Sadly, No!

Gee, and I thought The Left was s’posed to be filled with out-of-touch elitists. ‘Cause apparently, the opposite is true:

How gloomy Americans are about the direction of the country and President George W. Bush’s leadership depends on how much money they make.

Twenty-three percent of all Americans said the country is on the right track, a 15-year low, according to a new Bloomberg poll. Among those with higher incomes, 43 percent said the country is on the right path. Three-fifths of Americans disapproved of the job Bush is doing, compared with 38 percent who approved. Among those with household income higher than $100,000, the gap is smaller, with 53 percent disapproving and 46 percent approving.

Wealthier Americans also have a more favorable opinion of Bush’s handling of the economy, with 52 percent approving of Bush’s record while just 43 percent of all Americans approve. About 2 in 10 U.S. households have income of more than $100,000.

On the Iraq war, more high earners approved of Bush’s policies and they were significantly more critical of a Democratic plan to withdraw troops by March of next year. Forty- nine percent of high earners oppose the plan, to just 39 percent of all Americans.

Evan Davidson, a 44-year-old financial firm recruiter who participated in the poll, said in a follow-up interview that Bush deserves to be judged on issues other than the war.

“The economy is doing fairly well, the market is doing extremely well,” said Davidson, an independent who lives in Grapevine, Texas. “It’s had a few corrections, which is normal. Overall there’s a lot of money out there for investing.”

I’m sure single moms working at Wal-Mart for 50 hours a week are jumping for joy.

You know, the Right’s successful campaign of inventing their public image as heartland populists while portraying the Left as sissified elitists is one of the most remarkable achievements in all of modern propaganda. It’d be like my goofy white ass convincing y’all that I’m really a beautiful black lesbian lawyer named Foxy Bradrocket. It’d be like Dan Riehl convincing y’all that his parents now allow him to use utensils that don’t have rubber safety tips at the end of them. It’d be like Ann Coulter convincing you that her totally enormous Adam’s apple really isn’t a malevolent leprechaun that lives inside her throat and tells her to call people “faggots.” It’d be like Jamil Hussein and Daffyd ab Hugh convincing you that the giant sandwich they found outside that burned and bombed mosque is really a… no, fuck it, I will simply not go there.

The point is, it’s an amazing feat. They have waged a brilliant information war that has convinced millions of people to believe precisely the opposite of what is true. At some point, you just have to tip your hat.

This isn’t funny, because when I looked in the fridge just before, the big, oblong Tupperware container with ‘giant sandwich!!!’ written on it was gone.

Above: The SadNo breakroom fridge

Less funny still, the crisper was full of Dafydd ab Hugh:

The Pentagon’s New Map – Simplified

I just realized I can boil down much of what Thomas P.M. Barnett writes in his book the Pentagon’s New Map to a single pair of sentences. This drops all the fine detail, of course; its advantage is that it makes the central point as clear as a nutshell.

You know, there’s a lot to say about Barnett, and about ab Hugh’s reading of Barnett. (The point for ab Hugh, as usual, is that we’re fighting The Ultimate War to Save Civilization from the Klingon Empire Eternal Muslim Conspiracy, and the sooner we get down to ethnic cleansing, the better.) But Ab Hugh is a formidable stylist as well as a first-rate thinker, so in order better to explicate this key insight for the slower students among us, we’ve prepared a set of visual aids.

Fig. 1: The central point

Fig. 2: Is as clear

Fig. 3: As a nutshell

Barnett divides the world into two regions: the Functioning Core and the Non-Integrating Gap. And I can define those two thus:

The core is in the middle, and the gap is…a gap in the core that’s in the middle? Word, yo: I’m totally quitting now before that Last Mimzy stuff starts happening.

Above: Force majeure, as only the
professional can apply to the amateur.

Diagnosis: Cheney

• Hey, I perform the diagnoses around here, and all you liberals are a bunch of fuckin’ loons.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard.

‘Not so fast, prick’ is what most decent people think of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s attempt to rehabilitate his career as menace to humanity. But now even indecent people are stating reasons why Gingrich should fuck off from politics:

[Gingrich was an] ineffective Speaker. He knew nothing about running meetings and nothing about driving an agenda.

Nearly every other day he had a new agenda, a new direction he wanted us to take. It was impossible to follow him.

[The Republican] leadership was in no moral shape to press [for Clinton’s impeachment].

It is now public knowledge that Newt Gingrich was having an affair with a staffer during the entire impeachment crisis. Clearly, men with such secrets are not likely to sound a high moral tone at a moment of national crisis.

Hear, hear! But whose quotes are those? Ahh, horrible scumbag Tom DeLay, as quoted in horrible scumbag Bob Novak’s latest column.

Gavin adds: Of course, as many of our right-wing counterparts would have it these days, the true issue is neither ethics nor moral decency, but all the rack-fracking profanity on the flip-jabbing liberal Internet sites.

If you ask me, that whole shack full of ship-jacking sack-flappers ought to shag the frat hat, instead of flak-trapping like a bunch of jag-nap chap-braggers. And I mean ‘in bed,’ as it were.

Grrr.

First thing is Barack Obama buying into the fascist, ‘Cult of Teh Macho‘ smear on John Edwards:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) slipped in a compliment — of sorts — about a fellow 2008 hopeful during his appearances on the Iowa stump last weekend.

“I want to wait and hear what John Edwards has to say, he’s kind of good-looking,� Obama envisioned Iowa caucus-goers from the small town of Clinton telling themselves. During an appearance in West Burlington, Iowa, the phrase appeared again, this time with Edwards as “kind of cute.�

Read the rest of this entry »

When last we caught up with our old Renew America pal Nathan Tabor, he had flamed out of the North Carolina State Senate primary, then landed butter-side-up by starting another of his dodgy, apparently family-supported enterprises — this time, an Internet consulting firm.

Above: Nathan “Natty Chumppo” Tabor, providing solutions since 2006

It is with a hale howdy-do that we encounter Nathan’s latest column, in which he turns his canny telescope upon the 2008 presidential election:

Don’t Count Out Conservatives
March 8, 2007

[…]

Still, the man who’s been dubbed “America’s Mayor” may not have what it takes to be “America’s President.” For one thing, he lacks authentic conservative credentials. While Giuliani can claim that he would appoint a Roberts- or Alito-type to the U.S. Supreme Court, he’s pro-abortion. That means he’s beholden to the abortion faction in our nation — a faction that believes partial-birth abortion should be considered in the same light as gum surgery. Once Republicans regain control of Congress, it’s tough to imagine Giuliani signing legislation that would offer any sort of protection to unborn children.

In addition, Giuliani is not in a position to defend family values, given his history of defending special rights for people who actively engage in a homosexual lifestyle. As Michael Long of the New York state Conservative Party said in 2004, “I just don’t see Rudy Giuliani being able to sway conservatives within the Republican Party. The gay marriage issue draws a line down the middle of the street, and Rudy Giuliani is something of a champion of gay rights.” As mayor of New York, Giuliani signed a “domestic partnership” bill; he has supported civil unions for homosexuals; and he lived with two homosexual men.

Is Giuliani the most liberal candidate running for the White House? Hillary and Barack could certainly give him a run for his liberal money. But the hero of 9/11 is no conservative, and it would be a mistake for the mainstream media to count out conservatives this Presidential election season — even if it would cause them trouble meeting their deadlines.

Nathan Tabor is a conservative political activist based in Kernersville, North Carolina, where he owns a successful small business and was recently a candidate for Congress. He has his Master’s Degree in Public Policy from the Robertson School of Government at Regent University.

Hmm. But that’s not quite right. Let’s help Nathan out with his bio.

“Nathan Tabor is a conservative political activist based in Kernersville, North Carolina, where [his family] owns a successful [large] business, and [where several years ago he was] [an open-seat primary candidate] for Congress. He has [an online Master’s degree] in Public Policy from the [Pat] Robertson School of Government at Regent University, [and is currently employed as the Director of Internet Outreach for the Duncan Hunter campaign].”

We are so incredibly looking forward to the official Duncan Hunter press release on this — the one that will explain why his Director of Internet Outreach is attacking other Republican candidates on a major conservative website without disclosing any relationship to the campaign.

If David Frum doesn’t stop with the heavy, snarkless, witless sarcasm he’s gonna land a permanent gig at Commentary, where bloated and unfunny sneering is the house style.

Frum: “Oh, look at the Clintons. They’re making people happy!
They’re the perverted people from Hornyland, in a scandalous
house on Semen-stain Lane!”

Here he considers how the economic downturn will affect the presidential race. He saves Hillary for last:

[M]ight there be renewed hope here for the Hillary Clinton candidacy? There was always a kind of primitive Golden Bowl fertility cult aspect to the Clintons’ popularity in the 1990s: So long as the fisher king was boffing maidens in the Oval Office, the harvest would come in healthy and rich. Then the fisher king departed to his great tower in the sky, and since then we have had nothing but trouble. Can Hillary tap into this great primeval instinct? Might she subtly suggest that she would restore the orgiastic rituals that brought affluence in the past? Rationalists might doubt that presidential sexual hijinks really enrich the nation. But believers can retort: They sure didn’t hurt!

David Frum, still hating on Teh Clenis — and not just Teh Clenis, but the vast majority of Americans who WOULD NOT HATE TEH CLENIS WITH HIM!!1!!!1!. See?! It’s funny because it’s so loaded with elitist and puritan contempt.

I’m devastated’. Heartbroken’. How could’….? [Siiigh] Let me explain.

Above, Marie Jon’: My’ best’ friend’s girl’/ She’ used’ to’ be’ mine’.

Marie started her latest column by getting all biblical, arguing that just as God sent Jesus to redeem the sins of mankind which were inspired by that ultimate traitor, Satan, so too has Bush sent the Army to free Iraq despite the best efforts of the Left:

Using the word of God as a kind of metaphor, just as God sent our Lord and Savior “to set the captives free,” so did President G. W. Bush impacted Iraq with the opportunity to grasp the gift of freedom.

Of course this is exactly the sort of thing that made me love Marie in the first place.

She knows the biblical stuff slays me. ‘Satan’ was always her pet name for me, back in the halcyon days when we were lovers and the world seemed new, the birds chirped, flowers last in the dooryard bloom’d. So I read her column thinking, ‘Yessss, she misses me; there is hope still.’ I fully expected to be mentioned next, as it used to be her habit of flirtation to follow the biblical spiel with calling me a traitor to America, after which we’d kiss, cash a bongload of ganja, and together ululate passages of the Koran into the wee hours. Hot stuff. Then I saw this:

It is sadly amazing just how wrongly the far Left Democrats perceive their works while serving their country in the legislative halls. They are out-and-out obstructionist and traitors to America.

Dolchstoss, dolchstoss!

Seb, how could you? All tall, concrete, and handsome over there. You think your treason’s enough for Marie?! “Amazing,” even! Yeah, well, I invented fucking treason! Gaaah.

Gah. [Sob]

It’s always the last person one suspects.

Since we’re trading schticks like The Replacements traded instruments on that one song, let’s see what’s going on tonight over at Blogs For Bush:

Some people are just determined to make fools of themselves.

Hey, now this sounds promising. Hang on a sec’ while I crack open that other bottle of Stone’s IPA and — Dang. It’s just this thing from CNET News.com about Dan Rather being interviewed at SXSW by Jane Hamsher (which is spelled “Hampshire” in subsequent refs, strangely enough) and … well, let’s roll that beautiful bean footage:

What journalism actually needs is an honesty implant [Ed. Note: Zing!] – so wrapped up in careerism and deathly afraid of offending liberal pieties, journalism has become dishonest; not so much unwilling to tell the truth, but afraid to. The whole system has made it much easier to lie than to tell the truth.

The system has made it? Made what? Much easier? Much easier to what? Lie to whom? What for? When did this … ? But why? And how!

Think about it – how hard is it to get, say, an article calling our troops criminals printed compared with how hard it is to get an article printed calling our troops heros?

Aw hell, Mark. I dunno. I’m too tired to think. Most of the articles I write are about traffic accidents and sex offenders, if they aren’t restaurant reviews, so why don’t you —

Much easier, even if you aren’t anti-American or unpatriotic, to just go with the flow, churn out the articles your editor wants and slowly rise through the journalistic ranks…with the talk show or the best selling book at the pinnacle of success.

Slowly rise? I’ve been slowly rising, if you wanna call it that, for the last 15 years, and I still don’t have a book deal. Under what pseudonym are you writing seditious articles, Mark? And can you put in a good word for me with your editor?

Submitted largely without comment:

Above: From the same right-wing failure factory that funds the
Powerline guys as ‘scholars’

HTML adds: For those keeping track of Claremont math, the latest scribble sheet looks something like this: Mark Steyn = Mark Twain + Winston Churchill, Donald Rumsfeld = Winston Churchill, ergo Donald Rumsfeld = 1/2 Mark Steyn. Meanwhile, Dear Leader — after many sessions with the same sort of fucktard’s abacus — offers a new formula: George W. Bush + Jebus > Winston Churchill. I dunno where that places Bush in relation to Mark Steyn, and even trying to work the problem has made my calculator explode.