The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

I Write for Money

Posted on | March 30, 2012 | 89 Comments

When I quit the blog Thursday morning, some people attempted to persuade me to reconsider — and I resented their efforts.

If I am not a fit judge of whether this enterprise has succeeded or failed, I am a fool. Why would anyone want to read a man who is both a fool, and an acknowledged failure? To ask me to continue my ritual ordeal of public humiliation by the Friends of Tabitha Club was to impugn my judgment that I had already suffered more than anyone should be expected to tolerate.

So my friend Dan Collins just pissed me off by arguing for my return.

What no one can seem to understand is that the value of this blog as a commerical enterprise was damaged by Tabitha’s decision in 2010 that the author of “How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog in Less Than a Year” had nothing to say about blogging that anyone might want to hear.

Someone today suggested that I should be sensitive to Tabitha’s feelings. While she is attempting to put me out of business? Seeking to impair my livelihood and destroy my professional career?

When, in September 2010, I wrote “Where All the Important Bloggers Will Be,” Tabitha was put on notice that I resented my exclusion. Despite her public advertisement of my unworthiness, I was persuaded by my friend Chris Renner to attend the inaugural BlogCon. I suppose that this seeming acceptance of my initial humiliation was what emboldened Tabitha to insult me again in October 2011 (“Major National Gathering of Conservative Bloggers Will Include Everyone But Me“), and I resolved then not to attend an event where I was obviously so unwelcome.

So when the Friends of Tabitha Club announced its 2012 agenda, and my various friends began celebrating their acceptance into the club, it did not particularly improve my mood, already darkened by the evident popularity of the ”Roll Over for Romney” movement.

Am I the only one who perceives that my lack of influence — my inability to persuade others to resist Romney — might be correlated to my persona non grata status with FreedomWorks and the Franklin Center?

This is what is being missed by those who have interpreted this as a mere personal spat: Tabitha Hale acts under authority of major conservative non-profit organizations, so that the donors, executives and board members of those organizations are all united in officially endorsing Tabitha’s judgment that I am unworthy of notice. It is they who have assigned her to mock me:

Am I to be publicly insulted, and take no notice of it? Is this how the Franklin Center expects Tabitha Hale to promote “citizen journalism”?

If I am a person of such trivial insignificance in the political blogosphere that not once in the past three years have I done anything to merit inclusion in the BlogCon agenda, why should anyone pay attention to what I have written about the 2012 presidential campaign — or anything else, for that matter?

Such are the thoughts that have troubled me.

Nevertheless, as I have always proudly proclaimed, I write for money, and you may thank two readers (one in Elmhurst, Illinois, and another in El Cerrito, California) for hitting the tip jar, burdening me with the sense that further services are due.

This is not my choice, and I continue under protest that nothing good is likely to come of it, yet continue I will.





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  • Pathfinder’s wife

    Mr. McCain, truly, I would hit your tip jar if I had any spare change to spend.  Sad fact is that like a lot of people, I don’t.

    Which is also part of the plan imhao.

    If you want to quit, that’s your choice.  Seems to me that certain organizations are trying to freeze out people they think “won’t fit in” (to put it diplomatically).  It’s nice to see somebody not fit in — but your decision is certainly understandable.

    and uhm…there’s a possibility of getting paid to read stuff? (hey, one has to explore every option in an economy like this!)

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  • Pathfinder’s wife

    Personally I think there should be more equality:

    give us pictures (or links to pictures) of hot, semi-naked rugby players (or men of that sort) and we’re good!
    (I may be old and married but I still have working eyeballs — and smokin’ hot men are smokin’ hot to look at!)
     

  • PaulLemmen

     I’ve got one too! About a hundred long tonnes it weighs! Read about it here: http://wp.me/p27DAO-fo

  • Finrod Felagund

    I’m perfectly fine with that, personally.

  • Finrod Felagund

    Indeed, this blog is the only place I’ve even seen Tabitha Hale mentioned.

  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

     Considering what Hotblack drove, that would be the only context in which I would approve, given Stacy’s driving proclivities.

  • Finrod Felagund

    Also, it would be nice if there was a place on here in one of the sidebars that always had a link to amazon.com so that the next time I buy something from there I don’t have to go searching  through many fine posts here just to find an amazon link, hint hint.

  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

    Look, Stacy is not the first person to have had this problem with the public:

    http://youtu.be/txrikNFX-8E

    http://youtu.be/0gxKStPXyn8

    If you’re gonna joust with the windmill of human folly, you’ll need a longer lance or a harder helmet.

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  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

    Here’s my theory.  If we ALL piss Stacy off, it will kinda diffuse it and get the man back on track faster.  Even the biggest gorilla can’t throw S*** at EVERYONE in the zoo…

  • PaulLemmen

     Nor will he be the last!

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    ‘Tis pity she’s a bore.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    Damn well put.

  • http://roughedgesandsharpelbows.blogspot.com/ Brian D Paasch

    “If I am not a fit judge of whether this enterprise has succeeded or failed, I am a fool. Why would anyone want to read a man who is both a fool, and an acknowledged failure?”Not a fool nor a failure. But an Eeyore. And being an Eeyore is a GOOD thing.
    Carry on.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    You’re making the same mistake I’ve made a number of times before…

    Knowing full well that I am destined to be forever the outsider, the one who never gets asked to dance on Sadie Hawkin’s Day, the one who is always out-of-sync with the majority of people, I sometimes find myself feeling miserable over not being invited into The Clique. 

    I have these irrational moments despite the fact that I know, on those few times I have been invited in, I have always felt uncomfortable being there and have worried that, because I know I’m a sometimes weak and sinful creature, once I’m in The Clique, I will succumb to the Hive Mind that envelopes it and become nothing more than a apparatchik for it.

    Since I began blogging nearly four years ago, I’ve gotten one – count ‘em ONE – Instalanche [and that was for one of my secondary sites], Memeorandum hardly ever lists me despite following the same rules that get others linked all the time, and, though I get on average 3,500 to 4,000 unique hits per day, most of them are Rule 5 hits and not for my often brilliant and insightful writing.  I never have been officially invited to anything. 

    I’ve let these facts of weblife bother me in the past, but not for quite a while, because I came to realize that this fight we’re in – to restore our freedom and liberties – is not about being recognized for my insights on Leftist Thinking and celebrating Western Civilization, but, rather, about restoring our freedoms and liberties.  We’re musicians, which means we love the sound of applause, the approval of the crowd.  I know what a kick it is to be praised for my skills and creativity.  This war we’re in is not about us.  Andrew understood that.  It’s not about protecting our honor.  It’s about being willing to sacrifice our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor in our quest to defeat the Evil that has infected our beloved country.

    When they [foe and supposed friend] hurl calumnies at you, when they seek to marginalize you, when they accuse you wrongly, do as Andrew did and Just Say So?

    WOLVERINES!

  • http://marezilla.com/ Zilla of the Resistance

    I don’t drink, but yeah, I’m thinking about it now. ;)
     

  • PaulLemmen

    When they [foe and supposed friend] hurl calumnies at you, when they seek to marginalize you, when they accuse you wrongly, do as Andrew did and Just Say So?
    Exactly. It’s what I am doing.

  • http://marezilla.com/ Zilla of the Resistance

    Ah the work Stacy up into a Berserker strategy. He certainly does kick some major ass when he gets fired up enough, some people say anger is a gift, I know damned well that it’s far more productive to be mad than it is to be sad and I sure do love reading me some fired up The Other McCain!

  • http://www.leftbankofthecharles.com/ Charles

    If your brand is not making it for you commercially, you may well be at a spot where you feel you have to leave. But why not reinvent?

    My advice: Keep the title The Other McCain as a historical reminder, but rethink your positioning as the conservative blogger who opposes the Republican frontrunner whoever that may be.

    Romney, if he wants to win and he does, will need to reach out to people like you. He just can’t do that while the nomination is still in doubt, which it is for a little while longer at least.

    Conservatives who have rejected Romney for the Romneycare = Obamacare equation owe him a second look. He may have invented the one workable program that can’t be implemented at the Federal level. His position that each state should be able to decide for itself whether it wants to impose an individual mandate is the Constitutionally and conservatively correct position. And no one gives Romney credit for getting Scott Brown elected, which stopped the public option (gateway to single payer) dead in its tracks.

    I’m not saying you have to become a Romneybot. There is lots of Democratic hypocrisy to be blogged about, and its only going to get worse in the coming months.

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  • http://twitter.com/alwaysfiredup alwaysfiredup

    It’d be easier to commiserate with your efforts to fight the Romney coronation had you not gone gonzo on other candidates whose names rhyme with Shmoot Shmengrich, who were also trying to fight Romney. Jus’ sayin’ .

  • AnonymousDrivel

    Oh, I’ve bought from Amazon before (just not yet via TOM) so I’m not worried about them explicitly. It’s other tracking crap that gets incorporated into portals and whatnot either statically or dynamically. I like my profiles thin.

    Thanks for the heads up, though. I’ll try to click-through when I simply cannot hit the tip jar.

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  • cacchip

     Stacy does do a good Marvin imitation

  • cacchip

    And remember it wasn’t over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor so don’t let them get you down.  

  • http://thatmrgguy.wordpress.com/ Mike G.

     Well, we know where your mind’s at. ;)

  • T Daniel

    Hear, hear!

  • DaveO

    So this really isn’t about Tabitha Hale. This is about her employers who’ve bought into the SPLC/Progressive/DNC meme of RSM-Rebel/Rogue/Retrobate.

    Ms. Hale, like Erik Erikson, is an employee. Her employers pay to take your invective because it keeps their hands free to shake the hands of your fans as they push their message and collect their money.

    A couple of blog posts airing the dirty laundry of Ms. Hale’s employers will get you a lifetime invite to any convention, right, left, and Comic you could ever want to attend.

    My two cents, adjusted for hyperinflation.

  • Michael

    Very sorry, young man.  Never meant to  criticize your decision-making.  Begging is not criticism.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jeff-Goldstein/848805625 Jeff Goldstein

    I’ve been doing this for a decade.  Hell, Melissa Clouthier, during her intro to a panel at the last BlogCon, singled me out as someone of note for the work I’ve done over the years and had me stand up.

    Not to put too fine a point on it, but there are plenty of big time blogs on the right who know that I practically helped invent an entire blogging grammar. 

    And yet I’ve never been invited to a BlogCon (without first mentioning the exclusion) nor a CPAC.  And I don’t expect to be.  I pissed off the wrong two or three bloggers who have a lot of pull behind the scenes, and that’s that.

    The fact is, I am of a different blogging era, and I never made the transition into new right-wing media collective.  And that’s because, I suspect, I’ve often criticized those ostensibly on “our side” when I thought them wrong.  This is something that is not done.  The club protects its own. 

    I’ve learned to pretty much accept my place.  I’ve kept a large and very supportive following — despite getting virtually no links from high profile blogs (a club to which I once belonged).

    I haven’t changed.  The right wing blogosphere has.  And frankly, I’m pretty cool with it.

  • AnonymousDrivel

    At some point you may need to form your own Rogues Gallery of misfit bloggers if running a personal site becomes too burdensome. Sure, some control is lost, but a portal with tip-o-the-spear Tea Party/Libertarian purists will always have a place.

    I think proteinwisdom and TOM would make a fine inoculate for a bigger medium. In fact you’d continue to be “unhelpful” in a bigger venue.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    Damn well put.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    Stacy, he’s onto something.  Call Ladd and, after you say ‘Hello’ go silent and listen to him.

  • Adobe_Walls

    The problem is there were only two candidates who recognize that part and parcel of any solution to our problems involves crushing the left, eliminating it as a relevant force in our political,economic and social system. Romney doesn’t think that big government is THE problem just who is in charge of it. Santoram is only marginally better on that score. The Republic will not be saved by this election even if one assumes it’s not already too late which I believe.

  • https://twitter.com/#!/dudgeoh Dudge OH

    “When, in September 2010, I wrote “Where All the Important Bloggers Will Be,”…”

    Surely the “where” is online, blogging?

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  • http://www.facebook.com/Nihimon Matt Knowles

    There, that should help a bit :)

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