by Smitty
Guick grab on the phone, sorry about the sound quality. The panel, L-R, was Ace, Snark and Boobs, Iowahawk, and Caleb “FunnyNameGoesHere” Howe.
Pudding is a running joke on Ace, which see.
Prelude To Remembrance
by Smitty
The 10th of September is a suitable day to take the readers on a heavy journey.
It’s not a cemetery, but, every time one goes into Memorial Hall at the US Naval Academy, one makes no effort whatsoever to hold back the tears. As you ascend the stairs, the words of Captain Lawrence,
emblazoned on a replica of the battle flag of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry (original down Stribling Walk in the Museum) afford a standing contradiction to modern cheese-eating surrender monkeys of all stripes.
Zooming in a bit on the plaque below the flag, one reads:
One tears up even while writing this. Below the plaque, like a sort of miniature of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, is a list of fallen Alumni, arranged chronologically and grouped by conflict. Thus, in the lower right corner, one arrives at a tragically heavy end:
Three of the fourteen listed are classmates. LCDR Erik Kristensen, in particular, is of note, as he was the son of the commanding officer of my first ship.
As we remember the victims of the 9/11, let us recall that the struggle unfolds over time.
Positive statements of firmness, resolve, and commitment to principle are worth making.
The negative inputs of a Terry Jones or a Fred Phelps, not so much.
People join the military, I can say from experience, setting aside a portion of their individual liberty for a time so that the country’s liberty remain protected. The reason there is such a disproportionate (I say with no research to back me up) military Tea Party presence is that those who have served are having none of this nonsense espoused by the Left.
Blog Con: Born to Be Wild
Tabitha Hale likes to ride the big hogs. And also enjoys motorcycles.
Ace of Spades, Lori “Snark and Boobs” Ziganto, Dave “Iowahawk” Burge and Caleb “Don’t Have a Nickname” Howe on the afternoon “Humor in Blogging” panel discussion, which was a lot funnier than this photo might suggest.
Matt Kibbe explains Friedrich Hayek’s Austrian theory of sideburns.
Smitty likes pudding. And also enjoys a tasty snack.
Ah, The Narrative Shifts
by Smitty
After Sarah Palin’s “Biggest Gamble“, endorsing Christine O’Donnell, frequent commenter Kn@ppster posits:
Strange race … Two big-government Republicans, one running as the GOP establishment candidate even though he frequently bucks the party line, the other one running as the anti-GOP-establishment candidate by emphasizing how much more GOP-establishment-friendly her positions are than his.
Interesting analysis.
What this brings to mind, though, is that after Utah and Alaska, nobody is accusing the Tea Parties of being simple GOP sock puppets.
Alinskyism needs to attack an opposing center of gravity. Lacking an identifiable HQ and opting for maneuver warfare, the old Alinsky leviathan remains highly dangerous, but may be surmountable.
As Matt Kibbe discussed last night, and echoes with Armey and Gillespie in this clip, 03 November is crucial. Keeping the attention focused on Washington is the sunlight about which the good POTUS emoted during the campaign, and during this administration only long enough to reach over and shut off the lights. ‘Unexpectedly’, of course. The hot new swear word of 2010.
The mainstream media only wishes the Tea Parties were GOP puppets, as it would make them easier to control. Commitment to solid principles means that spokespersons are interchangeable. If leader pro tempore A wanders off the straight and narrow, they get laughed off stage. If A gains enough stature that the media can swing into Alinsky mode, two more rise in the place of A.
Keep all this in mind after the election, when the real extent of the Progressive damage starts to become apparent. I, for one, am girding the loins for a revelation that the crap sandwich we perceive today ain’t the half of it.
At that point, the Tea Parties will have to double down, and all of the 2010 campaign rah-rah shall have been mere warm-up.
Unlike Stacy, Smitty Needs His Beauty Sleep
by Smitty
Thanks, Tabitha!
Tom blogs at VA Right, and Tabitha is mostly too busy for such.
Last night’s reception at the Crystal City Sheraton answered the question: if bloggers were Trekkies, would Scott Ott be Spock, Stephen Green be McCoy, and Bill Whittle be Kirk?
No: nobody was weird enough to ask that question.
BlogCon what it must be like to show up at the MTV Music awards if you’re a musician; getting to meet people whom you admire and discovering that, wow, folks like your stuff.
While he declined to have a picture taken, meeting the Iowahawk was a treat. I’d say it’s fair to characterize him as of the Charles Martin Smith mold. Unabashedly gushing, I allowed that The Idiossey had inspired me to write OediPOTUS Wrecks. Not to tout my own trash, mind you, but reality seems to be tending toward the deus ex machina at the climax.
The other rock star blogger that I’m pleased to have met was Ace of Spades, who is as non-descript Iowahawk, but writes some hilarious, if a trifle edgy, headlines, of which here are two related examples:
| Ace: This New Rasmussen Poll Makes Me Want to Dress Up Like Jame Gumb And Put Marco Rubio In My Victim-Hole Marco Rubio: I’m Calling The Police Ace: There You Go With Those Mixed Signals Again |
Ace: This New Poll Makes Me Want To Devour Marco Rubio’s Life Essence So That I Can Transform Into Him Marco Rubio: Please Stop Being Creepy Ace: Then Please Stop Sending Me Psychic Phone Calls Through My Grandmother’s Skull |
Today’s agenda seems full of useful stuff, so check back during the day, as the little netbook gets put through its paces.
Apropos nothing, check out tokarski21 on YouTube, who serves up interesting historical tidbits in a brief, entertaining fashion.
Delaware Republican Party Files FEC Complaint Against Christine O’Donnell UPDATE: RNC Robocalls for Castle?
What kind of campaign does the GOP establishment wage against challengers? Scorched earth:
The Republican Party of Delaware has filed a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission, accusing one of its own Senate candidates of illegally collaborating with the Tea Party Express.
Attorneys for the state party asked the FEC to launch an immediate and thorough investigation into conservative GOP candidate Christine O’Donnell “to remedy the alleged violations and to ensure that these violations immediately cease and do not reoccur,” according to the complaint filed Thursday. . . .
The complaint alleges that the O’Donnell campaign is “knowingly accepting illegal campaign contributions from the Tea Party Express PAC.” . . .
Delaware State GOP Chairman Tom Ross offered this statement:
“Christine O’Donnell needs to immediately call upon her third party supporters to cease and desist this illegal behavior,” he said. “This type of behavior has no place in our political process, and O’Donnell should denounce these illegal ads. Donors deserve to know whether they made an illegal donation so they can demand a refund and get their money back.”
When you take on the establishment, this is what you can expect in return. And when the grassroots are asleep, the establishment becomes arrogant.
UPDATE 11:10 a.m.: Angel Clark of the Examiner reports:
The RNC has allegedly been making “robo-calls” to voters in Delaware informing people of Castle’s fiscal conservatism. Many already frustrated Delawareans are now becoming angry. They are attempting to call the RNC office today and let them know that Delaware is tired of their establishment candidate (202-863-8500).
Clark also reports: “The Tea Party Express is holding a rally tonight in Sussex County. The 9-12 Delaware Patriots sent out some of the rally information. . . . Friday, Sept 10th at 5:30 pm – American Legion Post #28, 3178 Legion Road, Millsboro.”
Stand up and fight! WOLVERINES!
UPDATE 11:30 a.m.: Jeffrey Lord of The American Spectator talks about the Wall Street Journal and National Review as instruments of the Ruling Class. And the ever-fearless Dan Riehl isn’t afraid to argue with Glenn Reynolds.
UPDATE: Via C4P, audio of Sarah Palin’s call-in to Sean Hannity’s radio show endorsing Christine O’Donnell:
Also via C4P, Mark Levin discusses the endorsement:
Let us note that this conflict over the Delaware GOP primary finds three of the most influential conservative talk-radio hosts — Levin, Hannity and Rush Limbaugh — on the same side as Governor Palin. Think they’ll remember that? Think that will make a difference beyond 2010? Just askin’ questions . . .
Dixie Rising
“If the question is which state has changed most in the last half-century, the answer might be California. But if the question is which state has changed most for the better, the answer might be South Carolina.”
Blame Enough to Go Around
Stuart Schneiderman gets all Freudian about Obama:
In the end the American people bought an illusion, an illusion of competence and eptitude. They were wrong, and thus, they are getting screwed.
(Hat-tip: Insty.) But what about those of us who never bought the illusion? Why are we forced to suffer a fate that we tried to warn against? Why aren’t people who voted for Obama — and the pundits who urged them to do so — being held accountable for their error?
And let’s not let Republicans off the hook. Someone needs to go back and collect all the quotes from conservative pundits who, from 2007 on through Super Tuesday in 2008, assured us that John McCain would be a good presidential candidate.
Many of those pundits urged Republicans to back McCain because they assumed Hillary Clinton would be the Democrat nominee. Arguably McCain could have won that matchup, although I still insist Romeny was the better all-around candidate.
But McCain vs. Obama? No way.
The visuals were all wrong: Young, tall, brown and eloquent vs. old, short, bald and grumpy.
There was a glimmer of Republican hope in summer 2008, when Obama made that stupendously pretentious trip to Berlin, and then a real surge when McCain picked Palin as his running mate. But once Maverick backed the Bush bailout and especially after America saw the two guys on the same stage in the first debate — oh, it was hopeless.
Yet Republicans who actively promoted John McCain as the nominee (or who unwittingly did so, by backing Giuliani or Huckabee, rather than uniting behind Romney as the “Anybody But McCain” consensus) want to exempt themselves from culpability for Obama’s election.
And I’m still bitter about it.
Every time I see those Maverick-loving pundits sharing their “strategic insights” on our current predicament, I want to shout at the TV or computer: “Yeah, putz? Why should we believe a word you say now, when three years ago you were telling us about how that two-faced backstabbing RINO geezer was a surefire winner in 2008?”