The Other McCain

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

‘The Undefeated’ Will Be Attacked With The Usual Non-Falsifiable Proposition

Posted on | July 20, 2011 | 44 Comments

by Smitty

LEIPZIG, GERMANY Howard Towt identifies a direction that the country needs to move in: a dispassionate viewer of the discourse. As you read his review, he’s underwhelmed by The Undefeated.
Towt notes that TU is mostly built upon Going Rogue, which sold an awful lot of copies. If GR were fiction, there would be the question of the artistic tradeoffs of moving it to a screen. As we are talking about a political documentary, the proposition moves toward something like:

“They didn’t explain the background of the events sufficiently.”

We’ll see. Towt’s general criticism, as paraphrased above, seems non-falsifiable. That is, there was always more exposition that the film maker could have done. Except that you have to swing the editorial axe somewhere. The audience is near bursting with the run time as it is. Look for extended versions on sale, as Victory Films cashes in, with more fixes for the serious junkies out there.
More interesting to me is the second-hand smoke from the Democrat wife:

The film is inspirational, but my wife was completely put off by the whole experience. She sees Governor Palin as opportunistic and calculating, and thinks the governor is using politics as a “get rich quick” scheme. She believes Mrs. Palin is an inadequate mother to her children, and is a person who plays to a base of religious fundamentalists. Her take is that Sarah Palin as an affront to sensible women everywhere.
My wife is a testament to the power of our American culture. In a few short months, our culture has fashioned an extreme caricature of a female political figure, and has made it believable. Just three years ago, very few people outside of Alaska knew who Sarah Palin was. Now, a large number of Americans have been taught to despise her.

Fair enough, Mrs. Towt, but the last non-opportunistic and non-calculating U.S. political figure was. . .George Washington, maybe?
Can we get past Pavlovian training on both the Left and Right? If we’re worried about whether a candidate is black, or attractive, or equestrian, or pedigreed, or loquacious, we risk being lost in the superficialities that are at the root of the present crisis.
Now, I don’t want to badmouth Mrs. Towt, but I do know a couple of Leftys. I’m confident that they are, for all their purported liberality, incapable of any fair appraisal of Governor Sarah Palin. I had to move away from one of these Lefty chicks melting down at a breakfast table at the mention of her name a couple of months back, at Bagram. Admittedly, I’ve seen similar visceral (albeit non-racist) reactions to the sitting POTUS. I do think that the policies espoused of one of these figures are mostly daft, but I can’t understand directing emotion at the person, except as an admission that Alinsky was correct. Personalizing everything makes radicalism possible.
But really, let’s remember that this is not just a documentary; it’s not just a chance to line Sarah Palin’s wallet; it’s a running plebiscite on the screw-us quo of American politics. The Ruling Class Overlords on the Right and Left have been pissing down your back and telling you it’s raining for a century now. The GOP Ruling Class Overlords have been playing a nominally more Federalist hand over the last century; Governor Palin is cheerfully breaking that off where they sit.
It’s hyperbole to say that, if the people blow off this movie, and she sits out the 2012 campaign, that we’re doomed. We can’t have a meaningful Constitution if the salvation of the country boils down to any one person, family, clique, or union.
But the list of other hopefuls with significant charisma is painfully short.

Category: Uncategorized

LIVE AT FIVE – 07.20.11

Posted on | July 20, 2011 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
“Gang Of Six” Provides New Hope For Debt Talks

"It's time to get down to the business of actually solving this problem."

Plan would increase debt limit in exchange for closure of tax loopholes, lower rates, and impose $500 billion in Medicare cuts; Tea Party conservatives in House unenthusiastic



Taliban Claims Cell Phones Hacked
Text message about Mohammed Omar’s death a fake, Taliban claim

UN May Declare Famine In Parts Of Somalia
Worst drought in sixty years making a miserable country’s situation even worse



POLITICS
Congressman Boswell Doing Well After Scuffle With Armed Intruder

Congressman Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa

Second man arrested in attempted home invasion

MN Legislature Pulls All-Nighter In Special Session To Pass Budget

Obama Endorses Feinstein Bill To End DOMA

Bachmann: Migraines Won’t Stop Presidential Bid

Internet Activist Indicted In MIT Theft

Arizona Launches Donation Site For Border Fence



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Euro Flat against Dollar Amid Hopes For EU Summit
Yahoo Profits Rise As Sales Dip
Tech, US Debt Progress Lifts Asian Stocks
Bank Of America Reports Worst Ever Loss
Oil Rises Above $98 On US Crude Supply Drop
The iPad Just Ate 11% Of The PC Market
Anonymous Hackers Arrested In FBI Investigation
Mozilla’s Enterprise Group: Inevitable Damage Control
Five Tablets For Back To School



SPORTS
Eller: Retired Players Won’t Block NFL Deal

Hall of Fame defensive end Carl Eller arrives at Minneapolis courthouse for talks

Eller: “They want to get these games going, and they want to have a season. That’s their focus. Our issues are very, very critical — very important — but they don’t really have much to do with whether the game goes on or not.”

Yao Ming Retires From NBA

Surging Rangers Shut Down Angels 7-0

NJ Devils Name Peter DeBoer Coach

Dodgers Lose To Giants Again, Fall Into Last Place

Rays Prey On Sloppy Yankees Defense, Take 3-2 Win



Reyes Sparks Mets To 4-2 Win Over Cards In  Return From DL

Montoya Hires New Crew Chief

Twins Rally Past Indians For 2-1 Win

Zimmerman Gets Pounded As Astros Eke Out 7-6 Win Over Nats



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Matt Damon: Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie “Are Like Prisoners”

Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt

Happy living a low-key life, unlike his friends

How Marc Anthony Tried To Control J-Lo’s Wardrobe

“Game Of Thrones” Second Season Casting Decisions



“Glee” Suit: You Screwed Me On The Back End

Maya Rudolph Welcomes A Son

NBC Officially Cancels “Love Bites”

Jenna Fischer: I’m Having A Baby

Lady Gaga’s Drug Confession To Howard Stern: Cocaine Is “The Devil” – Also, Teenage Girls Should Wait To Have Sex



FOREIGNERS
All Fifteen Activists Aboard Seized French Yacht To Be Deported From Israel Today
Attempted Assassination Of Guinea’s President Fails
Murdoch’s Wife Wendi Deng Clobbers “Comedian”, Becomes Internet Sensation In PRC
PRC, ASEAN Set South China Sea Guidelines But No Deal Expected
FBI Busts Pair For Illegal Lobbying On Behalf Of Pakistan’s ISI



BLOGS & STUFF
National Review: Grover Weighs In On Gang Of Six Plan
Marginal Revolution: The Gang Of Six Plan
Don Surber: Obama Rolls Out The Wedge Issues
Michelle Malkin: Dead Or Alive?
Allen West: At This Point, Anyone With An Obama 2012 Bumper Sticker Is A Threat To The Gene Pool
Volokh Conspiracy: Ninth Circuit Panel Reverses Conviction For Allegedly Threatening To Kill Then-Candidate Obama
PJ Tatler: Moody’s Says McConnell Plan May Not Avoid Downgrade
JammieWearingFool: Racist Liberals Blast Obama’s “Stupid Social Security Tax Holiday”
Naked Capitalism: Why A Warren Run For Senate Is A Terrible Idea
Fausta’s Blog: Lifetime Job Security
Jim Geraghty: Jay Carney Claims Leadership Is Not Proposing A Plan


Halfway to the weekend. Stay cool, y’all.

Category: Live at Five

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz Is ‘Vile … Despicable … Coward,’ Says Allen West

Posted on | July 19, 2011 | 56 Comments

About time someone said it:

From: Z112 West, Allen
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2011 04:48 PM
To: Wasserman Schultz, Debbie
Cc: McCarthy, Kevin; Blyth, Jonathan; Pelosi, Nancy; Cantor, Eric
Subject: Unprofessional and Inappropriate Sophomoric Behavior from Wasserman-Schultz
Look, Debbie, I understand that after I departed the House floor you directed your floor speech comments directly towards me. Let me make myself perfectly clear, you want a personal fight, I am happy to oblige. You are the most vile, unprofessional ,and despicable member of the US House of Representatives. If you have something to say to me, stop being a coward and say it to my face, otherwise, shut the heck up. Focus on your own congressional district!
I am bringing your actions today to our Majority Leader and Majority Whip and from this time forward, understand that I shall defend myself forthright against your heinous characterless behavior……which dates back to the disgusting protest you ordered at my campaign hqs, October 2010 in Deerfield Beach.
You have proven repeatedly that you are not a Lady, therefore, shall not be afforded due respect from me!
Steadfast and Loyal
Congressman Allen B West (R-FL)

The Lonely Conservative has video of the obnoxious speech in which Debbie Wasserman-Schultz violated decorum by speaking ill of a member not present:

UPDATE: And in a column at Red County, Rep. West says: “I must confess, when I see anyone with an Obama 2012 bumper sticker, I recognize them as a threat to the gene pool.”

UPDATE II: Dave C. at Point of a Gun reminds us that Wasserman-Schultz campaigned against West last year.

UPDATE III: Linked by Donald Douglas at American Power — thanks!

RE-ELECT ALLEN WEST
Because It’s About Time Somebody
Told the Truth About Democrats!

Category: Allen West, Budget, Congress, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz

GOP Dept. of Media Relations

Posted on | July 19, 2011 | 19 Comments

Doug Ross of ABC News gets roughed up by Michele Bachmann’s security:

Ross dashed after Bachmann, repeatedly asking whether she had ever missed a House vote due to a migraine. She ignored him. Ross pursued her into a parking area behind the stage. Her aides grew alarmed. When Ross made a beeline for the white SUV waiting to carry Bachmann away, two Bachmann men pounced on him, grabbing and pushing him multiple times with what looked to me like unusual force. In fact, I have never seen a reporter treated so roughly at a campaign event, especially not a presidential one.

Not since Dede Scozzafava called the cops on John McCormack of the Weekly Standard has any Republican campaign so badly mishandled the press.

Sometimes I’ve offered advice to Republicans on how to deal with the press, but they always ignore me and instead pay big money for advice from “media strategists” who’ve never worked a day in a newsroom.

I try not to think about that. It gives me headaches.

UPDATE: Old Line Elephant responds to the “incapacitated by migraines” story, noting that Bachmann doesn’t seem to have missed a lot of votes. Bachmann issues a statement noting that millions of other Americans also suffer from migraine headaches.

UPDATE II: The New York Times has an excellent source:

“She would not in any respect meet the definition for not having capacity in one of these episodes,” Dr. Lucas Bachmann, the candidate’s son and a medical resident at the University of Connecticut, said in a telephone interview. “She is probably not going to run a mile, but in terms of being able to engage, she can comprehend and assess information — without a doubt.”

PREVIOUSLY: A Prediction Comes True?

Category: Election 2012, Michele Bachmann

Why Is Tim Pawlenty Losing?

Posted on | July 19, 2011 | 25 Comments

Walter Shapiro at The New Republic:

But, midway through the interview, desperate for a headline-making morsel about his home-state rival, I asked Pawlenty to respond to the assessment that he was the establishment and [Michele] Bachmann was the outsider in Minnesota politics. To my surprise, Pawlenty sprang to life. He spent the next four minutes vehemently disputing my premise. “If you look at Minnesota, I don’t think you can define anything I did there as establishment,” he said, methodically ticking off his eight-year record as the militantly anti-tax governor of a state dominated by “a multigenerational, Humphrey-esque, liberal culture.” At times, a thin veneer of anger crept into his voice, even though all he would say about Bachmann, the original flashpoint of the question, was this: “She’s really an outsider, of course. I don’t think there’s much dispute about that.” . . .
With a weak GOP field, it is a mistake to write off Pawlenty more than six months before the Iowa caucuses. Yet it is also undeniable that the former Minnesota governor is in serious trouble. After a month on the Pawlenty beat — during which I spent time on the road with him in New Hampshire, toured his blue-collar hometown of South St. Paul, and delved into his Minnesota record — I came to appreciate the tragedy of his situation. . . . [R]ather than solidifying his position as the credible right-wing alternative to Mitt Romney, he finds himself distracted by thunder on his own right in the form of Bachmann. Why is it that Tim Pawlenty — for whom everything appeared perfect in theory — cannot seem to break through?

The most obvious answer comes far into Shapiro’s story:

Reelected by just 21,000 votes in November 2006, Pawlenty two months later made renewable energy one of the four cornerstones of his State of the State address to the legislature. “Minnesota can’t reverse global climate change by ourselves,” he declared. “But we can do our part and help lead the way. Our energy plan will significantly reduce the amount of carbon we put in the atmosphere. I look forward to working with the Democrats and the Republicans to pass and sign comprehensive historic renewable energy legislation this year.” Pawlenty endorsed cap-and-trade, and his far-reaching environmental agenda called for Minnesota to derive 25 percent of its electricity from wind power and solar energy by 2025.

Pawlenty tries to dimiss his embrace of global-warming theory as a silly mistake, but for him to have taken up a signature issue of liberalism after 2006 — i.e., after the disastrous mid-term election that made Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House — looks an awful lot like opportunism.

Republicans were on the defensive, and Pawlenty grabbed hold of “renewable energy” as a way to appease liberals. Or that’s what it looks like, anyway, and Pawlenty has never given any explanation that would convince a skeptic it was anything else.

What adviser or consultant told Pawlenty that “climate change” was his ticket to success? It doesn’t matter. The consultant who gives bad advice collects a paycheck for doing so. The guy who pays for bad advice is just a chump.

Smitty is fond of T-Paw and I suppose he will resent this smack-around of his guy. My own feeling has always been that Pawlenty is simply too bland to match up against Obama. In the words of Vox Day, T-Paw has “has all the charisma of a corpse on quaaludes.”

Don’t worry, Smitty, Vox takes his shots at Herman Cain, too, but his real target is Rick Perry, whom he calls “the third Bush.” And I agree with Shapiro that it too early — six months before the Iowa caucuses — to write off Pawlenty or anyone else.

Category: Election 2012, Tim Pawlenty

Porn: How to Make Sex Boring

Posted on | July 19, 2011 | 26 Comments

Susannah Breslin:

Nowadays, I get emails from young journalists asking for leads in the adult business. They want to write a porn story, they say, but they can’t find a way in. Can I help? Increasingly, these inquiries come from young women. Curious, they want to see what it’s like inside the sausage factory.
To a few, I send a reply. Don’t do it, I write. It’s not worth it. Besides, I think to myself, once it gets hold of you, you will never be able to let it go.

Breslin wrote that as part of a series, the most recent being an interview with a middle-aged stripper. Breslin’s remark that many young female journalists “want to write a porn story” reminds me of something I noted a couple weeks ago: “Feminism licenses women writers to get away with stuff that no male writer would dare even attempt.”

That young women are itching to write about the porn business confirms this: What publisher nowadays would pay a male journalist to write about strippers and porn stars? It’s ridiculous to suggest it.

Ever since Gloria Steinem wrote about her stint as a Playboy bunny, there has steadily developed a genre — Empowered Woman Writing Dirty — that has turned into a cliché. It probably jumped the shark in 2003 when Toni Bentley wrote an entire “erotic” book about anal sex, which was actually reviewed in the New York Times.

Breslin is right to warn young female journalists away from that overdone genre. Sex is boring. Write about money, politics or war.

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.)

Category: Journalism, Sex

A Prediction Comes True?

Posted on | July 19, 2011 | 65 Comments

When Michele Bachmann’s campaign caught fire last month after the New Hampshire CNN debate, I was pleasantly surprised. I had met Bachmann backstage at the Tax Day Tea Party rally in D.C., and was pleased to see a Tea Party-backed candidate doing well. My only caveat was that, historically, House members don’t win presidential campaigns.

Anyway, while I was working the phones over the Fourth of July weekend trying to get some background on Herman Cain’s staff changes in Iowa, I talked to a GOP operative (who is not currently working for any candidate) who predicted that the Bachmann campaign would “implode.” The operative specifically mentioned disgruntled ex-staffers who spoke ill of their former boss. So I wasn’t really shocked to see this story by Jonathan Strong today at the Daily Caller:

In late July 2010, Rep. Michele Bachmann’s then-communications director, Dave Dziok, told his boss that he planned to take a new job with the public relations firm Edelman.
Dziok had worked for Bachmann for two and a half years, a relatively long period by the standards of her office, and was leaving on good terms.
Staff turnover can frustrate any employer, but Bachmann responded more dramatically. Dziok’s departure triggered a debilitating medical episode that landed the congresswoman in urgent care.
“Within 24 hours she was in the hospital,” a former aide says.
Bachmann was admitted to a Washington, D.C. hospital on Friday, July 30, and released that same day. . . .
It was, according to three people who have worked closely with Bachmann, not an isolated event.
The Minnesota Republican frequently suffers from stress-induced medical episodes that she has characterized as severe headaches. These episodes, say witnesses, occur once a week on average and can “incapacitate” her for days at time. On at least three occasions, Bachmann has landed in the hospital as a result.

You can read the whole thing. My own feelings are mixed. On the one hand, it seems a fulfillment of my source’s prediction, so I could say I knew this was coming — although I never wrote anything about it at the time. Because I’ve been such an out-front supporter of Herman Cain, readers would have suspected bad motives if I had claimed to have inside negative information about one of his Republican rivals. Also, I very much like Bachmann and was genuinely pleased by her success.

On the other hand: Why does it seem that the Daily Caller always scores its exclusives at the expense of conservatives?

Was this why major GOP donor Foster Friess gave Tucker Carlson $3 million? Aren’t there some Democrats they could be investigating?

Just sayin’ . . .

UPDATE: Linked by Don Surber, Doug Mataconis, Political Byline, Bob Belvedere, The Lonely Conservative and Uncoverage — thanks!

Things go from bad to worse for Bachmann as her campaign security rough up Doug Ross of ABC News.

UPDATE II: Welcome, Instapundit readers!


Category: Election 2012, Michele Bachmann

Your Tax Dollars at Play

Posted on | July 19, 2011 | 5 Comments

How can those cheapskate Republicans talk about cutting the federal budget when we need money for valuable scientific research?

The federal government helped fund a study that examined what effect a gay man’s penis size has on his sex life and general well-being. . . .
This particular research resulted in a 2009 report titled, “The Association Between Penis Size and Sexual Health Among Men Who Have Sex with Men.” . . .
Though it’s difficult to trace exactly how much federal funding went to the project, the study was one of many linked to an $899,769 grant in 2006. The grant was administered by NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse, and went first to a group called Public Health Solutions and a researcher with the National Development and Research Institutes before going to individual researchers.
Those researchers then compiled data from a survey of more than 1,000 gay and bisexual men at events in New York City for the gay community.

And if you’re against using taxpayer dollars for that, you’re anti-science — and quite possibly anti-sex, too!

Category: Budget, Gays
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