The Other McCain

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

Fred Barnes Puts His Finger On It

Posted on | June 10, 2011 | 24 Comments

And by “it,” I mean, Calista Gingrich:

The problem was the wife. Aides to Newt Gingrich have resigned from his presidential campaign in protest of what they felt was a takeover by Callista Gingrich, the candidate’s wife since 2000. . . .
Callista Gingrich gradually emerged as Gingrich’s most influential adviser this year, supplanting longtime aides like Rick Tyler, his press secretary and aide-de-camp, and Sam Dawson, who was a major adviser for more than three decades. That Tyler and Dawson would join four others in quitting was a particular blow to the Gingrich campaign.
The others who resigned are: campaign manager Rob Johnson, Carney, and consultants Craig Schoenfeld in Iowa and Katon Dawson in South Carolina. Besides the entire senior staff, ten other campaign aides also quit.

Given that the Newt 2012 bandwagon has now obviously run into a ditch, let’s talk bluntly: In February 2009, I attended the premiere of the Reagan documentary, Rendezvous With Destiny, which was produced by Citizens United and “hosted by Newt and Calista Gingrich.” It was a great movie, except . . .

Calista Gingrich? What the hell was she doing in this movie? Every time she appeared on the screen, it felt wrong. Jarringly wrong.

Here was this cast of authentic heavyweights –James Baker, Marlin Fitzwater, Jack Kemp,  Bill Bennett, Ed Meese, etc. — sharing their recollections of the Reagan era.

And then there was Calista Gingrich.

She quite clearly did not belong in this company and, while I understand she played an important role in helping coordinate production of the film, her on-screen presence was a distraction. I didn’t write about it at the time, but I talked to several people at the premiere who had the same impression: Why would she insist on intruding herself into the movie?

So now, it seems, Gingrich’s wife has helped destroy his presidential campaign. Lisa Graas has further thoughts.

Category: Election 2012, Newt Gingrich

New Blog Honors Joan Walsh

Posted on | June 9, 2011 | 25 Comments

And by “honors,” I mean: Exposes her as the predictably credulous liberal mouthpiece she really is.

Category: Blogging

They Told Me If Obama Was Elected …

Posted on | June 9, 2011 | 7 Comments

. . . Glenn Reynolds would spend the next four years making endless variations of the same joke — and they were right!

Category: Instapundit

The Vagina as a Criminal Weapon

Posted on | June 9, 2011 | 48 Comments

“Give me your Subaru or else!“

Two Potsdam [N.Y.] women are accused of threatening to falsely accuse a man of rape if he didn’t give them a car.
Village police say that Christine L. Laraby, 45, and Miranda L. Laraby, 17, threatened a man that they would report to police that he had physically abused and raped Miranda Laraby if he did not sign over his vehicle to the defendants with a note saying that they had paid him $500 cash for it.
Police say the defendants subsequently took possession of the man’s 1997 Subaru Legacy.

Why didn’t the Laraby Vagina Extortion Gang target the owner of an Escalade or a Mercedes?

But why stop at car theft? If the vagina can be used as a weapon to steal a 1997 Subaru, why not a Gulfstream?

(Hat-tips: Charles G. Hill and Dan Collins on Twitter.)

Category: Crime

Team Newt Implodes: Top Aides Quit Gingrich 2012 Presidential Campaign

Posted on | June 9, 2011 | 27 Comments

This news just broke in the past hour:

Republican Newt Gingrich’s senior aides on his presidential campaign have resigned, according to the Associated Press.
Press secretary Rick Tyler told the AP that he, campaign manager Rob Johnson said other strategists and aides in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina stepped down.

UPDATE: Politico points to an obvious factor:

One official said the last straw came when Gingrich went forward with taking a long-planned cruise with his wife last week in the Greek isles. . . .
[After the campaign’s botched rollout last month] Gingrich then virtually vanished from the campaign trail, taking more than a week off the campaign trail. His whereabouts were unknown until this week, when POLITICO revealed that he and his wife, Callista, were on a cruise in the Mediterranean.

You’re making phone calls to volunteers in Iowa while your candidate is cruising the Aegean Sea — not exactly a moral booster for the campaign team.

UPDATE II: Allahpundit suggests that key members of Team Newt might be about to climb aboard the Rick Perry bandwagon.

UPDATE III: From the Washington Post:

Among the issues, according to knowledgeable sources, was the two-week vacation that Gingrich and his wife, Callista, insisted upon taking against the advice of his top political staff. Coming as it did after one of the most diastrous campaign launches in recent memory, it raised questions as to whether Gingrich would be willing to “commit time to the grassroots,” said Tyler. 

Linked by Republican Redefined, Fire Andrea Mitchell and Katy’s Conservative Corner — thanks!

UPDATE IV: Linked by Bob Belvedere at Camp of the Saints — thanks!

Category: Election 2012, Newt Gingrich

Herman Cain Speaks Bluntly: ‘I Believe Homosexuality Is a Sin … Their Choice’

Posted on | June 9, 2011 | 68 Comments

In an interview on CBS News:

“I believe homosexuality is a sin because I’m a Bible-believing Christian, I believe it’s a sin. But I know that some people make that choice. That’s their choice.”

OK, I know for a fact that Herman Cain has GOProud supporters, and it will be interesting to see their reaction to this.

Cain is trying to focus his campaign on jobs, the budget and economics — these are his strengths, as a business executive — but he necessarily gets asked by reporters about all sorts of issues. A key factor in Cain’s appeal is his plain-spoken nature and, when asked about homsexuality, he stated (a) his personal belief as a Christian, and (b) his libertarian understanding that people have to live their own lives according to their own choices.

For two decades at least, gay activists have used the “born that way” argument in an effort to gain civil-rights protection for homosexuals, attempting to make sexual preference a hereditary factor analogous to race. So Cain’s remark about sexuality as a “choice” is likely to offend gay activists as much as his remark about “sin.” But I think it’s important to grasp the libertarian sense in which he uses “choice.”

Beyond that, will this help or hurt Cain?

Remember that Iowa is the No. 1 objective for Team Herman. If he were to win the Iowa caucuses, that would be a political earthquake, and his campaign leadership really believes that they can make that happen with a volunteer-based grassroots effort.

So, consider what Cain said, and ask yourself: Is this likely to offend the typical grassroots conservative Republican in Iowa?

Nope. Not even a blip on the radar.

By the way, Herman Cain will be one of the featured speakers at Right Online, which starts June 17 — a week from Friday — in Minneapolis. You should sign up now.

UPDATE: GOProud activist Christopher Barron:

The truth is that Herman Cain is running on a campaign centered on conservative policies that would improve the lives of all Americans – including gay Americans.

UPDATE II: Linked by Lisa Graas — thanks!

Category: Election 2012, Gays, Herman Cain

Behind Blue Eyes

Posted on | June 9, 2011 | 50 Comments

Ann Coulter was interviewed by ABC News, and Terry Moran introduced the segment this way:

Simply put — a lot of people despise Ann Coulter, the conservative firebrand, because of her malevolent and acid rhetoric.

Who are “a lot of people”? Liberals. And toward whom is Coulter’s rhetoric “malevolent”? Liberals.

Keep in mind that Ann Coulter is one of the most consistently popular authors in America. Every book she writes is a No. 1 bestseller, every speech she gives draws a capacity crowd and every time she appears on TV, ratings go up.

Coulter is “despised” by “a lot of people” in the same sense that Wal-Mart and McDonald’s are “despised” by “a lot of people” — because liberals like Terry Moran hate anyone who succeeds in the free market, including the free market of ideas.

So the price of being a successful and effective critic of liberalism is that Terry Moran goes on TV and instructs ABC News viewers that everybody hates you before your interview even airs! And then he hands it over to Dan Harris, whose first question for Ann Coulter is, “Is it ever uncomfortable for you to be hated?”

You may be asking yourself, “What can I do to fight back against this kind of insidious media bigotry?” The answer is simple: Buy Ann Coulter’s new book, Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America. Because “a lot of people” will be angry when they open their Sunday New York Times and discover that, once again, Coulter is sitting atop the bestseller list.

Category: ABC, Ann Coulter, Books, Liberals

McCarthy On The War Powers Act

Posted on | June 9, 2011 | 8 Comments

by Smitty

Read this NRO post by Andrew McCarthy on the War Powers Act. Truly interesting Constitutional thinking.

What makes the WPA constitutionally problematic, though, is mostly its legislative veto provision, which purports to enable Congress to direct the president to withdraw forces by a joint resolution. (See this 2004 CRS analysis, here.) Joint resolutions are not binding law because, under the Constitution, law can only be enacted if the president signs a bill passed by both houses of Congress, or if Congress overrides a presidential veto of that bill by the required super-majority. (As Rich points out, the veto-override is how the WPA was enacted in the first place.) Putting aside the knottier question whether Congress has the authority to order a president to withdraw forces (i.e., could Congress constitutionally direct a president to withdraw forces by overriding the presidential veto of a bill directing him to do so?), Congress certainly cannot direct a president to do anything by a mere resolution.

Where I would like to see the conversation go is historical. If the decisions stretching from the Constitution to today are taken one at a time, you find yourself giving the people in power the benefit of the doubt; it is at least possible that you’d have done the same in their shoes.
Step back, though, and consider the thrust of American history since the National Security Act of 1947. Do we seem increasingly embroiled in war because human nature has become more warlike, or is it just because we have a hegemonic arsenal laying around?
This is an increasingly crucial set of paradoxes in the American psyche, at least for me:

  • Prior to 1947, we were never hegemonic; that is a facet of Holy Progress.
  • Hegemonic power is at odds with separation of powers in the Constitution.
  • Hegemonic power may be economically unsustainable alongside the social welfare state, which we are addressing with equal sobriety.
  • Having assumed hegemonic power, the desirability and possibility of cleanly divesting ourselves of it is not clear.

On a personal level, coming clean about a screw-up is typically the least-worst approach. This does not mean that getting better is painless, just that honesty minimizes the pain.
Yet ours is a political system that does not reward honesty.
So the question moves to whether we find another sweet liar to move these problems down the road, or whether the economic reckoning flattens us, obviating the question.
I love my country, but, based on the historical evidence, I do not think it can produce leadership clever enough to do anything more than mark time until some economic reckoning forces the question. We’ll have less control, when ‘it’ happens. But our capacity for analysis only kick in retrospectively.  And then, like some Tommy Boy, we’ll have a montage, and recover. It’s who we are; it’s what we do.

Category: Uncategorized
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