The Other McCain : Page 2471 : "One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up."

Go, Randy Altschuler, GO! And A Loud ‘Keep The Faith’ For Joe Miller!

Posted on November 5, 2010November 5, 2010Comments

by Smitty

This blog has been a fan of Altschuler in NY-1 since CPAC 2010. The latest word is that he has assumed a tiny lead:

Rob Ryan, a spokesman for the Altschuler campaign, said Friday that the Republican candidate now has a 392 vote advantage. But it will likely take at least a week more to count the absentee ballots.

Meanwhile, Alaska began counting their absentee ballots:

It looks like the NRSC is at least putting on a show of supporting the non-Ruling Class candidate, who was on the Republican ticket. So that’s good.

I May Have Reached A Peggy Noonan Diagnosis

Posted on November 5, 2010November 5, 2010Comments

by Smitty

The continued descent of Peggy Noonan into abject silliness seems to parallel that of her Presidential Savior. I can’t sustain a full fisk, but the end of her latest post about the President, which could not resist a swipe at Governor Palin, merits a quick once-over with the bus, emphasis mine:

Noonan	Smith
Electable doesn’t mean not-conservative. Electable means mature, accomplished, stable—and able to persuade.	It also means able to withstand a napalm shower of derision from so-called feminists and so-called conservatives who are so eager to maintain their status on the cocktail party circuit that they will cheerfully throw anyone without the proper résumé under the bus faster than you can say “Noonan should retire”.
Conservatives talked a lot about Ronald Reagan this year, but they have to take him more to heart, because his example here is a guide. All this seemed lost last week on Sarah Palin, who called him, on Fox, “an actor.” She was defending her form of political celebrity—reality show, “Dancing With the Stars,” etc. This is how she did it: “Wasn’t Ronald Reagan an actor? Wasn’t he in ‘Bedtime for Bonzo,’ Bozo, something? Ronald Reagan was an actor.”	In other words, the point is that appearing on TV in a paid billet is not a disqualifier. Thankfully, Reagan’s acting career was mostly behind him by the time he was operating at the State and national political level.
Excuse me, but this was ignorant even for Mrs. Palin. Reagan people quietly flipped their lids, but I’ll voice their consternation to make a larger point. Ronald Reagan was an artist who willed himself into leadership as president of a major American labor union (Screen Actors Guild, seven terms, 1947-59.) He led that union successfully through major upheavals (the Hollywood communist wars, labor-management struggles); discovered and honed his ability to speak persuasively by talking to workers on the line at General Electric for eight years; was elected to and completed two full terms as governor of California; challenged and almost unseated an incumbent president of his own party; and went on to popularize modern conservative political philosophy without the help of a conservative infrastructure. Then he was elected president.	So, what are the minimum requirements for quotation of Reagan’s resume, then, Peggy? Are you entirely certain that Palin is not well-versed in Ron’s résumé? Overreact much?
The point is not “He was a great man and you are a nincompoop,” though that is true. The point is that Reagan’s career is a guide, not only for the tea party but for all in politics. He brought his fully mature, fully seasoned self into politics with him. He wasn’t in search of a life when he ran for office, and he wasn’t in search of fame; he’d already lived a life, he was already well known, he’d accomplished things in the world.	Do you read your own drivel, Peggy? Have you not just omitted recounting Sarah’s own history, the very crime of which you’re trying to hang her? Reading yours, let’s see: you write. Got it. Props for selling the book copies, and putting words in some famous mouths. Have you decried Progressivism? For whom did you vote in the last election?
Here is an old tradition badly in need of return: You have to earn your way into politics. You should go have a life, build a string of accomplishments, then enter public service. And you need actual talent: You have to be able to bring people in and along. You can’t just bully them, you can’t just assert and taunt, you have to be able to persuade.	Which you have done how, exactly, in the last two years? What about your attempts to bully Sarah Palin with your column? What makes YOU cool? If Sarah Palin has, rather demonstrably, shown talent and leadership, does your endless kvetching make you John Cleese in the Argument sketch?
Americans don’t want, as their representatives, people who seem empty or crazy. They’ll vote no on that. It’s not just the message, it’s the messenger.	By what diagnostic means do you arrive at the notion that Palin is crazy?

Since freestyle, non-medical diagnosis is all the rage, let us suppose that Peggy Noonan is depressed. It seems as though the anti-Palin crowd are realizing that that, in BHO, they voted for the charming aristocrat whom they admired in grad school, who then turned into the cad who divorced them, and, since Tuesday, morphed into the mal-adjusted father responsible for their current status as basket cases.
So, they turn their self-loathing onto Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell, stalwart ladies all, certainly exceedingly the ankle-level bar set by the current administration, and commence a spleen dump.
Well, Peggy, to the extent that this broad-brush generalization applies to you, get stuffed.
The fact that our politics have been moved away from individual liberty and verifiable principles and into the realm of hero-worship, in some idiotic quest for an impossible philosopher-king to wave a wand and magically fix stuff and rule over us in an Aristotalian Golden Age of Swellness (TM) is due to the kind of thinking shown in this article. Thanks.
Bonus: can’t mention the Argument sketch without embedding:

Stunning Discovery: Shadowy Corporate Donors Contribute to Political Campaigns

Posted on November 5, 2010Comments

DAYTONA BEACH SHORES, Fla. — I was not shocked to learn that MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann had contributed to Democrats. What truly shocked me? Finding out that NBC has an “ethics policy”!

MSNBC host Keith Olbermann made campaign contributions to two Arizona members of Congress and failed Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway ahead of Tuesday’s election — a potential violation of NBC ethics policies.
Olbermann, who acknowledged the contributions in a statement to POLITICO, made the maximum legal donations of $2,400 apiece to Conway and to Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords. He donated to the Arizona pair on Oct. 28 — the same day that Grijalva appeared as a guest on Olbermann’s “Countdown” show.

Keith Olbermann is obviously no rocket scientist. His boss, General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt apparently prefers giving to Republicans (including John McCain and Rob Portman) even though Obama named Immelt to his economic advisory board. And Obama’s had a very GE-friendly energy policy.

Being strictly a neutral, objective journalist myself — “Ethics, shmethics!” — I don’t think Olbermann should be fired from NBC, which is as about as neutral and objective as Pravda or the Daily Worker. There is already a serious unemployment crisis looming among Democrats:

The Great Shellacking of 2010 will throw more than 2,000 Democratic congressional staffers out of their jobs.

Yeah. Sucks to be you, huh?

Well, they’ve already extended my checkout time here by two hours, and it’s time to hit the road again, so I can get back home to Mrs. Other McCain. She continues to worry about the finances of this trip. Thanks to everybody who’s already hit the tip jar. And if you haven’t hit the tip jar yet,l what the heck are you waiting for?

While I’m on the road, you should read Sissy Willis: “The inherent condescension at the heart of the anti-Palin campaign.”

Doug Hoffman’s Legacy in 2010 Victories

Posted on November 5, 2010November 5, 2010Comments

DAYTONA BEACH SHORES, Fla. — During the Allen West victory party Tuesday night, I stepped outside for a few moments and made a phone call to upstate New York to interview the man whose 2009 special-election campaign did so much to inspire grassroots conservatives nationwide. (See “Battle Cry in the North Country.”)

It was just after 8 p.m. when I called, and polls didn’t close in New York until 9 p.m. I had been angry in September when Matt Doheny won the NY-23 Republican primary (by just 700 votes) after airing dishonest attack ads accusing Hoffman of “lining his pockets.” And I was surprised when Hoffman subsequently endorsed Doheny.

On Election Night, I felt an urge to talk to Hoffman. I recorded the brief interview, but didn’t have time to transcribe it until last night:

RSM: After the primary a few weeks ago – totally broke my heart. How are you feeling about it now?

DOUG HOFFMAN: Well, I’m still disappointed, but life goes on, Stacy.

RSM: Your campaign last year was really the first total Tea Party campaign. It sent a message. We’ve just seen Marco Rubio declared the victor here in Florida. As Erick Erickson said, New York 23 last year, it was a trial run for Florida, we’re going to shake up the establishment. Do you think your campaign last year helped send a message?

HOFFMAN: Absolutely. I think my campaign, and the people who were supporting me, woke up America and said, “We’re fed up. We have to do something about it. We’re not going to take more spending, more taxes, and more government regulations.”

RSM: What are your plans going forward? I thought that was very big of you to endorse [GOP nominee Matt] Doheny after the kind of terrible crap he did to you.

HOFFMAN: Well, I had to look past Mr. Doheny and look at what was good for America, and that’s the conclusion that I came to. It’s better to get Pelosi and Reid and the Obama agenda off the table, and get more Republicans into the House. It was a very difficult decision, but that’s why I made the decision, [because] I think it’s good for America.

RSM: And that was what it was all about for you, from the get-go.

HOFFMAN: Absolutely. We have to get people down in Washington that are going to fight the Pelosi agenda, and that’s what it’s all about.

RSM: Somebody said that you lit the fuse up there in New York 23. It looks like it’s going to be a huge explosion tonight.

HOFFMAN: That’s the exciting part. I’m disappointed that I’m not going to be part of the excitement and going to Washington, but if the legacy of my race last year is the people who are going to Washington this year, then I’m very proud to watch what’s happening tonight, and anticipate the Republicans taking over the House.

He’s a class act. And establishment Republican Matt Doheny lost Tuesday by 3,800 votes. Even though Hoffman endorsed Doheny — who spent $1.7 million of his own money on the campaign — more than 9,500 people still voted for Hoffman on the Conservative Party line. Maybe next time.

DOUG HOFFMAN for U.S. CONGRESS

Teavangelical Party?

Posted on November 5, 2010November 4, 2010Comments

by Smitty (via HotAir)

The Brody File:

Here’s the bottom line: conservative Evangelicals see fiscal issues as moral issues.

Fiscal responsibility is an ethical issue. There are plenty of retarded things one can do with money sans prevarication, which would make the idiocy immoral in addition to stupid.
Plenty of Jews, Atheists, and Roman Catholics &c are at Tea Parties: how ill-liberal of you to toss them under the Evangelical bus.
As a humble Evangelical, the need for the pejorative tone in the The Brody File escapes me. Possibly you’ll come to my church of a Sunday and afford me the benefit of your innate superiority, from which my knuckle-dragging, nose-breathing, uni-brow Baptist self could clearly benefit.
At what point does out-of-context denigration of religious faith become bigotry? Or is bigotry one of those asymmetric notions that only Christians themselves are capable of producing?

Less cheekily, the only event I’ve attended featuring significant spiritual content was Beck’s Restoring Honor, but that was mostly ecumenical in character. So phooey on your Teavangelical notion, Brody.

Yeah, I Thought The 34 Ship Story A Trifle Inflated

Posted on November 5, 2010November 4, 2010Comments

by Smitty

Having enjoyed a few deployments a couple decades ago, you don’t just go taking large amounts of warships and throwing them at places, unless they have names like San Diego or Norfolk. Singapore. Hong Kong. Then, you’re stuck anchoring out and taking barges in. Dealing with the sewage, fuel, trash, and fresh water is a nightmare. These are just the actual operational aspects.
The politics of squids being squids, and the ridiculous carbon footprint of warships (which may not affect the air quality in some places) would completely outweigh the ‘vulgar display of power’ value. And wouldn’t that be rather Bush-y, anyway? (Actually not; W and the military enjoy mutual affection.)
BHO should go hang out with the Navy. Take in some carrier flight ops. Some DIVTACS. Then he can return and explain to “Gentleman” Jim Moran that the military indeed offers a service to the public.