Success. The left retreats

A Climate of Slander
Jan 24, 2011, Vol. 16, No. 18 • By THE SCRAPBOOK Get alerts when there is a new article that might interest you. Liberal pundits suffered a psychotic break last week, metaphorically speaking, of course. When a gunman opened fire on Representative -Gabrielle Giffords and a crowd that had gathered to hear her speak in Tucson, they were certain that Conservatives must, somehow, be to blame. So the liberal intelligentsia rushed to erect a gallows in the public square (metaphorically speaking, a...

The Tucson Massacres The Hall Of Shame: Liberals Who Used Tragedy To Smear The Right
G.I. Wood Shop Inc. Mrs. Peel Oh…My Valve! V The K’s Caption This! An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later. The massacre in Tucson was a horrendous tragedy. Everyone in the country, of every ideological stripe, should have been allowed to mourn the Victims’ deaths and injuries without the imposition of having to defend people who had nothing at all to do with it. But where normal people saw tragedy, the Far Left saw opportunity. They  jumped at th...

There's a New Sheriff in Politics
The Thread is an in-depth look at how major news and controversies are being debated across the online spectrum. Tags: blogs, Internet, Media, tuscon shooting In his Speech in Tucson Wednesday night, President Obama called on Americans to expand their “moral imaginations” and “remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together.” Well, never hurts to aim high. For now, at least, the president seems to have put an end to the...

Lessons from a witch hunt
I shouldn’t even feel the need to write this, but alas I must.  Apart from the lessons from the tragedy in Tucson, there needs to be a retrospective of the reactions and the lessons that we can glean from it. A primary lesson is that of media reaction in and around Washington.  CNN in particular is guilty on this one.  They are emblematic of the wider problem.  Within hours of the shooting, CNN reporters began inserting the fact that Rep. Giffords was one of Sarah Palin...

The Progressive Smear Machine Blames the Right Again
Check Michelle's post, "Blame Righty: A Condensed History": On Monday, as The Progressive smear machine worked overtime to pin the horrific Tucson massacre on Conservatives and to squelch political opposition by targeting Tea Party/limited-government Rhetoric, I published “The progressive “climate of hate:” An illustrated primer, 2000-2010.” Today’s column provides another primer for the Amnesia-wracked blamestream media on just how widespread the Blame Righty me...

John Dingell (D-MI) blames Palin, GOP for rhetoric leading to AZ shooting. Flashback: linked tea party to KKK, called radio talk
By now, many have already seen this Dingell diatribe on the floor of the House via TPM: Curiously, Dingell said: "I saw the district of Gabrielle Giffords has a crosshairs put on it. As a lifetime rifleman and shooter, I know what crosshairs signify when you put them on somebody and I know what happened.Is he talking about Palin or Daily Kos? The liberal Daily Kos put a bullseye on Giffords in 2008 (via HillBuzz): More from Henry Payne at The Michigan View: Dingell just accused Palin as an acce...

Epic Fail
Posted by John at 7:17 PM This Quinnipiac Poll provides more evidence that hardly anyone buys the Democratic Party's spin on the Tucson murders. When asked "What do you think is the main reason for the Arizona shooting; failure of the Mental Health system, lax Gun Control laws, overheated political Rhetoric, or do you think this is a situation that could not have been prevented?" respondents answered: * Mental health system: 23% * Gun control laws: 9% * Political rhetoric: 15% * Couldn't have b...

Gun Control, Self Control, and Tone Control
I am a firm believer that the nug behind the gun is what needs controlling. I also believe that automatic weapons, street sweepers and 31 round mags should be reserved for the good guys. But one restriction always leads to another and not one gun can pull its own trigger, and no 31 round mag ever locked itself and jacked one into the chamber. Note to Sheriff Dipstik in Pima County. Yo! Dipstik, shut the hell up, step away from the camera, and keep your political dreams to your self! Do your job ...

It Did Not'
Jan 24, 2011, Vol. 16, No. 18 • By WILLIAM KRISTOL Get alerts when there is a new article that might interest you. After a depressing week—a horrible shooting that killed 6 people and wounded 14 others, followed by days of demagoguery and idiocy surpassing even the normal standards of our power-without-responsibility punditocracy—recent days have brought encouraging news. The medical prognosis for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords seems more hopeful than had been thought likely. And the A...

Mortal Recoil
Consider the following reactions to the tragic shooting in Tucson: First, President Barack Obama’s Speech got rave reviews (“magic,” New York Times columnist Gail Collins called it), even though, by the standards, say, of Bill Clinton’s Oklahoma City address, it was pretty humdrum, especially during those times when the president was trying to draw lessons from the tragedy rather than eulogizing its Victims. Second, Obama’s Approval Rating, taken after the killings...

Chris Matthews: Whats with these crackers wanting to see Obamas birth certificate?
Is this offensive? I ask that in all earnestness because, after this week, I don’t know what the rules are for Political Speech anymore. I thought “cracker” was a mild slur for whites, but then I also thought that joking about hanging Joe Lieberman in effigy must be over the line as an impermissible violent metaphor — and evidently I was waaay wrong about that. So, I guess this is cool now. Life brings us new lessons every day, my friends. Two clips for you here, one of...

After Tucson shootings, Sarah Palin isn't retreating, she's reloading (The Christian Science Monitor)
Say one thing for Sarah Palin: She heeds her own advice. Coming only days after Ms. Palin was drawn into the Arizona shooting drama, news that the former Alaska Governor and potential presidential aspirant will headline a gun-friendly hunting convention Jan. 29 fits her famous stump phrase: "Don't retreat, reload." It is a philosophy that defines Palin as a political figure and also points to how closely her own public persona echoes that of the American gun culture she promotes....

GOP rejects Steele
The republican party has finally driven chairman Michael Steele from his post. After the republican made huge gains in the mid-term Elections, many in the party, especially those endorsed by the Tea Party, questioned if the results were a slap in the face to Steele. He had been criticized by many Tea Party supporters who felt he wasn't conservative enough for them.  The party has instead turned to Reince Priebus, a former top lieutenant for Michael Steele, and current chairman of the Wiscon...

NYT Film Critic Accidentally Writes Column About Politics
As I was reading Friday’s movie reviews in the NYT, the headline “Defy the Elite! Wait, Which Elite?” jumped out at me.  Since I’ve always been fascinated by the right’s success in appropriating that term, I clicked over to read A.O. Scott’s essay.  Looks like movie and entertainment critics are in the same boat we are: [Neal] Gabler begins with the assertion that, “as anyone who has ever wiggled in his seat at a classical music concert or stared in disb

Recycled Hope
By RightKlik OMG, OFA! WTH? One thing on the pep rally-disguised-as-a-memorial on Wednesday night. I happened to, as I have been told, anger a lot of people yesterday by saying that the president delayed the memorial while waiting for the polling data to come in and the T-shirts to get printed. Well, guess what? I was right on both counts. The polling data shows, as you know, that the American People do not associate conservative Rhetoric with what happened out in Arizona. In fact, there's a Q...

Obama's Tucson memorial speech: A conversation in dissent
In part because there's been such rush to sanctify Obama's Tucson's Speech--not just in Versailles, but online as well--I feel a need to end the week with a reiteration of dissenting opinion. To state my case (perhaps too) succinctly: It's not that I object to a speech that makes people feel good. It's that I object to it in place of a speech that makes people do good. But it's not my case that I'm concerned with, as indicated by the fact that I first asked debcoop to refine her thoughts for ...

The Guardian goes full Orwell
I realize the UK’s Guardian is pretty far down toward the Left end of the scale, but does Commissar Simon Jenkins realize just how… dumb this headline and summary sounds? Free Speech can’t exist unchained. US politics needs the tonic of order If America is to speak in a way that heals, as Obama wishes, it needs the curbs and Regulations that make freedom of expression real Didn’t guys named “Benito” and “Adolph” say much the same thing ...

A Letter to Sheriff Dupnik (WARNING Right Wing Hatespeach)
It took many drafts and revisions to ensure my mind was properly represented and anything that could be distorted as a threat was removed, but i finally mailed a letter bearing my glorious signature to Sheriff KKKlerance Dupnikkk. It follows. I wrote this letter the moment I heard you spouting your heartless Leftist claptrap. You have no shame. A demented young Leftist who reads The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf kills six innocent people (including a nine-year-old girl, a Federal Judge, an...

Top 10 Most Ridiculous Attacks on Conservatives Following the AZ Shootings
This has been a hugely shameful week for sections of the American Left, who have exploited a horrific tragedy that claimed six lives, in order to advance political attacks upon some leading conservative politicians and media commentators, as well as an entire political movement in the form of the Tea Party. The vitriolic and hate-filled attacks have marked a low point for liberal media elites in America in the 21st century, even to the extent that President Obama himself, probably the most liber...

DISPUTATIONS: Looking for Trouble
Click here to read the original review, “Mobs,” and click here to read David C. Ward and Jonathan D. Katz’s letter to Jed Perl. Let me make one thing absolutely clear. I have not written a review of “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture.” Nor do I intend to. So while David Ward and Jonathan Katz may welcome “attacks” on their exhibition, they cannot count me among the attackers. I was sent a catalogue of “Hide/Seek” by th...

The Weekly Wrap
Today on the Dish, we followed Tunisia as its President dissolved the government, and a State of Emergency was declared. Larison stressed the importance of Tunisians deposing an autocrat on their own, without US intervention and Andrew debated Evgeny Morozov on how instrumentalTwitter was. We rounded up reax and reports from the ground in Tunisia here, here, and here, and the role of Wikipedia in the coup here and here. Sarah Palin said sorry seven times (last year), Limbaugh sunk to new lows,...

Brown won’t back a new weapons ban
Senator Scott Brown, who has described himself as a supporter of Massachusetts’ tough Gun Laws, said yesterday he would not support federal Gun Control Legislation and does not know if anything can be done to prevent a repeat of last week’s Mass Shooting in Arizona. In a wide-ranging, 20-minute interview, one of several Brown gave yesterday as he gears up for his Reelection campaign in 2012, the Republican said he would not support a renewal of the federal assault weapons ban, which...

GOP ousts Steele, picks Wisc. chair Priebus as leader
Reince Priebus, of the Wisconsin Republican Party, talks with members during the Republican National Committee Winter Meeting, Friday, Jan. 14, 2011. The national Republican Party, coming off huge election victories but facing a $22 million Debt and an internal war over identity, ousted chairman Michael Steele Friday and chose Wisconsin party chief Reince Priebus to lead in the run-up to the 2012 presidential race. The embattled Steele dropped his re-election bid halfway through an afternoon of ...

Cornyn mocks those who inject themselves into a primary?
John Cornyn is a pretty good senator, but to many Conservatives, Cornyn represents a Republican establishment that disdains the Tea Party and cares little for principle. That's because Cornyn, as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, decided to get involved in the Florida Senate primary last cycle, backing liberal Gov. Charlie Crist over conservative Marco Rubio. It was extraordinary for the NRSC to get involved in a primary, especially siding against an electable conservativ...

Reince Priebus: "We Can Defeat Barack Obama in 2012"
The new elected RNC Chairman Reince Priebus holds up a gavel after winning the post, Jan. 14, 2011 in Oxon Hill, MD. (Credit: (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)) The Republican Party will face significant challenges in the 2012 election cycle: A geared-up Democratic electorate excited to see President Obama back on the ballot, a rowdy and somewhat unpredictable Tea Party base, funds flowing through multiple outside organizations. On top of all that, the Republican National Committee must dea...