A. Charles Johnson

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Q. What’s more boring than soccer?

We might assume, arguendo, that regular readers have been following The Other McCain’s relentless mockery of the 2010 World Cup. However, for those who may have joined the mockery in progress and missed the set-up for this particular running gag, let’s recall how liberals have portrayed American contempt for soccer as inherently racist:

“I was reminded about why when the United States wins in international tournaments, it can bring a nasty undercurrent in its wake. . . .
“It’s yet another reminder why it is so important for progressives to not just thrill to the joys of sport but be conversant in the politics of sports. The right will forever try to pump the worst kind of racist, nationalist garbage through our play, even at moments that by all rights should be above and beyond politics and just about the electric thrill of the moment.”
— David Zirin, The Nation, June 23

Anyone who has read Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed (as everyone should) recognizes in this a signature trope of elitist liberalism: “We are enlightened and sophisticated, whereas conservatives are benighted and bigoted.” 

Sowell summarizes the danger of this tendency in his book’s subtitle: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy. That is to say, liberals support certain policies not because those policies are demonstrably effective, but because supporting such policies makes liberals feel good about themselves.

This nonsense about conservatives hating soccer because we are xenophobic jingos is merely a variation on the argument that conservative opposition to nationalized health-care is motivated by racism. The liberal worldview needs to be mocked, and often, and by someone who knows how, which was the primary motivation of World Cup Fever — Catch It! — here:

This recap is not necessitated by any need to allay fears that I’m turning into a soccer-loving elitist faggot, but rather to set up the punchline:




At one point in our Twitter exchange, Johnson used the term “wetback,” and asked what slur I would apply to the Ghana team.

This demonstrated that he did not recognize the premise of the joke, i.e., to employ derogatory terms for various nationalities — French “frogs,” Irish “micks,” Italian “dagos,” etc. —  whereas Johnson had in mind racial slurs, which terms I had of course avoided. At one point, I asked readers to suggest an epithet for Algerians, a situation where generic anti-Arab terms would not do.

Charles Johnson is simply too dull-witted to get the joke. Members of the Mexican soccer team are obviously not “wetbacks,” a term referring specfically to illegal immigrants. If they were “wetbacks,” they’d be playing for the USA and voting for Obama. Had the U.S. team ever played Japan, I might have been in trouble, but we need not waste much thought on that moot possibility now that America’s World-Class Losers have been eliminated.

Too bad Charles Johnson didn’t seek my advice before contacting R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., as I might have warned Charles that it has been a standard policy of The American Spectator since its inception to report all disgruntled letter-writers to the FBI for investigation as subversives.

We’ll wait and see whether I collect that $20 from Weigel.

UPDATE (Smitty): Clarification of “s32porchmanque” can be located here. Summary: ya got nothin’. Keep trying.

UPDATE II: Well played, Admiral, well played, indeed! Smitty’s penchant for Carrollesque word-play is notorious, as his authorship of Oedipotus Wrecks and Waiting for O-Dough demonstrates. His choice of monikers when installing SiteMeter for the new WordPress version of the blog was, perhaps, not what I would have advised. Yet he did not seek my advice, so I suppose he must suffer whatever pun-ishment is apt.

Johnson’s obsession with the SiteMeter calls attention to an interesting fact: Little Green Footballs does not display a SiteMeter link, so that no one can study LGF’s traffic trends. Whereas, as recently noted, June has been the Best. Month. Evah! hereabouts, and anyone can study the SiteMeter to analyze the trend.

While you’re mentally extrapolating November’s traffic based on a trend of April 106K to June 165K, take a gander at The Rules, a/k/a “How to Get a Million Hits.” Among the growth strategies advised is Rule 3: “Make Some Enemies.” So I guess that worked pretty good.

This recent drama — including an evidently authentic comment by Mad King Charles himself — occurred while I was briefly asleep. Donald Douglas at American Power displays the unfunny cartoon that one of the lizards composed.

We now have a Memeorandum thread,  so I suppose I’ll be drinking free next time I run into Dave Weigel. Many conservatives have asked me about Dave — “How can you be friends with that dirtbag?” — and I admit that this is becoming a difficult thing to defend. But I’m averse to the Total Vengeance mode of blogging, the compiling of Enemies Lists, trying to get people fired, and so forth.

The propaganda of dehumanization, turning individuals into symbols — Emmanuel Goldstein in the Two-Minutes Hate — is what incites such episodes as Michelle Malkin being swarmed by an Alex Jones-led mob in Denver. Having been vilified in that manner, I don’t hate the player, I hate the game.

Charles Johnson has played the game so long that he has forgotten it’s a game. He is now just a semi-professional bully. As I said of his vindictive campaign against Pamela Geller, if CJ was a Sioux, his tribal name would be Fights With Girls.

Bullies are not attractive, except to people who admire sadism. And I wasn’t raised that way. Generosity and kindness ultimately triumph over selfish cruelty, and honesty over lies. I don’t owe Bob Belvedere a hat-tip for this lesson.

“And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city . . .”

We know how that story ends.

Gentleman Jim Moran Proves Himself A Cosmic Winner On Hardball

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by Smitty (h/t just a conservative girl)

While I was in Manassas at the Celebrate the Constitution rally, I ran into some people complaining about what a tool Gerry Connolly is. I countered that I’m in VA-8, and, with the exception of Speaker Pelosi and maybe Steny Hoyer, nobody out-tools my tool.
Judicial Watch added Rep. Moran’s name to it’s 2009 10 Most Wanted list, as a part of the PMA group:

When it comes to the PMA scandal, Murtha is not alone. As many as six other Members of Congress are currently under scrutiny according to The Washington Post. They include: Peter J. Visclosky (D-IN.), James P. Moran Jr. (D-VA), Norm Dicks (D-WA.), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), C.W. Bill Young (R-FL.) and Todd Tiahrt (R-KS.)

Look: two Republicans. Shocking.
The following clip from Hardball features Gentleman Jim Moran at his Orwellian finest:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Skipping past the introduction, here is an unofficial transcript of Moran’s stump speech. I went over it several times, so I think the fidelity is good with respect to what he actually says:

Moran:This may be the most successful last six months in American Presidential history. I can’t think of a time we have accomplished as much as we have.
In the last six months, more jobs were created than Bush was able to generate in eight years, Chris. People don’t understand that. The economy has recovered.
Matthews:But you got about 41,000 civilian jobs in May. Is that a good number?
Moran:Well, uh, eh, we had a lot of Census Bureau employees, granted. But the fact is, the economy has come back from the brink. And a lot of that is because of Presidential leadership. It is the economic stimulus that pumped money into the economy. It worked.
Health care reform. That’s transformational. And it was an enormous legislative victory. When you figure that the Republican party has decided they’re going to vote against everything. Anything that he offers, they’re going to vote ‘No’. And yet, he got that through.
In the House, we got the energy bill through. I think we’re probably going to get an energy bill, and now we’ve gotten Wall Street reform. Those are enormous legislative victories.
Now, I know that people think it’s not enough, somehow. Because President Obama doesn’t get on the stump and ‘rah-rah’. But, uh, he’s kind of an understated guy. I think there’s a lot of reasons for that. But the fact is he’s shown a lot of results.
And then when you look at foreign policy. I know we’re in an intractable situation in Afghanistan. But the reality is that the reputation of the United States around the world has improved immeasureably. He’s going to the G-20 summit, they’re all going to listen to him, they all take him seriously, which was not the case in the last eight years with President Bush.
We’re getting out of Iraq. And, we’re going to figure out what to do with Afghanistan too, even though it’s perhaps one of the most difficult foreign policy conundra that any President has faced.

[Later, near the end. . .]
Moran: We may lose 10, 20 seats. I don’t think we’ll lose anywhere near 30. We’re still going to have the majority.

Do watch the whole thing. Everybody in VA-8 needs to watch this and familiarize themself with Jim Moran and his Salvador Dali world view. Here is a man who will tell you that the cart is the horse, and then blame someone else when the goods don’t move. Retiring Gentleman Jim has reached the level of patriotic duty, Virginians.
Owning the House Ethics Committee as Moran’s party does, we’ll get as much justice there as Eric Holder’s Department OJ. I really don’t know whether his disconnection from economic reality and US Constitutional history is diabolical or demented. With twenty years in office, it could break either way. Given his beautifully un-critical recitation of talking points received from a non-White House source, I’m leaning towards the former.
But it doesn’t matter. We must RETIRE JIM MORAN.
Visit Murray for Congress.

Rule 5 Sunday

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by Smitty

Rule 5 enjoyed another active week. Thanks to all those sending in batch submissions as URLs. We may not be President, but, nevertheless, to the links!

Fortune Rest Edith Shain

Rule 5 salutes an icon of the day when “girls were girls and men were men” who has passed. There was a time when an impromptu pose for a timeless photo in public would not result in a subpoena or a trip to the free clinic. Blogs reporting on the event included:

Continue reading Rule 5 Sunday →

Hit Jeff’s Tip-Jar!

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Jeff Goldstein’s father just died, requiring him to fly cross-country on short notice for the funeral:

I feel ashamed to ask, but any donations you can make at this time would really really help my family out. And would of course replace any kind of July fundraiser.

Pro-capitalist bloggers should never be “ashamed to ask.” It’s fee-for-service and running a site as popular as Jeff’s is a tremendous service. Asking readers to support the site, especially at a time of personal crisis, is nothing to be ashamed of.

Go to Protein Wisdom now and give Jeff some money.

28 August, Lincoln Memorial? Yeah, We’re Blogging That

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by Smitty (via Bluegrass Pundit)

Restoring Honor
Location: At the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
Date: August 28, 2010
Time: 10a-1p ET

Two months is enough time to get our ducks in a row as far as covering the event goes.
I’m not a regular Beck viewer, so Bluegrass Pundit’s post was news to me. BGP was reacting to Bill Press’s ludicrous assertion concerning the rally that:

If you ask me, that’s like granting al Qaeda permission to hold a rally on September 11 – at Ground Zero.

Well, Bill, if your purpose for making scurrilous remarks like that is to motivate Americans to oppose false mainstream media filth, then you’re about to be visited with sweet success. If the country was not beset with problems orders of magnitude greater than Bill Press, his remark might even be worth specific sign mockery at that rally. But all he really merits is passing mention in a blog post.
More Press love at NewsBusters.Beck’s site mentions other attendees here, including Sarah Palin.
The big names are all fine, but the real point is to gather We The People and underscore for this Congress and Administration that the 2008 election was not a Leftist takeover, and the two year election frequency was envisioned by the Founders for exactly the current circumstance.  And the Left would have got away with it, too, if not for those meddling white dudes in wigs.

California Journalists Caught on Video Making Fun of Sarah Palin Speech

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“The dumbness doesn’t just come from soundbites” says one reporter in the open-mic moment after the Palin speech, while another asks: “How am I going to write about this? There’s nothing there!” To which a colleague replies: “Well, there’s your story.”

This is nothing new. The first time I went to cover a Sarah Palin speech (“Sweetheart of the Heartland,” Sept. 10, 2008) in Ohio, I saw a network reporterette  mimicking a certain phrase in Palin’s speech, with an eyeroll reaction indicating that there was no news value in hearing the candidate repeat what she’d said at previous campaign stops.

It’s a common situation in campaign coverage: The candidate wants to deliver their well-rehearsed talking-points, whereas the reporters want the candidate to “make news” by going off-script or taking questions at a press conference.

Steve Schmidt’s policy of tightly-controlled “message discipline” for the McCain-Palin campaign thus had the unintended effect of alienating those reporters (the “traveling press”) who covered the campaign day after day without ever having direct access to the candidates and seldom got to report anything unplanned or unscripted. But the campaign seemingly didn’t care about how bad they were pissing off the press.

Were there ways the campaign could have dealt effectively with that problem? Yes. Does any Republican ever ask a journalist for advice on media relations? No.

Sigh.

More at Memeorandum.

Rep. Paul Ryan Delivers 3:20 Of Lucidity

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by Smitty (via Gateway Pundit)


Emphasis mine:

Hello – I’m Paul Ryan – I work for the people of Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District and I serve as the top Republican on the House Budget Committee. Yes, Congress does have a budget committee, but I’m afraid it hasn’t been very busy this year. In fact, this week the House Majority Leader announced that Democrats are canceling this year’s budget. Instead of reining in out-of-control spending that has pushed our total national debt past $13 trillion, Democrats have made clear their intention to raise taxes on middle-class families to fuel their continued spending spree.
Talk about a recipe for disaster: Democrats are offering no budget, no priorities, and no restraints – yet all their taxing, borrowing, and spending continues unchecked. With this budget failure – a first in the modern era – Democrats are missing a critical opportunity to provide the fiscal discipline economists say is needed to create private-sector jobs and boost our economy. This unprecedented budget collapse also sends a clear signal to American families struggling to meet their own budgets that Washington still doesn’t recognize the severity of its spending problem.

Or maybe the Pelosi crew does, and all this is an exercise in “smoke ’em if ya got ’em”.

Democrats say their decision is about what’s best for the future of our country. It’s not. With the political season upon us, Democratic leaders believe it is better to take a pass than to pass a budget. While Americans ask ‘where are the jobs?,’ they seem content to simply run out the clock and let their borrowing binge continue to drain resources from our economy.
The debt is on track to exceed the size of our entire economy in the next 18 months. We have run out of road to kick the can down. If this is really about the future of our country, then leaders should make the tough choices they promised they would, put moral obligation before political expedience, and focus on what’s in the best interests of the next generation, not the next election.

Aw, c’mon, Paul: our system punishes leadership and rewards avoidance behavior. Sure, go after the symptoms of the current budgetary crisis, but we also have to attack the Constitutional decay that is the context for the dilemma. New names on the doorplates is necessary, but not sufficient, sir.

This is a time to make tough choices, not run from them. To that end, Republicans on the Budget Committee have already identified $1.3 trillion in specific spending cuts we could implement right now to make Washington do more with less and help small businesses put people back to work. These are specific, common-sense ideas, such as canceling unspent TARP bailout funds and ‘stimulus’ money, that would help us focus on creating more jobs, not more debt. We also propose reducing federal employment and freezing government pay. Instead of growing government, we need to restart the engine of economic growth. Of course, this is just a starting point. Much more needs to be done to set our nation on a sustainable economic course. We need to start reining in unnecessary spending now so that we can boost the economy and work together to address our nation’s long term fiscal challenges.
It is our shared responsibility to take on the challenges before us to make sure that our kids and grandkids have a better life. Let’s begin this important work today. Let’s make certain we do not simply retreat to the same failed policies. Let’s make the tough, forward-looking choices that will restore the promise and prosperity of this exceptional nation – and let’s do it together.
Thanks for listening.

Again, cuts are fine, but we need to amputate the system that buries liberty in reams of legislation to support un-Federal tasking.
God bless you, Mr. Ryan, and grant you grace and strength to keep up the fight. I support what you’re doing, insofar as it’s a good start.