Parker makes a big point of arguing for intellectual nuance, when she's the one reacting viscerally to even the slightest evidence that the Republican Party might embrace a Palin-style populism.

Well, 2009 is not over yet. At least Charles Manson remains safely behind bars and Ahmadinejad has been quiet lately. Kathleen Parker's evil ranking may require re-appraisal.

(P.S.: If you're wondering why the Gators didn't rate inclusion in my 2009 Evil Top 10, it's because their evil is a transitory phenomenon. If Alabama beats Florida next Saturday, their evil will be vanquished, whereas Auburn is permanently evil.)

Sarah Palin: 'Going Rogue' book tour

Conservatives for Palin has highlights of the first week of the Going Rogue book tour. Anyone who would derogate Palin has to cope with the undeniable fact that she inspire so many people. Kristina is a college student who waited in line in Rochester, N.Y.:

My sister and I arrived at Borders at 2:30am. I was shocked to see so many people lined up this early to see Sarah! So we quickly scoped out a parking spot, parked, and then headed to the back of the line where about 200 Sarah Supporters stood in front of us. . . .
From 3am until it was time to head inside Borders, Katelyn and I bonded with the many people who surrounded us. Most of them were much older then the both of us (my sister 17 and me 20) but our ages were what stirred up a lot of conversation. People were impressed and thrilled to see young Sarah Palin supporters and several people asked why we supported her. Since my sister was still a new comer to politics and to what Sarah stood for and believed in, I took the lead when it came to telling people what I love about Sarah Palin and why I support her. I even did an interview with a local news station and later, while standing in line, I did another interview with a news reporter from my home town. After doing a bunch of talking and two interviews, my sister asked me, "aren't you tired of talking?" My answer to her was, no! Every chance I get to talk about Governor Palin, I feel honored and it's so easy to talk about her to others because I know and admire so much about her! So it's always a joy when speaking about Sarah Palin. . . .

You can read the rest of that.

Holiday Book Sale 2010 Begins!

Last year's Holiday Book Sale was a smashing success, so we're back again for more. Why fight the crowds at the mall, when you can buy books from your favorite blog? Ordering online through Amazon is easy and, through the Amazon Associates program, I get a small commission on each book you buy here. Let's start with three recent bestsellers where I've got a personal connection:

• Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies by Michelle Malkin -- Not only is this the first major book to expose the corrupt background of the Obama administration, including the role of ACORN and SEIU, but it's also the Best. Book. Evah! (That's because my name is mentioned in the acknowledgements on page 291.) Think of it this way: Christmas is about love. You love Michelle, you love me, you love whoever you're buying the book for, and I'm going to love my Amazon commission. What a perfect gift, huh?
• Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America by Ann Coulter -- OK, so Ann didn't give me a shout-out in the acknowledgements. She did, however, cite me in the footnotes (page 265) for my reporting on a 2007 hate-hoax at George Washington University. Also, I got to hang out with Ann during her visit to D.C. in August. I only hang out with cool people, so all Coulter books bear The Other McCain Seal Of Coolness, even those that don't mention me in the footnotes.
• Going Rogue: An American Life by Sarah Palin -- I covered Palin during the 2008 campaign and, when someone jokingly suggested me to help the Sweetheart of the Heartland write her memoir, I countered with a much better suggestion: Lynn Vincent, with whom I co-authored Donkey Cons. The result? A smash bestseller! Too bad a certain GOP presidential candidate ignored my advice about that Wall Street bailout, but the whole concept of "President McCain" was frightening to the American people, and who can blame them? (Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Bob Barr!) But give Crazy Cousin John this: He made exactly one good decision during that campaign and that was Sarah Palin. Buy her book.

You notice something here? All three of these books are written by smart, powerful, beautiful women -- just like my wife. And my smart, powerful, beautiful wife expects me to make money from this blogging thing, so you should definitely order some books.

Your conservative friends and family members will enjoy these thoughtful gifts. And what about your liberal friends and relatives? Just imagine the look on their faces when they open the package and see what you've given them.

Now, imagine giving your annoying liberal sister-in-law all three of these books: Malkin, Coulter and Palin.

Some things are priceless, and that's a holiday memory you can cherish forever.

Jackie Seal, American hero

Grilled by MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell at a Palin book signing, where 17-year-old Jackie was wearing a T-shirt that said: "The US government handed out $700 billion in Wall Street bailouts and all I got was this lousy T-shirt."

And you've got to love Jackie's description of the core principles: "The Constitution was written so that government would be limited and so that it didn't become out-of-control and was in the hands of the people."

You can bet she didn't learn that in public school.

UPDATE: Wow, I just discovered that Jackie is one of my Twitter friends. I had no idea who she was, but it turns out my hunch was right: She didn't learn that in public school. She attends a Christian academy and has already signed a soccer scholarship for a Christian college.

Oh, yeah, and "progressive" blog-trolls hate her. It's only a matter of time before she's denounced by Rachel Maddow. She may even make Keith Olbermann's "Worst Person In The World" list, which is every young conservative's life-goal nowadays.

UPDATE II: Dude! She's got a blog! (Listen, Jackie, my twin sons are also 17 years old. Both Christian home-schooled kids. They're probably unworthy of you, but just keep them in mind, OK?)

'With a Rebel Yell, She Cried . . .'

Suzanna Logan is nowadays sojourning in my hometown of Atlanta, where young hearts go to be broken:

Rather than being satisfied and thankful that God has placed me in the position where He wants me to be right now, which just happens to involve some pretty mundane tasks, I want more. More responsibilities, more recognition, more, more, more. . . .

You should read the whole thing. An ambitious young person's craving for "more, more, more" is a tendency to which an aged megalomaniac like me can relate, as I pursue this insane scheme to take over the entire freaking blogosphere.

We are all born with a God-shaped hole in our hearts, and it is a sinful but entirely commonplace error to attempt to fill that void with earthly things, including career status and achievement.

That Miss Logan should so earnestly resist that temptation is, to me, most remarkable. For I think there is nothing that an ugly man covets so much as beauty, with which Miss Logan has been so richly blessed. Plain and homely people often envy the beautiful -- how else to explain the unseemly viciousness with which Sarah Palin has been attacked? -- but envy is the most foolish emotion.

How many times have I been surprised to discover that someone whom I might have regarded enviously was, unbeknownst to me, enduring some secret and horrible pain in their life? After numerous repetitions of this pattern, I ought not be surprised any longer, yet I always am. We who are poor, obscure, weak and ugly always imagine how endlessly wonderful life is for the rich, famous, influential and beautiful.

That we somehow find comfort in this fantasy -- if only through the perverse rationalization of sour grapes -- says more about us than about the objects of our envy.

Rick Moran dismayed concerning progress on Reagan re-birth effort

by Smitty

First, you rip Sarah Palin for quoting Ronald Reagan on the Rush Limbaugh show.

Now, you hammer her for not being Ronald Regan.

So, if we can arrange for the woman to give birth to Ronald Reagan, might that satisfy both you and Andrew Sullivan?

Look at you go, Rick, emphasis mine:

It is an insult to the man to even hint at a comparison. Where Reagan used his gifts of communication to inspire his audience, Palin uses her considerable ability to connect emotionally with people to breed anger and resentment. Where Reagan was a veritable font of ideas, Palin is a pale echo of dozens of conservative pundits who rely on talking points and tired, cliched, 1980s-era solutions to our problems.

No, those people were already bitter and clinging to their guns from the lefty ahead of you who smeared them.

Back at RWN, you close with:

The road to internet fame and riches is to agree with Palin, with the base, with big shot bloggers who get 10 times the traffic I do. So before questioning my integrity, you better have a damn sight more evidence than your idiotic, horse's ass opinion.

Since you bring up the topic of idiotic, horse's ass opinions backed with no evidence, perhaps you could elaborate on the who/ what/ where/ when/ why/ how that Sarah has "bred anger and resentment". Was it

• Sarah on the Internet with the FaceBook page?
• Sarah in the Bookstore with Going Rogue?
• Rick Moran in the blog spouting the watered-down Pelosi-isms?

Back on PJM you conclude:

It has been a year since she burst onto the national scene and she has done little to rectify the huge gaps in knowledge and nuance that exposed her as an intellectually unserious person during the campaign. And by that I mean simply that she has failed to apply herself in any meaningful way to the process of learning what she needs to know in order to become a successful politician. Not an academic. Not a pointy-headed elite at some think tank, but rather a thoughtful citizen of the republic who knows enough about the issues facing America to serve effectively.

Until she proves me wrong, I will continue to celebrate her as a cotton candy conservative with no more heft than the confection’s wispy strands of caramelized sugar that look so delightful but have little taste beyond a vague, sickly sweetness.

Oh, it all comes together now. We'll just have Sarah schedule a little trip to the circus with you, Rick. Dr. Helen Smith can chaperone, and all of the Oedipal challenges, cotton candy requirements, and what-have-you can be treated. Getting at your coulrophobia make take a little while--heaven knows this congress/ administration fuels mine.

Rick, you're an astute fellow. It should be obvious that Sarah Palin is keeping the powder dry. There just isn't any need for her to break out serious policy at this phase. If she gives the left anything that can be remotely turned into ammunition, then such will be used on her just as quickly as you can invent some failure of nuance therein.

Sarah can't stop a Congress stuck on stupid, and there really isn't any way to tell just how much legislative, economic, diplomatic, and military wreckage there will be by 2012. Little Miss Attila opines "I think she’s going to be an elder stateswoman." I don't foresee that. Real Americans are not going to sit passive while the loony left leads us into a Huxley/Orwell/Rand blend of hell.

We're also not going to be quick to chide with the kind of centrist, watered-down-Progressive, split-hairs-until-bald, vaguely academic, crypto-elitist fluff of the type spouted by some, whom the left like to label conservative, to a chorus of puking on the right. Or are you a Brooks fan?

I leave you with this, Rick:

"A good plan violently executed today is far and away better than a perfect plan tomorrow."
— General George S. Patton

The point is by no means to advocate violence. No, I want you to focus on the "far and away better than a perfect plan tomorrow" half. This is something that a an actual leader like Sarah grasps intuitively. Someone who is not a leader would sit back, ponder, weep, gnash the teeth, wring the hands, and so forth. And no, people will oscillate between these categories over time and subject. But ponder Patton. Your inability to grasp Sarah's plan and execution method is a good sign. It might mean that those who hate America and the liberty for which she stands fail to grasp Sarah's plan as well. But this does not constitute evidence that she has/ lacks a plan.

We all await history's unfolding, and wish it was less "interesting".

Mark Levin interviews Sarah Palin

Mark Levin interviewed the governor Wednesday on his radio show, and has the interview available as an MP3 download.

Sullivan promises to be 'normal' today

Of course, he's made a career of being abnormal, but . . .

This Dish will resume as normal tomorrow morning. We apologize for the lacuna. . . .

(Also we apologize for the "hiatus," but too many non-Harvard types know that word and "wankathon" is a bit too specific, so "lacuna" it is!)

And I suppose some will say we've gotten this book and the issues it raises out of perspective. But since the last campaign, we have raised many questions about Palin to which we have been given no incontestable answers (and still haven't) and the only real evidence we have are news stories, interviews and now, critically this book.

(Her uterus! She has a uterus! And she doesn't include a single sonogram of her uterus in the book! What is she trying to hide? Shriek! Shriek!)

In his hagiography of Palin, Matt Continetti accuses yours truly of earnestness about all this. I am grateful for his not accusing me of cynicism.

"Earnestness"? You complain about being accused of earnestness, you demented poofter? After you've spent more than 15 months pushing that lunatic Trig Truther nonsense?

You are a dope-smoking, contagion-spreading menace to society, Andrew Sullivan, and you ought to be immediately deported. I think even Tom Tancredo, Pat Buchanan and Peter Brimelow would agree that your deportation is a matter of national security far more important than sending ICE to hassle a few hundred illegal Mexican poultry-plant workers in North Carolina.

Let me tell you, Sully, I've got in-laws in Columbus, Ohio, who are hoping to go to Sarah's book event there Friday (6 p.m. at Borders), and if I have anything to do with it, they'll be waving a big sign for the cameras:

DEPORT ANDREW SULLIVAN!

You sick freak.

UPDATE: Welcome, Conservatives For Palin, where our British friend David Riddick warns you should "be prepared to blush." Ah, but Mr. Riddick of South Godstone doesn't realize that British idioms like "wank" and "poofter" don't quite have the same shock-value over here in the colonies. And there is no need to explain why the Fleet Street tabloid fellows enjoy writing headlines about Bristol for the benefit of their poetic Cockney readers, eh?

One of the grand pleasures of my career is the occasional opportunity to indulge my schoolboy love of the double-entendre, or to allude to some cultural obscurity like the scene in which the instructor chastises young Watson: "What's wrong with a kiss, boy? Hmm? Why not start her off with a nice kiss?"

No ignorant reader could be offended, while the informed reader is wiping coffee-spew off his laptop. But the same cannot be said for the ribald work of that notorious Irish scoundrel, Patrick O'Leary Gallagher McCain, a distant kinsman who guest-blogged here on St. Patrick's Day. You have been warned . . .

UPDATE II: Unlike the Other McCain, the Atlantic Monthly is a journal devoted to serious issues. And, as Professor Douglas points out, Andrew Sullivan certainly has serious issues.

With breathless anticipation, the blogosphere now awaits the reaction of Ace of Spades. Brace yourself for a classic, my friends. BTW, we've now got a Memeorandum thread, so our blogging buddies should feel free to indulge some Rule 3/Rule 2 action.

UPDATE III: Dan Riehl sympathetically opposes Sully's deportation. As an aside, while awaiting the coffee-spew classic from Ace, I'll say that despite my complete disdain of Freudianism, one of the commenters references the Lovecraftian horror that Sully exhibits toward the Cthulu-like aspect of womanhood. Just sayin' . . .

Palin in Grand Rapids: Newsweek photo was 'quite cheesy'

The Detroit Free Press had a reporter blogging on the scene when the governor arrived for the first stop of the Going Rogue tour:

Palin comes out of the bus, clad in a red and black jacket and black skirt and carrying her son Trig. She tells the people gathered outside that she was thrilled to be back in Michigan.
"Alaska and Michigan have so much in common with the huntin' and the fishin' and the hockey moms," she said "This is the heart of industry in America."
She also answered random questions from the media as she made her way from the outside stage to the bookstore. She said she thought the new mammogram guidelines set a dangerous precedent.
And she also said that the Newsweek cover photo of her in a pair of shorts was "quite cheesy. I never would have posed for Newsweek like that."

Notice that Palin is actually good at handling "random questions from the media," which goes back to the idiotic decision of Team Maverick to seal her inside a bubble during the campaign. When I first went to see her on the campaign trail in Ohio ("Sweetheart of the Heartland," American Spectator, Sept. 10, 2008) everybody in the press corps was asking, "Will there be an availability?" -- which is campaign lingo for a candidate press conference -- and we were told no.

That decision made no sense whatsoever. I went out three times to cover Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail, and on two of those occasions -- Greensburgh, Pa., and Shepherdstown, W.Va., there was a press availability.

Why GOP operatives try that stupid "hide the candidate" game, I don't know. It's supposed to be about "message discipline," but it always seems to backfire by turning the media against the candidate. My theory: Most GOP "media strategists" have never worked a day as a reporter, and thus can't see things from the reporter's perspective.

It's very difficult for reporters to cover a campaign if all they get are press releases, scripted speeches and statements from campaign staffers. If they never have a chance to get spontaneous fresh quotes from the candidate, reporters begin to resent the campaign they're covering and that resentment will inevitably come out in their coverage.

At any rate, if and when Palin next goes on the campaign trail, I hope she'll make sure to avoid the "bubble" approach.

Quick, NPR needs a 'conservative' douchebag to badmouth Sarah Palin!

Guess who beat out the fierce competition from such right-wing stalwarts as David Brooks, Conor Friedersdorf and Andrew Sullivan? Rod Dreher:

Palin positions herself as a populist, but her populism is entirely cultural. . . .
A little of that goes a long way, and I wouldn't begrudge Palin a bit of it if her populism had any economic substance.

And I wouldn't begrudge Dreher his pompous douchebaggery quite so much if he actually knew anything about economics, but he doesn't.

(Hat-tips: Riehl World View; Memeorandum.)

Ouch, Boss!

OK, I probably deserved this shot from Michelle Malkin:

And no, it isn't "playing the victim" to expose their bigotry.
It’s calling them out.

Without naming me, she evidently refers to my post yesterday:

Grant that the editors of Newsweek hate Sarah Palin. We have every reason to believe that the choice of photo of Palin in shorts represented an attempt to diminish and belittle Palin, to portray her as a cheesecake bimbo, the political equivalent of Lindsay Lohan. . . .
That this is "sexist," OK. Gotcha. But does Sarah Palin want to assume a feminist victimhood posture, to say that she is being oppressed by the patriarchy?

Given that I don't like it when people tell me how to frame my response to attacks on me, I suppose that I shouldn't be telling others how to frame their responses to attacks on them. The Golden Rule, in other words.

So if I'm correct that The Boss was aiming that elbow at me, I acknowledge the fault was mine. Mea culpa.

The old rule in the Washington Time newsroom was, "When in doubt, blame McCain." When I resigned last year, I wondered how they'd get along without having me around as the reliable scapegoat.

Answer? Not too good. Not too good at all.

URGENT! BREAKING! Andrew Sullivan announces plan for 'rigorous and careful' analysis of Sarah Palin's uterus book

Just posted this scoop at the American Spectator:

She's still driving 'em crazy -- or, in the case of Andrew Sullivan, crazier. Today the Palin-obsessed Sullivan tells readers he's "gone silent" because he and his team of "rigorous and careful" analysts are busy poring over Going Rogue. In a single 440-word post, Sullivan manages to call Palin a "delusional fantasist," a "deeply disturbed person" with an "unhinged grip on reality" who is peddling "lies," "fabrications and delusions" in a book that is a "work of fiction." Oh, and also, "We want to be fair to her, and to her family."
Thank goodness for that! We look forward to Andrew Sullivan's next book, Inside Sarah Palin's Uterus: The Most Shocking Scandal Ever. Bet they'll be standing in line for that one . . .

Read the rest, where I predict how the MSM will cover Palin's blockbuster book tour.

Michigan gets Palin-mania!

Sarah Palin's Going Rogue book tour brings her to Grand Rapids today. Her book-signing begins at 6 p.m., but WWMT reports that people are already lining up:

People were lining up early in Grand Rapids for their chance to meet former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. . . .
She's kicking off her book signing tour Wednesday at Woodland Mall in Grand Rapids.
It is expected to be a packed house at Barnes and Noble in Grand Rapids and if you want in on the action workers say you'll want to be there early.

People lining up hours before the book signing? "Packed house"? Gee, you'd almost get the idea that Palin was popular or something.

Meanwhile, William Jacobson notes that flying pigs have been spotted near the offices of Media Matters.

Palin fans in Indiana and Ohio might want to grab your sleeping bags and start camping out now in front of bookstores. Hoosiers will get their dose of Palin-mania Thursday when Sarah comes to in Fort Wayne (noon) and Noblesville (6 p.m.), while Buckeyes can catch the fever Friday in Cincinnati (noon) and Columbus (6 p.m.).

UPDATE: Detroit Free Press reports that 500 camped out overnight in the freezing cold, and there were 1,500 in line at 7 a.m. when the Barnes & Noble staff started handing out wrist bands. ("What is this, a Phish concert?") Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:

Most authors would be pleased to get 1500 people in total to show up for a book tour. (Heck, most authors would kill to sell 1500 books.) Even the Lord of the Rings openings didn’t attract 1500 fans for a 7 am show. Star Wars didn’t get this kind of response.

Her popularity drives the media crazy.

UPDATE II: The Blogprof observes that the MSM seem reluctant to show photos of the crowd in Grand Rapids. Fortunately, my Twitter friend Insider7 is on the scene:

But . . . Palin is so unpopular! The MSM have polls that say so! In related news, Dan Riehl says he wouldn't camp out all night to date an 18-year-old cheerleader. (But they'd camp out for a date with Dan.)

Governor Palin: Lean into the curve

Just got through doing a long in-person interview about populism and the contemporary political landscape, sat down to find out what had been going on in the blogosphere for the past few hours, and at Memeorandum saw this headline:

Newsweek Photo of Palin Shows
Media Bias and Sexism

"Sexism" is an ideological pejorative coined by feminists and, as such, a term I disdain -- actually, I make a point of jabbing feminists at every opportunity.

Grant that the editors of Newsweek hate Sarah Palin. We have every reason to believe that the choice of photo of Palin in shorts represented an attempt to diminish and belittle Palin, to portray her as a cheesecake bimbo, the political equivalent of Lindsay Lohan. Palin herself writes:

The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now. If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin. The media will do anything to draw attention - even if out of context.

That this is "sexist," OK. Gotcha. But does Sarah Palin want to assume a feminist victimhood posture, to say that she is being oppressed by the patriarchy?

No, I think not. Excuse me for suggesting that the way for Palin to leverage this -- to "re-brand" herself as they say -- is to lean into the curve. The better response would be along the lines of:

"Yes, I am a woman. Yes, I have legs. And, yes, I've been told they're very nice legs. Exactly why the editors of Newsweek decided that showing me in shorts was appropriate for the cover of their magazine is for them to explain -- and good luck with that. I guess I'm trying to figure out what side of the double-standard applies here. Levi can get naked for Playgirl and still be taken seriously, but Newsweek thinks it's something scandalous to show me in running shorts? Just wait until I grant my first in-depth foreign-policy interview to Maxim!"

Or something to that effect. The governor signifies her self-awareness that she is something of a political and cultural novelty -- a conservative woman who is a viable presidential prospect. She is aware that her good looks are both an asset and a potential liability, and that liberals want to portray her as a trailer-trash airhead, the "Caribou Barbie," etc.

She gets the joke, and she turns it back against them. Nothing disarms an attack so well as self-deprecating humor. It's like the way Reagan joked about his own extremist reputation: "The Republican Party needs both its right wing and its far-right wing."

To use the word "sexist" against Newsweek is to accuse enlightened liberal elitists of violating their own egalitarian standards -- which is all fine and good. But "sexist" also sounds like one of those grim, humorless Women's Studies professors ranting at a campus "Take Back the Night" rally.

Ick. Don't go there, governor. You are a happily married Christian conservative pro-life woman who -- oh, glorious coincidence! -- looks good in shorts. Your husband is a certified USDA prime slice of hunkalicious beef, your son is a soldier in Bravo Company, and your daughter is a single mom with a selfish douchebag ex-boyfriend.

All of which is to say, you are the 21st-century all-American woman, a symbol to which a lot of moms can relate. Just think of the enormous untapped electoral potential in the "My Daughter's Ex-Boyfriend Is A Selfish Douchebag" Coalition.

Lean into the curve, governor. Be yourself. Relax and have fun. Avoid the humorless feminist victimhood pose. If Hillary Clinton couldn't make that work against Obama, the media sure as heck won't let you use it, so let it go.

When you wish to call attention to the media's double standard -- both the male/female thing and the liberal/conservative thing -- always do so in a way the displays confidence and good humor. Invite the audience to laugh with you, and give them an opportunity to laugh at the media. And let the media laught at themselves. You might be surprised how many people in the press corps think their peers take this Serious Journalism stuff a bit too seriously.

Don't ignore your critics, governor, but don't let them undermine your confidence, either. You are winning. Just don't forget: Lean into the curve.