The Other McCain

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

God-Hating Feminist Blogger Denounces Iowa Republicans and Rick Santorum

Posted on | December 22, 2011 | 11 Comments

Let the undecided Iowans be undecided no more. Rick Santorum has been denounced by the notorious Amanda Marcotte:

Right on schedule, Rick Santorum is getting a push in Iowa amongst people who probably don’t know how to use the googles anyway. . . . It’s important to remember that while Iowa wingnuts are wingnutty in all the usual ways, they prioritize “bitches ain’t sh-t” way more than the Republican voters do in other states, and so Santorum’s puppy dog-like excitement for portraying women as life support systems for uteruses and nothing more will probalby [sic] help him in Iowa. It’s the main reason that Huckabee — who was less noisy in his opposition to contraception than Santorum, but who still was perceived as the most gleefully misogynist Republican contender last time around — won the caucus. Perhaps next cycle, we’ll see a candidate who has supported legislation to paint scarlet letters on sexually active women’s clothes pull ahead in Iowa.
I just don’t see why there’s so much fuss over Iowa. . . . whoever wins Iowa doesn’t really matter, does it? . . . Iowa is just a many month battle for Republicans to compete for the title of Who Hates Women the Most. . . . If you’re really mired, as the Iowa Republicans are, in the notion that any use of the vagina for anything other than pushing out babies is seriously wrong and needs to be punished severely, you’d think that Bachmann’s willingness to go there . . . would do it for you. But maybe anxieties about voting for a woman are drowning that out.
Point is, a little ritualistic fealty to the gods of f–king over the ladies, while disgusting, doesn’t seem to have that much of an impact on who eventually gets the nomination.

Perhaps, as Ms. Marcotte suggests, Iowa Republicans are too stupid to use Google, in which case I’ll helpfully remind you exactly who she is:

  • In January 2007, Ms. Marcotte was hired as “blogmaster” for the John Edwards presidential campaign;
  • As soon as her hiring became public knowledge, Ms. Marcotte’s long history of hateful epithet-strewn extremist rants — against Republicans, against “misogyny,” against religion, etc. — became a subject of controversy;
  • In response to the controversy, Ms. Marcotte attempted to cover-up her history by deleting some of her past rants at her blog Pandagon; but
  • Unfortunately for Ms. Marcotte, conservative activists had already collected caches of the deleted rants.

Among the most notorious of Ms. Marcotte’s rants was a Pandagon post from Jan. 21, 2007, concerning the “rape” hoax prosecution of the Duke University lacrosse team, in which she wrote:

Naturally, my flight out of Atlanta has been delayed. Let’s hope it takes off when they say it will so I don’t miss my connecting flight home.
In the meantime, I’ve been sort of casually listening to CNN blaring throught the waiting area and good f–king god is that channel pure evil. I had to listen how the poor dear lacrosse players at Duke are being persecuted just because they held somone down and f–ked her against her will — not rape, of course, because the charges have been thrown out. Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all would up about it? So unfair.

As was eventually demonstrated, of course, the Duke players had been falsely accused by a habitual criminal who had become angry after a dispute over payment for her services as a stripper. Despite a lack of real evidence against the players, they were prosecuted by a Democrat district attorney who was concerned about his re-election. The prosecutor was subsequently disbarred and the Duke players were exonerated.

Ms. Marcotte’s grossly unfair and inflammatory post about the Duke case was only one of countless such unhinged rants she’d posted at Pandagon. She seems incapable of writing two consecutive sentences without “f–k” or “sh-t,” despises Christianity and its adherents — “Godbags,” as she calls them — and views all opposition to abortion as motivated by “misogyny.”

These habits make her extremely popular with the progressive Left, which was why Edwards hired her along with another feminist blogger, Melissa McEwan. But Ms. Marcotte’s anti-religious diatribes included such items as this:

Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit?
A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.

Even Iowa Republicans — whom Ms. Marcotte says are too stupid to use Google — would not be surprised that this blasphemy was considered outrageous by William Donohue of the Catholic League:

The head of a conservative Catholic group is demanding that former Sen. John Edwards, D-North Carolina, fire two of his campaign bloggers, charging that they are “anti-Catholic, vulgar, trash talking bigots.” . . .
The Catholic League president said the language is “incendiary, it’s inflammatory. It’s scurrilous and has no place being part of someone’s resume who’s going to work for a potential presidential contender.”In a statement released by the Catholic League, Donohue laid the blame at the bloggers’ feet. “John Edwards is a decent man who has had his campaign tarnished by two anti-Catholic vulgar, trash-talking bigots,” he said. “He has no choice but to fire them immediately.”

A prominent Catholic Democrat, New York attorney Brian O’Dwyer, also demanded that Marcotte be fired:

“The blogger’s continuing hostility to Catholics and other Christians, especially in the centrality of the Virgin birth, is both morally wrong and, for Senator Edwards, politically stupid. Senator Edwards was horribly flawed in refusing to see the importance of how offensive the blogger’s earlier comments were to people of faith. This latest so-called review, published after Edwards refused to fire her for earlier anti-Catholic writings, should now wake him up and lead him to finally do the right thing as his campaign tries to move forward. Bigotry of any kind should have no role in the Democratic Party, or in any presidential campaign.”

Within a week both Ms. Marcotte and Ms. McEwan were compelled to resign, a decision that Ms. Marcotte specifically blamed on Donohue and the Catholic League:

Unfortunately, Bill Donohue and his calvacade of right wing shills don’t respect that a mere woman like me could be hired for my skills . . . Bill Donohue — anti-Semite, right wing lackey whose entire job is to create non-controversies in order to derail liberal politics — has been running a scorched earth campaign to get me fired for my personal beliefs and my writings on this blog.
In fact, he’s made no bones about the fact that his intent is to “silence” me, as if he — a perfect stranger — should have a right to curtail my freedom of speech. Why? Because I’m a woman? Because I’m pro-choice? Because I’m not religious? All of the above, it seems.

See Michelle Malkin’s archives for much more.

Iowa Republicans will, I hope, forgive the necessity of my recounting at such length this background information about Amanda Marcotte, but she says you’re too stupid to use Google, you see.

And you also see how Amanda Marcotte — who fantasizes about using “Plan B” to abort the baby Jesus —  has singled out Rick Santorum as the Republican candidate she hates the most.

Isn’t this hateful rant from Amanda Marcotte the strongest possible endorsement for Rick Santorum? Iowa, be undecided no more!

RICK SANTORUM for PRESIDENT
Because Amanda Marcotte Really, Really Hates Him

Update (Smitty): linked at Ric’s Rulez.

Category: Feminism, Iowa, Rick Santorum

Behold, I Bring You Peace, Goodwill, and Also This Gratuitous Vintage Pinup Girl

Posted on | December 21, 2011 | 19 Comments

There are exactly two kinds of ideas in the blogosphere:

  1. Bad ideas; and
  2. Ideas worth stealing.

Therefore I’ll begin with a hat-tip to William Teach at Pirate’s Cove, from whom I swiped the idea of using vintage cheesecake to grab attention for an odds-and-ends aggregation — as Jimmie Bise of Sundries Shack calls it, “clearing the browser tabs.”

Jeff Goldstein has a long post in which he talks about “offending some with my use of the word ‘incestuous’ [to describe certain aspects of the conservative blogosphere] though it strikes me from my recent attendance at BlogCon that the networking that goes on there is intended to bring about just such relationships, which doesn’t make the relationships inherently bad — but does describe figuratively the way opinion is often disseminated through a hierarchy of sorts.”

You should read the whole thing, which involves what I was feeling bad about yesterday: The discord caused by the (evidently advance-coordinated) endorsements of Rick Perry by Ace of Spades, Red State and Mike Flynn.

My own reaction was, “Are you freaking crazy? Perry? Really?”

However, some other bloggers who were more favorably disposed toward Perry — and I guess Jeff is included in that number (Correction: Jeff endorsed Bachmann) — were left to wonder why they didn’t get invited to participate in this JournoList-style conspiracy on behalf of the Smilin’ Texan. But I’ve gotten bad vibes from the Perry campaign from the get-go, and sowing enmity and suspicion in the blogosphere is just what could have been expected. And since we’re on the topic of doomstruck campaigns . . .

Newt Gingrich supporter Bill Quick is magnanimous:

The whole notion that news reporters have to be unbiased is hokum, by the way. It gained currency in the twentieth century, mostly as the left took over the mainstream media (and the journalism schools, another 20th century development). Like much in the march of the left through western civil society, it was a tactic, a deliberately designed lie to cover up the fact that the journalism establishment was biased to the hard left, to the point that Walter Duranty could visit the Stalin’s murderous Soviet Union and come back singing paens of “unbiased” rhapsodic praise for it.
Give me an honest reporter any day — and that includes being honest about his own opinions and biases.

Despite being wrong about Newt, Bill is right about this: Prior to the 20th century, newspapers were almost always blatantly partisan in their political outlook. The ostentatious pose of journalistic neutrality was, as Quick says, invented by liberals for nefarious purposes. A story can be factually accurate without being neutral, let alone “fair and balanced.”

I’m tempted to dig up the obituary I wrote for The Washington Times when former CPUSA Chairman Gus Hall died, just to give you an idea of what I’m talking about. But trust me: Readers were not left in doubt as to whether a no-good Commie traitor like Gus Hall was doomed to everlasting torment in the flames of Hell — a neutral, objective fact.

Speaking of neutral objectivity: For all I know, Shushanna Walshe of ABC News could be to the left of Gus Hall in her politics, but her daily “Good Morning, Iowa” digest is must reading, if you want to know what’s happening in the Iowa caucus campaign. I found it by accident while Googling for a particular item about Rick Santorum and was strongly impressed by this massive and nearly comprehensive aggregation.

And in other news:

OK, so much for tonight’s foray into Blog Ideas Worth Stealing. On the other hand, there are Bad Ideas like publicly drooling all over a candidate you haven’t officially endorsed. Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell.

UPDATE: What would an odds-and-ends headline aggregation be without a shameless profit opportunity, huh?

Yeah, there’s no way that Amazon order is going to reach you in time for Christmas now, but the great deals continue and you can buy some more great stuff for you, right?

Category: Blogging, Neutral Objective Journalism, Rule 5

War With Iran? Cue The Fear!

Posted on | December 21, 2011 | 13 Comments

by Smitty

Instapundit relays the Mead:

In a recent interview with CBS news anchor Scott Pelley, Panetta said “the United States does not want Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. That’s a red line for us”. He continued: “We will take whatever steps are necessary to stop them”. A nuclear Iran is “unacceptable”. When US secretaries talk about “whatever steps are necessary” they are not usually talking about holding one more meeting of the sanctions committee. They are thinking shock and awe rather than cookies and tea.
Panetta said the Iranians could have a bomb in a year or less; we’ve heard this before. The point is, Washington doesn’t believe the mullahs have stopped building. Unless that changes, the Obama administration is headed toward war with Iran, quite possibly before November of 2012.

I view any of this through the lens of Iraq/Kuwait/Saudi Arabia.

For all the hue and cry about Israel this, and the Palestinians that, keep in mind the two real drivers in the region are the Shiite/Sunni tension and regime security for the oil producers. The former is about faith; the latter, cash.

Nobody really wants to see a dirty bomb, and the technological and ecological fallout from that. That hypothetical bomb, like virginity, is a one-shot deal. Short of direct physical threat to regime survival, pickling off a nuke, even a dirty bomb, just isn’t all that likely.

Ah, but the teasing one can engage in! As with the aforementioned virginity, the knowledge that a country is in the nuclear club really puts some extra shake in the hips. Which is why our various OPEC allies in the region don’t mind having the Great Satan flex a bit in the region.

Too, saber rattling is always worth points in the polls. And maybe he’ll even be able to contend that pulling the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan was to reconstitute them for the shiny new effort.

Another war? Sure. And now, from 30 years ago, let the band Fear take it away:

Bonus, for Vodka Pundit: “I Believe I’ll Have Another Beer“

Category: Instapundit, Iran, Saudi Arabia

Dear Mr. Cain

Posted on | December 21, 2011 | 22 Comments

Who cares, at this point, that Robert Costa got “the exit interview” instead of me? I’m over it, and too busy planning for my Iowa trip to worry much about it now. But this kind of bothered me:

The media: When Cain launched his campaign, “I didn’t realize how vicious it was and I didn’t realize how one-sided it was,” he says. “For the people who say we could have handled it differently, send me the plan. . . . If I make a mistake, criticize me fairly. But if you’re going to take a tape that’s 40 minutes long and pull out 15 seconds and forget about the other 39 minutes and 45 seconds, that’s a disservice to the American people. It gives [journalism] a bad name.”

Agreed. But if you’re wondering now how you might “have handled [the media] differently,” be aware that some of your friends who actually work in the media tried to offer advice, but were ignored by your staff.

Category: Election 2012, Herman Cain, Media Bias

Scott Ott And The #40Dollars

Posted on | December 21, 2011 | 13 Comments

by Smitty

Ott serves up the news on the #40Dollars hash tag, and Iowa, where he has a dry, dry, dry jape about idolatry. Also a great Perry riff. Nicely played.

Look at this pathetic noise. The entire dextrosphere should post on what an outburst of non-thinking this is:

Category: humor

E-Mail From Debbie Wasserman-Schultz

Posted on | December 21, 2011 | 13 Comments

Years ago, I clicked a box on some Democrat web site and they’re still sending me e-mails like this one:

Democrats

Friend:
If you follow political news like I do, you may remember this year for its GOP horse race: who was up, who was down, who had an “oops” moment. But that’s not how I’ll remember it.
I’ll remember it as a pretty incredible year for Democrats. Here’s why:
Just in the last week, we’ve seen solid evidence that health care reform is working: 2.5 million Americans are now insured thanks to a provision in the Affordable Care Act that allows young adults to stay on their parent’s health insurance, more than double the number previously estimated.
And with the last troops leaving this past Sunday,  the war in Iraq has come to a responsible end. Because of the veterans  provisions of the American Jobs Act and the Hiring Heroes Act, which provide tax  incentives to businesses who hire veterans in need of work, our troops coming home and all our veterans know that they can get the help they need in finding work and supporting their families.
These are the kinds of fights Democrats are waging — and winning. They’re crucial victories, but they don’t happen without you.
Next year, the stakes will be even higher. That’s why I’m asking you to step up right now and say you’re ready for the fights  ahead:

Chip in $3  more for 2012.

Next year’s election will be huge,  that’s for sure — but the work we did in 2011 shows just what a grassroots  campaign can do. Across the country this year, Democrats worked together and  fought critical statewide battles on the ground.
In Mississippi, folks worked tirelessly to protect a woman’s right to choose and soundly defeated the Personhood amendment, which would’ve made abortion illegal, including in cases of rape or incest, and even banned some forms of birth control.
Up in Maine, statewide Democratic groups worked together to overturn the state legislature’s recent ban on allowing people to register and vote on the same day — a nearly 40-year tradition that’s helped the state have some of the highest voter turnout rates in the country.
And in the bellwether state of Ohio, the state Democratic party and progressive allies collected more than 300,000 signatures to stop a law that would greatly reduce how and when Ohioans can early vote — and put it up for a statewide vote next year. Thanks in part to thousands who were able to cast their ballots early, Ohio voters in November successfully repealed a collective bargaining law that would’ve stripped away the rights of teachers and firefighters to negotiate for important benefits and working conditions.
We have a ways to go to get the economy working for everyone, and there’s much more work to be done.
But we have a lot to feel good about. We’ve worked together at the national level to make change that’s going to affect millions of lives every day, like repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and we’ve banded together in our states and communities to stand for our party’s principles.
It’s what Democrats do.
But don’t doubt that for every victory we’ve had this year, the GOP is ready and waiting to reverse it. Repealing health care reform, reinstating “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” restricting voting rights, and putting Personhood amendments on the ballot in other states are all things the other side has promised to do if given the chance.
That’s why we need to be ready to fight for the change we’ve made — and make certain we’ll get to keep pushing for more.

It can’t  happen without you. Show you’re ready for 2012 by giving $3 or more today:

http://my.democrats.org/Ready-for-2012

Thanks,

Debbie

Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Chair, Democratic National Committee

Notice that they’re asking for a meager $3 as a minimum. Why? Well, if you’ve got a mailing list of a million names, and your average return rate is 10% on a fundraising e-mail like that, you get a $300,000 payoff, even if every donor gives only $3. Of course, the return rate is a lot lower than 10%, but most of the people who contribute are going to give $10 or more.

By setting a low threshold in the e-mail, the Democrats are telling recipients, “Hey, every dollar counts. You don’t have to be a big money fat cat to make a difference.” And every person who gives even $3 has signalled a willingness to give. The Democrats will put that person’s e-mail address into a special database and target them with further solicitations, e.g., “Hey, [name], thanks for giving [dollar amount]. It’s people like you who really count. If you could just give us another $10 today . . .”

It’s the “shotgun and rifle” approach: You “shotgun” a solicitation to a big list, and then target the respondents with “rifle” solicitations aimed at them personally. There is an actual science to doing this kind of thing well, and building a big list of small donors is vital to success in politics, because you can hit up these donors again and again, whereas big donors who “max out” early in a campaign are unable to give more.

And while conservatives may scoff at the partisan propaganda message in Debbie’s e-mail, there are many thousands of Democratic Party donors who buy into every word of it.

Update (Smitty): Linked at American Glob.

Category: Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Democrats

The Deadly Menace of Fake Boobs

Posted on | December 21, 2011 | 20 Comments

Some critics have dismissed my oft-stated preference for natural breasts as mere ignorant bigotry against artficial enhancement, but now at last I’ve been vindicated by science:

Thousands of women ‘should’
have breast implants removed
Around 45,000 British women are known to have had Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) implants, which have since been found to have contained industrial silicone and have not passed medical regulations.
Authorities in France are expected to call in all women there who have been given PIP implants in order to have them removed and replaced.
British experts said that women here should consider having them removed for ‘peace of mind’ as they have a high risk of leaking.
Investigations have been conducted after some suspicious cases of cancer were found in women with the implants . . .

Thanks to Dan Collins for the e-mail tip. There should be no need to remind readers that Dr. Collins and I are co-founders of The Collins-McCain Institute for Therapeutic Breast Staring, and are available to assist or advise America’s women in all matters breast-related.

THE COLLINS-McCAIN INSTITUTE
We’re Here for You.  Because We Care.™

Category: Science

The Weird Turn Pro

Posted on | December 21, 2011 | 19 Comments

“Some people claim that the ancient Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world in 2012. While I am generally skeptical toward such doomsday prophecies, recent events have undermined my habitual skepticism and filled me with foreboding premonitions. If 2012 doesn’t bring the end of the entire cosmos, there are those who say it is likely to destroy the Republican Party as we know it, and the first cataclysmic event is now less than two weeks away. . . .
“Pundits were thrown into a full-blown schizophrenic frenzy by the prospect that Texas Rep. Ron Paul might win the Iowa caucuses. Since late November, no poll has shown Paul worse than third place in Iowa. Two polls this week have Paul first, with Gingrich slipping to third behind Romney in one poll, and all the way to fourth place in another. According to some conservatives, a Paul victory in the Hawkeye State would be the worst thing to happen to the Republican Party since Lincoln’s assassination. It might even be a sign of the final apocalypse foretold by the ancient Mayan calendar.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, “Hawkeye Fever,” The American Spectator

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
— Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72

Apocalyptic prophecies are a dime a dozen these days and, thanks to Ben Bernanke’s inflationary policies at the Fed, a dime ain’t what it used to be. But we at least see the fulfillment of Thompson’s prophecy: The going in Iowa has become genuinely weird, and who is more prepared for that weirdness than a pro like me?

Five days from now — Dec. 26, the day after Christmas — I’ll fly into Cedar Rapids to try to get a handle on the campaign madness that is now, according to pundits, turning Iowa into a vast Midwestern insane asylum.

Here are some of the latest Hawkeye State headlines:

‘I’m for income inequality,’ Santorum says
— Des Moines Register

Vote 2012: Ron Paul Takes Lead
in KCRG/Gazette/ISU Poll
— KCRG-TV, Cedar Rapids

Perry Dismisses Gingrich’s
Complaint of ‘Negative’ Campaigning
— New York Times

Santorum showing signs of life in Iowa
— The Hill

Newt Gingrich to gay Iowan: Vote for Obama
— Des Moines Register

Newt’s Campaign Comes Down To Earth As
Iowan Calls Him ‘F—king A—hole’ To His Face
— Talking Points Memo

Lots of Republicans have been calling Newt Gingrich that for years, but only in Iowa does an ordinary citizen get a chance to say it to his face.

Fear and loathing are rampaging out of control in the American Heartland, you see, and I’m just five days away from being right in the thick of it, thanks to readers who have contributed to the Shoe Leather Fund the past three days. Thanks are owed today to tip-jar hitters including Chris in South Dakota, Paolo in St. Petersburg, Buffy in Peachtree City, Michael in Texas, Peter in Spring Hill, Richard in New Jersey, Bill in Falls Church, Mike in El Segundo and my blog-buddy Jimmie Bise Jr.

Be assured of my gratitude, and my commitment to make this the best road-trip ever. And I’m sure some of you may wonder, “Can Stacy handle all that savage weirdness erupting in the Hawkeye State?” Read more

Category: Election 2012, Fear and Loathing in Iowa, Iowa, Shoe Leather Fund
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