Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.—Horace, Ars Poetica, 139

A number of prominent big-time Conservative Movement figures have been working for over a year on the text of a new Conservative Manifesto, apparently intended to represent a set of defining principles for a new Tea Party Movement-associated national coalition.

One can tell exactly how old a lot of these people are by the fact that the new manifesto is an obvious take-off on M. Stanton’s Evans’s famous Sharon Statement, written in 1960 as the guiding principles of the newly founded Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). 1960’s YAF-ers are the senior citizens of 2010, and the Mount Vernon Statement is, by comparison, intentionally cagey and coy, trying to point eloquently in the general direction of some never explicitly identified “ideas of the American Founding” in as discreet and noncommittal a manner as humanly possible.

The Conservative Movement is, of course, already a tent covering an unruly collection of highly opinionated, intensely argumentative camels, representing very different libertarian and traditionalist strains of conservative opinion, who don’t necessarily like one another very much. Attempting to include an inchoate mass of centrist independents, mostly inclined toward fiscal conservatism but in general lacking any particular enthusiasm for censorious social conservatism was bound to represent a challenge.

One can sympathize with the difficulty of the drafters’ task, however, without being carried away with admiration for their results. The Mount Vernon Statement ended up proposing more syntactical than philosophical occasions for controversy. The fingerprints of an overly large committee are all over it, and though it carefully avoids affront (except to those who care about good prose), it also never particularly inspires.

Its intentionally marmorial, issued in a from-atop-the-mountaintop, inscribed-by-the-finger-of-God, style of presentation seemed a bit incongruous in the light of the missing line feed 8 paragraphs from the bottom. Doesn’t God proofread his tablets anymore?

Michelle Malkin, who is today a lot more significant a conservative figure than just about any of the Mount Vernon Statement signers (except perhaps Richard Viguerie), raises the very valid issue of the appropriateness of David Keene and Grover Norquist appearing these days in this particular kind of role.

Dave Keene has been involved in questionable lobbying activities, supported Arlen Specter, and has come out in favor of civilian trials for terrorists like KSM.

Grover Norquist has moved in an alarming direction in recent years, developing ties to Islamist organizations, and (along with Keene) participating in the Constitution Project, a group taking liberal pro-jihadist rights positions.

The appearance of either Keene or Norquist in major Conservative Movement leadership roles at the present time is unacceptable to a great many Conservatives, and their participation in the drafting of Conservative manifestos was inappropriate.

I don’t happen to agree with Michelle Malkin on Immigration but, in my book, Michelle Malkin does speak for the mainstream Conservative Movement on the overwhelming majority of issues, and David Keene and Grover Norquist no longer do.

The Mount Vernon Statement

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Richard Viguerie agrees with me, describing the Mount Vernon Statement as “pablum.”

Patterico:

In a slightly ironic twist, the AP is taking content from a blog site. Namely, mine.

In a news item about the e-mail from Judge Kozinski’s wife that I posted on this site, an AP article lifted numerous passages.

I counted 154 words quoted from my post. That’s almost twice the number of words contained in the most extensive quotation in the Drudge Retort.

He should send Michelle Malkin to collect. Michelle is tough, and she’s a wizard with figures.
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AP crackdown on bloggers posting

Michelle Malkin is starting a D-Day tradition of repeating a link to last year’s video satire imagining today’s media covering the landings in Normandy. Not a pretty picture.

We, too, linked the same 7:33 video last year.

Michelle Malkin updates the Absolut advertising controversy, reporting that, having angered many Americans with an ill-conceived ad campaign picturing the entire American Southwest, including California, Texas, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Arizona (and beyond the Southwest: Oregon, along with most of Wyoming, and much of Idaho) incorporated into Mexico, in the face of mounting criticism, Absolut withdrew the offending ad and apologized, and then the Swedish company, now part of France’s Pernod Ricard, announced its launch of new Gay-oriented advertising.

Bar owner Matthew Rogers of Pt. Richmond, Calif., sent this note to the company: “I run a bar in Pt. Richmond. … After seeing your ad campaign where you show a western map of the United States in which California is part of Mexico again, I’ve decided to do the following: 1) Never carry Absolut. Ever; 2) Lower the price of Ketel One vodka to $2 a shot indefinitely to build loyalty; 3) Print a copy of your ad and put it above the Ketel One drink special; 4) Tell all my friends and family what Absolut thinks of the United States of America and our right to enforce border laws. I am on the frontline of illegal immigration and its effects. Where are you? Oh, yes, Sweden. Good riddance.”

Absolut’s initial response to complaints was to hang up on consumers who phoned and to delete their e-mail without bothering to read it. But the controversy spread like a California wildfire stoked by Internet Santa Ana winds. In the first of two statements, Absolut Vice President of Corporate Communications Paula Eriksson attempted to douse the flames by touting the company’s embrace-diversity ethos. “As a global company,” she pedantically intoned, “we recognize that people in different parts of the world may lend different perspectives or interpret our ads in a different way than was intended in that market. Obviously, this ad was run in Mexico, and not the U.S. — that ad might have been very different.”

That arrogant, p.c. sanctimony had the effect of pouring gas on the flames. So over the weekend, Eriksson issued a new statement announcing withdrawal of the ad. It was comically titled “We apologize” — and disingenuously argued that “In no way was the ad meant to offend or disparage, or advocate an altering of borders, lend support to any anti-American sentiment, or to reflect immigration issues. …This is a genuine and sincere apology.” ...

Fresh off its Aztlan debacle, the company announced its newest campaign this week featuring an ad titled “Ruler,” described as “a humorous look at gay men and their fascination with perfect, eight-inch ‘member’ measurements.”

Absolut Press Release:

The brand’s two new, daring print ad executions include: “Ruler,” a humorous look at gay men and their fascination with perfect, eight-inch “member” measurements, while “Stadium” engages on the issue of gay marriage when one half of a gay couple “pops” the question during a sports outing. Created by SPI Marketing/Moon City in New York, these new lifestyle-driven ads build on a heritage of advertisements that prominently featured gay artists since 1984.

“As a long-time supporter of the gay and lesbian community, we acknowledge that you can’t simply speak to gay men and lesbians as consumers, but instead need to make real connections to their lives which we believe we are achieving with our new creative executions,” said Jeffrey Moran, ABSOLUT® spokesperson. “As a company, we respect gay men and lesbians not simply in advertising messages, but behind the scenes as well. We’re not gay-washing here.”

The preferred brand of vodka for gay and lesbian consumers, ABSOLUT® was one of the first major brands to place an ad in a gay magazine 27 years ago and is a long-time supporter of events and causes important to the gay and lesbian community.

Original story.
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Dominique Poirier also notified us of Absolut’s apology.

Michelle Malkin wants to raise your consciousness.

Attentive readers will find Ann Althouse, Megan McArdle (formerly Jane Galt), and Michael Totten are helping Glenn Reynolds with the aggregating on Instapundit.

The big news of the day is that Captain Ed Morrissey has announced that he will be closing down his illustrious Captain’s Quarters blog and working at Michelle Malkin’s Hot Air. I suppose adapting to the change will be easy enough. I just need to put Hot Air in my Essential Blogs links category.

Congratulations to all concerned.

Michelle Malkin (and apparently Rush Limbaugh) are hot on the trail of a story of Independents voting in yesterday’s Florida GOP primary.

A CNN exit poll (page 4) listed GOP primary voters in Florida by Party ID, as:

Democrat (3%)

Independent (17%)

So, according to CNN exit polls, 20% of the voters in the Florida Republican Party primary were non-Republicans. If so, no wonder McCain won.

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Captain Ed Morrissey, though, says that “voter identification” (with the other party or no party) is routine in closed primary state polling. It is actual voter registration which is determinative, and this kind of polling result is normal.

Michelle Malkin isn’t happy that Larry Craig is reconsidering that resignation.

Think about it, Michelle. We can’t afford to operate this way.

Democrats don’t resign over sex scandals. They only use them to force Republicans out of office.

Do you remember Bob Livingstone? The slimy pimp Larry Flynt hired private detectives to hunt for Republican pecadillos he could use to avenge the impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton for perjury, and Rep. Livingstone immediately resigned, giving up the Speakership of the House, as soon as news of his marital infidelity was released.

Politicians are human, alzumenschlich commonly in fact. Are only democrat adulterers, only democrats who spend time in the company of prostitutes, only leftwing and democrat homosexuals to be allowed to remain in public office?

If only sinners in private life who are democrats get to survive in office, we are probably conceding a permanent democrat majority.

Even when Michelle is wrong, she’s cute.

6:43 video

YouTube, which is owned by Google, relies on user screening of inappropriate content. The left, of course, has the larger numerical presence on the Internet, and leftists generally have few inhibitions about abusing any powers of censorship available to them.

Inevitably there have been some incidents of leftist viewers (supported by Google managers) applying political correctness tests, tagging, and then banning, videos they don’t like for “innappropriate content.” In the best known incident of the kind, Michelle Malkin had a video banned by YouTube last September.

Charles Gerow, a former Reagan White House aide and current adman, has responded to anticipated YouTube censorship of conservative point-of-view 2008 campaign videos in advance by founding QubeTV, a rightwing alternative video venue.

ABC News story

Google is protesting that there is no need for such a thing. YouTube provides perfect equality of access for every point of view. But it is quite clear that Gerow is being astute in forseeing an inevitable increase in incidents like the Malkin video ban as the campaign season heats up. The existence of a well-known alternative venue is likely to have the salutary effect of persuading YouTube management, when temptation inevitably strikes, that abusing their powers in favor of their own political biases is a futile exercise.

photo by Linda Davidson—The Washington Post

Today’s Washington Post profiles the Conservative blogosphere’s female answer to George Patton, our own lovely and talented Michelle Malkin, offering this (overly mild) representative quotation:

The donkey party,” she wrote last fall, “is led by thumb-sucking demagogues in prominent positions who equate Bush with Hitler and Jim Crow, call him a liar in front of high school students and the world, fantasize about impeachment and fetishize the human rights of terrorists who want to kill me. Put simply: There are no grown-ups in the Democrat Party.”

Read the whole thing.

Michelle Malkin asked that miserable prevaricating worm Byron Calame (who makes his living as a fraud, apologizing for, and defending, the New York Slimes’ lies, treason, and arrogance, while posing as a supposed in-house representative of public criticism) exactly what he meant by saying that he had allowed the vicious criticism of The Times by the Bush administration to trigger [his] instinctive affinity for responding as he did in the case of the Times-published SWIFT leak, last July. (What Calame did, of course, was kiss up to his employer, and dismiss all criticism from the outside public, as always.)

That pillar of journalistic integrity Calame took a few days to think about it and replied: “I was referring to criticism of the article that has been amply documented in a wide range of published reports.”

There is the New York Times in a nutshell: too cowardly and dishonest to try to defend what it publishes in an open dialogue, taking refuge behind its own pomposity and self-importance.

Reading Byron Calame makes me want to go out and buy a parakeet, so I could line the bottom of the bird cage with his column.

Previous Post

Michelle Malkin posted a two minute video back in February on YouTube, titled First, They Came, criticizing Islamic violence and intolerance. On September 28th, she received notice that her video was being removed on the basis of an “Inappropriate Content” Terms of Use violation.

YouTube has not been enforcing TOS restrictions against this video of a terrorist sniper shooting a US soldier. Or this Al Qaeda propaganda video.

Michelle Malkin has responded to YouTube’s enforcement of sharia with a video addressed to YouTube management. She’s right.

ShrinkWrapped puts Slick Willie and the AP on the couch.

One particular, and very clever, defensive maneuver is the veiled negation of the minor error. Often enough, a correct interpretation is undone by a minor factual error, which the patient then can us to negate the entire interpretation, even while appearing to give it careful consideration…

We see this tendency to change the subject to avoid unacceptable thoughts and feelings in much of our public discourse.

For example, the current dispute over the treatment of detainees is a classic example of such misdirection. Bill Clinton was interviewed by NPR this morning. He said that we should not codify the use of torture and that we need to agree that it isn’t right to smack around and torture detainees, some of whom are innocent. In fact, Bill Clinton, often recognized as one of the smartest men to inhabit the White House in recent years, knows quite well that no one in the current Administration is suggesting we routinely torture detainees. The question is how we define torture, not whether we should torture. Is loud music torture? Cold temperatures? A Belly slap? Our interrogators have the right to know what behavior puts them at risk for being sued by the ACLU.

Another example, perhaps more problematic, is currently playing itself out in the blogosphere. Michelle Malkin, among many others, has been following the story of an AP photographer who has been held by coalition forces in Iraq since May, when he was picked up at breakfast with an “al Qaeda in Iraq” leader and another “Insurgent” leader (as per the report by Judy Swallow at the BBC this morning.) Michelle received a note from the AP today disputing her characterization of Bilal Hussein…

..the use of a minor factual error to deny and avoid the implications of Michelle’s column suggests a need for the AP to remain unaware of the effects of their inadvertent complicity.

Three things that can be brought from Psychoanalysis to the situation:

1) When there is a denied, unconscious motivation for behavior, the hidden impulse will continue to press for expression. If the AP (or any MSM outlet) has a need to facilitate enemy propaganda, this will be more and more apparent as time goes on and as attention is paid to those occasions when the impulse breaks through in unmistakable ways. Rathergate and Pallywood are the rules, not the exceptions.

2) When patients use such transparent maneuvers, it is because more effective defenses are no longer working… Once brought into the open, it becomes available for therapeutic work and is a precondition for him changing his behavior. The AP’s transparent and ineffective defense suggests they are having difficulty maintaining their denial and minimization.

3) If Michelle, et al, can avoid polemics, and avoid engaging in arguments over the minor error, it will allow the facts to speak for themselves. This will deny the AP the opportunity to use an argument over minutia to deflect attention away from the most important questions. In this specific case, maintaining the focus on Bilal Hussein and the AP’s overt behavior is the best approach to getting at the facts.

Hat tip to Seneca the Younger.

Andrew Sullivan momentarily paused in his perenniel campaign of demanding kinder treatment for cuththroats to second the leftwing blogosphere’s posterboy of prolixity, Glenn Greenwald, in attacking the amiable Glenn Reynolds.

According to Andrew Sullivan, Reynolds is guilty, forsooth, “of never challeng(ing) in any serious way the abuses of power in this administration nor the extremism of the Malkinesque blogosphere.”

Those who haven’t been drinking moonbat koolaid don’t actually believe this administration is guilty of abuses of power at all. Really, if anything, it is guilty of neglecting to prosecute and punish war-time sedition and treason.

And face it, Andrew, anyone still really libertarian is on the right, and not on the San Francisco-style left. A commitment to socialism at home and surrender overseas, even seasoned with debauchery, is not libertarianism, old boy. Barry Goldwater was right: There’s nothing wrong with extremism in defense of liberty. Those of us still libertarian, still on the right, respect and admire Michelle Malkin precisely because she is a fighter. In fact, as a symbolic rejoinder on this subject, I’m going to add this little item to my links collection today.

I can understand, of course, how Michelle Malkin would scare someone like you.
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Turning to that odious windbag Greenwald, aptly recognized by Charles Johnson as “the left’s most dishonest blogger” (a title not easily achieved):

On Tuesday, Greenwald indulged in a little gamesmanship, first pooh-pooh’ing the significance of last weekend’s ravings in Jeff Goldstein’s Comment section by deranged (then University of Arizona Psychology Instructor) Deborah Frisch (who subsequently resigned), and then proceeding to claim rhetorically the moral high ground in order to equate an obvious exasperated rant by Mischa of Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler with Dr. Frisch’s sinister and highly disturbing comments, applying imagined violence and sexual acts to Mr. Goldstein’s children.
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Mischa’s rant:

So keep that in mind. Should we ever make the mistake of capturing any of the perpetrators of the war crime against PFCs Menchaca and Tucker alive, we can forget about interrogating them in order to catch the rest, according to the Supreme Whores. Well, unless they’re willing to give up information if we ask “pretty please?”, since anything other than that has been deemed illegal by those blackrobed tyrants. Are we exaggerating? Try doing anything to those mutilating darlings of the Supremes in order to extract life-saving intel from them, and then wait for the Supreme Whores to decide that you were “humiliating” them in doing so.

Five ropes, five robes, five trees.

Some assembly required.

Personally, I have a lot more of a problem with the name-calling language “Supreme Whores,” than I do with the “five ropes, five trees… Some assembly required” rhetorical flourish at the end.

OK, Mischa’s posting is not an example of closely-reasoned and totally exemplary blogging, but the current debates over public issues and policy are often emotionally charged, and we all blog unevenly. Many bloggers occasionally descend to the literary form of the rant. But, frankly, the most lurid right wing rant has a tendency to resemble an example of the most dignified and restrained expressions of partisanship found on many of the left’s best known blogs. Mischa would have to chug down a lot of tequila shots, and be in a really bad mood, to come even close to Digby or Atrios on an average day.

Greenwald’s alleged outrage over Mischa’s post is just like the faux-pious nonsense from leftwing moonbats filling up my own Comments section over the Hadji Girl song: just a bunch of opportunistic righteous posturing, the left’s favorite form of self-gratification.

There is a great deal of difference between the downright spooky comments involving his kids that Jeff Goldstein was receiving over the weekend, ultimately accompanied by some very real Denial of Service attacks, and Mischa’s crack. The Supreme Court was not put out of action for a few days, and Justice Stevens didn’t lose any sleep wondering if Mischa was really serious about that tree and that rope.

Michelle Malkin has an amusing new video, focussing on those leaking leftwing newspapers, which includes a WWII Private Snafu cartoon, written by Dr. Seuss and featuring the voice of Mel Blanc.

I like them both.

video

Read by Michelle Malkin.

Video

Photo used by London Times to libel US Marines

Michelle Malkin today publicly identified a major case of fraud by one of the most prominent international members of the mainstream establishment media.

The Times (UK), on June 1st, ran a vitriolic anti-US news story, titled ‘Massacre Marines blinded by hate’, based entirely on selective quotation of an interview with Corporal James Crossan, a marine injured in the IED attack, which included a photo of supposed victims of American forces. The photo was actually taken six months earlier, and the bodies were the victims of a massacre by insurgents in a soccer stadium.

That lying bastard who wrote the smear story selectively quotes Crossan speculating, in a video interview with KING5 News in Seattle, on what might have happened after he had been evacuated by helicopter:

I think they were blinded by hate . . . and they just lost control.” Corporal Crossan, who passed out soon after being hit by the bomb in al-Haditha on November 19 last year, said that the unit had a lot of new members. “

They might have got scared or they were just p*****, really p***** off and did it.”

(Note: Crossan is only speculating on why marines might have shot civilians, if they actually had. He dd not witness any such thing personally.)

But he didn’t quote Crossan saying:

Crossan: We used to go out on patrols and have the little kids count the patrols and all that stuff and we couldn’t really do anything except grab them and throw them inside their houses…

KING 5 TV interviewer: Why would you do that? Because you were afraid that the kids were scouting for the insurgents or you thought they were in danger?

Crossan: There are little kids that scout for ‘em. ‘Cuz later that day we, along the main road there, we cut behind a few buildings and the next patrol that went out got hit. And that little kid that was just there and there was people all around. But the day that I got hit they were planning a major attack and it got spoiled, so, and there was like 20 some people, insurgents, that were gonna attack the cop that day.

Then we got hit by an IED and the cops sent out a squad of Marines, and the insurgents just started attacking then, just right off the bat and we just foiled it. We were just driving back from the cop. I remember taking a left and then a right, and then remember waking up from the ground for a split second. And then waking up in the helicopter and then finally knew what happened in the hospital.

KING 5: So after you were injured, also tell me, you lost one of your guys. What can you tell me about him?

Crossan: We lost Lance Col. Miguel Terrazas. He was a good guy. He was from El Paso, Texas. And he was my point man. He was pretty much the guy I went to if I needed anything.

Great work, Michelle Malkin.

The US Government really ought to deport leftwing London Times journalist Tim Reid for this one.

FBI agents reportedly searched the House office of Rep. William Jefferson, D-LA, on Saturday evening and last Sunday in connection with a bribery and corruption investigation.

Prominent Repubican Congressional leaders, including former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and current Speaker Dennis Hastert, have criticized the FBI’s conduct, and raised Constitutional objections.

Some of the most respected voices on the right side of the Blogosphere, including Glenn Reynolds, Michelle Malkin, and Roger L. Simon have objected to the position taken by the Speakers.

Our good friends need to pause for breath, and reflect seriously. The principle of separation of powers matters greatly. Congressional immunity from arrest matters tremendously. These principles of Republican government are infinitely more important than the successful conviction of one more corrupt democrat congressman. History demonstrates abundantly that we can survive the culture of political corruption of the democrat party. But free government could readily be brought to an end by the domination of the several branches of the federal government by a single branch.

In recent history, Congress has been far more guilty than the Executive of arrogating unauthorized powers to itself, and attacking the Executive on the basis of trumped up and exaggerated charges. But, it is certainly possible to imagine an aggressive ultra-liberal president trying to remove Congressional opposition by false allegations of corruption. Some of us believe that the House Majority Leader was successfuly removed by false charges lodged by a partisan county prosecutor in Texas.

It is on rare occasions like this, in which political leaders take principled positions, ignoring their own party’s interests, that our faith in our system of government and its institutions is justified and confirmed.

Read the US Constitution, Article I. Section 6 which states:

The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the treasury of the United States. They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place.

I think it is impossible to avoid considering Congressional offices as part of the “going to and returning from the same” aspect of Congressional attendance. And the 18th century concept of a felony would apply to what were then commonly capital crimes of violence, not to ordinary bribery and corruption.

Of course, the determination of all this may, and should be left to the wisdom of Third Branch of the Federal Government, the Supreme Court. But, in the meantime, we should be proud that Republican Legislative leaders will defend the rights of their branch of government, even in the case of its least worthy member.

Michelle Malkin is posting this morning opposing amnesty for illegal aliens. Sorry, Michelle, I don’t agree with you for once.

Immigration policy is a classic example of the kind of issue America simply cannot handle rationally.

It’s just like Prohibition and Drug Control. Nice people want to have a drink themselves before dinner, but you know what problems result from letting those workingmen waste their paychecks on beer down at the saloon. Of course, we all smoked a little weed in our day, but how could we walk the streets safely if we didn’t imprison vast numbers of poor minority group members for drugs? Besides, we don’t want our children’s academic success compromised by experimenting with marijuana. They might become pothead slackers. Of course, we want our lawns mowed, and we naturally enjoy the low prices resulting from the availability of cheap labor, but we don’t want all those Mexicans all over the place. Can’t they just go home to Guadalajara when they’ve finished the yard work?

We have a fine tradition of hypocrisy in this country going right back to the Pilgrim Fathers who settled Massachusetts Bay. Americans want to have it both ways. We all want the hard work and the stoop labor done by somebody else. (We’re certainly not going to do it.) And we want affordable services from cheap labor. We just don’t want all those funny-looking riff raff foreigners hanging around spoiling our views. So we demand that the politicians get to work, and pass some laws, which we still really don’t want enforced.

When—as happened with Prohibition—the law proves impossible to enforce, and the law becomes a joke, the answer is to get rid of the law we’re all collaborating in breaking, not redouble our efforts to enforce the inconvenient law.

Illegal Latin Americans working in the United States are illegal because we have unrealistic immigration quotas (which fail to recognize our national need for labor), and the barrers are just too high. What Bush thinks in private, and at present doesn’t dare say out loud, is perfectly correct. We need to legalize the status of everybody already here, and we need to change the rules to make immigration easier to do legally. And don’t give me any of that sanctimonious statist stuff about how it’s wrong to “reward breaking the law.” We Americans have lots of stupid laws, and we break them all the time. Do you always drive 55 mph, Michelle?

This is a country that has major public debates over how we handle the Korans we supply to incarcerated terrorists, and you think we’re going to kick in doors, handcuff, and forcibly expel millions of hard-working people who are here doing all of our most unpleasant jobs at the lowest wages? It’s never going to happen, and – of course – it shouldn’t happen.