'You must think we're f---ing idiots'

Part of my job today required me to do some cold-calling on behalf of a county Republican Party in another state. So I was doing my FM radio smooth-jazz voice, with a bit of Andy Griffith downhome charm, and knocking 'em dead.

Talking to my boss about this, she mentioned that she got cold-called by a Democratic organization last week. My boss hadn't gotten the "Operation Chaos" message on time, so she actually voted for Obama in the primary, even though she is the staunchest of staunch conservative Republicans. Her registration therefore put her on the Democrat calling list.

Now, being a smart lady, my boss knew what to do when she got the Democratic cold call:

• Waste the maximum amount of the caller's time. They're getting paid to call you, and every minute of time they waste on you is a minute they can't spend calling someone who might actually give them money.
  
• Demoralize them. Your objective is to convince the caller that you are a loyal Democrat and have been for years, but . . . (and here you might want to choke up just a little) . . . Obama's breaking your heart. He has sold out and betrayed everything you ever believed in as a loyal Democrat.
  

My boss worked that like a pro. "Why is he hurting people? . . . We're the party of compassion, and he's hurting poor people, he's hurting women, he's hurting black people, he's hurting everybody! . . . Obama is destroying the country, he's destroying the Democratic Party, he's playing right into the Republican Party's agenda. . . . How do you even have the nerve to call and ask a loyal Democrat like me to give money to Obama after he stabbed us in the back like this? Are you a Democrat? Aren't you ashamed of how cruel Obama is to the little people who've lost their jobs?"

You get the drift. The cold-caller kept interrupting, trying to give her Democratic talking points, but my boss lady would have none of it. Finally, after the cold-caller tried for the third or fourth time to argue that everything was Bush's fault, my boss just said in a quiet serious voice: "You must think we're f---ing idiots."

And the cold-caller hung up. Eight minutes is not bad. And just think of the break-room chat when the cold-callers get together. Complete demoralization.

The Emmett Till smear

In response to my much-noted American Spectator column of yesterday, some obnoxious troll commenter asserted that I had once wrote a column "praising the lynching of Emmet Till." For the record, I never wrote any such column.

At the time that this libelous accusation first emerged on the Internet, I was employed as an assistant national editor at The Washington Times. My employers ordered me not to respond to this libel, and I was compelled to remain silent under penalty of being fired if I dared defend my good name. Duty and loyalty required me to obey, but when I resigned from The Washington Times in January 2008, no one even bothered to say "don't let the door hit you on the way out."

C'est la vie! C'est l'amour! C'est la guerre!

Having acquired a bad reputation in such a manner, I am loath to deny anything unnecessarily. Being notorious is not the same as being famous, but it's better than being anonymous. So if it helps my career to be thought a vile "white supremacist" hatemonger (like the notorious Walter Williams), then I'll laugh all the way to the bank.

I write for money, and if someone wants to pay me enough to explain how a fundamentally unserious person, a "tedious nothing" like myself, could ever acquire such a monstrous notoriety, please make an offer. Don't lowball me, because it's a very long story and the value of the continued mystery is not neglible.

Let the mystified think on this: Saturday evening, I was introduced to the old college boyfriend of a beauty whom I'd introduced to her most recent boyfriend. The college beau's eyes were burning with rage, his upper lip glistened with perspiration, and when I shook his hand, it was cold, damp and unsteady. With jocular courtesy and good cheer I greeted as an old friend this fellow whom I'd never met before and who, for all I knew, was even then contemplating whether to pull out a .32 semi-auto and blast me into oblivion.

And he never saw me flinch, not once.

Yet another Malkin Award nomination

Dadgum, when you're hot, you're hot. Sully knows top-drawer Alpha Male wingnuttery when he sees it. And if ever there was a man who could appreciate a little Rule 2 action . . . OK, where's the brain bleach?

WOLVERINES!

'Those of us who consider ourselves moderates . . .'

". . . are forced to confront the reality that Barack Obama is not who we thought he was."
-- David Brooks, New York Times

Meanwhile, those of us who consider David Brooks a useless son of a bitch are forced to confront the reality that the New York Times is still paying him $300,000 a year to annoy us with idiotic self-promoting drivel like this:

Those of us in the moderate tradition -- the Hamiltonian tradition that believes in limited but energetic government -- thus find ourselves facing a void. We moderates are going to have to assert ourselves. We're going to have to take a centrist tendency that has been politically feckless and intellectually vapid and turn it into an influential force.
The first task will be to block the excesses of unchecked liberalism. In the past weeks, Democrats have legislated provisions to dilute welfare reform, restrict the inflow of skilled immigrants and gut a voucher program designed for poor students. It will be up to moderates to raise the alarms against these ideological outrages.

Smitty, Dave and an army of Internet commenters can fisk Brooks point-by-point. I'm just pissed off that I got up this morning with the idea of blogging some real news and instead found myself confronted by another David Brooks column. Eight hundred and fourteen words, exhibiting no apparent effort at reporting. Let the reader calculate the cost-per-word of Brooks's annual output. Compare and contrast.

With American newspapers in meltdown mode -- my old boss at the Rome (Ga.) News-Tribune, Pierre-Rene Noth, was recently put out to the pasture of semi-retirement -- why is Brooks still on the NYT payroll?

Because he's a stylish writer? Stylish writers are a dime a dozen. Because he brings to bear incisive reporting? Make me laugh. Given access to the resources and awesome prestige of one of the world's most important news-gathering organizations -- please don't accuse me of succumbing to Tucker Carlson Syndrome -- Brooks adamantly refuses to gather any news, opting instead for the posture of the Platonic archon, deciding which "noble lies" are acceptable for utterance by those who aspire to lead the ignorant masses.

The New York Times continues to pay Brooks to produce his elaborate nonsense, and the idiot (he is not even a useful idiot) doesn't realize that there are people among the readership who remember his past idiocies and are capable of doing a quick compare-and-contrast that exposes him for the posturing sham he is. Ladies and gentlemen, liberal blogger John Cole:

Moderate? What happened to worshiping Edmund Burke and Hayek and Oakeshott and all those other guys? What happened to kicking it in Gstaad with William F. Buckley?
What concerns me most is the very real possibility that Brooks will now dig up some long forgotten hero of moderation and begin quoting him as if we all were supposed to know who he was. Are there any moderate intellectual writers I should start boning up on right now?

If there is one thing that the blogosphere has accomplished, or will eventually accomplish, it is to expose the likes of David Brooks as vestiges of the golden age of journalistic excess, a Darwinian remnant of an obsolute appendage, a luxury that newspapers could arguably afford when ad revenues were growing and newsrooms were crowded.

Those days are over, and now ad revenue losses are requiring news organizations to excise the bone and sinew of their core news-gathering operations. Lean-and-mean will be the newsroom of the future, and the day is soon coming -- not soon enough, but nevertheless soon -- when the city editor of the New York Times will be told he'll have to lay off another reporter. And there will be an angry shouting match in someone's office at 620 Eighth Avenue:

Hell, no! Why the f--- should I lay off a reporter when that g--d--- piece of s--- David Brooks is collecting $300,000 a year to produce two columns of nothingness a week? You can fire me if you want to, or I'll just quit right here and now, because I'll be g--d----d if I'll lay off one more reporter as long as that useless motherf----r David Brook is on the payroll!

It is possible to argue that Brooks never should have been hired for that job in the first place. He is the Chauncey Gardner of American journalism, a man elevated by circumstance to a position beyond his aptitude or capacity.

Brooks reminds me very much of a couple of staff writers I encountered in 1987 after I was hired as sports editor of the Douglas County (Ga.) Neighbor. One spring afternoon, in transit from an afternoon track meet to a night baseball game, I stopped by the office to get film for my camera (I did most of my own photography) and overheard these two guys talking amongst themselves. One of them was overjoyed that the local amateur theatre outfit had agreed to produce his one-act play, which prompted congratulations from the other writer, who complained that his latest poem had been rejected by whatever literary magazine he'd sent it to.

That overheard conversation has stuck in my mind for more than two decades. As I hopped back in my '84 Chevette that afternoon, I cussed a storm and peeled out of the parking lot. Here I was, wearing out my tires and clutch en route from one event to another, working the phones late at night to get complete results for events I couldn't cover in person, writing into the wee hours, doing my own photography, layout and paste-up. And there were those two useless sons of bitches, required to contribute a mere eight bylines a week, and using their ample leisure to write poems and plays.

"F--- them," I said to myself. Oh, I had my own original ambitions, but the rock-star thing wasn't working out, so I was happy to get a job as a sports editor, even if it did take everything I had to keep up with the pace, as I was required to produce not only the sports pages of the Douglas County Neighbor, but also the geographically adjacent Paulding County Neighbor.

I vowed that day never to become one of those useless sons of bitches. Wherever I worked, I'd work -- I would produce, over and above the minimum requirements -- and when I finally got pissed off enough to walk out the door, my absence would be felt. Curious minds may inquire of Pierre-Rene Noth if I made good on that ancient vow, and if my talents were missed after the day in 1997 I left the Rome News-Tribune.

Yesterday, a blog reader sent me an e-mail alleging shady doings at the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. The e-mail, including transcripts of testimony before a congressional committee, ran to 10 pages. I was too brain-fogged from Post-CPAC Syndrome to make heads or tales of what it was the tipster was alleging, and I got up this morning at 6:30 with the intent of finding out, or at least trying to blog about some actual news.

Instead, I found myself noticing (via Memeorandum, Rule 3) this ridiculous ode to moderation by David Brooks. So I've wasted time telling my few hundred regular readers what they already know, that David Brooks is a useless son of a bitch. And in recompense for my labors, I pray for only one thing: That someone will call this to the attention of the city editor of the New York Times, so as to hasten that angry shouting match at 620 Eighth Avenue.

ADDENDUM: OK, so I lied. Additional recompense is always welcome, if anyone wants to hit the tip jar. It's a long way from the occasional Google Adsense check to $300,000 a year, and every $20 helps.

UPDATE: I would be remiss if I failed to link Russ Smith's farewell to the Rocky Mountain News. When venerable newspapers like the Rocky are going belly-up and hard-working journalists everywhere are dreading the next round of newsroom pink slips, the continued employment of a useless SOB like David Brooks reeks to high heaven as an insult to the profession.

If you're one of the New York Times employees reading this via the electronic water cooler (SiteMeter sees all), allow me to offer a suggestion: Somebody compose a small note, with four words in red 72-point Arial Bold:

NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE!

Let these notes begin to appear inconspicuously in your newsroom cubicles, so that you will know who your comrades are. John Galt. Tyler Durden. You get the idea.

UPDATE II: Michelle Malkin:

What an unbelievable waste of time and real estate is David Brooks. It’s profane. Which is why Robert Stacy McCain’s expletive-filled smackdown is the only appropriate and satisfying response.

Glad you enjoyed it, ma'am. I always aim to please.

Who is Robert Stacy McCain?

Glad you asked! I've been meaning to write one of these "who is" posts for about . . . oh, forever. But I kept putting it off, because writing about me has never been something I was good at. Between August 1987 and January 2008, I changed employers exactly once. Why? Because I hate writing resumes and filling out applications. It feels like bragging.

I'd much rather just do the work and get credit for that, than to spend my time composing self-glorifying profiles of myself like some kind of ambitious arriviste social-climber. However, since you're interested, here's the thumbnail bio:

• Born in Atlanta in 1959, grew up in Douglas County, Ga., graduated from Jacksonville (Ala.) State University in 1983.
• Started journalism career in April 1986 at the 6,000-circulation weekly Cobb News Chronicle in Austell, Ga., earning $4.50 an hour as a staff writer. Next worked (Dec. 1986-July 1987) as a sports editor for the Marietta, Ga.-based Neighbor Newspapers. Sports editor for the twice-weekly Calhoun (Ga.) Times, September 1987-May 1991. Transferred to News Publishing Company's flagship daily, Rome (Ga.) News-Tribune, in June 1991, where I worked for special projects/editorial page editor Pierre Rene-Noth.
• In 1996, I was awarded the George Washington Medal from the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge for my series of columns on the controversial National Standards for U.S. History.
• In November 1997, I was hired by The Washington Times as an assistant national editor, and subsequently became editor of the newspaper's "Culture, Etc." page.
• During my years at the Times, I developed a knack for producing feature profiles of prominent personalities. I interviewed such notable newsmakers as John Stossel, David Horowitz, Peter Jennings, Wendy Shalit, Ronald Radosh, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Tammy Bruce, Andrew Breitbart, William J. Bennett, Phyllis Chesler, Ward Connerly, Michael Savage, Roger L. Simon, Dinesh D'Souza, L. Brent Bozell III, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin and Cal Thomas.
• When former President Ronald Reagan died in June 2004, I was the guy assigned to write the memorial article that appeared as a special feature in The Washington Times.
• In 2006, my old friend Lynn Vincent (World Magazine) and I co-authored Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party, the most complete history of its kind ever written. It was praised by David Horowitz as "irresistible," while historian Thomas Woods hailed it as "relentless and stunning." And the MSM politely ignored it.
• Since I've got a face for radio, I'm not one of those celebrity pundits whose thumbnail bio includes ". . . has appeared on Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, VH-1, Home Shopping Network . . ." I've made exactly one appearance on C-SPAN2's Book TV, but I've done a ton of talk-radio, and have recently begun doing weekly spots on the G. Gordon Liddy Show.
• In January 2008, I resigned from The Washington Times. My reasons for resigning were multiple. I had been contracted to work on a book-research project that required me to travel to Africa, and it was very difficult to fit that project into my work schedule at the newspaper. Then one day, it was announced that (a) Wes Pruden would retire as editor, (b) managing editor Francis B. Coombs would resign, and (c) John Solomon would take over as executive editor of the newspaper.
  People whose judgment I trust assured me that Solomon was a good guy. However, he came from The Washington Post and, as one of my co-workers remarked to me when this news was announced, "If I'd wanted to work for a Postie, I would have applied at the f---ing Post." I despise the Washington Post with every cell of my being, nearly as much as I despise the New York Times, a contempt quite sufficient to encompass every person who has ever been associated with those institutions of evil.
  Also, it occurred to me that, over the next 90-120 days, Solomon would be evaluating the productivity of the newsroom staff, during a period when I'd be bogged down with the book project. So I could quit now, and leave on good terms, or risk being s---canned at some point in the future. After consulting with my wife and praying together earnestly, I decided I needed to quit or, as I said at time, "God said, 'Go.'" And I went.
• Yes, I said "praying together earnestly." Wretched reprobate though I may be, yet I know that God is merciful and gracious to those who love Him. I acknowledge Him too rarely, and disobey Him too often, and if you're looking for a Christian role model, please don't look at me. If asked to describe myself by denomination or theology, I'd say "Bible-thumping hillbilly holy roller." I'm a backslid Baptist married to a Seventh-Day Adventist, but I'm basically a hard-shell Calvinist who leans on The Word (see Romans, Chapter 8) and doesn't much care for legalism or the Theology of Niceness that has infested the evangelical movement in recent years. Martin Luther, John Calvin, Oliver Cromwell and Jonathan Edwards did not subscribe to the Theology of Niceness.
• After returning from Africa and ending my research project, in March 2008 I began blogging regularly, concentrating on the presidential campaign, which I also covered as a reporter/columnist for The American Spectator and Pajamas Media. My reporting on the Libertarian Party convention in Denver was praised by Rocky Mountain News columnist Dave Kopel as "the best national coverage" of that event.
• I've recently begun writing a series of columns on love, sex and marriage for Taki's Magazine. This has raised some eyebrows among my neoconservative friends, given that Taki Theodoracopulos is known as one of those "Unpatriotic Conservatives" famously condemned by David Frum. Well, politics is politics. Many of my dearest kindred are Democrats -- including my cousin Pepper Ellis Hagebak, columnist for the LaGrange (Ga.) News -- shall I repudiate them? If Taki, who has been relentlessly smeared as an anti-Semite, is willing to pay for contributions by the man considered Most Likely to Become First Gentile Prime Minister of Israel, should not he be praised and admired for his generous tolerance of a bloodthirsty Zionist like me? As I once explained to Rod Dreher, I write for money, and when God answers prayer, a wise man ought to consider that the answer may involve a lesson.
• On Feb. 13, 2009, my cumulative traffic passed the 1-million hits milestone, which inspired the semi-humorous celebration, "How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog in Less Than a Year," the surprising popularity of which has given me a nice boost toward my second million hits. Learn it, love it, live it.
• I am one of the most accessible people on the blogosphere. E-mail me, Facebook me, Twitter me. As we used to say in college, "Hit me, beat me, get me drunk and rape me, make me write bad checks and call me Helen." I've been abused by the best, so be advised that your idiotic troll-flames are incapable of damaging a two-time "Malkin Award" nominee. You can come after me any way you want, but be advised that you're messing with the Ninja master of ad-hominem invective. And the comments are moderated, assholes.
• The "racist" smear. A long, long story that began on May 9, 2000, when I published a news feature with the headline, "Researchers Say 'Watchdogs' Exaggerate Hate Group Threat." When the smears started, my bosses decided that the best response was a non-response. The smears were thus elaborated year after year on the Internet, errors compounding on lies with additions of libels and distortions, like a metastasizing cancer.
  Had I been permitted to respond initially in my own defense . . . well, "if" is the largest two-letter word. Trying to unravel it all at this late date would be a waste of time and energy.
  Along the way, I've discovered the amazing professional value of a bad reputation. Being notorious is not the same as being famous, but it's better than being anonymous. The harm to my career and my reputation was more than recompensed by the acquisition of virtuous character attributed to A Man Who Has The Right Enemies -- the same parasitical assassins who attack me have also attacked inter alia Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, David Horowitz, Mark Steyn, Kathy Shaidle and other worthy souls more eminent than myself.
  At this point, if it pleases anyone to think of me as a neo-Confederate white supremacist xenophobic bigoted nativist hatemonger, the accusation is too delicious to deny and if anyone wants the full explanation, they can pay me for it. (I write for money.)
• Speaking of money, it has from Day One been my thought that blogging is a capitalist enterprise. I joke a lot about my financial plight -- the ACORN protesters are trying to keep the repo man from towing my car -- but it is nonetheless not a joke that I have to earn a living for myself, my beautiful wife and our six children. So . . .
  Hit the tip jar. Or buy an "Ordinary American" T-shirt. Or, when I link a book from my Amazon Associates account, buy the book and know that a small percentage of the purchase price will be paid to me as a commission. I'm a shameless tip-jar rattler, and don't mind asking for the cash. (It's For The Children!)
  Once upon a time (and I was a loyal Democrat back then) I worked briefly as a DJ in a strip joint on Atlanta's Fulton Industrial Boulevard, and if things got slow, I'd announce between songs, "Guys, if you ain't tippin', the ladies ain't strippin'! So get up off your a$$, pull out some cash, get up to the stage and put something green in the lovely lady's garter!" A man can learn more about pure capitalism working in a strip joint than he'll ever learn at Harvard Business School.

OK, so that's it. I'm Old School in the New Media. I'm available for freelance assignments, communications consulting, public speaking engagements, karaoke parties, weddings, birthdays and bar-mitzvahs. I might come back to expand or update this later, but I must conclude with a legal disclaimer required by the Blogger Board Of Ethics:

DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS AT HOME. This Man Is a Trained Professional Journalist Who Is Neutral, Objective And Ethical. Keep This Blog Away From Children, Pregnant Women, and Persons With Heart Conditions. The Proprietors Of The Other McCain Are Not Responsible For Accidental Injuries Resulting From This Blog, Including Computer Damage Caused By Spontaneous Coffee-Spew. No Hotties Were Harmed In The Production Of This Blog. Do Not Fold, Spindle Or Mutilate. Do Not Remove This Tag Under Penalty Of Law. ALL YOUR LINKS ARE BELONG TO US.

Heh.

Who Is Frequent Commenter Smitty?
No one really knows the answer to this question. Way back when this blog was nothing, Smitty started popping up regularly in the comment fields. Then one day, a man in a bowtie appeared at a Heritage Foundation event, and introduced himself as Smitty. Given permission to post as an admin, on only his second post, he did a reference to Cthulhu that earned him an Instalanche. With that kind of track record, it's probably only a matter of time before he demands a cut of the tip-jar proceeds. At which point . . . well, let's not think about that doomsday scenario, eh?

Minor blogging milestone

Just collected my second check from Google Adsense. I got my first check back in November, as I recall. So it took eight months to get the first, and only another three months to get the second.

A small check, obviously -- not that giant check they give to Powerball jackpot winners -- but it is actual income from mere blogging. This gives me a thin pretext of legitimacy when I tell my wife that blogging constitutes "work."

Also, my "this is work" argument got a boost from certain readers/tip-jar hitters who haven't asked to be acknowledged for their contributions to the pre-CPAC fund-raising drive. It's a subject of debate whether I still owe Little Miss Attila more martinis. I did indeed give her a $20 for lunch Friday.

Plus, I introduced Attila and Melissa Clouthier to a young protege, Josiah Ryan of CNSNews.com, whom I suspect by merely flashing his crooked grin helped them get in touch with their inner cougars. And that's gotta be worth something, right?

L-R: Melissa Clouthier, Josiah Ryan, Little Miss Attila.

Dittos from a cab driver

Having previously noted Rod Dreher's criticism of Rush Limbaugh's CPAC speech and Andrew Breitbart's praise now check this from my column today at The American Spectator:

Wally Onakoya drives Fairway Cab No. 1 and said he had hoped to listen to Rush Limbaugh's speech on WCSP-FM, but was disappointed that Washington's C-SPAN radio station was not broadcasting it live.
He came to America from Nigeria in 1983. A quarter-century later, he now drives his cab in the nation's capital to pay tuition for his daughter, Seun, a freshman biochemistry major at Maryland's St. Mary's College, whose school emblem adorned the blue hoodie Onakoya wore Saturday with paternal pride.
Onakoya has been a loyal Dittohead for years. He explained that not all who ride in his cab appreciate his radio habit of listening to Limbaugh from noon to 3 p.m. weekdays.
"Some people say he is the second coming of the devil," Onakoya said with a deep baritone chuckle. . . .

Please read the whole thing. And I am sure that praise from an immigrant cab driver means more to Rush Limbaugh than anything any pundit or critic has to say.

UPDATE: Linked by But As For Me and a big shout-out to Ken Shepherd of Newsbusters.

How to Get Two Million Hits in Your Second Year of Blogging

CPAC face-time with Professor Glenn Reynolds and Dr. Helen probably won't hurt, but with a face like mine, you never know -- this tactic could backfire disastrously.

On the other hand, Ed Morrisey said if I'm ever passing through Minnesota, look him up and he'll buy me my own brewery.

To be fair to Ed, I should explain that I learned, from studying the online operations of some of my young friends, the Zen of posing the "Classic Facebook Photo":

1. Arrange a random group of your buddies, preferably holding beverages;
2. Have them lean in on each other like a football huddle, to suggest an artificial sense of intimacy; and
3. Everybody act as if they're up to mischief and shenanigans.

Bonus points if you can convince either a famous celebrity or the prettiest girl at the party to pose with you and your snowball's-chance loser buddies. The general idea is for the undergraduate geek with substandard social skills to assemble a series of Facebook photo albums that convey to others the impression that, in fact, he is the all-time mack daddy who hangs with his posse at the coolest venues and gets jiggy with the hotties like an NBA superstar during All-Star break.

At any rate, two photo albums from CPAC 200: The Pink Camera Files and More Delicious Pink Camera Goodness.

Dreher bashes Limbaugh

(BUMPED, 2:04 a.m; UPDATE BELOW)

"This is a comforting lie. It is Rousseau conservatism: the idea that man is born innocent, but corrupted by society, or government. Remove the chains of government, and man will return to his natural, good state, which is one of limitless possibility. This denies two bedrock truths of philosophical conservatism, which are that 1) human nature is fallen, and 2) man must learn to live within limits. A conservatism that is not founded on a conscious recognition of those two truths is a false conservatism, and has a shaky foundation from which to criticize liberal utopianism."
-- Rod Dreher

My dear wife rearranged and cleaned my office while I was at CPAC, so that I can't lay hands on Thucydides just now. But there was an occasion recounted by that historian in which (I believe) the Athenians(* see 3:30 p.m. update below - rsm) had compelled the surrender of a rebel colony, and it suited the Athenian commander to require of each captured man that he answer the question, what had he done to aid the Athenians and their allies in the ongoing Greek civil war. Obviously, none of the captives could give a satisfactory answer, and so they were all put to the sword. (Classical scholars will excuse whatever major or minor details I've misremembered. Blame my dear wife.)

Drastic and foolish example though this was, the Athenian commander boiled down to a deadly brevity the nature of loyalty in service: What have you done to aid the cause?

The recruit fresh from boot camp merits very little respect from veteran noncoms and officers, the rookie just called up to the major leagues doesn't deserve deference from the three-time All-Star, and by an extension of this principle, sensible people should ask: Who is Rod Dreher to judge Rush Limbaugh?

This goes back to 2006, when everyone was rushing to denounce Ann Coulter for calling Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a "raghead." It so happened that Ann was introduced that day at CPAC by Monique Stuart, a former Washington Times intern. Monique described how she had been a liberal Democrat until the day Coulter showed up on her campus to debate a leftist professor whom Monique had previously admired. When Coulter was through with him, the professor looked like the clueless idiot he was, and Monique was a newborn conservative.

This is to say, Coulter has proven her value to the cause in years of effective service, and it will take a heckuva lot more than one unfortunate epithet for me to sign some idiot "open letter" petition demanding that she be purged from the movement. (You'd be more likely to get me to sign an open letter denouncing the petition signatories, though some of them I count as friends.)

More than two decades ago, Rush Limbaugh almost singlehandedly created a new medium of discourse in America. Anyone who knows anything about talk radio will tell you that it was Limbaugh who pioneered two distinct innovations: audio actualities ("sound bites") and rock-music "bumpers" to intro each new programming segment. Limbaugh is the very best at what he does, so much better that there is no dispute over the title, and a vast gulf separates him from whoever is No. 2 in his profession.

Given all that, and given the tremendous influence he has exerted (so that he was named an honorary member of the congressional freshman class elected during the "Republican Revolution" of 1994), isn't it the case that Rush ought to deserve some slight deference from those who call themselves "conservatives"? Rush was admired and praised by Buckley and Reagan, and is respected by other conservative leaders still vital and active. Whatever woes have befallen conservatism, these blunders have almost always been the work of those who have ignored or contradicted Limbaugh's advice. (Recall, for example, that Rush backed Pat Buchanan's 1992 primary challenge to George H.W. Bush, and did everything in his power to try to persuade Republicans not to nominate John McCain in 2008.)

This is not to say that Limbaugh is above criticism, or that his long duration in useful service has made him free from error. But whatever the philosophical merit of Dreher's criticisms -- and I share his skepticism toward the Whig-history univeralist rah-rah -- it is nevertheless true that Limbaugh has accomplished vastly much more for conservatism, and suffered as a consequence the fury of liberal wrath. So enormous is the disparity of their value to conservatism as a political movement that Dreher's criticism is like a fly perched on an elephant's ass, complaining that the ride is too bumpy.

Good politics must be rooted in sound philosophy -- in asserting this, Dreher is entirely correct. At the same time, a devotion to philosophical purity doesn't count for anything in the real world of politics if your party is being crushed in every election, as has been true of Republicans in the past two cycles. I'm reminded of a point Bob Barr tried to make to Libertarian Party activists in 2008, namely the distinction between a political party and a political club.

If Rod and his "crunchy" cronies want to sit around and quote Russell Kirk to each other at the organic whole-grain clubhouse, no one is stopping them from indulging their little purity crusade. Rush Limbaugh has no such luxury, and deserves better than to be sniped at in the manner Dreher has chosen.

Boys and girls, please listen to what I'm trying to get across here: Welcome to the camp of the saints. We are at coffin corner here, encircled by a powerful "progressive" army that outnumbers us and is emboldened by fresh victories. To suffer a third consecutive humiliating defeat in 2010 could be all she wrote for the movement born at Sharon, Connecticut, four decades ago.

We are now a mere 18 months from Labor Day 2010, when that climactic political battle will be fully engaged. There a lot of important work to be done -- and done now, over the next three to six months -- if there is to be any hope of anything but the abomination of desolation. Our utter destruction is at hand unless good men rally to the colors, and we no longer have the luxury of indulging in these petty playground feuds and the children who enjoy them.

To the extent that conservatives need a philosopher now, I'd say we need to be studying Sun-Tzu.

If Rod Dreher wants to join Andrew Sullivan and David Brock (yes, I said "Brock," not "Brooks") in the ranks of the vaunting army outside the camp, let him go over and be gone. But don't sit pouting inside the camp, giving aid and comfort to the adversary by your demoralizing pronouncements. If that stuff is going to be tolerated among conservatives, there won't be enough left of a constitutional republic after Nov. 3 for anyone to bother trying to "conserve" it, and no hope at all that it might be restored.

WOLVERINES!

UPDATE 2:04 A.M.: Andrew Breitbart:

A friend in Los Angeles e-mailed a one-liner: "Best speech I have ever seen."
My urbane father-in-law, the first person I knew who copped to listening to Mr. Limbaugh and who has been witness to most of the big events of the modern age, called it the "most thrilling thing [he's] seen on TV."

What he said.

UPDATE 3:30 P.M.: In the comments, an anonymous homeschooling mom corrects my memory of Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War. However, she used her homeschooled teenagers as references, which is unfair. At any rate, the event I remember was the siege and surrender of Plataea (431-427). The merciless commander was not Athenian, but Spartan.

Tales from a CPAC reception: The transvaluation of all values

An anonymous 21-year-old blogger left a comment at Hot Air (4th comment down, at 7:47 p.m.) denouncing me as a "JERK OFF," in all caps. He posts no e-mail address at his blog, so I attempted to reply on his "about" page, a reply that -- when last checked -- was still awaiting moderation:

Sir, as you have no contact information listed on your blog, this is the only venue in which I may address your assault on my character in the comment field at Hot Air.
I do not recall meeting or seeing you at CPAC. If such an interaction as you describe took place — and I doubt it took place as you describe it — perhaps it was because you failed to notice that I was attempting to pose a photo of Jed Babbin and his colleagues and was surprised at an unexpected intrusion.
Please understand that my professional circumstance requires extreme exertions during CPAC, so that after two or three days I'm running so low on sleep that I occasionally become irritable. Furthermore, you may inquire of many young conservative activists about what an easygoing person I am, and how often I have helped and assisted them.
If I was less than the soul of courtesy during our encounter at Friday's reception, please accept my most sincere apology. And if you were less than courteous or respectful (then or since), please accept my forgiveness and continue to regard me as your most humble and obedient servant,
Robert Stacy McCain

My late mother always told me to mind my manners and be respectful to my elders, an instruction I have on too many occasions sadly neglected. But as my late father often told me, after I had misbehaving children of my own, "Son, you pay for your raising." Indeed, and that I should be basely insulted by this impudent young whelp is just another installment on my payment schedule, I suppose.

Perhaps our young friend at The Sheikh Down is attempting to employ Rule 4 ("Make some enemies") from "How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog in Less Than a Year," and I'm happy to apply Rule 2 to this situation. Too bad our young friend -- though he fancies himself a writer, and has some evident aptitude in that direction -- doesn't have SiteMeter or Technorati on his blog, so as to measure the traffic that will lead to so many encouraging comments (hint, hint, Smitty, Dave, Jimmie, et al.).

I may have more to say about this overnight, so bookmark and check back. Meanwhile, I must upload more photos to Facebook, write an article for the American Spectator, et cetera.

UPDATE: While the photos are uploading (or not) via my much-abused laptop, let me clarify what is meant by the subtitle. Nietzsche once employed a phrase, "the transvaluation of all values," that expressed the terrifying anti-natural condition of modernity.

It is natural and appropriate that age should command respect of the young, that wealth should be admired by the poor, that weakness should yield way to strength, and that wisdom rule over ignorance. Nietzsche was just crazy-genius enough to perceive, in the helter-skelter tumult of 19th-century Europe, the dawning of an era in which the natural order would be upended. This is a profound and (to use a word that has been worn threadbare) nuanced understanding of what a potentially horrible thing modernity is.

Being raised by perhaps the last generation of non-ironically "old-fashioned" adults, my puerile impudence was relentlessly chastised. My parents, teachers, and coaches had gone through the trial of the Depression and the ordeal of World War II. I was born in the penultimate year of the Eisenhower administration, and the shadow of the Cold War loomed darkly over my youth. It seemed to be the belief of my elders that us young whippersnappers had things entirely too soft and easy, and that we were in danger of absolute effeminacy and dissolution if they did not take it upon themselves to instill some small measure of rigor in our existence.

Hard times make hard men, and my parents' generation had an adamantine quality that now, in middle age, I appreciate far more than I did when under the lash that they applied to my youth. So excuse me if occasionally I feel the need to give these upstart pups a tiny taste of what it was like, back when youth-league football coaches believed that providing water to their players during summer drills, on afternoons when the temperature was over 100F and we 10-year-olds had been doing Oklahoma drills for an hour.

Bruce Catton, in one of his Civil War histories, recounted the occasion when a rookie Yankee regiment was marched overland in a cold rainstorm, to make their bivouac in a miry field, scarcely able to kindle a fire to boil coffee. A young officer expressed some concern for the health of the troops, a remark that prompted one company's top sergeant -- a grizzled Prussian immigrant -- to scoff: "Bah! It is but seasoning for the recruits!"

WTF? 'Red-headed stepchildren'?

"This year's CPAC was the largest on record. It was encouraging to see the large herds of students moving throughout the hotel. Unfortunately, the constant theme those students heard during this year's CPAC was that the proper role of the conservative movement is as cheerleader for the GOP. . . .
"What should have been one of the most important events of this year's CPAC, the appearance by Dutch parliamentarian and anti-jihad activist Geert Wilders, was relegated to the opposite side of the hotel, divorced from all of the other conference proceedings. . . .
"I have no doubt that if Bristol Palin had suddenly come available to address CPAC on the virtues of teen pregnancy, David Keene and the American Conservative Union would no doubt have moved heaven and earth to make room in the schedule for her. But they could not accommodate a man who lives under constant death threats by a long list of Islamic terrorist organizations."
-- Patrick Poole, PajamasMedia

(H/T: Dan Collins at PW) The decision-making processes of CPAC are opaque to those not directly involved. Some of my dearest friends are involved in the process, or have been in the past. What has been said of sausages and legislation applies equally to the business of establishing the annual CPAC schedule. Friendships forbid me to elaborate, but if any outsider is naively idealistic, let me merely say that "coalition unity" is at times an ugly and brutal line of work. This is true even in a good year, when conservatives are riding the floodtide of victory, flush with cash and influence; you may let your imagination wander as to how it is in the ebb.

CPAC Director Lisa DePasquale, her boss Mr. Keene, their hard-working staff and a nameless legion of volunteer activists are deserving of the highest commendation for organizing the largest conference in the 35-plus years of this annual gathering. Whatever legitimate disgruntlement, disappointment or dissatisfaction there may be, (a) it is far less than the positive accomplishments of the conference, and (b) it would be better addressed to the conference organizers than to the general public.

Ronald Reagan once said that you can accomplish almost anything, so long as you don't care who gets the credit. And my art-history professor used to share with us an ancient Persian proverb: The dogs may bark, but the caravan moves on.

Attention, New York Times

Ailing G.O.P. Risks Losing a Generation
-- NY Times headline, Feb. 28

Which party has the strongest youth movement, full of America's most promising young people? To answer that question, let's take a look at a few photos of young conservatives taken during the three days of CPAC 2009:

No captions. I'll leave it to the geniuses at the New York Times to figure out which one of the many young faces in the several photos above is:

• Cato Institute's manager of external relations.
• President of the Young Conservatives Coalition.
• D.C.'s hottest young blues pianist.
• Researcher for a leading talk-radio program.
• Spokesman for the Young America's Foundation.
• Managing editor of The American Spectator.
• An officer of the Westmont College Conservative Club.
• A promising young features writer.
• An economist for the Acton Institute.
• An official of Pro English.
• George Freaking Will.

OK, probably anybody can guess that last one, even the employees of the New York Times. For myself, I have no doubt that young conservative promise a hopeful tomorrow. Look at those kids -- their future's so bright, they gotta wear shades.

(Attention: "Rule 5 Sunday" will start this afternoon. First, I must have some sleep.)

Attractive economist loves . . .?

He's an Alpha Male, a leading voice of America's future, and Michelle Lee Muccio is interested in him:

UPDATE: Welcome Hot Air readers. For more on CPAC 2009, please be sure to check out:

• Tales from a CPAC reception
• WTF? 'Red-headed stepchildren'?
• Attention, New York Times

Tea Parties, Defeatism and Wolverines

Discussing Rick Moran's criticisms of the Tea Party protests, Dan Riehl writes:

I remember when Rick pronounced the Iraq War lost and a humiliation for America. So this sort of thing from him doesn't really surprise me. . . .The naysayers are always the least remembered voices when something succeeds or even when it fails. There's good reason for that. America just doesn't take kindly to losers, even if they turn out to have been on the right side of events.

Very harsh. I hesitate to judge Rick as harshly as I would judge David Brooks or George Will if they wrote the same thing -- and perhaps I'm wrong to be more tolerant of bloggers than of Old Media pundits.

Friday, I had lunch with Tim Mooney of Save Our Secret Ballot and, in the course of discussing everyone's favorite CPAC '09 topic -- what's wrong with the GOP? -- discussed the problem of the polluted information stream.

Among the ill effects of liberal bias in the media is that much political "news" amounts to thinly disguised DNC talking-points. The conservative must learn to think critically about news and politics, to filter out that which is misleading, or else he will internalize the funhouse-mirror distortions of reality that define the liberal weltanschauung.

This, I said to Mr. Mooney, is one of the major problems of the Republican Party, that so many of its supporters have unwittingly accepted liberal beliefs as political truths. Therefore, when those who present themselves as conservatives parrot the liberal line, the damage they do is far worse than if the same statements were made by Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi. Why? Because this "conservative" echo tends to act as a hardening catalyst for the conventional wisdom.

I have never forgiven David Brooks for "National Greatness." Brooks's argument, that "anti-government" conservatism is both wrong as policy and doomed as politics, had a demoralizing effect on the Republican Party. The elegance of Brooks's writing -- whatever your opinion of the man, the elegance of his prose style is beyond dispute -- was the spoonful of sugar to make that poisonous medicine go down. That was 12 years ago, and if the GOP now appears disastrously ill, Brooks and his erstwhile publishers at the Weekly Standard are heavily implicated in this perhaps fatal disease.

Rick Moran is not David Brooks. Moran's influence is sufficiently limited that he can be wrong without inflicting much damage. But in such a desperate political crisis as conservatives now face, they can ill afford to let off-key voices lead the chorus. Moran and others are free to quarrel with the "Tea Party" tactics of opposing Obamanomics, but small-d democratic considerations will relegate them to the role of dogs barking at the passing caravan.

"The opposition party must oppose," as Jennifer Rubin said. Since the Democratic majority is proposing a liberal economic monstrosity of epic scale, opposition ought to be easy. And just because it is so easy, conservatives should resist the temptation to be lazy or sloppy in tactics.

Constructive criticism of tactics is one thing; pronouncing the opposition as doomed from the outset is something else. Stephen Green is a good blog buddy (whom last I saw at 2 a.m. in the lobby of the Omni Shoreham), but when I heard Stephen arguing in essence that the GOP couldn't possibly make a dent in Democratic hegemony before 2014 -- hey, I called bullshit.

Friends don't let friends peddle defeatist bullshit. You cannot organize opposition unless you first believe that opposition can be effective and meaningful. Telling conservatives that there is no point deploying an ambush on the road to serfdom? That's defeatist bullshit. If Ho Chi Minh had thought that way, the French would still rule Indochina.

Conservatives are now a guerrilla resistance. Harassing the enemy -- staging raids and ambushes that prevent him from enjoying his conquest at leisure -- is basic to guerrilla resistance. If we are doomed to destruction, as least let it be said that we died fighting. But those who never fight, never win.

In a word: "Wolverines!"

UPDATE: Linked by Dan Riehl, who colorfully accuses me of being too nice to Rick.

PREVIOUSLY:
2/25: Thoughts on strategy
2/23: Rick Moran takes counsel of his fears
12/21: But seriously, folks

Full Metal Jacket Saturday

Applying Rule 2 of "How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog," we offer this round up of posts from blogs that have linked here in the past week:

• PAX PARABELLUM: The Grand Illusion of Obamanomics,
• CONSERVATIVES4PALIN: More "GOP insiders" trashing Sarah.
• LITTLE MISS ATTILA: "They only love me for my blog!"
• PUNDIT & PUNDETTE: No "sacrifices" for Obama.
• AMERICAN POWER: Class warfare in Obamanomics.
• SUNDRIES SHACK: Confessions of a CPAC fanboy.
• MOE LANE: Thoughts on GOP "doctrine."
• WONKETTE: When they call me a "wingnut," I'm grateful for the compliment.
• ANDREA SHEA KING: Hanging out with Geert Wilders at CPAC.
• SUPERPOWERS THAT BE: A weak reach-around is better than no reach-around at all.
• HOT AIR: Ann Coulter at CPAC creates -- wait for it -- controversy.

This is just the starter list. I didn't get home from CPAC until 4 a.m. and am very tired. (It's CPAC Syndrome, a state of extreme exhaustion caused by sleep deprivation.) I'll try to update to add more linkage this afternoon before I go back to DC for the big Rush Limbaugh event tonight. And don't forget to do some Rule 5 blogging today for the Sunday roundup.

BTW, a big shout out to Georgia Tech graduates Ruth Malhotra and Orit Sklar, whose victory over political correctness on campus earned them the Reagan Award at Friday's gala CPAC banquet.

Tea time for taxes

Instapundit has a massive roundup of photos and news from the Tea Party rallies nationwide, and Michelle Malkin has another. Dave Weigel was at the protest in front of the White House and his report has this photo of "Megaphone Michelle" giving 'em . . . encouragement!

UPDATE: Rick Moran is not running for Mr. Popularity in the right-wing blogosphere, deriding and mocking the protests:

When you get some money, organization, professionalism, and a little more realism, come back and see me.

Rick points out that, with more than 8,000 conservatives at CPAC, only about 300 turned out for the White House event. But this says nothing about the merits of the Tea Party movement, as such, nor does it mean that CPAC attendees were not interested in the movement. To the second point: People come to CPAC for the speeches and other events; they pay money for that experience; they're not going to skip a Newt Gingrich speech or book signing to attend something else.

Rick doesn't seem to believe that opposition to Obamanomics could ever become a decisive groundswell. And he is entitled to that opinion. But to say that such opposition is not now a groundswell does not mean it will never become one.

As for Rick's snark about the lack of "money, organization, professionalism" behind the Tea Party protests -- huh? Why wait until professional organizers get interested? I remember when the DC Chapter of Free Republican organized the "Get Out of Cheney's House" protests at the Naval Observatory in 2000. They didn't get 300 people. They had no money nor any "professionalism." But we know that those protests had an impact.

In general, conservatives don't do the "protest" thing. (We've got jobs.) So if the protesters at the White House numbered only 300, that's significant of a much larger discontent.

On CPAC and 'image'

Via Donald Douglas, we have Patterico concerned about conservatives projecting the proper "image" at CPAC.

The question you have to ask yourself is, why were Cliff Kincaid and John Bolton selected to give main-room speeches at CPAC? Well, Bolton was a Bush administration official and we don't know if his jokes were vetted in advance.

Still, the question of who was selected for main-room speeches is interesting. I know lots and lots of conservative activists who would crawl through glass and climb over three strands of concertina wire for the chance to give a main-room speech at CPAC. It is not as if there is any shortage of would-be CPAC speakers. So . . . how are the choices made?

I don't know the answer, any more than Patterico knows the answer. But it is important to ask the right questions, you see.

VIDEO: Ziegler vs. Blumenthal

Thanks to James Joyner of Outside the Beltway for uploading this video.

Max Blumenthal was doing one of his video ambushes in the Omni Shoreham lobby at CPAC, and was confronted by documentary filmmaker John Ziegler. I just happened to be there with my camera when the argument started. I couldn't overhear much of what was said between them, but Ziegler was very angry, and his body language was very aggressive.

UPDATE 2/28: Savane was there, and I should note that, in a Friday night conversation with Ziegler, he said that it was Blumenthal, not he, who initiated the confrontation I captured on video. I didn't start rolling the video until after the confrontation began, and quit recording before it ended, so am in no position to say what did or did not happen, other than what's on the video. Frankly, I'm under such a fog of CPAC Syndrome (a state of severe sleep deprivation and sensory overload) that I would be unable to contradict anyone's account of events. So the video is what it is.

UPDATE: Donald Douglas has a good roundup of CPAC blogging.

UPDATE II: Some more exclusive videos from CPAC today, starting with Tom DeLay:

"People ask me if I hope [Obama's economic plan] is gonna fail. I tell 'em, I don't have to 'hope' anything. It's gonna fail."
-- Tom DeLay

(NOTE: Becky Banks of Students for Life asked me to take down her video until further editing can be done.)

John Munger of Imagine Arizona:

Thanks to Kerry Picket for uploading those last three videos.

CPAC Day 2: LIVE!

BUMPED; UPDATE 2:31 p.m.: Exclusive video interview with Chris Maligisi, president of the Young Conservative Coalition:

Thanks to James Joyner of Outside the Beltway for uploading the video. (More of that reporting that Tucker Freaking Carlson says conservatives don't do. I was in the media center when I heard Carlson giving his arrogant lecture and resisted the urge to go down to the Regency Ballroom and beat that elitist punk into a coma, which would have been a Change We Can Believe In.)

UPDATE 3:05 p.m.: Linked by Jimmie at Sundries Shack, who's having waaaay too much fun at CPAC.

Expect further updates . . .

PREVIOUSLY: Excuse me if I am a bit late returning to blogging at CPAC today. After spending most of Thursday schmoozing networking and introducing my old cronies professional associates to hotties aspiring activists, this morning I had to do some reporting for the American Spectator, about Sen. Jim DeMint and the Young Conservative Coalition.

Just ran into my beer buddy conservative mentor Phil Kent, which means that tonight we will be closing down the lobby bar engaged in political strategizing.

Rule 5: Works in real life, too

How to get a Hot Air link: Introduce Michelle Lee Muccio to Ed Morrissey.

How to get a Sundries Shack link?

I could have gotten an Ace-of-Lanche, too, but the Ewok refuses to be photographed.