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New Girl Media Unplugs Old Girl Network

Pope Benedict met artists from around the world in the Sistine Chapel on Saturday and urged them to inject spirituality into their work, saying contemporary beauty was often 'illusory and deceitful," reports Reuters. Compare Papa Ratzi's open invitation to engage in an expansive search for truth with President Obama's secretive, craven attempts to use the art community as a tool of the state to propagandize his own not-so-hidden statist agenda. Grazie tanto to darling friend and blogbuddy Miss Kelly for the heads up. (REUTERS/Osservatore Romano photo)

"Like me, Jackie became politically involved because of Sarah Palin," writes self-described "California girl, proud conservative, palinista, future politician" Rachelle Friberg, bearing witness to the Amazonian clash between New Girl Media and Old Girl Network that played out upon the national stage last week when MSNBC warhorse Norah O'Donnell tried to play "gotcha" with fresh-faced 17-year-old filly Jackie Seal at a Sarah Palin Going Rogue book-signing event in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The usual suspects used the occasion to present Palin supporters as clueless cultists, but we're more interested in the folks who are paying attention. Here's Rachelle:

I actually got to know Jackie a couple months ago on Twitter. When I first met her, I was struck by how mature, articulate and intelligent a young woman she was. Like me, Jackie became politically involved because of Sarah Palin. She is an amazing girl, and I wish I had become politically aware when I was her age. While she may be young, she is already a very talented blogger who has a great future ahead of her. I actually recently wrote about her and other great, young conservative bloggers who are out there making a difference one post at a time. I find it so amazing and incredible that Sarah has brought so many people together. While Jackie and I do not know Sarah personally, we and millions of others have formed a bond that will last a lifetime.

"The so-called 'Staircase Group' by Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) is arguably the first major original painting in American art," writes collector and curator John Wilmerding in today's WSJ. Read the whole thing for its historically and aesthetically rich appreciation of the Philadelphia-based artist, inventor, scientist, soldier, writer, naturalist and museum founder. The take-home point for our discussion here: "The full-length format … speaks to its final originality. Heretofore it was reserved in the Old World for upper-class and royal portraiture. Peale inverts its use for American figures who are ordinary, relaxed and democratic." Sarah Palin and the Tea Party/Town Hall Movement come to mind.

Then comes Dr. Melissa Clouthier, who begs to differ with those like Politico's Kenneth P. Vogel who say the Tea Party Movement requires "the emergence of a national leader, group or structure" to become a "sustainable bloc with the power to shape the GOP and swing elections." Freedom Works Press Secretary Adam Brandon explains:

We were never looking to own or control it. The focus needs to be on the issues at hand.

Clouthier nails it:

Asking the “who’s in charge” questions about the Tea Party movement is to fundamentally misunderstand conservatives. Conservatives do not like being told what to do. The notion of subsuming self-interest for “the greater good” is anathema to them. That makes replicating the Borg-like work of ACORN and Moveon.org organizations nearly impossible on the right. When conservatives see a goal, they’ll take 50 roads to get there. The left will get on the Huffington Post highway and ride along together.

In related commentary, it's the town hall, stupid, Bill Whittle tells Scott Ott at PJTV:

Let's remind ourselves of what the essential part of a representative democracy is all about. It's a town hall meeting. Who's in charge of a town hall meeting? Nobody … There are rules and procedures so that equals can come to an assignment of responsibility based on their equality.

The final word goes to the totally adorable Tucker Carlson, who had this to say on Fox and Friends this morning:

There's something about Sarah Palin that drives a certain kind of liberal wild, and I don't know why. I'm not a psychiatrist.

But I personally wish she'd stop calling people "sexist." That's what liberals do.

Carlson may not know why Saracudda drives a certain kind of liberal wild, but we do. 'Been blogging about it for years: It's the tribalism, stupid.

Update: Instalanche! Thank you, dear professor.

Update II: "I am the last person in the entire b-sphere to link it, but I’m delighted to do so, writes Attila Girl." Never too late.

The GOP establishment is the problem

Even as DIABLO (Democrat In All But Label Only) Dede Scozzafava (above) showed her true colors — after dropping out of the NY District 23 congressional race Saturday — when she "began to quietly and thoughtfully encourage her supporters to vote for Democrat William L. Owens," NYT opinionator Frank Rich showed his true cluelessness when he referred to tea partiers like ourselves as zombie-like members of a "wacky, paranoid cult that is as eager to eat its own as it is to destroy Obama." Dede is not one of our own, Mr. Rich. (AP photo)

With hats off to the Gipper, a new slogan for the ages:

In the present crisis, the GOP establishment is not the solution to our problem; the GOP establishment is the problem.

Just ask any tea partier.

Update: "Kill, or cure? What say you?" teases Dan Riehl with a link. "What doesn't kill us will make us stronger," we reply in the comments. 'Loved this comment from M. Simon of Power and Control:

[Sarah Palin] is one very smart lady. She can read a map.

The foxy lady has outfoxed the old dogs who were supposed to be guarding the GOP henhouse.

Give to strategic small-government candidates, not parties

There's something happening here. The anti-establishment protest song has been turned on its head as Tea Partiers find their voice: "People speaking their minds/Getting so much resistance from behind/What a field-day for the heat/A thousand people in the street/Singing songs and carrying signs …" (Cover image of October 2008 "quickie paperback satire" Terminatrix,  co-authored by top Harper-Collins Editor Adam Bellow (Saul's boy), who most recently worked on Sarah Palin's forthcoming blockbuster autobiography Going Rogue)

"It's quite a revelation. I'd been slowing down party contributions of late. Now I see THE WAY!" we twittered blogfriend Barry Campbell of enrevanche ecstatically this morning in response to his response to an earlier tweet of ours:

We: Give to strategic small-government candidates, not parties!

Barry: Yes. And I agree so fervently that I don't mind the "shouting."

It was a eureka moment as we saw the social-networking sausage taking shape before our eyes. Delicious! It started with Sarah Palin's endorsement last week of Doug Hoffman, the independent conservative candidate challenging ACORN-supporting Republican-Party-sanctioned RINO Dede Scozzafava in the upstate NY District 23 congressional special election. Dismissed by Newt Gingrich and the Republican Party establishment, Hoffman has become a beacon of hope for the Army of Davids Tea Partiers, who are getting glimpses of a way out of the desert as he surges ahead in the latest poll. And, of course, Palin's every strategic move is of intense interest — to both diehard fans like us and those who can't stand her — in the blogosphere, the twittersphere, Facebook and on cable TV. The networks and airwaves were abuzz. Based upon Palin's support we sent a little money Hoffman's way, just as we had sent a check to Joe "You lie!" Wilson earlier based upon his speaking truth to power during President Obama's recent address to a joint session of Congress. Today it was dollars for someone else we'd never heard of, conservative VA AG candidate Ken Cuccinelli, based upon a Twitter tip from Erick Erickson of Red State, who looks to a higher authority for his response to "the new counter spin" that would have us once again hold our noses as so many small-government citizens did with John McCain:

To quote Christ, “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matt. 16:26 NIV)

Well. Gotta be off to add a little something to the coffers of "Upstart candidate Marco Rubio," who's "cut in half [Obama-hugger] Governor Charlie Crist's lead in the race to win the Republican nomination for a Florida U.S. Senate seat in 2010" thanks to "popular outrage at his support for the $787 billion federal stimulus package." We encourage our readers to lend support to strategically-targeted, small-government candidates wherever they may find them. And while we're in the mood, we especially urge you to support our dear blogfriend, satirical genius and candidate for Leigh County [PA] Executive, Scott "Live the Freedom" Ott of Scrappleface and the Washington Examiner. Click here to give early and often.

Update: Dan Riehl links:

Just as one should always follow the money, the politicians will follow the money, too. Use it to force the GOP to adopt the policies we want, not simply for spite against the GOP.

As we wrote in the comments, "Absolutely. Not an ounce of spite. Just a way out of the desert."

To sleep, perchance to scream

Tiny spoke to us in a dream last night. Not her usual meows, maos, prrts and purrs, but in The King's English. Tuck asked what she sounded like. Don't remember a sound. Were her lips moving? More like reading her thoughts.

The cat as incubus called to mind Henry Fuseli's "The Nightmare," ("The Incubus") 1790, Goethe Museum, Frankfurt, Germany.

What did she say? Tuck wanted to know. It all made sense at the time, our inner cat giving expression to what we barely dare think of during waking hours.

All we remember is "I don't know whether we'll have another New Year's together." Anxiety because we lost her brother — our irreplaceable Baby Cakes — unexpectedly late last year and because she has "airway disease" (AKA feline asthma), a constant source of low-level concern. She's had it since kittenhood, although we didn't recognize it as such — thought it was furball-related coughing —till years later when it became severe, and she ended up in the hospital. Since then she's been on medications, adjusted through the years. Currently it's methylprednisolone — our cat's on steroids! — 1/4 pill every other day, Flovent administered by Aerokat inhaler twice a day and Albuterol by inhaler as needed to stop attacks. Needless to say, she hates the inhaler, gives us a dirty look and tries to leave the premises whenever we approach with Aerokat in hand. And yet she forgives us, boundlessly generous in her silky attentiveness and affection. Does some part of her sense we are doing it for her own good? Probably not. We think she just likes us despite our inexplicable behavior.

"Mad as Hell, Not Taking It Anymore," Lucianne captions this thrilling image of "my people," the Tea Partiers, taking their grievances to the seat of national government yesterday. We participated via Twitter and are enjoying the afterglow in the blogosphere, on Fox News and through the LDotters' comments today: "Do you hear us now?" Photo source unknown although it's all over the blogosphere and Twitter.

Back to the dream, is it too much of a stretch to link the talking Tiny's words with anxieties related to implications of Obamacare, should that fair imitation of socialized medicine be "rammed down our throats" as the President threatens to do, even as he disses Tea Partiers like us and tells us to shut up? Not very presidential, Mr. President. This nighmarish presidency haunts us night and day.

Update: Wake up refreshed at Modulator's Friday Ark #261.

John McCain reminds us that elections have consequences

"BEST TOWN HALL EVER," we just tweeted as John McCain warms hearts and minds of a Sun City, Arizona roomful of constituents with free-market, tort-reform sweet nothings regarding health-care reform:

Senator John McCain answering thoughtful questions thoughtfully and with characteristic humor. Peaceful revolt in progress!

A breath of fresh air after the out-of-touch arrogance and disrespect of I-know-better-than-you-what's-good-for-you Arlen Specter et al towards the people who put them in office. You don't have to see eye-to-eye with McCain on everything to know authenticity when you see it. As we said of Palin in a similar vein recently, like Ronald Reagan, he trusts us! Plus, how can you not love a politician who boldly goes where no Senator has gone before, telling a hoary lawyer joke before a national audience (Fox, CNN & MSNBC are all carrying it live):

What is the difference between a catfish and a lawyer? One's a bottom-crawling scum sucker and the other's a fish.

"There goes the lawyer vote," he quips good naturedly. Great TV!

Update: "John is able to stand back and see himself as a human. The liberals can only see themselves as Gods," observes Goomp in the comments. "It's the human factor that is missing in Obama and his cadre," adds our imail correspondent:

Socialist automatons, and that's what Socialism is all about … creating mindless automatons.

The mindset comes through loud and clear in the dismissive attitude of pro-Obamacare Senators and Representatives towards their town hall constituents.

Old is the new beautiful

Loving it that the oldsters, now known in polite society as the politically correct "seniors," are finding their voice. Never ever dreamed of being old, but now that we are, it's a revelation. We've been tea partying from day one.

 

The young and ignorant, schooled in the stealth Gramscian, anti-Founding-Fathers curriculum, know nothing about nature or nature's God. They're prolly buying POTUS's unspeakable assertion that "We are God's partners in matters of life and death." Everyone in the whole wide world should read Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism before saying another thing. Fortunately, us old folks still remember a thing or two about the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. PLUS. As old and decrepit as we may become, the pater familias, 89-year-old Goomp, keeps on keeping on. Proud to be a scion of a grand old Yankee/Finnish family of honest and true Mercans.

Update: Instalanche. Being old is all it's cracked up to be!

Update II: "Goomp 89?" gasps Elisson incredulously in the comments:

Why, that means 89 is the new 59.

That would make us still wet behind the ears.

Update III: Modulator's Friday Ark now boarding.

Sarah "a genius controlling the world from her Facebook page"?

Show 'em a little ankle and leave 'em laughing, begging for more. Sarah Palin's girly strategery is leaving political adversaries inside the Beltway and their media fellow travelers reeling. They never did get her. Above, a frame from today's Day by Day cartoon, "Waiting for GOP."

ABC White House reporter and twitterer extraordinaire Jake Tapper's Sunday Roundtable of talking heads was inclined to disagree with Tapper's father-in-law, but we think the old man's onto something:

Sarah Palin is “a genius controlling the world from her FaceBook page.”

She throws the "death panel" bomb, the commentariat explodes and lawmakers retreat:

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, one of six lawmakers negotiating on a Senate bill, said Thursday they had dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration "entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly."

Friday she threw a "pubic option" bomb, and today the Con Man in Chief claims to be backing off, but the Professor is not impressed:

RETREAT? White House Appears Ready To Drop “Public Option.” I suspect it’s a Parthian retreat ["a feigned retreat, luring the enemy into a prepared counterattack. See, e.g., Crassus." Thanks for the new word, Professor Reynolds!].

On the other hand, you've got a real marketing problem when your own people are having to publicly pledge not to kill old people.

"This is no 'retreat,'" emails Robert Bidinotto:

The co-op arrangement is simply the public option by another name, and by a more circuitous, stealthy route — with the same ultimate objective: nationalized healthcare.

Stealth is the very essence of Obama & Company's modus operandi, and we've known it in our gut since that day way back in December of 2006 when bouncing baby candidate Barack Obama sprung onto the national stage full blown from Oprah's brow:

"Obviously it is flattering to get a lot of attention, but I must say it is baffling, particularly to my wife,” Obama quipped.

We cringed at the disingenuousness, but it was when he called us a racist that our heart turned to stone:

Are some voters not going to vote for me because I’m African-American? Those are the same voters who probably wouldn’t vote for me because of my politics.

The silver lining of this dark cloud is our fellow citizens' resounding rejection of the president's ill-concealed contempt for the Shining City Upon a Hill. As we wrote awhile back, "I am tea party woman, hear me roar!"

Update: Cross posted at Amba's Cloven not Crested.

Sarah Palin: The first Mrs. Smith among equals going to Washington?

"And where was the dog?" teaparty buddy Stoutcat of Grand Rants wants to know in the comments to our previous post. "If I can't see kitteh photos at Sisu, I at least expect to see dog pix." Bird Dog of Maggie's Farm agrees, minus the cats: "Would you please get a darn dog or two, Sissy? Sheesh." Herewith, Jack in the loving arms of his papa Chris at Tuesday's Town Hall mob activities in Portsmouth, NH.

"That's one of my favorite movies," Karl Rove is telling Glenn Beck in response to the question "Do you like 'Mr Smith Goes to Washington'?" Beck worries that we don't have one inspiring leader, but Rove sets him straight:

Tens of thousands of Mr and Mrs Smiths are going to Washington. We don't need a single leader.

After the Town "Holler" event Tuesday we moseyed south down the pike to the Harborside Restaurant in Newburyport, where seagulls looking for handouts were locked in laridacious combat to determine who ruled the roof adjacent to the plein air porch where we sipped and noshed. Hadn't been there for five years or more and were pleasantly surprised at the size — dozens upon dozens — of the fleet of pleasure craft along both sides of the Merrimack. And this in a recession?

But if there WERE a single leader, could it be Sarah Palin as the first Mrs Smith among equals going to Washington? Unlike many brainy Beltway Republicans, Rove was open-minded from day one, August 29, 2008, when rumors began to fly that John McCain was going to shake things up by choosing an unknown frontierswoman from Alaska as his running mate:

She is very smart. She is very personable. She's one of these people who's very approachable. People are going to like her.

And her masterful playing of the national spin machine — check out her FaceBook answer to the president's dissing of her "Death Panels" meme — continues to leave the spinmeisters reeling. As Judge Napolitano just told Bret Baier, all Sarah has to remember is that freedom rang "200 years ago because people like her were not afraid to challenge authority."

Update: For your edification and listening pleasure, Ronald Reagan on the attempted stealth imposition of socialized medicine in a 1961 chat as paid spokesperson for the AMA before it sold out.

Update II: For your viewing pleasure, all things bright and beautiful at Modulator's Friday Ark #256.

Update III: "Sissy has a way of relaying events that makes one believe they were shoulder to shoulder with her the entire day!" writes Pam of Pamibe:

Great writing and great photographs! Oh, and be sure to follow the link at the end of the post. Some things never change.

For the good and for the bad.

Update IV: "I like the concept," writes Dan Riehl of Riehl World View:

And Sarah Palin does seem to have the star power to make the vehicle work. It'll take more than that to produce it. But it isn't a bad start.

Something else Palin has: Authenticity. Like Reagan, The Great Communicator — and unlike Obama, The Great Obfuscator, as Newt calls him in a must-read — SHE TRUSTS US!

"Health Plan: Government acting stupidly"

It was species recognition for lovers and haters of President Obama's plan to take over 1/6 of the nation's economy as August Obamacare Sale Daze hit coastal New England Tuesday in anticipation of the POTUS's historic visit to Portsmouth NH. We honked for the "Honk: No Obamacare" boys (above) and found ourselves reflexively giving the tribal salute or its opposite (not quite the finger but a certain understated rolling-eyeballs glare) to everyone whose path we crossed depending upon their slogans.

Pedestrians with whom we would normally have had just brief eye contact and continued on our way became fellow travelers to high five and chat with on the "Live Free or Die" road. We LOVED this gal's news-savvy "Health Plan: Govt acting stupidly" sign with its sadder-but-wiser reference to the President's recent unpleasantness with the Cambridge Police Department. Shall we have a beer on it?

Adorable families were out in numbers. Nobody cuter than the spunky little girl with her "Obama lies, Grandma dies" sign. Update: We caught a brief interview with the youngster's mother on CNN next morning. The clueless interviewer was unamusingly not amused.

 

This one stopped our heart. No comment necessary, but if there's anyone more poignant than the earnest young sons and daughters of a soldier, likely to become tomorrow's defenders of this Shining City Upon a Hill, we can't think who.

We fell to chatting with this spirited jumpsuit-clad Vietnam vet. As with Sarah Palin, all our best friends and the animals, it's the authenticity, stupid, a quality you don't get with the Con-Man-in-Chief and his henchmen. Later as we were wending our way out of the loop back toward the car, we came upon our friend in hot dispute with a disagreeable fellow with attitude, the man in blue below whom she named a member of ACORN.

Don't know for sure whether he was from ACORN, but we do know from a Boston Globe report — not to mention our eyes: We witnessed two busses with Obama slogan in window pulling up to the front of the line at Portsmouth High School as hundreds of ticket holders waited to enter the auditorium (below) — that a contingency of AFL-CIO supporters would be on hand to stir the pot.

Were we a fan of President Obama's, something we could never be since that day in December of 2006 when he called us a racist because we don't agree with his political philosophy, we would have been thrilled to stand in line among the patron-blessed ticket holders waiting patiently to be admitted to the inner sanctum. Fortunately, "Hot air has never been our thing."

While the beautiful people (Suzi pretty in pink baseball cap, Tuck in straw Panama hat and Chris in Brooks Brothers suit! above) struck Bergmanesque Cries and Whispers poses, we allowed ourselves to get swept up into the high-energy intensity of an NPR radio interview with the estimable Fred Thys:

Good guy, and we told him so when he asked why we were there. One reason, we said, was to let media folk like him whose job it is to inform his listeners know that there are anti-big-government people like us out here not sent by some nefarious "right-wing" cabal but just sick and tired of the president's attempts to ram more statist programs down our throats. Above a sweet school teacher answered the same questions we did. Her answers were softer than ours but from the heart. We brought up Charles Krauthammer's two-point program but could remember only one point, tort reform. The other point, portability, eluded us at the moment, [O, brain, where is thy victory?] but we did well in explaining how the threat of malpractice lawsuits produces the unanticipated consequences of doctors' ordering unnecessary tests and erosion of the doctor/patient trust relationship. Update: Here's the NPR report next day.

Then we were off to Pease Tradeport for Air Force One watch. LOTSA people there, more than at the high school we think. A great place to be of a New England summer's day. Good air.

I see it, I see it!

While waiting and watching for Airport One to appear, we had a fun and funny conversation with an Obamaphile. We knew her politics 'cause she was wearing buttons on her "sleeve," so to speak, while by that point we had left our own "Just say no" signs in the car. As we engaged in pleasantries about the excitement of seeing the President's plane up close, we treaded softly, not betraying our anti-Obama mindset. We talked about how getting tickets to the town hall was a patronage thing. She asserted that Obama had let as many dissenters as supporters get tickets. NOT. By contrast, George Bush had never allowed dissenters at any of his events. WHAT? Realizing it was time, we confessed that we were coming from the opposite side of the aisle and suggested we call it a day. A strange and illicit sensation talking with someone who thinks you're a member of her tribe when you know you aren't. Nice lady, though.

Update: Icky Poo. A reminder from Michelle Malkin, if needed, why we're so glad we didn't get tickets:

Little girl at Obama town hall has not-so-random political connections. A girl from Malden asked President Obama a question at Tuesday’s town hall meeting in New Hampshire about the signs outside “saying mean things” about his health care proposal.

Yah. Really mean things like "Just say no!"

Update: We "crash" PJMTVs Pajama Teaparty.

Update II: Instalanche! See also blog buddy neo-neocon's amusing and insightful exegesis of the "Angry White Man" double standard, wherein she asks the imponderable "What could be Angrier and Whiter and Manner than than an outlieing liar?"

Update III: Thanks to the Anchoress for including our post in one of her must-read, comprehensive linkapaloozas, "Klavan, “Health” Panels & Goldsteins."

"We don't want to be the community where something bad happens"

The foreshortened, layered view from our front porch in Chelsea-by-the-Sea with Bunker Hill Monument and 19th-century Charlestown townhouses in the distance, a ramp of the 20th-century Mystic River Bridge and 21st-century harbor cruise boats in the middle ground and our own Eastern Salt pile across the street up close framing the scene, suggested a metaphor for how far the nation's powers that be, succumbing to our species' worst totalitarian impulses, may have strayed from the vision of the Sons of Liberty and the Shining City Upon a Hill.

Update 8 o'clock Tuesday morning: Fox News reporting streets leading to Portsmouth High School are already line with people!

Update: Thanks to Amy in the comments for "a heads up from Portsmouth police about parking, etc.

The Leader of the Free World is coming to the Portsmouth, NH, High School just up the pike from us tomorrow (We're attending a peaceful protest, details here), and what does our local Boston TV have to say? Pretty fair and balanced at first, noting Portsmouth police are putting on extra details. "We don't want to be the community where something bad happens. Their mission is just to be heard," says a local man in blue. Then the inevitable: The fresh-faced if intellectually incurious local reporter, Kimberly Bookman of News Center 5, asserts police will be there to make sure protesters "won't lash out and end up in handcuffs" like earlier anti-Obamacare demonstrators. Had Ms. Bookman been keeping an ear to the ground on talk radio, Fox News, the blogosphere and the twittersphere, she would have known that the only handcuffs and arrests so far in this summer of our discontent involved union thugs bussed in to intimidate legitimate protestors like us.

More likely the cute but clueless local freelancer has her ear to the ground on the fading Gray Lady, whose editorial decisions apparently continue to set the agenda for major broadcasters, even as the sun sets on old media memes. Which brings us to Sarah Palin, the brightest star in the Shining-City-Upon-a-Hill community, whose every utterance sends the New York Times and fellow travelers into a death spiral. "The United States, like most countries, has long had a lunatic fringe who channel in the flotsam of delusion, half-facts and conspiracy theories," writes Pulitzer-Prizewinner Timothy Egan, unwittingly diagnosing his own psychological ailment as he projects his symptoms upon people like us "who should know better":

In Egypt, 43 percent of people think Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks in America, a poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org found last year. In the United States, six percent of Americans say the moon landing of 40 years ago was staged, according to Gallup.

And in Alaska, the former governor, a woman who was nearly a heartbeat away from the presidency, now tells followers that “Obama death panels” could decide if her parents and her baby, Trig, who has Down’s Syndrome, will live or die [Our own diagnosis of Sarah's use of muscular language here].

The United States, like most countries, has long had a lunatic fringe who channel in the flotsam of delusion, half-facts and conspiracy theories. But now, with the light-speed and reach of the Web, “entire virtual crank communities,” as the conservative writer David Frum called them, have sprung up. They are fed, in the case of Sarah Palin, by people who should know better.

'Guess we should know better, but since we don't, we'll be out there, camera and amateur reporter's notebook in hand, on the frontline outside Portsmouth High School tomorrow morning. Stay tuned.