On Not Being Lured Into Mis-Underestimating President Obama

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by Smitty (h/t Rhiel World View)

I just don’t see the value in belittling the President over a still shot. Or non-grasp of basic athletic skills. Granted, it’s been tradition at least since Chevy Chase used to go after Gerald Ford on SNL. I remember reading that Ford used to have a sense of humor about it. But commencing with W., the personal ad hominem seems to have gone beyond the dozens and into the realm of propaganda.

If you have a video clip of BHO demonstrating a non-grasp of depth perception, fine. But ‘less is more’ when it comes to this sort of thing. The ‘Boooosh is an idiot’ line was equally tiresome, recall.

Did you notice the country is in a financial crisis? Let’s collaborate on holding the GOP feet to the fire:

[DeMint] warns: “This may be our last chance with voters, because if we’re given the majority . . . and don’t reform Washington, everybody is going to say, ‘What’s wrong with these guys? We need a third party.’”

More Examples Of The Progressive Inverted Tongue

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by Smitty

Modern sophists don’t believe in any sort of absolute truth. This makes conversation challenging, as they will frequently attack the definitions of terms in lieu of dealing with reality. I call this Orwellian language use the Progressive Inverted Tongue, and I doubt not from which PIT it emerges.

Two fine examples came through the Reader recently:
Stogie publishes a Global Warming lexicon that will help you understand the twists and turns of a conversation on how science, too can become corrupt.

The Lonely Conservative features Star Parker in a trailer for ‘I Want Your Money’ discussing the Welfare State, and offering a personal account of how welfare achieves the opposite of what it sets out to do.

PIT is a shorter, more general version of Opposite Words, from the mighty House of Eratosthenes. We’ll see if the term meets Morgan’s approval.

Seniority as a Liability

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“The harsh reality is that in the tech world, companies prefer to hire young, inexperienced, engineers. And engineering is an ‘up or out’ profession: you either move up the ladder or face unemployment.”

This is true in many other professions, notoriously including sales. Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman was, after all, a story about a salesman who had grown too old for what is really a young man’s game. If you don’t become an executive — e.g., vice-president of sales — it’s not likely you’re going to reach retirement age doing the same job you were doing when you were 25.

From the standpoint of economics, seniority has no intrinsic value. Indeed, there are many professions in which mere experience is less valuable than the superior energy and adaptability of youth. It was therefore a foolish thing for labor unions, at their height of their power in the mid-20th century, to insist on the “last-hired, first-fired” principle of seniority which protected older workers, per se, at the expense of efficiency.

It’s a dog-eat-dog world, and if you think you can get ahead without improving your skills — constantly hustling to stay ahead of younger competitors in the work force — you’re at risk of becoming obsolete.

Excuse me if there’s no time to extend this into a full-blown essay. I’m still working as hard as I’ve ever worked in my life. Lots of the people I once worked with in the news business are now in some other line of work. 

Me? I’ve got a deadline for tomorrow’s American Spectator.

BREAKING: Alaska Libertarian Party Calls Emergency Meeting About Murkowski

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Sources in Anchorage inform me that the five-member executive board of the Alaska Libertarian Party will convene in an emergency meeting today to discuss efforts by Lisa Murkowski’s supporters to secure the LP nomination for the Republican senator should she fail to overturn Joe Miller’s 1,668-vote margin in the GOP primary.

Meanwhile, about 5 a.m. ET today, Joe Miller sent a Tweet linking to this story by Sean Cockerham in the Anchorage Daily News:

Miller campaign spokesman Randy DeSoto said in an e-mail Saturday that there are many calls going out to Alaskans who voted absentee ballots, asking them who they voted for in the primary. . . .
“I believe, and time will prove it, (the calls) are being done for nefarious purposes,” DeSoto said in the e-mail. “It is definitely not being done by the Joe Miller campaign. It is being done, I believe, by the National Republican Senatorial Committee or someone they contracted with as the beginning of a legal battle to throw out ballots.”
It is public information who requests absentee ballots. Both the Murkowski campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Campaign on Saturday denied making calls to absentee voters.

Yeah, of course they’d deny it. Just like they’d deny harrassing Joe Miller’s volunteers. But there’s more from the ADN story:

NRSC Communications Director Brian Walsh . . . said the single NRSC lawyer sent to Alaska to assist Murkowski with the ballot count, Sean Cairncross, returned to Washington, D.C., on Saturday after 72 hours in the state. “This has been much ado about nothing,” he said.

Wait a minute: How much of its donors’ money did the NRSC spend to send its top lawyer to Alaska for three days? Because I’m planning my own trip to Alaska, I know that flights to Alaska can be very expensive. A short-notice booking for a three-day trip? And I’m betting the NRSC lawyer didn’t fly coach class, either.

UPDATE: Democratic polling firm PPP:

In a three way contest with Murkowski running as the Libertarian candidate Miller leads but with only 38% to 34% for Murkowski and 22% for McAdams.

See, this is how the Palin-hater Andrew Halcro (who is behind the Lisa-for-LP talk) helps out Murkowski, the NRSC and — not coincidentally — Democrats.

Encouraging hope of  a Murkowski third-party bid (“She’s still in it! She’s fighting for you!”) prevents Murkowski’s supports from coming to grips with the reality of her defeat, and thus delays efforts by Miller to unite the GOP base and reach out to independent voters. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Murkowski’s people are talking to McAdams about letting her have the Democratic nomination.

As for Andrew Halcro’s scheme, remember that the No. 2 official in the Alaska LP said it’s “99% . . . no way” that the Libertarians would take Murkowski.

UPDATE III: The Alaska LP executive committee meeting lasted more than two hours, but the committee members were sworn to secrecy about the result. A press conference is scheduled Monday in Anchorage — I’ll update with details later — and Alaska LP chairman Scott Kohlhaas could be making an appearance on Fox News.

Meanwhile, Dan Riehl’s Republican sources say that the NRSC is up to shenanigans on Murkowski’s behalf and adds:

 Murkowski could still win this election legitimately. But, if she wins it any other way, and especially if the NRSC helps her do it, the DC GOP’s house is going to start burning down before they even gain control of the one on the Hill.

Read the whole thing.

Gay Tea Party Activist Bruce Majors: ‘It’s a Full-Time Job Being a Celebrity Racist’

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Last week, a D.C. guide for out-of-towners attending the Restoring Honor rally was seized upon by the Left as evidence of Tea Party bigotry because it advised visitors to stick to the touristy parts of town, et cetera. Rachel Maddow got all snarky about it:

Here’s your first ironic denouement: The guy who wrote the Tea Party Guide to D.C. is a gay guy who has donated thousands of dollars to Democrats:

Eugene Robinson, a columnist for The Washington Post, accused Majors of “scaring white people.” DC Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton called the post “worrisome” and said she feared it would inflame racial tensions.
Majors, who says he aspires to be “the gay, slightly more libertarian Ann Coulter,” clearly relishes the attention. Upbeat and talkative, he sports a mischievous grin that refuses to fade.
“It’s a full-time job being a celebrity racist,” he says as he walks through the crowd at the National Mall. “I need a personal assistant.”

OK, so that’s your first ironic denouement. And the second?

Yeah, Bruce Majors is a friend of mine. I’m sure he’ll put that character reference on his résumé.

UPDATE: Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters has a transcript of Maddow’s segment, as well as for another segment by Chris Matthews on the same topic. And apparently none of MSNBC’s journalistic geniuses ever thought to do a simple online search of the FEC records for Bruce Majors.

“Too good to check,” et cetera.

Oh, Boy! More BrandiTV!

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Everybody loves America’s Xenophobic Sweetheart, Brandi Milloy. Among the many admirers of the recent Miss California contestant — fourth runner-up? were the judges blind? or merely gay? — is Professor Glenn Reynolds, who links a video that inevitably invites this compare-and-contrast:

OK, there’s my friend Stephen Kruiser with Danika Quinn and Alexis Garcia, which is pretty doggone awesome. Yet a dramatic increase in awesomeness can quite easily be achieved:

See what I mean? 31 Flavors of Pure Awesome! (Click on either image to watch the video.)

This isn’t to say that Kruiser is about to lose his PJTV gig and start working at Hot Dog On a Stick out at the mall, although Kruiser himself seems to be sweating that possibility. No worries, Stephen: I’m sure you’ll continue making frequent appearances on the soon-to-be-renamed BrandiTV network.