LIVE AT FIVE – 2.16.11

In the Alternet article beneath that headline, pseudonymous writer Chauncey De Vega employs a lot of academic “race theory” talk to justify insulting Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain. And when he’s not merely insulting, De Vega is simply wrong:

Let’s consider the routine. First, Cain enters the stage to Motown music. Then Cain feigns swimming after rolling up his sleeves to show them his black skin and how he is a hardworking negro (not like those other ones). Cain bellows in a preacher affected voice and channels the folksy negro down home accent of his late grandpappy.

First, as Duane Lester at All-American Blogger points out, the gesture that De Vega describes as intended “to show them his black skin” was actually Cain doing a “no tricks up my sleeves” gesture like a magician, meant to show that not only was he speaking without a Teleprompter, but he was also speaking extemporaneously — without notes of any kind.

Second, De Vega’s suggestion that Cain’s “down home accent” is an affectation is simply false, as anyone who has listened to Herman Cain’s radio show would know.

Having known Herman Cain since 2007, I can testify that what you see is what you get. And the thousands of people who’ve met Cain at Tea Party rallies and other events would tell you the same thing. This Alternet article was e-mailed to me by my cousin Brian Buchanan with this note:

We all knew it was only a matter of time before it happened. I find it an odd dichotomy that if you disagree with Obama you are a racist but if you agree with Herman Cain then you are only supporting him because he “acts white.” I hope that people are finally waking up to see that the race baiters have cried wolf too many times. I wonder what they think of Allen West.

Exactly, and as Duane Lester writes: “Cain has called for the article to be taken down. In one of those rare instances, I disagree with him. I want them to keep it up. . . . Leave the article up. Sooner or later it can be used to wake someone up to the left’s unnoticed history of racism.”

But if they take down the Alternet article, expect to see a lot more of this type of stuff as support for Cain’s campaign grows: Liberal writers playing armchair psychologist to explain What It Really Means.

There’s a Memeorandum thread with lots more commentary from John Hinderaker at Powerline, Dana Loesch at Big Journalism, Sister Toldjah, Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air and Bryan Preston at PJM Tatler.

UPDATE: Apologies for omitting The Right Sphere from the commentary roundup. By the way, to explain why I was so late getting to this article today: I went down to D.C., got back about 5 p.m., and then took a five-hour nap. I’m still still recovering from “CPAC fever.”

UPDATE II: Discussing Obama’s budget, Dan Collins reminds us that there are still 5 A’s in “raaaaacist.”

This latest countertemps reminds me of when Rush Limbaugh was denounced for having employed the term “magic negro,” a phrase borrowed from liberal writer David Ehrenstein’s column in the Los Angeles Times. Here’s the “Today” show segment about that ginned-up “controversy”:

Americans are belatedly realizing that Peter Brimelow nailed it when he defined “racist” as “someone who’s winning an argument with a liberal.”

UPDATE III: As background — to show that Herman Cain is no Johnny-come-lately conservative — here is my May 2007 feature article:

Speaking out with a smile
Radio host Herman Cain keeps cancer, GOP in line
By Robert Stacy McCain
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
ATLANTA — Herman Cain laughs a lot, and he has lots to be happy about — including a successful business career and a popular talk radio show. Inside the Atlanta studios of WSB Radio on a recent Saturday, he told his listeners about a local newspaper columnist who wrote that “being a black Republican is not only oxymoronic, it’s simply plain old-fashioned moronic” and singled out Mr. Cain as a “token” and a “sorry opportunist.”
“He forgot – I’ve got a radio show,” Mr. Cain says as he issues an on-air challenge for the columnist to call in, then goes to commercial, laughing all the while.
Such cheerfulness might seem surprising for a man who, in March 2006, was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer that had spread to his liver. After two months of chemotherapy, Mr. Cain underwent surgery in August — doctors removed one-third of his colon and 70 percent of his liver, he says — and then it was another two months of chemotherapy. And he is laughing.
“Now you’re looking at a man who’s cancer-free — and all my liver’s grown back,” says the 61-year-old former executive. But don’t call him a “survivor,” he says. “I’m a winner,” says Mr. Cain, former chief executive officer of the Godfather’s Pizza chain.
A graduate of Atlanta’s Morehouse College, he worked for the Department of the Navy and Coca-Cola before joining the Pillsbury Co. in 1977. When Pillsbury acquired the Burger King restaurant chain, he went to work managing the chain’s operations in the Philadelphia area. His success with Burger King won him appointment in 1986 as president of Godfather’s, another Pillsbury acquisition. He helped turn around the division and then led a management team that bought the chain from Pillsbury.
Now retired from the restaurant business, Mr. Cain keeps busy. He is a member of four corporate boards (including Hallmark Cards and Whirlpool), a member of the Morehouse board of trustees, an author and syndicated columnist, a regular guest on Fox News Channel’s “Cost of Freedom” business program and, most recently, a radio talk-show host, frequently filling in on Atlanta-based Neal Boortz’s syndicated program as well as hosting his own two-hour show each Saturday.
Then there is politics. In 2004, Mr. Cain sought the Senate seat vacated by the retirement of Sen. Zell Miller, Georgia Democrat. In the Republican primary, he placed second to Johnny Isakson, who later won the Senate seat. But Mr. Cain’s outspoken conservatism during the campaign won him many admirers – including Mr. Miller, who wrote the foreword to Mr. Cain’s 2005 book, “They Think You’re Stupid: How Democrats Lost Your Vote and What Republicans Must Do to Keep It.”
What Republicans have done lately doesn’t please Mr. Cain, who expresses the same frustrations that many other conservatives have voiced about the party in recent years.
“They didn’t stick to principles,” he says, when asked why Republicans lost control of Congress in the 2006 elections. He criticizes Republicans in Washington for spending irresponsibly, failing to pass Social Security reform and, especially, not heeding their grass-roots supporters on immigration policy.
“They were not listening to people outside Washington. If they would have listened, they wouldn’t have lost,” says Mr. Cain, explaining that he finds people are eager to tell him their views on political issues.
“I’m like a walking poll. … It’s not scientific, but it’s pretty darned consistent,” he says of what he heard about immigration last year “Republicans were screaming, ‘Secure the borders first.’ ”
Republicans in Washington “are too afraid of their political shadows,” Mr. Cain says. He adds that many of his colleagues on corporate boards are so “disgusted” with Republicans that they have stopped contributing to the party, telling him: “When they start acting like Republicans, I’ll write some more checks.”
Considering the party’s prospects in 2008, he asks, “Where’s the excitement? Where’s the fun? There is none.”
Yet, Mr. Cain is clearly having lots of fun. He performs his two-hour radio show standing up, and provokes a reaction with his criticism of the Rev. Al Sharpton (“He gets away with inciting racial tensions, but doesn’t want to be held accountable.”) and liberals who, he says, use “name-calling … to discourage black people from thinking for themselves.”
Soon, callers fill the phone lines, waiting to share their opinions with Mr. Cain, who keeps smiling and laughing even when talking with angry callers who disagree with him.
Mr. Cain is grateful for simple pleasures such as “watching my grandkids grow up,” he says, recalling the months he spent in treatment after his cancer diagnosis. “I was saying my prayers … and I had a whole lot of people sending up prayers for me,” he says.
“You don’t stop living because you’re fighting cancer. … If everybody stopped living because they were fighting cancer, one-third of the adult population would be sitting home waiting to die,” Mr Cain says, adding that he has no interest in sitting around. “Death’s going to have to catch me, and it’s going to have to run fast.”

Category: CPAC, Election 2012, Herman Cain

Because They’re Better Than You

Posted on | February 15, 2011 | 23 Comments

Megan McArdle did a post about evidence that academia systematically excludes conservatives. Liberals responded by justfying and/or defending this exclusion, offering a variety of excuses which Megan summarizes thus:

•Smart people are almost always liberal
•Curiosity and interest in ideas is a liberal trait
•Conservatives are too rigid and authoritarian to maintain the open mind required of a professor
•Education erases false conservative ideas and turns people into liberals
•Conservatives don’t want to be professors because they’re more interested in something else (money, the military)
•Conservatives don’t want to be professors because they’re anti-intellectual
•Conservatives hold false beliefs that make them ineligible to be professors

Notice that none of these explanations reflect disfavorably on academia or liberals. Whatever the causes of liberal bias in academia, in other words, neither liberalism as a philosophy nor the university system as an institution can be held responsible. The blame must be externalized onto conservative scapegoats.

These explanations tell us a great deal about the liberal worldview, but nothing we didn’t already know.

Category: Education, Liberals, Megan McArdle

Surprise: Supporters of Most ‘Transparent’ Administration Launch Smear Campaign Against GOP Congessman Investigating Most ‘Transparent’ Administration

Posted on | February 15, 2011 | 12 Comments

Because they’re all about the transparency!

Democrats are understandably obsessed with Darrell Issa — he’s built himself up as a one-man investigative machine aimed straight at the Obama presidency.
But a handful of liberal political operatives . . . are taking their anti-Issa passion to a whole new level, launching a nonprofit group, a website and even paid media advertisements aimed at undermining and investigating the rabble-rousing chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
They say they’re leaving no stone unturned in digging into Issa’s personal and business history. . . .
The purpose of this new group is to . . . make life difficult for Issa and sow seeds of doubt on his investigations.
They plan to run TV advertisements and other paid media in the future, saying they already have a “significant commitment” of cash. . . .
The group will be run by the principals of SCN Strategies, a San Francisco-based consulting firm. . . . One of those deeply involved is Averell “Ace” Smith — who ran Hillary Clinton’s successful 2008 California and Texas primary operations and is known as one of the more cutthroat political operatives in the business.
Dan Newman of SCN Strategies, one of the three people leading the anti-Issa campaign, declines to disclose how much is being spent on the effort or who is bankrolling it . . .

If it weren’t for double standards, liberals would have no standards at all.

Category: Barack Obama, Congress, Corruption, Darrell Issa, Liberals

LIVE AT FIVE – 2.15.11

Posted on | February 15, 2011 | 9 Comments

TOP NEWS
GOP Mocks Obama Budget, House Weighs Spending Cuts

Copies of the President's budget being stacked up at the Government Printing Office

Predictably, Pelosi whines that under GOP proposals, minorities and women hardest hit

Iranian Deputies Call For Death Of Opposition Leaders
Six Iranian cities rocked by demonstrations held in defiance of government orders

Wave Of Tunisian Emigrants Alarms Italy
Over 1000 arrive on Lampedusa after fleeing continuing chaos

POLITICS
Romney Tops Obama In New Hampshire Poll

GOP Presidential Hopeful Mitt Romney

Mass. governor tops President 49-41; Obama won state in 2008

Barnes: “The President Made Tough Budget Cuts” (Video)

Rahm Emanuel: The Mayor As College Recruiter

House Votes To Extend Key Provisions Of Patriot Act

Obama’s Defense Budget Criticized; Analysts Slam Cuts As “Budgetary Shell Game”

THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Bank Of Japan Tones Up Economic Optimism, Keeps Rates On Hold
Ecuador’s $17 Billion Judgment Against Chevron May Be Unenforceable
PRC Inflation Hits 4.9%, Raises Doubts Over Food Costs
U.S. Stocks Mixed At Close; Walmart Weighs Down DJIA
Apple Suppliers: Child Labor, Suicides, Bribery
Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Could Be Next IPhone

SPORTS
Kansas State Stuns #1 Kansas 84-68

KSU guard Jacob Pullen looks for a teammate

Jacob Pullen scores personal-best 38 as Wildcats upset Jayhawks

Lakers Lame; Clawed, Conquered Again By Expansion Bobcats 109-89

Nuggets Blown Out At Houston, 121-102

#1 Recruit Clowney Chooses Cocks

Delfino Hits Seven Three-Pointers As Bucks Beat Clippers

Phillies’ Lee: “Gimme A Ring”

Royals’ Owner: Not Even Pujols Is Worth $300 Million

NFL Files Labor Charges Against Union

Attack Of The “Caddyshack” References

Lakers, Time Warner Cable Sign 20-Year Deal

FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
The Billion Dollar Girl

Jessica Simpson, fashion mogul

She’s laughing all the way to the bank

“Two And A Half Men” Crew Furious As Episodes Cut

Serene Branson Suffers Possible Stroke On-Air During Grammy Report

Angry Bieber Fans Desecrate Spalding’s Wikipedia Page

Whoopi Goldberg Misfires In Attack On Article About Black Oscar Winners

Taylor Swift’s Unrequited Crush

Rihanna Sued By Fashion Photog Over “Copycat” S&M Video

Prince Harry To Be Wills’ Best Man

Lindsay Lohan Dodges Bullet: Judge Who Warned Of Jail No Longer On Case

FOREIGNERS
Paki Islamists Warn U.S. About Jailed Diplomat
Bahraini Protesters Clash With Police (Video)
Is Mubarak Dying?
Britain Looks Into Freezing Assets Of Mubarak Associates
92-Year-Old Accused Of 1942 Nazi Massacre In Serbia

BLOGS & STUFF
PowerLine: “Steep Cuts”? Even The Left Is Beginning To Notice
Professor Bainbridge: Memo To Washington – Get Out Of The Insurance Biz
Weasel Zippers: Sheriff Arpaio Considering Run For Senate?
Army Times: XM25 “Punisher” Performs Flawlessly In Afghanistan
Gates Of Vienna: Obama The Clueless
AmSpecBlog: Hillary Praises Iranian Protesters, But Will Obama?
Glenn Beck: Muslim Brotherhood At CPAC?
Michael Medved: Obama Isn’t Trying To Weaken America

— compiled by Wombat-socho

—————-
Now playing: Jason & the Scorchers – Jimmie Rodgers’ Last Blue Yodel
via FoxyTunes

Category: Live at Five

‘We’ll Always Have CPAC’

Posted on | February 15, 2011 | 15 Comments

Ginny at Obi’s Sister paid tribute to my schmoozing abilities by dubbing me the “cruise director” of CPAC, but I had just been watching Casablanca on TCM, so I told Ginny:

“Cruise director”? I’d rather you thought of me as Rick Blaine in Casablanca: “We’ll always have CPAC.”

Yeah, that’s me. Bogie, hardened and cynical: “I stick my neck out for nobody.” The rest of you starry-eyed idealists are Ilsa or Lazlo, but I’m too wised-up to fall for that sentimental nonsense.

And then Sam starts playing “As Time Goes By,” and the memories come rushing back. Read more

Category: CPAC, Obi's Sister

$35,000 a Month, Plus Expenses

Posted on | February 14, 2011 | 23 Comments

That’s what Mexico paid Republican Haley Barbour to lobby on behalf of amnesty for illegals:

According to a State Department filing by Barbour’s former lobbying firm, The Embassy of Mexico decided to retain Barbour’s services on August 15, 2001, to work on, among other things, legislation that would provide a path to citizenship for foreigners living illegally in the United States—what opponents of immigration reform call “amnesty.”
“Haley Barbour and I will lead the BG&R team,” wrote Lanny Griffith, Barbour’s former business partner, in the filing. According to subsequent filings, Barbour’s work included “building support in the legislative branch for passage of a bill related to Section 245(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.” As part of that work, Barbour’s firm arranged meetings and briefings with “Senators, members of Congress and their staffs, as well as Executive Branch Officials in the White House, National Security Council, State Department, and Immigration & Naturalization Service.” Barbour’s firm charged Mexico $35,000 a month, plus expenses.

(Via Hot Air.) That will go over real good with GOP primary voters in Iowa, I’m sure.

Category: Election 2012, Immigration

‘Obama the Moderate’ Myth

Posted on | February 14, 2011 | 3 Comments

CNN spins it:

President Barack Obama’s proposed $3.7 trillion budget was slammed by the left and the right Monday. Outraged liberals called it a callous assault on the poor; dismissive conservatives labeled it a debt-riddled assault on future generations.
Which begs the question: Is Obama’s budget blueprint exactly what the president needs to capture the broad political center in the runup to 2012?

CNN’s Alan Silverleib clearly intends to signal that the answer is “yes,” which is the entire point of asking the question. Expect to see many further reiterations of this bogus theme in coming weeks, as the MSM pose their flexible “Moderate Obama” presidential action figure as a super-hero standing guard against “extremism” of all kinds.

Category: Barack Obama, Budget, CNN

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The Other McCain

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LIVE AT FIVE – 2.16.11

Breathtaking: Liberal Calls Herman Cain ‘Minstrel,’ ‘Coon,’ ‘Sambo,’ ‘Monkey’

Because They’re Better Than You

Surprise: Supporters of Most ‘Transparent’ Administration Launch Smear Campaign Against GOP Congessman Investigating Most ‘Transparent’ Administration

LIVE AT FIVE – 2.15.11

‘We’ll Always Have CPAC’

$35,000 a Month, Plus Expenses

‘Obama the Moderate’ Myth

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