"Writing is a skill, not a talent, and thus one's ability as a writer can be improved by thoughtful effort. The problem with some people is that they graduate college as good writers, experience early success on account of that, and thus never devote themselves diligently to the relentless quest for improvement that could make them great writers."
I've linked that review as a sidebar headline, but thought I'd dilate on the topic a little more here in the mainbar. Da Tech Guy slags the movie for its negative stereotypes of Christians, a pet theme of contemporary Hollywood -- and a theme that is both unpopular and unprofitable.
Several similar movies have been produced in the past dozen years, praised by critics and even lavished with Oscar nominations, and yet none of them has been a major moneymaker. One might suppose that the geniuses in Hollywood would get the message, but apparently they don't.
Evidently, sarcastic secular screenwriters know that if they produce a script portraying Christians as a bunch of uptight prudes or hypocritical bigots, there will be some producer or studio executive who'll buy it, as this kind of product represents the regnant Hollywood worldview.
The problem is that while producers and executives constitute the market for scripts, they aren't the ultimate consumers of films. That's an important distinction. The American public might buy all manner of insipid dreck -- predictable slasher flicks, implausible sci-fi fantasies, gross-out comedies, cartoonish action movies -- but they do not share the Hollywood prejudice against Christianity manifested by movies like But I'm a Cheerleader.
There aren't enough God-haters in America to make such movies profitable, and yet they continue to be produced, evidence of how the perverse insularity of the film community has contributed to Hollywood's decline.
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.
The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles today elected the first openly gay bishop since the national church lifted a ban that sought to bar gays and lesbians from the church's highest ordained ministry. Clergy and lay leaders, meeting in Riverside for their annual convention, elected the Rev. Canon Mary D. Glasspool, 55, who has been in a committed relationship with another woman since 1988. Another gay candidate, the Rev. John L. Kirkley of San Francisco, withdrew late Friday.
They haven't actually banned breeders from membership yet, but why bother? No heterosexual has applied for membership in years.
The typical Episcopal church nowadays has more lesbians than the LPGA and more gay men than the first five rows at a Bette Midler concert.
SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based. It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years. The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.
Q: What do the "Global Warming" people have in common with some forms of Protestantism? A: Apparently they also are making the argument that the salvation of Global Warming should be a question of faith and not works.
Right, Pete. While we await your Ph.D. dissertation on the physics of transubstantiation -- zing! -- let's agree that there have always been religious overtones to environmentalism. One reason that abortion is such a sacred right to some Baby Boomers is that they were deceived by the "Population Bomb" hoax of the 1960s and '70s, when neo-Malthusians warned that the alternative to draconian population control was a Soylent Green-style dystopia.
For decades, elitists have sneered at those of us who are skeptical toward the claims of what I describe as the Temple Cult of Scientism:
The High Priests perform their statistical rituals and the cultists genuflect reverently before their idol, Science.
These landmark Supreme Court decisions stigmatized religion as unconstitutionally subversive of the educational process, ensuring that future generations of American youth would be inculcated with a sort of neo-Manichean worldview, wherein traditional religious belief had nothing relevant to say about science, history, psychology or any other realm of human inquiry.
Ideas Have Consequences, as Richard Weaver famously observed, and this legally-certified declaration that there was no overlap between Faith and Reason has not merely marginalized Faith, it has also undermined Reason. When we behold the religious fanaticism of the Temple Cult in regard to Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW), we must understand this irrational fruit as a natural product of the poisoned tree of Scientism.
Philip E. Johnson's Reason in the Balance demonstrated how Darwinism -- one of the bedrock tenets of Scientism -- inevitably perverts not only science but also education, law and many other intellectual endeavors. It is but one step from this sort of Scientism to the revolutionary terror of Jacobinism, for when men jettison the anchor of Faith, the selfish conceit of Reason makes them dangerous fools, as Edmund Burke explained:
A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper, and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity, who will not look backward to their ancestors. . . . We know that we have made no discoveries, and we think that no discoveries are to be made, in morality; nor many in the great principles of government; nor in the ideas of liberty, which were understood long before we were born, altogether as they will be after the grave has heaped its mould upon our presumption, and the silent tomb shall have imposed its law on our pert loquacity.
This temptation to think that we are morally superior to our ancestors, you see, is the road to hell that Scientism paves. You need not be a Bible-thumping fundamentalist (like me) to notice how the adherents of Darwin tend to smuggle into their arguments a predisposition toward Whig history, wherein humankind is relentlessly struggling upward on the road of Progress. Here it is best to recall the brilliant aphorism of G.K. Chesterton:
"My attitude toward progress has passed from antagonism to boredom. I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday."
Exactly. If everything is Progress and Progress is everything, then decline becomes an ontological impossibility and -- by logical extension -- today's Congress is morally superior to the Founders who gathered at Philadelphia in 1776 and 1787.
Anyone who doesn't understand how such a worldview undermines the Rule of Law and puts our rights at the mercy of legislators and bureaucrats has forfeited any claim to intellectual superiority that would qualify them to lecture the rest of us about Science.
Christopher Hitchens is both intelligent and an atheist, but intelligent men who suppose themselves smarter than God are ultimately defeated by their own syllogisms. Man dies and God endures, and if man's conceptions of the eternal and infinite -- the Alpha and Omega -- are sufficiently flawed as to be vulnerable to literary criticism or scientific dispute, then this is merely because, as the Apostle Paul said, "now we see through a glass, darkly."
There are no accidents, you see, and those who seek God earnestly and diligently will not forever be frustrated in the search. In checking my citation just now, I was directed to I Corinthians 13, which rather famously addresses the relationship between faith and works:
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
Read the whole thing, as they say. Truly there are no accidents, and by his seeming joke about Protestantism, my Catholic friend Pete has directed me by the roundabout route toward the passage that justifies a Protestant creed: Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia.
However, I am merely a greedy capitalist blogger, and this is a fee-for-service operation, so if you wish to show appreciation for my services in vindicating Faith and Reason, $5 or $10 in the tip jar might do the trick. If your prefer even more shameless capitalism, we'll count this as the latest installment of our second annual Holiday Book Sale. And don't forget: What to Give Your Wife for Christmas.
I realize you get paid to say controversial shite all day long. Every once in a while you ought to take a gander at who gives you the freedom to flap your freakin' gums and think twice before you decide that zero-tolerance demands that your betters suffer for some bullshit like this.
Anybody can be a blogospheric tough guy. Real-world tough guys play by different rules and, being personally acquainted with a few of those guys, I try to make a point of staying on their good side.
Nevertheless, let's not let the Allah beatdown go too far. There is hope for his redemption. One thing that must be understood is that Hot Air is a commercial enterprise. It generates revenue to pay the bills for Ed Morrissey and Allahpundit and, we hope, leaves a little profit for The Boss.
Several observers have suggested that Allah's bad tendencies -- his crush on Meghan McCain, his jabs at Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck -- actually make Hot Air a more interesting place. He knows where the buttons are, and knows how to push 'em. As a blogger, when I see one of Allah's hot threads go to 400+ comments, and at least 100 of those comments are some variation on "Allah sucks," it inspires a certain sort of admiration for someone who's willing to be the scapegoat.
Allahpundit is a guy of genuine ability and professional accomplishment outside the blogosphere, and the fact that he has only linked me once in the past eight months does not detract from that. (It's possible I'm exaggerating the persistent non-linkage, but not by much.) His sarcastic wit is a skill unto itself, and I've lost track of how much of my own blog-schtick was actually swiped from Allah.
So I'm pro-Allahpundit, even if Allahpundit is anti-me. "Turn the other cheek," "love your enemies," and all that hillbilly Bible-thumper creationist stuff.
Hating your enemy is arguably a waste of time. Even if you disagree with that, however, there is a point at which hatred of our enemies goes too far, when it becomes irrational, sadistic and unseemly. But enough about Andrew Sullivan and Sarah Palin's uterus . . .
During 2006, when Cynthia McKinney stumbled (further) into foolishness and all the conservative bloggers were hatin' on her, I felt a strange empathy for Georgia's most famous moonbat, even though I'd been hatin' on Cynthia since 1991. So I had a Ned Flanders moment, explaining how being the object of hate -- hey, I've been there -- had driven me to contemplate Psalm 69:
They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty . . . O God, thou knowest my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from thee. . . . But as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O Lord . . . O God, in the multitude of thy mercy hear me, in the truth of thy salvation. Deliver me . . . let me be delivered from them that hate me.
Amen. God has been merciful toward me, and it behooves me to urge mercy toward others. We fundamentalists would describe Allah as "lost," but let us not presume him lost beyond redemption. For who can be beyond the power of God?
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.
Enlighten The Vote grew out of the historic "Godless Americans March on Washington" (GAMOW) held on November 2, 2002 in Washington, DC. On that memorable day, for the first time in history, the diverse community of Atheists, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and other non-religious Americans gathered in our nation’s capitol to demonstrate to the world that we are free, proud and on the move.
Thanks for this helpful information, sir. How many Philistines did Samson slay with less?
If you're a woman in a conservative Muslim country, you had better bleed on your wedding night. If you don't, your husband or his family will know you aren't a virgin. For that, you could be beaten or killed. . . . The Artificial Virginity Hymen kit, distributed by the Chinese company Gigimo, costs about $30. It is intended to help newly married women fool their husbands into believing they are virgins—culturally important in a conservative Middle East where sex before marriage is considered by many to be illicit. . . . .
Via Instapundit and there's sickeningly more at from the L.A. Times and the Associated Press. Every blogger and his brother has already commented on this, and there's probably not much more I could say. Yet I feel that I must, even though I'm running late for an appointment in D.C. Perhaps the commenters can further elaborate on the wrongness of this situation.
Innocence is a wonderful thing, but deceit is heinous. Who is the worse fool here?
The man whose obsession with bridal chastity is so extreme that he would kill his own wife if he learned she was not a virgin?
or
The woman who would perpetrate an elaborate ruse in order to be considered acceptable by such a buffoon?
Is not honesty a virtue equal or superior to chastity? And what virtue shall we praise more than mercy? For even if society condemns fornication -- as well it should -- it would be a most cruel thing to seek a woman's hand in marriage under such terms as to require her to engage in a horrid deceit, lest she suffer death for being honest.
If this is genuinely the state of society in some places, then there is only one proper and honorable course of conduct for any woman who, for whatever reason, may have fear of this particular custom: Let her reject the proposed marriage.
Her would-be husband, if he genuinely wants her, ought to be willing to accept her as she is, however she is. Should the woman's suitor or her family demand to know the reason for her refusal, the woman is not obligated to incriminate herself by any confession of fault. Her adamant rejection could inspire suspicion that she hides a secret sin, or it might be supposed that she is merely excessively proud, and unwilling to accept a suitor she deems beneath her.
Either way, no woman should ever be compelled to accept marriage on dishonest terms.
My friend Chris Muir celebrates my 50th birthday with an altogether natural joke about my growing reputation as the blogospheric Brabantio. You can click the image to see the rest.
It's a free country, and people are entitled to believe what they want. And they are even entitled to write what they want -- even if what they write is wrong. Of course, as they say, you shouldn't shout "fire" in a crowded theatre, although I don't know if the Supreme Court has yet ruled on whether you have the right to shout "miscegenation" in a crowded Alabama.
If you're under 40, you might not believe it, but people used to be able to joke about stuff like this. Before political correctness, Mel Brooks made Blazing Saddles -- "It's twue! It's twue!" -- and there were no thought police taking down notes of who laughed at the jokes. When I was in college, we laughed at Animal House -- "Mind if we dance with your dates?" -- without realizing we were violating anyone's civil rights.
Given the choice between Mel Brooks and David Brooks, who do you trust? And would you rather watch Animal House or Michael Moore's latest flop? (Hint: Which one has a topless pillow-fight scene?)
At least since third grade, my class-clown tendency to treat everything as a set-up for a punchline has been getting me into trouble. Because I am altogether naturally so facetious and sarcastic, when I actually try to get serious, people become confused. "Uh . . . heh heh . . . you're joking, right?"
Well, as I always say, the key to success is sincerity -- once you learn to fake that, the rest is easy. The altogether natural response to accusations of prejudice is to say, "Hey, wait a minute -- some of my best friends are macacas!"
Had I been advising Sen. George Allen in 2006, that might have been his official response to the smears against him, and maybe he'd still be Senator, instead of James Webb, a notorious neo-Confederate. (NTTAWWT.)
Did anyone ever credibly suggest that George Allen was prejudiced against Indian-Americans? Does George Allen recoil in horror at being introduced to Dinesh D'Souza or Ramesh Ponnuru? Did George Allen ever support any policy that might be considered discriminatory against the many South Asian immigrants and their offspring who are now proud citizens of the Old Dominion?
The implied accusation of MacacaGate -- i.e., that Senator Allen's joking reference to Democratic activist S.R. Sidarth was evidence of prejudice -- was fundamentally false, so exactly what was accomplished by the senator's subsequently disastrous Apology Tour? (Fact: In 2007, I interviewed a leader of the Virginia division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, who explained that he and many of his comrades enthusiastically supported Webb's campaign.)
God gives us enemies for a reason, and He chastises those He loves. Israel was enslaved by the Egyptians, conquered by the Assyrians, Babylonians and Romans -- did this signify God's blessing of Israel's conquerers? God's chosen people were dispersed to the four corners of the earth after the destruction of the Temple. They were despised, oppressed and persecuted.
Had Genesis 12:3 been repealed? God forbid! For somewhere in all this misery and suffering, the Lord of Hosts had a purpose and a meaning. Yet we see through a glass, darkly, and like Job's doubting wife, many will counsel us to "curse God and die." However, we know that the very name Israel can be translated "he who overcomes."
When an inveterate joker begins to speak seriously, people become frightened: "Are you OK, McCain? Have you been getting your rest? Taking your meds?"
Don't worry, folks. I'm just fine and dandy today. As Nurse Madeleine Ochoa might say, "Affect: Bright. Mood: Expansive." It's my 50th birthday, I was denounced on "Meet the Press" Sunday and I was libeled yesterday by a syphilitic poofter. All because the Left has it in for Sarah Palin and her new bestselling memoir Going Rogue.
As my faithful accomplice Smitty has reminded us today, the occasion of his gaining co-blogger status was an event at the Heritage Foundation. Gee, I wonder what Ginny Thomas must think about all this? Do you suppose Mrs. Thomas has any reason to trust the things that liberals say about conservatives? Or do you think that perhaps Mrs. Thomas would be more inclined to trust the judgment of such of our mutual friends as Kate Obenshain, Ron Robinson and Ward Connerly?
People know me, and the people who know me will tell you one thing about me: That dude's crazy. So if worse comes to worse, I can always plead insanity.
It's my birthday -- you're welcome to hit the tip jar, you ungrateful b*stards -- and there's no need to belabor the obvious any further. However, if you'll read through Smitty's post from this morning, you'll notice the photo of my inscription on the title page of Donkey Cons. As always, below my signature, I included the citation to a Bible verse:
Seest though a man diligent in his work? He shall stand before kings, and his place shall not be among ordinary men. -- Proverbs 22:29
Claim the promise, as they say. Step out on faith. If you doubt the promise, go to Christ Church in Philadelphia and see the grave of "Benjamin Franklin, Printer."
Not long ago, at a social event in D.C., I found myself talking to a very intelligent, funny, attractive woman who is 31 years old and not married. She had just ended a "relationship" with a guy, and I was sort of amazed.
Why was she still single? And why would this guy date her and dump her? Surely, if he had any appreciation of her wonderful qualities -- some qualities evident to the eye, and others that might be learned in a brief conversation -- he would have spent all he had to buy her a diamond ring, fallen on his knees and, with tears streaming down his face, begged for her hand in marriage.
He had not done this, however. Rather, he treated her like Just Another Woman, not as Someone Special, and so they drifted along for a while and then parted company. As always in such cases, I advised the young lady how to avoid a repetition of her painful disappointment.
Update: (Smitty) An alternative answer would be: "They have the permissions and you can't stop them." This interruption brought to you while issuing a party foul for saying:
"You know the old story about free milk and a cow? Make up your mind to keep the cow in the barn."
How do you not embed the Georgia Satellites?(There. Fixed that for ya. Back to the original post.)
Tactics, Strategy and Nookie Excuse me if that sounds simplistic and old-fashioned, but it works. I'm not saying that women should be uptight, Victorian prudes about sex. And, rather than argue about "tithing mint and cumin," I'll take an agnostic stance on the wisdom and morality of engaging in what we might call minor premarital intimacies.
Still, if it is a husband that a woman is seeking, rather than just another in an endless series of going-nowhere "relationships," her negotiating posture in the marriage market is greatly enhanced if she avoids giving up the nookie -- humping, screwing, fornicating, making the beast with two backs, call it what you will -- until she can entrap her prey and drag him to the altar.
Ladies, please note that this is strategic advice. You don't have to be a Christian or a conservative or a pure-as-driven-snow virgin -- although it would be better if you were all three -- to benefit by putting your vajajay off-limits until you can persuade some horny foolrespectable gentleman to make the pledge of "forsaking all others 'til death do you part."
Making the decision to keep your britches on henceforth does not require you to make a moral judgment about your sexual past. Even if you spent your teenage years slutting around like Meghan McCain after four margaritas, this doesn't necessarily make you a bad person -- unless you start writing ill-informed RINO political commentary for Tina Brown's Daily Beast, in which case, you're a total whore with pustulent chancres.
Habit, Behavior, Identity It is important to understand, in this regard, how sexual habit can become sexual identity in such a way that people effectively trap themselves into self-defeating patterns. The largest and most vital sexual organ is your brain, and a lot of what is nowadays is described as sexual "orientation" or sexual "preference" is actually a matter of mental habit.
By repeated thoughts and actions, people's minds become accustomed to one sort of behavior, one sort of sexual ideation. The nature of the human mind is such that our minds can be trained to respond to stimuli in a patterned way, which is true not only in sex, but in eating, writing, talking, etc. If a certain Daily Beast columnist has a habit of slugging down tequila and then wandering off with any man who shows the slightest interest, this is a learned pattern of behavior. She wasn't "born that way."
Once well-established, these mental patterns and their associated behavioral habits are difficult to unlearn, no matter how unsatisfactory or harmful the results. In this sense, people with unfortunate sexual habits are kind of like people who keep voting for Democrats no matter how badly the Democrats screw them over. It's a matter of personal identity: Being a Democrat is who they are.
And so, for some women, being a "party girl" becomes a matter not only of mental habit and behavior pattern, but also a source of self-identification. One sometimes encounters a woman so far gone in this kind of hardened whorishness that, like Naomi Wolf, she scoffs at the very idea that chastity might be considered more virtuous than promiscuity. And if you try to defend the concept of chastity in argument with such a person, you'll quickly find yourself accused of misogyny or being "anti-sex."
Hypocrisy and the Damage Done Anyone who's known me for more than five minutes would laugh to think that I might ever be accused of being "anti-sex." If you don't consider my 20-year marriage and six children sufficient proof of my pro-sex bona fides, perhaps you ought to inquire among friends who knew me before I met my wife, when I was a extremely wicked person.
"Well, see there?" says the scoffer. "You're such a hypocrite! You slutted around until you were 29, but you expect other people not to do that."
Oh, if only you knew what harm I did -- to myself and others -- during my days of heedless wickedness. We are talking about harm that cannot be undone, lives that cannot be repaired, dreams left shattered like glass. Had it not been for grace, and the persistent prayers of those who cared about me, who knows where I might have ended up? And who knows what further harm has befalled innocent others because of the ripple effects of evil I did more than two decades ago?
"Judge not lest ye be judged" is one of those passages of the Bible that always gets twisted around to mean something quite different than what it actually supposed to mean. Jesus never hesitated to call sin by its right name.
In fact, in one of the most famous incidents of the ministry of Christ, when he saved the life of the woman caught in adultery -- "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone" -- after telling the woman that he did not condemn her, Jesus then commanded her, "Go, and sin no more." Having extended grace and mercy, he asked in return her repentance from the sins for which he had refused to let her die. And who can doubt, from that moment forward, this woman lived a life of extraordinary virtue?
The Vajayjay Gospel Sometimes I'm amazed at how superficial and judgmental professed Christians can be, and how they insist that everyone engage in a pharisaical pretense of sinlessness, not even acknowledging the sin they see everywhere around them, except to condemn it in the stereotypical fashion of Official Church Talk. To these "churchy" people, it is abhorrent to speak to a sinner in terms the sinner can relate to -- and what am I, but a sinner myself? -- as if writing humorously about "nookie" and "vajayjay" might lead someone astray.
Let's go back now to that 31-year-old lovelorn lady whom I advised to keep the cow in the barn. She was raised in a religious home, and would almost certainly like to live a life that her parents and grandparents could admire. "Churchy" people are effectively telling that woman she only has two choices. She can either (a) be all uptight and churchy like them, or else (b) keep on fornicating like a two-bit floozy.
Excuse me if I consider that a false dilemma. If you live long enough to see a few miracles worked in people's lives, you know that many decent, respectable Christians -- the finest pillars of their community and exemplars of moral conduct -- were once the most horribly shameless of reprobate sinners. And even today, the redeemed may face terrible struggles and temptations as they strive to live up to the repentance that was asked as the only price of their priceless salvation: "Go and sin no more."
When I talk to young people (and some not-so-young people) about developing their careers and initiating projects -- whether in politics, business or anything else -- I like to say, "If you can conceive it and believe it, you can achieve it." To explain what I mean:
Conceive it -- Anything we accomplish in life begins with a concept, some idea we have of something we wish to do, whether it's starting a rock band or organizing a petition drive. We may alter our plans along the way, improvising and revising by the process of trial and error, but we must begin by coming up with an idea -- conceiving -- of something we wish to do.
Believe it -- There is something almost magical about the enthusiasm and confidence of someone who truly believes in what they're doing. At CPAC '08, a month before I started blogging full-time in March 2008, one of my earliest endorsements came from Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs: "The most enthusiastic blogger I have yet to meet." Although I only got 6,000 visits that first full-time month, I knew in my heart that if I worked as hard as I could at it, using what I'd learned in my journalism career and what I'd picked up from studying the work of successful bloggers, I could make it work. Every small success therefore was welcomed as affirmation that I was doing the right thing, and every disappointment shrugged off as an obstacle to be overcome, rather than an insuperable barrier to success.
Achieve it - What could possibly be more enjoyable than succeeding at something where no one ever expected you to succeed? Imagine the satisfaction of seeing all those naysayers and detractors eat their words when you accomplish something they told you couldn't be done. You've earned it, you sweated for it, you kept plugging away no matter how often you failed and despite all the criticism of those who called you crazy for even trying. Now you're the freakin' big dog, baby, and those critics look like fools for having ever doubted you.
William Jacobson just crossed the million-hit threshold and if you'll look around, you'll notice all kinds of people achieving things that people told them couldn't be done. Andrew Breitbart was once a slacker with ADD, and Glenn Beck was once a washed-up alcoholic DJ.
God loves to make the impossible happen, just to remind us that he's still in the business of miracles. And when I see someone like that 31-year-old lady -- smart, funny, attractive -- feeling lonely, unloved and unloveable, I want to share with them the idea that it doesn't have to be that way. All you've got to do is to conceive it and believe it, and you can achieve it.
Trust me. As the Rule 5 guru, I'm a good judge of what guys like, and this girl's definitely got it. She must merely learn to negotiate from a position of strength -- keep the cow in the barn, honey, and don't let guys treat you like Just Another Woman -- and she'll have 'em begging for it.
That's why I remind you of the motto of The McCain Institute: Good nookie is a terrible thing to waste.
While we cherish our separation of church and state (and revile our separation of church and culture), it's important to understand the context in which it came about.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), which is Germany's NYT, has this article, with a rough Google Translate here, describing the 9% tax levied by the government against Roman Catholics and Protestants. This is a check box on the form you sign when registering at the local Rathaus (city hall, but "rat house" captures it beautifully and correctly).
Strangely enough, church affiliation and attendance in Germany is cratering. 130,000 exited the Protestant church in 2007 for example. 121,155 Catholics followed suit in 2008. Those large, beautiful churches echo mightily in their emptiness.
As a staunchly sectarian American, the concept of Caesar propping up that which is God's is just bizarre. But then, even the most exquisite brick collection is exactly that. The Church existed long before these European structures, and shall surely outlast them, as long as the candle burns.
The inane treatment of Judeo-Christianity as a proxy for Western Civilization should be first to go. Tying the moral foundations of the American Nation with cultural archetypes of prehistoric Biblical Jews, or with those of devout Europeans emulating them is beyond preposterous. The dogmatic authoritarianism inherent in Judeo-Christianity and its ubiquitous tradition of framing Man as a wretched sinful creature fallen from grace since birth, are antithetical to a societal infrastructure built around individual freedom and dignity. Judeo-Christianity provides no coherent moral justification for why humankind deserves freedom. . . . The reference to the Creator in the Declaration of Independence by the Deist Thomas Jefferson was appropriate in so far as it further legitimized the proverbial self-evident truths through divine pedigree. . . . The loose mention of a non-denominational Creator served as a rhetorical shield to the indisputability of natural rights, through appealing to Colonialists' lowest common philosophical denominator. But nothing in the founding documents insinuates individual rights to be derivatives of religious dogma. . . . Judeo-Christian values are neither sufficient nor even necessary components of Americanism. Conservatives with a mental blind spot to this reality often try to justify the institutionalization of Judeo-Christianity by deeming it to be the only absolute ideological shelter for freedom. Plato alone has spoken with more clarity and conviction about absolute transcendental values such as Justice and Goodness, than there can be found throughout the entire Bible. . . . I cannot think of a more dangerous proposition for the future of American institutions than the prospect that their desirability and justification depend on the dubious existence of Abraham's God. . . . Didn’t Conservatives get the memo? Organized religion is dying at a head-spinning rate not only in this country but across the entire Western world . . . Judeo-Christianity is going to die and unless Conservatives genuinely reform their movement to develop enticing modern ideological propositions, the Left will undoubtedly win by default and civilization will succumb to the void. . . .
You can read the whole thing and at least grant Kejda this: She is pro-capitalism, suggesting the posssibility of a dogmatic Randian worldview. Fans of Whittaker Chambers will recall his reply to that.
"Vlaams Belang is not only the most stalwart, resolutely anti-jihad party in Europe that I know of, but also--and, not at all incidentally--the most pro-Israel party in Europe that I know of. . . . Indeed, it is crucial to understand that Vlaams Belang's political opponents in Europe are the Islamo-Socialist Left, which is where vicious anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism now finds its ideological home. Vlaams Belang is fighting, virtually alone, the Islamization of Europe." -- Diana West, Oct. 27, 2007
"The resurgence of neo-fascist activism across the Old Continent is alarming. . . . Robert Spencer, James Jatras, Julia Gorin, Andrew Bostom, Pamela Geller, Fjordman, Baron Bodissey, and Dymphna are more than welcome to coalesce toward this violent brown where their ideological affinities truly lie, so long as everyone else at last knows where they stand." -- Kejda Gjermani, Nov. 7, 2008
Excuse me if Charles Johnson's "white supremacist blogger" game is boring you as much as it bores me, but I wish to clarify certain facts. On the issue of teenage pregnancy, my views on the subject are the same as Maggie Gallagher's, as expressed in her 1999 report, The Age of Unwed Mothers:
"What we have called our 'teen pregnancy' crisis is not really about teenagers. Nor is it really about pregnancy. It is about the decline of marriage. . . . "What has changed most in recent decades is not who gets pregnant, but who gets married . . . The single biggest change in recent decades has been the declining proportion of pregnant single teens who marry."
You can read Gallagher’s entire report for yourself. For decades now, the demographic approach of "white supremacists" (following the lead of Margaret Sanger) has been to promote efforts to suppress the birth rates of poor minorities -- a campaign based on what more properly could be called fear than hate, but it doesn’t matter what you call it. Hate and fear are related emotions, both of which are contrary to my religion . As many authors -- among them Ben Wattenberg and Mark Steyn – have explained, the root of the West’s demographic crisis, crucially relevant to many public policy issues, is the collapse of the birth rate since the 1960s. The West has embraced what has been called a "Culture of Death."
"A culture that no longer has a point of reference in God loses its soul and loses its way, becoming a culture of death." – John Paul II, Jan. 1, 2001
The consequences of this anti-life philosophy are predictable.
"I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days . . ." – Deuteronomy 30:19-20
The horrible reality that the abortion rate among black women far exceeds the rate for other groups -- and if you'll read that Fox News story, you'll find you all you need to know about Planned Parenthood's appeal to "white supremacists" -- is an inevitable consequence of our nation's embrace of the Culture of Death.
For the record: I'm against that, too. And I have six children.
Thanks to Basil's Blog for reminding the growing membership of Ex-Lizards Anonymous of this fact:
Many of LGF's posts from February 7, 2001 to September 11, 2001 are gone. At least, from what I remember of the posts during that time period. You may not be aware of this, but before the 9/11 attacks, LGF attacked George W. Bush (whom he called by the Molly Ivins-inspired nickname of "shrub.").
Basil furthermore reminds readers that Charles Johnson's implacable hatred of traditional Judeo-Christian belief is one of those feature-not-a-bug things:
Johnson has no respect whatsoever for anyone who believes in creationism, or intelligent design.
Basil continues by saying of the now-banned ex-Lizards dismayed by Johnson's attacks on Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, Glenn Beck, the Tea Party movement, talk radio, Fox News, home-schoolers, etc.:
None of what they are complaining about is new. Those that jumped on the Charles Johnson bandwagon in 2004 (or in September 2001), didn't seem to understand what they were getting into.
As I've said before, any Christian can understand doubt, it is the intolerant certainty of atheism -- CJ's fanatical belief that he has proven the negative, that God cannot exist, and that the vast majority of Americans are therefore deluded ignoramuses -- which is intrinsically hateful.
What is most striking about all the vitriol now being poured out against conservatives by Charles Johnson is that he never seemed to complain about fundamentalist Christians, etc., when they were sending their sons and daughters to Afghanistan and Iraq to fight and die for his freedom. He never threatened Michelle Malkin, then, either. And during all the years when I was at The Washington Times, working under direct orders not to respond to the left-wing smears against me, Charles Johnson never wrote anything like what he wrote yesterday, quoted by ex-Lizard Lily at 2.0 Blogmocracy:
222 Charles 9/19/2009 1:11:21 pm PDT A big reason why so many wingnuts are pissed off at me is because they assumed that since I was on the ‘conservative’ side on issues like foreign policy, I was also on board with the whole social conservative agenda, including all of the extreme forms like creationism and theocratic fundamentalism, the crypto-racism of people like Robert Stacy McCain, and the extreme anti-Islamism of Robert Spencer and the shrieking harpy Geller. They made a lot of assumptions about my beliefs that were completely wrong. Now they're raging at me because they think I "betrayed" them -- when I was never on that train to begin with.
". . . The talking point going around the wingnut blogs today is that LGF is in serious decline because I'm a virulent anti-Christian. Of course, they can't actually link to anything at all that I've ever written that demonstrates this, but that isn't stopping them. "I'm not anti-Christian at all, as people with minds of their own can easily see. "Again, they're unable to separate being opposed to radical far-right religious agendas like creationism from being opposed to religion in general. Same old same old. This is how fundamentalists keep the masses in line - if you depart from the talking points even the tiniest bit, you're an apostate who deserves excommunication. "And as for 'declining' -- our traffic has been rising steadily for the past two months, which must be extremely irritating for them." -- Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs
It's that Sullyesque lack of self-awareness, y'know? "Radical far-right" lesbian Cynthia Yockey will laugh herself silly at this. If anybody's still got posting privileges at LGF -- and surely, Mad King Charles couldn't have banned everyone yet -- should try linking this in the comments.
Gotta "keep the masses in line," don't ya know . . . Oh, and if traffic is so freaking dandy, how come the Sissy King of LGF doesn't display his SiteMeter, huh?
A poverty-rights group that has drawn the ire of conservatives suffered another setback in Washington on Monday when the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to deny it access to federal housing funds. . . .
"Poverty rights"? I guess that means ACORN fights for people's right to be poor. NTTAWWT, but I don't remember "poverty rights" in the Constitution. Let's see if we can find something a bit more fair and balanced:
A growing number of Republican lawmakers are calling for congressional hearings and IRS audits of ACORN following the release of three videotapes that show the group's employees offering advice to a "pimp" and a "prostitute" on how to skirt the law. Rep. Steve King, R-IA, said a video released Monday that shows filmmaker James O'Keefe, 25, and Hannah Giles, 20, getting advice from ACORN employees in Brooklyn, N.Y., on how to launder their earnings and avoid detection while running a prostitution business is "another reason to turn it up" on ACORN.
Wow, 83-7! Coincidentally, that's exactly the ratio of e-mails I'm getting in favor of my publishing the Hannah Giles bikini photo.
At this point, however, I owe a big hat-tip to Ace of Spades, who taught me almost everything I know about the running-gag method of building blog-reader loyalty. Ace blogs with personality and, though his actual self bears an oft-noted resemblance to an Ewok with a law degree, the outrageous humor of his online persona is what sets him apart from grim, humorless bloggers about whom we need not say anything specific at this point.
Humor wins. Humor persuades. And, as Ronald Reagan so often demonstrated, no humor is as winningly persuasive as self-deprecating humor. The guy who tells jokes on himself is telling others, "Hey, I comprehend that I am not exempt from the general ridiculousness of human folly." So when Ace jokes about swilling Valu-Rite vodka and beating up hobos -- he's notoriously hobophobic -- he invites readers to laugh at him, but also with him.
Ace is an acknowledged master of the running gag, and after a while, the running gag becomes an inside joke. Longtime readers bust a gut when he references the Paul Anka Integrity Trip, and part of the joy of recycling an old joke is the fact that only longtime readers will get it. This rewards reader loyalty, you see. "Membership has its privileges," and the longtime AOSHQ Moron gets a special payoff when Ace throws in a Scandi-hating reference to filthy lutefisk-gobblers.
Blog junkies may never get to this level of abstract theory about what makes AOSHQ so darned good, but if you're a middle-aged journalist who just quit the newspaper business and you need to grow a blog readership fast, you're like the engineer at KIA trying to reverse-engineer a Jaguar XJ. That was the kind of raw desperation that led to "How to Get a Million Hits On Your Blog In Less Than A Year."
OK, so one of the terms that Ace taught me is "blog-o-bucks." Readers of a major blogger like AOSHQ picture Ace living the high life in posh surroundings, lighting his imported cigars with twenty-dollar bills and generally, as P.J. O'Rourke once said, "farting through silk."
Alas, it's not as lucrative and as glamorous as all that and, despite his outrageously enviable success, Ace is unlikely to be buying a Gulfstream anytime soon.
[T]he night was icing on the cake my new best married friend the infamous Robert Stacy McCain aka The Other McCain in the blog world and famous author arranged what he calls a Smittypalooza at the Army Navy Club. . . . This group of blogger's are the most knowledgable, nicest patriotic Americans you could ever meet. We had a wonderful time talking with a group of intelligent good looking guys who carried on conversations about current events with a few jokes and jabs at each thrown in to keep them on their toes. Afterwards a few of us went out for a bite to eat and always a gentlemen as well as a scholar Wombat Rampant walked us back to our hotel as The Other McCain drove over to the hotel to help me with my computer.
"Help me with my computer."Nudge, nudge. I bet you say that to all the bloggers, Barbara. IYKWIMAITYD. While Mrs. Other McCain is usually jealous of my girlfriendsdrinking buddies Internet consulting clients, for some reason, she's OK with Barbara.
Oh, yeah -- the string of crossed-out descriptors is another running gag. Schtick, as they say. (Or is it schtupp? I'm confused. Maybe I need to buy a Yiddish-English dictionary. So hit the tip jar.) You might have noticed that Mrs. Other McCain's jealousy is also schtick. Or schtupp. Whatever . . . hit the freaking tip jar.
Rule 5A: Everybody loves a pretty girl. And the category of "everybody" includes sick freaks who search for naked photos of celebrities. (Cynthia Yockey actually gets Bea Arthur nude traffic. These people are sick, I tell you.)
These freaks are not just sick, but stupid. Perversion makes people stupid, as you might have concluded from watching TV shows about idiots who haven't yet figured out that every 13-year-old girl in an Internet chat room is either (a) an undercover cop or (b) Chris Hansen of "Dateline NBC."
So it isn't necessary to actually post nude photos of celebrities in order to get Internet traffic from idiots looking for nude photos of celebrities. If a female celebrity makes news, or if any good-looking woman suddenly becomes famous, the smart blogger who acts fast can get traffic by betting on the predictability that perverse idiots will be seeking nude photos, topless photos or bikini photos of her.
It is a fact that, in the 5 a.m. hour, 31% of my traffic was from Google freaks searching for Hannah Giles photos. A fact, but not an accident, because I don't believe in accidents. So any liberal scumbag or Perez Hilton celebrity-blogger slimeball who thinks he's going to cash in on Hannah's sudden fame . . .
Dude. Nobody beats the Rule 5 Google-bomb king. Hannah is protected, you see, and certainly not by the Google-bomb alone. Not even a denunciation by notorious God-hater Charles Johnson can harm her.
Considering that I'm sharing very valuable advice with conservative bloggers here, maybe somebody should hit the tip jar. But if you are actually so stupid as to believe I'm going to post Hannah Giles bikini photos . . . hey, you're in luck!
Despite the fact that Hannah is a devout Christian girl the same age as my own daughter, despite the fact that her father, Doug Giles, is a friend of mine and a Christian youth leader -- well-known for his skill with firearms and martial arts -- I am indeed going to post a photo of Hannah in a bikini: That's Hannah on the left, and there's no need to name the tall blonde on the right. (A good reporter never burns his sources, especially tall blonde sources from Texas.) But if you'll click on the image, it will show the whole photo.
Genius? Maybe, although I'm sometimes kind of sloppy with the HTML code, so e-mail Smitty if you have any problems with that link . . . you sick freaks.
Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. . . . Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised. -- Proverbs 31:10, 30 (KJV)
As Doug Giles could certainly tell you, there are lots of people who won't sit still for a sermon, but they love to hear a good joke. Deo Vindice.
. . . I was ranting, as usual, about what's wrong with the American public education system -- i.e., everything.
An older black gentleman within earshot interrupted to say, "I'll tell you when it went wrong. It was when they took God out of school and said the children couldn't pray no more."
Christianity has always been considered a force for good in my native region. As bad as things have been at times, the fact that it has not been worse -- and it could possibly have been much, much worse -- can only be attributed to the commonality of faith, and the grace of God.
No one who attacks religion is a friend of the South, nor a humanitarian vis-a-vis race relations. If we had only science to guide us . . . Well, my father was wounded within an inch of his life in France, you see. I do not believe in accidents. And I am inarguably here, aren't I?
Is Charles Johnson a benevolent philanthropist? Does he suppose that Darwinism and the coercive secularization of American society are "progress"?
"My attitude toward progress has passed from antagonism to boredom. I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday." -- G.K. Chesterton, 1923
While not speaking for him, I will speak out strongly on his behalf. In all that time, through all those many conversations, Stacy has never once even mentioned race to me -- regarding Obama, politics, or anything else. Were he a white supremacist, there is no way that would be the case in my opinion. So, I can conclude that he is not that.
Exactly. Years ago, when all this stuff started (and I was, at the time, forbidden to respond even in my own defense), I said confidentially to friends, "What can 'white supremacist' possibly mean in 21st-century America?" What policy was I accused of advocating, or where was the evidence of hateful scapegoating and name-calling?
If a skeptical attitude toward various sacred cows of liberal orthodoxy is "white supremacy," OK. But except for a few sentences wrenched from context, or my stubborn devil-may-care defense of the South, there wasn't even anything remotely close to evidence of ordinary prejudice, much less advocacy of a theoretical abstraction like "white supremacy."
Words have meaning, and I've long since learned to despise this Humpty-Dumpty assertion that a term as potentially damaging as "white supremacist" means whatever an accuser decides it should mean.
At times I have been accused of "defending" this or that evil, which I was merely guilty of discussing in a heterodox (and perhaps somewhat careless) manner, but this is rather like the idiotic accusation from Andrew Sullivan that, in mocking Glenn Greenwald, I was advocating "genocide of the Palestinians in Israel."
Loath to deny such a delicious smear, I supposed it won't seriously impair my dangerous reputation to state for the record that I am anti-genocide. And because "white supremacy" might mean unfair advantages for such ludicrous Caucasian fools as Glenn Greenwald, Andrew Sullivan and Charles Johnson -- to name three indisputably inferior white people -- I guess I'm against that, too.
Professor William Jacobson is among several other defenders to whom I must express gratitude. We'll try to get everybody linked up in the next few days, but for now, we need to get back to blogging about actual news.
Some of my Catholic friends may be shocked to discover that somehow a heterosexual made it through seminary and, indeed, there is scandalous photographic proof of his interest in women:
Father Alberto Cutie, known as "Padre Oprah," the nationally known Spanish language television host, advice columnist and bestselling author of the book "Real Life, Real Love," is creating quite a stir as he appears to be getting a dose of real love himself. A Mexican magazine ran pictures of Father Cutie cuddling with a woman on a Florida beach and kissing her at a bar. In an interview with the Spanish language network Univision, Father Cutie said that despite the scandal the photos have created, he doesn't want to give up either his collar or the woman he loves.
Yes, you read that right: Father Cutie, which is actually pronounced "Koo-tee-ay." When I saw the "Father Cutie" headline at Pundit & Pundette, I thought it must be a joke. But (a) he is kind of a cutie, and (b) the real joke is that this guy, who couldn't be faithful to his own vows, was on the archdiocese's radio show giving "relationship advice" to others.
Of course, conservative Catholics can expect a spree of columns pondering "what this means" for the celibate priesthood, whereas liberal Catholics will wax nostalgic for the "good old days" when priests molested altar boys.
Being a proud Protestant means there is no ecclesiastical hierarchy to blame when these scandals happen. Jimmy Swaggart? Jim Bakker? Ted Haggard? They were never my leaders, and their scandals were their own embarrassment.
100 Word Fan Fiction: The Accused:
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"When R.S. McCain talks about gonzo journalism, he knows what he’s talking about." -- Chapomatic
"You are reading Robert every day, aren’t you? If you aren’t, you’re missing out, folks. The guy brings the good stuff every day." -- Jimmie, The Sundries Shack
". . . the one-of-a-kind Robert Stacy McCain, whose blog should be on your must-read list, if it isn't already." -- Dyspeptic Mutterings
"The most enthusiastic blogger I have yet to meet." -- Pam Geller, Atlas Shrugs
"The guy has to be the hardest working dude in DC. I've yet to meet someone here he doesn't know." -- Dan Riehl, Riehl World View
"The fount of wit and wisdom, Robert Stacy McCain." -- Brian C. Ledbetter, Snapped Shot
"A very sharp mind and strong writing that pulls no punches." -- Matthew Archbold, Creative Minority
"One of the most important conservative writers working today." --Donald Douglas
"For what it's worth, the man can also hold his liquor better than most; that's probably how he gets his scoops." -- Little Miss Atilla
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