JESUS SWEPT. I see the brethren are claiming victory in the war on contraception. Let's use Kathryn J. Lopez as an example:

And when asked, “What about for religiously affiliated employers, such as a hospital or university? Do you think their health insurance plans for all employees should have to cover the full cost of birth control for their female employees, or should they be allowed to opt out of covering that based on religious or moral objections?” 57 percent responded “Allowed to opt out.” 

That is most definitely news. 

Americans, according to the New York Times’s own polling, support the positon of the Catholic bishops on the HHS mandate.

Except religious employers already have been allowed to opt out -- because the insurers will be paying for the birth control, not them. This may be what the poll respondents think the Times is talking about. The questions might have been more specific

What certainly isn't demonstrated by this response is that respondents buy the bishops' line, which is that if anyone pays for their employees' birth control, Christ and George Washington will be crucified one on top of one another (front to back, so it looks dirty).

You'd expect rightbloggers to grab the more self-flattering interpretation, but K-Lo, wrapped pretty tight even under the best of circumstances, may be taking it a little far:

Proponents of the HHS mandate would like everyone to believe that high gas prices explain all the drop in support for Obama. But considering the president has taken a lead in defense of his coercive mandate, it’s mistaken to pretend his war on religious liberty isn’t part of his public-opinion wounds.

That's the America I remember from English dystopian fiction -- forget the economy, stupid, it's the war on religious liberty! Lopez seems to expect a holy-roller revolution to come charging over the hill, crying "Freedom of religion, not freedom of worship!" Just another reason to hope the Republicans nominate Santorum -- if they did, Lopez would probably bust out in stigmata, and start pimping a JESUS 4 VP campaign.

UPDATE. Also feelin' the surge: Old Perfesser Instapundit, who smells victory in a bunch of readers who tell him they've cancelled HBO over Game Change. No, I'm not kidding. This is the break PJTV has been waiting for! Quick, get Roger L. Simon to slap together that movie version of The Inferior Five the world has been waiting for. Jonah Goldberg was born to play Herman Cramer.

UPDATE 2. Commenter/comics dork John E. Williams is on the case:

I see there's a role for Dana Loesch. Think of the merchandising opportunities! 

UPDATE 3. They're still at it -- here's James Taranto's women-reject-contraceptives-and-Obama variation. They really seem to believe this, which may explain why their compatriots in the legislatures are pulling increasingly crazy anti-birth-control shit --

Arizona legislators have advanced an unprecedented bill that would require women who wish to have their contraception covered by their health insurance plans to prove to their employers that they are taking it to treat medical conditions. The bill also makes it easier for Arizona employers to fire a woman for using birth control to prevent pregnancy despite the employer's moral objection.

If they think this approach is such a winner, Santorum should abandon his recent quietism on the issue and begin all his campaign appearances with a pledge to overturn Griswold v. Connecticut. That should turn the tide in his favor soon enough, and give those of us who aren't insane time to get our passports renewed.

"$1 ABORTIONS IN OBAMACARE." Here's a little something I wrote for DecisionHealth about the latest anti-Obamacare talking point. It's fascinating how these things work; I wonder how long it will take for this one to become a full-fledged talking point, regularly tossed off on Sunday morning talk shows while everyone nods gravely.

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP, about the new breed of Breitbart acolytes and their early forays into belligerent table-overturning. So far they suck.

I interviewed Breitbart once. I respected his success as I might have respected that of Benito Mussolini -- that is, without approving in the slightest, though giving him points for exposing the stupidity and venality of the human race (as demonstrated by his own followers and by the "Main Stream" press who indulged his racket out of sheer gutlessness).

The dopes picking up after him are just as evil, but nowhere near as grand.

UPDATE. I should add that while Breitbart probably thought he was doing the Lord's work, the media manipulation business he was in is a blight on humanity. It's propaganda, and propaganda is not designed to enlighten, no matter how loudly the propagandist insists on his devotion to truth, but to cloud the minds of men.

KEYBOARD KOMMANDOS 4EVER.

The Koch Brothers are rich but they can't be handing out the big, big paychecks to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who arrives at the shape-up flexing his thumbs in prep for some X-teme political texting. So most of the dummies are paid in esprit de corps. They're set to churning out high-fives for a ridiculous nontroversy, disseminating insults from the conservative activist dictionary, and shaking their digital fists at everyone who does not respond with megadittos.

But sometimes Tom, or Dick, or Harry will glance up from his basement warren at his strawboss with a tired, confused look in his eyes. This may indicate that he's begun, if just barely, to suspect that he's not really a great citizen journalist, dishing out the zingers that will eventually drop the Lame Stream Media dragon and free the sheeple it holds in lieberal bondage, but a mere propagandist working in a sub-sub-contractor's hackshop. And for free!

He may be thinking: I didn't get into this to enforce someone else's groupthink. I wanted to tell my own story my own way. These people seem not to appreciate my individuality, my gifts, my beautiful soul. Maybe it's time to get that communications degree and join a PR firm, preferably one with a social media emphasis...

That's when you tell him about Omaha Beach. He may flee then and there. Or there'll be a pause, and maybe a faint crackling sound and smell of cordite as his pride flares up and burns out of his brain-pan whatever common sense he was raised with, and in that cleansing fire he will begin to see himself as an actual soldier in the cause, a battle-weary dogface who does his killin' with a keyboard, a guy who, when he gets to the Great Beyond, can proudly mount the final Hill with the Duke and Audie Murphy and whatshisname from Band of Brothers, confident that he's given his true, last full measure.

This is better than citizen journalism. This is dead butch!

He'll get back on the case, and for good this time. Because he's in the Army now. You can get him to write, or at least tweet or yell at hippies, stark raving crazy shit like "JEW-BASHING NYT COLUMNIST CALLS OBAMA 'ISRAEL'S BEST FRIEND'" and he won't even feel self-conscious about it. You can get him to tell the world that Blessed Andrew Breitbart was murdered by ObamaHitler. You can get him to use hashtags and wear T-shirts that would embarrass a self-respecting 12-year-old. He won't care. He's got that thousand-yard stare. He's part of something bigger than himself, bigger than any of you -- big enough to fight and die for, maybe even big enough to kill for -- try him, Cap; you'll see.

How does it end? Hopefully like the hippie communes that ran out of weed and quietly broke up, rather than like Synanon or the Branch Davidians. In either case, it'll be fun to watch -- from a suitable distance.

UPDATE. In comments, wjts wrote a monologue. Excerpt:

... Invective was flying, mostly from the libs. Lies of course - "Oh, you're a racist." "Oh, you hate women." "Oh, you're a paid mouthpiece for the Koch Brothers." Some guys couldn't take it. One fella - navyseal69@aol.com - caught an accusation of misogyny right in the face. Never heard from him again, and he had told me he had two Medals of Honor, four Purple Hearts, six Silver Stars, and a signed photograph of Janine Turner. Nothing to be ashamed of, but some men are cut out for the battlefield and some aren't. Me, I kept fighting. Every accusation that I didn't know what I was talking about I threw right back in that LibCom's face. "What percentage of the student body at top-tier law schools are of Hispanic descent?" they'd ask, and I fired right back with "What percentage of your mother was a Mexican whore?"...

Whetstone gets Shakespearean:

Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot
But he'll remember with advantages
What tweets he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words,
Ace of Spades, The Jawa Report
Atlas Shrugged, Instapundit
Be in their flowing Big Gulps freshly rememb'red
This blog shall the paranoid teach his son
And Breitbart shall ne'er go by....

That's good shooting, soldiers! Now get some shut-eye -- we got a big day of Alinskyizing ahead of us!

HUGGATE: THE IMAGE THAT TOOK DOWN A PRESIDENT!

Whole sordid story here!

Wake me when they've got him covering up a break-in.

My favorite bit so far, from PJ Tatler:

[Derrick] Bell wasn’t just seeking diversity in Harvard’s faculty. He was a virulent racist, who depicted President Ronald Reagan as a — not making this up — racist space alien who offered to buy all of America’s black citizens to erase the nation’s deficit.

Wow, Bell really believed that about Reagan?

That’s from a short story Bell wrote, that he later turned into a piece for HBO.

Gasp! Bell committed the crime of fiction!

It’s a smear. It’s insane. It’s evil.

Please, nobody tell PJ Tatler about... well, Western Civilization.

TODAY IN RUSH LIMBAUGH NONSENSE. It's a bumper crop, but surely Dr. Mrs. Ole Perfesser deserves some sort of distinction for claiming that Rush Fucking Limbaugh is being bullied by Sandra Fluke. I believe in Girl Power, but come on. One among many glorious passages:

Do I care if Fluke fucks 50 guys? No, but I do care if she uses her position to gang up with other mean girls (and guys) to ram a political mandate down the throats of companies who do not believe in what she is peddling.

Not only is the slut fucking 50 guys, she's also ramming it down their throats!  It's practically the perfect conservative sex nightmare; all it lacks is Fluke demanding an orgasm.

For the rest of them you may as well just go straight to Instapundit, which collects them better than I can -- except Perfesser Reynolds doesn't know how funny they are. Reynolds seems upset that some people want to use the power of boycotts against Limbaugh, which is a major reversal for him -- he usually loves boycotts when people like Rush Limbaugh call for them.

Me, I want Limbaugh on the air forever. He helps to clarify things. By 2013 I expect he'll be live-broadcasting from Klan rallies.

THE CONSERVATIVE COMEBACK, PART 844,392. It's hard to believe Andrew McCarthy actually served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney -- under Bush, granted, but still you don't expect actual mental cases to come out of those jobs. Now look what the poor, crazy bastard's descended to -- shaking his fist at Don Imus in the service of Rush Limbaugh in an essay called "Don Imus, House Pet." It's the case of McCarthy's life, and he's arguing it in the Court of Public Opinion! With luck maybe he can get the judge to sentence Imus to be waterboarded -- it's more exciting when it's extrajudicial, but times are tough and he'll take what he can get.

I'll boil it down for you: Imus, McCarthy tells us, is crude, "gratuitously insulting," insincere -- whereas the Balzacian Limbaugh "is able to reach and to teach because, as he noted today, his good-natured humor can be biting and illuminating without being nasty." No, I'm not kidding -- McCarthy not only calls Limbaugh's humor good-natured without being nasty, he actually offers Limbaugh's own generous self-assessment as evidence.

The really weird thing, though, comes when McCarthy finishes his Rush roolz/Imus droolz fan rant and moves on to conspiracy theories:

Here’s the pathetic thing about this episode: We’ve been given the playbook and still we don’t see we’re being played. “Pick the target,” Saul Alinksy said, “freeze it, personalize it, polarize it.”

Saul Alinksy! Slowly I turned...



It ends with McCarthy warning us that Barack Hitler is planning "to usher in a new order in which 'rights' become not what government must refrain from doing to you but rather what government must do for you," and this plaintive cry:

While Don Imus and the rest of the herd bleats over Rush, that is what is taking root. And if you don’t like it, prepare to be the next target.

I used to routinely ask if these people even knew any normal people, but now I'm just assuming that they were all raised in Skinner boxes and shipped to think tanks on their 18th birthdays.

SHORTER TIMOTHY P. CARNEY: From all his talk about contraception, I was nearly convinced that Rick Santorum was the best candidate for libertarians. How disappointed I was to learn he was just another liberal.

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP, about that whole Limbaugh slut thing. It's interesting that this came up the week Breitbart died. I bet there are a whole lot of his fans out there thinking, "Even without Rush we must press on with our slut truth!" In other words, I don't expect them to behave any better from here on.

CAN THEY BOTH LOSE? I'll write more about it later, but I hope some of you good people are already savoring the Koch Brothers' attempt to take over the Cato Institute. Apparently after years of funding Cato, the Koches think it's time they turned the policy shop into a straight-up propaganda vehicle, and are trying to muscle some of their flunkies onto the Cato board -- including the human waste product John "Hindrocket" Hinderaker of Power Line.

There are all sorts of wonderful things about this. First, we might ask, why are Ed Crane and the other Catoites resisting this takeover? If the Kochs can turn Cato out with their money, doesn't that show that the Invisible Hand has anointed them as Producers, and judged the Catoites to be Looters and Wreckers standing in the way of Capital? Hell, when the Kochs bought Wisconsin, I didn't see Cato complaining -- quite the contrary.

Also lovely: Watching the libertarians tiptoe around it. At Reason Matt Welch, clearly unsure which dick to suck, issues a terse bulletin and ducks. And, Jason Kuznicki?...

I can’t understand how people who are so smart in business can be so boneheaded when it comes to activism. It’s a painfully stupid decision. Even if it were innocent — which it’s not — it still looks horrible. It’s as if the Kochs set out to prove every last thing that progressives have ever said about them.

...thanks for the gift of laughter.

I'd prefer to see them all die screaming in a fire, but this will do for now.

UPDATE. Jane Mayer's perspective is useful. As is KeninNY's at Down With Tyranny.

SHORTER JAMES POULOS: Our educational and religious controversies can be addressed with the healing power of yoga. Just make sure it's not the nude kind.

UPDATE. Link fixed.

THE SAVING REMNANT. Olympia Snowe has turned out the lights in the sane-people wing of the Republican Party, and the boys in the psych ward are pulling faces at her through the caged glass. Timothy P. Carney tries to tell us that the moderates are actually what people hate about Republicans, and now that they're gone everything's gonna be fine.

Moderates are as guilty as anyone of being intolerant when faced with conflicts within the GOP. Frum blasted as "Unpatriotic" those conservatives who failed to support George W. Bush's ill-considered invasion of Iraq, and urged all conservatives to "turn [their] backs" on these heretics. Brooks himself draws some pretty rigid boundaries of permissible dissent, excoriating as "nihilists" those who opposed the unprecedented and unfair Troubled Asset Relief Program in 2008.

This makes it look as is conservatives were fighting bravely against the Iraq War and TARP, but were muscled into line by RINOs David Brooks and David Frum.

Bullshit. Frum was talking -- in National Review! -- about a small group of paleos like Joe Sobran and Llewellyn Rockwell.  Actually, it was liberals who mostly got the accusations of unpatriotism from pro-war conservatives -- which is to say, nearly every single one of them. (I refer you to my posts from 2003 through 2006, or the pages of conservative magazines, or your own memory for evidence.)

As to TARP, I recall some screamers, but also a lot of this -- Rich Lowry:

It seems obvious now that we needed some sort of massive effort to try to prop up the banks and loosen the credit markets. (Remember: There’s always the possibility that things would have been much worse without whatever psychological benefit–if any–the passage of Paulson brought to the markets.) Perhaps the Paulson plan wasn’t exactly the right prescription. But the virtue of its open-endedness is that it allows Paulson the flexibility to adjust as warranted–witness the shift in emphasis to direct equity infusion.

Ross Douthat:

I don't think there's any question, at this point, that the bailout being considered will do real damage to the principles of free markets and limited government: The only question is how severe what Jim Manzi terms the "ideological costs" end up being. But as a layman in these matters, with no way of judging independently how materially awful the costs of inaction might be, I'm sitting here watching the House vote and the market drop and drop and thinking exactly what Larison's hypothetical American is thinking: If the defeat of the bailout is a victory for liberty, it's a victory whose costs I'm not prepared to bear.

Etc. In general, for conservatives it was Obama's election that suddenly made bailouts the greatest tragedy in the history of the Republic.

Carney has been peddling this line for a while -- that there's a secret, saving remnant that works behind the scenes in the Republican Party to keep it, and America, on the straight and narrow. Thus he feels compelled to describe what has clearly been the most powerful force in that Party for decades as a beleaguered minority. Why does he even try? Well, there's traditional conservative persecution mania, but I think another factor comes into play: Conservatives have fucked this country up pretty badly, and maybe they think if they pretend to have been cowering under the blows of David Frum all this time, they can convince some dummies that it was Olympia Snowe's fault.

I just hope for their sake that they aren't expecting normal people to go for it. One man's remnant is another man's fringe.

UPDATE. Some commenters point out that Snowe's voting record isn't as moderate as all that. Okay, let's stipulate that "moderate" in American politics has a meaning divorced from other realities. Still, I think this record, while not so hot, at least compares favorably to what Tea Partiers and other crackpots currently demand from non-INO Rs. And it goes to show how little accommodation of reality the new party elders will tolerate.

NEW FRONTIERS IN DOUCHEBAGGERY. Here's a guy at the Daily Caller who wants to fix it so you can only use food stamps to buy low-quality shit in packages designed to look ugly.

There should be humiliation and pain in government assistance. Every time someone accepts food stamps, they are spitting on the principles of independence, and they, not the taxpayers who fund the program, should be reminded of that fact.

He also seems to think that you can currently buy cigarettes and beer with food stamps.

There's no getting around it anymore: Everything you ever thought about conservatives, no matter how uncharitable, is true.

THE HARD BIGOTRY OF LOW EXPECTATIONS. The sad thing about the Santorum snob comment is, I can imagine a society where you don't have to have a college degree to have dignity and the prospect of a decent life -- because I was born into that society, and I've seen it under assault for years, as manufacturing jobs are pissed away and unions are busted by people who portray themselves as champions of the working class.

So I'd like to believe Santorum was trying to get to a sensible point about this, and just had the usual trouble expressing himself. But this is clearly not the case. From Robert Costa's tongue-bath at National Review:

"The last I checked, about a third of the people in this country have a college degree,” [Republican operative] Musgrave says. Santorum’s remark, she says, connects with voters who are skeptical of Obama’s emphasis on higher education, which is a costly endeavor for many families and unnecessary for many workers...

[Campaign advisor] Brabender acknowledges that Santorum’s jibes may not be warmly received by reporters or by every voter. But he does not expect Santorum to back away from calling Obama a snob or touting the benefits of growing the economy in ways that do not revolve around academic credentials.

“What Obama and Romney do not understand is that there is a lot of passion and anger out there,” Brabender says. “There is a sense that our basic freedoms are being destroyed. People are gravitating around somebody who is not shy, who stands up and says what they really believe.”

This is how you talk when you have propaganda instead of a policy. These people have no coherent plan for restoring a blue-collar economy except trickle-down bullshit draped in moldy populism.  They yelled when Obama bailed out Detroit and saved the kind of jobs they claim to honor, and propose to replace this approach with tax cuts and "passion and anger."

Refresh my memory: Who are the class warriors, again?

THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT. Luke Thompson was hoping I'd do something on rightbloggers slagging the Oscars. Sadly I'm too busy to pick corn out of that particular shit, but this bit from one of the crazy fucks at HillBuzz ought to be enough for anyone:

Last night I recorded the broadcast, and later I watched small snips of it, fast-forwarding through 95% of it and just stopping at a few of the winning announcements:
Actress: The winner: Meryl Streep for a role that made Margaret Thatcher look like a senile old woman rather than the magnificent world leader she was and is
Foreign Film: nominees from Israel, Belgium, Canada, Iran, and Poland. The winner: IRAN
Supporting Actress: nominees were 4 white women and 1 black woman. The winner: the black woman
Supporting Actor: The winner: Christopher Plummer for playing an older man who comes out as gay later in life.

Inevitably:

I reiterate that I have not seen most of these films.

The whole thing's a treasure, especially when she does the "You Hollyweird lieberals are so 'courageous,' here's what would be really courageous" schtick -- in my humble opinion, as well as it's ever been done:

Here’s what I believe would have been courageous: And entire Oscar broadcast without one snarky remark about Republicans, conservatives, family values, Christians or Jews. Beginning the show with the Pledge of Allegiance. Or an invocation. Having a singer sing the National Anthem. Giving free front row seats to members of the United States Military, veterans, wounded warriors, family of troops currently serving in harm’s way. Creating an “American Patriot” award, analogous to the Lifetime Achievement awards they present to someone who has had a long, illustrious career in Hollywood. [I would nominate Gary Sinise for this]...

Don't dream it, honey, be it. I believe Rick Santorum's got an old barn in Bucks County. Let's put on a show!

UPDATE. Right up there with this cowgirl are some crazy fucks from Iran, in their celebration of the A Separation win for Best Foreign Film. Talk about sore winners:

Iran hailed the country's first Oscar-winning film as a triumph over arch-foe Israel on Monday... 

A state TV broadcast said the award succeeded in "leaving behind" a film from Israel. Javad Shamaghdari, head of the state Cinematic Agency, portrayed the Oscar win as the "beginning of the collapse" of Israeli influence that "beats the drum of war" in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Wow -- movies really are magic!

THE CONSERVATIVE INTELLECTUAL TRADITION, IN REVIVAL.Ole Perfesser Instapudit:

THE HORROR: Pakistanis Desecrate Holy Korans in Smelly Sewage Ditch (Video).

Like black people saying “Nigger,” it’s okay when they do it.

I used to hear this one a lot on the playground, but I think even the dimmer kids realized it wasn't folk wisdom by the time they reached 9th grade. If the election doesn't go his way, maybe the Perfesser will haul out the one about fucking dogs to make hippies.

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP, wrapping three weeks of rightblogger sex madness. Probably have to do it again in another three weeks.

I'D LIKE TO THANK THE ACADEMY. I didn't see much of anything from 2011, but I do this every year regardless of qualifications, so here goes nothin'.

I will add that I saw The Artist recently and was very charmed, especially at the beginning. What great style, and what a lovely performance from Jean Dujardin as Valentin -- he embodies the star power beautifully, as well as the easy grace with which he dispenses it; his descent is believable, as is the humanity it brings out -- the scene in which he dismisses his driver is just about my favorite thing in the movie. But I have to agree with the people who say they liked it better when it was Singin' in the Rain. After a while the seriousness with which Valentin's downfall is treated annoyed me. The filmmakers had the tools, and the stylistic opportunity, to take it in the direction of King Vidor circa The Crowd, or Josef von Sternberg circa The Salvation Hunters. But they didn't; the Valentin agon was just a sad story, kicked along with cheap tricks rather than by character transformation. I think they were counting on Valentin's relationship with Peppy Miller to elevate it but, after a promising beginning, I couldn't see why it existed except as a vehicle for redemption. I missed the breezy confidence with which the adventure started. Though that is a nice dance at the end, and the dog is very cute.

Okay, the picks:

Best Picture: Hugo
Best Actor: George Clooney, The Descendants
Best Actress: Viola Davis, The Help
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Best Supporting Actress: Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Best Director: Martin Scorsese, Hugo
Best Original Screenplay: Midnight in Paris
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Descendants
Best Animated Feature: Rango
Best Cinematography: Robert Richardson, Hugo
Best Art Direction: The Artist
Best Costume Design: Hugo
Best Documentary Feature: Pina
Best Documentary Short: Incident in New Baghdad
Best Film Editing: Moneyball
Best Foreign Language Film: A Separation
Best Makeup: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Best Original Score: The Artist
Best Song: Man or Muppet
Best Animated Short: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
Best Live Short: Time Freak
Best Sound Editing: War Horse
Sound Mixing: Moneyball
Best Visual Effects: Transformers: Dark of the Moon


UPDATE. 8:40 -- Holy shit, this show sucks. 


UPDATE 2. I'm 1 for 1!

UPDATE 3. This isn't Chuck Workman, is it? I see film history began in 1968 now.

UPDATE 4. Urgh, I lose.

UPDATE 5. More celebs yakking on film. I see now why movies suck -- the people who make them have absolutely wretched taste.

SHORTER ROD DREHER. This gay guy moved from the country to the city, he says, and one day he came back and told his mother he was gay, and she has snubbed him ever since. How dare he!

UPDATE. Dreher, in his own comments section: "I imagine most people who read this guy’s article will think of his mother as a hateful bigot. That seems wrong to me, even if she is rightly thought of as a bigot." Later: "For all we know, he flew into town and used a big family occasion to make this announcement, and caused a huge row." I've heard more than one queen say he was crazy about gay men, but none of them was as crazy about them as Brother Rod.

TONIGHT'S DEBATE. Except for Ron Paul they seem to have forgotten all about Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet they're eager to go to war with Iran.

The debacles of 2006 and 2008 were rougher on them than I thought. The Republican Party clearly suffers from a traumatic brain injury.

Are they going to have another one of these things? Then they should start by booing John King for 20 minutes for asking about birth control when it's clearly irrelevant to the Presidency, then spend 70 minutes talking about birth control and its irrelevance to the Presidency. Then, if there's time, Oscar predictions!