That was before they hired David Brooks, Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd.
Just sayin’ . . .
Sandra Bullock: Right-Wing Extremist?
The Oscar-winner for Best Actress is, after all, a Southerner — her father is from Alabama and she attended Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Virginia — and her Academy Award was based on the true story of a football player at Briarcrest Christian Academy in Memphis, who subsequently signed a scholarship at Ole Miss to play for the Rebels.
The South, Christianity, football . . . and I’m sure Sandra Bullock would agree with me: Atavar sucks.
At any rate, Roger Simon celebrates this year’s Oscars as a big victory for conservatism:
With the pro-military “The Hurt Locker” winning over the enviro-pabulum of “Avatar” and Sandra Bullock garnering the Best Actress Oscar for a Christian movie, the times are a-changin’ at least somewhat, maybe even a lot.
But one thing is now certain. It is time for conservative, center-right and libertarian filmmakers to stop feeling sorry for themselves and go out and just do it. Their “victocrat” days are over. No more excuses. “The Hurt Locker” and “The Blind Side” have proven that it can be done. Get out of the closet, guys and gals. If you want to make a film with themes you believe in, quit whining about Industry prejudice and start writing that script and trying to get it made. That’s not an easy thing, no matter what your politics.
Sitemeter Profiles Robert Stacy McCain
by Smitty
Sitemeter caught Stacy McCain after a recent Insta-lanche for the Krauthammer for President post, and profiled Stacy as he lay on the couch…pontificating:
Go, Stacy!
Will ObamaCare Lead To Increase Or Decrease For Butt Drugs?
by Smitty (via Ukulele & ATJ via The Agitator)
One one level, the whole notion of ObamaCare could make it the most expensive suppository in human history. On the other hand, the pros from Dover, who couldn’t lead two nuns in one minute of silent prayer, are guaranteed to accidentally wreck any sort of local business. Customer service being unfair and antithetical to bureaucracy, you know.
In Case You Missed the Oscars
Thanks to Michael Tunison at the New Ledger for this:
It was for many years my duty, as Sunday night editor on the national desk at the Washington Times, to compile and update our “from combined dispatches” stories about the Oscars, Grammys and Emmys — through three editions.
I don’t miss that at all. Awards shows are a stupid waste of time. Worse than a Frank Rich column, but not worse than a David Brooks column. Nothing is a worse waste of time than a David Brooks column.
Things About The Left That Mystify
by Smitty
American Power has a post on radicals abandoning BHO over foreign policy. Here’s a quote from the International Socialist Review, emphasis mine:
The escalation of the war by a Democratic administration underscores the necessity, and the opportunity, for building a clearer and more consistent antiwar movement that is independent of both parties and willing to take on both.
Now, I can respect a consistent, principled pacifist, e.g. the Amish.
The easiest way to curb American war making capacity, i.e. actually be anti-war, is to support Federalism and the Constitution. American gunboat diplomacy is as simple as Checkov’s gun. If we concentrate power in DC, and debase the separation of powers by having Congress hand blank checks to the Executive, isn’t military adventurism an obvious consequence?
Perhaps cynically, I think that most of the leadership on the Left makes dovish noises to help lure in the more granola-head troops. The Che Guevara t-shirts, besides pointing out what dupes people can be, also remind one that the Left is perfectly willing to flex a bit of muscle when helpful.
Separation of Powers, as with the 10th Amendment, point out that the country needs restoration now, more than hopium and changeeba. Quite a bit of wisdom in that document, which may help explain the Left’s rejection thereof.
Adam Gadahn Can Look Forward To Excruciating Torment
by Smitty
Dan Riehl notes of the recent acquisition in Karachi:
I also wish he were being interrogated under the Bush administration, as opposed to the current one.
This blog has obtained some hush-hush footage of the new interrogation methods to be used by the Administration’s elite interrogation outfit, code name: Redwater. In our endless quest to out-grey-lady the New York Times, we cheerfully reveal just what Gadahn can expect:
Another ‘Anti-Government Right Wing Extremist of the Ron Paulian Persuasion’
No, not Pentagon shooter Patrick Bedell — as described by Charles Johnson — I’m talking about that other 9/11 Truther:
Two days before his official trip to Afghanistan, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a “big lie” intended to pave the way for the invasion of a war-torn nation, according to Iranian state media.
Ahmadinejad, known for his harsh rhetoric toward the West and Israel, said the attack on U.S. soil was a “scenario and a sophisticated intelligence measure,” Iran’s state-run Press TV reported Saturday.
The assault was a “big lie intended to serve as a pretext for fighting terrorism and setting the grounds for sending troops to Afghanistan,” Press TV reported Ahmadinejad as saying.
Mahmoud Ahmadenijad, Patrick Bedell, Rosie O’Donnell, Charlie Sheen — all those notorious libertarians!
Probably Belgian, too. IYKWIMAITYD.
ADDENDUM: For the benefit of those who’ve been reading the blog for less than six months, or who didn’t pay close attention to the Great LGF Meltdown of 2009, I will explain the “Belgian” joke and a few other things, as well.
The first clear indication that Little Green Footballs blogger Charles Johnson had slipped a cog was in October 2007, when he attacked Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs and Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch for having attended a “counter-jihad” conference in Brussels, Belgium.
Specifically, Johnson and certain of his pseudonymous commenters charged that various European participants in the Brussels conference were “ultra-nationalist” or “Euro-fascist.” Prominently mentioned in Johnson’s attack was Vlaams Belang (“Flemish Interest”), a Belgian political party that has a history of controversy, opposing the typical European “multicultural” stance toward Islam and immigration (readers of Mark Steyn’s America Alone will nod their heads in recognition).
When Geller and Spencer defended the Brussels conference and protested the guilt-by-association attacks, Johnson’s response was to launch a crusade of defamation against Geller and Spencer. Anyone who sided with Geller and Spencer in this dispute was accused by Johnson of willfully abetting “Euro-fascism.” Conservative columnist Diana West and best-selling author Richard Miniter were among the many people stigmatized by Johnson, as Geller noted.
Keep in mind that, when this dispute began, Little Green Footballs was still one of the most widely read conservative sites, a “must” on any conservative blogroll (including Rush Limbaugh’s site). By declaring Geller and Spencer to be persona non grata and condemning West, Miniter, et al., Johnson was implicitly threatening to eject from the ranks of respectable conservatism any blog that linked either Atlas Shrugs or Jihad Watch. This resulted in a drastic loss of traffic for Geller and Spencer, and damaged their effort to build a trans-Atlantic alliance against what has been variously deemed “Islamicization” or “Dhimmification.”
And all of this, you see, because of the threat allegedly posed by Vlaams Belang, a party that mustered 12% of the vote in Belgium, a peaceful democratic nation geographically smaller than Maryland with a population less than Ohio’s. Consider, then, the extreme disproportion involved in Johnson’s crusade, during which he branded Geller a “Poster Girl for Euro-Fascists.”
Regardless of your opinion of Vlaams Belang — or whether you even have an opinion about them — is this Belgian political party really a threat comparable to al Qaeda? Is Flemish nationalism such a grave danger as to justify the crusade against Geller and Spencer? Or, as seems far more likely, does Johnson have some kind of personality flaw that caused him to go beserk when Geller and Spencer disputed his condemnation of the Brussels conference?
All of which explains why I began invoking “the Flemish Menace” when mocking Johnson’s paranoiac tendencies, his rigid categorical thinking, and his obsessive need to apply pejorative labels to his enemies (real or imaginary). His counter-factual claim that Pentagon shooter Patrick Bedell was an “Anti-government right wing extremist of the Ron Paulian persuasion” is typical of what I call Johnsonoia.
Why not merely ignore Charles Johnson? It’s never safe to turn your back on a rabid dog.