NEWSWEEK’S DARMAN MAKING A PITCH?
RIELLE HUNTER: ONE DIGNIFIED HOME-WRECKER

Is Jonathan Darman auditioning for the job of ghost-writer of a future Rielle Hunter tell-all book?

Newsweek’s Darman presents a treads a delicate line between leering fascination and mistress empathy. A sample from The Quiet Dignity of Rielle Hunter:

And yet, for two years, she has behaved with more public dignity than any other figure in the Edwards scandal. In fact, she acted with more discipline and discretion than any mistress in the recent history of sex scandals.

Leave aside the many self-interested motivations that Rielle Hunter has to exercise discretion at this point and consider what Darman is saying.

Hunter is not only a homewrecker, she’s–historic!

Rielle is no model of discretion when compared to those women, nor to the untold thousands of women (and men) who shared the beds of powerful men and kept the secret so well that history will never know their names.

But in her own time, Rielle stands out. It has been more than two years since she earned national notoriety when the National Enquirer first alleged that she was Edwards’s secret mistress.

The thing about the Edwards Scandal that readers may want to keep in mind, Jonathan Darman’s cheerleading aside: the more information that emerges from this sordid affair, the less chance that anyone involved has of looking good.

In the not-so-long-ago past it was speculated that Andrew Young would come off as perhaps the most honorable person in the whole affair.

That was before Young’s recent book, The Politician, became available–and dashed all speculation in that regard.

Prediction: it will be no different with Rielle Hunter. The more information that is revealed, the less “dignified” she will look to all.

Except the odd writer competing, for whatever reason, for her attentions.

UPDATE: In related news, ABC cuts 300 news jobs. When an organization doesn’t cover inconvenient news–as ABC didn’t do during the months of the Edwards Scandal–why not cut 600?

Seems that if ABC only covers news from the Left side, they might be able to get along with only a couple hundred in the “News” department. Actually, MSNBC’s got the franchise on Lefty news coverage, so why cover the news at all if you’re ABC?

Just a thought for when the next cuts begin to be contemplated.

TEXAS TEA PARTY ANSWERS KEITH OLBERMANN’s
NOT-SO-SUBTLE RACISM CHARGES WITH VIDEO!

Found the video below at Atlas,Olbermann Busted by Texas Tea .

It was so enjoyable, it was thought that readers who might not be aware of it would find it enlightening.

Olbermann, like most of the Left, can’t just disagree with someone. They have to smear the motives of those who don’t agree with their viewpoint. In doing so, they’ve taken most of the sting out of word that should have some: racism.

It’s not even vile anymore. It’s somewhere between slightly amusing and self-mockery.

Keith Obergruppenfuhrer, two things to keep in mind:
1- Don’t mess with Texas;
2-Don’t Tread on Me!

Class dismissed.

Ashton Kutcher could take some lessons from the People’s Cube.

From Red Square:

OFF KARAKTER
Metaphorical tea-bagging befalls moonbats who become overconfident and register activist “.org” sites without a “.com” version. Which is exactly what happened to Cindy “campout” Sheehan and David “Gloria” Swanson when they started peaceoftheaction.org as part of a new scheme to lure the unwashed progs into a tent camp in front of the White House, to shake fists and demand a surrender of America’s “imperial forces” to all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Ha!

But, due to elementary sloppiness, Sheehan & Company got punk’d by the People’s Cube.

The Cube has the entire episode captured for posterity, long with the links to the sites: Cindy Sheehan’s New Website Tea-bagged by the People’s Cube.

Cindy Sheehan, you’ve been teabagged.

NOTE: While the reader may not be able to get a total idea of what’s going on, a quick click of the link above will make everything clear within seconds.

image: People’s Cube

ALL’S FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR?!?

Rick at Brutally Honest, wonders if Allied targeters might not be getting duped by the Taliban?

Nato strike kills 27 Afghanistan civilians via Are our targeters on the ground being willfully duped?:

At least 33 civilians were killed in a Nato air strike in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, the Afghan government says.

Nato said it hit a suspected insurgent convoy, but ground forces later found “a number of individuals killed and wounded”, including women and children.

The attack, in Uruzgan province, was not part of a major Nato-led offensive in neighbouring Helmand province.
[...]
A Nato statement said it was thought the convoy contained Taliban insurgents on their way to attack Afghan and foreign military forces.

But Sultan Ali, the governor of Uruzgan province, told the BBC all of the dead were civilians.

Rick has contacted some milbloggers and promises to update the post when any feedback comes his way.

War is a necessary but messy business in spite of media and military efforts to make it appear otherwise.

“Surgical strike” sounds very much like something done with incredible precision. Compared to the past, when a large amount of explosives were thrown or dropped through the air–along with a large amount of hope–targeting today is more reliable.

Still, the results on the ground are, at times, anything but “surgical.”

Is this just another excuse for lousy work? Or, are our targeters being duped by the Taliban for P.R. purposes?

Stay tuned.

image: du.edu

[ABOVE: When it comes to Porkulus II, McConnell's ready to declare peace with big-spending Democrats]

Mitch McConnell says Republicans may very well go along with Porkulus II. And why not? It’s not more taxpayer money–it’s the taxpayers’ kids’ money.

MITCH McCONNELL IS THROWING AWAY ANY MORAL HIGH GROUND ON SPENDING

Is Mitch McConnell (D-KY) a DNC plant?

Don Surber sounds the warning that the Republicans may cave on jobs bill.

This is depressing news. The Associated Press reported that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell may join the White House in borrowing even more money we don’t have to throw at another stimulus we don’t need.

It failed to work in 2008 under the $150 billion Bush stimulus.

It failed to work in 2009 under the $787 billion “I Won” stimulus.

Why in heavens name does McConnell think $13 billion more will do the trick?

Surber quotes the following AP story:

The top Republican in the Senate said Sunday that GOP lawmakers “may well” vote for a jobs bill this week.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., prefers a costlier version drafted with GOP input and he didn’t commit his support to advance the legislation on Monday to a final vote this coming week.

The pending measure would provide businesses that hire the unemployed a one-year break from payroll taxes and a $1,000 tax credit if those workers stay on the job for a full year. The cost is estimated at $13 billion.

Here’s a reminder for Mitch McConnell and other Republicans, notably newly-elected Scott Brown: the Tea Party protests weren’t about a lack of bipartisanship. They were about fiscal responsibility.

Or rather, a lack of fiscal responsibility by the United States Congress. It only takes a reacharound across the aisle to remind voters why they booted earmarking, pork-addicted Republicans just a few years ago.

The GOP’s remarkable comeback wasn’t fueled by McConnell’s go-along-to-get-along attitude on spending and ObamaCare.

Scott Brown was elected by the voters of Massachusetts specifically because he declared he was fiscally responsible. It hasn’t taken long for reports to surface in the last week that Mr. 41 might become Mr. Whatever.

Voters will soon enough get a chance to remind Mr. McConnell that they’ve had it up to here with borrowing money we don’t have to bail Democrat special interests out.

It doesn’t matter if the Republicans find their own special interests to bail out–voters will remember and count down the days to make their displeasure known.

This was exactly what Glenn Beck was talking about in his speech to CPAC Saturday about their being little difference between the party elites. Bill Bennett took umbrage at that notion. Bennett should have consulted McConnell before he wrote his piece.

McConnell has made Bennett look like a fool.

Why cede the moral high ground on spending now, Mr. McConnell?

He’s either ignorant of voter concerns or he’s a DNC plant.

image: http://www.egmcartech.com
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SPEAKING OF HACKS…

You can say one thing for David Brooks, the New York Times’ domesticated “conservative”: it’s hard to beat his unintentionally-hilarious quotes.

His latest cluelessness?

“Government used to be staffed by party hacks. Today, it is staffed by people from public policy schools. But does government work better than it did before?”

Let’s see: party hacks today come from universities which are in many cases staffed by–former party hacks!

The difference between now and then: 50 years ago, the party hacks cut out the middle man and pocketed the money they would have wasted on tuition to Harvard. A self-made hack is every bit as slavish in his devotion to whomever is paying the bills as an educated one.

The Harvard-educated hack of today may be better equipped to transform his hackery into a PowerPoint presentation, however.

Brooks, as part of the ‘educated class’, is understandably reluctant to reveal to readers his unwashed hack attack.

This is bigotry against the uneducated hack straight-up.

I know he’s is working from a script, but Jimmy Fallon needs to hire Brooks as a writer–and quickly!

DOUCHEBAG SAYS “WHAT?”

You are entering the Bill Maher Zone: your level of commentary is now in free-fall.

From Maher: Palin’s Job at Fox Equivalent to Talking to Her Down Syndrome Baby:

How does one prepare for an upcoming appearance by Seth MacFarlane of Family Guy fame? If you’re Bill Maher, you follow up the Family Guy/Sarah Palin/Down Syndrome attack by doing an ‘exclusive rant’ for the Huffington Post which includes – you guessed it – a joke about Sarah Palin’s son, Trig.

Maher appeals to his lower-intellect audience by stating:

“…while we were off, Sarah Palin agreed to do commentary at Fox News. Which is actually very similar to her day job – talking to a baby with Down Syndrome.”

In case, you forget, Bill Maher is a douchebag.

Bill Maher, in the course of his schtick, which, by the way is amazingly similar to what he does all day: which is acting like a douchebag.

Okay, you are now about to enter a Bill Maher-free Zone.

Feel free to raise the level of commentary back to its regular level.

NOTE: Don Surber has a much more reasoned take on this: Quote of the day.

See? Told you this was now a Maher-free zone and discourse would be back to normal.

J.D. HAYWORTH vs. JOHN McCAIN
Is this really a question conservatives have to spend much time answering?

People seem to be in a quandry because Sarah Palin is making some campaign appearances for Senator John McCain. Joe the Plumber is merely the most visible.

The question seems to be: “I like Sarah, but don’t like McCain. What ever am I to do?”

Surprisingly enough, that was the same question that millions of voters asked themselves in 2008. In that case, a great many held their noses for McCain while pulling the lever for Sarah.

What’s so hard about repeating that same strategy in 2010?

The only difference, it’s voters in Arizona who will make that decision while voters in the other 49 states cheer them on.

Adam Graham, Pajamas Media, sums it up nicely:

Former Congressman J.D. Hayworth (R-Arizona) is preparing to run against Senator John McCain for the U.S. Senate in this year’s Republican primary in Arizona. Some on the right, such as Glenn Beck, don’t agree with the decision of Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to campaign for McCain in Arizona.

Conservative angst over what Sarah Palin does or doesn’t do in Arizona does little good. Palin will go there out of a sense of personal loyalty to a man who brought her to national attention. Personal loyalty can run deeper than political ideology. And while personal loyalty can be to a fault, leadership is impossible without it.

The question isn’t: “What should Sarah do?” The question is: “What should conservatives do?” Whether it’s the tea party movement or the March for Life, conservatives can move from the grassroots, and the smart conservative move is for conservatives to support J.D. Hayworth.

Sarah or McCain?

If you like neither but are conservative, this is a no-brainer: you vote Hayworth and go back to what you were doing. If you like neither and are a Progressive, you most likely won’t be voting for Hayworth, anyway.

Sarah or McCain?

The Progressives in the Mainstream Media may think that this is such a puzzle that conservatives will not be able to answer the question without Progressive assistance.

It’s really no question at all. Unless you happen to think that 1-there is no difference between Sarah Palin and John McCain; 2-you place no value upon personal loyalty; or, 3-you have the same level of intellect that you’ll find at the highest levels of the Progressive Media complex.

IN the case of 1 and 3, you wouldn’t be voting for John McCain, Sarah Palin or J.D. Haysworth to begin with, so it doesn’t really matter what you think.

In the case of 2, you probably are a career politician, so the only thing you’ll consider is personal gain, so it doesn’t matter who endorses who: it’s all a personal calculus.

See? All of those incredibly hard questions posed by the elites in the MSM prove to be easily-answered after all.

And for Progressive readers, we’ll spell it out: Conservatives should vote for J.D. Hayworth.

image: Pop Culture Madness

DECONSTRUCTING “PIG-IGNORANT”

Apparently, a Firedoglake poster got his panties in a wad when the Utah House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution urging the EPA to ditch its man-made CO2 regulations.

In this case, “pig ignorant” equals “I disagree with you, but have a hard time stating why my opinion is more settled than yours.”

From Late Night: Utah House of Representatives Declares Itself Gang of Pig-Ignorant (go to link if you want to see their links in the paragraph):

The biggest problem with 21st Century Conservatism isn’t so much that so many 21st Century are running around like absolute morons. No, the problem is that they are proud to be running around like absolute morons. Examples, of course, abound. But few spectacles illustrate the point more luridly than the Utah House of Representatives deciding to, essentially, stick an ostrich feather up its collective ass and wiggle it around in what it fondly imagines to be an insulting manner at Science.

What is it about the Left’s inability to disagree without dragging sexual visuals into it? First, it was “teabagger” for the Tea Party movement, now it’s substituting an ostrich feather for use in some sort of political colonoscopy fantasy.

The author, “thers”, even takes poor Don Surber to task because the prolific Poca-ite has the cojones to disagree with the Mighty thers?

thers’ bio states that he is “A community college professor from upstate NY. My wife & I have 347 children, all of them rotten.”

No word if thers and his wife have a stock of ostrich feathers handy.

Here’s an ass reference for the prof: If I’m one of those “347 children” and thers’ piece is a sample of what I’m getting in the classroom, I’m suing his ass for educational malpractice.

This is, unfortunately, thers’ unlucky day. Phil Jones is admitting that, gee, the science is not so settled after all–to say the least.

Leaving thers and the rest of the warming cultists hanging out to dry.

No word if their “collective ass” is covered yet or not.

NOTE: Surber replies:

“I’m so old, I remember when the watermelons (green on the outside, red in the middle) were mocking me for not believing in global cooling when it was 20 below in Cleveland.”

I remember that too.

Old cult, same as the new cult.

UPDATE: Hot Air highlights a story by the Times of London in Was there any actual warming to begin with?

The Times of London delivers a separate blow to the AGW movement today in a report on scientific review of the data used to claim man-made warming of the planet over the last few decades. Several researchers have found that the measurements of temperatures in the AGW record that showed temperature increases mainly came from land development and urbanization, not from actual temperature increases. They have made their findings public through peer-reviewed studies that come at a very bad time for the IPCC and AGW advocates:

Waiting for a response from thers that doesn’t include the hurling of invective. This may be an impossible handicap for the good professor: from looking at his FDL piece, he no doubt teaches rhetoric instead of science.

And poorly, at that.

UPDATE: Mark Steyn was even more astonished at CRU’s Phil Jones’ AGW about-face: Decline and Phil, and cites the following, revealing story from the UK Daily Mail.

Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995

The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.
[...]
Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

We’ll have the good manners not to tell ‘thers’ where to put that information so it tickles.

PAY ATTENTION, YOU BASTARDS,
ETIQUETTE AHEAD!

[Had this in the tabs for a couple days and now have the time to comment on it.]

A PUBLIC SERVICE

There are times when someone provides a public service to others less fortunate. One such service was stumbled upon a few days ago.

Little Miss Attila (Break a rule? No need to call for back-up–her name itself provides the necessary authority) provides help for the blogging-challenged among us.

Blogging Guidelines: Ethical Concerns, and Advice—DRAFT 1

The need is great.

LMA is nothing if not versatile. Sometimes, her advice is gentle, providing etiquette tips for the unknowing.

Keep all of your block quotations to a reasonable length; try not to quote at great length unless the publication you are quoting is subscribtion-only, or out-of-print. Never quote an entire blog entry (unless it is exceedingly short, and part of a series).

Do not duplicate a picture of another blogger from their own site without their permission. Do not copy a photo or image of any kind from their site without proper credit and a link. Give a credit (and linkage, where appropriate) to any mainstream/legacy material you are using.

At other times, she’s positively Emily Post-al. About her own commenting policy:

I allow misogyny in my comments section, because it is generally directed at me, and I feel it shows the true colors of the woman-hating commenters. Any anti-male, anti-Asian, anti-gay, anti-tranny, anti-black, anti-American Indian, and anti-Jewish comments, though (or ones that look like they might be indicative of biases in that direction) generally get a warning, and a reminder that repeated offenses are subject to redaction, and banning. (Yeah, I have a little Native American in me, but most people don’t know that, and it doesn’t show in my picture, fair as I am. My half-sister is half-Syrian, though, so anti-Arab posters get cussed at. And my niece? Half-Polish, so don’t even fucking try that, either.)

And if you continue to ignore good Internet manners?

“Now go away, because I don’t want you as a reader. Thanks.”

Which is all as it should be.

NOTE: The commentariat at the LMA site provide a variety of helpful tips in the comments section.

image: Best Game Wallpapers/DBKP
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THE BASIC ILLOGIC THAT DEFINES PROGRESSIVISM

There’s are several basic disconnects that define Progressive thought. The following passage shines some light one of the most basic.

From DANIEL HENNINGER’s The Scalia v. Stevens Smackdown:

In the universe inhabited by Justice Stevens and President Obama, corporations—the private sector—are a suspect abstraction, ever tending toward “the worst urges” which have to be “comprehensively regulated.” The saints regulate the sinners.

If you think this way, what one does to the private sector, such as the proposed $90 billion bank tax, can never be wrong in any serious way, so long as the rationale offered is the “public good.” Private-sector players are seen as barely more than paid galley slaves on the ship of state. So it is with the health-care bill’s mammoth, comprehensive regulation of American medicine and insurance.

The basic disconnect is this: a collection of flawed men, acting out of self-interest, ambition and profit in the private sector is inherently evil and needs the strong foot of government on its neck. That same government that is composed of a collection of flawed men who act out of their own self-interest, ambition and profit.

In other words:

Private Companies = bad
Government = good

A corollary might be:

Private decisions = evil
Government decision = Good

And if you’re a Progressive, that’s about all you need to know to defend your positions on just about anything.

image: Icon Archive
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