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It's the water, stupid

"Whether that is in the Everglades or whether that is in the eastern Gulf region, or whether that's in North Dakota, we need to go where the energy is," Michele Bachmann said during a Florida stop Sunday: "Of course it needs to be done responsibly. If we can't responsibly access energy in the Everglades then we shouldn't do it." Why, oh, why, did she volunteer the Everglades in a Florida stop? We're with Debbie Wasserman Shultz (!), Allen West, John Hayward, the alligators and the manatees (above) on this. But it's all in how you frame the argument (see below).

"As a Floridian, I can see that Michele Bachmann's outrageous proposal to drill for oil and natural gas in the Everglades demonstrates just how out of touch Republicans are with the needs of Floridians and all Americans," said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D FL-20) today, tarring all of us on the right side of the aisle with a broad, holier-than-thou JournoList brush. We hate the land — especially the wetland — and all things bright and beautiful! Water purified by natural systems? Who needs it. Contrast her vitriolic tone with the measured rhetoric of her fellow Sunshine stater Rep. Allen West (R FL-22), who had this to say about Bachmann's proposal:

West also said fellow tea party celebrity Michele Bachmann made "an incredible faux pas" this week during her presidential campaign swing through Florida when she said she'd consider allowing drilling for oil and natural gas in the Everglades if it can be done safely.

"The Everglades is one of the natural wonders of the world …

"When I see her next week, I'll straighten her out about that," West said of the Republican Minnesota congresswoman. Freshman West is a member of the House Tea Party Caucus that Bachmann chairs.

"I happen to live quite near the Everglades, and I’m prepared to believe they should be eternally off-limits to drilling … provided that case is made with facts and reason," says John Hayward, puting things in perspective:

We’re reaching a major crisis point between environmentalism and industry. It’s been a long time coming. Too much of the debate is shrouded in illusions that we can’t afford any more. Too much has been declared “unthinkable” by hysterics and political opportunists like Wasserman Schultz. We need to start thinking about these issues …

That is a binary choice: if we want job growth and energy independence, we're going to have to drill in someone's "backyard."

Update: Bachmann maintains her stance (why, Michele, why?):

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

"First Responders and Clergyfolk are not very important to the powerful and the enlightened"

"Join us and thousands of patriots at the AFDI/SIOA 911 Freedom Rally at Ground Zero on the afternoon of September 11th. We will have a priest and a rabbi for the invocation as part of our program (just as we did last year). Be there," writes our sister grizzly in arms Pamela Geller from the front lines of the battle to retake the Shining City. Above, our own photo of The Divine Miss G at Joe Lieberman's victory party back in November of 2006.

"Sissy Willis, are you trying to start a revolt? :-)" twitters Elizabeth Scalia aka The Anchoress in reponse to our response to her fightin' words this evening regarding NYC Mayor Bloomberg's smug pronouncement that no first responders nor religious are welcome at the Big Apple's 10th-anniversary observance of 9/11. Quoting one of her commenters, we twittered:

I say that the people who MATTER should organize a memorial of their own. Just show up.

It turns out our old friend Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs is way ahead of the curve (see caption above). To get ourselves and our readers up to speed on the issues, a few excerpts from Scalia's transcendent must-read rant, some more telling comments from her commenters and finally our own take. Here's Elizabeth:

First Responders and Clergyfolk are not very important to the powerful and the enlightened. They only protect us, rescue us, resuscitate us, console us, pray with us, bless us and bury us. And when they die doing it, well, one does feel terrible about it for a whole news cycle or two. And then one takes a private jet somewhere, and tries to forget …

I don’t know why I should be surprised. Priests and First Responders are, like our troops, front-line folk. They’re like heroes in the cowboy flicks; they ride in, shoulder the burden, help put things to rights, and then — while the elite get on with assuming their power and asserting their primacy — they recede into the background. Only the very few stick around to say ‘thank you’ and wave them off. Sometimes children ask them to come back, or to stay.

This from Dave in the comments got our tea-party juices flowing:

Hmmm; a public event that is not public? I submit a “what if?” question … What if off-duty FDNY and NYPD show up, in uniform? Or, further suppose that priests, members of religious orders and the faithful also show up? Let us even invite the religiously inclined of all faiths. What if the ironworkers, laborers, and those who provided volunteer services for weeks and months to the site workers came without the “proper” invitation? All of those would be hard to ignore. Even though I am a former firefighter, I am part of larger community of persons sustained by ritual, tradition and faith. I cannot imagine that persons of power, wealth and inflated egos could wish to exclude those who gave so much for all of us.

Then this from Mark L:

Well. You can tell it has been ten years, can’t you.

Reminds me of an old piece of doggerel about sailors and soldiers (who are much like first responders):

The sailor/soldier and God alike are adored
When danger’s at hand, and not before.
Once danger has passed both alike are requited:
God is forgotten and the sailor/soldier is slighted.

"Just show up. Be there. Americans have the freedom of assembly," wrote commenter Lee:

Assemble at Ground Zero: NYC first responders, first responders from elsewhere who came to help, people who were there and remember, people who lost a loved one, people who have not forgotten what happened. And clergy: ministers, priest, rabbis, etc.

Start the REAL memorial commemoration: not this idiot thing organized by people who work for the idiot Bloomberg. And make the REAL memorial the one that MATTERS. A grass roots effort to commemorate an important moment in our country’s recent history.

Reminds us of Rick Santelli's "Rant for the Ages" from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade back in February of 2009, a truth-to-power call for a new "Tea Party" in response to President Obama's redistributionist mortgage-bailout plan. For us the great awakening had begun with Sarah Palin's emergence onto the national stage in August of 2008, when we fell head over heels for the mama grizzly's fierce determination and authentic American voice long before the "lamestream media" moved in for the kill. We got our activist feet wet in the Tea Party gatherings of spring 2009, then earned our wings helping Scott Brown dislodge the democrat establishment from the "Kennedy Seat" in January of 2010. November 2010, now November 2012. It's not just the democrats. It's the Ruling Class of both parties, and we're learning how to fight like a girl!

Update: Instalanche! Thank you, Professor Reynolds.

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

Through a glass brightly

Little Kitteh! Little Kitteh! burning bright, In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye, could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Was it the will of the Master of the Universe alone that gave life to man? Or did Adam — in the manner of LK above, gazing with longing through the seemingly impenetrable window that separated them — reach out to slip the surly bonds of earth to put out his hand/paw and touch the face of God/Tuck?

Update: Wordplay in the comments:

Chickelit: Heh. I am FeMale (iron man).

Connecticut Yankee: Actually, cats are a compound of iron, lithium, and neon: FeLiNe. (They're strong, they're great mood stabilizers, and they certainly light up our lives!)

Fight like a girl because you're not "just" a girl

Lively debate in the radio studio with Peter Ingemi (above) of DaTechGuyblog yesterday morning, then on to a "salon" at Borders Grille in Leominster with lotsa good food and drink and talk with local listeners, bloggers, radio talkers and writers.

"Mummy wanted a girl. At least one woman who didn't want a boy," we wrote our imail correspondent in high dudgeon in response to this bit of conventional wisdom that stuck in our craw this afternoon:

She: YET...for whatever reason, everbody wants a BOY!

We: In some cultures like Chinese, it apparently has to do with money ... inheritance and such ... course where does that come from? And where does it lead? [Not enough women for the men, not enough offspring to replace the old folks. Can you say Eurabia?]

She: Dowry is BIG, but … I feel blessed to have sons. I never had to go shopping at the MALL!!!

Peter invited Tuck into the studio, where he turned out to be a natural talker. Fun stuff. Then on to Borders for what our twitter friend Ginny aka ginthegin calls "Nip &Tuck."

We were discussing, of course, the latest bit of news from our friends on the genome side of the aisle about a new, relatively inexpensive lab test that tells you the sex of your prospective offspring before the life force ever has a chance to breathe free. There is something so wrong about playing God with that information, in our view. You're a married couple wanting a child, and you bypass nature's way to use modrin science to choose? So many unsavory things come tumbling out. The eternal sadness thinking about the little girl that might have been the light of your life. The way things turned out with the little boy who maybe didn't fulfill your dreams of him. Whatever. For us Thoreau's timeless words ring true:

The most alive is the wildest. Not yet tamed by man, it refreshes him.

Arrggghhh! We say that as the one-year-younger sister of a totally awesome older brother, best buddies when we were Joe and Mike having kicka fights in the early years, but then went our separate ways for years in the wake of this mentality:

We: I want to do it too. How come he can and I can't?

Mummy: Because you're a girl.

Don't remember the issue, but "because you're a girl" was seared, seared in our memory. We were a Sarah Palin "fight like a girl" gal from day one and never bought in to the boys-are-better narrative. When the Gramscian march through the institutions hijacked the feminist project with the postmodern woman-as-victim narrative, we were horrified. That's probably why we tossed our hat to the sky and shouted for joy: It's a girl? when Sarah Palin sprung onto the national stage three years back.

Update: Bill Quick of Daily Pundit links.

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

Dear John Podhoretz: I love you, but

John Podhoretz's twitter avatar (above) is one of our favorites, beaming father with enchanting daughter. Hard not to love the guy, and we do, but hey. This is politics!

"So unless I agree with every word you say I'm not with 'we the people'? Elitist!" tweets the divine John Podhoretz, playing with our own tweet:

You aren't one of dem fuddy-duddy Codevilla rul'g class types, are you? I always thought you were on the side of "We the people."

We were responding to Podhoretz's own provocative tweet:

If Sarah Palin runs, Mitt Romney does the Snoopy dance of joy.

Arrggghhhh! No one is cleverer and cuddlier than Podhoretz, but does he realize how condescending such tweets are to grassroots tea partiers like us, for whom Romneycare has always been a craw sticker and Palin always an authentic voice in the wilderness who speaks to us with a servant's heart?

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

Whither goest thou? "Only a living thing can go against the stream"

 "Against the Tide" by Rob Colvin.

"Shorter NYT: Tea party is out of the mainstream because members are white, religious and socially conservative," twitter buddy Hale Razor writes re Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell's inadvertently self-revelatory New York Times op ed, "Crashing the Tea Party," a fact-challenged, politically correct dismissal of us and our fellow constitutional conservatives as "less popular than much maligned groups like 'atheists' and 'Muslims.'" A couple of paragraphs, and then some analysis:

GIVEN how much sway the Tea Party has among Republicans in Congress and those seeking the Republican presidential nomination, one might think the Tea Party is redefining mainstream American politics.

But in fact the Tea Party is increasingly swimming against the tide of public opinion: among most Americans, even before the furor over the debt limit, its brand was becoming toxic … Interestingly, one group that approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right. 

Swimming against the tide, indeed. Redefining mainstream American politics is what the tea party has always been about, gentlemen, notwithstanding the last-gasp efforts of the powers that be like you and your fellow travelers in Sarah Palin's "lamestream media" to demonize us into oblivion. Can you say Tea Party terrorists? The Anchoress explains in her must-read review of Mark Steyn's After America: 

But Steyn is not writing solely about the social unrest and the hooliganism that so often comes with economic distress. After America warns that an over-regulated, bureaucracy-laden society, dissuaded from conceiving and achieving great things because too much has come between an idea and its execution, is a society dumbing down and numbing-up, growing not just stagnant, but inert, like Chesterton’s “dead thing” that “can go with the stream,” while “only a living thing can go against it.”

Oh, the irony that Harvard's Robert Putnam, author of the iconic "Bowling Alone," trapped in his tribal Pauline Kael bubble, is blind to what's right there before his eyes. As Hale Razor twittered:

Putnam sees social isolationism and decreasing church attendance, yet can't spot a nexus, while ripping social conservatives.

Putnam's "groundbreaking book based on vast data," published just over a decade ago before blogs and twitter and facebook and other social media reshaped and re-energized the public square, seems sadly set in amber today:

Putnam warns that our stock of social capital – the very fabric of our connections with each other, has plummeted, impoverishing our lives and communities.

Putnam draws on evidence including nearly 500,000 interviews over the last quarter century to show that we sign fewer petitions, belong to fewer organizations that meet, know our neighbors less, meet with friends less frequently, and even socialize with our families less often. 

Signing fewer petitions and belonging to fewer organizations? That is so yesterday, Mr. Putnam. You and your co-author need to get out more. You shoulda interviewed people like ourselves before writing that New York Times relic. Tea Partay!

Update: Doug Ross of Larwyn's Linx links.

Update II: Michelle Malkin Buzzworthy link (to our crosspost at Dan's).

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

James Pethokoukis: "Perhaps a storm is about to sweep down from the Far North"

EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska. The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, shines above Bear Lake here January 18, 2005. The lights are the result of solar particles colliding with gases in Earth's atmosphere. Early Eskimos and Indians believed different legends about the Northern Lights, such as they were the souls of animals dancing in the sky or the souls of fallen enemies trying to rise again.

"Perhaps a storm is about to sweep down from the Far North!" twitters the divine Jimmy P, aka James Pethokoukis, in response to this tweet of ours:

This too will pass? The drought will continue?

We were responding to Jimmy's original tweet, "Like a Texas summer storm, Perry sweeps over Iowa Straw Poll," linking to his latest must-read post:

Congratulations to Michele Bachmann, but the big political winner Saturday wasn’t in Ames, Iowa. That politician was half a country away in South Carolina, completely scrambling the Republican presidential race.

1) Online betting markets have already decided that Texas Gov. Rick Perry is no flash in the Panhandle — another Fred Thompson or Wesley Clark who sparks a flurry of interest but quickly fades. To bettors, it’s a two-horse race and a dead heat between Perry and Mitt Romney. But anyone listening to Perry’s well delivered, muscular, high-energy speech in Charleston, S.C., would probably draw the same political conclusion. He hit tea party-friendly themes and hit them well.

Neither Romney nor Perry will likely hesitate in, shall we say, contrasting their records. Romney will play up his business career as a successful private equity investor and venture capitalist and slam Perry as a “career politician” and "crony capitalist.“ And Perry will counter with attacks on Romney’s Obamacare-esque healthcare plan in Massachusetts, as well as stressing his own inspirational life story (son of tenant farmers to presidential candidate).

Jimmie left his readers hanging with this:

Assuming no other heavy hitters join the race. Perry-Romney is shaping up to be an epic brawl between two aggressive candidates with impressive resumes, both able to raise boat loads of campaign cash. Let the Austin-Boston battle begin.

"Assuming no other heavy hitters join the race"? We refer you once again to Jimmie's taunting tweet above:

Perhaps a storm is about to sweep down from the Far North!

Hmmm. We were just thinking the very thing ourselves.

Update: Rand Simberg of Transterrestrial Musings links:

It’s going to be a very interesting race for the Republican nomination, and I suspect that whoever emerges from it will be the stronger for it, and ready to send the president back to academia.

Crossposted at Riehl World View. 

King or kingmaker, Sarah Palin's heart and mind will energize seekers of wisdom and truth

Sarah Palin and Herman Cain embrace at Iowa State Fair. "Have heard Herman Cain is warm and energizing in person. I fell for him way back when, used a quote in Tea Party sign," we twittered Ginny aka ginthegin this afternoon, quoting the man with a plan: "Stay inspired: We the people are still in charge." 

"King or kingmaker, her heart and mind will energize seekers of wisdom and truth," we twittered libertarian twitter friend Doug Mataconis this afternoon in response to his smiley-snarky challenge to our abiding faith in the Mama Grizzly who beckons us to "woman up" and "fight like a girl":

If you think Palin has any chance in a General Election, I want some of whatever drug you're trippin' on :)."

Even as Texas Governor Rick Perry upstaged the usual Iowa Straw Poll suspects with a rousing call to arms this afternoon — throwing his hat in the ring at the Red State Gathering of bloggers [!] in South Carolina and putting the democrat smear-mongers on high alert — Sarah Palin was playing hard to get. But not to worry. She's biding her time, disintermediating the powers that be with her usual flair, shooting to where it's going, not to where it's been. We loved this after-the-break teaser from CNN's Candy Crowley this evening in the aftermath of Michele Bachmann's winning the straw poll and write-in candidate Perry's outpolling Mitt, Newt, Jon and Thaddeus:

So what's Palin's goal? Why's she getting all the attention?

Dan Riehl explains:

Put aside the purely Republican primary politics of it for a moment. Also, I'm not endorsing her, or anyone at this point. But what happened in Iowa yesterday was electric, not just for any Palin faithful, but for many Conservatives and especially the media. For better, or worse, Sarah Palin has star power — whatever that is.

Palin has two critical qualities, unique in that they combine in her. Beholden to no one, without fear, or restraint, Palin articulates today's conservatism in a prudent, positive and cogent manner. More than that, the media, while much of it both loves and hates her, conveys her message to an audience far more broadly than they do for any other contemporary politician. 

It's the electricity, stupid? As we twittered Mary Katherine Ham this afternoon in response to her praise of Rick Perry's storytelling skills:

We need storytellers to tell our side of the story, capture the mushy middle's imagination with powerful memes and narratives.

Enter, stage right, Sarah Palin. King or kingmaker? Just like the Tea Party itself, she is recasting the terms of the debate. Will inattentive citizens finally notice the disconnect between the Palin-is-stupid narrative and what they can see with their own eyes? 

Update: Linked at Conservatives4Palin in the comments to a related post citing our buddy Smitty of The Other McCain, who writes:

I agree with Dan’s whole post, but a third point (maybe a variation on the first point) is that she has already borne the brunt of an unbridled propaganda assault without crumbling. The more the minions of the Progressive Cthulhu strike at her, the stronger she becomes, and the more openly craven and stupid they appear. She rises like a phoenix from their ashes.

Why the continued hesitation, then? She has more to gain by not explicitely declaring.

Update II: Doug Ross's Larwyn's Linx links.

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

John Kerry vs Tea Party: It's the Rubber Duckie, stupid

"I have to tell ya. I say this to you politely," John Kerry said impolitely to MSNBC's Morning Joe audience the other day, parrotting the Journolist talking-points meme of the day, Tea Party as illegitimate "hostage taker" of the nation's political debate over the debt deal. "Balanced approach" and "compromise" were the plebe-polled words of choice, but a number of the Tea Party freshmen weren't buying. "It doesn't deserve the same credit as a legitimate idea about what you do," pontificated the "seared, seared" Senator Kerry. We guess it depends upon what your definition of "legitimate" is.

So much blog fodder, so little time. Two items. First, this from our reality-challenged friends on the left side of the twittersphere:

The only thing keeping the GOP in charge of this country is the corrupted media. Take that away, and these jerks are done.

Who knew the GOP — with the White House and half the Congress held by the opposition and the MSM in their pocket — was in charge? Must be those terrorist Tea Party types holding John Kerry & Company hostage. 'Course we couldn't agree more about "the corrupted media," but just who are "these jerks" they refer to? In our parallel universe it's always been the media's fellow travelers on the left side of the aisle that weight the scales in favor of the progressive narrative. Which leads us to our second item, an eureka moment of what is wrong with the Gramscian project. See below.

This idea isn’t going to make a big splash with Rubber Duckie," notes Your Daddy's Politics:

An online campaign to pressure the producers of “Sesame Street” into having lovable roommates Bert and Ernie (above) get married is gathering steam. Getting hitched would change things for Ernie, who has long sang about how his bath toy, Rubber Duckie, “was the one.”

That was when the lightbulb went off. Imagine yourself as a child. Bro & sis, mom and dad. Bert and Ernie a couple of goofy guys on one of your favorite shows. They're going to get married? Can you say cognitive dissonance? Mainly, though, it would be terrifying and so wrong, destroying a kid's safe haven of the way the world is. Not unlike the violation visited on the bodies of the innocent by a child molester, these we-know-what's-best-for-you elitists would violate the heart and soul of the innocent:

More than 700 people have signed on to the petition, posted at change.org.  “We are not asking that Sesame Street do anything crude or disrespectful,” reads the petition for the muppet merger. “It can be done in a tasteful way. Let us teach tolerance of those that are different.”

You want tolerance of "those that are different"? Look to the animals, especially the "rare baby Sand Cat" born at Israel's Safari Zoo recently:

Once a common cat in the dunes of Israel, the cat has become basically extinct in the region. The newborn has given hope to conservationalists who hope one day to reintroduce the Sand Cat to the wild.

Update: Snippets from an imail conversation:

She: Am SICK about what they are attempting to do with Bert and Ernie. It would be like if Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis got married. It DESTROYS the concept of true friendship. Goofy Guy/Straight Man are no longer funny, once they become a married couple.

We: The Odd Couple comes to mind.

Update II: "IT'S FLOPPY LIKE A GARDEN HOSE":

Clinching proof that Bert and Ernie are gay.

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

From violent, racist "teabaggers" to debate changers with a seat at the table

"If a good political compromise is one that has something for everyone to hate, then last night's bipartisan debt-ceiling deal is a triumph," says the WSJ this morning: "The big picture is that the deal is a victory for the cause of smaller government, arguably the biggest since welfare reform in 1996." Enough of a "balanced approach" for you, Mr. President? It's the momentum, stupid (see below). Above, image of Kitty Hawk Class aircraft carrier.

"I'm with you on this," twitters Mary Katharine Ham as others out here in the twittersphere and blogosphere with whom we usually agree are scoffing at debt-ceiling-deal headlines this morning like the Wall Street Journal's "A Tea Party Triumph" or Mark Thiessen's piece in the WaPo, "How the Tea Party 'hobbits' won the debt fight." Here's MK:

Is it a giant victory for American people? No, but by pathetic Congressional measures, it's a step forward.

We agree. As we twittered back to our protesting friends:

Metaphor that works for me: Changing direction of aircraft carrier. Slow it down, keeps going in same direction awhile.

Consider, too, turnaround of Tea Party in MSM narrative. From violent, racist "teabaggers" to debate changers with a seat at the table.

Not to mention the lame Tea Partier as terrorist meme the President and his crew were desperately trying to sell the American public last week. Their attempts at demonizing us are being overtaken by events. We were delighted to see our friend Peter Ingemi of DaTechGuyblog had already "read/skimmed" the 74-page budget bill and sees it as we do as a course correction:

After reading the bill, if it was up to me, I’d be a yes vote. This bill is not an example of steaming in the right direction, it is an example of completing the turn of the ship so it is facing in the right direction but you have to turn the ship before you change directions. This is the turn.

As the WSJ editors note: "The tea partiers pride themselves on adhering to the Constitution, which was intended to make political change difficult.

Yet in this deal they've forced both parties to make the biggest spending cuts in 15 years, with more cuts likely next year. The U.S. is engaged in an epic debate over the size and scope of government that will play out over several years, and the most important battle comes in the election of 2012.

Update: Michelle Malking Buzzworthy link!

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.