Saturday, May 9, 2009

Aloha Akbar!

Brilliant Photoshop by Carol at No Sheeples Here
, who explains the story. (H/T: Troglopundit.)

Tax the Poor!

One of the things that originally made Rush Limbaugh notorious back in the day was his proposal to tax the poor. The idea being that if you want to discourage something, like cigarette smoking, you tax it. Well, why not a poverty tax?

The Swiftian satire wasn't appreciated when Rush did it, but now look what New York City is doing:
The Bloomberg administration has quietly begun charging rent to homeless families who live in publicly run shelters but have income from jobs.
The new policy is based on a 1997 state law that was not enforced until last week, when shelter operators across the city began requiring residents to pay a certain portion of their income. The amount varies based on factors that include family size and what shelter is being used, but should not exceed 50 percent of a family's income, a state official said.
Vanessa Dacosta, who earns $8.40 an hour as a cashier at Sbarro, received a notice under her door several weeks ago informing her that she had to give $336 of her approximately $800 per month in wages to the Clinton Family Inn, a shelter in Hell’s Kitchen where she has lived since March.
“It’s not right,” said Ms. Dacosta, a single mother of a 2-year-old who said she spends nearly $100 a week on child care. "I pay my baby sitter, I buy diapers, and I’m trying to save money so I can get out of here. I don't want to be in the shelter forever."
(Via Memeorandum.) Hey, Vanessa, why don't you explain this problem to the father of your child? It's like Ann Coulter says in Guilty: Nobody is allowed to criticize single mothers. Single mothers have a right to screw around, have babies out of wedlock and stick taxpayers with the bill.

Say this for the gays, at least they're not trying to bill me for their lifestyle. Beware the hobo menace!

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! It's Mother's Day and Rule 5 Sunday, plus we're also trying to learn the lessons of Dijon Gate and commemorating the fifth anniversary of same-sex Harvard marriage, so please have a look around. And if you feel the overwhelming urge to hit the tip jar, don't fight the feeling!

UPDATE II: The Rhetorican:
You know an economic system whose central conceit is to promote equality by transferring wealth from the have-more’s to the have-not’s has failed when it seeks to transfer wealth from the poor to government.
Ditto! BTW, just in case Rush Limbaugh should happen to read this: I am The Other McCain for a reason, so please don't hate me because of Crazy Cousin John. Or, as I sometimes feel obliged to point out: Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Bob Barr!

Just to clarify this distinction, check out these articles I wrote for The American Spectator: So please don't confuse me with my distant kinsman, Rush. I'm a lot more like that Dittohead taxi driver Wally Onakoya. I'm a bona fide right-wing extremist. (And if you need an extra hand editing your monthly newsletter, I can provide excellent references. Get in touch. They tell me Palm Beach is lovely this time of year.)

Massachusetts: The Gay State

Associated Press celebrates the five-year anniversary of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts:
According to the latest state figures, [from May 2004] through September 2008, there had been 12,167 same-sex marriages in Massachusetts -- 64 percent of them between women -- out of 170,209 marriages in all
.No figures are cited on gay divorce, of course. If you read the 2,700-word story, you will see that AP reporter David Crary tells a sunshine-on-a-cloudless-day tale, elaborated with picturesque anecdotes about wonderful couples.

Crary won second place in the 2006 National Lesbian & Gay Journalist Association competition. This year, he's going for No. 1, baby!

I would very much like to be able to compare state-by-state marriage data to demonstrate that Massachusetts has one of the lowest marriage rates, and one of the lowest birth rates, in the United States. Unfortunately, as the NCHS bluntly admits, the federal government stopped providing even a semblance of comprensive data on marriage and divorce more than a decade ago.

However, birth data continue to be collected, so let's look at the 2003 total fertility rate for Massachusetts, as well as four other states -- Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont and Maine -- that have legalized same-sex marriage, as well as New Hampshire, where legislation is currently awaiting the governor's signature.
Massachusetts......1.74
Connecticut..........1.92
Iowa.....................1.99
Vermont...............1.68
Maine...................1.75
New Hampshire...1.77
You see that in none of these states is the total fertility rate at or above the 2.1 average lifetime births per woman necessary to prevent demographic decline. Now, let's look at the states with the highest fertility rates:
Utah..................2.57
Arizona..............2.39
Alaska................2.37
Texas................2.35
Idaho................2.32
The fertility rate in Utah is 53% higher than the rate in Vermont, and the rate in Idaho is 33% higher than the rate in Massachusetts.

My point is that the popularity of same-sex marriage is strongly associated with low fertility rates. If adequate state-by-state data were available, I'm sure you'd see a similar association with low marriage rates.

Don't mistake the direction of causality, however: The decline of the traditional family caused the rise of same-sex marriage, and not vice-versa. It was America's embrace of the Contraceptive Culture -- detroying the natural connection between love, sex, marriage and parenthood -- that has made possible the radical triumph.

Gays did not do this. It was the God-haters, with the help of self-righteous fools who claimed to be religious even while they disobeyed one of God's original commandments: "Be fruitful and multiply." They thought they could embrace the Planned Parenthood lifestyle without consequence.
"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools . . ."
-- Romans 1:22 KJV
Mother's Day, the Planned Parenthood way! Declining birth rates mean an aging population. One of these days, we'll all be as gay -- and gray -- as Massachusetts, and they'll call that "progress."

UPDATE: Pundette says, "Move over, Mark Steyn." No, no, Pundette. It's more like, "Please link me, Mark Steyn!" BTW, Pundette is a mother of seven, and has an excellent Mother's Day linkfest round-up.

UPDATE II: Linked at Creative Minority Report and by Dad 29, who notes that my pro-natalist traditionalism is unusual for a Protestant. I get this all the time, as does Mark Steyn, who is Jewish and, indeed, one will find that nearly all Muslims share a similar attitude. (Dinesh D'Souza caught holy hell a couple years ago for a book in which he suggested that the Muslim world's anti-American rage is a reaction to the decadence of Western pop culture.)

The feminist-infested progressive Left would doubtless characterize this ecumenical pro-natalism as a function of the patriarchal phallocratic desire to oppress The Sisterhood. Rather, I think what accounts for the similarity of perspective is a skepticism toward the truth-claims of modernism. Confronted by the arrogant assertions of the elite consensus, from which dissent is forbidden, we skeptics detect the unmistakable aroma of bovine excrement.

The disciples of Progress look at tradition -- including the traditional belief that a large family is a blessing -- and see everything they despise as obsolete and unjust. The traditionalist agrees with 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.
Once an intelligent person begins to question Progress in this way, once he starts wondering whether everything old is bad and everything new is better, he will soon discover evidence that contradicts the modernist truth-claims. At that point, he is likely to become a full-blown reactionary and, unless counseled by men of reason whom he respects, will soon be arguing for the divine right of kings or some other embarrassing anachronism. (The informed reader will smile in recognition of the hint of autobiography here.)

Extremism of one form or another -- and Osama bin Laden will suffice as an example -- is too often the result of the traditionalist's resentment of modernist arrogance. Being a Bible-thumping hillbilly myself, I have sometimes thought the Islamic radicals have the better of the argument with their "moderate" antagonists within the Muslim world. If the Koran is true, if Muhammad was a divine Prophet who spoke on behalf of the Almighty, then jihad against the infidels is the True Faith.

But please note the hypothetical; I certainly do not accept that Mohammed was an agent of divinity, except in the sense that the Babylonian conquest was an act of God. The Israelites were God's chosen people, but disobeyed him, and the Babylonian armies were thus the temporal means of chastisement. In the same way, one might say that the errors and unfaithfulness of the 6th-century church inspired Muhammad's ignorant anti-Christian theology, which from its beginnings in a rebellion of Arab tribesmen, advanced thence by conquest until at last Christendom rallied.

Students of history will find that the Christian world did not defeat the Ottoman Empire (in the 1683 Battle of Vienna) until after Martin Luther had struck the spark of Christian reform. Make of this what you will. The relevant point here, however, is that any crisis or tribulation suffered by Christendom must be seen as the chastisement of human failing, a call to greater faith and greater obedience to God's commandments.

God will not abandon us, if we are faithful and obedient, but if He desires to call us to repentance, He will work through means at hand, and we must pay attention to understand wherein we have failed.

PREVIOUSLY:

William Jacobson can't rock

Professor Jacobson knows a lot about Nancy Pelosi and her transparent bogusness. But rock 'n' roll? Not so much.

Dude, if you're going to cite a Yes song, don't cite "Seen All Good People." That lame song just makes me want to turn my head and walk away. Dude, it's got to be "Roundabout."

BTW, it's still "free Troglo-lanche Week," just in case any bloggers want to get linked some more.

Who killed Kwanzaa Diggs?

  • In June 2008, Washington, D.C., Judge Zoe Bush committed Kwanzaa Diggs to juvenile detention after Diggs was convicted of robbery.
  • By April 24, 2009, Diggs was back on the streets. Specifically, he was in the 900 block of Barnaby Street, SE. He had been shot multiple times, and two other teenage victims were also shot.
  • Kwanzaa Diggs died at age 17.

Colbert I. King has an excellent column today in The Washington Post about the Diggs shooting, part of a series of columns King has done about the failures of the D.C. juvenile justice system.

This is not only a failure of the D.C. city government, but also a failure of the media to ask the kinds of questions, and tell the kinds of stories, that King is asking and telling.

The shooting death of Kwanzaa Diggs merited a mere two sentences in a Washington Post crime round-up column. Meanwhile, the Washington Post devoted front-page treatment to the colonoscopy of a panda at the Washington Zoo.

Dear God, what has happened to journalism in America? Is it any wonder that people hate "the media" so much? Here you've got the case of a 17-year-old shot dead, two others wounded, a crime that indicates a systemic failure of local government, and the local paper is too busy covering pandas at the zoo?

John Kerry can't fix this problem. Some editors need to be fired, and some reporters need to be reminded that their job is to cover the freaking news. When somebody gets shot to death, that's news.

Am I the only journalist on the planet who's ever seen Teacher's Pet? Clark Gable plays a tough, cynical newspaper editor, and Doris Day plays a journalism professor. The Gable character disdains the professor's lofty pretensions about the "civic duty" of a newspaper. The turning point of the story is where Gable takes a stabbing death and turns it into a really great human-interest story.

Murder is news. Rape, robbery and drug busts are also news. And guess what? Crime coverage, if done right, sells papers. If the Washington Post can't be bothered to cover a shooting that leaves one teenager dead and two others wounded, what the hell is the point of publishing a newspaper?

Good cops-and-courts reporting used to be a staple of American journalism. Was such coverage sometimes lurid and sensationalist? Sure. But it sells newspapers. The problem is that too many people in our newsrooms for the past several decades have failed to understand that they're in a business, the object of which is to sell the product and make a profit.

The pretentious Doris Day professor types have triumphed over the cynical Clark Gable types. We've got plenty of pundits to lecture us about "fine-grained local coverage," but good luck getting a Harvard magna cum laude to go out and cover the freaking news.

The newspaper industry is dying, and Kwanzaa Diggs is still dead.

UPDATE: The Associated Press can't be bothered with Kwanzaa Diggs and the collapse of the juvenile justice system in our nation's capital. But the five-year anniversary of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts? 2,700 words!

UPDATE II: Moe Lane at Red State:

Honestly, I think that everybody involved would be happier if we just established once and for all that the Watergate scandal was a disaster for the newspaper industry; it encouraged an entire generation of reporters to go out there and try to change American society, instead of simply documenting it.

Nail on the head, Moe. All The President's Men solidified this idea of journalism that "makes a difference" in the heads of a generation of journalists. It not only encouraged a lot of what is called "Pulitzer bait" -- the five-part series -- but it generally attracted to the business a lot of liberal do-gooders who thought of themselves as superior to their readers.

Last year, there was a certain news story that caused Ace of Spades to erupt in fury: "Stop telling me what to think!" (I wish I could find that post, because it was good.) Nobody wants to do the straight-ahead Joe Friday "just-the-facts-ma'am" news story, because there is no prestige in that kind of basic reporting.

It is no surprise, really, that the great scandals of American journalism -- Stephen Glass in 1998 and Jayson Blair in 2003 -- occurred about 30 years after Watergate, by which time the starry-eyed liberal do-gooders who entered the business in the 1970s had become editors and journalism professors.

UPDATE II: Welcome, Ed Driscoll readers!

Full Metal Jacket Saturday

by Smitty

Sending this week's Full Metal Jacket Reach Around installment from Las Vegas. Not so much fear and loathing here, though there is some shock and awe from seeing the Blue Man Group.

  • Why the Troglopundit called Stacy a big doodyhead isn't exactly clear. The Trgolopundit makes an understandable mistake, so let me clarify: it was always 'My Sharona', not my sharia.
  • Apparently this post is composed not too far from Right of Course, who linked the Carrie Prejean topless photo, and set off to make enemies IAW Rules 3 and 4, without mentioning any enemies resulting.
  • The Classic Liberal linked the CP topless photo.
  • Carolyn Tackett lays down the new rules of racism: white, southern, Christian, conservative. Depending on how exactly you define 'southern', I'm between 300% and 400% racist. Thanks for organizing the community, Identity Politics!
  • Protein Wisdom Linked us on the Dijongate condiment kerfluffle.
  • The Blog Prof picked up the demographics of dhimmitude clip.
  • Adrienne's Catholic Corner connected the dots between an article on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning* (LGBTQ) issues in San Francisco and the Joe no memo post.
    *questioning why this horrible eyesore of an acronym must afflict our lives.
  • The wonderfully named Gold-Plated Witch on Wheels sums up my opinion on the CP pic:
    I'm not sure how nude photos invalidate support for traditional marriage, but I've never claimed to understand the liberal mind.
    Goldie, it's important to avoid arguing with a drunkard or a fool.
  • The Rude News linked the demographics of dhimmitude amongst a thoughtful review of the European demographic meltdowon.
  • Below the Beltway hat tipped us for pointing out the inadequacy of public education.
  • Carlos Echevarria hat tipped the Glen Beck ACORN ejection video.
  • Jamie Jeffords celebrates National Offend a Feminist Week and Rule 5 at the same time. Which brings up the point that you need to get your input to Smitty for inclusion in the Rule 5 Sunday post, which I'll be composing from Denver on the way back to Virginia.
  • Stacy picked up a Quote of the Day from No Runny Eggs for “Lie down with Bushes, wake up with Democrats.”
  • This blog was linked on Gay Patriot in a Carrie Prejean overview that contains the following quotable passage:
    While I’ve read more than I care to about this controversy, I have yet to find one statement she has made showing a fear (”phobia”) of homosexuals or showing any animosity whatsoever against gay people. All I’ve heard her is express the viewpoint of a majority of Americans, including the Democratic President of the United States about the meaning of marriage.
    Sorry, fellas, that’s just not homophobia.

Update:
Stacy points out the need for a National Offend a Feminist Week Roundup, and how can we fail to deliver?:
Update II
A couple of readers have pointed out some ludicrous oversights on my part. While I am not responsible for the Scare Force One debacle, I will take the hit for my boo-boobery.
  • Carol asked: "WTF Is This? RSM Declared Me The Winner Of NOAFW!" to which I can only reply with Olypic-grade groveling. The point was to offend Feminists, not good conservative women.
  • The WyBlog was similarly curious about this post and another one on teacher tenure follies
  • We also overlooked a good roundup over at Generation Patriot
  • Rumblepak had a brace of posts: The Swiss Cheese Logic of Meghan McCain (not to imply anything pejorative about a fine fromage, mind you) and an excellent meditation on the torture situation.
  • And Dustbury offers: “When it comes to females,” observed Sir Mix-A-Lot, “Cosmo ain’t got nothin’ to do with my selection.” As an '87 graduate of Franklin High School in Seattle, I approve a all Mix-a-Lot quotations.

Here is a recap on the posts for the week:
  1. Kickoff
  2. Cosmo Syndrome
  3. How to Reply
  4. Army Input
  5. Traditional Agenda


The clonebots appear to have been distracted by something shiny here in Vegas. If blog amongst the following URLs, and feel slighted by an omission due to Technorati or the clonebots, please forward the URLs directly to me for inclusion.
For example, Stephen Green at The Examiner noted Stacy's contributions to fighting the good fight on several occasions. People we'd like to hear more from include the following:

Could Cynthia Yockey double her chances for a date on Saturday night?

Why am I so neglectful toward the ladies? Ask my beautiful wife, who has put up with my horrible thoughtlessness for 20 years.

Or ask lesbian blogger Cynthia Yockey, who catapulted me to irresistibility. (Cynthia is pictured here with Jason "Big Sexy" Mattera, who is obviously trying to make someone jealous.)

Cynthia and I met at CPAC and began what I thought to be a strictly platonic friendship. After all, I am happily married and she's playing for the other team. We were just a couple of conservative bloggers, trying to advocate on issues, increase our traffic and make a gazillion dollars. What could possibly be wrong? How could anyone even suggest . . .?

But you know what? She sure likes big wieners. NTTAWWT. (She's even got a photo of somebody with a big wiener in their mouth.)

Could it be that, in fact, Cynthia is a hetero hottie trapped in a lesbian's body? Stranger things have happened, you know. Meghan McCain recently turned a guy gay.

As a matter of fact, Cynthia once expressed interest in a guy from Ohio, but he broke her heart. So I'm thinking that Cynthia is bisexual.

Back when I was kid, I thought that word meant you'd ride your bicycle over to a girl's house and . . . well, anyway. When I tried that, the girl told me that yes, as a matter of fact, I was bisexual, because the only way I'd ever get it was if I paid for it. (Buy-sexual, get it?)

Later on, as I got older, I thought that "bisexual" meant when it was so good, you wanted to do it twice, but before I ever got to that, I spent a few years being trisexual. I kept trying, but wasn't getting sexual. (Try-sexual.)

Finally, however, somebody explained to me the real meaning bisexual. They said the great thing about being bisexual was, it doubled your chances for a date on Saturday night. Unfortunately, that wasn't much help to me, since two times zero is still zero.

So I got married. Now we've got six kids. My wife tells me that this means at least one of us has had sex a few times.

I support abstinence education. The way I look at it, if young people don't learn to do without sex before they're married . . .

Cynthia is in favor of same-sex marriage. I think that must be where you have a lot of sex, but it's always the same. I believe in traditional marriage, which isn't like that at all.

In a traditional marriage, you have Republican sex, which is the kind that begins with "I do" and ends with "till death do you part." My wife says if I keep telling these dumb jokes, the "death do you part" might be sooner than I expect.

But the main thing is, go over to Cynthia's site, where she can show you that big wiener.

UPDATE: Obi's Sister has car-lust for a Camaro. Driven by a guy with a mullet, no doubt.

Friday, May 8, 2009

Traffic surges from anti-Obama backlash and Carrie Prejean nude . . .

. . . but mostly from Carrie Prejean nude. Should I be ashamed to be the Google-bomb prophet? Would it have been better to let Perez Hilton, hateful lefties and trashy gossip blogs monopolize all that "Carrie Prejean nude" traffic?

Did I mention I flat-out stole the headline shtick from Ace of Spades HQ?

If loving traffic is wrong, I don't wanna be right. Because whatever you write ain't nothing until somebody reads it and, out here in the 'sphere, ain't nobody going to read it until somebody gives you the linky-love.

Rule 2. Just the facts, Jack.

But if you take the linky-love, you gotta give the linky-love. The whole point of having more traffic is to shower the hits on the blogs you love. Which is why I so much enjoyed turning Jules Crittenden into Marie Osmond's lesbian daughter.

Because I'm a giver. Even if Allah hates me. And you want gold 30% off retail.

'I stand in naked solidarity . . .'

Tigerhawk strips down with Carrie Prejean, and makes a massively impressive argument:
The angle of the shot . . . makes it only mildly NSFW, certainly no worse than the "scandalous" picture of Carrie Prejean. The picture may lack the compositional integrity of the Speedo shot of The Other McCain, but it is no more or less offensive, and perhaps leaves more to the imagination, at least in the frontal sense.
"More to the imagination"? Oh, so much more than you could possibly imagine:

That water was cold. And did I forget to mention that my wife and I have six children? Because conservatives "don't understand about sex." It's still National Offend A Feminist Week, and we know what does the trick.

As Tony Fontaine said to Scarlett . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

"To the best of my knowledge we're talking about a young woman who's never accomplished anything or held a job."
-- Matthew Yglesias, April 20, 2008
Let all the congregation say, "Amen!" Therefore, I hope my good friend Professor Jacobson will forgive me if I not only sheath my knife, but extend to you a congratulatory handshake. No man who detests Meghan McCain can be all bad, and if you'll go at her another time or two -- which sources say is more than even the most devoted hetero-American fellows can generally manage -- perhaps I'll even buy you a beer sometime soon.

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

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

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

Army officer admits: 'The mere idea of
sex with Meghan McCain repulses me'

In a strange development, Lt. Dan Choi was so horrified by the possibility of having sex with the pathetic loser that he decided to become gay, so that Obama was forced to kick him out of the Army:

BTW, you know how I knew the Republican Party was totally screwed in 2008? It apparently never occurred to any of the geniuses at GOP-HQ, "Hey, why don't we pay that guy not to blog about the McCain campaign?"

Now you know why they call it The Stupid Party.

That's something the Mitt Romney brain trust should bear in mind. It was your man who quit after Super Tuesday, thereby letting Captain Queeg get the nomination with a mere 47% of the Republican primary vote.

Having nominated John the Loser in 2008, now the GOP will nominate Mitt the Quitter in 2012. That makes sense. I can blog about that every day, y'know. Because I've got ethics!

* * * * *
Permit me to address a comment the anonymous "Phil" left on an earlier post:
Woo, tough guy! Takes a real man to knock around a 25-year-old girl! Who'd you warm up on, Dakota Fanning?. . . . Use your formidable powers on someone your own size. For real. Gray hair professional journo bashing a chick who couldn't get into a bar too long ago -- very unbecoming.
"Unbecoming"? Chastising a spoiled brat, it would seem to me, is exactly what I ought to be doing.

What Phil evidently means to say is that Meghan McCain, at age 25, should be permitted to (pretend to) speak for the Republican Party, and that Robert Stacy McCain, at age 49, should be silent. That is to say, according to Phil, that experience should defer to youth. By the same principle, knowledge should defer to ignorance.

This inversion of values, this notion that the young and ignorant should tutor the experienced and knowledegable, is a most striking aspect of our contemporary culture. It is the antithesis of conservatism. But, hey, what else are we to expect from someone who defends Meghan McCain?

Double Standards, Squared
Ah, but our friend Phil is quite the traditionalist in one aspect: "He's picking on a girl!" Well, after all, it is National Offend A Feminist Week -- Ann Coulter is among those commemorating the occasion -- and this is an excellent example of why I detest feminism.

On the one hand, feminists tell us, a woman is absolutely equal to a man. On the other hand, feminists declare, if a man dares criticize a woman, he is not only a patriarchal sexist oppressor (as all men are, according to feminist "logic") but he is furthermore accused of being unmanly.

Wait a minute! How on earth do feminists, who derogate traditional sex roles and stridently insist that men and women must be treated as if they were identical, get away with invoking the ancient code that requires men to treat women with deference and courtesy?

A woman must be treated exactly like a man, until that moment when the egalitarian harridan suddenly decides she wants to be treated like a woman, at which point I'm denounced for failing to embody the chivalrous virtues of a character from a Sir Walter Scott novel!

Feminists expect to get away with this ludicrous incoherence -- and I point out merely one of the inherent contradictions of feminism, which are legion -- because feminism is a virus bred in academia, a pathologically decadent subculture notoriously populated by neurasthenic wimps. At Harvard, even a liberal in good standing like Larry Summers could not be permitted the mildest skepticism toward the feminist dogma which interprets every inequality between men and women as the product of misogynistic discrimination.

If this is the case with the president of Harvard University, just imagine the terroristic fury that would be unleashed upon some untenured faculty member who questioned whether the existence of a Women's Studies department was justified by anything other than the fact that, after all, varsity women athletes must major in something.

Narcissus Transfixed
Cozened during her collegiate experience, where the faculty is too frightened -- and the undergraduates too ignorant -- to debunk the myriad fallacies of feminist cant, the young feminist emerges into society to discover that the real world doesn't operate by the rules she has been taught. Rather than causing her to rethink her premises, however, this experience merely reinforces the belief into which she has been rigorously indoctrinated: Woman is born free, yet is everywhere in chains!

And "the personal is political," as the feminists say, so that every anecdote about her encounters with the unfairness of the world is pluralized as data.

Hence, Megan McCain's complaint that because she was expected to refrain from any word or deed that might embarrass her Republican father, "The Republican Party Doesn't Understand Sex."

Like other manifestations of The Vision of the Anointed, Megan McCain's complaint about the conservative defense of moral tradition is essentially narcissistic: It's all about me!

Yeah? Well, it's about me, too, you ignorant slut.

Man, they hate that word, don't they? The precious darlings of liberalism -- and let's make no mistake, Tina Brown only publishes the precious darlings of liberalism -- are permitted to make transvestite jokes about Ann Coulter and make "ping pong" jokes about Michelle Malkin, but no conservative can ever turn the enemy's weapons against the enemy. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (speaking of precious darlings) can hide out in Pakistan plotting the deaths of thousands, yet liberals will sue if the CIA doesn't treat precious Khalid with kid gloves.

This is a very old tradition among liberals, who defended the arch-traitor Alger Hiss and defamed the patriot Joe McCarthy, who hated Ronald Reagan yet consider Che Guevara a hero deserving of celebration in adulatory biopics. (Remember, kids: You can't spell "liberal" without L-I-E.)

The Monopoly of Discourse
Wonkette complains that Meghan McCain deceitfully promoted her latest column as her "most revealing so far." Rule 5C: Sex sells. So the Republican heiress titilates her Tweeps with hints of sexual revelation, but no one who disagrees with her can engage her on the terrain of her own choosing.

What part of "fuck you" do liberals not understand?

I will not be repeatedly insulted in the most personal terms -- I "do not understand sex"? -- and acquiesce in cowardly silence. You will not deceitfully malign me, impugn my beliefs and dishonor my heroes, and then demand that I treat you as if you deserved my respect.

"Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining."
--
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Perceptive readers (as opposed to the idiots among you) now begin to perceive what Jeff Goldstein has been trying to tell us about "the fool's game" of allowing one's antagonists to dictate the terms of rhetorical conflict.

Liberals are like the British redcoats complaining that the colonial riflemen at Concord Bridge dared hide behind trees and stone walls, rather than coming out into the open to be slaughtered by volleys of massed musketry.

From the mighty platform of The Daily Beast, wealthy celebrity Meghan McCain tells us that we "do not understand sex," yet heaven forbid some obscure blogger should reply that at least he understands Meghan McCain well enough to bet she's an easy mark after four margaritas. (And a fool like her never stops at three.)

Friedrich Hayek would understand what is going on here. Just as established businesses seek to protect their interests by getting government to erect barriers to entry that disadvantage potential competitors, so too does the liberal attempt to erect barriers to entry into the competition of ideas.

A neurosthenic wimp like David Brooks is acceptable as a columnist for the New York Times, but not Michelle Malkin, David Limbaugh, Mark Steyn or anyone else who might effectively challenge the worldview at 620 Eighth Avenue. And only certain McCains get published by Tina Brown.

This is how the game is played, and any conservative who dares to point it out is accused of whining. Like ad hominem insults, whining is another field of endeavor that liberals wish to monopolize, and if you consent to play by their rules, you will soon discover that you are playing a loser's game.

Just ask Meghan's dad about the loser's game. He spent a full decade sucking up to liberals, and what did it get him? Forty-seven percent of the Republican primary vote and 46% on November 5. And after the GOP nominated every liberal's favorite stereotype of a Republican -- short, grumpy, old and bald -- what did the David Brookses and the Kathleen Parkers shout from the rooftops: BLAME CONSERVATIVES!

And what did I tell you on Election Day? You Did Not Lose. Conservatives are presented with a choice: Continue listening to those who advised them to take the path that led down to destruction, or heed the call of the prophets who warned them against their folly.

Behold: The Philistine giant stands boasting in the plain, and your mighty men hide in terror. Will you join the cowards, or will you be An Army Of Davids?

Fortune favors the bold, and two years ago I'd never even heard of Kathy Shaidle. But look how she stands defiantly against the Canadian Goliath! To borrow a phrase from T. Coddington Van Voorhees VII, I like the cut of her jib.
"One of the basic principles of military strategy is to reinforce success. If you see a man who fights and wins, give him reinforcements, and bid others to emulate his success."
WOLVERINES!

(And in case you're wondering, this is just my morning workout. I'm warming up for a few things I have to say to a certain liberal later today. Did you know that the annual tuition at the prestigious Dalton School is $33,100?)

UPDATE: Daley Gator:
Of course, Meghan brings this type of smackdown on herself by constantly bashing Conservatives. So, Meghan, before you whine about being called a "dirty Moderate" remember that if you dish it out, you best be ready to take it.
Bingo. When you talk about me behind my back, when you insult me, when you pretend to be my friend just so you can get close enough to sucker-punch me and then kick me when I'm down, don't complain when I come back on you like Sonny Corleone on Carlo.

And if you are going to offer yourself as the exemplar of young Republican womanhood, presuming to tell us that conservatives "don't understand sex," you have (a) invited me to point out that my Republican sources describe you as an alcoholic slut, and (b) forfeited any claim to the defense of chivalry by claiming to speak on behalf of women who, unlike yourself, are decent and honorable.

UPDATE II: I've deleted a few very sharp remarks directed at commenter Phil, who e-mailed to inform me of his identity, and with whom I had previously had friendly communication. My e-mail reply to Phil:
Just approved your latest comment, but for obvious reasons did not approve the one in which you gave your phone number. I do not shout idiocies -- "Muslim!" "Terrorist!" -- at campaign rallies, and am not responsible for those who do.
Even if you are among those who blame Sarah Palin for such outbursts (and I do not), the fact is that Steve Schmidt counseled McCain to choose Palin for the simple reason that, without the kind of surge of pro-life conservative enthusiasm she generated, he never stood at chance. Had I been consulted as to how to handle Palin's media, and if McCain hadn't heeded the idiotic Holtz-Eakin's advice to support the bailout, perhaps it might even have been close on Nov. 5.
These are mere hypotheticals, however. If any Republican had ever listened to me, Mitt never would have dropped out in February, no conservative would ever have supported Mike Huckabee, and the Bush White House wouldn't have gone within a country mile of the McCain-Kennedy "shamnesty" bill. My advice has never been sought by any influential Republican, and when I volunteer advice, I am ignored.
All of which is to say, Phil, that if you are seeking some forum in which to discuss the tone and content of the GOP message, there's no point trying to argue it out in my comment fields, because no one of any significance will ever see it there. If I had realized it was you commenting as anonymous "Phil," I'd have told you this directly, rather than taking it to you on the blog. I already have more Republican enemies than even Obama might ever hope for, and I certainly don't want to make an enemy of you.
Am I "mean-spirited"? You might be mean-spirited, too, if you ever tried to walk a mile in my shoes. But please pay attention to my choice of targets, and remember what I've told others: Just because you don't know what I'm doing, don't assume that I don't know what I'm doing.
Your friend,
Robert Stacy McCain
My apologies for the previous error. I can be quick to anger, but am never slow to forgive, as Matthew Yglesias may have been surprised to learn.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Dear Meghan

As if your father hadn't already done enough to associate the family name with the word LOSER, it seems you're determined to finish the job:
There's an especially unhealthy attitude among conservatives. Daughters of Republican politicians aren't expected to have sex, let alone enjoy it -- as if there were some strange chastity belt automatically attached to us female offspring.
No, that expectation is only for you, Meghan, because no one could stand the mental image of you naked. That's why -- and you might have noticed this -- your "romantic" encounters tend to begin with a guy saying, "Wow, last call already?"

Hat-tip: Laura. And dibs on the "Meghan McCain naked" Google-bomb. (Hey, Allah hates me. A guy's got to do something to gin up traffic. Dibs on "Meghan McCain gin," too.)

Allah hates me

He really, really hates me. I don't even want to begin to explain. If I wasn't sitting here suffering slow death by conjunctivitis, I might explain. But the dude hates me, and I've never even met him.

I'm going back to bed.

(Maybe he's speedophobic?)

UPDATE: Laura loves me! Pundette loves me! Matthew Yglesias . . . no, wait, he went to Harvard.

UPDATE II: Troglopundit loves . . . cute little bunnies?

'Doctor, My Eyes'

Today, I twice had bad typos in posts. There is an explanation.

Last week, one of my teenagers came down with conjunctivitis -- "pink eye" -- and since then, each of our six children has had the same outbreak, in succession. Yesterday afternoon, my eyes started getting sore and now I've got it. (Family values!)

I'm miserable, of course, but the inflammation only lasts about 48 hours, and so by tomorrow afternoon, I should be back to normal. (Define "normal.") In the meantime, my eyes are blurry, I feel like crap, and I need to be getting my rest, so blogging will be sporadic.

Levi Johnston: 'Mindless bag of hormones'

So says Laura at Pursuing Holiness, discussing the latest interview from the Bristol Palin baby daddy:
"Abstinence is a great idea," he said, "but I also think you need to enforce, you know, condoms and birth control and other things like that to have safe sex. I don't just think telling young kids, you can't have sex, it's not going to work. It's not realistic. " ... It's a great idea and a great message she's trying to send out to the world and all the young kids. It's not easy raising a baby. But I do think there's more things to it than just not having sex."
Yeah, Levi, but if you had stuck to the "just not having sex" part, you wouldn't be famous now, would you? You'd still be just some small-town jock chasing tail in Wasilla, and CBS News would never want to interview a nobody loser like that.

I remember back when the news broke of Bristol's pregnancy. My first post about it was critical of Bristol, even more critical of Levi Johnston, and yet more critical of the way the story was handled by the "media strategy geniuses" who were busy doing what they do best, running the Republican Party off a cliff. There is a right way and a wrong way to handle a scandal in the New Media age, and Republicans haven't figured it out yet, because they're too busy paying gazillions of dollars to "media strategy geniuses" who never worked a day in the news business. But we digress . . .

Many of my conservative readers excoriated me for daring to criticize the Romeo and Juliet of Anchorage. But (a) that's just the way I roll, people, and (b) I know enough about 17-year-old boys to recognize Levi Johnston for what he is.

Yeah, big-deal hockey star, doin' the governor's daughter, braggin' to all his buddies about it. There was a reason, you see, that when the media flew up to Wasilla, every other person they talked to was telling them about Levi and Bristol. Because that's the kind of guy Levi Johnston is.

Dimwit losers like that are a dime a dozen.

But a conservative isn't supposed to say such things! Blame everything on the evil "media"! As I noted even before we knew Levi's last name:
Little Miss Attila refers to the press as "jackals" and "bottom-feeders." Hey, it's their job, OK? By this time tomorrow, you'll have Levi's full name and biography, you'll know how he met Bristol, etc., etc. You'll read it. You may feel guilty about reading it, but you'll read every word of it.
Will you be grateful to the reporters who dug up those facts? No. Some poor shmuck of a reporter is even now knocking on doors in Alaska, getting rude responses and threatening gestures, in order to satisfy your pathological curiosity, and you diss him as a "jackal." Fine. Don't read the story when Drudge puts a siren on it tomorrow.
But you will read it, won't you? So, who's really the bottom-feeding jackal here?
Facts are facts. Any journalist who is halfway intelligent and stays in the game a while will learn secrets he can never report, because you don't burn a source. You are always skeptical of "the story too good to be true," and so when I saw the Republican spinners portraying the fairy-tale romance of Levi and Bristol . . . well, I shut up.

Nobody wanted to hear my appraisal of the situation. I focused on other stories and just let the whole Levi and Bristol business go on to its sorry, and utterly predictable, denouement. None of the nice, respectable Republicans who were telling me not to criticize Levi back in September will ever say now, "Hey, you know something? He was right." And what did I tell you Feb. 5, 2008?
[John] McCain is not a conservative, he will lose in November . . .
I was right about that, too. A guy gets tired of being right all the time, and watching fools prosper.

Let's talk 'homophobia'

One of my friends used to be a lesbian. I mean total, militant, out-and-proud lesbian. And then she met a guy and fell in love and now she's just a suburban mom. Almost nobody knows that she was ever gay.

You've seen these "ex-gay" crusaders? My friend isn't one of those. However, she knows what she knows, and she knows it from direct personal experience. And if there is anything she hates worse than the accusation of being "ignorant" about homosexuality, it's being accused of "homophobia," a word whose very meaning she disputes as an ontological error.

So I thought of my ex-lesbian friend today when I saw the headline, "CARRIE PREJEAN -- ORIGINS OF HOMOPHOBIA," citing court documents from her parents' divorce.

This "diagnosis" from the psychiatric experts at TMZ.com demanded an appropriate response, and since "Fuck You, TMZ.com!" probably wouldn't go over too well with the Boss at Hot Air, I tried to make it a little more subtle at the Green Room:
Let me say something very clearly: Stipulating as a hypothetical that there exists a mental disorder we might fairly call "homophobia" -- an irrational fear or hatred of homosexuals -- I am 100% certain that I do not suffer from it. And I'm willing to bet good money that Carrie Prejean doesn't suffer from it, either. . . .
You should read the whole thing. And watch out for those double-entendres, especially if you're bilingual. NTTAWWT.

UPDATE: Jules Crittenden is craving some naked Carrie Prejean linky-love. And since he caught a typo on my blog, he deserves at least as much linky-love as Marie Osmond's lesbian daughter. Je suis un capitaliste! (Chicks dig it when I talk French.)

UPDATE II: Thanks to the commenters who corrected my French. Hey, what kind of un-Americans are you, anyway, with all that parlais-vouz stuff? I'll bet you're the kind of commies who would put dijon mustard on a cheeseburger. I'm thinking of an Anglo-Saxon compound word for you guys . . .

UPDATE III: William Teach at Pirate's Cove tells us the "new" Carrie Prejean nude pic is a Photoshop.

Also: Welcome Conservative Grapevine readers! Let me warn you that if you don't really hate Meghan McCain, don't click this link. And my rule has always been, when in doubt, double down.

Joe the Plumber: Ordinary American

Last year, I started using the term "Ordinary American" to describe people who aren't part of the influential elite class, the kind of people David Brooks sneers at when he uses "populism" as a pejorative. People like Joe Wurzelbacher:
Joe the Plumber is an Ordinary American, someone whose existence is lived outside the world where elite opinion is ubiquitous and omnipotent.
The Ordinary American is not a journalist, a movie producer, an academic or a politician. News media, entertainment, education and politics are endeavors that shape public attitudes, and for this reason the elite have striven for decades to exclude from those fields anyone who might dispute their consensus. . . .
Why doesn’t the Ordinary American endorse the consensus? Or, perhaps more accurately, why does the Ordinary American (whatever his personal opinion on such issues) not become furiously angry when he encounters dissent from the consensus?
Well, if you’re a plumber -- or an accountant or a truck driver or a small business owner -- your ability to fulfill your hopes and ambitions is not dependent on the approval of the elite. For most people in Toledo, Ohio, getting hired or getting promoted has nothing to do with their willingness to parrot the “correct” opinion on tax cuts or foreign policy. . . .
Why do I relate more easily to guys like Joe Wurzelbacher than to the elites who condemn him? Maybe it’s because I spent most of my life far from Washington, D.C., where nobody cared about my opinions. Maybe it’s because my family and friends -- my truck-driving brothers, my childhood buddy the school cafeteria supervisor, my sister-in-law the dental hygienist -- are so much like Joe.
The ironic point is that a guy like Joe the Plumber doesn’t care the least what you or I think of him. He doesn’t care whether we like him or not. He is proudly independent and unafraid to speak his mind. He is that extraordinary individual, the Ordinary American.
Please read the whole thing. And click here to buy a T-shirt:

VIDEO: Ann Coulter vs. Joy Behar

Behaw guest-hosting on "Larry King Live," and Ann Coulter calling Dick Cheney a "wuss":

Behar cites John McCain's opposition to waterboarding and Coulter replies: "You know what a fan I am of John McCain." Heh.

NEW: Conservative Political Report

Wednesday night, I got a call from Mike Casey who, along with his buddy Jason Corley, has started a new site, Conservative Political Report, that you really ought to check out.

I haven't talked to Jason yet, but if he's half as smart as Mike, then between them they've got more IQ points than the combined cast of "The View" (except Elizabeth Hasselbeck).

Smart guys and a smart site. Basically, Mike and Jason have created on their own hook what I've heard dozens of GOP "online activists" say we need, but nobody ever bothered to build: A state-by-state, election-by-election, issue-by-issue political news aggregator for conservatives.

One of the stories I found there (in the "Campaigns and Candidates" category) was about the crowded field for next year's Alabama gubernatorial race. At the April 15 Tea Party down there, I had a chance to meet one of the GOP candidates, Tim James. So it was good to have a place where I could find a story analyzing all the candidates in both parties.

I will now be bombarded with complaints from people saying, "Hey, what about our site?" If there is something else out there like this, fine -- link yourself in the comments, and link us at your site (where you'll denounce us in fine Rule 4 fashion), and we'll all have ourselves a grand old linkfest. But I like the way Mike and Jason have taken the initiative, instead of sitting around waiting for somebody to give 'em a zillion dollars in funding.

By the way: I know that Red State, Net Right Nation and some other sites are working in this direction, and that's cool. There needs to be more collaboration and networking going on among conservatives.

Cut-throat rivalries are fine for business, but at some level, politics requires cooperation. These two guys have a good idea, and deserve support and encouragement for Conservative Political Report.

UPDATE: Thanks to Marie Osmond's lesbian daughter for catching the typo. ("Give a man a Google bomb, and he'll have traffic for a day. Teach a man to Google-bomb . .")

Marie Osmond's lesbian daughter?

While searching the news for the latest Carrie Prejean developments, I just happened to come across a story that one of Marie Osmond's daughters is a lesbian. Can you guess which one?

Most of you guys probably guessed wrong, according to this story that reports Marie is supporting same-sex marriage in California.

Some background: Three years ago, Marie went on a crusade for Internet decency after reading her daugthers' MySpace pages. Daughter Jessica, then 18, described herself on MySpace as a bisexual who craved sex "as many times as possible," while daughter Rachael, then 16, described herself as a "slut" and a "whore."

According to the latest news, Jessica has since kissed "bi" bye-bye and is now playing full-time for the other team. But cheer up, guys: You still have a shot at the self-described "slut"/"whore."

Just quoting what others have reported. Nothing to do with National Offend A Feminist Week. Honest.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

No, Obama is not Spock

by Smitty

Jeff Greenwald at Salon says Obama is Spock: It's quite logical.
He's been FDR...Abraham Lincoln...and now Spock. I suppose the point is to advertise the new Trek flick. However, one is left to question why the POTUS can't just be Barak Obama. Writer of best-sellers, fundraiser extraordinaire, campaign wizard, [pejoratives go here]. Do we really have to endure Obama Clock more attempts do define the guy in terms of someone else?
Looking at the IMDB top 250, we may see:
  • Obama is Don Vito Corleone "I'd like to make you a bailout offer you can't refuse."
  • Obama is Jules Winnfield (his wallet is the one that says [NSFW]Bad Mike Foxtrot)
  • Obama is Rick Blaine "Here's making vaguely obscene gestures at you, kid."
  • Obama is Han Solo (replete with pastry-head Michelle)
  • Obama is Indiana Jones (crack that whip!)
  • Obama is President Merkin Muffley "General Turgidson, I find this very difficult to understand. I was under the impression that I was the only one in authority to order the use of nuclear weapons."
  • Obama is Charles Foster Kane "Arugula..."
  • Obama is Arthur, King of the Britons (Joe Biden with the coconuts)

...and so forth. Basically any non-military (anti)hero. Discuss your suggestions.

Left-wing bloggers boost 2014 re-election campaign of Sen. Jeff Sessions

Michelle Malkin:
The left-wing blogosphere has been busy slinging mud at Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, who has taken over the lead GOP spot on the Senate Judiciary Committee. All on cue, the liberal bloggers are recycling old quotes out of context to smear Sen. Sessions as a racist and cripple the Republicans from voicing any opposition to President Obama’s first Supreme Court nominee.
The race-obsessed leftists are the ones wearing the bigot blinders. They see every white Southern Republican male in public office as a de facto racist.
In case you don't know anything about Alabama Republicans, they are profoundly suspicious of any Republican official who has never been denounced as a "racist." If liberals want to destroy Senator Sessions, they should start saying nice things about him.

Ultimately, this scattershot business of smearing every opponent of Obama as "racist" will have precisely the opposite effect of what liberals hope. Lots of folks are starting to notice this -- look at Glenn Beck -- and fight back.

Stand firm and tell the truth. The idiot liberals might just yet Alabamify this country.

Video: Glenn Beck to ACORN: 'Get the hell out of my studio'

Via Hot Air, how to deal with cheap liberal accusations of "racism":

Kathy Shaidle might have just fallen in love. She's gotta at least be breathing heavily.

Constitutional Convention: off to a great start

by Smitty (via Instapundit)

Here is a site that the Tea Party can help drive: The Bill of Federalism. Our Community Organizer in Chief can take pride in having stirred up enough of a crap-storm to make this possible, and the shinywebs for allowing a flanking movement on the gatekeepers.

Chris Matthews sucks bad

Turned on the TV in my home office, hoping to watch Michelle Malkin on the Glenn Beck show, but the old portable TV my kids hooked up doesn't get Fox News.

So I switched over to MSNBC just to try to get an update on the non-Carrie Prejean nude news -- just in time for "Hardball" with Chris Matthews.

He completely sucks, doesn't he? I remember for years how the liberal bloggers were always ranting about the wretched awfulness of "Tweetie" Matthews. I didn't get it, because I never watched his show. (I'm not a big TV watcher, period.)

I'd occasionally be switching channels, catch small doses of Matthews and not really think about it But . . . OMG!

To try to sit in a room where the TV is tuned to "Hardball" for a full freaking hour! Now I get what the liberal bloggers were complaining about. The man seems congenitally incapable of framing any argument except in the most superficially stereotypical terms.

Chris Matthews is to coherent discourse what Johnny Rotten is to fine jazz -- which is to say, he's never even attempted it. What is so annoying about Matthews is his utter lack of curiosity. He doesn't ask questions in search of information, and he routinely mischaracterizes the scope of any controversy.

Matthews begins an interview with an antagonist -- a guest who represents the "other side" -- by expressing the most ludicrously pejorative caricature of the antagonist's position. So, before the guest can begin to engage, he must first clear away this misleading distortion. Then, predictably, while the guest is attempting to clarify his own position, Matthews interrupts with some sarcastic idiocy.

He's a much worse TV interviewer than either Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly, and I'm not a great admirer of either of those guys. The whole point of having a guest do a TV interview is to hear what the guest has to say, but Matthews is infinitely more interested in hearing his own voice than in letting the audience hear his guests.

At least when Hannity starts the bully-boy routine on a liberal guest -- hectoring and interrupting -- it's entertaining in a pro-wrestling sort of way. O'Reilly has his own trademark brand of obnoxiousness, but it is arguably entertaining obnoxious.

What's the difference? Hannity comes out of a talk-radio background, and O'Reilly has been doing TV all his life. Both of them are professional broadcasters, who have some basic concept that they are on TV to attract and engage an audience.

Matthews, by contrast, is a lifelong Democratic Party hack, who got hired for TV as a "political analyst" and parlayed that (via the DC schmooze circuit) into his anchor role. But because he was hired for his politics, he didn't have to be any good at the audience-attraction part of the job, and never bothered to learn it.

Before anyone can yell "hypocrite" at me, I am well aware of my own bad rhetorical habits. But I do this in writing. The written word and broadcasting are very different media. You can skim through the written word and turn the page any time you want, so an article you disagree with doesn't have the intrusive feeling that you get being stuck in a room with Chris Matthews on your TV. (This old 13-inch portable TV doesn't have a remote.)

With TV, however, you can't "skim." There is a temporal linearity to the TV-viewing experience, from which the viewer can only escape by changing the channel. And the ability of Chris Matthews to inspire viewers to change the channel is the most obvious explanation for MSNBC's persistently low ratings over the years.

It's not about Matthews' politics. Ed Schultz comes on right after "Hardball," and Ed rivals Keith Olbermann for obnoxious liberalism. But Ed is entertaining. He's a good interviewer who brings on the guest, asks questions, and lets the guest answer.

Matthews has been on MSNBC forever and has never attracted an audience. There is no evidence that he even has the capacity to learn how to be good on TV. If the executives at MSNBC cared anything about building an audience, they'd cancel "Hardball" immediately and negotiate a buyout of Matthews' contract.

Somewhere out there in America is a good TV newsman -- liberal in his politics, but skilled at his craft -- who is being deprived of a career opportunity because the stupid suits at MSNBC can't see what anyone with two eyes and a brain can see: Chris Matthews sucks beyond hope of redemption, and he's clogging up a perfectly good hour of cable TV time.

How to Reply to a Feminist . . .

. . . if you must. This is National Offend A Feminist Week, and Allison at The New Gay finds herself angry, mystified and intrigued by the crazy dude in the Speedo:
Why is feminism still a dirty word? Why do people still regard it as a fleeting female term with no historical purpose? . . .
To which I replied in the comments:
If we are in a War of Ideas, it is important to distinguish between ourselves and our ideas. Identity politics, however, convinces some people that an attack on feminism (an idea) is an attack on people (women), just as some people confuse an attack on same-sex marriage (an idea) with an attack on people (gays).
Allison, I believe that I know more about feminism than you know about conservatism, and I certainly believe I know more about conservatism than you do. Either I do know more or I do not. But to assert my own superiority of knowledge is not a personal attack on you. There are many people whom I love and I admire who know less than I do.
What I am trying to say is that there are actual facts in this world. Not everything is a matter of opinion. And the possibility that you might be mistaken as to the facts is something you might want to consider.
Thanks for the link. Like I say, Rule 4: "Hits is hits," and linky-hate is as good as linky-love, when it comes down to increasing blog traffic. That is a fact.
BTW, I'm thinking of an Elvis Costello song:
Oh, it's so funny to be seein' ya after so long, girl,
And with the way you look, I understand
If you are not impressed . . .
My aim is true
.
Which is to say, don't worry your pretty little head about it, sweetheart. Now run along and get me a cup of coffee, hon. Cream only.

(And I think somebody wants to hit the tip jar.)

Forget those other scandals!

Naked beauty queens? Nuclear Pakistan? Bank of America $35 billion short? Forget all that silly crap.
DIJONGATE!
Barack Obama ordered a burger with dijon mustard! Just what we can expect from one of those snooty un-American law professor types, y'know.
  • Fact: Dijon mustard comes from France.
  • Fact: From 1843-45, Karl Marx lived in France.
  • Fact: From 1940-44, Adolf Hitler ruled France.
  • Fact: From 1978-79, the Ayatollah Khomeini lived in France.
Draw your own conclusions.

Caption Contest

OK, the real story behind this photo is at The Green Room. But feel free to make up your own. (Hint: That's Miss California USA Carrie Prejean on the right.)

The kind of job I need

Los Angeles Times:
For seven years, the Los Angeles Unified School District has paid Matthew Kim a teaching salary of up to $68,000 per year, plus benefits.
His job is to do nothing. . . .
A special education teacher, he was removed from Grant High School in Van Nuys and assigned to a district office in 2002 after the school board voted to fire him for allegedly harassing teenage students and colleagues. In the meantime, the district has spent more than $2 million on him in salary and legal costs.
(H/T: NewsAlert.) Obviously, the L.A. schools need to fire Kim and hire me, because I'm excellent at doing nothing. Ask my wife. And if they want me to harass someone, I'm also very good at that, too. I've had years of experience, threatening to strangle various journalistic colleagues or beat the daylights out of my kids.

I'm going to apply for one of these no-work jobs in Los Angeles and if they don't hire me, I'll sue them for discrimination. Hillbillies have rights, too, y'know.

We Need The Traditional Agenda More Than 'The New Agenda'

by Smitty (from The New Agenda via No Quarter)

As part of National Offend a Feminist Week, let's observe a sample of the Agents of Societal Destruction in action. We have the standard hand-wringing over a serious problem:
What can we do to stop the “normalization” of violence in youth culture? What can we do to stop assault in the next generation? That was a major topic at The New Agenda’s Violence Against Women forum on April 18. Here’s the video: Please help us to spread it far and wide!

The gist: as part of the overall decay of public schools, women are seeing escalating violence, in addition to a spate of Big Numbers.

What we never manage to hear escape the lips of these purveyors of dismal is any recognition of possible societal factors involved:
  • The ongoing destruction of the family (i.e. male, female, children) as a unit of societal organization.
  • The denigration of the male role as a leader and servant in the relationship.
  • The promotion of government policy, process and procedure as a source of authority for societal organization.
The specific case these women are on about?
In the weeks after hip-hop artist Chris Brown allegedly beat and strangled singer Rihanna, a stomach-turning phenomenon happened across America: acceptance.
I will admit to a jaded cynicism: my first thought when Rihanna bobbed to the surface of the stream of effluent that is the cable news was that the whole thing was a publicity stunt. While Jane's Addiction falls short of the John Bohnam Criteria, the observation that "...the news is just another show, with sex and violence." remains spot on.

So, what do we do? I tell the kids in the youth group:
  • Don't worry about being serious with anyone until after college. Figure yourself out first.
  • Don't date in numbers smaller than four--keep the fun level up and the pressure level down.
  • Don't date outside of the community of faith. If they're too cool to show up at the house of worship at the appointed time, this is a good indicator of their actual interest level.
Of course, I'm ignored, but they can't say they're not getting sound advice.

The community of faith is valuable at the adult level, too. I wouldn't accuse church members who attend steadily of perfection. However, I'd like to see a serious comparison study of their overall problems against society in general. My gut feeling is that the ugly numbers are significantly lower amidst those who have some grasp of the meaning of life, and for a good reason. Regular negative feedback on the "don't do" aspects of life, and positive feedback on the "do this" aspects produce a superior product.

On the other hand, we have feminists who produce, in my severely biased opinion, a stream of marginally useful bumperstickers that will achieve little beyond short-term empathy for victims. If a community of faith is a nutritious spiritual diet, I'm accusing these feminists of pushing Snickers and Doritos, washed down with soda pop. If the real goal is minimizing violence against women, you're going to have to return to the traditional modes of turning boys into men. The platitudes on offer here do little, AFAICT, besides open up more government programs and career paths for people to maintain the problem. So let's discuss a broader "come to Beavis" meeting about the root causes, and ignore limited value approaches, please. Finally, remember that the "come to Beavis" meeting is an individual thing. We can do all of the rah-rah and statistics we want, but as with Fireproof, it remains an individual life-long challenge to avoid idiocy, irrespective of gender.