Politically correct genocide

Saving the planet by eliminating Africans?

Rushing to the front of the race for the prize of Most Vomit-Inducing Environmental Initiative Ever Devised, the UK's Optimum Population Trust -- which counts such grandees as David Attenborough and Jonathon Porritt among its supporters -- has just launched PopOffsets. This quirkily named campaign is actually deeply sinister: It invites well-off Westerners to offset their carbon emissions by paying for poor people in the Third World to stop procreating.
In short, if you feel bad about your CO2-emitting jaunt to Barbados, or the new Ferrari you just splurged on, then simply give some money to a charity which helps to "convince" Third World women not to have children, and -- presto! -- the carbon saved by having one less black child in the world will put your guilt-ridden mind at rest.
The Optimum Population Trust is a creepy Malthusian outfit made up of Lords, Ladies, and Sirs who all believe that the world's problems are caused by "too many people." It recently carried out a cost-benefit analysis of the best way to tackle global warming and "discovered" (I prefer the word "decided") that every £4 spent on contraception saves one ton of CO2 from being added to the environment, whereas you would need to spend £8 on tree-planting, £15 on wind power, £31 on solar energy, and £56 on hybrid vehicle technology to realize the same carbon savings.

When Jill at Pundit and Pundette brought Brendan O’Neill's item to my attention, I was moved to remark:

What makes such idiocy as "population offsets" fashionable among the bien pensant sophisticates is their conceited belief that they possess a monopoly on good intentions, and that good intentions are all that matter. That nonsensical belief was thoroughly debunked by Thomas Sowell's The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy.
Once you understand the nature of this fallacy -- "Good intentions toward Group X will result in policy beneficial to Group X" -- you gain a certain contempt for the way liberals habitually celebrate their own good intentions by accusing conservatives of mala fides. In terms of public policy, it matters not a whit whether you love Africans, hate Africans or don't have an opinion about Africans; the test is whether they are actually benefitted by your policy. . . .

You can read the whole thing. I conclude by observing how elitists try to get away with sloppy thinking by stigmatizing their critics with labels like "anti-intellectual."

That method of argument-by-accusation should always arouse suspicion: What are they trying to hide? And the suspicion is compounded when the global-warming fearmongers require 140 private planes and 1,200 limousines to carry them to the "Climate Summit."

Coincidentally -- speaking of green lies -- Andrew Breitbart today found himself accused of murderous malice by . . . Charles Johnson. Laura W. at AOSHQ has more mendaciousness by Mad King Charles.

Sad times for The Washington Times

Via Memeorandum, I notice my buddy Jimmie Bise has blogged about the recent sad news at the Washington Times. I left a comment there:

You know, Jimmie, I tendered my resignation in January 2008, two days after they hired the Washington Post's John Solomon to replace Wes Pruden as editor. Right after Solomon's hiring was announced, one of my newsroom colleagues said to me, "If I had wanted to work for a Postie, I would have applied at the %$#&ing Post!"

Exactly -- but that colleague didn't quit. I did. And my decision proved to be the smart move. I got out before things went to hell, which has given me a two-year head start on establishing an independent career online, while most of my former colleagues who haven't already been kicked to the curb soon will be.

Understand this: I never had anything personally or politically against John Solomon, and Dave Bossie (a staunch conservative) described Solomon as a good guy. But I've always felt that any good organization should promote from within, which had been the general policy of the Washington Times.

During my decade-plus at the Times (1997-2008), the top jobs were almost always held by people who had proven their ability and their loyalty through years of hard work for the company. The most notable exception to that policy was when they hired Tony Blankley as editorial page editor and, given Blankley's national reputation, there was not much grumbling about that.

The decision of the newspaper's management to pass over Fran Coombs in favor of Solomon as Wes Pruden's replacement was a mistake. Solomon's subsequent hiring of his Washington Post buddy Jeff Birnbaum as a managing editor was a worse mistake, and hiring USA Today's Barbara Slavin as assistant managing editor was worse still.

With three top newsroom positions filled by recent outside hires, the effective message to the newsroom staff was: "Screw you, you're not good enough to deserve a promotion."

The Disgruntled and Dysfunctional
Like I said, I'm glad I got out before that happened. In any large organization, just about everybody will eventually get passed over for promotion at some time, and it's easy to become disgruntled.

The promotion I got in 2003, from assistant national editor to editor of the "Culture, Etc." page, was not the job I wanted -- I actually begged them not to put me there -- but loyalty is loyalty. And I did such a good job at it as to make myself irreplaceable. (After I left, the new editors eliminated the culture page, which President Bush had praised as his favorite feature in his favorite paper.)

When I was hired at The Washington Times in November 1997, I'd promised my wife I'd only stay three to five years, then parlay that national-level experience into a job at some paper in her native Ohio. Ah, but then there was the Lewinsky scandal, the impeachment, the 2000 election deadlock, 9/11 . . .

How could I walk away from the thrill of being smack-dab in the middle of stuff like that? So I stayed, even if I was stuck in a desk-job that wasn't exactly my cup of tea. In doing so, however, I was violating career the advice I've always given to others: "If you don't move up, move out."

An Ounce of Loyalty
Life is too short to waste time being bitter because you didn't get the promotion you wanted. Either make the best of the job you're in, or else find another company that will recognize and reward your abilities. If you're really good at what you do, you'll success, and the company that failed to make full use of your abilities will regret your departure.

Beyond the general decline of the newspaper business, much of what has gone wrong at The Washington Times was a function of faulty organizational dynamics. The spirit of teamwork was undermined because of a relative handful of spiteful, selfish, disgruntled malcontents who did not heed Elbert Hubbard's wise advice:

If you work for a man, in heaven's name work for him!
If he pays you wages that supply you your bread and butter, work for him -- speak well of him, think well of him, stand by him and stand by the institution he represents.
I think if I worked for a man I would work for him. I would not work for him a part of the time, and the rest of the time work against him. I would give an undivided service or none.
If put to the pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness.
If you must vilify, condemn and eternally disparage, why, resign your position and, when you are outside, damn to your heart's content. But, I pray you, so long as you are a part of an institution, do not condemn it. Not that you will injure the institution -- not that -- but when you disparage the concern of which you are a part, you disparage yourself.

There were too many people at the Washington Times -- only a handful, really, but enough to destroy the spirit of effective teamwork -- who thought they knew how to run a newspaper better than Wes Pruden and Fran Coombs knew how to run a newspaper. They have had their way and, as a result, the newspaper has been run into the ground.

It's a crying shame, and it remains to be seen whether The Washington Times can ever again become what it once was: The most important newspaper in the world, providing an invaluable balance to the liberal Post, reporting stories in the nation's capital that would have otherwise been ignored.

Tuckpo Update
Last night, I saw a friend who gave me the latest word on Tucker Carlson's long-delayed DailyCaller.com. They've reportedly gotten a new investment of $3 million and now expect to roll out in January -- at least six months later than Carlson promised in May.

Well, good luck with that, but I'm reminded of a conversation I had this past spring. After seeing what I'd written in the wake of the Culture 11 Hindenberg-at-Lakehurst implosion, I was contacted by guy who is affiliated with a major conservative foundation. He wanted to "pick my brain," as they say, about how an online news operation could be developed, and we talked for more than an hour.

Among other things, I explained that personnel is policy. What went wrong at Culture 11 had a lot to do with the fact that David Kuo was hired to run it. Kuo is a second-rater who couldn't make a profit on the snow-cone franchise in Hell, and there was nothing on his resume to suggest he knew anything about running a news operation. Hire the wrong guy at the top and you'll get bad results every time.

What I told my foundation-funded friend was this: If you're going to start a conservative news operation, the first thing you need to do is to hire Fran Coombs to run it. Nobody in Washington knows how to do it better, and anybody who tells you otherwise is wrong.

That was last spring. Given the subsequent success of BigGovernment.com, I'd say the second guy you need to hire if you're going to start a conservative news operation is Andrew Breitbart.

Whatever other decisions were subsequently made, any conservative news organization that could combine the Old School journalism savvy of Coombs with the New Media brilliance of Breitbart would be unbeatable. And you wouldn't need seven months and $3 million to make it happen.

As I say, I wish all the luck to DailyCaller.com. But it had better not suck.

I'm probably not supposed to notice this, but...

by Smitty (h/t Insty)

Are we moving into a new stage in the struggle for liberty?

We already knew that vast swaths the media were utterly useless propaganda organs. The Charles Johnson or whoever would break the story of rank deceit by somebody in possession of public trust.

Consider, though:

• Giles and O'Keefe had to pose as people engaging in criminal activity and use a spy camera to expose a worse problem. Now, Andrew Breitbart is trying to use the possibility of further video releases to pressure the US Attorney General into...doing an AG's job?
• We have a break-in at a British school that exposing that a world-wide cabal of scientists may not have been...doing their job?

People in positions of trust seem increasingly criminal in their approach to their tasks. Worse still, and this is the question I'm throwing out here, is the only remedy for honest people to engage in increasingly lawless behavior, with break-ins here and feigned criminal activity there, in order to support reform?

These were non-violent acts. One hopes that the reasonable, honest and sane can generate sufficient revolution at the ballot box to preclude worse.

RIGHT WING SCANDAL ROCKS D.C.: MATT WELCH SAYS JUST 'FRIENDS'

Earlier today, in an exclusive report, The Other McCain Enquirer brought you revelations of the shocking liaison between Matt Welch and Andrew Breitbart -- a right-wing scandal that has sparked rumors and innuendo from Washington to Hollywood.

Welch has claimed that he and Breitbart are merely "friends," while insinuating that "respectable news outlets" should avoid the brewing imbroglio. However, the Enquirer can now reveal that there is new proof of other furtive right-wing rendezvous . . .

Breitbart (left) with Stephen Hayes (far right) of the neocon Weekly Standard. The mysterious figure in the center has yet to be positively identified.

Enquirer sources say Welch has been known to cavort at parties with girls barely out of their teens.

Welch (left) with a 20-year-old named McCain (far right).

Breitbart's association with young girls is also notorious, as he is alleged to have used 20-year-old Hannah Giles in a scheme to secure non-profit funding to import South American teen prostitutes to work for infamous pimp, James O'Keefe. Miss Giles may also have other connections to the Welch/Breitbart neocon conspiracy, as shown by this stunning new Enquirer photo . . .

Left to far-right: Neoconservative author David Frum, Hannah Giles, nefarious right-wing operatives Tom Qualtere and Sergio Gor, and Lynn Vincent, infamous collaborator with Sarah Palin.

Furthermore, while it has been alleged by Kejda Germani that the woman in this photo is, in fact, married to the arch-conspirator Breitbart, the mysterious man shown with her (far right) has yet to be positively identified. He is, however, reputed to be an extremely social conservative.

The Enquirer is devoted to bringing you exclusive coverage of this emerging scandal that "respectable news outlets" refuse to touch . . . .

Hey, Matt: You steal the newspapers' lunch, I'll go for the National Enquirer

"You wanna help newspapers? Steal their lunch, and laugh in their face. Since almost all else has failed, maybe a cold slap can do the trick."
-- Matt Welch, Reason magazine

SHOCKING RIGHT-WING SCANDAL!

Washington has been abuzz with bizarre rumors of kinky activity between libertarian journalist Matt Welch and Internet news guru Andrew Breitbart. The whispers of scandal were heard as far away as Knoxville, Tennessee . . .

Breitbart has more important things to worry about than Conor Friedersdorf

Nevertheless, he condescends to take notice:

Conor Friedersdorf refuses to interview me as he continues to be my unofficial biographer. (I’m VERY reachable, Conor.) He writes opinion pieces on me purporting to be journalism. He doesn’t quote or cite me, he simply assumes and pushes the point of view he thinks I have and makes an argument based on these alleged positions.

He even provides free copy for Andrew Sullivan:

I don't resent criticism. I embrace it. But I do resent self-superior journalists attempting to malign me and my vision without coming to me to get my thoughts.

Don't waste your time, Andrew. They are The Republicans Who Really Matter, and their ambitions have nothing to do with anything you're interested in. They claim to be "conservatives" only because, if they didn't, they'd be just more piranhas in the liberal pool.

(Via Memeorandum.)

UPDATE: Ed Driscoll also wastes too much thought on Conor Friedersdorf. Ed -- everybody -- let me sum it up: It's about Conor. His ambitions exceed his knowledge, and that explains everything. Whatever there may be of ideology in Conor's peregrinations is summarized by Dan Riehl:

He's gone from Right to post-Modernist to the Daily Beast in two months. That's someone embracing anything just to find a home. I don't think he even knows what he is at this point.

Right. Politically, he's a platypus.

URGENT: ACORN SUES BREITBART

Via Newsbusters:

ACORN has filed a lawsuit in Maryland against James O’Keefe, Hannah Giles and the Web site Breitbart.com for secretly videotaping the organization’s employees at its Baltimore office.

Expect updates and maybe bikini photos . . .

(Don't hate me for that. Heaven knows I've suffered enough lately to be forgiven an innocent joke.)

MSM decline: Not a bug, but a feature

Stole that line from Dafydd ab Hugh in the Green Room, who relays this from The Hill:

The president said he is “happy to look at” bills before Congress that would give struggling news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses.
“I haven’t seen detailed proposals yet, but I’ll be happy to look at them,” Obama told the editors of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Toledo Blade in an interview.
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) has introduced S. 673, the so-called “Newspaper Revitalization Act,” that would give outlets tax deals if they were to restructure as 501(c)(3) corporations. That bill has so far attracted one cosponsor, Cardin’s Maryland colleague Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D).

My senators from the People's Republic of Maryland, who are aiming to bail out the disastrously mismanaged (and transparently biased) Baltimore Sun. You'll notice that nine times out of 10, when my buddy Jeff Quinton at Baltimore's Inside Charm City blog posts a scoop, it's first reported by WBAL, which runs circles around the Sun's anemic online operation. As always, the Welfare State ignores success and rewards failure. Carolyn Tackett comments:

It seems the way to get taxpayer money these days is to make nice with the Administration. This is certainly true of this country's newspaper industry which has either ignored, downplayed or buried stories critical to the administration. It is highly doubtful that the industry will be more likely to view the administration with a critical eye if the are being propped up by the government.

More at Memeorandum, Toledo Blade, JammieWearingFool and RedState.

Wonder what Obama would say if Republicans sponsored a bailout for Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com?

'I don't want to say Andrew Breitbart is a genius, but . . .'

". . . the last guy with a launch this successful was Neil Armstrong."
-- Jim Treacher

Oh, I'll say he's a genius, all right. The first time I met Breitbart, at CPAC a couple years ago, I stayed up to 5 a.m. listening to him talk. The most brilliant graduate of Tulane University since . . . well, can anyone name a rival? If you'd care to e-mail this to the Tulane University Alumni Association, and ask for a list of their most illustrious alumni, we'll see where Breitbart ranks.

But it ain't low.

Interview with Doug Giles, whose daughter Hannah helped take down ACORN

In wake of the news that the Census Bureau has cut ties withe ACORN, I posted this at The American Spectator:

I just got off the phone with Christian youth leader Doug Giles, whose 20-year-old daughter played the role of the prostitute "Kenya" in the now-famous videos.
"A lot of young activists just caught fire," said Giles. "I'd like to take credit, but it was all Hannah."
Giles said he has received an overwhelming response, entirely positive except for one negative e-mail from a "knucklehead."
As for the "community organizer" group exposed by the video at Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com, Giles said jokingly, "Those ACORN people are sweating in their nut-sacks."

Read the whole thing. Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin has text of the letter from the director of the Census Bureau to ACORN:

"Over the last several months, through ongoing communication with our regional offices, it is clear that ACORN's affiliation with 2010 Census promotion has caused sufficient concern in the general public, has ineed become a distraction from our mission, and may even become a discouragement to public cooperation, negatively impacting 2010 Census efforts. While not decisive factors in this decision, recent events concerning several local offices of ACORN have added to the worsening negative perceptions of ACORN and its affiliation with our partnership efforts. . . . We no longer have confidence that our national partnership agreement is being effectively managed through your offices."

Hasta la vista, dirtbags! BigGovernment.com has an official statement from the executive dirtbags at ACORN, and there's much more reaction at Memeorandum.

UPDATE: Ruh-roh. Jeff Quinton tipped me about this yesterday, and now Jeff follows up with this:

STATEMENT OF STATE’S ATTORNEYS OFFICE FOR BALTIMORE CITY RELATIVE TO THE ALLEGED BALTIMORE ACORN INCIDENT
Baltimore, MD – September 11, 2009 – We have received inquiries from citizens and the media asking whether the Baltimore City State’s Attorneys Office would initiate a criminal investigation for acts allegedly committed at ACORN offices located in Baltimore. The only information received in reference to this alleged criminal behavior was a YouTube video. Upon review by this office, the video appears to be incomplete. In addition, the audio portion could possibly have been obtained in violation of Maryland Law, Annotated Code of Maryland Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article §10-402, which requires two party consent.
If it is determined that the audio portion now being heard on YouTube was illegally obtained, it is also illegal under Maryland Law to willfully use or willfully disclose the content of said audio. The penalty for the unlawful interception, disclosure or use of it is a felony punishable up to 5 years.

WBAL is also reporting this angle. Such a prosecution would be a public-relations disaster for the state, for Democrats and for ACORN, but when liberals get a jones for vengeance, they don't usually care about such things. Just ask Linda Tripp.

UPDATE II: Evidently, Hot Air and Ace of Spades were on it first, but I saw it via Jeff Quinton's Inside Charm City, which is why I credited him. Also blogging at Weasel Zippers. Will update if further developments.

BTW, I'm told Hannah Giles will be on Fox News' "Red Eye" tonight, and Ann Coulter will also be a guest.

UPDATE III: Michelle Malkin is on the story, and Ed Morrissey has the lowdown on the state's attorney in Baltimore, Patricia Jessamy, a liberal Democrat hack -- as might be expected. That's why they call them "Baltimorons," after all.

Notice that when Fox News covers ACORN, that's raaaaacist. However, when the Washington Post is compelled to follow up on the news . . . crickets chirping.

Also, as Little Miss Attila points out, I do have Hannah Giles bikini photos. I already own the Google bomb, but haven't decided yet whether to post the actual photos. My dilemma is this: Knowing that the photos exist, what happens if some sleazy leftoid site gets hold of them and posts them first? In such a scenario, by being "too nice," I would inadvertantly allow a liberal dirtbag to get all that lucrative traffic -- and the liberal dirtbag would (a) put the photos in a negative context, and (b) allow a lot of nasty comments.

Many people have observed of the ACORN situation that the stunning thing in all this was how anyone could be so stupid as to believe that someone as nice as Hannah would be a prostitute. Even with the giant green plastic earrings and slinky skirt.

UPDATE IV (Saturday 10:45 a.m): I'm off to Washington today to cover the 9/12 March on DC. Just in case an emergency arises, a post with the Hannah Giles bikini photo is already queued up in draft, and one call to Smitty . . . Well, I hope we don't have to do it, but it would be wrong to let some liberal dirtbag get that traffic.

Andrew Breitbart's new blog exposes ACORN encouraging tax evasion?

Pimps and Ho's for Hope and Change: Video at the Big Government blog.

(Hat-tip: Wizbang.)

UPDATE: Holy crap! I just found out that the girl who went undercover as a prostitute in this video was Hannah Giles! I know that girl! She was at a July event at Union Pub. and I wrote about her hanging out with Sergio Gor. Hannah's father is Christian youth leader Doug Giles.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was 'a special pile of human excrement'?

Frankly, I never thought of the fat drunken lecherous senior senator from Massachusetts either as "special" or particularly "human," but . . .

Andrew Breitbart Unleashes
A Torrent Of Invective
Against Sen. Ted Kennedy's
Legacy On Twitter
Early this morning, news broke that Sen. Ted Kennedy had passed away after serving in the U.S. Senate for nearly 50 years. Soon after, conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart began a sustained assault on Kennedy's memory, tweeting "Rest in Chappaquiddick."
Over the course of the next three hours, Breitbart unapologetically attacked Kennedy, calling him a "villain," "a big ass motherf@#$er," a "duplicitous bastard" and a "prick." "I'll shut my mouth for Carter. That's just politics. Kennedy was a special pile of human excrement," wrote Breitbart in one tweet.

(Note to self: Carefully study Breitbart's "Torrent Of Invective" Twitter technique. Emulate. Practice. Improve. If you can't out-invective Breitbart, go back to Mary Jo Kopechne riffs.)

Steyn on Hugh Hewitt

by Smitty

Hugh Hewitt has Mark Steyn free-associating to Newsweek, among other bits of brilliance. Excellent.

Update:
The last ten minutes with Andrew Breitbart are well worth your time, also.

Rule 4 and the Obama Troll Army

Rule 4 of "How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog" is Make Some Enemies, and targeting vicious anonymous trolls seems to have paid off handsomely. The early a.m. post about Andrew Breitbart's latest column got linked lots of places, while I slept and then while I did a 5,000-word set-up for a defecatory punchline. (A self-referential self-indulgence I mean to avoid in the future. Honest.)

So I missed the chance to do all the usual linkback updates, and instead will collect them here with some additional commentary. To begin with, Breitbart himself e-mailed to request clarification. Where I had said:

Breitbart and most other conservatives won't say this in so many words, because it sounds like McCarthyesque conspiracy theory, but it's nonetheless true: If you want to understand how the American Left operates, you need to spend time studying how the old CPUSA operated.

Breitbart points to this passage in his column:

The right, for the most part, embraces basic Judeo-Christian ideals and would not promote nor defend the propaganda techniques that were perfected in godless communist and socialist regimes. The current political and media environment crafted by supposedly idealistic Mr. Obama resembles Hugo Chavez's Venezuela more than John F. Kennedy's America.

Ergo, Breitbart can't be accused of overlooking the Bolshevik roots of the Left's tactical arsenal. Meanwhile, the Only Canadian Who Makes Sense, Kathy Shaidle thought the "diamond pattern" seemed awful familiar, and e-mailed to say that this tactic has been applied against her in journalistic mode. She was interviewed by a reporter, who then went out and interviewed three people who hated her, including their derogation as "balance" in the story. "Diamond pattern," you see.

Obsessed with "pushback" on anything that could possibly reflect negatively on Obama and the Democrats, a Kossack links us and then blathers on about a bunch of irrelevant crap. Screw you, "Avenging Angel," you despicable troll. Paco calls them "left-wing blog guerrillas," but they're actually the microbial virus that festers within the pathological parasites which infest the pus that oozes from the chancroid sore on the Democratic Party rectal sphincter that is the Obama machine.

Jimmie Bise Jr. at Sundries Shack links up a lot of the reaction and says, "if we don’t defend the right to be clearly understood, someone will buy it right out from under us." Among those linked by Jimmie is Professor Donald Douglas, who likes Breitbart's take on " the left's secular demonology," and Pundette, who says, "We need to use our smarts, and we need to keep faith with each other." Jimmie also links Dan Riehl, who offers his own distinctly skeptical dissent:

The Left isn't the Right's worst enemy -- the Right, more specifically, the sissies and the mostly pedestrian conservative mouthpieces waiting for their next big scoop via the RNC in our midst, are.
The Right-side of the blogosphere is a snoozefest just waiting for Big Brother to pat them on the head, toss 'em a quarter and tuck them in.

Dan's a great guy and perhaps the best online researcher in the blogosphere. He does not suffer fools gladly and has even less respect for the Official Republican Establishment than I do. Which is saying something.

Jimmie's linkathon also included Clarice Feldman at American Thinker (from September) pointing to Jim Treacher's research on the Axelrod Astroturfing disinfo project. Professor William Jacobson observes:

The internet trolling phenomenon is not entirely surprising, since liberals in general view freedom of speech as meaning the freedom to agree with liberals.

Moe Lane notes that leftoid trolls have long been called "Mobies" at Red State, and adds:

Speaking as a site moderator for a popular conservative website, this is not actually hyperbole. I'm not entirely in agreement with how effective the tactic is - the average practitioner is hampered by both a fundamental lack of empathy for his (it's usually his) targets, and an overestimation of his IQ by an average of about 20 points* - and I'm not sure that it's quite that formally organized.

Well, Moe, I think that Axelrod has taken the organizational level up a notch in the past nine months. (Ask some of Hillary's supporters how viciously effective the Obama online effort was against their girl.) Jim at Gateway Pundit says:

Leftist trolls have been vandalizing the conservative blogosphere since conservatives started blogging but actually coordinated their attacks during the last election cycle.

Now, there are some who would say that such talk is "conspiracy theory," to which claim PoliGazette correctly responds:

It doesn't have to be a conspiracy to be a real problem. The "harassment factor" in the blogosphere can be a serious problem, faced disproportionately by conservatives and moderates. Liberals and leftists freely make all sorts of outrageous claims with impunity while conservatives and moderates are forced to defend each and every post to a level of detail that can eventually become wearying.

Right. TaxDayTeaParty.com had to deal with a DOS attack today. The Left does crap like this because it ties up manpower and other resources, decreasing the productive efficiency of resistance. They know exactly what they're doing. It's just like when I had to spend six months typing in a word-recognition for every post and update here, because the vile Obamanoids had flagged me as a "spam" blog. In the grand scheme of things, a relatively minor hassle, but a hassle nonetheless, requiring extra labor on my part.

Multiply such hassles many times over, and you see why the subhuman "progressive" scum devote so much time to their vandalistic terrorism, both online and offline. Michelle Malkin had to move after the vermin published her home address. A demented moonbat threatened Jeff Goldstein's family. Ann Coulter seldom ventures out unless accompanied by security. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

How The Left Built Its Troll Army
Now, granted that the Left has the will, the knowledge and the destructive immorality to do such things, how is it that they also have the time and resources for their online delinquency? Two words: John Podesta.

The former Clinton henchman, seeing the enormous resources poured out by George Soros and (mostly) wasted by MoveOn.org, recognized a huge opportunity for his organizational aptitude. He spearheaded a number of efforts, including the development of the oxymoronically named Center for American Progress, which worked to connect the wealthy enemies of liberty with the kind of experienced malefactors who could best put their misanthropic so-called "philanthropy" to the most destructive possible use.

Where CAP did not actually hire the Internet goons, they trained them, and helped sponsor the Web sites that served as the incubators for their "progressive" schemes. Here, Podesta and his comrades showed themselves very clever indeed. Suppose that you are a rich liberal who has some sort of business. So you not only give money to CAP and its related ventures, but you advertise your business on liberal blogs and Web sites. The advertising fees are relatively small (Web ads have always been cheap) and are fully qualified as legitimate business expenses, so that you are in effect getting a tax break for political activism.

One thing I've repeatedly tried to point out to my Republican and conservative friends in Washington is how much could be accomplished online with small investments, if they only went about it the right way.

The Peril of Professionalism
Something I've discerned over the years is that Republicans have a business-style attitude of professionalism toward politics. The well-paid professional GOP operative disdains as a chump the grassroots volunteer. Who would do politics for free, when one can make a lucrative income at it? (Cf., Ralph Reed.)

Politics is a business to the GOP, and the Dress For Success School of Political Operations dominates the mindset of the party hierarchy. Republicans won't listen to any advice they don't pay for, and they always want to hire the clean-cut well-spoken fellow with the spotless resume and the nice suit, the guy who has all the right friends, says all the right things, and shows up on time for the meeting with his PowerPoint presentation ready to go.

What Dan Riehl says about the GOP being its own worst enemy is true in this sense. The Republican Party raised $900 million in the 2008 election cycle -- this total does not include state parties, various PACs, or individual candidate campaigns, nor all the sums contributed to conservative 501(c) outfits -- and any reasonable person must ask, "What the fuck did they do with all that money?"

Friend, I assure you, there are many political operatives living in McMansions in Virginia horse country that were paid for with the contributions of Republican donors. This is the inevitable consequence of the GOP's ethic of political professionalism, and nobody really cared so long as the Republicans were ascendant.

Let me ask you to consider something that David Frum (of all people) described recently:

I moved to Washington, D.C., in 1996. And there I began to notice something disturbing. While the congressional victory of 1994 had ceased to produce much in the way of important conservative legislation, it sure was producing a lot of wealth for individual conservatives. They were moving from the staff offices of Congress to lobbying firms and professional associations. Washington . . . began to feel like a giant Tupperware party, where people you had thought of as friends suddenly seemed always to be trying to sell you something. Acquaintances of mine began accepting all-expense-paid trips to the South Pacific from Jack Abramoff.

Oh, yeah. Nothing wrong with trying to make a living, but there are lots of people who made a killing during the dozen years between 1994 and 2006, when being "conservative" ceased to be a political allegiance and became a career description. Disagree with Frum's politics as vociferously as you want (and I have), but this observation of his about the ways of the Washington GOP establishment is dead on target.

CyberSnakeOil.com
Washington is a town full of ambitious political hustlers. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, as I said; I am a capitalist, proud to boast that I Write For Money. (Which reminds me: Hit the tip jar, you ungrateful bastards.) But over the years when GOP coffers were fat and electoral victories were plentiful, the Republican Party and the conservative movement became accustomed to paying too much for everything.

The rationale for this habit of overpaying was apparently something like this: "Well, after all, Art is a smart guy, and he gets good results. He's a true-blue Republican. He worked for our buddy Al. Why shouldn't we pay him what he asks?"

This tendency to pay too much for everything has carried over into the online age, and in recent years the Internet Snake Oil Salesman has become a common plague. Everybody and his brother now claims to have the Magic Panacea Elixir to cure whatever ails the GOP, and yet -- in a sort of counter-market irony -- what the GOP/conservative Establishment actually pays for such services has gone up, not down, as the number of vendors has proliferated. The supply of pixels-for-cash operations has increased, but the demand is so seemingly insatiable that the price keeps rising, and it seems that none of the people writing checks ever stops to ask if they're getting what they pay for.

My friend Nathan Tabor is a Republican businessman whose TCVMedia does Web site design and online development, both for commercial and political clients. Nathan has a business model that minimizes his expenses so he can deliver a top-quality product for a rock-bottom price. And yet he has often told me with dismay that many Republican/conservative operations continue to pay premium prices for inferior services, because the guys writing the checks don't seem to care about cost efficiency.

The attitude among GOP bigwigs seems to be that "you get what you pay for," so they refuse to believe that if they give a guy a $100,000 contract for Web work, that they're not getting more than what Nathan could sell them for $30,000 -- even if TCV's work is clearly equal or better in quality (which it is).

So you see the kind of stuff that makes conservatives shake their heads and wonder if there is any hope at all. You see why every day is a struggle against cynical despair. Yet I begin to scent a change in the wind. Times are tough, money's tight, and some of the clueless check-writers are starting to get the suspicion that they're being bamboozled by PowerPoint Rangers of the GOP's Consultant Class.

"It is history that teaches us to hope."

UPDATE: Welcome Riehl World View readers! My friend Dan isn't really feelin' the love for Breitbart, and maybe not for me, either. And I don't mind, of course: Hits is hits. Love me, hate me, hit me, beat me, bite me, rape me, make me write bad checks and call me "Helen." It makes no nevermind to a two-time Malkin Award nominee. Just link me, dammit!

Andrew Breitbart Shows Why He's Becoming One of the Most Important Columnists in America Today

Ace of Spades was the first to call my attention to the pervasiveness of Obama's Astroturf blog-troll army. They seemed to start showing up in July, and by September they were ubiquitous. They are apparently paid to do this, and they have persisted past Election Day. In January, they were caught trying to plant "hate" memes at Team Sarah in an effort to discredit Palin.

Yeah, well, guess what, trolls? Now Andrew Breitbart's got you nailed dead to rights:

Read the comment sections of right-leaning blogs, news sites and social forums, and the evidence is there in ugly abundance. Internet hooligans are spewing their talking points to thwart the dissent of the newly-out-of-power.
We must not let that go unanswered.
Uninvited Democratic activists are on a mission to demoralize the enemy - us. . . . Political leftists play for keeps. They are willing to lie, perform deceptive acts in a coordinated fashion and do so in a wicked way - all in the pursuit of victory. Moral relativism is alive and well in the land of Hope and Change and its Web-savvy youth brigade expresses its "idealism" in a most cynical fashion.

There is a reason that sites like Hot Air and Michelle Malkin require registration, and there is a reason that the comments here are moderated. In the unmoderated comments at AmSpecBlog, wise conservative Ruth says:

This is Axelrod's strategy to demoralize their (Obama's) opponents . . . It's called astro-turfing, and they used it against Hillary first. I read about it on Hillary's supporters' blogs during the Democrat Primary, (it drove them nuts). They're paid . . . and their attacks are coordinated. It's obvious.

As much as I love a good-free-for-all discussion, David Axelrod's Astroturf troll army isn't interested in discussion; they're paid, full-time political propagandists, and they're not going to use my bandwidth to spread their message. (I let our designated liberal hall monitor Young4Eyes slide, because he's so clear about his commitments that he doesn't fool anyone.)

Waaay back in the day -- more than a dozen years ago, before there were blogs -- I had some interesting experiences with these "false-flag" trolls who claim to be the exact opposite of the leftist scum they are, and who engage in such familiar tricks as:

• Inciting participants in discussions to try to get them to say things that can then be quoted as evidence of "hate," etc.
• Derogating as futile or self-defeating the projects being planned in the discussion; or
• Fomenting dissent by suggesting that organizers of a volunteer effort are secretly profiting from the project, or that leaders aren't really committed to the common cause.

Some of you newbies may not realize it, but these troll tricks are merely updated online versions of the tactics the Communist Party used in its decades-long subversion campaign. Breitbart and most other conservatives won't say this in so many words, because it sounds like McCarthyesque conspiracy theory, but it's nonetheless true: If you want to understand how the American Left operates, you need to spend time studying how the old CPUSA operated.

Even more so than Marxist ideology itself, Ronald Reagan said, it was the dishonesty of CPUSA tactics, which he encountered as the leader of the Screen Actors Guild in the '40, that turned him from a "bleeding heart" liberal into a fierce anti-Communist. Honorable causes do not routinely resort to dishonorable tactics, and the despicable ends-justify-the-means behavior of the Reds convinced Reagan that their ends -- their supposedly "idealistic" objectives -- were anything but honorable.

Ever heard of the "diamond pattern"? CPUSA operatives used this tactic to control meetings (of labor unions, etc.) back in the day. Send four operatives to the meeting, stationing one at the front of the room, one at the rear, and one each on the left and right sides of the midpoint of the room. When one operative stands up to make his point, the other three are like, "Yeah, he's right!" This creates the appearance of support throughout the room, in order to bring bandwagon psychology into play.

That tactic, and many others out of the old CPUSA playbook (which such Obama mentors as Saul Alinsky and Frank Marshall knew by heart), have been adapted to the Internet by the Left. And, of course, attempting to thwart these tactics -- one must ju-jitsu the Left by employing their own tactics against them -- requires studying their methodology like a Korean engineer studying the latest Mercedes design.

Few things are more important in warfare than IFF: Identify Friend or Foe. The same is true in political combat. If your antagonist is able to convince you he's "on your side" when he's actually on the other side, he will exploit that deception to demoralize and defeat you. These false-flag "conservative" trolls are trying to exploit flaws in IFF systems on the Right. Beware.

Now, as to the point of the title: Andrew Breitbart gets it. The first time I ever met Breitbart, at CPAC two years ago, I spent three hours sitting on the floor of a hotel room just listening to him talk. He'll tell you himself he's kind of an ADHD case. He goes off on tangents when he's talking sometimes until finally he says, "Hey, wait, what were we talking about?" But he's super-smart, and he has an intuitive understanding of New Media, because he's been in it since the Drudge Report was an e-mail list on AOL.

There's a phrase I use, "gestalt logic," that describes how someone like Breitbart thinks. If you spend a long time intensely studying a subject (e.g., history or math), you begin to discern patterns. And so when a new information or new problem presents itself, you fit that into the patterns you already know, in a way that someone who doesn't study intensely would never see.

Think of a chess master who thinks three moves ahead, or a professional poker player who can instantly calculate the odds of the next card being the one he needs to fill a flush. Think about the NFL quarterback who reads the opposing defense with a half-second glance and calls an audible to adjust. Think of the veteran NASCAR driver who swerves slightly at 160 mph to avoid a collision. That's gestalt logic in action.

Now we see Breitbart bringing this gestalt thinking to the linear format of a newspaper column. His column is always fresh and surprising. It's not the familiar Beltway conventional wisdom or GOP talking points. I'd imagine some other columnists are looking at what Breitbart has been doing in his column and saying to themselves, "Wow. I need to up my game, or this guy's going to eat my lunch every week."

Last week, I talked to Breitbart on the phone for a few minutes while I was driving into DC. We talked about the phonies and fakers and ripoff artists who sell themselves as "Internet experts" and don't have a freaking clue. (The Republican Party raised $900 million in the 2008 cycle, and what do they have to show for it?) Keep an eye on Breitbart. He gets it.

Andrew Breitbart for NetRightNation

Sergio "The Maltese Romeo" Gor introduces Breitbart, who speaks impromptu with a glass of wine in his hand, Big Hollywood explaining why Hollywood and pop culture should matter to conservatives. Watch and learn, ye Padwans of Fu:

PART I:

PART II:

PART III:

Broadside of Breitbart

by Smitty

Here is a set of short clips featuring Andrew Breitbart, (hat tip to burghnews) on Red Eye.
First up is the standard ACLU trope "person X protesting tradition Y via asinine behavior Z". I guess if the ACLU would file lawsuits against the Federal government on 10th Amendment grounds, I wouldn't feel the ACLU could be replaced with a button marked "Crap".

Here he reveals how Mr. Flinging Footwear of Fury will pocket a few dinar while in the big house. Won't spoil the jape, but I do look forward to the increase in quality.

Here Andrew enjoys a private moment in a public way. As a safety tip, do not think of either half of the Doltish Duo when you watch this.

Last and possibly weirdest is this bit on Clooney Tofu. Not exactly a peanut butter and chocolate situation. Good taste would have argued against including anything mentioning PETA, but Rule 5 demands a wider audience for Amy Schumer.

Breitbart gets it

CPAC, culture and Hollywood:

The timing of the yearly Conservative Political Action Conference could not be better suited for evaluating the strategies of the standard bearers of free markets and limited government as free-spending and nanny statist Obamaism runs amok with nary a media check or a legislative balance.
Attendees of the wonky three-day forum should pay close attention to what their ideological counterparts had to say earlier in the week at their annual get-together in liberalism´s capital, Hollywood.
On Sunday night at the Kodak Theater, where Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama debated each other in front of the same prideful crowd a year earlier, the political left convened to celebrate its progressive political agenda. The Oscars communicate post-modern, post-American liberal values more effectively than elected Democratic officials themselves. The liberal establishment understands this and uses the glamorous Hollywood elite and its incessant stream of left-leaning product and promotional vehicles as its proxy messenger. . . .
If "the medium is the message," as Marshall McLuhan formulated 45 years ago in "Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man," then Hollywood-style liberalism is America´s current and future message. And conservatives have no one to blame but themselves for not investing their collective efforts in the pop cultural and the greater media experience.

Read the whole thing. And speaking of CPAC, please don't forget to hit the tip jar. It's for the children!

Breitbart on Hope

He's doing some great columns nowadays:

Consider the tale of the ubiquitous "Hope" poster that helped get Mr. Obama worshipped, inoculated and elected — and the anti-capitalist street artist who "created" it.
Shepard Fairey last week was sued for copyright infringement by the Associated Press, which claims he stole photographer Manny Garcia's work and made it the basis of the iconic off-red, white and blue posters whose signed editions are being sold on eBay for thousands of dollars. . . .

Read the whole thing.

For want of a nail . . .

Nothing so frustrates conservatives as watching how the Republican Party repeatedly throws away opportunities for important victories. Andrew Breitbart talks about one squandered chance:

Back in 2004, a smart, good-looking moderate Republican Hispanic ran for Congress. At the time Victor Elizalde was just under 40 years old and working as an executive at a big-time Hollywood studio. As an ethnic minority, a family man and a rare open conservative in an industry dominated by liberals, Mr. Elizalde represented hope and change for the Republican Party.
Yet because he was running for Henry A. Waxman´s safe seat, Mr. Elizalde got no support from the Republican Party . In fact, no one in the party´s leadership took notice of him. As a result Mr. Waxman trounced Mr. Elizalde with 71 percent of the vote.

Amen, Brother Andrew! I saw them do the same exact thing this past year with Lt. Col. Allen West. His supporters were bitterly disappointed that the NRCC -- after trying desperately to recruit any other Republican to run in FL22 - wouldn't lift a finger or spend a cent to support an Iraq war veteran's campaign.

The "cretinous b*stards" who run the Republican Party will gladly throw away millions to support useless RINOs like Lincoln Chafee, but let a real conservative fight to win a primary, and watch how those overpaid geniuses at the GOPHQ "cocktail party" treat him like a leper.

If Michael Steele changes nothing else as RNC chairman, he must change this. No more "Mavericks," no more wasting money on Chafees, and no more running away from a fight leaving conservatives to die on the political battlefield.