Saturday, August 15, 2009

Erik Telford offers 'peace for our time'

"My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time . . . Go home and get a nice quiet sleep."
-- Neville Chamberlain, Sept. 30, 1938
On Thursday, July 21 -- 24 days ago -- I posted this in reference to my non-invitation to RightOnline:
No, my feelings aren't hurt. I'm chopped liver, and chopped liver doesn't have feelings. But why does Americans For Prosperity hate me so much? What did I ever do to Erik Telford to deserve this purposeful snub?

Puzzled and hurt, I intended merely to make mention of this, to serve notice that this insult -- this backhanded assault on my personal dignity -- had not escaped my attention.

A brief explanation: In D.C. Republican circles, if you allow yourself to be treated like Fredo Corleone getting slapped around by Moe Green, you might as well get "Chump" tattooed on your forehead, because you will never be treated with any courtesy or respect.

You've got to understand how these D.C. Republican operatives think. They're all sadistic sociopaths by nature. Maybe Erik Telford is so powerful, and I am so insignificant, that he can slap me around like Fredo and not have to worry about it. But if I don't even mention that he's slapping me around, Telford might start to thinking I'm so stupid I don't even know when I've been insulted.

OK, so on July 21 I merely noted the insult and was prepared to move on. Then, on Saturday, July 25, after speaking at the Richmond Tea Party, I ran into Ben Marchi, Virginia state director of Americans For Prosperity, and asked him if it was Telford's habit to casually insult Hayekian public intellectuals:
When I mentioned Erik's name, Ben reminded me that Telford recently made No. 2 on Keith Olbermann's "Worst Person in the World" list. As usual, Olbermann gets the facts wrong -- Telford's No. 1.
That surge of registrations for RightOnline the past two days was caused by my friends signing up for a seminar Telford left off the Pittsburgh conference agenda: "I've Got T-Shirts Older Than You, Punk: Stacy McCain Explains Why He Just Beat the Crap Out of Erik Telford in the Sheraton Lobby."

That was three weeks ago and Telford, perhaps hoping nobody else had noticed, continued ignoring me.

Finally, this morning sometime after 1 a.m. -- no doubt after toasting his buddies in the Sheraton hotel bar, as they all laughed while Telford recounted how he'd insulted me -- and in response to an earlier post, someone claiming to be Erik Telford left a comment.

This commenter offered to have me as a featured speaker at RightOnline 2010, and invited me to a future "Beer Summit" to make amends. That comment was rejected for three good reasons:

  • There was no independent verification that it indeed was posted by the actual Erik Telford. No responsible journalist could permit a potential "Erik Telford" impostor to perpetrate online fraud. Exactly why someone would wish to impersonate Telford, I don't know, but these Nigerian scam artists are cunning devils, and you can never be too careful.
  • The commenter claiming to be "Erik Telford" left a telephone number which could not be verified and which, for all I know, might be the number of a transvestite escort service. Exactly why someone claiming to be Telford would use such a subterfuge to lure unsuspecting blog readers into calling "Vonda, the Shemale of Your Dreams, I don't know, but these Nigerian scam artists . . . well, you can never be too careful.
  • Finally, even if this commenter was the real Erik Telford (and neither Nigerian nor a transvestite hooker) I fear that accepting an invitation to a "Beer Summit" could prove a prelude to disaster, like Chamberlain's 1938 summit in Munich.

How can I be sure that this "Erik" -- and readers will note the suspiciously Aryan name -- is really who he says he is, and that this is a sincere offer of peace?

What Would Reagan Do? Trust, but verify!

If the real Erik Telford truly desires to secure a lasting peace . . . Mr. Telford, come to this blog! Mr. Telford, hit this tip jar!

Of course, we encourage all our regular readers -- including Nigerian scam artists and transvestite hookers -- also to hit the tip jar.

I haven't seen Michelle Malkin in person since CPAC. It's 184 miles one-way to Pittsburgh, less than two hours drive, if the Pennsylvania State Highway Patrol hasn't been alerted that I'm on my way.

Whether or not I'm actually crazy enough to race westward on I-70 at 110 mph in order to ambush Telford and beat him into a coma, it's important that he believe I might do it. So hit that tip jar, folks. Gas, coffee, cigarettes, donuts, bail money -- expenses can add up on a spur-of-the-moment road trip like that.

"Go home and get a nice quiet sleep," Telford. And keep an eye out. Because you never know . . .

UPDATE: Humor-Impaired Commenter Syndrome.

5 comments:

  1. If you want to know why Erik Erikson was invited to speak and not you, go to Alexa and compare your stats to Redstate. Orders of magnitude, buddy.

    Why the difference? Redstate is about issues. This blog is about three things: 1) Who does and doesn't link to you, 2) Your resentment over real and imagined insults, 3) Begging for money in every post.

    You want to be a player in conservative circles? Write about something that matters to a national conservative audience. And no, that would not be a two-part, line-by-line dissection of a column written two weeks ago by an unknown kid in a newspaper read only by people who eat whale blubber. Nor would it be a book-length rehashing of your personal disappointments at the Washington Times.

    Seriously, this is the fourth time you've posted profoundly juvenile fantasies about hurting Telford because you're not on the program. If you ever do make it, your blurb will say, "We invited Stacy so he would stop whining."

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  2. "plarson said..." enough!!! LOL.

    I'm a daily TOM reader and you, my friend, nailed it. But it's like panning for gold. You have to slurry a lot of crap but on the rare occasion, one finds a nugget of gold.

    As far as the tip jar, I hit it once and offered to hit it again under condition that my comments would be posted immediately. One would think after a while, a comment pattern would develop and SM would learn to trust a fellow.

    Until then, no tickee, no shirtee.

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  3. Tabitha Hale from Pink Elephant is there in Pittsburgh..

    just saying.

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  4. Redstate is about issues.

    As if I don't have issues!

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  5. R.S., are you saying that Republicans are lead by tight ass high school girly type men who think they know better but really can't find their ass with both hands and that's why they lost '06, '08 and will most likely fail to capitalize in 2010?

    ReplyDelete