J.D. Hayworth vs. John McCain

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Thanks to Barbara Espinosa at American Freedom for highlighting this issue-by-issue comparison:

TAXES
John McCain — Opposed the Bush tax cuts. Voted against repealing the Death Tax. The Club for Growth says McCain’s overall record on taxes “is profoundly disturbing and anti-growth.”
J.D. Hayworth — Helped to author the Bush tax cuts and supports repealing the Death Tax. JD has a higher lifetime rating from Citizens Against Government Waste than John McCain does.

BAILOUTS
John McCain — Voted FOR the big bank bailouts and proposed an additional $300 Billion bailout of all bad debts, making the taxpayers responsible for the bad decisions of others.
J.D. Hayworth — Opposed the big bank bailouts, opposed the Obama plan, and opposed the McCain plan to leave taxpayers holding the bag for the nation’s bad loans.

AMNESTY
John McCain — Wrote the bill granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. McCain’s bill was estimated to cost the taxpayers more than $2.6 Trillion.
J.D. Hayworth — Helped lead the fight against the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill. JD is a national leader in the fight to secure our borders and protect our nation.

MARRIAGE
John McCain  — Opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment that would have protected and preserved marriage as between one man and one woman.
J.D. Hayworth — Marriage Supported the Federal Amendment and believes it is critical that marriage be protected from those who would redefine it.

CAP AND TRADE
John McCain — Co-authored the McCain-Lieberman Cap and Trade bill.
J.D. Hayworth — Cap and Trade Opposes all Cap and Trade legislation and rejects phony climate change data.

FREE SPEECH
John McCain — Authored the McCain-Feingold legislation that violated the First Amendment rights of every American and silenced conservative groups like Right to Life and the NRA.
J.D. Hayworth — Opposed McCain-Feingold and believes that a free and vigorous debate is always in the best interests of our state and our nation.

TERRORISM
John McCain — Opposes enhanced interrogation techniques, supports closing Guantanamo Bay, and supports treating terrorists like criminal defendants instead of enemy combatants.
J.D. Hayworth — Supports our military and its use of enhanced interrogation techniques. Believes that Guantanamo Bay should remain open and that terrorists should be treated as such.

ERIC HOLDER
John McCain — Voted to confirm this far-left activist.
J.D. Hayworth — Opposed the confirmation of Eric Holder as Attorney General of the United States.

MORE READING:

J.D. HAYWORTH for U.S. SENATE

Good-Bye, Meg Stapleton

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And good riddance!

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s senior adviser and spokeswoman, Meghan Stapleton, has resigned, POLITICO has learned.
Stapleton has been a Palin confidante since December 2006 and one of the governor’s most trusted aides since she was vaulted onto the national political scene by being picked as GOP presidential nominee John McCain’s running mate.
Stapleton said she resigned to spend more time with her husband and 2-year-old daughter, Isabella. . . .
Since the end of the presidential campaign, Stapleton has been one of only a handful of aides and trusted contacts maintained by Palin . . .
In that time, Stapleton was a key strategic adviser and the pipeline for anyone seeking Palin’s attention, including Republican officials and reporters.

“Pipeline,” my ass. Stapleton was a 12-foot-high brick wall topped with double rows of concertina wire. It’s this way with nearly all politicians of presidential caliber. There will generally be one staffer — usually the chief of staff or campaign manager — who monopolizes access to the candidate, so that no one can gain access without that person’s permission. And trust me, Stapleton went out of her way to ensure that I never got direct access to Palin.

Think of the invitations that Palin turned down — CPAC two consecutive years and the 9/12 March On D.C. — and now think about the invitations that Palin accepted.

Great “strategic adviser,” that Meg Stapleton . . .

UPDATE: Doug Brady at Conservatives for Palin:

All of us at C4P thank Meg for the dedication and hard work she has done on Governor Palin’s behalf.

Thanks for the politically tone-deaf incompetence, too, Meg!

The Washington Post on Palin’s “inner circle.”

CPAC 2010: Bloggerazzi Photopalooza!

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“It’s all a blur,” Andrew Breitbart said to me in a phone conversation Monday, as we discussed events at CPAC 2010 — the biggest ever and, most attendees agreed, the best. The “blur” effect that Breitbart described is much like the experience of campaign coverage — you go, go, go day after day, with maybe four hours sleep night after night. Between the sleep deprivation and meeting so many people, you lose track of exactly who is who and what happened when.

When CPAC is over, you go through your pockets and find business cards for people you obviously must have met but whose names don’t match up with a face in your fatigue-scorched memory. And when you return to CPAC next year, you’ll be walking through the hotel and pass someone who looks vaguely familiar. You’ll say, “Hey, I know you.” And the other person will say, “Yeah, I think so, but I can’t remember where we met.”

That conversation will continue until either:

  • A. Your memories click and you recall which event you met at the previous year, or
  • B. You give up, admitting that you both were probably too drunk at the time to remember.

This is why it’s important to keep a camera in your pocket at all times during CPAC. My little pink Kodak digital — the famous “Barbie Cam” — captures those faces I might otherwise forget and those incredible scenes that no one would believe were it not for the photographic record. So brace yourself and get ready to be amazed. Continue reading CPAC 2010: Bloggerazzi Photopalooza! →

Smitty and I Featured in . . . GQ?

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Thanks to Da Tech Guy for loaning me the fedora, so that Smitty and I were a matched pair in Bloggers Lounge, earning inclusion in the Gentleman’s Quarterly CPAC special online fashion extravaganza.

Hey, GQ, if you ever need a right-wing stud to rock a Speedo . . .

OK, that was 20 years ago, and I’m well past my Speedo prime, but I do have twin 17-year-old sons and certain traits are hereditary. IYKWIMAITYD.

Tip o’ th’ fedora to Jesse Hathaway of Athens Runaway, who’s in the background of the photo. Here’s video of Jesse’s address at CPAC.

Jesse’s a friend of a friend, and the promising young protege of an illustrious mentor.

CPAC Coda: Some Cheap Riffs

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by Smitty

Max Blumenthal has a parade of pathetic petulance at the PuffHo, emphasis mine:

While I was filming at CPAC for a forthcoming project, I was confronted by Hannah Giles, Andrew Breitbart and a mob of crazed teabaggers.

Really, Max, if you were confronted by a crazed mob, something far less fortunate would have happened. Here, have an Amazon link, putz. Continue reading CPAC Coda: Some Cheap Riffs →

Would Everyone Please Stop Arguing About Gays and Ryan Sorba?

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You’re depressing me. Really. Because I’m feeling the need to write a 2,500-word essay that no one will pay me to write.

It’s very easy for Bryan Fischer to stir this up by denouncing Hot Air. That’s what he gets paid to do, stir things up. But there are important arguments being overlooked because no one will pay me to clarify the matter — just like nobody ever invites me to speak at CPAC.

The fundamental problem with what Ryan Sorba did was that he started a fight by denouncing his hosts. That’s just bad manners. I was on the phone Tuesday describing Sobra’s stunt as equivalent to someone being invited to dinner and then insulting his host’s mother. The person on the other end of the phone said, no, Sorba’s stunt was more like someone being invited to dinner, climbing up on the table, dropping his pants and defecating all over the entree.

Good causes can be harmed by bad advocates. To celebrate Sorba’s puerile arrogance — his vaunting display of a mastery of the natural law argument — is to ignore his unspeakable rudeness in having insulted CPAC’s hospitality. Whether or not GOProud should have been accepted as a CPAC sponsor is a topic worth arguing. However, once CPAC accepted their sponsorship, and once Sorba accepted an invitation to speak at the conference, common courtesy required that Sorba refrain from insulting GOProud, which helped sponsor the event where Sorba spoke.

(An aside: Bryan Fischer complains that CPAC “should be relabeled ‘The Libertarian Political Action Conference.'” Yet who is to blame for the unusual preponderance of libertarians at this year’s CPAC? A source tells me that a Ron Paul-backed organization, Campaign For Liberty, paid for scores of students to attend CPAC. How many students did AFA send to CPAC? I suspect the number is zero. But AFA apparently can afford to pay Fischer to insult CPAC and Hot Air, eh?)

You can consult my own writings on this subject — “Gay Rights, Gay Rage” and “Whither Marriage?” — and see how stoutly I defend traditional marriage against radicalism. But this is not about gays, or natural law, or libertarianism vs. conservatism. It’s about this egomaniacal punk Sorba using his precious allotment of time on the CPAC stage to make a complete ass of himself and embarrass CPAC.

CPAC ended Saturday and I’ve still got tons of photos and videos I never got around to uploading. Here it is Wednesday already, and this ingrate Sorba is still distracting me from genuinely important (and perhaps remunerative) subjects of discussion.

Everybody shut up. I don’t want to write that essay. Really.

UPDATE: I notice that Doctor Zero has abandoned his anonymity, revealing himself as John Hayward of Florida and starting his own blog. Welcome to the community, sir. I’m sure you’ll be added to Smitty’s RSS feeds, and hope you’ll soon earn a spot in the FMJRA.

Why Keith Olbermann Is Failing

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Flipping through the channels this evening, I happened onto Keith Olbermann in media res. He was doing his “Worst Person in the World” list. Number 3 was just a dumbed-down rehash of a TPM item about Tea Party Express spokesman Mark Williams. Olbermann began by describing Williams as a “fired ex-Albany, New York, hate-radio host” and after excerpting the TPM item, added:

“And by the way, Tea Party Express? ‘Uh, I’ll have a large bigotry and, uh, some racism with secret sauce and, uh, a white power shake.’ “

What he was doing — using a “dumb guy” voice — was riffing on the idea (which he apparently thought funny) that “Tea Party Express” sounds like the name of a fast-food drive-through restaurant.

No. 2 on Olbermann’s list was a Greek TV news reporter suspected of murdering the boss who fired her, and No. 1 was Monica Crowley who, Olbermann said, “went insane this afternoon on Fixed News,” as he habitually refers to his network’s more popular competitor, Fox News Channel. The cause of Crowley’s alleged insanity? This story from the New York Post:

The Justice Department’s disclosure that nine of President Obama’s appointees had either represented or advocated for Guantanamo detainees has touched off a firestorm of criticism.
The surprising admission came three months after Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa asked Attorney General Eric Holder for a list of names of Obama DOJ appointees who had been involved in legal work for Gitmo prisoners.
Holder, in a letter to Grassley, admitted that nine of the agency’s appointees had done some kind of work on behalf of terror suspects.

Well, this is certainly a disturbing disclosure, but Olbermann mocked the concerns of both Crowley and Sen. Grassley:

Monica Crowley . . . went insane this afternoon on Fixed News because it was revealed five lawyers, now working for the justice department, once defended GITMO detainees. And four others who participated in arguments that were favorable to the GITMO detainees now work at D.O.J..
She [Monica Crowley] said, “…it seems that we have a D.O.J. that is relatively stocked with what could be assumed to be terrorist sympathizers, because if you think enough of those Guantanamo Bay detainees to represent them, what does that tell you about where these people are coming from?”
Well, it tells me they believe in, oh, the rule of law. Also, that’s nine attorneys out of at least 10,000 at the Department of Justice. So, ‘relatively stocked’ is like saying Monica Crowley is relatively intelligent.

Olbermann’s reference to “at least 10,000” attorneys at the Justice Department is, of course, an apples-and-oranges distraction. Grassley’s inquiry was specifically about Obama administration political appointees at DOJ, who certainly don’t number 10,000. So Olbermann was engaged in smokescreen tactics in defense of Obama while disparaging the intelligence of Crowley.

Regardless of how you feel about Crowley or Gitmo detainees (or the Tea Party Express or murderous Greek TV reporters), the larger point is that Olbermann’s show is bad television. His jokes aren’t funny and his selection of topics reflects a very narrow range of personal obsessions. You’ve got to watch the video to understand just how spectacularly bad Olbermann is:

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

Olbermann does himself no favors with his annoying habit of recycling slur-labels like “Fixed News” and “teabaggers.” It’s a verbal tic, and is neither enlightening nor entertaining.

Olbermann followed that “Worst Person” bit with a segment accusing Rush Limbaugh of racism — a rehash of a day-old Media Matters item. You see that what Olbermann is doing, really, is a televised version of the left-wing blogosphere, and it is failing because (a) these stories only appeal to a narrow band of hard-core partisans, and (b) Olbermann is personally obnoxious.

Olbermann’s show may have had wider appeal during the Bush presidency simply because the people he was attacking daily — the bogeymen who then haunted the Left’s dreams — were the president, the vice president and other powerful administration figures. But now that Democrats control the commanding heights in D.C., that formula is no longer effective as a means of attracting an audience of respectable size even by the modest standards of cable TV.

Over and over again, Olbermann pounds away at his pet villains — Sarah Palin, the Tea Party movement, Fox News — and who cares? None of these people are in any position of real authority, as were Bush and Cheney back in the day.

Olbermann’s Bush-era glory days, such as they were, are behind him. And it is only a matter of time until the executives at MSNBC figure that out.

Let’s Walk Back That Daffy Lame Duck Talk

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by Smitty (h/t Insty)

This post is prompted by Sense of Events: “Is Obama a lame duck already?”

It’s far too early to start writing anything triumphal about the lameness of the POTUS. The chief reason is that, while the Tea Parties are an impressive outpouring of outrage, they haven’t demonstrated staying power. They cannot, except to have massive impact on the 2010 and 2012 races, and then keep up the pressure.

There really isn’t precedent for such. Ross Perot stirred up a heap of resentment in ’92, including garnering my vote, but the GOP mostly absorbed that momentum by ’94. Thus, the George Wills and Charles Krauthammers, while enjoying the enthusiasm, generally write and speak as if the Tea Parties have not passed the ‘so, what?’ test.

Sure, the Left is offering frightened squeaks and neglecting to run for re-election all over the place. But do they really care? Do they privately know that all the ruling elite has to do is wait for the tsunami of outrage to wash over, so that the basic Progressive project of trashing Constitution and country can resume.

The Tea Parties might be seen as more than emotional venting when:

Really, people: if we’re not eliminating the power to steal, then the ruling elite simply play the waiting game, and eventually resume thuggery.  Why are Michael Steele and the GOP still playing the same Progressive tune, e.g. Mitt endorsing Stacy’s cousin?

Because they’re pissing down your back and telling you it’s raining, that’s why! But until the people demonstrate that they can tell the difference between rain and filth, the golden shower will continue.  The metaphor is crude, but apropos. The George Wills shall continue to argue that the Progressive Priesthood Knows Best, and the little people Can’t Handle The Truth.

So the lame duck talk is just a distraction. Time and Tea Party have not shown that there is more than passing dismay over Progressivism yet. The Priesthood is going to continue to condescend, to treat the problems as Too Hard, and tell us to accept their reliable toolscandidates, in lieu of leadership with integrity.

This blogger remains optimistic, however, that the Internet will continue to educate citizens about the Progressive noose about the collective neck, and the potential for emancipation from it.