The fundamental problem with what Ryan Sorba did was that he started a fight by denouncing his hosts. That’s just bad manners. I was on the phone Tuesday describing Sobra’s stunt as equivalent to someone being invited to dinner and then insulting his host’s mother. The person on the other end of the phone said, no, Sorba’s stunt was more like someone being invited to dinner, climbing up on the table, dropping his pants and defecating all over the entree.
Good causes can be harmed by bad advocates. To celebrate Sorba’s puerile arrogance — his vaunting display of a mastery of the natural law argument — is to ignore his unspeakable rudeness in having insulted CPAC’s hospitality. Whether or not GOProud should have been accepted as a CPAC sponsor is a topic worth arguing. However, once CPAC accepted their sponsorship, and once Sorba accepted an invitation to speak at the conference, common courtesy required that Sorba refrain from insulting GOProud, which helped sponsor the event where Sorba spoke.
(An aside: Bryan Fischer complains that CPAC “should be relabeled ‘The Libertarian Political Action Conference.'” Yet who is to blame for the unusual preponderance of libertarians at this year’s CPAC? A source tells me that a Ron Paul-backed organization, Campaign For Liberty, paid for scores of students to attend CPAC. How many students did AFA send to CPAC? I suspect the number is zero. But AFA apparently can afford to pay Fischer to insult CPAC and Hot Air, eh?)
You can consult my own writings on this subject — “Gay Rights, Gay Rage” and “Whither Marriage?” — and see how stoutly I defend traditional marriage against radicalism. But this is not about gays, or natural law, or libertarianism vs. conservatism. It’s about this egomaniacal punk Sorba using his precious allotment of time on the CPAC stage to make a complete ass of himself and embarrass CPAC.
CPAC ended Saturday and I’ve still got tons of photos and videos I never got around to uploading. Here it is Wednesday already, and this ingrate Sorba is still distracting me from genuinely important (and perhaps remunerative) subjects of discussion.
Everybody shut up. I don’t want to write that essay. Really.
UPDATE: I notice that Doctor Zero has abandoned his anonymity, revealing himself as John Hayward of Florida and starting his own blog. Welcome to the community, sir. I’m sure you’ll be added to Smitty’s RSS feeds, and hope you’ll soon earn a spot in the FMJRA.
Flipping through the channels this evening, I happened onto Keith Olbermann in media res. He was doing his “Worst Person in the World” list. Number 3 was just a dumbed-down rehash of a TPM item about Tea Party Express spokesman Mark Williams. Olbermann began by describing Williams as a “fired ex-Albany, New York, hate-radio host” and after excerpting the TPM item, added:
“And by the way, Tea Party Express? ‘Uh, I’ll have a large bigotry and, uh, some racism with secret sauce and, uh, a white power shake.’ “
What he was doing — using a “dumb guy” voice — was riffing on the idea (which he apparently thought funny) that “Tea Party Express” sounds like the name of a fast-food drive-through restaurant.
The Justice Department’s disclosure that nine of President Obama’s appointees had either represented or advocated for Guantanamo detainees has touched off a firestorm of criticism.
The surprising admission came three months after Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa asked Attorney General Eric Holder for a list of names of Obama DOJ appointees who had been involved in legal work for Gitmo prisoners.
Holder, in a letter to Grassley, admitted that nine of the agency’s appointees had done some kind of work on behalf of terror suspects.
Well, this is certainly a disturbing disclosure, but Olbermann mocked the concerns of both Crowley and Sen. Grassley:
Monica Crowley . . . went insane this afternoon on Fixed News because it was revealed five lawyers, now working for the justice department, once defended GITMO detainees. And four others who participated in arguments that were favorable to the GITMO detainees now work at D.O.J..
She [Monica Crowley] said, “…it seems that we have a D.O.J. that is relatively stocked with what could be assumed to be terrorist sympathizers, because if you think enough of those Guantanamo Bay detainees to represent them, what does that tell you about where these people are coming from?”
Well, it tells me they believe in, oh, the rule of law. Also, that’s nine attorneys out of at least 10,000 at the Department of Justice. So, ‘relatively stocked’ is like saying Monica Crowley is relatively intelligent.
Olbermann’s reference to “at least 10,000” attorneys at the Justice Department is, of course, an apples-and-oranges distraction. Grassley’s inquiry was specifically about Obama administration political appointees at DOJ, who certainly don’t number 10,000. So Olbermann was engaged in smokescreen tactics in defense of Obama while disparaging the intelligence of Crowley.
Regardless of how you feel about Crowley or Gitmo detainees (or the Tea Party Express or murderous Greek TV reporters), the larger point is that Olbermann’s show is bad television. His jokes aren’t funny and his selection of topics reflects a very narrow range of personal obsessions. You’ve got to watch the video to understand just how spectacularly bad Olbermann is:
Olbermann does himself no favors with his annoying habit of recycling slur-labels like “Fixed News” and “teabaggers.” It’s a verbal tic, and is neither enlightening nor entertaining.
Olbermann followed that “Worst Person” bit with a segment accusing Rush Limbaugh of racism — a rehash of a day-old Media Matters item. You see that what Olbermann is doing, really, is a televised version of the left-wing blogosphere, and it is failing because (a) these stories only appeal to a narrow band of hard-core partisans, and (b) Olbermann is personally obnoxious.
Olbermann’s show may have had wider appeal during the Bush presidency simply because the people he was attacking daily — the bogeymen who then haunted the Left’s dreams — were the president, the vice president and other powerful administration figures. But now that Democrats control the commanding heights in D.C., that formula is no longer effective as a means of attracting an audience of respectable size even by the modest standards of cable TV.
Over and over again, Olbermann pounds away at his pet villains — Sarah Palin, the Tea Party movement, Fox News — and who cares? None of these people are in any position of real authority, as were Bush and Cheney back in the day.
Olbermann’s Bush-era glory days, such as they were, are behind him. And it is only a matter of time until the executives at MSNBC figure that out.
It’s far too early to start writing anything triumphal about the lameness of the POTUS. The chief reason is that, while the Tea Parties are an impressive outpouring of outrage, they haven’t demonstrated staying power. They cannot, except to have massive impact on the 2010 and 2012 races, and then keep up the pressure.
There really isn’t precedent for such. Ross Perot stirred up a heap of resentment in ’92, including garnering my vote, but the GOP mostly absorbed that momentum by ’94. Thus, the George Wills and Charles Krauthammers, while enjoying the enthusiasm, generally write and speak as if the Tea Parties have not passed the ‘so, what?’ test.
Sure, the Left is offering frightened squeaks and neglecting to run for re-election all over the place. But do they really care? Do they privately know that all the ruling elite has to do is wait for the tsunami of outrage to wash over, so that the basic Progressive project of trashing Constitution and country can resume.
The Tea Parties might be seen as more than emotional venting when:
Incumbency is the exception, not the rule, in Congress.
Paul Ryan’s Roadmap is more than a quaint hyperlink.
Really, people: if we’re not eliminating the power to steal, then the ruling elite simply play the waiting game, and eventually resume thuggery. Why are Michael Steele and the GOP still playing the same Progressive tune, e.g. Mitt endorsing Stacy’s cousin?
Because they’re pissing down your back and telling you it’s raining, that’s why! But until the people demonstrate that they can tell the difference between rain and filth, the golden shower will continue. The metaphor is crude, but apropos. The George Wills shall continue to argue that the Progressive Priesthood Knows Best, and the little people Can’t Handle The Truth.
So the lame duck talk is just a distraction. Time and Tea Party have not shown that there is more than passing dismay over Progressivism yet. The Priesthood is going to continue to condescend, to treat the problems as Too Hard, and tell us to accept their reliable toolscandidates, in lieu of leadership with integrity.
This blogger remains optimistic, however, that the Internet will continue to educate citizens about the Progressive noose about the collective neck, and the potential for emancipation from it.
100 years. 14-ish trillion in debt. The vampire should have been staked long ago, but the 100 year anniversary of its unnatural, undemocratic birth is a worthy target for building the pressure to kill it.
[T]he Obama Administration released a description of its health care proposal, and CBO has already received several requests to provide a cost estimate for that proposal. . . . [P]reparing a cost estimate requires very detailed specifications of numerous provisions, and the materials that were released this morning do not provide sufficient detail on all of the provisions. Therefore, CBO cannot provide a cost estimate for the proposal without additional detail, and, even if such detail were provided, analyzing the proposal would be a time-consuming process that could not be completed this week.
Steve Scully. What’s the price tag of the president’s proposal? Linda Douglass: Well, you know, it’s hard to say . . .
What was the first thing Linda Douglass did after she left National Journal and joined the Obama spin squad? Request back pay.
Jeffrey Lord of The American Spectator has compared Douglass to Arthur Sylvester, the ex-reporter who became Robert MacNamara’s Saigon-based spokesman during the Vietnam War, and it is an apt comparison. Just like MacNamara’s deceptive Vietnam policy, Obama’s health-care policy is so fundamentally mendacious that no honest person could defend it in good conscience.
When the White House proposes a massive new entitlement program and then requires its spokeswoman to claim that the administration can provide no estimate of the cost because the plan hasn’t yet been scored by CBO . . . Well, my dear Doctor Watson, this could be an important clue.
If Linda Douglass had a scintilla of integrity, she never would have joined this crooked Chicago gang. However, given that she is self-evidently a devious bitch, I suspect it won’t be too long before she quits and gets a fat contract for a tell-all book in which she plunges a cutlery rack full of knives into the backs of her patrons.
Meanwhile, we’ll just have to find a way to destroy this undead zombie health plan. Anybody got an M2 flamethrower handy?
UPDATE: Speaking of C-SPAN, where’s the “transparency” here? Obama, Pelosi and Reid are obviously engaged in secret strategy negotiations that aren’t being televised. Let the Cameras In!
UPDATE II: Just noticed that Allahpundit cited my American Spectator buddy Philip Klein. Perhaps the new corporate overlords at Hot Air demanded an end to Allah’s policy of never linking anyone remotely associated with me?
Whatever the explanation, Phil is the absolute ace on health-care policy. Last year he published a long article in the print edition of the Spectator pointing out that nationalizing health care would by necessity result in a drastic diminution of our defense budget.
Team Obama wants to make America like Sweden in more ways than one, you see.
