The Other McCain

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

5,000,000 Hits!

Posted on | November 9, 2010 | 30 Comments

About 9 a.m. today, we passed the 5-million mark, riding the wave of last night’s Instalanche.

Our joy at this achievement is tempered by the knowledge that loyal sidekick Smitty will soon be deployed to an Undisclosed Location, where Uncle Sam has decided that his astonishing powers of IT geekery are required to intimidate the Taliban into surrender.

When I expressed concerns for Smitty’s safety in the Undisclosed Location — some place on the other side of the world, in a country ending with “-stan” — he told me not to worry and used one of those super-secret military acronyms to explain.

It seems that Smitty will be deployed as a “REMF.”

While the duties of a REMF are highly classified — I get the idea they’re kind of a combination of Green Berets and ninjas — Smitty assured me that being a REMF is actually quite safe.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “If they ever get to me, the situation has gone so completely sideways, we’re all screwed anyway.”

This was strangely reassuring, as we’ve come to rely heavily on Smitty’s abilities. This blog went full-time in March 2008 and notched its first million hits in February 2009. Smitty joined up shortly thereafter, assuming responsibility for compiling FMJRA Saturday and Rule 5 Sunday. We crossed the 2-million mark in July 2009, reached 3 million in November 2009, and recorded the 4 millionth visit in June this year.

The weirdest thing about this astonishing success — the triumph of our Underpants Gnome Business Plan — is not merely that we have never been asked to explain it at any gathering of conservative New Media activists. For a long time, I blamed AFP’s Erik Telford for us being blackballed this way, but when Tabitha Hale left us off the agenda for BlogCon, I finally realized we are far more universally loathed than I had hitherto suspected.

OK, that’s weird — why does Tabitha Hale hate me? — but it’s not the weirdest part of our wild ride to 5 megahits.

No, the truly weird thing is that we haven’t had a single offer to sell out.

Despite our well-nigh notorious status as greedy capitalist bloggers, and despite creditable rumors that Our Plutocratic Republican Overlords are sitting atop a king’s ransom of ill-gotten billions, no emissary of the GOP Establishment has yet come forward to offer us the relatively modest sum it would take to persuade us to knock it off.

And the price isn’t going to decrease. I figure we’d start negotiations at a rate of $1 per hit to date. You see that, a mere 18 months ago, I could have been bribed to cease-and-desist for a piddling million bucks and our asking price was still under $2 million in May 2009. Our Plutocratic Republican Overlords took no notice, however, and instead wasted more than $10 million on the doomed Charlie Crist campaign.

Yeah, sorry that didn’t work out for you, Mr. Cornyn.

Principles? Yeah, we’ve got principles, but we are not unreasonable men, and we’re still willing to entertain offers.

Instead, these idiots keep trying to get the blogosphere on their side by handing out fat consulting contracts to their buddies who send us press releases telling us what a wonderful job they’re doing there at GOP HQ. Yeah, and paying useless dingbats like Mike Murphy $90,000 a month to run campaigns — how’s that working out for you, guys?

Anyway, we’re still here, with help from our tip-jar hitters, busting the Establishment’s balls every day. Whenever I mention that we haven’t yet achieved worldwide accolades and untold wealth in the process, someone will inevitably accuse me of “whining.” What I’m actually trying to emulate, however, is the description of the ancient Athenians, provided by the Corinthians in a speech recorded in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War:

“And what they have planned but not carried out, they think that in this they lose something already their own; what they have attempted and gained, that in this they have achieved but little in comparison with what they mean to do.”

No partial success can satisfy our fierce determination to achieve Maximum Blogospheric Hegmony. Let us quote one eminent authority on effective New Media strategies:

Indeed. Not “a great writer” like Kinsey Schofield perhaps, but most certainly tenacious.

UPDATE: Chris Wysocki hasn’t yet been Tweeted by Alyssa Milano, yet seems to have lots of Rule 5 action, while Troglopundit’s primitive paleolithic blog also extends congratulations.

Category: Blogging

Gonzo, Vindicated

Posted on | November 9, 2010 | 1 Comment

Maetenloch at AOSHQ linked this list of the Best Magazine Articles Ever, and I noticed that Hunter S. Thompson was named twice in the top 10, for “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved” (where Thompson first displayed his famous “Gonzo” style) and “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” (originally syndicated in Rolling Stone).

Actually, we ought to demand a recount because (a) they omitted Thompson’s article “The Motorcycle Gangs” in The Nation, which formed the basis for Hell’s Angels, and (b) no Tom Wolfe? “Radical Chic” (New York, 1970) certainly deserves inclusion on any such list, as does “The Last American Hero Is Junior Johnson” (Esquire, 1965).

For good measure, I’d nominate Barbara Dafoe Whitehead’s “Dan Quayle Was Right” (Atlantic, 1993), and Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s “Dictatorships & Double Standards” (Commentary, 1979). These were certainly consquential articles, as “Dan Quayle Was Right” was crucial in building support for the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, and Kirkpatrick’s article provided a key element of the intellectual framework for Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy that won the Cold War.

Category: Culture

LIVE AT FIVE – 11.09.10

Posted on | November 9, 2010 | Comments Off on LIVE AT FIVE – 11.09.10

TOP NEWS

Obama Agrees – India Belongs On UNSC

President & Mrs. Obama scatter petals at a memorial to Gandhi

Wins applause, skepticism from Indians

Netanyahu: Nuclear Iran Greatest Threat To World
Calls for military action; Clinton, Gates disagree





Peruvian Court Paroles Lori Berenson For Second Time
Served 15 years of 20-year sentence for aiding terrorists; most Peruvians unhappy with parole decision



POLITICS

Palin Criticizes Fed Purchase of Treasuries As Inflationary

Mama Grizzly is not amused by your inflationary shenanigans.

Joins Chinese, Germans in condemning “quantitative easing”, calls on Bernanke to “cease and desist”.

Dems To Vote White Hoyer Or Black Clyburn Off Leadership Island?




Joe Miller Cautiously Optimistic About Absentee Ballots, Write-Ins

Another Reason That Moron Spencer Bachus Needs To Be Kicked To The Curb

Altschuler & Buerkle Races Still Too Close To Call IN NY-1, NY-25

Seven Other House Races Still In Doubt



THE ECONOMY, STUPID

Gold Drops From High As Dollar Strengthens

Blue Chips Drop On Euro Sovereign Debt Concerns

Crude Oil Stockpiles Increase, Prices Continue To Rise On Dollar Drop

Google Gives Free Aerial Wifi For Holidays

NTIA Reports “Digital Divide” Still Exists



SPORTS

Jon Miller, Joe Morgan Done At ESPN

Jon Miller at a celebration of his induction into the Hall of Fame

Work begins immediately on ridding baseball of Tim McCarver, Jack Buck

Jason Garrett Replaces Wade Phillips As Hapless Cowboys’ Head Coach

#4 Pitt Opens Hoops Season, Beats Rhode Island 83-75

Packers Get Full Week Off After Drubbing Cowboys

Ilitch Getting Close To Pistons Purchase



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS

Lindsay Lohan Reunites With Father

Michael Lohan and daughter Lindsay

First time in seven months

Jake Gyllenhaal: It’s Too Soon For Taylor To See Me Naked

Kanye West Surprises Delta Passengers With In-Flight Concert (Video)

Miley Cyrus Would Trade Success To Quash Parents’ Divorce

Charlie Sheen: Can’t A Guy Have One Bad Night?

O_o



FOREIGNERS

Flooding Raises New Cholera Fears In Haiti

Karens Flee Myanmar As Fighting Erupts Following Sham Elections

Seoul Signals Openness To Free Trade Deal

Moroccan Troops Break Up Western Sahara Protest Camp



BLOGS & STUFF

Yid With Lid: Defeated Dems Implore Pelosi To Step Aside

Contentions: Dems Wake Up To What A Lousy Politician Obama Is

Don Surber: Manchin Being Courted By GOP To Flip?

Dennis The Peasant: So Long To Ambinder, I Won’t Miss Him

POWIP: Electile Dysfunction Strikes Dems Of All Ages

NRO: Is Rand Paul Already Selling Out?

Hit & Run: Lone Star State To Become No Medicare State?

WSJ: California, The Lindsay Lohan Of States


— compiled by Wombat-socho

Category: Live at Five

Whitetail Jihad Bags BAMBI Killer

Posted on | November 8, 2010 | 1 Comment

by Smitty (h/t Theo)

The Brotherhood of Alaskan Mujahedeen Bark Ingesters (BAMBI) report a glorious victory in the endless struggle against the Killer Invasive Americans (KIA), as they term the two-legged, four wheeled invaders decimating their ranks.

This particular specimen of vehicular evil has been vanquished, but not before he led BAMBI on a merry chase. Claiming to be involved in some KIA pursuit called ‘journalism’, this miscreant has traipsed all over New England, Alaska, the Southwest, and the South in his vain attempt to escape justice.

Let this be a lesson to all of you KIA infidels! Wapiti Rackbar!

Category: humor

Maddow: ‘Those Nickels and Dimes’

Posted on | November 8, 2010 | 9 Comments

OK, everybody and his third cousin — Hot Air, Red State, Weasel Zippers, Verum Serum, Newsbusters — has already posted this Johnny Dollar video, but even though I’m late to the party, I’ll gladly join the dogpile:

Johnny Dollar put a lot of work into this thorough fisking of Rachel Maddow, so it’s extra-good. And you know what makes it even better?

We kicked their ass so hard on Nov. 2 they’ll be cross-eyed for six weeks.

Some people are hung up on bitchin’ about Senate races, and Erick Erickson’s wanting to do a vengeance number on the RNC, but I ain’t into all that now.

The other day I talked to Vince Kreul, who worked on the winning VA-9 race. (I reported on Morgan Griffith’s campaign for The American Spectator and blogged about it here.) Before Vince got to VA-9 — he was doing “Victory Fund” work for the RNC and VAGOP — he worked on three different losing Republican primary campaigns: Rick Barber in AL-2, Les Phillip in AL-5 and Kerry Roberts in TN-6.

Vince’s candidates lost those three primaries, but the candidates who got the nominations won all three seats, previously held by Democrats — a wave so freaking huge that this one 26-year-old GOP operative worked in four districts that flipped D-to-R.

Maybe later on we can get all into the spilled milk and bitter recriminations over missed opportunities, but not now. The kind of mood I’m in right now, baby, you can find me in the back of a jacked-up tailgate . . .

WE WON! HIT THE FREAKIN’ TIP JAR, Y’ALL!

Update (Smitty): Welcome, InstaPundit readers!

Category: Election, MSNBC, Virginia

Lefty Logic: Think Progress Is Now Trying to Blame Republicans for (Alleged) Rape by Rakheem Bolton, or Something

Posted on | November 8, 2010 | 8 Comments

Would somebody please tell these a–holes that the election is over and they can shelve the “Republicans are pro-rape” propaganda until the DCCC starts cranking out attack ads around Labor Day 2012?

You can read the whole story at the San Francisco Chronicle — San Francisco is a helluva long way from Silsbee, Texas, I hasten to note — and conclude that the plaintiff, “H.S.,” is indeed a victim, without necessarily agreeing that the ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was tantamount to an endorsement of rape.

What seems to be at issue is whether cheerleaders enjoy First Amendment protection for disobedience to school administrators. The 5th Circuit agreed with the trial court that they do not, and also upheld a fine against the plaintiff for bringing a “nuisance” suit. The 5th Circuit wasn’t asked to decide whether Rakheem Bolton raped “H.S.,” or whether unchaperoned parties for teenagers are a good idea, or anything like that.

It was strictly a First Amendment case (although, it being Texas, I’m frankly surprised the father of “H.S.” didn’t make it a Second Amendment case). Reacting as programmed, however, feminists Melissa McEwan and Echidne of the Snakes accuse the court of being pro-rape. The case also offers an extra “Blame Bush” bonus for progressives, considering that the 5th Circuit decision was rendered by a panel of three GOP-appointed judges.

The underlying legal principles involved are of no interest in the eyes of the outcome-oriented Left, you see — not even the presumed innocence of a black teenager accused of rape in Texas, which we might otherwise expect to be the first priority of progressives. Scoring propaganda points against the GOP trumps all other considerations. If the 5th Circuit had ruled in favor of “H.S.,” we could expect the Left to cite that ruling as proof that Republicans are racist.

Category: Crime, Progressivism

MSNBC-OMFG: Keith Olbermann Humiliates Network Executives

Posted on | November 8, 2010 | 8 Comments

According to this report, not only did Olbermann refuse to apologize for violating NBC’s rules forbidding political contributions by news personnel, but he demanded that the network apologize to him.

Bernie Sanders (CPUSA-Vt.) is threatening to block the Comcast-NBC merger over the issue.

Professor William Jacobson suggests Olbermann should name MSNBC president Phil Griffin “Worst Person in the World.”

Ace of Spades and his merry band of morons are having the kind of fun you’d expect with this subject.

By the way, this is the kind of fun we can enjoy again, now that we whupped the Democrats to the tune of 60-plus House seats Nov. 2. Mocking liberals when they lose is much more fun and easy than fighting them tooth and nail when they win.

And ironically enough, it is MSNBC’s Dominic Montanaro who provides the round-up showing Republicans ahead in five of nine as-yet-unresolved House races: Andy Vidak +648 votes in CA-20, Joe Walsh +365 votes in IL-8, Randy Altschuler +400 votes in NY-1, Ann Marie Buerkle +684 votes in NY-25, and Blake Farenhold +799 votes in TX-27.

If Republicans win all four of those, it will be an even bigger gain for the GOP than their historic pickup of 64 seats in 1920.

Category: Election, MSNBC

Michelle Malkin Unloads Both Barrels on Gerson, Rove and the GOP Establishment

Posted on | November 8, 2010 | 1 Comment

It’s kind of hard to paraphrase, so please go read the whole thing.

She’s just a natural-born hell-raiser. Going back to the 2006 fight over the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill, Malkin has always sided with the grassroots against the establishment. She opposed the whole neo-Keynesian stimulus-and-bailout agenda from the very get-go, back in early 2008, before anybody ever uttered the phrase “Tea Party.”

As for Gerson, his bad political instincts are exceeded only by his wretched writing: “Herewith, a brief primer.”

Category: Michelle Malkin
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