The Other McCain

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

Congratulations to @AlecMacGillis, Hacktastic Douchebag of the Day

Posted on | August 6, 2013 | 146 Comments

“Alec MacGillis, staff writer of the Washington Post, needs to leave journalism immediately to find a profession in which he is half-competent.”
— Brad DeLong, March 27, 2008

Alec MacGillis is a douchebag who has lately been busy carrying “phony scandals” water for the Obama administration. As was once said of Sidney Blumenthal, if MacGillis were hired by the White House tomorrow, his first assignment would be to collect his back pay.

None of that distinguishes MacGillis from dozens of others of partisan Democrat hacks, who seem to think doing steno work for Media Matters and the DNC is courageous and innovative journalism. What sets Alec MacGillis apart is his lack of self-awareness, his evident belief that nobody is ever going to notice what a pompous fraud he really is.

MacGillis is a former Washington Post reporter who is now employed by The New Republic, a magazine that was sold last year to Facebook gazillionaire Chris Hughes, so you might think MacGillis would have a clue about which way the media winds are blowing. Sadly, no:

Craigslist’s Craig Newmark has not bought the Post, thank goodness — that would be too much to bear. But Amazon’s Jeff Bezos as the white knight provokes only slightly less shock and dolor. We knew the other guys had won a long time ago . . .

(“The other guys” = the ones who make profits.)

. . . but it’s another thing when they can waltz in and, in the charmless guise of “Explore Holdings LLC,” drop $250 million in cash for a legendary paper (that’s a mere one percent of Bezos’s net worth), as flip and easy as plucking an Apollo rocket engine from the ocean or building a $42 million, 10,000-year clock in West Texas.

(But what about Chris Hughes waltzing in, huh?)

There are already hopeful noises coming out of the corner of 15th and L about Bezos as owner, compared with other possibilities. He is promising independence. He is, for now, keeping the leadership team in place (let’s hope in particular that he keeps editor Marty Baron, under whose leadership the paper has been doing some notably hard-edged and influential journalism). His politics are not visibly objectionable. . . .

(Please tell us, Mr. MacGillis, what sort of politics are “visibly objectionable” to a professional journalist like yourself?)

But let’s not kid ourselves here: The company that made him one of the richest men in the world has had a less than benign impact on our nation. It has devastated the publishing industry, from the big presses to the small booksellers. It has exacerbated the growth of the low-wage economy, to the point where the president feels the need to celebrate an increase in warehouse jobs that will pay barely more than minimum wage. . . .

(Hey, f–k you, Alec. What I consider “less than benign” is not that Amazon warehouse workers are paid so little, but rather that you are paid so much, you worthless dishonest hack.)

More generally, Amazon has embodied, more than any other of the giants that rule our new landscape, the faster-cheaper-further mindset that scratches away daily at our communal fabric: Why bother running down to the store around the block if you can buy it with a click? No risk of running into someone on the way and actually having to talk to them, and hey, can you beat that price? No thought given to the externalities that make that price possible –the workers being violently shocked every time they pull a book off the warehouse shelf, or losing a chunk of their lunch break to go through the security checkpoint set up by their oh-so-trusting employer. They’re Somewhere Else, working for a company that is Out There, in the cloud. . . .

(Shop now for big savings at Amazon!)

I avoid buying from Amazon as best I can, but I’ll keep subscribing to my old paper as long as they keep printing it . . .

And so much for your influence, you hacktastic douchebag. Nobody really likes you, and this is not their fault, Alec MacGillis.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

 

Category: Amazon, Journalism

We’re All Working for Jeff Bezos Now

Posted on | August 6, 2013 | 32 Comments

Jeff Bezos: Meet the new boss.

Every blogger loves Jeff Bezos, because collecting commissions on sales through Amazon Associates ads — hurry now and save! free shipping on purchases over $25! — is one of the best revenue opportunities for anyone with a Web site. Instapundit regularly advertises the latest Amazon deals and, while my own efforts in that direction are more sporadic, it’s enough Amazon sends me a check every month.

So yesterday the big news was that Bezos paid $250 million to buy the Washington Post, and on the same day my monthly Amazon check arrived and it occurred to me that this was a perfect example of how bloggers were ahead of the Old Media curve. When I jumped out of the newspaper business and into the blogosphere in 2008, the basic idea was to eliminate the middleman — instead of being a mere employee of a publisher, instead I’d be vending my work directly to the consumer as a journalistic entrepreneur.

Employees of the Washington Post are now my colleagues, and the colleagues of every other blogger who collects Amazon revenue. Thus the democratizing effects of New Media further erode the distance between the categories of “journalist” and “dude with a Web site.” Now you have a lot of journalists trying to explain it:

What is Jeff Bezos thinking?
— John Harris, Politico

Can Bezos Save the Washington Post
From Print’s Dismal Economics?
— Megan McArdle, Bloomberg

Here’s Why I Think Jeff Bezos
Bought The Washington Post
— Henry Blodget, Business Insider

 

Big hint: The explanations offered by journalists are no longer privileged over the explanations offered by Dude With a Web Site.

The journalistic means of production (to borrow from Marxist rhetoric) are now within reach of anyone with a laptop and an Internet connection, and the institutional authority wielded by professional journalists is therefore steadily eroded, for good or ill.

Having spent the first 22 years of my career in the print newspaper industry, I have an abiding affection for the printed word, and a respect for the vital role that a good newspaper can play in the life of a community. But the clueless dinosaurs who own America’s newspapers, who have mismanaged those institutions and sabotaged both their credibility and their profitability . . .

Well, f–k ’em all, and also f–k their arrogant lazy employees who expect to be paid full-time salaries and benefits for punching the clock 9-to-5 and producing maybe 2,000 words a week.

Online competition for readers requires professional journalists to show some hustle out there, as our football coaches used to say. You’ve got to give it 110% every day or risk being beaten out by a more determined competitor. The advantages of employment by a prestigious institution like the Washington Post cannot save the career of any reporter who lets himself get scooped by Bretbart.com or BuzzFeed or even, as in one notable recent example, TheDirty.com.

A winnowing process has been under way for more than a decade. Headlines about wave after wave of layoffs at newspapers struck pain in my heart, as it must for everyone who learned their craft in the Old School, but there’s something I noticed: Almost none of these laid-off newspaper staffers ever show up as bloggers or as online freelancers.

Once they lost their jobs — the regular paycheck and the institutional authority of the organizations that formerly employed them — their commitment to journalism seems to have evaporated. They didn’t really have the hunger, the driving desire necessary to keep hustling every day once they lost that career prestige, and so the idea of striking out on their own never seems to have crossed their minds.

F–k ’em. F–k ’em all.

Shop now for big savings at Amazon! 

By God, I ain’t afraid to hustle for a dollar, and I ain’t ashamed, either.

 

Category: Amazon, Journalism

America Loves You, Sama Elmasry!

Posted on | August 6, 2013 | 28 Comments

Finally an Egyptian belly-dancer tells the truth about Obama:

Hey Obama, Hey Obama
Hey Obama, support the terrorism
Traitor like the Brotherhood members

Obama say it’s a coup
That’s not your business dirty man
Obama say it’s a coup
That’s not your father, mother business
And you Patterson, stop messing
Old bitch woman

The “bitch woman” is U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson and, hey, if Obama appointed her, she’s probably pretty bad. The lyrics to Sama Elmarsy’s song also include this:

You want us to release Morsi
Hey Obama, you are stupid, bad man
You want us to release Morsi
Stop this or I will stab you
Why then you told Mubarak
To leave immediately?

You threaten us with the U.S. aid
F–k it and f–k you
You are a jerk

Let’s be honest: Rand Paul couldn’t have said it better. If Karl Rove’s super-PAC had a message this clear, Romney would be president!

 

Category: Barack Obama, Egypt

No Justice on Campus at Vassar?

Posted on | August 6, 2013 | 49 Comments

K.C. Johnson, who did some of the best writing about the infamous Duke University lacrosse team rape hoax, has uncovered a genuinely disturbing story: “The Dubious Rape Trial at Vassar.”

You should go read the whole thing, but I’ll summarize briefly: Two college students go to a party and get drunk, then the girl goes back to the guy’s dorm room and they start having sex, but are interrupted by the guy’s roommate. Girl goes home, remains friendly to guy but then — BOOM! — a year later accuses him of rape.

So far as I can see from K.C. Johnson’s article, there is zero evidence that would tend toward convicting this guy of rape, and plenty of evidence that would tend to exculpate him. However, it’s obviously impossible to judge a case based on what you read on the Internet.

What stands out is that this case was handled not as a crime, but as a campus disciplinary procedure, so that the accused guy had none of the legal protections that any criminal suspect would have in a court of law. The upshot is, this guy was expelled from college earlier this year on the basis of a judgment rendered by a panel of three faculty members, with little chance to offer a defense.

If this guy is, in fact, a predatory sex offender, he should be charged and tried for the alleged crime. Merely to kick him out of school — to ruin his name on the basis of a disciplinary hearing — is both unjust to him, and inadequate as a public safety measure.

And let me be perfectly blunt here: Belated remorse over an unsatisfactory drunken hook-up doesn’t make you a victim.

Any drunken hook-up is a bad idea, but feeling embarrassed or regretful about it afterwards does not make your partner a rapist.

Also, there is this: The accused guy, Peter Wu, is Chinese-American, and the girl who accused him, Mary Claire Walker, is white.

Does anyone doubt that if Wu were a black guy named Dontay Robinson, Al Sharpton would be leading rallies at Vassar on his behalf?

“No justice! No peace!”

Maybe race had nothing to do with it. On the other hand . . .

Would a white chick at Vassar who hooked up with a Chinese guy be subjected to derogatory remarks by her classmates? Might there be some kind of social stigma involved? I am not familiar enough with contemporary campus culture to know. Maybe all this blah blah blah about “diversity” is as sincere as it is unnecessary. Maybe kids nowadays are completely colorblind and it’s ridiculous to suspect that anything remotely akin to racism was a factor in this case.

Leaving that aside, however, the process that led to Peter Wu’s expulsion from Vassar doesn’t look much like justice and, while I don’t want to go all Reverend Al here, this process needs to be critically examined and Wu ought to have a chance to clear his name.

Finally, let me advise young people: Don’t get so drunk that you have that “what-or-who-did-I-do-last-night?” morning-after horror.

You might wake up with a Democrat, or a terrible disease.

But I repeat myself . . .

 

Category: Crime, Education, Sex

LIVE AT FIVE: 08.06.13

Posted on | August 6, 2013 | 8 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Bezos Buys The Washington Post

Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos

Unfortunately, Bezos tells paper’s staff, “The values of the Post do not need changing.”

High-Level Intercepts Prompted Embassy Closings
US embassies in many Moslem countries remain closed through end of week

How Mugabe Won Again In Zimbabwe
What need for corruption when your party effectively is the government?



POLITICS
RNC To Networks: Debates Or Clinton Programs, Pick One

Hillary: Running in 2016?

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus threatens boycott of CNN, NBC over Clinton biopic, documentary


Christie’s To Appraise Detroit Museum Collection Amid Bankruptcy

Board Sets Hearing To Probe BART Labor Dispute

Facebook CEO Zuckerberg Speaks Out On Immigration Reform


Fort Hood Shooter’s Court-martial Finally Begins

Vigil At Wisconsin Sikh Temple Marks Anniversary Of Attack

Anthony Weiner Tries To Float New Proposals Despite Angry Hecklers

Can Any Of These Jersey Democrats Stop The Booker Juggernaut?

Obama To Urge Closing Of Fannie And Freddie

Program To Give Service-Disabled Vets Preference Rife With Fraud

GOP Blasts Democrat Hypocrisy On Filner, Weiner Scandals

Issa Subpoenas Treasury Documents On IRS, Accuses Agency Of Obstruction



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Crude Slips As Libya Comes Back Online: NYMEX $106.26, Brent $108.54
Sony Rejects Loeb Proposal To Spin Off Entertainment Unit
JetBlue Targets Blue Chip Passengers With Luxury Seats, Pseudo-suites
Sales Tax Vital And Will Hurt Japan, Says IMF
Google’s Sergei Brin Named As Man Behind Test-Tube Hamburger
Australia’s Decade-Long Mining Boom Turns To Bust
Dow, S&P Pull Back From Record Highs, NASDAQ At 13-Year High
Rupee Falls To Record Low Against Dollar
Apple Offers Discount To Replace Third-Party Chargers
Researchers Say Tor-Targeted Malware Phoned Home To NSA
NFL Relaunches Mobile App
Microsoft Slashes Surface Pro Prices By $100
US Carriers Put Damper On Premium Texting Scams



SPORTS
Tony Stewart Breaks Leg In Sprint Car Crash

Three-time champ conscious, talking to responders after four-car wreck

Broke right leg in crash at Southern Iowa Speedway

Astros Shut Out Red Sox 2-0

Rangers Support Cruz After MLB Imposes 50-Game Ban

Off-Field Issues For Manziel Cloud Aggies’ Pre-Season Camp

Phoenix Coyotes Have Owners, But Do They Have Fans?

Sharp: Peralta Should be History In Detroit

Angels Release Injured Ryan Madson

Perez’ Poor Ninth Costs Tribe A Win Against Tigers

Baseball World Has Strong Reactions To PED Suspensions

Royals Roll On With 13-0 Rout Of Twins

Nationals Fall 3-2 To Braves As Division Deficit Grows



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Zooey’s Moment

Cover girl

The Marie Claire interview

Bieber’s Crew Under Investigation In Nightclub Beatdown

Chris Brown Sneaks Into Jail

Lindsay Lohan Apartment-Hunting In NYC – Wants Sober Coach To Move Right In

Lady Gaga’s Damaging Secrets Sealed By Judge

Jennifer Lopez Returning To “American Idol” For $15 Million Payday


Ryan Seacrest Announced As Host Of NBC’s “Million Second Quiz”

Starz’ “Magic City” To End Run After Two Seasons

Tom Hiddleston Confirms No Loki In “Avengers 2”

Miley Cyrus: “People Think I’m Just This Ratchet White Girl”

“Jeopardy!” Ruling Under Fire

Laura Bell Bundy Joins “Anger Management” As New Regular



FOREIGNERS
State Department Orders Evacuation Of Embassy In Yemen
Hiroshima Marks 68th Anniversary Of Atomic Bombing
India Claims Five Soldiers Killed By Pakistan
Turkish Court Begins Sentencing In “Ergenekon” Conspiracy Trial
McCain, Graham Visit Cairo To Defuse Egyptian Crisis
Syrian Rebels Capture Key Aleppo Air Base
Berlusconi Verdict Threatens Italy’s Government
Schumer: Move G-20 Summit To Punish “Schoolyard Bully” Putin
Aussie PM Rudd Criticizes Murdoch’s Intervention In Election
King Of Morocco To Investigate Pardon of Spanish Pedophile
Philippines Adds Second Warship From US Coast Guard



BLOGS & STUFF
Leather Penguin: If A “Shield Law” Is Needed, We’re Already Hosed
Doug Powers: Bloomberg News Writer Rationally Breaks Down Debt Ceiling Debate In House
Twitchy: Pro-abortion Texas State Senator Wendy Davis Pleads Ignorance Of Gosnell Case
John McCormack: Wendy Davis – “I Don’t Know What Happened In The Gosnell Case”
Ed Driscoll: All Hail The Amazon Post!
Mark Krikorian: Fish Don’t Know They’re Wet
Mark Steyn: The Last Post
American Power: RNC Threatens Boycott Of Network Debates Over Hillary Clinton Documentaries
Kevin Williamson: The Front Man
Washington Free Beacon: IRS, FEC May Have Colluded In Targeting Conservative Organizations
NewsBusters: Tina Brown Blasts Howard Kurtz – “Didn’t I Fire You For Serial Inaccuracy?”
Jawa Report: CNN Reporters Worried They’ll Lose WH Access If They Report On “Phony” Benghazi Scandal
Ramesh Ponnuru: Republicans Don’t Need To Sabotage Obamacare
Jammie Wearing Fools: Reports Claim Boston Bomber Read “Right Wing” Literature


Category: Live at Five

Will Sydney Leathers Porn Video Be Entitled, ‘Not Enough Latex on Earth’?

Posted on | August 5, 2013 | 56 Comments

A Democrat finally created a job, as Donald Douglas points out, which explains why tattoo-covered skanks are a Democrat key constituency.

If you want to see more of Sydney Leathers, let me warn you that this link is Not Safe For Work, by which I mean, you might get fired for projectile vomiting in your office cubicle. One look at that skeezy tramp, and whatever capacity for arousal you might have will be instantly neutralized by an overwhelming fear of infection. Viral, bacterial, fungal — probably some spiders and cockroaches in there, too.

Did somebody say “nasty”?

She could be the Typhoid Mary of chlamydia — the poster girl for National Sexually Transmitted Disease Awareness Week.

 

Category: Anthony Weiner, Scandal, Sex

Meltdown Monday: Does Bill Schmalfeldt Need a Brief Vacation at Spring Grove?

Posted on | August 5, 2013 | 112 Comments

Bill Schmalfeldt ranting, 2011. (Image via Thomas Anderson at Vimeo)

“The point is, the sound advice I gave Barrett Brown could apply equally to you, Mr. Schmalfeldt: ‘Spare me your lawsuit threats … you are traveling a road to destruction.’ …
“As for your own understanding (of law or anything else), sir, I am quite certain it is impaired by the fact that YOU’RE CRAZY.
“Crackers. Psycho. Loopy. Off your rocker.
“Nuttier than a Snickers bar.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, July 26

“Spring Grove Hospital Center is the oldest hospital for the mentally ill in Maryland, and the third oldest in the United States. … It was renamed the Maryland Hospital for the Insane in 1838, and moved to its present site at Catonsville in 1872. …
“With 295 inpatient beds and 62 assisted-living beds, the Center provides acute, subacute and long-term psychiatric care to adult and geriatric patients …”
— Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

It would be wrong to say that Bill Schmalfeldt “went crazy” today, because clearly he arrived at that destination long ago. Having been ordered by Carroll County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Stansfield June 14 to cease all contact with John Hoge, Schmalfeldt’s insane obsession makes it impossible for him to comply. So when for the third time Schmalfeldt “accidentally” addressed Hoge in a Twitter message (the difference between speaking about someone and speaking to someone on Twitter) what does Schmalfeldt do? He sends a crazy e-mail to the Carroll County State’s Attorney’s office:

“People contacting me now are surreptitiously adding @wjjhoge to their tweets hoping to catch me in this mistake, and they have succeeded again. . . .
“Hoge’s friends have been trying to trap me this way. . . .
“I know that I have blundered into the trap that was set for me . . .”

Exactly whom does Schmalfeldt mean to accuse of “trying to trap me”?

What is actually happening — you should read this post by Hoge — is that Bill Schmalfeldt is engaged in cyberstalking: Obsessively watching Hoge and Hoge’s friends to see what they’re talking about, and them jumping into their timelines to shout his crazy accusatory gibberish at them.

If anyone wants me to provide a court affidavit to explain how Schmalfeldt’s particular form of harassment works (in terms of tactics, strategy and purpose), I’ll be glad to do so, but I’m not going to describe it here, because I don’t endorse it, and I don’t want to accidentally offer a “How To Be a Troll” guide for copycats.

Schmalfeldt’s problem is that he has become so obsessive and/or compulsive about his cyberstalking that he lacks the rationality necessary to avoid violating the court order.

Bill can’t help himself. So when he starts ranting about “POOP FLAKES” and scrotums (trust me, you don’t want to see those Tweets), this is not merely evidence, it’s symptomatic. His Twitter timeline got so crazy, even his left-wing buddies were telling Schmalfeldt he was losing his mind and finally Hoge felt it necessary to ask police to do a welfare check to make sure Schmalfeldt had not become a danger to himself or others.

Having expended 5,000 words to explain to Bill Schmalfeldt that he’s crazy, I don’t know what more can be done. When the nice young men in white coats show up to cart him away for a psychiatric evaluation, we can expect that Schmalfeldt will blame other people for his problems.

Because that’s what crazy people always do.

UPDATE: This was predictable:

Switching your Twitter account to “protected” status is, in this kind of situation, very much like waving a white flag. Bill Schmalfeldt was the aggressor, and it’s impossible to accomplish much in terms of Twitter aggression once you switch to “protected” status.

 



 

 


Category: Bill Schmalfeldt

Primary Politics: Can the Grassroots Defeat the GOP Establishment in 2014?

Posted on | August 5, 2013 | 142 Comments

Interesting developments: Matt Bevin is challenging Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in the Kentucky GOP primary.

Checking his biography, I’m glad to see that Bevin is a graduate of Washington & Lee University, a U.S. Army veteran, and a small business owner — exactly the kind of outsider “not a politician” profile anyone would want in a Tea Party candidate. If grassroots conservatives in Kentucky rally behind Bevin, I think we can start chilling the champagne for Mitch McConnell’s retirement party. However, defeating the party’s Senate leader in a primary would be completely unprecedented.

If this is Star Wars, Luke Skywalker and the rebel alliance can’t expect Darth Vader to surrender the Empire without a fight. Or can we?

FLASHBACK MAY 2009:

We were standing outside the Continental Lounge in Rosslyn, Va., while the young Republican operative explained it to me.
“All they care about is getting their chairmanships back, and they don’t care how they get there,” said the operative. “They don’t want to spend any money, so they were looking for a self-funder.”
“They” are Republican senators, and what my friend was explaining was the otherwise inexplicable decision of the National Republican Senatorial Committee to endorse Charlie Crist in the Florida Senate race — 15 months before the primary!

Ah, those heady days of 2009, when the Tea Party uprising was a new and untested force in American political life, when Marco Rubio was 35 points behind Charlie Crist in the polls and supporters of that unknown underdog Marco Rubio were told he had no chance!

Rubio’s role in the “Gang of Eight” has rather tarnished his reputation among conservatives, but thank God he beat Charlie Crist, eh?

Nothing could be more corrupt than the shabby deal whereby John Cornyn, the NRSC and Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer — I pause to spit on the ground — lined up behind Crist in May 2009.

The “Not One Red Cent” rebellion was the first shot of a guerrilla struggle, with the Tea Party grassroots as the ragtag insurgents in a long war for control of the Republican Party that has not ended yet, and won’t end — cannot end — until the rebels have utterly vanquished the Beltway GOP Establishment and their go-along-to-get-along philosophy of bipartisan compromise. There is nothing that the present-day Democrat Party believes in that any patriotic American can endorse, and all talk of “bipartisanship” is anathema.

You cannot defeat Democrats by promising to cooperate with Democrats, and the GOP’s corrupt compromisers must be replaced by a new generation of conservatives who understand a very old idea: Give voters a choice, not an echo, as Phyllis Schalfly said in 1964.

To hell with anyone who says the politics of principle is unrealistic, who argues that it is a “smart” and pragmatic thing for Republicans to position themselves as the “Me, Too” party, promising voters a more efficient Welfare State — Democrat Lite, as it were.

The Democrat are wrong, their liberal policy agenda is bad, and Republicans need not apologize for being the party of Right and Good.

Mid-term elections are always more about the grassroots than are the pursuit of independent “swing” voters that is typical of those gaudy national spectacles of a presidential campaign. Turnout is always lower in the mid-terms. So-called low-information voters — who are usually counted in opinion polls as undecided, “don’t know/don’t care” — can be spurred to vote in a presidential election by emotional appeals to do their patriotic duty as citizens. But it is very difficult to explain to these disaffected and ill-informed people why electing congressmen and senators and state legislators is ultimately important to the future of the country. And it is only in closely contested “swing” states that the parties make any real effort to mobilize voters even in a presidential campaign.

Understanding this factor is crucial to evaluating the stakes in 2014. In a deeply “red” state like Kentucky in a mid-term election, there is comparatively little chance that a bruising primary fight for the GOP Senate nomination will damage Republican prospects in November 2014. If Matt Bevin can somehow mobilize the kind of grassroots support necessary to defeat Mitch McConnell in the primary, Bevin will stomp Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes in the general election the way Godzilla stomped Tokyo.

Conservatives therefore need not listen to any scaredy-cat talk that support for Matt Bevin will endanger Republican hopes for capturing control of the Senate in 2014. The GOP Establishment will encourage such fears, and the liberal media will cheerfully publicize such talk, in exactly the same way the same people claimed that the Tea Party uprising of 2009-2010 was bad for Republicans. Yet the result in November 2010 was a historic landslide victory for Republicans, and if John Boehner doesn’t understand that he owes his control of the House Speaker’s gavel to the conservative grassroots, how better to remind Boehner of this fact than to send his Senate counterpart Mitch McConnell into early retirement?

Simple message for you, Mister Speaker: You could be next.

All of these thoughts were inspired by Erick Erickson’s commentary on his encounter with an NRSC representative at this past weekend’s Red State Gathering  in New Orleans.

What Erick relates is unfortunate on all sides. The NRSC operative was, we may suppose, just following orders, and Erick and I have had more than a few disputes in the past couple of years. But my own position in the fundamental question that Erick addresses hasn’t changed since 2009, when he and I were in 100% agreement: The NRSC should stay the hell out of contested Republican primaries, period.

Set aside any question of ideology, friendship or personal interest, and what it comes down to is this: Either the Republican Party represents an active and organic popular movement — a principled and patriotic opposition to the corrupt agenda of the Democrats — or else the GOP is simply a vehicle of careerist political ambition.

A top-down party controlled by insiders motivated by their narrow private interests cannot expect the kind of committed loyalty that a genuinely principled grassroots movement inspires. For the NRSC to go meddling in a primary — even on behalf of the Senate Minority Leader — is anathema to the kind of grassroots party the GOP must be, if it is ever to defeat the Democrats and become a governing majority again.

If Mitch McConnell wants to be re-nominated as the Republican candidate for Senate in Kentucky, let him spend his own campaign funds and mobilize his own resources for that purpose, and not dishonestly use national party resources against Matt Bevin.

And frankly, I think the spectacle of a contested primary can and should be averted altogether: Mitch McConnell should retire.

No hard feelings, Senator. Cash in your chips and walk away from the table, take up a gig at a think tank or lobby shop, collect your pension and appear on TV as an “elder statesman.” I’m sure Fox News would pay you a nice six-figure salary as a commentator.

There is a quite recent precedent, after all.

Last November, when the Retire #Taxby Chambliss movement began, nobody imagined it might actually happen, but it did, didn’t it?

Is this crazy? Of course it is. But everybody told us we were crazy to imagine that Marco Rubio could defeat Charlie Crist.

Until this morning, I’d never even heard the name Matt Bevin. All I know about him is what I’ve quickly skimmed from his Web site biography, and frankly I don’t give a damn about whatever his political “negatives” might be. This isn’t really about Matt Bevin. It’s not about Mitch McConnell. It’s not about Erick Erickson. This is about America’s future, and we are not a nation built by timid and fearful souls.

Here’s the way I see it: We’re playing Texas Hold ‘Em. It’s been one of those long nights — win a little, lose a little, up and down, never a chance to rake a big pot. The chips are dwindling. No guts, no glory, so if we get any kind of a decent hand, we might as well go all-in.

Folks, as crazy as this may seem, I think that if we will all rally behind Matt Bevin — and rally now — Mitch McConnell will announce by Christmas that he won’t seek re-election to the Senate.

No contested primary, no wasted resources, no hard feelings, just a changing of the guard, and a passing of the torch.

This development will shock the daylights out of the GOP Beltway Establishment, which has “tamed” Marco Rubio and thought they had domesticated the Tea Party movement.

Do we want bipartisan compromise?

Do we want Democrat Lite? Go along to get along?

Not just “no” — hell, no. All in!

 

MATT BEVIN for U.S. SENATE

 


Category: Conservatism 101, Election, Kentucky, Mitch McConnell, Senate, Tea Party
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