2010

Well, that could have gone better.

Grand Old Police Blotter: CPAC of Thieves Edition

CPAC's not just all about hatred of gays. It's a regular criminal family enterprise, if WorldNutDaily is to be believed:

Someone this week leaked a juicy story to WorldNetDaily indicating that $400,000 in donor funds had been embezzled from the American Conservative Union, an old-line conservative advocacy group that organizes the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). The premiere Republican political convention, CPAC is the testing ground for GOP presidential contenders that has been addressed by everyone from Ronald Reagan to Dick Cheney. ACU apparently disclosed the theft in its recent tax filings, noting that it had referred the case to the authorities. WND points out that the nonprofit group's bookkeeper was the ex-wife of ACU chairman David Keene, and that she had been fired earlier this year.

The story is an especially nasty hit on ACU by an organization that would normally be considered a friend. But not only did the conservative website best known for its regular "birther" updates break the news of the ACU scandal, but WND also took the opportunity to pile on Keene. WND dragged up a host of other scandals from the ACU's past, including the fact that Keene's son is serving a 10-year prison sentence for a road rage incident in Virginia in which he fired a gun at another motorist, narrowly missing his head. At the time, David Michael Keene was apparently working for his father at ACU. According to WND, the incident proved even more embarrassing for the elder Keene, who is a high ranking member of the National Rifle Association and currently poised to become its next president.

It's unusual for conservatives to air their dirty laundry like this, and it came during a serious internecine ideological battle in the conservative movement that's largely about gays. Over the past few weeks, CPAC organizers have been fighting over whether or not the gay conservative group GOProud should be allowed to participate in the conference. Last year, CPAC allowed GOProud a table in the exhibit hall, and social conservative groups went bezerk, threatening to boycott. During the conference, a speaker from the California Young Americans for Freedom gave a homophobic rant attacking CPAC for allowing GOProud a spot at the conference. This year, GOProud is looking to be more involved, and again the evangelicals are in a tizzy, threatening to boycott the conference and generally throwing bombs at ACU, which has been putting on the show since the early 1970s.

So David Keene's son is a convicted homocidal nutjob and his ex-wife's an alleged thief, according to WorldNutDaily. Of course, WorldNutDaily's usually full of shit, although the kid's shooting incident is a verifiable fact. This smells of a turf war, and I expect to see many more deserving casualties before the war is over.

The Failure of Integration

CPAC tried to force Concerned Women of America and the Family Research Council to shower with GOProud, and they're having none of it. They'll only shower with James Dobson.

All That and a Bag of Dicks

Andy Sullivan's milky loads wrangler, Patty Appel, has given up any hope of a career in journalism and has devoted his life to polishing Andy's toy trophies. Here, he's proffering a "Moore Award" to this post, which Patty would have written himself -- under Andy's signature -- if only he'd had the intelligence, wit and (Andy's artificial) testosterone necessary to craft such a masterpiece.

But being a subnormal dick is its own reward. Here's a glimpse at Patty's First and Only Life:

I get up around 8 am, check Memeorandum, and skim new items in my RSS reader until about 10 am. As I’m reading, I open around fifty posts in tabs for closer inspection. I then read through those tabs, delete most of them, and draft the best. According to Google Reader, I have 1,086 blogs in my RSS reader and have read 16,070 posts in the last 30 days. This is down from a high of about 32,000 posts during the height of the election. The blogs are sorted into different categories: politics, right partisans, left partisans, science, economics, pop culture, and so on. Depending upon the news of the day, I will focus on one folder or another. I’ll also look through the 450 or so e-mails that the Dish inbox gets everyday. I draft posts steadily until noon or 1 pm and break for lunch.

After lunch, I’ll take care of any other Dish related work I might have and then I return to reading. At this point, I will usually draft a half dozen posts for the weekend. We try to bank most of the weekend in advance, which requires finding posts and articles that will still feel fresh a couple of days down the road. Weekends consist of magazine articles, science writing, religion, out of the way pop culture items, and other fairly timeless posts. After that, I will check back in with the news of the day and will start blogging up the next morning. At 6 pm or 7 pm, I break for dinner. After dinner, I will usually return to the blog and finish scheduling posts for the next morning. Depending upon the tempo of the news, I work anywhere from ten to fourteen hours a day.

Now that's living!

If you're so inclined, you can congratulate Patty on his life's work by voting in his little contest and then leaving a comment for him on the results page. If you don't want Joe Miller to be the person most humiliated by write-in voting in 2010, that is.

The Other White Man's Burden

In a sense, of course, there's no better time to be a Christian than the first 25 days of December. But this is also the season when American Christians can feel most embattled. Their piety is overshadowed by materialist ticky-tack. Their great feast is compromised by Christmukkwanzaa multiculturalism. And the once-a-year churchgoers crowding the pews beside them are a reminder of how many Americans regard religion as just another form of midwinter entertainment, wedged in between “The Nutcracker” and “Miracle on 34th Street.”

Why, it's almost as if people don't have to believe the same things about Christianity or Christmas that Ross Douthat does. That can't be right.

White Man's Burden

Who besides Ben Smith of Politicho weeps for stale crackers?

Race is a hard issue for older conservative politicians from the Deep South seeking national office. The roots of Southern Republicanism are in the segregationist split from the Democratic Party, and so there's no presumption of innocence, and no second chance, as Trent Lott learned.

Mr. Smith appears to have forgotten that Trent Lott left the Senate because he wanted to set up shop as a lobbyist before the rules were ever-so-gently tweaked. He could look it up.

Mr. Lott continues to suffer for his sins here:

Patton Boggs LLP's acquisition of The Breaux Lott Leadership Group (BLLG) in July 2010 combines the nation's highest-revenue producing public policy law firm with one of the most recognizable strategic consulting and lobbying firms in public policy.

Don't Tell Either

Libertarian Fonzie and his toadys haven't weighed in on the DADT repeal either. Maybe they don't think federal regulation of sexual orientation implicates liberty cocerns, at least when the regulations don't interfere their patron's anal sex film empire. Or maybe they're still at Joe Manchin's Christmas party.

Don't Tell

We know how presidential hopeless Jim DeMint voted on the repeal of DADT, but what about the other hopefuls - Gingrich, Sharia Plain, Willard, Huckleberry (Mike, not Fred), &c? I haven't seen any reporting on this, but I'm confident the press is checking Palin's Twitter feed so they can republish her thoughts if and when she has any.

Post script: Huckleberry was agin repeal back in the day, when the military brass was still willing to cover his ample ass.

The Intellect of the Party

Newt Gingrich looks beyond the partition and takes the measure of a man:

"We have very different personalities and different styles," Gingrich told me recently. "You have to measure Boehner against other Boehners -- you can't measure him against me."

Sounds like he's describing the Republican presidential primaries. Or his strategy for defeating Sarah Palin in those primaries.

Because otherwise that makes no sense.

(Via Fire Megan McArdle.)

I'm Gay

The news media have confirmed it.

Update: Second source confirmation.

Lying Is The Reason for The Reason

Anyone surprised that Reason Magazine's standards of accuracy are even lower than John Stossel's:

And not one scintilla of digging to see if Cuba had actually banned the movie! In fact, just the opposite. The right wing press started to have a field day reporting a lie (Andy Levy of Fox -- twice -- Reason Magazine, Spectator and Hot Air, plus a slew of blogs).

Libertarians think you're stupid enough to believe anything they say.

The Hall of Shame

Lamar Alexander R TN
John Barrasso R WY
Robert F. Bennett R UT
Christopher S. Bond R MO
Sam Brownback R KS
Saxby Chambliss R GA
Tom Coburn R OK
Thad Cochran R MS
Bob Corker R TN
John Cornyn R TX
Michael D. Crapo R ID
Jim DeMint R SC
Michael B. Enzi R WY
Lindsey Graham R SC
Charles E. Grassley R IA
Kay Bailey Hutchison R TX
James M. Inhofe R OK
Johnny Isakson R GA
Mike Johanns R NE
Jon Kyl R AZ
George S. LeMieux R FL
Richard G. Lugar R IN
John McCain R AZ
Mitch McConnell R KY
Jim Risch R ID
Pat Roberts R KS
Jeff Sessions R AL
Richard C. Shelby R AL
John Thune R SD
David Vitter R LA
Roger Wicker R MS
Jim Bunning R KY
Judd Gregg R NH
Orrin G. Hatch R UT
Joe Manchin III D WV

And credit where credit is due to the hated Joe I. Lieberman. You're not all bad, Joe.

Rush Limbaugh, Rapist

Big Pharma drops his pants, does some major excavation work, and starts fantasizing about rape:

The election results were clear. If we were a woman, and the Congress were a man, we’re in the middle of being raped.... We said ‘no’ in November, i.e., the election. We have said no at every opportunity, and yet they continue.

Leaving aside his obscenity of a metaphor, Big Pharma's exactly wrong. The current members of Congress were elected for an entire term, which has not been completed. They weren't elected to a term of five years and ten months, or one year and ten months. None of the persons first elected in November 2010 were elected to do anything in November and December 2010. (And, of course, "we" voted for our own Representative and Senator, not for the entire Congress. And the Senate "we voted for" in 2010 has clear instructions to oppose Pigboy's platform.) It's Pigboy who wants to "rape" the voters who elected their Congresspersons to the current Congress.

Rush Limbaugh is the moral equivalent of Robert Chambers after he consumed two other Robert Chambers.

All-Libertarian Rejects

Even if you include her Holiday Gift Guides,this is the stupidest thing that Meegan MeCardle has said in the last year:

It takes a lot of social capital to get into Columbia.

Over at Stale, Little Lord Saletan asks, "If Heterosexuality is OK, Why Is Incest Wrong?"

Oh, wait. No, he doesn't.

Dickhead.

Goin' Labile

What is the deal with Cry-Baby Boehner? Guy has "needs rehab" all over him.

Matt Yglesias Explains It All For You

A “parking lot” is basically just an empty piece of land set aside for cars....

But what are these "cars" of which you basically just speak?

The rest of the post is just as bad, if not worse.

The Dream Police

Any time I start to feel bad about the suicide of Newsweek magazine, this cheers me up.

Shakedown

So what did the RNC give the Steele-Pelted Radical to make him go away?

A bargain, no matter what.

Win Ben Stein's Slavish Devotion

A moment later, Nixon returned to Jews: "The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality."

...

"The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy," Mr. Kissinger said. "And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern."

"I know," Nixon responded. "We can't blow up the world because of it."

...

"I didn’t notice many Jewish names coming back from Vietnam on any of those lists; I don’t know how the hell they avoid it," he said, adding: "If you look at the Canadian-Swedish contingent, they were very disproportionately Jewish. The deserters."

Is it any wonder Stein's a creationist?

Update (12/13): Marty Peretz, creationist.

Shorter Chris Hitch

I find this new crop of ignorant conservative conspiratorialists much less sexy than my dear friends Barbara, Ann and David, whose delusions more closely coincide with my own.

That "possibly" is a nice revisionist touch, Chris.

Media Matters uncovers Exhibit B that Fox News is a Republican Party operative (Exhibit A being the content of its "news" programming), and Howard Kurtz attempts damage control on behalf of Fox. Says Howard, who appears to lack any access to a television set:

The significance of the marching orders is that they were issued to the news division, which aims to be fair and balanced and is run separately from the opinion side, populated by the likes of Hannity and Glenn Beck.

Republishing a lie once a week won't make it true, Howie.

Howie also lovingly reprints this steamer from Fox News VP Bill Sammon:

"I have no idea what the Republicans were pushing or not. It's simply an accurate, fair, objective term."

That claim would be laughable from a journalist. From a bought-and-paid-for whore, it's just pathetic.

Two Palestinians Walk Into A Hail of Machine Gun Fire

TNR Society Exclusive: The 2010 Humor Issue
December 2, 2010 (The Humor Issue)
Dear TNR Society Subscriber:

This is not a joke.

We’re pleased to present you with the following Special TNR Society Digital Bonus Issue: The Humor Issue, an anthology of humorous pieces that have appeared in TNR over the ages. Yes, we have W.H Auden cracking wise. And better yet, he’s making funnies about Freud. This collection is my platonic ideal of winter break reading. There’s Michael Kinsley’s famous dead-pan attack on the New Yorker (and its fastidious fact-checking); the great Henry Fairlie’s rollicking broadside against Vanity Fair, as well as pieces by Woody Allen, Michael Lewis, and James Wolcott. I’m quite certain you will enjoy.

This special bonus issue comes with many thanks to you, our most valuable readers, for your support of our efforts every day, every year. We’re grateful for your continued engagement with us.

Happy Holidays,

Franklin Foer Editor

Wolcott's "Yada Yada Yada" almost makes this worth the price of admission. Three pieces by Frankie Foer means it's just a toss-off.

Update: We expect the 2011 Humor Issue will contain less Foer.

Happy Holidays

And Then There Were Sixty

Eleven months ago, I complied a list of 64 potential Republican presidential hopefuls. The list read like this:

ALEXANDER, Lamar!
ALLEN, George
ARMEY, Dick
BACHMANN, Michelle
BARBOUR, Haley
BECK, Glenn
BENNETT, Bill
BLACKBURN, Marsha
BLACKWELL, Kenneth J.
BOENHER, John
BROWN, Scott
BROWNBACK, Sam
BURTON, Dan
BUSH, George P.
BUSH, John Ellis
CANTOR, Eric
CAO, Ahn
CHENEY, Richard B.
CHENEY, Elizabeth
CHRISTIE, Chris
DELAY, Tom
DEMINT, Jim
DOBBS, Lou
DOBSON, Richard
DREIER, David
ENSIGN, John
ERICKSON, Eric
FIORINA, Carleton S.
FLAKE, Jeff
FRIST, Bill
GINGRICH, Newt
GRAHAM, Lindsey
GUILIANI, Rudolph
HUTCHINSON, Kay Bailey
LIEBERMAN, Joseph I.
HUCKABEE, Michael
JINDAL, Piyush
LIMBAUGH, Rush
KEYES, Alan
KYL, John
McCAIN, John Sidney
McCONNELL, Mitch
McDONNELL, Bob
PALIN, Sarah
PAUL, Ron
PAWLENTY, Tim
PENCE, Mike
PERKINS, Tony
PERRY, Rick
REED, Ralph
REYNOLDS, Glenn
ROBERTSON, Marion
ROMNEY, Willard
RYAN, Tim [bka Paul]
SANTORUM, Rick
SCARBOROUGH, Joe
SHELBY, Richard
STEELE, Michael
TANCREDO, Tom
THOMPSON, Fred
VITTER, David
WURZELBACHER, Samuel
WARREN, Rick

Scott Brown took himself off the list yesterday, when he announced his support for the repeal of DADT. (No, that wouldn't stop I, Lieberman from running.) Tom DeLay won't be visiting Iowa or New Hampshire or FOX News HQ any time soon, and Dick Cheney probably won't either. Carelton Fiorina will save her money. Everyone else is still a go.

Correct the Typo

So what does the Corner-reading crowd think of Twitter? Do you follow? Do you think it’s an advance or decline? Sometimes I wonder as I’m flirting with being a twit.

If you're stumped, this might help:

there is a three-legged dog outside the starbucks on the house side of the hill. in case the coffee doesn't work.
about 5 hours ago via web

You Dick

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
Hillary Is Up to Her Old Tricks

If anyone knows old tricks, it's Dick Morris. Just ask his prostitute pals.

The Wikileaks documents show that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has, as Voltaire said about the Bourbon kings of France, learned nothing and forgotten nothing.

Which is why she's Secretary of State, Dick, and you're a bottom feeding toe sucker.

Among the things which Dick hasn't learned is the difference between Voltaire and Talleyrand.

So why is Dick pissing himself like his $20 date just pulled out a rolled-up newspaper? (This time?)

The Wikileaks documents show that you cannot only not teach an old dog new tricks, but you can't stop her from doing the ones she has always done.

The Wikileaks information indicates that Hillary -- and her predecessor, Condolleeza [sic] Rice -- instructed American diplomats to gather information about "office and organizational titles; names, position titles and other information on business cards; numbers of telephones, cell phones, pagers, and faxes," as well as "Internet and intranet 'handles'; Internet e-mail addresses, website identification-URLs; credit card account numbers; frequent-flier account numbers; work schedules, and other relevant biographical information."

Dick once put his name on a book promoting Condi as the next Republican President, and he can't be bothered to have whoever wrote his column spell her name correctly.

Of course, Dick has to explain why it was peachy for Condoll to datamine the private information of foreign diplomats, but beyond the pale for Secretary of State Clinton to do so. (And he can't just blame it on his impotence.) So he says that "Clinton, not Rice, has run for president and is presumed to continue to be interested in the job." You see, Hillary might use the e-mail addresses and credit card information of foreign diplomats in her 2016 election campaign, whereas Condoll would only use that information for shoe shopping, waterboarding and becoming Commissioner of the NFL.

Dick's whole career is built on Hillary hate; he's been doing it for decades now. So why isn't he any better at it?