SHAGIOGRAPHY. Ace of Spades, at the climax of some sarcasm about alleged leftist hero Mark Cuban (yeah, I know):

Trouble is, entrepreneurs are all idiots, like that moron Sarah Palin, who wasted her time starting successful businesses instead of organizing communities.

"Successful businesses"? Only if they were meant to be non-profits.

Looks as if Palin's worshippers, like worshippers of the saints of old, are attributing achievements to her on the grounds that they seem like things she should have done. Next they'll tell us Palin killed her a moose/when she was only three. And winked at them, personally.

OLD HABITS DIE HARD. Some twit on Fox, talking about the possible nomination of Hillary Clinton to Secretary of State, said such a move might "finally bring the Democratic Party together." Hopefully in time for the alternative universe elections!

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP, about the continuing self-examination of conservatives after the election, and by "self-examination" I mean "inquiry into how other people fucked them over and how they'll get theirs." I see that, since I wrote it, Billy Kristol has made the refreshing admission that "I don’t pretend to know just what has to be done" about the situation -- and even appears to intuit that the bailout did not bolster confidence in the conservative cause. He doesn't seem to know why our allegedly miraculous economy was riding for so hard a fall, though, and this is the missing ingredient in their recovery: they still worship the Reagan deregulation that made the market a con game, and their current talk of "fiscal and legal guardrails" will last only until the next political opportunity, when they will promise pie in the sky again.

JESUS, FREAKS. The Anchoress, grinning fiercely as she dishes out the Devoutly Dill, gives the Bible Passage of the Day:

Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh; such is the deceitful one and the antichrist. Look to yourselves that you do not lose what we worked for but may receive a full recompense. Anyone who is so “progressive” as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God; whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son.
— Second letter of John

She doesn't let on as to who the antichrist might be, but I have it on good authority that her preacher pushed in his nose, rolled down his bottom lip and stuck out his tongue after he mentioned it. The godless Perfessariat may prefer to "go John Galt," but I suppose we will one day hear that the Anchoress and whatever homegrown Opus Duh she's able to drum up at bake sales will entertainingly go Tomas de Torquemada, and burn their fingers in a backyard auto da fe before the police arrive.

THE GENERAL PLAYS ALONG. "Negotiations are the heroin of the chattering classes," writes More-Stars-Than-There-Are-In-Heaven General Ralph "Blood 'n' Guts" Peters, "blinding them to every reality except the next fix they can inject into our foreign policy." The General's disdain for talky-talk is keen as ever, but what's got him fearing an outbreak of negotiations this time? An anti-war march? Impending Democratic rule? No, it's his hero General Petraeus' reported interest in talking to Taliban forces to secure peace in Afghanistan.

The General wants to clear something up: when a fightin' man such as Petraeus talks about talking, he doesn't mean, as do Washington milksops, that he wants to "make talks the centerpiece of the new administration's Afghan policy." He simply means them as a prelude to, or perhaps an entertaining respite from, killing. "The equation is simple," says the General. "We kill them, or we lose... History doesn't reveal a single exception."

As Petraeus is a real general and not one, like Peters, merely promoted by alicublog for his services to humor, Peters takes care not to criticize him. So he carefully differentiates Petraeus' nobly worthless overtures -- which may "peel away" some "disenchanted Taliban supporters," which is okay because it will leave less bodies to clean up after the killing spree -- from Obama's plan, which Peters characterizes as "begging the hardcore Taliban for talks."

This is not based on any quoted statements from Obama or anyone else, but on the General's conviction that such people "live in a lovely bubble (lined with mirrors)," and worship negotiation because they're lawyers who "get rich by talking" and don't understand the implacability of Muslim fanatics because "religious passion is as foreign to Washington as integrity in the budget process." Whereas men of action like himself and his buddy the CentCom Commander know it's a waste of breath; after all,

If Taliban elements agree to talk, most will view the talks as a chance to weaken our resolve -- and to buy time. This is the con for which we always fall. The Iranians, Saddam Hussein, the Palestinians, the North Koreans, the North Vietnamese, the Chinese and the Russians all have played "Paralyze the Gringos" with endless talks.

We always wake up alone, with the sheets stained and torn.

I'm not sure whether the General meant for that last bit for the article, or whether he scrawled it in the margin (along with variations on OPE) and some confused editor left it in.

But you get the picture: there's no point in talking to these people, and Petraeus is only going along because... well, Peters never tells us why. He probably never thought about it, or did so only long enough to realize that any reason he could think up -- a deceptive maneuver, perhaps, meant to confuse the Taliban, or Obama? -- would, if revealed, compromise the security of the mission. Ever the good soldier, Peters knows that the decisions of his superiors (excepting the incoming CinC, of course) must be right whether he kens them or not. His not to reason why; his but to hue and cry.

UPDATE. Fixed typos.

MY CLASS WAR. As Nancy Pelosi signals that she's sympathetic to an auto industry bailout, Press Clips reminds us of the longstanding symbiosis among that industry, the oil industry, and the U.S. Government -- "Back in the '50s, the British looked at urban congestion and saw too many cars," says Ward Harkavy. "We looked at urban congestion and saw not enough roads." As long as we're giving out corporate welfare for the good of our phoney-baloney economy, the car companies have as fair a claim on a piece of it as any debt-repackager.

Not everyone sees it that way, of course. Megan McArdle starts, as usual, by portraying those who question limiting the bailout to bankers and brokers as making a specious and sentimental moral judgment, and proceeds to paint the auto industry as especially unworthy (as opposed to our blood brothers in the usury business). She and her commenters use the term "legacy costs" repeatedly, mostly in reference to the bad debt of which the carmakers will be freed if we let them go bankrupt -- which would include the pensions to which retired auto workers are entitled and on which many of them rely, though none of the McArdlites at this writing see fit to overtly mention it. (Later she doubles down, declaring that even though UAW workers kicked back part of their health care benefits, the market still failed to reward them and anyway their cars are ugly and have silly names, whereas Lehman Brothers still has a nice ring to it and their Ponzi scheme engages us in a way that a bunch of slobs in Michigan never could.)

I still think the whole stinking bailout should be scrapped. But now that, thanks to George Bush and his predecessors going back to the fixer Reagan, we are in bailout stepp'd in so far that, should we wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er, let's just fucking nationalize this shit. It would be a shame, now that the Republicans have handed us a socialist agenda, not to go whole hog.

EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS AND THE MADNESS OF CROWDS. In case you were wondering (or simply hadn't completely forgotten) about the tape African Press International claimed they had of Michelle Obama yelling at them -- which fanciful object stirred the hopes of rightbloggers during the late campaign -- be advised that API's editor has held a live discussion with readers, in which he still claims to have the as-yet-unheard tape, which he will release in good time. He also claims to have proof that Obama is a Kenyan citizen, that the tapes were not aired by Fox News (with whom API professed to have a deal) "because I did not know anything about the American way of doing things," and that the Obama campaign tried to buy his silence.

Most of the hundreds of questioners are respectful, even meek ("Thank you Chief Editor for taking the time to answer as many of the questions as you have the freedom to answer"), though the editor's emissaries sometimes bark at them to keep their entreaties from getting out of hand ("did it ever occur to you that he is answering questions IN ORDER and that he has about 50 more to go before getting to your self absorbed self? Grow-up! He is doing this as a courtesy and does not owe anyone here ANYTHING, but since he is a man of his word he WILL make sure his readers hear the tape"). When one of them asks, politely, why she should believe the story when no evidence has been produced, another tells her,

I mean, truly, why would any man make such a claim, in such dangerous times as these, if it were not true? Risk his and his family’s lives for nothing? I sure wouldn’t–well, then again, I’m not a man. But, no one wants the FBI, the CIA, and the NERDS showing up on your doorstep, or on your website for nothing.

There are people who very much do not want you to believe it. Mr. K. and the rest of us (the ones wearing the white hats), we could care less whether you believe it or not. That should tell you something.

And the questions go on: "Have you researched/read into BO being the antichrist in regards to the revelations and nostradomas? If so what are your feelings on this?"

If you, gentle readers, could absorb and internalize this sort of mendacity, you could make a million bucks.

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP. Title: "After The Fall, Rightbloggers Divided: Are Most Americans Socialists, or Dupes?" I would also recommend James Rainey at the LA Times on more mainstream conservative commentators' post-election prattle, including Rush Limbaugh's announcement that "The Obama recession is in full swing." And they said Obama and his fans had a high opinion of his abilities!

But never fear, the GOP is already busy rebuilding. Mike Pence is excited by the success of the anti-gay-marriage referenda, which tells him "the vitality of the conservative movement around the country is very real." It would be too much to expect that Pence will deliver the Republican Party entirely unto its social conservative wing and the fate of the Know-Nothing and Anti-Masonic Parties, but let us keep hope alive.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW? I hadn't thought about Kim du Toit -- celebrated author of "The Pussification of the American Male" and other two-fisted screeds on self-reliance -- for quite some time when pure, blind luck led me to this fascinating essay by his wife, explaining why Mr. du Toit will soon cease blogging, despite an alleged flood of reader protests: "The truth is folks, we can’t afford it."

Astonishingly, blogging has not been the bonanza the du Toits might have wished for, and as Mr. du Toit is unable to "contribute to our financial requirements" with a more traditional job because of his gout, times have grown hard. Mrs. du Toit cashed in her IRA last year, but that money was all spent on a "last hurrah around the world with our kids," lap-band surgery for their daughter, household repairs, and servers for Mr. du Toit's blogging.

"We've staid-off bankruptcy, but just barely," says Mrs. du Toit. "The truth is, we spoke to an attorney about bankruptcy, but we'd be forced into a two year commitment of repayment, not debt forgiveness, and the kid's college would be the expense we'd have to stop under that scenario."

Such are the terms of the Bankruptcy Bill supported and voted for by John McCain, whom Kim du Toit supported against the wealth-redistributionist he calls "The Black Stalin." To his credit, his family's financial situation has not softened him on this, and he asks not for government largesse -- except for the disappointing bankruptcy protection -- but for "gifts" from his readers. These, alas, have been insufficient: "Kim’s recent 'Gold Watch' bleg has yielded about a $1,500 total, over two months. If folks think that blegs yield Andrew-Sullivan like windfalls, they’re mistaken."

We trust that if the Obama Administration offers a program intended to provide relief to families like the du Toits, they will bat it away as a poisoned, socialist chalice.

Meanwhile Rachel Lucas -- the winger previously examined here, who spent Election Night "freakin' out" because, under Obama, her boyfriend will have to "earn money for people who don’t work and who breed children they can’t support" -- is moving to the UK, not because of Obama but because her mate is taking a job there. You might think a 100% American like Lucas would hate and despise Britain, and you would be right -- she considers it "socialist country that has Shari’a courts." But she is making the best of it, and looks forward to taking in the culture. Also, she expects of the Brits "Surrender they will…TO ME," and dreams of studying history there and eventually taking "a job with the State Department." More likely what she will get instead is a thirst for Banks's Bitter and an annoying quasi-dialect. In any case, she's their problem now.

This election just keeps getting better and better.

MEAN FAKE NUN DEMANDS YOU BEHAVE. The Anchoress says the right is being nice to President-elect Obama and his supporters and, in a spirit of Christian charity, demands that Obama supporters return this alleged kindness to her and her kind (while assuming that we won't).

It appears she doesn't read the rightbloggers on her own blogroll. (And those are just from the "A"s.)

During the campaign The Anchoress called Obama a "presumptuous" man who "thinks he’s already been enthroned," "a construct" and "a put-together illusion" about whom "I had my doubts he even wrote [his own] books," who "jeer[s] at his country and countrymen" and suffers from "ambiguity about his own citizenship" and "megalomania." And that's just gleaned from my own coverage of her work; dip into her archives for accounts of Obama's "inconsistency, naivete, relativism... and a tendency toward suppressive and vengeful behavior to those who do not fall in line," and thoughtful analysis like "Obama is a fraud on legs. If he gets elected, and the house increases its left-hold, we’re not going to recognise this country in two years," etc.

Not to speak of what she says about us.

I'll take my lessons in humility from the Dalai Lama. That's 'cuz I'm an elitist!

UPDATE. I see this passive-aggressive routine is getting around. Mark Hemingway refers to From 52 to 48, a site from Obama voters being nice to McCain supporters; his readers howl for blood. Hemingway says, "it's probably necessary that we be the adults here... there's no reason to adopt the left's Alinsky tactics." Who does he think is extending him the olive branch -- Obamacons? Hemingway should really send his message directly to From 52 to 48: "Thanks, guys, we'll be the adults here and refrain from adopting your Alinsky tactics." Then, when he receives a disagreeable response, he can get on with the I-didn't-leave-reconciliation-reconciliation-left-me phase of the program.

Other reactions to From 52 to 48: "Love notes from the winners. You know, the ones who’ve had Bush Derangement Syndrome for eight years and Palin Derangement Syndrome since August... Upchuck warning." "I suppose it would all depend on just how many of these people didn’t spend the past eight years calling people like me racist fascist babykilling warmongers." "Well, this is a nice change from disclaiming the President and half your country to foreigners."

And people wonder why I'm such a sourpuss.

UPDATE II. More rightwing conciliatory gestures here.

UPDATE III. Twisted Spinster (click "it would all depend above) reacts: "Check all the links alicublog uses as examples of the right’s intransigence, and tell yourself this is the way gracious winners behave." Pointing out their intransigence proves that me and my buddies are unwilling to accept their fists of friendship! It's hard to play Gandhi when the other side is playing Attila the Hun.

THE DISASTROUS PRESIDENCY OF BARACK OBAMA, PART ONE. Kenya proclaims a holiday to celebrate the election of Kenyan-rooted Obama. At National Review, Travis Kavulla reacts:

Sad that the first concrete effect of an Obama presidency on Kenya would be to further depress the productivity of a country that could really use a booster shot in that department.

Maybe Gordon Smith and Liddy Dole can start drawing up a bill of impeachment.

THE REBUILDING BEGINS! RedState:

RedState is pleased to announce it is engaging in a special project: Operation Leper.

We're tracking down all the people from the McCain campaign now whispering smears against Governor Palin to Carl Cameron and others. Michelle Malkin has the details.

We intend to constantly remind the base about these people, monitor who they are working for, and, when 2012 rolls around, see which candidates hire them. Naturally then, you'll see us go to war against those candidates.

It is our expressed intention to make these few people political lepers.

This election just keeps getting better and better. (And better.)

UPDATE. Thanks, commenters, for all the snappy phrases, including "Pied Palin," "Peak Wingnut," and "Lepers V. Cougar. The catfight for the GOP's soul."

AFTER-PARTY OBSERVATIONS. That was a particularly pleasant Tuesday night.

Matthew Yglesias observes that the cry of "he must govern from the middle" is already going up. But these people don't know where the middle is. The government owns a majority interest in several heretofore private banks, is embroiled in foreign adventures for which it cannot pay, and, from the looks of the various referenda results, is riven with significant cultural divisions. It looks more like Lord North's Britain than what we usually think of as America. The new President is better advised to seek solutions rather than some mythical center line to toe.

Have a look at the prominent conservative thinkers (I know, I know) who are working on a conservative "game plan", trimming like little Clintons in search of the Joe the Plumber vote that brought John McCain all the way to 163 electoral votes. They're looking for the middle because they have nothing else to do. It's a fittingly harmless occupation for people who are not going to be making policy anytime soon.

I still insist, against the tide, that McCain's concession speech was more a disturbing than an inspiring spectacle. I've heard dissension at the traditional call for cooperation with the victor before, but nothing like the ugly response of the Phoenix crowd, and to my eyes the famously irritable McCain was annoyed by it (though of course grim memories of his whole "challenged" campaign were probably uppermost in his mind).

I would contrast that scene with David Dinkins' concession speech when he was ousted by Rudolph Giuliani in 1993. Obviously distraught, wiping his face with a handkerchief, New York's first black mayor briefly but emphatically put the kibosh on the hurt feelings of the crowd. "Elections come and go," he said in part, "mayors come and go, but the life of the city must endure." Dinkins was not always the most eloquent of speakers, but he commanded that moment at least, in part because he was speaking to people with whom it was relatively easy to reason.

Yet McCain's speech prompted Mark Levin to say, "If McCain had won, we were told of possible riots." Nothing in front of their own eyes affects these people like their lurid fantasies of what their opponents might have done.

One of the many happy results of the blessed finish of this election is the end of Megan McArdle's professions of support for Barack Obama. I'm still not sure what she was trying to do with those; sometimes, when she was advising McCain to attack her candidate on Bill Ayers or telling us "I don't believe that Obama is going to change Washington, eliminate lobbying, etc. I wish he wouldn't tell me things that I can't possibly believe... he might even make Washington work a little better, though I kind of doubt it," I thought she might be imagining herself a useful double agent for the Republicans, sowing dissension among Matthew Yglesias, Ezra Klein, and whomever else might be taking her seriously.

Now she's saying, "If the country is so progressive, how come Bush won the popular vote four years ago?" and that the high black voter turnout was a "definitionally unrepeatable happening." When Obama fails to denounce the capital gains tax in his Inaugural Address, I expect that will be the last straw. Then McArdle can become the go-to disgruntled Obama supporter. Orson Scott Card must be kicking himself for not thinking of this first.

NOVEMBER 4, 2008.

BEEN ELECTION-BLOGGING AT THE VOICE today, and should be at it well into the night (though hopefully not too well into it).

IT DOESN'T GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS. How's the Ole Perfesser holding up? Well, unlike some of his brethren, he keeps from getting the blues by tireless cheerleading and riding of hobby-horses. For instance, he points to a Gallup poll that says, essentially, that as McCain tanks Republicans are as worried that ineligible Negroes and ragamuffins are going to cancel out their votes as the Ole Perfesser has advised them to be. That'll lift an operative's spirits even in a down cycle.

But something -- maybe the incipience of a wrinkle, suggesting that the Singularity cannot come fast enough -- did momentarily put the Perfesser in a solemn mood, and he summoned an "Army of John Galts" to talk about how they would go off the grid if the socialist Obama prevailed, depriving the littlebrains of their essential crafts of law perfessin', psychologizing, documentary filmmaking, and the like. One such -- a newspaper columnist and a "private investor"! How will we do without his unique skillset! -- writes:

I want to appease the new administration and not be too productive. So, upon Obama's passing his new redistribution plan, I will slow my work schedule, lay off a few people (Obama's got their back) and let someone else bust his tail since I will now be able to get "redistributed wealth" from those poor fools who are ambitious, energetic, work hard and have made good decisions.

It doesn't occur to them that others will scramble to take their places -- well, it does occur to one, but Kartik Gada believes that even immigrants, formerly besotted of America, will also be disgusted with Obama and follow the Galts to... Red China, or some other such paradise where they know how to treat an investor class. Then we'll all be sorry.

They really believe it. The greed and stupidity of investors far bigger than the Perfesser have done what untold cadres of socialists and communists couldn't manage in a century -- destroyed the good name of American capitalism and put the better part of its assets under government control -- and the would-be Galts are threatening to bugger off to China because America might elect a moderately progressive Democrat.

I'll be disappointed if Obama doesn't make it, but really, on the whole I must declare myself content as it stands: the very threat of something that would mildly discomfit their self-centered world view has excited these folks' ridiculousness to levels that surprise even this jaded observer of human folly. And the beauty part is, no matter who wins tomorrow, they're just going to get more entertaining.

THE NEW VOICE COLUMN IS UP, about the rightbloggers in the last days of the election. It's basically a story of frayed nerves, wild claims, scattershots, and hurt feelings. The most encouraging sign is that a number of them are predicting victory for their candidates, which at least is in the grand tradition of American politics. I'd be very happy if their final hours were devoted to that. Of course afterward, whatever the result, they'll be crazier than ever.

SNOTCHOS FOR DR. HELEN. Balloon Juice told us the other day that the new apocryphal cab driver conversation among conservatives is the Bum/Waiter with an Obama Tie story, following the tale of a puckish right-winger who sees a beggar with a "Vote Obama, I Need the Money" sign, eats in a nearby restaurant, stiffs the waiter because he's wearing an "Obama '08 tie" (?) and tells the astonished server he will give the money instead to the bum as a "redistribution of wealth." BJ traced it from a mass email to a McCain spokesman to the letters page of the Chicago Tribune. The story has since been heavily disseminated among the booboisie.

Leave it to Dr. Mrs. Ole Perfesser, who has been threatening to "go John Galt" and deprive an Obamafied America of the fruits of her psychoanalytic labors, to escalate this silly bit of wish fulfillment into an action plan for angry wingnuts:

Should you tip less in an Obama Administration?...

If Obama is elected, maybe in lieu of a tip I should leave a note like the following:

HOPE AND CHANGE FOR AMERICA: Spreading the Wealth Around...

If enough people leave notes like this, I'm sure it will galvanize waitpeople everywhere in support of The One!

It also might galvanize them, in the close-knit community of Knoxville, Tennessee, to pre-emptively spit in Dr. Mrs. Ole Perfesser's food.

THE WORD, THE FLESH, AND THE LOPEZ. Kathryn J. Lopez, stiffening her resolve and laying her hand upon her breastplate like a true, confirmed bride of Christ, stoically enters the blue belly of the beast -- the satanic Al Franken campaign. A godly woman keen for electoral martyrdom, she is determined, though one small part of herself is exposed and vulnerable to the devil. Can she complete her mission before temptation o'erweens?

She starts well; so strong is her holy ardour that she can use even the devil's own tools against him.

"Isn't Cardinal O'Connor an a**hole?" she quotes Al Franken at the top. Brandishing other cherry-picked Franken laughlines, she scoffs: "I don't find them funny. Can Minnesota voters?"

She appeals to the better nature of the sober-sided Squareheads, assuring them they are as cautious of the near occasion of sin as she, maybe because Jim Lileks is the only one she knows.

But the polls remain unmoved. So she must abandon flattery, and go straight to fire and brimstone. Attend the story she tells the prairie folk, a flashlight under her chin:

The author of Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot is not only a crude, mean comic, but he's within shooting distance of possibly unseating Republican senator Norm Coleman. Yes, that's right: While the rest of us are getting used to the possibility of an Obama-Pelosi-Reid Washington, there's more to the worst-case scenario.

(Pause as the lightning flashes, and count to three...)

There could be a Senator Al Franken in the United States Senate.

Thunder! She must be relentless now. Franken "ridicules the Resurrection," she cries, "excoriating the Eucharist and Confession." He doesn't even give a fig for stem cells! He thinks "porn and even child abuse and sexual violence are just one big joke." Hear her, sons of sodbusters! "The choice will not only be a signal from Minnesota, but a defining of the Senate down...."

Alas, as the Church teaches us, even a small imperfection may lead to downfall, and at the crucial moment Lopez falters:

I know the Senate's performance can leave a lot to be desired, but it’s still no joke.

Thus is our heroine's spell of righteous indignation, even with a full head of steam, and her hold on the crowd broken in an instant. Her mission has been scuttled by an uncontrollable rhetorical tic -- nurtured through the long, fat years of Reaganism, it is now so strong that it can overcome even the loftiest spiritual motivations. Thus is Lopez the Culture-Warrior defeated by K-Lo the Hack.

A FINE EXAMPLE OF THE GENRE. There's a whole lot of rightwing crazy going on these days -- the now-famous Atlas Shrugged dilly claiming Obama is the son of Malcolm X; the Jesus freaks praying over the Wall Street bull; the 23 percent of Texans who think Obama is a Muslim. These are delightful, of course, but I am more a spellbound observer of human venality and stupidity than of madness, particularly among the cast of the Thimble Theatre that is the subject of this blog.

Thus my favorite brain-bleed of the day is Jonah Goldberg's. He cheerfully reproduces a quote from a White Power nut who approvingly quotes Obama, then learns that the Obama quote is bullshit. His response is purest Goldberg:

The Obama campaign says Metzger's quote is false. But their "fight the smears" page also makes it sound like Obama's discussion of race in his book isn't remotely troubling, and that's nonsense. Maybe we can discuss more tomorrow. I'm off to dinner with some Bucknell students.

A simple acknowledgment would have been sufficient, but Jonah will never just stick his foot into a bucket when he can also attempt to march, nose upturned, into the ballroom with it. The final desperate evasion is the sort of thing by which critics in the future, when all our links are broken, will identify it as authentic.