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GOP Blue Bloods and the politics of envy

Our camera's eye caught Peter Ingemi — aka the "Blogfather of the Axis of Fedora" — of DaTechGuy's Blog in his element last spring, a self-contained social-networking hub sitting pretty on Boston Common at the Boston Tea Party with Sarah Palin April 14. Pete's the real thing, an internet-savvy shoe-leather reporter, "willing to ask questions to complete strangers," as his buddy Stacy McCain explained after appearing on the brand new "DaTechGuy on DaRadio" show on WCRN-AM 830 recently. We'll be making our own radio debut as "primary call-in guest" of the show this Saturday, December 5, at 5 p.m. Future guests include heavyweights Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs and Dan Riehl of Riehl World View. Awesome! Listen here day after tomorrow. We also appeared briefly about 2/3 of the way in during last week's show. Update: Sissy Talks!

Google "politics of envy" and you get a lot of ink from both sides of the aisle discussing class warfare. Together with identity politics, it's the left's weapon of choice. But are we witnessing a corresponding politics of envy on the right that turns the concept on its head as members of the GOP Ruling Class — the "blue bloods" called out by Sarah Palin this week in a radio interview with Laura Ingraham — awaken from their comfortable stupor to the sound of pitchfork-bearing members of the Country Class at the gates? We'll try to answer that in a moment, but first a nice little summary of the traditional concept from Todd Dittmann's American Thinker essay "The Dead-End Politics of Envy":

Class envy, albeit one of the two foundations of the modern Democratic Party's soul (identity politics being the other), is very divisive and fuels mob rule. It is a tool that exploits happy people who were previously neither aware of their forced group membership nor of their antipathy toward other groups. It is a tool used in previous tyrannies but one that should remain on the historical scrap heap.

Now turn that picture around so the "haves" are envying the "have-nots." That's the GOP powers that be, the Northeast Corridor Conservative fuddy-duddies like Peggy Noonan and Charles Krauthammer we've been calling out since late summer of 2008 and, post November election, establishment figures like Barbara Bush and Alan Simpson, for their gratuitous dismissals of the likes of Sarah Palin and us Tea Partiers. "The key ingredients are arrogance and inertia," writes John Hayward in his masterful Human Events essay "The Blue Bloodbath":

“Blue blood” is a term that resonates with a frustrated nation, weary of serving at the pleasure of an insular ruling class. The inheritance of power, through family or party machinery, is of far greater concern to middle-class Americans than the inheritance of wealth.

As Sarah told Laura, the "haves" want to "pick their winners, instead of allowing competition to pick and choose the winners," but having had a taste of the power to choose in the recent primaries, the "have-nots" are going for blood. "There’s a lot more going on behind the scenes of the GOP than most grassroots conservatives suspect," cautions Stacy McCain, who gets us up to speed with some of the machinations behind the rhetoric:

I’ve long warned that there is a Jeb 2012 bandwagon geared up and ready to roll at a moment’s notice, if Jeb decides to take a shot at it. If that doesn’t happen, the Bushies are trying to keep their thumb on the scale, to make sure that whoever gets the 2012 nomination, it’s someone acceptable to them. But the Bushies know that, whatever else happens, it’s all over for them if Sarah Palin gets the 2012 nomination.

Then there's the Karl Rove angle, from Politico (h/t Dan Riehl):

Some of former President George W. Bush’s top allies and political hands are trying to regain control of the Republican National Committee, and so far they haven’t exactly been welcomed back.

A final word. As we were psyching up for our "primary call-in guest" appearance on "DaTechGuy on DaRadio" show this Saturday (see caption above), Pete Ingemi asked what we'd like to talk about:

The topic du jour around here seems to be the GOP old guard's extreme case of Palin Derangement Syndrome. They're picking up the left's tired meme of her being a quitter who's too dumb to be President and running with it at an alarming rate in the general direction of the dustbin of history.

The phenomenon may at bottom be what can be called "Green Journalism." I'm borrowing the term from twitter friend Whitney Pitcher of Conservatives 4 Palin, who coined it for GOPers who are recycling the anti-Palin narrative. As I was reading her headline before reading her post, a lightbulb went off: It's the Green Monster — JEALOUSY! — that's got the GOP fuddy-duddies' panties in a bunch.

Update: Maggie's links.

Update II: Diana Retriever links.

Update III: Instalanche! Thank you, Professor Reynolds.

Update IV: Lots of thoughtful commenters upset at our apparent lumping together of Charles Krauthammer with Peggy Noonan. Here's our response:

I agree with you that unlike Peggy Noonan, Charles Krauthammer is a genuine conservative, a long-time favorite of mine till he came down with PDS (Palin Derangement Syndrome) in the late summer of 2008. Litmus tests were never my thing at all, by the way. My beef with Dr. Krauthammer is what I take to be a contempt for tea partiers like myself implied in his gratuitous dissing of Palin's intelligence. Please check out my July 2009 post "Newsbites and viewsbites and the power of crowd-sourced journalism" for more thoughts on the subject.

Cross-posted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Barbara Bush vs Sarah Palin: "Sarah is all class"

"Barbara Bush Should Shut Up," says Dan Riehl. Oh no. Not our Bar. Painful to acknowledge, but after a lifetime of embracing the former first lady's persona of outspoken authenticity, we have to admit she no longer speaks to us. See below for details. Above, GHWB and Barbara in a Larry King interview that will air Monday.

"I think they really hate that she not only is who she is, but she's happy not to be like them," twittered Kurt Schlichter earlier this afternoon as we were reading the entrails of the once proud Barbara Bush's fall from grace in a forthcoming Larry King interview where the wife and mother of two former presidents stoops to give that "force of nature," Sarah Palin, some ill-advised, unsolicited advice:

"I sat next to [Palin] once. Thought she was beautiful," Barbara Bush scoffed said. "And she's very happy in Alaska, and I hope she'll stay there."

And to think we once admired Bar Bush for her classiness. As Dan Riehl put it so eloquently, "Barbara Bush Should Shut Up," while Pat Riccio twittered rhetorically:

"Palin's never said one bad word re GWB, yet every former Bush official attacks her?? Y? Snobbery? Entitlement?"

"Both of those," we responded:

Plus, I'm start'g to think, FEAR of the "force of nature" that is SarahPalin --> back to our Founding Fathers' vision. [See Sarah's latest Facebook entry, "An Exclusive Sneak Peek at 'America By Heart,'" for details]

"I agree! They saw what she accomplished in AK with GOP reform. They fear she'll do it nationally," twittered Daria DiGiovanni with this heartwarming personal testimonial to Sarah Palin's worth:

Sarah is all class. Last year I sent her a copy of my novel with a note inside. She sent me a signed thank you.

It's one of my most treasured things. She didn't have to do that, but she took the time. Appreciated my kind words to her.

It was my own novel. In her note, she referenced the title and thanked me for my kind words. At time she was still Governor.

It isn't that we Palinistas necessarily want Sarah to run for President. As we blogged a couple of weeks back:

We predict that over time, as the authentic Palin "brand" becomes better known amongst our fellow Americans, her "numbers" will rise. Presidential candidate or kingmaker, time will tell.

Meanwhile, Kurt Schlichter captures the conscience of the king/maker :

I think she's a classy, smart lady. I dunno if POTUS 2012 is the right move, but I want her dealing pain to libs and RINOs.

Update: Michelle Malkin Buzzworthy link!

Update II: "Barbara Bush to Palin" top story at Memeorandum.

Crossposted at Riehl World View, Cloven Not Crested and Liberty Pundits.

"The inherent condescension at the heart of the anti-Palin campaign"

Mel Gibson in 'The Patriot"' outfoxes the Redcoat," we captioned this image in our April 2010 post "Obama as George III, a 'clueless foreign ruler from central casting": "Their mindset hobbled by top-down regimentation, the Brits were no match for the nimble, leaderless rabble in arms, whose bottom-up  — aka grassroots — tactics resonate in today's Tea Party movement that has old-think politicians and their media allies scrambling for cover."

"While Palin might never be the rockstar Obama is, her vision may be greater," Richard Fernandez writes in a perceptive if flawed analysis of two "Competing Visions." Citing Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen and other members of Angelo Codevilla's "Ruling Class" who fell hard for the purple prose of Barack Obama's snake-oil sales pitch in the heady days of election 2008 even as they suffered the throes of Palin Derangement Syndrome, Fernandez gets it almost right. Here's Cohen reflexively reciting the legacy-media liturgy:

The fierce stupidity of this woman is hard to comprehend. It is the well from which she draws her political sustenance. … Katie Couric’s CBS, the network she thinks so unfairly skewered her by asking, for instance, what newspapers she reads. … The polls say she can’t win. I betcha Palin thinks she can’t lose.

Fernandez delves deeper for a stunning insight:

Cohen thinks it is all about winning the presidency. Putting a Her in place of the Him. It never occurs to Cohen that Palin might think more in terms of helping her country “win" than in personally occupying the Oval Office …

Palin has the ability to generate leaders other than herself. That quality was in evidence in the recent campaign when she successfully encouraged others, some of whom had never been in public life before, to throw their hats in the ring and run for office..

… then falls back upon the inevitable Palin disclaimer:

It would be odious to compare Sarah Palin to George Washington but less of a stretch to liken Cohen to George III.

Odious to compare Palin to George Washington? Tunku Varadarajan's patronizing words of the other day come to mind:

The best — the only — way to "manage" Palin would be for the Republican establishment to treat her with respect, and to avoid any hint at all of a patronizing attitude.

Even our own ever thoughtful and astute Elizabeth Scalia flirts with condescension in her must-read "Tea Party Candidates Must Learn the Art of Fencing":

This is something Sarah Palin (and for that matter, the Tea Partiers) may wish to keep in mind for 2012. Palin is perfectly capable of deft bladework, but too often chooses to attack when a parry-and-feint will do. Her methods may please her press-hating base but — as we see with Angle and O’Donnell — one needs more than principles and an echo-chamber-emboldened base in order to win an election. One needs to be able to demonstrate skill with a keen-edged sword, so that when one lifts it above the noise and the babble, a majority will want to follow it to victory.

Admittedly a Mama Grizzly fan from day one because of Sarah's charisma, common-sense intelligence and authenticity, we guess that makes us part of her "echo-chamber-emboldened base," and according to professional pollsters her "popularity still lags." But Sarah's calling out of the "lamestream media" resonates. As we wrote in Scalia's comments:

[Sarah's] energetic embrace of the full panoply of media, old and new — from Twitter and Facebook to Fox News, Entertainment TV, her forthcoming TLC "Sarah Palin's Alaska" series and even her daughter Bristol's appearances on Dancing with the Stars — allows her to disintermediate the gateway media and reach the hearts and minds of the Country Class on her own terms. PLUS, unlike the President's unpresidential attacks on us "folks" he calls "enemies," her colorful, targeted attacks on the legacy media have the ring of truth.

We predict that over time, as the authentic Palin "brand" becomes better known amongst our fellow Americans, her "numbers" will rise. Presidential candidate or kingmaker, time will tell. Cinnamon Stillwell described the "Palin Effect" way back in September of 2008:

What her detractors don't seem to realize is that in the process of insulting Palin, they are insulting the majority of the country. If being a self-made success story, a working mother, a church-going member of a small-town community and a believer in moderate to conservative political viewpoints disqualifies Palin, what does that say about mainstream America? The inherent condescension at the heart of the anti-Palin campaign is coming across loud and clear, and it may actually be boosting her popularity.

Update: For the latest on the "Palin Effect," be sure to read Melissa Clouthier's rousing "I Am Sarah Palin, See Me Roar: Reclaiming America With New Leaders." Is Marco Rubio on Sarah's short list?

Update II: You'll get teary eyed. Well, we did, anyway. Stacy McCain gets Doug Hoffman on the phone and posts a touching tribute to a great patriot:

Doug Hoffman's Legacy in 2010 Victories.

As we wrote in Stacy's comments:

Thank you, Doug, and thank you Stacy. Doug's campaign represents my own come-to-Jesus moment, as described in this October 27, 2009 post: "Give to strategic small-government candidates, not parties."

In rereading that post, I notice that Marco Rubio — future President of the United States? — was among my earliest out-of-state targeted candidates. Thrilling to be part of the Army of Davids who are retaking the Shining City!

 Update III: Stacy links!

Crossposted at Riehl World View, Cloven Not Crested and Liberty Pundits.

Stacy McCain scoops The Huffington Post

"While the media focused largely on Palin's support for [Alaska Repubican gubernatorial candidate Joe] Miller, Mike Huckabee's political organization was also playing a key role in turning out conservative voters," reported CNN late August, noting that while "The Palin endorsement was guaranteed to draw more attention … the former Arkansas governor and Fox News host quickly put his political action committee to work for Miller — another example, his aides say, of Huckabee's underappreciated influence on races around the country." With visions of 2012 on the horizon, things are getting complicated in Alaska. See below for more.

"Internal Emails Suggest Palin to Run for President," goes the breathless Huffington Post headline, top story on Memeorandum, but it's blog/twitterfriend Stacy McCain who's got the scoop. On Twitter we'd noticed and retweeted Memeorandum's listing of the HuffPo story. Adrenalin flowing at rumors of a rift between the Palins and Alaska senatorial candidate Joe Miller over the latter's failure to officially endorse Palin for President when asked about it on Fox News Sunday mid-September, we breathlessly twittered sistah grizzly Cubachi:

Let's get rsmccain to ask the First Dude about it. Or how 'bout our sistah grizzly rachellefriberg to ask "The Pistol"!

Cubachi reached Stacy, aka The Other McCain, who picked up the ball — or more precisely the phone! — and ran with it. He's the disintermediating gumshoe reporter, you may recall, who charmed his way into the Palins' Wasilla living room a few weeks back, "Meeting Mr. Palin." A couple of excerpts from that post to set the scene for today's breaking news:

Rumor is that the Palins are out of town and hope of an interview seems doomed to disappointment. Then my cell phone rings. "This is Todd Palin," says the man on the phone. We chat briefly about the recent GOP primary victory of Joe Miller. I explain that I've driven 50 miles from Anchorage to Wasilla just to get a sense of the town where Sarah began her political career as a city council member and mayor …

Professionally, I'm obliged to mention speculation about Sarah's plans for 2012, but Todd says his wife is currently focused on the upcoming mid-term congressional elections, now less than nine weeks away. And after November? I wasn't taking notes and my memory is notoriously dodgy, so it's possible that Todd's answer was, "We'll see."

Fast forward to this afternoon when Stacy apparently made a few calls and churned out the story in record time, "Palin Backers Suspect Huckabee Loyalists on Joe Miller Staff Behind E-Mail Leak":

“This is the worst sort of betrayal I’ve ever seen,” one source close to Sarah Palin said in describing the leak of an e-mail that Todd Palin sent to Joe Miller, the Alaska GOP Senate candidate.

The source noted that some of Miller’s campaign staff have connections to 2008 Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, and suggested that these staffers have been advising Miller to distance himself from Palin.

"In my haste to get this post online, I may have pulled the trigger too quickly — a hazard of the light-speed news cycle in the Internet age," Stacy writes in an update just as we were about to go to press:

A few words have been changed, so that no one draws the wrong conclusion. And, indeed, I have just learned that the Miller campaign is prepared to deny responsibility for the e-mail leak …

But the problem of divided loyalties within the Miller campaign staff — that some Huckabee supporters are “f–ing everything up” — is dead-on accurate. For several months, I've been concerned that the mid-term might suffer because some Republicans are looking ahead to 2012.

Update: Linked at Michelle Malkin's Buzzworthy!

Update II: Huffington story with links to The Other McCain and sisu is top item on Memeorandum. Our buddy Da Tech Guy's there too, with this bit of wisdom:

The fact that this is the top story on Memeorandum does say this: If Sarah Palin announces for the republican nomination she is the defacto front-runner. Democrats ought to be damn scared but some republican establishment types are more scared.

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Twitter's a Beach, Chris Christie Edition

"The wrecking ball from NJ, Governor Christie, and the border stalwart from AZ, Governor Brewer - 2012 President and VP ticket?" twittered Shaggy Bull last evening, putting a bee in our bonnet that we've been promulgating amongst our followers. Some definite interest out there. In related news, the wrecking ball twittered us this afternoon (see below for details), and now our name is right up there in the "Twitter Feed" column of his official web site. Don't know how we got there, but we're enjoying the ride.

We just got a personal tweet from one of our heroes, NJ Governor Chris Christie:

SissyWillis, SaveJersey, JoeNBC It is a glorious morning 4 America Joe. Enjoy it. I am enjoying it with my family @ the Jersey Shore.

Gasping for breath and fanning ourselves in near ecstasy, we twittered back:

Thanks for tweeting me. I am now the envy of all my friends. :D Hubby & I enjoying lovely day at home in Chelsea-by-the-Sea, MA

On this "glorious morning 4 America," Tuck is out re-roofing the garage, while we are here in the studio flying through cyberspace. Not everyone's idea of the perfect Fourth of July celebration, but it works for us, and isn't that what freedom's all about? Later on we'll grill some burgers and watch the fireworks across Boston Harbor from our front porch. But we digress …

Governor Christie, AKA "The Wrecking Ball from NJ," has a personal relationship with the above-mentioned JoeNBC, on whose MSNBC show he appeared the other day, but a quick scanning of TWB'S recent tweets suggests that twittering someone like ourselves — a denizen of Dan Collins's "Island of Misfit Bloggers" — may represent a new direction. Could Christie's staff be channeling Dan Riehl?:

As a long time observer of and participant in Right-side new media, there are some big changes coming together. Dana Loesch, among others, represents that change. It's as much a maturing, as it is remaining fresh and young. Check out the Cedra Crenshaw video below …

Early on, it was often a big slice of angry ranting, combined with a more pedestrian repeating of the GOP meme of the day. Many of those elements still exist, but there's something else going on.

Matt Lewis' Top 25 Twitter list typifies some of these folks; there are many more, like my friend Sissy Willis [Look, Ma!], who is a must follow and blogs here on occasion, as she's an important voice for a particular segment of the GOP base. The movement isn't one thing, it's made up of many parts, or factions …

Add in Andrew Breitbart's big investment in the Right on line [his latest, Big Peace, premiers today], Pajamas TV, The Daily Caller, The Tea Party movement mostly on the ground, but connected in - and one can see a serious, yet occasionally snarky, fun and attractive, yet substantive movement taking shape out here. I believe, as I've always believed, that such a movement is going to bring big and positive changes to America. And it's exciting and rewarding to feel a part of it at this critical point in the political history of America.

Update: The Anchoress links with "A smaller revolution."

Cross-posted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

NOT watching the Oval Office Gulf Speech: See no evil, hear no evil, tweet no evil?

 

View from the porch early morning, with Bunker Hill Monument visible through layers of bureaucracy infrastructure, the McCardle Bridge between Chelsea and East Boston in foreground and a secondary span of the Mystic River Bridge in the background.

"Couldn't watch — See no evil, hear no evil, tweet no evil?" we twittered Professor Jacobson this morning, sending our regrets in response to an invitation to join his live feed of President Obama's Oval Office Gulf oil speech last night. The professor himself watched and summarized so we didn't have to, capturing the essence with his customary brilliance and economy of means in "Obama's Gulf Speech In One Sentence":

I don't know where I'm going, but follow me anyway.

Like Sarah Palin, criticized for dissing a Newsweek cover story about herself without having read the thing — Does ANYONE still read Newsweek? — we know what we know. Fortunately or unfortunately, we've had the Conman-in-Chief's number since that cold day in December of 2006 when the presidential hopeful called us a racist:

"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," Barack Obama told ecstatic New Hampshire voters yesterday. Being one of those voters who probably wouldn't vote for him because of his politics, we were naturally offended at his suggestion that people like us are racists. Swept up in the locals' devotional hysteria, however, the media didn't seem to notice. Folks hear what they want to hear.

After three and a half years, the fawning media have begun to notice and hear what they don't want to hear, and according to reliable sources, "the reviews are not very good":

Teagan Goddard rounds up some of the inside the beltway set, aka the irrelevant to the real world young elite - Klein, Ambinder, Chait and Cillizza and Green. The reviews are not very good.

The MSNBC video via Real Clear Politics is worse - no tingle for Chris, no solutions for Keif.

More video, as Frank Luntz's focus group says thumbs down.

"The GREEN Issue. Eco-chic heats up … Laurie David Save the Planet" headlined the April 2007 issue of Elle "just in time for the fast-approaching Earth Day. Laurie David and Danny Seo are guest editors" gushed the promo.

FANTASY VERSION OF THIS POST: The Oval Office speech was pre-empted by yesterday's revelation of Al Gore's 40-year itch, with wall-to-wall coverage on all the cables:

Star has learned that Al has been having an affair with Laurie [David], who divorced Seinfeld creator and Curb Your Enthusiasm star Larry David [a producer of Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" ] in 2007 amidst reports she was cheating with the caretaker of their Martha's Vineyard summer home …

Laurie, 49, appears to have become infatuated with her 44-year-old building contractor, Bart Thorpe. Described as "a shirtless hunk" in one breathless account and as "a hottie but dumb", Thorpe has since been spotted holding hands with Laurie David. "Bart is so besotted he doesn't know which end is up," says a neighbour. "He thinks Laurie David is the greatest person in the world. He says she's single-handedly saving the planet.

As Dan Riehl cracked, "I guess she likes her men earthy!"

Update: Melissa Clouthier connects the dots:

If there is anything worse for a leader than rhetorical impotence, I don’t know what it is. Even a sex scandal implies some sort of virility. But empty words?

Update II: Michelle Malkin "Buzzworthy" link!

Crossposted at Riel World View and Liberty Pundits.

President Obama as the nose in Sleeper?

"Here's Obama dropping in for a chat with his middle-class task force. And people made fun of Reagan because of his notecards!" fleers Rich Lowry at The Corner in "Teleprompter shot of the day."

"LMAO How did this guy ever get a law degree if he can't even talk to his staff on his feet?" asks Dan Riehl.

"Don't move or the nose gets it," Woody Allen threatened as Diane Keaton cringed in "Sleeper.

"It reminds me of the nose in Sleeper," we wrote in the comments":

Miles and Luna successfully infiltrate the Aries Project: they learn that the Leader was killed by a rebel bomb ten months previously, and all that survives is his nose. The nose has been kept alive, and the members of the Aries Project, mistaking Miles and Luna for doctors, want them to clone the leader from this single remaining part. Instead, Miles steals the nose and "assassinates" it by squashing it under a steamroller.

Scott Brown and The Brown Revolution as a metaphorical Miles?

Obama minions astroturfing an unsuspecting media?

"Bungalow Bill at BBCW alerted his readers to the fact that an Ellie Light Facebook page has been started; they also used the image that he created," writes Left Coast Rebel, a Photoshop montage merging President Obama's face with a woman's body, a stand-in for prolific letters-to-the-editor writer Ellie Light, rumored to be Samantha "Hillary's a Monster" Power.

"These letters really do strike that blame-others, self-pitying tone we have all come to know so well in Obama's 411 speeches in the past year," writes blog buddy Amy Kane,  catching the conscience of would-be kingmakers possibly trying to shore up Obamacare by planting flagrantly astroturfed, identically worded snarky "letters-to-the-editor" in various publications across the nation. A sample quotation:

So let’s get this straight. Obama’s predecessor took America to war under false pretense, citing "weapons of mass destruction" that everyone agrees did not exist, and today’s Republicans don’t want Obama addressing children because of "indoctrination?"

Can you say right out of the Bush-Derangement-Syndrome playbook? The rhetoric is so tired, so false but accurate, so adolescent in tone. Where are the grownups? Well, since you asked, Dan Riehl, Pat from Patterico's Pontifications, Left Coast Rebel, Bungalo Bill's Conservative Wisdom and others are on the case, delving into IP addresses, twitter accounts and other such arcana to trace the propagandists back -- Where? To the White House itself? -- to the heart of darkness where taxpayers' dollars may or may not be being spent to soften an unwitting electorate into accepting the force-feeding of an unwanted, sweeping health-care overhaul.

More scripted talking points masquerading as grassroots concern intended to misdirect the reader's attention from what's really going on behind the curatin:

Our previous president preached war against Iraq to anyone who would listen, children, adults, young and old, making us partners in his blunder, and the Republicans dare talk of keeping their children safe from Obama’s ideas? What are Obama’s ideas? That the government can be an active partner in change, rather than a nuisance. And this notion is supposed to be bad? The Republican Party seems determined to be “against” everything Democrats want.

Here's delving Dan, rooting out the facts, ma'am, just the facts:

The story was originally broken by The Cleveland Plain Dealer. Patterico is adding up the number of times the letter has appeared - still growing, it seems. And the Left Coast Rebel seems to still be on the case, as well. Stay tuned ...

It increasingly looks as though there's a fairly sophisticated spamming, or astroturfing campaign going on in support of Obama. Its target seems to be the op ed pages, in part, anyway.

Left Coast Rebel:

The Ellie Light [the name signed on dozens of the letters, each claiming to be a local reader] story has been gaining more and more attention across the net, Pat from Patterico's Pontifications contacted me and we were shooting around some details (secret for now). Pat also put up a new post at HotAir on the topic. Dan Riehl and I also have been discussing the topic (woo-hoo, LCR is swimming with the big fish!).

And Patterico:

The story is exploding. There is Astroturf everywhere. Go find some yourself. Just take phrases from suspicious-looking letters and put the phrases into Google and see what you find. Then report back here.

The Samantha Power connection alluded to above is intriguing. Obama's NSC senior director for "multilateral affairs," the Harvard Carr Center for Human Rights Policy professor is married to "libertarian paternalist" Cass "nudge" Sunstein, head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, where, among other things, he is responsible for "overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality and statistical programs," as Salon.com explains:

In 2008, while at Harvard Law School, Sunstein co-wrote a truly pernicious paper proposing that the U.S. Government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-"independent" advocates to "cognitively infiltrate" online groups and websites -- as well as other activist groups -- which advocate views that Sunstein deems "false conspiracy theories" about the Government.  This would be designed to increase citizens' faith in government officials and undermine the credibility of conspiracists.

There's no proof that the Administration is engaging in such bone-chillingly un-American activities, but as Dan Riehl says, stay tuned.This could be the next big under-the-radar disintermediation via the internet of the powers that be.

Update: Check out Michelle Malkin's link-rich round-up on all things faux green, "The Astroturf Presidency." A tasty tidbit:

Open-source-optimizing blogger Patterico has added much more information on both Donald Trump Astroturfing” (”a letter published in multiple places from one person claiming to live in multiple cities”) and “David Axelrod Astroturfing” (”identical letters published in multiple places claiming to be from different people”).

Who knew? Check out Malkin's Buzzworthy for what others are saying. We're in there too. Thanks, Michelle!

Obama is Al Sharpton with a better tailor

Tiger lily, tiger lily, burning bright. Framed by Starburst Lilies, Tiny on the front porch this afta soaks up the rays in the aftermath of a mild morning Nor'easter that gave us a good soaking.

A little birdie told us. Notes from the twittersphere. Race to the finish:

"If you are a racist, everything is about race, twitters ConNews.

Hucksters' hope:

Is "THE RACE INDUSTRY" TOO BIG TO FAIL? asks SissyWillis.

The clothes make the man?

"Obama is Al Sharpton with a better tailor," sez we.

Moral equivalence separates "us" from "them" both ways:

"BHO has conversation w/ Cambridge Police Sgt. and still comes in front of cameras and says that the Sgt. AND Prof. Gates 'OverReacted.' BULL!" twitters OwenS2.

Two warring tribes, a selection of our own tweets:

"Obama has nothing but contempt for the 'little people.'"

"Thrilling the way law enforcement brotherhood standing behind Sgt. Crowley against the vicious racialist attack of members of the 'race industry.'"

"The left's 'critique' of the right = psychological projection."

Conman Aversion Derangement Syndrome (CADS) comes to mind.

Update from our imail correspondent:

Just caught up with Sisu. Am delighted that Obama's "God Damn America" Reverend Wright slip is showing.

A girl can't be too careful.

An Army of Twitterers

"Sometimes I write a post and think, This is going to get huge traffic. Then I post it and watch in disbelief as people collectively shrug their shoulders and ignore it," writes Michael Hyatt in "The Sovereignty of Readers." Image is from his post "Some Twitterers Worth Following,"

"Do you think he could be blander?' scoffs Ann Althouse regarding the maddeningly bloodless language the Leader of the Free World used today to express "deep concerns" about Iran's hotly disputed election:

What I will repeat … is that when I see violence directed at peaceful protesters, when I see peaceful dissent being suppressed, wherever that takes place, it is of concern to me, and it's of concern to the American people. That is not how governments should interact with their people. And my hope is that the Iranian people will make the right steps in order for them to be able to express their voices, to express their aspirations."

Some swoon at the President's "soaring rhetoric," but "When it comes down to words, our man [McCain] gets to the point three times faster than his opponent," we blogged back in the heat of the fall campaign:

Obama: "I am a person who believes [fill in the blank]" = 6 words

McCain: "I believe [fill in the blank]" = 2 words

"Must be that 'nuance' thing the Democrat elites are forever patting themselves on the back about," we'd chaffed at the time, noting "We ourselves have always been of the brevity-is-the-soul-of-wit school of intelligence assessment." As we wrote in Althouse's comments this afternoon:

Muscular prose reflects muscular thinking (Churchill, Reagan, GW). Flabby prose reflects flabby thinking (Chamberlain, Carter, Obama). Never use one metaphorically-charged noun or active verb when a string of colorless nouns and passive verbs will do.

We're with Frank J of IMHO, who twitters "If you wanted someone to speak forcefully on Iran, you should have elected a president with testicles." But like the White House itself with regard to Iran, "We have to deal with the American president that we have rather than the American president that we wish we had." Speaking of presidents we kind of wish we had, ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper engaged John McCain in an "impromptu twitterview" (140 or fewer characters per tweet) on the Iranian Tea Party this morning:

Tapper: what would u say were u president? how much of a concern wd it be that "the west" supporting protestors cd be demonized? Thx

McCain: we heard that during the Cold War when the left didn't want us criticizing the Soviet Union b/c we could have been "demonized" …

Tapper: So if President Obama called u and asked your advice what would u tell him?

McCain: speak up for these young Iranians who deserve a free and fair election.

While the American President that we do have "chose not to choose on Iran," as Jonah Goldberg put it, the folks at Twitter chose to "put themselves on the side of free expression, to let the battleground of ideas have it out," in the words of Research Director at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society Rob Fari, as Forbes reports:

But when the site's 90-minute maintenance window was announced Monday afternoon — in the midst of the service's use in organizing thousands of Iranian dissidents protesting alleged fraud in the national election — the result was a flood of thousands of requests to the site asking that Twitter delay the maintenance downtime …

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone wrote in a blog post on the site that Twitter had worked out a deal with its network provider, NTT America, to delay the maintenance.

Now we are being told that the State Department put in a word on the side of the angels [good on you, Mr. President, if that's so]. From Reuters:

Confirmation that the U.S. government had contacted Twitter came as the Obama administration sought to avoid suggestions it was meddling in Iran's internal affairs as the Islamic Republic battled to control deadly street protests over the election result.

Meddling while not meddling. Vintage Obama. More from the Washington Times:

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly declined to discuss the department's specific actions regarding Iran, but he said that officials were in touch with Twitter "all weekend." He also said that regular contacts between Foggy Bottom and the site on various issues had taken place long before the Iranian election.

Mary Katharine at the Standard weighs in on the relative weight of Government interference vs the Army of Davids Twitterers and the wisdom of crowds:

Well, if that ain't the cheapest, most effective government intervention I've seen all year …

The #nomaintenance campaign among Twitter's own users likely had something to do with the postponement, as well, especially given than Twitter users, in aggregate, likely pinpointed the problem and communicated it to Twitter's higher-ups much faster and more effectively than the State Department could have.

The bottom line, from that Forbes article:

"The buzzy startup's employees had likely recognized that supporting the dissidents in this case was also a savvy business decision, argues Rafal Rohozinski, a founder of the Infowar Monitor research group.

Unlike other Internet firms like Google, Microsoft  and Yahoo!, which have all been forced to choose in important cases between the interests of their users and those of the authoritarians who limit the rights of those users, Twitter's role as a protest tool fits snugly with its business motives, he contends.

"They're proving that 140 characters can build an instant mass market" he says. "I'm sure that raises their value as a company."

The Invisible Hand. Was there ever a more colorful metaphor for the self-regulating nature of the marketplace?

Update: "Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul,' The Anchoress quotes Emily Dickinson in one of her blockbuster linkathons (including us), "Twittering Liberty … and Hope," calling her readers to "Pray for the people of Iran; pray for good to triumph. Pray for their safety, their fortitude, their energy, their 'thing with feathers,' which is hope."

Update II: "The first female President," The News Junkie at Maggie's quips with a link.

Update III: And the winner is …

"The forty-fifth Best Sentence I’ve Heard Or Read Lately (BSIHORL) Award goes to Sissy Willis of SISU," writes Morgan Freeberg of House of Eratosthenes [via Brutally Honest] re our "Muscular prose reflects muscular thinking (Churchill, Reagan, GW)" paragraph, above.

The man obviously has taste.