Joan Walsh: The Smoker She Drinks, The Player She Gets

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by Smitty

Joan Walsh has posted the most risible dismissal of Andrew Breitbart imaginable. Emphasis mine:

Andrew Breitbart isn’t fit to spit-shine the shoes of civil rights hero and Congressman John Lewis. It’s ludicrous to think that the right-wing bully believed he had the moral or political standing to call Lewis a liar, after Lewis and two other black congressmen reported they were called “nigger” by tea partiers during the healthcare reform vote March 20. Lewis’s word on the confrontation is good enough for me.

What about personality-free facts? Videos shot on the spot? What about the fact that Breitbart backs up his claims with money? What about the fact that Breitbart, while arguably abrasive, as truth can be at times, has a sterling reputation?

Now comes news that Breitbart is the liar – or at least the misleader. Video he’s been peddling to “prove” the congressmen were not called the N-word was actually after the slurs occurred. As a friend notes, “It’s like running video of the Twin Towers on 9/10 to prove 9/11 didn’t happen.” Of course the videos Breitbart peddled to claim ACORN helped a supposed pimp and prostitute set up a child-prostitution ring have also been found misleading, at best. The California Attorney General’s review said they were “severely edited” and in fact “showed no violation of the law.” New York authorities concluded the same thing.

Was the video from after the alleged incident? You must have a hard timestamp for the purported event yourself to back up this claim of time shenanigans, Walsh. Why not trot out some facts to back up your claim? Could there be a total lack of facts on your side of the argument?

The video of the perp walk is not like running two different September 2001 videos, Walsh. 9/11 actually happened, with mass casualties.
Your attempt to link an unproven, suspect allegation of a bad word to an act of terrorism is sad, gross, and demonstrates a lack of both judgement and proportionality on your part. Boo, hiss, Walsh.

And don’t even bring up Jerry Brown in defense of ACORN. If ACORN was even slightly innocent, and Breitbart even vaguely in the wrong, do you think that Federal funding would have been cut, and ACORN putting forth so much effort to rebrand itself?

Forget the rhetoric, Walsh: the money talks in both the racial epithet and the ACORN cases, and your insipid attempts at smearing Andrew Breitbart mark you a sad little tool. And now, for therapy, let’s shift from Joan to Joe:

Megan McArdle’s Myopia

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In an otherwise very thoughtful piece about the limitations of the conservative subculture, the World’s Tallest Female Blogger writes:

I’ve never worked at either a liberal or a conservative political magazine, but from the outside . . .

She writes this for The Atlantic Monthly which, in point of fact, is a liberal political magazine. There was a time when it was less clearly liberal. I still remember the mindblowing experience of reading Barbara Dafoe Whitehead’s groundbreaking article, “Dan Quayle Was Right,” and the editorship of Michael Kelly seemed to indicate a rightward turn at the magazine. More recently, however, the magazine has skewed in the opposite direction, and the evident fact that Megan doesn’t perceive that shift is significant.

The defense Megan might plausibly make of her statement is that the Atlantic is a magazine of the northeastern elite — she herself is one of the very few non-Ivy Leaguers on staff — and that its political orientation is merely a reflection of views within that class and that region.

Update (Smitty): Per Wikipedia:

She has an undergraduate degree in English Literature from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from Chicago Booth.

Fireworks in AL-5 GOP Candidate Forum; What Was Mo Brooks Trying to Say?

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HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Candidates in the three-way GOP primary in Alabama’s 5th District traded sharp jabs Monday night in a candidate forum at the University of Alabama-Huntsville, with ex-Democrat Rep. Parker Griffith trying to establish his conservative bona fides against Mo Brooks and Les Phillip.

At one point, Griffith offered a “unity” pledge that he asked the other candidates to sign. As Challen Stephens of the Huntsville Times reports this morning, he got no takers:

“Can I it read first?” replied Madison businessman Les Phillip to a round of applause and laughter from a packed auditorium of about 400. As Phillip read the document aloud, a few audience members yelled out: “Don’t sign that,” and “sleep on it.”

Several people on Twitter asked me afterwards how I thought Les Phillip did in the debate. My basic answer was that he did not lose. Phillip is a first-time candidate up against two experienced politicians, and this was the first GOP forum since Griffith switched parties. Insofar as there were any objective metrics, according to a count made by Alabama political operative Stephen Gordon, Les got more applause lines than any other candidate, and after the forum, Les was surrounded by more audience members.

It’s hard for me to be objective about Les — honestly, he had me at “hello” — and if I were asked to criticize his performance, I’d say he seemed too cautious, in sort of a “prevent defense” mode. Yet he got in some witty lines and, as actors say, he “hit his marks,” outlining his conservative positions on all the issues, and made no major gaffes.

Mo Brooks evidently came into the forum with a strategy of attacking Griffith, which he did repeatedly. In one of the strangest exchanges of the night, Brooks said “politics makes strange bedfellows” in reference to his willingness to work with Democrats like Nancy Pelosi on legislation of importance to the 5th District, which has a large military and aerospace industry dependent on federal spending. Griffith replied by joking, “I’m having a hard time imagining Mo and Nancy Pelosi in the same bed, what about y’all?”

Brooks responded, “I noticed that my wife just walked out. And I think it’s unfortunate that that kind of barb, even in jest, could be made. My wife and I, we’ve been faithful to each other for 34 years. You may not have noticed it, but I was looking at her.”

Brooks’s response shocked me because, the way he said it, he seemed to be insinuating something about Griffith’s own marital fidelity. I immediately called Gordon out of the room and asked him if Brooks was alluding to some known scandal: Had Griffith ever been divorced or anything like that? Gordon knew of no such scandal, nor even any rumor to that effect, so maybe I misunderstood.

Still, the tone of Brooks’s remark struck me as odd. He had been the one to introduce the “strange bedfellows” metaphor, and Griffith’s joke was to the effect that a less-than-metaphorical meaning would be unthinkable. So why did Brooks get angry? I recorded the debate, and shared the audio with Huntsville talk-radio host Ladd Ehlinger Jr., who has a clip of the exchange where you can hear some audience members groan with dismay.

This kind of personal stuff in a Republican primary is unfortunate, but local residents here tell me that there’s been all kinds of craziness behind the scenes, mostly ignored by the mainstream press. Several different whisper campaigns seem to be afoot, including misunderstanding of Les Phillip’s position on public-housing issues and accusations that supporters of Brooks’ opponents have sought to make an issue of Brooks’ Mormon faith, reminiscent of the problems Mitt Romney had with Southern evangelical voters in the 2008 presidential primaries.

It’s hard to tell if any of this will matter in the primary result, or whether the Republican infighting will have any impact on the GOP nominee’s fortunes in the general election. Given the current political climate, whoever wins the Republican nomination in AL-5 will be overwhelmingly favored to win Nov. 2.

UPDATE: A few photos from my Huntsville visit:

Left to right: Mo Brooks, Rep. Parker Griffith, Les Phillip.

Les talks with a Republican voter after the debate.

Merle Phillip greets her husband’s supporters after the debate. Merle is a chef and a New Jersey native whose frank, down-to-earth humor makes her a favorite of my Twitter friend Victoria, who is Les’s most enthusiastic advocate.

Huntsville talk-radio host Ladd Ehlinger Jr., who is also an independent film producer.

Ladd in the studio at WTKI, doing the “after-show” of his multimedia program. You can download a podcast of my appearance on his show Monday.

UPDATE II: Here’s video of Ladd producing the after-show:

SCOTUS Pick? BFD, Says Biden

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by Smitty (photo: Top of the Ticket)


BHO: I’ve got to pick a SCOTUS nominee. Whoever pulls my finger first gets the nod.
JRB: [runs] Bravely, Finally Dispatched!
BHO: Joe, you already have a job, which is taxing you to the utmost of your abilities. Here’s what we do. We run through the most most radical lefties we’ve got, get the GOP to wast a bunch of political capital, then reel it back in a little.
HRC: I don’t care what song and dance you put on, Barack: I’m calling in my markers from the campaign. You’ve squandered the whole party’s chances on a complete disaster of a health care bill that wasn’t half the fine work I produced back when we had a real President.
BHO: The campaign is over. Who will possibly measure up to the *cough*standard*cough* you’ve set as Secretary of State?
JRB: Brash, Fashionable Diplomat?
HRC: [glowers at Joe] I would recommend Colin Powell. He endorsed you before the election, then doubled down on Larry King. The General will support you rather than look like he’s retreating. Or like Joe Biden.
JRB: [mutters] Bizotchy, Freestyle Dig.
BHO: Hmmm. . .I don’t know if Colin’s completely burned out or not. Also, will he sign on to this administration’s prime directive?
JRB: Blame First Dubya?
BHO: That’s exactly right, Joe. Those critics who claimed you’re incapable of learning have completely sub-mis-demi-underestimated you. Admittedly, you do set the bar low.
RIE: Can we afford to lose much crisis-time to confirmation hearings? If McConnell and his effing retreads go for a filly, we stand to lose opportunity on cap & trade, as well as immigration reform.
JRB: [excited] Bodacious Fromage Delicacy!
BHO: Rahm meant a filibuster, not a philly cheese steak, Joe. Do you need to go to your room?
RIE: Now, Joe himself was on the Senate Judiciary Comittee. Maybe you nominate Joe to SCOTUS, and me as the replacement Vice President. I can still function as CoS, and we can send Joe to state funerals as required, particularly if they are in Russia.
JRB: [downcast] Bitter Final Destination.
BHO: It would be unprecedented for us to order the Judicial Branch around like that, but Roberts does need to be brought to heel. On the other hand, it’s well known that the thought of Joe Biden as my replacement has motivated even my staunchest foes to pray for my continued health and well-being. I can’t just liquidate that sort of good will.
At any rate, I’ll let you know Michelle’s decision tomorrow.

My Emergency Evacuation: Good-Bye to the Big Easy; Hello, Sweet Home Alabama

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HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — I’m blogging from the studios of WTKI 1490 AM, where today I was a guest on the Film Ladd radio show, a fantastic multimedia experience — radio, chatroom, live video camera. The host, Ladd Ehlinger, is a brilliant independent film director and all-around virtuoso.

Ladd called me Sunday morning while I was on my way to breakfast in the French Quarter of New Orleans and invited me to be his guest in-studio, and then to attend tonight’s Republican 5th District congressional debate at the University of Alabama-Huntsville. So I had to hit deadline quickly for my American Spectator column about the Southern Republican Leadership Conference:

Far from the main stage, away from the television cameras and unnoticed by reporters covering the speeches by famous names, other stories were developing, stories of potentially greater importance — and certainly more urgent than the question of who will carry the Republican banner in a presidential election more than two years in the future.
For hundreds of GOP congressional candidates, the only date that matters is not 2012, but Nov. 2 — now less than seven months away — and for many of those candidates, their campaigns will end sooner, as multi-candidate primaries have become the rule rather than the exception in a mid-term free-for-all perhaps destined to be known as the Year of Republican Hope. . . .

Please read the whole thing. I’ll be back to update later with more news, photos and video, as well as the explanation for my 18-hour absence from blogging. The New Orleans voodoo ate my WiFi . . .