Andrew Breitbart: Mall Cop

I’m not really one for speculative fiction outside of Harry/Snape slashfic,  but it’s an intriguing question.  Probably he’d be just as long-winded and incoherent, only more in a stoner way than in a forehead-vein-about-to-burst way.

How would the Left report the news if Obama were a Republican, i.e. an Uncle Tom, as many on the Left call now-GOP Chairman Michael Steele? Eureka! That’s it! See, it’s one thing for me to point out the obvious, as I did in my media slam yesterday. But what if we walked GOP President Obama’s media coverage through the mirror darkly, as was SOP for President Bush?

NOW we’re gonna have some fun!

NOW!  HAVE IT!  HAVE THE FUN!  Also, what’s with the 1 Corinthians up ins?  Am I at a crappy yuppie wedding?  If so, it better not be a cash bar.

I ain’t going to bother responding the substance of Simpson’s little acid trip here, since I think Olbermann, Roesgen, and Franken are all pretty annoying, but I hardly need to point out that Simpson neglects to mention what Fox News, talk radio, and, hell, his own forum would be like.

The Wolf Blitzer dig strikes me as a little strange, though, given that 1) he just seems like the kind of reporter who is going to suck up to anyone in power, regardless of party and 2) on a slow news day, he invariably does the here’s-what’s-on-Drudge today thing.

Oh, and if Simpson were a liberal he’d probably be a Truther.  Yeah, definitely.

Unlike Burt Pretlusky, he’d probably be pretty happy with contemporary establishment clause jurisprudence, actually.

If the authors of the Constitution had ever, in their worst nightmares, envisioned a group as vile as the ACLU, I feel certain that they would have rephrased the First Amendment to read: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.  Period!  And we’re not kidding, so help us God!”

There’s not even an up-to-date news item that sets Pretlusky off; it’s just the same War-on-Christmas silliness.  I understand that appeals to tradition and authority are important facets of the conservative ethos, but the constant appeal to the Founders has always confused me.  It’s always capital-F, and it always assumes a more or less monolithic group.

I use the example of Gouverneur Morris flippantly, but purposefully.  Dude wrote large chunks of the Constitution, had some seriously weird ideas about religion, and speechified nonstop in favor of fringe religious expression.  He would’ve been the first one in line to “go to the mat to safeguard a Muslim’s right to wear a disguise on her driver’s license,” as Pretlusky puts it.

More to the point, though, if you could actually go back and ask THE FRAMERS about today’s issues, their response would more likely be along the lines of

a) “America is still around in 2009?  I don’t think any of us saw that one coming.”

b) “2009 and no robot butlers?  What a shitty future.”

c) “Why the fuck are you asking us what we think?”

The dudes went to great lengths to set up a clear system for the people of any era to govern themselves, within the constraints of a few simple small-r republican principles.  They did this precisely so we wouldn’t have to be wondering what the hell they were thinking all the time.

Fuck you, Jeffrey Jena, you smug, unfunny piece of shit. Fuck your mother.  Fuck your sister(1).  Fuck Andrew Breitbart, fuck Dennis Miller, fuck Bob and Tom, and fuck any other individual, past, present, or future drunk enough to think hiring you is good idea.  Fuck your agent, fuck your friends, fuck your acquaintances, fuck any passing motorist who sees you crossing the street and brakes.

Fuck the state, county, city, school district, and street that spawned you.  Fuck the state, county, city, and street where you currently live.

Fuck everything you love.  Fuck everything you even mildly enjoy.

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(1) Assuming you have a sister.  If you do not, please substitute the appropriate of-age female member of your family with whom you share the closest relationship.

Big Hollywood has two links on their marquee today, one pimping Dr. Helen’s hilarious “Going Galt” meme (by all means, Andrew Breitbart, go Galt.  It would be nice to have my free-time back), and one crowing about the uptick in sales for Atlas Shrugged.

I’ve long been puzzled by some Republicans’ love for Rand, especially when they are OG, not-a-pose social conservatives like the bros at BH.  Here’s a few helpful quotations from Rand.

On abortion:

An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to anactual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the unborn).

Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?”

On religion:

Qua religion, no—in the sense of blind belief, belief unsupported by, or contrary to, the facts of reality and the conclusions of reason. Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it is the negation of reason. But you must remember that religion is an early form of philosophy, that the first attempts to explain the universe, to give a coherent frame of reference to man’s life and a code of moral values, were made by religion, before men graduated or developed enough to have philosophy.

On conservatism:

Above all, do not join the wrong ideological groups or movements, in order to “do something.” By “ideological” (in this context), I mean groups or movements proclaiming some vaguely generalized, undefined (and, usually, contradictory) political goals. (E.g., the Conservative Party, which subordinates reason to faith, and substitutes theocracy for capitalism; or the “libertarian” hippies, who subordinate reason to whims, and substitute anarchism for capitalism.) To join such groups means to reverse the philosophical hierarchy and to sell out fundamental principles for the sake of some superficial political action which is bound to fail. It means that you help the defeat of your ideas and the victory of your enemies.

On states’ rights:

[George Wallace] is not a defender of individual rights, but merely of states’ rights—which is far, far from being the same thing. When he denounces “Big Government,” it is not the unlimited, arbitrary power of the state that he is denouncing, but merely its centralization—and he seeks to place the same unlimited, arbitrary power in the hands of many little governments. The break-up of a big gang into a number of warring small gangs is not a return to a constitutional system nor to individual rights nor to law and order.

John Romano (whose headshot, hilariously, features him scratching his head confusedly) digs up a video of Obama and Chavez talking at the Summit of the Americas (actually, it’s more accurate to say that Obama is talking at Chavez):

Finally, some actual video of Obama and Hugo chatting at the Summit of the Americas.  Obama calls for spreading the wealth around and Chavez says “those of us who want to build heaven here on earth, we will follow socialism.”  They seem to have a lot in common.  I can’t make heads or tails of anything in this video and I wouldn’t trust the reporter from CNN, I mean Venezuelan state TV.

This is not video of the infamous brothers in Socialism handshake, but is interesting nonetheless.  The handshake video, if it ever existed, seems to have been thrown down the memory hole with Obama’s college transcripts.

What on earth can these two cats be talking about?

I haven’t had my coffee yet, so I’m going to let Obama himself do the mocking this morning.

THE PRESIDENT: I think it was a nice gesture to give me a book; I’m a reader. And you’re right, we had this debate throughout the campaign, and the whole notion was, is that somehow if we showed courtesy or opened up dialogue with governments that had previously been hostile to us, that that somehow would be a sign of weakness. The American people didn’t buy it. And there’s a good reason the American people didn’t buy it — because it doesn’t make sense.

You take a country like Venezuela — I have great differences with Hugo Chavez on matters of economic policy and matters of foreign policy. His rhetoric directed at the United States has been inflammatory. There have been instances in which we’ve seen Venezuela interfere with some of the — some of the countries that surround Venezuela in ways that I think are a source of concern.

On the other hand, Venezuela is a country whose defense budget is probably 1/600th of the United States’. They own Citgo. It’s unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States. I don’t think anybody can find any evidence that that would do so. Even within this imaginative crowd, I think you would be hard-pressed to paint a scenario in which U.S. interests would be damaged as a consequence of us having a more constructive relationship with Venezuela.

So if the question, Dan, is, how does this play politically, I don’t know. One of the benefits of my campaign and how I’ve been trying to operate as President is I don’t worry about the politics — I try to figure out what’s right in terms of American interests, and on this one I think I’m right.

One of the things that led to my obsession with Big Hollywood was the tendency of its contributors, in its first weeks, to read closet-conservatism into every movie or television show they liked, and closet-liberalism into every movie or television show they didn’t like.   I find the psychological need to have everything around you validate your beliefs fascinating, all the more so when it’s taken to the extreme of a person seeing the narrow, petty world of American electoral politics written over last night’s episode of House or whatever.

For example, who, in his right mind, watches American fucking Idol and sees a paragon of Randian virtue?  You can be all about the Protestant ethic and the capitalist spirit, and you can enjoy some crappy karaoke.  I won’t hold either of those  against you, really.  But when you try to argue that they complement each other, you only end up 1) cheapening both and 2) looking really stupid.

Three of the judges are almost always positive.  Randy Jackson, a producer who calls people “Dawg,” usually says something along the lines of “You really worked that out” or “Every week, you get up there and bring it.”  Kara DioGuardi, a songwriter, mostly urges the singers “to show us who you are.”  Paula Abdul, who looks astonishingly like she did back when she was making records in the 80’s, absolutely loves everything about everyone.  Her critiques are rambling, often incoherent affirmations not only of the singers’ performance but their essential beings – “That was beautiful, moving, heartbreaking, and I can feel that your inner beauty shining through and look, there’s a squirrel and I have a hat.  I love you.”

None of this could be considered criticism.  It is mostly validation, criticism’s arch-nemesis and the bane of anyone actually trying to improve himself.

It’s the fourth judge, English expat Simon Cowell, who makes “Idol” so conservative and so refreshing.  Because he just doesn’t care.  And it’s glorious.

“That was bloody awful,” he will casually observe.  Then the camera will pan to the 22-year old singer slash Hooters girl as her jaw drops in the face of an undeniable truth no one has ever dared tell her before.

“But singing is my dream,” she’ll protest.

“Get a new dream,” Simon will reply without a hint of emotion, “because your singing is a nightmare.  Go home.”  And they usually do – the audience tends to vote off those not making the Cowell cut.

So… if we’re applying this to politics, what I’m getting here is that Schlichter thinks democracy works only when the plebs use their votes to reaffirm the half-coherent ramblings of a prissy, constantly-angry white-guy arbiter, and to ignore the black dude (with his confusing lingo) and those silly, naive chicks?  OK, well then maybe the show is kind of conservative after all.

There’s two different posts to day (one by James Hudnall and one by John Simpson) both freaking out over a silly Drudge headline about obesity being a factor in climate change.

HIGH rates of obesity in richer countries cause up to a billion extra tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions every year, compared with countries with leaner populations, according to a study that assesses the additional food and fuel needs of the overweight.

The finding is particularly worrying, scientists say, because obesity is on the rise in many rich nations.

“Population fatness has an environmental impact,” said Phil Edwards, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “We’re all being told to stay fit and keep our weight down because it’s good for our health. The important thing is that staying slim is good for your health and for the health of the planet.”

This simple, obvious observation, made by a British academic with no known political affiliations or government ties, sends both Hudnall and Simpson into hysterics about the myriad ways in which American liberals will now persecute obese people.

Hudnall:

So do China and India have less greenhouse gas emissions than Canada and Germany? After all, China and India have “thinner” people. The answer is of course, no. This is a false claim like many of those the AGW crowd makes.

But making false statements didn’t stop the anti-smoking crusaders who made it seem like smoking a cigarette automatically gives you get lung cancer. And it’s gotten so bad many places are using their anti-smoker bias to deny smokers their civil rights. Using the same logic, they can start doing that to the “obese.”

There’s not much for me to do here except direct Hudnall to that first paragraph he quoted.  Their research claims that the obesity factors accounts for a billion extra tons of greenhouse gases a year.  The researchers never claim that obesity is the only factor.  That would be silly.

Simpson is even more red-faced though:

You know where this is going, right, people? Global Warming (GW) taxes on junk foods, if not all. Will they even dare propose a discriminatory tax on fat people themselves?

Um, probably not!  The researchers offer no policy prescriptions, and have no voice within the American government.  Chill the fuck out.

John Nolte actually graces us with his presence at Big Hollywood today (he hasn’t even been doing those lame TCM picks!), to tell us that JFK was a staunch conservative, Nixon was a hippie peacenik, The Pope won the Cold War, PSD doesn’t doesn’t exist, and that homeless people should fuck themselves:

If present-day Hollywood had their way here are five things you’d never know…

1. That JFK had way more in common with Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush than most of today’s Democrats

2. That Richard Nixon won the peace in Vietnam

3. That the Pope, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher might have had more to do with winning the Cold War than boozy, womanizing Democrats

4. That those who served in Vietnam and Iraq are not psychotics and victims

5. That most homeless are in fact not mystics and wise men

JFK was conservative for entering Vietnam!  Nixon was conservative for pulling out!  The troops there had an awesome time!  What!

4 and 5 are the most fair, though one must admit that the Vietnam thing cuts both ways; if we’d won as many engagements there as the movies depicted, there wouldn’t be a communist left on the planet.

Things really get awesome in the comments, though:

That the Catholic Church has done more to enable women’s liberty and security and rights than any other religion or government.

The Catholic schoolboy in me wants to spend a couple pages here quoting the ickier passages from Augustine and Aquinas, as well as the better feminist scholarly work on Marian adoration, but suffice to say, “LOL.”

That the Crusaders weren’t a bunch of whacked out, rabid Christians intent upon conquering the Muslim’s rightful homeland. There’s a reason it was called “The Holy Land”. Christ was born, lived, walked and died there six hundred years before Mohammed was even BORN. The Romans (pagans) had it when Christ died — Constantine converted to Christianity in the fourth century. Alexander the Great (a Pagan) had it before the Romans and the Jews before Alexander. The truth is Islam poured out of Arabia and CONQUERED the Holy Land by the sword. The Crusaders were just trying to take it back.

Liberal Hollywood takes sides in the Crusades?  When?  There was that Ridley Scott movie a few years back, but it hardly portrays the Muslims as awesome.

Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. There was not second shooter. There was No Magic bullet

Uh, isn’t the Magic Bullet theory the one that says Oswald acted alone?

The CEOs of US companies, with few exceptions, are caring, charitable, law abiding, intelligent, honorable people dedicated to the best interests of society. They are the sort of people you could trust your children with in an emergency. They are like the ‘CEO’ of the Maersk Alabama – willing to sacrifice for their employees.

Climbing the corporate ladder is a long tough ordeal. If you make mistakes, the mistakes will take you down. If you screw people along the way, they will find a way to pay you back and take you down. Darwin seldom naps in corporate America and thus the cream rises.

Someone hasn’t been reading the papers!

I can’t wait until 40 years from now, when the future versions of people like Nolte are claiming that Barack Obama was really a closet conservative.

I like how the language of modern conservatism  is starting to sound more and more like LOLspeak:

A few days ago I wrote an article to post at Big Hollywood, which was motivated in part by my reaction to watching the video of Jamean Garofalo, who recently appeared as a guest on Meek Olberdogg’s ‘Putdown’ Show. Clearly, she struck a nerve in me.  Making outrageous statements, she accused thousands of men and women, who participated in the recent Tea Party events, as being racist. Quote: “This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up.” Even for Ms. Garofalo this had to be a new low. To steal a ripe response from Mr. One Pissed Off Dude himself, Gary Graham, let me just say, “FTS.”

“Meek Olberdogg”?  I’m no Olbermann booster, but that is some weak shit right there.

It must be great to get paid for reporting on your random trips to retail stores, Jeff Lindsey.

Yesterday while strolling through the aisles of my local Barnes & Noble I was assaulted by fourteen magazines with Obama spread across their covers, all in differing poses, two included his wife in close embrace. In the history section forced upon my eyes in plain sight were 23 hardcover books with this political porn star upon it. Michelle Obama even had two books of her own, one a biography, and the other, I believe, was about her fashion sense.

OH MY GOD WHAT KIND OF LIBERAL DISTOPIAN NIGHTMARE IS THIS?!??  HAVE I AWOKEN TO SOME SORT OF KAFKAESQUE HORROR?  THERE ARE MAGAZINES WITH PICTURES OF THE PRESIDENT ON THE COVER!!!!

Also, there’s this: