The Other McCain

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

Brain Candy

Posted on | October 23, 2014 | 28 Comments

— by Wombat-socho


Many years ago, when I was still an APAhacker, one of my fellow Stipple-APA members introduced me to a term I’d never seen before: “brain candy”. He used it much like “eye candy”, only he was talking about SF novels which didn’t have any hifalutin’ messages, intersectionalism, or any of that other crap; they were just good workmanlike stories that entertained you and made you think your $3 was well spent on that particular paperback. Brain candy seems to have made a comeback thanks to e-book readers and easier self-publishing; instead of wasting eight bucks on some social justice warrior’s notion of a transgressive novel, you can plunk down three or four bucks and enjoy a good story. A good example of this is Vaughn Heppner’s The Lost Starship, which I borrowed through the Amazon Prime Lending Library. It starts with a duel to the death between our hero, Captain Maddox of Star Watch Intelligence, and a scion of the corporate oligarchy and rapidly changes course to a desperate quest with a misfit crew (including a bonafide Mad Scientist and an alcoholic ace pilot) for an six millenia old alien dreadnaught that may be just a legend – all the while being pursued by the New Men, posthumans with superior technology as well as mental and physical advantages over regular humans. As if his job wasn’t verging on impossible already, Maddox has an additional problem: was he deliberately planted as an orphan by the New Men to infiltrate and betray humanity? Lots of adventure, derring-do, and humanity outfoxing its nominal betters. Highly recommended.

Also recommended is the second volume in Brian McClellan’s Powder Mage trilogy, The Crimson Campaign. The direct sequel to Promise of Blood, it covers the disastrous invasion of Kez by Marshal Tamas, and the resulting counter-invasion by Kez which forces the Marshal’s estranged son, the celebrated hero and powder mage “Two-Shot” Taniel, into the front lines as seemingly the only man who can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat – if he can keep the generals in command from hanging him or locking him up in the stockade. Meanwhile, back in the capital city, retired inspector Adamat closes in on Lord Vetas, conspiracies and politics are everywhere, and the last mage of the old king’s cabal has some debts to pay. McClellan does an excellent job of keeping all the plot balls in the air while continuing to develop his characters, and I think he gives S.M. Stirling a good run for his money in his unstinting portrayal of the horrors of Napoleonic-style warfare, only made worse by conventional and powder magic. I found this in the library, which is good since I wasn’t about to pay $12.99 for the Kindle edition; used hardcovers are starting to come onto the market for $14, but paperback copies are still insanely expensive. Recommended, but you may want to wait for the prices to come down and/or Hachette to regain their sanity.

Unlike the Honorverse, which has gotten completely out of hand, I am still following Eric Flint’s 1632 series*, and the most recent installment I’ve read, 1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies, is a worthy addition to the series. Co-written by Flint and Charles Gannon, it has much in common with The Crimson Campaign in that there are a ton of plot balls and characters aloft, and the team of Flint and Gannon is excellent at keeping everything going without getting bogged down in infodumps or tedious exposition. Also, excellently described naval battles which made it easy for me to visualize the action in a way I haven’t experienced since Forester’s Hornblower novels. I liked it better than Iver Cooper’s 1636: Seas of Fortune, which immediately precedes 1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies in the Caribbean; Cooper is not quite as deft as Flint and Gannon, and the book’s division between events in the Caribbean and the Japanese colonization of California (which kept reminding me of Stirling’s The Golden Princess), which I was reading at the time) didn’t help. Seas of Change was okay brain candy, but Commander Cantrell in the West Indies is a LOT better.

Not really SF, but worth reading anyway: The Mongoliad, by Neil Stephenson, Greg Bear and about a squad’s worth of other writers. Stephenson and his little band seem intent on doing for 13th-century Europe in the wake of the Mongol invasion what Stephenson did for Europe in the late 17th century around the time of the Siege of Vienna in his Baroque Cycle.** The Mongoliad is up to five novels and a spate of side-stories, but in the main it starts right after the Battle of Liegnitz, in which the Mongols crushed the Polish army and seemed ready to ride right through Europe until they reached the Atlantic. A small band of warriors decides that in order to win the war, the Mongols must be distracted: half their band will delay the Western Horde by participating in a Circus of Swords, while the other half goes to find the Kha Khan and kill him. Interesting alternate history, or perhaps more of a secret history, but I have the next two books in the series and intend to talk about them more fully next week.


*The first taste is free. 🙂
**The first taste isn’t free, but it’s extremely cheap.


Category: Books

Canadian Terrorist: Crazy Muslim

Posted on | October 23, 2014 | 44 Comments

We learn that Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the terrorist killed in his attack Thursday on the Canadian Parliament building in Ottawa, was both mentally ill and a convert to Islam:

Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the slain 32-year-old suspected killer of a Canadian Forces soldier near Parliament Hill, was a labourer and small-time criminal — a man who had had a religious awakening and seemed to have become mentally unstable.
Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau was born in 1982 and was the son of Bulgasem Zehaf, a Quebec businessman who appears to have fought in 2011 in Libya, and Susan Bibeau, the deputy chairperson of a division of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board. The two were divorced in 1999. . . .
Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau grew up in Eastern Canada, including Ottawa and Montreal, and had spent time in Libya before moving to Western Canada to become a miner and labourer, according to friend Dave Bathurst.
Mr. Bathurst said he met Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau in a Burnaby, B.C., mosque about three years ago. He said his friend did not at first appear to have extremist views or inclinations toward violence — but at times exhibited a disturbing side.
“We were having a conversation in a kitchen, and I don’t know how he worded it: He said the devil is after him,” Mr. Bathurst said in an interview. He said his friend frequently talked about the presence of Shaytan in the world — an Arabic term for devils and demons. “I think he must have been mentally ill.”
Mr. Bathurst last saw Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau praying in a Vancouver-area mosque six weeks ago. He spoke of wanting to go to the Middle East soon. . . .
At the Burnaby mosque, Mr. Bathurst said his friend’s “erratic” behaviour — he did not elaborate — caused frictions with the elders at the house of worship, who asked him to stop attending prayers. At that time, Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau was living in a barely furnished single-room apartment.
Mr. Bathurst said he recalls his friend being arrested at the mosque a few years ago after bizarrely calling police to tell them about a crime he had committed many years before.

We can expect more information about the terrorist to be reported over the next few days, but I think we already have the basic picture. Next question: Is there a direct connection to ISIS or another international Islamic terrorist conspiracy?

Authorities haven’t disclosed any connection between the gunman, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, and ISIS. . . .
This summer, ISIS released a video featuring a Canadian reportedly named Andre Poulin making a pitch for recruits. The video showed the group’s intensified efforts to bait international recruits. It also highlights a message that a normal Westerner gave up a good life of comfort to join jihad — and so can others. Poulin’s speech is interspersed with beauty shots of Canada.
And last month, ISIS released a 42-minute recording in which it asked Canadians to kill civilians and military members.
“Rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be. Do not ask for anyone’s advice and do not seek anyone’s verdict,” the recording said.

There are unconfirmed reports of evidence of a direct ISIS connection to Zehaf-Bibeau, but we will wait and see.

As I said Thursday, the “leaderless cell” model of underground terrorist organization can make it difficult to connect the dots and prove that Killer X is part of Group Z. Furthermore, in the Internet age, radicals can broadcast their messages and any “lone wolf” can respond to those messages and, unless the “lone wolf” terrorist makes a statement or leaves behind a bread-crumb trail of electronic evidence, you can’t really say that Radical Message A directly led to Terrorist Act B.

So we don’t know, and may never know, exactly how it was that Zehaf-Bibeau went from crazy Muslim to terrorist. Rather than focus on the details of that, however, let’s look at the general pattern in the context of history. What you find about killers like this is that the misfit or mental case has both real-life problems and an extremist ideology. Think about Lee Harvey Oswald who, like Zehaf-Bibeau, was the product of a broken home and, like Zehaf-Bibeau, adopted the ideology of a foreign enemy. Whereas the Canadian-born Zehaf-Bibeau became a Muslim in the 21st century, the American-born Oswald became a Marxist at a time when the Soviet Union was America’s greatest enemy.

What causes some people to adopt the ideology of hostile foreign powers? They are misfits and malcontents who are alienated from their own national society, hostile to the dominant culture. By identifying with an extremist ideology, this type of warped personality seeks a kind of empowerment that enables them to enact their fantasy of revenge on the society that rejects the misfit.

And you know what? That describes the typical feminist.

Think about that.

 

Category: Canada, Islam, Terrorism

LIVE AT FIVE: 10.23.14

Posted on | October 23, 2014 | 5 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
CDC: All US Residents Returning From Ebola Zone To Be Tracked

A nurse in full protective gear during a class at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago

Monitoring for symptoms to continue for 21 days
Death toll from Ebola hits 4900
Robots against Ebola?
Some hospitals weighing withholding care from Ebola patients

Harper: Ottawa Shooting Will Not Intimidate Canada
Addresses Canadians after today’s terrorist attack on Parliament
Parliament’s sergeant-at-arms hailed as hero

Terrorist Kills Baby, Injures Eight In Jerusalem
Rammed car into crowd; shot by police while attempting to escape



POLITICS
Senator Coburn Highlights Ridiculous Federal Spending In Final Wastebook

Retiring senator Tom Coburn (R-OK)

How Washington pisses away your tax dollars

California GOP Gets Aggressive In Assembly Races

Georgia Dems Facing Backlash Over Ferguson Flier

Chicago Sun-Times Bureau Chief Quits Over Rauner Coverage

White House Still Backing Bailey – Er, Braley – For Governor (We Meant Senate)

Obama Cautiously Optimistic About Ebola In US

Poll: Democrats’ Advantage With Women Collapses

Navajo Supreme Court Kicks Candidate For Tribal Presidency Off The Ballot – He Can’t Speak The Language

“Calibration Error” Changes Republican Votes To Democrat In Cook County, Illinois



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Crude Extends Losses After US Inventories Double Market’s Expectations: WTI $80.22, Brent $84.37
Asian Stocks Down On Mixed China Data, Weak Wall Street
Nokia Sales Top Estimates As Network Sales Rise
Hyundai Shares Up After Profit Beats Some Estimates
Weak Inflation Means Fed Will Keep Interest Rates Down
Norfolk Southern CEO: Rail Mergers Won’t Work
Can GMail’s New Inbox App Conquer Yours?
Microsoft Ditching Nokia Brand On Phones
Will Apple Pay Be Mobile Pay’s Kickstart?
Microsoft Yields To Spotify, Kills Free XBox Music Pass
Microsoft Is Suddenly Releasing The Year’s Coolest Android Apps



SPORTS
Butler Delivers As Royals Take Game Two Of The World Series

Billy Butler strokes an RBI single in the Royals’ monster sixth inning

“Country Breakfast” whacks a couple of clutch hits to help the Royals post a 7-2 win

Oilers Get First Win, Edge Caps 3-2

NBA Owners Reject Draft Lottery Changes

Judge Orders Goodell To Testify At Ray Rice Hearing

Ducks Blow Out Sabres 4-1

New Islanders Owners Revive The “Drive For Five”

Flyers Beat Pens 5-3

Attorney Says Kings’ Voynov Didn’t Hit Girlfriend

Sporting News Names Matt Williams 2014 NL Manager Of The Year



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Britney Spears Making A Million A Week In Vegas

$475K a show

Just a few thousand dollars behind Celine Dion


JLo Signs Residency Deal In Vegas

“X-Men” Director Bryan Singer Expecting First Child With Girlfriend

Death Certificate: Elizabeth Pena Died From Alcohol Abuse

Melissa Rivers Inherits Bulk Of Mom’s Estate


Renee Zellweger Glad You Think She Doesn’t Look Like Renee Zellweger Any More

Neil Patrick Harris Not Academy’s First Choice To Host The Oscars

Sarah Hyland “Doing Great” After Boyfriend Drama

Keanu Reeves Says Studio Offers Have Cooled And It Sucks

A&E Sets “Growing Up Gotti” Reunion Special

Porn Star Says Rapper Punched Her Outside NYC Club

Fox Hit With $250 Million “Simpsons” Lawsuit By “Goodfellas” Actor

Julianne Moore & Ellen Page’s Lesbian Drama Barred From Shooting At Catholic School

Annie Lennox: Twerking Is Not Feminism

Andrew Cuomo’s Book Bombs: Only 948 Copies Sold In First Week



FOREIGNERS
Journalist Says Corruption At The Heart Of Mexico’s Drug War
Syria Claims To Have Destroyed Jets Seized By ISIS
Kenny G Angers China With Hong Kong Protest Visit
Gunmen Kill Eight Shiites On Bus In SW Pakistan
Blackwater Contractors Convicted
Ottawa Shooting: Australia “Shoulder To Shoulder” With Canada, Says Abbott
Norks Warn ROK Over Planned High-Level Talks
Nigeria Talks With Boko Haram, But No Sign Of Girls’ Release
UN: Chinese Peacekeeping Troops Expected In Sudan At Start Of 2015
Brazil Race Hinges On Fickle Lower Middle Class
South Sudan Peace Talks Offer Glimmer Of Hope
Gaza Rebuilding Slowed BY Trickle Of Aid



BLOGS & STUFF
Louder With Crowder: Do Gun Bans Work? A Canadian Story
Michelle Malkin: The Hunter Biden Chronicles
Twitchy: Is The GOP Getting Ready To Win Big In Vegas?
BattleSwarm Blog: Adventures With Wendy Davis Social Media
The Camp of the Saints: American Society’s Acid Trip
American Power: The CDC Is Awash In Social-Justice Ideology
American Thinker: Is ACORN Behind The Violence In Ferguson?
BLACKFIVE: The Veteran Benefit Book Fair, San Diego, November 8
Conservatives4Palin: Bristol Palin – The Truth About The “Palin Brawl”
Don Surber: 25 Million More Reasons To Hate Washington
Jammie Wearing Fools: Democrats Insist Decrepit Pelosi Isn’t Being Sent Out To Pasture Yet
Joe For America: No Indictment Likely In Michael Brown Shooting
JustOneMinute: Is There Anything They Can’t Do?
Pamela Geller: Canadian Gunman A “Recent Convert To Islam”
Protein Wisdom: California Forces Churches To Pay For Abortions, Immediately
Shot In The Dark: Trulbert! Part XVIII – In The Thick Of The Dawn
STUMP: Illinois Governor’s Race – The Looming Pensions Problem
The Gateway Pundit: Obama Calls Ottawa Shooting A Terror Attack – But Fort Hood Was “Workplace Violence”
The Jawa Report: Irrelevant Fat Bastard Adam Gadahn Goes Full Retard
The Lonely Conservative: Weather Channel Co-Founder Shocks Academics By Calling Climate Change A Big Lie
This Ain’t Hell: VA Takes Precautions Against “Crazed Vets”
Weasel Zippers: Barack Obama Marks Death Of Legendary Journalist Ben Bradlee With A Picture Of Barack Obama
Megan McArdle: Bullet Trains Aren’t Magic


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Category: Live at Five

ISIS Crisis in Ottawa Shooting? UPDATE: Gunman Is Canadian Muslim Convert

Posted on | October 22, 2014 | 51 Comments

Because I was offline working on another project today, I haven’t followed the developments in Ottawa, where a terrorist gunman and a soldier have reportedly been killed in an incident at the Canadian Parliament building. In a breaking news situation like this, I hesitate to speculate, but others are not hesitant, and there is a lot of chatter that this shooting in Canada is related to the Iraqi-Syrian Islamic terror group known as ISIS. We will wait and see.

Feel free to link in the comments to any new developments, and I may update later, when there are more certain facts to report.

UPDATE: Reuters is now reporting that the Ottawa shooter is a Canadian-born man named Michael Zehaf-Bibeau who converted to Islam.

Allahpundit has more details at Hot Air.

UPDATE II: Definitely looks like terrorism:

Zehaf-Bibeau . . . was recently designated a “high-risk traveller” by the Canadian government and that his passport had been seized – the same circumstances surrounding the case of Martin Rouleau-Couture, the Quebecker who was shot Monday after running down two Canadian Forces soldiers with his car.

Rouleau-Couture was also a convert to Islam. How much actual organization is behind these attacks, we don’t know. The so-called “leaderless cell” model can be difficult to detect. You see a dot here and a dot there, and it looks like a pattern, but you can’t always tell whether the evident pattern is actually a conspiracy.

UPDATE III: Various items from Twitter:

EXPECT FURTHER UPDATES . . .

 

Category: Canada, Terrorism

LIVE AT FIVE: 10.22.14

Posted on | October 22, 2014 | 5 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
US To Impose Movement Restrictions On Travelers From Ebola Zone

A Coast Guard health tech assists a Border Patrol officer in screening a passenger arriving from Sierra Leone

Travelers will be required to enter the US through JFK, Newark, O’Hare, Dulles, or Atlanta
Freelance cameraman declared Ebola-free
Massive training session held at NYC’s Javits Center as CDC releases new guidelines


Former WaPo Editor Ben Bradlee Dies, 93
MSM commences to wailing, rending clothes, gnashing teeth

European Central Bank Begins Buying Covered Bonds
Trying to jump-start the stagnant EU economy



POLITICS
Final Florida Governor Debate: Nasty And Personal

Charlie Crist and Rick Scott shake hands before coming out swinging

Sneering, distortion, and insults, moderated by Jake Tapper



Democrats Running From Obama, But He Won’t Let Them

PA Governor Corbett Signs “Mumia Bill”



Is Bruce Braley Dragging Iowa Democrats Running For House Down With Him?

NY State To Settle Lawsuit Over Public Defenders

Detroit Officials Bridle Over UN Visit, Scolding Over Water Shutoffs

NM GOP Hopes To Take Legislature For First Time In Sixty Years

MI Gov. Snyder Expands Lead To Eight Points

Fireworks Erupt In Brown/Shaheen Debate



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Crude Up Slightly On Increased China Demand: WTI $82.81, Brent $86.22
Coke Shares Plunge After Trimming Full-Year Forecast
Stocks Rally: S&P 500 Has Best Day Of 2014
Bourbon’s Impact On Kentucky’s Economy Still Growing
Japan’s Exports Up In September, Deficit Persists
Target Bets Holiday Turnaround On Free Shipping, Faux Fur
Chinese Government Accused Of Cyberattack On Apple’s iCloud
Why Google And Qualcomm Are Interested In Augmented Reality
Marty McFly Wannabees Face Disappointment With The Hendo Hoverboard
Apple, Supplier GT Strike Deal To Unseal Info, Shutter Arizona Plant
E Fun’s Cheap Nextbook Not Just For Kids



SPORTS
Sharks End Road Trip With 5-3 Loss To Bruins

Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask saves another one

Greg Campbell scores the winning goal at 10:42 in the third; Boston now 4-4


Tebow Questions Florida’s Leadership After Blowout Loss To Missouri


NCAA: No Plans To Allow Compensation For Autographs

Bumgarner, Giants Crush Royals In Game 1 7-1

Kessel Scores Two, Lifts Leafs Over Islanders 5-2

Abby Wambach Talks About Hope Solo, Domestic Violence

Habs Edge Red Wings 2-1 (OT)

Jets Finally Win One, Top Hapless Hurricanes 3-1

Nationals, Astros Win $108 Million In County Funds For Stadium



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Why Taylor Swift Welcomed You To New York

NYC living, the Nashville work ethic, and binders full of men

The Esquire interview

Legendary Fashion Designer Oscar De La Renta Dies, 82

Sean Bean Joins Matt Damon In “The Martian”

Cobie Smulders Pregnant With Second Child

What Has Renee Zellweger Done To Her Face?

Daniele Watts Charged With Lewd Conduct For Car Sex

Ke$ha Swore Under Oath Prior To Lawsuit That Dr. Luke Never Harmed Her

Oscar Pistorius Gets Five Years For Girlfriend’s Death

“Fraggle Rock” Actor Gerard Parkes Dies, 90

Arianna Grande Doesn’t Understand Catholicism, Takes Up Kabbalah Instead



FOREIGNERS
Canadian Soldier Killed In Hit-And-Run By Muslim Convert
Islamic State Jihadis Seize Weapons Meant For Kurds
Norks Unexpectedly Free Jeffrey Fowle; Two Other Americans Still Detained
No Gas Deal Between Russia, Ukraine At EU Talks
Marine Suspected Of Grisly Murder Transferred To Philippine Detention
Hong Kong Protesters Confront Government Officials In TV Debate
Dead Infants Found In Winnipeg Storage Locker
Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai Honored In US With Liberty Medal
Terror Expert: Aussie Runaway Who Joined ISIS Groomed, Much Like Pedophiles Groom Victims
ROK Dismantles Christmas Tree On The DMZ
UN: Iraq’s Yazidis Facing Genocide Attempt
Mexican Rights Panel Says Army Executed 15 Of 22 Dead In “Shootout”



BLOGS & STUFF
Louder With Crowder: Top Ten Safety Tips From Obama’s Ebola Czar
First Street Journal: Wendy Davis Gets Desperate
Michelle Malkin: Who’s Afraid Of “Rocky Mountain Heist”?
Twitchy: Eastwooding Makes A Comeback – Sen. Kay Hagan A No-Show At Debate
American Power: Democratic Armageddon
American Thinker: Karl Rove – Weapon Of Mass Delusion
BLACKFIVE: NYT Reports There *Were* Chemical Weapons In Iraq
Conservatives4Palin: Palin To GOP Establishment – “Get With It”
Don Surber: Cluelesston Gazette
Jammie Wearing Fools: Deranged Wendy Davis Still Going With That “Greg Abbott Is Against Interracial Marriage” Shtick
Joe For America: Obama Complicit In Slaughter Of Christians And Kurds
JustOneMinute: You Can Run But You Can’t Hide
Pamela Geller: The Mosque Behind The Jihadist Who Struck And Killed Soldiers In Canada
Protein Wisdom: Name That Religion! Canadian Edition
Shot In The Dark: Our Incoherent Paper Of Record
STUMP: How Not To Look Like A Total, Desperate Ass Part 2
The Gateway Pundit: Radical Anti-Gun Democrat Arrested On The Street In Ferguson – Drunk And Packing Heat
The Jawa Report: Heartbreak! Omar Brooks Still In Jail
The Lonely Conservative: Sneaky Obama Administration Solicits Bids For Millions Of ID Cards For Illegals
This Ain’t Hell: Update On The Washington Times’ Poorly Written Piece
Weasel Zippers: Pew Confirms The Obvious – Liberals Are The Most Politically Intolerant Group
Megan McArdle: No More Happy Meals From McDonald’s?


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Category: Live at Five

A #GamerGate Oddity

Posted on | October 21, 2014 | 20 Comments

The troll @MMashItMatt popped up in my Twitter timeline Tuesday to call me a “piece of sh*t doxxer.” Now, there are two kinds of trolls: The worthless pests I block, and the potentially dangerous creeps I don’t block because I want to keep an eye on them.

See, I figured out that not every Twitter troll is just a random kook. Some of them are dangerous criminals and some of them are Neal Rauhauser who, if he is not a proven criminal, is arguably the most evil online operative I’ve ever encountered. Rauhauser once boasted that he had created more than 100 different accounts. And nobody has deleted more online content than Rauhauser, whose habits of secrecy and deception I’ve described at some length. And if you have read the dossier on Rauhauser, you can understand my suspicion that he must be operating somewhere in the shadows around the #GamerGate controversy. But I digress . . .

“Don’t feed the trolls” is good advice, but there are times when I deliberately call attention to a troll, so that my thousands of Twitter followers can see what kind of creepy evil is out there. And when I did this to @MMashItMatt, he said:

“You silenced a Palin critic by telling them you would
release their info. You are scum of the highest order.”

Oh, you mean “Audrey,” eh?

A small group of trusted people know the whole story of “Audrey” who, far from being merely “a Palin critic,” was in fact one of the most hateful and dishonest of the notorious “Trig Truthers.” The very last time “Audrey” posted to her blog in August 2009, she directly accused Sarah Palin of faking her fifth pregnancy — stated this as a fact in a post with the headline “Who’s not your mama?”

“Audrey” was one of several bloggers who latched onto the “Trig Truther” bandwagon that the vile Andrew Sullivan got rolling, and you can see how she squealed with pleasure the first time Sully linked her in November 2008. When “Audrey” stopped updating her blog in August 2009, some of her readers were mystified by her silence. And then on Sept. 12, 2009, this appeared in the comments:

**A NOTE FROM THE MODERATOR**
Hi faithful readers and friends, Morgan here.
Many of you have written expressing concern over Audrey’s absence from her blog. Several of you have heard rumors that she was threatened.
Those rumors are, unfortunately, true. Audrey has been threatened. She and her husband took the threats seriously enough to seek legal advice and have decided after consulting with their attorney to suspend posting for the time being.
She has asked me to convey her deep appreciation for the good wishes and support she has and continues to receive from all of you.
Thanks,
Morgan
[email protected]

Well, I knew that to be a complete lie, although perhaps a necessary lie, because the crazy readers of that once popular anti-Palin blog needed some explanation, and when Dan Riehl brought that note by “Morgan” to my attention, I wrote on Sept. 14, 2009:

Hey, “Morgan”: How about you grab yourself a nice hot cup of STFU, sweetheart? You’re not doing “Audrey” or her family any favors with inflammatory rhetoric like that.
A wise concern for mercy ought not be taken for granted because, in case you haven’t noticed, some of our regular readers were intensely curious about the mysterious end of this investigation. And the content of certain comments (some of which I’ve had to reject as hinting too obviously) indicates to me that these commenters are also capable of research.
Some other research-savvy bloggers might not be as scrupulous as Dan and I have been, “Morgan.” Your insulting comments could make those other bloggers angry, and who knows what might happen then?
Mmmm. The delicious flavor of fresh STFU . . .

It would be unnecessary and unwise for me to explain too much more than I explained at the time. But let me tell you, I was this close to hitting the “publish” button on an article, and decided against it:

Her carelessness confronted me with a very difficult dilemma, and I hesitate to think what might have transpired had some unscrupulous, selfish, vindictive person been in my position. . . .
As Dan Riehl and I discussed between ourselves, there is no reason to believe “Audrey” has been guilty of any legal wrongdoing, merely careless in her online choices.
As our research advanced, and sources provided further information, however, matters reached a point where I had to ask myself, “Do I really want to publish this?” This same research indicates that “Morgan” knows exactly what I’m talking about . . .
It would have been unnecessary cruelty on my part to have published without having first contacted “Audrey,” which I did by means of a courteous and quite friendly e-mail message to her husband (whom she had referenced at Palin’s Deceptions as a sort of in-house “expert”).

Everyone remembers how Dan Riehl and I exposed the perverted anti-Palin blogger Jesse Griffin, but that was different: Given the sick stuff Griffin had written about pornography, children and masturbation, there seemed to be a matter of public safety involved.

In the case of “Audrey,” however, it was different. Before I finally decided against publishing a thoroughly documented article full of screencaps, etc., I had already dropped a few hints on the blog, just to gauge the reaction. What would “Audrey” do if she realized that her separate online personas had been connected, and that I knew everything about the real person behind both personas?

Silence. She must have been scared shitless, as well she should have been. Let me see if I can explain what I mean:

  • X — Hateful and dishonest anti-Palin blogger “Audrey.”
  • Y — Reputable human being with a real life in a small town.
  • Z — Other embarrassing online behavior.

Now, imagine you are Reputable Human Being Y. For many years previously, you engaged in Embarrassing Online Behavior Z under a pseudonym that had never been penetrated. Y thinks to herself, “If nobody has figured out that I’m secretly Z, then Internet anonymity is very simple.” However, no one had very much of a motive to try to connect Z to Y; it’s a different matter when Y decides in 2008 that she is now also going to become X, telling lies about the Republican vice-presidential candidate who, as of August 2009, looked like a potential contender for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012.

There might be all kinds of people who decide to take an interest in discovering the identity of X, and one of those people might drop me an anonymous e-mail saying, “Hey, look at this.”

Ask yourself this obvious question: Why didn’t “Audrey” (X) use her real name (Y) to do her anti-Palin blogging? There is no law against being a “Palin critic,” after all. But she wasn’t a “Palin critic,” she was promoting the hateful insane lies of Trig Trutherism.

Do you want to know what the GOP vote margin was in the county where “Audrey” and her family live? I could look it up. Trust me, if her neighbors had discovered she was behind that wicked blog, she would not have been the most popular mom in the PTA.

Oh, but what about Embarrassing Online Behavior Z? If connecting X (“Audrey” the anti-Palin hate monger) to Y (the real person in the GOP-leaning small town) would have been hurtful, connecting Z to Y would have been thermonuclear destruction. Trust me.

And I was this close to hitting the “publish” button on that blog post, OK?

That unpublished post is still sitting there, five years later, in draft.

Some people criticized my decision not to publish that. “She’s a vile and despicable subhuman monster! What’s wrong with you?”

Trust me, I made the right decision. I’d seen the sudden silence at her blog after I started dropping hints, and I could imagine the panic. In fact, once I’d dropped a few hints, some readers searched around and figured it out for themselves. “Audrey” had been careless, and if I could connect X + Y + Z, her anonymity was not secure. But still, that question: “Do I really want to publish this?”

Hit “publish” and you destroy somebody. For what? For politics?

No, it’s not worth it. And I would not want to be known for that.

We know the denouement. I sent a polite email to Y‘s husband, explaining that the secret (“X + Y + Z“) was no longer secret. I suppose  “Audrey” decided that continuing to write wicked lies about Sarah Palin was probably not a good idea. (Smart decision, ma’am.) And, of course, Sarah Palin did not run for president in 2012; the wicked lies of Trig Trutherism were just a waste of time, anyway.

Did I “threaten” anybody? No. I don’t threaten people. I made a choice not to publish, and “Audrey” made her own choice. To see my choice criticized by @MMashItMatt, however, makes me wonder if mercy was the wrong choice. What are we to do with these insane, hateful and ignorant people who confuse mercy with weakness?

@MMashItMatt had better contemplate the consequences of attempting to impugn my honor with his dishonest accusations.

Mercy has its limits, and I am not always merciful. Selah.


Somewhere out there online, Neal Rauhauser must be lurking in the shadows of #GamerGate. If you find him, let me know.

 

Category: Sarah Palin

In The Mailbox: 10.21.14

Posted on | October 21, 2014 | 4 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


OVER THE TRANSOM
Doug Powers: Crowd So Shocked Democrat Candidate Allowed Obama To Campaign For Him, Some Had To Walk Out
Twitchy: “Your Tax Dollars Not At Work” $775 Million For Federal Bureaucrats On Administrative Leave


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: Hispanics Sour On Obama, May Sit Out Elections
American Thinker: Math Is On Life Support. Can We Save It?
BLACKFIVE: For Vets – The Most Important Post You’ll Read Today
Conservatives4Palin: P.J. O’Rourke – What We Really Need Is A Nobel War Prize
Don Surber: HGTV Election
Jammie Wearing Fools: Polls Indicate Dems Will Lose Control Of The Senate
Joe For America: Top Scientist – “This Version Of Ebola Looks Like A Very Different Bug”
JustOneMinute: Two Americas
Pamela Geller: American Soldier Receives Death Threats At Home From Suspected ISIS Sympathizer
Protein Wisdom: “Even When A British Muslim Beheads A British Christian, There Will Still Be Those Who Blame The Jews”
Shot In The Dark: Parkas In The Third Circle
STUMP: More On The Illinois Governor’s Race
The Gateway Pundit: 71 Illegals From Ebola-Affected Countries Captured At US Border This Year
The Jawa Report: Killing Jews For Allah Has Been Quite Profitable For Hamas
(Pat Condell content!)
The Lonely Conservative: US Aid Going To Fund And Feed ISIS
This Ain’t Hell: Younger Veterans Bypassing Legion, VFW For Service, Fitness Groups
Weasel Zippers: America’s “Most Influential Muslim Leader” Endorses Sharia Law In Letter Condemning ISIS
Megan McArdle: Why New York City Hates Airbnb


Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow

Category: Linkagery

The Externalization of Responsibility: Monica Lewinsky’s Personal Shame

Posted on | October 21, 2014 | 135 Comments

Today’s headlines via Drudge:

Monica Lewinsky: I was ‘in love’
with President Clinton
— New York Post

Monica Lewinsky: Drudge Ruined My Life
— Truth Revolt

This raises a subject long overdue for discussion. The Internet is merely a tool — a very powerful tool, but still just a tool. For Monica Lewinsky to depict herself as “Patient Zero” in an epidemic of “cyberbullying,” as she has done, inspires several questions: Was she genuinely a victim? What does the phrase “cyberbullying” mean? How innocent must a victim be, in order for their victimhood to be genuine? In the context of online disputes like #GamerGate, how do we determine who is the victim and who is the bully? Is it possible that our prejudices, including the set of prejudices we call “political correctness,” may prevent us from accurately assessing responsibility for these conflicts?

Here’s the thing: Monica Lewinsky committed perjury.

Perjury is a crime and a very harmful crime. President Clinton’s personal attorney, Vernon Jordan, prepared a perjurious affidavit, which Clinton certainly knew to be false, and Monica Lewinsky signed that affidavit knowing it to be false. The purpose of that perjured affidavit was to deny justice to Paula Jones, who had filed a lawsuit accusing Clinton of sexually harassing her. Clinton’s harassment was a violation of Jones’s rights under the Civil Rights Act of 1991 and Jones, as the plaintiff, was entitled to true testimony from Lewinsky, who had been subpoenaed to testify in order to establish (as courts have determined harassment plaintiffs may do) that Clinton’s behavior toward Jones was part of a pattern of behavior by the defendant.

Instead of providing truthful testimony, Monica Lewinsky lied.

She perjured herself by signing that false affidavit and, in doing so, became part of a conspiracy to obstruct justice, to deny Paula Jones the remedy prescribed by law. Whatever we think about the concept of “sexual harassment” and the 1991 law that enabled Jones’s lawsuit, the law is the law. And both plaintiffs and defendants in lawsuits have a right to truthful testimony. Your sympathy for one of the parties in the suit cannot justify your lying under oath as a witness in an attempt to “help” them. Perjury is a crime, and conspiracy to obstruct justice is also a crime. It is possible that Monica Lewinsky did not understand the full legal consequences of her crimes, but (a) she damned sure knew she was lying, and (b) Bill Clinton is a graduate of Yale Law School, who was subsequently disbarred as a result of his own admitted perjury in the Jones v. Clinton case.

Because this is a very important story, it’s important to get it right.

We cannot allow the media to propagate myths about history, and Monica Lewinsky’s attempt to re-write her own part in recent history — to depict herself as a victim of cyberbullying, rather than as a criminal perjurer who attempted to deny justice to Paula Jones — should not be shrugged off or treated as one-day humorous punch line.

Because readers will want to comment on this story, I’m going to go ahead and hit “publish” and then come back to extend this little essay and aggregate reaction from other commentators.

 

 

UPDATE: How quickly we have forgotten the truth! Does anyone else remember that Clinton tried to claim that, once he became president, he could not be the defendant in a lawsuit for torts he had allegedly committed prior to taking that office? The Supreme Court ruled unanimously — 9-to-0 — in the landmark 1997 Clinton v. Jones decision that the president enjoyed no such immunity.

Also, have we forgotten how the Democrat-Media Complex, including Clinton henchman James Carville, viciously defamed Kenneth Starr, depicting that honorable man as the Torquemada of a 20th-century Inquisition simply for carrying out the duties of his office?

“[Ken Starr is] a sex-obsessed person who’s out to get the president. . . . He’s concerned about three things: sex, sex, and more sex. . . . It’s about sex. . . . [Starr] plants a story, he goes down by the Potomac and listens to hymns, as the cleansing waters of the Potomac go by, and we are going to wash all the sodomites and fornicators out of town.”
— James Carville, quoted in The Death of Outrage by Bill Bennett (1998)

Well, yes, Mr. Carville: A sexual harassment suit is necessarily “about sex,” and it was a Democrat-controlled Congress that passed the Civil Rights Act of 1991, under which Paula Jones brought her federal lawsuit against the man who harassed her. Your attempt to change the subject, to portray Ken Starr as “sex-obsessed” and make him the scapegoated villain in the story, was dishonest in the extreme, sir.

You are a liar, Mr. Carville, and Bill Clinton is a liar, and if you think honest people cannot see what a reprehensibly dishonest creep you are, you have another think coming.

Everyone who assisted Clinton in the Lewinsky scandal — everyone who tried to exculpate that guilty liar — covered themselves in immortal shame. After all was said and done, and Bill Clinton settled out of court with Paula Jones, paying her $850,000, that worthless son of a bitch’s hired liars kept lying on his behalf:

Robert S. Bennett, Clinton’s chief attorney in the case, said the president still insists Jones’s allegations of a crude proposition in a Little Rock hotel suite seven years ago “are baseless” but agreed to make the payment in the interest of finally putting the matter behind him.
“The president has decided he is not prepared to spend one more hour on this matter,” Bennett said. “It is clear that the American people want their president and Congress to focus on the problems that they were elected to solve. This is a step in that direction.”

All decent and honest people must recoil in horror at the way in which Democrats and their media allies, in their politically motivated project of covering up Clinton’s guilt, relentlessly smeared Paula Jones, Ken Starr and everyone else who told the truth about Clinton.

Let me tell you something, Mr. Carville and the rest of you hired liars on Team Hillary: Do you think honest people will believe that Monica Lewinsky’s timely emergence, with this carefully scripted tale of her “victimhood,” was merely a coincidence?

Like I said, you have another think coming.

You want to try and re-write history? OK, I’m going to invite readers to study the true history of the Lewinsky scandal. OK, I’m going to direct them to Bill Bennett’s book The Death of Outrage and to the official “Starr Report” of the investigation.

What part of “fuck you” don’t you understand, Mr. Carville?

 

 

UPDATE II: Have we forgotten how “that woman, Ms. Lewinsky,” has become a very wealthy woman as a result of her victimhood?

Monica Lewinsky, the former White House intern whose affair with then-President Bill Clinton paralyzed the nation, has been shopping a memoir for several weeks, and according to the New York Post, she has apparently sold it for $12 million to an unnamed publisher. . . . Lewinsky . . . already cooperated with celebrity gossipmonger Andrew Morton for a 1999 book called Monica’s Story . . .

Yeah, here’s another book you should read:

 

 

No One Left to Lie To, by the late Christopher Hitchens. Welcome to the Internet, which is the enemy of lying cocksuckers.

The phrase “lying cocksucker” applies literally to Monica Lewinsky, and also to many in the media, literally or metaphorically.

UPDATE III: Readers will please forgive my use of Anglo-Saxon words to describe these lying cocksuckers, but “mendacious fellatio performers” doesn’t have quite the same rhetorical force. There is something admirably powerful about plain English words when we are speaking the truth about a lying cocksucker like Monica Lewinsky:

Sixteen years ago, fresh out of college, a 22-year-old intern in the White House — and more than averagely romantic — I fell in love with my boss in a 22-year-old sort of a way.

(The “22-year-old sort of way” that people fall in love, she wants us to know, involves [a] fellatio, and [b] mendacity.)

It happens. But my boss was the President of the United States. That probably happens less often.
Now, I deeply regret it for many reasons.

(Including the many millions of dollars in my bank account.)

Not the least of which is that people were hurt. And that’s never okay.
But back then, in 1995, we started an affair that lasted, on and off, for two years. And, at that time, it was my everything. That, I guess you could say, was the golden bubble part for me; the nice part.

(Lying and sucking cock? “The nice part”! She’s still a Democrat, you see.)

The nasty part was that it became public. Public with a vengeance.

(Because she perjured herself.)

Thanks to the internet and a website that at the time, was scarcely known outside of Washington DC but a website most of us know today called the Drudge Report.

(Reminder: Drudge got the story because Newsweek magazine spiked the story by investigative reporter Michael Isikoff. As a result of this — the Newsweek spike and then Drudge learning about the spiked story — there were days of media speculation until, on Jan. 21, 1998, the Washington Post finally broke the story on their front page. But yeah, Monica, you just keep on blaming it all on Drudge, you lying cocksucker. Don’t even mention Paula Jones or your own perjury.)

Within 24 hours I became a public figure, not just in the United States but around the entire globe. As far as major news stories were concerned, this was the very first time that the traditional media was usurped by the Internet.

(“Usurped” is a word that has a definition, an actual meaning. To “usurp” is to acquire authority wrongfully. What actually happened, as opposed to what the lying cocksucker Monica Lewinsky wants you to think happened, is that “the traditional media” had for many years been abusing their authority, so that as soon as the Internet permitted others to challenge that authority, the authority of  “the traditional media” was exposed as illegitimate. There was a revolution against “the traditional media,” which forfeited its authority by using its authority in wrongful and dishonest ways. We now return you to the self-serving victimhood mythology of the lying cocksucker Monica Lewinsky.)

In 1998, as you can imagine, there was a media frenzy. Even though it was pre-Google, (that’s right, pre-Google). The World Wide Web (as we called it back then) was already a big part of life.
Overnight, I went from being a completely private figure to a publicly humiliated one. I was Patient Zero.
The first person to have their reputation completely destroyed worldwide via the Internet. . . .
This is what my world looked like: I was threatened in various ways. First, with an FBI sting in a shopping mall. It was just like you see in the movies. Imagine, one minute I was waiting to meet a friend in the food court and the next I realized she had set me up, as two FBI agents flashed their badges at me.
Immediately following, in a nearby hotel room, I was threatened with up to 27 years in jail for denying the affair in an affidavit and other alleged crimes. Twenty-seven years. When you’re only 24 yourself, that’s a long time.

Dispensing with the italic fisking format — you can go read the entire dishonest transcript — let me note how Monica Lewinsky has transposed events and, in the process, shifted responsibility.

She was the one who (a) sucked the cock of the President and (b) lied about her cocksucking in a false affidavit, which was intended (c) to deny justice to Paula Jones, a previous victim of Clinton’s predatory sexual habits, and (d) secure for Monica Lewinsky the assistance of Vernon Jordan and others in providing her, the lying cocksucker, with employment in New York City. As I recall, there was both a quid (“sign this false affidavit”) and a quo (“we’ll get a job with Revlon, whose CEO is a Friend of Bill”), but as always in such situations, it was difficult to prove the “pro” part of this quid pro quo arrangement.

Without checking the timeline of the scandal, I distinctly remember (because I was involved in editing daily news coverage at that time) how the revelation of the Revlon job in New York and Vernon Jordan’s role as Clinton’s personal “fixer” brought into stark relief exactly how the Clinton Scandal-Control Machine operated.

The object of the game, in  Ms. Lewinsky’s case, was (a) to get her out of Washington, D.C., (b) to put her in a respectable job where she didn’t feel disgruntled and could tell friends it was a step up from her White House gig, and (c) thereby to provide her with a plausible pretext for claiming, in her perjurious affidavit, that her duties at her new job in New York made it impossible for her to appear and be deposed as a witness in the federal lawsuit Jones v. Clinton.

This was the game. Everyone following the story at the time could see why it had been crucial for the Clinton Scandal-Control Machine to get Monica out of D.C., because if Paula Jones’s lawyers had gotten the opportunity to depose her in person, they were prepared to confront her with sufficient evidence to force her to admit the truth about her relationship with Clinton. Remember, testimony about Clinton’s predatory sexual habits was being sought by Jones’s lawyers as evidence that what happened to her was part of his pattern of behavior, and one key element of this pattern — i.e., Clinton’s preferring to have women perform fellatio, as opposed to normal intercourse — clearly could have been confirmed by Monica, if she had been willing to tell the truth under oath. Instead, she signed that perjurious affidavit and took that cushy job at Revlon headquarters in New York. Quid pro quo.

And also quod erat demonstrandum, you lying cocksucker.

UPDATE IV: In the comments:

Sworn to secrecy, she only told 11 people (including an erstwhile squeeze, one of her high school teachers who was 33 years old and had been married right along).

People forget so much so quickly, don’t they? Bill Clinton wasn’t the first married man Monica Lewinsky had sex with and, indeed, her own narcissistic compulsion to tell people about her sexual exploits was the proximate cause of her becoming a public figure:

Monica Lewinsky’s former high school drama instructor said yesterday that he had a long-running affair with her that began in 1992 during her college years in Portland, Ore., and continued until last year, throughout much of the time she reportedly has alleged she had an intimate relationship with President Clinton.
In an account questioning Lewinsky’s credibility, Andy J. Bleiler, 32, said through an attorney that Lewinsky had called him as often as four or five times a day after coming to Washington in 1995 as a White House intern, and that she talked obsessively about sex, including boasts that she was involved in a sexual relationship with a “high ranking White House official.”
Standing beside Bleiler and his wife at a news conference outside their home in Portland, attorney Terry Giles said the Bleilers “would both describe Monica as having a pattern of twisting facts, especially to enhance her version of her own self-image.”

So, Lewinsky’s former teacher (and former adulterous lover) says she has “a pattern of twisting facts, especially to enhance her version of her own self-image.” Did I mention she’s a Democrat?

UPDATE V: Let’s talk more about this quote:

“I fell in love with my boss in a 22-year-old sort of a way.
It happens.”

Does anyone else notice the helpless passivity — “It happens” — with which Monica Lewinsky attempts to deny her own agency?

If you study psychology, you know that good mental health is characterized by a sense of personal agency, that is to say, a psychologically healthy person thinks of himself as the agent, the active force in his own life. He is in charge, he is “the subject of the sentence,” as it were. Even though unpleasant or unfortunate things may happen to anyone, people with healthy minds do not think of themselves as helpless, passive objects to whom things merely “happen.”

A healthy-minded person, finding himself in a predicament for which he is not responsible, immediately thinks: “What can I do? What are my options? How can I exercise agency and regain control over my own destiny, rather than to allow the continuation of this circumstance in which others are exercising control over me?”

This sense of agency requires an ability to look at your situation objectively and, if you are unable to obtain that objectivity, it impairs your ability to learn from your mistakes. Here is the thing: It is very common for people to find themselves in a situation where, in some sense, things seem to “happen” to them through no fault of their own. However, in such a case, it becomes necessary to ask yourself, “What did I do, or fail to do, which has made me vulnerable this way?”

Problem: Your job is a stress-inducing nightmare. You are underpaid and treated poorly. Your boss is a jerk, and your good work is repeatedly sabotaged by a handful of selfish, lazy and dishonest co-workers who are envious of your superior ability. No matter how hard you work, or how clearly you explain the problem to your boss, the mistreatment does not end. As a matter of fact, your assessment of the problem and attempts to rectify the situation are counted again you. You’re labeled a “troublemaker,” and the people who are actually causing the problem (who for reasons of seniority or favoritism or company policy are in some sense protected) escape the consequences of their sabotage. Never mind the harm their sabotage does to you, personally, but by impairing your ability to do your job, these selfish and dishonest co-workers are doing harm to the company’s productive efficiency.
Solution: Quit.

It’s really that simple. The only reason those sons of bitches are able to make your working life a Hell on Earth is because you let them do it.

If you’re not willing to quit — just tender your resignation and walk out the door — then you are choosing to continue the problem. There are few situations in life where we are truly helpless, except where we have put ourselves into a bad situation by our own unwise choices.

Considering the lifelong series of bad choices that preceded Monica Lewinsky’s alleged “victimhood,” she has no legitimate cause to complain. Jeff Dunetz at Truth Revolt:

Ms. Lewinsky wasn’t a victim of cyber-bullying; she was a victim of having sexual relations with a person at or near the peak of power. She became news just as Donna Rice, Elizabeth Ray, Fanne Foxe and many others had before her.
Matt Drudge didn’t ruin her life just the same way that the Miami Herald did not ruin Donna Rice’s life. Drudge simply reported a huge news story.
If she wants to place the blame for the personal attacks she received, Ms. Lewinsky would be better served to look toward the “Clinton Machine,” whose history of destroying reputations is well-documented.

You hit the nail squarely on the head, Jeff: Monica Lewinsky deliberately chose to associate herself with people who were (and still are) dangerously dishonest and cruelly unscrupulous. If you lie down with Democrats, you’ll wake up with corruption.

UPDATE VI: Because there is other news happening on which I wish to comment, I will wrap this up. Here’s the point: Monica Lewinsky was/is externalizing responsibility for her problems.

This is a classic symptom of the narcissistic personality. A narcissist will ruin his own life and, rather than recognize his own self-harm, will irrationally transfer blame to a scapegoat.

Pick up a psychology textbook and look up “defense mechanisms” or “rationalization.” Nobody likes to admit error. Nobody wants to recognize their own worst tendencies. However, if we cannot be objective about our problems, we can never solve our problems. It is difficult, and perhaps in some ways impossible, to be objective about yourself. But if you find yourself in a bad situation that seems to resemble the last bad situation you were in, and if you keep finding yourself in similar situations, you have to recognize that you are a major cause of your own problems. In other words, it’s not them, it’s you.

Earth to Monica Lewinsky: You have a wounded ego.

This is the key to understanding narcissism. Somehow, narcissists suffered an injury to their ego, so that they are unable to cope with negative feedback. They cannot accept that they are wrong, because they can’t handle the shame. By contrast, a healthy person understands the sense of shame as useful feedback. If you feel ashamed of your action, this is a clue you did the wrong thing. If you are merely feeling tempted to do the wrong thing, your sense of shame at your wrongful urge is also a good thing. The narcissist, however, cannot cope with shame because their ego is damaged. And so, in an attempt to defend itself against criticism, the narcissistic ego begins to engage in rationalization, including blameshifting, minimizing and scapegoating.

Irresponsibility and narcissism go hand in hand. So the narcissist will blame-shift (transferring agency for their wrongful action to others), the narcissist will minimize (diminishing the harmfulness of their wrongdoing) and the narcissist will scapegoat, magnifying the harm (perhaps wholly imaginary) done to them by someone (perhaps entirely innocent) in order to justify their own irrational anger.

The narcissist’s choice of scapegoat is always significant. Consider, for example, Hitler’s scapegoating of Jews. What happened to Hitler was that he applied to the academy of art in Vienna and was rejected. Hitler inarguably had some artistic talent. However, he applied to the Vienna academy at a time in the early 20th century when “Modern Art” was all the rage, and it happened that Jews (including some members of the Vienna academy) were very much involved in the Modern Art trend. Now, there was a pre-existing tradition of anti-Semitism in Germany, and there was also a pre-existing tradition of romantic nationalism in Germany. However, the crucial factor was Hitler’s damaged ego. He had apparently developed at an early age a grandiose concept of himself (a classic narcissistic overcompensation for the damaged ego), and had invested this grandiosity into his artistic ambition. Being thwarted in that ambition because of his rejection by the Vienna academy, he blamed Jews for his failure, and spent many years thereafter developing his paranoid conspiratorial anti-Semitic ideas into an all-encompassing worldview. At the root of the problem was not the Jews, of course.

The root of the problem was Hitler and his damaged ego, his inability to accept his failure. Hitler could not cope with this shame — the sense of unworthiness which his rejection by the Vienna academy caused him — and his grandiose messianic dreams of becoming a World-Historic Leader made him the most infamous case of narcissistic personality disorder in history. Hitler’s entire career from the 1920s onward could be seen as a classic revenge gesture of the thwarted narcissist who, failing to get what he wants, decides to vindicate himself by a grandiose act of destruction. This quest for vindication, you see, is necessary for the narcissist to prove to himself that he was wronged, cheated out of what was rightfully his, so as to exculpate himself for his own failure and thus purge the stigma of shame.

Obviously, Monica Lewinsky is not Hitler. But she is doing the same minimizing/scapegoating thing, trying to vindicate herself, to evade responsibility for her own disgrace, and to make Matt Drudge and the Internet the scapegoat in this mythical drama she’s scripting for herself.

It’s sad to see people do this, and it would be even sadder if, with such an example as Monica Lewinsky in front of us, we did not take the opportunity to learn the lesson of her sad fate.





 

UPDATE VII: OK, just a couple more final points:

  1. I didn’t make clear the difference between blame-shifting and scapegoating. Blame-shifting is a defensive move, to avoid responsibility for your failure by saying others are actually at fault (or, at least, more at fault than you are). Scapegoating is an offensive move, turning someone else into a target of your vindictive rage. The scapegoat becomes, in the mind of the narcissist, a hated symbol of the wrong which (in the narcissist’s unhealthy ego-damaged mind) he has suffered. Think about a guy who cheats on his girlfriend, who then breaks up with him. The guy blame-shifts (saying that the girl he cheated with was actually at fault for his cheating), but if he then becomes obsessed with the ex-girlfriend who broke up with him, she’s the scapegoat. She hasn’t done anything wrong, except in the mind of the narcissist who scapegoats her. However, in many cases, the targeted scapegoat has little or nothing to do with the narcissist’s rage. In the throes of his irrational paranoia (which is often a side-effect of narcissism out of control) the thwarted narcissist may focus his rage on utterly innocent people. Rodger Elliott’s shooting spree in Santa Barbara was such a case. The people he shot had done him no wrong, but in his twisted mind, they were symbolically to blame.
  2. Notice how Monica Lewinsky can’t distinguish between “falling in love” (i.e., a subjective emotion) and the wrongful acts of sucking the president’s cock and committing perjury? Unhealthy minds are impulsive in this way. Their actions are out of control and irrational because the damaged ego produces such strong emotion that the person feels they must act on these emotions. Monica’s fixation/obsession with “The Big He” (as she nicknamed Clinton) is a typically symptomatic trait of the damaged ego. Their emotions run out of control and become fixed on some object — a person, an idea, an ambition, an activity — and the obvious dangers of their irrational behavior are ignored.

Exit question: Why are crazy people usually Democrats?

 

Category: Bill Clinton, Crime, Culture, Feminism, Hillary Clinton, Media Bias, Scandal, Sex Trouble
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