The Other McCain

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

Is Stacy McCain’s Fashion Sense Roughly Equivalent To His Skill At Arguing With Women?

Posted on | March 16, 2011 | 11 Comments

by Smitty

So Stacy has engaged in a lengthy dialogue with Little Miss Attila the last couple of days. In the asymmetric warfare between the sexes, whoever emits the most material is not necessarily the winner. In any case, he’s not managed to be on Twitter to chew the fat with me. However, our mutual friend Ali was, and I complemented him on looking sharp in his avatar photo. I wondered aloud if he could work a little ‘Ali eye for the McCain guy’, thereby improving civilization. Leading to this tweet:

Now, here is the photo in question:

is_this_really_such_a_train_wreck?

Fedora by Smitty, BarbieCam bye bye.

I’m not sure I subscribe to Ali’s notion. Stacy McCain’s anti-design genius fills out the ‘gonzo journalist in the wild’ collection rather effectively. That said genius violates EPA regulations and ordinances in half a dozen cities is more a sign of bureaucracy gone wild than any aesthetic deficiency on his part, in my opinion.
Discuss.

 

Category: Uncategorized

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Alternative Reality)

Posted on | March 16, 2011 | 7 Comments

“Not only did Democrats under her Speakership raise discretionary spending 18% in three years, not only did she pass a Pay-Go law and then fail to adhere to it even once, Pelosi became the first Speaker since Watergate to fail to pass a budget resolution for a fiscal year. In 2010, despite having a 77-seat majority in the House, a Senate which her party held by 18 seats, and a Democrat in the White House, Pelosi failed — or refused — to pass a budget for FY2011.”
— Ed Morrissey, Hot Air

Don’t bother clearing your throat before you say, “chutzpah.”

“Democrats have long fought for fiscal responsibility as a top priority of this Congress.”

Anybody remember that fight? Anbody? I didn’t think so.

Category: Hot Air, Nancy Pelosi

Coyote and Roadrunner

Posted on | March 16, 2011 | 12 Comments

But which is which in this eternal argument with Little Miss Attila? No sooner have I dug what I intended as the last shovel-load of my ongoing violation of the First Rule of Holes than Attila delivers yet another provocation.

Meep-meep!

Category: Feminism, Little Miss Attila

Of Pundits And Palin

Posted on | March 16, 2011 | 20 Comments

by Smitty

The men-striation of the pundits who, more or less monthly, have to remind us that Sarah Palin is horrible–but don’t call them misogynist–remains a source of amusement.
Get stuffed, George Will:

Asked if the GOP would remain the party of ideas if Palin captures the nomination, Will said: “The answer is emphatically no.”

What ideas have you espoused about federal overreach and the national debt that amounted to a fart in a thuderstorm? Besides occasionally having measurably more testosterone in your writing than Dave Brooks (a low bar), how have you championed reducing entitlements, precisely?
Take that, Charles Krauthammer from Bob Zee, quoted in American Digest:

While Governor, her state was one of 2 out of 50 that created net jobs. I COULD WRITE FOR HOURS ABOUT HER ACCOMPLISHMENTS, but it would not do a damn thing for people like Krauthammer and other fraudulent, cowardly, so called conservatives. How come the other intellectual governors that Krauthammer praises could not eke out some job gains? Odd huh?WAKE UP!!!! Do you want to know why the jobs are gone? Do you want to to know why your nation is turning into a shit hole?

IT IS BECAUSE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. We let it happen.

WE CONSERVATIVES LET IT HAPPEN BECAUSE WE SAT ON OUR F***ING ASSES AND REFUSED TO FIGHT the left for the last 20+ years.

Now Sarah is ready to fight, and most of us just let her go out there with no backup, no nothing.

She is used as a human shield for LESSER MEN.

Ace has a lengthy meditation on what the Palin deal is with the conservative priesthood. Somewhere around the middle he bulletizes:

  1. anti-woman animus
  2. a desire to prop up the Old Boy’s Club
  3. tribal concerns about the current power structure (the “elite,” the “establishment”) being displaced in favor of a new power structure in which the “outsiders” and “ordinary people” are on top; as Palin is purported to be the vanguard of this new ruling class, it is postulated that the Old Guard has a strong, self-interested reason to stop her at all costs. (By the way– do most people consider themselves “ordinary”? I always wince at this formulation. Apart from a few people who are a little sub-ordinary and aspire to actually rise to the level of “ordinary,” I tend to think that most people do not consider themselves ordinary. Or maybe ordinary in several ways, but not-quite-ordinary in important ways.)
  4. a need to fit in with the liberal media elite and the so-called conservative intellectual elite which shares many of the shibboleths of the liberal media elite

Summarizing: fear of estrogen, fear of change.
I’m going to guess the latter, and point to the (free registration required for full read) Venerable Mead addressing the Left and making some telling points about the Tea Parties, with whom Sarah is so intrinsically linked, emphasis mine:

The historian Jill Lepore’s book The Whites of Their Eyes makes the point that many Tea Party activists have a crude understanding of the politics of the American Revolution. Yet however unsophisticated the Tea Party’s reading of the past may be, the movement’s appeal to Colonial history makes sense. From Colonial times, resentment of the well-bred, the well-connected, and the well-paid has merged with suspicion about the motives and methods of government insiders to produce populist rebellions against the established political order. This form of American populism is often called “Jacksonianism” after Andrew Jackson, the president who tapped this populist energy in the 1830s to remake the United States’ party system and introduce mass electoral politics into the country for good.Antiestablishment populism has been responsible for some of the brightest, as well as some of the darkest, moments in U.S. history. The populists who rallied to Jackson established universal white male suffrage in the United States — and saddled the country with a crash-prone financial system for 80 years by destroying the Second Bank of the United States. Later generations of populists would rein in monopolistic corporations and legislate basic protections for workers while opposing federal protection of minorities threatened with lynching. The demand of Jacksonian America for cheap or, better, free land in the nineteenth century led to the Homestead Act, which allowed millions of immigrants and urban workers to start family farms. It also led to the systematic and sometimes genocidal removal of Native Americans from their traditional hunting grounds and a massively subsidized “farm bubble” that helped bring about the Great Depression. Populist hunger for land in the twentieth century paved the way for an era of federally subsidized home mortgages and the devastating burst of the housing bubble.

Building on Ace’s points about fearing change above, we now have a delightful oversimplification by means of which to toss the Tea Parties under the bus: Jacksonian. The irony that AJ was the Original Democrat is a fine aside. We now have a tool by means of which the Tea Parties can be written off as unsophisticated rubes. Any intellectual can grasp that the country is broke, we have to curtail federal over-reach, but these Jacksonian rubes do not respect the Powers That Be sufficiently in taking the required action, and that will not do.
Also, “Jacksonian” becomes a shibboleth (I read the Book of Judges years ago, Ace, sorry) by which all the elite understand that Tea Party==Jacksonian==Racist. Brilliant!
What our so-called elite refuse to grasp is that the internet really is changing everything. While the lumpy middle of the standard normal distribution is likely to continue to remain uninvolved, the chunk in between the median and the elite tail has expanded considerably. More people are paying attention. More people, while not necessarily Sarah fanatics, are realizing that the attacks on her from the Left and elite Right are as feckless as an Obama foreign policy statement.
George Will:

“The more attention Palin receives, the fewer Americans consider her presidential timber.” 

Possibly, sir, the time for electing cigar store indians has passed. The country desperately needs someone who can articulate

  • why a century of federal overreach has failed
  • why living in reality as opposed to Progressive la-la land is going to hurt for a good decade or three
  • why we need to look more like Japan in disaster and less like Greece in default when facing this
  • why the GOP (and the pundit priesthood) has been more a part of the problem than the solution for the last century

Sure, Krauthammer and Will and the rest give good column from time to time. Maybe they’re too tactical, and maybe that’s because of relatively myopic audience for which they write. Maybe, too, Sarah Palin’s vision as stated thus far isn’t terribly far-reaching.
Nevertheless, the continuous 360 degree napalm shower directed at Sarah, both by the usual suspects and those who, following Reagan’s 11th Comandment, ought to be friendly, is astounding.
In fact, it’s so over the top as to trigger the question of whether it’s a giant head-fake, something Ace’s analysis misses.
What if the pundit priesthood knows that supporting Sarah overtly will be disaster, but going into lady-doth-protest-too-much mode will force the Tea Parties to ante up in 2012?
Methinks that could be the case.

Category: Sarah Palin

LIVE AT FIVE – 03.16.11

Posted on | March 16, 2011 | Comments Off on LIVE AT FIVE – 03.16.11

TOP NEWS
Fukushima Plant Evacuated After Radiation Spikes

Tepco PR men explain what's happening at Fukushima Daiichi

Workers battling meltdown ordered to leave plant for an hour

Fire Erupts Again At Fukushima (Video)
Radiation Risk To California Downplayed




Somber Emperor Makes Unprecedented Address To Nation

Bahrain Clears Protesters From Pearl Square
Three-month state of emergency declared

Libyan Loyalists Rout Rebels As No-Fly Efforts Stall
Administration continues to dither as Qaddafi’s men approach Benghazi



POLITICS
Pennsylvania To Lose One House Seat, But Whose?

Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett

Murtha’s old seat one possibility for removal by GOP-controlled legislature and governor

California Legislature To Call Vote On Budget Cuts, Referendum On Tax Extensions

Miami-Dade County Recalls Mayor, Councilwoman

Congressional Democrats Complain About Obama’s Lack Of Leadership

NY Court Hears Claims Against Ground Zero Mosque

Kasich Budget For Ohio Has “One Reform After Another”



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Japanese Stocks Recover From Steep Losses
Oil Hovers At $97 As Traders Eye Japan Disaster
European Stocks Flat To Lower On Global Unease
US Import Prices Jump 1.4% In February
HP Accelerates Move Into Cloud Computing, Increases Dividend
Apple Handcuffs Open Apps On IPhone Home Screen
Netflix In Talks For Original Series



SPORTS
Clemson Hammers UAB 70-52 In First-Round Rout

Jerai Grant scores a personal best 22 in the Tigers' mauling of UAB

How To Avoid Letting Another UAB Into The NCAA Field

This Idea Just Does Not Work

Rangers Regaining Control Of Fate After Win Over Islanders

Bulls In Sole Possession Of First In The East After Seventh Win In A Row

Bailey’s Injury Diagnosed As Sprain


Devils Dream One Step Closer After Beating Thrashers

NFLPA May Stage Alternative To Draft



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Marshall & Kim’s Kid @Angry_Blonde? Surprisingly Positive!

Hailie Mathers: One of Eminem's best productions?


A stream of positive tweets from the master rapper’s daughter 🙂

More Nude Vanessa Hudgens Photos Surface

Seann William Scott Enters Treatment

Courteney Cox: The Harper’s Bazaar Interview

LeAnn Rimes: Scary Skinny?

Long Beach Rapper NateDogg Dies At 41

Police: Kasey Jordan Attempts Suicide

Playgirl Offers $10K For Nude Anderson Cooper Pic

Janet Jackson Signs Production Deal With LionsGate

Snake Dies From Silicone Poisoning After Biting Model’s Breast During Photoshoot

Snooki Fights On WWE Raw, Will Rassle At Wrestlemania XXVII (Video)



FOREIGNERS
Germany Shutters Aging Nuclear Plants (Video)
Egypt To Dissolve State Security Agency, Form National Security Sector
G8 Refuse To Intervene In Libya
Israel Seizes Cargo Ship Loaded With Missiles
Police: Jakarta Terror Attacks Linked



BLOGS & STUFF
Allahpundit: Surgeon General Freaks Out Entire West Half Of Country
Althouse: If Walker, Scott And Kasich Succeed, Does Obama?
Daily Caller: Meggie Mac Mouths Off About Palin Again
Jim Gergahty: While Japan Burns, Obama Fills Out His Bracket
Sarah Palin: The $4/Gallon President?
Yid With Lid: Egyptian Protesters Refuse To Meet Clinton
AmSpecBlog: Bachmann Misfires
Lonely Conservative: Herman Cain Says Planned Parenthood Mission Is Genocide Of Black Babies
American Power: Protesters Plan To Occupy Michigan Capitol

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Category: Live at Five

Re-Reading Susan Brownmiller
Confronting the Radical Facts of Feminism

Posted on | March 15, 2011 | 48 Comments

“God help us if she ever gets raped — we will be buried under an avalanche of rhetoric.”
— James Wolcott, letter to the Village Voice, 1971

Little Miss Attila vowed Monday that she owes me an essay in response to a post I wrote, and she can write a damned book for all I care. Having begun by insulting me — “fiddle-faddle”! — she has repeatedly doubled down every time I’ve defended myself, and keeps treating my defenses as if they were acts of aggression: How dare you deny your inferiority!

This obviously isn’t about me, but about her, and I cannot be responsible for her feelings of indignation at my refusal to kowtow.

What began the dispute (those few who have followed it will recall) was my attempt to briefly recount the history of feminism, locating it as a movement of the Left. In particular, I called attention to Betty Friedan’s Communist history as evidence of feminism’s ideological orientation. Attila responded by throwing out the name Gloria Steinem as an “a-ha!” But this did not disprove feminism’s left-wing origins, as I explained, because Steinem was a somewhat opportunistic Janey-come-lately to the Women’s Liberation movement that began in 1967. It was not until 1969, when Steinem wrote a New York magazine article about this burgeoning movement, that she became publicly associated with the cause.

Given the fact that the actual founders of Women’s Liberation were all closely associated with the anti-war ’60s New Left — including SDS members and several “Red Diaper babies” like Kathie Amatniek, raised by Communist parents — how on earth could a reference to Steinem be thought to refute my original point? (And, it must be noted, Steinem was herself an anti-war liberal, having supported first Eugene McCarthy and then RFK in the 1968 Democratic primaries.)

Attila seems to have presumed my writing about feminism could only be based in ignorant sexist prejudice: No man could be both (a) informed about the history of feminism and (b) an anti-feminist. Thus I eventually felt obliged to mention that I was writing with a copy of Susan Brownmiller’s memoir In Our Time sitting on my desk.

Brownmiller is most famously the author of Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, and was one of the organizers of a seminal January 1971 anti-rape “speak-out” event and a subsequent May 1971 Conference on Rape, both sponsored by New York Radical Feminists. The quote from James Wolcott that began this post is from a letter he wrote, as a college student, to the Village Voice in response to Brownmiller’s article, “On Goosing.”

The inspiration for that article was that Brownmiller had been helping pass out handbills to promote the rape conference when she was groped by a passing stranger. Well, as the feminists taught us, “The personal is political” (a slogan that Brownmiller explains was coined by her feminist friend Carol Hanisch). And so this incident led her to write a mini-manifesto of sorts, to which Wolcott supplied the rejoinder.

If my blog-feud with Attila has done nothing else, it has inspired me to re-read In Our Time. Perhaps I should explain how I came into possession of the book. Years ago, when I worked at The Washington Times, I was a voracious scavenger grabbing up books from the “discard” pile in the newsroom. Publishers flooded the book review editor’s office with their latest volumes, only a fraction of which were ever mentioned in the paper. The leftovers were picked through by the book editor and his assistant and what they didn’t want, they brought down from their office upstairs and dumped on a table in the newsroom.

Being a maniacal bibliophile, I would scoop up everything that seemed even slightly interesting to me. And it was through this process that I amassed a small collection of feminist memoirs.

For some reason, the years 1997-2001 unleashed a torrent of such works. Most were by obscure writers who, I guessed, were hoping to get their books onto the reading lists of university Women’s Studies programs. Skimming through the books during train-and-bus rides home, I discovered that most of these stories had a predictable narrative arc: Young woman goes to college; sleeps with boyfriend; has abortion; breaks up with boyfriend; gets involved with anti-war protests; is sexually exploited by a series of boyfriends from the anti-war movement; becomes involved in Women’s Lib; and, at some point past the prime of her promiscuous youth, discovers that she is in fact a lesbian.

The personal is the political, you see, and by the mid- to late 1990s, the personal was also frequently published, as these middle-aged Baby Boomer women felt compelled to share with a waiting world the tales of their “journey” — God, how they over-used that phrase — toward feminist (and usually also lesbian) enlightenment. Read more

Category: Feminism, History, Little Miss Attila

California? Sure, I’d Love to Go

Posted on | March 15, 2011 | 8 Comments

For weeks, Joe at Valley of the Shadow has been bugging me: Would I come to the California Republican Party convention?

The convention starts Friday morning in Sacramento.

But I can’t go. Don’t ask why. Just go hit Joe’s tip jar..

Category: California, Valley of the Shadow

Governor Walker Reeling From Rhetorical Blow Dealt By. . .Susan Sarandon?

Posted on | March 15, 2011 | 16 Comments

by Smitty (via Lucianne)

Politico captures the less-than-stunning verbal impact:

Sarandon spoke to The Nation’s John Nichols about why she travelled to the Midwest.

“I wanted to say thank you for everyone who’s kept this fight going, who have awakened all the union members. I’m a union member. I’m also a mom whose kids have been kept safe and clothed and fed by union workers,” said the actress, who has been involved with progressive political activism for a number of years.

Sarandon said the mobilization of protesters against the bill was a movement, not just a demonstration. “When you see what’s going on here, then you have hope that our democracy can stop being a plutocracy,” she told Nichols.

When it came to Gov. Walker, the actress did not mince her words: She called him an “idiot.”

Governor Walker’s necktie, reached for comment said: “Thanks for bringing this up. Thought it was a near-miss by a horsefly or something.”

For a more cogent read on the topic, see Legal Insurrection.

Category: Celebrities, Wisconsin
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