Alf Landon

Jonathan V. Last:

The best line I heard about Florida came from a despondent Erick Erikson, who quipped, “It’s like we’re facing Jimmy Carter and nominating Alf Landon.”

Now, that’s not entirely fair. After all, Landon actually won reelection as the governor of Kansas while running in a very tough year for Republicans. (Ba-dump-bump)

As the Republican primary slogs forward, supporters of Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney are arguing that the other candidate is “unelectable.” The reasoning regarding Gingrich tends to revolve around his horrendous favorability ratings, and a propensity for self-destruction. The rationale regarding Romney is more varied, and is well enunciated by Quin Hillyer and John Hawkins. Last Wednesday, Erick Erickson at RedState—no Romney fan—threw up his hands and declared both leading candidates unelectable. ...

Arguably, we’ve never seen a situation like this before, when an unelectable incumbent draws an unelectable opponent. It’s kind of an “immovable object vs. irresistible force” scenario. In theory, neither candidate should be able to win this election, but in practice, someone must.

Strong men wept and deranged conservatives banged their foreheads against walls and trees this week, when conservatism’s sweetheart Ann Coulter defended Romneycare.

If only the Democrats had decided to socialize the food industry or housing, Romneycare would probably still be viewed as a massive triumph for conservative free-market principles—as it was at the time.

It’s not as if we had a beautifully functioning free market in health care until Gov. Mitt Romney came along and wrecked it by requiring that Massachusetts residents purchase their own health insurance. In 2007, when Romneycare became law, the federal government alone was already picking up the tab for 45.4 percent of all health care expenditures in the country.

Until Obamacare, mandatory private health insurance was considered the free-market alternative to the Democrats’ piecemeal socialization of the entire medical industry.

In November 2004, for example, libertarian Ronald Bailey praised mandated private health insurance in Reason magazine, saying that it “could preserve and extend the advantages of a free market with a minimal amount of coercion.”

A leading conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, helped design Romneycare, and its health care analyst, Bob Moffit, flew to Boston for the bill signing.

Romneycare was also supported by Regina Herzlinger, Harvard Business School professor and health policy analyst for the conservative Manhattan Institute. Herzlinger praised Romneycare for making consumers, not business or government, the primary purchasers of health care. ...
No one is claiming that the Constitution gives each person an unalienable right not to buy insurance.

States have been forcing people to do things from the beginning of the republic: drilling for the militia, taking blood tests before marriage, paying for public schools, registering property titles and waiting in line for six hours at the Department of Motor Vehicles in order to drive.

There’s no obvious constitutional difference between a state forcing militia-age males to equip themselves with guns and a state forcing adults in today’s world to equip themselves with health insurance.

Oy, veh!

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Jeff Greenfield predicts that anti-Romney conservatives will not go down without a fight, and that there’ll be plenty of battles at the GOP Convention in August.

A candidate can pick up a fair share of delegates in many states by targeting his campaign on a district-by- district basis. This also means that, statistically at least, it will be harder for Mitt Romney to wrap up the nomination early.

Finally, the rules open the door to a contentious convention, if not a contested one.

Why? Because if there’s sentiment for a fight over a platform plank, or whether convention rules outlaw winner-take- all voting, all the dissidents need is 25 percent of the votes in the respective committees—a mark the combined anti-Romney forces might well achieve. Further, if Gingrich wants his name put in nomination, all he needs is a plurality of delegates—not a majority—in five states. He already has that plurality in South Carolina and may yet pick up pluralities in four more states along the way.

If those adamantly opposed to Romney wind up with this kind of strength, it means they will have the power to start rules fights or demand the gold standard be included in the platform. They may be able to offer their own vice-presidential nominee or throw the timing of important speeches into chaos.

Let me try to offer some solace. Even if Romney is a Potemkin conservative (a claim I think has merit but is also exaggerated), there is an instrumental case to be made for him: It is better to have a president who owes you than to have one who claims to own you.

A President Romney would be on a very short leash. A President Gingrich would probably chew through his leash in the first ten minutes of his presidency and wander off into trouble. If elected, Romney must follow through for conservatives and honor his vows to repeal Obamacare, implement Representative Paul Ryan’s agenda, and stay true to his pro-life commitments.

Moreover, Romney is not a man of vision. He is a man of duty and purpose. He was told to “fix” health care in ways Massachusetts would like. He was told to fix the 2002 Olympics. He was told to create Bain Capital. He did it all. The man does his assignments.

In this light, voting for Romney isn’t a betrayal, it’s a transaction. No, that’s not very exciting or reassuring for those who’d sooner see monkeys fly out their nethers than compromise again. But such a bargain may just be necessary before judgment day comes.

Emory King sticks up for Newt and proposes a new standard of electoral acceptability for the 2012 Presidential Race.

I have not and will not post anything in support of a candidate for president. They all pass the Daffy Duck test for me and therefore will receive my vote once they secure the nomination. (The Daffy Duck test, by the way, is are they smarter than Daffy Duck and are they not named Obama.) However, pundits assailing Newt are getting on my nerves. Not because he isn’t worthy of criticism, (he is) but because they are trying to tell me he isn’t a conservative. Really. Where exactly were these folks in the eighties and nineties? I was alive then and can’t recall anyone telling me Newt wasn’t a conservative then. If Newt isn’t conservative, why was he used as an example of how the left tries to destroy its opponents in Ann’s book Treason. I quote from page 123 of my copy, ” The left’s enthusiasm for destroying individual lives still sputters to life occasionally, driving their monumental crusades against Newt Gingrich, Ken Starr, and Linda Tripp, for example.” If people don’t want to support Newt for president, I certainly understand why. He isn’t perfect by a long shot. But please don’t sit here and tell me he isn’t on our side of the fence because most of his critics among the chattering class loved the guy in 1994.

Someone from Yale conservative circles not more specifically identified was quoted as having remarked:

“When Ann Coulter calls you arrogant and hotheaded, you have a problem.”

Hat tip to John Brewer.

Ann Coulter proposes a different headline for today’s Breivik-guilt-by-association story: New York Times Reader Kills Dozens in Norway

Lori Ziganto (tweeting CPAC coverage during Ann Coulter’s Gay-Inclusion speech): I’m all for gay marriage so long as Ann Coulter will marry me.

Ann Coulter takes aim while visiting Woodstock, NY

Ann Coulter had been scheduled to appear this morning on NBC’s Today program promoting her new book Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America, but on Sunday the “progressive” blog-site Media Matters cracked the ideological whip and reminded NBC of its duty to provide no aid or assistance of any kind to opponents of the Revolution, especially those who go around saying such politically incorrect things.

Media Matters has documented that NBC has repeatedly provided Coulter a platform to spew her inflammatory rhetoric even as NBC-affiliated hosts and anchors have expressed disapproval of her statements or criticized the media for promoting her. Coulter’s latest book is rife with such inflammatory and offensive comments.

Matt Drudge reports that NBC has faithfully fallen into line, and has banned Coulter for life, at least.

The nation’s top selling conservative author has been banned from appearing on NBC, insiders tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

“We are just not going to have her on any more, it’s over,” a top network source explains.

But a second top suit strongly denies there is any “Coulter ban”.

“Look for a re-invite, as soon as Wednesday,” said the news executive, who asked not to be named.

NBC’s TODAY show abruptly cut Ann Coulter from its planned Tuesday broadcast, claiming the schedule was overbooked.

Executives at NBC TODAY replaced Coulter with showbiz reporter Perez Hilton, who recently offered $1,000 to anyone who would throw a pie at Ann Coulter. Hilton is also launching a new book this week. ...

Coulter was set to unveil her new book, GUILTY.

One network insider claims it was the book’s theme—a brutal examination of liberal bias in the new era—that got executives to dis-invite the controversialist.

“We are just not interested in anyone so highly critical of President-elect Obama, right now,” a TODAY insider reveals. “It’s such a downer. It’s just not the time, and it’s not what our audience wants, either.

Life is short, it seems. Michael Calderone is reporting that NBC has changed its mind again.

Conservative author Ann Coulter will appear on Wednesday’s “Today” show, according to an NBC spokesperson.

Coulter has been talking up being bumped by NBC for the past two days, both on other networks and the radio. A controversy erupted when Drudge splashed that she’d been “banned for life,” leading NBC to deny that she was banned, and later offering her a new segment.

On her website, Coulter writes that “Drudge gets results: Today show changes mind.” She’ll be appearing during both the 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. hours.

Ann Coulter remarks in Human Events on the irony of media’s “Shut-up-and-go-away!” approach to Hillary’s primary popular vote victory.

When Gore won the popular vote in the 2000 election by half a percentage point, but lost the Electoral College—or, for short, “the constitutionally prescribed method for choosing presidents”—anyone who denied the sacred importance of the popular vote was either an idiot or a dangerous partisan.

But now Hillary has won the popular vote in a Democratic primary, while Obambi has won under the rules. In a spectacular turnabout, media commentators are heaping sarcasm on our plucky Hillary for imagining the “popular vote” has any relevance whatsoever. ...

After nearly eight years of having to listen to liberals crow that Bush was “selected, not elected,” this is a shocking about-face. Apparently unaware of the new party line that the popular vote amounts to nothing more than warm spit, just last week HBO ran its movie “Recount,” about the 2000 Florida election, the premise of which is that sneaky Republicans stole the presidency from popular vote champion Al Gore. (Despite massive publicity, the movie bombed, with only about 1 million viewers, so now HBO is demanding a “recount.”)

So where is Kevin Spacey from HBO’s “Recount,” to defend Hillary, shouting: “WHO WON THIS PRIMARY?”

Ann Coulter: “I will campaign for (Hillary) if it’s McCain. ...Hillary is more conservative than John McCain. She lies less than John McCain. She’s smarter than John McCain, so that when she’s caught shamelessly lying, at least the Clintons know they’ve been caught lying. McCain is so stupid, he doesn’t even know he’s been caught.”

3:45 video

I’m not planning to campaign for Hillary personally, but one has to admit Ann Coulter’s got a point.

Hat tip to Allahpundit.

The St. Petersburg Times reports that, as the GOP contest moves on from open primary states like New Hampshire and South Carolina to more significant states like Florida where Republicans actually decide the winner of the Republican primary, the form of the decisive battle is taking shape.

It’s Mitt Romney vs. John McCain in the final stretch of Florida’s crucial Republican primary.

A new St. Petersburg Times poll shows the former Massachusetts governor and Arizona senator neck and neck among Florida Republicans, while Rudy Giuliani’s Florida-or-bust strategy has been a bust.

Neocon Michael Medved pulled out all the casuistical stops yesterday in a shameless attempt to defend Senator John McCain. Evidently moving over to the conservative side has not cured Michael of the liberal habit of employing highly selective evidence to make a preposterous case.

Meanwhile, Ann Coulter summed up McCain’s candidacy far more accurately and succinctly: “John McCain is Bob Dole minus the charm, conservatism and youth.”

Joel Stein wrote up a pre-fabricated all-purpose Ann Coulter column, including parenthetical spaces where Ann Coulter herself could supply the necessary inflammatory mot juste. He then sent it to her, and—sure enough—Ann Coulter obligingly filled in the blanks.

Liberals Are Wusses

By Ann Coulter

Can liberals really be that easily offended? Are their beliefs so fragile, their emotions so unstable, their [body part, plural] EYELASHES so [adjective] PRETTY, that my offhand remarks threaten to destroy their entire belief system?

Maybe this is because liberals don’t have a solid belief system. They don’t believe in the Bible. They don’t believe in the Constitution (you know, that piece of paper that Bill Clinton thought was for cleaning up [something messy] DEMOCRATS’ POSITION ON NATIONAL SECURITY after he [verb, past tense] JITTERBUGGED. And they don’t believe in [book] “JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL.” So instead they believe in whatever feels good, whether that is engaging in [physical therapy] PILATES in the Oval Office, putting [noun] PUPPIES up their [body part] FINGERNAILS or spending [large sum of money] $1 ZILLION on [beauty regimen] FACE-WASHING like [lack of manliness] LIBERAL [male democrat] HILLARY CLINTON did when he visited [European city] LUXEMBOURG.

They may have no idea about good and evil—how could a group that hates [morally unimpeachable act] FEEDING THE POOR, thinks it’s a crime to place the Ten Commandments in [place] BOISE, IDAHO, and defines marriage as a union between two [noun, plural] BABY SEALS?—but they sure are good at telling people what you shouldn’t say. And what they don’t want said is anything that resembles truth. So they’re disgusted when I point out that the [Indian tribe] NAVAJO practice of celebrating [something gross] DEMOCRATS’ POSITION ON ABORTION is endangering our children, or the fact that [percentage] 20% of [immigrant group] LATVIANS commit [horrendous crime] INCOME TAX within [number] SEVEN days of coming to our country illegally by [mode of transportation] GULFSTREAM JET.

When I was on [obscure cable news show] ANYTHING ON MSNBC, I mentioned to fellow guest [grumpy old white man] WALTER CRONKITE that, scientifically, men are [any number] 47 times more likely to accomplish [an incredible feat] A LIBERAL LISTENING POLITELY TO AN OPPOSING POINT OF VIEW than women, who should stay at home and focus on [obsolete chore] BUTTER CHURNING. When [New York Times columnist] FRANK RICH heard this, he bored himself writing [large number] A KAZILLION words about it, referring to me as a skinny, blond [adjective] PEPPY [animal] BEAGLE. The point here is that he called me skinny and blond.

So let the Democrats be offended by me. I consider their every objection a testament to my righteousness. After all, this is a party that’s about to choose [democratic presidential candidate] B. HUSSEIN OBAMA as their nominee—a person whose chief of staff is [made-up name] JOHN DOE, who spoke at rallies cosponsored by the [radical liberal group] WEATHERMEN protesting the [beloved institution] FOX NEWS CHANNEL, in which members [violent action] THROAT-SLIT the [beloved symbol] AMERICAN FLAG and supported guilty [cop killer who’s first name is Mumia] MUMIA ABU JAMAL. So while my Godless, liberal detractors are in hell with the [non-Christian group] MASONS, [ethnic group] ALEUTS, [occupation, plural] DOCTORS and [deceased Democrat] MIKE GRAVEL, I’ll be in heaven dying my hair and not eating. Because the one person I haven’t offended is God. And [a conservative or book publisher] RUSH LIMBAUGH.

Ann Coulter’s recent playful little exercise in trangressive speech has provoked a veritable stampede of conservative bloggers to the Politically Correct Amen-corner to warble forced hallelujahs to tolerance of “the love which hardly ever shuts up these days,” and to establish each and every one his (or her) own credentials as respectable, properly-behaved little boys and girls, distancing themselves from the taboo-violator who said a bad word.

Little Miss Attila has turned into Tom Sawyer’s Aunt Polly, and is sermonizing and making “a stand for political civility” by publishing a PC-Loyalty Oath for rightwing bloggers to sign. We liked her better in barbarian mode.

Bah, humbug! We always thought the basis for being conservative, rather than liberal, was having a sense of humor and a sense of proportion.

Besides, as the left is always explaining to us, transgressive statements which epater les bourgeoisie are supposed to applauded for their courage, and looked upon as highly therapeutic forms of truth-telling, vitally-needed to shake up the hypocrisy of Society.

Moreover, since none of these right bloggers actually used the naughty word publicly themselves, what on earth are they apologizing for?

It is a sad commentary in itself that one mischievous blonde can, simply by including a pejorative (which everyone knows, and everyone has used) in a throwaway quip, provoke these pathetic public displays of groveling in the direction of conformity and political correctness.

Actually, if one considered the matter properly, a joking reference to certain epicene characteristics observable in one particular democrat candidate by the application of a pejorative is not required to be construed as ipso facto insulting to every member of the entire class of persons to which such a term could potentially be applied.

If Ann Coulter had referred instead to Mr. Edwards professionally, as a “shyster,” would you feel obliged to apologize to every attorney in the country? Presumably not. One naturally assumes that attorneys actually do exist who do not really merit that pejorative epithet.

We would contend, in precisely the same way in the present context, that there is no necessary reason to assume that everyone who is an X is also inevitably a Y.

Our Ann definitely wins this particular girlfight.

New York Times theater critic Frank Rich made headlines on the Drudge Report last week by announcing: “We have lost in Iraq.” Of course, Rich was saying we had lost in Iraq more than six months before we went into Iraq.

In August 2002, he wrote that Bush did not have the support of the American people for war in Iraq and without that he would “mimic another hubristic Texan president who took a backdoor route into pre-emptive warfare.”

In April 2003, one month after we invaded, Rich said the looting of Iraqi museums by Iraqis showed “our worst instincts at the very dawn of our grandiose project to bring democratic values to the Middle East.”

About six months into the war he wrote a column about Iraq titled: “Why Are We Back in Vietnam?” You can imagine how writing those words must have brought back memories of Frank Rich’s own valiant service in Vietnam.

In January 2004, less than a year after the invasion, he wrote: “The greater debate has been over the degree to which the follies of Vietnam are now being re-enacted in Iraq.” Historians noted that this is the first time Rich ever panned something containing the word “follies.”

A month later, he was again comparing Iraq to Vietnam, saying Bush had forced the comparison “by wearing the fly boy uniform of his own disputed guard duty” when he landed on the aircraft carrier. Did Frank Rich win three purple hearts in combat, or was it four? I always forget.

In May 2004, Rich accused Bush of throwing “underprepared and underprotected” American troops in harm’s way in Iraq. OK, I was kidding before. The closest Frank Rich has come to serving in the military was reviewing a revival of “The Caine Mutiny.” Though he does know the words to “In the Navy” by heart.

Even after transitioning from musical reviewer to hard-bitten military analyst, Rich couldn’t resist tossing in a quick dance review. He gleefully described “pictures of Marines retreating from Fallujah and of that city’s citizens dancing in the streets to celebrate their victory over the American liberators.”

This too, reminded Rich of Vietnam. Right now I’m trying to think of something that doesn’t remind liberals of Vietnam … hmmm … drawing a blank…

Liberals are like people with stale breath talking into your face at a party. You try backing away from them or offering them gum, but then they just start whimpering. They’ve been using the exact same talking points about how we’re losing in Iraq since before we invaded.

It seems they’ve finally succeeded in exhausting Americans and, thereby, handing a victory to al-Qaida.

The weakest members of the herd are rapidly capitulating…

I like them both.

video

from Russ Vaughn:

Libs think Hillary’s smart as a whip,
I think she’s just a fraud.
She couldn’t hold Ann Coulter’s slip;
Ann’s America’s sharpest broad.
She chews up liberal talking heads,
With wit so quick and cunning,
Rips Alan Colmes to bloody shreds,
And sends Matt Lauer running.

But now she’s really gone too far,
All the liberal lambs are bleating;
Is there nothing sacred she won’t tar?
My word, she’s widow-beating!
“Can you believe it?” reporters gasp,
“Those are victims that she’s dissing;
How dare that vicious rightwing asp
Threaten widows with her hissing?”

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