Category: Hot Air

Go Ahead, Blame Me

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Ed Morrissey informs us that Tina Korbe is leaving Hot Air to take a job at the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, and I’m sure some people will find some way to say this is somehow my fault.

As I explained in February when people were screaming for my scalp: I’ve always liked Tina, had often linked and praised her blog posts, and she was always nice to me. My remarks that were interpreted as being critical of her were misunderstood, but if I write something that is misunderstood, the fault is mine anyway for having been less than clear in my writing.

Therefore, mea culpa, and best wishes to Tina.

No Bowlder Man Than Dennis Walcott Ever Lived

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by Smitty via Hot Air

New York City Department of Education Chancellor Dennis Walcott has published a list of 50 words that should be expunged from standardized tests. Let us celebrate bowdlerization with a meditation on why Progressivism is cranial rectalitis at its finest using all 50 words/ideas that Walcott finds objectionable, in what is an excerpt from an internal memo:

The Orwellian abuse inflicted upon our culture at the hands of us Postmodern, Progressive–let’s just put it out there–Godless Commies, while actually worse than all of the alcohol, tobacco, and drugs assailing the culture, is a necessary evil to bring about Utopia. From birth (if we deem you fit, in our  Sanger-esque milieu), Progressives must mold formerly free people into our precise little geometric forms, even down to the level of bodily functions.

Truly, we Progressives are the scourge of liberty, but, then, what good has liberty ever done? No catastrophe can occur, for example, Hurricane Katrina, or even a tragic death like Trayvon Martin, without us mining it for propaganda value against the likes of George W. Bush or Rush Limbaugh, yet conservatism won’t die! Celebrities like Morgan Freeman or Janeane Garofalo are told to speak the stupidest things imaginable. Sean Penn defies the imagination. Truly, this is a higher form of humor.

The destruction of the family has, necessarily, meant the crushing of childhood. Children have to matriculate a course in sex and drugs and rock’n’roll just to survive kindergarten. Cigarettes are the least of their worries. Computers have invaded every corner of life. Kids are carrying Android phones to school. You do realize that Android is Linux based? The language used in the source code comments is a threat to the children! Fnord. Progressives celebrate divorce, its liberating effect upon feminists, and its helpfully destructive effect upon the family. The question becomes: how to make divorces uglier, to maximize the negative effect upon children?

The trick would be to mix Evolution into the equation. Tell the children that, by unfortunate accident, they were created by genetically inferior parents, but that the State can help them. While they will be afforded all the hedonistic outlet they can imagine, and then some, by the State. Continuous sexual gratification is, after all, part of the Third Bill of Rights. Not to be confused with reproduction, however. Parenthood, like all expensive gifts, vacations, and prizes, is something that must be rationed by the State, to make it ‘fair’. Running away is to be encouraged, both for its immediate deleterious effect on the family, and for the increased hopelessness it breeds. This drives mangled youth to be more malleable by the state.

Yet, homelessness must never be mentioned when there is a Democ**t in the Oval Office. Disease, homelessness, and loss of employment, and crime are only reported during conservative administrations. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has been infiltrated, and will only announce ‘shiny’ numbers. Also, since Republicans are the party of the rich, homes with swimming pools, hunting, and junk food are of high importance. A pulitzer to anyone snapping a photo of a Bush rigged for the bush, with a shotgun cradled, standing next to his tennis court, mowing down on pork rinds.

Crime of all sorts, of course, will continue to plague society until the entire patriarchal male/female/family model has been finally demolished. Death and disease can be minimized, but until Progressives gain full control, first through ObamaCare, then Single Payer after ObamaCare implodes like the bureaucratice singularity it was meant to be, we will have to continue blaming death and disease upon conservative values and capitalism. Why engage in gambling involving money, when you can do it with peoples’ lives? It is the height of Progressive pleasure, for example, to create scarcity through manipulating markets, to create fear at all times of year, not merely Halloween. Now that is some true crime.

In-depth discussions of sports that require prior knowledge are essential. Sports are the new religion, and thus an opiate for the masses. Sportsmanship, however, must be exposed as a fiction, so that the overpaid prima donnas in garish clothing can be vanguards of societal decay.

Nuclear weapons are a fine source of fear and anxiety, and should be used to generate angst, which can then be focused on conservatives. Occult topics, like vampires and werewolves, can add to the general malaise. Vampires have always had a hedonistic subtext about them, which makes them a good weapon for use to crank up crotch maintenance requirements amongst the godless youth. All forms of witchcraft, sorcery, etc. are in play. Parapsychology and all other non-traditional spiritual topics are fine tools for driving the youth towards a desirable nihilism, while pornography will continue to help degrade and devalue traditional symbols, harden average hearts, and diminish societal joy. Vermin (rats and roaches) are for prominent display, as they underscore the ultimate truth that the common people don’t deserve pretty things.

Poverty is a huge control mechanism, feeding as it does the root envy that drives class warfare. Capitalism makes you want to work your way to join the affluent. Class warfare brings the affluent to the poor. Rap Music, like rock’n’roll, is the anti-rational soundtrack for all that is Progressivism. Rhythm-heavy appeals to the flesh keep the sheep intellectually flocked up. Conflations of ‘love’ and ‘sex’ are encouraged.

Religion is good for Progress, insofar as it can provide fodder for guilt and permit the crushing of individuality under the aegis of nebulous “social justice.” Conversely, anybody feeling liberated from the State through their faith must be punished. The State will not have any other gods before it. So forget religious holidays and festivals (including but not limited to Christmas, Yom Kippur, and Ramadan, though Muslim observances are certainly permissible under the guise of multiculturalism.)

Terrorism, violence, war and bloodshed, traumatic material, and weapons (guns, knives, etc.) are all key tools for jacking up the anxiety level of people of all ages, and turning them into willing putty of the State. Television and video games are a great means of turning otherwise creative people into pudding heads.

Politics in everything, all the time, is what this is about. The control of the state must extend to everything, but slavery can only come up when attached to conservatives. Conversely, individualism must be crushed.

Be it known that the author achieved a self-creep-out while writing this.

Update: linked at The Camp of the Saints.

Notes on an Unfinished Letter of Apology (Or, Does Ed Morrissey Torture Cats?)

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“Television, naturally enough, is biased toward compelling visual imagery, and in almost all cases the charms of a human face take precedence over the capabilities of a human voice. It is not essential that a TV newsreader grasp the meaning of what is being reported . . . What is essential is that the viewers like looking at their faces. To put it bluntly, as far as TV is concerned, in the United States there is not one sixty-year-old woman capable of being a newsreader. Viewers, it would appear, are not captivated by their faces. It is the teller, and not what is told, that matters here.”
— Neil Postman, The Disappearance of Childhood (1994)

“As for my own personal feelings, who cares? While I’m often accused of unfairly hurting other people’s feelings, no one ever seems to care about my feelings. I’ve long ceased to expect anything except insults from anyone, and those expectations are seldom disappointed.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, Aug. 29, 2011

When the draft of the e-mail passed the 3,000-word mark, and was still clearly not half-finished, I gave it up. What had begun as a mea culpa had metamorphosed into a treatise explaining the entire history of my engagement with conservative New Media, and what the past 15 years had taught me about the apportionment of status, prestige and influence within the universe of political communication.

But why should I burden anyone with all that? Ed Morrissey has neither time to read such a thing, nor any interest in discovering why I view things the way I view them. It would have been an arrogant imposition to foist upon him that document — which surely would have neared 10,000 words if completed — with any expectation that he would actually enjoy reading it, or that the anecdotes and observations might inspire him to exclaim, “Oh, now I understand!”

So never mind all that crap, and I’ll just apologize. Continue reading Notes on an Unfinished Letter of Apology (Or, Does Ed Morrissey Torture Cats?) →

Who Wants to See Tina Korbe’s Thighs?

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The title of this post is not a hypothetical question, because last week the aforesaid Miss Korbe joined her Hot Air colleague Ed Morrissey for a video interview with Rick Santorum, which I didn’t see until somebody brought it to my attention yesterday:

Our keen-eyed readers will note that at the 0:28 mark of the video, Miss Korbe gives a little tug at the hem of her skirt and, not to get all Melissa Clouthier about it or anything, some folks might say that’s kind of a telltale clue that your skirt’s too doggone short.

OK, so how this came to my attention: Tuesday I blogged about Melissa’s criticism of the dress and behavior of some young ladies at CPAC and, as I said, I wanted to be responsible without being too judgmental. That is to say, I hesitate to judge a lady’s morals merely because she feels obliged to follow contemporary fashion.

For example, I think tattoos and pierced bellybuttons are two of the tackiest things in the world, but I’m pretty sure not every woman with tattoos and a pierced bellybutton is a whore.

Most of them? Sure, but not all of them.

Similarly, short skirts and exposed cleavage do not necessarily signal that a woman is up for some action with any dude who’ll give her the price of another hit of methamphetamine. It is true that many hookers dress that way, but not every woman who dresses that way is a hooker.

Or even a Maine College Republican.

‘A Peep Show of Her Hoo-Ha’?

Anyway, my responsible-but-not-judgmental post was linked in a roundup on the CPAC decorum controversy at “Thoughts and Ramblings,” whose proprietor suggested that this was in response to a post he’d done earlier, in which he said, “Tina, you are a Catholic, try actually dressing like one,” and accused her of giving the Senator “a peep show of her hoo haa.” Continue reading Who Wants to See Tina Korbe’s Thighs? →

Santorum Conquers the World?

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When I wrote about “Santorum’s Second Surge” Monday, there were not yet any poll numbers available to substantiate my perception that he had scored a critical breakthrough with last Tuesday’s hat-trick triple win over Mitt Romney.

Now, as Tina Korbe says, “Good news just keeps coming for former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum” — and not merely because he’s getting interviewed by bloggers in skirts short enough to require a lecture from Melissa Clouthier, but let’s not go there, OK? One unfortunate digression per day is my limit.

Santorum now leads Romney by 5.4 points — 33.7% to 28.3% — in the Real Clear Politics average of national polls, and the latest Rasmussen survey hwas Santorum ahead by a whopping 12 points, 39-27, while Newt Gingrich has faded to a distant third.

When you start looking at it state-by-state, the polls are even more encouraging: Leading all four of the most recent polls in Michigan, including a PPP poll that shows Santorum ahead by 15 points and an “Inside Michigan” poll that has him up by 10. As Tina in the Short Skirt notes, Santorum is also closing the gap on Romney in Arizona.

The really big news, however, is that Santorum now leads Romney 36-29 in a Quinnipiac poll of Ohio.

Freaking huge, man. If Santorum wins Michigan — Romney’s home state — on Feb.28 and then follows up with a Super Tuesday win March 6 in Ohio, that’s going to change the whole race. Those are big states with lots of delegates, and if Santorum wins those, he’s going to win a lot of other places, too.

Why? Because Romney would have to spend a lot of money for ads to try to defend his aura “inevitability” and, as Zeke Miller points out, Romney’s fundraising capacity is not infinite:

Over 82 percent of Romney’s haul from individuals in 2011 came in donations greater than $1000 . . . And as Rick Santorum stays in the game with a growing pool of small donors — to whom he can return for another $20 or $100 when the millions they’ve given him runs out — Romney’s campaign has launched an intense, late scramble for the cash to fend off his conservative challenger.

Well, how ’bout that? Small donors like you — folks who have given Rick Santorum $25, $50 or $100 — are collectively more powerful than the GOP Establishment guys who have ponied up thousands each. And if you haven’t contributed yet, what are you waiting for?

UPDATE: Before letting myself get distracted today — and not just by short skirts and post-punk musical allusions — I intended to post the newest ad by Rick Santorum:

That’s pretty clever: Pre-emptively warning voters about Romney’s (so far successful) tactic of burying his rivals with multi-million-dollar negative ad blitzes, so that when Team Mitt attempts to repeat that tactic, Romney’s negative ads become the subject of news coverage. Now Santorum just has to raise enough money to run that ad in every state.

UPDATE II: From a Santorum campaign press release, here’s the script of the ad they call “Rombo”:

Visual: Series of shots of a Romney trying to fire a mud gun in the direction of a Rick Santorum cutout. As the spot progresses the Romney character becomes increasingly frustrated with his inability to hit Rick Santorum with his mud-firing gun. The final visual show the gun backfiring, and covering Romney in his own mud.

Voice Over: “Mitt Romney’s negative attack machine is back on full throttle. This time Romney’s firing his mud at Rick Santorum. Romney and his Super PAC have spent a staggering 20 million brutally attacking fellow Republicans. Why? Because Romney’s trying to hide from his big government Romneycare, and his support for job killing cap and trade.

(Type on Screen): Romney Advisor Admits Romneycare Was Blueprint for Obamacare.

Voice Over: And in the end Mitt Romney’s ugly attacks are going to backfire.

(Type on Screen): Romney’s Negative Ads Could Cost Him With Voters.

Rick Santorum: “I’m Rick Santorum and I approve this message.”

The press release quotes Santorum spokesman Hogan Gidley:

“At this point, Mitt Romney’s act is old, tired and wearing thin with voters. In every primary state, Gov. Romney’s strategy has been the same: hide from his own record and instead, unleash his well-funded DC attack machine to destroy his opponent. I think it’s very telling that Gov. Romney refuses to talk about his own record and why someone should vote for him and instead chooses to tear down Rick Santorum.
“Maybe Gov. Romney feels entitled to the Republican nomination but regardless, his actions and those of his SuperPAC are sad and desperate. The American people deserve more than the negative, false and misleading attacks Mitt Romney is dishing out. The choice is clear and the people are rejecting a candidate like Mitt Romney who only wants to attack his opponent, but one like Rick Santorum who focuses on building up all Americans and restoring this country to greatness.”


Faced With Maxed-Out Race Card, Can Eric Holder Get A Rep. Allen West Bailout? Why, No; No, He Cannot!

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by Smitty

The blogs have been on about Eric “The Bolder” Holder’s NYT interview, where he few a Hail Jerry* and said that:

“This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him,” he said, “both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we’re both African-American.”

The Daily Caller quotes Allen West, who:

. . .said Holder’s use of race as a way to attack his critics is “the most insidious thing I ever heard.”
“I grew up in the United States military and it’s not about your color, it’s about your competence, it’s about your abilities to execute a mission,” West said. “If your commanding officer turns heat on you, it’s because you have failed to achieve the mission and I think what we’re doing is we’re looking at something that was a very horrible program — this Operation Fast and Furious.”

Extensive research by this blog’s layers of fact checkers shows that neither the gross incompetence, nor the starkly ideological mindset, nor the generally peevish demeanor of the Attorney General or #OccupyResoluteDesk has any genetic component. They must have been nurtured to suck; nature is having none of it.

via Hot Air

*California Governor Jerry Brown, the Patron ‘Aint of used-up Lefties, who managed to run for office in a place sufficiently effed to elect him.

Fear of a Ron Paul Planet

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“Newt Gingrich’s lead in the race for the GOP presidential nomination has evaporated, according to a new national survey.”
— Paul Steinhauser, CNN

“The model gives [Ron Paul] a 44 percent chance of winning Iowa based on the current standing of the candidates and the historic uncertainty of polling-based forecasts. Mr. Romney has a 32 percent chance of winning, while Mr. Gingrich’s chances have crashed to 15 percent.”
— Nate Silver, New York Times

“If Iowa picks Ron Paul as its caucus winner, two things will result. First, Mitt Romney will probably run the table as Republicans everywhere else but Iowa recoil in horror. Second, Iowa will likely end up losing whatever cachet it has managed to build over the last three decades as a first-in-the-nation proving ground for presidential candidates, and the drumbeat to unseat both Iowa and New Hampshire from the front end of the primary system will prove irresistible.”
— Ed Morrissey, Hot Air

“[T]he GOP establishment has so invested itself in Romney’s candidacy that it has increased the likelihood of the one thing that would hand Barack Obama the election, a Ron Paul third party candidacy.”
— William Jacobson, Legal Insurrection

Everybody chill, OK? It’s merely a poll. And despite the impressive increase in Ron Paul’s Iowa poll numbers, he’s still Ron Paul — a candidate with a “high floor, low ceiling,” as they say.

Furthermore, the panic over the evident “collapse” of Newt Gingrich’s support reminds me very much of the panic over Rick Perry’s collapse in September. Like Perry before him, Gingrich was cloaked with the mantle of “The Only Viable Alternative to Romney” and, when things went wrong, the argument was (and is being) made that those who fail to rally to the designated Not Mitt are objectively pro-Romney.

This argument was absurd when I was hearing it from Perry’s people three months ago, and is equally absurd — indeed, more absurd — when it is made on behalf of Newt Gingrich. His serial disloyalties to the conservative grassroots make Newt a strange choice as the Last Hope of the conservative moment. He joined Nancy Pelosi to endorse global warming theory. He supported RINO Dede Scozzafava in the crucial NY-23 special election. He collected big bucks from Freddie Mac. And yet Gingrich, of all the candidates in the GOP field, is to be the final repository of conservative hope in the 2012 race?

Are you people on drugs? Continue reading Fear of a Ron Paul Planet →

‘10,000 Marbles, Please’

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“Pastor Gordon might not be much of an Animal House fan, but he is in effect acting as the Eric Stratton of Iowa conservatives, providing the decisive approval of a madcap scheme proposed by the frat-house slob who, as we all know, is destined to become Senator Joseph Blutarsky. And the dramatic parallel is almost perfect, in that the major media seem to have decided for us that this year’s GOP race is going to be as orderly as a homecoming parade — ‘now that the GOP race has narrowed to a two-man contest between Gingrich and Romney,’ as Maggie Haberman of Politico said.
“Really? Is that it?
“The only choice is between Mitt RomneyCare and Newt the Scozzafava-Hugger?
“Maybe. I dunno. I’m not one of those Smart People like Rove and Krauthammer.
“Maybe social conservatives in Iowa are going to let Maggie Haberman tell them who to vote for. But forgive me for having the urge to walk into the five-and-dime store and ask the clerk, ‘Could I buy 10,000 marbles, please?’ Because if the Iowa caucuses are the Faber College homecoming parade, then the Rick Santorum campaign is a float in the shape of a birthday cake, emblazoned with an immortal motto: ‘Eat Me.'”
— Robert Stacy McCain, Hot Air, “Where’s the Spirit? Where’s the Guts, Huh?”

You know what I hate? I hate when people who think they’re smarter than me try to tell me what to think. So anybody who imagined I would let a liberal like Maggie Haberman tell me that the Republican presidential race is now an either/or contest between Mitt and Newt — well, you don’t know me very well.

That 19-minute Cary Gordon video was on my mind when I woke up this morning, but I didn’t know what I was going to do with it until I saw that Politico article: Little Miss Smarty Britches telling me what to think.

Like that big cake says, sweetheart: “Eat Me.”

RICK SANTORUM for PRESIDENT
Just to piss off Maggie Haberman


UPDATE: Instapundit rolls over for Romney? When I learned about that from Andrew J. Patrick, I was kind of shocked. But meanwhile, we have this interesting news from Kerry Picket:

Santorum also received complimentary words from former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin last weekend on the Fox News Channel, prompting some to wonder if her support in the future could help the Pennsylvania Republican go further in the primaries.
“As my folks out there in Iowa are telling me, getting folks to come on board is getting easier everyday,” he said.
Mr. Santorum is participating in Donald Trump’s and Newsmax’s sponsored debate on December 27. Whether the debate turns out to be only a two man forum, Santorum appeared eager to be part of the debate, calling it “a great thing.” Perhaps he is right. Mr. Santorum, right now, is the only other GOP candidate who is part of the forum besides front-runner Newt Gingrich . . .

It’s weird how these little coincidences keep happening. That debate is scheduled for the day after I arrive in Iowa. And who would have ever imagined that Donald Trump, of all people, would give Santorum a straight-up shot at debating the media-anointed front-runner?

UPDATE II: Lisa Graas says this is her favorite part of a post at Hot Air:

Palin is still a player in this race especially among the grassroots, and so speculation about what Palin’s kind words mean for Santorum shouldn’t be taken lightly.

“Ramming Speed!”

UPDATE III: “Something so viscerally right that I think we can all agree on it.”