Neat…..

Good stuff from Melanie Phillips at the UK Spectator and one of the few pundits over here who does not regurgitate the CNN/MSNBC “lines for the week” or regard Frum/Brooks/Sullivan as the Oracles of the American Conservative Delphi.

First she oh so brilliantly satirises the officially endorsed anti-Palin incantation inscribed on each broomstick inserted as a replacement backbone up the rectum of almost every media pundit and/or political hack on either side of the pond.

As all sentient people on the planet are now aware, Sarah Palin is a figure of extreme derision. She has been mocked for her ignorance of the world beyond Wasilla, Alaska, her total absence of education let alone sophistication, her wince-worthy wordplay, her homespun hicksville homiletics, her God-bothering gabbiness, her chavvy dysfunctional family (is she the grandmother of her son?? is she the mother of her grandson???), her hair, her glasses, her hockeyness, her beyond caricaturableness…has there ever been such a total idiot and embarrassment in political life?

Then, having got everyone at the North London dinner party sagely nodding heads and about to launch forth their own well polished nugget of Palin Airheadedness to screeches of laughter from the assembled hoi oligoi, Phillips then confronts them with her version of the First Law of Palin Metaphysics…..

How is it then that such an all-time airhead who, we were reliably informed, was ‘toast’ when she bowed out of Alaskan politics, has now put herself at the head of the most significant grassroots movement in America, the ‘Tea-Party’ populist revolt?

Read the rest here. I tell you, reading a Palin friendly article in the London prints is a secret vice almost as pleasurable as dunking a digestive biscuit in your mid morning cup of tea (but please, not a word to the Lovely Mrs P about the latter…..)

Apologies in advance for presenting a post which, at first glance, appears to be related to British politics. It certainly reflects my own fears and concerns as a lifelong Conservative Party voter (and sometime activist) here in the UK. But on the eve of Governor Palin’s address to the Tea Party Convention, a moment that may well turn out to be transformational  for American politics, Fraser Nelson’s cri de coeur about the future path of a Tory government must resonate with those conservatives in America who, in the dark fastness of night, still have feelings of unease about the upper echelons of the GOP.

We have an election coming up next May and the runes look good for a Tory victory. Triumph, however, is never assured until after the event and voters in all democracies sometimes have a nasty habit of giving the pundits and pollsters a bloody nose (a salutary warning to all my American friends wallowing in the euphoria of the Scott Brown victory)

Nelson, however, frames his concerns within the context of a Conservative victory which places David Cameron and his team in control of the levers of power in Westminster. Previous Tory leaders have stepped into Downing Street over the bloodied corpse of a broken Labour regime, most recently in 1970 and 1979, but with differing outcomes.

To win power is very different from winning office. To win the keys to No 10, a prime minister needs to be skilled in electoral combat. But to take power, a prime minister needs an agenda. Without one, he is a slave to his predecessors.

The last two times that the Tories took power from Labour ended very differently. Ted Heath, in 1970, was forced into a U-turn and lost power after four years. Margaret Thatcher transformed the country. Which is David Cameron likely to follow?

The problem is that, since the middle of the previous century, conservatives have allowed the left, aided and abetted by their surrogates in the media, to dictate the parameters of political debate. Certain concepts have been embroidered into the fabric of cultural discourse with such skill and discretion that many people on the right have subconsciously shifted their own positions of what is and what is not acceptable – for if they do not they risk being branded as neanderthal by the great and the good

Part of it is pure political reflex. Westminster is notoriously slow to work out which ideas have been abandoned by the public as not fit for purpose. We must also remember that the party is still shellshocked by three election defeats and its own internal warfare. The temptation is to get rid of anything that anyone might criticise. There is talk of keeping to a “mainstream” — one that seems to run through Fleet Street and Westminster.

Hands up those who thought “David Frum” when reading that quote. Believe me there are plenty of Frums on the right in London, ceaselessly pontificating about the need to adapt political positions to accommodate the sensitive antennae of shape shifters, or moderates, as they are more often described in polite society. “Capturing the middle ground” is usually their recipe for political success, ignoring the fact that the most electorally successful Conservative leader in modern British political history was a woman who made very little attempt to capture the middle ground. Furthermore she was eventually felled, not by the electorate, but by a conspiracy of Frum-like dwarves driven by motives of petty revenge and the desire for applause from the galleries of the BBC and the assembled ranks of the punditocracy who had had never recovered from the shock of having their advice ignored by someone as common as a grocer’s daughter.

Thatcher’s guru during the 70s and 80s was Keith Joseph, originally, like Thatcher, a minister in the Edward Heath government which took power after the defeat of the incumbent Labour government led by Harold Wilson in 1970. Heath won power on the strength of a strong fiscally conservative smaller government manifesto but within a year had made a complete U turn. In 1974 Harold Wilson returned to power.

Nelson points out that both Joseph and Thatcher realised that the Tory failure had sprung from an inability to shed the restrictive carapace of conforming to the liberal left agenda.

Keith Joseph declared that he had been “converted” to Conservatism in April 1974 — two months after that defeat. He said that he suddenly realised that, for all the bold talk about taking over from Harold Wilson, it was the same Government doing the same things.

Truly to take power, he said, one had to set the terms of debate. He had a phrase for it: the “verbal snares” that Labour sets for Conservatives. If a Tory party takes power yet uses Labour’s language, judges success by Labour’s yardsticks and confines itself to Labour’s ambitions, that’s not change. It’s more of the same.

What Thatcher did was not only to alter the parameters of debate – she also took the battle directly to the Labour party and their media cheerleaders in the BBC and the chattering classes. She was aggressive in her political stance, never apologising, always pressing the left onto the back foot by calling them to account whenever they, and the Frums in her own party, waffled on about the need to be “caring” and cautious.

For eleven years, with just a handful of loyalists in her party but to the delight of millions of ordinary people in our country she totally ignored the great and the good who felt they had the natural right to tell us what to do as they chattered self righteously at their North London dinner parties. But, lacking a well organised network of support within her own party she was unable to ensure an effective succession and, with her political demise, the old guard of trimmers and calculators were able to quench the revolutionary fire and return to the mantra of living corpses everywhere, “steady as she goes”….

Nelson isn’t yet convinced that David Cameron will sell out. But the siren voices are there, whispering in his ear…

But against Mr Cameron’s good angel, making the case for radicalism in his ear, is a bad angel urging caution. This angel will say that any meaningful policy offers a hostage to fortune. It will try to persuade him of the greatest political deception: we should be cautious now, and do what we want to do later.

This is the mission statement of every failed prime minister: because when does this moment for radicalism come? At what point will the Tory party not be in election mode? When Margaret Thatcher’s ministers presented her with a five-year plan, she would point out that Britain won a world war in less time. But the bad angel will tell Mr Cameron that winning, actually, is enough this time: the radical reforms can be left for the second term. Ted Heath thought the same. Mr Cameron will either be a radical or a failure. There is no middle way.

When Sarah Palin mounts the platform in Nashville she will, of course, be herself. She invokes comparison with Reagan and Thatcher but it is unwise to clothe contemporary figures in the raiment of the past – different times, different situations. But she will talk the Thatcher message of trusting people to make their own decisions rather than having decisions made for them and she will fearlessly take the fight to the left and the Frums and the trimmers. But with the Tea Partiers she will have something that Thatcher never had, a potential army of grassroots soldiers ready and willing to send a surge of electricity through the GOP machine giving it a will to power, not to gain office and enjoy the trappings but to transform the political and cultural fabric of the nation.

Her own role in that process remains shrouded in the swirling mists of the unknown future. She might be the leader ready to march in front to capture the citadel and accept the sash of authority from the grateful legions or just the prophet providing the impetus to surge the movement forward, enabling new leaders to emerge on the march. But one thing is certain – it is difficult to imagine any other public figure more suited to that moment than Sarah Palin.

Camille Paglia said of her in the autumn of 2008 when the entirety of the left and many on the right were treating her with disdain that Palin was a gifted politician whose time had not yet come.

Perhaps February 2010 is her time….

“Even more evidence of corruption at the TP Convention – that shady bunch of crooks at Judicial Watch have stepped in as sponsors. Everybody knows that they just a front organisation for the Palin zombies who want to destroy America and proclaim John McCain as Emperor of…..blah blah blah blah….”

Just couldn’t resist combining the narrative to be seen in some of the recent comments about Governor Palin in Hot Air as a grinning Allahpundit stokes the fires around these issues. Such is the feeding frenzy in certain circles even a highly respected corruption fighting organisation like JW could be caught in the crossfire so do not be surprised if my rather satirical take on this (quoted above) is not repeated in all seriousness by some from the wilder shores of politics..

I saw Josh Painter’s message about Judicial Watch stepping in as a sponsor for the Tea Party Convention just after I had read yet another post by Dan Riehl criticising the Convention and Palin’s involvement. To be fair about 50% of the comments were taking him to task for rehashing this, even implying that there was something mildly Sullivanesque about how he and Erickson and Clouthier were gnawing at this bone.

Why not now just wait and see what happens at this Convention and how Palin is received. If the whole thing is a mess and she ends up with egg on her face then those three can have a really good laugh with the CPAC crowd….but somehow they know in their bones that she is more likely to be the star and the story on this whereas CPAC might well be treated as a hobbyists get together.
I wish that the Irish bookmaker who paid up on Brown the day before the election was taking bets on her impact on the TPC and the TP movement in general – would be worth a punt…

Exit question – why is Politico taking such an interest in this? Oh no – surely not….they wouldn’t ever do something for those reasons…..no…no…I refuse to believe they have an agenda…..

 BTW

I know that some have been irritated with Riehl over this but it’s worth pointing out that

1. It’s his blog and he is entitled to say what he likes
2. Unlike certain other bloggers he allows critical respondents and doesn’t ban them
3. On other issues he still stands firmly in her corner

I was interviewed on SarahRadio few days ago. Martha and her co-host Debbie were very tolerant and even managed to follow my English accent….lol….

Maybe Fox has room for an elderly English eccentric?

If you are stuck in the house watching the paint dry and wanting to kill time you can find it here….

Even Allahpundit, always so reticent about drawing attention to articles criticising or demeaning Sarah Palin, feels the need to share his pain with us

I’m not quite as supportive of her as Erickson seems to be, but I do like her personally — and yet of course I get all the “Palin-hater” stuff thrown at me too when I dare to post, say, a poll that shows her numbers sinking.

Poor Allah, sitting there in his Manhattan apartment, stroking his cat, is always so inoffensive in his posts. He sees the best in everyone, is rarely sarcastic or brutal in his comments and has never been known to seek extra traffic by being provocative. So he bleeds for other bloggers who, in merely trying to be helpful to Palin by questioning her motives, her judgement and her political common sense over the CPAC and the Tea Party Convention affair, have been shocked and wounded by respondents who have questioned the bloggers’ own motives and judgement

It is classic Allah, a cri de coeur, glistening with heartfelt sincerity, pleading the unfairness of bombing the bomb throwers. Even I, world weary old English cynic that I am, felt tears welling up in my timeworn eyes….

Then, in the comments, I read this remark from the cheap seats

These two posts say it all:

Look, Sarah has the qualities needed to be a great POTUS to move the country from the edge.
Therefore, when people attack her, we see it as attacking our country.
She represents the best of American womanhood and conservatism. Therefore, it is understandable we close ranks to protect her for although she is not perfect, she is good person, and we like the good ones to win.
Sapwolf on January 14, 2010 at 9:00 PM

allah,
It’s really simple. Palin is family. Period end of story. It would be like a stranger defaming your mother. Or sister. You will defend her. Family honor requires it. add in the amount of dirt slung at Palin from both the left and the right and it is wonder she is not MORE defended when people attack her.
And yes Eric may try to weasel his way out of it but he attacked Palin’s decision making skills and intelligence in his post.
unseen on January 14, 2010 at 9:18 PM

Truely nothing else needs to be said. No one worships Palin, but we all LOVE her. Most would stop a bullet for her. (more to this than most will ever know)
We really don’t give a damn who attacks her, left, right, middle. You attack Palin, you attack US, you attack America.
We understand that Sarah isn’t perfect, that she makes mistakes. Well goddamn, she’s human. BUT, even so, she is by far the best leader this nation has seen in decades.
We have absolutely no problem understanding where she stands on any issue, and we, for the most part agree with her.
Frankly, I have disagreed more on her strategery post governor, and yet, she’s proven she knows exactly what she is doing, so I’m just STFU’ing!
As for you nimrods that don’t get the saturation on Fox….It’s obvious you’d starve to death in sales!
Sarah is the hottest thing on the planet, she’s ratings GOLD. Fox has her and they want to promote the hell out of her. They are in the ratings business. They are in business to sell advertising. Their product is news, their customers are the advertisers. Sarah will get them a lot more customers, customers they can charge a premium.
BTW, they did the same thing with Glenn Beck and Stossel, just to a lessor extent. But frankly, neither Beck nor Stossel come close to the star power Sarah has. Absolutely no one in the country does.
How much you want to bet that Loren Michaels doesn’t have a whole team trying to figure out how to get Palin/Beck on SNL ASAP?
Who else in America could suggest what she and Beck did (because of her) and be taken seriously?
BTW II: Sarah is going to be on Teh Oprah tomorrow.
In short for ANYONE who wants to dis Sarah, the very best advice I can give is: DON’T START NONE, THERE WON’T BE NONE!
That goes for everyone.
gary4205 on January 14, 2010 at 11:19 PM

Then I recalled Edmund Burke’s comment upon how the Queen of France was treated during the latter days of the French Revolution

Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour, and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leapt from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists and calculators has succeeded

;

One might say that in 21st century America (as in Britain) “sophisters and calculators” indeed rule – but it’s clear from the rasp of swords leaving scabbards over the last few days that there are quite a few people who still set great store by that unfashionable eighteenth century concept of honour….

Exit question (a la Allahpundit)….Is saying “no” a demonstration of authority and complaining about being told “no” sign of weakness?

The House

Unlike many parts of the USA heavy winter snow is a comparatively rare event in our part of England so the last few days have made quite an impact. Fortunately we are both retired and are still relatively well stocked with food – and gin – so there is no need to risk the cars on the untreated side roads or our bottoms on the icy pavements.
However, to avoid a complete outbreak of stir craziness, we ventured out for a brief airing a couple of times – hence the pics (taken by The Lovely Mrs P, much more creative than yours truly…)

The road from our house

Obviously this was not the time for gardening…

Our garden

….and summer memories of sun drenched days in France sitting outside our caravan with a glass of cool muscadet seemed quite distant…..

Best forget the caravan and barbecue for today

The snow was still there the next day so we decided to walk up the hill to St. Nicholas’ Church – normally just five minutes away

The top of the hill

The church is at the end of a short lane, just beyond a field.

The gate

We took a closer look at the field – magical…..

The field of winter dreams

Then onto the path leading to the church

The church path

The churchyard was still, silent and peaceful…

They have seen it all before

The Saxon church of St Nicholas is one of the oldest in England – for over 1000 years the locals have walked along that path for prayer and worship. Even though the M23 motorway is only a few hundred yards away and Gatwick airport is just down the road
the atmosphere is surprisingly calm….

St Nicholas' Church

Timeless

Then back through the avenue of trees (“the Ten Apostles”), out of the lychgate and back home for something warm and cosy..

The path back home

If you would like to see the pics in greater detail go here.

Exposed at last – the truth about those Facebook postings!!

A photo of Sarah Palin composing a Facebook statement can be found here.

A video of her sending it can be seen here……

Meet Michael Jefferies – he recently wrote an article about Sarah Palin in The Guardian. Here is a little more detail about Mr Jefferies and his contribution to the groves of academe….

Michael Jeffries is an Assistant Professor of American Studies at Wellesley College. At Wellesley, Michael teaches courses on race and politics, hip-hop studies, the sociology of sport, and the cultural significance of Barack Obama. His published work includes research on hip-hop feminism (in Home Girls, Make Some Noise! (2007)), and racism and interracial dating (in The Du Bois Review (2006)).

As befits a man a man who has become the world’s greatest expert on hip hop feminism he is puzzled how an uneducated hayseed has managed to gain a following in the USA with no experience of public affairs.

As far as politics are concerned, before we anoint her the next Ronald Reagan, we might acknowledge that Palin holds no public office (although, when he was elected to the presidency, neither did Reagan). Palin shirked her responsibility to serve the people of Alaska who elected her governor, opting to resign and promote her autobiography instead.
…..
If this were the extent of the criticism, Palin might be treated like other politicians who entered the public sphere unprepared and demonstrated no command of the issues, which is to say, she would be irrelevant. But Palin’s critics can’t help themselves. Her biography, speaking gaffes, and family life continue to command people’s attention, and serve as fodder for tabloids and comedic parody.

Still this isn’t about Michael Jefferies, cultural guru and academic genius – it’s about his readers and their reactions in the posted comments. The overall tone is as much as can be expected – Palin is ignorant, vicious, evil, creationist, mad etc etc…standard WaPo/NYT stuff in their UK equivalent. Young Michael certainly knew how to light the blue touchpaper and retire…

However there is, now and then, the odd voice defending her. Each one of these few then provokes a tsunami of insults against the authors, quite astonishing in their viciousness and bile. Considering Guardianistas claim to be rational, caring, educated citizens, peace loving and driven by conscience the sheer degree of vehemence is quite unnerving.

But then one of the Palinistas steps beyond the mark by mentioning she has a black friend who is a big Palin supporter. Several Guardianistas call her a liar and fantasist so she replies thus

Go ahead and assume I am lying about my black friend I would give you the link to her Pro-Palin blog site, but she gets enough liberals sending her threats and insults…mostly accusing her of being a “traitor to her race.” Indeed, she worked all day, alongside Palin, at one of her booksigning stops…and…at the end of the day…was pelted with eggs by one of those “tolerant” and “open-minded” white Obama supporters.

Which provokes this rational, peace loving and carefully considered response from LukaKuzmich

Good. She deserved it. I hope it happens to her again. And again. And every time she sticks her stupid head up in support of a neonazi thug.
Are you getting the message yet , that the rest of the world despises your Hicksville Heroine, her message of hatred and war, and everything she stands for?
You want “freedom fries”?? Great, we’ll send you the boiling oil.

What is even more interesting is this well reasoned contribution gets approved by six other Guardian readers…..

Exit question #1…..do you think LukaKuzmich is a hip hop feminist?

Exit question #2……hey, Sarah…..Hicksville Heroine….shouldn’t you get that emblazoned on your jacket instead of Arctic Cat?

Sometimes in a world of apparently random and disconnected events you need a telescope to comprehend the big picture and gain some understanding of how all the smaller parts fit together to make up the whole. But at other times it is necessary to drill down really deep into the smaller parts themselves to discover the hidden forces that drive them along their chosen pathways – and then the power of a microscope is more useful in helping to unravel the mysteries of human conduct.

Which is why the self justifying manifesto  of the Rochester egg man who went to a Borders Palin book signing event hoping to throw an egg at Sarah Palin is a document of considerable significance because, as we push beyond the usual adolescent pseudo-revolutionary posturing we can observe an uglier truth  about the mindset of this weird gremlin, who Lenin would have filed as a “useful idiot”, and his more sinister dancing masters, the Chris Matthews, Geoffrey Dunns and Andrew Sullivans whose steady drumbeat of lies and crude, misogynistic vitriol has the sole purpose of dehumanizing Sarah Palin and, by association, her supporters.

Once you have managed to characterise your opponent as some kind of malevolent, alien force you can then step outside the constraints of civil discourse and either excuse or even justify acts of cruelty or violence because the object of your hatred threatens your own humanity. It happened in Salem, in Nazi Germany and during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, in Bosnia and Rwanda – depersonalise the “enemy” and then no holds are barred.

We know, of course, that the Rochester egg man arrived too late to become the Huffington hero and martyr himself  – his prime target had already left. So he chose the even more familiar ritual of the radical left, a piece of street theatre, of performance art. He attacked the symbol of Sarah Palin, her book display.

In one motion, the egg is out and I’m pitching it full force at a pyramid of Palin books. In slow motion I see the oblong, white missile fly true towards its mark. The egg loudly smashes into Palin’s grinning, idiot face, and chicken menses  splatters the entire pyramid.

How high he must have been at that moment – he was 1776, 1789, 1917. He would become a god at Kos, he would be embraced by Arianna Huffington, lauded at mudflats, feted at Tina Brown’s next party….maybe even share a centerfold with Ricky Hollywood….

He was held by the police but he didn’t care – like the students in Tehran he was ready to face beatings and imprisonment on behalf of all  those people who “are suffering while Palin spreads insidious lies about health care.”

Then he came face to face with Adrienne Ross….

Next, a small herd of people gather around me. A black woman, whom I thought to be a reporter when I saw her in Borders, is front and center. Maybe she’ll take my story and turn this sad and ridiculous fiasco into something worthwhile.

Reading that immediately sparks a red shift and we are able to enter the alternative universe inhabited by egg man and his kind. It is a universe of certainties governed not by the rules of evidence and reason but the laws of Arianna where you begin with your deduction and then sculpt the proofs to endorse it.  The egg man sees a black woman at a Palin book tour and he knows she can’t be a supporter of the ‘Cuda because Chris Matthews has told him that when you see a Palin crowd there is no ethnic diversity and when she speaks of Real America – well that’s just code for Bull Connor style white supremacy.

A black reporter – maybe for CNN or CBS or the NYT – the anticipation put egg man on cruise control. The Fox guy had brushed him off but now he could help the media shine a light on Palin’s plan to crush the sick. Cool and calm he awaited the first question – and then his universe shattered into a million glistening shards as he discovered  the truth about Adrienne Ross – she wasn’t his saviour, she was his nemesis.

Each of the crowd is holding Palin books, including my imagined African American savior. They are pissed Palin pals and apparently I had gotten them with egg. The woman complains that she was up since 3 am for Sarah, and now she has to change her clothes.

Egg man redshifts again, he’s back in his universe and it’s all gone Huffington. Adrienne is no longer the black Katie Couric raring for the dirt on Palin – she’s a Palinista and, by definition, a non person, ready to be worked to death in KZ or Gulag then buried in an unmarked grave. Even worse, as a black Palinista she becomes a “race traitor”, a non person amongst the non people.

To them, any facts are mere fabrications of a media conspiracy. We are no longer able to reason together, as they’ve discarded rational thought as a trapping of liberalism.

The egg man’s Orwellian Newspeak is a wonder to behold. He who only seconds before was delighting in an act of ritualised violence on behalf of the masses now complains that his victim has discarded rational thought – the red shift is complete.

The egg man’s pathetic manifesto reveals the hollowness of his world view, the infantilism of his self centred posturing. He would claim to be another Zapata but reading his pathetic testament  with it’s theatrical sentimentality the image of an embryonic Streicher comes to mind.

In the end, though, it might have been fortunate for the egg man that security was so quick to react. Adrienne Ross is a feisty young lady – she teaches in a New York public school, she rides a Harley and is on fire for the Lord, like one of Cromwell’s troopers. If she had decided to construct her own piece of street theatre on the egg man I wouldn’t have wanted to be in his shoes…..