The Other McCain

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

STATE OF THE UNION RESPONSE VIDEO: Cain Rocks National Press Club

Posted on | January 25, 2012 | 6 Comments

by Smitty

I thought that BHO’s third SOTU installment worked best as humorless stand-up. In between victory laps for ventilating Osama, Obama basically said nothing, with a few breaks to blame Buuuuush.

The GOP response in an Indiana war memorial was better, but not as much as it should have been. Mitch Daniels was basically Mitt Romney, without so much Tom Brokaw. I don’t want to hear about the ‘safety net’. Social Security and Medicare are cancer. Thus, we can be moderate in how we treat the patient, and not try to kill the society as we purge the cancer. But purge it We. Absolutely. Must. The safety net is neither affordable nor a federal task, and the GOP would sound orders of magnitude less idiotic if it would strive for liberty instead of accommodation with the cancer.

Which brings us to the Hermanator. He was everything Barack Obama was not: concise, coherent, factual, and recognizably American in his thinking. What shone through his remarks was a lack of bitterness at his despicable treatment from the media, and a sincere devotion to the country and improving the situation. Truly a blessing of an American.

Introduction:

Part I:

Part II:

Question and Answer:

Also present for the event, the Absolutely Tab-ulous One, Ms. Hale:

P R E V I O U S L Y . . .

On a completely unrelated note, thanks to Don Surber for justifying my non-grasp of typing.

Category: Herman Cain

LIVE AT FIVE – 01.25.12

Posted on | January 25, 2012 | 8 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Giffords Honored At State Of The Union

A Presidential hug for the departing Congresswoman

Chocolates and hugs as Giffords takes her seat for the last time

Mitch Daniels Rips Obama As Inept, Foolish
Or words to that effect, as he delivers GOP response to State of the Union


NYT: How Dare Mitt Romney Take Advantage Of The Tax Code
More whining about tax laws favoring the wealthy.



POLITICS
Gingrich Slams NBC For Silencing Debate Audience

Newt speaks to a huge crowd in Sarasota

“Dishonest as usual”

Did Democrat Billionaire Falcone Try And Buy Approval Of Lightsquared Deal?

SSG Wuterich Escapes Prison For Haditha Killings

What Romney’s Tax Forms Can Teach Us (And Mormons) About Tithing

House Passes Bill To Allow Religious Symbols On War Memorials

New Consumer Bureau Chief Grilled By Hostile Republicans

Palin Criticizes Christie For “Playing Into The Leftist Media’s Hands”



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Roche Bids $5.7 Billion For Illumina
Mixed Earnings, Greece Concerns End Wall Street’s Five-Day Run
Obama To Propose Mortgage-Refinance Plan
Quizno’s Reaches Debt Deal To Avoid Bankruptcy, Gets New Majority Owner
Yen Falls As Japan Posts First Trade Deficit Since 1980
Google Widens Tracks, Making Anonymity Harder
Megaupload Founder Denied Bail; 5th Arrest Mae In Copyright Infringement Case
Apple Sells More iPads Than HP Sold PCs
No Escape From Facebook’s Timeline Now
Printed Sensors Could Help Save You From Spoiled Food



SPORTS
A Prince For The Tigers

Tigers fans, your new DH: Prince Fielder

Detroit signs Fielder for nine years, $214 million

Raiders Hire Dennis Allen As Head Coach

#1 Kentucky Cruises Past Georgia, 57-44

Knicks End Six-Game Skid

Perreault’s Hat Trick Spurs Caps To Win Over Bruins

Posada Retires As A Yankee After 17 Years, 4 Rings

Heat Tops Cavaliers Behind Bosh’s 35 Points

Clarke & Ponting Flay India With Double Double; Aussies 569 For 7 At Teatime



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Demi Moore Seeking Treatment For Exhaustion

Demi Moore

Stress? Or substance abuse? Or both?

Tiger Woods Getting Hooked On A Different Ball Game?

Cynthia Nixon “Chooses” To Be Gay

Vanessa Paradis Breaks Silence On Johnny Depp

Halle Berry’s Ex Charged With Child Endangerment

“Project Runway”‘s Tim Gunn: “I Haven’t Had Sex In 29 Years”

Brandi Glanville Claims Gerard Butler Hookup

“Desperate Housewives” Scoop: Major Character Dies

Miranda Kerr: Australia’s New Wonder Woman

“Lost In Space” Robot Actor Robert Tufeld Dies, 85



FOREIGNERS
Thousands Gather In Cairo On Anniversary Of Revolt
Gulf States Pull Monitors From Syria, Urge UN Action
Turkey’s Erdogan Slams France On Genocide Law
Iraq Violence Kills At Least 19
Spanish Judge Garzon On Trial For Violating Amnesty Law
No Quick Pullout For French In Afghanistan
Pope Benedict’s Message For The 46th World Day Of Social Communications



BLOGS & STUFF
The Anchoress: Pro-Lifers And The Truth-Phobic Press
Byron York: What Really Happened In The Gingrich Ethics Case?
Jim Geraghty: Great, Now Newt AND Mitt Have High Unfavorable Numbers
Riehl World View: Congrats, Capitalists – Reagan Democrats Abandon Romney
NRO Corner: Gingrich Says NBC Wrong To Prohibit Audience Applause At Debates
Power Line: On Black Holes And Other Democratic Party Voids
Gateway Pundit: Congressional Republicans Wear “1000 Days” Buttons To State Of The Union
AmSpecBlog: Romney Adviser Norm Coleman Goes OFf-Message On ObamaCare
Hit & Run: Bruins Goalie Skips White House Visit For Vaguely Libertarian-Sounding Reasons
LifeNews: Reuters Pushes Biased Study Claiming Abortion Safer Than Birth


SOTD: Sweet Emotion

Category: Live at Five

Herman Cain At The National Press Club

Posted on | January 24, 2012 | 11 Comments

by Smitty

I’m out the door to head to the National Press Club. After senior #OccupyDC member #OccupyResoluteDesk is done offering the State of the Loaded Diaper Address, we’ll get to hear Herman Cain offer something that offers a little more America, a little less Orwellian pissing. No, the fluid on your back isn’t rain.

Hopefully a pot of coffee and I can turn the video around chop-chop tonight, and I can get some sleep before work tomorrow.

God bless America and all those committed to her recovery.

Category: Barack Obama

The False Dilemma Fallacy: Mitt or Newt? The Devil or the Deep Blue Sea?

Posted on | January 24, 2012 | 49 Comments

Jeff Foxworthy says that, as a Southerner, the minute you open your mouth, people deduct 15 points from your IQ score.

It’s a joke that’s funny because it’s so true. People automatically associate Southern accents with stereotypical backwoods hicks, and so I’ve spent my whole life being underestimated by Yankee smart-asses who think they know everything.

Did you know that, in college, I aced a class called Principles of Logic? It was taught by a psychology professor, an elective to fulfill a graduation requirement. I took it during my second sophomore year — when I’d returned to Jax State after taking a year off after nearly partying my way out of school in 1979 — and for some reason Principles of Logic was just as easy as pie for me. Some of my fellow students struggled, but I cruised straight through to an A.

One of the things the class required was to memorize all the various fallacies, the invalid forms of argument which — if unrecognized as such — can easily persuade you to accept an unproven conclusion.

Like many other classic fallacies, the false dilemma is commonplace in political argument, and we’ve seen a lot of it in this year’s GOP primary campaign. Advocates of one particular candidate insist that theirs is the only Republican who can beat Obama, and ergo — that’s a fancy Latin word us rednecks aren’t supposed to know, although I studied Latin in high school — any Republican who doesn’t support their candidate is actually working to re-elect Obama.

After so many months of making these bullshit arguments, some people actually start to believe their own bogus rhetoric, which is the only possible explanation for this:

ANDREA MITCHELL: “I talked to a top Romney adviser tonight who said, ‘Look, if Mitt Romney can not win here in Florida then we’re going to have to try to reinvent the smoke-filled room which has been democratized by all these primaries. And we’re going to have try to come with someone as an alternative to Newt Gingrich who could be Jeb Bush, Mitch Daniels, someone.’ Because there is such a desperation by the so-called party elites, but that’s exactly what Gingrich is playing against.”

Dear “Top Romney Adviser”: Is it really an either-or choice between Mitt and Newt? Could it be that there’s someone out there you’ve forgotten about? Which is to say, BUY YOURSELF A SWEATER VEST — and stop pretending like you damned Yankee smart-asses have a monopoly on intelligence. You may fool Andrea Mitchell with that bogus rhetoric, but you sure as hell ain’t fooling me.

Category: Election 2012, Intellectuals

‘Let-Me-Tell-You-What-to-Think’ and Other Conventional Wisdom Tricks

Posted on | January 24, 2012 | 21 Comments

Many months ago, Ace of Spades erupted in a fury over an “objective” mainstream media news story: Stop telling me what to think!

I’d love to link that memorable post, but archive searches on Ace’s site are difficult. The point he made, however, is that some journalists have an obnoxious tendency to assume readers are too stupid to spot their attempts at the “Jedi mind trick” of constructing a narrative framework within which carefully selected facts are construed in such a way that only one (narrowly biased) conclusion is possible.

You usually only notice that trick when (a) you’re sufficiently familiar with the facts to know that the selection and emphasis are not exactly neutral, and (b) you don’t share the writer’s narrow bias.

While this Let-Me-Tell-You-What-to-Think stuff is particularly annoying when it occurs as reporting, the same kind of sneaky highhandedness can also be observed in some opinion writing.

Being an expert at Neutral Objective Journalism, as well as the Future U.S. Ambassador to Vanuatu, I have grown weary of the way some of my fellow conservatives — as well as certain RINO squishes who may or may not be named “Jazz Shaw“– have portrayed the 2012 Republican primary campaign. According to some people, the only plausible presidential candidates are Name Brand Frontrunners, preferably governors or former governors like Tim Pawlenty, Rick Perry or Mitt Romney, although other candidates may pass the plausibility threshold if they have sufficient national “name ID” and proven fundraising ability, such as Newt Gingrich.

Like I say, you don’t notice this kind of favoritism if you share the bias for Name Brand Frontrunners, but my own partiality toward long-shot underdogs makes me keenly aware of how some pundits — who may or may not be named “Jazz Shaw” — routinely ignore candidates like Rick Santorum, whose keen appreciation of South Pacific diplomatic expertise is just one of his many fine qualities.

By artificially limiting the discussion to a predetermined two-man race between Romney and Gingrich, a pundit who may or may not be named “Jazz Shaw” engages in Let-Me-Tell-You-What-to-Think journalism, and unless you happen to have a specific reason to notice this omission, you might not even realize that you’re a victim of the Jedi mind trick. (Ron Paul supporters also probably don’t have much use for a pundit who may or may not be named “Jazz Shaw.”)

A quite similar venture involves Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal, who would have you believe that “Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, Haley Barbour” comprise “the GOP A-Team” who should have run for president but didn’t. Therefore, Stephens tells you, Republicans will lose in November, and deservedly so.

OK, so who is Bret Stephens, who knows so much better who should be the Republican candidates than does anyone else? Well, according to Wikipedia (caveat emptor), he was born in 1973, which means he was in seventh grade when I began my journalism career.

While there are probably lots of older pundits who share Stephens’s elite biases, I get pretty damned irritated when punk kids volunteer to do my thinking for me.

And anybody under 40 is a punk kid in my book, especially if he’s an overprivileged alumnus of St. Grottlesex. Nothing worse than a preppie who thinks he’s smarter than God Almighty Himself.

Elsewhere on the presidential campaign front, I notice via Memeorandum that Newt may need some cheese to go with his whine:

Gingrich won’t ‘allow’ moderators
to silence crowd at future debates
— The Hill

Gingrich Threatens to Skip Debates
if Audiences Can’t Participate
— New York Times

Gingrich on Debate’s No-Clapping Rule:
‘Media Doesn’t Control Free Speech’
— CNS News 

Watching the debate last night, it took me a while to catch on to the fact that NBC had strictly prohibited audience applause, which was one reason why Newt’s trademark red-meat rhetoric didn’t seem quite as persuasive as it did when he was getting standing ovations in the South Carolina debates last week.

Was the no-applause rule a form of bias? Of course. But you only notice (and object to) bias when it is a bias you don’t share. And because this bias disadvantaged Gingrich, then it indirectly helped Rick Santorum, whose keen appreciation of expertise in South Pacific diplomacy is but one of his many excellent presidential qualifications.

UPDATE: There is nothing wrong with bias, by the way, so long as you don’t try to hide it. If you’re for Newt, or if you’re for Mitt or Ron Paul, just say so and then your readers will understand why you’re so viciously and unfairly prejudiced against Rick Santorum. And if you want to do P.R. for your favorite candidate, why not just reprint his campaign press releases?

ICYMI: DEBATE REVIEWS ARE IN AND
THE “BIG WINNER” IS SANTORUM
Sarasota, FL — While former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former Congressman Newt Gingrich bickered over their checkered past, the reviews are in and Rick Santorum stood head and shoulders above his competition.
Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post said: “But if Santorum is in a political no man’s land, he didn’t show it last night. While he got far less time to speak than either Romney or Gingrich… Santorum made the most with what he had.
As he had done in the debates last week, Santorum repeatedly attempted to lump Gingrich and Romney together as Obama-lite while presenting himself as the genuine conservative article.
In his best answer of the night – and the best overall answer from any candidate all night – Santorum detailed the apostasies of Gingrich and Romney on health care and climate change before adding: “They rejected conservatism when it was hard to stand.”
And from Twitter, influential opinion-makers said:
Ari Fleisher (@arifleischer) “Good and effective shot by Santorum on the tea party’s origins and newt & mitt’s support for the bailouts.”
Dick Morris (@DickMorrisTweet): “I think the big winner is Rick Santorum.”
Phil Klein (@Philipaklein): “Santorum nailing it on Iran. ‘It would be reckless not to do something’ if they’d get nukes otherwise – exactly!”
Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight): “Santorum wins debate in the penalty shootout phase.”
Dana Loesch (@DLoesch): “Digging this Santorum answer.”
Andrea Tantaros (@AndreaTantaros): “They rejected conservatism when it was hard to stand.” – Santorum on Newt and Mitt. Great answer.
To learn more about former Senator Rick Santorum, please visit http://RickSantorum.com.

See there? That’s not so hard to do, is it?

Category: Election 2012, Mitt Romney, Neutral Objective Journalism, Newt Gingrich, Vanuatu

Florida Republican’s Ad Depicts Children Enslaved by Obama and Alan Grayson

Posted on | January 24, 2012 | 24 Comments

Children are shown as slaves forced to pay for deficit spending in a new advertisement for a Republican congressional candidate in Florida.

“Turn This Ship Around” is the title of the 30-second video for Mark Oxner, a businessman seeking a House seat in Florida’s new 27th District, where former Democrat Rep. Alan Grayson is hoping to get back in Congress after being defeated in his 2010 re-election bid.

The Oxner ad depicts Grayson as the pet parrot of Obama, who captains a ship aboard which the beneficiaries of federal bailouts and subsidies enjoy a luxury cruise. But the video then shows miserable children below deck, chained to oars as if on a slave galley. The ship is finally revealed to be the U.S.S. Constitution, renamed the “ObamaBoat” and sailing off the end of the Earth. Watch the video:

AD SCRIPT:

Progressive Woman 1: I just love this ship. I got corporate subsidies just last week!Progressive Woman 2: I got free healthcare for life!
Progressive Man 1: My bank was bailed out by this ship.
Progressive Woman 3: This ship stimulated my husband’s solar company.
Old Woman: How did this boat pay for all this stuff?
Captain Obama: Ahhhh, no questions on this ship!
Progressive Parrot Alan Grayson: Bawk!
Progressive Slave Driver: Earn, earn, earn! Don’t you care about the banks? Don’t you care about the ninety-nine percent? Earn, earn, earn!
Mark Oxner: Let’s not enslave our children with debt. It’s time to turn this ship around. I’m Mark Oxner and I’m running for Congress. Go to my website and get involved. I’m Mark Oxner and I approve this message.
Progressive Parrot Alan Grayson: Bawk!

Learn more at Mark Oxner’s campaign Web site.

Category: Alan Grayson, Barack Obama, Congress, Election 2012, Florida, Mark Oxner, Video

Barbara Espinosa’s Gingrich Files

Posted on | January 24, 2012 | 36 Comments

Longtime readers of the blog will warmly remember Barbara Espinosa, whom I first met at Right Online 2009 in Pittsburgh (“Grandma Is an Angry Mob,” American Spectator, Sept. 18, 2009). Barbara doesn’t like it when I remind people that she’s a grandmother and a widow. She thinks those descriptions might discourage romantic overtures from the kind of virile suitors she prefers. So …

The Hot-Blooded Buxom Babe of Arizona™ was also angry at me for several months this year because, while I was on the Cain Train before switching to the Santorum Express, Barbara was riding the Rick Perry Bandwagon. She’s a native Texan, after all, and her patriotic allegiance to the Lone Star Republic was expressed in enthusiastic admiration for the handsome fellow from Paint Creek, Texas, who — if he were not married — might be the kind of virile suitor Barbara prefers.

Well, when the Smilin’ Texan said adios, he endorsed Newt Gingrich, but Barbara’s enthusiastic admiration is not quite so easily transferred. Newt is definitely not the kind of virile suitor Barbara prefers, and she has applied her online research skills to begin compiling a dossier on Gingrich, which you might want to check out.

I point this out because of Erick Erickson’s claim that all Republican opposition to Gingrich is coming from Beltway establishment elites who support Mitt Romney. But Barbara is about as grassroots as you can get in the conservative movement, and is not at all shy about sharing her thoroughgoing contempt for Newt.

There are other things Barbara is not shy about sharing — that is, if you’re the kind of virile suitor she prefers.

When I first met her in Pittsburgh, I had my handsome teenage son James with me, and within an hour of our meeting, Barbara asked me if I would mind having her as my daughter-in-law.

She’s a firecracker, that Barbara.

You should read her blog, and also follow her on Twitter.

Category: Barbara Espinosa, Election 2012, Newt Gingrich

‘Remain Calm! All Is Well!’

Posted on | January 24, 2012 | 25 Comments

“All the insanity inspired by the intense struggle in Iowa will be over in two weeks, and nothing would be crazier than to predict that Santorum — who has lingered near the back of the Republican pack all year — will emerge with an upset victory Jan. 3.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, “Hawkeye Fever,” Dec. 21

Jennifer Rubin embarrassed herself with her desperate “open letter” plea to Republican leaders to join her “Stop Newt” movement, but I didn’t have time to react to that lunacy Sunday, because I was too pissed off about Erick Erickson’s equally bizarre assertion that a vote for Santorum is actually a vote for Romney.

How long  before Ann Coulter flips out and shows up on Fox News declaring that a vote for Newt Gingrich is actually a vote for Ron Paul?

This GOP primary campaign has been plagued by savage weirdness for months, ever since those vicious bastards in Florida decided to ruin Christmas by moving up their primary. This was probably part of the apocalyptic prophecy that the world would end in 2012, foretold by the ancient Mayan calendar.

Alas, the ancient Mayans could not be reached for comment.

Everybody’s gone wacko this year except me, but that’s only because I’ve been certifiably insane since 1979. At any rate, I got enough sleep Monday to recover from the semi-psychotic caffeine-induced frenzy that seized me during the latter stages of my South Carolina trip. Between provocations like “Occupy” freaks glitter-bombing Rick Santorum — which happened again Monday in Florida — and the financial straits that threatened to leave my son and I stranded at a McDonald’s in Rock Hill, S.C., it was a struggle to maintain any slight semblance of sanity, much less write my special Sunday column for the American Spectator.

Writing anything except incoherent gibberish under such challenging conditions would be impossible for a normal person, but when the going get weird, the weird turn pro.

These “Blogger on the Edge of a Schizo Breakdown” episodes are more or less routine now, and there is probably no need to worry that I’ll go berserk in Florida.

‘OCCUPY’ PROTESTER INJURED IN BRUTAL ATTACK;
JOURNALIST ARRESTED AFTER ORLANDO ASSAULT

That’s unlikely to happen, but if you’re feeling the urge to contribute to the Shoe Leather Fund in case I need to get bailed out — hey, don’t fight the feeling. All of which is a preamble to my two main points:

  1. Thanks to all the tip jar hitters who came to the rescue Sunday, ensuring that I not only got home from the South Carolina trip, but also have enough to get to Jacksonville for Thursday’s CNN debate; and
  2. Can we all just chill the hell out for a while?

For the past month, not a day has gone by without someone on TV, talk radio or the blogosphere issuing an Emergency Declaration of Impending Doom unless their favorite candidate wins the GOP nomination (or their least-favorite candidate loses). I’m about at the point where I’m ready to start blogging all day about Kate Upton bikini pictures or something — anything — except this depressingly vitriolic presidential campaign.

And you know who understand the importance of a calm and steadfast temperament in times of crisis? Yeah, I think you do.

SANTORUM RISES ABOVE THE BICKERING

“America Was Worth It To Do It The Right Way.”
Tampa, FL – At this evening’s NBC/National Journal/Tampa Bay Times Republican Presidential Debate, again Rick Santorum stood alone as the one candidate ready and able to stand firm, stand tall, and effectively implement conservative principles as our next commander-in-chief.
Hogan Gidley, National Communications Director, said: “While some on stage bickered back and forth about issues that won’t put one person back to work, Rick Santorum stood as the statesman ready to lead our nation on day-one.” . . .

You may want to read the rest of that Santorum campaign press release, which is probably better for your mental health than reading anything written lately by Jennifer Rubin or Erick Erickson. But you know who has written something truly insightful about all this?

Yeah, I think you do:

Florida is not South Carolina, and neither is it Iowa or New Hampshire, and the pundits rushing to early judgment about the likely result of next Tuesday’s primary in the Sunshine State should take a deep breath and calm down. Such was the advice offered by Florida GOP activist Sarah Rumpf yesterday, and I feel obligated to share her advice with people whose knowledge of Florida politics is less direct and extensive than hers.
“These people in New York and D.C. are looking at it from 30,000 feet up in the air and you can’t do that,” Rumpf said. Currently involved in Republican Adam Hasner’s Senate campaign and not allied with any of the remaining GOP presidential contenders, Rumpf was an early supporter of Marco Rubio’s successful challenge of former Gov. Charlie Crist in the 2010 Senate primary, a crucial battle for the Tea Party movement.
Rumpf called me Monday to warn against underestimating the strength of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s campaign organization in Florida. Romney endorsed Rubio in 2010 and campaigned with him, garnering respect from Tea Party activists and also from the Cuban-American community that is an important GOP constituency in South Florida. Furthermore, Rumpf said, Romney has a large staff of experienced Florida operatives who have been working in the state for months, and have been especially active in pushing Romney’s supporters to submit early absentee votes, a process that began over the weekend. Most of all, Romney has a vast funding advantage which allows him to advertise heavily in Florida’s expensive TV marketplace. Monday, the Romney campaign rolled out a new ad attacking former House Speaker Gingrich: “While Florida families struggled during the housing crisis, Newt Gingrich cashed in while working for Freddie Mac.” . . .

That’s from my American Spectator column today, and I hope you’ll read the whole thing. Otherwise, you might go completely nuts like that Vegas guy who just threw another $5 million at Newt Gingrich’s campaign.

My guess is he did it for the pure fun of watching Jennifer Rubin have another conniption. You probably don’t have $5 million to fling around for fun like that, but if you wanted to hit my tip jar for $20, I’ll see what new kind of craziness I can come up with.






Category: Election 2012, Fear. Loathing., Florida
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