The Other McCain

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

Why Would Mitt Romney’s Campaign Manager Deliberately Insult Me?

Posted on | July 12, 2012 | 25 Comments

After nearly two months of being up to my eyeballs in the Brett Kimberlin story, and becoming concerned about symptoms of journalistic burnout, yesterday I decided it’s about time to hit the road and do some campaign trail reporting. So I called up one of my contacts with the Mitt Romney presidential campaign and talked for a few minutes.

I pointed out a basic problem: I’m apparently not even on the campaign’s e-mail list for press releases — no schedule updates, no statements, nothing — which means I’ve got no way to plan my coverage.

“We’ll take care of it,” my source said.

This evening, I saw an e-mail with the subject line, “Mitt’s VP,” and thought: “Hey, all right! They finally added my e-mail to the press list!” Then I opened the e-mail and discovered to my horror that it was, in fact, a solicitation for contributions:

Meet Mitt’s Choice For VP
Robert Stacy Mccain,
We’re getting ready to share some exciting news.  Sometime between now and the Republican convention, Mitt will be announcing his choice for VP.
Know what’s even more exciting?  Every week until the VP announcement is made, one lucky supporter will win the chance to meet Mitt and his choice for VP.
This is your chance to meet America’s comeback team.  This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity — don’t pass this one up.
So donate $3 today to be automatically entered for the chance to meet Mitt and his choice for VP in person.
Thanks,
Matt Rhoades
Campaign Manager
Romney for President

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Matt Rhoades, who apparently can’t figure out how to send me a press release, nevertheless proves himself capable of finding my e-mail address in order to hit me up for cash?

Y’know, some of my blogger friends have complained that the Romney campaign has been jerking them around in the credentialing process for covering the Republican National Convention. Given that I’ll be attending the convention on regular media credentials as a correspondent for The American Spectator, I didn’t pay much attention to the grumbling.

However, now that this e-mail bungle has acquainted me with the gross ineptitude of Matt Rhoades — or whichever one of his overpaid dimwit assistants put me on the fundraising e-mail list instead of the press e-mail list — I’ve decided to take the grumbling of my blogger friends a lot more seriously. As a matter of fact, I’ve decided to hold Matt Rhoades personally responsible for every blogger who’s getting hassled about their convention credentials request — and for everything else that I don’t like about the Romney campaign, which is a list that isn’t likely to be exhausted before Nov. 7, unless and until we see a significant change in their disrepectful attitude toward the conservative blogosphere, or Matt Rhoades becomes Mitt’s former campaign manager.

UPDATE: Perhaps it behooves me to explain that my concern is that we could be witnessing a repeat of The Steve Schmidt/Nicolle Wallace Syndrome which so disastrously afflicted the McCain/Palin 2008 campaign. Some GOP operatives have a “media strategy” concept that involves sucking up to major media celebrities (e.g., making sure Katie Couric gets the first Sarah Palin interview) while treating everybody else — including conservative bloggers — like inconsequential peons.

During the 2008 campaign, I was treated with more consideration by Hillary Clinton’s campaign than I got from John McCain’s campaign, which seemed intent on achieving the maximum possible alienation from the rank-and-file press corps. It was a textbook lesson in What Not to Do in Political Public Relations, and if the Romney campaign operates that way, it will likely achieve the same disastrous result.

Category: Election 2012, Mitt Romney

Useless Clown Who Hasn’t Passed A Budget In 3+ Years Now Sexual Position, Bleated Something Re: Olympics

Posted on | July 12, 2012 | 18 Comments

by Smitty

The Senate Majority Leader is an important position; too bad that position’s occupant is a complete and utter cretin. 29 April he passed three years without doing his basic job. While one typically avoids sexual humor for reasons of good taste, Harry earns a qualified exception:

1. Harry Reid
A sexual position where you climb on top and then do absolutely nothing. Named for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). Under his lack of leadership, the Senate failed to pass a budget in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012. He also blocked votes on numerous jobs bills passed by the House of Representatives.

Admittedly, like Harry, this joke is anticlimactic on a variety of levels.

Apparently, somebody ran a hand in through the slit in the back of Harry’s body bag and worked the controls:

“I think the Olympic Committee should be ashamed,” Reid told reporters on Capitol Hill. He said they should “burn” the current uniforms, and would rather America’s athletes wear shirts with “USA” hand-painted on them.

Wut? Did the sweat shop neglect to pay the kickback to your owner, Harry? The real shame lies with the Silver State, which, unexpectedly, and in defiance of common sense, returned your useless cadaver to Washington in 2010.

Let’s revisit Dennis Miller’s Two Minutes Hate for Reid, which, five years on, remains the definitive assessment of this worm:

Category: Democrats

Hot Air Hires Mary Katharine Ham Too Late to Prevent My ‘SkirtGate’ Debacle

Posted on | July 12, 2012 | 10 Comments

If I had any sense, I would let this news pass without comment, but if I had any sense I never would have started blogging in the first place, eh?

An appetite for risk, however, is one of those reckless habits that endear me to my friends, even those friends who fear to associate too publicly with me, lest they acquire the same persona non grata status –“Not Good Enough for BlogCon” — that I wear as a badge of honor.

This is one of those intramural metablogging things that no one outside the blogosphere understands or cares about, and it would be easy to just ignore it and blog about the latest Mitt Romney “scandal.” But if I only took the easy assignments, somebody might accuse me of being a gutless slacker, so I occasionally risk enhancing my unpopularity by writing about painful situations like this, because otherwise it might fester unnoticed, unexamined and unexplained.

Ignore stuff like that, and next thing you know, you get a Charles Johnson-type situation, with unpleasant consequences for everyone. Butt-hurt is not fatal, but it is both real and harmful. Read more

Category: Hot Air, Mary Katharine Ham

Brett Kimberlin: ‘I Want to Be Left Alone’

Posted on | July 12, 2012 | 41 Comments

Brett Kimberlin could have been sentenced to 230 years in federal prison

“Brett C. Kimberlin schemed to elude justice with a series of bizarre plots designed to murder, maim and rob his enemies, create havoc . . . and discredit the chief government prosecutor.”
— Joe Gelarden, “Kimberlin case a maze of murder, deceit,” Indianapolis Star, Oct. 18, 1981

“A drug-dealing colleague had memories of conversations with Kimberlin that struck him as odd: ‘We’d see a girl, who was pubescent or prepubescent, and Brett would get this smile and say, “Hey, what do you think? Isn’t she great?” It made me very uncomfortable.’ Another recalled Kimberlin introducing Jessica as ‘my girlfriend,’ and if irony was intended, it was too subtle to register. To a coworker . . . Sandi confided that Kimberlin was ‘grooming Jessica to be his wife.'”
— Mark Singer, Citizen K: The Deeply Weird American Journey of Brett Kimberlin, Page 78

“By accusing others of wrongdoing, Kimberlin seeks to evade responsibility for his own wrongdoing. What I’ve called the ‘accuse the accusers’ strategy . . . looks very much like obstruction of justice.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, June 30, 2012

FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
The post title is a quote from the transcript of Brett Kimberlin’s June 29 “peace order” hearing against John Norton. Kimberlin made this  plea under questioning by Norton’s lawyer:

Lawyer: The only questions I have, the only… you are [a] convicted perjurer, correct? Correct?
Kimberlin: Yes, when —
Lawyer: All right.
Kimberlin: — I was nineteen years old. Thirty and forty years ago.
Lawyer: All right, and you’ve been in prison for bombings, correct?
Kimberlin: Sir, we are talking about the last thirty days.
Lawyer: Correct?
Kimberlin: That’s what this issue is about, you know you can try to attack my credibility. Your client took the picture, your client —
Lawyer: Sir.
Kimberlin: — was at my house.
Lawyer: Sir, answer the question.
Kimberlin: I want to be left alone.
Lawyer: Correct?
Kimberlin: I want to be —
Lawyer: Correct?
Kimberlin: — left alone.
Lawyer: You’ve been in prison for bombings, correct?
Kimberlin: No, I haven’t.
Lawyer: Where you served prison time, correct?
Kimberlin: No.
Lawyer: [louder, more stern.] Correct?
Kimberlin: Yes.
Lawyer: Okay. And it was related to bombings out of state, correct? Multiple bombings.
Kimberlin: No. You know, I’m not going to get into that. You know, if you want to talk about—
Lawyer: No further, no further questions.

Read the rest of Aaron Walker’s post. Keep in mind that the only reason Kimberlin became an object of widespread attention since May 17 is because Kimberlin has pursued a campaign of legal harassment of bloggers, including a false accusation of assault against Walker.

Brett Kimberlin is a liar, and his dishonest attempts to evade responsibility for his own actions by pointing the accusing finger at others is a remarkably consistent trait of his warped personality. Kimberlin has never admitted his guilt for the heinous crimes of which he was convicted, and has tried to portray himself as a victim of injustice — a political prisoner! — while seeking publicity for his rock band:

Epoxy arose out of the hellish depths of Brett’s time in prison for exercising his First Amendment rights to speech and political activity. Without any trial, Brett was hauled off to federal prison after being targeted by right-wingers who wanted to punish him for being a musician, writing a book and speaking out about politics.

In fact, Brett Kimberlin was a drug dealer, not a musician, when he was convicted in 1981 of a series of terrorist bombings in Indiana and — far from being “right-wingers” seeking to “punish” Kimberlin for “speaking out about politics” — the lead investigator in that case, Ben Neihaus, was the son of a former Democratic Party official. Yet Kimberlin’s dishonest claims of victimhood deluded certain gullible writers:

Who says that a great band has to fit into a set formula to be a success? Not Brett Kimberlin, the lead singer, guitarist and songwriter for the critically acclaimed, three-piece band Epoxy. . . .
Kimberlin’s first CD, “Nothing Else,” reflects his varied influences, mixed with a grittier and more powerful type of garage rock and early punk rock. Almost a musical biography, “Nothing Else” draws on Kimberlin’s experiences as a political prisoner as well as his stance on subjects ranging from the death penalty to the stagnant state of public indoctrination to everyday life. . . .
“It is a non sequitur to hear a teenager from a middle class background sing about how bad his life is — but as a political prisoner who was abused, tortured and released into the world again, I have the credibility to sing about all aspects of life from a very unique and pure perspective.”

Kimberlin used his criminal history for purposes of publicity, evidently supposing that no one would fact-check his false claims. Having cited his 17 years in federal prison as the basis of his “credibility” (!) Kimberlin subsequently sought to criminalize adverse publicity by calling it “harassment.” Any competent attorney familiar with libel law would inform Kimberlin that his status as a publicity seeker, who has used his personal notoriety to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for his tax-exempt non-profit groups Justice Through Music Project and Velvet Revolution, makes him a public figure under the Sullivan precedent.

(Of course, Kimberlin’s infamy as the “Speedway Bomber” should be considered sufficient to establish him as a public figure under the Sullivan precedent, but it is unlikely anyone would be writing about Kimberlin’s criminal past if he were working as a Wal-Mart greeter.)

Kimberlin has most unwisely sought to suppress the truth about himself by threatening libel suits against Patrick Frey and Mandy Nagy, and actually pursued a libel suit against Seth “Socrates” Allen. Because truth is an ironclad defense against the charge of libel, these threats from a notorious criminal are ultimately impotent, but Kimberlin — who claims unfamiliarity with the term “lawfare” — apparently seeks to deter adverse publicity by these threats, which can be genuinely intimidating: Who wants the hassle of being named as the defendant in a lawsuit, no matter how frivolous? Read more

Category: The Kimberlin Files

LIVE AT FIVESIX: 07.12.12

Posted on | July 12, 2012 | 5 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Syrian Ambassador To Iraq Defects

Syrian ambassador Nawaf al-Fares

Urges Army to defect to rebels in video; status as member of border tribe could mean major headaches for Assad regime

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. In Treatment For Mood Disorder, Staff Says
Is that what the cool kids are calling it these days?

Biden To Speak At NAACP Convention In Place Of President
Romney receives boos, standing ovation; President pleads “schedule conflicts”



POLITICS
Judge Extends Injunction Blocking Mississippi Abortion Clinic Regulations

Abortion clinic owner Derzis arrives at work

Law requires abortionists to be OB-GYNs with admitting privileges at local hospitals, clinic calls this “unreasonable restriction”

Lawmakers Fuming Over Pentagon Report Restriction Rules

Mass. State Rep Pleads Not Guilty To Assault



SOS Call For Historic Ocean Liner Docked In Philly

House Panel Opposes Senate Crop Insurance Reforms

Berdoo Is Third California City To Seek Bankruptcy

9/11 Memorial Bars Politicians From Remembrance Ceremony



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Oil Up Slightly As Inventories Clash With Pessimism Over Global Economy: NYMEX $85.52, Brent $99.92
Bank Of Japan Bucks Global Easing Trend
US Dollar Index Up As Downplays QE3
Peugeot To Close French Plant, Cut 8000 Jobs
Hackers Post 450K Credential Pilfered From Yahoo
Activision Confirms “Angry Birds” Trilogy
Microsoft Taking Its Battle With Apple Into Brick And Mortar
Amazon’s Testing A Smartphone
NYC Phone Booths Now Free WiFi Hotspots
WaPo: Google’s Nexus 7 Obliterates Every Reason For Buying Kindle Fire
Except for unimportant things like ease of use, apps…



SPORTS
Nyets Walk Away From Howard, Re-Sign Lopez

Brooklyn Nyets' Deron Williams

Brooklyn gives up on trade talks for Magic free agent

Olympic Security Firm G4S Docked After Army Drafted Into Security Role

Paterno Letter Defends Program’s Integrity

Ray Allen Reflects On Decision To Leave Celtics For Heat

Nash Surprised To Find Himself With Lakers

Knicks’ Woodson Says Lin Will Stay And Start

Mets’ Dillon Gee Has Surgery To Remove Blood Clot In Shoulder



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Walter Hill To Remake “What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?”

Walter Hill


No truth to rumors remake will be set in post-apocalyptic Australian desert

How Nicole Kidman Helped Katie Holmes With Her Split From Tom Cruise
Secret friendship provides support during divorce
Related: The Creepy Co$ Controls On Katie’s Life With Tom

Miley Cyrus Gets Teddy Roosevelt Quote Tattoo

Charlie Sheen To Join “American Idol” Judges?


“Firefly” Reunion At Comic Con Will Also Be On TV

NCIS Co-Stars Ink Deals To Return

Channing Tatum To Star In, Produce Evel Knievel Pic For Sony

Lea Michele Gets Leggy In Candie’s Ad Campaign



FOREIGNERS
US, PRC Pledge To Cooperate On Asia Issues
Taliban Commander Admits War Cannot Be Won – What Does That Mean?
UK Opposition Wants To Know Why Troops Called Up For Olympics
Suicide By Tiger: Man Found Dead In Tiger Den At Copenhagen Zoo
US Rolls Back Burma Sanctions, Allows Investment
Philanthropist Couple’s Drug Downfall Ends In Death, Arrest
Internet Censorship Bill Passed In Russia
Party Boss Says Berlusconi Should Run Again



BLOGS & STUFF
Protein Wisdom: Romney Being Booed By Audience At NAACP Convention Is Proof He’s A RAAAAACIST!
Allahpundit: Romney Says He Expected To Be Booed When He Mentioned Obamacare
Rush Limbaugh: Romney Addresses The NAALCP
Lonely Conservative: House Passes Obamacare Repeal, Five Democrats Voting For Repeal
Riehl World View: Jesse Jackson Jr. Found? AZ Rehab For Alcohol, Depression, Source Says
Power Line: Obama’s Support Among Blue Collar Men At Historic Low
Shark Tank: Soros-Funded Super PAC Targets Allen West
Ramesh Ponnuru: The Chief Justice Needs A Better Defense Than This
James Pethokoukis: Six Charts That Show The Welfare State Run Amok
Weasel Zippers: Disclosure Statements Show Pelosi Made Between $1-5 Million On Asian Investments In 2011
The Conservatory: Tits On Parade – The Nascent Life And Early Times Of R. Stacy McCain


SOTD: Not Now John

Category: Live at Five

In Which @SissyWillis And I Work On “The Ballad Of Nancy Pelosi”

Posted on | July 11, 2012 | Comments Off on In Which @SissyWillis And I Work On “The Ballad Of Nancy Pelosi”

by Smitty

Sometimes Twitter just. . .happens, as we see in this stream of mutual consciousness:


Because Nancy is the first thing that comes to mind when I hear:

Blackened pride
Still burns inside
This shell of
Bloody treason

Category: Nancy Pelosi, Sissy Willis

I Can AZ CheezburgerRehab?

Posted on | July 11, 2012 | 10 Comments

by Smitty

Via Gateway Pundit I am required to somehow feel sympathy for Jesse Jackson, Jr. Reading the Gospels, my personal reference point (Jesus) seemed to sort people into two groups:

  • the hoi poloi, upon whom He poured endless compassion, and
  • those who set themselves up in leadership positions, who were frequently on the receiving end of sentences beginning with “Woe unto you. . .”

Or maybe it’s my military experience. The further up the food chain you go, the less tolerance there is for screwing up. You live the example, or you get scuttled. Looking for sympathy? In the dictionary, between s**t and syphilis.

And maybe there is just a little angst in general, against not “the 1%”, (that ambiguous group of rich people at which #OccupyResoluteDesk thinks Americans should salivate when he rings his little class warfare bell) but rather this self-appointed quasi-aristocracy that thinks Americans are too stupid to merit the blessings of liberty which the Founders fought so hard to establish.

Jesse, bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance, and I’ll cheerfully walk back my thoroughly negative opinion of your record. It would be a pleasure to see a public figure overcome the cranial rectalitis epidemic besetting our political class, and not be a waste of atmosphere. Oh, and tell your blowhard father it’s time to retire and quit stinkin’ up the joint with the race baiting.

Update: linked at American Glob.

Category: Democrats, Jesse Jackson

Mitt Romney: Scrappy Underdog?

Posted on | July 11, 2012 | 51 Comments

Today I watched Mitt Romney’s speech to the NAACP convention and was impressed that he did not pander.

Yes, portions of his speech were aimed specifically at his audience — Romney talked a lot about education reform as a means of promoting opportunity — but for the most part, Mitt gave his standard Republican stump speech, saying the same things to the NAACP I’d heard him say to crowds in Iowa, New Hampshire, Florida and other stops along the GOP primary campaign trail.

Mitt slammed ObamaCare and was willing to risk being booed for it, and in general displayed an admirable firmness of conviction.

Will this win Mitt many black votes in November? Probably not, but it will help inspire support for a candidate who seems sincere, whose message is consistent and who is unafraid to speak up unapologetically for core Republican principles even when speaking to a hostile audience.

UPDATE: Drew M. at AOSHQ was peeved at the MSM’s distorted reporting about the speech, whereas my optimistic appraisal was based on having watched the speech itself . . . on MSNBC, of all places.

 


Category: Election 2012, Mitt Romney
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