James Joyner deems the Tea Party Movement bizarre, noting that a bunch of Congressional Perps are up for re-election in 2010. What are people supposed to do till then? Suck it up? Astroturf? Why it simply won’t do to demonstrate our anger at the socialization of America in the meanwhile, by whatever means we have at our disposal, is a subject that James doesn’t broach in this post. What makes it bizarre? Is it somehow unseemly?
Rick Moran has similar feelings, apparently. It’s not professional enough. We mustn’t do anything that is, quite frankly, even more futile than blogging into the void.
WTF?
Patterico, who is a stalwart defender of free speech, doesn’t like what the invited speakers had to say, because of the decorum? Because it is not the sort of image one wishes to project?
Look, I’m happy for anyone who got anything of value out of CPAC. But while everyone’s caught up in all of this to-and-fro over what constitutes acceptable speech acts, and what constitutes the sort of image that we all want to project (which is optimally whatever image one is himself projecting), we’re sort of losing sight of the fact that some other people are now–very now–legislating away our freedom to express our point of view at all.
So, all I can say is, if you’ve got any f-bombs in you, you might want to drop them while you can. Because it’s one thing for someone’s racist pastor to state that AIDS was concocted in a US government lab to bring a genocide down on Africans, but it’s another thing entirely to bake Drunken Negro Head Cookies. Do I think Drunken Negro Head Cookies are funny? No, but I will stand by someone’s right to bake them and even offer them for sale to the public to my last breath. Same, by the way, with whatever people want to put into the mouths of “retarded babies.”
And I reserve my right to complain about it, too. That’s not the same thing, though, as running people down for the manner in which they choose to couch their opinions because I’m afraid of how the MSM might choose to present it. Because, you know, fuck the MSM. They’re going to call it snark instead of irony, because that fits their pseudo-sophisticated agenda, the cunting cows. Edgy, see?
OUTLAW.
OUTLAW!
UPDATE: I just don’t understand how it’s so much more palatable when some people blacklist themselves than when others do. Old man.
h/t Joe in comments, While You Were Schmoozing
Howard Kurtz on Pushy Jake “PJ” Tapper; I look forward to his piece on Helen “Drivelling Bitch” Thomas.
One CPAC blogger, who wishes to remain anonymous, writes:
Like he’s even been there. I STILL think he’s taking out on CPAC attendees hostility that should be aimed at PJM.
I mean, does the man not think that us non-PJM bloggers aren’t concerned about what happened to him and the others? Does he think we’re happy about this?
I mean, I like Steve Green, but I don’t think PJM made a smart decision by under-using Jeff. I still think Jeff will find his audience without PJM’s help, however, and he may do better without them in the long run.
Dumping on those of us who went to CPAC doesn’t strike me as productive.
I like Jeff a lot. But I think once in a while he gets into a hyper-sensitive mode that blurs his analyses.
I have a problem with Cliff Kincaid and the rest of the Obama Birthers. It isn’t a lack of decorum, rather it’s that they’re bugfuck nuts and I’d rather not get any of that on me.
Moran, on the (failed) tea parties..
Does not Moran understand that people who work won’t leave their (possibly precarious) jobs to join a protest against Fearless Leader; and that the ones out of work are at home typing away at KOS and DU sorts of sites, waiting for their relief checks?
A blogger I used to read used to have the tagline, “I think I’m better than the people trying to reform me.”
These sniveling milquetoasts of the domesticated Right aren’t good enough to clean our field latrines.
Fuck ’em.
Bizarre? As the link here shows, anti-patriot is the new patriot. Give me liberty or give me cash plus shitty, malformed ideologies and all.
“James Joyner deems the Tea Party Movement bizarre…”
I wonder what he thought about the paper-mache Boooooooosh! heads..?
At least the “Tea Party” has a historical analogue…
“Because it’s one thing for someone’s racist pastor to state that AIDS was concocted in a US government lab to bring a genocide down on Africans, but it’s another thing entirely to bake Drunken Negro Head Cookies.”
Nothing new to see here…We all know the left is all about free speech; unless they don’t like what you’re saying…
The difference is that these days they’re trying to come up with creative ways to facilitate them not having to hear it; instead of “tolerating it” like they used to have to…
At least DeMint got that fairness doctrine thing through; so they’ll have to come up with another name for that putrid smelling rose…
Of course, that won’t stop the MSM, and some bloggers too, regrettebly, from applying the Orwellian principles of PC speech and hate speech to any criticism they’d rather not suffer…
Be back later gang, I’ve got 10 inches of global warming to shovel off of around 400 linear feet of sidewalk…
Patterico is right. Wasting your time questioning Barack Obama’s citizenship makes conservatives look like a punch of wack jobs. It is stupid. Attack the policies and offer legitimate alternatives. We are in the wilderness right now for a reason, by fuckups of George W. Bush experimenting with compasionate conservatism and getting off message (while the GOP congress was busy trying to bring home bacon for the constituants). Let’s get back to basics.
Civility NOW!!!
The left loves slander campaigns, but they know they work best when you can “brand” that new up and commer candidate…
Look you fools! The way to win back power is to attract the middle by espousing policies one millimetre to the right of the dirty socialists. Then, when we regain power, we can govern like true Republicans; exactly one millimetre to the right of the dirty socialists. (‘Cos if we do anything else we won’t be bi-partisan and collegiate and people won’t like us.)
Then, when we lose power to the dirty socialists, it will be because the stupid redneck theocons and so-called libertarians sat on their hands instead of holding their noses and pulling the lever for us.
And then you idiots start holding stupid ‘tea parties’ and listeng to that awful Rush Limbaugh and people start getting the wrong impression and calling us RethugliKKKans.
So STFU! (‘Till we need you to pull the lever for us again.)
Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
Are you a true believer or evangelical conservative?
Don’t outlaws just point the gun at you and say “give me the money?”
Bob, it is 8 degrees where I am. I sure hope Obama can save us from this global warming, because this year’s heating costs are killing me.
Patterico is wrong. Every single little bit of anti-Obama rhetoric should be cherished, nourished, and given a chance to flourish. Because you never know when such crumbs of distasteful dissent might give way to an aperçu of reason.
Let those who will, dig for dissent. The rest can shovel for Obama.
Yeah. Malia and Sasha are really Mumia Abu Jamal’s kids. PROVE ME WRONG!!!
I tend to agree the citizenship issue is potentially silly but why not just release the birth certificate.
Anyway, Moran’s a Moron anyway – the fact that so many people did actually take off from work or took a lunch break to do these protests is significant. Most of us protesting are not dirty hippy socialists and we have jobs and/or family and don’t sit around smoking dope and lamenting the Bush imperialism. These are real people who started something without much of a figurehead. While the protests themselves probably mean little at this point, they are symbolic of the “silent majority” of conservatives who were unrepresented by Washington conservatives for 8 years and want to start fighting the dirty socialists who are bending over our economy in the interest of “progress.”
As I noted in the other thread, Rod Dreher wants us conservatives to do some soul searching.
You want to go out and focus your attention on Obama not being a citizen. Fine. It is a free country (at least for now). I want to criticize Obama for a bullshit economic stimulus plan and want an alternative to this madness.
And I want more Jeff out there, being an outlaw, well as soon as he is done folding the laundry. Outlaw!
This focus on image projection is teh stoopit. Dems did that when they were out of power – for 8 years – arguing over how to reframe issues and shit, but none of that is what brought them to power.
We’ve got to do the much less glamorous but real work of knocking on doors and talking face to face with constituents, building up the base through communication and whatever degree of trust we can engender.
The GOP was always good at turnout but now they’re only good at turning off voters. Remaking an image will not bring them back, but disciplining themselves and doing the spade work might very well.
Going the Obama birth certificate/citizenship is like Andrew Sullivan’s Trig Trutherism jihad.
There are more substantive things wrong with Obama worth exploring.
This kerfuffle is like the trolls that come around here. Whenever you start down a road that the Left leadership knows will cause them heartburn, the shit starts being flung. It is their form of smokescreen.
Quote Leftist leaders accurately, completely and in context, they have a conniption, call it a scurrilous attack.
Tell people exactly what actions the Left is taking, back it up with documentary evidence and you will be called a liar and a hack.
Do these things in the course of using humor to make their positions out to be the jokes they should be seen to be and you will be vilified, called insane, and stupid.
The leaders of the Left have always been self-righteous fuddy-duddies. Prick their sense of self importance and their real selves are revealed to the world.
Making fun of them works. You just have to keep plowing through the shit storm they throw up as a defense.
I think some large Boobs Not Bills protests would be in order right about now, especially with some HAWT conservative women.
The contrast to the skanky protests of the left, filled with refugees from the wrinkle room, bouncing ankle warmers off the pavement and sporting braided armpit hair would no doubt convince multitudes of the righteousness of our cause.
Plus, you can never get enough quality boobs.
I do seem to recall Al Gore giving speeches, “He betrayed our Country!!!!!” and such in front of large groups of Democrat voters. Among whom I saw a poll at one time showing 35% of whom thought Bush caused 911. These people were courted by the Dems as the useful idiots they were. Well maybe we too need some useful idiots.
I’m of the Dogbert opinion regarding PJM:
I admire your ability to get paid for that.
I think that for a guy trying to create a new sustainable paradigm for current events content creation, social and political analysis, and distribution, Roger L. Simon is a pretty good mystery writer.
The distinctions between Sullivan’s Trig Trutherism and Obama’s Birth Certificate Trutherism are these:
1. One is recent, the other is shrouded in the mysteries of the past.
2. One affects whether a person is likely to vote for an eligible candidate for office. The other renders the candidate ineligible.
–
I’m not a Birth Certificate Truther, mainly because – fuck it, Barack is already serving as President and I think that Biden would be a disaster of epic proportions.
In a perfect world, Obama faces a seriouys primary challenge from Hillary mainly based on Hillary’s relative effectiveness at foreign policy while domestic policy goes down the crapper. It’s better to be feared than loved, and nobody really fears Obama.
For god’s sake, when the man plays basketball he has Secret Service agents standing-by ready to shoot anybody who gives Obama a hard foul or drives to the rim. What a pussy.
.
Agreed Matt, Moran is a total Moron, but he has one redeeming quality.
He’s a perfect fade at the point of inflection. So what ever he is lamenting, is the right way to go, and whatecver hs ie predicting will turn out to be 180 degress from that actually happens.
Dumping on those of us who went to CPAC doesn’t strike me as productive.
Dumping on people what went to CPAC is every but as productive as actually going to CPAC I think. People what went to CPAC are dorky. There’s no way around that. It’s simply not the way nondorks spend their time and money. Own it proudly, anonymous dork person.
No, it isn’t. There really isn’t any mystery. He’s shown his COLB (which is what they give you when you ask for proof of birth) and Hawaii has verified that they have the original long form. Add the contemporaneous birth announcement in the newspaper, and there’s no mystery at all. Dude was born in Hawaii and we’ve seen legal proof of that.
Now, let’s focus on the filthy socialism, rejection of the founding principles and the part we’re taking over a cliff. And who the father of “his” kids really is.
path not part.
oh. every *bit* as productive as actually going to CPAC I think.
Just cause you’re born in America doesn’t mean you’re an American for real. You might could be a dipshit anti-American socialist and no one would know by looking at you.
hf, if I’d have been in the neighborhood, I would have gone to CPAC. I’m not saying that that wouldn’t have made me a dork or anything. But still . . .
True dat, ‘feets. But the Constitution doesn’t require that you not be a dirty socialist as a qualification for POTUS. Maybe Baracky was right about it being a fundamentally flawed document.
I find much of the negativity to be thinly veiled fear that the message, and it’s means of control, are seen as slipping away from certain older centers of power.
Roger L. Simon offers playgrounds for short-tenters who play the game according to rules established by (and profitable only to) their enemies. And, those short-tenters don’t even realize they have an enemy.
Compared to, say, Rush Limbaugh, who knows the enemy and refuses to play the game by their rules.
Patterico, Simon, neither can spring up as big a tent as Rush.
I hope he fails. If you do not like that F you. Free speech and all that did not go out of style January 2009.
I’m not meaning dork in a bad way. It’s just that CPAC is no different than going to a Firefly convention or the Olympic games or a tea party where you bring your American Girl doll. Dorkness.
What if you went there really drunk?
Where does political internet commenting fall on the scale of dorkiness? I’m figuring it scores fairly high.
Depends on if political commentary is all you do, ThomasD. Mix in a few oatmeal conversations and voila! Instant COOLERISHESSNESSITY!
I vowed not to waste my time with certain people. Moran made the list, and it’s a short list.
He can replace the late, unlamented Molly Ivins, who hated Bush. A life that can be summarized in a sentence makes for a short epitaph. Rick won’t be missed.
Interesting to me is that James Joyner, for all I respect the guy, is not really very “conservative.” But then, neither is Simon, or Ron Silver. They strike me as 911 Democrats, whose apostasy got them labeled “neocons” (particularly in the case of the latter two, whose Jewness had something to do with that: Wesley Clark can fill you in on how that works).
And yet the GOP — and don’t fool yourselves by thinking PJM isn’t important in the minds of the GOP leadership, who have selected them to be their internet “netroots” portal, albeit one that is more carefully screened than that of the dreadful left — has chosen such people to be the voice of the party.
Movement conservatives will be marginalized; social cons will be sniffed at; and the great “politically savvy and pragmatic middle” of the GOP will be presented as the face of the GOP, responsible for delivering its message.
The assumption seems to be that it was Palin who cost the GOP the election — not that it was the media’s depiction of Palin, and the GOP’s impotence in combating that — that was the problem.
This class, despite watching the mainstream press for years shape the discourse and lie to the American public, still believes that they can change the culture from within if they just show how “reasonable” they are.
Bullshit. I can be ornery, but many of the arguments I’ve written have been about as reasonable as one can get, from an intellectual level, at they’ve brought me nothing but venom from the left. And the “collegial” right would rather avoid such unpleasantness, so they distance themselves from me and cozy up more to the lefty bomb throwers as if to say, “I hope you know that I’m nothing like those kinds of conservatives. Why, I find much of what Oliver Stone has done genius!”
FTFY.
They should rename the Republican Party “Project GOP Runway.” There is so much PR talk about style that substance, as in principles, gets lost in the headlong pursuit of the mythical legendary “political moderate” that, by the nature of the discussion, is verwee, verwee scared of those social con lunatics and free market limited government fanatics that call themselves “conservatives.”
Speaking as both: Bullshit!
When the only two people at CPAC loudly proclaiming foundational conservative principles are Rush and a 13 year old, ya knows ya gots some problems, bitches! Patterico’s tsk-tsking of some heavy handed punning at Dem’s expense is overwrought. When are those of us who are standing on the outside watching the dismantling of over 200 years of an ideal that the people rule and the government governs going to stop complaining about individual issues and come back to proclaiming the fundamentals of American conservative politics?
I have this vision that Democrats get together and laugh at the likes of Spector and Snow and Collins, sniggering at the idea that these cowards pat themselves on the back for their post partisanship aisle jumping while the party in power gets pretty much what it has always wanted: more power invested in the government as controlled by Democrats with more opportunity to pay off their constituents with pork laden “stimulus” packages that drive our country further from individual liberty and closer national programming.
As much as I would prefer to look at samples of wood paneling shades and opine as to whether or not the new crop of Monte Cristos are earthier than last years’, my country’s founding ideals are dying, not with a bang but with both the whimpers of “conservatives” and the chuckles of those who have waited for these circumstances to rule as they see fit. As JHoward and I have discussed between E-Mails, it’s time to quit worrying about style and individual issues and get back to buttressing our commitment to the core, foundational principles of what constitutes the basis of Conservatism, Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism.
The alternative, according to Whitman, Parker, Spector, Buckley, etal, is Democrat Lite, only a little cheaper (h/t ric locke)
Istanbul was Constantinople …
PJM isn’t going to be a netroots portal. It’s going to be an internet TV station. That isn’t going to organize the masses. It isn’t going to inspire anyone. And if PJM or its principals have been deemed to be the voice of the party, where’s the buzz over the PJM presence at CPAC?
I see that Roger was on a Call to Action panel with Horowitz. Did anyone get the message? Is someone breathlessly reporting this galvanizing discussion, and I’m just missing it? If Ed Morrissey didn’t vlog it, did it really happen?
PJM is going to be interesting to people who find it interesting. There aren’t many of those and they’re not going to move the cheese.
Just telling you what I’ve heard, Pablo.
From who, Jeff? PMJ writers?
OR PJM. That’s how much I pay attention to ’em.
I never “got” it. I was fine with Jeff joining up, but to be honest I never – ever- went to the main page or sought out it’s writers due to it’s portal. And, the web tv stuff? I’m even less interested.
“If Ed Morrissey didn’t vlog it, did it really happen?”
A question for the philosophers, yes?
I always thought PJM was just supposed to be xome sort of zollverein. Just a bunch of folks who threw in to pitch an ad network and central amalgamation website… I thought Jeff was just fine for joining in. I’d rather it worked and he got more $.
I truly didn’t know all this odd self-annointing of itself as the voice of the Real GOP!!1!1! was going to put the darn thing in the rubbish bin, and hurt our host’s revenues. Bah.
If everyone swept his own doorstep, the city would be clean …
I was excited about the army of blogging Davids concept. That’s over now, if it ever was. I’m decidedly not excited about a C list talk radio on camera network, and I think I’m part of the vast majority on that score.
I seem to remember some people linking to Whittle PJTV pieces. Aside from that, I’m seeing absolutely no broad based interest in the project, no excitement whatsoever. And they don’t even have Whittle anymore.
Who, outside of PJTVers thinks PJTV is “The Future of Media”? Their traffic is similar to pw’s and Hot Air crushes them. Hell, Malkin has two sites that bury them…and they have Malkin!
I’m trying to figure out who gives a shit about them, and I don’t see any evidence that they’re seizing any hearts, minds or wallets.
OH, and the JtP goes to Israel pieces. That made them interesting for about 15 minutes. I forgot about that.
I liked Whittle. PJM is innocuous and inoffensive I think. So why do I hate them so much?
oh. Moderated comments are gay. That’s a big part of it.
For god’s sake, when the man plays basketball he has Secret Service agents standing-by ready to shoot anybody who gives Obama a hard foul or drives to the rim. What a pussy.
Hey, Punahoe did not have a hockey team. Imagine the Secret Service dealing with Obama in pickup hockey games with David E. Kelly. Ah, lets face it, they would all treat Obama like he was fucking Gretsky.
I’d agree with LTC John on what I believed the original purpose of PJM was- kind of a portal for conservative commentators, as opposed to the Huffington post and Kos and the other lefty sites. I never expected it to be a successful money making juggernaut, nor a particular important part of the GOP strategery. The PJM TV idea is silly, I think, if again, they expect it to be a money making strategy. I thought the idea of bringing together diverse bloggers under one banner was a good idea but considering the way PJM evolved (with “real journalists” as the primary commentators), it lost the homegrown feel that I enjoyed and thought was important for the party.
Hey wait a second, Obama likes the Oval Office a balmy 90 degrees, 90% humidity! Do you think he might really not be the guy we all think he is…he is something far worse?
Yep, Obama is an alien, sent here to speed up global warming so more of his “people” can show up and colonize.
reality show
shudda wudda cudda
shown up w/ a big contractors van and hammered it[?] down
or w/a big bag of groceries
and a smile
“New York is the least free by a considerable
margin. This will surprise few residents of the
Empire state. In order from the bottom, New York is
followed by New Jersey, Rhode Island, California,
and Maryland. Unfortunately, these states make up
a substantial portion of the total American population.”
— “Freedom in the 50 States”, pg.20
http://www.mercatus.org/uploadedFiles/Mercatus/Publications/Freedom%20in%20the%2050%20States.pdf
“In order from the bottom, New York is
followed by New Jersey, Rhode Island, California,
and Maryland.”
Yay! We suck less than NY and NJ!
Wait–I don’t think I’m even allowed to comment thusly.
Wait…
Isn’t “Pushy” code for, you know, Jew?
ushie, you’re not in RI, are you?
COOLERISHESSNESSITY!
I just scared the bejesus out of my cat trying to figure out how to say that out loud.
The assumption seems to be that it was Palin who cost the GOP the election — not that it was the media’s depiction of Palin, and the GOP’s impotence in combating that — that was the problem.
John McCain lost the election. The idiots who nominated him need to shut the fuck up and own it.
Don’t blame me. I voted for Hillary.
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