Charles Johnson's Strange Alliance with Andrew Sullivan

Sometime back I posted on "On Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs." I noted at the post that "it turns out that yesterday Johnson basically joined the likes of Glenn Greenwald in attacking Glenn Beck for SIMPLY HYPOTHESIZING the possibility of an American anarchy ..."

Well now we have Johnson attacking the "Project 912 Glenn Beck Tea Party" as a society of "book burners." But get this: Andrew Sullivan joins in with an approving link, "A Tea Party Tantrum."

I earlier suggested "I have no personal quarrel with Johnson..." Unfortunatelty, it's hard for me to say the same thing today. Pamela Geller is in the midst of an ongoing flame war with Little Green Footballs. A recent post was titled, "Neo-Nazis Link Up With Charles Johson, Little Green Footballs Smears Beck, the GOP and Conservatives." Previously, Pamela published an essay titled, "Charles Little Green Footballs: The New Fascism ... on the Right."

Readers can check the veracity of Pamela's claims at her posts. But the meme is familiar irrespective of the particulars: Charles Johnson's mounted a long campaign against a number of neoconservative bloggers in the U.S., and that's on top of blogs such as Gates of Vienna and Brussels Journal in Europe.

What's interesting to me, especially, is that Johnson still continues to attack the Obama administration collectivism, all the while aiding and abetting the left's nihilist campaign against religion and social conservatism. Strange, no? But wait! Johnson's also been busy with attemps to repudiate some previous recognition from Andrew Sullivan: "There’s nothing like a left-handed compliment from Andrew Sullivan to totally creep you out."

I've got news for you, Charles, you're just as creepy as Sullivan, and just as dangerous.

Charles Johnson: "I Don’t Consider Myself Right-Wing"

David Weigel has an interview with Charles Johnson at the Washington Independent (via Memeorandum).

Johnson blows off claims that he's switched partisan allegiances during his recent Obama-era blogging. He simply attacks conservatives agressively resisting Islamist terrorism as hooking up "with racists and Nazis." Here's more from the interview:

“I don’t think I’ve changed,” Johnson said. “I’ve always been pretty independent. This is something I’ve really tried to put out there on my blog. I don’t consider myself right-wing.”

The problem here, as I've noted previously, is the main beneficiaries of Johnson's blogging (besides the terrorists) are "progressive Republicans" looking to turn the GOP into the party of gay marriage, and the secular progressives who are seeking legitimation for their program of licentious nihilism from an erstwhile top conservative blogger (the leftists, by the way, are the same folks who are in fact in league with the Islamists, if you can figure that all out).

In any case, T.R. left this comment at my recent post, " Charles Johnson 'Explodes'":

I have to say, I once was a contributor in good standing at LG, back in the days before Charles spun a gear or whatever it was that happened to him. His membership has deteriorated to the point that the pure hate and utter disgust isn't even tempered by common decency and some semblence of respect and/or manners ...

His blog members are a seething ocean of hate and vitriol if one dare not walk lock-step with the 'Lizard King'. Rate one of Charles' threads down because you disagree, you get banned. Rate another member's lock-step comment down, you get banned. Dare not disagree with anything at LGF if you want to particpate in the comments for long. There is no civil discourse of any kind at LGF.

To top it off, Charles has become one of the most, if not the most, narcissistic 'conservative' bloggers out there. The stars and the heavens revolve around Charles. Don't dare imply it is not so though, if you care to be a commenter there. He's walking the precipice and I fear it won't be much more time before he goes head long full blown over the edge.

The so-called 'Lizard King' and his so-called 'Lizard Army' are a despicable and hateful lot. If anything, the interior of Charles' head will actually explode and the end of LGF will come. I don't hope for Charles' head to finally explode, he was once a kind, considerate, and thoughtful blogger. But the 'Conservative blogosphere' will be better off if LGF did whither and die on the vine, in the long run.

See also, Gates of Vienna, "The Gettysburg of the Counterjihad."

Note: Typographical errors at the comment have been corrected.

E.D. Kain Contacts Department Again: Intimidation Campaign Escalates; Fake 'Apology' Seals Moral Indictment Against True/Slant Blogger!

Okay, here's an update on developments since yesterday's report, "E.D. Kain Alleges Defamation: True/Slant Blogger's Workplace Intimidation Attempts to Shut Down American Power!"

I must say, things have taken a twist I never would have anticipated. When I posted the Elvis Costello video this morning, E.D. Kain had left a comment at the last night's post. This marks the very first time that E.D.'s engaged me directly, in all these months. Perhaps this was his breakthrough to maturity. He writes at the post":

So yes, I did contact your department chair - not to shut you down but to express my frustration, since I had no reason to believe that you would respond to me with anything but more of the same jeering. I was not and am not trying to "shut you down" and honestly only contacted the chair because I was upset over your last post which again called me numerous names over something that had nothing at all to do with you. It was an act of frustration and I was reaching out to someone who I thought might be able to help.

And you know what? I shouldn't have done that. You're right. That was me acting out of frustration and anger and it was not the right move. I apologize...

Sounds great, right?

Only one little problem: ONCE AGAIN -- AGAIN! -- E.D. KAIN E-MAILED MY DEPARTMENT TO ALLEGE DEFAMATION AND SHUT DOWN THIS BLOG!!

Jesus, what a freakin' crybaby!

But to be clear, right after I wrote "'Blame it on Cain ... Don't Blame it on Me...'," where I mentioned my pending response to Kain's "apology" above, my department chair approached me in the hallway. He said he'd gotten another e-mail from E.D. Kain, who complained that this was all supposed to be "confidential." Right. E.D. Kain can just keep threatening and intimidating, and I have to STFU because he wants it kept confidential? Sheesh.

Okay, I'll be clear for the record: I HAVE NOT RECEIVED COPIES OF THE E-MAILS - THEY HAVE BEEN KEPT CONFIDENTIAL - I HAVE BEEN CONSULTED BY ADMINISTRATION. You see, obviously, as a matter of record, the department must inform me of the complaint. The allegations themselves would not be kept secret, only the substance of the communications. But E.D. Kain thought he had a contract to smear, intimidate, and harasss, and thus cried foul when I defended myself here at the blog. Can you freakin' believe it? What a pest! And I repeat, like I said yesterday, my co-workers want no part of the flame wars. THIS IS NOT college business, and E.D. Kain's contacts amount to NOTHING MORE THAN RANK HARASSMENT!! E.D. Kain needs to deal with me personally and he must STOP THE INTIMIDATION AT MY WORKPLACE!!

And also, very importantly, I spoke with the college's VICE PRESIDENT FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS. I gave him a heads up just in case the harassment continues. Everything's on the record -- everything. AND THAT'S IT -- MY COLLEGE'S INVOLVEMENT ENDS THERE!!

So, I am requesting from E.D. Kain once again to stay away from my place of work. This is a private blogging matter. American Power is hosted on Blogger. None of my college identification pages link to my blog. I recommend my blog for students to read, on a voluntary, non-assignment basis. Occasionally I'll pull up an academic post in class as a lecture launcher -- and actually, THAT'S A GOOD TEACHING THING!! (By the way, check William Jacobson's comments on this, "Blogging While Employed.)

I'm also doubling my request that E.D. Kain issue an apology, published at both of his blogs, the League of Ordinary Gentlemen and True/Slant. That's the least he could do, after proving beyond a shadow of a doubt the very case for dishonesty and abject duplicity I've laid out in previous entries. I'm starting to think E.D. Kain's got serious mental instabilities. This is ridiculous.

But I need to explain to readers why I'm doing this. Why do I engage in a flame war with a man who's clearly not equipped to deal with these issues, emotionally, intellectually, or morally? Well, frankly, it's all about ideology and politics. E.D. Kain's an enabler of all the extremist libel-blogging being waged by his two biggest heroes, Andrew Sullivan and Charles Johnson. And it's personal, given the confidence and access I had previously entrusted to him. Recall my point from last night: Had E.D. Kain just moved on from NeoConstant without taking up the standard at Daily Dish and LGF, things would have been perfectly fine. But no. E.D.'s gone on to emulate -- if not worship -- these merchants of hate. And his work distributes the libel. So, to be honest, E.D. Kain provides a perfect example -- from personal experience -- of how awful these people are, how totally bereft of moral foundations, as they seek to expand their power and take down conservatives.

Indeed, here's a perfect example. Recall E.D. Kain's interview with Charles Johnson at Ordinary Gentlemen, "The Evolution of Blogging: An Interview with Charles Johnson," and this quote from Charles in particular (in response to the query that LGF is "distancing itself from the right"):

I’ve never been on board with the anti-science, anti-Enlightenment radical religious right. Once I began making my opinions known on issues like creationism and abortion, I realized that there just wasn’t very much in common with many of the bloggers on the right. And then, when most of them decided to fall in and support a blogger like Robert Stacy McCain, who has neo-Nazi friends, has written articles for the openly white supremacist website American Renaissance, and has made numerous openly racist statements on the record … well, I was extremely disappointed to see it, but unfortunately not surprised.

Actually, I believe Charles Johnson "disappointment" about as much as I believe E.D. Kain's "apology" for his workplace intimidation. Behold today's post at Little Green Footballs, "White Supremacist Blogger Robert Stacy McCain's Neo-Nazi Pal on Trial":

The link above is to the Google search (just in case readers actually want to check over at LGF). Click here for Robert Stacy McCain's rebuttals to Johnson's smears.

By now readers might have realized E.D. Kain's fatal hypocrisy. One the one hand, he's literally mounting a campaign of harassment and intimidation against me for speaking God's honest truth. But on the other, he's a premier enabler of Charles Johnson's despicable libel blogging against Robert Stacy McCain, and by implication all those conservatives who back him. That's called incommensurability. Are you with me? Are you with me in fighting the smears, in standing up against these blogospheric ayatollahs? If so, then E.D. Kain's got your number too -- literally, as it may be, since he'll contact your place of work to shut you down!

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ADDENDUM: I want to emphasize that I've toned down my angry rhetoric at this post, and there's a reason for it. One, my initial entry, "Sleaze-Blogger E.D. Kain Reaches Pinnacle of 'Conservative' Blogosphere! Simultaneously Linked by Andrew Sullivan and Charles Johnson!," was mostly snark. In fact, what I wrote there barely reached the level of everyday attack blogging at Sadly No! or TBogg's. Yeah, my language was far from church-friendly, but blogging ain't beanbag, alright. Now, in my second post, "E.D. Kain Alleges Defamation: True/Slant Blogger's Workplace Intimidation Attempts to Shut Down American Power!," I was just plain mad and outraged. My invective was just getting warmed up, and frankly, I'd rather keep the safety on. I mention this because E.D. Kain needed a tissue in his comment at the blog this morning, where he bawls:

I have never written one single word against you. Not one. You can go back and search as hard as you can but you won't find one single negative phrase against you from me, ever, nor against any of the other writers who contributed to Neoconstant back in the day. Indeed, I have maintained friendly relationships with basically all of them.

And yet you, from the very outset, have decided to hurl insult after insult at me. You've called me the most horrible things I can think of - and never once have I responded in kind. Never once. If you can find one single time where I've attempted to smear you, please do. But it doesn't exist. While you smear me time and time again for apparently no reason other than I had a change of political heart. (sleaze-blogger, gasbag, slander-master, butt-freak arrogance, etc. etc.)

Earth to E.D.: Actions speak louder than words. It doesn't matter what you say when your modus operandi serves as an accessory to personal destruction. So, quit crying like a baby. And most of all:

* CEASE YOUR CAMPAIGN OF INTIMIDATION AND HARASSMENT AT MY WORKPLACE.

* PUBLISH A FULL AND UNEQUIVOCAL APOLOGY AT YOUR BLOGS.

I imagine the "insults" will subide if those two conditions are met. Regular political debate remains on the table, of course, thought it's not like E.D. Kain's got a record of defending against it.

Charles Johnson Attacks Doug Hoffman as 'Glenn Beck Candidate'

It's long been established by now that Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs has completed his Andrew Sullivan transmogrification, but this tidbit today is too much to resist. Johnson's been attacking Michelle Malkin all week - taking issue with Malkin's (accurate) description of Dede Scozzfava as "radical" - but now he's going after candidate Hoffman directly. Here's the screencap to his post, "Doug Hoffman: The Glenn Beck Candidate."

For Johnson, Hoffman's endorsement of the 9/12 Project's "9 Principles, 12 Values" apparently makes him and extremist (yep, it's pretty extreme to say, "I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results").

In any case, although he's modest about it, John Hawkins has the best post on Charles Johnson's self-immolation. See, "The Descent of Little Green Footballs."

Also worth a look is Rick Moran's contrarian take on conservative influence in NY-23. See, "‘UNRULY’ CONSERVATIVES SHOCK THE GOP IN NY23."

And, of course, the big news today is Dede Scozzafava's endorsement of Democrat Bill Owens in Tuesday's special election, "NY-23: Scozzafava Endorses Owens" (via Memeorandum).

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UPDATE: See also, Jawa Report, "Does Charles Johnson Hate America?", and Stop the ACLU, "Excitable Chucky Now Has a Problem With 'America is Good'."

Charles Johnson and Andrew Sullivan: Separated at Birth?

Samuel Wurzelbacher's comments from his Christianity Today interview continue to dominate the news this morning. At issue is his remark on homosexuals, where he suggests, "I wouldn't have them anywhere near my children."

When read in the context of Wurzelbacher's deconstruction of the word "queer," the guy makes sense - at least from the perspective of a parent trying to instill strong moral values in his children.

Of course, "anywhere near my children" is politically incorrect, so Wurzelbacher's being hammered from both sides of the spectrum, and certainly there's room for debate on exactly what "threat" Wurzelbacher had in mind.

Still, I just can't help noticing how Charles Johnson and Andrew Sullivan performed some near-perfect telepathy in their respective, nearly-identical posts on the topic.

Here's Charles Johnson's, "Joe the Plumber Speaks Out Against 'Queers'." Johnson cites the "anywhere near my children" quote but can't quit ("I could stop with that one, but there’s more"), and adds a couple more passages before the sigh ... "Good. Grief."

Here's Andrew Sullivan's, "What Christianity Means to Some." Sullivan also cites the "anywhere near my children" quote, and then adds, "Sam Wurzelbacher has every right to keep his children away from anyone. But he is instilling bigotry at an early age. As is his party."

And there you have it.

Charles Johnson and Andrew Sullivan: Separated at birth now reunited to excoriate Joe the Plumber, the house bigot of the GOP.

P.S. I want neither Johnson nor Sullivan "anywhere near my children"!

Glenn Beck Hammers Charles Johnson

Michael van der Galien is my good blogging friend, but we're in disagreement about the internecine battles on the conservative right. A couple of weeks back, Michael suggesedt that conservatives "should stop going after" Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs.

In a post today, citing Beck's KILLER response to Johnson in his Fox News broadcast (above, at about 7:00 minutes), Michael sides with Little Green Footballs and he suggests that Beck's basically flipped his lid: "The best way to deal with such “loons” is to simply ignore them. Do not bash them, do not go after them. Let them do their thing while you do yours. Besides, even “crazies” are right every now and then."

The funny thing is, I was just having lunch a month or so ago with a former student who's now retired from the Navy. As I noted in an essay where I cite Beck's hypothetical "anarchy in America" scenarios, good people who are decidedly not crazy have enough legitimate concerns about the direction and stability of this nation that they're considering relocating and downsizing to a simpler life - my friend is thinking about a move to Montana or the Rocky Mountain States.

If Glenn Beck's insane, his imbalance is giving him unparalelled insights into the excesses, outrages, and perversions of American government today. If he seems overboard to some, well, folks need to get a grip themselves - that's the guy's schtick! He's going to push buttons and inflame sensitivities. If he's making irrational and unsubstantiated claims, yeah, call him out. But that's not what I see. I see Beck challenging so many of the orthodoxies that neither side is willing to challenge themselves. Charles Johnson doesn't like it, of course, because he's on some weird jihad against anyone who utters politically-incorrect unmentionables about Muslims and people of color. Gasp! You have voiced a negative word about radical Islam, ahh!, you're a fascist!

Johnson is entitled to his views, and I'm NOT druding up a confrontation with him, but there's little doubt that he's carried his war on the "extremist" right so far that's he's aiding and abetting those secular progressives who really do want to destroy our nation, and who are doing it one network newscast at a time. Indeed, the New York Times is a "training ground" for sectarian radicalism. And frankly, at some point people have to choose up sides.

Like Dan Collins, I'm with Beck on this, and I'm urging Charles Johnson to chill a little. Everyone's got something to say worth hearing, but when Andrew Sullivan starts pumping up the postings over at Little Green Footballs, folks might really want to think twice about not just the issues, but the stakes.

See also, Snooper Report, "Another Little Green Turtle Turd Moment."

On Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs

You know, I've been thinking about Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs.

When I go over there nowadays I get confused. Last year LGF was doing some of the best pushback-blogging against leftist crazies like Markos Moulitsas. But now it seems Johnson's done an about face against conservatives, especially people of faith. I'm not a "creationist," but I've noted that Stephen Jay Gould's "doctrine of nonoverlapping magisteria" suggests a compatibility between Christian beliefs and scientific evolutionary theory.

Well, it turns out that yesterday Johnson basically joined the likes of Glenn Greenwald in attacking Glenn Beck for SIMPLY HYPOTHESIZING the possibility of an American anarchy:

There's not going to be any mass anarchy, and there's not going to be any sedition. Glenn Beck isn't going to bring about the End Times, or a financial crash.

But what he IS doing is encouraging and inciting the real nutjobs out there to do violence. One on one violence, stoked by paranoid fantasies.

It's crazy, and it's wrong, and it's irresponsible.

It's crazy? I'm sure many said the same thing about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina, despite the warnings of the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center.

I have no personal quarrel with Johnson, although I'd just note here his tremendous inconsistency. On the one hand he attacks radical Islamists for practices such as child killing, and then on the other he attacks people like Geert Wilders for attacking, well, the exact same thing.

For some related matters, see Dr. Pat Santy's comments on the controversies Johnson's had with folks on questions of Islam and terror (see, "My Response to Blackmail Threats").

But also check out Stogie's post at Saberpoint for more on what folks are noticing about LGF:

I rarely read the blog "Little Green Footballs" any more. I have discovered that, as time goes by, I have less and less in common with its owner, Charles Johnson. Frankly, he acts like someone who is developing a brain chemistry imbalance. If so, he should consider a psychotropic medication like Prozac or Paxil. Personally I prefer Zoloft. Since I started taking it, I notice the ax murders are fewer and further between. Yes, we don't see that much of Mr. Hyde anymore.

Charley's latest gambit is to trash Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch and to oppose Geert Wilders. Seems Charley is very adamant about the right of individuals to freedom of religion, apparently any religion, regardless of their practices, e.g. honor killings, genital mutilation, wife beating, polygamy, jihad, insistence on Sharia rather than democracy. No doubt Aztecs performing human sacrifices of virgins would be just fine with him. You can't oppose "freedom of religion" after all. Charley is so open-minded and tolerant that he would probably accept an invitation to dinner by a tribe of cannibals, and never notice when they shove an apple in his mouth and push him into a big pot of boiling water.

Another of Charley's annoying habits is that he has become a fanatical supporter of Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution. That's fine if that's your bag, but every other post is an ideological screed in support of this pseudo-science. Who cares?

Evolution, says Charley is absolutely true and beyond criticism. Today he was running an article entitled "Transitional Fossils Do Exist."

Charley should know. He's one of them.

My main interest here is as it relates to the broader internal debates I've been discussing on the freaky left-libertarian alliance of "liberaltarianism," as well as the continued and self-evident power of neoconservative clarity in combating the creeping totalitarianism of Islamic radicalization.

At lot of folks are focusing on electoral schisms within the GOP, but some of the more overarching issues of foreign affairs and moral authority are going to be increasingly important to the emergence of the next right-wing governing coalition.

More later ...

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UPDATE: Critical Thinker add this, from the comments:

Methinks ole Charlie might need to go back to playin' Jazz and leave the world of bloggin'. Seems he is turning into a control freak and might be the one going off of the deep end.

Worn-Out Tools: David Frum Joins Charles Johnson in Ideological Exile

I blogged previously on the conservative schadenfreude at Mad King Charles' final break with the right wing. So, that that's, right? Well no, actually. Now we've got David Frum pleading for Charles Johnson to think twice about his shifting allegiances:

Charles Johnson, editor of the Little Green Footballs site, has written a post declaring his personal breach with the American right.

He offers 10 reasons, but they all boil down to the same one: His outrage at the bad characters found in right-wing media and blogosphere.

And yes, there’s no shortage of bad characters. No shortage on the left-hand side either. Or the middle, for that matter. But why surrender to them? Why let them get away with their claim to define your movement? Why not stand up to them? That was Rudyard Kipling’s advice to those who felt as Johnson now feels:

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools;

These are days for stooping and building.

Look, the Kipling quote's a nice touch, but only at first blush. For all of Frum's erudition, the dude's got to know that Kipling's poetry's probably not the best for hammering home any proud conservative traditions, e.g., "The White Man's Burden" can't be thought of too well these days on either side of the ideological fence; and on the night that President Obama delivered a major address on Afghanistan, some might recall Kipling's own most dour ditty, "The Young British Soldier":

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.

That's just great. Pinch me when C.J. joins Daily Kos in saluting the troops with "screw them."

Besides, that last line in the poem, "build ‘em up with worn-out tools ..." Well, also not the best choice of words for Charles Johnson, now being extolled by the radical left for his virtues. So, confer Urban Dictionary's entry for "tool":

Someone who is a complete idiot/ one who is used by other people, and usually dosen't even realize it/ someone who can't think for themselves/ an asshat.

I'm not picking on David Frum. I know he's a former Reagan speechwriter and all that. But at a time with conservatives are doing extremely well in opposing this administration AND winning elections, it's hardly productive for former right-wing hot shots to join with the other side.

The Glorious Grassroots Conservative Comeback

Charles Johnson, who has launched a jihad against anyone not capitulating to his own ideological supremacism, linked the British blog Harry's Place the other day. Note this quote there, from a post entitled, "Out of Power, Going Bonkers":

Demoralised by defeat, the moderates appear to have utterly lost control of their movement, which has become a caricature of its worst aspects: delivering up a cocktail of vicious preoccupations, from an extreme position on abortion, through to support for creationism, and right up to the promotion of racist fears.

The only thing arguably agreeable here is "demoralized." Yeah, it's a bummer losing, but dejection was temporary; and it doesn't follow that this year's grassroots mobilization against the Obamanation is automatically unhinged and racist.

What's interesting to me is that now that the GOP's out of power, folks like Charles Johnson and his newfound allies on the left are excoriating conservatives for the very same grassroots activism that helped bring the Democrats to power in 2006 and 2008. Indeed, Little Green Footballs was the go-to site for the latest inside scoops on radical left-wing extremism. Now, of course, Johnson's been permanently revealed as a "smear merchant who traffics in half-truths, distortions, and outright lies, and whose testimony on any particular point is not to be trusted."

Note, though, that as totally unhinged as Johnson is, his views are echoed by purportedly mainstream conservative commentators. Check out David Frum's essay yesterday, for example, "Scorched Earth Conservatives." The post is a response to David Horowitz at FrontPage Magazine, and Frum argues that "the conservative intellectual movement has become subservient to the political entertainment complex." Frum is particularly incensed by Glenn Beck's ascendancy, but Frum has had Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin in the gunsights all year; and he lumps all those heavy-hitters together to allege that they are " inviting the Ron Paul contingent to take over as the new base and face of conservatism and Republicanism."

This is so patently stupid it obviously strains credibility. Indeed, the big deal last week was the potential feud between Beck and Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin has frankly emerged as the most prominent advocate for the U.S. military on the political right today (see, "Remembering 9/11: We Are Americans"). Ron Paul's hardly a Palin ally.

What we're seeing on the left - and the Charles Johnson/David Frum condominium is fundamentallly a left-wing project - is fear and horror that conservatives are making a comeback. And what's also interesting is that the right's unapologetic partisan pugilism isn't really new at all.

Folks might take a look at Ronald Brownstein's book from last year, The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America. Brownstein's introduction compares former House Minority Leader Tom Delay to Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos. Under Delay, GOP partisanship was no less sharp and uncompromising that what we're seeing in today's tea party movement and anti-ObamaCare activism:

DeLay operated with a broad vision and a precise attention to detail. he worked relentlessly to tighten the links between the Republican majority and the business community by providing the latter greater access and ability to influence legislation, but he also pressured them to tilt their pollitical contributions more toward the GOP, and to hire more Republicans as lobbyists. Inside the House, his principled priority was to maximize Republican unity and minimize opportunities for Democratic influence. Delay's overriding goal was to advance the most conservative agenda possible in a manner that framed the differences between the parties as sharply as possible. He did not fear passing legislation on razor-thin party-line votes; indeed, it often appeared that he preferred bills the pushed to the right so far that they attracted only the bare minimum of votes required to pass. Anything less meant legislation conceded too much to those resisting the conservatives agenda, not only Democrats but moderate Republicans. He was a meat cutter who prided himself in his ability to slice closer to the bone than anyone else.

DeLay succeeded to a remarkable extent in imposing his vision. Even though House Republicans operated with a narrow margin of majority throughout DeLay's years in the leadership, they moved their agenda through the institution much more smoothly than Democrats had with larger margins in the years before the GOP takeover. DeLay was so central to those efforts, he earned the nickname "the Hammer" for his ability to nail down winning coalitions. [Emphasis added.]

While Brownstein decries the "polarization," it's the case that an aggressive agenda against Democratic-socialism has long been in place on the hardline conservative right. And while the Johnson/Frum types endlessly denounce alleged "extremism" and "racism," the truth is that the grassroots right is winning the debate. As Matt Lewis noted Tuesday, "From ACORN to Van Jones, the Online Rightroots Flexes Its Muscles." Plus, see Lawrence Kudlow, "Hey, Conservatives, We're Recovering." And recall from Peter Ferrara's earlier article, "2010":

Next year's elections are going to produce a political earthquake. That is because we currently suffer the most left-wing government in our nation's history. After just 6 months in office, the flower children that rule Washington in overwhelming numbers are already smashing through all records regarding federal taxes, spending, deficits, and debt. Obama and his ultra-left Democrats adopted a so-called stimulus bill raising spending a trillion dollars that never had a prayer of actually creating jobs and promoting long-term economic growth, because it was based entirely on old-fashioned, brain dead, proven to fail, Keynesian economics. Though we would have to double federal taxes to finance the entitlement promises we have already made, the ruling Washington Democrats completely ignore that and focus instead on adopting yet another entitlement -- national health insurance -- that would be the biggest of all ...

This is the political reality today, and the truth hurts. Charles Johnson's gone literally insane in his universal demonizations against anything outside the microscopic LGF wasteland. And David Frum's simply a quixotic figure and a travesty of any real past prominence he may have enjoyed. These folks - along with so many other confused souls who have joined them - don't have a lot of heavy firepower to defend the big-government juggernaut that's taken over D.C. They're left with crazed screams of "racism" to any and all opposition to Dear Leader Obama. See Mark Steyn for more on that, "Dislike Obama? You Must Be Racist."

Meanwhile, radical left historian Eric Alterman's keeping the race-baiting going at the Soros-funded Center for American Progress, "Think Again: Falling for the Far Right’s ACORN Agenda." Expect lots more of the same all though the remainder of this year and next.

We are in the midst of a glorious grassroots conservative comeback. The "moderate" conservatives have made common cause with the left's communist establishment to excoriate concerned citizens protesting for a return to limited goverment and political effectiveness. The real crazies in America are those at the center-left who've been hoodwinked by "Hope and Change" and are now implicated in the attempted radical takeover of the United States.

A Theory* of Racist Smears and the Case of Robert Stacy McCain

Barrett Brown, who was included in my post the other day, quickly snagged his opportunity to exploit my comments in furtherance of his smears against Robert Stacy McCain. See, "A Reply to Donald Douglas and a Restatement of My Offer to R.S. McCain." In turn, Brown's post was picked up by the Lizard Freak, Charles Johnson, and his essay, "Regarding Barrett Brown's Offer to Debate White Supremacist Robert Stacy McCain."

Barrett's piece is politely said, if not quite accurate. For example, I've never sought to establish myself as some kind of expert on Robert Stacy McCain's journalistic legacy. I've even said so, noting previously that, "I'm not in the habit of following along all that closely." What I have done is taken my personal experience with Robert and laid that out as measure of the man's character (see, "Take It From Me, An Interracial Man in an Interracial Marriage, Robert Stacy McCain is No Racist!"). Despite all of this, Barret Brown takes me to task, opportunistically, to forward his meme of Robert as an "evil" racist redneck -- or, in Brown's words, "a white supremacist with significant past ties to the neo-Nazi community."

Boy, that's heavy stuff, all of it. But there's actually not that much too it. As I've said before, Robert Stacy McCain can fend for himself, but what little evidence Barrett Brown offers is wholly tainted as products themselves of ideological smear campaigns. Exhibit A is this post from "Sergey Romanov," entitled, "Meet Robert Stacy McCain, a Neo-Confederate Wacko Extraordinaire." The entry's basically a long crib sheet of allegedly "vile" articles and comments from Robert's days as an associate editor at the Washington Times. This includes a long bibliography of comments Robert's said to have posted around the web, at places such as Free Republic. All of this is supposed to be damning. But looking at them, I see nothing there that's any more inflammatory than, say, what the late Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington argued in his penetrating but politically-incorrect book, Who Are We?: The Challenges to America's National Identity. Indeed, as far back as 1993, Huntington gained tremendous notoriety for his seminal essay "The Clash of Civilizations?" The reaction was immediate and furious. As always, anyone who proposes that America's historic Anglo-Protestant culture is superior to the rest will be labeled racist. American exceptionalism is out of vogue on the left, for it proposes a certain model of traditionalism that has deep roots in the multiple traditions of American conservatism. Major leftist pushback thus goes with the territory. Huntington, who was a former president of the American Political Science Association, handled the attacks with grace and reason, in contrast to many of the truly "vile" attacks by his critics, seen as literally unhinged. When Huntington passed away, the left's radical gay activists cheered. See, "Racist Samuel P. Huntington Is Dead."

In any case, what's mosting interesting in looking at the Sergey Romanov post is the reactions. As one commenter there indicated with respect to Charles Johnson:

Johnson has heaped equal moral approbation on conservatives for essentially every stand any conservative has taken on anything since 1/20/2009.

In the sequence of johnson's disengagement from the right, this Stacy McCain thing is the most recent. His allegations came at the time they did at a point at which his credibility and assumptions about his good faith where at their nadir already ....

Johnson now believes that the Tenth Amendment to the Bill of Rights is a "racist dogwhistle". His criteria for identifying racism on the right is now as obtuse as once was his criteria for identifying antisemitism on the left.

Many other observers of Charles Johnson's descent to hell have made similar points. Visiting Little Green Footballs one sees in insanely quixotic mission to destroy difference -- yes, just difference -- on the right of the spectrum. For example, just today, "Malkin Links to 'Buzzworthy' Anti-Israel Rant at White Nationalist Website":

But with regards to Barret Brown himself, I've found this really interesting bit of information at one of Robert's responses to the smears. It's this screencap below, to this blurb on the 'Godless Americans March on Washington" from 2002. And Barrett Brown is listed as "Communications Director" at Enlighten the Vote. So, what kind of organization is this? Enlighten the Vote is a political action committee of the American atheist movement. The PAC is apparently so bad that no one -- and I mean absolutely no one -- wants anything to do with them.

Frankly, I have to admit my ignorance on this group, or Barret Brown, for that matter. But my inclination all along, since I first noticed how Barrett Brown was getting picked up by the Lizard King, is that the True/Slant blogger was soldier in the radical left's campaign for gay marriage, if not for pure homosexual licentiousness. And lo and behold, what do I find searching around a bit? Brown attacks James Dobson as a "degenerate old fascist."

Of course, now it's fair to say that Barret Brown is dreadfully wrong to suggest that I'm "in no position to know what the 'bulk of these charges' may be" against Robert Stacy McCain." No, actually, despite my disclaimer, I wasn't wrong in the first place, and I'm not wrong now. And let me disabuse Barret Brown of his notion that "the totality of the evidence" that he's offered "unambiguously" convicts Robert Stacy McCain as "a white supremacist with significant past ties to the neo-Nazi community." It does nothing of the sort. I've looked through everything he's linked. I've visited American Renaissance, and I long ago dismissed those of the Southern Poverty Law Center and Michelangelo Signorile as race and sexual-orientation shakedown artists who'd make Jesse Jackson proud.

Screw these people. The only thing Robert Stacy McCain's guilty of is speaking his mind. Perhaps you might throw in a little bravado or stupidy for having posted at websites and message boards advocating white supremacy and race war, but none of Robert's actual quotes are particularly inflammatory -- unless you're looking for a "racist" target. The most Barrett Brown, Charles Johnson, and now Patrick Frey, can do is alleged R.S. McCain's "racism" twice or three times removed from those who could be accurately described that way. As I've already shown, for example, there's nothing inherently racist about not favoring interracial marriage. If that were so, we'd have to call most Americans white or black "racist," since they prefer to marry someone of like ethnic charateristics.

No, what I've shown all along --- the "general theory" proposed here -- is that "racism" is all these idiots have left. And of course, it's basically checkmate when you throw in they nihilist gay rights advocacy for these twerps. Even Patterico's in favor of gay marriage, which explains his motives for joining in the smear campaign against Robert Stacy McCain. Again, see my previous post on the left's victimology industry, "Take It From Me, An Interracial Man in an Interracial Marriage, Robert Stacy McCain is No Racist! And see also, South Texian, "The McCain Defamation":

... Robert Stacy McCain did not and has not exhibited racism, nor has he ever excused it. As Stacy himself likes to say, "there are facts and there are witnesses to those facts." The fact is that Stacy is a good man, and you may consider me one of the witnesses.

* The theory holds that in the presence of firm conservative views among movement activist and leaders (those who privilege the superiority of traditional culture and values), radical leftists will resort to unprincipled, morally-bankrupt demonizations and unsubtantiated hearsay smear-campaigns in the absence of effectively superior argumentation or irrefutable evidence for their allegations. (In other words, when all else fails, play the race-card.) This ends up being a law-like proposition, which is theoretically correlated with the deterioration of race relations in America upon the accession to power of Barack Obama as president. (Polls suggest that CRITICISM of the administration is tantamount to racism, when it's anything but). In other words, "conservative = racist." See, "The Function of General Laws in History":

A universal hypothesis may be assumed to assert a regularity of the following type: In every case where an event of a specified kind C occurs at a certain place and time, an event of a specified kind E will occur at a place and time which is related in a specified manner to the place and time of the occurrence of the first event.

Added: Robert Stacy McCain, "Resolved: Barrett Brown is a Putz."

Obsessed Much? Charles Johnson Has Written Ten Posts Attacking Pamela Geller Since Anders Breivik's Norway Massacre

And that's just counting blog posts that include Pamela Geller's name in the title. There's a least a half-dozen more that feature Pamela as the main person of interest, for example, Mad King Charles' entry on the New York Times' hit piece on counter-jihad, "Killings in Norway Spotlight Anti-Muslim Thought in U.S."

And just today Mad Charles published, "Perfect Timing: Pamela Geller's New WND Book Echoes Oslo Terrorist's Book." That's a depraved comparison. The lowest of the sleazebag low. Think about it: One third of Anders Breivik's manifesto is a terrorist's handbook, with detailed outlines and planning from everything such as explosives to nuclear and radiological weapons. On the other hand, obviously, a look at the chapter outline of Pamela Geller's new book shows nothing even remotely similar. Pamela's book is a primer on creeping sharia, discussing growing Islamization, from government infiltration to the mass media to the mosqueing of schools and workplaces. The last chapter calls for greater institutional accountability and exhorts concerned citizens to increased voting participation to balance against aggressive Islam. Oh, the horrors!! Actually, not. There's no mixture ratios for ammonium nitrate fuel bombs. But Charles Johnson's stupid as well as depraved.

In any case, check Charles' "Lizardoid" Twitter feed for the links. The Pamela obsession is unhinged as it is, but put that on top of the Lizard Man's pathological lies and deranged distortions and scrubbing of his own background in counter-jihad, and you've really got a certified head case. See my earlier report, "Charles Johnson Browbeat Forbes' Abigail Esman After She Correctly Noted That Anders Breivik Voluminously Cited Little Green Footballs."

Given the nature of the blogosphere, perhaps it's to be expected. And folks have long known that Charles Johnson's got serious issues, but the Mad Lizaroid's now to the point of unhinged stalking. The dude needs help.

Progressive Bullies Threaten Workplace Harassment

This is what progressives do.

The despicable low-life Charles Johnson published a deliberately vague hit piece on Patterico and his brain dead commentariat went straight to work on plans to threaten Patrick Frey's job at the L.A. County District Attorney's Office.

See, "Charles Johnson Impotently Tries to Threaten My Job":

Here is how much I am frightened and silenced:

Charles Johnson, you are a hypocritical, dishonest lowlife punk. This post of yours guarantees that I’ll be doing a new post about you every single time I find out about another lie of yours.

Every. Single. Time.

In doing so, Charles Johnson, I will metaphorically crush you. I will metaphorically disembowel you and eat your innards. But I will not do a single physical thing to you. Nor will I encourage others to.

I will simply laugh and laugh as your reputation continues to shrink into nothing.

I have, of course, had people do this exact sort of thing to me many, many times before — and it’s not purely a tactic of the left, either. (In fact, there is one certain “classical liberal” site that did almost precisely the same thing a little more than a year ago.) Tbogg, Sadly No, Brad Friedman, his partner the convicted bomber, the aforementioned “classical liberal” site, and several disgraced reporters and columnists for the Los Angeles Times have all learned that the best way to get me to stop pointing out their dishonesty is to stop engaging in dishonesty.

You stop lying, I stop pointing it out. Simple as that.

UPDATE: It just gets better and better. Here is a Twitter message Johnson just republished:

This is classic. I've had E.D. Kain contact my college, not once, but twice, and during the recent Elizabeth Edwards nihilism episode my department chair received two outraged e-mails claiming that I didn't deserve to be teaching at a public college. And that's to say nothing of Libel Blogger David Hillman, who mounted a campaign of workplace harrassment last year, specifically launched to get me fired.

Leftists can't win on the merits. They instead mount campaigns of retaliation. For the longest time Racist Repsac3 hosted this call to workplace harrassment at his blog: "If the Coward or any of his followers harass you online you, contact Vice President Donald Berz" at Long Beach City College. All the phone numbers and e-mail contacts were included. It was only after being repeatedly slammed for his sponsorship of such hatred and intimidation did RepRacist3 remove the contact information, but the post is still up. After reading that, folks should see this recent thread where RepRacist3 remorselessly attacks me as a bully --- a bully?

Right. Conservatives are bullies when they win arguments on the merits. It really has come to this. But they're progressive dumbfucts, so what can you do? They're pure evil. Threats to a blogger's livelihood are beyond reprehensible. E.D. Kain, the atheists, David Hillman, and RepRacist3 have all engaged in attacks on my personal livelihood, and they then have the audacity to allege bullying.

It's shameful, I know. But that's what folks of good morals have to deal with these days.

RELATED: Jeff Goldstein calls out Patrick Frey: "I never once tried to go after your job." I'm with Goldstein on that, actually. And I've called out Patterico myself, over his attacks on The Other McCain. It's hard out there. That said, I think I'll stay focused on the progressives. They provide enough death-chants and intimidation to last a lifetime. Freakin' asshats.

Charles Johnson's Latest Bid for Relevance

Charles Johnson picked up one of my throwaway tweets the other day:

CJ's been making a schizophrenic bid for relevance of late. He attacks so-called wingnuts and slanders his old nemeses Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. Meanwhile, he's been trying to regain some of the Dan Rather mojo of yore, which hasn't turned out too well, considering how he stole his Reuters "scoop" from other bloggers. AOSHQ masterfully takes him to task, "Charles Johnson Whines: Why Isn't The Story About Me Anymore?", and "Blog Drama":

As to whether he grabs credit and swipes stories: This is a bit of complicated issue, involving blog courtesy and such. Since the rest of this post is so inside-blogball, I guess there's no harm in going further down this rathole.

Let me talk about "swiping stories." Johnson believes that if he throws in a lame hat-tip at the end of a post, he hasn't "swiped a story," because he's given you attribution.

That's not the case. A lame hat-tip at the end of a post covers one's ass, I suppose, in terms of attribution, but it fails to do what a proper link is supposed to do: Throw some traffic.

Some blogs are deliberately "gateway blogs," throwing out traffic wide and far in general furtherance of good-guy blogger boosterism. is deliberately, and most famously, this kind of blog.

Instapundit looks for excuses to link blogs -- not media stories, though he links them too of course; but his primary goal is to call attention to other blogs and "share the wealth." He has a very good reputation along these lines; the only problem with an Instapundit link is that it doesn't throw as much traffic as you'd think it would, but that's largely because he's linking so many blogs during the day that you're just getting a small slice of his readers.

Crucially, if a blog mentions, say, a Reuters story, Instapundit tends to link the blog which tipped him, rather than the Reuters story itself; anyone interested in that story, then, has to at least go through the blog to get to the story. They'll end up at Reuters, but they go through the tipping blog first.

On the other hand, some blogs are very jealous and ungenerous about throwing links and traffic to "competitors." Some blogs fancy themselves not "gateway blogs" but "destination blogs," and attempt to set themselves up as the only blog you need to read.

Not a portal, then, but a terminus.

It has always been my belief that Charles Johnson fancied his blog as that...

It's all goodness, so more at the link --- and I don't know if I'm throwing Ace much traffic, LOL!

Core Cultural Values

Jason at The Western Experience discusses the nihilistic program of gay rights extremism in his essay, "The Culture War is Real: Pick a Side."

Jason lays out the stakes clearly, suggesting:

This isn’t a conservative or liberal debate. This is about traditional America vs. a counter cultural post modernist America. It is both necessary and required that Americans stand to defend the institution of marriage in order save our society.

Well, Jason's singing to the choir over here!

I do think it's indeed about conservatism, actually. But what really struck me is Jason's link to this letter, at Brussels Journal, from November 2007, by Bruce Bawer at Little Green Footballs:

Hi Charles,

Your concerns about Vlaams Belang/Blok and the Sverigedemokraterna are totally justified.

In May, Paul Belien wrote as follows in the Washington Times: "Europe is in the middle of a three-way culture war between the defenders of traditional Judeo-Christian morality, the proponents of secular hedonism and the forces of Islamic Jihadism."

”Secular hedonism” is plainly his term for secular liberalism. Plainly he identifies with what he calls ”traditional Judeo-Christian morality.” And the structure of his sentence suggests that for him both ”secular hedonism” and ”Islamic Jihadism” are equal enemies.

And what about those of us who foolishly think this is a war for INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY? Are we just supposed to sit back and shut up and take orders from a bunch of little Euro-fascists?

As we say in Norway, stå på! (Stick to your guns!)

All best,
Bruce

So, my comments here are not so much a defense of traditional culture (Lord knows I've had a go of it lately), but instead are directed to disabusing folks of the possibility that the kind of atheistic libertarianism endlessly promoted at Little Green Footballs even remotely resembles a positive ideological paradigm shift for the coming era of post-Bush American politics.

I don't know of Paul Beliën. I can say that the Bruce Bawer's quote of Beliën above doesn't sound particularly fascist to me, especially since genuine fascist ideology is at best neutral toward religion, or more doctrinally atheist or "post-Christian." Interwar fascism as it emerged in Italy, and in Germany's racist National Socialism, subsumed religion under the ideology of the state; fascism was flexible or pragmatic (opportunistic) in terms of building social coalitions geared to power. While Beliën may have developed a "fascist enigma" for his controversial positions in Belgian politics, the entire passage above says more about Bruce Bawer's apparent secular libertarian extremism than it does about anything relating to "Euro-fascism."

In an earlier post, I noted how Charles Johnson has been attacking "Creationism" and "Intelligent Design" like his life depended on it. LGF's new secular-totalitarian agenda is frankly turning off a good many conservatives looking to preserve traditionalism as a key foundation of a revingorated right.

Now, I'm also throwing this out there in light of the friendly exchange I've been having with Dan Riehl, whose latest essay response is here. Dan notes that on principle he would tend to place himself somewhere between the folks at The American Conservative and my "seemingly over aggressive" neoconservatism - especially as its evinced in my Godwater-esque foreign policy. Perhaps Dan might want to respond one more time, to my argument here, although he's been kindly indulgent of my digressions thus far, and I mean no importuning. I do hope that Dan might at least take a look around, reading Jason's post at The Western Experience, and then think about how he might position himself between the orientation found there and the excoriations of "Judeo-Christian" ethics evinced in Bruce Bawer's comments at Little Green Footballs.

(And note that Bawer's comments were orignally sent via e-mail to Charles Johnson, which he subsequently published in his thread by permission. At the least, we can see this as an endorsement of Bawer's views, and the notion that Johnson might see those supportive of Judeo-Christian values as "fascist" is not at odds with his program of demonizing neoconservatives who privilege Western culture over the creeping Islamization of Europe.)

But let me be clear: I'm not instigating a flame war with Charles Johnson or anyone else. I'm interested in fleshing out what we stand for on the right. This discussion is primarily of academic interest, and its' important so far as Dan Riehl previously noted how he had little use for ideological labels. In response, I noted that:

I'm neoconservative, but the label's not as important to me as is a pro-life, pro-family, and pro-victory ideological paradigm that takes moral traditionalism seriously and doesn't skimp on standing up for what's right, both home and abroad.

I'll conclude here, then, by just adding that there's an internal logic to the neoconservative perspective that aderes to a moral consistency on questions of life, liberty, and culture. An extreme libertarianism, espoused in brief by Bruce Bawer's comments above, and endorsed by Charles Johnson at his blog, would use the very Judeo-Christian legacies of rights and liberties to in fact weaken the social conservatism that is tied to a politics of faith and reason in God. Knowing that the same kind of groups that push gay culture licentiousness at home are now a key component of the leftist coaltion that is enabling the merchants of Islamic death abroad, it might pay for some of those who are hoping to stick with a principled small-government orientation to spread their sights a bit to perhaps recognize that the sustainability of small government culture and freedom at home depends on security from external enemies. There's no doubt paleolibertarians are in bed with secular progressives intent to tear down America's alleged "imperialist" power grab. We should be equally aware that the extreme secular libertarianism found at Little Green Footballs is not far behind.

If this is conservatism, it's not the kind paradigm that's going to preserve what's best of this nation, contrary to what its adherent may otherwise believe.

Photo Credit: The Brussels Journal, "Is This What it is All About?"

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs: 'Arafat Truther'

I saw this earlier and wasn't going to post, but Israel Matzav administers the epic smackdown, and it's worth spreading viral. See: "It's come to this: Chuckles the Clown becomes an Arafat truther":

...just when you thought that Charles Johnson's Little Green Footballs could not possibly sink any lower, we find that @Lizardoid is now giving credibility to the notion that 'someone' ('Israel is going to be the most likely suspect') poisoned Yasser Arafat. I would rate that as being the Middle East equivalent of claiming that George W. Bush hired 19 hijackers to fly two jets into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and one into the ground in Pennsylvania on 9/11/2001.

Yes, Charles Johnson - the guy who gave so many of us our start in conservative blogging - has become an Arafat truther.

Also at Diary of Daedalus, "According to al Jazeera":

This is just a sign of Charles now embracing all he was once against. His past support of Israel was one of the major hindrances for the Left to embrace him. Clearly this post is a wink and nod to the Israeli haters on the Left. Will Charles soon be linking to Hizb’Allah’s al Manar next?