Sometimes There Are No Words 19 Mar 2009 5:04 AM (15 years ago)

One of my favorite bloggers and frequent commenters has suffered a terrible loss.

Fair and balanced commentary from a modest and reasonable conservative.

Why Bristol Palin Is Different 12 Mar 2009 9:36 AM (15 years ago)

Ever since Sarah Palin revealed that her unmarried teenage daughter Bristol was pregnant, conservatives have been struggling with what liberals see as a contradiction between our fierce opposition to unwed motherhood and our support for Palin and family values. Now comes word that the wedding is off and conservatives once again are having difficulty explaining why Bristol Palin is different from other unwed mothers.

During the campaign Focus on the Family's James Dobson largely ignored the difficult unwed mother question and congratulated her on not having an abortion. Party of Death author Ramesh Ponnuru pointed out that she was not technically an unwed mother yet because she was engaged, unlike Murphy Brown, even though that didn't quite work out in the end. Others took a Kübler-Ross journey from denial to anger to acceptance.

When some liberals attacked conservatives for being hypocritical, future New York Times columnist Ross Douthat brilliantly exposed their own hypocrisy. "Suppose that social conservatives hadn't rallied around the Palin family after news of Bristol Palin's pregnancy broke," he wrote. "If anything remotely like this had happened, all we'd hear is satisfied chirping about how the response to Bristol Palin's pregnancy proves, once and for all, that social conservatives don't give two figs about the rights of the unborn; what they really care about is controlling women's sex lives and reinforcing patriarchal norms, full stop…. They're mad that religious conservatives aren't fitting neatly into the stereotypes that liberals have spent years cultivating." In other words, liberals would have attacked us even if we had responded the way they thought we would based on what we have said in the past, so by responding in a completely opposite way we proved how hypocritical they are. But although Douthat gleefully pointed out liberals' hypocrisy, he seemed reluctant to point out why conservatives were not being hypocritical even though the answer was staring him in the face.

Why is Bristol Palin different? She is different because she is a conservative.

It's different when unmarried teenage mothers come from conservative, wealthy Christian families. Although it would be preferable if her child had a father, even a white trash one, she will still be able to raise her child with the kinds of values that liberals, poor people, gays and non-Christians would not be able to give to their little bastard children who are destined to become our future criminals. Why are conservatives so reluctant to point out this obvious fact?

The problem with Murphy Brown, who was famously attacked by Dan Quayle in a speech written by Lisa Schiffren, was not just that she was an unwed mother but that she was a liberal unwed mother. As a liberal and a fictional character she would not be able to raise her child with good, conservative, Christian, nonfictional values. And the problem with Rep. Loretta Sanchez, whom Schiffren attacked for having a child before she married her fiancé, is that she is a liberal and her child is doomed to grow up without any values at all. But Schiffren, who supported Sarah Palin, seemed reluctant to point out this important difference, writing, "Being 18 and a single mother is only a little easier for a pretty, middle-class girl than it is for less well-protected girls from those parts of our society where marriage and involved fathers disappeared a couple of generations ago" and finally concluding "all I have to say is, 'poor girl.'" Instead of appearing so tentative, which just made many readers why she hadn't gone after Bristol with the same vehemence that characterized her attacks on a liberal fictional character and a liberal congresswoman, Schiffren should say out loud what all conservatives are thinking: Being an unwed mother is different when you're a conservative.

Kathryn Jean Lopez has been one of our strongest advocates for the need for children to have two parents of the opposite sex, which is why, like Sarah Palin, she is opposed to gay marriage and supports a Constitutional amendment banning it. But instead of noting that Bristol Palin's child will grow up without a father, she wrote, "Let the girl live in peace with her child." Her reaction was similar to the response she had when the Vice President's lesbian daughter Mary Cheney decided to have a baby: "Unless Mary Cheney asks to be a spokeswoman on the issue, folks ought to leave her alone." And yet when she wrote about lesbian Rosie O'Donnell's efforts to adopt a child, Lopez felt compelled to point out her "concerns about instability, sexual-orientation confusion, and emotional problems." What is the difference between Mary Cheney and Rosie O'Donnell? Again, it's obvious. Mary Cheney is a good conservative woman who will no doubt teach her children that they shouldn't become lesbians like their mother and Rosie O'Donnell is a foul-mouthed liberal who will teach her children that homosexuality and bestiality are acceptable lifestyle choices.

Some conservatives have attacked Bristol. Debbie Schlussel claims that conservatives should be "intellectually honest," and expresses the bizarre notion that we should apply the exact same standards to conservatives that we apply to liberals. "If one of Barack Obama's daughters was a single mother, we conservatives would be legitimately all over it. Or if her name was Sha'niqua," she writes. (I'm not sure why she believes the situation would have been different if Sarah Palin had given her daughter a black-sounding name.) Schlussel then blames the fact that Sarah Palin is a working mother for her daughter's pregnancy, which is absurd because Palin supporter Phyllis Schlafly proved long ago that you can work and still be a good mother as long as you are a conservative. Robert Stacy McCain also condemned Bristol harshly, writing, "A child's misconduct always reflects poorly on the family" and then went on to denounce girls who would not date him when he was single because they were "snooty, stuck-up, cliqueish, insufferable demanding, with a high-handed and disdainful way of dealing with people beneath her status, having a self-important attitude," which is of course understandable because what girl from a good family wouldn't have wanted to date McCain when he was single, but again I'm not sure what the relevance is to Bristol Palin although it might be something he would want to explore in therapy.

Although some Palin supporters have expressed disappointment with such views, many conservatives seem to be reluctant to write about this subject at all. Why aren't more conservatives standing up and defending Bristol Palin? Why can't we unequivocally state there should be different standards for liberals and conservatives? One of the problems with liberalism is that they believe everyone is the same and that all morality is relative. But if there is anything that conservatives reject it is the idea of moral equivalency. When America tortures a terrorist suspect that is not the same as when a terrorist tortures someone. Killing civilians in a war or accidentally executing the innocent is not the same as abortion. Denying gays the right to marry is not the same as outlawing miscegenation. Giving corporations tax cuts is not the same as welfare. David Vitter and Larry Craig are not the same as Bill Clinton. Liberals are always trying to confuse us by making false analogies but conservative ideology is based on rejecting false equivalencies and making important distinctions. So we shouldn't be reluctant to say that indeed it is different when a conservative teenager has a child out of wedlock and an inner-city liberal teenager does. We should have the courage of our convictions and not play the liberal game of moral equivalency. Instead of trying to explain away Bristol's pregnancy we should be defending it, holding her up as an example of the difference between liberal teenage unwed mothers and conservative teenage unwed mothers. Because just as it is true that, as Richard Nixon once said, "When the President does it, that means it is not illegal." when a good Christian conservative has a child out of wedlock, that means it's not immoral.

Update: Lisa Schiffren responds with a very thoughtful email: "I see this a little differently than you do. I agree with Kathryn that there is a difference between a grown woman in a position of power (Rosie, Murphy (fictional, but..) and Sanchez), and a private citizen, like Cheney, and even more so like Bristol Palin who got pregnant at 17. If she had committed a felony she would have been punished lightly. As it is, she is a kid who made a mistake and will pay a lot for it -- in the public eye for reasons not of her creation. The other women are role models, who exert cultural influence -- and the first three made a big point of rationalizing and justifying their actions. I don't know about the liberal/conservative divide. I think it matters some, but not ultimately. Religion matters more. And personal grit more still. A large, supportive family helps. If I sounded tentative, it is because I think that we, as a society, have so screwed this up that it is hard to see a way back to a norm of marriage before babies."

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Fair and balanced commentary from a modest and reasonable conservative.

Rod Dreher Finds the Subtle Nuances in Mass Murder 9 Mar 2009 10:00 AM (15 years ago)

Rod Dreher was shocked by the story of a Texas man whose wife and children were slaughtered by his daughter and her friends. But he wasn't shocked by the brutal murder itself. Murders happen all the time. Big deal. What shocked him was a passing remark by the father who survived the attack by Erin, his little murderess. After he moved his family from the small Texas town of Celeste (pop. 800) to the liberal Emory (pop. 1200) his daughter was subject to the horrors of big city debauchery. "Emory has a lot of bisexual kids; it's like it was almost cool to be bisexual. One of the first things that happened was some girl wanted to be Erin's little girlfriend. And I was like, 'That ain't happenin'.' "

Dreher was understandably shocked by this revelation. "This is a tiny East Texas town -- and there's a bisexual culture in one of them, among the teenagers?" he wrote. "WTF? What do I not get about teenage life these days? What do I not get about the cultural air kids breathe? I am so not going to give my children over to this culture, if I can help it." If for some reason Dreher's children decide to murder him, though I can't think of any reason why they would off the top of my head, at least he'll go to his grave comforted by the thought that he saved them from the evils of bisexuality.

But as horrifying as this story of bisexuality is, it does have a silver lining. As soon as Erin's parents realized that the public schools in Emory were cesspools of bisexual Bacchanalia, they took their kids out of school and started home schooling them. When they re-enrolled Erin in public school three years later, she was armed with the values she learned from being home schooled and didn't fall back into a lesbian lifestyle. Instead, started dating an 18-year-old boy, which must have been a big relief to her parents. Unfortunately, it was this boy who then helped her murder her family. But if you look past the murders, this story actually has a happy ending because it shows that it is possible to save our kids from homosexuality and that should give Dreher some solace when he gets over his shock.

Unfortunately, some people willfully misread Dreher's column and claimed that Dreher was saying that bisexuality caused the murders when in fact he was just focusing on the most horrific aspect of the story. Dreher is used to being willfully misread like this and having his values and priorities questioned. Recently, for example, he wrote a column pointing out that our "social decline" did not begin with the Sixties but back in that dark period known as the Enlightenment. "The question, though, is not whether the Sixties (or the Enlightenment) were good or bad, but whether on balance the Sixties (or the Enlightenment) were good or bad. I answer in the negative," he wrote. Again, some people misread his column to mean that he thinks we should revive slavery or the Inquisition. But if you read his column carefully, you see that he is just saying that on the whole things were better before we had homosexuality, abortion, feminism and horseless carriages even when you balance those things against slavery and torturing heretics.

But Dreher is not the only conservative intellectual who is sadly misunderstood. Unfortunately, a lot of liberals just don't get the subtle nuances of some of Rush Limbaugh's thinking either. Some conservatives, like David Frum, are saying that Rush does not help our cause when he says, for example, that he wants President Obama to fail. Others even claim that we should be disingenuous and talk down to people instead. "The problem is, Americans have short attention spans and don’t always do nuance well," says one of our most nuanced thinkers, Paterico.

But I agree with Jeff Goldstein who says, "I don’t want to have to measure every word I say with the thought in mind that somebody is going to take me out of context. Instead, I’d like to be free to say what I mean." Goldstein is tired of pandering to people who think "it’s just too damn difficult to demand that what we mean be presented honestly, and so rather than fight that kind of complicated battle, it’s best just to learn to self-edit in a way that placates those who don’t do nuance well."

Although I often don't understand what Goldstein is trying to say, it would be a tragedy if he tried to pander to people like me and write things that people can actually comprehend. And I don't think Dreher should worry if people believe that he cares more about bisexuality than murder or that he wants us to return to a time when people who were not Catholics like him were burned at the stake when that is not what he is saying at all. And if some people cannot understand the subtle difference between wanting Obama to fail, plunging America into a Great Depression or wanting Obama's policies to fail, plunging America into a Great Depression, then is it really worth the energy to try to explain to them what Rush really meant?

So I hope that conservatives will say more things that can be taken out of context by the liberal media and continue to make subtle distinctions that can't be understood in 30-second sound bites. It is time for us to gird our loins (whatever that means) and fight complicated battles. Sure, we might lose a few elections and we might give people the false impression that we are homophobic or racist or misogynist or that we want America to fail and be punished for its decadence, but that's a small price to pay to hold on to our integrity, which is what is really important. Instead of making compromises, the way to get back into the good graces of the American people and start winning elections again is to stick to our guns and not be afraid to call Americans who don't understand what we mean "idiots." And if you don't think this is a winning strategy, then you're an idiot.

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Let's Make Poverty Less Enticing 8 Mar 2009 6:34 AM (15 years ago)

The other day a shocking picture emerged when Michelle Obama went to a soup kitchen in Washington, DC. It wasn't a picture of her bulging biceps, which were mercifully covered, so David Brooks can rest easy and not have to worry about any more nightmares where the First Lady challenges him to arm wrestle. What was shocking was a photo of one of the homeless men she was serving taking a picture of her with his cellphone. Conservatives were outraged. At a time when Wall Street executives are being forced to give up their private planes, limousines, bathroom renovations and multimillion dollar bonuses, the idea that a homeless man has been allowed to hold on to his cellphone while others are making sacrifices is more than we can take.

"If this unidentified meal recipient is too poor to buy his own food, how does he afford a cellphone?" wrote the Los Angeles Times' Andrew Malcolm. "And if he is homeless, where do they send the cellphone bills?" Kathryn Jean Lopez pointed out that contrary to what many people think, the poor are actually very rich, which explains a lot. Michelle Malkin castigated the homeless man for "ruining what was supposed to be a sob story photo op of the compassionate Mrs. O catering to the downtrodden" and speculated that his phone bills are probably sent to Acorn.

Although some people pointed out that he may have recently come upon bad times and that he may need a cellphone, which could be of the cheap, prepaid variety, so that prospective employers can call him back, or that he may have been a worker at the shelter and not homeless at all, this is all just speculation. Kathy Shaidle, whose blog is aptly named Five Feet of Fury, has a more likely explanation, which she was able to extrapolate from this photo with a perspicacity that would have made the late traitor and On Photography author Susan Sontag proud. "Today's 'poor' are the rich Jesus warned you about: fat, slovenly, wasteful of their money and other people's," she wrote. "He spends all his (our) money on cellphones and, most likely, tattoos and drugs and booze and other crap, and has no money left for a home and food. And why should he bother? We pay for his shelter and food anyhow."

This is not the first time Ms. Shaidle, has taken on the menace of the poor. "The so-called poor have cars and cable tv and free medical," she wrote last year. "They live in America in the 21st century, where school is free and libraries are free and a bus ticket to a better town costs less than a bag of crack. If they're 'poor' it's because they were too lazy and stupid to a) finish high school and/or b) keep their pants on. Jesus had something to say about folks who didn't properly manage their money or other people's." Although I am not familiar with Jesus' admonitions against poor accounting practices, she has a point. Instead of waging class war against the wealthy who worked hard for their money, we should be attacking the poor. After a lot of unsuspecting investors were lured by the poor into putting their hard-earned money into credit defaults swaps and tricked into giving deadbeats subprime mortgages, which ruined our entire economy, haven't poor people done enough harm to this country?

I can't tell you how angry it makes me to think about extremely rude poor people all across this country talking very loudly on their cellphones in soup kitchens and unemployment offices, whining about all their financial problems so everyone can hear. I'm glad someone is finally speaking out about it. And while these poor people were rudely broadcasting their tales of woe to everyone within earshot, guess what they were eating? Mushroom risotto and Broccoli! Isn't gruel good enough for poor people anymore? Those poor people are eating better than I am. Is it really fair that I should have to eat the Pork Brains in Milk Gravy Mrs. Swift served up the other night to cut down on grocery bills and reduce my cholesterol intake, while these poor people are eating like kings?

And who is paying for poor people to live high on the hog while I am reduced to eating hog brains? Rich people like we might be some day if we work hard and win the lottery. Why should someone like Jim Cramer, who deserves to make more than $250,000 for all the great financial advice he has given the last few years, have to "take a pay cut for doing the same job." Shouldn't he in fact get a raise for telling people to continue plowing their money into the stock market as it was plunging downward, which probably helped slow the decline and prop it up long enough to help his friends get out without losing too much?

I think it's time we made the poor do their fair share and stop trying to soak the rich. Before we give the poor one cent more, they should be forced to prove that they have really hit rock bottom by selling everything they have, including their cellphones, flat-screen TVs, fancy clothes, cars and furniture. I know that if I became poor, the first thing I would do after putting the cat to sleep and pawning Mrs. Swift's wedding ring would be to sell my cellphone at the very least. And I certainly wouldn't expect to eat mushroom risotto. If we stopped making it so enjoyable to be poor, maybe we would have fewer lazy, greedy people who are just dying to live in poverty and leech off of the rest of us. Indeed, the reason for our economic decline may be that so many people want the benefits of being poor that they are dragging the economy down with them. We need to stop this rush to be poor before it is too late. So the First Lady should stop visiting soup kitchens and serving them gourmet food, which just encourages them. Only by making poverty less enticing can we hope to to save our economy.

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10 Best Conservative Movies 3 Mar 2009 3:07 AM (15 years ago)

National Review, which did such a wonderful job identifying hidden conservative messages in rock songs a few years ago, has now come up with a list of the Best Con servative Mov ies. Although their list for the most part sticks to derrièrist principles by not including too many difficult movies, for some reason they named The Lives of Others, a boring foreign film I've never heard of, as their number one movie and even included a tedious talky independent film like Metropolitan. They did include The Dark Knight, however, which should head off angry emails from fans and derrièrist critics who think it was the greatest movie ever made. Of course, I would have included The Dark Knight on my list, too, as well as such conservative classics as Brazil and Red Dawn, but there are so many great conservative movies, I decided not to duplicate anything that appeared on their list. And while their list only included films of the last 25 years (probably because the editors of National Review haven't seen any movies older than that), I also included a few older movies; but don't worry, none of them are in black and white (except for one, but give it a chance; it gets better).

Neither of our lists is definitive. I'm sure you can think of a lot of other great conservative movies. Feel free to mention them in the comments. Some of the other great conservative movies I might have included that didn't quite make the cut include The Grapes of Wrath, Birth of a Nation, Norma Rae, Easy Rider, Slumdog Millionaire, and Showgirls, just to name a few. But these lists are not meant to identify every great conservative movie. The real purpose of these lists is to show that conservatives are actually normal people, who love movies and rock music and video games, who talk a lot about hot women and what we would like to do to them if we were able to get any of them in bed and who use a lot of baseball and basketball metaphors just like regular guys. Hopefully, lists like this, and sites like Big Hollywood, will help change the unfair image of conservatives in the media so that one day we'll be able to say, "You like me! You like me!"

1. Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
Dan Quayle's favorite movie, featuring the film debut of former Nixon aide Ben Stein (who discusses the Smoot-Hawley tariffs and the Laffer Curve in one of the film's most moving scenes), Ferris Bueller's Day Off is perhaps the greatest conservative film ever to come out of Hollywood. Matthew Broderick plays Ferris Bueller, who decides he has had enough of liberal indoctrination and skips school on the day of a test about European socialism in protest. "I'm not European," he says. "I don't plan on being European. So who gives a crap if they're socialists? They could be fascist anarchists, it still doesn't change the fact that I don't own a car. Not that I condone fascism." Although liberal Hollywood often tries to caricature conservatives as dorks or villains, someone like Ferris Bueller is who conservatives actually see when we look in the mirror. Someone who is handsome and adored by all the "sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, dickheads." Someone who is really, really cool. And, sure, we might total your father's Ferrrari or invade your country without enough troops or trigger a temporary economic meltdown, but we're actually really lovable, the kind of guy you want to have a beer with. And really, really cool.

2. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)
Why aren't there more films for children that celebrate free-market capitalism? Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Facto ry is a Horatio Alger story about Charlie Bucket, a poor kid who learns that in the free-enterprise system everybody has a randomly equal chance to find a golden ticket (though some special people, like Veruca Salt, have more randomly equal chances than others because a level playing field would be socialism). After finding a golden ticket in his chocolate bar, Charlie meets Willy Wonka, an entrepreneur who has built his candy empire through constant innovation, corporate espionage and cheap labor. Wonka takes Charlie and some other lucky kids on a tour of his factory and gives them a quick lesson in basic economics. His factory is a consumerist paradise, where everything is consumable, although as one unfortunate child learns, consuming beyond your means can get you sucked up into a giant tube. In a free market economy, the kids learn, some will succeed and others will end up as giant blueberries. "Don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted," Wonka instructs Charlie, imparting the film's most important moral lesson. "He lived happily ever after."

3. Home Alone (1990)
Like some of the other films on this list, Home Alone works on several levels. On the one hand it's a family-friendly comedy about an adorable little boy, played by Macaulay Culkin (before he grew up and got weird), fighting off home invaders. But on a deeper level it is a parable about what would happen if we didn't have a Second Amendment. Luckily, Culkin is able to fend off the incompetent criminals who try to break into his home by using ingenious homemade weaponry, but not every little boy in America is as clever as Culkin's screenwriter, John Hughes. If you went on vacation and accidentally left your child at home, wouldn't you feel a lot better if you knew there was a loaded gun in the house that your child could easily access? I know I would. Unfortunately, gun control extremists want to take away our Second Amendment rights by passing all kinds of laws mandating child safety locks and banning assault weapons, rendering our nation's pre-adolescents defenseless. I think the NRA should remake this movie but this time give the little boy a gun. It would be a very short film.

4. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Although a number of liberal critics with their minds in the gutter slandered it as a "gay cowboy movie," Brokeback Mountain is actually a wonderful paen to the virtues of American masculinity. Ranch hand Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Rodeo cowboy Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) are no metrosexuals. They are men's men who love nothing better than engaging in such manly pursuits as camping and fishing and rounding up sheep in the great outdoors. Although both are married and have kids, is it so surprising that they feel more comfortable in the company of other men, resisting the feminizing influences that have polluted our culture since the women's movement? Unfortunately, liberals aren't able to accept that two men can be really good friends without adolescently snickering and insinuating behind their backs that they are gay. They certainly don't act gay. If going fishing with your buddy makes you gay, then a lot of men in America must be gay.

5. Weekend at Bernie's (1989)
Although some might dismiss We ekend at Bernie's as a wacky comedy about young insurance executives who drag the corpse of their wealthy boss around and pretend he is alive, it is actually a penetrating allegory about the evils of the death tax (which liberals euphemistically refer to as the "estate tax"). Is there really that much difference between defiling the dead by taxing their wealth after they die and propping up someone's dead body, putting sunglasses on him and dragging him around the beach pretending he's drunk? Can't liberal vultures just let deceased millionaires pass their estates on to their pampered progeny without government tax collectors extracting their pound of putrefying flesh? Although Weekend at Bernie's is certainly a delightful comedy on one level, it just makes me so mad sometimes when I think of the policy implications that I want to yell at the screen, "Leave Bernie's heirs' trust funds and tax shelters alone!"

6. Wizard of Oz (1939)
Long before homosexuals waved rainbow flags and Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition fomented racial hatred, Dorothy (played by Judy Garland, who later devolved into a pill-popping gay icon) took a nightmarish, drug-fueled trip over the rainbow to a hellish, multicultural dystopia called Oz. Throughout the Wizard of Oz Dorothy is desperate to flee the perversions of Munchkinland, Afghanistan-like poppy fields and urban ghettos of the Emerald City and return home to safe Republican Kansas, where morality is clearly delineated in black and white. At the end of the film when a big government wizard fails to get her back home, she discovers that all she has to do is pull herself up by her own ruby slipper straps. At a time when the great imperial Obama tells us that we need government to help us solve our problems, we should remember what Glinda the Good Witch of the North, tells Dorothy -- that she doesn't need government handouts to help her when she can just get what she needs by clicking her very own pair of ruby slippers and wishing really hard.

7. Starship Troopers (1997)
One of the problems with a lot of liberal Hollywood war movies since Vietnam is that they get all caught up with trying to see the enemy as human beings and depicting war as morally questionable. But Starship Troopers brilliantly spares us all the distracting moralism by stripping war down to its essential elements. It accomplishes this by reducing the enemy to nasty alien insects who look really cool when they blow up so that we can see war in its purest form as the glorious adventure it actually is. Although President Bush accomplished some of the same goals by banning photography of flag-draped coffins and limiting the press's coverage in the battlefield, the war in Iraq would probably have been even more popular if he had been able to convince the American people that the Iraqis were actually giant bugs. Maybe with all the CGI technology we have now a future President waging a future war will be able to do just that.

8. Patch Adams (1998)
It's too bad advocates of socialized medicine don't subscribe to Reader's Digest, which for years has taught us that "Laughter is the Best Medicine." Based on a real-life doctor, Patch Adams, starring Robin Williams in one of his most delightful roles (Williams is so much better in films where he has a director who restrains him), is about a doctor who did have a subscription to Reader's Digest, and realized that all the cheap pharmaceuticals illegally imported from Canada in the world are no match for comedy hijinks. Unfortunately, government bureaucrats try to shut down his comedy clinic just because he is practicing medicine without a license. Although Patch Adams eventually wins his case, imagine if we had socialized medicine and a lot of humorless bureaucrats were given the power to require doctors to have medical degrees and ban them from wearing big red noses and funny glasses or replacing bed pans with whoopee cushions. That's not the kind of America I want. So the next time some liberal complains about the 45 million Americans who are uninsured, spray him with water from the flower in your lapel and send him to see this movie.

9. Planet of the Apes (1968)
Planet of the Apes is based on an intriguing premise: What if evolution were true instead of just an unlikely theory? In this film apes have "evolved" to the point where they talk, wear clothes and walk upright. Evolutionists would have you believe that monkeys are our uncles so if you evolved them a little, then it would stand to reason that they would be just like us. And the apes on this planet sure seem human at first but as the film unfolds we see that there is nothing very human about these animals at all. No matter how you dress them up or how many words of English you teach them in the end they're still just "damned dirty apes," as Charlton Heston discovers. I don't think I've ever seen a better refutation of Darwin's theories.

10. Jaws (1975)
The next time your annoying animal rights activist friend cries and moans about bunnies and puppies and kitties being tortured and murdered in medical labs, pop Jaws in the DVD player and show him what animals are really like. Animals are not really cute and loveable little creatures, living together in harmony in the forest, as animal rights activists would have you believe. Many of them are vicious, amoral killing machines like the shark in Jaws, who would like nothing better than to bite PETA members in half given the chance. Jaws dares to tell the truth about animals. That's why we call them animals. By the end of the film your fauna-hugging friend will be cheering as loudly as you are when the nasty shark is finally blown to smithereens. Then you can take them out for nice hot bowl of shark-fin soup.

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Swift Reactions 10: Curtis Sliwa Gives Jon Swift Some Slum Love 27 Feb 2009 3:58 AM (15 years ago)

I have often said that if you want to see what conservatives will be saying tomorrow today this modest blog is the place to go. WABC radio host and former vigilante (in a good way) Curtis Sliwa not only reads this blog, he invited me on his show last night, Thursday, February 26, to talk about why Gov. Bobby Jindal is America's Slumdog Millionaire, which I wrote about here. After I wrote that piece, Mr. Sliwa also referred to Gov. Jindal as a "slumdog millionaire" when he interviewed Republican chairman Michael Steele and even got Steele to send out some "slum love" to Gov. Jindal. I must confess I'm not really sure what "slum love" is and in fact I didn't understand a lot of their interview as most of it was conducted in hip-hop, or as we used to call it, jive talk. I explained to Mr. Sliwa at the beginning of our interview that I am still a little rusty when it comes to speaking in this new Republican vernacular but I did my best and I've been studying this video (which the RNC should send out to all of its members) to help me learn how to speak like a real Republican:

Mr. Sliwa, who loves Gov. Jindal as much as I do, agreed with me when I said that Gov. Jindal is "the new face of the Republican Party" and that comparing him to what he called the "feel-good movie of the year" was apt. Update: Here is a recording of my appearance on the show:

Unfortunately, however, some people apparently took offense to referring to Gov. Jindal as a "slumdog millionaire," such as Amitabh Pal, writing on a website called The Progressive, which claims to have been on the Internet since 1909, which strikes me as being highly unlikely. He wrote that "comments relating to [Gov. Jindal's] Indian background" are "repugnant" and insultingly referred to my piece as "satirical." He also took issue with the photo I used to illustrate it, calling it "a weird-looking photo of Dev Patel," who is the star of Slumdog Millionaire. I must admit I did get a little mixed up and actually thought it was a photo of Gov. Jindal, though I think this illustration does go with the theme of the piece (and I don't know what is so "weird" about it) so I don't think it's necessary to change it or post a correction as I did when I accidentally posted a photo of Thurgood Marshall in a piece about Clarence Thomas.

While I'm used to being criticized by liberals like Mr. Pal, I was very upset when he then attacked one of my dearest commenters, Bukko in Australia, who wrote, "I applaud Gov. Jindal's efforts to make Louisiana into a replica of the slums of the country where his ancestors came from. Look what a roaring success India is! Why shouldn't New Orleans be as prosperous as Mumbai? The weather's just as bad, and although I've never been to the Black Hole of Calcutta (yes, I know it's politically correct to call it Kalicut now) I reckon it must smell a lot like Bourbon Street." Mr. Pal said his remarks were "totally uncalled for," though I'm not sure who called for Mr. Pal's remarks. While I don't agree with everything my commenters say, Mr. Pal, they are my guests and I will not stand for someone insulting my guests. If anyone is going to insult them, it should be me. What's more, Mr. Bukko cannot even defend himself because The Progressive does not allow comments. Maybe websites did not have the technology to allow for comments back in 1909 when The Progressive supposedly started but we do have such technology in the 21st century so I suggest that your 100-year-old software may be due for an upgrade.

Another frequent commenter, yellojkt, implied that I should have compared Gov. Jindal to Kenneth the Page on 30 Rock as he and a number of others did. I hope he won't take this the wrong way but I have to say I agree with my good friend Ann Althouse that comparing Gov. Jindal to a white person would be racist. If I had thought about it, I might have compared Gov. Jindal to the film director M. Night Shyamalan, like the unidentified bloggers Mr. Pal refers to in his Progressive piece, though I think such a comparison would have been unfair considering Mr. Shyamalan's career trajectory. It did occur to me to compare him to Ramesh Ponnuru or Dinesh D’Souza, but after Mr. Ponnuru called me a "feminist racist" for this piece I thought it better to let sleeping slumdogs lie. I'm afraid being called a feminist again at The Corner would seriously damage my reputation. I might also have compared Gov. Jindal to Amitabh Bachchan, the actor who is featured in an early scene in Slumdog Millionaire, is the former host of India's version of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?, and shares a Christian name (or perhaps, more correctly, a Hindu name) with Mr. Pal. Although Gov. Jindal does not bear a physical resemblance to Mr. Bachchan, they do share a certain wonkiness, which goes right over my head, at least from the evidence of this clip from one of his films, where he sounds a little like Jeff Goldstein:

In fact, some of the comments from my readers go over my head, too. Comrade PhysioProf used quite a lot of esoteric scientific jargon in his reference to Gov. Jindal's criticism of volcano monitoring. "Eleventeen f---tillion gigajoules of magmatic energy is no match for the home-spun down-to-earth common-sense ingenuity of real hard-working Americans!" he wrote. I don't have a clue what he was trying to say and I could not find any of these terms in Conservapedia, which as Dave S and Barefoot Bum rightly pointed out, is the site I should have mentioned as a home-schooling reference instead of the liberal, Wiccan-influenced Wikipedia. My bad, as the hip-hoppers say. (See, I'm learning.)

Finally, while The Progressive may be afraid to let its critics comment on their pages, I am not only unafraid of criticism but I am also fearless enough to highlight the attacks of my harshest critic, Anonymous. In response to my piece "President Bush's Legacy: One of Our Greatest Presidents" Anonymous wrote, "Good luck getting ignorant fools to believe this crock of crap!" As usual there was no need for me to defend myself because another commenter, Gentlewoman, immediately stepped up to the plate and slayed Anonymous with an allusion to one of President Bush's greatest triumphs. "Mission Accomplished!" she wrote. Indeed, if I can get even one ignorant fool to believe what I write, I do feel like President Bush on that aircraft carrier.

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Bobby Jindal: America's Slumdog Millionaire 25 Feb 2009 5:07 AM (15 years ago)

After President Obama's doom and gloom speech last night, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's response was as inspiring as the feel-good movie of the year, Slumdog Millionaire, about a plucky Indian who is poor but happy and doesn't need some government program to give him a million dollars. All he has to do is answer a few questions that uncannily parallel his life on the quiz show Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? While President Obama and the Democrats are telling people that they will just help them keep their heads above water, Republicans want to give everyone a shot at the big prize. Who wants to be a millionaire? We all do.

Gov. Jindal's stories of self-reliance were inspiring. Like Michelle Malkin, who is a big fan of his, he is an anchor baby whose parents arrived here from India to exploit our lax immigration laws but nevertheless proved that people who are different races can be successful if they make an effort to fit in and act like real Americans. Instead of acting angry and entitled like some minorities do, Gov. Jindal was so happy and optimistic I thought he was about to bounce up and down like Tigger the way Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle did when he won the Oscar. Gov. Jindal is America's real-life slumdog millionaire.

But what really inspired me was the story he told about how people in leaky little boats tried to save the citizens of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina even though government bureaucrats tried to stop them. If the government had stayed out of New Orleans entirely and encouraged more people to use their boats or to make their own boats out of things around the house, more people would probably be alive today. And instead of waiting for inefficient government workers to fix the levies, ordinary New Orleans citizens could have patched them up using bubble gum and duct tape and good old American know-how.

Instead of relying on the government to build magical magnetic levitation trains, the people of Las Vegas should be encouraged to bring some tools from their garages and build the train themselves, the way the Amish do. And while it's true that the magical levitation part might prove to be technologically difficult for the average Las Vegas citizen, if they all put their minds together and pray, I bet they would be able to levitate the trains. The power of prayer worked for Gov. Jindal when he and a few friends exorcised some demons and cured a woman of cancer back when he was in college so it could probably work for trains, too. And praying may also be the answer to our health care crisis.

And instead of having bureaucrats build roads and bridges why not let people build their own roads and bridges? With all of the companies laying off people and outsourcing jobs to Gov. Jindal's native country, there are plenty of people with time on their hands looking for something to do during the day. It would give people a sense of accomplishment and distract them from worrying about how they will pay the mortgage or pay for health care for their children.

Gov. Jindal also criticized money that is being spent under the stimulus plan to watch volcanoes. Why would you need to pay people to watch a volcano? Isn't it pretty obvious when a volcano erupts? I don't think I need a government bureaucrat to tell me that lava is pouring out of a volcano and that I should probably get out of there as soon as possible. If some people don't get the message, then citizens with lava-proof boats can rescue them – if government bureaucrats just stay out of their way.

President Obama also proposed that we should spend even more money on education. But instead of wasting all of that money, we should be encouraging more home schooling, which is a lot easier now that we have Wikipedia. And instead of sending their kids to expensive colleges, parents could be encouraged to home college their kids, too. Many college-age kids are still living at home anyway because they can't afford to move out so home colleging would give them something to do besides playing video games all day. And besides as the hero of Slumdog Millionaire showed us, you don't necessarily have to be educated to look smart.

Finally, the best part of Gov. Jindal's speech was when he talked about tax cuts. Cutting taxes for 95% of Americans as Pres. Obama promises is extremely unfair to the 5% of Americans who work hard, too, but already pay a lot more taxes than everyone else does despite all of their efforts to shield their assets in offshore accounts. Somebody needs to represent the 5% minority of people who are discriminated against by Obama's tax plan. Gov. Jindal and the new Republican leader Michael Steele understand what it's like to be minorities so it is no surprise that they are willing to stand up for the minority of people who make more than $250,000 a year like bank executives who are often the victims of bigotry in the liberal media. Most Americans want our millionaires to do well because someday we may win the lottery or appear on a quiz show and become millionaires ourselves.

Although I have been pretty down ever since Obama became president and the stock market plunged, Gov. Jindal's quiz show optimism is infectious and I'm glad he's the Republican Party's final answer to our electoral woes. I'm so inspired I think I'm going to start building a boat.

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Rush Limbaugh Gives Republicans Hope Again 30 Jan 2009 4:56 AM (15 years ago)

When Barack Obama won the election by appealing to voters' hopes, Republicans were surprised that it actually worked. There didn't seem to be that much to be hopeful for, especially with Obama as President. A lot of us were pretty down in the dumps. But then Republican leader Rush Limbaugh came along and gave us hope for the future, too. "I hope he fails." Limbaugh said of Obama. "We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father was black, because this is the first black president."

While Obama seems like a nice young man, kind of like a young Sidney Poitier, is handsome and polite, seems well educated and articulate, and even brought Republicans candy and flowers, Limbaugh was not fooled for a minute. If Obama succeeds, who knows what kind of man America's daughters will bring home to dinner next? Since Obama is trying to seduce Americans by giving them hope, Limbaugh knows that we Republicans must have our own message of optimism and hope. So here are some of the things that we are hoping for:

We hope Obama fails change the tone in Washington.
The worst thing Republicans can do is to join President Obama in any bipartisan effort to make things better. If he succeeds, he'll get all the credit and then he'll be free to turn America into a socialist country and no one will be able to stop him. And if he fails, who will Americans turn be able to turn to? So Republicans finally realized that they have to be against whatever Obama is for, whether it is the stimulus package or delaying the transition to digital television.

We hope Obama fails to fix the economy.
If Obama succeeds in fixing the economy, Americans will get the wrong idea that socialism works. Although the next few years will be difficult for some people if the economy gets worse, most Republicans will do fine thanks to President Bush's tax cuts. The rest of us will just have to suck it up until America comes to her senses and elects Sarah Palin in 2012. By that time some of Bush's tax cuts should have trickled down to us anyway. The worst thing we can do now is panic and put into place all kinds of programs we will be stuck with for years to come, which is what happened during the Great Depression. Economic depressions aren't all bad since they sweep away the dead wood in the economy and force the government to cut worthless programs. And at the same time, the people who do get hurt we'll blame Obama for it.

We hope Obama fails to get people to stop hating gays.
Despite all of Hollywood's best efforts, there are still a lot of people who hate gays and we need to encourage that as much as possible as it is our best wedge issue. One of the reasons we succeeded in ruining Clinton's first term was because of his attempt to allow gays to serve in the military. Although we suffered a few major setbacks in our efforts to marginalize gays when Clay Aitken and Lance Bass came out, we have to remain vigilant. We must encourage a huge outcry if Obama tries to allow gays to serve openly in the military or supports gay civil unions, which will just lead to gay marriage and people marrying their pets and livestock. And we can encourage homophobia among African-Americans, which shouldn't be too hard since we have a lot of preachers and rappers on our side. It may be our best chance to win blacks over to our side again.

We hope Obama fails to institute universal health care.
The reason America has the best health care in the world is that we don't just give it away to anyone. It stands to reason that the fewer people who have health care, the better it will be for those who have it. Republicans should not only resist any efforts by Obama to give more Americans health care, we should try to limit health care even more, which will only make our country stronger by weeding out the weak and sick, who mostly vote for Democrats anyway.

We hope Obama fails to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Surely, this is not too much to hope for. Although President Obama claimed during the election that he supported Israel, his overtures to Arab countries, like his giving his first interview as President to al-Arabiya, shows that he is not 100 percent behind Israel. Republicans know that peace in the Middle East will require Israel to make some sort of concessions, such as the creation of a Palestinian state. The only way to safeguard Israel's security is to discourage any kind of peace. So Republicans should encourage Israel not to back down. Of course, that means there will probably be a few terrorist attacks in Israel and it will have to defend itself occasionally by bombing the hell out of the Palestinians and probably the Lebanese as well, but Israelis are used to that by now.

We hope Obama fails to prevent a big natural disaster from devastating an American city.
Unfortunately, a lot of Americans got the impression from Hurricane Katrina that there is something government can do to help people when there is a natural disaster. Republicans, of course, know that it is blasphemous to try to fight acts of God. So far our efforts to convince people that there was nothing we could do to save New Orleans, or at least to blame local officials, have not been very successful. So it looks like the only thing that will convince people that they are on their own is if an American city is destroyed despite all of Obama's best efforts. Since God is on the Republicans' side I'm sure He already has something in the works, but it wouldn't hurt to pray a little.

We hope Obama fails to prevent a terrorist attack on American soil.
Although this is one thing we shouldn't actively hope for, at least out loud, a terrorist attack on American soil would go a long way to restoring George Bush's image by proving that all of his efforts to prevent another one after 9/11, which President Obama is unraveling, worked. Americans will undoubtedly blame Obama for a terrorist attack especially if we point out that it was probably due to his closing Guantanamo and ending waterboarding of suspects. This is something that Republicans should quietly pray for, especially if it happens in a place where there are a lot of Obama voters like New York, then deplore it when it happens and unite behind the President for a week or so before we point out through anonymous spokespeople that it was Obama's fault. Rush Limbaugh, however, can start blaming Obama as soon as it happens. That's why Republicans are lucky to have him as the voice of the party. He's the only one who can say what we are really thinking.

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Swift Reads 4: Weblog Awards Discoveries 12 Jan 2009 9:36 AM (16 years ago)

Some, like Pia Zadora and Milli Vanilli, achieve recognition in their lifetimes, while others, like President Bush and, apparently, this modest blogger, will only be judged by history when "we'll all be dead." But as I come to terms with the likelihood of being a three-time Weblog Award loser, I prefer to think of the positive aspects of this emotionally wrenching experience: the new readers who graced my blog with their presence and the new blogs I discovered.

Although I am grateful for every one of the new readers who visited this blog in the last week, I am especially surprised and delighted with one new reader in particular who finally decided to drop in. For years she adamantly refused to read my blog or even mention my pseudonym even as she said the most scurrilous things about me. I'm not sure why she resisted coming here for so long unless it was because she was afraid that my writing was so persuasive and reasonable it would shake the very foundations of her carefully constructed world view and set off a dangerous logic loop in her brain that would cause it to short circuit. For many years she remained steadfast in her refusal to let one word of my prose sully the purity of her thoughts. But perhaps the evenings in Madison, Wisconsin, are particularly cold and lonely this time of year and perhaps she had had one too many glasses of wine by 5:30 p.m. on January 8, 2009. And so that evening, as a bitter wind howled outside her window, she checked her Sitemeter to see how many visitors Instapundit had sent her that day and saw yet another link from my site, just sitting there enticingly, beckoning, whispering, "Click me. Click me." Imagine the inner turmoil she experienced as she tried with all her might to resist clicking on the link. Must. Not. Read. Jon. Swift. Then her will power failed her and she could no longer resist, and throwing all caution to the wind, she finally succumbed and clicked that fateful link that whisked her away to my blog. And soon she was reading, feeling that first rush as my prose entered her veins. Who knew it could be so good, she said to herself as one by one the words swept away the cobwebs and the dust in the attic of her cranium, cluttered with crazy theories about breast-bearing feminists, the plots of unfinished books that bored her, deep insights into American Idol episodes and even that dark corner where Bill Clinton waits, crouched lasciviously, ready to betray her all over again. And imagine that moment when her giddy anticipation was finally fulfilled and she came to the first mention of her name, right there, right there in black and light brown, her name in all its glory!: Ann Althouse. So welcome to my modest blog, Ms. Althouse. I wish you had told me you were coming and I would have tidied up the place a bit. I hope you finally found what you were looking for.

But while it was exciting to have Ms. Althouse finally drop by after so many years, it was even more thrilling to discover so many wonderful blogs I had never read before that were nominated for Weblog Awards. And so I thought I would share some of my discoveries with you. Please go and check them out. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

NuVision for a New Day
The diary of a lovely blind African-American woman who sees things others don't see. In this post she talks about being flirted with at a friend's birthday party and confesses, "I can be a little shallow at times when it comes to looks." By the way, are we still allowed to use the word "blind"?

Grace the Spot
A very witty blog that was an unfortunate casualty of the Wonkette juggernaut. Here she talks about the importance of being boring in a relationship. I'm beginning to suspect, however, I may have been mistaken about its being a Lebanese blog.

Army of Dude
A military blog by an Iraq veteran. In a recent five-part series, he tries to describe to those who haven't been there what it's like to hear, see, smell, touch and taste combat in Iraq.

F--- You, Penguin
Who knew that existential despair could be so irresistibly, so heart-breakingly cute?

Curious Expedition
A beautifully designed travelogue that describes such wonders as the remarkably bear-free forests of Carpathia and other places you are glad you've never been to.

Medium Large
The blog of a comic strip artist, who in the helpful animation in this post, explains "What Is Comedy?"

Ashin Mettacara
This Burmese blog has a lot of posts about people being sentenced to long prison terms there. Apparently, they are very tough on crime in Burma.

Blabbeando
I owe a big thanks to this blog, which provided me with the very useful information that plucking your eyebrows is a sign of homosexual tendencies, which has saved me from some possibly embarrassing misunderstandings.

Buckdog
Reading this Canadian blog I learned about subtle racist backlashes in Saskatchewan and that Canada actually has its own unique culture, something I was not aware of before.

Foodie at Fifteen (Now 16)
A food blog by a high school student who really should be spending less time in the kitchen fantasizing about pork bellies and more time playing video games like others his age.

Dr. Wizard's Advice for College Students
This blog explains the world in ways even a student on a rugby scholarship can understand. Here, for example, we learn why drugs are bad through illustrative metaphors.

Madam Miaow says…
Although this is a culture blog with a decidedly left-wing slant, the writer is from "across the pond," as she charmingly puts it, where they don't have as much access to fair and balanced media as we do, and she's not afraid to take on her fellow lefties on occasion.

And if that is not enough reading for you, then check out some of the other worthy blogs that were also nominated for Best Humor Blog (i am bossy, The Bloggess, YesButNoButYes, IMAO, Mattress Police, Mother May I Sleep With Treacher, The Comics Curmudgeon, My Mom is a Fob, and Boobs, Injuries and Dr Pepper), even though some of them could not resist dragging my pseudonym through the mud in their desperation to win. I forgive you all. And I even forgive you, Comics Curmudgeon, despite the fact that you took away my dream and crumpled it up like that piece of looseleaf notebook paper with the love poem to the cheerleader written on it, laughing tauntingly as you swept the long blonde hair from your face and tossed the wad of paper disgustedly into the garbage can.

Update: A coalition of two conservative blogs, who have apparently forgotten Ronald Reagan's Eleventh Commandment, is trying to wrest second place from me armed with an endorsement from The Corner. Don't let that happen. Show them that we conservatives have learned that negative campaigning doesn't work anymore. Vote for Jon Swift here.

Update 2: Ann Althouse responds by email, "That post was awfully needy. Not that I read more than the parts right around my name," and later taunts me on her site: "No wonder he's losing the Weblog Awards voting. Man up, Swift, you pussy."

Update 3: As voting winds to a close I try to impart some valuable lessons to my fellow conservatives: "If we learned anything from the last two elections, it’s that negative campaigning doesn’t work anymore. Conservatives need to come up with a positive vision for the future if we are going to win again, which is what I have tried to do. I think the voters see that my blog is about change and the future and not about just tearing my opponents down and that is why I appear to be trouncing you."

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President Bush's Legacy: One of Our Greatest Presidents 10 Jan 2009 12:34 PM (16 years ago)

As I recently predicted, in few months, with the benefit of hindsight, historians will look back on the Bush presidency as an unalloyed success and consider President Bush to be one of our greatest presidents. Although the White House has sent around its own talking points highlighting the President's accomplishments, I don't think they go far enough. So I have put together my own list of talking points, which should convince anyone why George W. Bush belongs on Mount Rushmore, along with Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and the other guy.

After Hurricane Katrina President Bush kept our cities safe.

In the three years and a half years since Hurricane Katrina not a single American city has been destroyed or partially destroyed. There are more than 10,000 cities in the United States and because of George Bush every single one of them, except for New Orleans, is still largely intact. Of course, no one could have predicted Hurricane Katrina, and if President Clinton had not left us so woefully unprepared, New Orleans would probably be in a lot better shape than it is now. But since Katrina, there have been numerous hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, blizzards, fires and earthquakes and none of them has gotten out of hand and wiped out an entire city because of the disaster preparedness policies President Bush put in place. For national security reasons we may not know until records are declassified how many other potential disasters, like epidemics or nuclear power plant meltdowns or alien invasions, were averted because of the work that government agencies did behind the scenes. Unfortunately, Presidents don't usually get credit for all the disasters that don't happen. But I think we should congratulate the President for doing a heckuva job on keeping America safe in the years since Katrina.

After the October 2008 stock market correction there have been no Great Depressions.

Although the excesses of the Clinton administration's failed economic policies finally caught up with us in October 2008, in the seven years before this economic downturn the economy was doing really well. Not every President can boast of seven years of prosperity. What's more, even since October there have been no Great Depressions, which means President Bush has given us eight completely depressionless years. Although some credit Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's swift and bold moves after the market tanked for staving off a depression, I think most economists will come to agree that it was Bush's 2001 tax cuts that really kept the economy afloat. Bush's prescient tax cuts lifted up the economy to such a level that any economic downfall just brought us back to where we were before instead plunging us into depression. Meanwhile, because of easy credit during the Bush years, more people had the opportunity to buy the homes of their dreams and live in them for a few years before they had to give them back. If Obama's economic policies do plunge us into a Great Depression, Americans will look back on the relative economic prosperity of the Bush years wistfully and have only themselves to blame.

After Iraq and Afghanistan took a turn for the worse, President Bush kept us from losing any wars.

Although some presidents can claim that they did not lose a war during their administrations, not many presidents can claim that they did not lose two wars. President Bush is leaving office with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan still going strong and not lost. In 2007 Iraq almost broke out into civil war because we did not have enough troops in there. Another President might have decided that the War in Iraq was lost and pulled American troops out of there. Not President Bush. By instituting the surge he prevented Iraq from breaking out into civil war and scoring a loss for the U.S. for the first time in our history. What is even more remarkable was that he was able to stave off defeat in Iraq and at the same time keep just enough troops in Afghanistan to prevent the Taliban from completely retaking the entire country. Quibblers might say that he didn't actually win either conflict outright or that Afghanistan would be in better shape if we had kept more troops there and not invaded Iraq or offer all sorts of other coulda shoulda woulda arguments but the fact is that we didn't lose any wars and Bush deserves credit for that.

After the District Attorney firing scandal, the outing of Valerie Plame and other scandals, President Bush restored integrity to government.

After a few overzealous Justice Department officials trying to restore balance to our justice system, which had been tainted by the partisanship of the Clinton years, went a little overboard in trying to clean house, President Bush immediately took action and patiently convinced those who were responsible to resign eventually. Since that time no district attorneys have been fired for political reasons. In 2003 when CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity was compromised, President Bush vowed to get to the bottom of it and eventually Scooter Libby was prosecuted and threatened with jail time until President Bush mercifully decided he had suffered enough and commuted his sentence. Everyone else who was involved was either persuaded to resign or given a very severe talking to. Because of President Bush's bold stand against compromising the identities of members of our intelligence community, for the last five years not a single undercover CIA agent has been outted. There were a number of other scandals, too numerous to mention here, that President Bush took strong and immediate measures to clean up, such as the level of care veterans were receiving at Walter Reed Hospital. As soon as President Bush found out about it, he fixed it and now veterans receive better care there than they have in years. But perhaps President Bush's most remarkable achievement when it comes to restoring honor and dignity to his office is something he didn't do. Many Americans were understandably disillusioned with government after President Clinton violated the sacred trust that had existed for more than 200 years between presidents and their interns. But in the entire eight years President Bush has been in office he did not have sex with a single intern that we know about, which is an extraordinary accomplishment considering how young and pretty and undoubtedly tempting some of those interns are. It is a testament to President Bush's discipline and character that he did not succumb to temptation and history will certainly remember him for that.

After divisive elections President Bush united our country.

When President Bush took office we were a nation starkly divided between blue states and red states, Vice President Al Gore's attempt to steal the election had left many Democrats bitter and unable to get over it and Washington was a city riven by the political partisanship fostered by Clinton's divisive leadership. But by the end of Bush's first year in office this country was united as it never had been before and the President had a 90% approval rating. Although Democrats continued to try to divide this country and exploit every issue for partisan gain, President Bush continued to rise above the fray and worked with Democrats like Sen. Ted Kennedy to pass No Child Left Behind and probably some other bills, too, though I can't think of any off the top of my head. He encouraged Democrats to join him in fighting terrorism although some continued to resist and preferred instead to coddle the terrorists. And yet President Bush was able to persuade the American people to elect him to office again over an elitist, French, latte-swilling, wind-surfing, traitorous, terrorist coddling, Iraq War-losing, Genghis Khan-mispronouncing, lesbian-outting, gay marriage-loving, Anti-American liberal. And when Democrats took over both houses of Congress in 2006, he even won them over to his side with his gentle powers of persuasion. In the end Democrats didn't have the heart to really oppose Bush on anything significant at all, going along with him on such issues as whether to end the war in Iraq and whether to allow the NSA to wiretap our phones. It was hard, apparently, for the Democratic leadership to resist President Bush's charms. And so Obama will take office with the country a lot less divided than it was when Bush came in and divisions between red and blue states much less stark than they once were. President Bush promised that he would be a uniter instead of a divider and if you look at the polls, which show Americans more united than they have been in many years, it is clear that President Bush kept his promise.

After Abu Ghraib, President Bush reaffirmed America's adherence to the Geneva Conventions and against torture.

After Abu Ghraib, some America haters used the photographs that soldiers stupidly took of harsh interrogations of prisoners as evidence in their propaganda that the Bush Administration did not care about upholding the Geneva Conventions. But President Bush took decisive action to prosecute the bad apples, mostly soldiers and low-level commanders, who were solely responsible for what went on there to show the world that we take the Geneva Conventions very seriously even though it is just a treaty and not technically binding especially when we are trying to fight an enemy that does not follow its rules. In the wake of 9/11 some presidents might have been tempted to ignore the Geneva Conventions completely and do whatever was necessary to protect us, but President Bush knew that we couldn't totally abandon all of our ideals in the War on Terror and so he followed the Geneva Conventions to the letter, applying its rules to every soldier who was not an enemy combatant outside the treaty's jurisdiction. And he strongly reaffirmed this nation's stance against torture, preferring instead to waterboard suspected terrorists instead of torturing them, and sending particularly difficult cases to countries where they unfortunately don't have our strong ideals. And even at Guantanamo, which technically is outside the jurisdiction of our laws, President Bush made sure that every prisoner was given due process even if it is understandably taking a while to decide what process they are due. During his entire term of office President Bush never wavered once in maintaining publicly that America does not torture. In fact, I think President Bush may have said, "We do not torture" more than any President in American history.

After 9/11 President Bush kept America safe from terrorist attacks on American soil.

Surely, President Bush's greatest accomplishment, and the one achievement he will most be remembered for in history, was that he kept America safe from terrorist attacks after 9/11. Seven years without a single terrorist attack on American soil is certainly a remarkable accomplishment. The fact that the Clinton Administration's foreign policy blunders left America vulnerable to the worst terrorist act in our nation's history will always be a black mark against President Clinton in the history books, while President Bush's quick and decisive action to correct those mistakes after 9/11 is what he will always be remembered for. And we will probably not know for many years until records are declassified how many shoe bombers and wannabe jihadists were stopped in their tracks. Unfortunately, seven years was just not enough time to capture those responsible for the attacks, but he certainly has Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda on the run. I'm sure Obama will try to take credit if he does capture Bin Laden, but no one can take away from President Bush the credit he is due for keeping America completely safe from terrorist attacks for seven years, eight if you don't count 9/11, which wasn't really his fault. Based on that accomplishment alone, can anyone doubt that George W. Bush was one of our greatest presidents?

Vote for Jon Swift here in the 2008 Weblog Awards.

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Fair and balanced commentary from a modest and reasonable conservative.

Epic Fail 8 Jan 2009 2:16 AM (16 years ago)

Sixth place. Sixth place! Have I not done enough for you people? Have I not done enough reporting for you, at least by Michelle Malkin's standards? Are my posts not long enough? Have I not posted semi-regularly enough? Has my conservatism not been reasonable enough? Have I not not read enough books for you? Is it really too much to ask, to ask you to Go Here and push a little button to vote for me once a day for a week? How hard could that be? And who is this Comics Curmudgeon? The answer to that last question is a very sad tale that involves not only my impending ignoble defeat but also larger issues and much more vulnerable blogs than this one who have unjustly suffered in this year's Weblog Awards.

When President Bush won two elections it restored my faith in the sanctity of the voting process. Then I met the Weblog Awards. Last year, my category was used as the staging ground for a pissing contest between liberals and conservatives, not unlike Berlin in 1948, while the other blogs in the category, including this one, were caught in the crossfire. This year the Weblog Awards have been taken hostage by a lopsided interliberal battle with equally tragic results. In the end one liberal blog has taken ceiling cat-like powers upon itself to determine who shall win and who shall lose, turning what was supposed to be a friendly competition into a mud-slinging contest so unlike the way campaigns are usually conducted in America. And while this one liberal blog stomps around the Weblog Awards like a clumsy giant, the other major liberal blogs remain pathetically silent. Well, if they won't speak up, then I will: J'accuse, Wonkette!

Wonkette's original goal was to defeat The Confluence, which was winning in its category of Best Liberal Blog. The Confluence is a PUMA blog, which are blogs written by bitter and angry former Hillary Clinton supporters who are still getting used to the idea of having a black man in the White House. (PUMA either stands for "Party Unity My Ass" or "People Unable to Mitigate their Anger," depending on whom you ask.) Now I understand that there are many people who disagree with PUMAs, but haven't they suffered enough? Hillary lost and one day they are going to figure that out. I think we should give them a little time to adjust. Just as my grandmother learned to say "colored," they'll come around. And who knows, maybe Larry Johnson at No Quarter will find that "whitey" tape he seems to have mislaid, at least in time for the next election. Who will be laughing then?

But as Wonkette soared past the other blogs in its category, it became tipsy with power and began targeting other PUMA blogs in other categories and it didn't care who got hurt in the process. Soon other categories had its carpets dirtied by Wonkette's mud-splattered wretches. In Best New Blog, the Wonketeers randomly selected a blog, ~synthesis~, which I must say is a very fine blog, and got their legions of readers, who apparently have a lot of time on their hands, to vote for it, in order to defeat UppityWoman08, but at the same time making it virtually impossible for other blogs to win. Can you imagine how these young blogs must have felt, still gaining their sea-legs in the blogosphere, happy to be recognized for their efforts with a nomination, only to have their hopes dashed and get a sad lesson in nasty blogospheric politics? My friend Blue Gal tells me, for example, that Grace the Spot, which I think is a Lebanese blog, is a very deserving blog in that category, and it was doing quite well until Wonkette struck. Grace is understandably not happy with what she called Wonkette's "spiteful shenanigans."

In Best Small Blog, by chance, Wonkette selected Rumproast, which happens to be a great blog that I have also endorsed, but does he really want to win that way? OK, maybe he does, but there are other fine blogs in that category who now don't even have a fighting chance, such as Woman Honor Thyself, who is on my blogroll and has always been very supportive and sweet to me though I know some of my liberal readers (yes, believe it or not, I do have a few!) might disagree with her politics, just as I disagree with theirs but tolerate them anyway because that's the kind of blogger I am.

Because, like Obama, I try to be friendly with those I disagree with, it is especially painful when bloggers I thought were my friends (in an Internet sort of way) send out their vast hordes to humiliate me and other bloggers who never did anything to deserve such treatment. Yes, even this modest blogger who has always considered Wonkette to be a friend of this blog, most recently when they contributed to my year-end roundup, has been a victim of their tactics. Et tu, Wonkette? When they endorsed Comics Curmudgeon, who seems to be nice enough, as Obama might say, though somewhat irascible, in the Best Humor Blog category just because he happens to write for them occasionally, it seemed like an eerie repeat of what happened last year. As I wrote to them, "You was my brother, Wonkette, you shoulda looked out for me a little bit. You broke my heart! Get the butter!" Sure, I regretted that last Brando movie reference as going over the line, but in my defense, I was angry and writing in haste.

I don't blame the bloggers of indeterminate sex at Wonkette for getting a little carried away and pushing around a few little blogs. I've been tempted to push around a few little blogs myself. And they must be feeling just a little embarrassed because they are now telling their minions to stop voting for them and vote for another liberal blog. So which one do they choose? Talking Points Memo, which hardly needs more recognition.

Even John Yon and John Bolton who once believed passionately in the Unitary Executive Theory of presidential power, are suddenly having second thoughts about whether it's a good idea to give so much power to one man, now that they have had about eight years to think about it. Wonkette needs to learn to wield its power with the same discretion that President Bush has shown. And someone has to speak up and say that in America voting is sacred and shouldn't be allowed to be hijacked by an unruly mob. Imagine if that happened in a Presidential election. I must say the reaction of the other major liberal blogs in Wonkette's category has been pitiful. But even if they are too wimpy to fight for themselves and have abdicated to Wonkette in their own category, why don't they use their vast powers of linkage to help other worthy blogs in other categories and demonstrate to Wonkette by example that power can also be used for good? Perhaps the problem is that some of them are really not that much different from Wonkette when it comes to power wielding.

Sadly, I don't have vast powers of linkage but nevertheless I will do what I can to get my lazy, apathetic, good-for-nothing readers to help out a few other blogs that would just like to emerge from this competition with a shred of their dignity intact. For a full slate of my endorsements go here, but please give the blogs below your special attention (as in my full slate of endorsements, if they contributed to my year-end roundup, links go to the post they considered to be their best of the year):

Best Hidden Gem: Pajama Pundit is doing well and is certainly deserving, but Zuky could use your help. Pajama Pundit is also competing in Best Political Coverage, where it is doing less well, as is Foreign Policy Watch and they could both use some votes.

Best Up and Coming Blog: Both Simply Left Behind and Connecting.the.Dots are good friends of this blog and both have been sadly left behind so far.

Best Midsize Blog: The Sideshow is way behind despite all that she has done for the blogosphere, you bunch of ingrates. And Scholars and Rogues deserves more votes as well.

Best Large Blog: Although several great blogs from my blogroll, including the incomparable Miss Cellania, are competing, skippy the bush kangaroo has done more for the blogosphere than any blog around and he is being trounced by Jammie Wearing Fool, who was quite rude to me when I so graciously linked to him.

Best Very Large Blog: Bitch Ph.D. is one of the few blogs I have endorsed who is actually winning so please send some votes her way so that I can claim it was all because of me.

Best Middle East or Africa: Informed Comment is in third place. C'mon.

Best UK Blog: Olly's Onions' vote total is in the two digits. I am embarrassed for all of you.

Best Technology Blog: Wetmachine deserves to make a dignified showing amidst the megablogs.

Best Video Blog: Hot Potato Mash is near the bottom despite having created all of these amazing videos.

Best Diarist: Are you going to allow Blue Girl to be Dooced?

Best Literature Blog: Diary of a Heretic, the only blogger in the category whose blog consists of her fiction, and Maud Newton are way behind a guy who writes science fiction. Is science fiction even literature?

Best Culture Blog: Barataria is second to last and I am hanging my head in shame.

Best Science Blog: Greg Laden is dead last. Now I am angry.

Best LGBT Blog: Susie Bright is holding up the rear, which would probably have a different meaning on her blog. Help her out.

Best Individual Blogger: Driftglass is in third place and needs a good push to get into first and Field Negro should be doing much better.

Best Liberal Blog: Shakesville has always been very kind about letting me crosspost there and expose its liberal readers to new ideas and Blue Gal has done yeoman's work for smaller blogs in the blogosphere. Both deserve to lose to Wonkette in style.

And, finally, because miracles do happen, vote for Jon Swift here.

Update: Wonkette has now endorsed this modest blog in a fiendishly clever attempt to subvert my righteous indignation.

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Fair and balanced commentary from a modest and reasonable conservative.

Kennedy for New York Senate 7 Jan 2009 6:58 AM (16 years ago)

According to the New York Times, an aide to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is questioning the credentials of Caroline Kennedy to replace Hillary Clinton as Senator from New York if she is confirmed as Secretary of State in the Obama Administration. Cuomo believes he is qualified to be New York's Senator because he was once married to a Kennedy. But that is not enough. New York's next Senator must actually be named Kennedy. The Kennedy name has a "special magic capital," as Maureen Dowd so poetically calls it. But there are other Kennedys who are just as qualified, if not more so, than Caroline. If we really want the best Kennedy to fill Robert Kennedy's old seat, New York Gov. David Patterson should choose conservative former MTV VJ Kennedy.

Those who are lobbying for Caroline Kennedy, such as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have their hearts in the right place. They want to find the candidate who will most annoy and embarrass Hillary to replace her. And appointing Caroline would certainly accomplish that. Although she hasn't voted much or been that involved in politics or even studied the issues, she did make Hillary angry when she and her uncle Sen. Ted Kennedy endorsed Obama over Hillary in the Democratic primary. As I explained at the time, "It is not just that Obama reminds them of Kennedy, it is also that the Clintons remind them of Lyndon Johnson. And if there is anything that the Kennedys don't like, it's a bunch of hillbillies in the White House, which is being kept in trust until a competent Kennedy can be groomed to take it back for its rightful owners. Until that time Obama will do." The Clintons, like Johnson, think of politics as mud wrestling or the roller derby, while the Kennedys see it as a friendly game of touch football. So it must have irked them to see Hillary, the Sandra Day O'Clobber of American politics, besmirching the Senate seat that by rights belongs to the Kennedys.

Appointing Caroline Kennedy to the Senate would make the Hillary-haters happy, but I'm afraid it won't annoy Hillary enough. The few abbreviated press conferences Caroline has had, before her aides cut them off, showed that she isn't the most articulate Kennedy in the world. In a Senate committee hearing, Hillary would make mincemeat of her. But former MTV VJ Kennedy has had quite a lot of experience in the spotlight and is quite articulate. The woman who once simulated fellatio with her microphone while interviewing former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani would have no problem taking Hillary on. Who knows what she might do with a Senate microphone. In comparison, Caroline Kennedy seems just too nice and polite and would wilt in Hillary's glare.

Kennedy does not currently live in New York and probably doesn't know much about the issues affecting the state, but as far as I know, actually living in New York has never been a requirement to represent the state in the Senate, and she probably knows as much about New York issues as Caroline does. She has also formulated strong stances on other political issues she would have to deal with as a Senator, something Caroline hasn't gotten around to doing yet. And while appointing Caroline has a certain nostalgic appeal for those who want to bring back Camelot and the 1960s, appointing former MTV VJ Kennedy would hearken back to a time more people remember with fondness, the 1990s, when the stock market was doing well and MTV actually played music videos instead of running endless reruns of badly written "reality" shows.

I'm sure appointing Caroline Kennedy would make Hillary grit her teeth, but appointing a Republican washed-up former MTV VJ with even fewer credentials than Caroline would be a more satisfying slap in the face at Hillary. I agree that insulting Hillary by appointing a Kennedy is important, but we need to make sure it's the right Kennedy.

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Jon Swift's Predictions for 2009 5 Jan 2009 2:00 AM (16 years ago)

Although I made some eerily prescient predictions for 2007 and 2006, I never got around to foretelling what 2008 had in store for us. Considering how spot-on my election coverage was, especially in such pieces as "Why McCain Will Win," "Barack Obama Should Concede the Nomination to Hillary," "Barack Obama's Achilles Heel," "The Iowa Caucus Results Explained" and "When Giuliani Is President, Every Day Will Be 9/11," all of which proved to be more true than not, it's too bad I did not venture to make predictions for 2008, which certainly would have put me on a par with such perspicacious prognosticators as William Kristol and Dick Morris. So I decided not to make that mistake again and give my dear readers another peek into my crystal ball. I ask only that you use my frighteningly accurate psychic powers for good and not evil.

President Barack Obama decides that on second thought things are just fine the way they are and he doesn't want to change a thing.
Axl Rose withdraws Guns N Roses' Chinese Democracy, saying he needs just a little more time to work on it. Sources close to the artist reveal that he especially regretted the lack of cowbell.
Twitter invents a device that can be implanted users' brains allowing them to tweet every random thought to their followers.
When Google's stock price plummets, the company announces that it will no longer not be evil, which gets a thumbs up from Wall Street analysts.
In a desperate bid for attention, Britney Spears does something really embarrassing.
President Obama paints the White House black realizing the worst fears of some Americans.
As production costs skyrocket, Hollywood begins outsourcing all of its productions to Bollywood. A three-hour feel-good musical sequel to The Dark Knight starring Amitabh Bachchan is the year's biggest hit.
YouTube begins a crackdown on really crappy videos.
A tasty and nutritious new snack food imported from China called Soylent Green becomes wildly popular though no one is quite sure what's in it and the FDA says it doesn't have the resources to find out but trusts the Chinese government's safeguards.
After crunching the numbers, NBC executives decide that in addition to giving Jay Leno the 10 to 11 p.m. slot, they will replace the rest of the schedule with homemade cable access programming, saving the network millions of dollars in production costs.
With the benefit of hindsight historians conclude that President Bush really was one of our greatest presidents after all.
As in-fighting among his cabinet members threatens to derail his Presidency, Obama fires his entire cabinet and replaces them with yes-men.
With the Minnesota Senate election hopelessly deadlocked, the Minnesota legislature rejects both Norm Coleman and Al Franken and instead appoints Tom Davis.
Andrew Sullivan breaks with Obama, calling him the Worst President Ever, announces he is supporting Sarah Palin for President in 2012, converts to Islam and urges his readers to wage jihad, divorces his husband and denounces homosexuality as an "abomination."
Despite losing millions of dollars in a series of high-profile memoirs that turn out to be hoaxes the publishing industry rejects calls to hire fact-checkers to read manuscripts as economically unfeasible and instead institutes a policy to make authors swear on a stack of Bibles and cross-their-hearts-hope-to-die that their books are true.
Rod Blagojevich's plan to sell his position as a jail-yard bitch to the highest bidder is foiled by a prison stooge.
Steve Jobs announces that he will resign as CEO of Apple and replaces himself with his little-known brother Raul Jobs.
After a Pentagon study group recommends changes in the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy on gays in the military, Obama replaces it with a new policy called "Don't Even Ask, Don't Even Tell, I'm Warning You," a compromise that makes no one happy.
Wii introduces a popular new remote that allows you to play its games sitting down and moving only your fingers.
Joe the Plumber submits a bill for his time in the spotlight to the American people, who are shocked to discover how high it is. A report by the Congressional Accounting Office reveals that more than half of the charges are for time spent sitting around and waiting for parts.
Gay marriage activism fizzles as gays decide they would rather just live together instead of getting married, shocking and embarrassing their parents.
Sarah Palin is ridiculed when a man she has just pardoned is mistakenly executed right behind her as she is giving an interview about the pardon to local news media.
After weeks of rumors President Obama confirms in a press conference that he's got a basketball jones, which he has had ever since he was a little baby, and will be seeking treatment.
A shark-jumping contest on an episode of Lost has fans finally giving up on the show for good.
Jon Swift loses the Weblog Award for Best Humor Blog by just one vote when one of his readers decides that voting is pointless because "everything is controlled by multinational corporations anyway." Vote here to make sure this is one prediction that doesn't come true.

Carnivals: Carnival of Satire

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Jon Swift Nominated for a 2008 Weblog Award for Best Humor Blog 31 Dec 2008 6:20 AM (16 years ago)

The nominations for the 2008 Weblog Awards have just been released, and I am proud and humble to discover that this modest blog is among the nominees this year for Best Humor Blog. This is the third year in a row that this blog has been nominated in this category, and like three-time Grammy Album of the Year nominee Kanye West, I feel it’s just an honor to be nominated whether I win or not. While a third loss in a row would be humiliating and personally devastating, it’s especially gratifying to be nominated in a category that includes such fine nominees as i am bossy, The Bloggess, YesButNoButYes, IMAO, Mattress Police, Mother May I Sleep With Treacher, The Comics Curmudgeon, My Mom is a Fob, Boobs, Injuries and Dr Pepper. Let me extend my congratulations to all of you. Your year will come some day, I’m sure.

This nomination is especially surprising because I left a message with Gov. Rod Blagojevich that while I know a Weblog Award is an “f---ing valuable thing,” I could not promise to do anything in exchange for a nomination. I can’t vouch for the other nominees, but I’m sure they did the right thing as well and I would hate to think their nominations are tainted by their silence.

This is a time of crisis for humor blogs. The next four years promise to be the unfunniest in our nation’s history. I am sure some people may be thinking that as a three-time nominee, this blog has too much experience, and it would be too risky to put the Weblog Award in the hands of a blog knows what it is doing when America is clamoring for a fresh young face. But while this blog has been around since way back when Barack Obama was just a freshman senator from Illinois, what this blog is really about is change. Not the scary kind of change, but reasonable change. The kind of change where the more things change, the more they stay the same, which is the kind of change you can believe in. So I hope you will keep that in mind when voting begins on Monday, January 5 in what is probably the most important Weblog Awards of our lifetimes. You can vote here once a day until January 12.

While much of the nation’s focus will understandably be on the competition for Best Humor Blog, there are also other categories, and I want to congratulate those nominees as well. I am especially pleased to note the nominees that are on my esteemed blogroll and I hope you will consider giving them your vote. Here are my endorsements in the other categories, which you can print out and take into the voting booth with you. Many of them contributed to my compilation of the best posts of the year. I urge you to visit them all. If I’ve left off anyone on my blogroll who is nominated, please let me know. And if you are wondering how on earth this blog got nominated, "The Best of Jon Swift" may, or may not, give you a clue. Update: The links below now go to the piece each blogger nominated as his or her best of the year for my roundup, if they submitted one, so that you can see the bloggers at their best. Each category link goes to the poll for that category. You can vote once a day until January 12.

Best Individual Blogger
field negro
Driftglass
Lindsay Beyerstein - Majikthise

Best Liberal Blog
Shakesville
Hullabaloo
Sadly, No!
Blue Gal
Orcinus
Wonkette
Taylor Marsh
Crooks & Liars
Glenn Greenwald's Unclaimed Territory

Best Conservative Blog
Right Wing Nut House

Best Political Coverage
Pajama Pundit
Foreign Policy Watch

Best LGBT Blog
The Bilerico Project
Pam's House Blend
Susie Bright's Journal

Best Science Blog
Greg Laden
Pharyngula

Best Culture Blog
Barataria

Best Literature Blog
Diary of a Heretic
Maud Newton

Best Diarist
Blue Girl in a Red State (Blue State)

Best Video Blog
Hot Potato Mash

Best Technology Blog
Wetmachine

Best Canadian Blog
We Move to Canada
Abandoned Stuff

Best UK Blog
Olly's Onions

Best Middle East or Africa Blog
Informed Comment

Best Major Blog (Authority over 1001)
The Moderate Voice
TBogg
Balloon Juice

Best Very Large Blog (Authority between 501 and 1,000)
Bitch PHD
Pandagon
Jesus General

Best Large Blog (Authority between 301 and 500)
Miss Cellania
Bloggasm
skippy the bush kangaroo
The Agonist
Fafblog
Fausta's Blog

Best Midsize Blog (Authority between 201 and 300)
Betsy's Page
The Sideshow
Scholars And Rogues
Suburban Guerilla
Hoyden About Town

Best Small Blog (Authority between 101 and 200)
Woman Honor Thyself
Rumproast

Best Up And Coming Blog (Authority between 51 and 100)
Simply Left Behind
Connecting the Dots

Best Hidden Gem (Authority between 0 and 50)
Zuky
The Pajama Pundit

Fair and balanced commentary from a modest and reasonable conservative.

Best Blog Posts of 2008 (Chosen by the Bloggers Themselves) 29 Dec 2008 12:00 PM (16 years ago)

Last year my compilation of what bloggers chose as their own best posts of the year proved so popular, at least with the participating bloggers' mothers, that I have decided to make it an annual affair. But enjoy it while you can. When the Obama Administration institutes its secret plan to extend the Fairness Doctrine to the Internet, this blog, and many others listed here that express one particular point of view, will no doubt be shut down. Democrats, of course, will be exempt because if you are looking for an opposing point of view from them, all you have to do is wait a day or two: one day they love Obama, the next day they're denouncing him.... Let's just say it's going to be a very long four years.

Last year I limited participation to bloggers on my very eclectic blogroll (which was not too onerous a requirement since under this conservative blog's Liberal Blogrolling Policy I will blogroll anyone who blogrolls me, with the exception of spam, porn or other egregiously offensive blogs). But this year I have also thrown open the doors to some surprise special guests who have not yet seen the wisdom of adding me to their blogroll, but have some interesting things to say. (If you're already on my blogroll, however, and you somehow missed my email or holiday obligations prevented you from sending in your entry on time, please email me rather than leaving poor excuses or bitter remonstrances in the comments, and I'll see if I can squeeze you in if I haven't yet succumbed to complete exhaustion.)

It's no surprise that there are quite a few posts about the election this year and perhaps when the history of this campaign is written, historians will look at these posts to get an idea of what people were thinking as it was taking place. They may conclude that the Chinese were right about living in interesting times. The bloggers represented below run the political gamut, from conservative to anti-America, but in addition to politics, they also write about movies, music, television, books, dance, education, fashion, travel, food, economics, health care, science, technology, religion and history and share personal stories, poetry and fiction. There is surely something here that will interest you and probably something to offend you, as well, but that at least might make you think. I'm afraid if I were to invite everyone in this roundup to sit together at a dinner party, I would have to hide the good china, and even then the evening might end with a visit from the police. And as we have seen when Obama has tried to reach across the aisle, it is a thankless task, so I am sure a few slings and arrows will be directed my way. But just in case you find your blood pressure rising as you read some of these entries, I have created an original series of soothing lolcats, which have been scientifically proven to induce a calming effect, to look at as you scroll down.

These posts aren't ranked by quality or traffic statistics and there are no winners and losers. They weren't selected by a committee of experts or voted on in a popularity contest. They represent only what each blog or blogger believes was his or her blog's best work of the year. Last year, I listed them in alphabetical order, which required constantly consulting the alphabet. This year I made things easier on myself and listed them in the order they were received. So you could say they are ranked in reverse order of laziness and procrastination. I'm sure you'll be interested in seeing what your favorite bloggers think were their best posts of the year, but be sure to also visit some blogs you've never read before and leave a nice comment if you like what you see or, if you must, a polite demurral if you do not. So without further ado, here are the self-nominated best blog posts of 2008. Let the clicking begin.

Greg Laden's Blog

The Zodiac

Greg Laden evades hippos and pirates in the Congo. The horror! The horror!

Sisyphus Shrugged
Is Anyone Else Just the Tiniest Bit Tired of Getting Played?
Julia gets to the bottom of all those Hillary supporters who refused to support Obama. It turns out they were all the same person.

Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress
I'm a Progressive Libertarian
If Paul Levinson is a “progressive libertarian,” I must be a "regressive authoritarian."

Clark’s Picks
Frankie and Johnny
Clark’s Picks recounts the history of “Frankie and Johnny,” a song that might have appeared on Guns N Roses' Chinese Democracy if only Axl Rose had had a little more time.

Ken Levine
My Tenth Annual Oscars Review
Ken Levine reviews the Oscars and asks, "We ended the writers strike for THIS?" I think it's meant to be a rhetorical question.

Pine View Farm
Bushonomics and Original Sin
Frank blames Bush for the bad economy when we all know it was the fault of that infernal, dad-burned Roosevelt.

Tom Watson
Barack Oboomer
Tom Watson, author of the recent book CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World, reminds us that Barack Obama is a baby boomer even though he seems much younger and doesn't claim he tried to go to Woodstock or can't remember large chunks of his youth because he was having so much fun.

David Ehrenstein’s Fablog
“And We Won’t Come Home. . .”
After watching WALL-E, David Ehrenstein is reminded of Hello, Dolly! and the tragic death of one of its stars, which is probably what a lot of people were thinking when they saw WALL-E.

Welcome Back To Pottersville
They Want to Do Bad Things to Yo u
Mike Flannigan likens Republicans to the vampires in True Blood. I'm sure he means that in a good way.

Stumpplane
The Nihilists are Revolting
Montag explains David Brooks and sub-prime mortgages, neither of which makes much sense.

Unspeak
Saying Nothing
Steven Poole sicks the thought police on those who make make cheap references to Orwell.

Whiskey Fire
A Contest Featuring Human Beings
Thers tries to elevate the political dialogue by informing us, “Your favorite candidate sucks.”

Chuck For…

Warfare Is What It Is

Chuck Butcher says that war isn’t really a glorious adventure but is actually full of violence and horror. I don't remember the media reporting on this.

A Blog Around the Clock
The Nobel Prize Conundrum
Coturnix explains the negative side of the Nobel Prizes, besides the fact that there isn’t one for blogging.

Informed Comment
Barack Hussein Obama, Omar B radley, Benjamin Franklin and other Semitically Named American Heroes
Juan Cole says that Barack Hussein Obama should be as proud of his name as Abraham Hussein Lincoln and John Hussein Adams were.

Rightwing Snarkle
Songbird's Swan Song
Rightwingsnarkle claims that George Bush says that John McCain wasn't tortured in Vietnam.

Ambivalog
We Vote
Amba's heart and head mud wrestle over whether to vote for Obama or McCain.

Man Eegee
Man Eegee's Guide to Meaningful Latino Outreach
Man Eegee offers free advice on how to reach out to Latinos. Apparently, hiring a mariachi band and serving tamales is not enough.

Woman Honor Thyself
That’s HoT!..NOT
Don't say that Angel's post about gender differences is "hot." I'm warning you.

Dan Leo
Post-Mortem
Dan Leo shares an excerpt from the sprawling memoirs of Arnold Schnabel, Philadelphia's famous "Rhyming Brakeman."

Tbogg
Your Mumia Sweatshirt Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore

Tbogg visits some Ralph Nader voters in Happy Gumdrop Fairy-Tale Land and kills them.

Total Dickhead
Next Stop Pott ersville
Ragle Gumm writes about the eerie similarities betweeen Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life and Philip K. Dick's novels. I had forgotten about the scene where Jimmy Stewart kills the replicant.

Dinosaur Trader

An other Lesson in Perspective
DT takes a break from accumulating mass quantities of wealth to catch an epic wave and have an epiphany. He has also done a roundup similar to this one for stock market bloggers.

Barking Rabbits
Professor Harold Hill, Prototypical Republican?
Zeppo informs us that President Bush's foreign and domestic policy are based on a system first described in The Music Man.

Genuine Ideas
Always Remembered, N ever Forgotten
Jaesoreal will never forget how everything changed on August 24, 2006, the day we lost Pluto.

Simply Left Behind
Remembrances
On the 40th anniversary of Robert Kennedy's assassination Carl remembers what the Senator did for his family.

Bug Girl's Blog
I Have Pubic Lice in My Mailbox
Entomologist Bug Girl writes a blog post that has finally left me speechless.

Drifting Through the Grift
The In Between
Obama's "race speech" inspires Griftdrift to think about how race has impacted his "very typical" southern family.

Talking Dog
The ~~Empire~~ Republic Strikes B ack?
Andy Worthington explains what a great job we are doing living up to the ideals expressed in a really old document written in 1776.

Cinema Viewfinder
Seventies Cinema Revival: Th e Godfather
As a relatively new father Tony Dayoub reflects on the relationship between Don Corleone and his son. We all hope and pray that his child doesn't get pulled into the world of blogging the way Michael Corleone ended up in the Mafia.

Barataria
Barking at the 'Net
Erik Hare says there are two types of writing on the Internet: talking and barking, which must be why some of my commenters treat me as a chew toy.

Kingsom of Chaos
A nniversary of the Entente Cordiale
Jefe Maximo writes about the 1904 treaty of friendship between Great Britain and France, which led to the destruction of old Europe, though it apparently had no effect on British cuisine or French manners.

Michael Bérubé
More on Peter Singer and Jamie Bérubé
"Sometimes, the internet really is an amazing thing," writes Michael Bérubé, "in which you write a blog post that takes issue with Peter Singer’s characterization of the capabilities of people with Down syndrome, and then find, a few weeks later, an email from Peter Singer in your inbox."

Robin Slick
On Tour with The Adrian Belew P ower Trio
Robin Slick goes on tour with her kids, who make up 2/3 of the Adrian Belew Power Trio, and watches them play in front of 100,000 people with two members of King Crimson and Les Claypool from Primus. "Can you imagine what it was like for a lifelong rocker like me?" she says.

Autism News Beat
Developmental Delay
The father of an autistic child finds that World Autism Awareness Day "exposes some of the more enduring misconceptions that reporters still hold about autism."

Graphic Truth
Science, Ethics and Truth-Testing
Bob King invokes the ghost of William Buckley in the debate over whether science should be abolished.

Darrel Plant
The Audacity of OPE or: Ho w I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Obama
Darrel Plant discusses repeated attempts to declare the death of satire, from the Kennedy assassination to Obama's election, and has bad news for those of us who hoped that this comedy menace can finally be stamped out for good.

Velvet Blog
William Carlos Williams Mad-Libs
Jim Donahue shows you how to create your own William [Spanish proper name] Williams poem.

Creek Running North
Letter from the Desert: The Cronise Cat
Chris Clarke has a conversation with a 700-foot-tall Mojave cat and his readers slowly back away shaking their heads sadly.

Rude Pundit
Time to Rub Their F---ing Faces in It
Rude Pundit reaches across the aisle in his own special way.

Liberal Veteran
Goodbye and Good Luck

WTN describes what it was like to say goodbye to his wife when he was deployed to Iraq.

Kiko’s House
The Saga of the Cedars: When Bad Things Happen to Good Christian Conservatives
Times are tough for good Christian families like the Cedars, says Shaun Mullen.

Publius Endures
The Myth of the Moderate -- W hy the "Political Center" Is Meaningless
Mark believes the political center cannot hold.

NYC Educator
The American Center
NYC Educator says, "Let's have more thoroughly uncritical coverage of [DC Schools Chancellor Michelle] Rhee and her utter lack of accomplishment." OK, let's.

Well Informed Citizenry
Reaganomics
Thunter thinks this little glitch we are having in the economy means we have to get rid of Reaganomics.

C3Fun
Jerome Corsi Deported from Kenya -- The (Real) True Story!
Micgar has the real story behind Obama Nation author Jerome Corsi's getting thrown out of Kenya.

Wallstreet Jackass
Higher taxes and Investment Advice
Wallstreet Jackass, who says he "called 20 of the last 2 recessions," has some advice for weathering this economic downturn.

J-TWO-O
Whatever Happened to Spandex?
J misses her old purple Fiorucci dress made out of spandex, which her mother told her was "God's gift to men."

123Beta
2009 Investment Tips
Butch Morgan has some inside information on upcoming mergers. Don't tell Martha Stewart.

Well-Timed Period
Leslee Unruh Is a Cl oseted Communist
Ema, whose blog, I think, is usually about punctuation, writes about legislation to protect the health of women, which she apparently opposes.

Bobo Files
Why?
BoBo asks why African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans continue to vote Democrat even though history shows it has been the Democrats who have been the racists. Can anyone answer his question?

The Whited Sephulcre
How To Teach Creationism
Allen wonders why teachers don't simply give in and start teaching Creationism, but with their own slant on the topic. "Doing so would quickly take the debate off the table," he says.

Olly’s Onions
Republicans Urge Drilling for Snake Oil
Chive Turkey comes out in favor of offshore snake oil drilling.

The Agonist
Who Got It Right
Numerian points out modestly that The Agonist predicted what would happen to the economy long before many of the experts did. OK, smart guy, what's going to happen next?

James Governor's Monkchips
Asy mmetrical Follow: A Core Web 2.0 Pattern
James Governor ponders the nature of social networks built around blogs and twitters. "Are we just just a new kind of broadcaster, or have we stumbled on a more conversational means of communication for large social networks?" he asks.

Divided We Stand
The Hero and the Quee n of Darkness - A Fairy Tale for Our Time
MW predicts the primary results in parable form. "The casual reader might incorrectly assume the prediction implicit in this tale to be somewhat at variance with the actual events as they transpired," he explains. "In fact, this post was written while I was residing in a nearby parallel universe. In that universe the events played out exactly as predicted here."

Peter Martinovic
US Missile Shield Is Vital fo r Us
Peter Martinovic tells his fellow Europeans that there has been too much hatred toward the U.S. Yeah, stop hating us or you'll be sorry.

Foreign Policy Watch
The Long, Unfortunate Sha dow of Munich
Matt Eckel is tired of people invoking the Munich analogy and comes out in favor of appeasing dictators just like they did with Hitler.

Social Services for Feral Children
Bettie Page
An appreciation of the "sometimes sad and awful life" of model Bettie Page and her "unwanted legacy as a martyr for free expression." The post includes a picture that should probably be censored.

Micro Persuasion
The End of Tangible Me dia is Clearly in Sight
Steve Rubel predicts that by 2014 "almost all forms of tangible media will either be in sharp decline or completely extinct." You might want to print this post out and save it.

SayNoToCrack
SayNoToCrack's Guide To Summer, Chapter 1
Chapter 1 of SayNoToCrack's indispensable guide to enjoying the summer considers the joy of berries. Something to look forward to during these long winter months.

They Gave Us A Republic
For the Record, Some of Us Never Ran Away from the Word "Liberal"
Blue Girl tells us why she's proud to call herself the "L-word."

Distributorcap NY
All the World's a Stage
Distributorcap discovers a new Shakespeare tragedy called McQane, which I must say does not sound like one of his better works.

Often Right, Rarely Correct
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of H appiness
James F. Elliott tells us why he opposes California's Proposition 8, even though it was necessary to prevent the decline Western Civilization.

Between the Hammer and the Anvil
Monopoly, Iraq Edition
Flyingrodent plays Iraq Monopoly. Do not pass Go. Do not collect three trillion dollars.

BLCKDGRD
Obamadominance: Once More And Then I'll Drop It Until Next Time
Is Obama the "best gameplayer of this generation"?

Vagabond Scholar
John "100 Years" McC ain
Batocchio says John McCain's "100 years" line was taken out of context, and then goes on to do a very thorough analysis of statements McCain has made about Iraq, which he believes were even worse. For those of you who may have forgotten, McCain once ran for President.

Mad Kane's Political Madness
Sarah Palin's Barra cuda Blog
Mad Kane discovers Sarah Palin's secret blog.

Daily Kos
Three Time s Is En e my Action
Markos Moulitsas Zúniga nominates Devilstower's post, which links our economic woes to deregulation that began in the 1980s. But just because something doesn't work out the first few times doesn't mean we shouldn't try it again.

Rip Coco
Is David Petraeus Dirty ? Ted Westhu sing Said So, and Then He Shot Himself...Why Has This Been Kept Quiet?
Melina says that General David Petreaeus had some very unsavory associations, which could get her arrested, or worse, if she's not careful.

ProBlogger
How to Craft a Blog Post - 10 Crucial Points to Pause
Darren Rowse crafts a killer blog post about crafting a killer blog post. "I took more time than normal in writing (which is really what the point of it was)," he says. "I actually enjoyed the 'crafting' of those posts rather than just 'pumping them out.'" I much prefer "pumping them out," but to each his own.

Jobsanger
Racist Reaction To The Election
Jobsanger writes about a number of disturbing racist incidents that occurred after Obama's election, which is puzzling because I thought his election ended racism.

At the Hillocks of Hysteria
Code Monkey Like Tab And Mountain Dew
Discordianstooge runs down a video game reviewer who dared to criticize Grand Theft Auto IV. I think he gets extra points for that.

Rob Singleton
Up on the Roof
Rob Singleton compares the biblical story of friends of a paralyzed man who cut a whole in a roof to get him to Jesus to be healed and some Christians today who complain about having to sit in the video café when church is full. Hopefully, this post did not start a rash of people cutting holes in the roof of his church.

Booze Cabinet

Unity, Sanctity, and Bigotry
Danny Doom doesn't so much mind unifying with Rick Warren, he just doesn't want to marry the guy.

Blue Girl in a ~~Red~~ Blue State
The Skimmer and I Are So Dated
Blue Girl laments the death of romance when she learns from her son that dating has become outdated. Sigh.

Saying yes...
A Question for Dan Leo
"It may not be my best post, but it shows what I love best about blogging, the conversation, the flow of ideas, the thoughts," explains the writer.

Fannie’s Room
Above the Hate: Below the Propa ganda
Fannie discusses the terrible discrimination Christians face from powerful, intolerant gays in the wake of the Proposition 8 battle.

Phuck Politics
Tell Me Again How People Ta ke Sea n Hannity Serious?
Ron McKie is still not worried about vampires even after seeing Sean Hannity's very convincing investigative report on the frightening menace of the undead for Fox News. You won't see reporting like this in the mainstream media.

Poll Track
Why Obama Won--Part 1: The First Debate
In this first post of a seven-part series, Maurice Berger analyzes Barack Obama's victory from the perspective of where he thinks things matter most in elections: with voters on the ground. To see the rest of his incisive analysis, check out the November archives.

Pajama Pundit
John McCain's Losing Strategy
The Pajama Pundit begs John McCain to throw him in the briar patch.

Cocktail Party Physics
Tit for Tat
Jennifer Ouellette compares theories of physics to the men one might date. Steer clear of "Quantum Field Theory" if you don't want your heart broken, she says.

Fausta
Will Puerto Rico Make or Bre ak Hillary?
Fausta Wertz discusses the impact on the Democratic primary of Puerto Ricans, who, unlike dead Chicagoans, can't actually vote in the general election.

skippy the bush kangaroo
8-8-88: it was 20 years ago today...everything changed - a skippy musing
skippy remembers a day that will in infamy.

World o' Crap
My Abortion Made Me Im potent
Scott Clevenger looks at the re

al victims of abortion: Men.

Kirmalak
Checking Capitalism's Premises
Khaled Shaheen believes there may be a flaw in capitalist theory but warns against overreaching to correct it.

Masonic Traveler
Steampunk Freemasonry
Masonic Traveler wonders if Traditional Observance Lodges are a “Steampunk” response to modern Freemasonry.

Reid Report
We Are All Katie Couric Now
Joy-Ann Reid writes about Sarah Palin's performance in the vice-presidential debate, which she claims was not the triumph everyone else thought it was.

Bildungblog
Pope Benedict Holding Private Au dience with Roger the Shrubber
Fearguth calls his work "an offspring of the civil union of Roger Price's Droodles with Monty Python's Flying Circus" which I believe is now illegal in California with the passage of Propostition 8.

Phil Nugent Experience
Those Satisfactions Are Permanent
Phil Nugent writes about the movie Two Lane Blacktop and says he was shocked to discover "how much what I'd written was really about me," though I bet his car isn't quite as cool.

Sustainable Middle Class
Will Bill Ayers’ College Student s Be Blacklisted?
John Freeland worries that Bill Ayers' college students will be blacklisted though I don't think that will happen because who's going to hire them?

Streak’s Blog
Why Susan Eisenhower Matters
Streak compares Susan Eisenhower and Sarah Palin. Guess who he likes better.

Sarcasmo’s Corner
Not Y our Mother's Neil Diamond
Sarcasmom writes: "The person who started this blog, Sarcasmo, passed away in December 2006. She is my daughter. I have been posting to her blog since then, just to keep it out there. Her writing was brilliant, if I do say so, and it should not be lost. I am sending you the post I liked best this year. It is a memory I have of her."

Self-Styled Siren
The Titanic in Three Movies
Campaspe watches three movies about the Titanic, and proves why she is Queen of the (Blogging) World. Apparently, all three movies have the exact same ending.

Tikun Olam
In Blood, Fire and Hatred Shall Judea Rise
Richard Silverstein notes the presence of anti-Arab racism among Israeli Jews and the impact it could have on delaying or derailing the peace process between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

Seeing the Forest
SEIU's Accountability Project - Making Politicians Do The Right Thing
Dave Johnson attends the Service Employees International Union's convention and writes about its "Accountability Project," which he says is "a big, big deal for progressives."

eatbees
Obama, Opportunist?
Marcel says Obama is a "realist, not a dreamer." Someone better tell his supporters.

The Sideshow
The Supreme Court Was Right A bout This
Avedon Carol is glad no one was executed on her behalf. "That would only have added to the burden," she says.

Gun Toting Liberal
BUSTED!!! “President-Elect” (INDEED!) Barack Hussein Obama’s Non-Qualified Citizenship Status Finally Gets Day In Court — The Supreme Court Of The United States!
Gun-Toting Liberal reveals that Obama is not really from Chicago but was "actually born in HAWAII — millions of miles away from Chicago and even America, for that matter."

Bitty’s Back Porch
Wealth, Redistributed
Bitty wonders what's so bad about wealth redistribution, besides being against the Bible, the Constitution and the Alien-Sedition Acts of 1798, I guess.

Griper Blade
Powell, McCain, Division and Hate
Wisco calls Colin Powell "a politician in rehab." I wonder if he's run into Amy Winehouse.

Diary of a Heretic
Howler Monkeys
In this episode from one of Kathleen Maher's riveting novella-length blog fictions, Scott Summers takes his girlfriend Emma Frost on a romantic getaway to Costa Rica and gets bit.

Bark Bark Woof Woof
Joined Together
Mustang Bobby says he doesn't "care whether or not the case can be made that the bible supports the concept of same-sex marriage," but then again, he's a Quaker, which I don't think is even Christian.

MA Peel
George Knows, Some Things You Just Can't Control
M.A. Peel has something in common with George Clooney that I wouldn't wish on anyone.

No More Mr. Nice Blog
The Other "Damn, This Feels Good" Guy
Steve M. says President Bush has no doubts and no regrets, which is what we love about him.

Lighthouse Patriot Journal
In Obama Watch: After-Election Report, Issue #001
Keith Lehman tells us what true conservatives are saying about the election of Barack Obama.

Ahistoricality
Time to Settle Up!
An Ahistoricality considers the often overlooked effect of Obama's election on gamblers.

Yazoo Street Scandal
Of Parisian Igloos, etc.
Anthony Cartouche finds a sentence that has never been uttered before and then writes a few more of his own.

Newshoggers
Fair Use And The Associated Press
Cernig decides to fight back when the AP declares war on bloggers.

driftglass
Bush Administration Unveils
driftglass reports on the unveling of "The Large Badloan Collider," which some experts believe could unleash a dangerous black hole that will suck up the economy.

Bilerico Project
Calm Down: Rick Warren Is Not a Big Deal
Bil Browning says some people need to save their outrage for issues that actu

ally matter, which has outraged some of his readers.

Media Bloodhound
Jesus Denounces McCain, Endorses Obama
Brad Jacobson claims that Jesus endorsed Obama, when we all know he was supporting McCain.

Writhe Safely
I Will Be a Good Girl
Flawedplan writes about the deceptive marketing of powerful anti-psychotics to women. I just tell Mrs. Swift they're vitamins.

Dawg’s Blawg
The Wrath of God: Transcript
Dr. Dawg gets ahold of God's message to Fundamentalists. I don't know where he got it and he's not saying.

Roxie’s World
Hillary: A Valediction
Roxie's World meditates on the significance of Hillary Clinton's run for the White House.

Bloggasm
The Politics of Digg
Simon Owens interviews more than 50 top users of Digg and uncovers the mysterious process that catapults stories to its front page. This might be a good time to remind you of that Digg submission link at the bottom of this post.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air
We Have Walked in the Palins’ Shoes
Captain Ed says that many families have had to deal with situations like the Palins are in with their daughter, including his own.

Shakesville
Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish
Melissa McEwan says she is "so over Bush, it's not even funny." Already?

Don Surber
Bailout
Don Surber says the government has a bad track record running brothels, which is not a good sign of things to come if it starts buying up banks and automobile companies. Maybe they could hire Eliot Spitzer to run them.

Sadly, No!
The Global Race To Confederate Yankee’s Bottom
Gavin M. claims that red states are actually red in that other, better-dead way.

Blue Gal
A Video Valentine for David Plouffe
Blue Gal sends a video mash-up note to Obama's campaign manager.

Will Not Be Televised
Coda
The Dark Knight has Nick thinking about childhood and its heroes and the way those beliefs die hard, not to mention the bruises received from trying to fly with a towel cape. He has also put together his own roundup.

Lance Mannion
All the Mad Men and All the Mad Women Are Having Epiphanies
Lance Mannion tells us that "Mad Men, like MASH, isn't a novel for television. It's a short story collection for television."

The Field Negro
Relax Folks, It's Just an "Off Color" Remark
The Field Negro explains to Lindsay Lohan that white is a color, too.

Comrade PhysioProf
Unclear On The F---ing Concept
Comrade PhysioProf welcomes a teacher to the exciting new world of blogging, and learns him a thing or two in language not usually heard at PTA meetings.

Connecting.the.Dots
A Walk in the Park, 40 Years Ago
Obama's election night celebration in Chicago's Grant Park reminds Robert Stein of a momentous stroll he took through that park in 1968 when he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention.

Taylor Marsh
Keith Olbermann Is No Edward R. Murrow
Taylor Marsh declares the MSNBC host the "Worst Person in the World" for his hatred of Hillary Clinton. Take that, sir!

Nourishing Obscurity
Socialism and the Myths We're Fed
James Higham says there are "two kinds of socialists - the dangerous type" and "good people at heart," who "just cannot see, in those hearts, that the ideal they aspire to is an impossibility." I'm not sure which one Barack Obama is.

Blue Wren
Mystery Solv-ed
Wren can't figure out the Wall Street bailout but she has solved the mystery of where missing socks go.

William K. Wolfrum
African-Americans Are Dying for Bone Marrow Donors - A Call To Action
William K. Wolfrum alerts us to a problem few probably know about: the shortage of African-American bone marrow donors. Who knew that you could use the Internet to promote worthy causes, too?

Feministe
Wombs for Rent
Jill takes on the complicated issue of surrogacy and her response is, well . . . complicated.

James Fallows
My Prediction Abou t Sarah Palin
James Fallows makes a prediction about Sarah Palin 45 minutes after her nomination is announced. Luckily, it turned out so much better than he thought it would.

Alicublog
A Hollywood Bomb
Roy Edroso gives us a sneak preview of the penetrating film criticism you'll be able to find at Andrew Breitbart's new site Big Hollywood. Rush Limbaugh is apparently not a big fan of Citizen Kane.

Lotus - Surviving a Dark Time
For Veterans' Day
LarryE explains "how and why I'm disturbed at the increasing tendency of progressives to routinely refer to soldiers as 'heroes.'" This is sure to be a popular piece on both sides of the aisle.

The Nose on Your Face
The Chronicles Of The Obamessiah, Volume I: The Adulteress
"And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto the Obamessiah a woman taken in adultery..."

konagod
One Toke Over the Line
konagod wonders what would happen if they moved the International Date Line. For one thing, Sarah Palin could no longer see the future from her house.

WTF Is It Now
Goats -- no, uhhh, tax credits -- for small -- a lot -- many -- huge number
George Stephanopoulos sits down with John McCain to talk about the candidate's health care plan and onions.

Republic of T
Held Suspect
"I looked up and into the anger-twisted face of a large, angry white woman," writes Terrance. "It wasn’t until we were out of the store that our mother explained."

By Neddie Jingo!
Three Hundred Sixty-Four Days Filled with Doubt and Fear
Neddie collaborates with Blue Girl on their annual Christmas song. Check out some of their past year's offerings in the links, including a heart-rending rendition of "Christmas Time Is Here."

The Anchoress
The Humbling: “The One” Goes to Don Clinton
The One has a sit-down with Don Clinton, who makes him an offer he can't refuse.

Three O'Clock in the Morning
Merry Bloody Christmas
Last year Eawkc's supermodel wife sliced off her thumb with a cheese slicer on Christmas Eve. I hope Christmas went better this year.

Only Sayin’
ALWAYS Write a Thank You Note
Only Sayin' writes a thank-you note to the Bush Administration. If only all liberals were so polite.

Liberal Values
The Republican Party and Ideas
Ron Chusid looks at the long-term repercussions of the religious right and forces of anti-intellectualism becoming dominant in the Republican Party, which he seems to think is a bad thing.

Abandoned Stuff
Canada 2008 Debate Dead Blogging
Saskboy "dead blogs" the Canadian leaders debate in the October federal election. There was an election in Canada?

Mike the Mad Biologist
Another Fight About Framing and Evolution: Can I Play?
Mike says evolutionists must make a positive case for evolution instead of just against creationism and offers an example. Lolcats! Oh, and something about medical genomics, too.

Liberty Street
Personal Fo rtune Trumps Personal Responsibility
Kathy defines "accountability" in 20 words.

oocRadio
To The Slaughterhouse
OutofContext writes a 100-word prose poem about an archeologist named Mao and a very lucky pig.

45s and Under
The Banners Way: Oppressed White Male Bachelor Auction
Dag Banners believes that opressed white males need love, too.

bjkeefe
Corpus Crikey
Brendan tells some stories from his Catholic boyhood in response to the furor provoked by PZ Myers' desecration of a communion wafer.

A Slant Truth
We Are Witnessing Ourselves
"Be warned," says Kevin. "I make some claims that will most likely piss some people off; but I'm sure you're used to that."

The Midpoint
Upstairs/Downstairs
Cangrejero reviews of one of his favorite albums, Upstairs/Downstairs, by The Ergs!, which he says "explores country, jazz, hardcore, pop, and the duality of emotional and rational reasoning," but is apparently woefully lacking in sea shanties, Tuvan throat music and Kantian nihilism.

Bastard.Logic
The -777.68 Point Plunge
Matttbastard is just a tiny bit angry about the slight stock market correction.

Zuky
The Palin’ Identity
Kai believes that the McCain campaign made a "strategic calculation that a raw smashface appeal to white identity politics, against a black opponent, would outweigh and overwhelm any dainty intellectual nitpicking or idealistic rhetoric." Well, maybe it will work out better next time.

The Flying Dutchman
I Am Become My Father (and Hillary Clinton Is, Too)
The Flying Dutchman comes to terms with the turning of the generational wheel and looks forward to the day when the "soothing melodies of Jay-Z" seem quaint and old-fashioned.

The Greenbelt
Beyond Good and Evil
The Ridger, FCD analyzes Obama's and McCain's two different approaches to the problem of good and evil, one good and one evil.

Circle Jerk at the Square Dance
Ten Simple Rules for Graduate Students in the Evil Sciences
Brando has some advice for students of evil, including how to find a passion for evil, cope with the stigma of being a diabolical figure, and get the most out of a mentor before

vanquishing him.

Some of Nothing
Throw Away Society
Slag tells us what the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy has in common with his recalcitrant laptop.

The Impolitic

Happier Times

Libby remembers "one of the top ten coolest things that ever happened to me" and comes out from behind the curtain.

Axis of Evel Knievel
January 23
"In the early morning light of 23 January 1870, calvalrymen from the 2nd US Regiment attacked an encampment of South Piegan Indians along the Marias River in northern Montana...," Davenoon writes in this history lesson about an important American victory.

D-Day
Obama's Big Bet: The Power Of The Ground Game
Dday says he wrote this post "when everyone thought Obama was blowing the race, and I think it holds up pretty well."

Maud Newton
Practical City Living #12: Your Cell on the Subway Tracks
Maud Newton discovers what happens when Mark Twain falls on the subway tracks.

A Poetic Justice
Two...One...Forty
Some verse from thepoetryman, the poet laureate of the blogosphere.

Suburban Guerrilla
The Tao of Rocky
Susie Madrak says some Hillary-bashing bloggers didn't get Clinton's reference to Rocky because they thought he lost.

An Average American Patriot
Living a Lie: Against a Worsening Manufactured Financial Crisis That Is Just Beginning
Jim is “sick of hearing the Great Depression can not be repeated.” Aren’t we all?

This Is Like So Gay
The Wolves Guarding the Sheepfold
The Promiscuous Reader writes about a subject he thinks didn't get enough coverage in the U.S. this past year, the pro-democracy protests in South Korea. For me, it was the coverage of Joe the Plumber that left me wanting more.

Thrilling Days of Yesteryear
The Perfect Storm
Ivan G. Shreve, Jr. reviews a long forgotten sitcom, The Gale Storm Show: Oh! Susanna, which boasted a "fairly impressive writing staff" and enough familiar faces to "fill up an autograph book."

News From the Underground
Why They Chose Sarah Palin--and What To Do About It
Mark Crispin Miller tells us that McCain's "plan for stealing this contest has everything to do with the ostensibly surprising choice of Sarah Palin." That plan went really well.

Really Small Fish
Advice: Don't Go Out in the Rain in Your Socks
Fish explains "why teenagers think adults are stupid."

Betsy’s Page
The Most Important Election Ever
"As a history teacher," says Betsy Newmark, "I enjoy it when I can bring some discussion of history into a discussion of today's events." In this post she considers whether the election of 2008 was the most important election ever by comparing it with the election of 1864.

RH Reality Check
A Wish List for Young Parents
"Like Gov

. Sarah Palin's daughter," writes Lauren Bruce, "I was once a teen mom."

Right Wing Wiz Kid
Can Someone Please Help Me Figure This Out?
A Right Wing Conservative is confused about what makes someone a Republican or a Democrat, and it's giving him a complex.

Phillybits
Cult of O?
Phillybits rolls his eyes when asked if he finds the "Cult of O" troubling and then has a lot more to say.

O’Reilly Radar
Fermi's Paradox and the End of Cheap Oil
Tim O'Reilly says it was the topic of this post that "was the beginning of my current wave of activism urging people to work on stuff that matters." Someday maybe I'll work on stuff that matters.

We Move to Canada
Involuntary Military Service Is a Form of Slavery
L-girl asks "if slavery is not only about being paid for one's labour, what is it about?" I guess now that she's moved to Canada, she's required by law to spell "labor" that way. I'm sorry, what was the question again?

The Heretik
Traitors
The Heretik has a list of Republican traitors, though he says he chose this post for the graphic.

I Am Trex
They Kilt It at the Press Club Today
TRex thinks "it’s a good thing" that the National Press Club didn’t stop Obama accuser Larry Sinclair from appearing there.

Phillip L. Velez
The Cub Scouts
Growing up in the South Bronx in the 1970s, Phil Velez didn’t realize he was poor until he joined the Cub Scouts.

Tangled Up in Blue Guy
Who is Running the McCain Campaign?
"We don’t know who is running the McCain campaign," Tangled Up in Blue Guy wrote in October. "But it is obvious that the way he is running the campaign shows either one of two things."

Where’s the Outrage?
Supply-side Economics Never Made Sense
"Maybe this 'Me First, Everything Else Second' mentality helped cause the craziness that we’re seeing on Wall Street," writes Errington Thompson. Personally, I think it's the "Me first, Jon Swift second" mentality that's the problem.

Orcinus
Responding to Jonah
David Neiwert's epic response to Jonah Goldberg's response to Neiwert's review of Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism could be a book itself.

Reno and Its Discontents
2004 Will Not Be 2008 All Over Again
After returning from this year's Democratic National Convention in Denver, Myrna the Minx reflected on how 2008 was different from 2004.

Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts
Banking Regulation Illustrated
Robert discovers a shocking and incriminating photograph in an old FDIC bulletin and wonders "What is the smell of one invisible hand clapping?"

Nuke Gingrich
The Club for Growth: Slouching Toward Irrelevance
Nuke Gingrich takes us back to the days when conservatives were all one big happy family.

Unruly Duckling
Pro Choice?
Unruly Duckling says she would be "more happy staying home and cleaning, gardening, and cooking." Me, too, except for the cleaning, gardening, and cooking part.

Attytood
Palin’s Speech to Nowhere
Will Bunch says Sarah Palin's address to the Republican National Convention "was a great speech -- written for someone else."

Moue Magazine
Georgian President Wants the West’s Help: We Shouldn’t Give It
BrandyBetz explains why we shouldn't have Georgia on our minds.

Miriam’s Ideas
Bigot
“It's typical of my mean-spirited world view,” explains Miriam.

Dohiyi Mir
Bam In PDX!
In a 46-photo essay Ntodd documents the frenzied excitement surrounding MSNBC reporter Richard Wolfe's visit to Portland, Oregon. Oh, and Obama showed up, too.

Stark Reporter
What Made 2008 An Interesting Year In My Little World
It was the best of times and the worst of times for Anthony this year.

Play On!
Tea Time In The Wildwood: Lou Dobbs' Red Herring Stew
Myrtle June’s co-blogger finds an email about illegal immigrants from one of his relatives in his inbox, composes a response and hits Reply All.

The Woodshed
Door2door Insanity
The Rev. Paperboy has a suggestion for how to deal with Jehovah's Witnesses who come to your door, though it sounds a bit impractical.

Buck Naked Politics
Cleaning up Political & Corporate Culture Could Help our Economy

Deb Cupples looks at how major corporations underpay their CEOs, giving them little incentive to do a good job.

Susie Bright
"Clitoris" on Google's Banned Word List
Susie Bright conspires to get my blog banned in Google SafeSearch. Thank you, Ms. Bright. I'm sure it would be on my banned word list, too, if I knew what it meant.

Wonkette
Your Lengthy Guide To The Insane McCain-Palin Cold War

Wonkette details the inside story of the brilliant, hard-fought campaign McCain and Palin aides waged against each other.

Talking in Circles

Stop Blaming the Internet

Probabilityzero is tired of parents blaming the Internet for getting their kids hopped up on dope and encouraging them to dodge the draft and join hippie communes where they practice free love.

The Spitting Vessel
Freedom From Fantasy
Durano Lawayan thinks "Americans need to re-evaluate the enormous disparity between what they profess as their ideals, and what they actually practice." It may be true that we haven't pursued happiness enough but I think we're doing fine with the other ideals.

Barefoot Bum
Revolution and Reform
The Barefoot Bum says that "Obama is no friend, no friend at all, of true progressivism."

Daily Referendum
26 Point Lead - Cameron Must Be Given the Credit
Steve Green thinks that U.K. Conservative Party leader David Cameron should get the credit for the Tories' success. I guess that's another thing people don't think George Bush should get credit for.

Brilliant at Breakfast
A Letter to Young Feminists
"I realize that this post is going to get me blacklisted from the feminist blogosphere in perpetuity," writes Jill. There is someone who still hasn't been blacklisted from the feminist blogosphere yet?

The Apostate
Women, Power and Feminism
"The election of Benazir Bhutto to the Prime Ministership of Pakistan didn’t do nuthin’ for the rights of women in Pakistan," according to The Apostate.

Firedoglake
Iqbal And The Question Of Accountability For Torture Decision-Makers A t The Top
Christy Hardin Smith says that one question the Iqbal case will answer is "What is justice here -- and is it even possible to accomplish?" I agree with President Nixon: "When the president's men do it, that means that it is not illegal."

People Are Idiots
United in Dryness
Jenée kicked her lip balm addiction and now she want to help others live a Chapstick-free life.

Three Wise Men
What's Wrong with Free Trade? Everything!
"Free trade aint free!" says Nat-W, or as Robert Heinlein might put it, TANSTAAFT.

Mad As Hell
The Same Small Politics, Yes...
"Today the Republican curtain has been pulled away and many of us can clearly see who's behind it," writes Fred W., by which he means, I think, a kindly old man who will help us get home.

The Sidetrack
Old Vs. New: Bloggers on the Inside
Jason the AT attends the Democratic convention where old media eyes new media warily. But "resistance," he says, "is futile."

Scholars and Rogues
Emigration 1 - Little Drops of Decision
Whythawk says that countries are like drug addicts and his native South Africa has been in rehab once too often.

Swan Lake Samba Girl
Peep Show In Central Park
Tonya Plank voyeurizes an Israeli dance company doing a striptease in the park and takes pictures.

Miss Cellania
Star Trek Sex
Miss Cellania looks at the TV series whose characters had more sex than its fans.

Pajamas Media: Roger L. Simon
‘Barack, I Didn’t Do It for This’: An Homage to Andrew Goodman
Roger Simon, whose new book, Blacklisting Myself: Memoir of a Hollywood Apostate in the Age of Terror, is coming out in January 2009, is moved to write poetry "for the first time since high school" by Obama's "race speech."

The Moderate Voice
Obama's Election: A Sea Of Shattered Assumptions
Joe Gandelman lists 12 assumptions shattered by Obama's election, not to mention the assumption he couldn't win, and provides an exhaustive roundup of news media and weblog reaction on the day he won.

Pam’s House Blend
Thoughts on Barack Obama's 'A More Perfect Union'
Pam Spaulding muses about the impact of Obama's speech "in terms of the relief it gave me to hear someone articulate so clearly the need to have a discussion about race because I felt like I was screaming into a void." Conservatives are just happy we never have to talk about race again.

Making Light
Cloverfield, With Spoilers
Jim Macdonald uses the movie Cloverfield as a teaching moment about emergency preparedness. "This is a movie about six young New Yorkers who have not read Making Light." he writes.

News N Economics
Is Zambia the next China?
Rebecca Wilder says that some African economies, such as Zambia's, are similar statistically to those of certain Asian countries in the 1980s. There is also a chance that the U.S. will be the next Zambia.

Zaius Nation
The Adventures of Barack Obama Across the 8th Dimension!
Dr. Zaius presents the story of Lord Whorfin, the leader of the Lectroids, a race of alien neocons from Planet 10 in the 8th dimension.

Comedy Central's Indecision 2008
Breakfast with Jon Stewart, Part One
Dennis DiClaudio experiences "second most fascinating, most I-can't-believe-I'm experiencing-this, thing I have ever witnessed in my admittedly very unfascinating and inexperienced life."

Rumproast
The Truth about PUMA Conference 08 … You Can’t Spell “Conference” Without “C-O-N”
Kevin K. attends a conference of disenfranchised Democrats and beholds the “PUMAwesomeness of it all.”

Blonder and Thinnerrrr
Teddy Roosevelt: America's Most Cartoonish President to Date
Lauren gathers copiously researched facts from Wikipedia and discusses the life and times of our nation's 26th president.

That’s Right Nate
Apology over Flag Flap
It takes a big man to admit when he makes a mistake and Nate shows just how big he is when he apologizes for a post accusing Obama of creating his own flag at a campaign stop in Ohio.

Chawed Rosin
Fun with Grammar
"Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo, buffalo," writes Lolarusa. Indeed.

My Left Wing
A Little Bit Pregnant: Freedom of Speech in America
Maryscott O'Connor find herself in agreement with … Jonah Goldberg!

Precious Cargo
Ron Paul, Andrew Sullivan and the Unreliability of Pundits
Peter Winkler says that Andrew Sullivan "reveals a great deal about not just himself, but pundits as a class" by his reaction to an article on Ron Paul's newsletter.

Buzz Twang

Will Hunger for Celebrity Kill Britney Spears?
“H.L. Mencken is spinning in his grave,” says DJ Lanphier. Leave H.L. Mencken alone!

Kindly Póg Mo Thóin
Dreaming Big
Zuzu remains skeptical about Obama and she’s “not going to settle for some crumbs.”

Litbrit
To Those Who Muse About "Spreading Democracy" on This Day of Fidel Castro's Retirement
“It consists of a single compound sentence (okay, it's a long single compound sentence) followed by a Pablo Neruda poem,” explains Deborah Newell Tornello.

The Osterley Times
Lieberman’s Treachery
Kel is not one of Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s biggest fans.

Coyote Mercury
Every Day Is a Gift
James Brush “will miss watching Daphne tree the midnight possums and snap June bugs from the air as they swarm around the porch lights.”

PoliGazette
The Moderate Muslims of Kosovo
“As a Muslim,” writes Michael van der Galien, “I am starting to detest the term ‘moderate Muslim.’”

Bitch Ph.D.
Legacy
Bitch Ph.D. discusses statistics on education, wage and homeownership disparities between blacks and whites, which have all been wiped away by electing an African-American President.

Badtux the Snarky Penguin
A Penguin's Guide to Bay Area Wildlife
Badtux's attempts to obtain a date with certain female penguin species garners "a sneer of disdain." Maybe it's his approach.

Hot Potato Mash
Video Exclusive: Karl Rove - Free Don Siegelman
Alan Breslauer has exclusive video of his meeting with Karl Rove.

Balloon Juice
And When Things Get Really Bad, I Can Eat My Cat and Craft Arrows From His Bones
John Cole explains that "Republican rule has not been a disaster, but a blessing in disguise."

The Aristocrats
The Appeaser
Mark Hoback imagines the terrible consequences of a meeting without preconditions between President Obama and Iranian President Ahmadinejad and his monkey, Bobo. Look who he predicts will be Secretary of State in this post written in May.

The Debate Link
Black Conservatives in Large and Small Caps
David Schraub explains why the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is actually a Black Conservative.

Fafblog
Everything Depends on the Getaway
The world's only source of Fafblog makes a triumphant return after a long hibernation, which made many of us fear we would never hear from Fafnir and Giblets again.

Wetmachine
The FCC Holds a Hearing on Net Neutrality, and YOU! ARE! THERE!
John Sundman attends an FCC hearing on net neutrality and has a chat with the chairman of the FCC himself.

And finally...

Jon Swift
Great Moments in Election-Year Blogging
In which this modest blogger once again puts the spotlight on others, celebrating Pulitzer-worthy journalism by conservative bloggers who dug up stories about election the liberal mainstream media conspired to suppress.

Carnivals: Scribes Blog Carnival, Fuel My Blog Carnival, Carnival of the Vanities

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Fair and balanced commentary from a modest and reasonable conservative.

The Triumph of Derrièrism 9 Dec 2008 2:27 PM (16 years ago)

Last year I identified an important new school of film criticism, which I called “derrièrism,” since all schools of film criticism are supposed to have French names. Derrièrists are inspired by Jack Warner (though some say it was Harry Cohn), who once said that he judged movies by whether his ass shifted in the seat while he was watching them. Like Warner (or Cohn), a derrièrist film critic judges movies by his ass. As I wrote last year: "Derrièrists are tired of liberal elites telling us what is good for us. They are tired of movies that are depressing and pretentious and difficult." At the time Variety magazine hailed derrièrism as “provocative” theory and said my piece “represents to some degree the thinking of the younger male online film community that recently voted for their Top 100 films,” whose virtues I extolled in my piece. While derrièrism was once an esoteric school of film criticism championed by a few forward-thinking critics, this year it has triumphed. Not only has Andrew Breitbart, the conservative Hollywood critic behind Breitbart.com, announced that he will start a new website, Big Hollywood, which promises to be a hotbed of derrièrist film criticism, such respected film critics as Roger Ebert and the critics at Cahiers du Cinema have jumped on the derrièrist bandwagon.

Breitbart’s site will feature film reviews and criticism from some of this country’s leading derrièrist film critics, people like House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner, Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor, Reps. Thaddeus McCotter, Mary Bono Mack and Connie Mack, former presidential candidate Fred Thompson, MSNBC correspondent Tucker Carlson and conservative commentators Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and others. According to The Hill, “If Boehner, for instance, sees a movie, ‘I’d like for him … to do a movie review,’ Breitbart says. ‘Not everything is going to be a political dissertation,’ he says. In that vein, Cantor spokesman Rob Collins says he could see his boss writing a post on the television shows his three teenage children watch and how those programs affect them.” Breitbart wants to bring back the kind of crowd-pleasing movies Hollywood used to make, which encouraged people to pay their credit card bills on time. “The movies used to reinforce good behavior — that you should pay back your loans,” he says, apparently thinking of such films as The Grapes of Wrath, It's a Wonderful Life and Salt of the Earth. Because Breitbart's site will not pay its writers that should encourage good behavior like thrift.

Breitbart also wants Big Hollywood to change the image of conservatives in Hollywood, where they are cruelly oppressed. “We’re not bigoted, homophobic, racist, sexist monsters,” says the new blog’s editor-in-chief, John Nolte, the proprietor of Dirty Harry's Place. Nolte, who says that gay marriage “has nothing to with ‘rights’ and everything to do with hate, the tearing down of tradition, and seeking yet another excuse to attack conservatives and religion,” and who wrote after J.K. Rowling outted Dumbledore, “English and Gay is like Japan and China: you can’t really tell the difference,” is known for his trenchant film criticism. Although he has never seen such minor, really old movies as City Lights and The Passion of Joan of Arc, that hasn’t stopped him from weighing in on such important questions of film scholarship as whether Deuce Bigelow or The Searchers is the best film ever made.

While Big Hollywood should be a welcome relief from critics who think they know a lot about movies just because they have seen a lot of them, even some of the most respected film critics in the world have succumbed to derrièrism and are pulling film criticism out of their asses. Roger Ebert has seen his influence wane since he left At the Movies and was replaced by hipper, younger derrièrist critic Ben Lyons, who called I Am Legend “one of the greatest movies ever made” and named Superbad, which he just happened to have an acting role in, one of the ten best movies of last year. Then in October of this year Ebert joined the ranks of derrièrist critics with a big splash. He wrote a savage one-star review of the gay film Tru Loved after sitting through only eight minutes of it. It was only at the end of the review that he revealed he hadn’t watched the whole thing or even very much of it, so if readers got bored and decided they didn’t want to sit through Ebert’s entire review, they wouldn’t know how much of the movie he hadn't seen. Although Ebert’s editor wanted him to disclose this fact at the beginning of the review, Ebert argued that it would ruin his carefully constructed artistic prose if he did that. “I thought that would have made the review anticlimactic,” he said.

Ebert was slammed by some critics such as Margaret Nowak, who gave a derrièrist critique of Ebert’s derrièrist review: “After learning that Roger Ebert defends writing a full-column review based on an 8-minute scrap of film, I don't feel so bad about not reading movie reviews. I give a cursory glance to the score rating the movie received, and move on.” Ebert, however, was not amused: “I find it charming that Margaret Nowak was able to arrive at her scorched-earth opinion of me without reading either the review in question OR my linked blog entry that was posted simultaneously with the review on the same page.” He called her review of his review a “cheap shot.” If Nowak had just spent eight minutes reading the beginning of Ebert's review, she might have seen the error of her ways.

Unfortunately, under pressure from anti-derrièrists, Ebert eventually apologized for the review, watched the movie and wrote a new review. Derrièrist Ann Althouse was disappointed by Ebert’s capitulation to the anti-derrièrist mob, writing, “Walking out is an important form of judgment.” Althouse is one of the leading proponents of the idea that you don’t have to see or read something or really know much about it at all to criticize it, which has given hope to other aspiring critics who, like her, have the attention span of a two-year-old.

Unlike Ebert, Cahiers du Cinema had the courage of its convictions and defended its list of the 100 greatest movies of all time. Abandoning its support of the tired old theory of auteurism, the critics at Cahiers put together a list steeped in derrièrism, which included not a single boring Tarkovsky film or any British movies at all, relegating such tedious efforts as Brief Encounter, Lawrence of Arabia, The Third Man, and The Red Shoes to Le ashbin de l'histoire.

But it wasn’t just snooty French critics who embraced derrièrism. Entertainment Weekly published a list of 100 “classics” of the last 25 years that included only six excrutiatingly dull foreign movies. By redefining the word classic, EW was telling us that we don’t have to bother watching dreary old movies when we can watch such new and improved “classics” as The Breakfast Club, Naked Gun, The 40 Year-Old Virgin and Ghostbusters instead. Meanwhile, Premiere.com, which started out as the website for a print magazine whose articles no one ever finished, this year introduced a new and improved template for film reviews made up of what bitter former Premiere writer Glenn Kenny calls “thematic modules.” But even Kenny could not resist the derrièrist onslaught and gave this ground-breaking approach to reviewing a shot, applying it to one of the most boring films ever made, Au Hasard Balthazar:

"The Pitch: A donkey in provincial France gets passed from owner to owner until it, like, dies.
What It Really Is: Apparently, a "meditation" on life, suffering, and grace, and that kind of stuff….
Can We Be Serious For A Moment?: Seriously? What this movie really needed was for Andy Samberg as Mark Wahlberg to show up and have a nice little chat with Balthazar."

Kenny has a long way to go before he reaches the scholarly heights of one of the deans of derrièrist film critics, John Podhoretz. Podhoretz didn’t bother to see Stop-Loss, yet another anti-war-in-Iraq movie, before he reviewed it because what would be the point? “It is high time to cease the armchair analysis of those who refuse to attend war-in-Iraq movies and ask them directly to explain their behavior,” writes Podhoretz, who then moves from the armchair to the divan to begin his analysis by interviewing himself. “I'm about to turn 47. I have seen thousands of movies in my time. Life is too short to spend even two hours in a theater watching Stop-Loss. Its virtues are, I expect, that it is very well made, with vivid scenes of terrifying battles in the streets of Karbala or Falluja--and touching moments of reconciliation. There's probably a well-done scene in or just outside a Wal-Mart. Its failings are that it tells a schematic story that stacks the deck.” Podhoretz was able to figure all this out from “three trailers and a few minutes watching Showbiz Tonight.” Podhoretz also wrote an entire column extolling the virtues of watching movies on an iPod: “Say you're watching a bad or boring movie on a subway train, a movie you nonetheless want to get to the end of. A distraction or two is not a bad thing; the movie turns into a radio show for a moment as you survey the other passengers. And if a homeless guy comes through asking you to help him in the name of Jesus, you can turn right back to the iPod, confident he will pass you by.” Isn’t that what movies are for anyway, to distract you from homeless people?

Sadly, one of the great proponents of derrièrism, Libertas, went defunct this year, but not before its founder Jason Apuzzo denounced the film WALL-E, which attacked everything derrièrism stands for. “Conservatives are understandably up in arms about what is apparently depicted in this film,” wrote Apuzzo before he had actually seen it. In the film humanity is depicted as a bunch of dim-witted, materialistic couch potatoes, which derrièrist film critics saw as a personal attack on their lifestyles.

Patrick Goldstein said the film slandered “the American way of life.” “If Michael Moore, or Oliver Stone, or, God forbid, some effete French director, had crafted a feature film that was a thinly disguised political broadside portraying Americans as recumbent tubbos who moved around on sliding barcaloungers with built-in video screens and soft drinks always at the ready, don’t you think there’d be some sort of notice taken?” wrote Bill Wyman, who is no film theorist. “I’m no film theorist, but I think what director Andrew Stanton is trying to tell us is that we humans eat so much and limit our movements to such a degree that we will soon become immobile whales unable to focus past the video screens permanently affixed in front of our field of vision.” Shannen Coffin lamented, “From the first moment of the film, my kids were bombarded with leftist propaganda about the evils of mankind.” And a reader of Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism blog helpfully pointed out the film’s fascistic elements, such as the use of the color red, which was one of the colors on the Nazi flag and should never be used in a film unless accompanied by the colors white and blue.

Next year promises to be even better for derrièrism as many critics realize, like John Miller, that you don’t actually have to sit through all four hours of Ché to attack it. And who really wants to see crazy left-wing actor Sean Penn kiss a guy in Milk no matter how good his performance is supposed to be? I’m sure most critics would rather watch over and over again the oiled-up, musclebound actors of 2006's 300, a “classic” that brought back the “lost art of cinematic masculinity,” according to John Nolte, and wasn’t the least bit homoerotic no matter what left-wingers say. Why doesn’t Hollywood make classic movies like 300 anymore?

Crossposted at Newcritics

Update: The left-wing New York Times weighs in. And Roger Ebert replies: "The acid test of the ancient distributor's definition of a great picture--'a tukkus on every seat.'" Meanwhile, Josh Taylor writes "Note To Awards Givers: Ignore The Dark Knight At Your Own Peril," which may come to be known as one of the great manifestos of derrièrism: "Film critics can no longer afford to champion pet films which no one has ever seen, at the expense of what even they have to know is probably the better film. Here’s why: They’re all about to be out of a job....For print critics, a vote against The Dark Knight is a vote for your own irrelevancy. It’s a vote for the unemployment line."

Carnivals: Movie Monday Carnival, Pajama Party Flick Picks

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Fair and balanced commentary from a modest and reasonable conservative.

Conservatives Need a Bailout 4 Dec 2008 12:37 PM (16 years ago)

The Big Three automakers are in Washington this week, hats in hand, looking for a handout. Washington has already bailed out some of our largest banks. But they are not the only ones suffering in this economy, which was ruined by the Democrat Congress and regulations that were implemented by the Clinton Administration that set the meltdown in motion. No one has been hit harder by this financial turmoil than conservatives. Although conservatives generally support self-reliance when it comes to others, the situation is so dire that the only thing that will save our conservative institutions at this point is a quick infusion of government aid.

In the 2008 election a number of conservatives with families to feed who thought their jobs would be safe for years to come got laid off by callous voters. And on January 20, more hard-working conservatives will find themselves on the unemployment line. Barack “Scrooge” Obama has already signaled that he will be pink slipping a huge number of government workers when he takes office, which will flood the economy with unemployed job seekers. Although Presidents have traditionally allowed ambassadors to stay on during transitions from one administration to another, for example, Obama has ruined Christmas for all of our currently serving ambassadors by informing them that they must vacate their offices as soon as he is sworn in. President Bush has made some effort to save people’s jobs by making it impossible for Obama to fire some political appointees through "burrowing," that is, changing their jobs into civil service jobs. But he may not be able to save everyone’s job. Only Robert Gates seems to be absolutely safe from the carnage.

But it is not only government workers who find themselves in economic dire straits. Conservatives throughout the country are losing their jobs as conservative institutions try to save themselves through belt-tightening. The staff of The National Review returned from its luxury cruise in the Caribbean to discover that it is surprisingly not actually making a profit and is now on its knees pleading for money, unfortunately, without much success. “It takes a lot of bucks to run NRO. Of course, each and every dollar we have is stretched to the max — we don’t have the luxury of, well, having luxuries. Cabs? Ha! Subway fare? Think again! How do I get to the press conference then? By foot! That’s how we operate. Calluses, fallen arches, and vibrant conservatism are the consequences” writes Jack Fowler, before losing what’s left of his dignity and concluding, “Come on, I’m begging.”

Recent cost-cutting initiatives to purge conservatives from the masthead of The National Review who failed to toe the editorial line, such as David Frum, Kathleen Parker and the son of the magazine’s founder, Christopher Buckley, have apparently not been enough to stave off financial disaster. To stay alive, The National Review may have to narrow its definition of acceptable conservative thought even further and encourage more of its writers to quit. If readers do not pony up soon, John Derbyshire could be the next apostate to get the boot. Mr. Derbyshire has apparently read the writing on the wall and has started a blog for “secular conservatives” (which is an oxymoron if I ever heard one), though I’m afraid I must disabuse him of the notion, which he probably heard from a mischievous liberal, that blogs are a great way to make money. Mr. Derbyshire is already struggling to pay his health insurance premiums, so losing his job at The National Review would be especially devastating for the man who is, let’s face it, not getting any younger and hasn’t looked well lately.

But even if The National Review makes its political philosophy indistinguishable from James Dobson’s, that may not be enough to save it. Dobson’s Focus on the Family has also fallen on economic hard times. Because group spent $539,000 passing Proposition 8, which ended gay marriage in California, it doesn’t have enough money left over to pay its employees’ salaries so it has been forced to lay off 20% of its staff, which is just the latest in a series of layoffs. I’m sure that the workers being laid off are grateful that their families have been saved from the scourge of gay marriage, which should provide some solace when they lose their homes or their children have to skip a few meals. And economic calamity should make their families even closer and stronger, helping them to fend off future threats from homosexuals. Meanwhile, a leaner more focused Focus on the Family will concentrate its efforts on fighting other dangerous enemies of America, such as ex-National Review writer Kathleen Parker, and retailers who don't say "Merry Christmas."

This economic downturn is especially hard on conservatives because many of them have never held real jobs. Forcing them to develop skills other than deploring the liberal media and warning how gay marriage and Islam will destroy our country from cushy perches at conservative think tanks may be asking too much. There are only so many positions for out-of-work neocons at conservative think tanks and their funds are drying up. Conservative authors are discovering that they may actually have to sell their books as fewer of them will be bought up by their own publishers, like Regnery. Some conservative institutions may even have to resort to outsourcing jobs overseas, to places like India where conservative pundits are cheaper. It’s one thing to send all of our manufacturing, call center and newspaper editorial jobs to India, but conservative punditry is a skill whose nuances would be lost if it were outsourced. Imagine what it will do to our political discourse if every pundit on Fox News and every token conservative on MSNBC sounded like Dinesh D’Souza and Ramesh Ponnuru. It’s too horrible to think about.

And if you think things are bad for conservative pundits, conservative bloggers are hurting worst of all. Kim du Toit, whose essay “The Pussification the Western Male” may be the greatest piece of writing the blogosphere has ever produced, was forced to stop blogging after his stingy, freeloading readers were unable to come up with enough money to pay for his shooting range memberships and food and drink for his family’s European vacation. What a sad commentary it is that after all he has done for his readers these many years, they could not come up with enough cash to keep him living in the style to which he has become accustomed. Unfortunately, Mr. du Toit is unable to work because years of lobster dinners have given him a severe case of gout, though at least he’s not a pussy like black people who just “want to be looked after when they’re sick, for free.”

Mr. du Toit may be the first of many conservatives who get “fed up with supporting the unproductive” and decide to “go John Galt,” denying us their wisdom and expertise to punish us for not appreciating them enough. If Confederate Yankee does not get enough donations to purchase new guns, which are going to be necessary when Obama takes office, he may be next. Luckily, this modest blogger makes enough to survive – barely – with the income I get from Google ads and Mrs. Swift’s three jobs, but, of course, any bit helps if you have a little to spare this Christmas season (see the Paypal button above). Unfortunately, my son Spiro and my daughter Schlafly may have to forgo college and join the military anyway, which would be a terrible waste of their skills, though if it comes to that, we’ll probably put the cat to sleep first.

I know there are probably some uncompassionate and vengeful liberals who would prefer to see conservatives left to the vagaries of the free market, and even some conservatives who are too proud to accept government charity and would prefer to stick to their principles. But as President Bush showed us, in a crisis you are sometimes forced to abandon your principles temporarily to survive. Being a conservative, like the Constitution, is not a suicide pact. To fight the terrorists President Bush was forced to bring back the era of big government, on a temporary basis, just as President Reagan was forced to spend profligately to end the Cold War. Conservatives must face reality the way Bush and Reagan did and realize that the only way to preserve our ideals may be to sacrifice them for a time and reluctantly accept government checks. Once we have gotten back on our feet again, then we can go back to doing what we do best: condemning lazy welfare queens and berating the poor for not raising themselves by their own bootstraps.

Update: Ramesh Ponnuru links to the crossposting of this post at Shakesville and calls it an example of "feminist racism," leading to a long battle in the comment thread between Corner readers and Shakerites. Thers comments on the reaction. I am appalled that Mr. Ponnuru would insult me by calling me a feminist and demand an apology.

Carnivals: Bobo Carnival of Politics

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Fair and balanced commentary from a modest and reasonable conservative.

President Bush Should Pardon the Wal-Mart Shoppers 29 Nov 2008 11:50 AM (16 years ago)

Police in Valley Stream, New York, are reviewing videotapes to attempt to identify exuberant Black Friday shoppers who trampled to death a Wal-Mart worker who made the tragic mistake of getting between them and some very remarkable bargains. Prosecutors may even try to score cheap political points by filing criminal charges against some of these bargain hunters, who have been called “savages” and “animals” by demagogues in the liberal media. Of course, my heart goes out to the family of this man who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but while it is unfortunate that someone got hurt, capitalism is not a dinner party. There will always be some collateral damage in a free market. Socialists who hate capitalism are now trying to scapegoat these patriotic Americans who celebrated an American tradition by rising before dawn on the day after Thanksgiving to express their love of this country by partaking of the bounties of the free enterprise system. How can those of us who were not there judge people on the front lines of the Christmas shopping rush? Can we honestly say that we would not have rushed past or over this unfortunate man on the way to grabbing the last plasma TV or Wii to bring some Christmas joy to our children? After 9/11 President Bush said that the best way to defeat the terrorists was to “go shopping.” Should we now condemn those who took him at his word? If he meant what he said, then before he leaves office President Bush should issue a blanket pardon to these high-spirited consumers to head off this assault not only on Americans who were just trying to make Christmas a little better for their families in these trying economic times but on the capitalist system itself.

Wal-Mart shoppers who got a little carried away are not the only warriors against terrorism in danger of being hounded by prosecutors once Barack Obama assumes office. If President Bush does not act now, a number of patriotic Americans could have their lives ruined by a vengeful Obama Justice Department. In a column in The Weekly Standard (which was apparently too good to waste on The New York Times) William Kristol writes, “Bush should consider pardoning – and should at least be vociferously praising – everyone who served in good faith in the war on terror, but whose deeds may now be susceptible to demagogic or politically inspired prosecution by some seeking to score political points.” It would indeed be tragic if Bush Administration officials who just followed orders after being assured that their harsh interrogation methods and invasions of privacy did not technically violate the Geneva Conventions or the U.S. Constitution should now be subjected to politically motivated witch hunts. “The CIA agents who waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and the NSA officials who listened in on phone calls from Pakistan, should not have to worry about legal bills or public defamation,” says Kristol. The public defamation of the Wal-Mart shoppers is just a taste of what could be in store for members of the Bush Administration who were just trying to protect this country.

So far President Bush has used his pardoning powers sparingly, granting pardons to a number of Texans caught up in the anti-capitalist savings & loan prosecutions of the 1980s and those targeted by environmentalist extremists who care more about a few bald eagles than hard-working families. Unfortunately, President Bush was not able to protect these Americans from high legal bills and ruined reputations, but by acting now he can prevent future injustices against members of his administration and energetic consumers. He might also head off politically motivated prosecutions of other officials in his administration such as those in the Justice Department who were guilty only of having a different ideology from the incoming administration. And he might also consider pardoning bank CEOs who were just trying to help home-buyers achieve the American dream.

But issuing blanket pardons may not be enough. Kristol goes on to say that not only should the Bush Administration officials who kept this country safe receive pardons, they should be awarded the Medal of Freedom. “They deserve it,” he says. That would certainly send a message to the America haters who think that they can change all the rules just because they won an election.

And if police do succeed in identifying the Wal-Mart shoppers, think of the message President Bush would be sending about the free enterprise system by awarding these great Americans the Medal of Freedom. They refused to horde their hard-earned dollars in low-interest savings accounts but instead went out to spend it, just as President Bush has urged them to do, at an American company that in the best American tradition has given consumers the best bargains possible by not overpaying their workers and by scouring the world for the cheapest merchandise produced in countries that are not subject to draconian labor and environmental laws. Isn’t that the very definition of freedom?

Carnivals: Carnival of Conservatives, Carnival of Market Anarchy

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Let Us Remember the True Meaning of Thanksgiving Before It’s Abolished 27 Nov 2008 1:14 AM (16 years ago)

This year as President Bush pardoned two turkeys, who surprisingly had nothing to do with the Savings and Loan scandals of the 1980s, he remarked that it was his “last Thanksgiving as President.” But it might be the last Thanksgiving any of us celebrate since there is a good chance that when Barack Obama takes over, he will abolish Thanksgiving along with other holidays liberals hate such as Columbus Day, Christmas and the Fourth of July.

Unfortunately, liberals have distorted the history and meaning of Thanksgiving because they see everything through the ideology of victimhood, which is a glass-half-empty view of history. Thanksgiving to liberals is a celebration of purported genocide against the Indians perpetrated by the Christian pilgrims. But in fact this is not what Thanksgiving is about at all. As usual liberals are ignoring the real victims here.

Thanksgiving celebrates the day that Pilgrims and Indians sat down to eat together before the gay secularist Indians divided this country and tried to foist their atheism and savage decadent culture on the God-fearing pilgrims. The pilgrims were rightly appalled by Native American culture where transgendered “two-spirit” people or “berdache” were accepted as normal members of the tribe. To Native Americans, who were ignorant of the Bible’s proscriptions against homosexuality and running around practically naked, there was nothing wrong with squaws marrying squaws and braves marrying braves. The pilgrims did not care what Indians did in the privacy of their own teepees, but they did not want their children exposed to this immorality. So the pilgrims were forced to defend themselves, just as Proposition 8 supporters, under assault from gay activists, must defend themselves now.

The idea that pilgrims defending their way of life committed genocide is a gross distortion of history, as Mona Charen and Michael Medved point out. “In the clash of civilizations between European settlers and Native Americans, millions died,” Charen writes. “But the overwhelming majority of those deaths were attributable to diseases carried involuntarily by Europeans and spread to natives who had no natural immunities to these pathogens. That is a tragedy, but not a crime.” Medved's new book The 10 Big Lies About America reveals the truth behind the "smears" that slavery was such a big deal or that genocide was committed against the Indians, which has ruined Thanksgiving for so many people. For example, he points out that the idea that Europeans had anything to do with willfully spreading disease through small pox-infected blankets is a myth. “The endlessly recycled charges of biological warfare rest solely on controversial interpretations of two unconnected and inconclusive incidents 74 years apart,” says the film critic, who screened hours of John Ford westerns to verify his findings. Sure, there may have been a few little massacres, such as the Trail of Tears, the Sand Creek Massacre and Wounded Knee but most Indians died of diseases whose spread was no doubt hastened by their decadence and promiscuity.

Of course, it didn’t have to be that way. If the Native Americans had left the Europeans alone and stopped trying to foist their way of life on them there would be more Indian-operated casinos in America today. When we celebrate Thanksgiving, we are celebrating what America might have been if Indians hadn’t started the culture war that divides us to this day. Just as the Indians tried to foist their culture on the pilgrims, gays today are trying to force gay marriage on Christians and they seem surprised when Christians fight back to preserve their culture. If gays want to say they’re married that’s fine with me, just don’t force us to recognize it or give it legal standing. Then you are impinging on my rights.

Some gay conservatives, such as GayPatriotWest, understand that they should just be thankful for what they have. They have the freedom to practice whatever vile acts they want to practice behind closed, double-locked doors and we have the freedom not to have to know about it. As long as they don’t make the same mistake the Indians made, we can all live together in peace and harmony.

It’s no wonder that liberals hate Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a celebration of freedom. As GayPatriotWest points out “in practical, definable terms, the daily threats to my liberty are not being pushed by religious conservatives.” Our freedom is under assault in more important ways than whether the Mr. and Mr. GayPatriotWests of the world can register at Bloomingdale’s and visit each other in the hospital and file joint tax returns and not get evicted from their home or inherit money or property if one of them dies or be separated by deportation if one of them is an illegal alien. Liberals are trying to take away more important freedoms like the right to smoke in bars or eat trans fats or buy political influence or own assault rifles (which would have come in quite handy if settlers had had them to ward off Indian attacks).

So this Thanksgiving let us remember and celebrate a time when there was no culture war and gay secularist Indians and religious conservative pilgrims could sit down together and smoke a peace pipe without having to worry about anti-smoking laws and consume all the trans-fat-laden delicacies they wanted, with their guns and bows and arrows stashed under their seats just within reach.

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Obama’s Disastrous Gaffe-Laden Press Conference 8 Nov 2008 10:18 AM (16 years ago)

President-elect Barack Obama’s honeymoon abruptly ended yesterday when he insulted Fox News, Nancy Reagan and dogs at his first post-election press conference. Conservatives, who had generously given Obama the benefit of the doubt in the days after the election, immediately pounced on Obama’s ill-chosen remarks, which threaten to derail his presidency before it even begins.

Conservatives were shocked when Obama snubbed Fox News, the country's only fair and balanced network, by not calling on its reporter during the press conference. “Wisdom and judiciousness were not exactly evident,” scolded RedState, where “wisdom and judiciousness” are dispensed by the bucketful. Apparently, Obama still holds a grudge against the network, and its president Roger Ailes, for reporting that he went to a madrassa as a child, joking about assassinating him, referring to him as a socialist, attacking him for calling his grandmother a “typical white person,” calling his cigarette smoking “"a dirty little secret" and asking its viewers “Would you vote for a smoker?,” mixing him up with black former congressman Harold Ford Jr., making a joke that his name was similar to Osama Bin Laden’s and who knows what other perceived slights. Unfortunately, the Fox reporter was prevented from asking such very important questions as which cabinet post William Ayers will be appointed to and which policies from the Communist Manifesto Obama was planning to implement first.

“This childish obsession over Fox News is really beneath the dignity of the White House,” said Jammie Wearing Fool, who could certainly teach our new President a thing or two about dignity. “George W. Bush has been mercilessly pummelled by most of the media during his term but has never acted so petulantly about any media outlets.” Indeed, can you imagine President Bush petulantly snubbing journalists or news organizations the way Obama did because he is angry at their reporting? Apparently, Obama is already laying the groundwork for his secret plan to repeal the First Amendment.

Ignoring Fox News was bad enough, but then Obama went out of his way to insult Nancy Reagan, accusing her of holding séances in the White House. When he learned that Reagan did not hold séances in the White House but merely consulted with astrologers and arranged the White House schedule based on favorable alignments of the planets, Obama called Reagan to apologize for his tasteless joke. That wasn’t enough for many outraged conservatives who refused to accept his “weak apology.” “He's actually more immature than many of us suspected and feared,” said Dan Riehl, who took the high road, as usual, and made a very funny but mature joke about Obama’s dead grandmother. Stop the ACLU thought Obama’s joke displayed a lack of “professionalism” and called him a “jerk,” as one professional to another.

Obama had apparently mixed up Reagan with Mary Todd Lincoln who did hold séances in the White House, which is just as bad since she was the wife of the beloved first Republican President and unable to defend herself because she is no longer living. Is this the kind of bipartisanship we can expect from President Obama? What deceased wives of Republican Presidents will he insult next? President-elect Obama owes Mrs. Lincoln an apology even if he has to hold a séance to make it properly.

But the worst gaffe Obama made at his disastrous press conference was when he referred to mixed-breed dogs (or “differently bred” dogs, as they prefer to be called) using the dogist term “mutts.” “Mutt” is a deeply offensive word to working-class dogs and their owners. Although Obama tried to recover and hastily added the words, “like me,” the damage was already done. “This guy has a real complex about himself, a megalomania that especially manifests when he speaks of others,” wrote MacRanger at Macsmind, whose biracial friend was "outraged." I imagine we will be hearing a lot from MacRanger's outraged biracial friend in the coming years whenever the issue of race comes up. Jules Crittenden compared Obama’s use of the word “mutt” to the time dog-torturing President Lyndon Johnson showed the press his scar. Paterico was reminded of the time Obama callously insulted pigs. Is no mammal safe from Obama’s sharp tongue?

Differently bred dogs are tired of being subjected to these kinds of cheap cur slurs, just as they resent the snotty attitudes of elitist, pedigreed show dogs who look down on them as canines who bitterly cling to their bones and chew toys. “Mutt,” which some particularly sensitive dog-owners refer to as the “M-word,” is a derogatory term that was first coined in 1906 and is short for “muttonhead,” which means a “stupid person.” It is bad enough when "mutt" is used to refer to a person, but when hurled at a dog, which cannot defend itself, it is an extremely offensive slur. It took years for dog-rights activists to get people to use the term "mongrel," until that term was scrapped in favor of the more politically correct designations “mixed-breed” and “differently bred.” Some progressive groups believe that all breed distinctions should be avoided and are trying to popularize the term "Dog-American" to refer to all dogs, from shih tzus to cockapoos, regardless of breed.

Before Obama used this unfortunate term, Muttgate was already threatening to splinter his fragile coalition and derail the Obama presidency. Obama’s promise to buy his daughters a puppy after the election has cost Obama quite a bit of support. PETA would no doubt prefer that Obama not enslave any animals at all, or at the very least save one from death row. Little girls who wanted their daddies to give them ponies supported Hillary in the primaries and refused to support Obama in the general election when their fathers told them that even Obama’s girls were not getting a pony so they should just shut up about it. Cat lovers, who are mostly independent voters, held out hope until the last minute that Obama would signal that he was going to get his girls a cat. Although many of them ended up voting for Obama, they are sure to have their claws out after his flagrant disregard of felines at the press conference. Meanwhile, the powerful ferret lobby, which single-handedly destroyed the presidential aspirations of Rudy Giuliani (if you don’t count Giuliani himself), was taking a wait-and-see approach to Obama, but they are probably already marshalling their musky, bad-tempered forces after yesterday’s news conference. Obama should be particularly wary of this interest group since ferret owners are notorious for being very sick and angry people.

Worst of all, Obama’s stunning announcement that he was seeking a “hypoallergenic” dog for his daughters finally confirmed the fears of many conservatives, such as Focus on the Family, that Obama is just like Hitler, who also excited crowds and was similarly elevated to power through the democratic process before he became a ruthless dictator. "Hypoallergenic" is, of course, a codeword for dogs that are pure breeds, which are dogs that have been bred according to the very same kind of evil eugenics practiced by the Nazis.

No matter what breed of dog or other pet Obama’s family ends up getting, Obama is sure to disillusion a large part of his constituency and scuttle any chance his administration has of getting anything done. It is a tragedy that a presidency that had so much promise and potential, which patriotic conservatives who love their country really were pulling for, should go down in flames so soon.

Carnivals: Carnival of Cats, Puppy in Training, Carnival of the Liberals, Everything Worth Reading

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Electing a Scary Black Man President Isn't the End of the World 6 Nov 2008 8:24 AM (16 years ago)

Isn’t this a great country? This year’s presidential election proves that anything is possible in America, even a scary black man being elected President of the United States. Whether Obama was elected because of enormous voter fraud, liberal white guilt, an influx of new and ignorant voters or some kind of mass hysteria is not important. For now all Americans should savor this victory for our country and for conservative values.

Some conservatives have gotten the mistaken impression that this election was some kind of repudiation of conservatism, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Thank goodness Michelle Malkin was there to go all Don Corleone and bitchslap the whiney, spineless conservatives who harbored such notions. “I’m getting a lot of moan-y, sad-face ‘What do we do now, Michelle?’ e-mails,” wrote Malkin. But this is no time for self-reflection and mea culpas, Malkin told her minions. “We do not apologize for our beliefs. We do not re-brand them, re-form them, or relinquish them. We defend them.” In other words we must double down on our beliefs no matter how distasteful some Americans find them to be. In fact, Americans were telling us that we weren’t conservative enough, that we need to get back to our core principles by being stingier and more callous. John Derbyshire, lamented that we probably would have won this election if only George Bush had deported 20 million illegal aliens and not visited mosques. But this is no time to regret the past. In fact, conservatives have a lot to be proud of.

For years conservatives have been saying that racism doesn’t exist anymore. The election of Barack Obama proves we were right all along. Throughout the campaign we reminded people at every opportunity that while it might be frightening that Obama is a socialist who pals around with terrorists, probably wasn’t born in this country and is secretly a Muslim, it made no difference whatsoever that he was black. “America actually is more post-racial than most realize,” wrote The Anchoress before the election. “Think about it. Obama can’t break 50%. Neither could Kerry, Gore or Clinton. So, Obama is being treated precisely like every other Democrat politician of the last 16 years. His race is not holding him down. His race is not propping him up. This should be cause for celebration, I think. We’ve clearly moved past race.” So even if Obama had lost the election it would have proven that racism doesn’t exist because white people lost elections, too. Still, some conservatives believe that more could have been done to prove that Obama’s race didn’t matter. Lisa Schifrin points out one of the reasons McCain lost was that he was too squeamish about the race thing and hadn’t yet gotten the word that we live in a post-racial society. “Some McCain aides had felt for a while that their candidate had had a deep reluctance to impede the election of the nation's first African American president. That he had, perhaps, pulled punches and failed to strike as hard as necessary to win this thing, for that greater good,” wrote Schifrin. “All Republicans who watched their candidate these past few months, must have been struck, as I have been, by the sense that he was holding back.” Although it’s true that McCain might have been able to win the election if he believed more strongly that race was irrelevant and brought up issues like Rev. Wright, other conservatives did not share his reluctance and in the end no matter what we threw at Obama, white people voted for him anyway. So with the election of Obama conservatives have been vindicated. Now that we have proved once and for all that racism doesn’t exist and that we live in a post-racial society, we never have to talk about race again. Sometimes you win by losing.

I know many conservatives are frightened by an Obama presidency but there are many reasons for optimism. While this election did not turn out the way we expected, Obama will probably really screw things up (I mean, worse than they already are). It’s not too idealistic to believe he could turn out to be a hopelessly incompetent President, maybe the worst this country has ever seen, and completely run America into the ground. We can already take solace in the fact that Obama has so much to live up to that it will be impossible for him to succeed. “Disillusionment will turn to a feeling of betrayal. And that will, in turn, convert to anger,” wrote Steven Den Beste hopefully. “Our mission for the next four years is to be in opposition without becoming deranged.” So all we have to do is let Obama take this country to hell in a handbasket without looking like we are too crazy. How hard could that be?

Although many conservatives did not appear to realize what an enormous opportunity had been handed to us, they nevertheless accepted the news of Obama’s victory with a stoicism that should make us all proud. “Obama is NOT the Anti-Christ,” wrote Flopping Aces, reassuringly. “The Anti-Christ has an actual plan and millions of years of experience to call upon. Obama the President can claim NONE of these qualities.” Sultan Knish exuded a Zen-like calm as he anticipated the next four years. “Today I unpacked my winter clothes in preparation for a long winter, and a long winter is coming if not of the thermometer, then of the soul,” Sultan wrote with soaring poetic imagery, if not of the anger, then of the sorrow. “A man that represents not simply an opposing view but the view of those who oppose America and all it stands for, will sit in the Oval Office. Worse still he did not get there through a democratic election but through fraud, voter intimidation and every dirty trick culminating in a campaign that had little in common with conventional American politics and a great deal in common with the cults of personality cultivated by totalitarian dictators.” Atlas Shrugs waxed poetic, too, transforming herself into a Jewish, orthographically challenged e.e. cummings: “he says he is a democrat. i think he does so to hide that he is a committed marxist leninist who intends to impose a marxist dictatorhip upon this country, which advancig the interests of islam. he will attempt to either impose or import sharia, and sharia financing into this country. he is not my president. i do not accept him we have no deals, mr. obama and i, as he has vitiated them by a fundamental and far reaching fraud. he has evil designes and intents upon me and mine, upon thee and me.”

Obama’s epic fail of an administration will make President Bush’s term look brilliant by comparison. Unfortunately, President Bush has not gotten the respect and appreciation he deserves for keeping America safe after 9/11, protecting all of our other cities besides New Orleans and keeping our economy strong until the financial crisis. Pat Boone, who had such a wonderful career turning crude African-American noise into nice, wholesome Christian music (maybe he could revive his career by re-recording some of Obama’s speeches and doing the same for him), recently shared a very amusing and creative “Bush Resignation Letter” in which Bush explains how great he was to all the ingrates. “I'm fed up with you people,” the faux Bush says. “I'm fed up because you have no understanding of what's really going on in the world – or of what's going on in this once-great nation of ours. And the majority of you are too damn lazy to do your homework and figure it out.” The Wall Street Journal has already begun assigning blame for the Bush Administration’s problems where it belongs: to the American people. In an editorial titled “The Treatment of Bush Has Been a Disgrace,” Jeffrey Shapiro writes, “The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems.…Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty -- a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House.” Of course, Mr. Shapiro and other conservatives will always stand by President Obama no matter how bad a President he is because we aren’t disloyal like liberals are. Obama will have to fail on his own without our help. Then we can all say, “I told you so.” I don’t know how much an Obama administration will have to screw up to make the Bush Administration look good, but we can all keep our fingers crossed.

Another bright spot in the election was that the success of Proposition 8 showed that while Americans are colorblind, they still hate gay people, even in California. In addition to Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California, similar propositions in Florida and Arizona succeeded and Arkansas passed a resolution banning the practice of forcing orphans to live with gay parents instead of in nice, comfortable orphanages. Conservatives should make vilifying gays the centerpiece of our platform in the coming years since it obviously still works. In fact, Proposition 8 got its strongest support from blacks and Hispanics, so once they get over the novelty of having a minority in the White House, we may be able to use this issue to win them over to the conservative cause.

Lost in the drama of election night coverage was the fact that Gabriel Malor, one of the pseudononymous co-bloggers on the blog of CPAC Blogger of the Year Ace of Spades, chose this night to come out of the closet and was duly slapped down by conservatives sticking to their principles. “Could we have a moment of silence for those poor fools who were happily married or engaged yesterday and today are finding out that they don't have squat?” Malor wrote. “Prop 8 was much more personal than some silly high-speed train or hospital funding. People are hurting today. And I'm one of them.” Commenters at Ace of Spades, where ribald anti-gay humor has always been one the features that makes the blog so delightful, were shocked. “Did Gabe just come out of the closet?” exclaimed A Different Dave in Texas. Apotheosis did his best to take it in stride with a nervous attempt at humor: “I'm sorry you're hurting, Gabriel. I'd offer you a hug, but...y'know. Just a beer or something, man? We're cool, right?” But while some commenters offered him sympathy, others stuck to their core conservative principles. “Wow. I'm really hurting for all the guy who want to marry their sisters. The gals who want to marry their Doberman Pinschers. The pain. The hurt,” wrote Dang sarcastically. “I'm not a hard hearted person, but I'm also not going to lose sleep about the democratic process working to the disappointment of some. That's just the f---ing breaks,” said Nom de Blog. Moronizer was having none of it: “So you got ‘married,’ knowing full well that it might get voided. Boo hoo.” And Religious Zealot wanted Malor to stop acting so gay about it: “I don't deny that Gabe and others are hurting, it's just that it's a drama-queen reaction.” I hope that in the coming days the bloggers at Ace of Spades will redouble their efforts to make fun of gays lest people start speculating about the sexual preference of the other co-bloggers and regular commenters there. Better to nip this thing in the bud before it spreads.

Even though Ace of Spades was not able to have any effect whatsoever on the election, it wasn’t for lack of trying. And Ace of Spades will continue to be the go-to blog as conservatives grapple with their principles in this brave new world. If there is one thing that distinguishes conservatives from liberals it’s that we don’t believe in demonizing our opponents unless it’s absolutely necessary. “McCain lost honorably, as he wanted. I guess that's what really matters in the end,” Ace of Spades wrote after the results came. Ace of Spades never lost his honor or dignity even as he did his best to warn Americans that they were about to elect someone who was “the same kind of socialist race hustler as Jesse Jackson,” was so close to terrorists that one even wrote his book for him and had a mistress that the mainstream media refused to report on no matter how much he tried to push the story. Now Ace and his "moronbloggers," as they call themselves, will lead the way in showing why conservatives are better than liberals. “I love this country too much to do to President-Elect Obama what the left did to President Bush, John McCain and Sarah Palin. We’re better than that,” wrote Ace’s co-blogger Slublog. “Demonization is not essential to opposition.” Conservatives can try other things, too.

Of course, conservatives are not going to be afraid to give President Obama constructive criticism when necessary, while we wait for 2012, when we can all get behind the Sarah Palin/Dan Quayle ticket (yes you can say you heard it here first: Palin will be the Republican nominee in 2012 and she will select Dan Quayle as her running mate to add experience and gravitas to the ticket). When Bill Clinton was elected President in 1992, Bob Dole famously said "Good news is, Clinton's on his honeymoon. Bad news is, his chaperone is Bob Dole." That was before the Internet. President Obama is going to have the whole conservative blogosphere as his chaperone.

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Why McCain Will Win 2 Nov 2008 12:42 AM (16 years ago)

The pundits have gotten everything wrong this election year, from prematurely writing John McCain’s political obituary to declaring Hillary Clinton the Democrat nominee to celebrating Fred Thompson as the second coming of Ronald Reagan. But none of these blunders compares to the egg they will be wearing on their faces when the election results roll in this Tuesday, and John McCain becomes the next President of the United States. I think most of the major demographic groups are going to break for McCain, but you don’t have to wait for the Wednesday morning quarterbacking to find out why this will happen because I’m going to tell you right now.

Young People Won’t Show Up To Vote Because They Are Lazy and Stupid

I don’t know who on Obama’s campaign had the bright idea to base their campaign strategy on a huge turnout of young people. Have they actually met any young people? Let’s face it, young people today are the least reliable, laziest, stupidest generation in our nation’s history. If we had known that baby boomers would end up spawning such spoiled, self-absorbed progeny, we would have had them all sterilized. Historically, young people don’t show up to vote, anyway, but this year promises to be even worse. Just as Obama Girl couldn’t manage to vote in the primary because she had to wash her hair or something, most young people won’t be able to summon up the energy to get out of bed or stop playing their video games long enough to show up and vote for Obama. I’d be surprised if these dimwits even know how voting works. On Election Day, I expect, millions of young people will be frantically texting their friends trying to find out the number of the Obama hotline to call to cast their vote. Unfortunately, these idiots are our future. I hope I die before they get old.

Jews, Like Horses, Are Easily Frightened

The McCain campaign has finally hit on a strategy that works: scaring the Jews. It’s a sure-fire strategy because jittery Jews are the most easily frightened people on earth. Boo! If you’re Jewish, you probably jumped just reading that last sentence. It really doesn’t take much. All you have to do is insinuate that somebody knows somebody who might possibly be anti-Semitic and Jews will stampede in the other direction. You don't really need any evidence. Jews have already done half the work themselves by sending around scary emails to each other about how Obama is bad for the Jews because he will destroy Israel the minute he is elected President. Nobody knows how to scare Jews better than other Jews. McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb might have looked like a manipulative fear-monger and an ass to some people when he started stammering in a recent interview and couldn’t name all the anti-Semitic people he said Obama supposedly knows, but to other Jews Goldfarb looked like a fellow scared Jew who can barely utter a coherent sentence because he’s so frightened. Every Jew knows we are thisclose to another Holocaust, so why take a chance on some guy whose name sounds Arab, when there’s a very nice goy running? Sure, his running mate belongs to a church that thinks Jesus is coming any day now to convert all the Jews, but there is no one who loves Israel more than a bunch of Christians waiting for the Rapture. I expect just seeing Obama’s name is going to have many Jews running out of voting booths screaming like it's Halloween. For Jews, everyday is Halloween.

The Reverse Bradley Effect

Republicans are hoping that all the polls are wrong because of the "Bradley Effect," the phenomenon where white people say they are going to vote for the black guy because they don’t want to appear racist but once they get in the voting booth they just can’t do it. But this year, I think we’re going to see a "Reverse Bradley Effect," where black people say they are going to vote for the black guy because they don’t want to seem disloyal, but when they get into the voting booth they just can’t pull the lever for the brother. When it gets right down to it, black people don’t really trust other black people. When a famous black person gets in trouble, what’s the first thing they do? They hire a Jewish lawyer. And how many rich and famous black people let other black people manage their money or careers? Not too many. If black people won’t hire black lawyers or accountants, what makes you think they are going to hire a black President?

Hispanics Will Remember Why No Se Puede Support Obama

John McCain probably thought Hispanics would line up behind him because he sponsored the immigration reform bill that would have granted amnesty to illegal aliens, but Hispanics have been skittish about supporting him because they know he will probably sell them down the river to appease his base the first chance he gets. Until Election Day, that is. Once Election Day rolls around Hispanics will suddenly remember just how much they hate black people. No one hates black people more than Hispanics (except maybe Asians). Black people give Hispanic people someone to look down on. They even still call them "Negroes" long after everyone else changed to "blacks" and "African-Americans." If a black person gets elected President, the only people Hispanics will have left to make fun of will be gay people. I don’t think they’ll let that happen.

Old People Stick Together

This year old people have a chance to make history instead of just being history. They have an opportunity to elect the oldest human to ever serve as President, someone who is as crotchety as they are. Old people don’t care if their daughter marries a young man, they just don’t want one running the country. And they can sympathize with someone whose rightful promotion is being stolen by some precocious young whippersnapper who doesn’t have the decency to wait his turn. It seems like lately Presidents just keep getting younger and younger and old people think it’s about time someone who looks like them gets in the White House for a change. Ultimately, old people like to stick together, which is why they are going to flock to McCain. You’ve probably noticed that in public places like parks or cafeterias old people tend to gravitate toward one another because they feel more comfortable hanging out with other old people who can understand their jokes and ossified cultural references. They imagine having a President who will say things that go over everybody's head and when young people turn to them and ask them to explain, they will just say, “It’s an old people thing; you wouldn’t understand.”

Men Think With Their…

Palin has had a strange effect on American men. It’s hard to describe the secret of her allure. According to Kathleen Parker, it's why McCain picked her in the first place: "McCain took Palin to his favorite coffee-drinking spot down by a creek and a sycamore tree," she writes. "They talked for more than an hour, and, as Napoleon whispered to Josephine, ‘Voila.’ One does not have to be a psychoanalyst to reckon that McCain was smitten." In The New Yorker Jane Mayer describes how a group of influential conservative men became putty in Palin's hands after they met her on a cruise. Rich Lowry may have articulated it best when he wrote after the debate, "I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, 'Hey, I think she just winked at me.' And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America." Ultimately, I think many men will end up voting for Palin and her running mate because men tend to think with their hearts more than their brains. When men see Palin, they can’t describe the effect she has on them; they just know their palms get sweaty and hearts start beating faster.

Women Love a Bad Boy

Women love a bad boy and there was a time when Obama seemed exciting and even a little dangerous, the kind of guy girls would like to bring home to their parents just to scare them. But as the campaign wore on, Obama seemed less and less enthralling. Women began to realize that his cool façade wasn’t keeping a lid on roiling depths of passion; it was just hiding more and more layers of cool. After a while he began to seem so safe and reassuring that women started to get bored with him. And then they took a look at McCain. They realized that he was reckless and impetuous and oh so deliciously risky. Sure, he might snap at you and call you nasty names but he’ll always say he’s sorry afterward and that just makes him more alluring. With McCain as President, you’ll never know what he is going to do next. In the end he may bankrupt you or knock you up (and after he appoints Supreme Court Justices who reverse Roe v. Wade, you’ll be spared from having to make that heart-rending decision about what to do about it), but in the end you know you would make the same choice again even if everything tells you not to. Remember when you picked George Bush over that boring guy who reminded you of your first husband?

Conservatives Finally Have a Reason To Be Optimistic About the Future

Conservatives have always hated McCain for his support of immigration reform, campaign finance reform and moderate judges, and his opposition to torture and the Bush tax cuts, until he changed his mind and kicked his principles under the Straight Talk Express, though not soon enough for most of us. But after he picked Sarah Palin, conservatives took another look at McCain. That was when we noticed that McCain is really, really old and sometimes he doesn’t look all that well (wink!). And then it dawned on us: McCain will probably die in office! We may not be all that happy with McCain, but we are practically giddy at the prospect that he won't last that long. He could even keel over right after the Inauguration. And then . . . say hello to President Palin! The thought of a President Palin sends chills up the legs of many patriotic Americans, and up other parts of their bodies, too. So conservatives will be rushing to the polls fired up by the prospect that a vote for McCain is really a vote for President Palin. When you go into the voting booth November 4, I hope you, too, will picture Sarah Palin sitting in the Oval Office with her Manolo Blahniks propped up on the desk and I betcha you’ll know what to do.

Update: Whoops.

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Swift Reactions 9: In Which Ann Althouse Tasks Me 28 Oct 2008 5:49 AM (16 years ago)

You would think that my piece “Great Moments in Election-Year Blogging,” which brought well-deserved attention to the underreported stories on Obama in the conservative blogosphere, would have been greeted by those hard-working bloggers with great appreciation. Astonishingly, many of them responded with ingratitude and even hostility. Perhaps the most puzzling reaction came from Ann Althouse, who may have earned a place in Bartlett’s for her quote "You know, just because the thing I saw wasn't there doesn't mean there wasn't something there that I didn't see," thanks in no small part to the efforts of this modest blogger.

After I sent Ms. Althouse a link to the story as a courtesy, she wrote back to say, “Deceitful as usual. Thanks a whole hell of a lot.” I replied that I was “deeply troubled” that she would consider my piece “deceitful” and assured her that “like you, I am very scrupulous about what is published under my name (well, pseudonym), and I would hate to ruin my reputation by giving people the idea that I just publish whatever outrageous idea pops into my head without regard to what damage it might cause to myself and others.” Unfortunately, it was difficult to have a discussion with her about just what was wrong with my piece because she has a very strict policy against reading my work, lest the intellectual purity of her ideas be sullied by my clumsy attempts at reason, which I completely understand. Perhaps I didn’t praise her enough.

But her annoyance at me for my inadequate praise turned into rage after George Packer of the New Yorker linked to my piece and accused her of belonging to “a self-isolating political subculture gone rancid.” How did Ms. Althouse respond to this ridiculous and unfair charge? She and her commenters circled the wagons and viciously lashed out. “George Packer, names me and slams me, but doesn't link, so there's no way for readers to see the context” she wrote. “Shame on you, George Packer! That is truly sleazy!” Finally, she told Mr. Packer, “Look in a mirror, man. Look in a damn mirror, loser.” If Mr. Packer bothered to come to her site and read what she wrote as well as all of the supportive comments from her loyal and insular community of regular commenters, he would certainly see there was nothing “self-isolating” or “rancid” about her subculture. Later, she added, still fuming, “What Packer seems to have done is to have adopted another blogger's summary of what a lot of bloggers, including me, have done over the course of the election season. That other blogger paid no attention to my year of balanced blogging, under an explicit vow of cruel neutrality.” It seemed to me, however, that she undermined her case, and might even strike some as a wee bit hypocritical, when she referred to me as “that other blogger” without linking to me or even naming me, while accusing Mr. Packer of the very same violation of blogger ethics. Although I’m not a law professor like Ms. Althouse, from what experience I have gathered watching Matlock, I’m pretty sure that undermining your case is something you want to avoid.

When I politely pointed out this apparent contradiction in an email, she replied, “Your name has never appeared in a post on my blog. You smeared me by name on your blog and so did Packer. I chose only to write about Packer because of his prominence. I chose to ignore you other than to tell you by email that I regard what you wrote about me as deceitful.” I did not have the heart to tell Ms. Althouse that perhaps Mr. Packer applied her own reasoning to her and did not link to her because he did not consider her prominent enough to warrant such attention. Despite the fact that Ms. Althouse considers my blog to be The Blog That Dare Not Speak Its Name, said to me in her comments, “I don't like you, and screw you” and referred to me as a “little prick,” a “s---head,” a “hypocrite,” “boring,” and an “a--hole,” I know that this is just her colorful way of speaking, and probably how she speaks to her students as well to toughen them up, so I don’t take it personally. I only wish her well in her desire to someday earn the respect of the eastern elites, which she so clearly craves, like those other “wet-fingered conservatives” that Charles Krauthammer writes about.

Ace of Spades also seemed unhappy with my piece, cruelly drawing my attention in an email to the fact that his traffic is somewhat higher than mine. I pointed out that we have different goals: “I have aimed for a quality audience instead of simply quantity as you have,” I told him and encouraged him to “keep up the good work,” cheering him on by saying, “I know you're going to hit on a story that will actually have an effect on the election someday.” Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs took issue with my post as well, linking to it in a comment (see comment #79) and telling his readers, “If you want a graphic demonstration of how much damage is being done by the so-called ‘conservatives’ who are chasing after conspiracy fantasies and stupid ugly rumors, read it and weep.”

Some of my own commenters also expressed disappointment with my piece. First-time (and apparently last-time) reader Dawn Marie, wrote, “It would have been nice to find a conservative blog that I could read in order to get a balanced perspective on the news. Unfortunately, your blog is just a collection of unsubstantiated rumors.” Although she allowed that “there are moments when your writing is fair,” she went on to say, “Your bias comes out with statements such as (paraphrased) ‘supported the democrats until they nominated an unqualified African-American candidate.’ Why not just say they nominated an ‘unqualified candidate’? Is there something particularly juicy to the placement of unqualified and African-American next to each other?” I have to confess I'm not sure what she is trying to say here. Does she mean I should use fewer adjectives? My good friend Neddie Jingo quickly rallied to my defense: “How dare you come into this good conservative blog and imply that it's ‘unbalanced’? Mr. Swift is and always has been a deep conservative thinker of the first water. I get all my news from him, just as he gets his from Fox News and Jay Leno monologues. That way, it's extra-filtered and pure, pure, pure,” he wrote. “I suspect you are actually a LIEberal flying under false colors, trying to make us think you are a conservative in order to make our brains explode from the sheer contradiction.”

Although there were some naysayers, such as Lonewhacko, whose name, I think, is supposed to be ironic, most of the comments were enthusiastically respectful. I urge you to read them all, though if you are rushed for time, Mistah Charley summed them up nicely. I must say, however, I was a bit hurt when Driftglass compared my post to an old rug, though I’m sure he didn’t mean to be quite so unkind.

Finally, my piece “Pro-America vs. Anti-America,” which included a handy chart outlining the differences, really brought out the creativity of my dear readers, who provided their own wonderful illustrations of Pro-America/Anti-America. Here are a few examples: Distributorcap: Wheel of Fortune/Jeopardy; Dr. X: Fried/sautéed; PK: Dogma/Karma; Tom: glossolalia/stream of consciousness; rynato: Elvis Presley/Elvis Costello; Pamela D. Hart: lemonade/Kool-Aid; chicago dyke: meth/pot g4rg4ntu4: God/Boognish. Please go read them all. In the end I think I will take my very small, high-quality, not-particularly-loyal community over that of Ann Althouse and Ace of Spades any day.

Update: Ms. Althouse is still very angry.

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Great Moments in Election-Year Blogging 23 Oct 2008 3:20 AM (16 years ago)

No matter what happens in this year’s election, the conservative blogosphere deserves to win a collective Pulitzer Prize for its election-year coverage. While the mainstream media has given Americans a very distorted picture of Barack Obama, portraying him as a thoughtful, intelligent, unflappable, decent family man who has the temperament and judgment to be President, the conservative blogosphere has been the only place where you can get the real story. Hampered by quaint, old-fashioned rules of journalism that require citing evidence and reputable sources, the mainstream media has failed to report a number of important stories about Obama and the conservative blogosphere has had to step up and do the media’s job for them. As a public service I have collected some of the most important of these stories in one place. Pulitzer Prize judges, take note!

Some of the stories below are shocking and even hard to believe, but they weren’t published on crazy, fringe websites. They appeared on some of the most distinguished and well-respected sites on the Internet. The bloggers and online journalists who published them have staked their reputations and their sacred honor on the veracity of these reports. To doubt the truth of their findings, you would have to believe that an entire segment of the blogosphere has suddenly been gripped by hysteria and gone collectively insane, which is a pretty unlikely scenario.

During Obama’s dark, mysterious years at Columbia, he was involved in domestic terrorist bombings

Although some mainstream media sources have alluded to Obama’s mysterious years at Columbia, only one intrepid reporter, Tom Maguire of Just One Minute has made the cognitive leap required to connect all of the dots. Noting that Obama admitted in his book Dreams of My Father that he was “interested in South Africa divestment,” Maguire does some digging and discovers that some protests against the 1981 tour by the South African Springboks rugby team resulted in violence and even some bombings. Guess who “was involved in some fashion” in these bombings? The Weather Underground! “These are just dots and it may be impossible to connect them,” says Maguire, modestly, “but we have Barack Obama at Columbia working on South African divestment (as were many peaceful protestors) while other radical elements with a Weather Underground flavor are setting bombs, killing cops, and working on South African divestment. As a bonus, Bill Ayers is studying at Bank Street College a quarter mile from Columbia.” Wow! How can the mainstream media possibly ignore the fact that Obama must have been “involved in some fashion” in domestic terrorism because he was “interested in South African divestment.” “Tom Maguire steps pretty far out on a limb with this bit of speculation,” says CPAC Blogger of the Year Ace of Spades, who links to the story. “But it would explain why Barack Obama's ‘lost years’ at Columbia have remained so very very secret.” It makes me wonder how my friend Tom Watson, who was at Columbia at the same time as Obama and was also “interested in South African divestment,” was connected to the Weather Underground, not to mention hundreds of other former Columbia students who today freely walk the streets despite their terrorist connections. I wonder if Tom has mentioned his radical connections in his upcoming book CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World, or if like Obama, he mysteriously left it out.

Obama didn’t actually write Dreams of My Father. In fact, it was ghost-written by none other than Bill Ayers!

Jack Cashill at the aptly named American Thinker found it difficult to believe that Barack Obama, who is not one of the most articulate politicians around, could possibly have written a whole book all by himself. He must have had help. Probably from someone evil. So on a hunch Cashill decided to compare Obama’s book with a book written by Bill Ayers and lo and behold, he discovered some shocking similarities, including the use of nautical imagery and the fact that a very scientific test to determine the grade level of the prose was a match. This wasn’t the first story Cashill broke. Cashill also proved that Arab terrorists and not Eric Rudolph were responsible for the 1996 Olympics bombing in Atlanta and that the Clintons covered up the real cause of the death of Ron Brown and the downing of TWA Flight 800. Unfortunately, Cashill’s overwhelming evidence wasn’t enough to convince the mainstream media to report on his theories, but Ann Althouse, who is a tenured professor at the 36th most prestigious law school in the country according to U.S. News & World Report, took them very seriously. “Mere confirmation bias? Or is Cashill onto something?” wrote the respected professor ominously after presenting her exhaustive analysis. Former U.S. prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy, who now writes for the National Review’s The Corner, wrote that while he didn’t “want to feed into what sounds, at first blush, like Vince Fosteresque paranoia,” after reading Cashill’s analysis he found it “thorough, thoughtful, and alarming.” Scott Johnson at Powerline called Cashill's work "interesting" and said that while "Cashill could also make the case that John Hinderaker and I qualify for recognition as Obama's secret collaborator" they didn't live in Obama's neighborhood, as Ayers did, which is in itself pretty damning. “Nautical metaphors may sink Obama,” Ace of Spades wrote hopefully. Flopping Ace s saw Ayers’ ghost-writing of Obama’s book as just one part of a vast conspiracy to get a socialist elected President. “Eventually, if successful, their dreams of a Communist nation can be realized,” wrote Flopping Aces. “Sounds crazy….I know.” By the way, before Cashill hit on his theory, I noted some eerie similarities between Dreams of My Father and the Horatio Hornblower novels of C.S. Forester, which also contain nautical references and are written on a high school level, but I gave up my investigation when I realized that Forester died in 1966 and probably could not have written Obama’s book. Why didn't I think of comparing Obama’s book to Ayers’ book instead? I guess that's why I'm not one of the A-list bloggers.

Michelle Obama attacks “American white racists” in an interview with obscure online news site

I bet you probably didn’t know that Michelle Obama gave an exclusive interview to the obscure online journalism site African Press International in which she said that “American white racists” are trying to derail her husband's candidacy by claiming that Obama was adopted by his Indonesian stepfather, which would make him ineligible to be President under one of the secret, little-known provisions of the U.S. Constitution. Mrs. Obama was apparently so disturbed by these charges that she decided to call this press agency, which most people have never heard of, and vent Martha Mitchell-like, even though her words might scuttle her husband’s chances of becoming President. Although the mainstream media hasn’t yet picked up the story, and the Obama campaign denies the interview took place, Gateway Pundit, Protein Wisdom, Right Pundits, Stop the ACLU, Maggies Notebook, Death by 1000 Paperecuts, Strata-Sphere, Gina Cobb, Macsmind, News Busters, World Net Daily, Jim Treacher, Townhall and a number of other conservative blogs and news sites ran with it. Although some cynical bloggers were skeptical of the story for some reason and demanded more proof, API assured them that it had tapes of the conversations and was just waiting for the right moment to release them. Although API still hasn’t managed to work out the logistics yet, and several deadlines have already come and gone, conservative bloggers are very patient and understanding and just hope that API can work everything out before the election. “We will know soon enough,” writes Gateway Pundit. “It is amazing how the media will believe a hoax that some Republican yelled ‘kill him’ at a Palin rally with no evidence but will disregard a harsh story on Michelle Obama from the start. It's interesting how that works.” It is funny how that works, Gateway Pundit.

Obama had a girlfriend that his wife found out about and forced her to move to the Caribbean.

What would an election be without a sex scandal? If you only read the American mainstream media, you might not know that the U.K.’s Daily Mail reported that Obama was “the target of a shadowy smear campaign designed to derail his bid for the US Presidency by falsely claiming he had a close friendship with an attractive African-American female employee…. The woman, now 33, vigorously denies the vicious and unsubstantiated gossip.” Unfortunately, the American mainstream media apparently has some kind of silly rules about publishing stories about unsubstantiated rumors as a way of writing about those rumors, but conservative bloggers have been all over the story like white bloggers on rice. Once again the conservative blogosphere’s most respected blogger Ace of Spades led the way. “Having now spoken to someone tracking the story, I can say: 1) It's not just a silly little rumor. 2) It will break in some form shortly,” he wrote. Ace even noticed that Obama had vacationed in the Caribbean, noting his source “hadn't even made that connection.” That’s just how Ace’s mind works, making connections that don’t even occur to peddlers of sleazy gossip.

Unfortunately, the story hasn’t broken yet in some form, except on a number of prominent conservative blogs. Jammie Wearing Fool presented a very credible case for why the story might be true, writing, “If you're Obama and you're married to the modern-day incarnation of Aunt Esther, you've got to figure the temptation to get your thang on must be pretty strong.” Say Anything advised Obama to “disclose this woman’s pay records, her travel records and her job history as it relates to working for his Senate staff and/or campaign.” Stop the ACLU cautioned, “Just remember…this is only a rumor until the media get off their behinds and actually investigate this,” but that didn’t stop Right Voices, Protein Wisdom, Hill Buzz, Confederate Yankee, Jammie Wearing Fool, Silent Running or Black Five from discussing it. Unfortunately, these bloggers have been unable to offer any evidence that the story is true, but just because there is no evidence that something is true, that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

There is a tape of Michelle Obama with Louis Farrakhan talking about “whitey”

Larry Johnson of No Quarter used to be a liberal until the Democrats decided to nominate an unqualified African-American for President. In a last-ditch attempt to get Democrats to come to their senses, he revealed the existence of a secret videotape featuring Michelle Obama speaking to a group that included the wife of Louis Farrakhan and maybe even Farrakhan himself in which she confirms the most feverish nightmares of some white Americans by ranting about “whitey.” Johnson claimed that Republicans had a copy of this tape, which they were holding onto until October, when it would do the most damage. Although he didn’t actually see the tape himself, he had many friends and friends of friends who did see it. Stop the ACLU wrote, "This is all a rumor, but if you read Michelle’s college thesis on race you will find it is most likely true." Macranger reported, "Too many insiders are talking about it to outright dismiss it." Jim Geraghty of National Review's The Corner initially believed the tape existed but later grew skeptical, writing, "I note that despite my readers' hopes, this fits the pattern for rumors like this — they're always simultaneously vague but hyped to be huge, and they're always coming just around the corner." Killjoy. If Johnson is right, and there is no reason to doubt him, we should be seeing that tape any day now. But you might want to send him a note and remind him that there are only two more weeks left in October so they better release that tape quick.

Obama was not born in the United States and his birth certificate has been forged.

What would happen if we elected a President who was not born in this country and is not eligible to be President? Some of the best minds in the conservative blogosphere are doing everything they can to stop this horrifying scenario from happening before it is too late. “This is serious: Barack Obama's campaign has endorsed the accuracy of what is almost certainly a forged birth certificate for Obama,” writes Right Wing News. According to Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs, Doug Ross of Director Blue and Israel Insider, the birth certificate the Obama campaign released is without a doubt a forgery, which they have proven using all kinds of scientific analysis that involves anti-aliasing and kerning, which makes my head spin but looks really convincing. Tiger Hawk was really concerned about this: “I do not think that it would be good for anybody, including Republicans, if it turned out that Barack Obama was not 'natural born' under the law. What a mess that would be for the whole country.” And Andrew McCarthy of the National Review’s The Corner also wanted answers, adding, in case anyone had any doubt, “I am not a conspiracy theorist.” (Update: What is the real reason for Obama's trip to Hawaii?)

So if Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii, where was he born? Prestigious conservative news organization World Net Daily reports, “Pennsylvania Democrat Philip J. Berg, who filed a lawsuit demanding Sen. Barack Obama present proof of his American citizenship, now says that by failing to respond Obama has legally ‘admitted’ to the lawsuit's accusations, including the charge that the Democratic candidate was born in Mombosa [sic], Kenya.” Berg claims he spoke to Obama’s grandmother and she said she was in the delivery room when he was born in a hospital in Mombassa. Although Philip Berg once filed a RICO lawsuit against Bush and others blaming them for the events of 9/11, that doesn’t mean he’s wrong now. (Update: Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs has determined that not only was Obama not born in Hawaii, his father is actually Malcolm X!)

As if being Kenyan weren’t bad enough, John Ray at Stop the ACLU reports that Obama is also Indonesian according to another birth certificate and that he traveled to Pakistan in 1981 on an Indonesian passport where he no doubt met with members of Al Qaeda. “I suspect that Obama may have dumped his Indonesian citizenship at some point along the way, to advance his political career,” writes Ray of the wily, ambitious politician. “But I would not be shocked if he still holds it. This question, however, should not overshadow the serious problem of hiding his Indonesian identity from the electorate….. What else is he hiding?” Despite so much evidence that Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen, some conservative bloggers have been as dismissive of this story as the mainstream media. “Let’s stop chasing absurd conspiracy theories that make it more difficult to win the real arguments in this election,” Ed Morrissey of Hot Air wrote, Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, who is the Father of Konservative Kerning Analysis has banned mention of the birth certificate story on his site and AJ Strata of Strata-Sphere did his own scientific analysis to disprove it. Who got to them, I wonder?

Barack Obama had an underage, gay “affair” with a pedophile.

When the National Enquirer reported that one of Obama’s childhood mentors wrote a semi-autobiographical book that includes passages about sex with an underage girl, the conservative blogosphere collectively made the next logical leap that even the Enquirer was too skittish to make: Obama must have had sex with this man when he was nine years old. “The National Enquirer now suggests Barack Obama had an underage, gay affair with a pedophile,” wrote Erick Erickson of Red State. “Yup. That Frank Marshall Davis guy Barry says was his good friend? Turns out he was a perv of the first order and liked young boys." In case anyone should make unfair accusations against him, Erickson added, "This post is not intended to spread that rumor.” Indeed, that post was only intended as a public service to pass on information that was right there between the lines of the Enquirer story for all to see. “That may be worse than his having been counseled by Jeremiah Wright,” wrote Dan Riehl. “No wonder he says "Pakit-stan" in that funny way of his! heh!” Confederate Yankee wondered why this very important story was being buried by the mainstream media, explaining, “Barack Obama's list of known mentors now includes child rapists ('Uncle Frank' Marshall), racists (Rev. Jeremiah Wright) and terrorists (Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn). When is someone going to question how these associations must have warped Obama's views and render him unstable, and unsuitable for the Presidency?” Jules Crittenden, who called the story an “October Surprise,” dismissed Obama’s being “mentored by a suspected commie pervert in underage late-night drinking/dirty limerick slams” as a “youthful indiscretion,” but added, “with the subsequent adult pattern … 20 years in the pews of a frothing America-bashing bigot and the professional palling around with an unrepentant ex-terrorist … you begin to see what they mean when with that ‘doesn’t look like us’ line. Turns out it’s not a racial cue at all.” Dan Collins of Protein Wisdom also reported on the story, but as usual, I have no idea what he was trying to say. “No doubt Obama will claim this as a desperate smear by the forces of evil who are afraid of change,” said Jammie Wearing Fool, with that delightful sarcasm he uses when not smearing people.

You might think that the fact that Obama was palling around with pedophiles when he was nine years old, which is the exact same time that William Ayers was blowing up the Pentagon, would be an important story, but once again the mainstream media ignored it. Conservative blogger Don Surber also demurred, writing, “Some bloggers are calling this an October surprise. I call it stupidity” and predictably liberal bloggers proceeded to shoot the messengers. “When people discuss (possible) sexual contact between ten-year-old boys who are not their political enemies and grown men, they usually refer to the 'underage gay affairs' as sexual abuse,” wrote Jim Henley of Unqualified Offerings. “They also recognize that adults who have been abused may or may not wish to tell the whole world the details, and they respect it. Admittedly, most people are not members of the NAMBLA wing of the Republican Party, or, failing that, curdled into pure meanness. Maybe Erickson just holds with the more sweeping theories about the cultural construction of the age of consent. Whatever the reason, he’s sure that that little vixen, ten-year-old Barry Obama, was asking for it man.”

Obama had cocaine-fueled gay sex in the back of a limousine with a not-very-attractive disabled man with a criminal background

While the mainstream media requires their sources practically to be saints before they will even think of publishing sensational allegations, the prestigious World Net Daily is under no such constraints. It reported on Larry Sinclair’s allegations that he did cocaine and had sex with Barack Obama in the back of a limousine without making him jump through all the hoops a mainstream media organization or even the National Enquirer would have required. Although some people didn't find Larry Sinclair's story credible considering his criminal record and the fact that he failed a lie detector test, WND decided to publish the allegations and let the people decide. Although many in the conservative blogoshpere also doubted Sinclair’s veracity, some, like Rusty Shackleford at Jawa Report, decided the gloves were off after the National Enquirer ran a salacious report on Sarah Palin, and reluctantly decided to link to the story anyway, because, as he explains, “this kind of slime is now in play.” Mick Stockinger at Uncorrelated agreed that “it’s only fair” to bring it up and Rude News called it “tit for tat.” That oughta teach the National Enquirer.

Obama was getting answers in the first debate through a clear plastic hearing aid in his ear

Ann Althouse has a unique ability to see things that no one else sees, not unlike my Aunt Agatha, until she was sent away to a rest home and forced to take medication that took away her abilities. During the primaries, Althouse discovered that a Hillary Clinton ad included the subliminal message “Nig” written on a child's pajamas. Then during the debates, Althouse noticed on her high definition television that Obama was wearing a clear plastic hearing aid in his ear and noted that he spoke haltingly as if someone was giving him the answers in the debate. “It's clearly there, a crescent of clear plastic,” she said in response to some skeptical comments (note her use of the word "crescent," a clever reference to Obama's secret Muslim heritage). Although Althouse later backed away from the story, which Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit linked to, she didn’t repudiate it entirely, concluding in the comments, "You know, just because the thing I saw wasn't there doesn't mean there wasn't something there that I didn't see." I don’t know if this is an acceptable standard of evidence in courts of law since I am not a law professor like Ms. Althouse, but it has come to be the standard of evidence in the conservative blogosphere, and I don’t see why the fuddy-duddy mainstream media can’t adopt this way of thinking, too.

Ace of Spades’ Super-Secret Unified Field Story That Connects All the Dots

For weeks Ace of Spades has been working on a super-secret story about Obama, which "called Obama a straight-up liar on his supposed 'flimsy' relationship with The Terrorist William Ayers" and finally connected all the dots, linking Obama and Bill Ayers, Acorn, Tony Reszko, Charles Manson, the Chicago mob, the Illuminati, Freemasons, the Trilateral Commission, Jewish bankers, Nazis living in South America, Fidel Castro, the KGB, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Bigfoot, Area 51, the Harlem Globetrotters, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Bermuda Triangle, Mrs. Calabash and Mr. Gorsky. Apparently, Ben Smith at Politico, had the story, too, according to Ace and Hill Buzz, and he was just sitting on it (though Smith denied it). Then just as Ace was on the verge of breaking the story, he made this heart-breaking announcement: “The source was considering dropping his demand for anonymity. Thus likely moving the story forward. (He wasn't considering going forward with the Politico, by the way: but with the other, more important organization.) And now, today? After witnessing Politico, among others, savage Joe Wurtzelbacher? Cold feet.” Curse you, mainstream media and your accursed fact-checking! Will your cover-up of the truth about Barack Obama never end!

Update: Ms. Althouse is not happy about New Yorker writer George Packer's post about this modest post and calls me terrible names in her comments. See more about her disappointing reaction here.

Update 2: Ms. Althouse now cites her hearing aid exclusive as her worst post of 2008.

Carnivals: Bobo Carnival of Politics, Carnival of the Insanities, Fuelmyblog Carnival, Carnival of Aloha, Carnival of Conservatism, Scribes Carnival

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Sometimes There Are No Words 19 Mar 2009 5:04 AM (15 years ago)

Why Bristol Palin Is Different 12 Mar 2009 9:36 AM (15 years ago)

Rod Dreher Finds the Subtle Nuances in Mass Murder 9 Mar 2009 10:00 AM (15 years ago)

Let's Make Poverty Less Enticing 8 Mar 2009 6:34 AM (15 years ago)

10 Best Conservative Movies 3 Mar 2009 3:07 AM (15 years ago)

Swift Reactions 10: Curtis Sliwa Gives Jon Swift Some Slum Love 27 Feb 2009 3:58 AM (15 years ago)

Bobby Jindal: America's Slumdog Millionaire 25 Feb 2009 5:07 AM (15 years ago)

Blogroll Amnesty Day, Redux 31 Jan 2009 7:44 AM (15 years ago)

Rush Limbaugh Gives Republicans Hope Again 30 Jan 2009 4:56 AM (15 years ago)

Swift Reads 4: Weblog Awards Discoveries 12 Jan 2009 9:36 AM (16 years ago)

President Bush's Legacy: One of Our Greatest Presidents 10 Jan 2009 12:34 PM (16 years ago)

Epic Fail 8 Jan 2009 2:16 AM (16 years ago)

Kennedy for New York Senate 7 Jan 2009 6:58 AM (16 years ago)

Jon Swift's Predictions for 2009 5 Jan 2009 2:00 AM (16 years ago)

Jon Swift Nominated for a 2008 Weblog Award for Best Humor Blog 31 Dec 2008 6:20 AM (16 years ago)

Best Blog Posts of 2008 (Chosen by the Bloggers Themselves) 29 Dec 2008 12:00 PM (16 years ago)

The Triumph of Derrièrism 9 Dec 2008 2:27 PM (16 years ago)

Conservatives Need a Bailout 4 Dec 2008 12:37 PM (16 years ago)

President Bush Should Pardon the Wal-Mart Shoppers 29 Nov 2008 11:50 AM (16 years ago)

Let Us Remember the True Meaning of Thanksgiving Before It’s Abolished 27 Nov 2008 1:14 AM (16 years ago)

Obama’s Disastrous Gaffe-Laden Press Conference 8 Nov 2008 10:18 AM (16 years ago)

Electing a Scary Black Man President Isn't the End of the World 6 Nov 2008 8:24 AM (16 years ago)

Why McCain Will Win 2 Nov 2008 12:42 AM (16 years ago)

Swift Reactions 9: In Which Ann Althouse Tasks Me 28 Oct 2008 5:49 AM (16 years ago)

Great Moments in Election-Year Blogging 23 Oct 2008 3:20 AM (16 years ago)