The Other McCain

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

Bolsheviks for Monarchy

Posted on | November 17, 2010 | 14 Comments

Matthew Yglesias hates greedy rich people and “corporate America” and — of course — despises all racism, sexism, homophobia and every other form of prejudice or intolerance you could imagine.

Somehow, these leftist commitments do not stop Yglesias from fawning over British royalty.

All politics is local, I suppose. And any hypocrisy is acceptable, so long as it is fashionable hypocrisy.

UPDATE: Almost forgot the whole point of blogging about British royalty: Kate Middleton bikini pictures.

UPDATE II: “First royal with bolt-ons,” a Twitter friend comments and, indeed, it appears from some photos that young Miss Middleton has resorted to surgical augmentation.

My preference is for a natural A-cup over a fake C, and I think that a sort of Gresham’s Law applies: Big fake breasts tend to diminish the value of big breasts generally.

Your mileage may vary.

UPDATE III: Linked by the Rhetorican and of course, welcome, Instapundit readers! Professor Reynolds offers no opinion of the royal breasts. He’s a natural-born diplomat.

Category: Celebrities, Great Britain, Marriage

Worst. Headline. Evah.

Posted on | November 17, 2010 | 15 Comments

Some things make you want to gouge your eyes out:

Murkowski now has apparently insurmountable lead of 10,000+ votes

When I saw that at Hot Air Headlines, I knew that it was time to confront this ugly reality head-on.  That dreadful excuse for a human being has been re-elected, and we must ask ourselves, “Why?”

Let me remind you of a headline from Oct. 5:

Palin Backers Suspect Huckabee Loyalists on Joe Miller Staff Behind E-Mail Leak

Other observers will analyze this campaign in detail, but the essence of what seems to have happened is that somebody on Team Joe got the clever idea that what they needed to do was to “distance” their candidate from Sarah Palin.

This was a tragic miscalculation. In a two-way campaign against the Democrat Scott McAdams, perhaps, the Republican candidate might have wished to avoid being seen as a Palin proxy. But once Murkowski’s write-in campaign became a viable enterprise — a development that I certainly never expected — any attempt to “distance” Miller from Palin was clearly counter-productive. For Miller to offend the pro-Palin vote was to alienate the very voters who were essential to his election.

Whether there is any truth to the widespread suspicion that pro-Huckabee members of Team Joe were responsible for the Miller campaign’s blunders, the lesson in the end is the same: In politics, as folks say down home, it is always best to “dance with the one that brung ya.”

Is there any silver lining here, any cause for cheer? Not much, although some may take encouragement from the fact that the Democrat got just 23% of the vote. Still, we are left with the inescapable fact that some 40% of Alaskans cast write-in votes for an unprincipled pro-abortion pork-barrel Republican.

And John Cornyn, who congratulated her on her re-election, was unanimously re-elected chairman of the NRSC.

NOT ONE RED CENT!

UPDATE: “My precioussss.” The power-crazed bitch blames Jim DeMint for the NRSC’s blundering away the Senate majority — a majority which, as William Jacobson has pointed out, would have been utterly useless to accomplish anything meaningful in terms of advancing a conservative agenda.

Here you have the mile-deep taproot of my disagreement with those who claim that, by backing Miller, Ken Buck, Christine O’Donnell, et al., conservatives lost the oportunity for a GOP majority in the Senate. That this is supposed to be the sophisticated intellectual belief sticks in my craw for several reasons:

  • A Republican majority in the Senate was always a longshot. Simply as an exercise in political math, it was hard to calculate a way for Republicans to get to 51 seats.
  • Carly Fiorina. Hello? The establishmentarians got their dream candidate in California and what was the result? 43 percent. It is therefore difficult to credit the GOP Establishment with a monopoly on political wisdom.
  • A 51-seat Senate majority isn’t too useful from a policy perspective. The supermajority requirement of 60 votes for cloture prevents the Senate Majority Leader from exercising the kind of all-or-nothing power enjoyed by the Speaker of the House. This was why the election of Scott Brown as the “41st vote” was so important, a fact that some of our sophisticated intellectual friends seem to have forgotten.

Under current circumstances, with Obama in the White House, a narrow Senate majority for Republicans is even more problematic than it was during the Bush years. This is another thing that seems to have slipped down the Memory Hole for our sophisticated friends. Throughout the Bush presidency, the administration always began its policy calculations with the question: How can we get 60 votes in the Senate for it?

The result was a tendency toward pre-emptive triangulation, where any legislation  Republicans wanted to get passed had to be loaded up with enough goodies for Democrats to get past the cloture hurdle. Much mischief in the way of GOP “brand damage” can be blamed on that tendency, because whatever the Bush administration did was labeled “Republican” and reflexively defended by conservatives.

(Hey, am I the only one who remembers when conservatives opposed federalization of airport security, until political geniuses in the Bush administration decided that Republicans must support federalization of airport security? Think about that, the next time you’re getting groped by TSA.)

A slender Republican Senate would be automatically compromised as a policy vehicle by the presence of GOP liberals like Snowe and Collins, and the addition of Mike Castle to the RINO Caucus would only aggravate that problem. You would have an ostensibly “Republican” Senate pre-ordained to sell out in a heartbeat to whatever Obama wanted, with GOP spokesmen compelled to go on TV and praise this awful legislation (as such compromises inevitably are) as a great idea.

Have conservatives learned nothing from their experiences when Bob Dole and Trent Lott were dealing with Clinton in the 1990s? My argument is not that there would have been no advantage to a 51-seat GOP majority, but rather that the disadvantages are obvious enough that it’s wrong for pundits to act so butt-hurt over the failure to achieve that majority.

Furthermore — and I’m going to come right out and make this accusation as plain as possible — a lot of the people bitching and moaning about Ken Buck, Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle are really aiming at Sarah Palin, because they desperately don’t want her to be the GOP presidential nominee in 2012.

There, I’ve said it. And please, my sophisticated friends, stop pretending that the rest of us are too stupid to see what you’ve been up to, and also stop pretending that we are unaware of the potential downside of a Palin 2012 campaign.

And since this little update will probably spark a new round of flame-wars, let me go ahead and take it thermonuclear: Do you really think that Sarah Palin is so stupid or such an egotistical prima donna that she is unaware of the downside potential of a 2012 presidential campaign?

When Sarah Palin says she wants what’s good for America, good for the Republican Party and good for the conservative cause, I take her seriously. I think she is capable of weighing the positive and negative factors of a 2012 campaign and making rational decisions. I think she’s probably going to run — I fully expect her to be at the first debate at the Reagan Library this spring — but I also think that, if the primary campaign develops to her disadvantage, she’d drop out of the race and support the winner.

Therefore, my sophisticated friends, your attempts to pre-emptively undermining Palin by blaming her by proxy for the loss of a GOP Senate majority signals that you are afraid you can’t muster enough primary votes to stop her in 2012.

But we’re too stupid to see that, I suppose.

All through the 2010 campaign, I tried to discourage readers from the distracting temptation of looking forward to the 2012 presidential campaign. And what I’d like to do at this point is to ask that readers try to avoid that distraction even now.

Forget about the presidential campaign, and let’s focus on getting good conservative challengers to the 22 Democrat Senate incumbents who will be defending their seats in 2012. We might also think about primary challengers for any weak-kneed Republican Senators who would be an obstacle to a conservative agenda should we get a GOP Majority Leader in the next election.

Finally, I remind you of what a GOP operative said to me after that treacherous bastard John Cornyn endorsed Charlie Crist:

“All they care about is getting their chairmanships back, and they don’t care how they get there.”

They didn’t get there, did they? And don’t expect me to shed any tears over their failure.

Category: Alaska, Election, Joe Miller, Sarah Palin, Senate

LIVE AT FIVE – 11.17.10

Posted on | November 17, 2010 | 2 Comments

TOP NEWS

Senate Republicans Vote To Support Earmark Ban

Stacy's crazy cousin John next to a chart depicting earmark growth

Brings Senate GOP in line with House GOP and the White House – wait, what?

SSG Salvatore Guinta Receives Medal Of Honor From President
First award of the MoH to a living soldier in 40 years

Cholera Epidemic In Haiti Expected To Last At Least Six More Months
Nepalese peacekeepers attacked



POLITICS

Rangel Walks Out Of Ethics Hearing; Panel Convicts Him Anyway

Congressman Charlie Rangel awaited the beginning of yesterday's ethics hearing

Probably won’t be expelled

Kyl Says START Treaty Progress Should Stop For This Year

Murkowski Lead Begins To Look Challenge-Proof



Congressman Camp (R-MI) Says Decoupling Tax Rates For Wealthy “A Terrible Idea And A Total Non-Starter”

Ballot Battle For NY-25 Returns To Court Today



THE ECONOMY, STUPID

Government Motors To Increase Size Of IPO And Stock Price

U.S. Stocks Continue To Fall On Global Economy Fears

Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile Join To Launch Isis Payment Service

Google Voice Finally Appears In The App Store



SPORTS

Braves Trade Dunn, Infante To Marlins For Two-Time All-Star Uggla

Dan Uggla boots one at the All-Star Game

Leads all second basemen in the majors in home runs

Halladay Wins Second Cy Young Award

Notre Dame Football: No Time For Nostalgia



UConn Women Squeak Out 80th Straight Win

Bulls Begin Long String Of Road Games With Win Against Rockets

Louisville Holds Off Butler In Opener at KFC Yum! Center



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS

Eva Longoria: There’s No Divorce

Eva Longoria Parker and husband Tony

Bexar County clerks claim papers filed by Tony, sealed by family court judge

Wills And Kate Middleton Engaged!

Bristol’s In The Finals!

Tom Felton Happy To Be Rid Of Draco Malfoy’s Hair




Hollywood Publicist Ronni Chasen Shot To Death In Beverly Hills

PBS Edits Tina Fey’s Remarks From Twain Prize Broadcast

Ke$ha Drops Nazi-Look Dance Outfits Right Before Performance



FOREIGNERS

Russian Arms Trafficking Suspect Arrives In New York

PRC Confident Burma Will Remain Stable

German Journalists Held By Iran Face Spy Charges

Muslims Mark Eid Al-Adha



BLOGS & STUFF

Another Black Conservative: TSA Goes From Groping To Probing

Jane Hamsher: Investigate The TSA, Not Tyner

Allahpundit: Dems Ready To Push Amnesty During Lame Duck Session

Sister Toldjah: Bride Of Shellacking Faces Pitchforks And Torches

Gateway Pundit: Bitter Murcokeski Blames DeMint For Costing GOP The Senate

Don Surber: Captain Sully Says No Need For Junk-Touching


— compiled by Wombat-socho

Category: Live at Five

The Wheel Turns

Posted on | November 16, 2010 | 14 Comments

Remember in mid-October 2006, when Instapundit did a rare long-form post about the “pre-mortem” for the Republican mid-term wipeout? And remember when Rush Limbaugh criticized that, leading to complaints that he didn’t read blogs? Rush responded:

I’m going to tell you the blog postings that I regularly read in my RSS reader. I’ve communicated with many of the people who run them. They’re fabulous people, starting with National Review Online, then Hugh Hewitt and his Townhall blog, Captain Ed, Ed Morrissey at Captain’s Quarters. The three lawyers at Power Line. These are resources that I have added to everything else that I use for show prep which makes show prep an ongoing, never ending thing. Red State is another site.(I hope I don’t forget anybody.) Little Green Footballs. . . .

Heh. Just four years.

Category: The Flemish Menace

Shocker: Sarah Palin’s Teenage Daughters Act Like Teenage Girls on Facebook

Posted on | November 16, 2010 | 69 Comments

Which is incredibly significant, according to a lot of people who would never vote for Sarah Palin under any circumstance whatever:

During the premiere of “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” Sunday night — a boy named Tre who went to school with the Palin kids wrote a status update that read, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska, is failing so hard right now.”
The comment sparked an intense response from Willow — who replied on the boy’s wall, “Haha your so gay. I have no idea who you are, But what I’ve seen pictures of, your disgusting … My sister had a kid and is still hot.”
Willow followed up that comment with another that read, “Tre stfu. Your such a f**got.”
Bristol Palin also got in on the smacktalk — writing a message to Tre saying, “You’re running your mouth just to talk sh*t.”
Eventually, a message board war erupted — and Bristol took aim at another person named Jon — saying, “You’ll be as successful as my baby daddy, And actually I do work my ass off. I’ve been a single mom for the last two years.”
After more users began to gang up on the Palins, Willow dropped another message that read, “Sorry that you guys are all jealous of my families success and you guys aren’t goin to go anywhere with y our lives.”

I’m more troubled by the bad spelling and grammar than I am by the “stfu,” and not in the least troubled by the use of “gay” and “faggot” as insults.

This is not “homophobia.” This is just how teenagers insult each other. One might criticize the behavior by Willow and Bristol as indecorous and unladylike, but somehow I’m having trouble accepting TMZ as an arbiter of decorum, to say nothing of the gay blogs now viciously dogpiling on the Palin girls.

UPDATE: “Headline of the Day” — thanks, Don — and as for others who have linked, does the phrase “And the Horse You Rode In On” ring a bell?

Category: Gays, Sarah Palin

Neil Young, Arsonist

Posted on | November 16, 2010 | 7 Comments

The World’s Worst Singer was responsible for a fire that caused more than $1 million damage, including the destruction of his musical equipment.

Heard Mr. Young sing about it.
Then ol’ Neil burned it down.

Neil Young causes hatred of Canada in pretty much the same way al-Qaeda causes Islamophobia.

Category: Canada

Wall Street Drops Big-Time

Posted on | November 16, 2010 | 4 Comments

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 178 points, the worst one-day loss in three months. The debt crisis in Europe was a big driver of this decline, but investors were also troubled by signals from China.

In fact, it appeared that the market was pulling back everywhere — stocks, bonds, commodities — a phenomenon that Greg Harmon goes waaaay over my head to explain.

Frankly, I think a lot of people are just cashing out their investments, perhaps from necessity. If you had a 401(k) or other retirement savings and got laid off in late 2008, you’re now past the 99-week limit of unemployment benefits and may be forced to tap into your retirement fund just to pay the bills.

Almost forgot to mention: The FDIC closed three more banks on Friday, bringing the year-to-date total to 146. We’re easily on pace for 160+ bank failures this year. And a meeting of EU finance ministers ended today without agreeing on what to do about the Irish debt crisis.

With so much news of economic doom and gloom, maybe you need something to cheer you up. How about this quote?

“Tears were shed. We were absolutely
disappointed that this is going to end.”

Doesn’t that make you smile? It does me. Because the quote came from a spokesman for Democrat Rep. Alan Grayson, who got beat Nov. 2.

And the spokesman is one of 1,800 Democratic congressional staffers who are about to lose their jobs.

A sign of real hope!

Category: Economics

Great News: Treacherous Bastard Cornyn Unanimously Re-Elected as NRSC Chair

Posted on | November 16, 2010 | 14 Comments

Warned you about this yesterday, and now look at how it’s being played:

While Cornyn’s performance as NRSC chair has been praised in Republican circles since the election, it wasn’t without speed bumps.

Where are these “Republican circles”? What kind of fools are in these “circles,” and what the hell did Cornyn do to merit praise for his performance?

Never mind that. You know why the GOP Establishment routinely screws over the conservative grassroots? Because they know that you’ll roll over and say “thank you,” that’s why. Ed Morrissey:

Cornyn’s performance is open for legitimate criticism, but to be fair, one has to keep the context of the election in mind. 

“To be fair”? Please tell me exactly what justifies any need “to be fair” to John Cornyn? Thanks to his blundering interference in Florida, Charlie Crist walked off with more than $10 million in GOP donations.

Why should Cornyn and the NRSC get a free pass while on their failures, while over at the RNC, political director Gentry Collins resigned and presented a specific indictment of the organization?

UPDATE: Professor William Jacobson imagines a Senate GOP majority that included Lisa Murkowski and Mike Castle: “Two years of such a Senate controlled by Republicans would have destroyed all of the gains of the mid-terms, and would have demoralized the Republican Party heading into 2012.”

Category: Uncategorized
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