Monthly Archives: March 2007

Updated: WND and Me

“…Before long, a rather unconventional man by the name of Joseph Farah called me. WND.com’s CEO was funny and frank. I had lived among the Nordic, morose Canadians for seven lean years. So this lively American, who cocked a snook at the media establishment, was a breath of fresh air. Mr. Farah told me that launching the odd blowhard with limited cerebral agility was lucrative, but that WND also intended to nurture real talent. ‘This is where you come in,’ he said, and forthwith made me a featured columnist for WND.com.”
“Consider this: I have been fired from a libertarian website for deviating from dictated dogma. Yet in all my years with WND.com, the Internet’s leading, largest independent website, I have never so much as been censored —not even when I liken Bush’s ‘Bring ’em on grin‘ to the grimace ‘on the face of a demented patient with end-stage syphilis.'”

WorldNetDaily.com columnists were asked if they’d write something in honor of the site’s 10th Anniversary. “WND and Me” is my tribute.

Update: A reader wrote the following, with respect to a particular line from the column:

“‘Mr. Farah told me that launching the odd blowhard with limited cerebral agility was lucrative…’ And who is that bitchy swipe supposed to refer to?”

My reply: It was not a bitchy swipe, but a rendering of a conversation that occurred. It’s the history of an exchange between myself and Mr. Farah. Naturally, I will not divulge more than that.

Scooter/Stewart Similarities

Criminal Injustice, Law, Politics, Republicans

Denis Collins, juror in Scooter Libby’s trial, said that Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff was the fall guy. “‘What are we doing with this guy here? Where’s Rove? Where are these other guys?'” is how Collins described the pickle jurors found themselves in during Libby’s scuttlebutt-driven trial. Still, it did not prevent them from convicting Libby, and rendering conflicting verdicts, to boot.

Not that he was a sympathetic sort, but CIA director George ‘Slam-Dunk’ Tenet was also the fall guy for Cheney, Bush, Rove, and Rice. They’re good at letting the minions take the wrap for their infractions.

More crucially, the “crime” for which Libby was convicted was also the crime for which Martha Stewart went to jail: lying to the FBI. Not for leaking the identity of former (so-called) classified CIA operative Valerie Plame. (Or, in Stewart’s case, insider trading.) Richard Armitage did that.

Where a prosecutor could never hope to prove his case in a court of law, he goes looking for other charges. He manufactures crimes. If he can’t get a defendant —usually a high-profile one —on the facts; the prosecutor will often get him for lying. After all, if the prosecutor has not been able to prove his case, this must mean the hapless accused has been lying, right?

Republicans failed to protest Stewart’s sham of a trial, but have been perfectly capable of articulating why Scooter Libby’s conviction is suspect. But that’s to be expected. Stewart is a rock-ribbed Democrat; Scooter a Republican. Democrats are as partisan.

Let’s hope Cheney cashes in some Halliburton shares to help defray the costs of Libby’s $6-million defense.

Letter of the Week: In Defense of Coulter

Ann Coulter, Media, The Zeitgeist

James Huggins writes:

Ann Coulter usually calls a spade a spade. In this case she called it a bloody shovel. Sometimes she’s over the top but at least we know where she stands. At least, also, she doesn’t genuflect to the gay/lesbian idol like the rest of us are forced to do. These alleged conservatives who jump up on chairs and pull up their skirts like Gracie Allen seeing a mouse give me a pain. Maybe Coulter is over the top, but I’ll take her “hemline-short” arguments any day as opposed to the never ending gutless pandering to the left done by supposed conservative spokesmen. By the way, what’s wrong with being homophobic? As long as a homophobe isn’t shooting or rock throwing then said homophobe should be allowed his own opinion. It’s a free country. Isn’t it? Or anyway, it used to be.

Updated Again: Coulter, CPAC, and Other Contradictions

Ann Coulter, Conservatism, Objectivism

From the Conservative Political Action Conference, Robert Bidinotto, editor of The New Individualist (to which I have contributed), has sent along his impressions of Ann Coulter’s antics there:

“…Ann Coulter is nothing but a right-wing attention slut whose arguments fall shorter than her hemlines, and are even less interesting.”

I would have linked Bidinotto’s blog post on the (principled) BAB had he not offered kind words for the kind of harpy that is way worse than Ann. Why take a shot at the Queen Bee, when you cavort with her wannabe inferiors? The new breed of conservative hussy just seems irresistible to many conservative men, who lose their “principles” over babes with bursting decolletages, mistaking them for babes with brains. Actually, if you are a woman, all you need do to establish intellectual credentials with conservatives and their hangers-on is to have screamed “Sock it to Saddam, Dubya!” back when it was required, and flash your body parts. And blog bloggerel.

At least Ann is accomplished. She also happens to have a facility with syllogisms, writes English with no mistakes, and is ever so good when it comes to the gangreens, for instance. The chapter in Godless on crime and the exclusionary clause is also excellent.

Update: Funny, contrary to Coulter, I would never have thought to pair “faggot” with John Edwards (although it’s a great ploy if one wants to annoy the loathsome Andrew Sullivan, who was at the event). Edwards is all-American good-looking. Giuliani, on the other hand, is positively creepy, quite effeminate, and certainly comfortable with gay culture. Here is the YouTube footage of him in drag smooching Donald Trump. Moreover, to mention Giuliani without speaking of how he Nifonged Michael Milken is to fail as a libertarian, an individualist, or as an individual who cares for liberty and justice. (I like the verb I’ve just coined: Nifonged.)

Further Update: Note that the truly principled Ron Paul was absent from CPAC. (Read how he infuriated George Will.) At least so I believe. I can’t imagine him sacrificing his core values to wallow in that swamp. I’d be surprised if he attended.
Again, individualists and other agitators for real freedoms have an imperative to mention, even in passing, Rudy’s assaults on the authentic Atlases of the world. One reader disagreed, at least implicitly, and exhorted me to promote dreck, which he frames as “intellectual difference.” Sorry.