Antiwar Groups Launch 'March of the Dead' Protests: Cindy Sheehan Arrested; Bush Derangement Lives!

We'll be having antiwar protests all week. I'll be in Los Angeles on Wednesday to cover the ANSWER coalition's protest, "U.S./NATO Out of Afghanistan!"

We had a preview of events in August, from the New York Times, "American Antiwar Movement Plans an Autumn Campaign Against Policies on Afghanistan."

But here's today's report from This Ain't Hell ... , "Code Pink/VFP/WCW at the White House":

Not feeling the hope and change, a coalition of anti war groups marched on the White House ... I guess you could take this sign a hundred ways, but anyway you parse it, it’s a slap against the troops; It’s not a protest against Bush anymore ...

The Washington Post features a sympathetic report, naturally: "Antiwar Protesters Turn Their Sights on Obama":

Commemorating the upcoming eighth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan, a coalition of antiwar protest groups converged on the White House on Monday to urge a withdrawal from the fighting there and in Iraq.

Sixty-one people were arrested, according to protest organizers. Several hundred attended a rally at McPherson Square, which was followed by a procession to the White House.

Organized under the umbrella of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, it was the coalition's first protest of the war in Afghanistan. Antiwar organizers hope it will mark the start of a month -- and a season -- of fresh agitation, after years of seeking an end to the fighting in Iraq.

More at the link. Also, from United for Peace and Justice, "US Troops Out of Afghanistan! Change = Peace!" Also, from the National Campaign for Non-Violent Resistance, "Join us at the White House to act against the Afghanistan War!" And at Common Dreams, "Hundreds Demand End to Afghan and Iraq Wars, Close Guantanamo and Bagram, Surge Spending on Housing and Jobs, 61* Arrested at the White House."

As the “March of the Dead” wound through the crowd wearing white masks and carrying the names of dead U.S. service people and Iraqi and Afghan war victims, more than 20 people dressed at Guantanamo prisoners assembled near the White House fence. Members of “Witness Against Torture,” a group committed to the shuttering of Guantanamo and the quickly enlarging Bagram air base in Afghanistan, many chained themselves to the fence. On their backs, they wore the names of Guantanamo detainees cleared for release who remain detained under the Obama administration despite the White House’s heralded decision to shutter the prison.

The group read the names of those killed in war and newspaper accounts of U.S. bombings and their devastating consequences in Afghanistan and Iraq. Code Pink, World Can’t Wait and many others also participated in the day of action. Veterans for Peace carried large American and peace flags and processed with three coffins representing those killed in war. Each coffin was draped with a flag—America, Iraq and Afghanistan all represented. Members of the War Resisters League held a large banner than said “End the War in Afghanistan” and wore white shrouds emblazoned with the pictures of Afghan civilians.

Also, David Swanson, "We Were Arrested for Speaking."

And here's the thing: No matter how hard leftists spin these events, these aren't so much "antiwar" events as "pro-revolution" events, sponsored by neo-Stalinists and anarcho-communists. See John Tierney, "The Politics of Peace: What’s Behind the Anti-War Movement?":

The irony of the modern “peace” movement is that it has very little to do with peace—either as a moral concept or as a political ideal. Peace is a tactical ideal for movement organizers: it serves as political leverage against U.S. policymakers, and it is an ideological response to the perceived failures of American society.The leaders of anti-war groups are modern-day Leninists. As Lenin used Russian war-weariness in 1917 to overthrow the Czar, so American street revolutionaries use reactions to the war on Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein as a way to foment radical political change at home.

The current peace movement is “neo-Communist,” says David Horowitz, the onetime radical-turned-conservative. This is a revealing and accurate label. In fact, the movement is heir to the Communist Party of the United States of America(CPUSA), even though the party’s global base—the Soviet Union—no longer exists. A variety of CPUSA splinter groups claim the mantle of the Left even as they spin-off a dizzying series of front groups and issue-oriented action “committees.”

ANSWER is only the largest of these groups, which also include United for Peace and Justice, Code Pink, Not In Our Name, the Green Party and the Institute for Policy Studies. The Bush Administration’s war on terror, which includes the Iraq war, has prompted all of them to form coalitions and seek allies. Their aim is a “struggle” against “oppression” and “imperialism,” code words in the lexicon of revolutionary socialism. Not In Our Name (NION), a satellite of the Revolutionary Communist Party, decries the War on Terror as a Bush Administration ploy: “We will not stop until all of us are free from your bloodthirsty domination.”

And for the most part, these remain anti-Bush protests. It's almost like President Obama's not even in office. I'll take these nihilists more seriously when they start burning Obama in effigy.

See also, Snooper Report, "Protests Against Military Recruiters at Schools Nationwide Tomorrow."

Babe Blogging: Jessica Simpson's Operation Smile

It turns out that Jessica Simpson's gearing up for a new VH1 reality show, The Price of Beauty. And Ms. Simpson's also in the news following her appearance Friday at the charity ball for Operation Smile in Beverly Hills. I guess the "weight issue" is a big deal nowadays for her career, but she looks great to me:

In any case, I'm just following up my babelicious post from last weekend, "Babe Blogging: Britney Spears Bikini Pics." I actually did retire from full metal blogging (remember R.S. McCain?), but "babe blogging" is a great way to send some links back to folks who've recently linked to me.

And to remind folks, if you're surfing for the hotness, Theo Spark's should be your first stop. And check out Camp of the Saints, "TCOTS Rule 5 Compliance Committee: Sophia Loren." Plus, for the mellow linkages, check Pat in Shreveport's, "Full Metal Jacket Saturday - The Octoberfest Edition."

Blazing Cat Fur's been linking me quite a bit, by the way, and I've actually been repaying the favor. Good practice, you now. Check out Paco Enterprises as well, "Obama Says We Will Not Walk Away From Afghanistan." And Pirate's Cove, "President Narcissist Angry At General McChrystal. Now With Surrender"!

Also, updates on the Rachel Maddow / R.S. McCain libel scandal: See, The Classical Liberal, "Rachel Maddow’s Lying Cheap Shot!" And HotMES, Maddow, Upset With Slow Progress of Sex Change, Lashes Out at Stacy McCain."

In related race-card news, see Saber Point, "Taking Out the Trash with JANEANE GAROFALO." Plus, Another Black Conservative, "Raaaaacism Industrial Complex Member Janeane Garofalo is at it Again." And Grandpa John's, "Garofalo is at it Again."

More good stuff at Nice Deb, "MSNBC: Evil Wingnuts Cheering Obama’s Failure “Even If It Means Half The Country Dies”." And related, from Cold Fury, "The Agony of Defeat."

More hotties -- and hot links -- later!

Robert Stacy McCain: 'SPECIAL REPORT: Death in Clay County'

From Robert Stacy McCain, "Death in Clay County: The Green Room Goes Gonzo, or Fear and Loathing in Lower Glennbeckistan."

**********

So here I was alone, looking at the locked gate across Hoskins Cemetery Road. I wrote down the time in my notebook, got out of the car and took a few photos of the bridge and gate with my small Kodak digital camera. It was actually a lovely scene. The large hardwood trees lining the banks of the stream were still summer green in late September. The afternoon was cool and breezy, the sky was overcast with heavy clouds, and the only sounds were the wind in the trees and the quiet burbling of the little brook flowing east, parallel to Arnetts Fork Road.

Just then, I heard the sound of a car approaching from the direction of Big Double Creek Road. Standing by the roadside, I flagged down the blue sedan and approached the driver’s side window. The driver looked to be in her early 30s, and there was a child’s car seat in the back, but no child.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” I said to the lady, trying to smile as friendly as I could. “I’m a reporter, covering the murder y’all had up here.”

She nodded in recognition – obviously, the locals knew all about the case – and I continued.

“I’m up here to see the place where they found that fellow’s body and get a few pictures and, frankly, it’s kind of scary, y’know?”

She nodded again and said, “Yeah, I know.”

“So what I was wondering,” I said, “was whether you wouldn’t mind just waiting here for a few minutes, while I walk up to the cemetery – just wait here, to make sure I get back.”

She shook her head. “Well, I don’t think so, but I’ll tell you what. My husband’s up at the house” – she gestured westward up the hill – “and I can send him back down here, if you want.”

“Could you?” I asked. “About how long would it take him to get here?”

“About five minutes.”

Thus it was agreed, and I felt much better about my situation. No doubt her husband was a stout, hearty soul who would accompany me to the graveyard and assure my safety. Unless, that is, the lady’s husband was some hillbilly meth-cooker, a dangerously violent ex-con with deep hostility toward nosy outsiders and, for all I knew, the same guy who’d killed Sparkman.

Crazy fears like that crop up in a man’s mind when he’s short on sleep, hyped on coffee, far from home, and standing at the scene of a notorious crime in the Appalachian backwoods. But I’d wait for the lady’s husband to come back. He was probably a mild-mannered, clean-cut Baptist church deacon, and I was just being paranoid.

On the other hand, these woods were reportedly crawling with marijuana growers who plant their crops in isolated forest clearings, and late September is harvest time for these outlaw agriculturalists. Maybe there was some weeder, dressed in camouflage, rifle at the ready, guarding his crop planted nearby. Maybe, even at that very moment, I was a target in the crosshairs of a scope on a high-powered rifle held by a mountaineer marksman. One squeeze on the trigger and – boom! – that would be it for me.

Honestly, you think about things like that at such a moment, in such a place.

“Be careful,” my wife had told me before I left on this trip, which I’d undertaken against her advice. I reminded her I’d survived my 10-day excursion to Africa in February 2008. “If they didn’t kill me in Kampala, I think I’ll be all right in Clay County, Kentucky.”

There's going to be lots more where that came from.

Full post is at Hot Air.

Are You America's Next Great Pundit?

Seriously, from the Washington Post, "America's Next Great Pundit Contest":

Think you have what it takes to be a great pundit? Put your opinions to the test -- and win the opportunity to write a weekly column and a launching pad for your opinionating career.

We’re looking for a fresh voice that we can set on a path to become the next byline in demand. And we'll be enlisting readers to help make the pick.

More details and entry form here.

***********

Beginning on or about Oct. 30, ten prospective pundits will get to compete for the title of America’s Next Great Pundit, facing off in challenges that test the skills a modern pundit must possess. They’ll have to write on deadline, hold their own on video and field questions from Post readers. (Contestants won’t have to quit their day jobs, but they should be prepared to put in about eight hours a week for three weeks.) After each round, a panel of Post personalities will offer kudos and catcalls, and reader votes will help to determine who gets another chance at a byline and who has to shut down their laptop.

Kathy at Hummers & Cigarettes sent me the link. I don't, however, think I'm worthy. Actually -- and I'm serious -- Robert Stacy McCain should throw his hat in the ring. Say what you will about the guy him (except that he's a "racist," of course), the guy can write like writing went out of style!

Additional nominations, in no particular order:

Noah at Noah Johns.

Pat at So It Goes in Shreveport.

Jimmy at Sundries Shack.

Paco at Pace Enterprises.

Lynn at SWAC Girl.

Richard at Three Bears Later.

Mike at Cold Fury.

Kathleen at Right Wing Sparkle.

Nikki at Nikki's Blog.

William at Legal Insurrection

Pamela at Atlas Shrugs.

Scott as Scott Kingsmore.

Stogie at Saber Point.

I'd also nominate Jules Crittenden, but he's already at the Boston Herald!

P.S. More links for blog buddies later! No selection criteria here whatsover!

Michael David Barrett, Alleged Erin Andrews Stalker, Gets Bail and House Arrest (VIDEO)

My earlier report is here, "Arrest in Erin Andrews Nude Video Case: Press Release, 'I Will Make Every Effort to Protect Victims of Criminal Stalking'.'

I guess the guy's dangerous enough for house arrest, "Suspected ESPN Video Voyeur Granted Bail":

A magistrate judge on Monday granted bail for an Illinois man accused of surreptitiously taping sports reporter Erin Andrews in the nude and posting the videos on the Internet.

ESPN reporter Erin Andrews was allegedly stalked by a man who posted nude videos of her on the Internet.

Michael David Barrett, 48, will return to California to face a federal charge of interstate stalking.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys agreed Barrett would be released on bail. However, Keys ordered that Barrett be confined to his home and subject to electronic monitoring, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Barrett, an insurance company employee from Westmont, Illinois, is accused of taping Andrews, an ESPN reporter, while she was nude in two hotel rooms. He then made seven videos that he posted on the Internet, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case.

Barrett was arrested Friday at Chicago O'Hare International Airport. He will appear in court in Los Angeles, California, on October 23, according to a statement from prosecutors in Los Angeles.

Authorities believe most of the videos were made at a Nashville, Tennessee, hotel in September 2008. The peephole into Andrews' room was altered with a hacksaw, and the images appeared to have been taken with a cell phone camera, the complaint said.

Investigators found in hotel records that Barrett had requested and received a room adjacent to Andrews' and used his home address to register for it.

Barrett allegedly attempted to sell the videos to celebrity gossip site TMZ in January 2009. TMZ did not purchase the photos, but employees of the Web site assisted in the investigation, providing information to Andrews' attorneys, authorities said. However, Barrett posted the videos to other Web sites, the criminal complaint said, with labels like "Sexy and hot blonde sports celebrity shows us her all."

"The e-mail (sent to TMZ) was linked to Barrett through a number of methods," the statement from Los Angeles prosecutors said.

Investigators found that Barrett reserved a room at a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, hotel where Andrews was staying in July 2008 but never checked in, according to the complaint and prosecutors' statement. "However, the peephole on the door where the victim stayed during that trip was altered in a similar way to the peephole found in the Nashville hotel," the statement said.

See also, the Chicago-Sun Times, "Man Accused of Stalking ESPN's Erin Andrews Allowed Bail: But Westmont Man to Be Kept on Home Confinement." And, from the New York Post, "Andrews Suspect Out on Bail, Eyed Other Women":

The accused peeping tom who allegedly stalked ESPN sports reporter Erin Andrews and uploaded her images on the Internet also spied on other women, federal prosecutors said today.

Following the hearing, a judge ruled that Michael David Barrett, 48, would have to post $4,500 bond, wear an electronic monitoring device and be barred from accessing the Internet on his computer or cell phone once he is released.

Read The Criminal Complaint Against David Barrett

Read The Search Warrant

Read The Search Warrant Affidavit

Barrett must also obey a curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.

Plus, the Los Angeles Times, "Alleged Stalker of ESPN's Erin Andrews Ordered to Appear in L.A. Court."

Click here for my previous reports.

Queens 'Tin Can' Anarchist Held One Pound of Liquid Mercury

Last Thursday F.B.I. agents searched the home of Elliot Madison of Queens. The search was part of a "text-message and Twitter" investigation surrounding the anarchist G-20 protests in Pittsburgh in September. As the New York Times reports:

The man, Elliot Madison, 41, a social worker who has described himself as an anarchist, had been arrested in Pittsburgh on Sept. 24 and charged with hindering apprehension or prosecution, criminal use of a communication facility and possession of instruments of crime. The Pennsylvania State Police said he was found in a hotel room with computers and police scanners while using the social-networking site Twitter to spread information about police movements.

This is an extremely interesting story. The police found a number of items during the search, including a photograph of Vladimir Lenin. Most troubling, according to the New York Post, police confiscated one pound of liquid mercury in Madison's home, as well as two boxes of ammunition. Other items, such as machetes, were considered outside of the scope of the warrant and not seized.

It turns out that Madison was working for Tin Can Comms Collective, an anarchist cell with a self-proclaimed mission to destroy the state. According the their website:

Tin Can Comms Collective is a collection of communication rebels seeking to provide useful free tools for activists fighting the State and Capitalism. We are an anarchist group that has come together to help with the communication infrastructure for the the Anti-G-20 protests this September in Pittsburgh, because: People and Information want to be Free!

Also, the Socialist Webzine explains what went down during the events, "G20 Riots in Pittsburgh – How I organized Them Via Twitter." The author of that post writes at his own website, No-State.com. Here's his bio:

I renounced my American citizenship in protest of what has become an American Empire, a nation that I see riding an express train to police state dictatorship with flags flying, anthems blaring and deluded, complicit masses cheering it along the track. Hopefully, others will be motivated to do the same by my example, though I recognize inertia as the most powerful force in human affairs.

My political philosophy — which could be variously termed anarchism, anarcho-capitalism or individualist anarchism — informs this decision, but it is my disgust over what America has become — in bloody, murderous, thieving contrast to what it professes — which motivates it.

The guy has also written:

Where there are those who are subjugated beneath the boot heel of power, by “democratic” means or otherwise, I shall support their resistance, their condemnation, their denunciation and their renunciation.

All this helps put the significance of the Queens raid in perspective. Liquid mercury is used in bomb construction. It is used in ignition switches and electrical contact triggers for explosive devices. In some bombs liquid mercury serves as a detonator for motion-activated explosions -- that is, should someone touch and move a suspicious package, the movement would cause the mercury to complete the electical charge and the bomb would explode. This is why explosive devices must be defused without being moved.

It's easy to see why police were alarmed by the discovery. Madison's home is a terrorist supply depot for the anarcho-communists organizing campaigns against "state power." It remains to be seen how large the movement becomes. The Tin Can Comms Collective was first organized for Republican National Convention in 2004, but the anarchists have been holding massive demonstrations since the Seattle anti-globalization violence in 1999.

Firedoglake writes a post in defense of the G-20 anarcho-text-messaging systems as a matter of free speech. Of course, that's to be expected from one of the more hardline blogs of the radical netroots. Like the anarchists, "Hammering" Jane Hamsher's gang is out to destroy America.

Throwing McChrystal -- and Afghanistan -- Under the Bus

From Erick Erickson, "Hiding Behind Synonyms: Obama Begins Campaign to Throw Gen. McChrystal Under the Bus." Note this quote from Erickson: "... we find ourselves staring in the face of military defeat in Afghanistan, which will lead to a cascading series of events up to and including a collapsed Pakistan followed by an Islamofascist war against India run out of Islamabad."

Read the whole thing.

Interestingly, take a look at this headline on the war: "Al Qaeda's Diminished Role Stirs Afghan Debate: Hunted by U.S. Drones, Beset by Money Problems and Finding it Tougher to Lure Young Arabs to the Bleak Mountains of Pakistan, Al Qaeda is Seeing its Role Shrink There and in Afghanistan."

The full report is at the Wall Street Journal (link). But note this:

In the political debate, al Qaeda's diminished role has bolstered the argument of those advocating a narrower campaign. They say continuing the drone campaign is sufficient to keep al Qaeda at bay, said Bruce Hoffman, a Georgetown University professor who has written extensively on al Qaeda. Mr. Hoffman believes that argument is misguided, however, and that if the U.S. pulls out, al Qaeda will return.

"Al Qaeda may be diminished, but it still poses a threat," he said. The debate will move to Capitol Hill Tuesday when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee holds a hearing on confronting al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

And this sidebar quote from the article is perfect:

Al Qaeda has a diminished role? I thought we just lost eight American troops. I guess al Qaeda is diminished as much as the recession.

Administration supporters are pushing a dishonest debate. Recall just last week at the New York Times, "Militant Group Is Intact After Mumbai Siege." And see my report, "Another Mumbai? Qaeda-Taliban-Lashkar Ready to Strike Again."

Leftists will disgregate al Qaeda from the Taliban and local tribal extremists. But the Mumbai attacks showed that the methods of terror had all the markings of an al Qaeda operation, and the home base of operations was the same spot that border attackers launched their missions against U.S. troops over the weekend.

The debate now isn't so much about U.S. success in defeating al Qaeda. It's about precipitous withdrawal.

The Obama administration will lose this war, and blood will be on the Democrats' hands.

Convicts for Convassing: ACORN Hires Prisoners for Voter Registration Drives

From Weasel Zippers, "Nevada Sec. Of State (D) On ACORN: We Can Prove It's Not Just A Few Bad Apples...It Went Much Higher Up On The Food Chain ...":

See also, "ACORN May Face Trial for First Time as Nevada Prosecutors Allege 'Widespread' Criminal Policies":

When ACORN took to Las Vegas and started playing "Blackjack" and "21," the activist group was making a far bigger gamble than it ever guessed, according to Nevada prosecutors.

There's nothing wrong with playing the tables in Vegas, but authorities say ACORN was using the names of those casino games as a cover to illegally pay workers to sign up voters as part of an illegal quota system.

A preliminary hearing Tuesday in the downtown Clark County courthouse has put ACORN on trial for the first time as a criminal defendant.

Until now, prosecutions for voter registration fraud have focused on ACORN workers, and authorities have secured guilty pleas from several who admitted to falsifying voter registration forms.

But when investigators from Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller's office raided the ACORN Las Vegas office, Ross says they found a paper trail that implicated the ACORN organization itself.

"We came across policy manuals that outline their policy of creating a quota system, which is against the law," Miller told FOX News in an interview. "This, in fact, was something that was widespread and something the organization itself knew about, and it's important to hold the organization criminally accountable as opposed to the individual field directors."

These are not nice people.

New Orleans ACORN-SEIU Property for Sale

From Don Surber, "ACORN for Sale, $835,000":

The big news from Big Government is that the ACORN Headquarters in New Orleans is up for sale. The property was also the home of Local 100 of the SEIU, the union that pushed the presidential candidacy of former ACORN lawyer, Barack Obama.

The IRS and the state filed tax liens of $548,000 and $26,026 against ACORN in New Orleans, Sweetness and Light reported.

The asking price is $835,000. The listing is here.

I just like that campaign ad spot above, "No matter how many people rise to their defense, if ACORN becomes politically toxic … game over. "

Hat Tip: Big Government.

Ann Althouse on 'Capitalism: A Love Story'

More anectodal evidence of the popularity of radical ideologies in the U.S. From Ann Althouse, "Some Thoughts on Seeing 'Capitalism: A Love Story'":

Moore shamelessly and repeatedly advocated the violent overthrow of the economic system. It was somewhat humorously or moderately presented — such as through the mouth of a cranky old man who was being evicted from his home — but it came across that Moore wants a revolution. He kept advising the workers — and the evictees — of the world to unite and shake off their chains.

Yeah, and of course Moore's a classic left-wing hypocrite. See Michelle Malkin, "Capitalism-Basher Used Non-Union Labor for Film." See also, "Millionaire Filmmaker Michael Moore: ‘Capitalism Did Nothing For Me’."

Challenges Ahead for Conservatives

From Dean Esmay, "Is Conservatism Becoming More Muscular?":

Eric thinks so, but me, I’m not seeing it. Sure, people who call themselves conservatives are more angry right now, but they also seem a lot less thoughtful and well-informed than the conservatism I remember from 10, 20 years ago. A movement once full of stellar intellectual thinkers is now dominated by the likes of Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. And while this may increase the movement’s strength in some areas, it diminishes it enormously in others. When the answer to every question, before you even ask it, is either “the market” or “the Bible,” how coherent can your agenda really be once you take power? If the only thesis of your movement is that our own government is always and everywhere our enemy, what exactly is that movement going to accomplish? It’s increasingly looking to me like conservatism is more of a twitch than an actual intellectual point of view. Which I find disappointing and a little disturbing, because it didn’t used to be that way.

The citation for "Eric" goes to Classical Values, "My biggest problem right now is that I can't stand Obama, but that has not translated into loving conservatism." But I'm just going to stay with Dean's comments above (Eric, a longtime libertarian, can't get in all the way with the conservative agenda). The bottom line for Dean is "what will conservatives do with all that angry energy," because they sure don't have much up their sleeves policy-wise.

I'm not exactly sure of Dean's political orientation, but I'll go with a moderately classical liberal, from what I can see of his writings so far.

In any case, the blogosphere and its media-piggybackers had the huge debate over conservatism late last year and early this one. Indeed, with all the jubilation over Barack Obama's election -- and the not unexpected hubris on the left (especially the condescending attacks on right-wing "knuckle-draggers" that continue today) -- I admit to being a little depressed at the prospects of being in the wilderness for a while. Happily, my confidence in the movement was restored with the April 15th Tax Day Tea Parties, and it's been all speed ahead since then!

Readers know I'm no super-duper philosopher. I go with my gut instincts on things, and I apply the real political science expertise I've developed in my training and teaching. As for my orientation, my initial entry at this blog lays out my transition over the last few years. See, "Welcome to American Power." Also, I don't reflexively hate any and all government, obviously so in the case of foreign policy. See, "Constitutional Conservatism," where I cite Peter Berkowitz, who argues that that those on the right need to reconcile with public-goods structures of the American state. That is, a wholesale roll-back of government is impractical, but a limitation of the expansion of the state is an imperative. Those more in favor of a state-centered federalism -- one way of advocating small-g conservatism -- obviously won't have much truck with the Berkowitz thesis. That said, "constitutional conservatism" is pragmatic and firmly based in classic conservative thought.

I've also previously cited an agenda I called "Core Values Conservatism." There I draw on the best short essay published after President Obama's election: Richard Land's, "Stay Faithful to Core Values." (In Land's model, a conservative agenda starts with the unequivocal support for life -- a total pro-life agenda -- that sweeps all the way to a Reaganite foreign and defense program. To top all of this off, I'd simply remind folks that the best book to read on what the right should be doing is Barry Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative. Writing in 1960, perhaps Goldwater was optimistic that conservatives could actually rollback the size of government. I'm less optimistic than he was, and while Berkowitz's "constitutional conservatism" is more up my alley, Goldwater's ideals would easily satisfy the programmatic goals of those on the political right today -- and I'd happily be on board for scaling back the domestic scope of government in exchange for continued support for a robust foreign policy orientation.

But let me address this backlash we see against Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity (cited by Dean), and not to mention Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh, who also bear the brunt of leftist attacks on the movement:

First, if folks are looking for intellectuals they should go to the library (humor alert -- library or not, we're all online anyway). Actually, there's lots of good deep-thinking conservatism around, though it's out of the limelight of the polarizing debates. Berkowitz writes often at Policy Review, for example. He's joined there by a stable of great writers who straddle scholarship and policy studies. City Journal is also quite an impressive intellectual flagship. I think Heather MacDonald and Abigail Thernstrom, two Manhattan Institute scholars, represent some of the best writing on civil rights and social policy today. But talk radio and Fox News are where the conservative rubber meets the road. And that's where it's at today. We're not going back to William Buckley's urbanity on Frontline. And at that, it's not as if Buckley wasn't one to mix it up now and then: Recall Buckley in 1968 against Gore Vidal: "Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in you goddamn face and you’ll stay plastered." No, the shock jocks on TV are simply partisan, but what they're doing is no different that what Markos Moulitsas did in the heyday of Daily Kos (i.e., hammer a polarizing agenda geared to winning ideological power).

Actually, my issues are what might be termed the right's vulnerability to racial blackmail. The Democratic-left under Obama has established the race card as its main claim to viability. The party's pushing a non-transparent socialist agenda, but to even mention that word in the context of this administration is to be branded a bigot and lynchman. Look what's happened to Robert Stacy McCain just today. MSNBC's Rachel Maddow advanced Charles Johnson's scurrilous "racist" smear on national television. Maddow's no better that the most demonic left-wing Internet troll -- it's despicable frankly. Here's the transcript:

I do think that there's a little bit of reckoning that needs to happen on the right for Sarah Palin's success. I mean, she was the vice presidential nominee, she is going to sell a kazillion books and she is the biggest brand name in Republican politics still right now. And she's chose ... Lynn Vincent, who's written a book with a white supremacist, to write her book, and she's the biggest name in Republican politics.

This is pure libel. But fighting cheap smears like this is costly, and thus she's unlikely to be challenged -- and hence her attacks are even more insidious. Robert Stacy McCain's just a stepping-stone for Maddow to smear Sarah Palin as a bigot. We've been hearing the same lies since last August. It's riduculous. Contrast to the real communists at the top ranks of the president's administration, and it's almost comical the lengths the Democrats will go in with their racist smokescreens and radical coverups.

Unfortunately, while utterly outlandish, there's an efficacy to these attacks that's disturbing. Just to be identified as one one who admires traditional Southern culture is to be attacked as a white supremist, due to the sad legacy of the Civil War and Reconstruction. My sense is that even the most principled conservatives, those who understand that in the post-civil rights era, the South has been the ideological base of the party, while at the same time being that region most thoroughly reconciled questions of race and resentment, would hesitate to claim an openly Dixie-ish ideological heritage (see The Economist, "The Southernization of America"). I have a sense that my good friend Stogie has removed the image of a Confederate cavalryman from his blog's masthead, to be replaced with images of Continental soldiers from the colonial-era, for that very reason. I guess just an image of that history is likely to bring out the race-baiting leftists, who'll defile, libel, and smear good-hearted people without the slightest bit of remorse.

This may well be a problem for conservatives. That is to say, while those of us who are activists engaged in the tea party and online right-roots movements are anti-racist through and through, those few isolated cases of extremism -- often falsely attributed to the conservative right -- are sensationalized as if folks are listening to "Dueling Banjos" all day and calling black folks "boy" or "Auntie" in a throwback to Jim Crow. Of course, the Contessa Brewers of the world world will even lie on national TV in attempting to make the charges stick.

I'd have more to say on this, and to especially to clarify some of the points here, but this post is getting long. Suffice it to say that conservatives are the ones who'll truly lead on those issues Democrats claim as their moral foundation, i.e., civil rights, education, anti-poverty, etc. Conservatives will win debates on these issues because they believe in the power of the individual. But they have to fight hard to beat back down the endless cries of racism coming from the left side of the spectrum. That's all the Democrats have, and they'll attack conservatives with race just like Chicago's Democratic youth thugs beat and killed Derrion Albert last month.

Penelope Cruz in Vanity Fair

Some longtime readers might remember my admiration for Penelope Cruz. See, "Penelope Cruz for Best Supporting Actress - UPDATE! CRUZ WINS!." Well it turns out that the November issue of Vanity Fair boasts a feature article on the Spanish actress, "The Passions of Penélope":

With phenomenal performances in some recent winners, including last year’s Woody Allen gem, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, thanks to which she now has an Oscar on her mantel, Cruz is poised to become a new member of the tiny firmament of actresses who began their careers in a language other than English and went on to become truly international stars: the Marlene Dietrichs, Greta Garbos, Ingrid Bergmans, Sophia Lorens, Anouk Aimées, Catherine Deneuves, Jeanne Moreaus, and Liv Ullmanns. Like some of those actresses, Cruz isn’t cookie-cutter pretty—she even has a bit of a schnoz—but her unusual features come together in a memorable aria of real beauty.

Read the whole thing at the link.

Photo Credit: "The Complete Penélope Cruz."

Sarah Palin Going Rogue AutoMotivation

Just a reminder, folks: American Power's initial post, Sarah Palin: Going Rogue: An American Life, provided the awesome motivation for the Sarah Palin AutoMotivation rage that's spreading across the conservative blogosphere. High fives to Troglopundit, who's got another hot post to round-up the AutoMotivational inspirations. He points us to Carolyn Tackett's, "I Would Stay on Her Good Side":

I'm looking forward to reading Palin's book, and you can pre-order Going Rogue at the link.

Sheryl Crow Nude! Well, Actually Topless, for Cover of Los Angeles Times Magazine

Sheryl Crow has posed for a beautiful topless photo-shoot for the cover of the Los Angeles Times Magazine. See her interview, "Every Day is a Winding Road":

Every day when I went into radiation, I was already in despair because my personal life had taken a crash, and I realized I was being forced to show up for myself in a way I never had to before. I couldn’t have someone else do the radiation for me. I couldn’t have a man come in and save me, save my health, prop me up and make me better. It was me who had to lay there on a metal table with this giant alien-looking machine shooting a beam into my chest. And to lay there and think that this was less about the high-tech machinery, although that was scary, and more about my ability to handle the moment—that was empowering. It definitely jerked me into the reality that we come into this world with an incredible strength, and we learn how to be a victim, or we learn how to approach things from the standpoint that, really, things just happen, and there’s an opportunity in every challenge.

Read the whole thing here. It's almost as good as Carrie Prejean bikini pics.

Obama on Health Care: 'Somehow I'm Not Breaking Through...'

From Elizabeth Drew, at the New York Review, "Health Care: Can Obama Swing It?" She's in the tank for Obama, but always worth a read in any case:

The circumstances in which Obama has had to govern have been daunting. The polarization between the political parties is greater than ever before in modern history—particularly as the shrinking Republican Party has come to be dominated by white conservatives, if not radicals, and it enforces discipline more harshly than in the past. Lacking any real leaders now, the Republicans' vacuum has been filled by the likes of talk-show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, whose job it is to be outrageous, and before whom Republican politicians quaver. Those who stray from the conservative orthodoxy are more likely than ever to face a challenge from the right in their next primary. (When he announced in late April that he was switching to the Democratic Party, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania forthrightly said that he didn't think he could win the Republican primary in 2010.)

The goal of the Republicans is not just to oppose Obama's policies they disagree with but to destroy his presidency. Thus the Republican opposition to health care reform is part of a larger agenda, as some Republicans have been unwise enough to admit openly. Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina said in July: "If we're able to stop Obama on this [health care], it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." Even the Clintons governed in a more felicitous setting; the economy was rebounding and a number of moderate Republicans were willing to make deals with the administration. Now, moderate Republicans are nearly extinct. And back when the Clintons were targets of an effort to undermine Bill Clinton's presidency, the Internet and cable television weren't the instruments for repetitious and vile attacks that they are today.

With nearly all Republicans determined to oppose him, the President is almost totally dependent on the support of his own party, which is itself split between liberals and moderate-to-conservative members.

Moreover, any record of Barack Obama's first year in office has to take note of the fact that this summer, race broke open as an issue. The rise of the "birthers"—who claim he was born outside the US—and the uncommon incivility shown toward Obama by Republicans during his September 9 speech to Congress on health care suggest that a substantial segment on the right doesn't see Obama as a legitimate president. He was not just called a liar by South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson, but also confronted with boos and rude signs; and vicious comments were made about him at the anti-big government (and anti-Obama) rally in Washington the following weekend.

In fact, a number of leading Republicans, including House Minority Leader John Boehner, are concerned about the party's getting too identified, or involved with, the movement on the far right. Vin Weber, a prominent Republican and former member of Congress (and ally of Newt Gingrich when they were backbenchers), says:

There's a fringe out there that's embarrassing. While it can gin up Republican intensity, the party can't get too associated with the nutcases out there. The Republican leadership has a keen awareness of the benefits and the risks of this movement.

It's interesting to read accounts like this because they're exclusively Beltway-centric. It's one of those examples of elite journalists condescending to average folks who just don't know WTF is going on. And I while I omitted the introduction, be sure to check it out. Drew claims that the stimulus is working and she quotes President Obama as saying, "I've got to step up my game in terms of talking to the American people about issues like health care. I've said to myself, somehow I'm not breaking through ..."

Well, actually, the president's getting through just fine. Folks just don't like what they're hearing. See Instapundit, "Fear of Losing Private Health Insurance Trumps ‘Public Option’." Plus, the Blog Prof, "Supposedly Neutral Consumer Reports Running Pro-Obamacare Ads!"

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UPDATE: Linked at Ric's Rulez, "The Nostalgia is Getting Strong."

'Oba-Mao' Shirts Hot Sellers for Chinese Revolution's 60th Anniversary!

From the People's Cube, "Obama Shirts More Popular than Che in China":

Rejoice comrades! Our Dear Leader has been immortalized in China in the form of ObaMao shirts. If the ungrateful American public rejects Obama's progressive policies, perhaps he should move his family to China where he is appreciated.

Rachel Maddow Attacks Robert Stacy McCain as White Supremacist

From Pat in Shreveport, "Rachel Maddow Attacks Stacy McCain":

Rachel Maddow on Meet the Press this morning, called Robert Stacy McCain a white supremacist. I'm thinking she's been listening to Charles Johnson a little too much.

The panel was discussing the Sarah Palin book, Going Rogue, when Maddow offers her criticism of Lynn Vincent, Palin's ghostwriter. Maddow explains that Lynn Vincent "co-authored a book with a guy who is widely believed to be , and I believe him to be, a white supremacist. So she's [Palin] chosen Lynn Vincent who has written a book with a white supremacist to write her book." Robert Stacy McCain and Lynn Vincent co-authored Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party in 2006.

Slide on over to 8:00 for the quote.

Go to this link for the video (opens in a new window).

I've already testified with all my strength to Robert Stacy McCain's goodness, fairness, and racial evenhandedness. I know this is not a racist man. But for whatever statements he's made, or that have falsely been attributed to him, the radical left is using Robert Stacy McCain to score libelously cheap political points.

I've noted as well that Charles Johnson's turned his entire blogging platform into destroying the reputations of others. You can check his page right now on a cached Google copy. I don't see the Maddow video up yet, but he's got running headlines including fabulist tales such as "Sarah Palin's Book Ghostwritten by Associate of White Supremacist McCain."

And to be clear, what evidence does anyone need anymore that Charles Johnson is no longer conservative? From Rachel Maddow to Andrew Sullivan, Little Green Footballs is the go-to libel blogging site par excellence.

And don't miss Saber Point, "If You Just HAVE to Visit "Little Green Footballs,' Here's the Way To Do It."

Also, nothing yet on today's news from Robert Stacy McCain, but see yesterday's entry, "Sometimes You Have to Wonder . . .

Eight U.S. Troops Killed in Afghanistan: Aggressive Attack Shows Insurgents Gaining at AF-PAK Border

It's the big foreign policy story this morning. Both NYT and WaPo have major reports. The fighting took place in the remote eastern section of Afghanistan, in Nurestan province. The news reports describe a brazen offensive featuring tribal militias making cross-border raids. From the Washington Post's report:

The U.S. military said it was not immediately clear how many insurgents were involved in the fighting. The attack involved Taliban fighters and appeared to be led by a local commander of the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin insurgent group, which is run by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former mujaheddin leader during the Soviet war in Afghanistan during the 1980s.

The attack took place in a sparsely populated area of forested mountains near the town of Kamdeysh. The deputy police chief of Nurestan province, Mohammad Farouq, said the insurgents intended to seize control of the Kamdeysh area and that hundreds took part in the fighting. He said more than 20 Afghan soldiers and police have gone missing since the fighting began and may have been taken hostage.

"Americans always want to fight in Afghanistan," said Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, who took credit for the attack by telephone. "If the Americans want to increase their troops, we will increase our fighters as well."

He said the battle began about 6 a.m. Saturday and involved 250 Taliban fighters. He claimed that dozens of American and Afghan soldiers were killed, along with seven Taliban fighters. Mujahid also claimed that the district police chief and intelligence chief were among the hostages, but that could not be confirmed.

I'm reminded of how I felt in November 2006. Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek's liberal but respected foreign policy analyst, published a heavy-duty essay entitled "The Drawdown Option." The piece threw down the gauntlet on the Iraq war. Go all in or get out. My response, amid the frustrations, was to give the U.S. a year to turn things around. We had face over two years of catastrophic danger in the war, and the radical left had long declared the conflict a debacle. I'm not quite there yet on Afghanistan, but the way the media's spinning this conflict - and the way the Obama administration is positioning itself for a cut-and-run -- I may well soon be.

I wrote of the stakes in Afghanistan last week, following a New York Times report indicating that the Mumbai terrorists were gearing up for a new round of conflict. See, "Another Mumbai? Qaeda-Taliban-Lashkar Ready to Strike Again." It turns out that Dan Twining, at Foreign Policy, wrote a report last week as well, "The Stakes in Afghanistan Go Well Beyond Afghanistan":

The problem with the current debate over Afghanistan is that it is too focused on Afghanistan. There is no question that the intrinsic importance of winning wars our country chooses to fight -- to secure objectives that remain as compelling today as they were on September 12, 2001 -- is itself reason for President Obama to put in place a strategy for victory in Afghanistan. But the larger frame has been lost in the din of debate over General McChrystal's leaked assessment, President Obama's intention to ramp up or draw down in Afghanistan, and the legitimacy of the Afghan election. In fact, it is vital for the United States and its allies to recommit to building an Afghan state that can accountably govern its people and defeat the Taliban insurgency -- for reasons that have to do not only with Afghanistan's specific pathologies but with the implications of failure for the wider region and America's place in the international system.

The facts are lost on congressional Democrats and the hardline antiwar left. But as I noted at my report above, a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan will invite another attack on America on the scale of September 11. And both security experts and military personnel agree: "This is a moment in history we must not miss." What's missing is a committed and resolute civilian leadership to see to it that America gets the job done.

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UPDATE: There's now a thread at Memeorandum. Jules Crittenden's suggests an "Afghan Tet," which means that the insurgents were in fact decimated, but the press is reporting an American debacle:

Sounds a little like the Taliban would like to pull off an Afghan Tet. Rack up some bad headlines, drive down the poll numbers and panic Congress while the president dithers. You’ll recall that in the original Tet, the Viet Cong and North Vietnam won a Pyrrhic political victory. Though decimated, severely compromed as a fighting force going forward and having failed to hold any ground, they managed to turn American public and political opinion. And won.

Either way, American lives were lost, and the stakes are high, as noted above.

See also, Michelle Malkin, "The Deadly Siege at Kamdeysh." And Weasel Zippers, "Afghanistan: Eight More Heroes Die In Day-Long Taliban Attack ..."

Added: Pamela at Atlas Shrugs links, "EIGHT MORE US SOLDIERS DEAD IN AFGHANISTAN, Obama consults Mother Goose for strategy." Pamela questions not the need for the deployment, but the administration's will to fight it:

Obama has no intention of destroying jihad. He just doesn't. The man grew up in a Muslim country, with a Mulsim father and stepfather and does not reject the Islamic view but prefers it. Hence all the outrech to slaughterers.

So why would I want our most precious resource, our finest Americans, slaughtered in a sloppy, ill-conceived, fairy tale war strategy where our girls and boys can't help but end up dead. Under Obama's reckless, feckless anti-commandership, we have experienced the highest number of deaths in Afghanistan month after month since the inception of the defensive military actions in Islam's war on the US.

Interestingly, but I just saw this yesterday from Diana West, " Losing' Our Way to Victory" (via Baldilocks):

This mission demands a new line of battle around the West itself, one supported by a multilevel strategy in which the purpose of military action is not to nation-build in the Islamic world, but to nation-save in the Western one. Secure the borders, for starters, something "war president" George W. Bush should have done but never did. Eliminate the nuclear capabilities of jihadist nations such as Iran, another thing George W. Bush should have done but never did -- Pakistan's, too. Destroy jihadist actors, camps and havens wherever and whenever needed (the strategy in place and never executed by Bill Clinton in the run-up to 9/11). But not by basing, supplying and supporting a military colossus in Islamic, landlocked Central Asia. It is time, as Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely (USA ret.) first told me last April, to "let Afghanistan go." It is not in our interests to civilize it.

Both Pamela and Diana want to win, but they don't see much sense in trying to nation-build Afghanistan, and especially under a Democratic administration that's uncommitted.

To repeat, I'm not there yet. I'm with Dan Twining above who warns of the larger dangers to the international system found in continued AF-PAK insecurity. We're going to fight, sooner or later. (For more on this, see Let Them Fight or Bring Them Home, "McChrystal's Folly.")

Maybe this president will actually come around to his senses and suppport America, and I'm not saying that to be Pollyanna-ish. At the least, Obama wants to be reelected, and I'm confident -- and as I've said many times already -- success mattters, and increasing progress on the war will keep public support high.

The ball is in the president's court. See, "Success Matters: Public Opinion and the War in Afghanistan."

See also, Common Sense Political Thought, "To Fight or Fold, or Let Fester?"

'The Providence Effect': Astonishing Educational Achievement, 'The Way It Should Be Done'

I took my oldest son to Santa Monica last night to see The Providence Effect. The movie is playing this week at Laemmle's Monica 4-Plex (the next block down from the 3rd Street Promenade). Kenneth Turan's review is here. And note this:

The person behind this heartening achievement is the school's president, Paul Adams III, a formidably charismatic individual who is determined to change the culture of American education, to break the cycle of poverty and give poor children the same opportunities as wealthy ones.

A veteran of the civil rights movement, Adams started at Providence St. Mel as a guidance counselor.

When the Chicago Archdiocese threatened to close the institution, he began a fundraising movement that enabled him to buy the building, take the school private, and run it so successfully that President Reagan came to visit. Twice.

Adams says he runs the school the old-fashioned way. Discipline is key for him; he and his staff enforce zero tolerance for drugs. Without discipline, he says, you can't get a student's attention.

Once that attention is assured, Adams counts on his inspired faculty to excite the kids about learning, and judging by the interviews with current and former students and glimpses inside selected classrooms, the method seems to work.

President Reagan's at 1:45 at the trailer above. He praises the students with open arms, exhorting them in triumph, "This is the way it should be done." To see him there, speaking to that school -- an all black school during the 1980s when the social welfare state had reached epic proportion, and when poverty and crime had destroyed the inner-cities -- is incredibly uplifting.

And what struck me, from the perspective of a teacher, was the no BS approach to instruction. There's no sign of progressive education throughout the entire film (and thus no mind-crushing leftist indocrtination). It's straight learning, with in-your-face instructors and administrators who spend time with the kids and in the classroom. Things go so well it seemed almost antiseptic. But as the early minutes of the film show, Chicago had been overrun by gang violence and much of the Westside had been razed in a far-from-finished scheme of urban redevelopment. Interviews with graduates -- kids who grew up to be doctors and bankers, etc. -- illustrated that the school was truly a life-saving institution, and education became the central focus of the child and the child's family.

The Providence Effect website is here. The Providence St. Mel school website is here. The school boasts a 100 percent college entrance acceptance rate, and the homepage states that "The School That Refused to Die -- Now a Model for Urban Education."

And I was thinking exactly that after learning of the death of Derrion Albert in Chicago this week. The Los Angeles Times has a report, "Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan Attend Chicago Teen's Funeral." And from the Chicago Tribune, "Derrion Albert Funeral: There Is No Simple Fix For Problems, Pastor Says; Parents Urged to Reclaim Their Children, City Urged to Educate Kids Closer to Home":

In death, the 16-year-old became the latest high-profile name on the long list of young Chicagoans who have died violently. The teen's brutal beating with two-by-fours was recorded Sept. 24. The attack captured the nation's attention and elicited a response from the White House.

President Barack Obama is sending Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan to Chicago this week in the wake of the fatal beating. Obama's spokesman has indicated the administration is preparing an initiative to address the national issues of youth crime and violence.

It's almost tragic that the president's not spending time on these issues -- the crisis in American education -- rather than the year-long ObamaCare fiasco. This is the modern equivalent of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. And while I'm tempted to say something like "I can't see how the president has ignored these issues," that's not true. I know exactly how. The corrupt Cook County Democratic Party machine, thoroughly infiltrated with crooked cronies, all the way down to union hacks, progressive education activists, and community organizing thugs, has consigned to city's poor to perpetual poverty. Michelle Malkin's book, Culture of Corruption, discusses how Michelle Obama milked her connections to lucrative jobs while crying racism all the way to the top. These people are a joke, and the Democratic political establishment is the last entity that's going to solve the crisis of the city's -- and America's -- urban poor.

That's why seeing Reagan in the film was so riveting for me last night. President Reagan was excoriated by the black community in the 1980s for cutting welfare programs, but it's going to be conservatives with the vision to match Reagan's who will lift the hope for America's youth again. And it's going to be the traditional educational methods found at Providence St. Mel that will be the vehicle for greater advancement for those now held back by institutional malfeasance and progressive political corruption.

See also, WitnessLA "The Providence Effect: A Murder & An Answer." There's an interview there with Paul Allen, and this part illustrates my point:

WLA: With all your success, you must have a lot of people coming to you from the Chicago Public School system wanting advice as to how what you’ve done can be replicated in a public school setting.

PA: Actually no one has come

WLA: What do you mean no one? Like not one person from the Chicago School District has come to visit St. Mel’s?

PA: Never. Not one.

WLA: You’re kidding. I’m sorry to press this, but not one as in zero people?

PA: Zero.

WLA: Wow. That is completely nuts.

PA: I think so.

See what I mean?

A 'Major Storm' for Congressional Elections 2010

From Wizbang, "Some More Thoughts on 2010":

There is a tectonic shift at work in American politics today. Regionalism is a part of this shift. But the change movement that is simmering now is the manifestation of larger issues that transcend regionalism, among them individual liberty (ObamaCare), State's rights (Cap and Trade), national security (Holder investigation of the CIA) and a sound dollar (Federal Reserve secrecy). Oh, and unemployment (look at all the charts at the link).

Be sure to read the whole thing.

I especially love Wizbang's citation of Charlie Cook's response to Brendan Nyhan, "Have you been in the South lately?"

Image Credit: Theo Spark.

White Power! Janeane Garofalo Has Revealed My Secret!

Man, she's like a broken record! Janeane Garofalo, on this weekend's Bill Maher show, alleged "it's obvious to anybody who has eyes in this country that tea-baggers, the 9-12ers" are "clearly white power movements” led “by the Glenn Becks, the Michelle Bachmans, the Rush Limbaughs."

Geez, I guess I'm hiding my "white power" alliances pretty good! Don't show Janeane, but here's my picture from last October:

Dude, I'm down with the backwoods boys! Racist! AAAHHHH!!!! Grab the nooses men! We've got a black interloper in the White House!

Seriously, see JammieWearingFool, "Why Garofalo's Comments Are Dangerous" (via Memeorandum).