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Santorum: It's the authenticity, stupid!

"Unfortunately for [the MSM], Stacy McCain and I were there," writes Peter Ingemi of DaTechGuyblog, on the scene at a Rick Santorum Town Hall in Concord, NH yesterday in the run-up to Tuesday's primary. "I shot the entire exchange, and when you watch it, two things are clear: 1. Santorum is on the offensive, NOT the defensive. 2. The students are unable to cope with his arguments." (Jim Cole/AP)

"Is this any way to pick a president?" asks Charles Krauthammer rhetorically, answering his own question with a resounding "Yes!":

Absolutely. It works. It winnows. And it has produced, after just one contest, an admirably worthy conservative alternative to Romney.

We were thrilled to see the venerable Dr. K. had come to the same conclusion we had, as argued in yesterday's somewhat controversial (among our twitter friends) post, "Amazing Grace: Is Rick Santorum the new Sarah Palin?" The very adjectives we and Charles — May we call you Charles? — chose to describe the man of the hour are eerily similar:

Krauthammer: From the rubble emerges Rick Santorum. But he isn’t just the last man standing. He is the first challenger to be plausibly presidential: knowledgeable, articulate, experienced, of stable character and authentic ideology.

Willis: Now a larger audience is getting a taste of this authentic, thoughtful, knowledgeable, deliberative, experienced, articulate, principled, humorous and good-hearted man, very much a formidable opponent in any debate with the current Leader of the Free World. And this "flavor of the week" appears to be sticking to the ribs.

"But because he was such a long shot, his record did not receive much scrutiny," notes Krauthammer:

It will now. He is no austere limited-government constitutionalist. He participated in George W. Bush’s compassionate conservatism, which largely made peace with big government. Santorum, for example, defends earmarks and supported No Child Left Behind and the Medicare prescription drug benefit. It’s a perfectly defensible philosophy — but now he’ll be called upon to actually defend it. (See Rush's defense, "Mantra: Santorum is a 'Big Government Conservative.'")

Enter, stage left, "The Meat Grinder." Brent Bozell:

Santorum, like the other authentic conservatives, are too “far right” to win. Ann Curry started the meat grinder. “So is he going to have to change his conservative message as he's looking into north, looking into New Hampshire, which is a much less conservative state?”

Fortunately, the media isn't going to get away with it this time:

1. Intrepid bloggers and reporters like our gumshoe buddies Pete Ingemi of DaTechGuyblog and Stacy McCain of The Other McCain and The American Spector are on the ground in New Hampshire holding the lamestream media's feet to the fire (See picture caption above).

2. Santorum's not a man to change his message to suit his audience. As Stacy writes: "Santorum is unapologetically the same staunch conservative in the Granite State that he was in Iowa and — judging from the applause during the town hall forum sponsored by the Southern New Hampshire 9-12 Project — God is still more popular here than some Republicans may suspect."

It's the authenticity, stupid!

Update: We love our Granite-State buddy Tom Bowler's comments:

Will Sissy Willis do it again? Having pushed Scott Brown across the finish line in the Massachusetts race for "the Kennedy seat" can she pull off a repeat for Rick Santorum?

Sissy, you might just make a believer out of me.

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

Amazing Grace: Is Rick Santorum the new Sarah Palin?

"I believe in free people and free markets," Rick Santorum told a spirited and well-informed town hall audience last night in Brentwood, a few miles down the road from our hometown, Exeter, New Hampshire. We caught the event in C-SPAN reruns this morning and were struck once again at the disconnect between old-media caricatures of "Soaring Santorum" and the man himself we're coming to know and admire through a full panoply of media, old and new. More on that below. Program Note: We're heading up to Manchester Saturday for "an evening of ruminating, riffing & debate watching" with National Review's Jonah Goldberg and company.

"The interest was palpable in Santorum’s first New Hampshire event since the caucuses," reports the Boston Globe as the former Pennsylvania senator steps up to the "very short but open window" of opportunity [Dana Perino's words on Fox this morning] to grab the nation's attention in this frenetically condensed primary season. First a few facts and then a bit of commentary:

The former senator from Pennsylvania has been a frequent, if under-the-radar, presence on the stump in New Hampshire for the past four months. But after surging to within eight votes of winning Iowa Tuesday, Santorum faced a standing-room only crowd at the Rockingham County nursing home hall …

The room, which had capacity to seat 160 people, was packed with voters and journalists standing in the aisles and lining the walls. It was a sharp contrast to his 100-plus previous town halls in New Hampshire, some of which attracted just a few dozen people … A campaign aide said Santorum plans to stay in New Hampshire through the primary Tuesday.

"This economy is suffering because this administration is crushing it with regulations," Santorum told town hallers last night. "Why are they doing it?" Because they know better than you. They don't trust you to make those decisions … The principle reason I'm in this race is because of Obamacare because I think Obamacare will turn every American into a dependent American … and the more dependent he can make you, the more power he has over you ….Obamacare is the tipping point." If you have the time, be sure to listen to the whole thing. See also James Pethokoukis's "Santorum vs. Romney is a conflict of conservative visions" for an enlightening discussion of two political world views, "traditional conservatism vs modern, free-market conservatism."  

"It's all about media and momentum," says Fox political analyst Larry Sabato, seemingly troubled that "the process is being rushed. One reason why no big themes are being developed is because there isn't time." But there IS time, Dr. Sabato, and there ARE big themes if you know where to look, that "panoply of media, old and new" where fans of the Shining City can disintermediate the lamestream media narrative at will: C-SPAN, blogs, facebook, twitter, not to mention the town halls themselves, under the radar till Tuesday's "unexpected" Iowa caucus results.

Now a larger audience is getting a taste of this authentic, thoughtful, knowledgeable, deliberative, experienced, articulate, principled, humorous and good-hearted man, very much a formidable opponent in any debate with the current Leader of the Free World. And this "flavor of the week" appears to be sticking to the ribs. As Fox anchor Bret Baier just retweeted:

RT @jeffzeleny Santorum not only draws big crowd, he holds their attention in Northfield. Long answers, but classic NH Q&A voters have been craving. #fitn

Like those NH voters, Tea Partiers like us — behind enemy lines here in Taxachusetts — have been craving "long answers." To our surprise, "Darwinian Libertarian" that we are, we haven't been so energized by a candidate's words and manner since that day in late August of 2008 when Sarah Palin burst onto the national stage.

Update: Bruce B. AKA Chickelit in twitter:

Santorum has many of the same archenemies in the media as Palin--so there's that similarity too.

BTW, I think your blogpost took heuvos. I hope you're not attacked.

Update II: Santorum's "Faith, Family & Freedom" tour schedule via our behatted men on the spot, longtime Santorum supporters Stacy McCain and Pete Ingemi. Here's the latest:

Axis of Fedora Update Manchester NH 12:50 p.m.

Greetings From the Granite State!

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

Have yourself a merry little blogiversary: Now we are eight.

Little Kitteh, above, trips the light fantastic in our Christmas card, now in production. The message inside: "Let your heart be light." Next year all our troubles will be out of sight?

In celebration of our blog's eighth anniversary tomorrow, December 12, we proudly republish our very first post ever, "The tidings that dare not speak their name." It features our Christmas Card of that year, an image of the homestead festooned with the lights fantastic, and a fearless, politically incorrect challenge to those who would wilfully misrepresent the Establishment Clause of our Constitution's First Amendment. An early stirring of the Tea Party spirit that would rise up to disintermediate the powers that be via the internet?

"Chelsea-by-the-Sea at Christmastime"

December 12, 2003. We wish you a Merry Christmas!

As we wrote last year, that was it, a blogpost of exactly 68 characters that could hold its own today in the fast-moving, 140-or-fewer-characters world of the Twittersphere. We were delighted to note that Glenn Reynolds has more or less declared victory in the war this Army of Davids was waging back then:

I GUESS THE "WAR AGAINST CHRISTMAS" HAS BEEN LOST, THEN: Obama lights the National Christmas Tree, says ‘Merry Christmas’ three times.

Not that there aren't still some air-headed holdouts.

Update: Bill Quick, The Daily Pundit — the fellow who named the blogosphere — sends "Best Wishes To An OG Blogger:

Happy Anniversary, Sissy!

You’ve made a difference!

Update II: Fun and funny Chris Muir of Day by Day in the comments:

We need wonderful writer young'uns like you! ;)

I'm you: Elizabeth Warren channels Christine O'Donnell

"So maybe if I tell you a little about myself, it will explain something about why I'm running for the United States Senate," says Soros-backed "everywoman" — and method actress extraordinaire — Elizabeth Warren in an all-about-little-old-me video at her campaign website.

"My mom and dad worked really hard. My dad sold carpeting, and then fencing, and ended up as a maintenance man. When I was in junior high he had a heart attack, and we lost our car," lip-biting Scott Brown challenger Elizabeth Warren (above) — her voice breaking — explains "why she'll fight for Massachusetts' working families in the United States Senate." A self-made millionaire, Harvard Law School professor and author of President Obama's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, limousine liberal Warren has taken a page from last year's Delaware Republican primary Tea Party winner Christine O'Donnell's playbook. Warren's subliminal message to the weak-minded among us looking for a savior? "I'm you." And apparently it's working:

Democratic Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren released her second video advertisement on Monday, which portrays her as a “gutsy” political outsider with “fresh ideas” …

Various people in the ad describe her as an “everyday kind of person,” someone with “everyone’s best interest at heart,” a “strong voice for the middle class,” and “tough.”

And this:

Poll: Elizabeth Warren soars 7 up over Scott Brown.

"I'm not a witch. I'm nothing you've heard. I'm you."

You can't fool all of the people all of the time, but in Massachusetts you can come close. Check out the body language of Democrat establishment pick for the former "Kennedy Seat" Elizabeth Warren (left) and much-ridiculed grasroots Tea Party challenger Christine O'Donnell (right), who beat the Republican establishment pick in the primary but lost in the general last year: The coy, tilted head, the earnest, moist eyes, the pursed lips that seek to soothe. And the words:

O'Donnell: "None of us can be happy with what we see all around us: Politicians who think spending, trading favors and backroom deals are the way to stay in office. I'll go to Washington and do what you'd do.

Warren: "I want there to be a level playing field. I want small businesses, I want families to have a real chance. I want Washington to not to be on the side with the big corporations, but to be on their side."

Cosmic convergence? Or just a cynical, poll-tested Democrat establishment ploy to restore the "Kennedy Seat" to its rightful owners?

Update: Good advice from Chris Bennett in the comments:

"Cosmic convergence"? Or witchcraft? Let's put Warren in the dunking chair, just to be sure.

Update II: Burn, baby, burn:

“Karl Rove is not telling the truth, and I think anyone who is not telling the truth shouldn’t be running ads in this race," she told the Herald. Warren has said she supports negative ads from outside groups so long as they are telling the truth, while U.S. Sen. Scott Brown has said he believes all outside groups should stay out of the race.”  

We're not amused with Scott Brown's disingenuous dismissal of "outside groups," by the way. If it weren't for the disintermediating social-media nationalization of his 2010 special election, Democrat establishment candidate Martha Coakley would be our junior senator today.

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Cloven Not Crested.

Over the river ...

Over the river and through the woods to Goompa's house we go. Too much sadness. Lost our baby boy -- How can it be three years now? Tears at the remembrance of holding him in our arms.Then our angel baby last April. Michelle Malkin knows where we live:

Whoever said “time heals all wounds” has only known superficial hurt.

Traditions. Thanksgiving dinner with family. Ghosts.

Then comes our new love, Little Kitteh, walking us back to the endless astonishment of life in the round. She hopped up onto the Thanksgiving table to check things out. Nose to candle flame, first time, thrashing retreat (above). Nothing broken, but lesson learned.

Then comes Goomp's magnificent Purrky (foreground above) for a staredown. Look to the animals, Mummy always said.

I am Little Kitteh. You may pet me now.

Jeb's lame ultimatum: Are you with the sane Republicans or Not?

"In South Carolina this afternoon, TX Gov. Rick Perry held a press conference to detail his economic plans," writes PJ Media's Bryan Preston: "The very first reporter tried distracting him by bringing up the birther nonsense. Perry was having none of it; he cut the reporter off in mid sentence, said the issue is a 'distraction' and put the focus right back on his plan … Every reporter who brings this up from now on should be treated with equal or greater contempt." Good to see a potential POTUS refusing to let the lamestream media control the narrative spin.

"Are you with the sane Republicans or Not? GOP voters need to decide," writes the WaPo's Jennifer Rubin, reporting on the contents of an exclusive and perhaps unwittingly snotty e-mail statement from Jeb Bush regarding the recent Rick Perry "birtherism" flap:

Republican candidates should categorically reject the notion that President Obama was not born in the United States. It is a complete distraction from the failed economic policies of the President.

You need to get out more, Jeb. As we wrote in comments at Commentary's Facebook page in response to Peter Wehner's similar scolding of the Perry campaign for lacking "discipline":

Seems to me the pussyfooting advice of old-school campaign advisers cautioning against saying anything controversial drains the life out of the authentic — if sometimes unpolished — American voices of the Tea Party favorites whose vision has given us hope of regaining the Shining City.

It was Sarah Palin's fierce determination and authentic American voice that had energized us back when we were holding our nose at the prospect of voting for John McCain as the lesser of two evils in the 2008 presidential election. We used to like and admire Jeb as an effective and accomplished former Florida Governor but haven't been able to stomach his condescending brand of "sane" Republicanism since he "gratuitously dissed Sarah and thereby all her fans back in February of 2010" with this little gem:

I mean, I don't know what her deal is. My belief is in 2010 and 2012, public leaders need to have intellectual curiosity.

"What a pompous busybody," we wrote in a twitter exchange with protein wisdom, who caught the conscience of Jeb the would-be kingmaker in 140-or-fewer characters this afternoon:

Next up, he'll tell us how sane people are supposed to speak to the Hispanics. Complete with flow chart.

Update: Perry's poke on Obama's birth certificate has had the desired effect, explains Richard Viguerie:

Obama has ignored it and the blue-nosed gentry of the Republican establishment, such as Jeb Bush and Karl Rove, have all risen like cussed-out Sunday school teachers to chastise Perry. In the mean time, conservative voters in the upcoming primaries have been reminded that there’s only one good ol' boy running who gets the joke, and that’s Rick Perry.

Cross-posted at Riehl World View.

Herman Cain: Shall we have a cigarette on it?

"What can Herman Cain have been thinking," the lamestream are scratching their heads, shocked, shocked at what subliminal messages may be lurking within Herman Cain's new "I am America" ad.

"LOVE @THEHermanCain's cigarette ad. MSNBC going berserk but covering it," we just twittered:

Two messages: Get the nanny state off my back; Obama lies, smokes & denies.

"We can do this. We can take this country back," says Herman Cain's chief of staff Mark Block in the Herminator's controversial new ad. Update: Mark Block is a charmer. Tells Megyn Kelly there was "no subliminal message," just connecting with real Americans:  … the Cain Train is on a roll … the Cain message is resonating with Main Street America." Why no traditional organization? "It's a people's campaign. It has grown from the ground up."

Ed Driscoll just retweeted us, so we must be onto something. Willy Geist on MSNBC's "Way Too Early" is blustering with righteous indignation. What kind of a message is that to send our children? Light[en] up, friend. We're not a smoker, but some of our best friends are. Beyond that, get off our back, Big Government elitists who know better than we what's best for us. Authenticity and responsibility for our own life choices: There's a message for our children. Spin at will.

Update: Smitty at The Other McCain makes a fine point:

Great ad, but the smoking at the end makes little sense, except to floutaunt the rules. And if you’re going to do that, why not play the Ladd Ehlinger card?

And from Mark Hemingway on twitter last night:

This is either the best or worst political ad in history. 

Update II: Professor Jacobson detects "a subliminal message of defiance":

Now if he were carrying a rifle too, it might have been the best ever.

That "best ever" link goes to our own Ladd Ehlinger's Dale Peterson ad of last year!

Update III: The mighty Mark Steyn gets it:

He’s got my endorsement just for Mark Block’s cigarette exhalation. Haven’t seen anything like that since Sammy Davis Jr. took a drag in the instrumental break of “With A Song In My Heart” at the Royal Albert Hall a couple of decades back.

Update IV: Tweet of the day from @proteinwisdom:

Be honest: "Let's move!" w/ Michelle Obama? Or "Let's have a smoke, then chat up some chicks in a bar" w/ Cain's campaign guy? No brainer.

Must be one of those "dog whistles" that only members of the tribe can hear.

Update V: Huffington Post's Jason Linkins thinks it's all about tobacco:

Cain has also worked closely with cigarette manufacturers in the past. As the head of the National Restaurant Association, he lobbied against higher cigarette taxes and smoking bans in restaurants.

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

Occupy Wall Street: What rough beast?

"The Occupy Wall Street movement is growing, and lots of activity is taking place in social media," writes Social Media Research Foundation Director Marc Smith of Connected Action, who generated the "NodeXL SNA Twitter Map" above tracing the connections among people who tweeted the term “#occupywallstreet yesterday. Click here for larger image.

"DUMB MOBS," we tossed into the twitterflood of #occupywallstreet commentary this morning as Mark Steyn's "pampered, elderly children of a fin de civilisation overdeveloped world" slouched inchoately towards a public square near you, even as "progressive" opportunists seeking to distance themselves from their own crony-capitalist corruption were scrambling to align themselves with the delusional "99%. Howie Carr said it best:

The fact that the national Democrats are trying to throw in with these layabouts tells you all you need to know about both groups …

In a few months, we’ve gone from grassroots to George Soros astroturf. From Arab Spring to Irish Spring.

Smith's "Node XL SNA Twitter Map" brought to mind this image from an earlier post comparing the flocking behavior of Darwin's Starlings on Otmoor to the behaviors of humans signaling each other on Twitter: "Individuals, but moving in a single entity. And the reason for this behavior? Well, thousands of eyes looking for predators on the roost site. Nothing could escape their gaze, no raptor could surprise this soaring mass of bird flesh … The birds are also maneuvering for position, social position."

We were intrigued with the elegance and suggestiveness of "sociologist of computer-mediated collective action" Marc Smith's visualization (top) of who was twittering whom yesterday on the topic de jour. We were unsurprised to see the likes of MSNBC harpie Rachel Maddow (nearly 2 million followers) and Soros sucklings Media Matters (40 thousand plus) amongst the "top most between users," but it wasn't only the well funded who were able to wield influence. The map was "scaled by numbers of followers," our side of the aisle was having a lark shining the light of truth, justice and the American way on #occupywallstreet's "faux poos," and there was Big Journalism's own diggrbiii (7 thousand plus followers) among the top 10. Quality, not quantity?

We're hard-wired to read into things, to divine patterns that may at some level, at some moment of danger, be key to our survival. The analogy of smart-crowd twittering with coordinated starling swooping seems obvious, but what else?  A human fetus, perhaps? Take another look. The foreboding of Yeats's "The Second Coming" comes to mind: "Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world …"

'Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you," John Adams wrote Abigail in 1800 in a much-quoted letter that resonates in this time of turmoil: 

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.

"The Littler 99%" posted by Dan of criticalmass and twittered with the hashtag #OccupySesameStreet. Compare little girl's wish list with actual "demands" posted by Occupy Wall Street bottom Mom's basement dwellers. 

Having failed to study history, the great grandsons of great grandsons of our Founding Fathers have become Mark Steyn's "zombie youth 'occupying' Wall Street … contemptuous of the world that sustains their comforts."

Update: Cool. Link at New York Times Business Day's Twitter article.

Update II: Maggie's links. Thanks, Bird Dog!

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

"It was one of those great, only-in-America Judeo-Christian moments"

"You've got to believe you are here for a reason," Senator Joe Lieberman told Sarah Palin back in the fall of 2008 when she was losing her bearings in the tense, over-scripted days leading up to her vice presidential debate with Senator Joe Biden.

"It was one of those great, only-in-America Judeo-Christian moments," Senator Joe Lieberman told a delighted American Enterprise Institute audience yesterday evening, retelling the tale of a fateful meeting between him and Sarah Palin on the eve of her vice-presidential debate with Joe Biden October 2, 2008:

So I'm supporting my dear friend John McCain in 2008, and it's the fall, it's about a week before the vice-presidential debate … Governor Palin was in a hotel in Philadelphia practicing for the debate … The McCain campaign was in a panic. She just wasn't registering, wasn't doing well.

Then Steve Schmidt, who was John's campaign manager, said to me, "Do me a favor. You've got something in common with her that the rest of us don't have … You're both religious. So go in and talk to her. Maybe pray with her" … 

So I went in, and she opened right up: "I'm off today. It's a bad day." Without washing dirty laundry in public, she was not happy with the McCain campaign: "They're not handling me right."

"You've got to believe you're here for a reason," Lieberman told her:

And she laughed and said there must be a reason. It's so unbelievable that I'm here running for vice president.

Lieberman cited the Book of Esther:

…  that part where her uncle [cousin?] Mordechai tells her to go to the king to ask him to save the Jewish people from the evil prime minister, and then this sentence, when she's reluctant, perhaps this is the reason you were brought to the king's palace: If you don't do it, somebody else will come along, and she said "Oh, that's great."

We'd never heard the story before, but a little googling reveals it was used for a bit of proto Palin's-an-idiot spin at the time:

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman thinks that in order for Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to beat her Democratic rival, Sen. Joe Biden, in tonight’s debate, she needs to keep it from turning into an “IQ test.”

What Lieberman was getting at was not at all that Sarah was dumb:

“What she needs to do tonight is get this public consideration of her back to who she is and her strong points and, frankly, get it away from being a, kind of, IQ test — she's plenty smart — getting it away from being a, sort of, final college exam,” Lieberman said on MSNBC …

“Whether she can answer every detailed question, I don't think that ultimately matters to the American people,” the Connecticut senator added. “She doesn't know every detail, all the questions senators deal with, but, frankly, that's her strength.”

“I think the point is, who is she as a person? I think that's what people are ultimately looking for,” Lieberman said.

Everything happens for a reason? We're hard-wired to see patterns. Palin/Lieberman 2012?

Update from CT4Palin on Twitter:

Lieberman will be Palin's Ambassador to Israel. :)

And John Bolton for Palin's Secretary of State.

Update II: Bill Quick of Daily Pundit links:

Well, she keeps saying it’s going to be an “unconventional” campaign. Of course, Lieberman is an “independent …”

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Cloven Not Crested.

Greta Van Susteren takes Tucker Carlson to the woodshed

"A mother does the same, c. 1897," Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society.

"The public shaming of Tucker Carlson. Cybervillage disapprobation of "elders" like @gretawire [Greta Van Susteren's twitter handle] shape moral behavior," we twittered as the smoke began to settle this morning in the aftermath of a fiery flame war that had erupted in the blogosphere and twitterspere in response to "Mike Tyson: Sarah Palin met ‘the wombshifter,’" a gratuitously coarse Jeff Poor journalistic effort published by Carlson's The Daily Caller Friday evening. At issue were Tyson's foul-mouthed comments spun off from spurious allegations made by author Joe McGinnis in his hit piece, The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin, to the effect that a young Sarah Palin had had a one-night stand with basketball star Glen Rice back when she was a sports announcer on Anchorage TV station KTUU. Greta takes no prisoners:

I really don’t understand my friend Tucker Carlson. He owns the website The Daily Caller and it currently has on its front page the most vile story — referring to a sex act with Governor Sarah Palin as a “womb shifter.” It is even the headline. Do you know what that means? Figure it out. It is really vile. It is not just smut … this is violence against women.

Tucker should have used  judgment, a sense of decency and not promoted this denigration — a good journalist, a responsible journalist uses judgment. Tucker did not …

I don’t like it when I see that my friends do disgraceful things — but we need to start calling out even our friends to stop this. Tucker has daughters and a wife, and I would think he in particular would not want to be a purveyer of smut (and this is actually more, this is violence against women) and allow this to be posted on his website …

I keep asking myself, why would Tucker allow this to be posted on his website?  I am suspicous his website is not doing well and this is one quick last breath to create buzz to keep it afloat.

Ouch, squared. Moral education in the venerable Judeo-Christian principles that guided our Founding Fathers in fashioning the Shining City may have fallen out of favor amongst the establishment elites of our nation's mainstream institutions, but we old-fashioned Country Class types are firing at will, disintermediating the powers that be through the new media. As Jedediah Bila, herself a writer for Carlson's publication, twittered this afternoon:

I stand with gretawire. As a freelance opinion contributor to The Daily Caller, I'm very disappointed re editorial judgment.

And to her fellow Daily Caller writer Matt Lewis Jedediah affirmed:

I have publicly praised The DC many times for giving me the freedom to speak my mind in my columns & not censoring me.

I call it like I see it. If I go to bed at night knowing I stood up for what I think is right, I consider it a good day's work.

And a final word from Tammy Bruce, who salutes the man in the trenches who fired the first shot over Tucker Carlson's bow* early Saturday morning:

In Palin Report I mistakenly credit the excellent Gateway Pundit for 1st calling out DC. It was in fact the magnificent Dan Riehl.

Update: Twitter friend and filmmaker extraordinaire Ladd Ehlinger goes for the jugular. Don't get on his wrong side!

Update II: DaTechGuyblog links:

Tucker Carlson vs Dan Riehl? No contest.

Update III: Instalanche! Thank you, Professor Reynolds.

Update IV: Dan Riehl,  Stacy McCain and Nice Deb link.

Update V: Love this from Cybrludite in the comments:

*Should that have been "a shot fired over his bow... tie"?

Sarah Palin: The Tea Party is real winner of the debate

"I was very pleased with this debate, and, you know, very excited about the validation of the Tea Party movement," Sarah Palin told Greta Van Susteren last night in a meaty analysis of the CNN/TeaPartyExpress debate that echoed our own take and set our woman-up, fight-like-a-girl heart on fire. Listen to full interview here.

While some of our favorite bloggers and columnists and talking heads debated the winners and losers of last night's CNN/TeaPartyExpress GOP primary debate, a shoot-to-where-it's-going, not-to-where-it's-been Sarah Palin disintermediated the usual premise of judging these contests. As she explained to Greta Van Susteren in a landmark "On the record" post-debate interview last night:

Here they hook up with a major news network, CNN — and more power to CNN for allowing that validation — of this grassroots Tea Party movement.

Participants from all over the nation being able, as a voice of "We the people," asking questions of these potential presidents …

The winner in this really, I believe, was the Tea Party movement.

"Greta, this is one of the reasons that many of us really love your show because you have been one on top of this issue from day one, talking about the fraud, the waste and the crony capitalism." From opposite ends of the political spectrum, the two women seem to have forged a sisterly bond through their shared mission to fight corruption wherever they may find it.

Palin and Van Susteren — the conservative Mama Grizzly and the liberal Fox News show host — may seem an odd pairing. A tough questioner, Van Susteren earned Palin's trust early on by giving her a fair hearing where others, even Fox libertarian Judge Napolitano, were buying — and promulgating — the "lamestream media's" Palin-is-Stupid narrative spin. Fortunately the Judge finally came to his senses.

 

"I'm not gonna let the media dictate when a drop-dead date should be," Palin answered Van Susteren's inevitable will-she-or-won't-she question:

In the meantime, I'm getting kind of a kick out of this, and I have to be honest with you. Getting a kick out of getting out there, giving a speech, making some statements about things that must be discussed, and then the very next day watching some of the candidates get out there and discuss what it was that we just talked about, like the corruption, the crony capitalism, the waste, the fraud … That perhaps is my role right now, is to get people talking about the issues that the American people deserve to hear discussed … I'm gonna keep doing that!

Mark America at US for Palin develops the theme in his must-read "Only One Republican is Shaping the Debate":

While it is true to say the Tea Party won the debate, it’s likewise clear that the themes Governor Palin has been discussing since 2008 are really the foundation of the ongoing Republican discussion.

See also Dana Loesch's insider's analysis "CNN Shows MSNBC How a Debate is Done."

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Cloven Not Crested.

Rick Perry: "Galileo got outvoted for a spell"

 

As a Palinista from day one, we're still  "undecided," but we loved this from Texas Governor Rick Perry (above) at last night's GOP primary debate: "Galileo got outvoted for a spell … Find out what the science truly is before you start putting the American economy in jeapordy." This morning irony-challenged MSNBC talking heads joked about whether Perry saw himself as Galileo, unaware that it is they themselves, our friends on the left side of the aisle, who are the Roman Inquisitors of our day.

"You yourself have said the party is in danger of becoming anti-science. Who on this stage is anti-science?" MSNBC whatshisname taunted flat-earther Jon Huntsman at last night's Republican primary debate. Darwinian libertarian that we are, we've been horrified for some time at the left's conflation of the science of evolution that we embrace with the mumbo-jumbo secular religion of anthropogenic global warming/climate change. We've been on the left's AGW case for two decades, at least, since Andrea Mitchell (God bless her now in her time of genuine sorrow) acknowledged her lack of objectivity way back when:

Clearly the networks have made the decision now, where you'd have to call it advocacy.

Now, when up-till-now AGW proseletizer Nature Journal of Science is finally acknowledging they got it wrong — Can you say cosmic rays and the sun? — our friends on the left side of the aisle continue to bury their heads in the sand. As we've said for a zillion blogyears, it's the importance of being noticed — aka tribalism — stupid.

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

Anti-Palin tempest in a teapot? "Fog of war describes Twitter in a nutshell"

"This has been a long tease with Sarah Palin, and at some point that tease has just got to go away. What's going to happen next," snickered Laura Ingraham (above left) to guest Ann Coulter last night as the two blonde bombshells shared what struck us as a covenly caterwaul over the Mama Grizzly's disintermediating GOP primary tactics. Twitter buddy Charles @repub9989 thinks it's a jealous-woman thing, but then there's Red State's Erick Erickson's complaint. See below for more, and click here for The Right Scoop's video.

"Fog of war describes Twitter in a nutshell," twittered Moe Lane this afternoon in response to our attempt to defuse a friendly-fire incident over our blogfriend's preference for announced Lone-Star candidate Scott Rick Perry (thanks to chickelit in the comments for the correction) vs our own first love, unannounced shoot-to-where-it's-going Sarah Palin:

Oh. Didn't realize you were a Perry supporter. Just retweeting a tweet that made sense to me. Reminds me of the fog of war.

We were but two hand-to-hand combatants in an army of cyberwarriors locked in a fiery internecine battle that erupted this morning between Palinistas and everyone else on our side of the aisle in the wake of a dishy catfest last night between mischief-maker Ann Coulter and host Laura Ingraham, subbing for O'Reilly:

Coulter: Most Americans don't want Sarah Palin for President, but she's become sort of the Obama of the Tea Party. She's just "The One" to a certain segment of right wingers, and the tiniest criticism of her — I think many of your viewers may not know this — no conservative on TV will criticize Palin because they don't want to deal with the hate mail.

Ingraham: People like Palin to show up at these events and whip up the crowd. There's a place for that, and I think we need that. but people, when I talk to them, they seem to be desperate and hungry more that ever for real substance, beyond kind of the sloganeering and the bumper sticker stuff.

Bring on the smelling salts. Then there was Red State's Erick Erickson, "all wee weed up over Palin," as Dan Riehl so memorably puts it. We particularly liked Rants for Reasonable People's PolitiJim's open letter to Erickson:

Did you forget it was PALIN who helped galvanize and garner the conservative movement in 2008? Have you not read the citations of those of us who started with Santelli and were empowered with Palin who comment how many ended up as 'the tea party?'  When the 'big government' republicans and pretenders forced us onto McCain - Palin was a sign of hope.

Update: Memeorandum links Erick Erickson's "Enough."

Update II: Michelle Malkin "Buzzworthy" link!

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Cloven Not Crested.

Palin Undefeated: It's the crony capitalism, stupid!

This weekend Steve Bannon's Palin documentary ‘The Undefeated’ will be available On Demand and Pay-Per-View from a major cable or satellite company near you. We wrote about the movie — sight unseen — last June in "Palin Undefeated: 'A story of empowerment for modern women and their daughters.'" Now we can put our money where our mouth was, in the comfort of our own home. Above, sugar-and-spice Sarah (center) with her siblings.

Funny how incurious the "intellectually curious" hive mind of the left can be when it comes to all things Sarah Palin. The latest is a classic blinders-on, Journolist-talking-points-in-hand "review" of Steve Bannon's Palin Documentery "The Undefeated." (h/t Tim Graham of News Busters). Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday is the mouthpiece of this particular outpouring of Palin envy. A few excerpts and then our take:

Based on her modest demeanor and record of budget, energy and ethics reform in Alaska, it’s easy to see her appeal to McCain, who called Palin while she was at the Alaska State Fair to ask her to run for veep. What "The Undefeated" doesn’t explain — in addition to the title "Undefeated" when Palin was, actually, defeated in 2008 — is how a woman whose early career had been dedicated to transcending partisan politics became such a ferocious political warrior while on the stump. Instead, Bannon sets Palin up as a victim — of liberals, of establishment conservatives and of the "lamestream media" that his subject has become so skilled at manipulating (a talent the filmmaker strangely neglects to mention).

About that title, "The Undefeated." Ever heard of wordplay, Ms. Hornaday? Sarah Palin may have lost an election, but she fights like a girl! Disintermediating the powers that be, she picked herself up and got back in the race. The words of Sun Tzu come to mind:

To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.

Then there's Hornaday's fixation with "trascending partisan politics." You see a lot of that from the left, presumably hoping to catch the eye — and poll-tested votes — of the mushy middle. How could a "non-partisan" Palin who rooted out corruption in her OWN PARTY become "such a ferocious political warrior while on the stump"? It's the crony capitalism, stupid. Real Clear Politics has the scoop:

In her speech at the bucolic National Balloon Classic field in Indianola [tomorrow], Palin will lean on loaded phrases like “crony capitalism” and “permanent political class” in laying out her view of the U.S. political system’s deep-rooted ills, according to a source close to Palin and familiar with the content of the speech.

And this from National Review:

“She will also talk, more broadly, about how she is not enamored of the political class, both Republicans and Democrats, who do not deserve to be elected if they only continue the status quo,” the source continues. “She will discuss corporate lobbyists, White House operatives, and others who enable the vested interests.” Many of the themes from her recent Facebook post, “Conquering the Storm,” will be mentioned.

Will she or won't she? Dan Riehl says "yes" on Twitter:

Overseas trip had to be Palin's last check box. She's getting in.

Disintermediate at will:

The former Alaska Governor is scheduled to attend the World Knowledge Forum in Seoul, where she will speak alongside global economic leaders like Larry Summers and former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The conference begins Oct. 11, the same day as the GOP primary debate hosted by Bloomberg in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Update: Doug Ross Larwyn's Lynx link.

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Cloven Not Crested.

It's the water, stupid

"Whether that is in the Everglades or whether that is in the eastern Gulf region, or whether that's in North Dakota, we need to go where the energy is," Michele Bachmann said during a Florida stop Sunday: "Of course it needs to be done responsibly. If we can't responsibly access energy in the Everglades then we shouldn't do it." Why, oh, why, did she volunteer the Everglades in a Florida stop? We're with Debbie Wasserman Shultz (!), Allen West, John Hayward, the alligators and the manatees (above) on this. But it's all in how you frame the argument (see below).

"As a Floridian, I can see that Michele Bachmann's outrageous proposal to drill for oil and natural gas in the Everglades demonstrates just how out of touch Republicans are with the needs of Floridians and all Americans," said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D FL-20) today, tarring all of us on the right side of the aisle with a broad, holier-than-thou JournoList brush. We hate the land — especially the wetland — and all things bright and beautiful! Water purified by natural systems? Who needs it. Contrast her vitriolic tone with the measured rhetoric of her fellow Sunshine stater Rep. Allen West (R FL-22), who had this to say about Bachmann's proposal:

West also said fellow tea party celebrity Michele Bachmann made "an incredible faux pas" this week during her presidential campaign swing through Florida when she said she'd consider allowing drilling for oil and natural gas in the Everglades if it can be done safely.

"The Everglades is one of the natural wonders of the world …

"When I see her next week, I'll straighten her out about that," West said of the Republican Minnesota congresswoman. Freshman West is a member of the House Tea Party Caucus that Bachmann chairs.

"I happen to live quite near the Everglades, and I’m prepared to believe they should be eternally off-limits to drilling … provided that case is made with facts and reason," says John Hayward, puting things in perspective:

We’re reaching a major crisis point between environmentalism and industry. It’s been a long time coming. Too much of the debate is shrouded in illusions that we can’t afford any more. Too much has been declared “unthinkable” by hysterics and political opportunists like Wasserman Schultz. We need to start thinking about these issues …

That is a binary choice: if we want job growth and energy independence, we're going to have to drill in someone's "backyard."

Update: Bachmann maintains her stance (why, Michele, why?):

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

"First Responders and Clergyfolk are not very important to the powerful and the enlightened"

"Join us and thousands of patriots at the AFDI/SIOA 911 Freedom Rally at Ground Zero on the afternoon of September 11th. We will have a priest and a rabbi for the invocation as part of our program (just as we did last year). Be there," writes our sister grizzly in arms Pamela Geller from the front lines of the battle to retake the Shining City. Above, our own photo of The Divine Miss G at Joe Lieberman's victory party back in November of 2006.

"Sissy Willis, are you trying to start a revolt? :-)" twitters Elizabeth Scalia aka The Anchoress in reponse to our response to her fightin' words this evening regarding NYC Mayor Bloomberg's smug pronouncement that no first responders nor religious are welcome at the Big Apple's 10th-anniversary observance of 9/11. Quoting one of her commenters, we twittered:

I say that the people who MATTER should organize a memorial of their own. Just show up.

It turns out our old friend Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs is way ahead of the curve (see caption above). To get ourselves and our readers up to speed on the issues, a few excerpts from Scalia's transcendent must-read rant, some more telling comments from her commenters and finally our own take. Here's Elizabeth:

First Responders and Clergyfolk are not very important to the powerful and the enlightened. They only protect us, rescue us, resuscitate us, console us, pray with us, bless us and bury us. And when they die doing it, well, one does feel terrible about it for a whole news cycle or two. And then one takes a private jet somewhere, and tries to forget …

I don’t know why I should be surprised. Priests and First Responders are, like our troops, front-line folk. They’re like heroes in the cowboy flicks; they ride in, shoulder the burden, help put things to rights, and then — while the elite get on with assuming their power and asserting their primacy — they recede into the background. Only the very few stick around to say ‘thank you’ and wave them off. Sometimes children ask them to come back, or to stay.

This from Dave in the comments got our tea-party juices flowing:

Hmmm; a public event that is not public? I submit a “what if?” question … What if off-duty FDNY and NYPD show up, in uniform? Or, further suppose that priests, members of religious orders and the faithful also show up? Let us even invite the religiously inclined of all faiths. What if the ironworkers, laborers, and those who provided volunteer services for weeks and months to the site workers came without the “proper” invitation? All of those would be hard to ignore. Even though I am a former firefighter, I am part of larger community of persons sustained by ritual, tradition and faith. I cannot imagine that persons of power, wealth and inflated egos could wish to exclude those who gave so much for all of us.

Then this from Mark L:

Well. You can tell it has been ten years, can’t you.

Reminds me of an old piece of doggerel about sailors and soldiers (who are much like first responders):

The sailor/soldier and God alike are adored
When danger’s at hand, and not before.
Once danger has passed both alike are requited:
God is forgotten and the sailor/soldier is slighted.

"Just show up. Be there. Americans have the freedom of assembly," wrote commenter Lee:

Assemble at Ground Zero: NYC first responders, first responders from elsewhere who came to help, people who were there and remember, people who lost a loved one, people who have not forgotten what happened. And clergy: ministers, priest, rabbis, etc.

Start the REAL memorial commemoration: not this idiot thing organized by people who work for the idiot Bloomberg. And make the REAL memorial the one that MATTERS. A grass roots effort to commemorate an important moment in our country’s recent history.

Reminds us of Rick Santelli's "Rant for the Ages" from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade back in February of 2009, a truth-to-power call for a new "Tea Party" in response to President Obama's redistributionist mortgage-bailout plan. For us the great awakening had begun with Sarah Palin's emergence onto the national stage in August of 2008, when we fell head over heels for the mama grizzly's fierce determination and authentic American voice long before the "lamestream media" moved in for the kill. We got our activist feet wet in the Tea Party gatherings of spring 2009, then earned our wings helping Scott Brown dislodge the democrat establishment from the "Kennedy Seat" in January of 2010. November 2010, now November 2012. It's not just the democrats. It's the Ruling Class of both parties, and we're learning how to fight like a girl!

Update: Instalanche! Thank you, Professor Reynolds.

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

Through a glass brightly

Little Kitteh! Little Kitteh! burning bright, In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye, could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Was it the will of the Master of the Universe alone that gave life to man? Or did Adam — in the manner of LK above, gazing with longing through the seemingly impenetrable window that separated them — reach out to slip the surly bonds of earth to put out his hand/paw and touch the face of God/Tuck?

Update: Wordplay in the comments:

Chickelit: Heh. I am FeMale (iron man).

Connecticut Yankee: Actually, cats are a compound of iron, lithium, and neon: FeLiNe. (They're strong, they're great mood stabilizers, and they certainly light up our lives!)

Fight like a girl because you're not "just" a girl

Lively debate in the radio studio with Peter Ingemi (above) of DaTechGuyblog yesterday morning, then on to a "salon" at Borders Grille in Leominster with lotsa good food and drink and talk with local listeners, bloggers, radio talkers and writers.

"Mummy wanted a girl. At least one woman who didn't want a boy," we wrote our imail correspondent in high dudgeon in response to this bit of conventional wisdom that stuck in our craw this afternoon:

She: YET...for whatever reason, everbody wants a BOY!

We: In some cultures like Chinese, it apparently has to do with money ... inheritance and such ... course where does that come from? And where does it lead? [Not enough women for the men, not enough offspring to replace the old folks. Can you say Eurabia?]

She: Dowry is BIG, but … I feel blessed to have sons. I never had to go shopping at the MALL!!!

Peter invited Tuck into the studio, where he turned out to be a natural talker. Fun stuff. Then on to Borders for what our twitter friend Ginny aka ginthegin calls "Nip &Tuck."

We were discussing, of course, the latest bit of news from our friends on the genome side of the aisle about a new, relatively inexpensive lab test that tells you the sex of your prospective offspring before the life force ever has a chance to breathe free. There is something so wrong about playing God with that information, in our view. You're a married couple wanting a child, and you bypass nature's way to use modrin science to choose? So many unsavory things come tumbling out. The eternal sadness thinking about the little girl that might have been the light of your life. The way things turned out with the little boy who maybe didn't fulfill your dreams of him. Whatever. For us Thoreau's timeless words ring true:

The most alive is the wildest. Not yet tamed by man, it refreshes him.

Arrggghhh! We say that as the one-year-younger sister of a totally awesome older brother, best buddies when we were Joe and Mike having kicka fights in the early years, but then went our separate ways for years in the wake of this mentality:

We: I want to do it too. How come he can and I can't?

Mummy: Because you're a girl.

Don't remember the issue, but "because you're a girl" was seared, seared in our memory. We were a Sarah Palin "fight like a girl" gal from day one and never bought in to the boys-are-better narrative. When the Gramscian march through the institutions hijacked the feminist project with the postmodern woman-as-victim narrative, we were horrified. That's probably why we tossed our hat to the sky and shouted for joy: It's a girl? when Sarah Palin sprung onto the national stage three years back.

Update: Bill Quick of Daily Pundit links.

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

Dear John Podhoretz: I love you, but

John Podhoretz's twitter avatar (above) is one of our favorites, beaming father with enchanting daughter. Hard not to love the guy, and we do, but hey. This is politics!

"So unless I agree with every word you say I'm not with 'we the people'? Elitist!" tweets the divine John Podhoretz, playing with our own tweet:

You aren't one of dem fuddy-duddy Codevilla rul'g class types, are you? I always thought you were on the side of "We the people."

We were responding to Podhoretz's own provocative tweet:

If Sarah Palin runs, Mitt Romney does the Snoopy dance of joy.

Arrggghhhh! No one is cleverer and cuddlier than Podhoretz, but does he realize how condescending such tweets are to grassroots tea partiers like us, for whom Romneycare has always been a craw sticker and Palin always an authentic voice in the wilderness who speaks to us with a servant's heart?

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

Whither goest thou? "Only a living thing can go against the stream"

 "Against the Tide" by Rob Colvin.

"Shorter NYT: Tea party is out of the mainstream because members are white, religious and socially conservative," twitter buddy Hale Razor writes re Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell's inadvertently self-revelatory New York Times op ed, "Crashing the Tea Party," a fact-challenged, politically correct dismissal of us and our fellow constitutional conservatives as "less popular than much maligned groups like 'atheists' and 'Muslims.'" A couple of paragraphs, and then some analysis:

GIVEN how much sway the Tea Party has among Republicans in Congress and those seeking the Republican presidential nomination, one might think the Tea Party is redefining mainstream American politics.

But in fact the Tea Party is increasingly swimming against the tide of public opinion: among most Americans, even before the furor over the debt limit, its brand was becoming toxic … Interestingly, one group that approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right. 

Swimming against the tide, indeed. Redefining mainstream American politics is what the tea party has always been about, gentlemen, notwithstanding the last-gasp efforts of the powers that be like you and your fellow travelers in Sarah Palin's "lamestream media" to demonize us into oblivion. Can you say Tea Party terrorists? The Anchoress explains in her must-read review of Mark Steyn's After America: 

But Steyn is not writing solely about the social unrest and the hooliganism that so often comes with economic distress. After America warns that an over-regulated, bureaucracy-laden society, dissuaded from conceiving and achieving great things because too much has come between an idea and its execution, is a society dumbing down and numbing-up, growing not just stagnant, but inert, like Chesterton’s “dead thing” that “can go with the stream,” while “only a living thing can go against it.”

Oh, the irony that Harvard's Robert Putnam, author of the iconic "Bowling Alone," trapped in his tribal Pauline Kael bubble, is blind to what's right there before his eyes. As Hale Razor twittered:

Putnam sees social isolationism and decreasing church attendance, yet can't spot a nexus, while ripping social conservatives.

Putnam's "groundbreaking book based on vast data," published just over a decade ago before blogs and twitter and facebook and other social media reshaped and re-energized the public square, seems sadly set in amber today:

Putnam warns that our stock of social capital – the very fabric of our connections with each other, has plummeted, impoverishing our lives and communities.

Putnam draws on evidence including nearly 500,000 interviews over the last quarter century to show that we sign fewer petitions, belong to fewer organizations that meet, know our neighbors less, meet with friends less frequently, and even socialize with our families less often. 

Signing fewer petitions and belonging to fewer organizations? That is so yesterday, Mr. Putnam. You and your co-author need to get out more. You shoulda interviewed people like ourselves before writing that New York Times relic. Tea Partay!

Update: Doug Ross of Larwyn's Linx links.

Update II: Michelle Malkin Buzzworthy link (to our crosspost at Dan's).

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

James Pethokoukis: "Perhaps a storm is about to sweep down from the Far North"

EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska. The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, shines above Bear Lake here January 18, 2005. The lights are the result of solar particles colliding with gases in Earth's atmosphere. Early Eskimos and Indians believed different legends about the Northern Lights, such as they were the souls of animals dancing in the sky or the souls of fallen enemies trying to rise again.

"Perhaps a storm is about to sweep down from the Far North!" twitters the divine Jimmy P, aka James Pethokoukis, in response to this tweet of ours:

This too will pass? The drought will continue?

We were responding to Jimmy's original tweet, "Like a Texas summer storm, Perry sweeps over Iowa Straw Poll," linking to his latest must-read post:

Congratulations to Michele Bachmann, but the big political winner Saturday wasn’t in Ames, Iowa. That politician was half a country away in South Carolina, completely scrambling the Republican presidential race.

1) Online betting markets have already decided that Texas Gov. Rick Perry is no flash in the Panhandle — another Fred Thompson or Wesley Clark who sparks a flurry of interest but quickly fades. To bettors, it’s a two-horse race and a dead heat between Perry and Mitt Romney. But anyone listening to Perry’s well delivered, muscular, high-energy speech in Charleston, S.C., would probably draw the same political conclusion. He hit tea party-friendly themes and hit them well.

Neither Romney nor Perry will likely hesitate in, shall we say, contrasting their records. Romney will play up his business career as a successful private equity investor and venture capitalist and slam Perry as a “career politician” and "crony capitalist.“ And Perry will counter with attacks on Romney’s Obamacare-esque healthcare plan in Massachusetts, as well as stressing his own inspirational life story (son of tenant farmers to presidential candidate).

Jimmie left his readers hanging with this:

Assuming no other heavy hitters join the race. Perry-Romney is shaping up to be an epic brawl between two aggressive candidates with impressive resumes, both able to raise boat loads of campaign cash. Let the Austin-Boston battle begin.

"Assuming no other heavy hitters join the race"? We refer you once again to Jimmie's taunting tweet above:

Perhaps a storm is about to sweep down from the Far North!

Hmmm. We were just thinking the very thing ourselves.

Update: Rand Simberg of Transterrestrial Musings links:

It’s going to be a very interesting race for the Republican nomination, and I suspect that whoever emerges from it will be the stronger for it, and ready to send the president back to academia.

Crossposted at Riehl World View. 

King or kingmaker, Sarah Palin's heart and mind will energize seekers of wisdom and truth

Sarah Palin and Herman Cain embrace at Iowa State Fair. "Have heard Herman Cain is warm and energizing in person. I fell for him way back when, used a quote in Tea Party sign," we twittered Ginny aka ginthegin this afternoon, quoting the man with a plan: "Stay inspired: We the people are still in charge." 

"King or kingmaker, her heart and mind will energize seekers of wisdom and truth," we twittered libertarian twitter friend Doug Mataconis this afternoon in response to his smiley-snarky challenge to our abiding faith in the Mama Grizzly who beckons us to "woman up" and "fight like a girl":

If you think Palin has any chance in a General Election, I want some of whatever drug you're trippin' on :)."

Even as Texas Governor Rick Perry upstaged the usual Iowa Straw Poll suspects with a rousing call to arms this afternoon — throwing his hat in the ring at the Red State Gathering of bloggers [!] in South Carolina and putting the democrat smear-mongers on high alert — Sarah Palin was playing hard to get. But not to worry. She's biding her time, disintermediating the powers that be with her usual flair, shooting to where it's going, not to where it's been. We loved this after-the-break teaser from CNN's Candy Crowley this evening in the aftermath of Michele Bachmann's winning the straw poll and write-in candidate Perry's outpolling Mitt, Newt, Jon and Thaddeus:

So what's Palin's goal? Why's she getting all the attention?

Dan Riehl explains:

Put aside the purely Republican primary politics of it for a moment. Also, I'm not endorsing her, or anyone at this point. But what happened in Iowa yesterday was electric, not just for any Palin faithful, but for many Conservatives and especially the media. For better, or worse, Sarah Palin has star power — whatever that is.

Palin has two critical qualities, unique in that they combine in her. Beholden to no one, without fear, or restraint, Palin articulates today's conservatism in a prudent, positive and cogent manner. More than that, the media, while much of it both loves and hates her, conveys her message to an audience far more broadly than they do for any other contemporary politician. 

It's the electricity, stupid? As we twittered Mary Katherine Ham this afternoon in response to her praise of Rick Perry's storytelling skills:

We need storytellers to tell our side of the story, capture the mushy middle's imagination with powerful memes and narratives.

Enter, stage right, Sarah Palin. King or kingmaker? Just like the Tea Party itself, she is recasting the terms of the debate. Will inattentive citizens finally notice the disconnect between the Palin-is-stupid narrative and what they can see with their own eyes? 

Update: Linked at Conservatives4Palin in the comments to a related post citing our buddy Smitty of The Other McCain, who writes:

I agree with Dan’s whole post, but a third point (maybe a variation on the first point) is that she has already borne the brunt of an unbridled propaganda assault without crumbling. The more the minions of the Progressive Cthulhu strike at her, the stronger she becomes, and the more openly craven and stupid they appear. She rises like a phoenix from their ashes.

Why the continued hesitation, then? She has more to gain by not explicitely declaring.

Update II: Doug Ross's Larwyn's Linx links.

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

John Kerry vs Tea Party: It's the Rubber Duckie, stupid

"I have to tell ya. I say this to you politely," John Kerry said impolitely to MSNBC's Morning Joe audience the other day, parrotting the Journolist talking-points meme of the day, Tea Party as illegitimate "hostage taker" of the nation's political debate over the debt deal. "Balanced approach" and "compromise" were the plebe-polled words of choice, but a number of the Tea Party freshmen weren't buying. "It doesn't deserve the same credit as a legitimate idea about what you do," pontificated the "seared, seared" Senator Kerry. We guess it depends upon what your definition of "legitimate" is.

So much blog fodder, so little time. Two items. First, this from our reality-challenged friends on the left side of the twittersphere:

The only thing keeping the GOP in charge of this country is the corrupted media. Take that away, and these jerks are done.

Who knew the GOP — with the White House and half the Congress held by the opposition and the MSM in their pocket — was in charge? Must be those terrorist Tea Party types holding John Kerry & Company hostage. 'Course we couldn't agree more about "the corrupted media," but just who are "these jerks" they refer to? In our parallel universe it's always been the media's fellow travelers on the left side of the aisle that weight the scales in favor of the progressive narrative. Which leads us to our second item, an eureka moment of what is wrong with the Gramscian project. See below.

This idea isn’t going to make a big splash with Rubber Duckie," notes Your Daddy's Politics:

An online campaign to pressure the producers of “Sesame Street” into having lovable roommates Bert and Ernie (above) get married is gathering steam. Getting hitched would change things for Ernie, who has long sang about how his bath toy, Rubber Duckie, “was the one.”

That was when the lightbulb went off. Imagine yourself as a child. Bro & sis, mom and dad. Bert and Ernie a couple of goofy guys on one of your favorite shows. They're going to get married? Can you say cognitive dissonance? Mainly, though, it would be terrifying and so wrong, destroying a kid's safe haven of the way the world is. Not unlike the violation visited on the bodies of the innocent by a child molester, these we-know-what's-best-for-you elitists would violate the heart and soul of the innocent:

More than 700 people have signed on to the petition, posted at change.org.  “We are not asking that Sesame Street do anything crude or disrespectful,” reads the petition for the muppet merger. “It can be done in a tasteful way. Let us teach tolerance of those that are different.”

You want tolerance of "those that are different"? Look to the animals, especially the "rare baby Sand Cat" born at Israel's Safari Zoo recently:

Once a common cat in the dunes of Israel, the cat has become basically extinct in the region. The newborn has given hope to conservationalists who hope one day to reintroduce the Sand Cat to the wild.

Update: Snippets from an imail conversation:

She: Am SICK about what they are attempting to do with Bert and Ernie. It would be like if Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis got married. It DESTROYS the concept of true friendship. Goofy Guy/Straight Man are no longer funny, once they become a married couple.

We: The Odd Couple comes to mind.

Update II: "IT'S FLOPPY LIKE A GARDEN HOSE":

Clinching proof that Bert and Ernie are gay.

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

From violent, racist "teabaggers" to debate changers with a seat at the table

"If a good political compromise is one that has something for everyone to hate, then last night's bipartisan debt-ceiling deal is a triumph," says the WSJ this morning: "The big picture is that the deal is a victory for the cause of smaller government, arguably the biggest since welfare reform in 1996." Enough of a "balanced approach" for you, Mr. President? It's the momentum, stupid (see below). Above, image of Kitty Hawk Class aircraft carrier.

"I'm with you on this," twitters Mary Katharine Ham as others out here in the twittersphere and blogosphere with whom we usually agree are scoffing at debt-ceiling-deal headlines this morning like the Wall Street Journal's "A Tea Party Triumph" or Mark Thiessen's piece in the WaPo, "How the Tea Party 'hobbits' won the debt fight." Here's MK:

Is it a giant victory for American people? No, but by pathetic Congressional measures, it's a step forward.

We agree. As we twittered back to our protesting friends:

Metaphor that works for me: Changing direction of aircraft carrier. Slow it down, keeps going in same direction awhile.

Consider, too, turnaround of Tea Party in MSM narrative. From violent, racist "teabaggers" to debate changers with a seat at the table.

Not to mention the lame Tea Partier as terrorist meme the President and his crew were desperately trying to sell the American public last week. Their attempts at demonizing us are being overtaken by events. We were delighted to see our friend Peter Ingemi of DaTechGuyblog had already "read/skimmed" the 74-page budget bill and sees it as we do as a course correction:

After reading the bill, if it was up to me, I’d be a yes vote. This bill is not an example of steaming in the right direction, it is an example of completing the turn of the ship so it is facing in the right direction but you have to turn the ship before you change directions. This is the turn.

As the WSJ editors note: "The tea partiers pride themselves on adhering to the Constitution, which was intended to make political change difficult.

Yet in this deal they've forced both parties to make the biggest spending cuts in 15 years, with more cuts likely next year. The U.S. is engaged in an epic debate over the size and scope of government that will play out over several years, and the most important battle comes in the election of 2012.

Update: Michelle Malking Buzzworthy link!

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.