Remember the man holding his child at a rally in Chicago in April 2009? Remember CNN reporter Susan Roesgen disdainfully brushing aside his comments about taxes? Remember at the time Roesgen and her fellow Obama devotees in the media  were reigning supreme having carried him on their shoulders to the summit of mount Olympus to crown him with the garland of Zeus? Her contempt for the man became the official narrative about the Tea Party movement not just from the Obama administration and its mouthpieces in the liberal/left US media but also from the GOP establishment and many of the so called conservative hacks scribbling away in their east coast niches. Naturally this became the prism through which the rest of the world (especially the BBC) perceived the movement – what could be described as Roesgen’s Law

“you get the general tenor of this,” tea party. “Anti-government, anti-CNN since this is highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network Fox and since I can’t really hear much more and I think this is not really family viewing. Toss it back to you Kyra,”

Yet less than two years later we discover the astonishing power of the man holding his child and those around him in Chicago and all the other places where the protests were being made

Just about as many Americans want Tea Party-backed members of Congress to take the lead in setting policy during the next year as choose President Obama, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds.

In a survey taken Friday through Sunday, 28% say Obama should have the most influence on government policy next year while 27% say the Tea Party standard-bearers should. GOP congressional leaders are chosen by 23%, Democratic congressional leaders by 16%.

Not bad for a bunch of right wing bullies and wingnuts. Zeus and his Democrat cohorts have had to descend from Mount Olympus into the real world and many of their acolytes will have to actually work for a living. But, more significantly, to what extent have the Republican leaders in the House and Senate gone cold turkey on their Roesgen? In the past there was some suspicion that they were still not clean and even now there are signs of addiction. They need to tread warily, I wager – I doubt that the volcano is extinct…

Toss it back to you, Kyra…

Allahpundit at HotAir (who else?) has the bare essentials….. naturally the BBC went orgasmic over Sarah Palin’s “gaffe”

Former Alaskan governor and potential 2012 presidential contender Sarah Palin has made a gaffe on a radio show by saying North Korea is a US ally.
Answering questions from host Glenn Beck she said, “Obviously, we’ve got to stand with our North Korean allies.”

Notice the weasel wording. Even though during the rest of the interview she had been talking of the need to support South Korea what was clearly a slip of the tongue has been twisted to give the impression she doesn’t know the difference between North and South Korea.
The Beeb, of course, was, as usual, following the lead of its left/liberal partners in the US media, who as one jumped onto this story with glee. But Palin always fights back – something the media on both sides of the pond find quite shocking because she does it via Facebook and therefore avoids the filters of the media monopolists.

A Thanksgiving Message to All 57 States

My fellow Americans in all 57 states, the time has changed for come. With our country founded more than 20 centuries ago, we have much to celebrate – from the FBI’s 100 days to the reforms that bring greater inefficiencies to our health care system. We know that countries like Europe are willing to stand with us in our fight to halt the rise of privacy, and Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s. And let’s face it, everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma and they end up taking up a hospital bed. It costs, when, if you, they just gave, you gave them treatment early, and they got some treatment, and ah, a breathalyzer, or an inhalator. I mean, not a breathalyzer, ah, I don’t know what the term is in Austrian for that…

And the beauty of that rather confusing riposte? It consists entirely of mangled word salad from Barack Obama, each one backed up with Youtube clips…

Read the rest here  and realise how Palin is playing completely out of the box…..

I wish I could have had a similar job to that of Alex Spillius, Washington correspondent of the UK Daily Telegraph. He gets up, shaves, showers, has his breakfast, reads the New York Times and Washington Post, watches MSNBC and CNN, e mails a couple of journolists, pens a few hundred words by rejigging what he has heard and read that morning, sends his piece to the Telegraph and gets paid a three figure salary.

Unfair?

Not if you read this snarky little hit piece. It has the fingerprints of the Beltway GOP Stop Palin cabal all over it – and every buzzword from the Karl Rove lexicon…

Divisive, racial politics, DWTS vote rigging, TV Reality show…..you begin to wonder if Mona Charen is not our Alex in drag.

In leaked extracts of her new book, Mrs Palin delves into the minefield of racial politics, arguing that the first African American US president is among those who regarded the conservative tea party movement as racially prejudiced and who thinks that “America is a fundamentally unjust and unequal country”.
As proof, she dredged up a quote from a 2008 campaign speech in which Mrs Obama said “for the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country”.

Naturally our fearless hack uses no shoeleather to find out if there is any justification to the governor’s alleged remarks (Spillius has not read the book, of course, just selective leaks from left wing websites) and I’m afraid that is par for the course for this third rate scribbler. Throughout 2008 he and his Telegraph colleague Toby Harnden made no attempt to investigate Obama’s connections to Rev Jeremiah Wright or the Chicago Machine. They made little or no comment about his lack of any executive experience or the questionable nature of Michelle Obama’s employment and remuneration.

Nor has Spillius brought to the attention of his UK readers any of the controversies about his administration’s suspiciously biased handling of the Black Panthers voter intimidation case. Indeed it is only in recent months that he has begun to report about the growing realisation among the Beltway elite that the man that they all (including Spillius) claimed was Zeus has transformed into Ozymandias. But naturally nothing about the fact that it was Spillius and his fellow hacks who oversold the Obama brand in the first place.

But then what can one expect from the so called right wing Telegraph. Stripped of it’s best writers by the Barclay Brothers and their axemen it has devolved into a bland lifestyle gossip rag with little understanding of the grassroots resurgence of conservatism fired up by the big government agenda of an incompetent and inexperienced machine hack and his blundering henchmen – no wonder it was the left/liberal Guardian which attracted the hip and cool talk radio Palin friendly Tammy Bruce to write a regular column. Alex Spillius and his Beltway chums would regard her with withering disdain – which is why his meaningless musings about Palin should always be filed under F for forgettable…

Or, as the inimitable Dan Riehl has written over a similar put down

If Sarah Palin has a secret weapon, it’s how distasteful and classless are so many of the GOP establishment types lined-up against her. If they were nearly as smart as they fancy themselves to be, they’d probably just shut-up and let the chips fall where they may.

UPDATE
The Spillius pump has just thrown up two more squirts of Palinphobia making it clear that he is the hack of choice for the GOP Beltway suits as their main transatlantic pipeline to feed the “Derail Palin” message onto the marmalade and toast laden breakfast tables of the Telegraph’s Tory middle class readership. As our feisty friend Cubachi points out she gets more respect from Vice President Biden than she does from the Republican establishment.

But hey – she’d be great serving the coffee…..

I have had breakfast, getting ready to pack and then flying out from Chicago back to London later today. The C4p meet up has been everything I expected. It was so good to meet the people behind the usernames – and you know what? They were all just ordinary, everyday folk – Mr, Mrs and Miss America and all of them country class, exactly like the people who would be shopping in my local Tesco supermarket.

Not one person from Deliverance or Elm Street but instead friendly, cheerful and very welcoming to yours truly. However these Palinistas, these ordinary barbarians, Katie Couric’s great unwashed, have got spines of steel and a sleeves rolled up determination to face up to anything once they get The Call.

No doubt others will be reporting back about the meet up and, once I am back home I hope to do a little reflecting myself as an observer form “across the pond” (as the governor so kindly put it when she called in)…an observer, yes, but also, I hope, as a friend.

My thanks to the organisers who worked so hard to put everything in place (and, no doubt, also shed some blood in the process…lol..),the speakers who helped everyone focus on the issues and the attendees. It was a privilege to share the moment with you all and I would love to think fate might bring us all together once again…in January 2013 maybe?

So it’s back to my own beloved land and family (and my next starring role) after just a few days in my second favourite country but, no doubt, we will continue to touch hands in cyberspace…

BTW – as Piper might say – that Tammy Bruce – isn’t she just awesome…..

When I wote this 18 months ago I little thought that it would lead me to breakfast in Chicago this morning. Later today I am going downtown to meet up with C4Pers and finally put some faces to names I only know from the comments section. According to the US media (and many UK drones) I will be mixing up with characters straight out of Lil Abner but somehow I have my doubts about that…

It’s good to be back in America after ten years though I doubt this time I will meet Bo Diddley in a lift. Some things don’t change, though – I had to tell the cabbie how to get to my overnight hotel from O’Hare and US customs still seemed obsessed with the risk of me bringing in apples but this time the lines were better managed and the officers slightly more cheerful than in the nineties.

BTW 1 – if anyone wants a nice, clean but not wallet busting hotel as a base for exploring Chicago then the Quality Inn O’Hare would be an excellent choice. It has a good restaurant and a lively bar – and the desk clerk not only recognised me as an inter-galactic hero but is also a Chelsea fan….(that’s real football, of course…lol..)

BTW2 – now wouldn’t it be good to see a certain person as President representing the US  here in 2015…..

So off now to the city centre clutching my UK passport and wearing my Remembrance Day poppy…

From remarks contained in a preview of Gov Palin’s reference to Quantitative Easing obtained by  NRO the lady seems a tad underwhelmed by the Federal Reserve’s proposal to buy billions of dollars worth of US government securities with money it has created ex nihilo (as a Roman might say) or, as Palin expresses it, “out of thin air”

The Fed hopes doing this may buy us a little temporary economic growth by supplying banks with extra cash which they could then lend out to businesses. But it’s far from certain this will even work. After all, the problem isn’t that banks don’t have enough cash on hand – it’s that they don’t want to lend it out, because they don’t trust the current economic climate.
And if it doesn’t work, what do we do then? Print even more money? What’s the end game here? Where will all this money printing on an unprecedented scale take us? Do we have any guarantees that QE2 won’t be followed by QE3, 4, and 5, until eventually – inevitably – no one will want to buy our debt anymore? What happens if the Fed becomes not just the buyer of last resort, but the buyer of only resort?

Naturally several of the comments were disparaging – the idea that some housewife from Wasilla (interesting how this has been airbrushed out of the narrative) should criticise Ben Bernanke over quantitative easing aroused peals of merriment in some quarters.

I doubt seriously Palin even knows what the Fed is. Someone had to have written this speech for her.
…….
Okay, so Sarah Palin is “challenging” Bernanke’s decisions. I’m sure that’s really got him rethinking everything: “Well, if Sarah Palin says I’m taking the wrong tact here, by golly I’d better reconsider!”

Oh yes – let’s have a great laugh at Sarah Palin’s lack of enthusiasm for Bernanke’s policy. And while were at it let’s poke fun at Federal board member Kevin Warsh, and World Bank president Robert Zoellick…..and the chief of Brazil’s Central Bank…

As for the Germans – this guy is a real barrel of laughs

“A policy error,” said Ulrich Leuchtmann from Commerzbank. The wording of the Fed statement is “potentially dangerous” because it leaves the door open to a further flood of Treasury purchases if unemployment stays high. “It is a bottomless pit,” he said.

Palin, Zoellick, Warsh, the Germans, Brits, Chinese, Brazilians…..what the hell do they know about money……

Of course there is an element of snark in this BBC piece on the latest Palin video but there is also a reluctant admission

It is one minute and nine seconds of pure advertising genius – a dazzling calling card from the woman who, most now agree, wants to be president.

The writer, Paul Adams, is naturally sniffy about the imagery, calling it “political bromide”. That had me laughing into my morning cuppa as I recalled the hours of relentless left/liberal twaddle pumped out by the beeb, not to mention those 2008 Obama hopey/changey speeches (available in a discount bin near you…)

You know that within what would be described as the “brain” of Adams the BBC chip is frantically signalling the official media elite line on Palin – irrelevant, ignorant, shallow – and the stock phrases come out

“an apparent rainbow coalition of candidates favoured by Ms Palin” (she’s really a racist)
“a populist jab at Washington politics.” (she’s appealing to the great unwashed of America)
“a shameless reference to the most famous three words ever uttered by the man who once made everyone feel good, Ronald Reagan.” (she’ll milk anything to make a point)

But the chip is sometimes suppressed by vestiges of his pre-programmed mind

We’re going to get back to the time-tested truths that made this country great,” she says.
These, Sarah Palin seems to be saying, are my people. My coalition. Not just the honest, hard-working, flag-waving Americans seen throughout, but the candidates just elected to office on a wave of Tea Party fervour – and all those pictured celebrating on election night.
The true brilliance, apart from the sheer speed with which the piece was put together, lies in an apparent rainbow coalition of candidates favoured by Ms Palin – Latinos, Marco Rubio in Florida and Susana Martinez in New Mexico; African Americans, Allen West in Florida and Tim Scott in South Carolina and an Indian American, Nikki Hayley in South Carolina.
It’s a collection of faces clearly designed to puncture the Tea Party’s images as solidly white.

In actual fact I think that Adams has been embedded with the MK II PDS chip now emanating from Washington and obviously delivered to the comrades at the BBC. For the MSM she remains, of course, essentially vapid, ignorant and devoid of ideas but she is no longer stupid. If you read between the lines of the Adams article the message coming out is that she is cunning – or, as Blackadder once said “As cunning as a fox who’s just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University”

They still want to bring her down but time has taught them to extremely wary of her which, in a way, is a mark of respect for her power.

Strange conduct indeed for people who claim to see a Palin candidacy as a surefire conduit towards Obama’s re-election…..

US TV network CBS has an affiliate in Anchorage, Alaska – KTVA. Naturally KTVA is reporting the forthcoming election for one of Alaska’s two Senate seats. The Republican candidate is Joe Miller who is backed by the Tea Party movement.

It appears that the following conversation between two KTVA reporters was inadvertently left on the phone of a member of Joe Miller’s staff after a reporter from the station had been speaking to him. The reporter obviously forgot to disconnect from the Miller operative’s phone.

FEMALE REPORTER: That’s up to you because you’re the expert, but that’s what I would do…I’d wait until you see who showed up because that indicates we already know something…
[Laughter]
[INAUDIBLE]
FEMALE REPORTER: Child molesters…
MALE REPORTER: Oh yeah… can you repeat Joe Miller’s…uh… list of people, campaign workers, which one’s the molester?
[INAUDIBLE]
FEMALE VOICE: We know that out of all the people that will show up tonight, at least one of them will be a registered sex offender.
[Laughter]
MALE REPORTER: You have to find that one person…
[INAUDIBLE]
FEMALE REPORTER: And the one thing we can do is ….we won’t know….we won’t know but if there is any sort of chaos whatsoever we can put out a twitter/facebook alert: saying what the… ‘Hey Joe Miller punched at rally.’
FEMALE REPORTER: Kinda like Rand Paul…I like that.
[Laughter]
FEMALE REPORTER: That’s a good one.

KTVA have not denied that this conversation was between two of their reporters but claim that it has been taken out of context and that they were merely discussing possible scenarios of what might happen at the Joe Miller rally.

Established US media hacks appear to have taken the KTVA statement at face value but the perception that this is yet another example of left wing media bias is beginning to gain traction particularly as Drudge has picked it up.

Have yet to find anything about this at the BBC…but then I expect there would never ever be a conversation like this at the Beeb which is always an exemplar of even handed political and cultural neutrality……